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MMORPG.com Community Pet Project Idea: Game Repopulation
Albatroes
Member LegendaryPosts: 7,671
I'm not sure if anyone has seriously suggested the idea in the past or not, but for previous titles like Conan Exiles etc I've seen mmorpg.com channels and stuff trying to be formed and thought what if we started a group to repopulate mmorpgs already out. I also think there was some kind of mmorpg "book club" kind of thing mentioned a month or 2 ago where a group got together and just played various mmorpgs together for a month. So if anyone is seriously interested in an idea like this, myself or someone else can create a separate thread polling some suggested titles in this thread that people would like to try and "repopulate." As for my personal choice, I was thinking either Everquest II or Rift since I like tab target and both have pretty good class design by default.
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Game repopulations in the past, at the very most, only briefly give the game "life". Even if someone gets multiple sites together to re-join (or repopulate) that MMO.
Vanguard saga of heroes, the game everyone on MMORPG.com wanted, an oldschool hardcore MMO experience like the original Everquest...even after it was fixed...there'd be entire threads on reddit, mmorpg.com and massively about reviving it (or repopulating it). It worked...for a week...and then everyone didn't like that kind of game and population died out a lot. I think after a month, the population went back down hard.
Actually, I think in this case with Vanguard, the campaigns of re-populating it might have made it die quicker since people saw so many people (or their friends etc) quit and then they too quit. And it wasn't possible to solo at all (very very hard), so the lack of people in later levels made the game unplayable.
Ryzom also had this done similar, and they even released on Steam to try to get a bigger population. That too is dead now, and probably #1 or #2 least populated MMO (I think Istaria might be the only one smaller though). It did very briefly see a rather large (compared to before) population increase from Steam, but now its dead, very dead.
There has been one or two other MMOs I can think of that people have done huge campaigns with to re-populate. But I don't remember what they were, but they only briefly worked.
Once an MMO is dead or most games in fact as far as multipalyer goes, its pretty dead.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
Maybe if I was to pick something, actually it probably be EQ2. Its not very low pop, last time I played it, it was rather decent. Not sure how it is now, but doubt its different. But not the most out there. And the game is big enough with enough to do that people could do a lot of variety of things. its housing and crafting system especially are pretty amazing as far as MMOs go.
The only downside I can think of, is if people were to try it, they'd probably need whatever the latest expansion is. Especially if they never got any of the expansions. Some of the mechanics and systems even early on are locked into the various expansions.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
I was thinking the same about LOTRO as well. The only thing I'd suggest with games like that (if they got enough votes) is to play it as far as you can at its base and then everyone decide on how they feel about continuing or going on to something else. Majority rule. Of course its not hard line but I'm just hoping it helps people experience some titles at their "peak" before completely writing them off or what have you.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMMOBookclub/
We're a community for casual gamers looking to play MMOs together! We switch games on regular intervals we call 'cycles, so we're always trying something new out!
Cycle Length - One Month Intervals, with a community vote to extend an extra month (up to three total)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But studios have resurrected games from the dead successfully. It takes changes to the game itself.
DDO is the first example off the top of my head - sinking ship, they pioneered one of the first F2P models in a Western MMO. It turned a few heads, turned the ship around, and It's still running today.
FFXIV ARR is probably the biggest example. They pretty much rewrote the entire game, while keeping the existing 1.0 on life support until they could do the big reveal. It's going very strong today.
Just a couple of examples. I can't point to anything player-run though, except ~maybe~ P1999 or SWG Legends
Not to mention there were multiple similar attempts already. If you remember at the launch of Neverwinter (since that game was mentioned above), Grakulen had a weekly series for it, and forum members rolled characters there for that.
Or a similar weekly article and event by Shannon in TSW, there was an mmorpg.com cabal, etc.
These things never last long*. They are still good for introducing games to people which they wouldn't play otherwise. And who knows? Maybe a couple of them will stay for longer. But most of the players will just go back to their preferred games after a while.
*edit: from the game's point of view, the effect on a game, I mean. The population boost will go away.
The idea and the group of players can stick together of course, the bookclub is there since last year for example.