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Is a true "MMORPG renaissance" possible?

Lurker47

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Do you think the MMORPG genre could see mass success without saturation and monopolies hurting the market? Is "sunk cost" always going to make the genre uneven? How do you think a wide array of MMORPG's can be allowed to coexist?

And if there was a "new WoW" to jumpstart this, what kind of new feature or business model would it have? What "big new thing" do you think the next super successful MMO will have in general?
 
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Dawkinsfan69

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The thing about WoW is that it doesn't even take advantage of its sunk cost. WoW has like 10 years of content that nobody ever touches because all the devs focus on is forcing people to play the current patch which typically consists of ONE small zone and ONE raid.

So really there's a huge opening for any MMO that doesn't suck to become the next big thing, because Blizzard evidently doesn't care about 99.999% of the content they've created.

Thing is, the game can't suck and companies seem to be having a hell of a time trying to figure that one out.

:roll::roll:
 

Vrab

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My guess would be developers need to keep their wits about them and not fall for traps (like splitting resources trying to develop a 2nd game at the same time) because they think things are going so well and more money can be made. Stick to what you know you can do. I imagine this is difficult when publishers and business people begin to make demands that go against the interest of actual game development. I'd guess that's what the whole problem is. Instead of people doing what they like and pursuing a passion, we get faceless companies doing cookie cutter projects with the express goal of making money. While I'm not blaming anyone for wanting to make money, this will never produce a result like it would if the priority was making an excellent game, which would then naturally make money.

And this in turn churns out a whole lot of mediocre products that then compete for a limited player base (because they are all esentially very similar and attract same people) and this player base then gets more and more disappointed and less and less inclined to actually try out new mmos that come out, which means that after a while if anyone would actually create that awesome new game everyone has been waiting for, odds are not enough people would try it out at start and it would die prematurely.

I'd say that the only thing to do is wait it out. Drops are typically followed by revitalization. I expect that as mmorp market dies down and no more half arsed games are being thrown out there, scene will be clear for something new to restart the whole cycle. Ofc the problem is that this can take a while, and life is short. So I hope it doesn't take long. It is really more about this than about the exact features and even business models. Although that said, I'd prefer pay to play because with f2p I never know what I'm getting and furthermore never know what the publisher will come up with tomorrow to mess with me. Subscription fee makes things more predictable and safe for the user.
 

Ranarama

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The thing about WoW is that it doesn't even take advantage of its sunk cost. WoW has like 10 years of content that nobody ever touches because all the devs focus on is forcing people to play the current patch which typically consists of ONE small zone and ONE raid.

Because MMOs stopped being MMOs and became MOBAs.

This is happening with a couple of genres actually. MOBAs get the experience of playing with others, leveling up, buying items and having fun in 30-60 minute rounds. No grinding required.

DayZ? That died and became PUBG where you're not required to spend days and weeks grinding it out with a group, and instead get the same experience of finding loot, surviving other players ands having fun in, oh look, 30-60 minute rounds.

It sort of happened to RPGs too, with smaller indie RPGs replacing larger worlds. Whether that really fits the pattern, maybe not. It's probably more a reaction to the expense of developing vs. genre audience. I don't know how you'd realistically get character based interaction down to something smaller, but I welcome cutting the chaff.
 

Hobo Elf

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I'm sure MMOs can be successful again, one day, but not now. MMOs are dead at the moment and half the reason is because devs can't push the genre forward in any meaningful way and the other half is because of people these days are too much caught up on instant gratification i.e getting more loot instead of just having a fun time playing the game because they enjoyed what they did with the people the met. Even the popular MMOs like FF14 and WoW, while they are doing well, aren't doing nearly as well as they want you to think. FF14 popularity shot up with 2.0 but after that the game's playerbase has gone down significantly with each expansion. WoW probably has (barely) a million active subs at this point, if even that. Which is still phenomenal, but extremely shitty compared to what it was in the early days.
 

Dawkinsfan69

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WoW probably has (barely) a million active subs at this point, if even that. Which is still phenomenal, but extremely shitty compared to what it was in the early days.

Yeah it's funny to realize that WoW, the largest Blizzard game that probably has the most substance and potential, probably makes like 1/1000th the profit of their shitty card game.

WoW probably has like 8 people on its dev team and the only reason it hasn't been shut down is because filing the paperwork for that wouldn't be worth the effort.
 

Lurker47

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Just going to throw in that people probably expect their games to get a lot bigger than they do at launch. Server costs are a pretty important part of MMO's and they seem to really overestimate how many (and how long) people will stick along for launch. Server tech has gotten good enough that most MMO's can handle the amount of traffic they bring in at a reasonable cost.
 

Norfleet

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No. Improvement is a physical impossibility. The Decline is inevitable and inexorable. Entropy must always increase. There is always more, and it is always worse.
 

Damned Registrations

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MMORPG's haven't been the same ever since the proliferation of wiki style resources that laid out what, where, and how to find, get, and do everything in the game. The appeal of these games was largely exploring a huge world, but that got discarded a long time ago because anything worth exploring for stopped being a cool secret and started being a thing to exploit. Instead of a boss enemy being an exciting encounter you knew nothing about that might potentially drop amazing new items, now it's just another lame enemy in some banal quest line because otherwise people would be camping it 24/7 for the loot. Now you don't discover dungeons by exploring the countryside yourself, you follow your quest compass there and it's completely fucking linear.

The only thing that's really improved since the old days are boss fight mechanics, which tend to be more involved now with things like positioning and timing being rather important. But the tradeoff was not worth it.
 
Self-Ejected

buru5

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Last good MMO was FFXI. Made community and partnership very important. This focus on singleplayer content in some newer MMOs is completely counterproductive to the genre. You should have to work together to progress in an MMO, it shouldn't be an optional thing or simply end game content that needs actual multiplayer.
 

Vrab

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MMORPG's haven't been the same ever since the proliferation of wiki style resources that laid out what, where, and how to find, get, and do everything in the game. The appeal of these games was largely exploring a huge world, but that got discarded a long time ago because anything worth exploring for stopped being a cool secret and started being a thing to exploit. Instead of a boss enemy being an exciting encounter you knew nothing about that might potentially drop amazing new items, now it's just another lame enemy in some banal quest line because otherwise people would be camping it 24/7 for the loot. Now you don't discover dungeons by exploring the countryside yourself, you follow your quest compass there and it's completely fucking linear.

The only thing that's really improved since the old days are boss fight mechanics, which tend to be more involved now with things like positioning and timing being rather important. But the tradeoff was not worth it.

This is true, but I don't think it's what caused the current situation. What you are describing is something we can still experience in single player games. The one themepark mmo I played seriously for a long time was Rift, it was an excellent game with all the googling and wiki resources in the world during its vanilla days. Open world has certainly been a territory for casuals but it was still decent enough and fun while 5 man dungeons and 10 and 20 man raids were very engaging and fun, nevermind reading the tactics somewhere. Instanced pvp was also decent even if I wish it was better. Problems arose because game gradually lost quality. Declined if you will. And why? From what I've heard it had much to do with such non-game related stuff as employee dramas (women!) that led to people leaving and the developer's decision to split its attention and work on other games that mostly failed. Now Rift is just a floating wreck.

It really seems to me that causes are more on the business and company levels than on the level of games themselves. The f2p model for example is just a slippery slope and many understand that by now. People don't like playing games that are on a slippery slope, especially not games that are all about persistent progression. And so many games being merely cookie cutter copycats that are obviously uninspired doesn't help either. Market is oversaturated with bland attempts to repeat someone else's success.
 

Archibald

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MMORPG's haven't been the same ever since the proliferation of wiki style resources that laid out what, where, and how to find, get, and do everything in the game. The appeal of these games was largely exploring a huge world, but that got discarded a long time ago because anything worth exploring for stopped being a cool secret and started being a thing to exploit. Instead of a boss enemy being an exciting encounter you knew nothing about that might potentially drop amazing new items, now it's just another lame enemy in some banal quest line because otherwise people would be camping it 24/7 for the loot. Now you don't discover dungeons by exploring the countryside yourself, you follow your quest compass there and it's completely fucking linear.

Well guides existed since forever and Wiki-style resources don't really bring anything new asides of making whole thing easier to digest. I think that what pushes all of this over the top is focus on the end game. If you don't intend to play MMO casually then you immediately will google out some kinda guide on how to build up your character for the end game and what are the best places to farm so that you could reach end game content as soon as possible since all the fun is there anyway. So you'll have your next X hours completely mapped out with little variation. Often you'll end up not even exploring much of the world because some areas are irrelevant or not as efficient.

I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think that there was as much focus on end game even 10 years ago.
 
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I think it's possible and will probably happen at some point, but certain changes must be made. First, you have to realize that a mainstream dynamic MMO like UO or SWG is no longer possible. The mainstream audience is too short spanned and casual for that now. So anybody making that kind of game has to aim for a niche audience of more sophisticated gamers. That's not a problem though, there are more than enough out there to support it.

The future great MMOs have to be sandbox and dynamic. It's theoretically possible that another themepark WoW will come along, but given the level of polish and content required, and the expectations of modern gamers, I wouldn't hold my breath. But it's much easier to make a good sandbox MMO, because you don't need to create a ton of content for it, you just need to design good underlying systems, which is more feasible for a smaller team.

One thing that would really help is cheaper third party tools and software. If you can license a third party engine, a third party AI system, a third party networking solution, and so on, that would allow the team to focus on gameplay design and implementation, and level the playing field for smaller companies.

You also have to learn from the mistakes of the MMOs in the past. There are tons of them in the graveyard now. UO, SWG, Eve Online, Roma Victor, Mortal Online, Darkfall Online, Ryzom, Xsyon, Salem, and others. You can't play around with half-assed releases. An MMO gets its critical density at launch, that's when it will either get enough people to exist, or fizzle out. So you have to have a playable/enjoyable state by the time you launch it. You also have to have a healthy PvE even in a dynamic sandbox game. Players need something to do when not participating in PvP or player politics/economy. You need well designed enjoyable game-play, so you don't spend your time grinding. Grinding is not a must for MMOs, it is simply a cop-out for lazy developers who don't want to design actual systems. I will give a simple example: mobs are braindead in MMOs, so if you need to make the player hunt, the only way to have them pre-occupied with it for a reasonable amount of time is to have them kill 400 mobs. So you make the mobs drop some turd, once for every 40 mobs, and require the player to get 10 turds. Hence grinding. Now imagine an actual gameplay system, where mobs have real AI, and run from the player, camouflage themselves, ambush/attack, hide in caves, etc. Now, you can just have the player hunt one mob, which might take 2 hours, but will be enjoyable and not be grinding. Every system has to be designed like this in a good game.
 

Norfleet

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MMORPG's haven't been the same ever since the proliferation of wiki style resources that laid out what, where, and how to find, get, and do everything in the game.
That's been true since MUDs. The only difference is that those resources are now readily accessible to every Tom, Dick, and Harry, instead of hoarded for the benefit of the elite. This generation does not understand how to keep things private. LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS.

The appeal of these games was largely exploring a huge world, but that got discarded a long time ago because anything worth exploring for stopped being a cool secret and started being a thing to exploit.
Things to exploit are the COOLEST SECRETS. If a thing can't be exploited, what fucking point does it even have?

Instead of a boss enemy being an exciting encounter you knew nothing about that might potentially drop amazing new items, now it's just another lame enemy in some banal quest line because otherwise people would be camping it 24/7 for the loot.
I really don't see why you prize ignorance so much. This is how stupid people think. The only difference is that the onus is now on devs to create things which aren't actually a total waste of time and development effort, or else the public will find out very quickly no matter how much lipstick they put on that pig.

Now you don't discover dungeons by exploring the countryside yourself, you follow your quest compass there and it's completely fucking linear.
I do agree that perfectly linear dungeons are boring, if only because there's nowhere to lurk in the side passages to murder the unwary and unaware. Which brings us to the generally poor quality of murdering these days. Back in the GOOD old days, you didn't have to spend your time exploring silly dungeons and blasting your way through bloated mobs. You could just lie in wait at an appropriate spot, waiting to pounce on the people who did like they were fat Spanish treasure galleons carrying loot from the New World. YARR!
 

Damned Registrations

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Things to exploit are the COOLEST SECRETS. If a thing can't be exploited, what fucking point does it even have?
It can't be a cool secret if it's not a secret though. Back when I played EQ, people would constantly be asking each other 'where did you get that item?' 'What spell was that?' 'How do you find the X item for the Y quest?' Knowing secrets and being able to tell other people (or not) feels awesome. Players didn't even know what other classes could do. People were genuinely impressed when you could summon items for them or cast various support spells. Hell, even stupid gimmicky shit like turning yourself into a tree was a cool trick.

These days nobody asks shit because it's all public knowledge. No mysteries = nothing to discover = no need to explore. Just grind grind grind on the best spots someone else already found. Fuck, half the content is spoiled by the devs themselves in fucking trailers before even the beta testers get their hands on it.
 

Lurker47

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Things to exploit are the COOLEST SECRETS. If a thing can't be exploited, what fucking point does it even have?
It can't be a cool secret if it's not a secret though. Back when I played EQ, people would constantly be asking each other 'where did you get that item?' 'What spell was that?' 'How do you find the X item for the Y quest?' Knowing secrets and being able to tell other people (or not) feels awesome. Players didn't even know what other classes could do. People were genuinely impressed when you could summon items for them or cast various support spells. Hell, even stupid gimmicky shit like turning yourself into a tree was a cool trick.

These days nobody asks shit because it's all public knowledge. No mysteries = nothing to discover = no need to explore. Just grind grind grind on the best spots someone else already found. Fuck, half the content is spoiled by the devs themselves in fucking trailers before even the beta testers get their hands on it.
That's only because the new games focus so much on minmaxing though. People who want to feel the spirit an adventure will go in blind, the game only needs to encourage that kind of experience and go out of its way to attract that kind of community.

There are plenty of hush/hush video game communities that won't help noobies- it's not exactly something that's dead. Just something that's not formally encouraged.
 

Norfleet

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It can't be a cool secret if it's not a secret though. Back when I played EQ, people would constantly be asking each other 'where did you get that item?' 'What spell was that?' 'How do you find the X item for the Y quest?'
So in other words, you liked being pestered over tedious banalities?

These days nobody asks shit because it's all public knowledge. No mysteries = nothing to discover = no need to explore. Just grind grind grind on the best spots someone else already found. Fuck, half the content is spoiled by the devs themselves in fucking trailers before even the beta testers get their hands on it.
These days, nobody asks shit because everything you could ask about and get a publicly acceptable answer is already covered in the text. Why is this such a bad thing? Besides, maybe you're just asking the wrong people the wrong questions. The real interesting things are things even the devs don't know about, and if you know what's good for you, you NEVER SPEAK OF THEM.

That's only because the new games focus so much on minmaxing though. People who want to feel the spirit an adventure will go in blind, the game only needs to encourage that kind of experience and go out of its way to attract that kind of community.
All games focus on minmaxing. That's the definition of the word. That is why to treat something like it is a game is called "gaming" the system. If you can't game it, is it even a game?
 

Gerrard

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MMORPG's haven't been the same ever since the proliferation of wiki style resources that laid out what, where, and how to find, get, and do everything in the game.
Considering that most MMORPG encounters and boss fights are the epitome of garbage design that requires you to know the whole fight beforehand I don't see anything wrong with that.
 

Thane Solus

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As soon as the genre went mainstream, it was dead in terms of creativity and innovation. While WOW Vanilla and BC has it merits, it was a casual MMO which lacked of complexity and interesting features which the old niche MMOs had. Luckly most of the people started with WOW or later, so their taste and experience with MMOs is shit... I remember that i never could play it in more than 2 months every few years, where 1 month was some PVE content (liked the progression and some maps,raids) the rest was "PVP" battlegrounds or World PVP.

This is because i actually played the first MMOs which in features are still superior to just about any MMO out there. MMOs like Ultima Online, Asherons Call, Anarchy Online,SWG, DAOC, EVE Online (until 2009-2010, now its a cash grab) and even Lineage 2 which had some incredible features, with a retardo movement system and huge grind.

Recently i started playing Anarchy Online again, and man that game is still great, even tho it has a low population and their parent company turned into shit.

MMOs will reborn when they will be niche once more, when their aim is to keep 50-100k subs, no Mobas or other cash grabs for casuals.

The only MMOs i really liked after 2005 were: Darkfall (first years), EVE Online (until 2005-2010) and Warhammer Online (first year), the rest got old in one month or less, usually one week.
 

Rahdulan

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MMOs will reborn when they will be niche once more, when their aim is to keep 50-100k subs, no Mobas or other cash grabs for casuals.

I don't think MMOs will ever be reborn in the true sense because the MMO part doesn't really fascinate people anymore like it did back in the day. I mean, just look at how ubiquitous online and persistence are in games. You also have to consider that MMORPGs have definitely fallen into a formulaic rut in chasing that sweet sweet WoW money. I think it was Mike O'Brien or someone else from Arena Net that said MMO is just technology at the end of the day and you have to find a way to use it in such a way it enhances your game.
 

Delterius

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It can't be a cool secret if it's not a secret though. Back when I played EQ, people would constantly be asking each other 'where did you get that item?' 'What spell was that?' 'How do you find the X item for the Y quest?' Knowing secrets and being able to tell other people (or not) feels awesome.

You hit the nail on the head.

I've been thinking. Imagine for an instance that you were a new player to whatever new MMO there is and you decide to abstain from wiki and youtube resources. To find everything by yourself.

If this is anything like World of Warcraft the first thing your friends are going to ask you is that you don't do it. That you check the fight's mechanics before raiding night and that you read some guide on how to properly gear and play your character. These games are about the fights exclusively. If you don't prepare yourself, then its not like you're an adventurer exploring the world. You're an inconsiderate prick who's ruining everyone's good time.

Now, I played that Secret World Legends re-release and for the most part the combat is pretty shitty. What held my attention were the puzzles of the 'investigation' quests. Once, I met a couple of people trying to figure out an encryption puzzle and we did it all together. No wikis involved. It was pretty fun and it shows that the game's content needs to be tailored towards that sort of experience. If all you do is grind item levels to kill giant monsters, then of course you don't care about exploration. You want all the answers as quickly as efficiently as possible.

Back when I was young I used to play Tibia. This weird ass Ultima 6 clone from Germany that only brazilians and polish people play. The game always had these two basic objectives. Acquiring levels (as there's no level cap) and exploring the world. There are hidden quests that took years if not decades to discover. Eventually their solutions make it to the wikias. But its entirely fair that someone chooses not to read them. I used to 'DM' quests for my friends, I'd give them clues on what to do next and they'd have to figure things out without reading any guides.

The best part is that some of these mysteries still exist today and people still talk about them in hushed whispers. Some secret databases of knowledge about the game are the exclusive property of certain guilds. Its all very interesting.
 

Norfleet

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Honestly, I find that sensation only happens when finding a loophole to exploit. Otherwise, the knowledge that what you're discovering isn't some kind of secret at all, but just something YOU happen to be late to discover like some manner of remedial short-busser, that everyone else already knew, destroys any satisfaction gained from discovering it. If you ain't first, you last.
 

Beastro

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The thing about WoW is that it doesn't even take advantage of its sunk cost. WoW has like 10 years of content that nobody ever touches because all the devs focus on is forcing people to play the current patch which typically consists of ONE small zone and ONE raid.

So really there's a huge opening for any MMO that doesn't suck to become the next big thing, because Blizzard evidently doesn't care about 99.999% of the content they've created.

Thing is, the game can't suck and companies seem to be having a hell of a time trying to figure that one out.

:roll::roll:

EQ's been doing something to touch on what you mention about untouched content with their progression servers, which really prove the point many are making here about MMOs being shit today, since the reason those servers are now EQs main draw is it allow people to play through expansions with more then the paltry amount of people and the venomous mentality many of them have that plagues emulated servers.
 

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