Is There Still a Market for 'Oldschool' MMORPGs? | One Good Roll | MMORPG.com

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Is There Still a Market for 'Oldschool' MMORPGs? | One Good Roll | MMORPG.com

Over the past several years, we've seen a monumental shift from in-depth, large-scale player gameplay, to a shallower shared world. Are the days of the old school MMORPG completely over? Don't count it out just yet.

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Dattelis

This really just comes down to how they can be monetized in the eyes of bigger companies. Even something like WoW Classic is heavily monetized when you think about it since it had packs and sells boosts (there's ways to work out the '1 account per boost' thing). Lets not forget that a lot games ended up changing their monetization post launch, so even if these 'indie' titles do tout a payment method now, doesn't mean it wont change post-launch.

Personally, I feel like a compromise can be reached like having two versions of the same game or just strictly going with stuff that doesn't impact actual gameplay, but as long as companies are deadset on wanting to make as much money as they can with minimal effort and little backlash, things will stay the same (or get worse and every mmorpg going forward will adopt gacha systems/pay2earn/NFTs/etc).

Angrakhan

Yes there's definitely a market. It's just not a big market. Which is why AAA developers stay away from them because they need to show ROI to their investors for the $50-200+ million it took to make the game. These games will be the realm of the Indy dev for the foreseeable future.

Chaserz

Old school MMO fans were delivered a special moment in their lives that enamored them so much they will continue to chase that rainbow even today. The problem is, they will never experience it that same way again. Pantheon in particular promises to deliver that lovin' feeling again. But what those types fail to realize is, that powerful experience had more to do with being caught up in a new gaming moment in their lives they had never experienced before. That can't be repeated. But many of them would buy empty boxes off the shelves if they thought they could.

eoloe

If by "old school MMORPG" we understand cluttered UI, uninspired 2 frames-based animations, dated 3D graphics, clumsy gameplay, slow-motion movement, and overall lack of QoL, then please...

Do not count me in.

olepi

My first MMO was DAOC in 2001. I had a blast. Played for about 3 years and then moved on to other games. DAOC is still out there, so if I really wanted the old-school, it's still available.

But I'm not playing it.

However, I started Ryzom and CoH in 2004, and still play those sometimes. Shrug.

Viper482

Chaserz said:

Old school MMO fans were delivered a special moment in their lives that enamored them so much they will continue to chase that rainbow even today. The problem is, they will never experience it that same way again. Pantheon in particular promises to deliver that lovin' feeling again. But what those types fail to realize is, that powerful experience had more to do with being caught up in a new gaming moment in their lives they had never experienced before. That can't be repeated. But many of them would buy empty boxes off the shelves if they thought they could.

Dude, stop with the nostalgia argument bs. I've had the same moments in newer MMOs, the companies just ended up screwing the pooch. Exmaple.... Archeage Alpha/Beta was fking amazing until they screwed it up. It was like the 2000's all over again. I lived it then and I relived it with Archeage. Guild Wars 2 and ESO both had awesome launches. So no, it wasn't just because the genre was new at the time of UO, EQ, and Vanilla WoW. Maybe it was for you, but newsflash, your experiences don't speak for us all.

Avanah

Meridian 59 in 1996. Server 102! :-)

Warzod

worldsbestdad said:

eoloe said:

If by "old school MMORPG" we understand cluttered UI, uninspired 2 frames-based animations, dated 3D graphics, clumsy gameplay, slow-motion movement, and overall lack of QoL, then please...



Do not count me in.

Nah when we say "old school MMORPG," what we're really saying is "buggy exploitable mechanics, PvP so unfair and punishing that it is an actual torture method utilized by the CIA, and nostalgia."

See I thought it meant challenging gameplay that takes more than 1 week to burn through and has actual risk vs reward. Maybe non-homogenized classes with depth and a dangerous world you travel and adventure in rather than teleporting or flying over. But I think that is the point of this article There are still people looking for that challenge.

So what about those people? And I am not talking about the easy nostalgia argument people like to make. I am talking about new players as well. People like to say, no one has time to do challenging content or actually travel through a world. No one has time to learn complex class mechanics or figure out interesting or deep quest lines. Well, we did when we were younger. So I ask why is it OK for us now to take away the opportunity of the next generation to experience the same wonder and challenge that we loved when we were their age?

Because we have jobs and families it is fair for us to dictate the available experience for those that don't? Or are we teaching a whole new generation of gamers that they should always demand quick easy paths. I took at a lot of the people, team building, and cooperation skills I learned as a kid in early gaming into my adult life and it served me very well. What skills are new game designs instilling in this generation? Don't talk to anyone on your team, complain about anything that takes more than 10 minutes, everything should be free, don't bother to read anything you are handed. Throughout history games have been the means by which most social species pick up the skills they will need to survive in their adult lives. What generation are we training?

Now of course greed will forever play a role and so long as we as consumers keep shelling out money for shallow, quick fix content it doesn't matter. "Taco Bell was the last restaurant to survive the franchise wars. Now all restaurants are Taco Bell." Would the absence of anything other than fast food mean that no one would ever like a nice dining experience? Nice restaurants still exist and people pay to go to them. Early design MMOs can and should exist in my opinion. I would never say that their should never be McMMOs for people to one hand play while they watch YouTube. But their should absolutely be studios that continue to seek out and provide the kind of experience first gen MMOs like Everquest, FF11, DAoC and others embodied. Saying it is all nostalgia is and always have been a bad argument. Some people just prefer a steak dinner over a tortilla wrapped around non-animal grade meat substitute.

Tokken

Is There Still a Market for 'Oldschool' MMORPGs? YES! It's a very niche crowd though. IMO

nate1980

Chaserz said:

Old school MMO fans were delivered a special moment in their lives that enamored them so much they will continue to chase that rainbow even today. The problem is, they will never experience it that same way again. Pantheon in particular promises to deliver that lovin' feeling again. But what those types fail to realize is, that powerful experience had more to do with being caught up in a new gaming moment in their lives they had never experienced before. That can't be repeated. But many of them would buy empty boxes off the shelves if they thought they could.

You're right if what people are wanting is to "re-feel" that moment in MMORPG history. I'd argue that for most of us it's the game design that we're missing. I'll do a short list of what older MMORPG's had that newer ones don't:

OLD v. NEW

1. Class Dependency v. Class Homogenization. You used to have to build a balanced group in order to venture out into the world and get stuff done. You couldn't self heal, absorb damage, deal great dps, and crowd control all on one class the way you can now. Class choices these days is mainly aesthetic.

2. More Varied Classes and Races v. Fewer Classes and Races: DAoC had upwards of 15 races and 20+ classes. Warcraft is similar if you count their specs as seperate classes, which they kind of are.

3. Reliance on group leveling for efficiency v. Solo questing: Believe it or not, there was an art to perfecting the pull, cc, and focus targets to efficiently burn down groups of mobs several levels higher than your group in order to maximize xp. You needed other players to level efficiently. Modern MMORPG's have you solo questing to max level without the mobs posing any challenges with a group instance thrown in every now and then.


Other than that, modern MMORPG's are better in a lot of ways. Better graphics, smoother gameplay, more spells and abilities to use, usually less lag (better optimization), more casual friendly, better balance (I don't care about this point personally), and better QoL features.


In summary, people can't fathom why older gamers miss the early days, and that's because they can't fathom why players would want their class dependent on others in order to operate effectively through the MMO world and why players prefer grouping up just to level versus easily plowing through solo quest hubs. Older MMORPG's were just more dangerous and wonderous to adventure in because they were actually dangerous to explore with or without a group and you couldn't just fly to every nook and cranny in a matter of minutes to discover all the games secrets.

Spiider

"Old school" mmorpgs are the only good mmorpgs. There is ZERO market for the crap they publish now, which diminishing numbers of any new game that comes out as a fake mmorpg show. Take New World for example. From 1 million players to 20k.

KnightFalz

Yes, as they are still marketed.

svann

Even old school Everquest doesnt allow unlimited people to join a zone. When it hits the limit a new copy is created.

Scot

"Over the past several years, we’ve seen a monumental shift from in-depth, large-scale player gameplay, to a shallower shared world."

The thing is old school had a shared world, so that leaves us with just shallower.

lddiamond

I keep saying I want an old school MMORPG, but more and more I realize I don't have the attention span to spend 8-14hrs of grinding in a day to play.

For the longest time I wanted a remake of FFXI, a game I had over a year of play time in.

I can't do that as a 40 something adult. I got stuff to do.

Akulas

Crappy blockchain MMORPG - 1000 people considered failure. Good oldschool MMORPG - 100 people considered success. 

mercster

Viper482 said:

Chaserz said:

Old school MMO fans were delivered a special moment in their lives that enamored them so much they will continue to chase that rainbow even today. The problem is, they will never experience it that same way again. Pantheon in particular promises to deliver that lovin' feeling again. But what those types fail to realize is, that powerful experience had more to do with being caught up in a new gaming moment in their lives they had never experienced before. That can't be repeated. But many of them would buy empty boxes off the shelves if they thought they could.

Dude, stop with the nostalgia argument bs. I've had the same moments in newer MMOs, the companies just ended up screwing the pooch. Exmaple.... Archeage Alpha/Beta was fking amazing until they screwed it up. It was like the 2000's all over again. I lived it then and I relived it with Archeage. Guild Wars 2 and ESO both had awesome launches. So no, it wasn't just because the genre was new at the time of UO, EQ, and Vanilla WoW. Maybe it was for you, but newsflash, your experiences don't speak for us all.

Stay in school.

green_cobra

There absolutely is a market for old school styled mmorpgs, it's just that these game design companies have no idea what the market is. They have no real vision. 98% of these games produced from now 'til decades past have been a recycle of the same old ideas but placed in a different package. Their plan in "improving" these games is to make them more console friendly, (or by example: make them more "action oriented" ((action-mmorpg's... really?)). We should all know by now that, of course, lore is a major part of any mmorpg so we can easily understand that if you're lacking in that area your games is a wrap already. Cutting to the chase, if these gaming companies could imitate the vastness and mobility of games like WoW and understand that just as equally important to these games besides good lore, is intricate character customization and character development, giving the players a feeling that their created characters have a life of their own molded from their own hands, unique and independent, and have these characters exist in this vast and mobile world that is unique in itself, like maybe a civil war era where magic and monsters exist for example, the game would be on a good path for sustainability with a window available to draw in new ppl.

Utinni

worldsbestdad said:

eoloe said:

If by "old school MMORPG" we understand cluttered UI, uninspired 2 frames-based animations, dated 3D graphics, clumsy gameplay, slow-motion movement, and overall lack of QoL, then please...



Do not count me in.

Nah when we say "old school MMORPG," what we're really saying is "buggy exploitable mechanics, PvP so unfair and punishing that it is an actual torture method utilized by the CIA, and nostalgia."

This is referred to as "challenging gameplay" by the same folk. Also see - "I play more than you therefor I win"

Mendel

There probably is a market segment of people who prefer Old School MMORPGs.  There are probably loads of companies that are greatly overestimating the size of that market segment.  I expect that many of the First Gen customers are doing other things now, and those companies rarely seem to have a strategy other than 'build it and they will come'.  That works well for a sentimental baseball movie, but it's effectiveness as a business stratagem is unproven.

Without a clear idea of who the customer is, what competing products those customers are using, and a means of enticing those customers to switch, a company really has an uphill battle to achieve success.

Quizzical

There's plenty of a market for a great old-school MMORPG.  What there isn't much of a market for is a bad old-school MMORPG.  Whether the game is actually good matters.

Sovrath

Chaserz said:

Old school MMO fans were delivered a special moment in their lives that enamored them so much they will continue to chase that rainbow even today. The problem is, they will never experience it that same way again. Pantheon in particular promises to deliver that lovin' feeling again. But what those types fail to realize is, that powerful experience had more to do with being caught up in a new gaming moment in their lives they had never experienced before. That can't be repeated. But many of them would buy empty boxes off the shelves if they thought they could.

hmmm maybe.

I think it's a "your mileage may vary" sort of thing.

I know personally I still play older games and prefer many of their game mechanics over some newer games.

The start of the mmorpg experience was magical for many. But that still doesn't negate their very specific game mechanics.

Kyleran

Utinni said:

worldsbestdad said:

eoloe said:

If by "old school MMORPG" we understand cluttered UI, uninspired 2 frames-based animations, dated 3D graphics, clumsy gameplay, slow-motion movement, and overall lack of QoL, then please...



Do not count me in.

Nah when we say "old school MMORPG," what we're really saying is "buggy exploitable mechanics, PvP so unfair and punishing that it is an actual torture method utilized by the CIA, and nostalgia."

This is referred to as "challenging gameplay" by the same folk. Also see - "I play more than you therefor I win"

Generally speaking in real life people who do anything more often than others tend to be better at it, MMORPGS are somewhat realistic in this regards.

shetlandslarsen

Short  : Yes but as other has stated it will be niche.

Tokken

green_cobra said:

There absolutely is a market for old school styled mmorpgs, it's just that these game design companies have no idea what the market is. They have no real vision. 98% of these games produced from now 'til decades past have been a recycle of the same old ideas but placed in a different package. Their plan in "improving" these games is to make them more console friendly, (or by example: make them more "action oriented" ((action-mmorpg's... really?)). We should all know by now that, of course, lore is a major part of any mmorpg so we can easily understand that if you're lacking in that area your games is a wrap already. Cutting to the chase, if these gaming companies could imitate the vastness and mobility of games like WoW and understand that just as equally important to these games besides good lore, is intricate character customization and character development, giving the players a feeling that their created characters have a life of their own molded from their own hands, unique and independent, and have these characters exist in this vast and mobile world that is unique in itself, like maybe a civil war era where magic and monsters exist for example, the game would be on a good path for sustainability with a window available to draw in new ppl.

welcome to the forums!