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Will We Ever See Another Heavyweight MMO?
Draehl
Member Posts: 4
I, as I'm sure many of you folks, have become incredibly jaded by the terrible MMO releases over the past several years. Do you ever think we will see a truly masterpiece of an MMO released? One that is so good that people will gladly subscribe and throw not $15 a month but $20 or even $30 to maintain a behemoth of a game with a crack technical and content development staff? A no excuses attitude to pursue innovation and perfection in their product.
I don't want to make this an all out personal feature wish-list, but would it really be so much to ask for features that really shouldn't be such a problem with the genre having matured and so many project and ideas tried and failed?
- It's 2015- can we see a completely instance-less game world already? Has server tech not improved since Vanguard which tried nearly ten years ago? Dungeons, PvP, and different geographical regions need not be separated by load screens or even artificially constructed mountain ranges.
- How are we still releasing games where players run from quest hub to quest hub? The Guild Wars event system certainly isn't ideal, but at least they're trying to innovate. Maybe try making a world that tries to feel real and not designed to cater to the player with petty tasks and storytelling attempts.
- Can we have a proper alpha/beta testing phase without publishers pushing for early launch? Bugs and balance issues happen, but the terrible state of releases has been pathetic. Six more months of alpha/beta can equal a year or more of live development.
- Classes are an archaic concept. Why not make a few dozen skill lines with a form of limited access so players can create their own playstyle? Why the need to force players into narrow roles? Why is this so hard to implement and so rarely attempted?
- AI seems little improved in over a decade. Nobody is asking NPCs to have actual conversations with players, but combat AI at least- where is the progress and adaptation?
Why can't we have these things? How long will we have to wait? What company (if anything) could pull this off? Blizzard? Maybe? Is the tech or consumer demand not up to par? Does it cost too much? Is the talent spread across too many companies?
We've had enough failures. Can something rise above the blatant cash grabs to make a truly great title that still rakes in the cash? What's holding up the arrival of the messiah MMO?
Comments
Blizzard doesn't want to make another MMO to compete with WoW*. The investment is too great, and Hearthstone has proved to them that they can make a ton of money by making much simpler games.
As for the others, goodluck convincing investors that the next Vanguard is going to be the next big thing when all sandbox games have had moderate success at best in the last ten years or so.
I think you'll be stuck praying for one of the Indies to get it right. (But obviously their budget limitations make it difficult for them to come up with something that big)
Maybe when/if SC comes out and proves that Crowdfunding can be used to create an AAA title, and that there is a desire for more sandbox elements in MMORPGs.
* The official explanation for canceling Project Titan was that they don't want to be a developer that only makes MMOs. That and they couldn't decide on how to make it fun.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
I think you will be waiting a long time.
A behemoth MMORPG would cost a fortune to develop and need a very large sustained playerbase to survive. I'm of the opinion that given saturation, there isn't enough western market to support it, and that a globally targeted game wouldn't match up with the design elements you present.
That leaves a catch-22. Either specialize for a niche market and adjust budget accordingly, or compromise the design for mass-appeal. Either way, you end up with a game that you don't want, which is why I don't see it happening anytime soon.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I don't think we'll ever see a behemoth of an MMO like WoW. We are in the era of Early Access / crowdfunded. I have a feeling there are very few companies that want to spend the time and money to pour into a AAA MMO that has the high probability of flopping. We've seen it with SWTOR, ESO, etc. And those, like WoW, have strong IPs. Times have changed.
I would love a fresh new MMO with a living breathing world with very few instancing. The few instances being dungeons and raids and probably PVP battlegrounds/zones. If a developer can zone a world like Blizzard did with WoW, that would be awesome. I just don't see it happening.
I hope when we say heavyweight,it has nothing to do with WOW because that was based on multi millions of NEW gamer's,new ONLINE gamer's,we will NEVER see that kind of mass influx to the market ever again.
Will there be a game we can say is a giant build,well has there been a giant build to date that is done triple A ,has all aspects AND looks great?Well we can barely say FFXIV ,it does have some events,your repeatables,your Boss fights,Dungeons ,housing,crafting,looks great so ya i think it covers all areas and looks great but that is only ONE game.
Whom else has a KNOWN IP that could guarantee giant sales?Well the ONLY one i can think of is Warcraft and having the Blizzard name behind it also adds unjust sales.However Blizzard has NEVER been the front runner in game design,they copy or they go Indie/cheap,MOST of their portfolio are cheap game designs.They also added Sierra back in the mix to add yet more flooding of the Indie market.
So who does that leave?Nobody,we would have to see a non mmorpg developer change over and make a mmorpg to see it happen.Example NaughtyDog has made a lot of money,a great developer or Epic games,they have the technical skills and also the money so perhaps that is two names out the entire gaming market,it doesn't look too good for th future of TRIPLE A game design.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Hasn't and never will happen (for me) with todays technology.
People like to throw the words flopping around, but while those games underperformed compared to what their companies were originally hoping for, they still bring in tons of money. (Or does anyone actually believe that any of these companies would keep them running and updated just out of the kindness of their hearts? :P)
The reason we don't see any new big titles is mostly what someone else already brought up above. The market is over-saturated, and they've all learned the hard way that no other MMO is going to pull WoW's numbers.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
Not only will we see such an MMORPG in our lifetime, there will also be another MONSTER MMORPG such as WoW eventually. WoW is simply the first such monster, in what is almost guaranteed will be a series, of rather extended-time period cycles. So the next monster may yet come along around 2025-2030-ish, if I had to guess? As far as a truly quality virtual world MMORPG, believe it or not (done correctly), it may very well be one and the same as that next monster. My only concern is that it would most likely also be action combat, rather than traditional-based combat. It most certainly will not be a virtual reality game, as I doubt we will see virtual reality take off in our lifetimes, any more than we have seen holographic technology take off.
You are correct. The success of something like Hearthstove vs Vanguard will tell any competent investors what's what.
Gamers need to stop looking for cutting edge graphics and support the smaller guy with their money if they want to see real changes.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Those who in heart wasn't a gamer can't make another storm.
I wonder how many of those who develop MMO play they own game as a normal player .
If they want money , better make singleplayer game instead of do MMO .
In order for an MMO to appeal to the masses, it would have to accompany the hardware being used by their potential customers. So you either develop for a niche market of enthusiast PC gamers with high fidelity or you develop a game less demanding on hardware to hit a wider spectrum. It will also be mobile friendly so you'll always have access to the game. People are still playing MMOs with a GTS 250 up to now. It will most likely be cross-platform to reach out even further into the market, maybe even browser based too.
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/
It will also have to be developed with "simple, stupid" in mind. Probably the majority of the MMO will have less competitive game play with easy rewards (ie: LFR) to spread "feel good" throughout the player base. OWPvP will be non existent. The game will be focused on creativity and cumbaiya for a hippie wonderland. It'll be more of sharing and less competing. It will be rated 12+, again, for the wide spectrum thing. The color palette will be bright to set a light tone and happy trees throughout the virtual world.
It will also be linked to social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc) to cover the narcissists. You'll be able to follow their cooking profession progress every step of the way. "Got a new recipe today at lvl 56 aren't you jelly hehehe" (snap>vintage photo filter>upload).
It'll have a cash shop designed to rival your local Westfield mall sponsored by major retailers. If you're gonna shop on-line, why not do it in your favorite virtual world? Buy a tee from PacSun in game and get a similar tee in the virtual world as your order is delivered by FedEx to your door. What better way to show off your in game threads than one which you will have in real life. "Jimmie just bought a new thong from Victoria's Secret for his toon?! - Awkward..."
This is what the next "heavyweight" will look like, it won't be an MMO"RPG" - it will be an MMO"VR".
Oh, look another "we're looking for the next perfect mmo" thread. Ok i'll bite. Not even Blizzard can pull this off, because they're the guys that made WoW. Which means any attempt they'll make for a next gen MMO will come down crushing on their heads. I can already see the comments:"Omg, wtf is this pile of shit Blizzcrap? it's nothing like WoW, waaaa....". In fact i'll go as far as to guess that this is one of the main reasons they dumbed Titan.
And why should they care anyway? They're sitting on their throne as the ones that made the most succeful MMO ever while, as another mentioned, they're making loads of $$$$ by making simpler games like Hearthstone, Herroes of the Storm etc. This way they're being profitable while at the same time avoiding all the drama that comes with a new MMO release. It seems to me they've found the perfect formula.
Ok ignoring your wishlist of things to be included since they're personal.. yeah maybe there will be another massively popular MMORPG again at some point.. but not in a long time i think. in the meantime we'll probably have a bunch of moderately successful niche MMO's.
I had fun once, it was terrible.
I'm sure there will be more AAA MMO's made in the future, but they will likely be much less frequent than in the previous 15 years.
No Man's Sky is doing some really great work with procedural generation. That could possibly result in interesting possibilities for other games in the future as the techniques are refined further. The constant increases in CPU power combined with really sophisticated procedural techniques could result in massive cost savings when it comes to creating art, models and animations.
MMO's have always been niche games, they just happened to be the genre that dominated online gaming at its birth. Now the online space is being filled with a wide variety of "games", and MMORPG's are retreating into a corner. Just as single-player games did not vanish when MMO's apppeared, so MMO's will not vanish because WoT, moba's and online TCG's are appearing.
If we are talking player numbers then its already happened on a few occasions. People forget that the west isn't the start and end of the world. Asia has some mmo that have numbers that wow could only dream off. Take Dungeon Figher which has 400 million registered and in 2011 had 40 million online in China.
Will we see one in the west,eventually because nothing last for ever. A dev team will hit that sweet spot and a new generation can blame them for ruienng there lives.
These things are circular. Of course there will be another hugely popular MMO, eventually. The whims of the masses when it concerns our entertainment are doomed to repeat themselves adnauseum until a new technology enters the fray. That's just the way things work. Remember when bell-bottoms came back in the 90's? What about the many times Chuck Taylors have made a come back?
The question is when and how. When I think of hugely popular online . . . things . . . I can think of several that jump out as being significant or "head of the pack." WoW, Facebook, MySpace, and Farmville (just picking 4 here. Sure there are others) are good examples. What do they all have in common? Accessibility. Sure, WoW got the formula right at the right time, but everyone could play it. EQ players didn't have to upgrade their PCs to run it well. Kids could play it on their parents' 4 year old internet & E-Mail machine, and practically anyone with a browser could do the others. I think this, in conjunction with timing, and a little luck, is what makes the perfect storm.
Stick with me here, now. There are many games out there right now that managed the right "MMO formula," but to be the next WoW, it has to explode. That can't happen if guys don't ask their wives or if kids don't beg their parents for it. It doesn't have to be a perfect game. It just has to be the next "thing." In another 10 years when VH1 is showing, "Remember the '00s," we'll all the watching a poorly aged Justin Bieber and a still hot Mila Kunis talk about WoW. Eventually, we'll see another, but it won't be because of the features, but rather because the average consumer is a fickle, crowd following moron.
We will definitely see another heavyweight MMO, probably within the next 10 years. However, there are a large amount of barriers in the way that may be very difficult to overcome.
1) It needs an amazing IP
A new IP just wont cut it in the MMO world. To appeal to the masses, they need to be attracted right from the start by the name and that means using a well established IP. However, most IPs are already licensed to someone / owned by someone so the chances of the "right" developer getting the "right" IP is very slim.
2) Complete shift in design philosophy
It is my personal belief that WoW got big because, at the time, it was the only accessible MMO out there. It is also my personal belief that WoW has stayed big because it's big: people stay because their friends stay, not because the game is any good.
This means any new MMO needs to ignore the features of WoW and focus more on community. The features of WoW (leveling / gearing / endgame) are all really anti-community: they are designed to segregate the community, split them up. The only reason WoW gets away with it is due to its massive playerbase. If the playerbase isn't large enough, then segregating the community results in players not being able to play the game with other people, not being able to complete content, and so they quit.
Ultimately, a life shared is a better life. When we play an MMO, that MMO becomes better when we play with other people who are similar to ourselves and so your focus, from day one, needs to be on supporting and fostering an amazing community.
3) Depth of Systems
Like others have said, any new heavyweight MMO needs to be accessible to the masses, which means it needs to be easy to learn the basics, idiots need to feel like they are achieving something, and play sessions need to be meaningful even if short. However, core gamers need more than this. If you want to keep my attention, there needs to be so much depth to the mmo that it takes me months or even years to master everything.
This is a really hard thing to achieve. How to you make a game that the idiot masses can play and enjoy whilst still providing adequate challenge to core gamers? Most game designers can't achieve this and resort to things like vertical gear progression to achieve it. The game doesn't actually become harder, you just need better gear to complete it.
4) Breadth of Systems
In addition to the games systems having depth, there also needs to be a wide breadth of systems. By this, I mean there would need to be systems (gameplay) to suit as many peoples tastes as possible. This means things like nooby solo pve through to hardcore raiding, world pvp, instanced pvp, arena pvp, full crafting, hobbies, housing, etc etc.
People are complicated. We have different moods and needs. If I log in to an MMO, there needs to be content to match my current mood, otherwise I'll log off. The less time I spend in game, the less attached to it I feel and the smaller the community gets. Variety is the spice of life, and an MMO needs to offer that variety to keep me engaged as much as humanly possible.
5) Payment Model
This is a toughie. The game needs to generate a ton of money to pay for never ending content / system updates, but it needs to be cheap enough to appeal to lots of people.
My personal preference would be something akin to LotRO: You can subscribe, or you can buy the content separately. I hate to call it free-to-play, as I wouldn't want it free to play. But, say you were a casual gamer, you could buy the base game for £20 which gave you 100% access to the first 10 zones. Instead of paying for a subscription, you pay nothing more. Because you are a casual, it takes you 6 months to play through those 10 zones, but thats 6 months of playing without a subscription before you hit a content barrier. Then, because you like the game, you decide to spend £2 to buy the next zone. It takes you a month to level through that zone, then you spend another £4 on the next two zones. You go on holiday, work heats up, so it takes you 3 months to work through those 2 new zones. At the end of this, you've payed £26 on the game but have played for 9 months. This makes it cheaper and more accessible than paying a subscription without putting stupid cash-shop blocks in your way.
6) Marketing
Where are the marketing budgets for MMOs? The most I ever seem to see are banners / ads on gaming sites. I think the only ads I've seen on TV (in the uk) have been for WoW, hell, even posters in shops would be nice to see! Take SW:TOR. Reportedly cost $250m - $300m to develop, yet they didn't pay for any TV adverts in the UK, and presumably didn't do so in most other countries. To me, thats absurd! How are people going to buy your game if they don't know it exists?
Just as a final note, I haven't subscribed to any MMOs (or played any F2P MMOs) since 2012 when SW:TOR finally killed MMOs for me. I try to beta test all new big mmos in an attempt to find one worth playing, but my search continues. I have just a few requirements:
How does this self-balancing three faction work?
There is a board game called Diplomacy which has 7 sides to it. If you look at the top players, one thing happens, the most powerful ones chew up the little ones. The little ones don't stand a chance.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
They can adjust a game all day, but they can't help the issue between the keyboard and the chair.
Played: UO, DAoC, AC, WoW, EVE, TR, WAR, Aion, Rift, SWTOR, GW2, TSW, ESO, Elite:D
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