But the MMO market is not on a decline, neither in userbase or MMO quality. MMO these days offer a lot more options than MMO 8 or 10 years ago. There may be less sandboxed MMO, but overall they have more features. Also there are more choices for people these days than in the beginning.
Also for a MMO to survive, it has to evolve. And the prime example of that is WoW. Except for the user interface which only got minor improvements, practically the whole game has been redone, and multiple features added over the years. Practically the only thing left from the original was the 3D models and they are changing them for the new expansion.
'Gaming as a Service' or more specifically 'Entertainment as a Service' quote from Gabe Newel basically meaning what you are suggesting. approach game not as a product but as a service to your customers.
I would like to see a game so large so expansive and so long to master that I could actually put my character in my Will for future generations to complete.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
MMO's are loosing their appeal because there is no sense of self achievement. If I get a skill so can 100,000 others. If I am a dark elf with black skin and purple eyes so are 100,000 other players. If I completed the story line all the way up until the next patch so have 100,000 others. I cannot craft anything different, look different, use my own made up combat moves, build a different looking house, have different style furniture, swim different than anyone else, fish different than anyone, design clothes no one else could, breed a pet or mount that is unique only to me and no one else. Etc etc etc.
And the answer to the problem is not making the game harder or grindier. It's making a game that is unusual and player content controlled.
Besides, a million subscribers is seen as a success right now. SWTOR would be twice as happy as they are right now if they had a million subscribers instead of a million players. LotRO would probably be really happy with a million subscribers too. Other than WoW, I can't think of an MMORPG that wouldn't be really, really happy with a million subscribers over the million or less F2P people currently populating their games.
MMORPG .. may be.
But MMO?
LoL made 600M+ in 2013 just on all the f2p stuff. 1M sub = $180M (at $15 a month) ... i am sure they won't want to cut their business by more than 2/3.
When OP listed his suggestions, only one sentence came into mind:
"Hey, that's Shadowbane for you." Unfortunately, as beloved as the game is by its fans, the game itself had the utmost best concept for MMORPG available, but the execution was so ridiculously poor it failed to bring forth massive amount of subscriptions (yet it one could still call it a success by that days standards).
The instant-gratification era is the thing that has ruined RPGs. No one wants any setbacks anymore, players want a smooth, easy experience that flows them through the content with no effort at all. Risk has to be minimized, and nowadays people even consider corpse runs too much of a death penalty (which I personally find utterly ridiculous). Perhaps I'm yet another bitter old school MMORPG player who keeps waiting for that another high from games like SB / UO / AC : DT... Which I will most likely never get.
The instant-gratification era is the thing that has ruined RPGs. No one wants any setbacks anymore, players want a smooth, easy experience that flows them through the content with no effort at all. Risk has to be minimized, and nowadays people even consider corpse runs too much of a death penalty (which I personally find utterly ridiculous). Perhaps I'm yet another bitter old school MMORPG player who keeps waiting for that another high from games like SB / UO / AC : DT... Which I will most likely never get.
Says who?
Diablo 3 is very popular (20M boxes sold) and greater rifts has infinite challenges, and there are plenty of setbacks (not completing the next level).
Now risk needs to be minimized because you don't need risks to have challenges. Risks is in the way of exploring how to beat the challenge.
The instant-gratification era is the thing that has ruined RPGs. No one wants any setbacks anymore, players want a smooth, easy experience that flows them through the content with no effort at all. Risk has to be minimized, and nowadays people even consider corpse runs too much of a death penalty (which I personally find utterly ridiculous). Perhaps I'm yet another bitter old school MMORPG player who keeps waiting for that another high from games like SB / UO / AC : DT... Which I will most likely never get.
Says who?
Diablo 3 is very popular (20M boxes sold) and greater rifts has infinite challenges, and there are plenty of setbacks (not completing the next level).
Now risk needs to be minimized because you don't need risks to have challenges. Risks is in the way of exploring how to beat the challenge.
Lol, you may want to refrain from using Diablo 3 as an example.
D3 is an easy experience that requires minimal effort. Heck there've been videos of people fighting bosses in that game afk. Perhaps the hardest encounter that game has had was the login boss on launch.
One thing worth adding to your analysis is that the "larger community" who crash into today's MMOs are filled with:
Lazy people
Obnoxious people
Arrogant people
Unhelpful people
...and people who like to OFFEND others instead of attempting to immerse themselves in an on-line fantasy environment.
T'was not always this way.... the old days of fantasy nerd-dom are long gone.
Today, I find myself more interested in games like Hearthstone, where the dark side of today's online gamers have very little effect on my fun.
This is it for me. Its the players that are turning alot of people off of mmo's now. Those fun glory days are over. I wish more companies would do more game's like the elderscroll's open world single player game's. Those are the type of game's that are real rpg's. Mmo's now are not even close to what an rpg is. RPG stands for role playing game. The meaning has got turned around by game dev's and player's. Just because in an mmo you create a character to play,they call it an rpg. What a load of crap. The role playing is totally missing from mmo's unless your on a role play server. And now they don't even bother having them in mmo's because todays player's could care less about role playing. They should remove the role playing game from what mmo's are today. To me playing online is really starting to suck badly. Just looking at the chat box ruins it for me most of the time now.
Besides, a million subscribers is seen as a success right now. SWTOR would be twice as happy as they are right now if they had a million subscribers instead of a million players. LotRO would probably be really happy with a million subscribers too. Other than WoW, I can't think of an MMORPG that wouldn't be really, really happy with a million subscribers over the million or less F2P people currently populating their games.
MMORPG .. may be.
But MMO?
LoL made 600M+ in 2013 just on all the f2p stuff. 1M sub = $180M (at $15 a month) ... i am sure they won't want to cut their business by more than 2/3.
That's why I used "MMORPG", not "MMO". :-)
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
When the video game market crashed in the early 80s, it didn't stop mediocre games or horrible games. It didn't make producing games any less expensive either. It doesn't seem likely that it would make the production of an MMORPG any cheaper. If the cost doesn't change but the market suddenly contracts, why would people spend millions of dollars to enter the market?
Besides, a million subscribers is seen as a success right now. SWTOR would be twice as happy as they are right now if they had a million subscribers instead of a million players. LotRO would probably be really happy with a million subscribers too. Other than WoW, I can't think of an MMORPG that wouldn't be really, really happy with a million subscribers over the million or less F2P people currently populating their games.
My understanding is that games did improve in quality after the early 80s crash at least for a while. I'm also pretty sure that MMOs could be produced a lot cheaper than they are, they just wouldn't have professional actors voice acting them and maybe not quite as nice graphics. To some people that might make them worse games I suppose but I'm more of a gameplay person.
I agree with you that 1 million subs is good for an MMO but to some pundits here "not WoW killer" or "not competing directly with MOBAs" = failure.
I've thought about voice acting in particular since I've been playing through the Panda Expansion in WoW. One thing I noticed that's lacking is that every NPC doesn't have a voice over for their quests. The trade off is that there is probably double or triple the amount of quest content than what I would need to get my character leveled to max level. There is a massive amount of content, a massive amount of terrain to traverse, a large amount of content that is unrelated to leveling and seems like it's just there for me to look at, but the trade off is the extra voice acting. I can live without it because what I'm getting in place of it is a lot of additional content and the content is done at a level of quality that I find acceptable. Plus WoW has never been heavily voiced, even though main characters or main quest lines have had voice overs.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Comments
'Gaming as a Service' or more specifically 'Entertainment as a Service' quote from Gabe Newel basically meaning what you are suggesting. approach game not as a product but as a service to your customers.
I would like to see a game so large so expansive and so long to master that I could actually put my character in my Will for future generations to complete.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
MMO's are loosing their appeal because there is no sense of self achievement. If I get a skill so can 100,000 others. If I am a dark elf with black skin and purple eyes so are 100,000 other players. If I completed the story line all the way up until the next patch so have 100,000 others. I cannot craft anything different, look different, use my own made up combat moves, build a different looking house, have different style furniture, swim different than anyone else, fish different than anyone, design clothes no one else could, breed a pet or mount that is unique only to me and no one else. Etc etc etc.
And the answer to the problem is not making the game harder or grindier. It's making a game that is unusual and player content controlled.
MMO's are declining because they are boring.
MMORPG .. may be.
But MMO?
LoL made 600M+ in 2013 just on all the f2p stuff. 1M sub = $180M (at $15 a month) ... i am sure they won't want to cut their business by more than 2/3.
Certainly not films like The Avenger. That movie costs $220M. How many MMORPG costs that much? (Except may be TOR).
If MMOs are truly in decline (which I have seen absolute zero evidence of), then I believe it's mostly because players ignore ^
When OP listed his suggestions, only one sentence came into mind:
"Hey, that's Shadowbane for you." Unfortunately, as beloved as the game is by its fans, the game itself had the utmost best concept for MMORPG available, but the execution was so ridiculously poor it failed to bring forth massive amount of subscriptions (yet it one could still call it a success by that days standards).
The instant-gratification era is the thing that has ruined RPGs. No one wants any setbacks anymore, players want a smooth, easy experience that flows them through the content with no effort at all. Risk has to be minimized, and nowadays people even consider corpse runs too much of a death penalty (which I personally find utterly ridiculous). Perhaps I'm yet another bitter old school MMORPG player who keeps waiting for that another high from games like SB / UO / AC : DT... Which I will most likely never get.
Says who?
Diablo 3 is very popular (20M boxes sold) and greater rifts has infinite challenges, and there are plenty of setbacks (not completing the next level).
Now risk needs to be minimized because you don't need risks to have challenges. Risks is in the way of exploring how to beat the challenge.
Lol, you may want to refrain from using Diablo 3 as an example.
D3 is an easy experience that requires minimal effort. Heck there've been videos of people fighting bosses in that game afk. Perhaps the hardest encounter that game has had was the login boss on launch.
This is it for me. Its the players that are turning alot of people off of mmo's now. Those fun glory days are over. I wish more companies would do more game's like the elderscroll's open world single player game's. Those are the type of game's that are real rpg's. Mmo's now are not even close to what an rpg is. RPG stands for role playing game. The meaning has got turned around by game dev's and player's. Just because in an mmo you create a character to play,they call it an rpg. What a load of crap. The role playing is totally missing from mmo's unless your on a role play server. And now they don't even bother having them in mmo's because todays player's could care less about role playing. They should remove the role playing game from what mmo's are today. To me playing online is really starting to suck badly. Just looking at the chat box ruins it for me most of the time now.
That's why I used "MMORPG", not "MMO". :-)
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I've thought about voice acting in particular since I've been playing through the Panda Expansion in WoW. One thing I noticed that's lacking is that every NPC doesn't have a voice over for their quests. The trade off is that there is probably double or triple the amount of quest content than what I would need to get my character leveled to max level. There is a massive amount of content, a massive amount of terrain to traverse, a large amount of content that is unrelated to leveling and seems like it's just there for me to look at, but the trade off is the extra voice acting. I can live without it because what I'm getting in place of it is a lot of additional content and the content is done at a level of quality that I find acceptable. Plus WoW has never been heavily voiced, even though main characters or main quest lines have had voice overs.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.