So the old geezers says the MMO genre is dead, I don't see it.

Maurgrim

Yes old school MMOs are dead for good reasons, who want to camp a boss camp for hours, or farm some mob for weeks for just one drop you need, yes it was cool in the old days when MMO was new and you didn't know any better.

There is so many games out there you can try and play yes enjoy, It's hardly dead, so the thing is It's the old geezers mentality that is dead not the genre.

ultimateduck

I think the "old geezers" are saying MMOs are dead because they are barely MMOs. They are no longer massive multiplayer online games, they are massive online single player games.

Technically speaking, MMOs are being released... but they don't qualify to us old people who played real MMOs as actual MMOs.

Utinni

Plenty of old style MMOs around. People just want to complain.

Maurgrim

ultimateduck said:

I think the "old geezers" are saying MMOs are dead because they are barely MMOs. They are no longer massive multiplayer online games, they are massive online single player games.

Technically speaking, MMOs are being released... but they don't qualify to us old people who played real MMOs as actual MMOs.

A MMO should be massive right crapload of players on a single shard, you can see them running past you you can see them hunking the local market, is it not massive because they don't do things in group?

anemo

Does retail WoW even count anymore?   Like if you were to freeze the server and walk/run/fly accross it would you even be able to find 500 people on the server?   I mean when you think about it lots of mechanics try to quickly get you into some kind of instanced area that has a very controlled PvE/PvP environment, and with how much they are phasing areas.

(You probably would in reality, but it's a fun thoughtset to follow.   Especially since it teases the site's old rules to get listed:  Some form of progressions, servers that support 500+ players, and some form of persistence).

Tiller

Emulators are a thing. I can play SWG like it was 2003 again, though the community isn't there. Which brings me to another point, most game communities aren't the same, gotta be the millennials fault.  xD

Tokken

Utinni said:

Plenty of old style MMOs around. People just want to complain.

who wants to play the same shit I have already played. I can only go back to a game I've played so many times. Still waiting for WOW 2. lol

delete5230

Old geezers should be put in rest homes..... Wait a second....

Asheram

delete5230 said:

Old geezers should be put in rest homes..... Wait a second....

Kyleran

Asheram said:

delete5230 said:

Old geezers should be put in rest homes..... Wait a second....

Needs a wheel.....

Hyperpsycrow

ZEITGEASIT!!   Time ghost ! Mmorpg games are dead indeed...hollow and gone

Tiller

Kyleran said:

Asheram said:

delete5230 said:

Old geezers should be put in rest homes..... Wait a second....

Needs a wheel.....

It's a trap, we don't need him to go anywhere or power anything.

bcbully

Technically you’re really only old when young girls don’t like you and you can’t pvp

MightyUnclean

Maurgrim said:

Yes old school MMOs are dead for good reasons, who want to camp a boss camp for hours, or farm some mob for weeks for just one drop you need, yes it was cool in the old days when MMO was new and you didn't know any better.

There is so many games out there you can try and play yes enjoy, It's hardly dead, so the thing is It's the old geezers mentality that is dead not the genre.

Only someone who experienced the social interaction and bonding created in the old school MMO's would understand what it is we've lost.

Asheram

Maybe in an age of "social interaction" there is way too much and so some would prefer to turn it all off unless in a personal circle of friends.

Hawkaya399

Utinni said:

Plenty of old style MMOs around. People just want to complain.

Exactly. This is my impression too. It's exactly true. Is it popular? No. Do some of us still play emulated servers? Yes. But it's by no means dead and by no means all emulated. In many cases what you have is something that's strongly inspired by old school, but still implementing some newer mechanics or features. What this shows is that elements of old MMORPGs are still desirable over what's newer, indicating not all improvements to MMORPGs are wanted.

Hawkaya399

Tiller said:

Emulators are a thing. I can play SWG like it was 2003 again, though the community isn't there. Which brings me to another point, most game communities aren't the same, gotta be the millennials fault.  xD

Those communities were wild. More uncontrolled. More dangerous yet more magical. A nightmare for developers because they generated a lot of complaints and uncertainty.

What happened is the majority of people didn't like it. Some time had to pass for this to be evident. They favored the strongly controlled worlds of newer MMO's. This left a void somewhat, since in the beginning the less controlled MMO's were mostly all that was available. They were BIG. But when a large segment of  the population left for MMO's with more controlled worlds, the players in the former worlds felt a change in their share of the population pie. So what we have now is a large population that favors the newer form of MMO community, and a much smaller population favoring the more sandboxxy social experiences of older MMO's.

And that's the situation right now. Old school is a small genre now, representing what has survived the test of time. This is why games will advertise themselves as having old school features so that old school types will know what to try.

What can be concluded is a lot of gamers prefer safe(r) spaces. They don't like spontaneous things. They like to control the experience, or have it be controlled.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

H0urg1ass

Maurgrim said:

Yes old school MMOs are dead for good reasons, who want to camp a boss camp for hours, or farm some mob for weeks for just one drop you need, yes it was cool in the old days when MMO was new and you didn't know any better.

It had nothing to do with knowing any better or them being new.  Life just didn't exist at the breakneck instant speed that it does now. 

People have computers in their pocket now that the NSA didn't have in 1998 and they can access anything at any time with them.  Life is lightning quick now.  A 24 hour old tweet might as well have been written 100 years ago by today's mindset.

When everyone wasn't instantly connected all the time to everything with information shooting at us from thousands of different directions, life moved a lot slower.

Not only that, but our time is absolutely deluged with choices for entertainment.

More TV shows were produced in 2019 than were produced in the entirety of the 1990's combined.  There were almost FIVE HUNDRED scripted original TV shows produced in 2018 and that doesn't even included "unscripted" TV such as "reality" shows and variety shows.

More video games were produced in 2019 than in the entire history of the world before the year 2000 combined.  Over NINE THOUSAND games were released this year.

I can go on and on and on.  More movies, more podcasts, more books, more YouTube videos....

We're a world that's completely and utterly swamped with entertainment media of all varieties.  It's mind boggling and jaw droppingly astounding when you take a step back from whatever microcosm we're involved in and look at the big picture.

It isn't that these games are outdated, or that the genre is dead, it's that our time is so compressed now. 

People have gotta somehow fit in their favorite dozen TV shows this week, read these best sellers on their list, play these new games that just came out, get in a few rounds on their mobile game, do their raid in their MMO, catch up with the latest posts on Reddit/MMORPG, catch the football game, watch their favorite YouTube channels and fit in all of life's other necessities in the same amount of time we had 20 years ago.

Luiden

Tokken said:

Utinni said:

Plenty of old style MMOs around. People just want to complain.

who wants to play the same shit I have already played. I can only go back to a game I've played so many times. Still waiting for WOW 2. lol

Exactly, I've covered every square inch of DAOC.. all 3 realms and battled RvR into the ground.  I've covered all of EQ2, over and over again.  No, I'm not a power gamer and it took over a decade.. but the point is those games had staying power.  The other old games like UO, EQ1 etc are too old for me at this point.

The real story is that MMORPGs are dead.. I'm sure the millennials who have never played a real MMORPG can't understand that and more importantly, don't even try to understand it.  It's the cancer of their generation in that they don't take the time to understand what made those old games so great. 

As of right now, there isn't a single game in development that looks like a MMORPG.  Not a single damn game worth even getting excited about.  Back in the day it seemed like something new and exciting was coming out every 6 months.. but today, nothing.  

Nanfoodle

Maurgrim said:

Yes old school MMOs are dead for good reasons, who want to camp a boss camp for hours, or farm some mob for weeks for just one drop you need, yes it was cool in the old days when MMO was new and you didn't know any better.

There is so many games out there you can try and play yes enjoy, It's hardly dead, so the thing is It's the old geezers mentality that is dead not the genre.

Your post is odd. Playing ESO right now and I have been MMOing for over 20 years and most of the people I play with are 45+. Most of the younger ones jump in for a few months and then are gone to another MMO again for a few months. Mostly it's the older generation that plays a game for a long period of time. What do I know I'm just a geezer.

blamo2000

I think issue may be terms.  There may be tons of MMOs, but how many mmorpgs?  I have zero interest in mmos.  

As someone above said, you can only play the same handful of games over and over again so much.  There is only a handful of mmorpgs being developed.  


I'm guessing the people who are loving the current gaming scene are young or are general gamers.  If you have specific tastes and that taste isn't being catered to at all, there really is little to look forward to.  As also was stated above - there used to be tons and tons of new mmorpgs being developed at any given time.  Now just a handful, and due most of them not having any significant or meaty character development rpg systems, people like me who need that as a requirement have even less games to look forward to trying.  

GeezerGamer

This again?
What now? Are we are gonna hear about the next WoW killer?

Kyleran

Hawkaya399 said:

Tiller said:

Emulators are a thing. I can play SWG like it was 2003 again, though the community isn't there. Which brings me to another point, most game communities aren't the same, gotta be the millennials fault.  xD

Those communities were wild. More uncontrolled. More dangerous yet more magical. A nightmare for developers because they generated a lot of complaints and uncertainty.

What happened is the majority of people didn't like it. Some time had to pass for this to be evident. They favored the strongly controlled worlds of newer MMO's. This left a void somewhat, since in the beginning the less controlled MMO's were mostly all that was available. They were BIG. But when a large segment of  the population left for MMO's with more controlled worlds, the players in the former worlds felt a change in their share of the population pie. So what we have now is a large population that favors the newer form of MMO community, and a much smaller population favoring the more sandboxxy social experiences of older MMO's.

And that's the situation right now. Old school is a small genre now, representing what has survived the test of time. This is why games will advertise themselves as having old school features so that old school types will know what to try.

What can be concluded is a lot of gamers prefer safe(r) spaces. They don't like spontaneous things. They like to control the experience, or have it be controlled.

Ahh, so you are saying a lot of gamers are sissies these days, gotcha, can't disagree with your assessment.

  

Po_gg

Gorwe said:

(could also ask to define an MMO, but that's only gonna cause a feedback loop of endless circlejerk, so...whatever)

Could be an endless circlejerk, but I guess still that's the solution - besides the correct analysis of @H0urg1ass about the changes in pace and connection levels.

Of course can't speak for all, so just imo: this geezer says the MMORPG genre is dead. There are still plenty of old games available, luckily.

The MMO genre OP mentioned, never been more booming. It's a boomer, you might say.

Everything is an MMO now.

FFS, I've heard two dimwits the other day talking about how Reedus and fetus (that's Death Stranding, for the record) was the best MMO this year, and finding other people's cargo or built stuff is how much better than being in a group all the time... a few more years and we'll have nice, nostalgic feeling about the "good" times when they only tried to label Destiny as an MMO, and not every junk which has any kinda online part...

delete5230

Gorwe said:

I'll just skip right to the point:

Define "dead".

(could also ask to define an MMO, but that's only gonna cause a feedback loop of endless circlejerk, so...whatever)

Your always asking everyone to define everything. That's just silly and trying to put people on the spot to witch their is no REAL documented prof on any of this stuff at all, only fake polls. Theirs no substance to peoples feelings and answers to something that cant be touched !

And yet you now want two definitions