Face it. Those of us that began playing MMORPGs like me in 1999 with Everquest and many here from UO and AC are no longer the target the developers of big triple A games' development aims to please.
Games are being made from the ground up with monetization being the fundamental cornerstone of development. It's profitable , it's pervasive and it is not going away any time soon. I am basing this on the hand over fist revenues they are raking in with mobile 'MMORPGs'. Yeah that is a thing.
You can sit here and deny there is a problem all day. Its not just people from 1999 that are having issue with newly released MMO's.
Diablo Immortal has a .3 user rating. 99% voted as negative. So either oldtimers from 1999 represent 99% of the gamers which is a supermajority or more than just oldtimers are unhappy.
If you are in the 1% that is happy, thats good for you. Trying to deny that a large part of the gamer community is unhappy with current MMO's is futile.
Show me where recently released MMO's are overwhelmingly positive?
If I go on steam I can find many games from different genres that are overwhelming positive. I dont see MMO's stacking up.
There are issues in every section of our lives these days. It's not just gaming. Plus Genshin Impact did very well. You picked Diablo Immortal but Genshin is a success. It's full of gacha from top to bottom.
For instance when I went on a holiday I was in a restaurant and the menu was a sticker on the table, where I had to scan a qr code to actually read and order the food and drinks. The waitress didn't even come to our table except to serve the food later one. So it's not only one aspect of our lives that are changing and much of it is not to our liking.
Haven't you noticed that people are not even talking to each other but just snapping photos of the food before they eat and you expect the gaming industry to be any different. It's change. I am not happy but I don't want to wallow in it either. This is what you're doing because none of what you talk about is going to solve the current dissatisfaction. I refuse to taint what enjoyment I still get by discussing it to death.
I am currently playing City of Heroes and considering P99 again and get that Shaman to level 30, still unhappy about the mana regeneration is all. I have no taste for all the newer action MMORPGs. Probably leave those to you younger ones.
Single player games are where I am currently devoting my time. Wigmund is a good game.
Well I barely see any difference between MMORPGs. It is grind, grind, grind, stupid quest, grind, grind, grind. Just choose your poison: themepark or sandbox. A touch of PvP or not. Variations such action combat vs tab target or trinity vs non trinity do not make such a difference at the end of the day.
When are we going to see a world alive instead of question marks hovering over static heads?
Well to be fair, Eve Online mostly did it, but nobody dared to improve this to the extent of the NPCs...
The early games certainly didn't have question marks. Lineage 2, Lineage, Everquest, Ryzom, Ultima Online, Shadowbane ... There are so many.
I don't think Final Fantasy 11 had them or Anarchy Online as far as I remember.
Did Runescape? There's really a giant list of these old games.
And for the most part I think the "game" was the social part.
As far as "world alive" what does that even mean? I think traveling along an expanse with some wildlife but not much else is "alive." Because that's how a world works when you leave populated areas. However, some people hate that, they think it's an "empty world" because there's nothing to do.
It really depends n the demograhic. Some people want "a world" and some people want "a game."
And for those people who want "a game" some want a cultivate and mapped out experience and some don't.
To many people want too many different things.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Well I barely see any difference between MMORPGs. It is grind, grind, grind, stupid quest, grind, grind, grind. Just choose your poison: themepark or sandbox. A touch of PvP or not. Variations such action combat vs tab target or trinity vs non trinity do not make such a difference at the end of the day.
When are we going to see a world alive instead of question marks hovering over static heads?
Well to be fair, Eve Online mostly did it, but nobody dared to improve this to the extent of the NPCs...
The early games certainly didn't have question marks. Lineage 2, Lineage, Everquest, Ryzom, Ultima Online, Shadowbane ... There are so many.
I don't think Final Fantasy 11 had them or Anarchy Online as far as I remember.
Did Runescape? There's really a giant list of these old games.
And for the most part I think the "game" was the social part.
As far as "world alive" what does that even mean? I think traveling along an expanse with some wildlife but not much else is "alive." Because that's how a world works when you leave populated areas. However, some people hate that, they think it's an "empty world" because there's nothing to do.
It really depends n the demograhic. Some people want "a world" and some people want "a game."
And for those people who want "a game" some want a cultivate and mapped out experience and some don't.
To many people want too many different things
Great points all but especially the comments about a "world alive", not really sure what eoloe is seeking that is different from the current "formulas" employed to date.
I guess EVE was given as a reference and I will agree, it was the best virtual world experience I've had to date, now if only someone created similar with more avatar related aspects and not just space ships.
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
Let's be clear, game companies and devs are in it for the money. When MMO's were new, they got a big (at the time) market and made a lot of money. So what makes the most money with the least effort now?
Fortnite, it made $21 BILLION in its first 4 years; that's close to the monster MMO WOW, which makes maybe $8 billion a year. But look at the effort to make an MMO, vs the effort to make Fortnite. The return on investment is huge.
That is what is to blame. The market for long-term MMO games is small, and the development effort is large. Very few new companies can do it now, and the market isn't really there.
There are issues in every section of our lives these days. It's not just gaming. Plus Genshin Impact did very well. You picked Diablo Immortal but Genshin is a success. It's full of gacha from top to bottom.
Is Genshin Impact even an MMO? I didnt play Diablo Immortal or Genshin but google shows top articles for both Genshin MMO = no, Diablo Immortal = yes.
Is Genshin Impact well reviewed? According to Metacritic its only 4.1. If you read my post I was stating DI was successful in money but not user reviews. Two different success requirements right.
Haven't you noticed that people are not even talking to each other but just snapping photos of the food before they eat and you expect the gaming industry to be any different. It's change. I am not happy but I don't want to wallow in it either. This is what you're doing because none of what you talk about is going to solve the current dissatisfaction. I refuse to taint what enjoyment I still get by discussing it to death.
You say people are changing to not be social. AND YET 2 massive blockbuster movies at near the top of the all time revenue list worldwide came out in 2022? Surprise both off old IP's 13 and 25 years old, and BOTH very similiar to the originals. So I think your theory just went out the window.
It shows that if people make entertainment that people actually LIKE, then people will buy it.
Can a bad product do well? Sometimes, but good products generally do better most of the time. Lesson learned, make products your customers want, not products the designers want.
So if entertainment companies keep pumping out trash, yes they can kill their own industry for a time until someone with a brain figures out the secret. hint hint (customer satisfaction).
Let's be clear, game companies and devs are in it for the money. When MMO's were new, they got a big (at the time) market and made a lot of money. So what makes the most money with the least effort now?
Fortnite, it made $21 BILLION in its first 4 years; that's close to the monster MMO WOW, which makes maybe $8 billion a year. But look at the effort to make an MMO, vs the effort to make Fortnite. The return on investment is huge.
That is what is to blame. The market for long-term MMO games is small, and the development effort is large. Very few new companies can do it now, and the market isn't really there.
Here is the problem with your theory. If Fortnite type games are the standard that "makes the most money with the least effort". Then why are there not top companies making Fortnite clones that are better quality, more current and actually more successful than Fortnite?
If you put Fortnite on a graph of successful games, it would be a huge outlier. How do you know it wasnt just luck or having the right product at the right time.
Where is the reproductability?
If its so easy all the top dev companies should be climbing all over themselves and split that market up. Show me all the games launching that are going to topple Fortnite that are like Fortnite.
Let's be clear, game companies and devs are in it for the money. When MMO's were new, they got a big (at the time) market and made a lot of money. So what makes the most money with the least effort now?
Fortnite, it made $21 BILLION in its first 4 years; that's close to the monster MMO WOW, which makes maybe $8 billion a year. But look at the effort to make an MMO, vs the effort to make Fortnite. The return on investment is huge.
That is what is to blame. The market for long-term MMO games is small, and the development effort is large. Very few new companies can do it now, and the market isn't really there.
Here is the problem with your theory. If Fortnite type games are the standard that "makes the most money with the least effort". Then why are there not top companies making Fortnite clones that are better quality, more current and actually more successful than Fortnite?
If you put Fortnite on a graph of successful games, it would be a huge outlier. How do you know it wasnt just luck or having the right product at the right time.
Where is the reproductability?
If its so easy all the top dev companies should be climbing all over themselves and split that market up. Show me all the games launching that are going to topple Fortnite that are like Fortnite.
Ironically they sort of just tripped into Fortnites success as the Save the World campaign was the main focus thru builds/testing/alpa/beta then launch .. The Battle Royal was something they just threw on at the end for fun of it and it ended the hugely popular game mode it is leaving Save the World to play second fiddle vying for development resources ..
Let's be clear, game companies and devs are in it for the money. When MMO's were new, they got a big (at the time) market and made a lot of money. So what makes the most money with the least effort now?
Fortnite, it made $21 BILLION in its first 4 years; that's close to the monster MMO WOW, which makes maybe $8 billion a year. But look at the effort to make an MMO, vs the effort to make Fortnite. The return on investment is huge.
That is what is to blame. The market for long-term MMO games is small, and the development effort is large. Very few new companies can do it now, and the market isn't really there.
Here is the problem with your theory. If Fortnite type games are the standard that "makes the most money with the least effort". Then why are there not top companies making Fortnite clones that are better quality, more current and actually more successful than Fortnite?
If you put Fortnite on a graph of successful games, it would be a huge outlier. How do you know it wasnt just luck or having the right product at the right time.
Where is the reproductability?
If its so easy all the top dev companies should be climbing all over themselves and split that market up. Show me all the games launching that are going to topple Fortnite that are like Fortnite.
This all could apply to WoW too. Was it luck? Timing? Somehow, it alone made a ton of money and every other studio has tried to mimic it. Where is the reproductability? Isn't that what this whole thread is about?
There are a ton of MMO's that released and were going to be the "WoW killer", but they didn't.
My point is that there was a sweetspot in the market for MMO's when they first came out. Same as Fortnite. But that is gone now.
This all could apply to WoW too. Was it luck? Timing? Somehow, it alone made a ton of money and every other studio has tried to mimic it. Where is the reproductability? Isn't that what this whole thread is about?
There are a ton of MMO's that released and were going to be the "WoW killer", but they didn't.
My point is that there was a sweetspot in the market for MMO's when they first came out. Same as Fortnite. But that is gone now.
Yep good point, now lets ask this simple question. What game is better than WoW at what WoW is? In all this time, what game do you feel has EVER been released that you think is better quality than WoW at EVERY main compenent WoW has.
Until a game can beat WoW in everything its good at, how can anything hope to topple it? So obviously there is a disconnect with the devs and their customers and its not so easy to reproduce a good game like you are saying.
When these companies start putting out a Quality product that the players want that is better than the product they are currently playing, you might start seeing these older games die off.
So we wont know if WoW was a one off or not until someone does it better and that game fails or succeeds.
This goes for all the other types of games in the genre, you want to put to rest that a UO game released now wont do good, then let them release a game that is better than UO in all areas UO was good at. Then everyone will know the answer. Yet 25 years later we still cant know that answer because everything that "sorta" tried was garbage.
Same goes for DAOC, EQ and all the rest.
Make it better or at least the very least the same quality. Lets see some high USER rating MMO's, then see if this genre is truely dead or not.
This all could apply to WoW too. Was it luck? Timing? Somehow, it alone made a ton of money and every other studio has tried to mimic it. Where is the reproductability? Isn't that what this whole thread is about?
There are a ton of MMO's that released and were going to be the "WoW killer", but they didn't.
My point is that there was a sweetspot in the market for MMO's when they first came out. Same as Fortnite. But that is gone now.
Yep good point, now lets ask this simple question. What game is better than WoW at what WoW is? In all this time, what game do you feel has EVER been released that you think is better quality than WoW at EVERY main compenent WoW has.
Until a game can beat WoW in everything its good at, how can anything hope to topple it? So obviously there is a disconnect with the devs and their customers and its not so easy to reproduce a good game like you are saying.
When these companies start putting out a Quality product that the players want that is better than the product they are currently playing, you might start seeing these older games die off.
So we wont know if WoW was a one off or not until someone does it better and that game fails or succeeds.
This goes for all the other types of games in the genre, you want to put to rest that a UO game released now wont do good, then let them release a game that is better than UO in all areas UO was good at. Then everyone will know the answer. Yet 25 years later we still cant know that answer because everything that "sorta" tried was garbage.
Same goes for DAOC, EQ and all the rest.
Make it better or at least the very least the same quality. Lets see some high USER rating MMO's, then see if this genre is truely dead or not.
I have to say, that making WoW better, for what it is/was, would be quite a challenge. I don't think it's possible, except for the art and a few things like flight everywhere (if they haven't added that yet).
I dream of UO being done bigger and better. But I think the PKing and other abuses needs a hard fix. But I love the concept of open world PvP if the "runaway crime" aspects can be fixed.
This all could apply to WoW too. Was it luck? Timing? Somehow, it alone made a ton of money and every other studio has tried to mimic it. Where is the reproductability? Isn't that what this whole thread is about?
There are a ton of MMO's that released and were going to be the "WoW killer", but they didn't.
My point is that there was a sweetspot in the market for MMO's when they first came out. Same as Fortnite. But that is gone now.
Yep good point, now lets ask this simple question. What game is better than WoW at what WoW is? In all this time, what game do you feel has EVER been released that you think is better quality than WoW at EVERY main compenent WoW has.
Until a game can beat WoW in everything its good at, how can anything hope to topple it? So obviously there is a disconnect with the devs and their customers and its not so easy to reproduce a good game like you are saying.
When these companies start putting out a Quality product that the players want that is better than the product they are currently playing, you might start seeing these older games die off.
So we wont know if WoW was a one off or not until someone does it better and that game fails or succeeds.
This goes for all the other types of games in the genre, you want to put to rest that a UO game released now wont do good, then let them release a game that is better than UO in all areas UO was good at. Then everyone will know the answer. Yet 25 years later we still cant know that answer because everything that "sorta" tried was garbage.
Same goes for DAOC, EQ and all the rest.
Make it better or at least the very least the same quality. Lets see some high USER rating MMO's, then see if this genre is truely dead or not.
I have to say, that making WoW better, for what it is/was, would be quite a challenge. I don't think it's possible, except for the art and a few things like flight everywhere (if they haven't added that yet).
I dream of UO being done bigger and better. But I think the PKing and other abuses needs a hard fix. But I love the concept of open world PvP if the "runaway crime" aspects can be fixed.
Many changes such as treasure hunting, survival, two entire new starting zones, goblins and elf's along with many other changes in Turtle WoW, and its packed solid 24/7. Maybe because its 100% free.
This all could apply to WoW too. Was it luck? Timing? Somehow, it alone made a ton of money and every other studio has tried to mimic it. Where is the reproductability? Isn't that what this whole thread is about?
There are a ton of MMO's that released and were going to be the "WoW killer", but they didn't.
My point is that there was a sweetspot in the market for MMO's when they first came out. Same as Fortnite. But that is gone now.
Yep good point, now lets ask this simple question. What game is better than WoW at what WoW is? In all this time, what game do you feel has EVER been released that you think is better quality than WoW at EVERY main compenent WoW has.
First up, in my opinion LotRO was better than WoW in virtually every area. Better world building, better stories, better combat, better roleplaying.
Second, with what you were talking about with games beating Wow or Fortnite.....those two are those games! By that, I mean that other games set the standard (EQ, UO for mmos, or PUBG for BRs), and then WoW and Fortnite came along and polished the formula in order to set themselves at the top of the pile. This is only possible to do when you have a lot of unpolished ideas floating around, typically at the start of a genre. When a genre has stagnated, those big companies don't have anything left to polish and are often incapable of innovation by themselves.
Third, when it comes to multiplayer games, you have to include the players and social momentum / critical mass when trying to understand success. I don't know what the figures would be, but we see it time and again that a product will reach a critical mass - either of sales, or active users or whatever - and from there it will take off. It then takes a something really big to overcome that momentum.
In other words, if only one of my friends is playing a multiplayer game, im unlikely to bother. But if `10 of my mates are playing, I'm more likely to play, even if I think the game isn't great.
We saw this phenomenon with WoW. It may be famous for it's endgame raiding and over-the-top adverts, but the reality is that it was played by millions of casual players who never raided, who never played any other mmos and often weren't even gamers. It simply reached a critical mass early that then allowed it to attract players from outside the MMO market - something that's very rare.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
This all could apply to WoW too. Was it luck? Timing? Somehow, it alone made a ton of money and every other studio has tried to mimic it. Where is the reproductability? Isn't that what this whole thread is about?
There are a ton of MMO's that released and were going to be the "WoW killer", but they didn't.
My point is that there was a sweetspot in the market for MMO's when they first came out. Same as Fortnite. But that is gone now.
Yep good point, now lets ask this simple question. What game is better than WoW at what WoW is? In all this time, what game do you feel has EVER been released that you think is better quality than WoW at EVERY main compenent WoW has.
First up, in my opinion LotRO was better than WoW in virtually every area. Better world building, better stories, better combat, better roleplaying.
Second, with what you were talking about with games beating Wow or Fortnite.....those two are those games! By that, I mean that other games set the standard (EQ, UO for mmos, or PUBG for BRs), and then WoW and Fortnite came along and polished the formula in order to set themselves at the top of the pile. This is only possible to do when you have a lot of unpolished ideas floating around, typically at the start of a genre. When a genre has stagnated, those big companies don't have anything left to polish and are often incapable of innovation by themselves.
Third, when it comes to multiplayer games, you have to include the players and social momentum / critical mass when trying to understand success. I don't know what the figures would be, but we see it time and again that a product will reach a critical mass - either of sales, or active users or whatever - and from there it will take off. It then takes a something really big to overcome that momentum.
In other words, if only one of my friends is playing a multiplayer game, im unlikely to bother. But if `10 of my mates are playing, I'm more likely to play, even if I think the game isn't great.
We saw this phenomenon with WoW. It may be famous for it's endgame raiding and over-the-top adverts, but the reality is that it was played by millions of casual players who never raided, who never played any other mmos and often weren't even gamers. It simply reached a critical mass early that then allowed it to attract players from outside the MMO market - something that's very rare.
I dont really agree with your points actually.
WoW and Fortnite are the pinnacle of games of their type?
This makes no sense to me, all you have to do is copy the forumla and improve the graphics and automatically the game is better than the previous version. When you look at other entertainment you see Movies toppleing previous movies all the time. Sometimes many years later with a very similiar formula. You mention LOTR MMO but LOTR the movie couldnt even get funded and was passed on by multiple studios, then when it finally was funded it was wildly successful. Entertainment management is clueless about what normal people want. This applies to video game studios too.
Critical mass? Yeah I agree a ball can get moving and build steam, so I dont totally disagree. Where I disagree is that this works both ways. Once a game starts building negative momentum then it can wipe away any popular momemtum it got from positive press. New World comes to mind here.
As far as LOTRO being better at launch than WoW. I never played LOTRO so I cannot make a judgement. I will say at the time pretty much everyones perception was that LOTRO was a lesser version of WoW. My friends are endgame raiders, somehow I would imagine this is probably where LOTRO fell short. I am not talking about the opinion of 1 person but of the general public at the time. No way the consensus is that LOTRO is better than WoW of its time.
First up, in my opinion LotRO was better than WoW in virtually every area. Better world building, better stories, better combat, better roleplaying.
Just on a side note, is LotRO still as good now as it was at release? or has this game been dumbed down and turned into easy mode for the masses like all the rest. Sounds like I should have given this game a try, but I dont want to play a trash ez mode game.
The other thing I notice your areas you mention, but that is not even what WoW is known for. Roleplaying? what who said wow known for being the best RP.
Wow is known for challenging End Game Raiding (PRIMARY), top group dungeons (secondary), Interesting Solo Quests, POLISH, lots of magic, having solid secondary professions/trading and being overall decent in most other areas (not housing).
So its in these areas a game will have to be good to dethrone WoW at its peak.
This all could apply to WoW too. Was it luck? Timing? Somehow, it alone made a ton of money and every other studio has tried to mimic it. Where is the reproductability? Isn't that what this whole thread is about?
There are a ton of MMO's that released and were going to be the "WoW killer", but they didn't.
My point is that there was a sweetspot in the market for MMO's when they first came out. Same as Fortnite. But that is gone now.
Yep good point, now lets ask this simple question. What game is better than WoW at what WoW is? In all this time, what game do you feel has EVER been released that you think is better quality than WoW at EVERY main compenent WoW has.
First up, in my opinion LotRO was better than WoW in virtually every area. Better world building, better stories, better combat, better roleplaying.
Second, with what you were talking about with games beating Wow or Fortnite.....those two are those games! By that, I mean that other games set the standard (EQ, UO for mmos, or PUBG for BRs), and then WoW and Fortnite came along and polished the formula in order to set themselves at the top of the pile. This is only possible to do when you have a lot of unpolished ideas floating around, typically at the start of a genre. When a genre has stagnated, those big companies don't have anything left to polish and are often incapable of innovation by themselves.
Third, when it comes to multiplayer games, you have to include the players and social momentum / critical mass when trying to understand success. I don't know what the figures would be, but we see it time and again that a product will reach a critical mass - either of sales, or active users or whatever - and from there it will take off. It then takes a something really big to overcome that momentum.
In other words, if only one of my friends is playing a multiplayer game, im unlikely to bother. But if `10 of my mates are playing, I'm more likely to play, even if I think the game isn't great.
We saw this phenomenon with WoW. It may be famous for it's endgame raiding and over-the-top adverts, but the reality is that it was played by millions of casual players who never raided, who never played any other mmos and often weren't even gamers. It simply reached a critical mass early that then allowed it to attract players from outside the MMO market - something that's very rare.
I dont really agree with your points actually.
WoW and Fortnite are the pinnacle of games of their type?
This makes no sense to me, all you have to do is copy the forumla and improve the graphics and automatically the game is better than the previous version. When you look at other entertainment you see Movies toppleing previous movies all the time. Sometimes many years later with a very similiar formula. You mention LOTR MMO but LOTR the movie couldnt even get funded and was passed on by multiple studios, then when it finally was funded it was wildly successful. Entertainment management is clueless about what normal people want. This applies to video game studios too.
Critical mass? Yeah I agree a ball can get moving and build steam, so I dont totally disagree. Where I disagree is that this works both ways. Once a game starts building negative momentum then it can wipe away any popular momemtum it got from positive press. New World comes to mind here.
As far as LOTRO being better at launch than WoW. I never played LOTRO so I cannot make a judgement. I will say at the time pretty much everyones perception was that LOTRO was a lesser version of WoW. My friends are endgame raiders, somehow I would imagine this is probably where LOTRO fell short. I am not talking about the opinion of 1 person but of the general public at the time. No way the consensus is that LOTRO is better than WoW of its time.
There are actually a few decently successful mmorpg similar to wow.(Aka generic themepark games). FFXIV, GW2, Elder Scroll online. So copy the fomurla do work to a certain extend.
And to me I think it is actually very hard to make a game better than wow. Because Wow is a game being developed for 19 years. The sheer amount of content and update is enourmous. Not to mention many people invested tones of hours in the game already. They simply wont' jump to new mmorpg.
The thing is everyone just play the top games of certain genre. So it is unlikely there would be many successful shooters or RTS or MOBA or ARPG.
And for theme park mmorpg. Everyone probably just play the top few theme park, so keep saturating the market with more theme park mmorpg probably won't work.
This all could apply to WoW too. Was it luck? Timing? Somehow, it alone made a ton of money and every other studio has tried to mimic it. Where is the reproductability? Isn't that what this whole thread is about?
There are a ton of MMO's that released and were going to be the "WoW killer", but they didn't.
My point is that there was a sweetspot in the market for MMO's when they first came out. Same as Fortnite. But that is gone now.
Yep good point, now lets ask this simple question. What game is better than WoW at what WoW is? In all this time, what game do you feel has EVER been released that you think is better quality than WoW at EVERY main compenent WoW has.
First up, in my opinion LotRO was better than WoW in virtually every area. Better world building, better stories, better combat, better roleplaying.
Second, with what you were talking about with games beating Wow or Fortnite.....those two are those games! By that, I mean that other games set the standard (EQ, UO for mmos, or PUBG for BRs), and then WoW and Fortnite came along and polished the formula in order to set themselves at the top of the pile. This is only possible to do when you have a lot of unpolished ideas floating around, typically at the start of a genre. When a genre has stagnated, those big companies don't have anything left to polish and are often incapable of innovation by themselves.
Third, when it comes to multiplayer games, you have to include the players and social momentum / critical mass when trying to understand success. I don't know what the figures would be, but we see it time and again that a product will reach a critical mass - either of sales, or active users or whatever - and from there it will take off. It then takes a something really big to overcome that momentum.
In other words, if only one of my friends is playing a multiplayer game, im unlikely to bother. But if `10 of my mates are playing, I'm more likely to play, even if I think the game isn't great.
We saw this phenomenon with WoW. It may be famous for it's endgame raiding and over-the-top adverts, but the reality is that it was played by millions of casual players who never raided, who never played any other mmos and often weren't even gamers. It simply reached a critical mass early that then allowed it to attract players from outside the MMO market - something that's very rare.
I dont really agree with your points actually.
WoW and Fortnite are the pinnacle of games of their type?
This makes no sense to me, all you have to do is copy the forumla and improve the graphics and automatically the game is better than the previous version. When you look at other entertainment you see Movies toppleing previous movies all the time. Sometimes many years later with a very similiar formula. You mention LOTR MMO but LOTR the movie couldnt even get funded and was passed on by multiple studios, then when it finally was funded it was wildly successful. Entertainment management is clueless about what normal people want. This applies to video game studios too.
Critical mass? Yeah I agree a ball can get moving and build steam, so I dont totally disagree. Where I disagree is that this works both ways. Once a game starts building negative momentum then it can wipe away any popular momemtum it got from positive press. New World comes to mind here.
As far as LOTRO being better at launch than WoW. I never played LOTRO so I cannot make a judgement. I will say at the time pretty much everyones perception was that LOTRO was a lesser version of WoW. My friends are endgame raiders, somehow I would imagine this is probably where LOTRO fell short. I am not talking about the opinion of 1 person but of the general public at the time. No way the consensus is that LOTRO is better than WoW of its time.
There are actually a few decently successful mmorpg similar to wow.(Aka generic themepark games). FFXIV, GW2, Elder Scroll online. So copy the fomurla do work to a certain extend.
And to me I think it is actually very hard to make a game better than wow. Because Wow is a game being developed for 19 years. The sheer amount of content and update is enourmous. Not to mention many people invested tones of hours in the game already. They simply wont' jump to new mmorpg.
The thing is everyone just play the top games of certain genre. So it is unlikely there would be many successful shooters or RTS or MOBA or ARPG.
And for theme park mmorpg. Everyone probably just play the top few theme park, so keep saturating the market with more theme park mmorpg probably won't work.
You are looking at the small piece of pie instead of the entire bakery.
The people currently playing WoW dont even represent 2% of the accounts that played WoW. If a decent amount off all the others to play a new MMO, then most of the 2% will flip also. Its just the way it works.
Also I am not talking about Current WoW. Current WoW isnt growing, it cant even retain its customers. They need to look back when it was growing and copy that forumla.
There is no saturation at all. There hasnt been a real popular MMO release that can retain its customers in years. If anything an MMO as good as WoW was released that was growing instead of losing customer, then customers would jump back in.
Lurker who has been here quite awhile, almost as long as OP.
Generally browse here every few days and read comments.
According to posters here every single game just sucks, that's why this place is dead. It's impossible to believe anyone here or what they post, every game isn't terrible, there aren't any fair posts, it's one extreme or another.
I think people needed to be less jaded when they approach every new MMO with comments.
Lurker who has been here quite awhile, almost as long as OP.
Generally browse here every few days and read comments.
According to posters here every single game just sucks, that's why this place is dead. It's impossible to believe anyone here or what they post, every game isn't terrible, there aren't any fair posts, it's one extreme or another.
I think people needed to be less jaded when they approach every new MMO with comments.
what recent MMO do you think is so amazing? I am curious which recent MMO you pick that hasnt lost over 99% of its playerbase or shut down. This site is just a reflection of the overall MMO community. If anything you have a ton of fanbois on here, way more than what the user reviews show. Just go back to Diablo Immortal. Has a .3 rating on Metacritic but here during its release we had a bunch of fanbois praising it.
New World is another, we had so many fanbois on this site praising that game, while that game was losing 99.9% of its players.
Lurker who has been here quite awhile, almost as long as OP.
Generally browse here every few days and read comments.
According to posters here every single game just sucks, that's why this place is dead. It's impossible to believe anyone here or what they post, every game isn't terrible, there aren't any fair posts, it's one extreme or another.
I think people needed to be less jaded when they approach every new MMO with comments.
what recent MMO do you think is so amazing? I am curious which recent MMO you pick that hasnt lost over 99% of its playerbase or shut down. This site is just a reflection of the overall MMO community. If anything you have a ton of fanbois on here, way more than what the user reviews show. Just go back to Diablo Immortal. Has a .3 rating on Metacritic but here during its release we had a bunch of fanbois praising it.
New World is another, we had so many fanbois on this site praising that game, while that game was losing 99.9% of its players.
If everything ever made is bad, maybe it's time for developers to throw in the tower and stop making mmorpg. I dont' know how many mmorpg are made already and you don't like any.
Judging from the hype list from this site, developers have throw in the tower too and nothing much worthwhile new mmorpg is coming out.
Riot is making a new mmorpg, GW3 might have a chance to become reality and start development but that is years away.
I think Ark online and Lineage M is pretty big, but since it's from korea, the cash shop might be pretty bad.
I'm pretty surprise that Crowfall and Legend of Aria gets shutdown. You are probably right. Everything is going downhill. But if everything is going downhill why should companies keep trying to make new mmorpg?
First up, in my opinion LotRO was better than WoW in virtually every area. Better world building, better stories, better combat, better roleplaying.
Just on a side note, is LotRO still as good now as it was at release? or has this game been dumbed down and turned into easy mode for the masses like all the rest. Sounds like I should have given this game a try, but I dont want to play a trash ez mode game.
The other thing I notice your areas you mention, but that is not even what WoW is known for. Roleplaying? what who said wow known for being the best RP.
Wow is known for challenging End Game Raiding (PRIMARY), top group dungeons (secondary), Interesting Solo Quests, POLISH, lots of magic, having solid secondary professions/trading and being overall decent in most other areas (not housing).
So its in these areas a game will have to be good to dethrone WoW at its peak.
I haven't played LotRO for many years now, so I cannot say for certain.
However, LotRO started getting dumbed down even before Moria released, and got worse with each expansion so I doubt it's anywhere near as good as it was at launch.
As for WoW being known for endgame raiding, I agree, but that's not what supported the game and made it popular, that was simply the most visible part. the overwhelming majority of their millions of subscribers never even set foot in a raid.
As for everything else, I think LotRO beats WoW, but so much of it is subjective. Is LotRO's more detailed and realistic world better than WoW's low-graphics high-fantasy world? LotRO's story writing is definitely better than WoWs. LotRO felt more polished than WoW to me, but without access to a bugs list, how would I know?
The biggest thing I remember hearing from WoW players when LotRO launched was that LotRO wasn't different enough. Even if LotRO was better in a lot of areas, the difference wasn't great enough to overcome 2-3 years of history with WoW. Which is part of what I was talking about with social momentum. Would you give up a game and a guild, and years of history in a game you still enjoy, just to move to another game that was basically the same but maybe 5 or 10% better?
I certainly wouldn't, and in fact I didn't. I'm sure there were games released when I was playing LotRO that were better, but I was still enjoying the game I was in and didn't want to give up on my guild.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
I'm pretty surprise that Crowfall and Legend of Aria gets shutdown. You are probably right. Everything is going downhill. But if everything is going downhill why should companies keep trying to make new mmorpg?
Valid point. I think if they are going to make a trash MMO that actually loses money, then its in their best interst to not even make one in the first place. Unless they just want to keep their staff proficient while they figure it out.
The solution is that they need to change the formula into one where customer satisfaction is high. I personally think they can do that easily. However there is a disconnect between designers and their customers. So until they equalize that gap, they should stop making subpar MMO's.
First up, in my opinion LotRO was better than WoW in virtually every area. Better world building, better stories, better combat, better roleplaying.
Just on a side note, is LotRO still as good now as it was at release? or has this game been dumbed down and turned into easy mode for the masses like all the rest. Sounds like I should have given this game a try, but I dont want to play a trash ez mode game.
The other thing I notice your areas you mention, but that is not even what WoW is known for. Roleplaying? what who said wow known for being the best RP.
Wow is known for challenging End Game Raiding (PRIMARY), top group dungeons (secondary), Interesting Solo Quests, POLISH, lots of magic, having solid secondary professions/trading and being overall decent in most other areas (not housing).
So its in these areas a game will have to be good to dethrone WoW at its peak.
I haven't played LotRO for many years now, so I cannot say for certain.
However, LotRO started getting dumbed down even before Moria released, and got worse with each expansion so I doubt it's anywhere near as good as it was at launch.
As for WoW being known for endgame raiding, I agree, but that's not what supported the game and made it popular, that was simply the most visible part. the overwhelming majority of their millions of subscribers never even set foot in a raid.
As for everything else, I think LotRO beats WoW, but so much of it is subjective. Is LotRO's more detailed and realistic world better than WoW's low-graphics high-fantasy world? LotRO's story writing is definitely better than WoWs. LotRO felt more polished than WoW to me, but without access to a bugs list, how would I know?
The biggest thing I remember hearing from WoW players when LotRO launched was that LotRO wasn't different enough. Even if LotRO was better in a lot of areas, the difference wasn't great enough to overcome 2-3 years of history with WoW. Which is part of what I was talking about with social momentum. Would you give up a game and a guild, and years of history in a game you still enjoy, just to move to another game that was basically the same but maybe 5 or 10% better?
I certainly wouldn't, and in fact I didn't. I'm sure there were games released when I was playing LotRO that were better, but I was still enjoying the game I was in and didn't want to give up on my guild.
Yeah I just cant agree with your theory, especially since its counter so my own experience.
My theory explains why WoW dominated LotRO yours is based on a question.
So to answer your question, me and my core friends played WoW for endgame raiding. When LotRO released I wasnt even playing WoW anymore. I play a bunch of MMO's but I dont like playing subpar MMO's. I had no personal friends playing LotRO that I knew of at the time, only later did they get into it. So how did they miss me, an avid MMO player that wasnt even playing WoW?
You seem to not understand, that not all gamers were playing WoW. Even WoW at its peak had 10mil people with 100mil accounts created. Thats a retention of 10%. Why were the other 90% not trying and retaining with LotRO?
Your concept is flawed regarding End Game raiding. My anology is this. Lets take an amusement park, it has big rides. What is the draw? the little rides? More people go on the little rides than those on the big rides, but the big rides are the draw. I know I have had many family members that go and wont ride most of the rides, but they want to share in the entire experience. If you remove all the top rides to where every ride was newbiefied, then your park would no longer appeal to everyone. If you tried to appeal to the lowest level, you might have ZERO rides, then where would you be?
First up, in my opinion LotRO was better than WoW in virtually every area. Better world building, better stories, better combat, better roleplaying.
Just on a side note, is LotRO still as good now as it was at release? or has this game been dumbed down and turned into easy mode for the masses like all the rest. Sounds like I should have given this game a try, but I dont want to play a trash ez mode game.
The other thing I notice your areas you mention, but that is not even what WoW is known for. Roleplaying? what who said wow known for being the best RP.
Wow is known for challenging End Game Raiding (PRIMARY), top group dungeons (secondary), Interesting Solo Quests, POLISH, lots of magic, having solid secondary professions/trading and being overall decent in most other areas (not housing).
So its in these areas a game will have to be good to dethrone WoW at its peak.
I haven't played LotRO for many years now, so I cannot say for certain.
However, LotRO started getting dumbed down even before Moria released, and got worse with each expansion so I doubt it's anywhere near as good as it was at launch.
As for WoW being known for endgame raiding, I agree, but that's not what supported the game and made it popular, that was simply the most visible part. the overwhelming majority of their millions of subscribers never even set foot in a raid.
As for everything else, I think LotRO beats WoW, but so much of it is subjective. Is LotRO's more detailed and realistic world better than WoW's low-graphics high-fantasy world? LotRO's story writing is definitely better than WoWs. LotRO felt more polished than WoW to me, but without access to a bugs list, how would I know?
The biggest thing I remember hearing from WoW players when LotRO launched was that LotRO wasn't different enough. Even if LotRO was better in a lot of areas, the difference wasn't great enough to overcome 2-3 years of history with WoW. Which is part of what I was talking about with social momentum. Would you give up a game and a guild, and years of history in a game you still enjoy, just to move to another game that was basically the same but maybe 5 or 10% better?
I certainly wouldn't, and in fact I didn't. I'm sure there were games released when I was playing LotRO that were better, but I was still enjoying the game I was in and didn't want to give up on my guild.
Yeah I just cant agree with your theory, especially since its counter so my own experience.
My theory explains why WoW dominated LotRO yours is based on a question.
So to answer your question, me and my core friends played WoW for endgame raiding. When LotRO released I wasnt even playing WoW anymore. I play a bunch of MMO's but I dont like playing subpar MMO's. I had no personal friends playing LotRO that I knew of at the time, only later did they get into it. So how did they miss me, an avid MMO player that wasnt even playing WoW?
You seem to not understand, that not all gamers were playing WoW. Even WoW at its peak had 10mil people with 100mil accounts created. Thats a retention of 10%. Why were the other 90% not trying and retaining with LotRO?
Your concept is flawed regarding End Game raiding. My anology is this. Lets take an amusement park, it has big rides. What is the draw? the little rides? More people go on the little rides than those on the big rides, but the big rides are the draw. I know I have had many family members that go and wont ride most of the rides, but they want to share in the entire experience. If you remove all the top rides to where every ride was newbiefied, then your park would no longer appeal to everyone. If you tried to appeal to the lowest level, you might have ZERO rides, then where would you be?
I understand what you are saying.
My theory about critical mass isn't really a theory, it's something we see repeatedly in all walks of life. We're influenced by our friends and those around us, so when a product hits a critical mass of hype / knowledge / players / whatever, it then spirals upwards. Combine that with the sunk costs fallacy....
The only thing I didn't really talk about was what it takes to first reach that critical mass. Sometimes all it requires is a quality product. Sometimes it's more about the marketing, rather than the product. Other times it's pure luck.
Thats where you're part of things kicks in - WoW was a "better" product that what was already available. It was then marketed more heavily than any MMO previously. This is what got it to that critical mass, but since then its mostly been a case of social momentum.
I'm not really sure what you are talking about with endgame raiding. I agree with everything you've written and have posted similar things in the past - though my focus was on the value endgame players add to the community. I can't see anything in my post that disagrees with you r.e. raiding.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
Comments
For instance when I went on a holiday I was in a restaurant and the menu was a sticker on the table, where I had to scan a qr code to actually read and order the food and drinks. The waitress didn't even come to our table except to serve the food later one. So it's not only one aspect of our lives that are changing and much of it is not to our liking.
Haven't you noticed that people are not even talking to each other but just snapping photos of the food before they eat and you expect the gaming industry to be any different. It's change. I am not happy but I don't want to wallow in it either. This is what you're doing because none of what you talk about is going to solve the current dissatisfaction. I refuse to taint what enjoyment I still get by discussing it to death.
I am currently playing City of Heroes and considering P99 again and get that Shaman to level 30, still unhappy about the mana regeneration is all. I have no taste for all the newer action MMORPGs. Probably leave those to you younger ones.
Single player games are where I am currently devoting my time. Wigmund is a good game.
I don't think Final Fantasy 11 had them or Anarchy Online as far as I remember.
Did Runescape? There's really a giant list of these old games.
And for the most part I think the "game" was the social part.
As far as "world alive" what does that even mean? I think traveling along an expanse with some wildlife but not much else is "alive." Because that's how a world works when you leave populated areas. However, some people hate that, they think it's an "empty world" because there's nothing to do.
It really depends n the demograhic. Some people want "a world" and some people want "a game."
And for those people who want "a game" some want a cultivate and mapped out experience and some don't.
To many people want too many different things.
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Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I guess EVE was given as a reference and I will agree, it was the best virtual world experience I've had to date, now if only someone created similar with more avatar related aspects and not just space ships.
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Is Genshin Impact well reviewed? According to Metacritic its only 4.1. If you read my post I was stating DI was successful in money but not user reviews. Two different success requirements right.
You say people are changing to not be social. AND YET 2 massive blockbuster movies at near the top of the all time revenue list worldwide came out in 2022? Surprise both off old IP's 13 and 25 years old, and BOTH very similiar to the originals. So I think your theory just went out the window.
It shows that if people make entertainment that people actually LIKE, then people will buy it.
Can a bad product do well? Sometimes, but good products generally do better most of the time. Lesson learned, make products your customers want, not products the designers want.
So if entertainment companies keep pumping out trash, yes they can kill their own industry for a time until someone with a brain figures out the secret. hint hint (customer satisfaction).
Here is the problem with your theory. If Fortnite type games are the standard that "makes the most money with the least effort". Then why are there not top companies making Fortnite clones that are better quality, more current and actually more successful than Fortnite?
If you put Fortnite on a graph of successful games, it would be a huge outlier. How do you know it wasnt just luck or having the right product at the right time.
Where is the reproductability?
If its so easy all the top dev companies should be climbing all over themselves and split that market up. Show me all the games launching that are going to topple Fortnite that are like Fortnite.
The Battle Royal was something they just threw on at the end for fun of it and it ended the hugely popular game mode it is leaving Save the World to play second fiddle vying for development resources ..
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2024: 47 years on the Net.
Yep good point, now lets ask this simple question. What game is better than WoW at what WoW is? In all this time, what game do you feel has EVER been released that you think is better quality than WoW at EVERY main compenent WoW has.
Until a game can beat WoW in everything its good at, how can anything hope to topple it? So obviously there is a disconnect with the devs and their customers and its not so easy to reproduce a good game like you are saying.
When these companies start putting out a Quality product that the players want that is better than the product they are currently playing, you might start seeing these older games die off.
So we wont know if WoW was a one off or not until someone does it better and that game fails or succeeds.
This goes for all the other types of games in the genre, you want to put to rest that a UO game released now wont do good, then let them release a game that is better than UO in all areas UO was good at. Then everyone will know the answer. Yet 25 years later we still cant know that answer because everything that "sorta" tried was garbage.
Same goes for DAOC, EQ and all the rest.
Make it better or at least the very least the same quality. Lets see some high USER rating MMO's, then see if this genre is truely dead or not.
I dream of UO being done bigger and better. But I think the PKing and other abuses needs a hard fix. But I love the concept of open world PvP if the "runaway crime" aspects can be fixed.
Once upon a time....
just saying
WoW and Fortnite are the pinnacle of games of their type?
This makes no sense to me, all you have to do is copy the forumla and improve the graphics and automatically the game is better than the previous version. When you look at other entertainment you see Movies toppleing previous movies all the time. Sometimes many years later with a very similiar formula. You mention LOTR MMO but LOTR the movie couldnt even get funded and was passed on by multiple studios, then when it finally was funded it was wildly successful. Entertainment management is clueless about what normal people want. This applies to video game studios too.
Critical mass?
Yeah I agree a ball can get moving and build steam, so I dont totally disagree. Where I disagree is that this works both ways. Once a game starts building negative momentum then it can wipe away any popular momemtum it got from positive press. New World comes to mind here.
As far as LOTRO being better at launch than WoW. I never played LOTRO so I cannot make a judgement. I will say at the time pretty much everyones perception was that LOTRO was a lesser version of WoW. My friends are endgame raiders, somehow I would imagine this is probably where LOTRO fell short. I am not talking about the opinion of 1 person but of the general public at the time. No way the consensus is that LOTRO is better than WoW of its time.
The other thing I notice your areas you mention, but that is not even what WoW is known for. Roleplaying? what who said wow known for being the best RP.
Wow is known for challenging End Game Raiding (PRIMARY), top group dungeons (secondary), Interesting Solo Quests, POLISH, lots of magic, having solid secondary professions/trading and being overall decent in most other areas (not housing).
So its in these areas a game will have to be good to dethrone WoW at its peak.
There are actually a few decently successful mmorpg similar to wow.(Aka generic themepark games). FFXIV, GW2, Elder Scroll online. So copy the fomurla do work to a certain extend.
And to me I think it is actually very hard to make a game better than wow. Because Wow is a game being developed for 19 years. The sheer amount of content and update is enourmous. Not to mention many people invested tones of hours in the game already. They simply wont' jump to new mmorpg.
The thing is everyone just play the top games of certain genre. So it is unlikely there would be many successful shooters or RTS or MOBA or ARPG.
And for theme park mmorpg. Everyone probably just play the top few theme park, so keep saturating the market with more theme park mmorpg probably won't work.
You are looking at the small piece of pie instead of the entire bakery.
The people currently playing WoW dont even represent 2% of the accounts that played WoW. If a decent amount off all the others to play a new MMO, then most of the 2% will flip also. Its just the way it works.
Also I am not talking about Current WoW. Current WoW isnt growing, it cant even retain its customers. They need to look back when it was growing and copy that forumla.
There is no saturation at all. There hasnt been a real popular MMO release that can retain its customers in years. If anything an MMO as good as WoW was released that was growing instead of losing customer, then customers would jump back in.
Generally browse here every few days and read comments.
According to posters here every single game just sucks, that's why this place is dead. It's impossible to believe anyone here or what they post, every game isn't terrible, there aren't any fair posts, it's one extreme or another.
I think people needed to be less jaded when they approach every new MMO with comments.
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New World is another, we had so many fanbois on this site praising that game, while that game was losing 99.9% of its players.
If everything ever made is bad, maybe it's time for developers to throw in the tower and stop making mmorpg. I dont' know how many mmorpg are made already and you don't like any.
Judging from the hype list from this site, developers have throw in the tower too and nothing much worthwhile new mmorpg is coming out.
Riot is making a new mmorpg, GW3 might have a chance to become reality and start development but that is years away.
I think Ark online and Lineage M is pretty big, but since it's from korea, the cash shop might be pretty bad.
I'm pretty surprise that Crowfall and Legend of Aria gets shutdown. You are probably right. Everything is going downhill. But if everything is going downhill why should companies keep trying to make new mmorpg?
Valid point. I think if they are going to make a trash MMO that actually loses money, then its in their best interst to not even make one in the first place. Unless they just want to keep their staff proficient while they figure it out.
The solution is that they need to change the formula into one where customer satisfaction is high. I personally think they can do that easily. However there is a disconnect between designers and their customers. So until they equalize that gap, they should stop making subpar MMO's.
Yeah I just cant agree with your theory, especially since its counter so my own experience.
My theory explains why WoW dominated LotRO yours is based on a question.
So to answer your question, me and my core friends played WoW for endgame raiding. When LotRO released I wasnt even playing WoW anymore. I play a bunch of MMO's but I dont like playing subpar MMO's. I had no personal friends playing LotRO that I knew of at the time, only later did they get into it. So how did they miss me, an avid MMO player that wasnt even playing WoW?
You seem to not understand, that not all gamers were playing WoW. Even WoW at its peak had 10mil people with 100mil accounts created. Thats a retention of 10%. Why were the other 90% not trying and retaining with LotRO?
Your concept is flawed regarding End Game raiding. My anology is this. Lets take an amusement park, it has big rides. What is the draw? the little rides? More people go on the little rides than those on the big rides, but the big rides are the draw. I know I have had many family members that go and wont ride most of the rides, but they want to share in the entire experience. If you remove all the top rides to where every ride was newbiefied, then your park would no longer appeal to everyone. If you tried to appeal to the lowest level, you might have ZERO rides, then where would you be?