I'll probably play Wildstar a bit, especially if it releases before the WOW Xpac. However, once Warlords of Draenor is out, I think you are going to see Wildstar bleed a lot of subs since it's pretty much the same game as WOW, just without Blizzard's proven ability to pump out major content every 3-4 months.
But the games I'm really looking forward to in the future are the sandbox open-world PVP games - Repopulation, Gloria Victis, Pathfinder, Trials of Ascension, even Camelot Unchained (the last isn't really a sandbox but at least it's got the PVP). I figure at least one of them will be my home, though I might have to wait a couple of years for release
Generally the longivety of MMOs will shrink every year. Not because the games are getting worse but because the "casual" players, who provide the core customers mostly want to "beat" the game as fast as possible and move on. If the game provides a too big challenge they simply abandon it within days which is the worst option for the publishers so the games tend to get more "accessible" with each patch.
The only MMO that could break the vicious circle is Elder Scrolls Online because of all fantasy franchises it has the largest fanbase and active community in both the English and German spoken countries.
But I would not even bet on this one to be longer around than a couple of years....
You sure? It's always been the casual gamer that plays and takes his time in the game. The hardcore player seems to want to rush and "win/beat" the game.
With casual players I mean those who either don't have enough time or interest to actually invest in an MMO.
The dedicated players (or hardcore if you want) who mostly guilded usually came straigth from the P&P fraction, they where roleplayers used to play RPGs in groups and ready to invest time in non-leveling activities too.
Those who get off on reaching max level in 6 days are neither hardcore not casual imo, they are their own breed.
I may surprise some folks with my vote of "No, Not expecting it, and it's OK."
No point getting mad or upset. I have accepted the money is with the shallower games churned out these days.
Will they last? For some, most certainly. For others not likely, but many of those players do not care about lasting. They will just jump to the next game. Some players have been happily playing SW:TOR since beta. Same with almost every new game still running. There will be players that find their home and are happy. It may be a relatively small group in each game, but they are there
- 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
Depends on what you mean by "last". Because technically SWTOR is "lasting" with 500k players, even though it is (by broad consensus) considered a massive failure relative to what it was "supposed" to be.
I think it would be better to ask whether or not these games will be let-downs relative to what is expected of them by the community. In which case I would say yes: all of these games will most likely be let-downs with the exception of Landmark.
There is potential for Landmark to go big because it is the first AAA title to allow MMO customization from the ground up - but I see Everquest Next going straight to the garbage bin unless they stop catering to people who don't have the brain capacity to put on their own pants in the morning without assistance.
Start treating the community like adults and the community of adults will start playing your game. The list of MMO's you mentioned are still stuck in the "everyone is a 5 year old child, so let's treat them like it" phase.
for what comes final fantasy hype or so called. in my opinion it was great on 7 and 8 on playstation at times but never placed any hope on mmo versions.
As I get older I'm slowly becoming a far more casual gamer so I actually see longevity in at least a couple of the titles, even getting myself a ps4 for ESO because I've finally got to the point that I can't be bothered to keep upgrading my pc for all the bad mmos. So for me I'm sure the next batch of mmos will be fine but for the hardcore gamers I'm not so sure, they will still burn through content and moan there's nothing to do.
With the anticipated newer mmos around the corner, and as fun as they seem, are you really expecting Deep, Rich, Long lasting enjoyment. An mmo as you perceive it ......I'm asking you to put aside features, and asking you if you expect to call one home for a long time.......Yes, my question is Longevety...Are you finally expecting it ?
Examples :
-Wildstar
-Elder Scrolls Online
-EverQuest Next,
-any other near future mmo.
My Opinion :
I for some reason was expecting FF14 to be that game, I don't know why. Maybe because it was Square Enix and they have a solid history. I went into the game with my Built-in-forgetter that it was a rush job to fix a broken release.....I seem to romance only to be disappointed over and over.
Yes, aside from the massive failure with their previous attempt to bring Final Fantasy to the MMO scene. And their over priced FF originals on the app store, Final Fantasy Heroes, the terrible port PC of Dark Souls and most of their other games were total flops or made by different developers.
Don't get me wrong, I think that Square Enix is great and I usually trust that their High Profile games are going to be good. But I haven't had a single gaming experience with them without some massive oversight since their early Final Fantasy years. Albeit, FF14 was probably a pretty good entry to the MMO scene but they have to tries to even get it remotely right. And from what I played in the beta, the first twenty minutes were courier quests supposed to be a tutorial that figuratively bored the crap out of me.
Still, I their games are usually a good bet, but I was still bummed out after having to purchase a 360 controller to be able to play one of my PC games.
Final Fantasy 11 was a failure? Because I remember that game got up to 2 million subs and held a steady 500k subs majority of its life. And how is it a failure to square if square claims its the final fantasy title that made them the most money? And after how many years its still a subscription mmo?
My guild is looking forward to Wildstar and Star Citizen at the moment. I have no real interest in SC so I'll join them in Wildstar I think since, like someone else here posted, it's an evolution of time-tested game designs and should be an easy transition for any MMO gamer. I played WoW at the start and through WotLK and mainly left due to my 3v3 team losing members and my own distaste of Blizzards' coddling to the super casual crowd in dumbing down their PvE across the board. Wildstar seems to fit the bill for hard-core PvE and some really well designed PvP.
I think upcoming MMOs can absolutely last, it's all up to the players to come into a game with realistic expectations and developers to follow through with their own.
Pathfinder online plans to be a huge sandbox and it has the back up of thousands of pen and paper RPG players who enjoy the tabletop version of the game. I think this one will last .
I think you touch on what makes a game last but don't think the TT player conversion will be that high ... At least to begin with for a few years until PFO works out to be successful over a certain scale.
I think what the OP is referring to is the reality now that mmorpgs are made for a higher turn-over of concurrent players and even for each individual player to play each mmorpg for shorter period of time before the next new release.
Which complicates what the genre was built to be about? At least I don't intend to play mmorpgs as single player 20-40 hrs of gameplay games then drop it. Though that is a tall order for any developer to design for commercially on such a scale.
I think indie mmorpgs of smaller player bases have more chance of this. And that seems to be SC and SotA direction as well.
EQ if it works for modders ala minecraft could work out, too. Can't say the same for many other mmorpgs though.
"Honestly... Are you expecting the upcoming larger MMOs to last?"
No. I hope they do, I even hope EQN /EQN:L does even though I have no desire to play them. I hope they all (the new ones) last a long time, for the benefit of the Players, for the benefit of the Devs busting their humps making them, and EVEN for the Suits and Investors... even though I would like to personally drop kick them all to Mars...
I do hope for all the new MMOs to do well and last a long time.
But they won't. Nothing lasts for a long time anymore, especially MMOs. Nothing in modern Society is designed to last a long time anymore.
I'm pretty spot on with my predictions of late so this is what I see happening for the near future.
Of the coming MMOs between ESO, Wildstar and (to currently) FF14. They are all going to be 'vacation spots' These mmos are not designed in the slightest for long term play for large amounts of people. (Note, I consider long term play to be a year of continuous subscription or play for F2P games.)
ESO seems like a poorly thought out concept that is going to be executed well (if that makes sense) I expect it will be polished and new enough to get a following to play through it and will have a dedicated core that will have a great time playing the game. Where it see ESO falling down is it's PvP being limited to a single zone, the game itself appearing to be small, and the lack of what I like to call 'the will to play'. I think the content locusts will blow through this game and have a ton of fun, don't get me wrong. Where it will fall is that there will not be enough end-game content. I've seen no word on how crafting or housing will be implemented the game, I don't seen any hints that there will be territory control within Cyrodil (I could be wrong) or any of those small things that will want to keep a person playing every day. Rather than just logging in for some PvP or a raid.
In Wildstar's case it has two major hurdle I feel that it needs to overcome, and that is the actiony combat style of GW2 and the 'silly cartoony graphics'. My worry is that it is going to devolve into a similar feeling of GW2 and there is going to be zero attachment to your character, the story and anything else. I see many positive things with Wildstar, but there are still far too many things missing or up in the air. If Wildstar can tap into the old feel of vanilla wow providing extremely competitive PvP and PvE while also tapping into a more creative and 'sandboxy' providing important crafting/housing elements along with strong guild ownership via the settler path. It can very well be promoted into 'home' status. Just pray that they don't follow blizzard's example and take forever to release content. This game can also be successful if they implement a multi-class feature that doesn't require you to make multiple alts (alts are death) or an AA feature to EQ that rewards high level play.
With FF14 being out right now I feel like I don't have to comment much on this. They need more endgame content and fast else this game is in even more trouble with all the impatient people waiting for something.
Everquest Next can be our next 'savior' since it's so early in development so we can influence many of it's changes. It has some things that I feel it needs to be better at, such as losing or improving on the silly 'diablo 3/GW2' thing it has going on with regards to movement and overly actiony combat. Moving to a freeform combat style is great, and will help the industry break from the single target mode. However based on what I've seen I'm having some difficulty in being super happy of the combat style. I also feel that in order to be successful it needs to have extremely high guild inclusion with regard to actually running the game. Guilds need to be responsible for running cities and making decisions, not just running through the hoops that the developers put in their path.
Everquest Next can be our next 'savior' since it's so early in development so we can influence many of it's changes.
Oh, I certainly hope that's not true. The general public, in my opinion, has no business contributing to game design because once you give them what they want, they say, "well, I thought it was what I wanted".
There are reasons most great artists haven't had a committee chirping in their ears when they manifested their creations.
I think the industry has learned a lot from games like SWTOR, GW2 and FFXIV. How not to launch your game basically.
SWTOR had good content but a crappy engine, GW2 had a good engine but pretty crappy content. FFXIV has an OK engine with decent content but the one thing all these games have in common? They all slow it down to 5 MP/H after launch. Patches are nonexistent and new content takes forever.
When WoW launched, the REAL development began. It was a flurry of patches, dungeons, changes, raids and has continued like that since. Granted they've slowed more in their later years but it's one of the big parts of Blizzard's success.
I feel the industry has learned you need the following:
- A solid, modern engine
- A great world to explore
- Enough content to sustain the average user (note: not the hardcore user)
- Well designed and honed systems, not last minute afterthoughts which you rush out the door.
- Regular content patches.
So with any luck the companies behind the next wave of MMOs will have identified ALL the above and not just some of the above and give us the titles we've been hoping for.
I think the new MMOs will go down a path like SWTOR, maybe RIFT if they launch well. Either way, I would consider both of those titles successful, and if Wildstar (the game I'm interested in) can manage at least that much success I'll be happy. I don't need my game to be the #1 MMO in order to play it; as long as it has content updates and a healthy playerbase I don't care.
I think the industry has learned a lot from games like SWTOR, GW2 and FFXIV. How not to launch your game basically.
Eh, I don't think so. The problem isn't the launch of these games. People are amazingly resilient when it comes to playing something they enjoy regardless of downtime and minor technical difficulty.
The problem is that these games are targeting the wrong audience. The publishers still think that it's mostly children who play MMO's. They are wanting a piece of that market, without realizing that the kids of the 90's are now adults. They are making games for little kids with absolutely no challenge, puzzles or compelling content. No social interaction (kids don't really socialize the way adults do), no long-term potential (kids don't have high attention-spans) and no immersion. Basically just solo/single-player games with a few other live-players running around in them for background noise. Just enough to qualify as an MMO and justify a cash-shop or a subscription. Just enough.
Until they start catering to adults and choose immersion, challenge, long-term potential, adult-IQ gameplay, social interaction, compelling content etc etc they aren't going to do well. Star Citizen is a prime example of what people are now looking for in an MMO - so much so that over 300,000 people donated money prior to release. If there were an MMORPG that espoused the same general themes of Star Citizen in a Fantasy RPG environment, I think it would do even better in regards to reception. People are tried of being treated like preteens. That's what it comes down to.
teso, no. just another single player IP crammed into mmo space.
eqn .. really not sure. dont think ive seen enough to tell yet.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity. I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
Comments
I'll probably play Wildstar a bit, especially if it releases before the WOW Xpac. However, once Warlords of Draenor is out, I think you are going to see Wildstar bleed a lot of subs since it's pretty much the same game as WOW, just without Blizzard's proven ability to pump out major content every 3-4 months.
But the games I'm really looking forward to in the future are the sandbox open-world PVP games - Repopulation, Gloria Victis, Pathfinder, Trials of Ascension, even Camelot Unchained (the last isn't really a sandbox but at least it's got the PVP). I figure at least one of them will be my home, though I might have to wait a couple of years for release
With casual players I mean those who either don't have enough time or interest to actually invest in an MMO.
The dedicated players (or hardcore if you want) who mostly guilded usually came straigth from the P&P fraction, they where roleplayers used to play RPGs in groups and ready to invest time in non-leveling activities too.
Those who get off on reaching max level in 6 days are neither hardcore not casual imo, they are their own breed.
I may surprise some folks with my vote of "No, Not expecting it, and it's OK."
No point getting mad or upset. I have accepted the money is with the shallower games churned out these days.
Will they last? For some, most certainly. For others not likely, but many of those players do not care about lasting. They will just jump to the next game. Some players have been happily playing SW:TOR since beta. Same with almost every new game still running. There will be players that find their home and are happy. It may be a relatively small group in each game, but they are there
- 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
So does that mean those people were right, since it has lost about half of its subs since it's peak?
I wasn't one of them (I don't play it, but wasn't calling for it).
Depends on what you mean by "last". Because technically SWTOR is "lasting" with 500k players, even though it is (by broad consensus) considered a massive failure relative to what it was "supposed" to be.
I think it would be better to ask whether or not these games will be let-downs relative to what is expected of them by the community. In which case I would say yes: all of these games will most likely be let-downs with the exception of Landmark.
There is potential for Landmark to go big because it is the first AAA title to allow MMO customization from the ground up - but I see Everquest Next going straight to the garbage bin unless they stop catering to people who don't have the brain capacity to put on their own pants in the morning without assistance.
Start treating the community like adults and the community of adults will start playing your game. The list of MMO's you mentioned are still stuck in the "everyone is a 5 year old child, so let's treat them like it" phase.
Final Fantasy 11 was a failure? Because I remember that game got up to 2 million subs and held a steady 500k subs majority of its life. And how is it a failure to square if square claims its the final fantasy title that made them the most money? And after how many years its still a subscription mmo?
My guild is looking forward to Wildstar and Star Citizen at the moment. I have no real interest in SC so I'll join them in Wildstar I think since, like someone else here posted, it's an evolution of time-tested game designs and should be an easy transition for any MMO gamer. I played WoW at the start and through WotLK and mainly left due to my 3v3 team losing members and my own distaste of Blizzards' coddling to the super casual crowd in dumbing down their PvE across the board. Wildstar seems to fit the bill for hard-core PvE and some really well designed PvP.
I think upcoming MMOs can absolutely last, it's all up to the players to come into a game with realistic expectations and developers to follow through with their own.
I think what the OP is referring to is the reality now that mmorpgs are made for a higher turn-over of concurrent players and even for each individual player to play each mmorpg for shorter period of time before the next new release.
Which complicates what the genre was built to be about? At least I don't intend to play mmorpgs as single player 20-40 hrs of gameplay games then drop it. Though that is a tall order for any developer to design for commercially on such a scale.
I think indie mmorpgs of smaller player bases have more chance of this. And that seems to be SC and SotA direction as well.
EQ if it works for modders ala minecraft could work out, too. Can't say the same for many other mmorpgs though.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
"Honestly... Are you expecting the upcoming larger MMOs to last?"
No. I hope they do, I even hope EQN /EQN:L does even though I have no desire to play them. I hope they all (the new ones) last a long time, for the benefit of the Players, for the benefit of the Devs busting their humps making them, and EVEN for the Suits and Investors... even though I would like to personally drop kick them all to Mars...
I do hope for all the new MMOs to do well and last a long time.
But they won't. Nothing lasts for a long time anymore, especially MMOs. Nothing in modern Society is designed to last a long time anymore.
I'm pretty spot on with my predictions of late so this is what I see happening for the near future.
Of the coming MMOs between ESO, Wildstar and (to currently) FF14. They are all going to be 'vacation spots' These mmos are not designed in the slightest for long term play for large amounts of people. (Note, I consider long term play to be a year of continuous subscription or play for F2P games.)
ESO seems like a poorly thought out concept that is going to be executed well (if that makes sense) I expect it will be polished and new enough to get a following to play through it and will have a dedicated core that will have a great time playing the game. Where it see ESO falling down is it's PvP being limited to a single zone, the game itself appearing to be small, and the lack of what I like to call 'the will to play'. I think the content locusts will blow through this game and have a ton of fun, don't get me wrong. Where it will fall is that there will not be enough end-game content. I've seen no word on how crafting or housing will be implemented the game, I don't seen any hints that there will be territory control within Cyrodil (I could be wrong) or any of those small things that will want to keep a person playing every day. Rather than just logging in for some PvP or a raid.
In Wildstar's case it has two major hurdle I feel that it needs to overcome, and that is the actiony combat style of GW2 and the 'silly cartoony graphics'. My worry is that it is going to devolve into a similar feeling of GW2 and there is going to be zero attachment to your character, the story and anything else. I see many positive things with Wildstar, but there are still far too many things missing or up in the air. If Wildstar can tap into the old feel of vanilla wow providing extremely competitive PvP and PvE while also tapping into a more creative and 'sandboxy' providing important crafting/housing elements along with strong guild ownership via the settler path. It can very well be promoted into 'home' status. Just pray that they don't follow blizzard's example and take forever to release content. This game can also be successful if they implement a multi-class feature that doesn't require you to make multiple alts (alts are death) or an AA feature to EQ that rewards high level play.
With FF14 being out right now I feel like I don't have to comment much on this. They need more endgame content and fast else this game is in even more trouble with all the impatient people waiting for something.
Everquest Next can be our next 'savior' since it's so early in development so we can influence many of it's changes. It has some things that I feel it needs to be better at, such as losing or improving on the silly 'diablo 3/GW2' thing it has going on with regards to movement and overly actiony combat. Moving to a freeform combat style is great, and will help the industry break from the single target mode. However based on what I've seen I'm having some difficulty in being super happy of the combat style. I also feel that in order to be successful it needs to have extremely high guild inclusion with regard to actually running the game. Guilds need to be responsible for running cities and making decisions, not just running through the hoops that the developers put in their path.
Oh, I certainly hope that's not true. The general public, in my opinion, has no business contributing to game design because once you give them what they want, they say, "well, I thought it was what I wanted".
There are reasons most great artists haven't had a committee chirping in their ears when they manifested their creations.
I think the industry has learned a lot from games like SWTOR, GW2 and FFXIV. How not to launch your game basically.
SWTOR had good content but a crappy engine, GW2 had a good engine but pretty crappy content. FFXIV has an OK engine with decent content but the one thing all these games have in common? They all slow it down to 5 MP/H after launch. Patches are nonexistent and new content takes forever.
When WoW launched, the REAL development began. It was a flurry of patches, dungeons, changes, raids and has continued like that since. Granted they've slowed more in their later years but it's one of the big parts of Blizzard's success.
I feel the industry has learned you need the following:
- A solid, modern engine
- A great world to explore
- Enough content to sustain the average user (note: not the hardcore user)
- Well designed and honed systems, not last minute afterthoughts which you rush out the door.
- Regular content patches.
So with any luck the companies behind the next wave of MMOs will have identified ALL the above and not just some of the above and give us the titles we've been hoping for.
when SC comes out I'll never need another game again
ok World of Darkness, but those two only
the end
Looking for a family that you can game with for life? Check out Grievance at https://www.grievancegaming.org !
Thanks,
Mike
Working on Social Strategy MMORTS (now Launched!) http://www.worldalpha.com
Honestly..Are you expecting the upcoming larger mmos to last ?
As sad as it is... I don't.
Web & Graphic Design - www.xdrac.com
Can't we be polled on the games individually?
"Everything sucks (y/n)" is more a poll about angst than it is about mmo titles?
Yeah sure, two weeks after they release, you'll be looking for something new.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Eh, I don't think so. The problem isn't the launch of these games. People are amazingly resilient when it comes to playing something they enjoy regardless of downtime and minor technical difficulty.
The problem is that these games are targeting the wrong audience. The publishers still think that it's mostly children who play MMO's. They are wanting a piece of that market, without realizing that the kids of the 90's are now adults. They are making games for little kids with absolutely no challenge, puzzles or compelling content. No social interaction (kids don't really socialize the way adults do), no long-term potential (kids don't have high attention-spans) and no immersion. Basically just solo/single-player games with a few other live-players running around in them for background noise. Just enough to qualify as an MMO and justify a cash-shop or a subscription. Just enough.
Until they start catering to adults and choose immersion, challenge, long-term potential, adult-IQ gameplay, social interaction, compelling content etc etc they aren't going to do well. Star Citizen is a prime example of what people are now looking for in an MMO - so much so that over 300,000 people donated money prior to release. If there were an MMORPG that espoused the same general themes of Star Citizen in a Fantasy RPG environment, I think it would do even better in regards to reception. People are tried of being treated like preteens. That's what it comes down to.
I think TESO and EQN due to fan bases. World of Darkness probably will too.
I'm just undying to find out more about WoD myself.
wildstar, yes. original IP designed to be an MMO
teso, no. just another single player IP crammed into mmo space.
eqn .. really not sure. dont think ive seen enough to tell yet.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already