Do you think one big hit would help bring the genre back? Lets say like 70% of what WOW was which is still insanely huge. Or is it a cycle thing and need the BR games to run its course and die down. Seems there are really no AAA designing MMOs anymore or even being talked about. Also how much of an impact did the free to play MMO as a "standard" hurt it? If it did at all.
So, you've never heard of Pantheon, Chronicles of Elyria, Wildstar, Dual Universe, Crowfall, Identity, Ashes of Creation, Camelot Unchained, New World ect ect?
Wow! That is a remarkably stupid thing to write.
Chronicles of Elyria will never release, just quietly creep away. Wildstar has died Pantheon, Crowfall, and Camelot Unchained are years away. New World isn't an MMORPG Dual Universe is new to me but lets wait and see. Ashes of Creation is currently a Battle Royal game but lets wait and see what 2020 brings.
Actual AI in the mmorpg that moves in NPCs like they are alive, and have pve events that play out a lot more complex to taking over regions and changing maps etc
By making the game much more alive it makes everything have a layer of more complexity to simple things like even travelling and moving cargo.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
A new IP of an SYFY MMO would work for me. One with many Planets to visit with cities. Land and space missions. Could also have a wild zone area of planets and space for the pvp crowd. A game combo of Earth & Beyond and Anarchy Online. Many races and factions that you could join. No forced pvp. Just thinking about something like that gets me going. It would take years just to write the lore. I already have some ideas but I'm not rich.
You pretty much described Star Citizen there and yeah the lore is pretty deep already
An analogy for those who maintain the genre is doing great, and if someone can't find one they enjoy it's all on them.
I got my driver's license 46 years ago and thought it was the greatest thing ever. Freedom to go where I wished, no parental controls, never wore seat belts, had one arm around my girl sitting on a bench seat and living the dream.
I could only imagine what the future of cars and driving might hold, heck some were promising flying cars (and jetpacks) in my lifetime.
So here we are in 2019 and what did I actually get? Now I have to wear a seat belt, my wife can't sit next to me as bench seats vanished, cars now come with dashboard and other cameras.
They now are connected to the "Internet of Things" so Big Brother and others can track and watch my every movement, and one day hackers can disable my brakes for the LULZ.
Car have greatly improved in many ways, which has driven their price completely out of sight. My Dad's new 4 door mid size sedan in 1973 cost $4K, today you are hard pressed to pay less than $25K.
The improvements however have been in areas I largely didn't ask for nor care about. They still don't fly nor can I drive them at speeds any faster than I did in 1973, they mostly just cost more, and are a bitch to pay for their insurance and upkeep.
Worse, now they are working on delivering self driving automobiles. While it likely won't happen in my lifetime, the day will come when you won't be allowed to drive yourself around on most roads, that privilege will be taken from us.
Yes, there are dozens if not several hundred types and models to chose from, some quite marvelous but none with the features I used to love nor those I had hoped for which would fulfill "the Dream."
The MMORPG genre is just like this, at least from my viewpoint.
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
What the genre needs is one game everyone wants to play.... in the end themepark and open world don’t matter ifvthe game is better then anything else, all will play
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
The genre is stagnant...focused on two extremes. Either raid or die...or niche. Both really are niche platforms because despite WoW's success (and its clones...) most players have zero interest in raid or die. WoW survives because it's a well-made game that brings players back each expansion for the new content (who tend to leave once they've chewed through said content and reached a base gearing level)...not because it's a good mmo.
The only type of mmo which can be a true long-lasting hit is that which combines a large world, exploration and exploitation of said world, long term treasure hunting rather than progression-focused raiding, multiple paths to obtain the most desired items, and a number of activities that are enticing to multiple different playstyles that ultimately support each other.
In many ways SWG had it right. Of course they didn't have it right in so many other ways. But in the end it's not rocket science. SWG lost because it didn't have enough treasure hunting content. Add in more dungeons and even raids with a treasure hunting focus, and in a parallel universe....SWG is king.
You know what games keep me playing? Really most players for that matter? Longevity, and the long term build-up of itemization. Star Trek Timelines has gotten more money out of me than any mmo, and it has literally a thousandth of the content. Think about that. Really really think about that. How is it a game with so few features in comparison to a mmo can get such a bigger playerbase and make so much more money? Because these mobile games know what makes people tick. They know what drives the desire to play and the desire to invest and collect.
MMOs have lost this. They've lost their RPG roots of the base desire to build and collect. Now it's about progression, or story, or flippin' pet battles for Pete's sakes. Most players don't give a darn about this stuff. The story is a nice thing to have....but SWTOR certainly should have learned the hard way that story isn't what keeps a huge player population. Instead these bozos are still sinking 80% of their budget into story and cinematics trying to keep a minority of players...rather than making an actually awesome mmorpg in the star wars universe. The same can be said of WoW...still stuck on this raid or die and increments to a story mentality...where 90% of a huge gaming world goes unused. If that doesn't sadden you...then frankly you're part of the problem.
I'll say this much....we've seen nothing yet. MMOs are capable of sooooo much more than we've ever experienced. And some day...some dev is going to actually figure it out and it's gonna blow up our world.
Things are far too niche now for one MMORPG to bring the genre "back" to anywhere. I don't think it's ever getting back to the ridiculousness of a decade ago and i'd argue it shouldn't. The genre should stay small and niche but with better damn games.
What the genre needs is one game everyone wants to play....
Why would that be even theoretically possible though? You can't make a game that interests everyone.
I want to help design and develop a PvE-focused, solo-friendly, sandpark MMO which combines crafting, monster hunting, and story. So PM me if you are starting one.
Wow is the reason why the genre stagnated. No one would throw money to compete with that juggernaut, and the ones that did were woefully unprepared. You can check my accounts creation date to see that I'm an old school MMO gamer. What we need are passion projects, rather than one MMO to rule them all.
MMO's used to be about community. People made a living (in game) selling buffs that would MARGINALLY increase your mana regeneration in Everquest. People, guilds, became friends over the chat box in the long downtimes while raiding cities (I was in a guild that raided the giants in Velious for faction with the dwarves), not dungeons. Choices made in creation would matter for your entire character's life. I played a troll Shadow Knight follower of Cazic Thule. That decision defined my entire life in game. I could never enter "good" cities no matter what I did for faction.
The first time I played WoW and bandaged my warrior, I knew that the glue that holds communities together was gone. A few months after release, the guild started putting class restrictions on who could join based on which classes still needed to raid for their "end game" gear. It was fine initially, as I was one of the first weaponsmiths on Arthas that could craft the Arcanite Reaper, but as soon as the next expansion came along, everything I spent hours achieving, and the innerworkings of transmuters I had established business relationships with were gone after the first quest rewards gave everyone an upgrade.
That's when I finally quit WoW. I've been looking for the right niche game ever since, but nothing short of a few free to play titles here and there scratched the itch for me. I guess growing up in the 90's gave me a fondness for chatrooms and the precursor to MMO's, Mudd's. The human connection just isn't there like it once was. In everyone's attempts to clone WoW, no one thought about what made people play Everquest together for so long. It certainly wasn't the convenience of being able to solo the entire game.
WoW is the reason why this genre ever went mainstream. EQ was popular, but it was still a game for nerds and emos as far as the general public was concerned. WoW made MMORPGs mainstream. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. If other games weren't as bad as they were, post-WoW, we could easily have avoided it dominating the genre for a decade+.
Most people on this forum have played WoW at some point in time. We've all made the market what it is today, so stop blaming a game. Look in the mirror.
The problem with "niche" games is that it is hard to sustain them without quasi-abusive cash shop and P2W business models. Otherwise, your entire game can die easily when the right amount of players decide to go elsewhere.
This is why players tend to be skeptical of "niche" games. Do you really want to sink thousands of hours into a venture that risky? They may get the money they invested back, but you will never be able to get that time back.
Back to what? The genre is likely at its greatest height right now...
really? weird because I see people posting all the time looking for a good MMO to play and there are none. ESO is as close as you can get and it's very niche
ESO is like watching Paint Dry... But I find it hillarious that a few select people here keep peddling it as the best thing since WoW... Is the housing really that good? /s
An EQ clone with a graphical update isn't going to reinvigorate this genre. It's just going to siphon off what is left of EQ's user base, and maybe bring in a few thousand extras...
That's not going to do much for the industry, as a whole.
And once people actually start playing it and realizing how worthless they are without constant groupage, or how much of a time sink that type of game design inherently forces upon them... they'll start going back to their other games.
Hype is nice, but reality is a completely different beast.
If a developer can give me Atlas with more inside content and cities/towns/villages then it will be a great game.I am quite happy with Atlas but not nearly a AAA game and will never become one,i am sure of that.However there isn't a triple A mmorpg right now either and i just laid out what it has to do to become one. However,we will not be receiving one,we will be getting same old new skin in the next 100 releases of that i am certain.Instead i see more rpg elements inside of survival games and there are TONS of them in the pipeline,maybe the most flooded market out there.
Most of the time we can just say omg another same old survival game.Watched another one today "Satisfactory",again some cool ideas but mostly just a world that is also mostly empty whereby you start building a factory.These are single concept games,i need way more than that to hand out any AAA gaming awards.
I am always looking and searching,i see murmurs and inklings of potential but nothing so far will stun us with amazement.What i do feel like is we might as well stop waiting for games titled as a mmorpg to be a AAA mmorpg,i feel survival games are closer to bring us to fruition.
The poster above me talks about housing,NONE of these mmorpg's housing is going to compare to survival building where aside from AAA architecture,you can do some amazing things with building and build where you want,no need to pay Crowfall team money to buy a parcel and pay more money to buy more parcels...sigh.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
developers seem to be after the quick buck now hence all the survival and battleroyale heaps of crap coming out, so cant see a big budget decent mmo coming out any time soon. plus the last few big mmos not including eastern crossovers have had bad game play and mechanics so they flopped which makes the market look like a bad investment.
Maybe, in the sense that theoretically today’s technology could enable an MMO, or at least a persistent online game, to do things that were previously impossible (e.g. advance NPC AI, dynamic AI driven systems, massive shared worlds). However, I think the market, and the internet generally, may have moved on to the point where there is simply too much competition...
Want to play with friends? Take your pick of online games.
Want a sense of long-term progression? Take your pick of persistent games.
Want to just be social? See Facebook, Twitter, etc.
And no game can be all things to all people; some like action, some like slow and
steady, some like exploration, some just want a guided experience, some like a good story, some couldn't care less, etc.
I think Pantheon has a good shot at being popular (for a niche), as it seems to be
focusing on what MMOs are still uniquely good at; i.e. exploration of a large
and shared world in a co-dependent party RPG environment.
Ashes of Creation also has potential (though not as a BR game), if it can pull off its premise of a dynamic player driven world.
And maybe Camelot if they can get the large scale PvP thing working right.
Outside of that though I'm not holding my breath, as there doesn’t seem to be a single company with the money, interest and talent to make 'the next great MMO'… and I don’t really blame them, it’s a massive risk, so why do it when you can make billions with a much simpler game and the right monetisation model.
I was sad that New World is basically a survival game on steroids. One more MMORPG dream dies. I still may give it a try. Looking like survival may be the only hope of sandbox games.
I am guess I am right that it basically is not worth making a full fledge MMORPG. You can just take the best of individual features and into easier genres.
I was sad that New World is basically a survival game on steroids. One more MMORPG dream dies. I still may give it a try. Looking like survival may be the only hope of sandbox games.
I am guess I am right that it basically is not worth making a full fledge MMORPG. You can just take the best of individual features and into easier genres.
I don't mind survival in the beginning, but there seems to be a point during all of them where "you made it" and surviving is no longer an issue. This is when the game gets boring for me. Conan Exiles did a good job (IMO) of taking that to the next level, once you have survived, well now you can run dungeons etc.
I would really like to see this evolve into raiding and all the other MMORPG stuff minus of course the hand holding. It could be but having a server cap of like 40...I think is the biggest I saw really inhibits massive.
In my opinion, it would be cool to progress from caveman to Knight, from Survival through thriving into Raids etc. Not necessarily PvP, although that certainly adds drama to the mix.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
I was sad that New World is basically a survival game on steroids. One more MMORPG dream dies. I still may give it a try. Looking like survival may be the only hope of sandbox games.
I am guess I am right that it basically is not worth making a full fledge MMORPG. You can just take the best of individual features and into easier genres.
I don't mind survival in the beginning, but there seems to be a point during all of them where "you made it" and surviving is no longer an issue. This is when the game gets boring for me. Conan Exiles did a good job (IMO) of taking that to the next level, once you have survived, well now you can run dungeons etc.
I would really like to see this evolve into raiding and all the other MMORPG stuff minus of course the hand holding. It could be but having a server cap of like 40...I think is the biggest I saw really inhibits massive.
In my opinion, it would be cool to progress from caveman to Knight, from Survival through thriving into Raids etc. Not necessarily PvP, although that certainly adds drama to the mix.
New World is going to have sever caps of 10k. We will see how that plays out and how big the world is.
Problem with multiplayer survival game is it lack of end game reward .
When you watch survival movie or novel , it all about being alive after the survival , and that's greatest reward . When you play single player survival game , survival mean you beat the game .
But online survival game wasn't that reward , you keep playing until you get tired of it .
Multiple player Online survival need to be more hardcore with hard cash , like a game show that gather people ,
My idea of survival game is game where you place your bet and win the bet as last man standing
Comments
Chronicles of Elyria will never release, just quietly creep away.
Wildstar has died
Pantheon, Crowfall, and Camelot Unchained are years away.
New World isn't an MMORPG
Dual Universe is new to me but lets wait and see.
Ashes of Creation is currently a Battle Royal game but lets wait and see what 2020 brings.
In short hope, hype, and misinformation.
By making the game much more alive it makes everything have a layer of more complexity to simple things like even travelling and moving cargo.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
mmorpg junkie since 1999
I got my driver's license 46 years ago and thought it was the greatest thing ever. Freedom to go where I wished, no parental controls, never wore seat belts, had one arm around my girl sitting on a bench seat and living the dream.
I could only imagine what the future of cars and driving might hold, heck some were promising flying cars (and jetpacks) in my lifetime.
So here we are in 2019 and what did I actually get? Now I have to wear a seat belt, my wife can't sit next to me as bench seats vanished, cars now come with dashboard and other cameras.
They now are connected to the "Internet of Things" so Big Brother and others can track and watch my every movement, and one day hackers can disable my brakes for the LULZ.
Car have greatly improved in many ways, which has driven their price completely out of sight. My Dad's new 4 door mid size sedan in 1973 cost $4K, today you are hard pressed to pay less than $25K.
The improvements however have been in areas I largely didn't ask for nor care about. They still don't fly nor can I drive them at speeds any faster than I did in 1973, they mostly just cost more, and are a bitch to pay for their insurance and upkeep.
Worse, now they are working on delivering self driving automobiles. While it likely won't happen in my lifetime, the day will come when you won't be allowed to drive yourself around on most roads, that privilege will be taken from us.
Yes, there are dozens if not several hundred types and models to chose from, some quite marvelous but none with the features I used to love nor those I had hoped for which would fulfill "the Dream."
The MMORPG genre is just like this, at least from my viewpoint.
"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
in the end themepark and open world don’t matter
ifvthe game is better then anything else, all will play
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Most people on this forum have played WoW at some point in time. We've all made the market what it is today, so stop blaming a game. Look in the mirror.
The problem with "niche" games is that it is hard to sustain them without quasi-abusive cash shop and P2W business models. Otherwise, your entire game can die easily when the right amount of players decide to go elsewhere.
This is why players tend to be skeptical of "niche" games. Do you really want to sink thousands of hours into a venture that risky? They may get the money they invested back, but you will never be able to get that time back.
ESO is like watching Paint Dry... But I find it hillarious that a few select people here keep peddling it as the best thing since WoW... Is the housing really that good? /s
That's not going to do much for the industry, as a whole.
And once people actually start playing it and realizing how worthless they are without constant groupage, or how much of a time sink that type of game design inherently forces upon them... they'll start going back to their other games.
Hype is nice, but reality is a completely different beast.
However,we will not be receiving one,we will be getting same old new skin in the next 100 releases of that i am certain.Instead i see more rpg elements inside of survival games and there are TONS of them in the pipeline,maybe the most flooded market out there.
Most of the time we can just say omg another same old survival game.Watched another one today "Satisfactory",again some cool ideas but mostly just a world that is also mostly empty whereby you start building a factory.These are single concept games,i need way more than that to hand out any AAA gaming awards.
I am always looking and searching,i see murmurs and inklings of potential but nothing so far will stun us with amazement.What i do feel like is we might as well stop waiting for games titled as a mmorpg to be a AAA mmorpg,i feel survival games are closer to bring us to fruition.
The poster above me talks about housing,NONE of these mmorpg's housing is going to compare to survival building where aside from AAA architecture,you can do some amazing things with building and build where you want,no need to pay Crowfall team money to buy a parcel and pay more money to buy more parcels...sigh.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
And no game can be all things to all people; some like action, some like slow and steady, some like exploration, some just want a guided experience, some like a good story, some couldn't care less, etc.
I think Pantheon has a good shot at being popular (for a niche), as it seems to be focusing on what MMOs are still uniquely good at; i.e. exploration of a large and shared world in a co-dependent party RPG environment.
Ashes of Creation also has potential (though not as a BR game), if it can pull off its premise of a dynamic player driven world.
And maybe Camelot if they can get the large scale PvP thing working right.
Outside of that though I'm not holding my breath, as there doesn’t seem to be a single company with the money, interest and talent to make 'the next great MMO'… and I don’t really blame them, it’s a massive risk, so why do it when you can make billions with a much simpler game and the right monetisation model.
I am guess I am right that it basically is not worth making a full fledge MMORPG. You can just take the best of individual features and into easier genres.
A single game that is monstrously popular with a sprinkle of moderately popular games. A bunch in development all wanting to be the next big one.
sound familiar?
The MMORPG genre has had its day. Could one MMORPG come out in future that could be a big hit with ten + millions of players?
Absolutely
I don't believe the genre itself was that big of a hit in the first place.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
I would really like to see this evolve into raiding and all the other MMORPG stuff minus of course the hand holding. It could be but having a server cap of like 40...I think is the biggest I saw really inhibits massive.
In my opinion, it would be cool to progress from caveman to Knight, from Survival through thriving into Raids etc. Not necessarily PvP, although that certainly adds drama to the mix.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.