Riot MMO is going back to the drawing board

Kumapon

Riot co-founder Marc Merrill updated everyone with a tweet, letting them know that the team has made the decision to go back to the drawing board.  He explains that the “initial vision just wasn’t different enough from what you can play today,” so while the currently unnamed MMORPG is absolutely still in development, major changes behind the scenes will keep it under wraps for quite a while longer.

Probably looking at years before anything comes of this. 


https://twitter.com/MarcMerrill/status/1770479141600874553?s=20

Xiaoki

They should just throw in the towel

If a studio like Riot couldn't come up with something after years of development then they never will.

I'm guessing Riot is obsessed with making the biggest and best MMO ever and when it was obvious what they were making wasn't going to be that they scrapped it. Greg Street and others saw it coming too.

Scot

Kumapon said:

Riot co-founder Marc Merrill updated everyone with a tweet, letting them know that the team has made the decision to go back to the drawing board.  He explains that the “initial vision just wasn’t different enough from what you can play today,” so while the currently unnamed MMORPG is absolutely still in development, major changes behind the scenes will keep it under wraps for quite a while longer.

Probably looking at years before anything comes of this. 


https://twitter.com/MarcMerrill/status/1770479141600874553?s=20

The problem is how far have they gone down a road they no longer want to use? Building something different on the back of gaming software that was designed for something else has a poor track record. I don't know how far they were along, but the earlier you make this decision the better.

cheyane

Didn't they lose some key developers. That might be why they have to go back to the drawing board or is this a precursor to saying 'oh we give up'.

Ralphie2449

Fuck yes!
Getting rid of ghostcrawler with his boomer "I dont get why many mmo players choose to play mmos solo, you should play darksouls instead" and now this is great news.

Game might actually have a chance instead of being some generic raidlogging simulator

Xiaoki

cheyane said:

Didn't they lose some key developers. That might be why they have to go back to the drawing board or is this a precursor to saying 'oh we give up'.

They probably saw this was a train wreck and got out early.

Babuinix

Chris Roberts strikes again! The meddling bastard must have changed scope once again

Wargfoot

Ralphie2449 said:

Fuck yes!
Getting rid of ghostcrawler with his boomer "I dont get why many mmo players choose to play mmos solo, you should play darksouls instead" and now this is great news.

Game might actually have a chance instead of being some generic raidlogging simulator

I don't know if I'll ever play another game with "raids".
It is shorthand for "bad game with no real vision".

olepi

Wargfoot said:

Ralphie2449 said:

Fuck yes!
Getting rid of ghostcrawler with his boomer "I dont get why many mmo players choose to play mmos solo, you should play darksouls instead" and now this is great news.

Game might actually have a chance instead of being some generic raidlogging simulator

I don't know if I'll ever play another game with "raids".
It is shorthand for "bad game with no real vision".

I don't mind if a game has raids so long as I don't have to do them and there are plenty of other things to do in the game. If raids are the main attraction, then I'll skip it.

Kyleran

If this ever gets released 2030 would be the optimistic date, but more likely they'll pivot to something like a survival game or MMOARPG than an open world MMORPG.

Elidien_ga

Kyleran said:

If this ever gets released 2030 would be the optimistic date, but more likely they'll pivot to something like a survival game or MMOARPG than an open world MMORPG.

When I first read your post, I was like 2030?!?!? "Oh come on that so far away"! But thinking that its just 6 years and MMO development cycles, thats a very generous timeline!

MaeEye

Kyleran said:

If this ever gets released 2030 would be the optimistic date, but more likely they'll pivot to something like a survival game or MMOARPG than an open world MMORPG.

I feel like even survival games are no longer a viable source of income, however this is just based off of Blizzard recently cancelling their survival game.

The game industry is definitely going through something right now with a lot of these larger corporations cancelling projects. I just hope Riot doesn't release a typical battle pass type live service game; guess time will tell.

Wargfoot

I think something like Pokemon, but not exactly the same, would be a good idea for a game.

cameltosis

As pointed out on other sites, "initial vision just wasn’t different enough from what you can play today,” is a bullshit excuse. Riot make a lot of games that are very similar to what is already available.

Not to mention, given the lack of MMORPGs that actually make it to release, especially AAA MMORPGs, they could release something that was an almost straight up clone....with a runeterra skin..... and it would likely sell very well.

cheyane

I think the analysis may be that it is simply not worth spending any more money on this endeavour.

Arglebargle

Babuinix said:

Chris Roberts strikes again! The meddling bastard must have changed scope once again

If the shoe fits....

Arglebargle

At least they still have the art assets.  

But outside the corpo speak, it's hard to tell what actually might be going down.

Kyleran

Wargfoot said:

I think something like Pokemon, but not exactly the same, would be a good idea for a game.

Naw, it would never sell.

Nanfoodle

IMO trying to reach for something different enough has been the downfall of MMO development. Take what works that people love and the build on that. Add 20-30% new or innovative on top of what is established. I'm also old enough I'm not sure what comes out in 10 years will be relevant to me. 

Xiaoki

Nanfoodle said:

IMO trying to reach for something different enough has been the downfall of MMO development. Take what works that people love and the build on that. Add 20-30% new or innovative on top of what is established. I'm also old enough I'm not sure what comes out in 10 years will be relevant to me. 

Developers not trying to be different was the downfall of MMOs. Remember the parade of failed WoW clones?

There is a lot of variety in MMOs. WoW is very different from Black Desert and Black Desert is very different from Eve.

But, it doesn't matter if it's unique or generic, it just can't suck.

madazz

Xiaoki said:

Nanfoodle said:

IMO trying to reach for something different enough has been the downfall of MMO development. Take what works that people love and the build on that. Add 20-30% new or innovative on top of what is established. I'm also old enough I'm not sure what comes out in 10 years will be relevant to me. 

Developers not trying to be different was the downfall of MMOs. Remember the parade of failed WoW clones?

There is a lot of variety in MMOs. WoW is very different from Black Desert and Black Desert is very different from Eve.

But, it doesn't matter if it's unique or generic, it just can't suck.

The difference between UO and EQ was amazing too. Then DAOC comes along and its also different. I understand they can't reinvent the wheel and its probably not exactly easy to create something unique though. But one thing that would help is if they removed the god danged cash shops.