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MMORPGs may be dying but are we at the precipice of something better?
Jacxolope
Member UncommonPosts: 1,140
MMORPGs have been dying a slow and painful death for years and its been a difficult thing to watch the transition into 'single player co-op' and non stop action "kill kill kill" , Ca$h $hop, Esport , ADHD games with very little resemblance to the genre I (and many of you) fell in love with in the late 90s and early 00's.
I have pretty much exited the entire genre and for the last X amount of years and find myself on forums far more than playing these games. I mainly play singleplayer games and get my multiplayer 'RPG' fix from tabletop- MMORPGs be damned. They all pretty much suck these days anyhow and the ability for players to be creative has been replaced by "everyone is the hero" led by the nose , poorly written story where everyone wins..
Anyhow, not wanting to debate the merits (or lack thereof) of this current crop of games. They are popular, mainstream and making $$$- But at a cost that has alienated us 'nerds' who were there from the start. happens often when something become mainstream. I used the example of "Hot Topic' being a store at the mall when the people who originally started that 'style 'of clothing would never have been caught dead at the mall... the way I now want to remove my tattoos so I can be different since every 30 something Mother is now getting tatted and people who a decade ago looked upon ink with scorn are now posting pics of their tats all over Facebook. Same principal. Happens with everything that goes mainstream- It loses it souls and dies even if it is commercially successful.
-Such is life.
Something is happening though- A new golden age? Perhaps. It certainly isnt in MMORPGs but its there...Its coming. And its happening in a way I never would have suspected. It might even surpass the golden age of mmorpgs with more creative freedom and 'RPG' than any MMORPG could ever allow us. This took me by surprise in the last couple weeks... A very pleasant surprise.
It started with me buying an Early Access pass to"Planet Explorers" mainly because I wanted to use the creation tool. I abhor early access and after being utterly ripped off on Day Z and its perpetual development that is slow as a snail after making multi-millions of dollars (yay...They added a backpack in new colors. Great update devs. At this rate we will have 1/10th of what the free mod has in the next 20 years) I swore off ever buying Early Acess again.
I lied. And I am glad I did.
Planet Explorers rekindled my faith in Early Access by having the potential to be one of the least restrictive and most creative sandbox experience ever. I messed around for a few hours, loved it but it needs to be optimized badly so i I decided to wait until the next update before I really sink my teeth into the game- So I reluctantly purchased "7 days to die" another EA game that I have had my eye on for about a year and decided to give it a spin.
HOLY SHIT.My mind is blown... THIS is the future. THIS is the start of a new golden age in the types of games I have been seeking since UO and it isnt "massivley Multiplayer."- It couldnt be... But its. Better?
The amount of creativity afforded to the player could not work in a game like this if it were an actual mmorpg. Its daunting. They give you a world, they provide the rules and you can go crazy and become as creative as possible in trying to approach problems in any way you can think of. It has full terra forming ,is a voxel based game and the "world" can be changed down to the most minute detail. It has persistent servers that are very much "MMO-Like" but limit connected players to a max of 64 at one time- I amon a PVE server that has hundreds of players who have all designed their own bases, created their own traps and formed an immensely unique world the likes of which an actual mmorpg could never replicate.
The game is in Alpha but its been the most fun ive had in a multiplayer game ever. Something is being achieved here that an mmorpg could never achieve (or will never achieve even if it were possible). THIS is the dream. This is going places we wished mmorpgs would have evolved into but sadly,did not and never will.
Games like '7 Days to Die' and 'Planet Explorers' are the start of a trend imho that is going to bring us back into another golden age. sadly, the genre many of us have loved is and has been dead. However, something better may be on the horizon. These small population , persistent world games with full creative control over a 'world' and tight knight communities are creating games that those of us 'left behind' are bound to appreciate.
After the last week or so I think im finished with MMOs. I think something better this way comes.
You can have your twitch based ,singleplayer, action game,ca$h $hop, overhyped game wrapped in the shell of a genre that has devolved into something with no soul but I have found that my interests and needs are being catered to albeit on a smaller level- I can handle smaller if the evolution is allowing me full creative control and the ability to actually change the virtual world like I can in 7 days and PE.
-And this is just the start of a beautiful thing I am thinking.=)
Comments
First off I would like to say welcome to the "7 Days to Die" community! Bought it about a year ago and been enjoying it ever since. Last update is by far the best (11.2). Fixed lots of issues I had.
More on topic, I don't think we're seeing much of a decline of MMO's. In fact I think there have been more big name releases in the past year (Wild Star and ESO to name two) than in the past couple of years. And we have more coming this year (crosses fingers on Dragon's Dogma having a US/EU release!). What I do think is happening is companies realizing the payment method of old (subbing for a month, 3 or 6 at a time) is old and doesn't relate to the vast majority anymore. With that, they are adapting (even WoW is switching to a Plex style system). Just my two cents.
I'll have to check out "Planet Explorers". You have piqued my interest.
Yeah 7 days is freaking amazing... I think once everything is implemented its going to be one of the best gaming experiences I could ever dream of- hell, right now im totally addicted and if development stopped today I have by far gotten my moneys worth. There is so much to do its insane and the creativity you are allowed is mind blowing (...Yeah, look into PE as it has even more creative possibilities right down to creating submarines and airships from scratch with real physics. I would wait until Unity 5 in the next update though since it runs like shit and my computer is a beast so optimization is nesassary unless you want to turn everything down to low graphic settings)
And no, I dont mean that MMORPGs are gone- But they arent what they once were. back in the day(with UO) you had similar creative options to what 7 days gives us (not to the extent but...) there were people who designed homes, castles, traps,etc..It was a "world"- games now are not 'worlds'although they still are mmorpgs -Its not nearly the same as what it once was. You actually had an impact on things rather than running the exact (or close to exact) content as everyone else, in the same order.You actually "changed" the world as you did things.Now things are static until an update or Xpac is fed to us.
MMORPG's are evolving, of course some are dying, the recent events surrounding ESO and Wildstar do kind of give that impression, but they aren't the whole genre, they barely represent a small segment of it. the genre as a whole is actually pretty healthy, and growing too, so just because a few games are dying doesn't mean its the end of the world for MMORPG's.
If MMORPG's are on a precipice of any kind, its one awaiting technological advances being realised, both in software and hardware, just take a look at the games from when MMO's first became a thing, to what they are capable of producing today, its as much about advances in programming, as the hardware utilised to produce it, and with every advance in either branch, gaming as we know it, will stand again, on a precipice, sure, some games fail, rather than dwelling on past failures however, its time to look forward, not back
.. except for SWG of course, curse you LA/SOE
I don't think MMOs are dying. Just shitty ones. I mean Brink was a shitty game, and no one is crying video games are dying.
MMOs are just looking for their next Wow to copy.
Ea is like a poo fingered midas ~ShakyMo
Enjoy looking forward.
The games of old were far more "advanced" imho- They didnt look pretty, they were rough but we thought the tech would advance gameplay and instead only graphics have advanced while gameplay has become dumbed down.
The genre is healthy because its mainstream. To be mainstream , it had to have mass appeal and be acessable to all (something games of old were not)
In UO I could do more things than any MMORPG since. Not content that was spoon fed to me. Not running the same zone and story as the next guy- I could actually effect the virtual world. THAT was what many ofus thought would expand with the tech but the opposite happened. We got really pretty games with very little depth and a focus on mainly killing and leveling to endgame (to raid gear)
In any modern MMORPG I can not effect the world one bit. No matter what I do. My experience is the same as yours and my ability to make an impact is little to none. I think my point is being missed. There is no creativity afforded to the player. Everything is laid out for them,in order and deviation is very difficult. I cannot express my creativity in a virtual world because the world is static until a dev changes the code. Hell, there is really no"world"left anymore.Just gated areas to gothrough in order.
MMORPGs are far more popular- But they sacrificed so much to get there.
EDIT- That is why I am thrilled with what is happening in games like 7 days and PE. They are giving us virtual worlds again. I can create anything I want and change the world that everyone plays in.I can devise traps that nobody has thought of. I can create bases in any way imaginable. I can actually change the game world we all share.
I get that many people love the genre as it is.I dont. Many others dont. The genre we once called mmorpgs is dead.Its evolved into twitch action, led by the nose, everyone is the hero, everyone is spoon fed the same story and you have no impact on the world at all. This isnt a bad thing entirely- I actually had a blast playing wow... Its just that the genre is evolving into single player with some co-op and a static world...And thats it. There are no options for anything different and creative .
People like myself have been seeing the change and not liking it at all. Its a losing battle ,however. We are the minority. BUT these smaller virtual world games with real worlds we can impact is what we thought would happen to the genre as it expanded-It did not. Finding these games gives me hope that a new golden age is upon those with similar tastes to me. The majority will still have the genre most of us old timers have now abandoned.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
My thoughts exactly. This is where the real sandbox experience is going to happen.
My third day playing 7 days I hooked up with some people who had a community castle they had built and designed. I got sent on a reckon mission with a couple guys into a neighborhood crawling with hordes of Zombies. We needed to hit a bookstore so I could get some skills.
We sat there, hidden in the grass watching the neighborhood and trying to figure out the best way to approach the problem. For 20 mins or so we talked it out and planned our strategy.
We could make it to the closest building, break in and get to the roof and construct a platform across the city rooftops until we hit our target and could break in through the roof. We could tunnel under the city and try to gauge where we could surface in the basement of our target. We could stealthily move through the city avoiding contact and using silent weapons.We could run in and gun down the Zombies but face the potential of attracting more- In the end we decided to kite the largest amount of zombies we could and then use stealth to sneak into the city while our allies were leading the zombies away.
-Thats good stuff. To have to plan and have options availible rather than the typical mmorpg approach of- Kill mobs,move forward, kill mobs.
Thats just a small sample of the sheer amount of thinking and overcoming obstacles that this game throws at you- I am loving it. If this takes off we could see some amazing games in the next 10 years. If it gets as popular as wow the whole genre will stagnate...Sadly.
Heres hoping it stays niche enough to keep its roots and yet popular enough to evolve into the promise land of incline.=P
I think this is the start of an awesome era in gaming once the kinks are worked out.
Risk taking....Change......Innovation Come from experiencing huge financial losses.....years wasted in product development.....frustration.........fired game design decision makers who failed to produce a decent ROI (return on investment).
We've seen a fair amount of blood on he floor. Though some game decision makers that led the genre into "the great malaise" continue to try to pied piper gamers into the next "me to" pig with lipstick.
What pleases me most is that game designers with ideas have found a way to do their thing and get the funding to try new things. Most new products fail,but some do succeed. All I'm doing is standing back and cheering the risk takers....and hoping one of them makes a game that pulls me back into the genre.
It is not so much that MMORPGs are dying, as much as the big companies that make them are.
They have realized, finally, that it is tough to even recoup your expenditures making games with the same or nearly the same game mechanics (read WoW clone) over and over again. Let alone turn a profit (I know, it is an ugly word to some people).
Several companies that have canceled or stopped making "AAA" MMOs in the recent past (and I am sure I'll miss a couple):
Blizzard (Canceled their MMORPG that was in development for many years)
CCP (Canceled their horror MMORPG)
Funcom (announced they were not going to make any new MMOs)
SOE (Canceled several MMOs, Sold off by Sony because they were a money pit, and released several sub AAA quality games in a row prior to that, being milked by VCs until the company dies. )
The list goes on.
And that leaves a bunch of underfunded indie companies that have put out crappy, underdeveloped, alpha quality games, and the "scam" companies like Cryptic/PWI that put out cheap, shallow, disposable games that rely heavily on things like lock box gambling. (Also throw in there a few grind happy, cash shop heavy Asian imports.)
So, it will not be until a couple of indies put out a few decent games (and they haven't yet) to build up their resources, that we will see companies that are capable of putting out games that approached the AAA we saw in the past.
But can you leave the 'genre' behind when the industry does?
What if the Next Huge Thing is a spinoff from Minecraft, something even further away from MMO circa 2000?
We've got a sizable audience here that would rather remain here, grumping, than give up a fifteen year old hope that the 'glory days' of turn-of-the-century gaming will some day return. While the rest of the world is installing MegaGame2020 (*Not An MMO!!*, many of them will remain here, mumbling the same tired mumbles.
Those in denial that MOBAs aren't a real thing, or insisting Phone Apps aren't important, might already be a candidate.
Can you imagine the fingers-in-ears lalalalala denial if the Next Huge Game was built by Disney and based on the Little Mermaid?
The only reason why I dont play a MMORPG is because there is none out there that attracts me.
Also, I'm a man, I dont care about fashion. So why would I care if MMORPGs are currently fashionable, or not ? All i care is if I enjoy the experience.
So I would instantly play Vanguard happily again if anyone would reopen it. I dont really care if nobody else does, as long as theres enough players to have a great guild.
But since Vanguard is shut down and theres nothing else in sight - I dont play.
It's true though, what has been lost will likely never return, but it still exists in small pockets if you look for it.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
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
Did you even bother reading my post or just the title?
I ask this seriously because I agree with you. And people who dont bother to read and jump to conclusions are the target audience.
Im not being a dick- But...
Yes, there are more andmore people coming to MMOs. We agree. Justin Bieber also is one of the most popular musicians today.
What older MMORPG had deeper more dynamic gameplay than rotations like this? Of the many early MMORPGs I played, none had gameplay anything close to as advanced as that. To be fair a lot of modern MMORPGs fail at it too, but at least some like GW2 have pretty tight gameplay behind using/combining the right abilities at the right time. All the early MMORPGs I played had very shallow rotations.
So this whole "modern MMORPGs have graphics but not gameplay" vibe feels entirely wrong.
Certainly there's a market for kitchen-sink style feature design. I worked with the lead designer of Morrowind who would call this "the dog's breakfast", implying that a lot of features get dumped into that sort of game but they're all quite low quality individually. But clearly in spite of Skyrim's combat sucking plenty of players enjoy it (and even I don't wholly dislike it; it was reasonably fun til I consumed all the content it had to offer -- actually it was fun mostly until I hit a power spike where no combat was ever challenging again.) My impression is UO took a similar approach.
But this approach doesn't make those games better than games which don't spam features, and instead craft a handful of very high quality features (like WOW's focus on having the best combat.)
Which isn't to say everything is great and perfect. It's a concern that so many developers are trying to replicate WOW's narrower approach without actually achieving the depth of feature design that made WOW work, and if they're unable/unwilling to make things work with that approach then maybe the dog's breakfast approach is what they should try instead.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Sadly this is what our parents and grandparents cried about,remember?This is what happens ,cultures ideas and ways of life change.Technology has had a huge part of the change as we see a majority of people copy fashion trends and ideals off of TV and movies,actors,high profile people etc etc.
To me it is like seeing people walk around with their pants half down,suppose to be some fashion trend or all the people getting piercings done,all of course needless but they get these ideas from some where.
Are we on the verge of something better?Nope it seems to take many years in VERY small steps when comes to gaming.Geesh we even see tons of devs targeting careless spenders by selling at ridiculous prices virtual items that gamer's NEVER own,they are simply renting the use of.Part of the SLOW process is because game's cannot alienate a huge portion of the gamer base,it limits their chance at profits.That is why game design will ALWAYS remain far behind the technical aspect of gaming.So you see the possibility of an idea say VR as an example,it will take many years to see it fulfilled to a standard quality.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I dont disagree with you at all- And Morrowind was one of the best RPGs ever (you're lucky to have known him)-
My post wasnt aimed at debating the merits for and against modern MMORPGs (which are nothing like the older titles that spawned them) but rather to speak out to the people who agree with my opinion and are not happy with the current offerings. Those who are happy with the current state of the genre have plenty of games- More than I can count. Those unhappy have few to none (or poor quality with good design on paper)
People with my opinion (there are many) have lost to the mainstream cash flow. It is what it is. I am saying there is a golden age on the horizon for people like me and its not in the mmorpg genre.
I find it interesting that MMORPGs are the only genre that many people claimis dead compared tothe genre it spawned from. FPS are better than ever, Racing games are better than ever, platformers are better than ever, RPGs are better than ever-But mmorpgs are not. I never see this debate happening in any genre but mmorpgs so there must be something to it.
-Again though, im not wanting to devolve into debate or "my gameplay style is more popular so its better" type ofconversation but rather to speak to those who feel as I do.
-But it IS happening again.Just not with mmorpgs. Check out Planet Explorers and 7 days todie- Total immersive virtual worlds with persistant servers...Just not the massivley part.
Its coming. After seeing these games in alpha its only a generation away IF they do well imho. And I amgenerally pessimistic about these things until now.
When people call all online multiplayer game MMO and MMORPG if they have quests and instances then i have nothing to say anymore.
They kill off the whole genre by bend the mean of it.
You can call all dinosaur (game) dinosaur , but you can't call T-rex (MMO) as raptor (MO). There are no new born MMO and old MMO don't last for long soon they will extinct.
Nowadays MMO designers don't even know the mean of what they create. The lie can bring profit , but it can't replace the true.
Ooooooo, I was with you right up until you said "... IF they do well." Thing is that the definition of "well" is really distorted. WoW is doing "Well". In fact, when WoW was down at 7 million subs, they were all but dead in the water. Well really needs to be redefined to be 250-300k subs. Really well, is like 400 and awesome is like 500. There are VERY few games that maintain more than that. SWTOR did it for a short time, ESO did it for a short time, but I think that maintaining around the 300-500 mark is a sweet spot for a game to be successful.
Hearthstone is destroying every other TCG at the moment. So is Magic "not successful"? No, we should just disregard anything Blizz, basically. Honestly, they just jump expectations, that's it.
Until MMORPGs are a niche, again, we won't really see anything substantial. That's ok, though. Still having fun along the way. The first games, though, the EQs, the Meridian 59s, like wtf were these people thinking? I highly doubt that they were thinking that they were creating a game to be consumed by MILLIONS!!! No, it was probably a game for D&D geeks. They knew it was a niche.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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Now, which one of you will adorn me today?
- I 100% agree. It needs to do well but stay niche. If these games take off like Wow the entire cycle will begin again lol =P
Doing well to me means turning enough profit to continue on. Making a decent chunk of change- Not needing Millions of players. To get to that point the game would have to be dumbed down to the point of changing everything.Millions upon millions will not like this game as it is- You can already see the negative comments (they are few and far between) come mostly from the crowd I hope this new(er) genre avoids.
Its too hard. I dont know what to do. Need an I win button. too much work. Should be able to destroy hordes of zombies by myself on day 1. etc..etc..etc.. And this is in a game with totally customizable settings to make it as easy or as difficult as one desires.Its still not enough for some.
EDIT- @ iixv and Bitrip. Yes and yes.
Lol, yup! That's definitely NOT The Repop. Shards Online is another I'm excited for. Thing I like about The Repop, though, is that it seems grass-roots. It's like a group of buddies just said "eff it! Wanna make a game for us?" For this reason they get breaks on schedule slips and also professionalism from me
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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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