This is an incredibly depressing article that I barely got through from a person that sounds like they shouldn't be playing MMO's let alone writing about them.
There was a Reddit post asking what your unpopular MMORPG opinion is and here's what I said there. I think it's extremely relevant to this article:
My unpopular opinion is that there's a lot of good games out there and even more good ones coming out. We're back to quality games with a good variety of styles between them, so there's something for everyone. I personally find a lot of games are good right now, though I'm sticking with 2 right now that I can realistically play.
I don't understand the crowd that says the genre is dying. In contrast, I think the genre is finally blossoming and evovling into some really cool things now that developers are not afraid to move out of the tab target themepark WoW formula. And I think this has been the case since probably 2012.
That's the unpopular opinion of a happy person who knows how to enjoy their free time and finds too many fun things to do with it instead of not enough. /shrug Although I think some of that may be due to the fact that while I love the genre, if I had nothing to play I'd be perfectly happy with that. I don't need an MMO to play. I don't even need a game to play. I think a lot of players have an unhealthy obsession with it and that's causing them to be unhappy with all of it.
I agree with what you are writing, well said. I have more fun things to do that I have time for and I find this a lovely luxury problem For the time being I stay with 2 mmorpgs and I have so much to do and be excited about in those 2.
I find it interesting when you say that if you had nothing to play you would still be perfectly happy. I hadn't thought about it that way, but I think you have a point. Thanks for sharing your opinion, I found it thoughtful.
Although I have nothing good to say about WoW I understand what you mean by your "Ironforge moment". It happened for me in Everquest. I don't think it was a specific moment however, more of a "gradually rising tide of realizing how awesome this is" type of thing.
One of my early characters was a barbarian shaman and it was sometime when I was playing him when that tide rose up and engulfed me. All those other people running around in Halas...actual real people controlling all those characters. Going out into the newb area in everfrost when it was crowded with other new players back in those glory days. It really was fantastic. Gloriously chaotic and new and I had no idea what to expect next.
Someplayer shouts: "Vengefull skelly to guards"
Me wondering---"what the heck does that mean"
oh, here comes someone I'll ask him.....why is he running from that skeleton I've killed a bunch of them...well I guess I'll help him by attacking it.
whack..
WHACK WHACK
----Loading please wait----
Yeah, it was great back when it was all fresh and new.
I remember one time a player nearby shouted for help with a polar bear I think it was. I ran over and healed him a little then started helping him fight. Then another mob agroed and we had two things to fight. Another player jumped in then a couple more mobs. Then a couple more players came over to help. Then more mobs just kept coming. Before we could finish off the last one another would agro and it just kept going on and on like that. Those of us who could heal would do so when we had mana but it just kept going on. Finally the last mob dropped and we all just stood there for a minute by the pile of corpses feeling a little punch drunk. Like, what the heck was that...they just kept coming. Oh well, we all lived, good job guys. Yeah, thanks for the help. Then we all went our separate ways.
Much later I realized that we had been standing right on a crossroads for mob pathing. But that's ok, it still stands out in my memory as one of those great early moments.
I wish a game could make me feel that way again but I don't know it will happen. I kind of doubt it.
The MMO apocalypse already happened back in 2004. Blizzard pressed the button and everything that made the genre great ( perpetual worlds, good communities etc. ) died.
For me i think it already happened. I see these new game and i just don't want to play any of them. I just want single player open wold games. Tired of looking at chat and seeing it full of crap. Don't even want to group with others unless i really have to. B & S loot system really killed grouping for me for good. In fact i have been playing swtor more because of the single player story line the game has.
Someone should write a requiem for MMOs, I suppose. But only the newest players see any remaining hope.
Unfortunately for the industry, there is no battle.net waiting to create an enormous flood of brand new western mmorpg players in one tasty wave, not this time around.
They could always do the massive asian market crossover thang; except that's much more difficult to accomplish than it is to dream about.
And why would they? Why would there be a flood of brand new western mmorpgs? We've made sure that will never happen. The time has passed where companies thoughtlessly burn hundreds of millions of dollars to release new titles every year.
Western gamers look for some deep spiritual experience from shallow entertainment meant to be a luxury pastime. Since they don't find that satisfaction they shit all over every release hoping for the next thing to give them that fix.
So they hope for some fantastic apocalypse that will shake it all up; in the fallout a new phoenix will be reborn in the form of their wildest fantasies. This new reborn genre will give them the games they deserve just how they imagined them to be.
It's never going to happen.
It already is happening, but dont worry, you'll catch up with the rest of us eventually.
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
My Ironforge moment was more of an Undercity moment. A friend of mine and I started playing WoW together back in 2004. We were remarking how awesome it looked as we tried to find how exactly to enter the place. We finally found the elevator and we stepped inside - it glitched at the top and my friend fell to his death. It was awesome and hilarious at the same time.
The ONLY thing changing the scope of gaming is $$$$,not game design not smart ideas just money both from advertising,to esport to streaming for a living. In the old days nobody card about a Beta,now a days people are paying to get into them,it really says we have a new breed of careless sloppy spenders.I guess in reality it all makes sense,gaming 20+ years ago was adults only ,PC's were not cheap and internet was 28.8 k 56k k,not a hangout for kids.
Good thing there will always be some good wholehearted gaming people that want to make a good solid game and not get dragged into the business side and making a game about business and not about gaming fun.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I am kind of an old school player. I hold storytelling, role-play, aesthetics, music, etc in higher regard than other creative ideas that may fundamentally change the genre. In this regard, theme park MMORPGs still do a better job than the incoming ones the author mentioned like Crowfall or Star Citizen. I believe those out-dated theme park games are going to hang in there a little longer and the so called MMO apocalypse may not be that on the horizon.
I would say the genre crossed a line of being impractical. Why spend money to make a game a MMORPG when it could a single player/coop and be better for it. Single player/coop questing with COD match making for dungeons, esports and raids and not much has changed.
There's not a single MMO out there right now that I wouldn't cheer to see shut down (including those I once enjoyed that are now passe). And there's precious little coming down the pike that I hold any hope out for. For me, the MMO apocalypse has already happened. I eagerly await the Next Fun Thing, but I fear we're looking at as much as a decade before it gets here.
I was going to ask why do nearly all players (including guildies) that I come across in every multiplayer game want to play solo in PvE, unless they are doing content made difficult or complex enough to require groups. Did I just answer the question myself? But then why do they not want to help other guildies struggling with their solo game or that want company?
So, is it because the content is so easy ? Is it because it is so easy and they want to race to end game which is quicker to do solo than wait for a group or partner? Is it because many players are just unsociable outside a tight little cleek? Is it because pugs can be unreliable? Is it because when a player has done content they don't want to go over it?
Is it all of these to some degree and if so how do MMORPGs progress to make them more sociable again? Or do most people even want that anymore?
I want more sociable games and not by making raids and other content to queue up to repeat weekly or so but my problem is unreliable pugs especially those chaotic groups that wont take guidance but just do their own thing and fail?
GW2 tried to make itself more multiplayer friendly by introducing down levelling so higher level characters can run with lower levels. It up levelled in some cases like WvW and made quests repeatable, allowing other players to work in the same quest without joining as a party. In the end though it was less sociable and more just players arriving at the same location but not talking, not coordinating just doing their bit and moving on unless it was world bosses, then some times there would be idle chatter or coordination for the difficult ones. Often there would be guilds leading some high end boss fights but these were so hard to get in to.
Still I didn't find it a satisfying sociable experience after a while as I crave a party to go on a journey with as I level as well and not just for events or instances on occasion, a party that has a history that
is more than experiences in pvp or raids but in growing with one another through a campaign. Will that ever happen again really? How could it?
To me I think the problem is leveling towards an end game and make a character powerful enough to do repeatable end game content as fast and optimal as possible. It's maybe that we need to emphasise whats the most important thing in a particular MMO and focus on it then end game may just be the game.
I'm saying if its meant to be free form sandbox so that players make their own destiny, make it so characters still have equal importance all the way through the game and not just when they get powerful enough. This is so even the most powerful players will incorporate them in to their strategy and to play alongside with, instead of leaving them to level themselves on their own.
If its more a story PvE based MMO then make the story progresses a character rather than stat leveling, so a group can progress together or do bits on their own without ever out leveling their friends so they can all regroup easily to continue the story.
If it's an MMO all about building and progressing a character in the world as priority, make it so an important stat is reputation that rewards social characters most highly and makes being a lone wolf in a lethal world much more difficult, as maybe it should be.
The issue at hand is that for an MMO to be a success the player base has to have hours of time to invest in playing. An MMO requires time and too many people just do not have hours upon hours to play...some do but those days of millions do not. A truee MMO success would have to harken back to a time of SWG, for example yet convert open world land grabs to the likes of what Black Desert Online uses, placed houses that anyone can buy and or rent. This frees up graphical engine space to keep the game smooth. The days of the standard newer money grab MMO designs are gone already yet the pay shops in game will not. The Buy to play model will always be the better choice, yet maybe not the popular choice.
The one way an MMO can stand apart will be player created content through interaction and involvement. Story Brick kinds of evolution of game content being created and if another player is late to that creation they miss out and have to deal with it.
Build a city brick by brick once you have liberated it from the controling faction, be it any number of NPC, then defend that conquest from reprisal, either from the locals or guilds.
There are many ways to go with mmo's in the future. What holds them back is the knowledge to create the mainframe of the game. What and how it can evolve from the standard kill, level. Spend points to make your avatar better.
Remove the Level and replace the skill advancement for characters. Remove the standard mindset of today and evolve to something new. EQNext has/has dare I say the right idea. Continuous generated content decided on the player base, with a little substructure to hold it together with story that evolves as the players create the games world.
Casual gamers have destroyed the genre. Its not about the difficulty in terms of mechanics, if i want such a game i will play a moba or fps, its about the difficulty of aquiring something and investing your time.
I will go against the flow and say that the first game that will reward the time investement of each individual, will hit a gold mine. Kinda disagree with the OP there are great games with many innovations thats not the issue, the issue is that some companies made a specific part of gamers to want everything with very little time. You want something so bad? You want something that others DONT have, u want something u will be proud after investing so much time to get it? Well Grind for it mt*ker grind for the mats for the rep or whatever else its needed.
Also the social aspect of the games is generally bad currently,
For many of us that 'moment' we all treasure from MMORPGs was many, many years ago. Before jumping on the 'all online games are rubbish now' bandwagon we should look at ourselves and our unreachable expectations.
If I was 15 years younger I would be blown away with a game such as Archeage (just an example) sometimes we expect too much.
As far as what MMOs should do in the future: I've said it before and I'll say it again---at least for fantasy themed games, devs have been ignoring one of the fundamental elements of good fantasy. Adventure.
Game developers need to take some time to read or re-read some of the most popular fantasy novels and pay attention to what's happening in them. In the vast majority of fantasy stories what happens? Some person or persons set out on a journey through dangerous lands. Often he/she or they are joined by a few others as they go along. The story is about a small group of people trekking through the wilderness and the difficulties and close calls they have along the way.
This basic element is present in like 99% of all fantasy stories. Don't nitpick the percentage...you know what I mean. And yet, game developers totally ignore it.
Some the early games had us sitting at "camps" killing the same mobs over and over. Later games had us endlessly running trivial errands for NPCs. To date, I don't know of a single game that has been built around the idea of players setting out on long journeys filled with danger and adventure; where thejourney is the point of the whole thing.
And I don't mean pre-scripted crap. I mean just a big dangerous world and reasons for people to go out on long trips where the point is basically just to survive the trip. Where the journey isn't downtime to get to the place you are going but the adventure and excitement is found in the journey.
Think about the Lord of the Rings. What was it primarily about? Frodo making his way to mordor to throw the ring into the lava. Most of the story was about the journey and all the stuff that happened along the way. Throwing the ring in at the end was just wrapping it up.
Compare that to fantasy MMOs. The early devs would have had Frodo and his group parked in moria killing a particular group of goblins over and over and over to level up and then they would have moved a little deeper into moria and killed a little tougher things over and over and over and so on.
The current crop of devs would have Frodo delivering mail in the shire and crap like that until he leveled up and moved to the next hub where he would get a whole list of more trivial chores to do and so on.
Come devs. Give us adventure. If someone could do that I think THAT would be the <next big thing> in MMO gaming.
I always liked the charm of what a MMO should have been....A small village with a few of us that needed to band together to take down baddies in the nearby forest or whatever.....Somewhere along the line that got lost (probably started with WoW).....Now its I can do everything by myself and my character is awesome and doesnt need anyone else.
Exploration ? - Check.. Meaningful and surprising dungeons ? - Check.. Alteration of traditional theme park or sand box mindset ? - Check..
Working on it.. Going to be awhile still.. Apocalypse ? No.. Rebirth and renewal ? That's the dream..
Sure.. These end up just being words until I can make it happen.. But no need for nihilistic cynicism toward the genre we know we love (or loved).. There is always hope as long as someone picks up the gauntlet, works to beat the odds, and tries to break free from old ideas gone stale.. Hell, I didn't go back to school for this just to fail.. Heh
..because we're gamers, damn it!! - William Massachusetts (Log Horizon)
I honestly don't know what others lookinf for in any mmorpg. But i know for sure, if im playing a game, i wan't to enjoy myself. Doing daily quests, getting the best gear, farming and grinding might be fun for some, but to me it feels like a second job. Arriving at home after a tiring day, i don't want to spend my free time to work again. I want to go on a journey, to see, what im doing affects the world around me. When there will be a title like that, i'll be back playing mmorpgs. Until then, one job is plenty enough for me.
In a way Black Desert has done this for me, given me my "Ironforge" moment again. Not because its something new and groundbreaking but for the very opposite reason, its gone back to the old school roots of games like Ashen Empires (Dransik) and Ultima Online or Star Wars Galaxies (Pre CU).
I look at the last ten years as the dumbing down of the genre, the Candy Crush gimme now for money I'm entitled because I spend a dollar on your app attitude, and not about the journey of wonder.
There are to many MMO's out there, the player base is spread too thin. MMO makers started trying to target every audience instead of the niche, and then the niche bringing others into the fold organically.
Money and marketing are the life and death of the dreamers.
I find it disturbing that anyone could dare to liken BDO to Ultima Online. How exactly does it even come close to the interactivity and glory that was UO? Nothing has come close for features and meta since.
Comments
I have more fun things to do that I have time for and I find this a lovely luxury problem
For the time being I stay with 2 mmorpgs and I have so much to do and be excited about in those 2.
I find it interesting when you say that if you had nothing to play you would still be perfectly happy. I hadn't thought about it that way, but I think you have a point.
Thanks for sharing your opinion, I found it thoughtful.
Although I have nothing good to say about WoW I understand what you mean by your "Ironforge moment". It happened for me in Everquest. I don't think it was a specific moment however, more of a "gradually rising tide of realizing how awesome this is" type of thing.
One of my early characters was a barbarian shaman and it was sometime when I was playing him when that tide rose up and engulfed me. All those other people running around in Halas...actual real people controlling all those characters. Going out into the newb area in everfrost when it was crowded with other new players back in those glory days. It really was fantastic. Gloriously chaotic and new and I had no idea what to expect next.
Someplayer shouts: "Vengefull skelly to guards"
Me wondering---"what the heck does that mean"
oh, here comes someone I'll ask him.....why is he running from that skeleton I've killed a bunch of them...well I guess I'll help him by attacking it.
whack..
WHACK WHACK
----Loading please wait----
Yeah, it was great back when it was all fresh and new.
I remember one time a player nearby shouted for help with a polar bear I think it was. I ran over and healed him a little then started helping him fight. Then another mob agroed and we had two things to fight. Another player jumped in then a couple more mobs. Then a couple more players came over to help. Then more mobs just kept coming. Before we could finish off the last one another would agro and it just kept going on and on like that. Those of us who could heal would do so when we had mana but it just kept going on. Finally the last mob dropped and we all just stood there for a minute by the pile of corpses feeling a little punch drunk. Like, what the heck was that...they just kept coming. Oh well, we all lived, good job guys. Yeah, thanks for the help. Then we all went our separate ways.
Much later I realized that we had been standing right on a crossroads for mob pathing. But that's ok, it still stands out in my memory as one of those great early moments.
I wish a game could make me feel that way again but I don't know it will happen. I kind of doubt it.
"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
Lag
Griefer
P2W
Bot
Lost my mind, now trying to lose yours...
In the old days nobody card about a Beta,now a days people are paying to get into them,it really says we have a new breed of careless sloppy spenders.I guess in reality it all makes sense,gaming 20+ years ago was adults only ,PC's were not cheap and internet was 28.8 k 56k k,not a hangout for kids.
Good thing there will always be some good wholehearted gaming people that want to make a good solid game and not get dragged into the business side and making a game about business and not about gaming fun.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
So, is it because the content is so easy ? Is it because it is so easy and they want to race to end game which is quicker to do solo than wait for a group or partner? Is it because many players are just unsociable outside a tight little cleek? Is it because pugs can be unreliable? Is it because when a player has done content they don't want to go over it?
Is it all of these to some degree and if so how do MMORPGs progress to make them more sociable again? Or do most people even want that anymore?
I want more sociable games and not by making raids and other content to queue up to repeat weekly or so but my problem is unreliable pugs especially those chaotic groups that wont take guidance but just do their own thing and fail?
GW2 tried to make itself more multiplayer friendly by introducing down levelling so higher level characters can run with lower levels. It up levelled in some cases like WvW and made quests repeatable, allowing other players to work in the same quest without joining as a party. In the end though it was less sociable and more just players arriving at the same location but not talking, not coordinating just doing their bit and moving on unless it was world bosses, then some times there would be idle chatter or coordination for the difficult ones. Often there would be guilds leading some high end boss fights but these were so hard to get in to.
Still I didn't find it a satisfying sociable experience after a while as I crave a party to go on a journey with as I level as well and not just for events or instances on occasion, a party that has a history that
is more than experiences in pvp or raids but in growing with one another through a campaign. Will that ever happen again really? How could it?
To me I think the problem is leveling towards an end game and make a character powerful enough to do repeatable end game content as fast and optimal as possible. It's maybe that we need to emphasise whats the most important thing in a particular MMO and focus on it then end game may just be the game.
I'm saying if its meant to be free form sandbox so that players make their own destiny, make it so characters still have equal importance all the way through the game and not just when they get powerful enough. This is so even the most powerful players will incorporate them in to their strategy and to play alongside with, instead of leaving them to level themselves on their own.
If its more a story PvE based MMO then make the story progresses a character rather than stat leveling, so a group can progress together or do bits on their own without ever out leveling their friends so they can all regroup easily to continue the story.
If it's an MMO all about building and progressing a character in the world as priority, make it so an important stat is reputation that rewards social characters most highly and makes being a lone wolf in a lethal world much more difficult, as maybe it should be.
Just ideas.
The one way an MMO can stand apart will be player created content through interaction and involvement. Story Brick kinds of evolution of game content being created and if another player is late to that creation they miss out and have to deal with it.
Build a city brick by brick once you have liberated it from the controling faction, be it any number of NPC, then defend that conquest from reprisal, either from the locals or guilds.
There are many ways to go with mmo's in the future. What holds them back is the knowledge to create the mainframe of the game. What and how it can evolve from the standard kill, level. Spend points to make your avatar better.
Remove the Level and replace the skill advancement for characters. Remove the standard mindset of today and evolve to something new. EQNext has/has dare I say the right idea. Continuous generated content decided on the player base, with a little substructure to hold it together with story that evolves as the players create the games world.
If this is all I've got to look forward to after 30 years or so gaming - then...shoot me now.
I will go against the flow and say that the first game that will reward the time investement of each individual, will hit a gold mine. Kinda disagree with the OP there are great games with many innovations thats not the issue, the issue is that some companies made a specific part of gamers to want everything with very little time. You want something so bad? You want something that others DONT have, u want something u will be proud after investing so much time to get it? Well Grind for it mt*ker grind for the mats for the rep or whatever else its needed.
Also the social aspect of the games is generally bad currently,
If I was 15 years younger I would be blown away with a game such as Archeage (just an example) sometimes we expect too much.
As far as what MMOs should do in the future: I've said it before and I'll say it again---at least for fantasy themed games, devs have been ignoring one of the fundamental elements of good fantasy. Adventure.
Game developers need to take some time to read or re-read some of the most popular fantasy novels and pay attention to what's happening in them. In the vast majority of fantasy stories what happens? Some person or persons set out on a journey through dangerous lands. Often he/she or they are joined by a few others as they go along. The story is about a small group of people trekking through the wilderness and the difficulties and close calls they have along the way.
This basic element is present in like 99% of all fantasy stories. Don't nitpick the percentage...you know what I mean. And yet, game developers totally ignore it.
Some the early games had us sitting at "camps" killing the same mobs over and over. Later games had us endlessly running trivial errands for NPCs. To date, I don't know of a single game that has been built around the idea of players setting out on long journeys filled with danger and adventure; where the journey is the point of the whole thing.
And I don't mean pre-scripted crap. I mean just a big dangerous world and reasons for people to go out on long trips where the point is basically just to survive the trip. Where the journey isn't downtime to get to the place you are going but the adventure and excitement is found in the journey.
Think about the Lord of the Rings. What was it primarily about? Frodo making his way to mordor to throw the ring into the lava. Most of the story was about the journey and all the stuff that happened along the way. Throwing the ring in at the end was just wrapping it up.
Compare that to fantasy MMOs. The early devs would have had Frodo and his group parked in moria killing a particular group of goblins over and over and over to level up and then they would have moved a little deeper into moria and killed a little tougher things over and over and over and so on.
The current crop of devs would have Frodo delivering mail in the shire and crap like that until he leveled up and moved to the next hub where he would get a whole list of more trivial chores to do and so on.
Come devs. Give us adventure. If someone could do that I think THAT would be the <next big thing> in MMO gaming.
Working on it.. Going to be awhile still.. Apocalypse ? No.. Rebirth and renewal ? That's the dream..
Sure.. These end up just being words until I can make it happen.. But no need for nihilistic cynicism toward the genre we know we love (or loved).. There is always hope as long as someone picks up the gauntlet, works to beat the odds, and tries to break free from old ideas gone stale.. Hell, I didn't go back to school for this just to fail.. Heh
..because we're gamers, damn it!! - William Massachusetts (Log Horizon)
"I don't give a sh*t what other people say. I play what I like and I'll pay to do it too!" - SerialMMOist
I find it disturbing that anyone could dare to liken BDO to Ultima Online. How exactly does it even come close to the interactivity and glory that was UO? Nothing has come close for features and meta since.