Future MMO's: Lessons learned from Wildstar and ESO

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Admit it, Blizzard spoiled us with World of Warcraft.

No other game can out World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft.

All games that try to emulate or surpass World of Warcraft will be forever subjected to the dilemma of the successor (or as I like to say, Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs).

In this day and age of MMOs, any game that will come up will always be in the shadow of World of Warcraft. Don't expect the trajectory to change any time soon (barring Blizzard royally screws up BIG TIME).

Another excellent arguement. Also, that Steve Jobs analogy.

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Nobody wants to play games like that. Takes way too much time. The average MMO gamer of today plays in sessions of 15 to 30 minutes a day, solo. That is the kind of gameplay that MMOs should cater to if they want to have millions of players. Basically "World of FlappyBird".

Then they shouldn't be playing MMORPGs then.

[Deleted]

Don't make questing grindy and boring. Don't throw millions of quests "kill X", "gather X" with crappy XP gains at the players throughout a leveling area. It is better and more fun to have a sensible amount of quests, even if generic, that reward quite a bit of XP.

I'm sure certain Wildstar fanboys will say Wildstar's quests are not different than WoW but the actual truth is that they FUCKING ARE! Wildstar had the most boring leveling experience I have ever see, even more boring than ESO.

[PizzaSHARK]

Then they shouldn't be playing MMORPGs then.

Why shouldn't they? Why does an MMORPG have to be a boring grindfest?

[Vynestra]

Lessons learned:

Make super-casual games with huge moneygrubbing item-shops. Don't try to innovate because all the casual gamers will complain it's not like WoW.

And don't try to be WoW lol.

[Cathfaern]

In this day and age of MMOs, any game that will come up will always be in the shadow of World of Warcraft. Don't expect the trajectory to change any time soon (barring Blizzard royally screws up BIG TIME).

That wouldn't change anything. If even Blizz would shut down all of their server next year WoW would still be lightyear away from other MMO-s. Sure many WoW player would choose one of them (but the playerbase would spread thin), but for many-many years they would still say that WoW was the best. Even if someone would try to incorporate everything WoW has now (and the worst thing is they don't even do this!) they would need years to catch up. So no, there's no way any MMO could surpass WoW in 5 years (my next candidate is EQ:N, but it could turn out to be a niche MMO. We will see).

PS: And no way that a PVP orientated game (like most Korea-style MMO, included TERA, Archeage, Black Desert, etc.) have even a chance on WoW in Western. Even in EVE Online most of the players just play PvE despite it's advertised as a hardcore PVP MMO.

[Tackhisis]

Lesson 1: Do not bother with MMO if you are not going to bring something new to the table. Being solely negative, as Wildstar did, and antagonizing WoW will lead you nowhere. Hatred never thrives.
Lesson 2: Do not bother with MMO if you cannot program for shit. ESO with its abysmal quest bugs which is still not completely fixed (it is FIVE months since launch). If you don't have resources to code the installer/patcher/game UI/QoL features, do not start programming the game. If you cannot design usable interface, do not try. Both WS and ESO have absolutely terrible UIs one can imagine.
Lesson 3: If you cannot please international players, do not bother. The in-game chat which supports only ASCII characters, the lack of regional prices and currencies will lead you nowhere. Even F2P games are jumping over their heads to have your $3. These games ask you for $70+$15 and treat you like shit.

To summarize the problem with modern MMOs, people do not want to do their job well while expecting standard market income.

[Tekkommo]

Make an interesting world.
Have multiple levelling routes.
Have smooth combat (is it really that hard?!?!?!?! nothing has come close to WoW)
Release the game with enough end game content.
Don't rush release.
Don't invite loads to beta too early.
Fix bugs.
Don't hype your game like WS devs, it was annoying.
Make sure your engine can handle mass pvp.
Don't panic open other servers.
Release with a mega server.
Itemise gear properly, this was totally retarded by WS.
Have more character customisation.
Try to not make levelling so faceroll (every game does it these days, is it what we want?).
Have lots of 5 mans during levelling and lots at end game.
Make crafting interesting (I know that's not easy).
Have the zones feel like they are connected.
Try and have a decent UI.
Addons are a must.
Make a sub fee worth it.
Make questing more interesting, have a mix of WoW and GW2 questing etc.
A limited action bar is shit.
A bloated action bar is also shit.

I could go on forever...

[Raamm]

Lesson learned Hail WoW Lord of MMOs.

[Deleted]

¤ Tbh neither of them should have gone for p2p-model. However, I don't blame them for doing it, lack of other mmo-launches gave them no competition and I bet box sells were pretty sweet for both of them. They did it because they could, not because they had the games for it. Now both of them are still in the p2p-model, which in the long run will hurt them more and more, so we will most likely see changes in business model.

¤ Combat, it's a matter of taste really. Personally, Wildstar got it right, pretty fluent combat close to GW2 and wow. According to me, they got combat right. I played caster a bit in ESO beta, and pretty stiff combat with a lot of stand still and channel. Felt like pvp in ESO "no need to cc caster, they cc themselves". Not my cup of tea at all.

¤ Graphics, ESO had the more dark "realistic" graphics style, that needs to be put efforts into creating. However, when going with this graphics style in game it's easy to compare to other new games, it's easy to find flaws. And unfortunately graphics looked dated when game had not even launched yet.
Wildstar went all cartoony in terms of graphics, the cheap and easy way to do graphics because you can pretty much do what you want and however you want. It's also an art style that doesn't appeal to all. In mmos when you should feel somewhat connected to your "hero", it might be hard to feel connected to a disney looking character.
Well done graphics is something you can get people to pay for. I felt neither of the games had enough graphics quality or graphics work behind them to get people to pay extra for it.

¤ Questing. Neither of the games had mindblowing questing experience. After doing quests in star wars it's hard to ever go back and like the old school questing. You have to like that quest system from the start, and if you dont it's just a painful road to max level. I think ESO got possibility to level in pvp from lvl 10 and forward, and dungeons? But even getting to lvl 10 was too painful for me. I managed to lvl 5 and couldnt bother login anymore after that, even with game being free and in beta at that point.
In Wildstar pvp leveling opened up at around lvl 6 if I remember correctly. That's a good thing they did. The sooner alternative leveling options is put in the better.

What to learn from these games in future games? Don't rush, be creative and try something new. I think in order to succeed it's to look less on games like WS and ESO and similars that are still pretty much narrowed into the box. I think you need to take inspiration from like facebook and where people hang out. Be a bit revolutionary, make a game that everyone and their moms will play, just like everyone and their moms used to play wow. It has to be new and completely different and money put on it. It's possible, but it's risky and in mmos today you see much more of safe than risky. That's why it's highly unlikely we wont see anything ground changing in mmo genre... like ever. You will see a little bit of this, a little bit of that, same ol in different package to give these game devs their daily bread.

[Lane]

ESO doesn't remind me anything of WoW, if anything it tried to be Skyrim, so I don't understand why people are saying it was trying to be WoW.

Wildstar, on the other hand, Gaffney specifically stated, "Ok, we're done with WoW, we know what we did right and what we did wrong, and we really want to tweak it and do WoW but better." Except they took all the dated systems WoW removed years ago and presented them as features.

[Tekkommo]

ESO doesn't remind me anything of WoW, if anything it tried to be Skyrim, so I don't understand why people are saying it was trying to be WoW.

When ESO came out all I remember is people complaining it wasn't like WoW.

So if you copy WoW, people complain and if you don't... well people complain

[draykorinee]

Learnt that sub based games do not entice people any more.
Action combat in MMORPGs should stop.

[Deleted]

When ESO came out all I remember is people complaining it wasn't like WoW.

So if you copy WoW, people complain and if you don't... well people complain

Uninteresting questing experience is uninteresting questing experience, and many games has managed to implement that.

[Aman08]

Every MMO I've played has had it's good parts and bad and, sadly, most MMOs don't get the run that WoW has had because they just can't compete. Why play them when WoW is so polished and has so much content?

They never come to fruition because they just can't sustain enough players for long enough to develop into a fully functional MMO with lasting content and tons of stuff. The best of them realize marginal success and continue to exist and carve out a small niche, but none will be able to dethrone WoW.

The bottom line is enjoy the MMO you are playing or want to play. I am currently playing ESO and love it. It fits my style and time availability and I get on and mess around and have fun doing it. I also enjoy Rift and TSW from time to time.

My biggest gripe with MMOs, and why I think WoW succeeded so early on, was that the developers have NO idea what an MMO is and just blindly throw random shit into a game hoping to hit the next big thing. They're just wildly swinging in the dark. The people who developed WoW actually PLAYED Everquest. A lot. They knew all the ins-and-outs and what needed to be fixed and built on that.

It just feels like a bunch of non-gamers got together and just seen dollar signs and starting mashing garbage together.

[kail]

Just go B2P. Sub fees give the feeling that no game is worth it unless it is the next lighting in a bottle.

B2P gives a return and a safe cash shop (i.e. Cosmetic/service) will generate revenue if you have enough people playing it. Not even "good" MMOs are worth a sub it seems.

[Tackhisis]

Action combat in MMORPGs should stop.

Very much this.

[The Kao]

Am I the only one finding it highly inappropriate to discuss this topic among us, the consumers, on a board that's generally related to the most vicious competitor of the games in question?

See I'm sure the thing has to be discussed so that the genre might stand a chance to get past WoW some time in the future, but that should be done among the dev teams of newly arising MMO titles, maybe their communities, but certainly not by a bunch of unrelated people that are happy to sprout their personal, idealistic, and totally unrealistic wish list for what they think the "perfect" MMO is whenever given the chance. And frankly this is all I see happening here, missing the topic by a few thousand yards.

[TyrianFC]

Am I the only one finding it highly inappropriate to discuss this topic among us, the consumers, on a board that's generally related to the most vicious competitor of the games in question?

See I'm sure the thing has to be discussed so that the genre might stand a chance to get past WoW some time in the future, but that should be done among the dev teams of newly arising MMO titles, maybe their communities, but certainly not by a bunch of unrelated people that are happy to sprout their personal, idealistic, and totally unrealistic wish list for what they think the "perfect" MMO is whenever given the chance. And frankly this is all I see happening here, missing the topic by a few thousand yards.

There's a good chance you indeed are the only one to support this completely stupid and narrow minded stance. This is the perfect place to discuss said topic.

[l33t]

- Don't be WoW killer, wow copy, wow successor or anything like that. Try to innovate.
- Don't use cliches. Stop continuously making warrior-rogue-mage-archer class archetypes.
- Stop limiting players on items, if they want to be a caster in heavy armor - let them!
- No factions, please. Dividing your playerbase since start is beyond dumb. These kind of games are designed to be played with people, not against.
- Maybe it's time for leveling to go away? As well as for action-oriented combat some people are so fond of.
- Change setting please. I'd love to play MMORPG in a Mass Effect-like futuristic, dark, grim world of space exploration. With your own customisable ship, space battles, planet explorations and stuff like that. Or maybe prehistoric MMORPG, with sandbox and innovative crafting, and all that raids to kill a mammoth/destroying a rival tribe/etc? Or maybe something based on Vampire: the Masquerade world? Or maybe a MMORPG where you play different fishes to survive in a wonderful underwater world? Or fallout world? Devs kinda forget that MMORPG are a world in a first place, an immersive world to live in... not dungeons, raids or gear. So god damn tired of cliched elfs, orcs, mages and unimaginative fantasy stuff like that...
- No class limitations please. I should not be punished in my solo play because I like to heal other people when in group. No GW-like "zerging 24/7" system either.

[Delekii]

Frankly?
Lesson learned: Don't bother trying to be WoW.
Every MMO out there tries way too hard to do what WoW does.

This is inaccurate. A game that managed to replicate the good parts of WoW to the same degree as WoW would absolutely be succesful.

Put more accurately: Don't aim to be like WoW, but not go the full distance before release of the game, and expect people to wait around for you to go the rest of the way.

WoW has had 9 years of iteration to work out what works and what doesn't. They left stuff behind because it didn't work, and they had the market presence to survive the terrible vanilla release. Nobody else will ever have the same courtesy.

Release games that are ready for consumption, even if they are not "finished".