Is The MMORPG Dying?

[Tennis]

Unless you're doing organized raiding which is what, 15-20% of the player base, there's no serious time commitment to play WoW.

MMO's in general have been dying for over 5+ years as PC gaming has been declining. It's pretty obvious to see so someone who predicts it in 2017 missed the writing on the wall many moons ago. The MMO genre was saturated by companies jumping into them looking for quick profit like WoW but failed to actually meet the demands of many who play MMO's. So they went F2P in hopes of salvaging something from a failed game. F2P is giving up. It's not being successful.

The raiders generate excitement for the game. When there's no more Ensidia, Paragon, Blood Legion etc then what do you think happens,

[deniter]

This genre is dead because the games are now designed as single player games.

In mmorpg story is not as important as lore is. In SPG you have a linear story you progress with as the game goes on, but an mmorpg is too big for a single story to follow. There has to be bigger lines in mmorpg.

Every time we're told about a new game with awesome features like voice overed quests, cut-scenes, auto-pathing, catch-up mechanisms, exp potions, automated group finders, etc. something dies inside me. These don't belong to mmorpg, they only let us play a SPG while we see other players playing the same game.

There hasn't been a decent mmorpg for such a long time people have already forgotten what it really means. Today it means you do silly quests for a few days to get a permission to queue for instant action.

That's disgusting.

[Alvito]

Really, you are comparing it with 1-2 hours a week ? If you are able to do anything meaningful in WoW with that schedule Bravo!. I bet you would just hit lvl 110 in about 8 -10 weeks and maybe finished every heroic dungeon once?

No I am comparing it with adults scheduling events and sticking with them. The block of time isn't the issue. The fact that when you have a group of people all doing different things doing what you say you will do is important. If it is a hobby or not doesn't matter. Nice spin and absurd stance you took there, bravo.

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The raiders generate excitement for the game. When there's no more Ensidia, Paragon, Blood Legion etc then what do you think happens,

There will be other guilds to step into that spot, there will always be a fasted clear so on and so on. I am sure people thought the game would die with the disbanding of Death and Taxes or other top end guilds. As long as the game is still running somebody is going to fill that void.

[Tharkkun]

The raiders generate excitement for the game. When there's no more Ensidia, Paragon, Blood Legion etc then what do you think happens,

People come and go all the time. Over 100 million people have cycled through World of Warcraft. New guilds and players pop in all the time. Some return years later. But at the same time it's tough to generate excitement sometimes when your game is 12 years old. I don't ever get excited by what the top guilds do. I have that fun with my friends.

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This genre is dead because the games are now designed as single player games.

In mmorpg story is not as important as lore is. In SPG you have a linear story you progress with as the game goes on, but an mmorpg is too big for a single story to follow. There has to be bigger lines in mmorpg.

Every time we're told about a new game with awesome features like voice overed quests, cut-scenes, auto-pathing, catch-up mechanisms, exp potions, automated group finders, etc. something dies inside me. These don't belong to mmorpg, they only let us play a SPG while we see other players playing the same game.

There hasn't been a decent mmorpg for such a long time people have already forgotten what it really means. Today it means you do silly quests for a few days to get a permission to queue for instant action.

That's disgusting.

At the same time the original MMO's were designed strictly around wasting your time. Penalties, grinds, etc extended subscriptions which limited their popularity to less than 500k subscribers. It wasn't until WoW found a nice middle ground which blew the MMO market wide open.

[deniter]

At the same time the original MMO's were designed strictly around wasting your time. Penalties, grinds, etc extended subscriptions which limited their popularity to less than 500k subscribers. It wasn't until WoW found a nice middle ground which blew the MMO market wide open.

About the same time as WoW was launched in early 2000 broad band internet became within a grasp of common people. I personally looked a box of Ultima Online in our local gameshop many times and would have liked to buy it, only there was this text "playing requires internet access", which i didn't have.

WoW really was a phenomenon of its decade, but it had perfect timing on its side.

[Deleted]

The MMO genre has always been a niche. WoW is the anomaly, and caused the market to spike as everyone tried to catch the zeitgeist (and the money).
But none of them really succeeded despite heavy duplication of the formula.

WoW has been slowly diving towards that ~500k player limit where it belongs to ever since the "MMO-bubble" - it will eventually hit it, it just takes a long time.
Once there, the genre has been restored to the spot where it truly belongs to - a niche game that is popular with people who can invest a lot of time (mainly, students - these days maybe even streamers, but I doubt it, because there's no paying audience).

[Zandalariprelate]

Mmorpg are not very cheap to develop unlike any moba or phone game which most of the kids play in these days, but i don't think the game is gonna die, just look the moster of call of duty, they repeat the same game with a different campaign and that's it

[Spinster]

None of us knows what "Titan" might have been like, but I think Blizzard was trying to make a next gen MMO and they failed.

There needs to be an mmo with various tracks of progression, lots of kinds of social activities, and a way to work personalization into the game. And instances need to be randomly designed so that they are real adventures not something you watch a video to do.

I think the first company that makes a game that is a step toward "Ready Player One" will eclipse the popularity of WOW.

[Sabever]

To OP: I hope you do not consider modern day retail wow an MMORPG. The RPG died long ago in WoW. But currently Vanilla servers have 10k wait lists and three hour waits if you want to play a real MMORPG.

[Eats Compost]

Yep, MMOs are definitely in a tough spot, and have been for a while now. MOBAs took a bit bite out of MMOs as a timesink, offline RPGs make their adavatages very clear with what they can do with their gsneplay, and hybrid action RPGs like Dark Souls and Monster Hunter are similarly flaunting their advantages.

When you ask "are are MMOs doing well?", the answer is "not much". The only only reason that something like WoW is so big in the market is because it's a huge brand that can get some mileage out of a compulsive desire for progression.

Innovation is obviously required, but it's important to say that this is Innovation with a capital I. An MMO that can carve out a better purpose for the genre won't look like WoW with a few extra features, and would ideally attempt to reinvent all concepts that are fundamental to an MMO.

Also, as an aside - in WoW, everything outside of progression raiding is designed to be quick, easy and progresses in bites on a weekly or daily basis. This is done for accessibility (the whole "everyone and their grandma can do it" thing) and, whilst it's a noble goal, it seriously undermines their opportunities to build up the game for players with any higher level of investment. This direction is one thing that I find makes a lot of MMOs unappealing, because all it asks is that I turn up and perform some rote actions to get some rewards. It means that the actual game has no chance to shine, because I'm not making any meaningful use of the combat system or my gear. Rarities like the brawler's guild should be far more common (or maybe even a standard!) to let these things bubble to the surface. That's not a WoW-exclusive problem, but WoW exemplifies it.

[vecnuh]

No I am comparing it with adults scheduling events and sticking with them. The block of time isn't the issue. The fact that when you have a group of people all doing different things doing what you say you will do is important. If it is a hobby or not doesn't matter. Nice spin and absurd stance you took there, bravo.

We both know that 1-2 hr a week is not going to cut it, even if you say that you are going to slay critters for 2 hours without blinking and stick to it.... you would barely be 110 if you lucky and maybe halfway through your legendary progression...my point being, you will have to, at least at one point, say f it and play 12hrs to just accomplish 6 week worth of progression and this is only the beginning of the slippery slope. And if it is not maintainable, you will eventually drop off or be left behind.

[Alvito]

We both know that 1-2 hr a week is not going to cut it, even if you say that you are going to slay critters for 2 hours without blinking and stick to it.... you would barely be 110 if you lucky and maybe halfway through your legendary progression...my point being, you will have to, at least at one point, say f it and play 12hrs to just accomplish 6 week worth of progression and this is only the beginning of the slippery slope. And if it is not maintainable, you will eventually drop off or be left behind.

Since you missed it the first time here you go again.

No I am comparing it with adults scheduling events and sticking with them. The block of time isn't the issue. The fact that when you have a group of people all doing different things doing what you say you will do is important. If it is a hobby or not doesn't matter. Nice spin and absurd stance you took there, bravo.

I never said anything about playing the game for 1 to 2 hours at a time, that was your own random leap. Of course you are trying to spin off some sort of debate or argument out of nowhere so the point has already been missed.

[Deleted]

MMORPGs are a dying breed because they ask for too much commitment.

Many people want games that are fun without the need to farm and grind. MMORPGs are the very definition of the last.

[Triceratrozer]

I'm not sure 'dying' is a word I'd really use for any genre. Look at adventure games, Telltale and King's Quest 2015 brought that back in force. Lotta genres kinda 'died' for a bit.

So, I'm not terribly worried about MMOs really dying out. A market will almost assuredly always exist somewhere.

[Zandalariprelate]

[QUOTE=So, I'm not terribly worried about MMOs really dying out. A market will almost assuredly always exist somewhere.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, in the asian market probably, they develop a lot of cheap mmorpg which are crap or just a generic fantasy adventure

[BergErr]

Id say they still are doing fine.

The game also broke the record of Pokemon GO’s global sales which topped $ 100 million in 20 days after its launch. According to the game developer, Lineage 2: Revolution has raked in 100 billion won and about 120 billion won, which is $102.9 million based on Wednesday’s exchange rate, in sales in 14 days and 18 days after the launch, respectively.
What’s more encouraging is that Pokemon GO’s record was from sales in the global market, while Lineage 2: Revolution has been distributed only in Korea.

http://pulsenews.co.kr/view.php?sc=3...=2017&no=43269

In the meantime we are at a one-month (December 14 ~ January 13) cumulative sale of 206 billion Won (about 200 million dollar), a revenue that has been generated by overall 1,406,825 purchasing users (구* 유저, what private server players call "donators"). Over all there are 5 million players who have subscribed to the game (가입자), i.e. more than 2/3 of the players play totally free. Now, in the 5th week after the game went live, there are 2.15 million daily users online, a number that has so far been increasing week by week:

Since Netmarble did not want to invest into ever more servers (right now there are 112 servers) they have increased the server capacity from originally 4000 players per server to 7000 players in a test at present. Now, in the 5th week of the game, there are 740,000 players concurrently online during peak times.

http://boards.rochand.com/viewtopic....tart=20#p35480

[Irian]

The genre needs a "WoW 2.0", which it hasn't found yet. I'd say FFXIV is my favorite designed MMORPG but mainly because it hearkens back to the pre-cata WoW days, with weekly grinds and a steady non-random gear progression as well as complex classes that don't babysit the player. Overall it also suffers from being just a "WoW clone".

I'd say that GW2 and Wildstar were the closest but also a misstep towards reinvigorating the MMORPG. What the genre needs is to break off from the classic tropes of questing, leveling, targeting and try something entirely new. The problem is that I don't know if any big companies are willing to step up and take the torch and try to move outside of their comfort zone like that; even Blizzard drew back on "Titan" in favor of an FPS-MOBA hybrid lovechild in Overwatch and you'd be silly to think even for a second that wasn't in some small part thanks to the problem presented now.

MMORPGs are sadly going in the direction of 3D platformers. Their concept is still novel and unique but the trailblazers have burnt out and nobody is going to take the torch from them.

[Demithio]

MMORPGs, and if we use WoW as an example, aren't gratifying enough anymore. They simply lack the imagination factor they once had. In an attempt to satisfy the instant gratification crowd, WoW has ironically become far less gratifying, even to the proponents of that system. Overall, I would say MMORPGs are on their way out.

[Coffeexbean]

With people crying for flying mounts 24/7 and whining about how they basically want WOD back this doesnt surprise me. People care too much about the final destination raiding then the slow adventure. I feel legion would feel better if Blizz banned the add on that instantly puts you in groups for world quests when you enter the zone. It kills social interaction. People should be grouping up in trade chat to go out and do WQ's together not more of this quick cross realm crap

[Low Hanging Fruit]

For sure dying. WoW was such a good thing that it snuffed all the competition and creativity out from just about the whole industry as they raced to copy it with a different IP. Not to mention these days people are only interested in instant gratification from pick up and drop games. The last thing is people really don't want to get to know each other anymore. Aside from a random digital driveby. MMOs were great when you meet and found new like minded people all the time. But most of them anymore are just use you for some random togetherness and then never see them again encounters. These three things combined into a massive dead space in my opinion.