MMORPGS were for geeks an nerds. Then along came Mr T and his Nightelf Mohawk commercial.
Once they went mainstream it all went downhill.
And at the end of the day… that’s the real reason. They are no longer made by the same group of people and they are no longer made for the same target audience.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Because game companies stopped making games for gamers and turned into mega corporations making dollars for suits, these suits assume were all dumb so they skimp on substance and maximize return on investment with as little effort as possible. It keeps happening because people keep buying the crap they shovel out.
MMOs are a lot easier when all the knowledge is laid out in advance and you can google literally anything you'd ever need. Older MMOs back in the day had mystery and you couldn't just google the meta.
It was harder when you had to actually learn the world and things were complex and a bit obscure at times. Lookin' at you UO.
Old school MMOs didn't make you a hero out of the gate. You had little to no armor and garbage weapons for a while. You would spend two-thirds of max level being in mortal danger every time you would fight a mob. You didn't kill the mob in 2 seconds. You fought it back and forth. You often lost. But that gave a sense of accomplishment when you would get new abilities or gear. Many quests were difficult and long, but the rewards were worth it. But for a long time on your journey, you would be weak and feeble working towards the day when you would become a hero.
Modern MMORPGs feel different from old school ones because they are. More interesting questions are why they came to be so and why that difference was so widely embraced it came to dominate a genre that was once quite different.
Over the past 20 years, MMOs and the way how they are made has significantly evolved. Titles like Everquest or Dark Age of Camelot were produced by small teams of roughly 25ish people and budgets of maybe $ 2,000,000. These teams consisted of super hardcore nerds that were in pursuit of making their vision come to life, a vision that usually was based on more complex rule sets and worlds like D&D. The thing is, complex game worlds and expanding the audience for higher revenue potential does not harmonize well. Today, the team sizes have drastically increased. We are talking 200, 500, or even 1000+ people working on AAA MMOs that easily eat up 9-digit budgets. Economic success is paramount for these projects and at some point, complexity and authenticity simply had to be sacrificed to meet the economic expectation that even a Homer Simpson style person should be able to play and pay the game.
By design, old gen MMOs encouraged players to team up. Else, they would have been doomed to grind on low exp monsters and had to face long downtimes. But if you teamed up and made friends, potential was always there to shortcut the leveling phase by huge amounts. Examples:
1: Dark Age of Camelot - a melee group buffed by a shaman (stat buffs) and healer (attack speed) could easily chainkill monsters 10 levels above maximum player level resulting in quick exp and great loot. Or Modernagrav leveling, where you had 3 Point-Blank-Area-of-Effect casters to deal damage plus a shield block tank to guard them, rest filled up with twinks to level up, plus 'out of group' buff classes. You could make a max level character within half a day.
2: Lineage 2 - This MMO was probably the hugest grind fest of mid 2000s, but if you teamed up, you could pull huge numbers of monsters. Example: Orc Destroyer with Polearm (cone AoE damage) buffed by 4 different classes (Blade Dancer, Swordsinger, War Cryer, Prophet) was able to pull 100 monsters. When they hit the Orc Destroyer, his HP went down to 20%. When the Orc Destroyer then hit back, his HP went back to 100% because of how all those buffs including atk dmg, atk speed, lifellech, crit chance, crit dmg, and so on synergized.
So, what many consider punishing gameplay actually was rewarding players for teaming up and finding class synergies. That's something that modern MMOs completely ignore and reason for many games feeling shallow and boring, because all have one thing in common; They are developed as solo player experiences with optional group content. God forbid our Homer Simpson style person dies too many times and quits!
Bottomline, modern AAA MMOs sacrificed complexity in pursuit of economic promise. The focus on single players instead of groups ultimatively lead to less challenge and individuality because in such a scenario the single player must be able to complete content eventually opening up another chapter, the chapter of lack of challenging content in the leveling phase which limits social interactions which are required to create community that goes beyond purely extrinsic purpose. And we haven't even touched Bartle taxonomy and identification with certain roles.
There's only one single point that I entirely agree to; The Mystery Is Gone From Modern MMOs.
Agree in most of the points stated in this article. Imho the crack came with WoW. The sad thing : we will see, how a "old school mmorpg" will compete, when "Pantheon" arrives and I guess it will be a niche MMORPG - and that alone will make many magazines and authors rip it apart.
I saw myself long years as a player, whose core-genre was MMORPGs like WoW, TESO, WAR etc. but when I started and progresses in "Lost Ark" this year - a game I was waiting for a long time- I realized, that MMORPG in their modern Version are not my genre anymore. My biggest point really is, that before anyone entered the game people watches so many videos, that there is no exploring and no surpirise left. They know exactly what class they will take, where to get rich fastest and how to rech max.LvL fastest. So yeah- it's mostly a matter of "people" but of the game itself. So maybe we will never again get that "omg what am I doing and whats happening here" feelings we got in the early MMORPGs. On my site- my next MMORPG Guild I make up will absolutely be for players ONLY, that did not spoil themselves and that have the same attempt to the genre that I have: "Explore the unknown and play together".
I really have to say, meanwhile I enjoy small scale MMOs much more: ARK, VALHEIM such games bring much more community, cooperation, exploration, death and fun than any MMORPG in the past years after dropping from TESO.
But I don´t give up on MMORPGs as two promising candidates are in the pipeline "Ashes of Creation" and "Pantheon" but my expectaions are lower than never before and so I cant´'t wait to get ARK2 in my hands.
2: Lineage 2 - This MMO was probably the hugest grind fest of mid 2000s, but if you teamed up, you could pull huge numbers of monsters. Example: Orc Destroyer with Polearm (cone AoE damage) buffed by 4 different classes (Blade Dancer, Swordsinger, War Cryer, Prophet) was able to pull 100 monsters. When they hit the Orc Destroyer, his HP went down to 20%. When the Orc Destroyer then hit back, his HP went back to 100% because of how all those buffs including atk dmg, atk speed, lifellech, crit chance, crit dmg, and so on synergized.
[...]
Actually mainly once the Destroyers HP falls to 30% or below they can enable Guts and Frenzy and get quite massive defense and attack bonuses for a while.
That's easy to answer; when you don't have money and fame, you have to supplement it with passion and creative-second winds; and very little sleep (which i guess the sleep part hasn't changed much)
Also, and most importantly, these guys had no working templates and frameworks to work off of other then games like Ultima underworld, OG Neverwinter nights, and other games of it's ilk.
It's hard to make a mistake or do something wrong when you are literally creating something that's never existed before that moment.
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013 Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005 Fishing in RL since 1992 Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
Most gamers these days , just want there participation Trophy and move on , they want the least path of resistance , and do not want to be challenged .
And why i still play UO 26 years now..
Anarchy Online each year ..
DAOC each year etc..
And obvious from the writers comments , he never did a corpse run in UO ..
Better yet, having helplessly observed a Lich Lord *rummaging* through your corpse to take all of your reagents and your Indestructible Silver War Mace of Vanquishing BEFORE starting the corpse run.
I have to add my take on this because I think the author did not pick up on critical points.
1. MMOs today are no longer MMORPGs. That's the main difference. Everybody is self sufficient, they can play any role. Also content is geared towards that fact. Thus new MMOs feel shallow.
2. The main driver in developing content is accessibility. Every MMO today wants to capture as wide an audience as possible. That makes them feel same-ish.
3. Most of the QoL improvements end in "You want more of this ? Do spend a dime or two here..." wall.
Those 3 facts combined make for way easier MMOs than they used to be. Everybody can do anything, there is no individuality and there cannot be any deeper interactions. This eliminates the need for grouping for most of the game content. And the trend is accelerated when the devs notice it and try to adjust to the new "way to play" that they actually created.
Also the "content" is now in the endgame raiding (i.e. grind). The race to that is short and simple.
The only MMO that I always return to is EVE Online. I wonder why that is ... should give you a hint ...
All I read is the attention span nowadays is waaaaaaaaay shorter and everyone is spoiling themselves through videos, Tutorials, skill calculators and walkthroughs.
IMHO you can't re-create the old times as people play the game differently and expect something different.
If I would create an MMO (and not business software) I would just shorten the leveling phase tremendously and go with a Guild Wars 1 approach.
Let the people grind for those extra skins, extra 1-2% of damage, skills which are not stronger but different and allow more diversity, or even different effects for the same skills.
It's always a shame to see games have a lot of leveling content just to see it being ignored and empty after 2 weeks. All this quests and dungeons and items as endgame stuff and people would grind it without complaining.
There's a flipside to this. The actual content these days is really shallow (easy to master) so the devs compensate by adding a lot of different mechanics. I started playing Lost Ark a few weeks after release. To this day I have no clue what 2/3 of the UI do as there's a massive ton of different things you can do and customize but they are not really relevant. Also I have not played in a month as there's no real sense of exploration to anything there.
Don't forget that "classic" shows there are a lot of players out there that realise how good old school was. Problem is the studios just think of this as nostalgia and to my knowledge no studio has changed course on their "modern game" (wow exec) for any MMO that has classic.
Most of us who realise the merits of old school do understand we could not expect a new MMORPG to release with a strictly old school set up and do famously, but ESO showed that you can at least take a step back from having every cash shop "innovation" at launch and you don't have to start super easy. There is scoop for hybrid old/new school MMOs, it is just down to where the balance lies. For example no corpse runs and no deaths without penalty, you can find a sweet spot between those extremes.
Biggest problem with today's MMOs is that it takes a massive Hollywood blockbuster sized budget to make even a niche MMO that's worth playing. Thus, the MMOs primary goal is to recoup that investment and turn a profit. That means making it appeal to as wide a range of players as possible. That means you get a bunch of disparate people with very different goals and personalities including an army of bad actors whose only goal is to grief others.
Back when I first played EverQuest, which was shortly after launch, it was populated primarily by people coming from table top RPGs. There was no roleplay server because roleplaying was the defacto approach to playing the game. Grouping was natural and common because that's how you play table top RPGS. Everyone was helpful and friendly because that's how you get invited back to play table top RPGs. It's really hard to grief people when you're sitting around the kitchen table with them. Hard to be anonymous.
I found DAoC to be similar at launch. Even vanilla WoW at launch was not far off even though people had figured out the freedom anonymity gave them and griefers were a problem. As WoW grew and the era of the WoW clones began it all got worse and worse. Now if I play an MMO it's as a solo player surrounded by other solo players. It's actually pretty lonely. I've moved on to single player games and non-gaming hobbies for the most part. I'm not the target demographic for today's MMOs.
I can't put my finger on a single feature that caused the decline. Seems more like a combination of things. Primarily the need to appeal to mass audiences so they can make back their 9-figure investment in building the game.
Rember SWG 33 classes u could be any 2 and 1/2 of them. So much freedom such bad magement to dumb it down to try and catch the wow players it closed. We have solo grind games now mostly with random people to run Weekley group content.
I long for a good Wheet of time mmo or a new space mmo, where we can experiment with builds and abilities and not have to run a x DPS parsed build to do content. Where communities really matter like building towns and houses that do something. Would love to build a home and be able to fish in it etc
Currently playing eso for large scale pvp, Elyon for solo grinding and Sto for that space fix !
Besides tech and such, DATA is probably one of the biggest reasons. Olde school games went much more by vision and testing the limits of things. Today, much like the complaints about politics, we've got big DATA. Developers are able to see every aspect of what works, what doesn't....metrics about this and metrics about that. They can analyze the past which is now more populated with successful games and not so successful games. With all of this DATA, people are able to tailor and design for specific outcomes as opposed to a less DATA driven design based more 'feel'
In addition, with the rise of tech and capabilities, developers are able to put more complex systems in place. Think about the difference when PONG was king and then games like DONKEY KONG came out. More tech made for a much more capable type of game.
The player base has also changed. When the genre was fairly new, people were happy with simpler. It's all that people knew, even though at the time it wasn't simpler for them.
A lot of reasons really. The one reason that people will try to convince you of and isn't true is that 'people today just want money and back then they did it for the love of making games...making memories....blah blah blah' It was about making money 3000 years ago, the 80s, 90s, and today. Money ruled the roost then and it rules it now. People need to take off those dirt covered glasses that they think is rose coloring.
It's hilarious to me that WOW is considered Old-school now. I agree with the fact that WOW help facilitate the downfall of the genera with everyone trying to grab a piece of the player-base pie.
As someone that played back in the old AOL days, when they were called MUD's, and were text based, some game developers openly admitted, in court, that the games were designed with the single minded purpose to keep a player logged in and playing.
This is because AOL games were funded by time spent online, and why AOL lost a huge lawsuit about the addictive and deceptive nature of their games, and why they offered a monthly sub, as opposed to pay the minuet.
The next gen of games, were now built around the momentary system of Box Fees, and Monthly subscription, which gave rise to the idea of Expansions, to up the box fees, so the system where it was designed to keep players playing, didn't change much, there were massive time sinks places to keep a player grinding, a whole system of RNG with the single minded goal of having players farm, for hours, weeks, years on end, for that one ideal perfect piece of gear, or doing some tedious task to work a skill, so that they would keep playing the game, and thus keep their sub active.
For the games that did not depend on RNG systems, they built in other means of time sink , like random rare spawns on timers, this is in some games mobs that dropped special loot were on daily and even weekly timers, with placeholders and limited drops, to keep players going after them, week after week, month after month, year after year, all so that they would keep their sub active.
This is why they made some games so that soloing would take a punishing amount of time, but grouping split the Exp, so it would take upwards to 6 times as many kills too level, and of course, adding to the time gates was needing to get a group, and form a group, the longer this took, the more work it took, the more it stalled the time it would take players to get what they wanted, making the game feel longer, larger, and harder overall, but, all this was done with a single minded goal to keep a player playing, and thus keeping that sub active.
There never was any sense of gaming idealism, or purity, or anything like that, all these GAAS online games were nothing more than an entertainment system built around the payment model, designed to get the most money they could from each player they have, which was originally by the minuet, and then by the month.
Ideally, they needed to be good enough to hold a players attention, but, also at that time, there was not much in the way of competition, and also keep in mind this was during a time when the forerunners of D&D, made in 1972, where now hitting adulthood, and moving around, and suddenly, due to the internet you could play with your old HS buddies again, so there was a huge novelty that held it together as well.
Then we enter WoW, and suddenly these once small time games were a market to tap, a billion dollar market to tap.
Enter the Clone Wars.
Well, that lead to a lot of games dying, and lo and behold, as a survival method, enter F2P/Cash Shops.
Cash Shops, now have a vastly different income system from Subs, they don't need to keep players playing to stretch out the subs, they focus on doing all they can to get players to pay into the system as fast as possible. Originally, the idea was to nickel and dime each individual player, ergo, the Turbine Model.
That also has evolved, and modern Cash Shops now target Whales, so they needed to change their game systems again, to go from a Sub, to the Turbine Model, and Then to the P2W/Cash Shop, where their big spenders have a way to spend unlimited amounts of money, and get well rewarded for doing so.
It stands to reason they would feel very different from each other, that would be like comparing a Restaurant that is food by the pound, that is selling individual meals, or selling food by a single payment upon entry.
They are all going to be very different in the way they prepare, market, and even make their foods as well as what they put on the menu, and the prices asked.
It's never been about some ideal, it's always been about money. Just, more suits got involved, and everyone wants the next WoW, as opposed to being content to make the next EVE.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
It's never been about some ideal, it's always been about money. Just, more suits got involved, and everyone wants the next WoW, as opposed to being content to make the next EVE.
Ungood has the core of it. At the end of the day this is a business and they are trying to follow the model that makes them the most money. Unfortunately for us the current model is to milk the hell out of Whales which makes for a terrible MMORPG experience.
To respond to some of the OP's comments though, it's silly to think that today's games are just as hard as the old gen games, I'm not really sure what that is based on because DAOC was much more difficult than WoW which is much more difficult than most of today's games. In the old games like DAOC there was no stupid crap like pulling 20 mobs and level 5, you pulled one and you had better pay attention to wtf you were doing or you were going to die. In today's games I can watch TV and randomly hit my keyboard to level up to 30 without a single death... and no, that is not an exaggeration.
Today's games are all vertical in nature, they are about getting the player to max level as fast as possible and then the game actually starts.. and that is also when the P2W Whale hunting begins. Lost Ark is a prime example of this, 50 levels of dogshit then a disgusting end game targeting players wallets.
Oh, the OP also said having a map doesn't make finding a point of interest any easier than the old games? Seriously? Did you ever play any of the old games? There is no way you did or you would have never made that statement. I remember my entire guild spending the entire night trying to figure out some of those quests and their locations, some of them were near impossible to figure out. In today's MMORPGs you don't even need to read the quest, just click, map shows you exactly where it is. Hell, most all of them will show you a lighted guide to the spot.. it's embarrassing.
Anyway, this article feels all over the place. Community isn't in games anymore because it isn't needed. There is zero need to speak to anybody in game because everything is given to you, everything is easy, everything is free until end game.
You want to write a compelling article, compare and contrast MMORPGs based on the generation that they were developed in. Compare MMORPGs developed by Baby Boomers (UO, MUDs), to Gen X (DAOC, Eve Online, Everquest2) to Millennials (Modern day MMORPGs) there you might find some interesting observations and maybe some insight into what they next evolution of MMORPGs is going to look like developed by Gen Z and beyond.
It's never been about some ideal, it's always been about money. Just, more suits got involved, and everyone wants the next WoW, as opposed to being content to make the next EVE.
You want to write a compelling article, compare and contrast MMORPGs based on the generation that they were developed in. Compare MMORPGs developed by Baby Boomers (UO, MUDs), to Gen X (DAOC, Eve Online, Everquest2) to Millennials (Modern day MMORPGs) there you might find some interesting observations and maybe some insight into what they next evolution of MMORPGs is going to look like developed by Gen Z and beyond.
The next generation of MMORPGS are going to be all about P2E, NFTs and Crypto currency, bank in it.
But it isn't really Gen Z alone trying to deliver this crap, even the old dogs are trying to get in on the action.
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
It's never been about some ideal, it's always been about money. Just, more suits got involved, and everyone wants the next WoW, as opposed to being content to make the next EVE.
You want to write a compelling article, compare and contrast MMORPGs based on the generation that they were developed in. Compare MMORPGs developed by Baby Boomers (UO, MUDs), to Gen X (DAOC, Eve Online, Everquest2) to Millennials (Modern day MMORPGs) there you might find some interesting observations and maybe some insight into what they next evolution of MMORPGs is going to look like developed by Gen Z and beyond.
The next generation of MMORPGS are going to be all about P2E, NFTs and Crypto currency, bank in it.
But it isn't really Gen Z alone trying to deliver this crap, even the old dogs are trying to get in on the action.
It's the same thing with crypto buying...it isnt just the cryptobros that are buying it, its the Boomers that used to buy gold and other investments too.....The lure of money isnt necessary just a temptation for the young.....
It's never been about some ideal, it's always been about money. Just, more suits got involved, and everyone wants the next WoW, as opposed to being content to make the next EVE.
You want to write a compelling article, compare and contrast MMORPGs based on the generation that they were developed in. Compare MMORPGs developed by Baby Boomers (UO, MUDs), to Gen X (DAOC, Eve Online, Everquest2) to Millennials (Modern day MMORPGs) there you might find some interesting observations and maybe some insight into what they next evolution of MMORPGs is going to look like developed by Gen Z and beyond.
The next generation of MMORPGS are going to be all about P2E, NFTs and Crypto currency, bank in it.
But it isn't really Gen Z alone trying to deliver this crap, even the old dogs are trying to get in on the action.
It's the same thing with crypto buying...it isnt just the cryptobros that are buying it, its the Boomers that used to buy gold and other investments too.....The lure of money isnt necessary just a temptation for the young.....
Agreed but I think the older people who do it know, on some level, that it's douchey while the younger generations are oblivious.
Because new mmos don't build worlds, they build hubs with credit card machines attached.
Hint: saying it's not cash shops or pay to win shows you know absolutely nothing. We paid monthly for those old mmos. Unlike today, we were not constantly hit over the head with "SPEND MORE MONEY!!!!" every time we logged in. Every time they added a new grind we weren't hit with "OPEN YOUR WALLET TO SKIP THE NEEDLESS CRAP WE IMPLENENTED!!" We paid our money monthly and that gave access to everything until the next expansion. We paid extra for an expansion every 6 months to a year. When we paid, we got EVERYTHING. We didn't have to nickle and dime to get every piece of the new content, it came in one simple package. Everyone had access to ALL of the cosmetics, housing items, whatever because THEY WERE IN THE GAME AS CONTENT.
Hint: saying someone "knows absolutely nothing" doesn't make their opinion any less valid. It does show a lack of confidence that your own opinion can stand on its own merits, though, and usually does little more than stifle a healthy discussion. Good thing I don't know when to shut up.
You're right, we weren't hit with "spend more money" every time we logged in. We were hit with "give me money before I'll even allow you to play." And then we were hit with, "Oh, you like this game? Then give me more money every month if you want to keep playing."
Micro transactions may limit access to a games content, but no more so than a monthly sub. It may change the cost
, But it doesn't ultimately change the feel of the actual game. That would suggest if I opened up a game's cash shop and bought every item available the game would magically feel like a better game, or if WoW went free to play and charged for cosmetics it would suddenly be a different game.
I do find it funny that we often forget that long before f2p and micro transactions that many gamers complained about the sub model. Players complained that they had already purchased the game and the sun fee was just the dev being greedy. No, payment model doesn't change the feel of an individual game. And games can suck no matter what the payment model is.
Comments
Once they went mainstream it all went downhill.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
It was harder when you had to actually learn the world and things were complex and a bit obscure at times. Lookin' at you UO.
By design, old gen MMOs encouraged players to team up. Else, they would have been doomed to grind on low exp monsters and had to face long downtimes. But if you teamed up and made friends, potential was always there to shortcut the leveling phase by huge amounts. Examples:
1: Dark Age of Camelot - a melee group buffed by a shaman (stat buffs) and healer (attack speed) could easily chainkill monsters 10 levels above maximum player level resulting in quick exp and great loot. Or Modernagrav leveling, where you had 3 Point-Blank-Area-of-Effect casters to deal damage plus a shield block tank to guard them, rest filled up with twinks to level up, plus 'out of group' buff classes. You could make a max level character within half a day.
2: Lineage 2 - This MMO was probably the hugest grind fest of mid 2000s, but if you teamed up, you could pull huge numbers of monsters. Example: Orc Destroyer with Polearm (cone AoE damage) buffed by 4 different classes (Blade Dancer, Swordsinger, War Cryer, Prophet) was able to pull 100 monsters. When they hit the Orc Destroyer, his HP went down to 20%. When the Orc Destroyer then hit back, his HP went back to 100% because of how all those buffs including atk dmg, atk speed, lifellech, crit chance, crit dmg, and so on synergized.
So, what many consider punishing gameplay actually was rewarding players for teaming up and finding class synergies. That's something that modern MMOs completely ignore and reason for many games feeling shallow and boring, because all have one thing in common; They are developed as solo player experiences with optional group content. God forbid our Homer Simpson style person dies too many times and quits!
Bottomline, modern AAA MMOs sacrificed complexity in pursuit of economic promise. The focus on single players instead of groups ultimatively lead to less challenge and individuality because in such a scenario the single player must be able to complete content eventually opening up another chapter, the chapter of lack of challenging content in the leveling phase which limits social interactions which are required to create community that goes beyond purely extrinsic purpose. And we haven't even touched Bartle taxonomy and identification with certain roles.
There's only one single point that I entirely agree to; The Mystery Is Gone From Modern MMOs.
I saw myself long years as a player, whose core-genre was MMORPGs like WoW, TESO, WAR etc. but when I started and progresses in "Lost Ark" this year - a game I was waiting for a long time- I realized, that MMORPG in their modern Version are not my genre anymore. My biggest point really is, that before anyone entered the game people watches so many videos, that there is no exploring and no surpirise left. They know exactly what class they will take, where to get rich fastest and how to rech max.LvL fastest. So yeah- it's mostly a matter of "people" but of the game itself. So maybe we will never again get that "omg what am I doing and whats happening here" feelings we got in the early MMORPGs. On my site- my next MMORPG Guild I make up will absolutely be for players ONLY, that did not spoil themselves and that have the same attempt to the genre that I have: "Explore the unknown and play together".
I really have to say, meanwhile I enjoy small scale MMOs much more: ARK, VALHEIM such games bring much more community, cooperation, exploration, death and fun than any MMORPG in the past years after dropping from TESO.
But I don´t give up on MMORPGs as two promising candidates are in the pipeline "Ashes of Creation" and "Pantheon" but my expectaions are lower than never before and so I cant´'t wait to get ARK2 in my hands.
Also, and most importantly, these guys had no working templates and frameworks to work off of other then games like Ultima underworld, OG Neverwinter nights, and other games of it's ilk.
It's hard to make a mistake or do something wrong when you are literally creating something that's never existed before that moment.
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013
Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005
Fishing in RL since 1992
Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
Better yet, having helplessly observed a Lich Lord *rummaging* through your corpse to take all of your reagents and your Indestructible Silver War Mace of Vanquishing BEFORE starting the corpse run.
1. MMOs today are no longer MMORPGs. That's the main difference. Everybody is self sufficient, they can play any role. Also content is geared towards that fact. Thus new MMOs feel shallow.
2. The main driver in developing content is accessibility. Every MMO today wants to capture as wide an audience as possible. That makes them feel same-ish.
3. Most of the QoL improvements end in "You want more of this ? Do spend a dime or two here..." wall.
Those 3 facts combined make for way easier MMOs than they used to be. Everybody can do anything, there is no individuality and there cannot be any deeper interactions. This eliminates the need for grouping for most of the game content. And the trend is accelerated when the devs notice it and try to adjust to the new "way to play" that they actually created.
Also the "content" is now in the endgame raiding (i.e. grind). The race to that is short and simple.
The only MMO that I always return to is EVE Online. I wonder why that is ... should give you a hint ...
There's a flipside to this. The actual content these days is really shallow (easy to master) so the devs compensate by adding a lot of different mechanics. I started playing Lost Ark a few weeks after release. To this day I have no clue what 2/3 of the UI do as there's a massive ton of different things you can do and customize but they are not really relevant. Also I have not played in a month as there's no real sense of exploration to anything there.
Most of us who realise the merits of old school do understand we could not expect a new MMORPG to release with a strictly old school set up and do famously, but ESO showed that you can at least take a step back from having every cash shop "innovation" at launch and you don't have to start super easy. There is scoop for hybrid old/new school MMOs, it is just down to where the balance lies. For example no corpse runs and no deaths without penalty, you can find a sweet spot between those extremes.
Modern mmorpgs are arcade games in comparison.
Back when I first played EverQuest, which was shortly after launch, it was populated primarily by people coming from table top RPGs. There was no roleplay server because roleplaying was the defacto approach to playing the game. Grouping was natural and common because that's how you play table top RPGS. Everyone was helpful and friendly because that's how you get invited back to play table top RPGs. It's really hard to grief people when you're sitting around the kitchen table with them. Hard to be anonymous.
I found DAoC to be similar at launch. Even vanilla WoW at launch was not far off even though people had figured out the freedom anonymity gave them and griefers were a problem. As WoW grew and the era of the WoW clones began it all got worse and worse. Now if I play an MMO it's as a solo player surrounded by other solo players. It's actually pretty lonely. I've moved on to single player games and non-gaming hobbies for the most part. I'm not the target demographic for today's MMOs.
I can't put my finger on a single feature that caused the decline. Seems more like a combination of things. Primarily the need to appeal to mass audiences so they can make back their 9-figure investment in building the game.
I long for a good Wheet of time mmo or a new space mmo, where we can experiment with builds and abilities and not have to run a x DPS parsed build to do content. Where communities really matter like building towns and houses that do something. Would love to build a home and be able to fish in it etc
Currently playing eso for large scale pvp, Elyon for solo grinding and Sto for that space fix !
In addition, with the rise of tech and capabilities, developers are able to put more complex systems in place. Think about the difference when PONG was king and then games like DONKEY KONG came out. More tech made for a much more capable type of game.
The player base has also changed. When the genre was fairly new, people were happy with simpler. It's all that people knew, even though at the time it wasn't simpler for them.
A lot of reasons really. The one reason that people will try to convince you of and isn't true is that 'people today just want money and back then they did it for the love of making games...making memories....blah blah blah' It was about making money 3000 years ago, the 80s, 90s, and today. Money ruled the roost then and it rules it now. People need to take off those dirt covered glasses that they think is rose coloring.
This is because AOL games were funded by time spent online, and why AOL lost a huge lawsuit about the addictive and deceptive nature of their games, and why they offered a monthly sub, as opposed to pay the minuet.
The next gen of games, were now built around the momentary system of Box Fees, and Monthly subscription, which gave rise to the idea of Expansions, to up the box fees, so the system where it was designed to keep players playing, didn't change much, there were massive time sinks places to keep a player grinding, a whole system of RNG with the single minded goal of having players farm, for hours, weeks, years on end, for that one ideal perfect piece of gear, or doing some tedious task to work a skill, so that they would keep playing the game, and thus keep their sub active.
For the games that did not depend on RNG systems, they built in other means of time sink , like random rare spawns on timers, this is in some games mobs that dropped special loot were on daily and even weekly timers, with placeholders and limited drops, to keep players going after them, week after week, month after month, year after year, all so that they would keep their sub active.
This is why they made some games so that soloing would take a punishing amount of time, but grouping split the Exp, so it would take upwards to 6 times as many kills too level, and of course, adding to the time gates was needing to get a group, and form a group, the longer this took, the more work it took, the more it stalled the time it would take players to get what they wanted, making the game feel longer, larger, and harder overall, but, all this was done with a single minded goal to keep a player playing, and thus keeping that sub active.
There never was any sense of gaming idealism, or purity, or anything like that, all these GAAS online games were nothing more than an entertainment system built around the payment model, designed to get the most money they could from each player they have, which was originally by the minuet, and then by the month.
Ideally, they needed to be good enough to hold a players attention, but, also at that time, there was not much in the way of competition, and also keep in mind this was during a time when the forerunners of D&D, made in 1972, where now hitting adulthood, and moving around, and suddenly, due to the internet you could play with your old HS buddies again, so there was a huge novelty that held it together as well.
Then we enter WoW, and suddenly these once small time games were a market to tap, a billion dollar market to tap.
Enter the Clone Wars.
Well, that lead to a lot of games dying, and lo and behold, as a survival method, enter F2P/Cash Shops.
Cash Shops, now have a vastly different income system from Subs, they don't need to keep players playing to stretch out the subs, they focus on doing all they can to get players to pay into the system as fast as possible. Originally, the idea was to nickel and dime each individual player, ergo, the Turbine Model.
That also has evolved, and modern Cash Shops now target Whales, so they needed to change their game systems again, to go from a Sub, to the Turbine Model, and Then to the P2W/Cash Shop, where their big spenders have a way to spend unlimited amounts of money, and get well rewarded for doing so.
It stands to reason they would feel very different from each other, that would be like comparing a Restaurant that is food by the pound, that is selling individual meals, or selling food by a single payment upon entry.
They are all going to be very different in the way they prepare, market, and even make their foods as well as what they put on the menu, and the prices asked.
It's never been about some ideal, it's always been about money. Just, more suits got involved, and everyone wants the next WoW, as opposed to being content to make the next EVE.
To respond to some of the OP's comments though, it's silly to think that today's games are just as hard as the old gen games, I'm not really sure what that is based on because DAOC was much more difficult than WoW which is much more difficult than most of today's games. In the old games like DAOC there was no stupid crap like pulling 20 mobs and level 5, you pulled one and you had better pay attention to wtf you were doing or you were going to die. In today's games I can watch TV and randomly hit my keyboard to level up to 30 without a single death... and no, that is not an exaggeration.
Today's games are all vertical in nature, they are about getting the player to max level as fast as possible and then the game actually starts.. and that is also when the P2W Whale hunting begins. Lost Ark is a prime example of this, 50 levels of dogshit then a disgusting end game targeting players wallets.
Oh, the OP also said having a map doesn't make finding a point of interest any easier than the old games? Seriously? Did you ever play any of the old games? There is no way you did or you would have never made that statement. I remember my entire guild spending the entire night trying to figure out some of those quests and their locations, some of them were near impossible to figure out. In today's MMORPGs you don't even need to read the quest, just click, map shows you exactly where it is. Hell, most all of them will show you a lighted guide to the spot.. it's embarrassing.
Anyway, this article feels all over the place. Community isn't in games anymore because it isn't needed. There is zero need to speak to anybody in game because everything is given to you, everything is easy, everything is free until end game.
You want to write a compelling article, compare and contrast MMORPGs based on the generation that they were developed in. Compare MMORPGs developed by Baby Boomers (UO, MUDs), to Gen X (DAOC, Eve Online, Everquest2) to Millennials (Modern day MMORPGs) there you might find some interesting observations and maybe some insight into what they next evolution of MMORPGs is going to look like developed by Gen Z and beyond.
But it isn't really Gen Z alone trying to deliver this crap, even the old dogs are trying to get in on the action.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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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
Hint: saying someone "knows absolutely nothing" doesn't make their opinion any less valid. It does show a lack of confidence that your own opinion can stand on its own merits, though, and usually does little more than stifle a healthy discussion. Good thing I don't know when to shut up.
You're right, we weren't hit with "spend more money" every time we logged in. We were hit with "give me money before I'll even allow you to play." And then we were hit with, "Oh, you like this game? Then give me more money every month if you want to keep playing."
Micro transactions may limit access to a games content, but no more so than a monthly sub. It may change the cost
, But it doesn't ultimately change the feel of the actual game. That would suggest if I opened up a game's cash shop and bought every item available the game would magically feel like a better game, or if WoW went free to play and charged for cosmetics it would suddenly be a different game.
I do find it funny that we often forget that long before f2p and micro transactions that many gamers complained about the sub model. Players complained that they had already purchased the game and the sun fee was just the dev being greedy. No, payment model doesn't change the feel of an individual game. And games can suck no matter what the payment model is.