A MMORPG without raid and dungeons?

[Deleted]

So I have been thinking about this the last couple of days; can a MMO be really successful (1 million and above subscribers or F2P people that spend cash monthly), if it doesn't have any raiding or dungeons or anything like it (WoW scenarios, group quests that are without bosses and such, etc.)?

I haven't been able to find any MMORPG that was succesful in this way (please feel free to inform me if I'm wrong on this).

So first of, do you think it is possible? And second; what kind of features do you think could get people into the game and keep playing it for a long period of time?

[Fuzzzie]

Moved to the appropriate forum.

In response, they've tried similar things in the past, but without success. One of the things that keeps people coming back is the replayability. Even that model hasn't been working with WoW or other games recently.

If anything, the thing that keeps people coming back to a game is the community. It could be the best game in the world, but without a strong community people get bored and leave. How many people have quit WoW because "Their friends don't play anymore". I sure did.

[Deleted]

Yes it can.. pretty sure Runescape has more than a million players and it didn't have raids when I played it. It was a few years ago though so they might have released them by now though.

[Toxigen]

Asheron's Call was a huge success and it had no instances...there were portals that would lead to "dungeons," but you could have multiple parties (called Fellowships) in any dungeon.

You had to fight other groups for the best loot/xp spots...and if you got your ass handed to you, you had to settle for an inferior dungeon.

[chrisberb]

Ultima Online!

[Dilbon]

A fantasy MMORPG without dungeons would be a bit bland, but there's no need for them to be instanced. Frankly at this point I'd prefer a totally non-instanced game.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Although EVE has raids (called deadspace), almost the entirety of the game's enjoyment is from the player interaction and not NPC interaction.

[Deleted]

I play a Uncharted Waters Online , i think it's the best sailing game out at the moment, pirates of the carribean-ish with the whole real world available not a fantasy one). But it's also one of the grindiest games i've ever played. Now the free to play server doesn't have many players and it survives by selling "treasure boxes" , but there's also an original server in Asia that has a monthly subscription for it and gets updates more fast than the second server.

So I'm not sure if the original one or even both added up reach 1 million players but definitely MMOs work without having raids or even heroes with superpowers in this case. It does have something you could call a dungeon, but that's mostly land battle with swords to get trade goods. Nothing at all compared to the dungeons you might think of

[Kelimbror]

So I have been thinking about this the last couple of days; can a MMO be really successful (1 million and above subscribers or F2P people that spend cash monthly), if it doesn't have any raiding or dungeons or anything like it (WoW scenarios, group quests that are without bosses and such, etc.)?

GW2 was the closest to what you mentioned that was 'big', but even they realized that dungeon replayability and sorta gear grinds keep people playing. They've added more content towards that nature than it seemed they would from their initial statements of the game.

With that being said, they do a good job not focusing on that aspect and the game is still thriving.

[Deleted]

Yes it can.. pretty sure Runescape has more than a million players and it didn't have raids when I played it. It was a few years ago though so they might have released them by now though.

Everything in RuneScape is still soloable apart from a couple of the latest bosses which require a party, but they're definitely not "dungeons" or "raids". Just two, single boss encounters which require more than one player.

So guess RuneScape fills the criteria.

[PACOX]

People demand raids and dungeons.