Do you think we will ever see another MMO renaissance? If so what could bring it about?

sludgebeard · October 2016

So I consider the first MMO renaissance to be somewhere around 99'- 05' with Everquest signaling the beginning and WoW post BC signaling the end.

(If anyone ha she a dispute with this or has a more well explained time frame I will update)

I think what everquest did was form a classic model for MMO's which could be elaborated on but also used as a guide for how to foster a monetarily successful model.

WoW took this template and perfected it, turned MMO's into a money making monstrosity and swiftly ended the innovation fostered by game that came out in between that really pushed boundries for a very safe and super valuable model.

Since then things have been moving away from an artistic or creative model and moved towards safe and monetarily successful (guaranteed money for the company).

So what do we need, to see MMO's that aren't made as cash cows of well established franchises but actually fresh new ideas?

Is there a possibIlity we won't ever see a rush of creatives MMO's again?

Is EA the answer? Kickstarter?

(Also just to be clear - I don't think every MMO since 2006 has been unoriginal or not uncreative. Just that the model or formula for MMOs only seem a to take slight variation rather then risk)

Wizardry · October 2016

Well one thing i do is really pay attention to the entire scene,business of gaming and i really don't like what i see.

Marketing has always been big but even bigger now.This means ,rather than let games sell themselves on quality,they try to pay websites and game streamers to lie or mislead you into buying their games.

What is winning over right now has nothing to do with gaming but more so about business.That business is based on awards,rankings,ladders,money tournaments but mostly based on a handful of sponsored gamer's with VERY large following that seem to influence the whole market.

Look no further than the recent endorsement/advert of Amazon games on this very site.Those games are at best a 5/10,imo not worth the time of day,but they are built and aim at Amazon's Twitch streamers.LOL/Dota based on easy access+rankings,money etc etc.

So if we want a resurgence of QUALITY mmorpg's it will simply take a rich person with solid investors that has great ideas.However right now everything is aiming at INSTANT profits,early access,kickstarters.So how do we honestly CHANG the market if we have so many people ruining the market by supporting rubbish?
it is going to be VERY hard to change.Just look at Smedley,he wasted no time at all in starting up some 1980's crap and began spending backers money on advertising and spending VERY little time to make the game.What used to be 5-7 years has now become 0 days to maybe 1 year before devs are releasing their unfinished products,the system and law are failing us big time allowing this kind of injustice in gaming business.

I guess simple answer is ,it will take an HONEST...RICH ..Intelligent person to FORCE others to change.

BlurBleh · October 2016

Hmm when Blizzard makes another MMO...

Yeah I'm still not over the fact that Titan was cancelled and OW came out of it instead >.>

rdager · October 2016

Vardahoth said:

I don't think we will, todays gamers could never handle the mmorpg's in 99 - 05. In fact, todays gamers can't even really handle an mmorpg at all. Nobody appreciates putting time and effort into a game. It's well explained here:

In other words, those games provided years of straight gameplay. Games released now and in the long foreseen future will only provide a few weeks (at best) and anything more is unacceptable.

The gaming industry has changed as well. They dont make game like they used to. Yes the graphics are far better, but its all a cash grab now. With Item shops, and Early access etc. They get into the game and make as much cash as quickly as possible. They then dump the game and go to the next one. Games like EQ1 and Wow have been going on for nearly 20 years. You think todays MMORPGs will be around in 20 years ? They probably wont be around for 20 months. Plus as Vardahoth said todays generation has the attention span of a gnat. Plus gaming companies shut down the servers as soon as the population goes down. I do greatly wish for one more great MMORPG. EQ in the early days was truely something. We didnt even have a compass. I made my way by looking at which way the clouds were drifting, because they always moved in the same direction. I used a paper map that came with the game. THAT was a Roleplaying Game !

Shibari · October 2016

I believe we will see an emergence of new fantasy MMO's.

The garbage that is being put out now is just that - garbage. I'm not going to play a game made in a foreign country, either - sorry - I support those who live around me and I've tried those "other" games. They are just more crap: Free to play, Pay to Win, Item Stores....

The only truly successful games are those that are subscription based and reward you based on the time you spend in the game and your skills, not how much money you spend.

I dislike first person shooters. If I want to plink away at targets, I'll go to the shooting range. Those are horrible, too. Not everyone likes PVP, in fact, most people do not. Balance between PVE and PVP is very important. I've seen some promising games only to read that they are open-world free-for-all PVP. Nope. Not playing it.

If someone would/could make a WoW/EQ PC game again, it would be a *huge* hit and probably take us through the next 10 years of gaming. WoW is pretty much done.

I have hope that some company will listen for a change and delve into the real money makers instead of the quick, grab-the-cash-and-run stuff we're seeing now.

Octagon7711 · October 2016

I believe a lot of what's happening is spill over from the business industry as a whole. Making less employees do more. Cutting corners to increase profits. Using marketing experts to increase profits and hype.

As to a renaissance you would need a developer to come along with a vision for the future like a Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or a George Lucas, imo.

rdager · October 2016

Octagon7711 said:

I believe a lot of what's happening is spill over from the business industry as a whole. Making less employees do more. Cutting corners to increase profits. Using marketing experts to increase profits and hype.

As to a renaissance you would need a developer to come along with a vision for the future like a Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or a George Lucas, imo.

No I dont think so. I fully admit I am an old gamer. I was playing Multiplayer Doom across a dial-up connection. I was a kid then. The kids these days dont want to have to work for anything. They will get their parents to pay for everything and unfortunatly, as sad as it is that is, those are the ones gaming companies aim for. Really I can understand. They can get their parents to pay for whatever they want. Pay $60 a month or a week and it keeps their kid entertained for a while and out of their hair. Its the new babysitter. Maybe VR will have decent games, but it will be a long time before that hardware is reasonable, besides strapping a cellphone to your face and calling it VR.

Phaserlight · October 2016

That cell phone to your face is actually pretty good. Tried it recently?

I think that if MMOs are to see a second renaissance it will be in the form of virtual reality.

laxie · October 2016

The game would have to be unique.

Players have way too many MMOs to choose from. Any new one has to directly compete with rest. Even if a someone released a top quality MMO, it would likely struggle to replicate the glory days of WoW.

Perhaps if VR grows, there is theoretically potential for a new "behemoth". You'd need huge VR growth for that though, orders of magnitude greater than today.

Crowdfunding will likely see changes over the next few years. The more projects fail, the more cautious people will be. Either the terms will shift in favour of the buyer, or we could see some hybrid models that use publishers. That could lead to games made by experienced studios, but with new topics previously viewed too risky.

Unity is seeing a lot of growth. We now also see affordable server structure in the cloud. This means lower barrier to entry - very likely we will see large scale indie MMOs in the future. Those could be less profit driven (at least theoretically). The question is whether they will be of quality at all.

Theocritus · October 2016

I look at it more like 99-05 were the golden years and everything after has been in decline

Dead_Guy · October 2016

Different generations, different economy, different industry... Games are no longer developed by artists and philosophers, they're manufactured by suits and man-children. The economy is crap, and funding is difficult to come by. The market is saturated with games that label themselves as "MMORPGs", but they're just single-player online action-fantasy freemium garbage, designed to drain the wallets of parents everywhere.

The only way an MMO could possibly defy the current socioeconomic nightmare is if some brilliant people privately funded one, and didn't care if they made a profit or not.

Cleffy · October 2016

We will only see a real renaissance in MMOs when game engines get to a point where making an MMO is easy. Right now with it's multi-million price tag, secure systems, and additional support; it's out of the realm for most smaller game developers. As a result the only developers that have a chance at capturing a market segment are those who have already previously had luck in MMOs. For western publishers, there will be nothing new as a result as they don't try anything new. Eastern publishers will continue bringing out the more exciting mmo titles for the foreseeable future.

Vermillion_Raventhal · October 2016

I assume the next break through will be a sandbox that has real community tools and themeparks elements that the developer will use to feed radiant quest and gameplay.

For example a floating castle and suddenly undead related quest began to appear. The season becomes winter. Players have to research in game to figure out how to get inside castle. The players who enter are deformed and cast out. They began a plague that weakens other players and start quest about the plague. Quest and lore is required to heal the population. And then on to the next step.

This would require a good quest generating system that can make quest based on parameters.

Aquenifira · October 2016

Perhaps it requires fans to push and create a game themselves, or at least partway until a publisher such as EA would notice them, to kick start the interest in MMOs again. All it takes is one superb game to start a trend, and no one knows what players want most than players themselves. Maybe a massive crowd project is the only way to get a true MMO again.

cameltosis · October 2016

I've recently turned optimistic about the future of MMOs, despite not having played any for any length of time for the last 4 years. SW:TOR broke my mmo back - just a truly shit game - and so I took a break until a game came out that was worthy of my time. None so far have got there, but recent developments have made me more hopeful.

My timeline

1999 - 2005: The Age of Experimentation
The birth of MMOs resulted in a lot of experimentation. Developers were entering a brave new world and didn't have a clue what would work and what didn't. We saw vastly different games coming out trying different ways to keep people interested. Some things worked, some didn't. The age of experimentation produced the first mass-market MMO - WoW.

2005 - 2014: The Age of Refinement (aka the WoW clone years)
This time period saw developers refining the model set by WoW. We saw many clones, but each tried to refine the formula, adding small features, improving others etc. We saw some great themeparks during this time period, but very little of anything else. By the end, the MMO market had grown massively but minimal improvement in gameplay and much lower retention rates.

2014 - ??: The Second Age of Experimentation
I believe we're now in a second age of experimentation. Themeparks are somewhat burnt out so we've started seeing more divergence from the formula. We're getting more PvP orientated games, some more sandboxy games, some classless / skillless etc.

???: Golden Age
I believe we will get a true golden age of MMOs in the not-to-distant future. WoW gave us the template for PvE-focused themeparks, but we don't have established templates for sandboxes, sandparks or anything pvp focused. I'm hoping we'll get 1 or 2 more templates for what works.

I believe at the moment we have 3 hopeful avenues for finding new, working templates for other forms of MMO. They are:

1) Indie Developers
There are a ton of indie devs making niche MMOs. Whilst I don't think any of them will be hugely successful (or even launch) I do believe we'll see some new, interesting forms of gameplay that the community loves. This could be individual features, like Eternal Kingdoms from Crowfall, aging / death from CoE, RvRvR from CU or something else.

I think these successful features will then inspire the larger devs to rethink their strategies for future games, resulting in some of these features receiving AAA budgets and implementation and, hopefully, large audiences.

2) Console Developers
This tends to get overlooked a lot, but console devs have a ton of money and a massive audience that is getting more comfortable with always-online games. Destiny and The Division, whilst not MMOs, are taking steps in that direction. ESO has been very successful on console.

With ever-improving hardware, internet connections and established IPs, I feel that console developers may well be unexpected future of MMOs. Something like Assassins Creed Online, Gears of War Online or similar would be massively popular and would perfectly suit a sandpark approach - good mixture of sandbox features like pvp, crafting and housing, combined with themepark features like dungeons and raids.

3) Amazon
Amazon announced last week that they are developing a sandbox MMO set in 17th century America where the supernatural is real. This is huge news! First, this will be the first western sandbox with a AAA budget ever. That alone breeds optimism. Secondly, the setting is vastly different to all other MMOs out there. Third, the twitch integration could result in self-perpetuating success - if it launches successfully and gathers some good twitch streamers, this helps attract future customers and keeps the game going long term. Whilst I'm not a fan of twitch or 17th century america, this game is so unique yet well funded that it has a real chance for success. If it does succeed, then no doubt we'll see a return of other big devs to the genre.

Vermillion_Raventhal · October 2016

I think the largest part of the player base for MMORPG maybe holding the genre back as well. I think far too many people playing the genre really want something that's not a MMORPG.

Slapshot1188 · October 2016

MMOVRG to become the hot thing in 2019/2020

cameltosis · October 2016

Slapshot1188 said:

MMOVRG to become the hot thing in 2019/2020

Despite the amount of investment in VR, it has yet to be shown as anything other than a gimmick so I can't see it having any meaningful effect on the MMO genre, certainly not for at least 10 years.

papabear151 · October 2016

Vermillion_Raventhal said:

I think the largest part of the player base for MMORPG maybe holding the genre back as well. I think far too many people playing the genre really want something that's not a MMORPG.

This is basically what I was going to say. Once MMORPG devs give up on trying to make wow money and start taking advantage of modern tech, then I think youll see a revival.

Kyleran · October 2016

Slapshot1188 said:

MMOVRG to become the hot thing in 2019/2020

For the same reason 3D didn't take off, its the glasses......

xyzercrime · October 2016

Kyleran said:

Slapshot1188 said:

MMOVRG to become the hot thing in 2019/2020

For the same reason 3D didn't take off, its the glasses......

Don't forget the prices for additional devices too..

Phaserlight · October 2016

Kyleran said:

Slapshot1188 said:

MMOVRG to become the hot thing in 2019/2020

For the same reason 3D didn't take off, its the glasses......

I actually kind of enjoy the kinesthetic activity of snapping the phone into the headset, pulling the strap over my head, taking a moment to let my eyes adjust to my new vision.

Theocritus · October 2016

I picture VR turning out something like the Wii...A great initial push then people get bored with it quickly

CrazKanuk · October 2016

Phaserlight said:

Kyleran said:

Slapshot1188 said:

MMOVRG to become the hot thing in 2019/2020

For the same reason 3D didn't take off, its the glasses......

I actually kind of enjoy the kinesthetic activity of snapping the phone into the headset, pulling the strap over my head, taking a moment to let my eyes adjust to my new vision.

It's not so much the activity of getting into VR, it's the nausea associated with your post-VR experience that needs to be fixed. I think this is still a big thing. I've played EVE using Oculus a few times and it's a great experience, until you come back to reality. VR still isn't "there". So hopefully it'll be good by that 2020 date, or it could be like 3D for sure. Same goes for AR. Hololens is fun for about 15 minutes and then becomes very annoying. To make it something useful, there are plenty of improvements that need to be made. Maybe 2020 is a good date though.

Shaigh · October 2016

The odds for an mmo renaissance is as good as star citizen delivering all that they promised.

Talonsin · October 2016

I dont see a renaissance coming for MMO's anytime soon. There are many reasons, the market is saturated with many being free, they cost so much more to make that only the biggest companies can do the networking portion correctly and they have to cater to so many different and unique play styles in todays gaming world compared to 15 years ago. When UO and EQ first came out, we are all estatic with the content because we had never seen that before in a multiplayer world. Todays MMO's bring nothing that we have not already seen in 2 or more other games.

Where I do see a renaissance coming is in indie, single player games like Undertale and Stardew Valley. As game engines get easier to use, more creative people will start making great indie games that have good stories and fresh gameplay. Both games sold over a million units on steam in their first few months and both were started by a single individual, much like Minecraft was some years ago.

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Do you think we will ever see another MMO renaissance? If so what could bring it about?

Comments

"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

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV