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How long do you expect a mmorpg to last?
Amathe
Member LegendaryPosts: 7,630
Some last 15-20 years. Some stumble at the starting line.
When you start playing a mmorpg, how long do you expect it to last?
Personally, I hope for at least 5 years.
Obviously financial performance, competition, and many similar factors affect how long the game is viable.
I'm just gauging expectations.
When you start playing a mmorpg, how long do you expect it to last?
Personally, I hope for at least 5 years.
Obviously financial performance, competition, and many similar factors affect how long the game is viable.
I'm just gauging expectations.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
MMORPG Longevity
- How long do you expect a mmorpg to last?27 votes
- 20 years22.22%
- 15 years0.00%
- 10 years18.52%
- 5 years33.33%
- 1 year7.41%
- 6 months3.70%
- Other14.81%
Comments
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Milking: a few years.
Can hold me: a few months
Honestly one of the best MMOs I've ever experienced fell apart after the highly touted Alpha, so I don't know any better.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
For that to change the law must also, and that would conflict with the interests of IP holders, some of which having enough resources to perhaps stymie such efforts.
The lessening of IP rights could also backfire, as the desire to produce it could decline as well. Why spend time and money creating that no longer well protected.
So I would hope any MMO I played lasted at least five years in case I really liked it, but in todays market who knows?
In regards to the Poll, and topic, I think that I don't really have an expectation for how long a game should last. I think that if it's winding down and they know it is going to shut down, they should find a way to make the code public or offer ways for potential server hosters to host the server and any profits generated give the company money (someone suggested this in another thread before and I think it's a good idea even if private servers don't tend to force charges). I know it would be a licensing nightmare, but the idea that a game just goes away without any options for people to try to bring it back, is crazy. Especially one that is online only.
"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
Aloha Mr Hand !
Even EQ1 has changed immensely in it's 22 year life. East and West Commonlands are now merged into "The Commonlands" with new a new graphic style. Players can hire mercenaries to help them out. Class abilities change and get adjusted.
I'd like to see an MMORPG last decades, but I certainly don't expect them to. At some point, they change enough that I will lose interest and seek other entertainment
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
When I play an MMO, I will play till it is no longer fun for me. Sometimes that is not very long. But other times I will find an MMO that is really gripping and a lot of fun to play, and I will keep playing this MMO, for as long as it is fun and I feel like I can make progress. Once they put in a means that stonewalls my progress or I feel I have hit a point where I simply cannot progress, I will quit and move on, as the game at that point is dead-ended for me, and there is no reason to keep playing.
Now, some games, shoot themselves in the foot, they have a great start, and then change the game with expansions or additions to the point that they simply break it, or remove themselves too far from what made the game initially fun.
However, an good MMO, really does not have a death date, case in point, EQ, Just hit 20 years old and still pumping out expansions and going on, where other games have gone into maintenance mode in a year or two and while not shut down, they are just dead in the water, floating along, and yet others games have been directly shut down in very short order.
However, I think that a company that makes an MMO. should have at least, a 3 expansion vision. Now, this is not time based, this is game growth based. A MMO company should have an idea of what they plan to do for their next 3 expansions before their base has a chance to chime in with what they want.
This gives them a long term goal to work from and allows them to align their goals and what they thought the game should progress into, with what their player base seems to like and enjoy.
With that said, Honestly, if they do not have a 10 year plan with something like an MMO, they are simply setting themselves up to flopping in the wind in 10 years, and this often shows quickly with MMO's that after a few years, or maybe an expansion or two, it was painfully evident they had no long term plan and were just flying by the seat of their pants, it becomes even more obvious if they had a strong start, because they lasted far longer than they had plans for, and it shows.