Does WoW need to die for the MMO scene to rejuvenate?

[Kathranis]

No. What you'd need is to go back in time to before the Battle Royale genre conquered the MOBA genre, and then go back even further to before the MOBA genre conquered MMORPG genre.

MMORPGs are too expensive and inefficient to blow up. There is no reason to make an MMORPG in 2019, developers have all realized that instead of making a single massive game that has to appeal to everyone, you can just make a few simple games with a handful of modes that appeal to more targeted audiences.


Look, it's just like... Okay, so in the 60s people thought we were going to have robot maids and butlers in the future, right? But that's actually a shitty business model and is never going to happen. You know why? Because you don't need a super expensive, super fancy robot to do all your household chores when you can buy a dozen different cheap appliances that each do one thing well.

MMORPGs are robot butlers, in case you don't get the metaphor. They're super expensive to make, hard to manage, they have to do a lot of different things really well, and they're competing against a constant stream of newer, cheaper, more efficient, more specialized products.

[Tyresias]

No. If other mmo's need one of the top reigning mmo's to die so they can succeed they they don't deserve to survive or be made if they can't make themselves attractive to players on their own merits.

[quite an expert in wow]

i don't think so
if there will a game that will be better than WoW, I will probably play it
I came from the FPS scene, after I heard WoW came out, me and many others switched to playing WoW
this can happen again, with the right game. it doesn't mean wow has to die for it though

[Daedius]

I'm waiting for VR MMORPGs ! VRChat doesn't count...

[letssee]

I believe one day the mmo were all waitng for will come.

Im hoping the rumored Leage of Legends mmo willl be good

[Boxilot]

The MMO scene is dead. The only thing left is WoW, staggering around like a zombie looking for brains. It's not even an MMO any more. Hasn't been for a decade.

This really isn't true. FF14 rounded 16 mil quite recently and is enjoying a huge surge of players now before the new expansion. GW2 has a loyal playerbase as does ESO. MMORPGs are doing just fine, its just WoW-players have become disillusioned and believe that because WoW is doing worse, then everything else has to be as well.

[letssee]

This really isn't true. FF14 rounded 16 mil quite recently and is enjoying a huge surge of players now before the new expansion. GW2 has a loyal playerbase as does ESO. MMORPGs are doing just fine, its just WoW-players have become disillusioned and believe that because WoW is doing worse, then everything else has to be as well.

That was accounts not players. As far as i know nothing has come even close to wows sub count

[Lex Icon]

the appeal for me with mmo's was that i could easilly play together with other people from wherever.. but that is pretty much common place in most types of gaming now.
it's better now though. you can take the things you like and hone in on that.. no need to try to catch em all like Blizz has been trying with WoW for so long.

[Boxilot]

That was accounts not players. As far as i know nothing has come even close to wows sub count

I didn't say they were subs But it is growing, that's for dang sure.

[Eurhetemec]

Yeah, I realize I vastly simplified the argument, I just didn't think a wall of text would help my argument xD

I was moreso targeting mmo-rpgs that have come out in a state that was really close to being successful, but were hampered by one or two things that pretty much anyone could have told them were bad ideas. Wildstar was a fantastic game that just failed to understand what QoL changes were popular and who their audience was. Rift was another that was too shortsighted in it's implementation of a great system (public quests) and knee jerk balance changes that alienated players from their characters.

Add to that pretty much every eastern mmo that has failed utterly at monetizing for a western audience.

I do agree that there's been an almost hilarious series of MMORPGs which decided to elaborately fuck themselves in various ways.

Yeah WildStar completely misunderstood their audience and what "QoL" actually ways. They also designed a combat system which was great for raids and dungeons, but extremely obnoxious for long-term grinds and slow questing and the like. Then had plenty of both. They profoundly missed how a game has to have moments of calm, and that grinding mobs can't be too hard work. Interestingly GW2, from a similar era and with some similar ideas, actually understood these concepts.

But GW2 fucked up with content and it's monetization method. Nickle-and-dime paywalls for the story (while keeping it free for people who played every week) were a great way to ensure it was difficult for new people to get into the game and story, and that anyone who left for a while would feel kind of shat-on and left-out when they came back! Plus putting more and more utility in the cash-shop, whilst putting less and less content in the actual game, and putting even small bits of content behind hilarious grind-walls was not er brilliant. On top of that the designers seemed to continually encourage elitism in dungeons, PvP and RvR, and later in Fractals and raids, which made the loud, dedicated elite very happy, but further made the game bad to come back to, or to come to new.

ESO seems to have struck a better balance. Unfortunately it is incredibly boring. I have it and all the expansions up to the current one and I just get way more bored playing it than doing even dumb lowbie questing on WoW. Works for some people at least.

Rift had a lot of problems, but for a brief shining moment it was a better game than WoW, I would argue. One of the few MMOs to genuinely manage this. Then they just failed to keep up with WoW in terms of QoL and content, and as you say, engaged in big balance changes that didn't really seem to enhance the game, and people drifted away.

I could go on but I agree with your point. I think the reason we have yet to see a WoW-beater is mostly down to the massive investment you'd need to make it even like an 80% chance of being really good. I think another issue is picking the right aesthetic. I think WoW got incredibly lucky in landing on an aesthetic mid-way between '90s comics like Spawn, and Disney, which ensured a huge potential audience. Most MMOs have an aesthetic which limits the audience. I don't know what the modern equivalent aesthetic would be. Overwatch was probably on the right track, but I think you'd want to go slightly edgier/more gothic.

- - - Updated - - -

This really isn't true. FF14 rounded 16 mil quite recently and is enjoying a huge surge of players now before the new expansion. GW2 has a loyal playerbase as does ESO. MMORPGs are doing just fine, its just WoW-players have become disillusioned and believe that because WoW is doing worse, then everything else has to be as well.

There's no particular evidence FFXIV is doing terribly well. 16m accounts is not terribly high nor does it tell you the number of active players - and FFXIV has been giving itself away free to Twitch Prime customers (which is all Amazon Prime customers). WoW crossed 100m accounts in 2014. You're incorrect to say it means that it's "growing". What it means is that it has new accounts. For all we know it could be on the same number of subs as ever, or less. WoW probably has 120m or even 150m accounts now - doesn't mean it has more players now than it did before.

I'm not saying it's doing badly - it's clearly doing well enough to merit a decent-looking expansion, but 16m accounts doesn't mean much.

GW2's playerbase seems to have been dropping off, but it's hard to say, because there are no recent figures. Last I heard profits were down 3 quarters in a row, though.

ESO seems to be doing totally fine.

[therealbowser]

Odds are that if WoW were to die, the entire MMORPG genre would be in jeopardy. Either the genre would be because of WoW's death, or WoW would be dying due to the state of the genre as a whole. Neither situation is one I'm fond of.

Either way, I'm not a big fan of doomsaying. WoW doesn't need to "die" for other MMORPGs to thrive and be successful. It's not holding anything back.

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I think MMOs that did not try to copy WoW's formula and did their own thing like GW2 and ESO were more successful than "WoW killers" like Rift and Wildstar

FFXIV is similar to WoW's formula, and is doing great. Many MMORPGs who did not follow the 'themepark' style have failed horribly. Your examples are a little biased.

[czarek]

Maybe but i really dont know. Maybe if WoW will fall other developers will try to take the market but i think its pretty hard to kill it. Its 15 anniversary classic is going live soon. New expansions going on. "WoW is dying" since i remember :P I tried some GW, Rift and some other mmos but to be serious i just love warcraft universe. I cant fill it with another one. Warcraft is something more than just a game. Its more like part of lifestyle i think.

[jackofwind]

I don't WANT more mmorps nor better ones. I play almost only Blizzard games and have no interest in going to another developer.

Instead, WoW need to improve to make sure it remains the ONLY really good mmorpg.

This is so weird, it's like saying you'll only play board games published by Ravensberger.

[Triceron]

Before folks start commenting about this being a negative post, telling me to play something else, let me set the record straight.......

I enjoy World of Warcraft for a variety of reasons, and have done since about mid TBC. I raid as much as I want to, in the difficulty bracket that I want to, with a fairly good group of IRL and in-game friends. I enjoy the new expansions and subsequent content patches to varying degrees, and am still a subbed player. I take part in the Beta testing phases, and provide feedback as constructively as I know how.

All that said, every supposed "WoW killer" has fallen by the wayside. Some have been good games, and some not so much. I doubt that it's because all the studios that produced them were bereft of creative direction, and there's more than enough source material out there to make something truly epic in terms of an enduring MMO world out of it.

So the question I'm asking is a simple one. Does WoW need to die for the MMO scene to rejuvenate? Putting it another way, does the very presence of WoW prevent the success of a new MMO IP? In the same way that a forest fire clears the way for new life, would the death of WoW encourage a new MMO, or even several, to rise in it's place?

What are your thoughts?

Apply that mentality to any genre and you have a lot of your answers through digging history.

What happened when the RTS went away? MOBAs sprung up and took their place. What happened when FPS was saturating the market? Alternative FPS types like Battle Royale became hugely successful.

Ultimately the answer comes from people moving from trend to trend, and despite what happens to WoW, the genre won't recover because it's a dying fad and people crave new experiences.

Honestly, I see Mobile being the way to go. It's an infinitely more connected and social means of gaming that offers unique experiences that you can't find sitting at a PC. The diehard MMO enthusiasts will stick to what they know and love, but it's honestly a tired concept that people stick to because it's familiar, not because it's fresh. The casuals have all but moved on, and will continue to, because that's how they treat games.

[Mamut]

I think time for classic MMO like WoW is over (I enjoy it still) not from the gameplay perspective but from the financial side. Why risk so much money in MMO game when there are much more profitable genres and with lesser risk? Now accountants have more to say than devs.

[therealbowser]

How so? I've never even played GW2, why would I be biased in its favor?

Your examples are biased not in favor of the games, but in favor of your argument. You picked poor examples as counter points. Some of the worst MMORPGs. I countered by offering a better example: FFXIV, which has followed WoW's formula and was failing hard before it did so, and now has become one of the most successful MMORPGs on the market.

[Highelf]

There are some pretty promising ones on the horizon.

[Lei]

I think if wow died it would release a lot of potentional "bettermmo" players. So maybe the "bettermmo" could get their best and most audience that way? More players -> more money -> more to spend on development (if we speak about a non profit oriented game but love for the genre oriented game - but who would invest in such a thing today?)

BUT! Speaking for myself I would not start a new MMO today. MMOs require a lot of continous investment, and you can never know when the devs pull the rug out from under your feet. Gaming industry is disgusting nowadays. :/