You can qualify and disqualify games from being MMORPGs using whatever personal preference criteria you want - you can have fun with numbers that way if you want - but the fact remains that games with persistent worlds where you see others going about their own business out in the world, have long term leveling goals that last months, etc,. have more players playing them today than ever before.
The numbers, as I already said, may be a drop in the bucket compared to LOL and Fortnite but that's a different story.
Trying to figure out the viability or health of MMORPGs in 2019 by comparing the number of players who play them vs. those who play Fortnite or LOL is faulty logic. They never were nor will they ever be the most popular gaming genre and that's neither a good thing nor a bad thing, just reality.
So Dark Souls is a MMORPG - it has persistent world, and you can see the other players, doing their own business. Well, you cannot play with them, except in specific cases. Blizzard screwed even the meaning of the MMORPG.
Also the market share and the number of the players of the MMORPGs reached the peak in 2011-2012. Now less players play MMORPGs. The most played games now - WoW, ESO, GW2 have less players combined than only WoW then. At the same time every other niche on the market became much bigger, and some literally boomed, like the mobas.
Market share has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. I'm talking about raw numbers not what % of the game playing public plays MMORPGs.
You mention 3 other MMORPGs and compare it to WOW. Back in WOW's heyday there were maybe 10 MMORPGs you could play. Now there are 10 times that many... add all those up and get back to me.
So point these 30 games, that combined have more players. Could you
Fuck no. You do your own work.
What a joke are you? I say there are not such games. You cannot prove your own words.
gonna point out here that NCSFS reported 17 million players for Lineage 1( the strongest game in there stable ) last year , Runescape also has 5-6 Million of players ..
These are a couple that are not generally counted , there are others , Now if you begin to factor in the huge number of EMU servers for SWG, Lineage 2,UO , Wow, COH .. etc .. And all retail games there are alot of people playing actual MMORPGs
What exactly defines a "player" in the L1 number? All time in the lifespan of the game, or did 17M sub for at least a month in the past six months ?
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I don't know why people keep talking like wow or companies cloning wow is the problem.
The problem is all those companies not cloning wow keep failing.
In fact there are decent amount of wow clone which are doing well(gw2, eso, ff14 etc).
And there are so many mmorpg, why do we need to keep making more and more. People do realize if everyone keep chasing new mmorpg, old one dies right? Which sum up why developer stop wanting to make new mmorpg because it most likely die very fast.
I don't think Elder Scrolls Online or Final Fantasy 14 are World of Warcraft clones.
Aion? IN the style of World of Warcraft Lord of the Rings Online? In the style of World of Warcraft Rift? sure ... etc, etc
Lotro is not in the style of w/o/w . simply for the 1 basic reason, I play it. But lets not go down the road of pointing fingers at any particular game because "we" are the consumer, we pay "their" bills.
hmmm, I'm going to disagree with that.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Downfall of gaming in general is for the same reasons all industries go down: Money hungry excel sheet executives enter the field and fk it all up. This is why medicine only treats what is rentable, why banking became industry of crooks, why wars are started... Gaming used to be for gamers, now everyone games... And 'everyone' is, on average, of low IQ and short attention span.
This is a rather funny assumption to make on a website that is dedicated to MMORPGs. Are you a gamer? I don't what's funnier, the fact that you made a comment like that here, or the fact that people actually agree with your comment. I made a comment that I could tell based on the customization of a character if the person playing that character is male or female, and the guys who admit to playing girls got their panties in a twist. Yet you make an erroneous assumption that the average gamer has an average to low IQ. Funny stuff!
There are more gamers online than ever now. Much more than they were in 2009-2012 - the golden era of WoW. That is why WoW never been even close to the player base of games like LoL or Fortnite. The gaming in general is in its best time. And that makes the downfall of the MMORPGs even more obvious.
YES because there more people on the planet now..
Dec, 2009
1,802 millions
26.6 %
Internet World Stats
Mar 2019 4,383 millions 56.8 % Internet World Stats
and this isn't counting population increase's
Indeed. And there are more than a billion players online. That is why F2P rules, that is why games like LoL and Fortnite have more than 100 million players each. That is why the downfall of the MMORPGs is obvious. While the market becomes bigger and bigger, the MMORPGs become smaller.
What did WoW? The game stepped off the open world and went into solo and multiplayer focused instances. Then most players played solo and offline. That was the exact moment when the internet services became cheaper and larger. Blizzard had a fan base, and a cash pile. So they invested hundreds of millions for advertisement and marketing. And used the base of players created by W3. But that model - safe and solo with possible multiplayer, reached its limits. The main problem of all MMORPGs now is the lack of long term group goals. LoL gives you all - RPG, competition and cooperation in fast games. So why the players should play MMORPG instead?
The portion of gamers that want to invest the extra time and dedication for an MMORPG has always been and will always be a small subset of the game playing public. The vast majority want to play quick matches and that is exactly what LOL and Fornite give them.
All that has really happened recently is that the number of people who play games has mushroomed exponentially compared to those who played at the turn of the century but most of those are casual gamers who wouldn't know an MMORPG if one bit them on the ass.
Some of that new blood however do play MMORPGs so the numbers today is actually at an all time high. If you want to call that a decline because the numbers are dwarfed by the Fortnite or LOL numbers, so be it, but you're actually wrong.
The only decline in MMORPGs is in studios not wanting to go through the hassle and risk of developing a new one when they can make so much more money with less risk slapping together an FPS, BR or MOBA.
In fact the MMORPG market is smaller now then it was few years ago. Maybe the only declining niche if we are talking about online games. Also most players spend hours in LoL. So you cannot blame the gamers. MMORPGs are crap. There is a game called Drakensang, which gives all WoW has. A browser game. This is the quality of the MMORPGs now.
Open world, immersive play, competition, cooperation, long term goals for wars and politics. That should be the MMORPG. Instead we have broken, solo focused games, where the only long term goal is to reach max level and gear with a solo character. This is the legacy of WoW. And any moba or FPS is much better.
You can qualify and disqualify games from being MMORPGs using whatever personal preference criteria you want - you can have fun with numbers that way if you want - but the fact remains that games with persistent worlds where you see others going about their own business out in the world, have long term leveling goals that last months, etc,. have more players playing them today than ever before.
The numbers, as I already said, may be a drop in the bucket compared to LOL and Fortnite but that's a different story.
Trying to figure out the viability or health of MMORPGs in 2019 by comparing the number of players who play them vs. those who play Fortnite or LOL is faulty logic. They never were nor will they ever be the most popular gaming genre and that's neither a good thing nor a bad thing, just reality.
So Dark Souls is a MMORPG - it has persistent world, and you can see the other players, doing their own business. Well, you cannot play with them, except in specific cases. Blizzard screwed even the meaning of the MMORPG.
Also the market share and the number of the players of the MMORPGs reached the peak in 2011-2012. Now less players play MMORPGs. The most played games now - WoW, ESO, GW2 have less players combined than only WoW then. At the same time every other niche on the market became much bigger, and some literally boomed, like the mobas.
Market share has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. I'm talking about raw numbers not what % of the game playing public plays MMORPGs.
You mention 3 other MMORPGs and compare it to WOW. Back in WOW's heyday there were maybe 10 MMORPGs you could play. Now there are 10 times that many... add all those up and get back to me.
I would argue WOW's "heyday" was from 2008-2012 and there most definitely was a large number of MMORPGs to chose from, heck at least 10 could have been considered WOW clones.
Even if we go back to 2004 the selection was still quite large, and all played quite a bit more differently than MMOs of recent years.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Here's an IGN article from Jan 2004, and it's clear there was a great deal of excitement about the MMORPGs on the near horizon, though I was surprised at how many never really made it out of the gate or quickly tanked.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Being a tabletop RPG player and playing the Bard tale series on the C-64 (yes I am showing my age), then EQ came out which was really, imho, the granddaddy of MMO's and the other MMO during that time was the golden age of MMORpg. I think games of old are much better than the games that are released today.
So many have came and gone, some still around but really compare to games back then and games now is, to me, the programming/finished product of the game. Games came out back then were really great (yes i know every real MMO that has been released had issues). But these days game are released as Beta or even Alpha really..and we are to pay for this junk Yes I know a company needs to make money and that is where we, the consumer, vote with our dollars.
I read/hear so much of games that are F2P yet have micro transactions..really is someone holding a gun to your head to buy that extra bag to hold loot? or the fancy armor? NO..it is the players choice. You do not have to the choice is there to buy it or not (with whatever game currency or real money). Think of it this way i live here in Las Vegas and every time I walk by slot machines guess how much $$ i put into them? ZERO. It is a choice and I choose not too. Just like all these game to buy stuff YOU/ME have a choice so do not whine about spending X money. I just started playing ESO and really all that stuff to buy guess what..I vote with my pocket book and do not need to spend a single penny on their store.
Now of course the thing today is 'What is a MMO?' which many games SAY they are really are not (which many people have already commented from what I have read). What is Massive.. The map/world? What is Muti.. 2/6/12/50/1,000 etc? And online.. is it the game or just needing to be online to buy 'the good' etc?
Also companies have 'dumb' down SO many games because of the young people today that do not want to 'learn/read' on how to play and/or have a very, very short attention span (ohh yes and those who have to buy a game and have a race to see who finishes it first in what..less that 24 hrs..ugh).
Finally I get why sites like MMORPG here just about lumps every game under the 'MMO umbrella' because if not this site would loose a good 7/10ths of the games that is listed as a MMO. There is just so many X factors that starts with the company that makes the game, the sites that put the game under the MMO umbrella/reviews, and the consumer that buys said game/MMO (or whatever it wants to be called).
What killed the MMORPG was the devaluation of rewards.
Time.
Time destroys all
People really ignore this. When I was younger I could spend a lot of time playing, but now I'm almost in my 30s and I can't reliably spend so much time playing. Mmorpgs are very time consuming and that is where "devaluation of rewards" came from.
Do I like things being so easy? Hell no! Am I part of the "problem"? Eventually yes.
When you grow older you'll understand.
(Ps. I haven't played an mmorpg/mmo in months. There aren't any that interest me, so I'm sticking to single player games and co-op games with friends like monster hunter world until something interesting pops out)
The problem with this description, is that it comes from your perspective. "We were younger then" But what about the next gen? Why wouldn't they like what we liked when we were their age?
Anyone who came into this genre following circa 2010, has no idea what Gen 1 MMOs were like. Love it or hate it, They just don't know unless they find some pvt server.
Classic WoW? Maybe. Not sure current Blizz has the talent to pull it off TBH.
I think this is with many games not just mmo's. Quality has gone down hill as we come to the age of releasing games unfinished or in constant development. MMO's and other games of old use to come on discs or media and was completed or release quality as they only had really one chance to push out a complete game and if it did not do well it was a huge loss. Today with digital everything and no quality controls steam and others just allow anything to sell where they make a %. Games today seem unfinished and rushed out for a quick dollar, or now branded as pre/alpha, beta etc which can stay in that state for years yet still take your money as this is the new normal for many. Steam and other broad markets don't really do much QA on what they sell, just like apps for a phone. Where publishers of old where the investors and wanted quality titles to make them the money and putting millions into development. Where today its all about pumping out as many games big and small to make profits and every dollar counts. the More the greater even if unfinished. After which there is no obligation to ever finish a game. its a quick cashout leaving the players with trash.
At least that is how I see it. If the markets were on the line for what they published it would be a totally different landscape.
Don't more people play MMORPG now than ever played in the past? Sure a smaller percentage of "gamers" play MMORPGs because the amount of "gamers" has increased dramatically, but I'm fairly certain MMO's are played more today than in the past, and the genre was never even once close to the "king of gaming".
The MMO genre is stuck in a rot. Everything is COMBAT COMBAT COMBAT. Why isn't there any clever MMOs that deviate from just COMBAT!!!! ..?
I came up with a few ideas that would be amazing for an MMO that doesn't progress you just based on combat but I realized that unless you step out of playing MMOs a person won't come up with anything other than what they are used to playing because I didn't realize the idea of thinking about a new type MMO until I stopped playing MMOs.
It was an amazing realization that ALL MMOS are pretty much the same. There are only 4 different MMOs;
GW2, EVE Online, Final Fantasy and everyone else.
And it doesn't help that they ALL have the common denominator. Progression by MORTAL KOMBAT!
Yeah it's always been consumer behavior affecting change. One thing I'd like to point out, particularly about WoW since people often point to it as the reason we got so many bad things is that even the WoW devs were just responding to the player-base and the real culprit? Add-ons.
Almost every "quality of life" change began as an add-on that few people knew about and used as a competitive advantage. That, once known, became "mandatory" to be on an even playing field.
Questhelper. Groupfinder. Gearscore. DPS/Threat meters. Bossmods. Enemy nameplates. All the combat timers and on screen overlays that let you know you have a proc.
Those are just some of the big ones. But what happened is that some clever people created add-ons that modified an integral part of the experience to make it easier to do. When those add-ons became popular enough, WoW devs would finally relent and build that functionality into the game. And since other devs looked to WoW for "what it takes to get millions of subscribers" they didn't trace any of these changes back to the players, but just saw it as a part of WoW.
So not only did we indirectly cause the downfall of MMO's through our money and time, but we also directly altered their course by our own desire to either have a competitive advantage or to keep up with the pack.
It has been a never-ending arms race between devs and players, and I believe add-ons are to blame. Raid encounters in WoW now have instructions multiple pages long with various things in each phase for healers/dps/tanks to worry about. This only happened because we keep giving ourselves more and more tools to overcome the encounters and it minimizes the danger to the point where it takes someone not paying attention to fail.
And of course, these add-ons are mandated by guild leaders. There's even add-ons that check to see if everyone in the raid has the correct and up to date add-ons installed!
We became too efficient for MMO's. Here's a fairly recent example of what happens when you abandon all the "hard stuff" to streamline an experience. Game of Thrones. In the name of efficiently moving a hugely complex plot from point A to point B in a short amount of time, they cut away damn near everything that made it great in the first place. This is what happened to MMOs at our behest.
I was honestly just looking for a place to share this video:
I figured here would work. It's Vendetta Online on the Quest, a game I bet you've never played @TheHiveLeader
I've logged, let's see, 1,874 hours and $1,202.90 spent. I've been member of their community since June 2nd, 2003.
I sort of agree with the 'you do not speak for all of us' sentiment along with the 'this has been said before ad nauseam' sentiment. The genre is bigger than you realize and interesting things are happening, sometimes quietly.
Finally, I think I may see a flaw in your argument (one common among such 'the genre is dying' rants): taking MMORPGs to be representations of virtual worlds, isn't it a good thing that their number isn't proliferating? If you think about the promise of MMORPGs circa 2004, what were the so-called core values? I'd say longevity and permanence.
As such, the fact that it isn't raining new virtual worlds every year isn't a sign the genre is in a state of "downfall" at all; it's a sign extant virtual worlds are being lived in.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
It is true that devs follow the desires of the majority or what the majority is willing to accept. I've tried/played many MMOs over the years and the majority of them fall into a pattern especially after the huge number of players that WoW had. Most of the time I find myself being moved from one area of the game to another as I level up, following a linear path where even if I try different species or professions I quickly end up on the same path, and now many games have easy leveling and a quick trip through the storyline to rush to "endgame" content including the use of a reward or cash shop purchase to skip levels as the game ages and expansions are added. Most MMOs that I've tried over the past 13 years haven't held my attention for more than a month or two at a time (sometimes I will return to them later for another month or two) as a result.
The one MMO containing combat that held my attention for over a year straight, until the company changed it too much trying to chasing after WoW numbers, had the following features instead:
- non-combat professions that mattered and were a necessary part of the game; wounds had to be healed, buffs were needed, armor decayed and had to be replaced; along with this a player could choose to be completely non-combat rather than it being a secondary profession
- a lack of levels on players; players gained skills and became stronger but a level was not attached to them, newbie and veteran players could team up to do missions or kill wildlife/npc and both got xp from it
- large team sizes no matter what you were doing (I think it was 20) ....hunting, running a dungeon, getting buffs, or just hanging out/ "roleplaying"
- trees of skills rather than straight professions...players had so many skill points they could use on the trees if they had earned the needed xp to unlock the boxes
-open play; except for a few "themeparks" players could basically play however they wished and there was very few missions that entailed "run all over the map from npc to npc to get some xp" or "see that npc standing right next to me? I need you to talk to him for me to get xp", there were some maps that were more difficult than others but players could go through game content as they wished, also there were mission boards players used to pick missions and each map had high enough content that a player wasn't required to go to a specific "zone" to get the xp needed
- the ability to log into the game for just a few minutes and get something accomplished (grab a couple missions from a mission board for combat, or dance/perform music/craft for a little bit for non-combat) and the ability to log in after being gone for a while and not have to worry that guildmates had outleveled you and were working on missions/zones that you were not able to access
-player economy without crazy inflation rates from either easy money earning or gold scammers; and player cities which also had a role in the game and weren't instanced....they could contained shops, trainers, and mission terminals
- monthly fees which covered EVERYTHING I needed in the game
For me these features helped to create what I want out of an MMORPG, which is the ability to work in a group with others while playing the game the way I want and creating the "storyline" for or "becoming" my character and being able to do that without feeling like I have to be logged in for a certain amount of time or at a certain time of day. I'm still on my search for a game that contains many of these features hopefully tweaked for improvements in the areas were that game had flaws or could have been better.
I thought globally the genre has more players & business than ever though? It just turns Asian is what I think. Not sure I'd use the word 'downfall' to describe Asian MMOs, which is currently striving. Still, great points by HiveLeader like always.
I was honestly just looking for a place to share this video:
I figured here would work. It's Vendetta Online on the Quest, a game I bet you've never played @TheHiveLeader
I've logged, let's see, 1,874 hours and $1,202.90 spent. I've been member of their community since June 2nd, 2003.
I sort of agree with the 'you do not speak for all of us' sentiment along with the 'this has been said before ad nauseam' sentiment. The genre is bigger than you realize and interesting things are happening, sometimes quietly.
Finally, I think I may see a flaw in your argument (one common among such 'the genre is dying' rants): taking MMORPGs to be representations of virtual worlds, isn't it a good thing that their number isn't proliferating? If you think about the promise of MMORPGs circa 2004, what were the so-called core values? I'd say longevity and permanence.
As such, the fact that it isn't raining new virtual worlds every year isn't a sign the genre is in a state of "downfall" at all; it's a sign extant virtual worlds are being lived in.
I don't agree with any of this.
While mmorpg's aren't going to be going away any time soon, there just isn't a lot of "large money" being invested in them, at least in the west. And are there really a lot of mmorpg's being made in the east as I only see "a few." Then again, there very well may be but we'll never see any news as they are only being offered over there.
As far as worlds being lived in, populations of most games seem to be on decline, including World of Warcraft. While in some ways that's a good thing as it means the devoted players are, well, "devoted."
Showing one small game and saying that things are happening under the radar doesn't show that mmorpg's are a thriving game genre. Thriving means news, excitement, companies trying to get in that marketplace and make things happen.
What we are actually seeing are those who love the genre working in it but working on a smaller scale.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Since you're all a part of my reality and different pieces of my psyche and I have total control over everything, I can guarantee that the MMORPG genre will stick around and evolve into something special all parts of me/you will enjoy.
I was honestly just looking for a place to share this video:
I figured here would work. It's Vendetta Online on the Quest, a game I bet you've never played @TheHiveLeader
I've logged, let's see, 1,874 hours and $1,202.90 spent. I've been member of their community since June 2nd, 2003.
I sort of agree with the 'you do not speak for all of us' sentiment along with the 'this has been said before ad nauseam' sentiment. The genre is bigger than you realize and interesting things are happening, sometimes quietly.
Finally, I think I may see a flaw in your argument (one common among such 'the genre is dying' rants): taking MMORPGs to be representations of virtual worlds, isn't it a good thing that their number isn't proliferating? If you think about the promise of MMORPGs circa 2004, what were the so-called core values? I'd say longevity and permanence.
As such, the fact that it isn't raining new virtual worlds every year isn't a sign the genre is in a state of "downfall" at all; it's a sign extant virtual worlds are being lived in.
I don't agree with any of this.
While mmorpg's aren't going to be going away any time soon, there just isn't a lot of "large money" being invested in them, at least in the west. And are there really a lot of mmorpg's being made in the east as I only see "a few." Then again, there very well may be but we'll never see any news as they are only being offered over there.
As far as worlds being lived in, populations of most games seem to be on decline, including World of Warcraft. While in some ways that's a good thing as it means the devoted players are, well, "devoted."
Showing one small game and saying that things are happening under the radar doesn't show that mmorpg's are a thriving game genre. Thriving means news, excitement, companies trying to get in that marketplace and make things happen.
What we are actually seeing are those who love the genre working in it but working on a smaller scale.
Sure, call it a "long tail" or whatever you like, but I disagree that "news, excitement, companies trying to get in that marketplace and make things happen" necessarily equals success. In fact, this can be very disruptive. That's great if there is nothing in the industry that you like, because disruption often leads to innovation, but if there is something that you do like then this can actually be a threat.
So, I guess that 'not a lot of MMORPGs are being made' to me is a sign that the market is being served. It's easier to say while having a MMORPG to play.
I was also thinking about it from the perspective of a finite number of people on the Earth. If MMORPGs really are meant to last a long time (decades or more) then this could actually be a problem; a very, very minor one considering everything else going on.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
Pretty sure that sports games and shooters - as a minimum - have always been more popular than mmos. With the exception of WoW - and maybe GW1 - mmos have never see "huge" numbers.
As for retention have things really changed? Back when EQ1 turned 5 yeas old SoE reported that churn was over 50% (a month); and when Blizzard reported on WoW's 100M accounts the implication was that on average c. 10M a year must have left in its first c. 10 years. SWTOR also saw huge churn.
Which is not to say that a % didn't stick around. (And I do wonder though whether the sub model encouraged people to run through content.)
So much worked before.. Old idea's can be reborn and remastered into a new genre. Personally I have never brought cash shop crap and I stopped getting sucked in Pre-ordering a few years ago. As my post count shows against the year I joined mmorpg, it dropped off fast and the Sub mmo died.. I could see how the mmo landscape was changing after SWG and the rapid mutation of the original WoW. The only free to play i play is Planetside 2 now, and nope I not brought squat! . I am indeed waiting for that revolutionary new MMO to appear that i will pay for monthly.. But as Hive said.. that risk devs take must lead to a successful outcome. Perhaps the new LOTR mmo might be something old.. something new? I forever wait.. Nice piece Hive.
Not entirely true tho. While some MMO games has loss power over the years, others has actually gained a lot in the last 3-4 years. FFXIV is a pure example, and this game always offers content at every 3.5 months.
Back in 2001-2004 you didn't had a lot of competitions and everyone had in mind only 2-3 games.... mostly WoW, and that was about it. Nowadays you have literally 100 MMO titles to pick and play, and each one of them is confusing than the other.
I wouldn't call this "downfall", these MMO's are still there so is the players. You have FFXIV, you have GW2, ESO, or WoW and so on and so forth but the most successful now is FFXIV and it's getting insanly positive review from everywhere so there's that.
Yeah it's always been consumer behavior affecting change. One thing I'd like to point out, particularly about WoW since people often point to it as the reason we got so many bad things is that even the WoW devs were just responding to the player-base and the real culprit? Add-ons.
Almost every "quality of life" change began as an add-on that few people knew about and used as a competitive advantage. That, once known, became "mandatory" to be on an even playing field.
Questhelper. Groupfinder. Gearscore. DPS/Threat meters. Bossmods. Enemy nameplates. All the combat timers and on screen overlays that let you know you have a proc.
Those are just some of the big ones. But what happened is that some clever people created add-ons that modified an integral part of the experience to make it easier to do. When those add-ons became popular enough, WoW devs would finally relent and build that functionality into the game. And since other devs looked to WoW for "what it takes to get millions of subscribers" they didn't trace any of these changes back to the players, but just saw it as a part of WoW.
So not only did we indirectly cause the downfall of MMO's through our money and time, but we also directly altered their course by our own desire to either have a competitive advantage or to keep up with the pack.
It has been a never-ending arms race between devs and players, and I believe add-ons are to blame. Raid encounters in WoW now have instructions multiple pages long with various things in each phase for healers/dps/tanks to worry about. This only happened because we keep giving ourselves more and more tools to overcome the encounters and it minimizes the danger to the point where it takes someone not paying attention to fail.
And of course, these add-ons are mandated by guild leaders. There's even add-ons that check to see if everyone in the raid has the correct and up to date add-ons installed!
We became too efficient for MMO's. Here's a fairly recent example of what happens when you abandon all the "hard stuff" to streamline an experience. Game of Thrones. In the name of efficiently moving a hugely complex plot from point A to point B in a short amount of time, they cut away damn near everything that made it great in the first place. This is what happened to MMOs at our behest.
This is a very interesting perspective and one I am in accord with. We are indeed responsible for adopting the add ons that actually dumbed down the game and lead to so many changes that went beyond the simple use of add ons. Like you said the insistence that guild members had them and the dps meter is one of the absolute worst thing they introduced, because it made diversity in builds extinct and even shunned.
Everyone wanted the build that was the best or perceived to be the best and so on. As a result a sterile and unexciting game play emerged as groups starting requiring certain builds for the success of their dungeon crawling or raids without the theatre and drama of varied builds actually trying to work together via experimentation for trial and error was now an abhorrent choice if you could just bloody comply with the build that works. Every nuance or colourful choice on the skill tree was debated and discarded as not being optimal.
This lead to people leaving for single player games or playing solo in MMORPGs where you can experiment to your heart's content whatever cockamamey build you desired as long as you wanted it. No one is going to 'advice' you on how to play or pick another player over you because heaven forbid you were specced all wrong.
Yeah we are indeed largely to blame for the current state of things.
Comments
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
was a large number of MMORPGs to chose from, heck at least 10 could have been considered WOW clones.
Even if we go back to 2004 the selection was still quite large, and all played quite a bit more differently than MMOs of recent years.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
https://m.ign.com/articles/2004/01/23/mmo-2004
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
So many have came and gone, some still around but really compare to games back then and games now is, to me, the programming/finished product of the game. Games came out back then were really great (yes i know every real MMO that has been released had issues). But these days game are released as Beta or even Alpha really..and we are to pay for this junk Yes I know a company needs to make money and that is where we, the consumer, vote with our dollars.
I read/hear so much of games that are F2P yet have micro transactions..really is someone holding a gun to your head to buy that extra bag to hold loot? or the fancy armor? NO..it is the players choice. You do not have to the choice is there to buy it or not (with whatever game currency or real money). Think of it this way i live here in Las Vegas and every time I walk by slot machines guess how much $$ i put into them? ZERO. It is a choice and I choose not too. Just like all these game to buy stuff YOU/ME have a choice so do not whine about spending X money. I just started playing ESO and really all that stuff to buy guess what..I vote with my pocket book and do not need to spend a single penny on their store.
Now of course the thing today is 'What is a MMO?' which many games SAY they are really are not (which many people have already commented from what I have read). What is Massive.. The map/world? What is Muti.. 2/6/12/50/1,000 etc? And online.. is it the game or just needing to be online to buy 'the good' etc?
Also companies have 'dumb' down SO many games because of the young people today that do not want to 'learn/read' on how to play and/or have a very, very short attention span (ohh yes and those who have to buy a game and have a race to see who finishes it first in what..less that 24 hrs..ugh).
Finally I get why sites like MMORPG here just about lumps every game under the 'MMO umbrella' because if not this site would loose a good 7/10ths of the games that is listed as a MMO. There is just so many X factors that starts with the company that makes the game, the sites that put the game under the MMO umbrella/reviews, and the consumer that buys said game/MMO (or whatever it wants to be called).
Simple people..Don't be a sheep.
But what about the next gen? Why wouldn't they like what we liked when we were their age?
Anyone who came into this genre following circa 2010, has no idea what Gen 1 MMOs were like.
Love it or hate it, They just don't know unless they find some pvt server.
Classic WoW? Maybe. Not sure current Blizz has the talent to pull it off TBH.
At least that is how I see it. If the markets were on the line for what they published it would be a totally different landscape.
I came up with a few ideas that would be amazing for an MMO that doesn't progress you just based on combat but I realized that unless you step out of playing MMOs a person won't come up with anything other than what they are used to playing because I didn't realize the idea of thinking about a new type MMO until I stopped playing MMOs.
It was an amazing realization that ALL MMOS are pretty much the same. There are only 4 different MMOs;
GW2, EVE Online, Final Fantasy and everyone else.
And it doesn't help that they ALL have the common denominator. Progression by MORTAL KOMBAT!
This is not a game.
Almost every "quality of life" change began as an add-on that few people knew about and used as a competitive advantage. That, once known, became "mandatory" to be on an even playing field.
Questhelper. Groupfinder. Gearscore. DPS/Threat meters. Bossmods. Enemy nameplates. All the combat timers and on screen overlays that let you know you have a proc.
Those are just some of the big ones. But what happened is that some clever people created add-ons that modified an integral part of the experience to make it easier to do. When those add-ons became popular enough, WoW devs would finally relent and build that functionality into the game. And since other devs looked to WoW for "what it takes to get millions of subscribers" they didn't trace any of these changes back to the players, but just saw it as a part of WoW.
So not only did we indirectly cause the downfall of MMO's through our money and time, but we also directly altered their course by our own desire to either have a competitive advantage or to keep up with the pack.
It has been a never-ending arms race between devs and players, and I believe add-ons are to blame. Raid encounters in WoW now have instructions multiple pages long with various things in each phase for healers/dps/tanks to worry about. This only happened because we keep giving ourselves more and more tools to overcome the encounters and it minimizes the danger to the point where it takes someone not paying attention to fail.
And of course, these add-ons are mandated by guild leaders. There's even add-ons that check to see if everyone in the raid has the correct and up to date add-ons installed!
We became too efficient for MMO's. Here's a fairly recent example of what happens when you abandon all the "hard stuff" to streamline an experience. Game of Thrones. In the name of efficiently moving a hugely complex plot from point A to point B in a short amount of time, they cut away damn near everything that made it great in the first place. This is what happened to MMOs at our behest.
I figured here would work. It's Vendetta Online on the Quest, a game I bet you've never played @TheHiveLeader
I've logged, let's see, 1,874 hours and $1,202.90 spent. I've been member of their community since June 2nd, 2003.
I sort of agree with the 'you do not speak for all of us' sentiment along with the 'this has been said before ad nauseam' sentiment. The genre is bigger than you realize and interesting things are happening, sometimes quietly.
Finally, I think I may see a flaw in your argument (one common among such 'the genre is dying' rants): taking MMORPGs to be representations of virtual worlds, isn't it a good thing that their number isn't proliferating? If you think about the promise of MMORPGs circa 2004, what were the so-called core values? I'd say longevity and permanence.
As such, the fact that it isn't raining new virtual worlds every year isn't a sign the genre is in a state of "downfall" at all; it's a sign extant virtual worlds are being lived in.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
The one MMO containing combat that held my attention for over a year straight, until the company changed it too much trying to chasing after WoW numbers, had the following features instead:
- non-combat professions that mattered and were a necessary part of the game; wounds had to be healed, buffs were needed, armor decayed and had to be replaced; along with this a player could choose to be completely non-combat rather than it being a secondary profession
- a lack of levels on players; players gained skills and became stronger but a level was not attached to them, newbie and veteran players could team up to do missions or kill wildlife/npc and both got xp from it
- large team sizes no matter what you were doing (I think it was 20) ....hunting, running a dungeon, getting buffs, or just hanging out/ "roleplaying"
- trees of skills rather than straight professions...players had so many skill points they could use on the trees if they had earned the needed xp to unlock the boxes
-open play; except for a few "themeparks" players could basically play however they wished and there was very few missions that entailed "run all over the map from npc to npc to get some xp" or "see that npc standing right next to me? I need you to talk to him for me to get xp", there were some maps that were more difficult than others but players could go through game content as they wished, also there were mission boards players used to pick missions and each map had high enough content that a player wasn't required to go to a specific "zone" to get the xp needed
- the ability to log into the game for just a few minutes and get something accomplished (grab a couple missions from a mission board for combat, or dance/perform music/craft for a little bit for non-combat) and the ability to log in after being gone for a while and not have to worry that guildmates had outleveled you and were working on missions/zones that you were not able to access
-player economy without crazy inflation rates from either easy money earning or gold scammers; and player cities which also had a role in the game and weren't instanced....they could contained shops, trainers, and mission terminals
- monthly fees which covered EVERYTHING I needed in the game
For me these features helped to create what I want out of an MMORPG, which is the ability to work in a group with others while playing the game the way I want and creating the "storyline" for or "becoming" my character and being able to do that without feeling like I have to be logged in for a certain amount of time or at a certain time of day. I'm still on my search for a game that contains many of these features hopefully tweaked for improvements in the areas were that game had flaws or could have been better.
While mmorpg's aren't going to be going away any time soon, there just isn't a lot of "large money" being invested in them, at least in the west. And are there really a lot of mmorpg's being made in the east as I only see "a few." Then again, there very well may be but we'll never see any news as they are only being offered over there.
As far as worlds being lived in, populations of most games seem to be on decline, including World of Warcraft. While in some ways that's a good thing as it means the devoted players are, well, "devoted."
Showing one small game and saying that things are happening under the radar doesn't show that mmorpg's are a thriving game genre. Thriving means news, excitement, companies trying to get in that marketplace and make things happen.
What we are actually seeing are those who love the genre working in it but working on a smaller scale.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
You're welcome!
Gut Out!
What, me worry?
So, I guess that 'not a lot of MMORPGs are being made' to me is a sign that the market is being served. It's easier to say while having a MMORPG to play.
I was also thinking about it from the perspective of a finite number of people on the Earth. If MMORPGs really are meant to last a long time (decades or more) then this could actually be a problem; a very, very minor one considering everything else going on.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
As for retention have things really changed? Back when EQ1 turned 5 yeas old SoE reported that churn was over 50% (a month); and when Blizzard reported on WoW's 100M accounts the implication was that on average c. 10M a year must have left in its first c. 10 years. SWTOR also saw huge churn.
Which is not to say that a % didn't stick around. (And I do wonder though whether the sub model encouraged people to run through content.)
Back in 2001-2004 you didn't had a lot of competitions and everyone had in mind only 2-3 games.... mostly WoW, and that was about it. Nowadays you have literally 100 MMO titles to pick and play, and each one of them is confusing than the other.
I wouldn't call this "downfall", these MMO's are still there so is the players. You have FFXIV, you have GW2, ESO, or WoW and so on and so forth but the most successful now is FFXIV and it's getting insanly positive review from everywhere so there's that.
Everyone wanted the build that was the best or perceived to be the best and so on. As a result a sterile and unexciting game play emerged as groups starting requiring certain builds for the success of their dungeon crawling or raids without the theatre and drama of varied builds actually trying to work together via experimentation for trial and error was now an abhorrent choice if you could just bloody comply with the build that works. Every nuance or colourful choice on the skill tree was debated and discarded as not being optimal.
This lead to people leaving for single player games or playing solo in MMORPGs where you can experiment to your heart's content whatever cockamamey build you desired as long as you wanted it. No one is going to 'advice' you on how to play or pick another player over you because heaven forbid you were specced all wrong.
Yeah we are indeed largely to blame for the current state of things.