The original MMO is dead for sure. The industry has completely shifted since 2004 because of WoW. To get back the "original" feeling of the old school Mmorpg a game would have to have certain requirements. Such as:
1. No questing. Mob grinding and non-linear dungeons to level.
2. Forced grouping. Or extremely limited solo progression.
3. Huge expansive world with actual dangers.
4. Death penalties. XP loss, Item loss, Corpse loss...etc, etc.
5. Slow progression to max level. Slow: as in months and months to max level.
Problem is I'm not sure how popular it would be nowadays. I think the best way to start would be to force people to group. Solo play has got to go. These games are now basically single player experiences with a chat room.
-the mmog player has become more experienced. What was entertaining is no more
-mmogs have become very expensive to make. Big company won't take chances....they point to what got consumers to spend in the past and say "thats safe ground to build on" (WILDSTAR anyone)
-consumers have been willing to spend too much of their money on crap.....So what do they get served next > C _ _ P.
-the poor world economy is causing discretionary spending to be more closely scrutinized
-game development decision makers look to yesterday as the answer to tomorrow......and their job security
-game companies have been persuaded to develop their products to the "give it to me now" whiners
The future.....
-new ways to fund young new game companies will open up innovation...on occasion
-game consumers and companies need to see more blood(lost investment money)....more failure....to force some few risk takers who will lead some of the game developer "followers" out of their developmental malaise.
I dont belive its dead yet. But the road is somehow a walk down the dead mans alley.
My opinion is that genre will be a split in two branches. One for the "fast and furious" gamer, where more, faster, bigger is the goal. Like a King of the Hill e-game, they call themselves "Hard core". The other Group will be more laidback, call them casuals, where RPG and long time experience, emersion is important. Blizzard tried some of that in MOP where the message from day 1 was "Slow down, slow down".
Blizzard has announced 10 more years of WOW, and with the cancelation of Titan, we probably will se a more waterdown WOW over the years. It has already started in earlier exp and in WOD it will be more removal of stats and abilities.
Im a casual gamer, dont have that much time for long boring grinding and high top level raiding (I do love raiding with my guild).
We are their customers, and in the end we will be the ones that decide. We will in the end vote with our wallets.
But I can agree that this year have been a year of big disappointment. Im not a satisfied customer. PC gaming is not dead but some MMOs will be.
Walking down a dead mans alley sounds pretty dead to me.
Bill in his latest MMOFTW asks where are the great new titles coming out? Its good to see that after all this time some journos in the industry are facing up to the issues.
Many of us on here started to address these concerns over five years ago, about two years before Lotro came out the direction of travel became clear to me. What you have to do is not base what you think is happening in the industry on what its like now. Think about what it was like ten years ago, what it is like now and draw a line through the data points to show you where its going.
How much money its earning is not a good indicator of quality and sustainability in the entertainment sector. That sort of snapshot view is what blinkers so many.
Not only is the MMO dead, it died years ago, Lotro was a last hurrah. And within four years in had become a decent hybrid P2P/F2P MMO. A year after that it was a MMO with a payment model that bought gameplay for cash. That's how MMOs work now if they don't start of as F2P MMOs. The baulk now start as games were you buy gameplay and gamble at the casino.
Join the dots...a monthly payment model to gamebreaking cash purchases and casino gambling. Do you think it will stop there? Of course it won't. As we speak executives are planning other ways to generate more money from this perverse system.
Join the dots...large open worlds to small, instanced areas. The rise of formats which call themselves MMO's but are not true 3D, not over the shoulder. Do you think it will stop there? Of course it won't. Expect 'MMO's' to become smaller, more on tram lines, more about nothing else but levelling.
I have not covered here why this has happened, but we have gone over that many times before.
If this were to happen in the movie industry we would be only watching films shot on a shoestring budget with shaky camera work, no outdoor locations, no story and poorly developed characterisation. But they would not be able to sell that to the film going public. They did sell it to gamers, that's what's so sad about all this.
Originally posted by AlBQuirky This is NOT about 1 game here gone
Neaither is about perception and preferences of 1 person...
yadda yadda yadda...
Yea, *I'm* the ONLY player who feels this way. Have you read the thread, or just picking out 8 words from a longer post by ONE person and making your "assumptions?" Feel better now?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
I think the AAA MMORPG is pretty much done... I can't see many past EQN being made, unless that game hits big on the consoles. They are too much risk, no longer fashionable, and you have to deal with a shitty player base that doesn't for the most part want to pay you any money for your 4 years and $40+ million investment.
Easier to make tablet/ mobile games tbh.
I think this is a good thing though... I think the genre does need to get out of the mainstream and back to grassroots passionate development in order to rediscover what it is.
Gw2 came out a couple years ago and is doing well, and is a quality game.
Swtor came out last -same as above.
FF rereleased and is doing very well.
Eso came out this year -same as above.
And these are only AAA games, the genre is overflowing with games, including indie titles. The genre isn't dying, what we have is people who dont realise they have outgrown the genre, and think the answer is to change the genre.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
So when this thread dies, who wants to make the next "MMO's are dead" thread? Or should we just make them everyday just to make sure we have this base covered regularly, we wouldn't want to go without this riveting discussion about the death of MMO's.
Originally posted by Rusque So when this thread dies, who wants to make the next "MMO's are dead" thread? Or should we just make them everyday just to make sure we have this base covered regularly, we wouldn't want to go without this riveting discussion about the death of MMO's.
Archeage was the nail in the coffin for me. SWG was the pinnacle.
P2W options, advanced bots/hacks, small & instanced worlds, easy/everyone can win gameplay and cash shops are just some of the reasons this genre is over.
I know you can never "go back". But EQ and SWG were magical, and had it right. EQ was actually dangerous, and SWG was a living breathing, player built world.
Where are these types of games today?
I've been playing single player rts.....
Then you are lucky as we will have The Repopulation to play soon feels a lot like SWG in many ways.
It's hard to have a living breathing world when it's 99% instanced. What is the point of doing anything when there is zero risk vs reward. Back in the days MMO's were challenging and fun and when you did kill that dragon and got your lootz you knew you earned it. Personally things like Death Runs, Mob Trains in dungeons, Wait lists for spawn points and KSing and being pissed because of it were all what made the MMO feel real.
Today MMO's are created for the "I want it all now" crowd. There is no risk, reward is a cash shop or very little effort involved. Too much Easy Travel that allows you to skip most of the world. You can hit max level in days not months now. MMO's are just a game to garner your attention and developers don't really care if you play it or not they just want you to not cancel your subscription.
EQ in the day was family. You knew people on the server not just your guild and your reputation was your life, Friends lists really were useful as you always had a ton of druids for travel and necros for corpse runs. When is the last time you seen a wedding in an MMO where the GM handed out cake and server wide people cheered you on? When was the last time you saw a GM run an adhock live event handing out special random prizes afterwards? You don't, hell most of you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about. EQ was not perfect for sure but it was more MMO than a game. Todays MMOs are just a game you play that has other people in it. There is no real interaction. You simply click here, go there, enter this instance and kills mobs stacked up like wood just for you and only you.
They could take what was EQ and make it something special. No instances, no easy travel, no auction house, no mobs just for you and most of all no cash to play. It would be fantastic. However it's just a pipe dream. Casual players rule the day. Like I said above, the developers of games today will give you anything and everything you want just as long as you don't cancel your sub. That's all they care about.
Originally posted by Rusque So when this thread dies, who wants to make the next "MMO's are dead" thread? Or should we just make them everyday just to make sure we have this base covered regularly, we wouldn't want to go without this riveting discussion about the death of MMO's.
I think once a week should suffice.
Nah, I think this one should be stickied so we don't have to go searching for another doom and gloom post. There are to many to keep track of. Besides, all the Chicken Littles could also take comfort in knowing they will always have a home they can post at without having to compete with each other's past nostalgia and current MMO mechanics as proof as to why the genre is dying.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Even Archeage, at its roots, is still a WoW Clone. Rather than 1-2 light innovations on the WoW model, it maybe has 4-5... and an end game that replaces raid bosses with a backpack. It's no surprise it's not working.
Company's see this - no new WoW clones by big production have started development after SWTOR's initial bomb. TESO and Wildstar were the last Themeparks to finish up in the age of the dead WoW Clone... and their flopping only proved it further.
New games are being developed that will be quite different from the WoW model. Everything I hear about EQ Next is very positive. And if that one doesn't catch on, the games after EQ Next will.
MMOs will never die, they'll just evolve.
As WoW was at it's roots a clone of EQ and DAoC.
When I said i had "time", i meant virtual time, i got no RL "time" for you.
You compare ONE game to a whole genre? My favorite MMORPG (City of Heroes) closed its doors. I'm fine with that, though sad. This is NOT about 1 game here gone, one game there closed down. This about a WHOLE GENRE that has changed for the worst, in my opinion.
I must admit that it is not really the games' fault, but rather the players who "infest" them now who min/max everything and ruin the whole "spirit" of the genre. Yes, we've always min/maxers in MMORPGs, but not near the percentage today. Players who delight in telling others, "You're playing that wrong!"
"worst" is subject ... as you already pointed out. It is just a matter of perspective. Worse for you .. better for many ... if not .. devs won't move the genre in this direction.
And no one is at fault. We are talking about preferences of entertainment here .. not moral philosophy. So what if gamers want to min/max ... if that is fun to them, i don't see a problem.
It's hard to have a living breathing world when it's 99% instanced. What is the point of doing anything when there is zero risk vs reward.
Have fun in combat? Enjoy the solo content?
What you do not realize is that "the point" for you may be different from other players. What is the point of FPS? What is the point of MOBA? What is the point of puzzle games? Same as MMOs ... to entertain some players who find the games fun.
MMORPG as it was defined years ago could be considered close to dead. The Role playing part anyhow.
People do not play roles anymore, just play the games for a while then move on.
Not saying that is good or bad, as i am not sure, just that it has changed, and what people are looking for changes as well over time.
People that like to look back on the "good ole days" and the old games, are just failing to realize that they ( the people) change as well over time. And that is the main reason that they slowly stopped playing those special games that they played way back then.
Blaming the changes on outside influences is rarely right. And trying to find that special feeling again..just not going to happen. It was not the game...it was in you. And you have changed over time, as have everything else.
MMORPG as it was defined years ago could be considered close to dead. The Role playing part anyhow.
People do not play roles anymore, just play the games for a while then move on.
There never was a big role-playing market.
Even back in EQ, I have not seen anyone really "role playing". No one is ever in character. When camping, the chat is always about real life. How is work? How are the kids? And so on.
Ditto for WoW. UO was worse .. it is griefing and "ha ha .. you sux".
I don't think there is any substantial role-playing community for computer games.
I don't think there is any substantial role-playing community for computer games.
You are making assumptions, but that's ok I guess.
In any case, the beast that devours the games is hungry for more of the "new" and as more and more of the devs realize that player interactions are a way to generate more lasting "new", they will start to abuse the sand label more and more. Eventually someone might realize that player interactions are the basis of role playing.. do you see what I'm getting to?
Some devs and sites are also realizing that the community is putrid in its ability to dissolve itself and are looking for ways to improve. Whether or not this will lead to any quality and sense in the kind of interactions future games will allow, remains to be seen.
Business is business and to make money the devs need to improve. It takes a certain kind of a *censored* to believe you can keep copying for decades. There should be plenty of signs already that it's not working anymore. Except in games for kids
I like the ideas in Gorgon so thx for mentioning it Wizardry.
MMORPG as it was defined years ago could be considered close to dead. The Role playing part anyhow.
People do not play roles anymore, just play the games for a while then move on.
There never was a big role-playing market.
Even back in EQ, I have not seen anyone really "role playing". No one is ever in character. When camping, the chat is always about real life. How is work? How are the kids? And so on.
Ditto for WoW. UO was worse .. it is griefing and "ha ha .. you sux".
I don't think there is any substantial role-playing community for computer games.
I think Narius is right, the numbers of actual consumers for PnP Role Playing games have never been all that high (Peaking around 1983 I believe), so it makes no sense that there would have been massive role-playing. There may have been memorable role-playing and in game features that amplified those features, but except for the first batch of games (which attracted PnP players) the numbers would be small.
There are features in games that could be called RPG features because they first appeared in PnPRPGs, and that is what I think people refer to a lot of the time.
-Stats, Classes, Hit Points, Armor Class, Weapon Proficiencies, Skills, Languages
-Encumberance and Equipment, Class Powers, Item Stats and Powers, Money/Treasure Acquisition
But there are things which were translated to Computer which were more concrete because they had to be programmed. Things like the geography and art, monsters, equipment/items/ironmongery, structures, raw resources, NPCs.
All of the elements have been tweaked across a lot of games, and the result over time is that it has been determined that:
Appropriate Dev Work = Building Features used with great frequency by the most amount of users
That results in a product that is likely to be used in its life to the best degree of its design. That is, it is efficient in balancing Development Time as applied to use. Which would be great if all players were robots.
There are things in games that I used seldom, but loved greatly.
Modern games have cut those features out for the sake of attempting to grab the most users for a viable life of about 1-4 months of prime growth for a game. Which is fine, but if you are going to build it that way, how much harder is it to just include the extra features and allow for more retention? Like have the frequent use stuff stand out, but building complexity and exploration of features for players who would like to use the product longer.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
I think the AAA MMORPG is pretty much done... I can't see many past EQN being made, unless that game hits big on the consoles. They are too much risk, no longer fashionable, and you have to deal with a shitty player base that doesn't for the most part want to pay you any money for your 4 years and $40+ million investment.
Easier to make tablet/ mobile games tbh.
I think this is a good thing though... I think the genre does need to get out of the mainstream and back to grassroots passionate development in order to rediscover what it is.
I can't agree with your conclusion, but this is pretty much where the gaming industry is on MMOs today. But I agree there is a place for indie and for me modders in the world of MMOs.
Modern MMO apologists seem to be talking about The Repopulation now, after AA and Destiny did not make the grade. Every time we say AAA MMOs are dead they point to something on the horizon that never pans out.
Small, shallow, limited gameplay, easymode, these are the hallmarks of MMOs today.
Dunno about being dead, but they sure feel like lifeless, soulless abominations that are churned out in an assembly line with little more than a new coat of paint.
Comments
They're not dead, their quality has just declined.
The developers have three options:
1) Build an indie MMORPG.
2) Build a high quality MMORPG.
3) Build an MMORPG that attempts to milk players from even before it's finished.
The third option is these days the most profitable.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
The original MMO is dead for sure. The industry has completely shifted since 2004 because of WoW. To get back the "original" feeling of the old school Mmorpg a game would have to have certain requirements. Such as:
1. No questing. Mob grinding and non-linear dungeons to level.
2. Forced grouping. Or extremely limited solo progression.
3. Huge expansive world with actual dangers.
4. Death penalties. XP loss, Item loss, Corpse loss...etc, etc.
5. Slow progression to max level. Slow: as in months and months to max level.
Problem is I'm not sure how popular it would be nowadays. I think the best way to start would be to force people to group. Solo play has got to go. These games are now basically single player experiences with a chat room.
My 2 cents :
-the mmog player has become more experienced. What was entertaining is no more
-mmogs have become very expensive to make. Big company won't take chances....they point to what got consumers to spend in the past and say "thats safe ground to build on" (WILDSTAR anyone)
-consumers have been willing to spend too much of their money on crap.....So what do they get served next > C _ _ P.
-the poor world economy is causing discretionary spending to be more closely scrutinized
-game development decision makers look to yesterday as the answer to tomorrow......and their job security
-game companies have been persuaded to develop their products to the "give it to me now" whiners
The future.....
-new ways to fund young new game companies will open up innovation...on occasion
-game consumers and companies need to see more blood(lost investment money)....more failure....to force some few risk takers who will lead some of the game developer "followers" out of their developmental malaise.
and all of this
hasn't been, and won't be pretty to experience.
I dont belive its dead yet. But the road is somehow a walk down the dead mans alley.
My opinion is that genre will be a split in two branches. One for the "fast and furious" gamer, where more, faster, bigger is the goal. Like a King of the Hill e-game, they call themselves "Hard core". The other Group will be more laidback, call them casuals, where RPG and long time experience, emersion is important. Blizzard tried some of that in MOP where the message from day 1 was "Slow down, slow down".
Blizzard has announced 10 more years of WOW, and with the cancelation of Titan, we probably will se a more waterdown WOW over the years. It has already started in earlier exp and in WOD it will be more removal of stats and abilities.
Im a casual gamer, dont have that much time for long boring grinding and high top level raiding (I do love raiding with my guild).
We are their customers, and in the end we will be the ones that decide. We will in the end vote with our wallets.
But I can agree that this year have been a year of big disappointment. Im not a satisfied customer. PC gaming is not dead but some MMOs will be.
----
----
Walking down a dead mans alley sounds pretty dead to me.
Bill in his latest MMOFTW asks where are the great new titles coming out? Its good to see that after all this time some journos in the industry are facing up to the issues.
Many of us on here started to address these concerns over five years ago, about two years before Lotro came out the direction of travel became clear to me. What you have to do is not base what you think is happening in the industry on what its like now. Think about what it was like ten years ago, what it is like now and draw a line through the data points to show you where its going.
How much money its earning is not a good indicator of quality and sustainability in the entertainment sector. That sort of snapshot view is what blinkers so many.
Not only is the MMO dead, it died years ago, Lotro was a last hurrah. And within four years in had become a decent hybrid P2P/F2P MMO. A year after that it was a MMO with a payment model that bought gameplay for cash. That's how MMOs work now if they don't start of as F2P MMOs. The baulk now start as games were you buy gameplay and gamble at the casino.
Join the dots...a monthly payment model to gamebreaking cash purchases and casino gambling. Do you think it will stop there? Of course it won't. As we speak executives are planning other ways to generate more money from this perverse system.
Join the dots...large open worlds to small, instanced areas. The rise of formats which call themselves MMO's but are not true 3D, not over the shoulder. Do you think it will stop there? Of course it won't. Expect 'MMO's' to become smaller, more on tram lines, more about nothing else but levelling.
I have not covered here why this has happened, but we have gone over that many times before.
If this were to happen in the movie industry we would be only watching films shot on a shoestring budget with shaky camera work, no outdoor locations, no story and poorly developed characterisation. But they would not be able to sell that to the film going public. They did sell it to gamers, that's what's so sad about all this.
RIP MMO's we will never forget you.
Yea, *I'm* the ONLY player who feels this way. Have you read the thread, or just picking out 8 words from a longer post by ONE person and making your "assumptions?" Feel better now?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I think the AAA MMORPG is pretty much done... I can't see many past EQN being made, unless that game hits big on the consoles. They are too much risk, no longer fashionable, and you have to deal with a shitty player base that doesn't for the most part want to pay you any money for your 4 years and $40+ million investment.
Easier to make tablet/ mobile games tbh.
I think this is a good thing though... I think the genre does need to get out of the mainstream and back to grassroots passionate development in order to rediscover what it is.
Swtor came out last -same as above.
FF rereleased and is doing very well.
Eso came out this year -same as above.
And these are only AAA games, the genre is overflowing with games, including indie titles. The genre isn't dying, what we have is people who dont realise they have outgrown the genre, and think the answer is to change the genre.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
MMO
Massive
Multiplayer
Online
All words describing something but what is that something?
I think once a week should suffice.
Then you are lucky as we will have The Repopulation to play soon feels a lot like SWG in many ways.
It's hard to have a living breathing world when it's 99% instanced. What is the point of doing anything when there is zero risk vs reward. Back in the days MMO's were challenging and fun and when you did kill that dragon and got your lootz you knew you earned it. Personally things like Death Runs, Mob Trains in dungeons, Wait lists for spawn points and KSing and being pissed because of it were all what made the MMO feel real.
Today MMO's are created for the "I want it all now" crowd. There is no risk, reward is a cash shop or very little effort involved. Too much Easy Travel that allows you to skip most of the world. You can hit max level in days not months now. MMO's are just a game to garner your attention and developers don't really care if you play it or not they just want you to not cancel your subscription.
EQ in the day was family. You knew people on the server not just your guild and your reputation was your life, Friends lists really were useful as you always had a ton of druids for travel and necros for corpse runs. When is the last time you seen a wedding in an MMO where the GM handed out cake and server wide people cheered you on? When was the last time you saw a GM run an adhock live event handing out special random prizes afterwards? You don't, hell most of you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about. EQ was not perfect for sure but it was more MMO than a game. Todays MMOs are just a game you play that has other people in it. There is no real interaction. You simply click here, go there, enter this instance and kills mobs stacked up like wood just for you and only you.
They could take what was EQ and make it something special. No instances, no easy travel, no auction house, no mobs just for you and most of all no cash to play. It would be fantastic. However it's just a pipe dream. Casual players rule the day. Like I said above, the developers of games today will give you anything and everything you want just as long as you don't cancel your sub. That's all they care about.
Nah, I think this one should be stickied so we don't have to go searching for another doom and gloom post. There are to many to keep track of. Besides, all the Chicken Littles could also take comfort in knowing they will always have a home they can post at without having to compete with each other's past nostalgia and current MMO mechanics as proof as to why the genre is dying.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
What... it's dead again?
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
As WoW was at it's roots a clone of EQ and DAoC.
When I said i had "time", i meant virtual time, i got no RL "time" for you.
"worst" is subject ... as you already pointed out. It is just a matter of perspective. Worse for you .. better for many ... if not .. devs won't move the genre in this direction.
And no one is at fault. We are talking about preferences of entertainment here .. not moral philosophy. So what if gamers want to min/max ... if that is fun to them, i don't see a problem.
Have fun in combat? Enjoy the solo content?
What you do not realize is that "the point" for you may be different from other players. What is the point of FPS? What is the point of MOBA? What is the point of puzzle games? Same as MMOs ... to entertain some players who find the games fun.
MMO is doing fine.
MMORPG as it was defined years ago could be considered close to dead. The Role playing part anyhow.
People do not play roles anymore, just play the games for a while then move on.
Not saying that is good or bad, as i am not sure, just that it has changed, and what people are looking for changes as well over time.
People that like to look back on the "good ole days" and the old games, are just failing to realize that they ( the people) change as well over time. And that is the main reason that they slowly stopped playing those special games that they played way back then.
Blaming the changes on outside influences is rarely right. And trying to find that special feeling again..just not going to happen. It was not the game...it was in you. And you have changed over time, as have everything else.
There never was a big role-playing market.
Even back in EQ, I have not seen anyone really "role playing". No one is ever in character. When camping, the chat is always about real life. How is work? How are the kids? And so on.
Ditto for WoW. UO was worse .. it is griefing and "ha ha .. you sux".
I don't think there is any substantial role-playing community for computer games.
You are making assumptions, but that's ok I guess.
In any case, the beast that devours the games is hungry for more of the "new" and as more and more of the devs realize that player interactions are a way to generate more lasting "new", they will start to abuse the sand label more and more. Eventually someone might realize that player interactions are the basis of role playing.. do you see what I'm getting to?
Some devs and sites are also realizing that the community is putrid in its ability to dissolve itself and are looking for ways to improve. Whether or not this will lead to any quality and sense in the kind of interactions future games will allow, remains to be seen.
Business is business and to make money the devs need to improve. It takes a certain kind of a *censored* to believe you can keep copying for decades. There should be plenty of signs already that it's not working anymore. Except in games for kids
I like the ideas in Gorgon so thx for mentioning it Wizardry.
I think Narius is right, the numbers of actual consumers for PnP Role Playing games have never been all that high (Peaking around 1983 I believe), so it makes no sense that there would have been massive role-playing. There may have been memorable role-playing and in game features that amplified those features, but except for the first batch of games (which attracted PnP players) the numbers would be small.
There are features in games that could be called RPG features because they first appeared in PnPRPGs, and that is what I think people refer to a lot of the time.
-Stats, Classes, Hit Points, Armor Class, Weapon Proficiencies, Skills, Languages
-Encumberance and Equipment, Class Powers, Item Stats and Powers, Money/Treasure Acquisition
-Adventures/Modules, Encounter Rewards, Alignment/Race/Faction/Religion
But there are things which were translated to Computer which were more concrete because they had to be programmed. Things like the geography and art, monsters, equipment/items/ironmongery, structures, raw resources, NPCs.
All of the elements have been tweaked across a lot of games, and the result over time is that it has been determined that:
Appropriate Dev Work = Building Features used with great frequency by the most amount of users
That results in a product that is likely to be used in its life to the best degree of its design. That is, it is efficient in balancing Development Time as applied to use. Which would be great if all players were robots.
There are things in games that I used seldom, but loved greatly.
Modern games have cut those features out for the sake of attempting to grab the most users for a viable life of about 1-4 months of prime growth for a game. Which is fine, but if you are going to build it that way, how much harder is it to just include the extra features and allow for more retention? Like have the frequent use stuff stand out, but building complexity and exploration of features for players who would like to use the product longer.
I can't agree with your conclusion, but this is pretty much where the gaming industry is on MMOs today. But I agree there is a place for indie and for me modders in the world of MMOs.
Modern MMO apologists seem to be talking about The Repopulation now, after AA and Destiny did not make the grade. Every time we say AAA MMOs are dead they point to something on the horizon that never pans out.
Small, shallow, limited gameplay, easymode, these are the hallmarks of MMOs today.
Dunno about being dead, but they sure feel like lifeless, soulless abominations that are churned out in an assembly line with little more than a new coat of paint.
That's gaming in general now, though.