I see the opposite. We have so many MMOs in different genres doing classic themepark to full blown sandbox yet some people says MMOs are dying, I would like to know why, because I don't see what they see.
MMOs aren't dying... it's just that they aren't the same as they used to be. Some people seem to think that if they could hop into the wayback machine they could rekindle the exact same feeling they once had. Reality is, that was different times and everyone changes. Sort of like rebuilding some old muscle car... not quite the same thing as owning one when they were a thing. It's trying to hold on to the past... that is all.
I think it was a specific time and era that can never happen again, of either pick one of super early mmorpgs everquest and earlier, or think all the years of WoW early and mid 2000's.
You had a very smarter generation and more patient and less adhd, [mod edit] lots of money to spend of baby boomers children. I believe mmorpg's will live on but no massive cultural phenomenon as it once was.
Not dying just changing. I suggest anyone that feels MMOs aren't for them anymore pick up a Tabletop RPG. Play it online with people from different parts of the world.
Keep hearing that the MMO's are..evolving ! What...MMO's ? Could any of you name 1 big MMO which was launched in the past years?! Or which one will be released in the future? Can't you see that no big company is working on a new MMO since ... I don't know .. 5+ years ago ?!
If you think that indie , kickstarter = evolving mmo's then .. I don't want to hear about that MMO's . Old MMO's which are currently on the market , can't evolve. They .. update, sure , but they can't evolve into something much better.
So no! MMO's are dying, believe it or not , until .. I don't know , some brilliant idea comes up and someone or some company will then make the next big MMO?
Until then , please don't call MMO's ...Multiplayer Games , like .. LoL , MXM , D3 , and alike.
@OP , do tell me those MMO's which you are referring to. And no , don't count the old ones , because when you say that MMO's aren't dying and you see it as quite .. opposite , then it means new games are on the horizont .
..and wtf sandbox games are you talking about ?!
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy? Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
They've 'evolved' from pay-to-play games into free-to-play/pay-to-win/pay-to-grind less games.
Most newer games also offer smaller worlds with more instances and less character choices. More simplistic, more cartoonish.
Ultima Online was a sandbox with an interesting, though flawed, PVP system. (People don't usually police themselves well. That's why we have police. And people can often be far more cruel to each other on the internet where they can be anonymous.) Still it had many interesting features and systems that could be improved upon and utilized in future mmorpgs.
Everquest, Everquest 2, and World of Warcraft offered huge open worlds with the ability to choose to be good or evil, with different starting areas based on race and alignment. The questlines were also different depending on your chosen race and alignment. Everquest and Everquest 2 were more realistic than most mmorpgs are now.
SWG (never played it myself) was a beloved sandbox that got cancelled in order to give us a Star Wars themepark.
EVE Online, which actually came out a year before EQ2 and WoW, remains the only successful sandbox mmorpg of which I'm aware. But that's not because people don't like sandboxes. It's because sandboxes haven't been made much for awhile. Certainly not by major developers.
Action combat can be fun, but it's not really good for role-playing. It
limits the amount of useful skills available to a character at any
given time.
MMORPGs could already be much better than they are. We have the technology. It seems like the free-to-play model encourages people to continue to make end-game grinders. Perhaps not in all cases, but it seems that way for the most part.
I've played enough mmorpgs to realize that I no longer consider it fun to endlessly grind for wealth and power which I can only use to gain more wealth and power in a perpetual, repetitive circle. I want to do more with wealth and power in a virtual world than simply do the same things over and over that I did to gain that wealth and power. Progression doesn't mean much to me if I'm not really progressing toward anything. If all I want do is be able to raid a different dungeon or fight different enemies in different zones, I can just go play a different game.
I'm also tired of overly simplistic games where I feel like I'm just playing a cartoon or a virtual toy soldier. That doesn't need to eat or sleep or do most things that real humans do. I'm also tired of combat being the majority of what my character does in the virtual world. Combat can be fun, but not when it's 90% or more of what I do in a game.
I don't think MMORPGs have 'evolved' or gotten better. They have better graphics, sure. but I don't think they've really grown or gotten much better than they were fifteen to twenty years ago. Not in terms of enjoyment and playability.
Post edited by Brald_Ironheart on
Roleplayinn.com - New forum for people who love role-playing of all kinds - tabletop/pencil & paper, live-action, and role-playing in mmorpgs.
I don't think there needs to be a lot of games with large-scale raiding. Though I would like to see at least one medieval fantasy game where we fought large scale battles with each other over limited territory and resources. Or just because our realms have different alignments and we hate each other (or serve opposing deities). I would also like to see a medieval fantasy game where player-run kingdoms and empires could rise and fall.
Post edited by Brald_Ironheart on
Roleplayinn.com - New forum for people who love role-playing of all kinds - tabletop/pencil & paper, live-action, and role-playing in mmorpgs.
I don't think there need to be a lot of games with large-scale raiding. Though I would like to see at least one medieval fantasy game where we fought large scale battles with each other over limited territory and resources. Or just because our realms have different alignments and we hate each other (or serve opposing deities). I would also like to see a medieval fantasy game where player-run kingdoms and empires could rise and fall.
Brald, I enjoy your posts, such as large scale battles over resources. And to everyone:
In the last week I have been seeing a lot of users here post about their needs and desires and wants, of an MMORPG that resembles the glory days of MMORPGs from the 90's to the early and mid 2000's.
Of more hardcore and patient MMO's and less instant gratification.
And no corporate greed and stockholders, such as no item shops or malls or vanity items.
If you guys are every interested and would give me a shot and a dialogue with you, I promise to do my best to bring this about. Of a non-profit hardcore project for all the fans.
What I mean by giving it a shot, is one attempt of your attention of an unbiased trial of actually trying it out for an hour or few hours of what you think and honest criticism. I can't judge any of you on your honest criticism it if comes from the hard and rational, and is detailed and well laid out.
MMO quality is dying on a whole but of course a few individual developers still produce some high end games.However when you have a super large market of developers,the % of quality is very low. teh amount of money being spent is most certainly going up as witnessed by the crazy waste of money spent when cell phones began being cheap gaming platforms.
So quality down,spending up means devs can produce cheaper crap and still profit,maybe even profit better than before when was less competition.Now a days cash shops are making millions,in the old days we scoffed at cash shops,so yeah ,no need for quality games,just give players the ability to spend money and they will.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The only hope for the moment is Crow Fall, and Ashes OF Creation, everything else in my book besides MOBA's and a few smaller games such as "Dark Fall" Absolutely suck, heck I tried to get into "Final Fantasy XIV again" I might give it more time before I drop subscription again, but the game feels like a single player game, with Tab Targeting and is a major turn-off drives me back to ESO more but even ESO isn't done properly as it should be many features it should have with housing, and cosmetics but it doesn't have.
MMO's die because either something new replaced them or there was some kind of fundamental flaw with the game itself. One of the reasons why the most popular games out there, WoW, FFXIV:ARR, BDO, ESO, and even Eve Online are so successful, is because they cater to their playerbases. There is no need these days for games to cater to all player types, the negative impact from them even trying to do so is such that it hurts their games too much if they do, so they cater to the ones that matter to them, the mistake people make more often than not, is that they demand those games do things the way they think they should be done, its unrealistic and will only lead to disappointment for those who can't accept this, there are so many games out there these days, catering to widely different player types, which is why i don't think MMO's are dying, they are just becoming more diverse, and individually, more focused. MMO's are continuing to evolve, this has always been the case.
I don't think MMOs are dying but I think quality is low. Basically what we have is a lot of skins for the same thing over and over with each iteration getting less and less polish. There just needs to be a new take on the genre, something fresh. There's so many mechanics to explore, themes to dive into but we are confined to a very small section with very familiar feels.
@LackingMMO - We have combat, exploration, gathering, crafting, and buying and selling so far. For the most part. I heard BDO has some animal husbandry, but I don't know how well it works within the game. ArcheAge has some sailing and land ownership. We can also have many other things in addition to these: farming (as in raising crops - bring back the need to eat and drink), building. engineering (engineering as in making and using siege engines), politics, diplomacy, and trading and caravans (get rid of universal auction houses). Our characters could also have non-combat and utility skills which actually needed to be used or could be useful on adventures, in dungeons, or in cities. We could even allow for characters to progress in occupations of different sorts without also needing to be adventurers. The challenge for developers would be to make whatever path of progression we choose interesting. I don't think it's as hard as it may sound to some though.
*Gathering could be limited to just gathering herbs and berries. Woodcutting, fishing, mining, hunting, tanning, etc. could all be their own separate professions or skills. I believe fishing was its own profession in FFXI.
Post edited by Brald_Ironheart on
Roleplayinn.com - New forum for people who love role-playing of all kinds - tabletop/pencil & paper, live-action, and role-playing in mmorpgs.
Well one reason is because of bad developers in games, the only hope IMO Currently is Crow Fall, or Ashes OF Creation because these are United States developers or the HQ is located in the U.S you don't see this that much? But just this morning I was looking at "MXM" talking about how I hate Game Guard and asking if its going to use it on their forums, well someone told me Blade & Soul changed their anti cheat, I put in about $75 to this game before it turned on Game Guard as a requirement, but sure enough I go read the forums over there and I see it switched to XingCode an AntiCheat almost as bad as Game Guard if not just as bad.
Also I love how the community manager is so blind they aren't going to tell me how it works, I already know, but they lie to the community and tell everyone it doesn't install anything this is not true, it installs a system service, and Xhunter in C:\windows directory, and as usual it still doesn't ask permission first like Battleye, or Easy Anti Cheat do before installing. This is one reason MMO's are dying because of developers, poor decisions being made, and Cheaters who have to cheat online games in the first place.
As much as some people argue me over the whole Anti-Cheat thing its not because im afraid of being caught cheating, its because I value my privacy, and think everyone even those with little knowledge deserve to have their privacy respected.
I was actually going to install B&S again and give it a try when I found out it changed Anti-Cheats, but as soon as I found out it used XingCode, nope so NCsoft likely just lost $100 from me alone.
MMOs aren't dying... it's just that they aren't the same as they used to be.
I would add to this that although there are now hundreds of MMORPGs, the variety actually is not that great. I think that's the problem with MMOs today.
@Renoaku - To be honest, I also prefer American made games over Asian ones. I don't know if it's always going to be one hundred percent true, but I think that Americans and Europeans probably make better games based on European-themed medieval fantasy. (I also hate grinding. I want less grinding, not more.) Though I think a Japanese made medieval fantasy mmorpg based on Feudal Japan would probably be better than an American one.
Roleplayinn.com - New forum for people who love role-playing of all kinds - tabletop/pencil & paper, live-action, and role-playing in mmorpgs.
@Renoaku - To be honest, I also prefer American made games over Asian ones. I don't know if it's always going to be one hundred percent true, but I think that Americans and Europeans probably make better games based on European-themed medieval fantasy. (I also hate grinding. I want less grinding, not more.) Though I think a Japanese made medieval fantasy mmorpg based on Feudal Japan would probably be better than an American one.
Well IMO from personal experience I have liked the Korean, or I think they call it Asian Fashion in games, and art / character models are pretty decent compared to the American MMO based games such as World OF Warcraft the biggest only known American made MMO I know of.
The only problem with Koreans, is the Anti-Cheats they use, and the whole Pay 2 Win or Pay 2 Enjoy cash shop model.
But Americans such as World OF Warcraft, and perhaps Ashes OF Creation soon if it makes it to the top will be like the 2nd best created in America, maybe Crow Fall too?
Its like "American Games" are great at making good game-play, but Koreans aren't, or they are rather better art art, worlds, and character modeling and such, but don't make very good game-play?
The only exception is certain Foreign created Single Player games maybe like "Nier" or "Final Fantasy Series up to X-2, maybe even Xenosaga the good days.
I see the quite the opposite. We have so many MMOs in different genres doing classic themepark to full blown sandbox yet some people says MMOs are dying, I would like to know why, because I don't see what they see.
When u say "Full Blown Sandbox" can you specifically name the title(s) you are referring to ? I just stepped in my 4th decade as a human being and 2.5th decade as a gamer BUT i'm not sharing your point of view in this matter by no means. As MMOgamers we are greatly responsible for the evolution of the genre as it is today, and what I see, is that new gamers are driving this industry into "pls take my money" orientation. The pattern that we/they developed is copied to any MMOs out there atm, with few exceptions. AAA companies will deliver a hell of a grind MMO with just mindless tasks that are just set out for only one goal...."Time Consuming". What they offer is a well organized system of cash shops to minimize this and get you in the "endgame" faster than the "plebs". Where the endgame is always dictated by x,y,z super rare item and distinctive (from the pleb) cosmetic outfits. You don't log in anymore in nowadays in an MMO because you're having a blast but because if you miss that daily check in, the x,y,z item will not get any closer. Now if you feel OK with this type of MMOs and you think that everything is fine then you're wasting your time here. Better hope on quickly to the mouse wheel.
"Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know, that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom. (Death)” ― Terry Pratchett,
@Renoaku - I did enjoy some of the single player JRPGs when I was younger. However, looking back, it seems like some of the features I like the least in mmorpgs were taken from those games. Massively vertical gear progression and endgame grind perhaps. Grinding in general. I've never really played American single player computer game rpgs, so I don't know how they compare in that respect. Maybe they both borrowed from each other. I don't really know.
Roleplayinn.com - New forum for people who love role-playing of all kinds - tabletop/pencil & paper, live-action, and role-playing in mmorpgs.
Just when I look at one that's about to be released, and I see classes like "warrior" with abilities like "shield smash" or "super strike" I'm already getting bored. MMORPGs take a lot of resources to create, and there is proportionally less creativity found there compared to smaller games. Not to mention that 99% of them are a boring grind p2w fest. No thanks.
TSW re-release. FFXIV Major expansion. ESO Major expansion. Neverwinter, STO and Marvel Hero releases on consoles. Large D3 class drop. Destiny 2 and Anthem on the horizon. TERA coming to consoles. WoW Legion is still doing content drops. Not sure where you are living, but this is the most exciting time in MMORPGs and the Multiplayer genre in general that we've had in a very long time.
Comments
You had a very smarter generation and more patient and less adhd, [mod edit] lots of money to spend of baby boomers children. I believe mmorpg's will live on but no massive cultural phenomenon as it once was.
Ea is like a poo fingered midas ~ShakyMo
If you think that indie , kickstarter = evolving mmo's then .. I don't want to hear about that MMO's . Old MMO's which are currently on the market , can't evolve. They .. update, sure , but they can't evolve into something much better.
So no! MMO's are dying, believe it or not , until .. I don't know , some brilliant idea comes up and someone or some company will then make the next big MMO?
Until then , please don't call MMO's ...Multiplayer Games , like .. LoL , MXM , D3 , and alike.
@OP , do tell me those MMO's which you are referring to. And no , don't count the old ones , because when you say that MMO's aren't dying and you see it as quite .. opposite , then it means new games are on the horizont .
..and wtf sandbox games are you talking about ?!
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
Most newer games also offer smaller worlds with more instances and less character choices. More simplistic, more cartoonish.
Ultima Online was a sandbox with an interesting, though flawed, PVP system. (People don't usually police themselves well. That's why we have police. And people can often be far more cruel to each other on the internet where they can be anonymous.) Still it had many interesting features and systems that could be improved upon and utilized in future mmorpgs.
Everquest, Everquest 2, and World of Warcraft offered huge open worlds with the ability to choose to be good or evil, with different starting areas based on race and alignment. The questlines were also different depending on your chosen race and alignment. Everquest and Everquest 2 were more realistic than most mmorpgs are now.
SWG (never played it myself) was a beloved sandbox that got cancelled in order to give us a Star Wars themepark.
EVE Online, which actually came out a year before EQ2 and WoW, remains the only successful sandbox mmorpg of which I'm aware. But that's not because people don't like sandboxes. It's because sandboxes haven't been made much for awhile. Certainly not by major developers.
Action combat can be fun, but it's not really good for role-playing. It limits the amount of useful skills available to a character at any given time.
MMORPGs could already be much better than they are. We have the technology. It seems like the free-to-play model encourages people to continue to make end-game grinders. Perhaps not in all cases, but it seems that way for the most part.
I've played enough mmorpgs to realize that I no longer consider it fun to endlessly grind for wealth and power which I can only use to gain more wealth and power in a perpetual, repetitive circle. I want to do more with wealth and power in a virtual world than simply do the same things over and over that I did to gain that wealth and power. Progression doesn't mean much to me if I'm not really progressing toward anything. If all I want do is be able to raid a different dungeon or fight different enemies in different zones, I can just go play a different game.
I'm also tired of overly simplistic games where I feel like I'm just playing a cartoon or a virtual toy soldier. That doesn't need to eat or sleep or do most things that real humans do. I'm also tired of combat being the majority of what my character does in the virtual world. Combat can be fun, but not when it's 90% or more of what I do in a game.
I don't think MMORPGs have 'evolved' or gotten better. They have better graphics, sure. but I don't think they've really grown or gotten much better than they were fifteen to twenty years ago. Not in terms of enjoyment and playability.
In the last week I have been seeing a lot of users here post about their needs and desires and wants, of an MMORPG that resembles the glory days of MMORPGs from the 90's to the early and mid 2000's.
Of more hardcore and patient MMO's and less instant gratification.
And no corporate greed and stockholders, such as no item shops or malls or vanity items.
If you guys are every interested and would give me a shot and a dialogue with you, I promise to do my best to bring this about. Of a non-profit hardcore project for all the fans.
What I mean by giving it a shot, is one attempt of your attention of an unbiased trial of actually trying it out for an hour or few hours of what you think and honest criticism. I can't judge any of you on your honest criticism it if comes from the hard and rational, and is detailed and well laid out.
Looking forward to: Crowfall / Lost Ark / Black Desert Mobile
teh amount of money being spent is most certainly going up as witnessed by the crazy waste of money spent when cell phones began being cheap gaming platforms.
So quality down,spending up means devs can produce cheaper crap and still profit,maybe even profit better than before when was less competition.Now a days cash shops are making millions,in the old days we scoffed at cash shops,so yeah ,no need for quality games,just give players the ability to spend money and they will.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
There is no need these days for games to cater to all player types, the negative impact from them even trying to do so is such that it hurts their games too much if they do, so they cater to the ones that matter to them, the mistake people make more often than not, is that they demand those games do things the way they think they should be done, its unrealistic and will only lead to disappointment for those who can't accept this, there are so many games out there these days, catering to widely different player types, which is why i don't think MMO's are dying, they are just becoming more diverse, and individually, more focused.
MMO's are continuing to evolve, this has always been the case.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
*Gathering could be limited to just gathering herbs and berries. Woodcutting, fishing, mining, hunting, tanning, etc. could all be their own separate professions or skills. I believe fishing was its own profession in FFXI.
But just this morning I was looking at "MXM" talking about how I hate Game Guard and asking if its going to use it on their forums, well someone told me Blade & Soul changed their anti cheat, I put in about $75 to this game before it turned on Game Guard as a requirement, but sure enough I go read the forums over there and I see it switched to XingCode an AntiCheat almost as bad as Game Guard if not just as bad.
https://forums.bladeandsoul.com/topic/229465-xigncode3/
Also I love how the community manager is so blind they aren't going to tell me how it works, I already know, but they lie to the community and tell everyone it doesn't install anything this is not true, it installs a system service, and Xhunter in C:\windows directory, and as usual it still doesn't ask permission first like Battleye, or Easy Anti Cheat do before installing.
This is one reason MMO's are dying because of developers, poor decisions being made, and Cheaters who have to cheat online games in the first place.
As much as some people argue me over the whole Anti-Cheat thing its not because im afraid of being caught cheating, its because I value my privacy, and think everyone even those with little knowledge deserve to have their privacy respected.
I was actually going to install B&S again and give it a try when I found out it changed Anti-Cheats, but as soon as I found out it used XingCode, nope so NCsoft likely just lost $100 from me alone.
I think that's the problem with MMOs today.
The only problem with Koreans, is the Anti-Cheats they use, and the whole Pay 2 Win or Pay 2 Enjoy cash shop model.
But Americans such as World OF Warcraft, and perhaps Ashes OF Creation soon if it makes it to the top will be like the 2nd best created in America, maybe Crow Fall too?
Its like "American Games" are great at making good game-play, but Koreans aren't, or they are rather better art art, worlds, and character modeling and such, but don't make very good game-play?
The only exception is certain Foreign created Single Player games maybe like "Nier" or "Final Fantasy Series up to X-2, maybe even Xenosaga the good days.
When u say "Full Blown Sandbox" can you specifically name the title(s) you are referring to ?
I just stepped in my 4th decade as a human being and 2.5th decade as a gamer BUT i'm not sharing your point of view in this matter by no means.
As MMOgamers we are greatly responsible for the evolution of the genre as it is today, and what I
see, is that new gamers are driving this industry into "pls take my money" orientation.
The pattern that we/they developed is copied to any MMOs out there atm, with few exceptions.
AAA companies will deliver a hell of a grind MMO with just mindless tasks
that are just set out for only one goal...."Time Consuming".
What they offer is a well organized system of cash shops to minimize this and get you
in the "endgame" faster than the "plebs".
Where the endgame is always dictated by x,y,z super rare item and distinctive (from the pleb)
cosmetic outfits.
You don't log in anymore in nowadays in an MMO because you're having a blast but because if you
miss that daily check in, the x,y,z item will not get any closer.
Now if you feel OK with this type of MMOs and you think that everything is fine then you're wasting your time here.
Better hope on quickly to the mouse wheel.
― Terry Pratchett,
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Just when I look at one that's about to be released, and I see classes like "warrior" with abilities like "shield smash" or "super strike" I'm already getting bored. MMORPGs take a lot of resources to create, and there is proportionally less creativity found there compared to smaller games. Not to mention that 99% of them are a boring grind p2w fest. No thanks.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)