Escape to virtual reality

Kobao

That remains my understanding of main appeal of MMORPG's. Many want, not necessarily worryfree, but a place that fulfills the stuff daily living doesn't seem to provide. For social outcasts to find a place to belong to. Used to be for me when I actively played anyways, and I think is increasing reason to play MMORPG's, when there are now new games that offer the PvP or whatever single gameplay feature of a MMORPG in neat, approachable package.

 

So this leads to me wonder why on earth is the trend to kill socializing, adventure, fun details, challenges, stressfreeness. By stressfree I don't mean that a big monster can't kill your character, but rather the stuff like the social pressures and optimization culture in many games. Developers jump into the optimization mentality as well, or start it. I think these are exactly some of the reasons people are running away from real life to virtual life, and now running away from virtual life to... complain on forums.

 

Now that there are MOBAs and stuff, I think this portion of industry really needs to look in to what MMORPG customers really want into their lives, and focus more into creating virtual realities. Many lighter games offer more terraforming, character customization stuff already.

 

The big companies that have the money to create MMORPGs have misunderstood what kind of games there is interest for, I think. I think also stuff like Cities Skylines, Witcher, Dark Souls, Kickstarter projects etc, popularity of such niche, or complex games in recent years indicates people are not wanting super easy run through games, perhaps maybe many exactly want bit more complex, mentally stimulating, escape providing game. And what really needs to be tackled; MMORPG shouldn't be from 1 to max level grind, then the actual game. I have hard time getting into the games for this reason, even having played for years before, for me all the concepts are familiar. So I feel the whole combat level progression thing should be looked at, it's not working well in many games, I would say it's completely broken in game like WoW. It feels funny that a very core feature, combat level progression, in a game is broken, unecessary side quest you have to do first to get to the goodies.

 

MMORPG is also one of only genres, I feel, that so often the games don't actually really fulfill what even the genre name says. Take space simulator, they seem to be getting better with time, and there's pretty common idea what space simulator should be and where they should go in the future. Like 80% of MMORPG's I've tried have hard time being "massively multiplayer" or "roleplaying".

Kayyd

The idea of being a virtual world was clearly the idea behind UO as described by its developers, and at least a core part of the idea behind AC, EQ and SWG, and a big part of what Pantheon is going for. However, I wouldn't say that is at all the idea behind Wow. Blizzard called their game a themepark MMO to describe the difference between it and games that attempted to create virtual worlds. Wow came from the Warcraft franchise which was never about a virtual world and I don't think that was really their goal. It was first and foremost a game and focused on being a great game rather than a virtual world. The thread about sandbox vs themepark MMOs touches on the whole idea.

Axehilt

Well it's certainly not the "main appeal", given that the most successful MMORPG was successful specifically because it created a great game, not because it worried about simulation.

The main appeal of MMORPGs, like all games, is gameplay.  As a species we enjoy learning, and games are designed to be chock-full of interesting decisions for us to practice and master, and this is the most common way players enjoy games. (Koster's A Theory of Fun (2003) provides plenty of details on this, if you want a good read.)

The other big appeal of games actually isn't game-like at all, but more of a "relaxation activity".  In this mode decisions aren't nearly as important, and it's mostly just a familiar task where you can casually run through the motions while letting your mind just zen-out for a bit.  (And this is presumably what the OP means by 'stressfreeness')

Most MMORPGs offer both.  Often raids/dungeons offer the tight gameplay where decisions matter, and questing is a relaxation activity.  (Though I'd argue that since questing is almost a requirement of leveling, players should have the option of much harder quests which provide tighter gameplay where decisions matter.)

 

Kobao

Well saying pretty much same thing, word virtual reality and simulation got bit too much into there, could have typed differently blabla

Kabaal

In the past 10 years or so of playing MMO's i've never enjoyed myself as much as i did in the early years playing games like City of Heroes. From the minute you loaded in with a new character at level 1 you had the Atlas statue in front of you and players of all levels socializing around it, the chat was filled with people trying to fill groups of 8 for the sewers or to go to the hollows and you jumped right into socialising from the get go. I had soooo many alts as it was just as much fun teaming up with friends or even randoms from level 1 as it was at max level.

The game itself was only OK looking but i lost myself for countless hours because of the immersion that much socialising brought.

Everything about that game was designed to encourage grouping up and is something that as each year passed less and less games wanted to do until the point where everything is now designed for solo until end game and raiding.

Phaserlight

I'm a decade veteran, and I don't think I'm a social outcast. I agree with your generalization, but I think you're also missing the point; the purpose of virtual worlds should not be to escape real life, but to enrich it.

Wizardry

I can sum it up one way,the industry is no longer aiming for a niche crowd but instead trying to find a new gimmick that works.The industry standard is no longer long term investment to make a triple A game but instead afford a very low cost development and just hope the gimmick works.If not,not as big a deal as investing huge dollars into a failed product,just rinse and repeat,maybe the next gimmick will work.

Moba's for example  have actually been around a very long time,just not in an online aspect.So that is why the gimmick and other gimmicks work,it is basically aiming for an unlocked market.

I seriously do not see this trend changing for a long time,all it takes is to see other low budget efforts strike it rich and everyone starts doing the same thing.Really the only gimmick that changed Moba's from say a Starcraft game is the HERO idea,one small gimmick and all a sudden a new market opens up.Of course it takes NOTHING to add that one small gimmick,especially in instance gaming with only a couple players on the screen and low end graphics/models.

IMO the escape idea is not very accurate,i feel as our economy changed over the years,more people started to spend more time at home.Also new technology opened up which also creates a new market and then of course,people do not buy new technology unless they can use it,so gaming became bigger as well.Look at Cell phone technology,was suppose to be a good idea for emergencies,now people use it for gaming ,and needless stuff like twitter and facebook.

Technology is making it easier for people to stay at home and make the social outdoor life  far less prevalent.