Nearly 2018 - where are the next-gen MMORPGs everyone talked about 5 years ago ?

Warlord711

Hi !

I recently looked into the Top 10 list on MMORPG, where are those next-gen MMORPGs everyone hyped in 2015 ?



Still having GW2 (one of the most boring MMORPG i ever played) on Top 1 and games like ESO in the Top 10, are those the next-gen MMORPGs ?

Asheram

For 2015 yes.

Thupli

Still waiting for a reveal of a EQN-like game that is actually executed well. It had all the right ideas, I was so stoked for it.

I am hoping that Riot is working on something like that or maybe Blizzard or Amazon.

klash2def

from that class ESO is the best on the market 

Mad+Dog

klash2def said:

from that class ESO is the best on the market 

in your opinion.

flizzer

ESO and GW2 are both quality games. 

Nepheth

klash2def said:

from that class ESO is the best on the market 

Maybe for you. But for me and for a lot of people no. Not even close...

mgilbrtsn

Next Gen Game is a myth.  It's an evolutionary process unless you wanna consider VR next gen.

Phry

Nepheth said:

klash2def said:

from that class ESO is the best on the market 

Maybe for you. But for me and for a lot of people no. Not even close...

For me ESO isn't even in the top 5.
It all depends on whether you think its a good game or not, and for ESO opinions most definitely vary.

Tofke

On ESO it's not for me but I can't call it bad either.

cochs

Investment in mmo's is basically non existent for the last few years.  SWTOR was the breaking point and since then basically nobody is investing in the genre.  Crowd funded stuff is about all you have to hope for.  This stuff goes in cycles but it's going to be a few years.

Basically someone has to show that you can make an mmo profitable enough to be interesting to investors and at lower risk (ie not hundreds of millions).  And that's really hard right now because the game industry is basically a few large players and a bunch of really small ones, with little to nothing in between.  When the middle of the industry comes back, that's when I think mmo's will pick up again.

someforumguy

Mainstream gamers left the building and went across the street to the PUBG?

There is no investment anymore in big new MMORPG's. The new rage is microtransactions/lootcrates in lobby multiplayer shooters or smaller scale survival games.

tinuelle

Yup, 2 much investment into a mmorpg compared to the risk vs. a lobbygame. And Also the social media ragers will pound it to the ground regardless. When RPGs like Andromeda really gets the hike, I doubt the idea of a MMORPG will hit. Maybe for smaller Indie companies. More money into MMOs like Pokemon go. That's what's next generation MMOs....... Sadly.......

Dauzqul

My dream list:

EverQuest 3

Star Wars Galaxies 2.0

Diablo 2 styled Star Wars Hack N Slash MMORPG with World PvP.

cameltosis

Just out of curiosity, what exactly were the next-gen MMOs being hyped in 2015? 

I don't really remember much being hyped at all. ESO and FFXIV had already launched. I suppose we had BDO and Blade and Soul about to be released but the hype didn't really extend beyond the existing MMO world and didn't seem focused on them being next-gen. We also still had some EQN hype around that time period, but again, it was still pretty small scale hype. 


To the more general question as to why we don't have next-gen MMOs - too much risk. 

Publishers simply aren't willing to risk their money on creating a next-gen MMO. They have no model to follow, since everything outside of themeparks has been pretty lacklustre in performance. Even the innovations within the themepark world aren't going down all that well and success seems to come more as a result of the IP than due to any inherent achievement of design. 

I mean, there isn't even an off-the-shelf engine you can use to create a proper MMO. Sure, you can use unreal or unity and you can get some networking code so you can make an online game, but it'll still fall over when your playercount reaches 50 or so on screen.....hardly a good starting point for a massively-multiplayer game. 



There is still hope though. The last few years have seen the console crowd being prepped for MMOs, both with real MMOs like ESO and FFXIV, as well as almost-MMOs like Destiny and TD. We're not seeing investment drying up there and it wouldn't take much for those devs to start making actual MMOs. We also have the indie scene, which whilst it hasn't managed to provide us with anything concrete yet, we should hopefully starting seeing some games being released over the next few years which some really innovative mechanics. That might be enough to make it easier to get funding for larger projects. 

azarhal

Publishers realized that lobby games were cheaper to make and that they were way more popular than MMOs. End of story.

Nobody but small indies without the means are interested in making MMOs now. Well except  Amazon, but New World seems more like "just another multiplayer survival game" feature-wise.

Flyte27

There seems to be a glut of games in general.  The market has been flooded.  MMOs are the worst offenders because they take a long time to be retired.  That means there aren't many people looking for a new one.  People keep playing the same ones.  Even in single player games I often prefer to go back and replay old games than to try a new one.  I already know what they will try to push in most cases and it usually doesn't interest me that much.  It's the same with movies and TV of the modern age.

BillMurphy

Ask me again at the end of 2019...

6stack_Chris

I can tell you from a development stand point, 3D MMORPG's require a TON of resources, time and money. The money part is the biggest struggle. If you are lucky enough to have a company backing you, and throwing money your direction, you run the risk of them wanting RoI sooner than later. Corners start to get cut, content is removed and game play falls flat on its face. 

If you manage to have a successful crowdfunding, you now need to build the game based on the promises that you gave everyone, this includes the pie in the sky ideas that most the people who funded became attached to. This now increases the amount of time in development, and thus the money pool drains. 

Let's say you have a really solid game created, everything is polished and looking ready for a release. Outside of paying your team, you need servers, a good infrastructure to house things on, constant development of new content, bug fixing, Legal teams, QA, GM's etc. 

What I'm trying to get at, is while they are slowly still coming out, MMORPG's are expensive to create and maintain. Your MO(A)RPG that you see coming in constantly are cheaper to develop and cheaper to run (though not by a grand margin).

nariusseldon

Destiny 2 just got released. That is the nextgen. MMORPG? Not so much. At least it is a MMOFPS by this site's gamelist. 

I suppose the nextgen is to forget about MMORPG, and build other types of online fun games.