The fall of MMORPGs

I see MMO as evolving into something different. Lots of people I have talked to are tired of the huge mega worlds that are all the same. They are looking for something different. MMO's will evolve into smaller games with groups of people, sort of like the Minecraft servers out there. Several hundred to 1000 players on a smaller world, more social, more cooperative and with a variety of goals and choices, rather than than the same old "get to level 100 by killing everything in sight" are some ways they might grow. Games will be niche, and have loyal but smaller player bases. They might even be more like large MO's, where players can run their own servers of friends.

Of course, that doesn't solve the casual vs. hardcore gamer problem. I quit MMO's because they suck up too much of my time. They force you to be in the game in order to continue to achieve and not all of us have that kind of time. I have a few ideas on how to handle that but none are tested right now.

 

@JasonBricco - read 'em, but alas... not sure what is I need to research.

 

It's just that you're making a bunch of claims that aren't really accurate, probably due to thinking all MMORPGs are like World of Warcraft. This isn't the case.

Examples:

"It's already dead if it's plagued by bots."

No.

"There needs to be elegant solutions to wasting people's time just to suck more money."

Well, Ankama has done a lot on this front. Point being, not all MMORPGs are like World of Warcraft.

"Gamers get older, new gamers aren't playing games like we used to."

Where did this come from?

"Very pretty looking game that nobody ever heard of."

Well, no.

"I would just sew it up more quickly. They're not going to die... they're just going to become this obscure, unplayable thing that will shed players until there are only the core niche players left. The number of MMORPG's will reduce proportionately as the market declines (instead of waves of new MMO's hitting the market as players decline like we have now) and all the MMO players will end up playing (probably) some freemium model that makes EA rich."

All of this, you're stating as fact when it's only opinion. And again, it assumes that all MMORPGs are apparently similar to WoW.

"Subscriptions are part of the past. Why pay to play when you can get that same level of content for free and then pay for extra in-game cash?"

Again, assuming they're all like WoW. Actually, Ankama's system is such that you can pay for subscription if you want to, or you can earn the virtual currency in the game and buy subscriptions that way. Whichever you want. But someone had to buy that subscription and sell it to you for the virtual currency. So Ankama never loses out on it.

 

It looks like Ankama [at least the Wakfu team of Ankama] drifted away from that concept. You can't earn Ogrines(sp) by any means other than using money.

However, most of the servers are F2P with the exception of Aerefal since that is the largest server and Ankama likely doesn't want to miss out on the money from the large playerbase on that server. But I'm pretty sure they will go F2P too once players migrate from that server to F2P ones.

 

That's not true in Dofus. In Dofus, you buy Ogrines from players who are selling Ogrines using your virtual currency you earned while playing the game. Through this, you can get absolutely everything in the game without paying if you have absolutely nothing better to do in your life, or you can be the one paying real money and selling stuff to those players who can dedicate lots of time to the game.

Is it perfect? No it isn't, but I think it's better. In the past, you were forced to pay real money for a subscription. They've made it now so that by paying money, you may have a slight advantage over other players (though they've capped how much money you can spend per month on ogrines to avoid abuse), and also money can't buy strategic abilities!

But also, players can now buy subscription entirely for free if they want to.

It's certainly unique, in either case.

 

Not a bad idea. It allows the casual players to gain money, something that often takes a lot of time whether through killing/looting or through crafting. And it allows the poor players who have lots of time to gain playing time by using money earned in game, thus leveling the economic playing field. Fewer free players with tons of in-game money and more casual players with in-game money. I am sure there is something wrong with this...but overall, it seems rather a neat solution to one of the issues that plague MMO's with regard to casual vs. hardcore gaming.

 

You're doing this thing... where you don't know how I'm making my predictions & conclusions, so I am wrong.

Or maybe you are wrong?

A lot of people never consider the latter. You're more focused on me being wrong than the possibility that I could be right. On this, I'm indifferent. You've obviously got free time to think about things...

What if I'm right?

 

For the most part, I wasn't saying "you're wrong". For many of those points, I'm not in a position to say that. You very well might be. But I noticed that you seem to be doing two things:

1. Generalizing.
2. Presenting opinions as facts.

For point #1, if you generalize all MMORPGs to be the same thing, then when you look at that type of MMORPG and conclude that it might die, you're going to falsely conclude that all other MMORPGs might die with equal probability. But some of them, namely Ankama as I've pointed out, are doing things much differently and therefore might not be on the path to dying after all.

For point #2, well, that's just something that annoys me. We can't say it's a fact until we've seen it happen. Maybe your predictions are fantastic. Maybe you are right. But it's pretty hard for humans to predict the future, so it seems. And if you're generalizing, then your predictions may not apply to all MMORPGs equally.

A few things you said were actually wrong, though. Example: the message about bots. According to Ankama, that's just not true.

 

I believe what I have said to be correct. I don't know if I said that anything I wrote was documented fact, but I also believe I did not do that.

 

Jason, I have learned that it is better to just know that MisterElmo could very well be wrong, but keep that fact to yourself. He has some good things to say, and he does present things in a rather absolute way, but that is his quirk. Learn to love it. It is not worth the stress trying to convince him.

 

I can live with the 'absolute way' thing, but not the generalization. Let's at least work on that.

 

You sort the little details, I'll work on the big picture stuff. Eveybody wins.

 

I'm afraid I don't understand your comment, as it seems irrelevant to anything we were discussing...

Generalization is helpful and useful at times. But sometimes it leads to false conclusions, because it fails to consider the great diversity of things. It is human nature to generalize and, often, it gets humanity in a lot of trouble. It must be used with caution! Fortunately, this application isn't a very serious one and probably not worth complaining too much about. So I believe I will be getting back to making my game now .

 

You're sort of generalizing about generalizing, which amuses me.

 

All u have to say is check out archeage and black desert online

 

Eve online?

 

Archeage has serious issues with hackers and bots. I lost interest after my son checked it out and told me of his experiences. It only takes word of mouth to serious limit the player base of a game. Doesn't mean it won't have a zillion people, but it does mean that it will lose out on a significant portion due to reputation.

 

LOL! I'd have to say those are the same good reasons I quit MMORPGs as well... especially the unhealthy lifestyle part, and time required... chances are i'd be divorced, on child support and overweight if I still played MMORPGs.

 

if they need to do something like that, it goes to prove that MMORPGs are in fact on the decline... and if people are buying into this, that's an indicator right there that people are tired of grinding, and doing repeatable quests to level up to enjoy a game like this. Further more, Blizzard is entering the MOBA arena with their own Heroes of the Storm which will probably serve as the fail-over for all of their decline in WoW players. Old players will happily return to a Blizzard game like Heroes of the Storm to play as one of the WoW Avatars.

 

No way, man... things never change. Mmo's are here to stay. You and your spurious conclusions and your opinions can "hit the road jack". WoW is bigger than ever, and my MMORPG is the WoW killer.

 

Yea, I see your points... I don't think MMORPGs will ever truly die... I think there will always be an interest in this kind of game, but I wonder if the interest could boil down to the interest in playing pacman or pong classic arcade games, i don't thing even today those games are dead, but for most who don't play them today would consider them as old news, and dead in the sense that not a good chunk of the gaming market is raving about it anymore... so in that sense who knows if MMORPGs could die in that sense... but not die as in none existent and absolutely no one plays a certain game anymore kind of dead lol... (I hope the comparison of classic pacman or pong made some sense lol)

 

I haven't been into MMO's in years, but all I ever hear people talk about in WoW is the end game as if that is the actual game. Apparently, gone are the days when it took months to years to get to the level cap, when now you can get to it in a weekend.

 

Yep, dead like anything else that had it's time and went. Like comic books. Still around, yet dead.

 

huh? lol... was that for me... you lost me...

 

what would be interesting is if level 90 Characters was offered for $60 across all MMORPGs in existence and if people flood in to buy into it and it works... and MMORPGs start making money this way... it's proof that people aren't really interested in playing through an MMORPG at all but instead are looking for a way to instantly join the elite ranks, engage with everyone at the same level... which should show us that there is a major flaw in MMORPGs, or that we need to re-define what MMORPGs are... for example possibly removing Leveling all together, and allow the game to be more skill based than rewarding based on how much time you have to grind...

So maybe MMORPGs can live on, but in a totally new way... they need to evolve, someone needs to re-define the genre.

 

What pleases me is that maybe...just MAYBE...people are starting to smarten up when it comes to large games and what they ACTUALLY do?

As for MMO's going away, no, i have a hard time seeing that happen since human beeing seems perfectly fine with playing a game thats free out of the box, but ends up costing u about 2000 copies of it retail price when u are tired of its content. Freemium is the future for MMO's, it seems to be thriving,atleast in the few games ive tried with it.

I also agree that these new kids are growing up with a completely diffrent relationship with games, and will therefor, adapt to it. We didnt have MMO's, i grew up with Amiga,Commodore and NES, and then later moved on to SNES and PS1. I bought the gmae, and it worked aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall the way tot ned, no one had to patch it, remember those days guys?

Sorry i stray from the topic, i just love how old games work out of the box, while a 500million budget game isnt even playable from the start.

The question isnt simply about MMO's, its a bout gaming in general. Large publishers are so eager to rush out their games now way before they hit the "game complete and tested" mark, and people will start to notice. CoD is decreasing, Assassins Creed has received so much bad press its a wonder if anyone buys the next one, Farcry 4 was unplayable on PC...i mean i mean.....someday, the masses will start to catch on.

Not right now tho because we are still retarded creatures with monkeybrains.

 

These numbers are no longer representative of WoW's subscription numbers. It is much closer to the peak 12 million than 7 million at the moment.

 

If effort was focused on developing a fun experience as you level, and not putting the entire game at the final level, maybe people wouldn't want to skip a chore such as leveling.

 

As Masochistic as it sounds, I actually enjoyed leveling in Final Fantasy Tactics. I guess it was because the leveling seemed fast, but its possible to down-level and then level up again as a different class for improved growth parameters. It also helped that leveling a particular "job" was rewarding since it unlocked other jobs and also shared some JP with other members in the same fight for the respective job.

It reminds me of the Ragnarok concept where you "Rebirth" once you reach a certain level. It gives people a sense of accomplishment to work hard to Rebirth and level from the beginning again, so lowby content continues to be relevant and reusable while the player can compare the power difference between when they were low in level before Rebirthing and after Rebirthing.

I think if games could somehow integrate a level-rebirth system and keep players engaged in content of all level ranges, it can be fun. I think FFXI almost accomplished this with their level-sync system that allowed higher level players to lower their level to that of a member in the party to help them out or to gain some experience until the person you've synched to levels too much. The problem was that this system relied too much on other people to accomplish, so it was very limiting.

 

Most of those do not describe Dungeons and Dragons Online. Which is part of why I have stuck with it for so long. The game is engineered for those who have an active lifestyle and the community is fantastic because of it.

The vast majority of those I run with maintain jobs - those without a job are not from a lack of trying either - and a good portion of those have families with kids. I regularly see my guildies take breaks from the game and the excuse is generally along the lines of responsibilities or exercising.

Raids are typically in the range of 30 to 60 minutes with some of the longest pushing 90 minutes. Though a very bad group can add another 30 minutes to that. Raids have a 66 hour timer on them to prevent repeats, but most of the community has multiple characters so it rarely impedes us.

Forced teaming is very rare and almost never found in newer content. Character building is extremely flexible to the point that the tanking/healing/damaging roles found in traditional MMOs simply do not exist unless you specifically build that way.

 

It's kind of silly but at the same time I can see why they put in the boost. Most people in the game are at or close to max level. If you're just starting out, and you don't have a friend to play with, you're going to be spending months in the game grinding all by yourself. This doesn't work so well in a game that's largely focused around being social.

But yeah, it still doesn't change the fact that the game is grindy as hell.

 

But doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose? The game is the grinding and starting from the bottom, achieving and getting to the top. If you can pay money to start at the top just so you can socialize, then why even have levels? I am not sure it is a bad idea...just seems to invalidate everything the game is based on.

 

What you're referring to is progression, and progression can exist without levels. But I do think that a leveling system makes progression feel more satisfying (at least in my opinion).

It really is too bad that Developers for games with a leveling system [typically RPG games] take the easy way out and make a linear leveling system as opposed to a rebirth/regrowth system. Rebirth/Regrowth systems are more complex, but has more longevity and if done right it could lead to very interesting gameplay for players of any level.

 

I don't throw the L word around often but I do love to grind. I find it deeply satisfying!

Take D3 for example. I don't think that is exactly the kind of game you all are talking about but it shares many play mechanics. In the beginning characters are weak. Pitiful really. But as you grind along finding better and better gear and unlocking more and more powerful skills your character kind of transforms from a normal Jane or Joe into a sort of superhero. To me that is the heart and soul of such games.

 

With a leveling system you give the player a feeling of accomplishment when the hear that ding or see the light show and BIG letters stating they reached a new level cause that means better skills spells access to weapons etc.
this works for like the first to on or two then becomes a boring thing redoing the content over again with yet another alt.
But the choice of buying a high level character already means they have no clue how to play that class and when doing end game dungeons/raids/etc they will be noticed and the trolling will commence. Worst thing running a dungeon is having a noob nit know how to play their class.

 

That's not always true, at least from my experience with WoW.

Sometimes an experienced player who is playing a specific class will need a different class to make a difficult encounter easier than with whatever classes they have available. They wont hesitate to buy a desired class and spec it for said difficult encounter. I'd imagine that GM's with deep pockets wont hesitate to do this for their guildmates (yes, guild leaders are very willing to pay real money to help members if it means conquering a raid, especially if its a server/world first... I've witnessed it many times). A different class wont slow them down too much with helper sites like Elitist-Jerks, Addons to help with cooldown timer watching to optimize DPS, and the help from other guildmates and training dummies to practice a rotation.

Also, even if a new player does make a purchase for a character that is already leveled, they won't be too gimped if they do dungeons in tiers. Normal 5, Heroic 5, Raid-Finder and Weeklies, then Normal 10/25 and eventually Heroic 10/25 raids of which have varying tiers for different raid instances in the case of WoW. Typically, Normal 5 is extremely easy and very rarely possible to fail even with a group of new players in greens, and you can earn tokens (with a daily limit*) to get some slightly stronger gear so you're more prepared for Heroic 5 and Raid-Finder/Weeklies.

At least this was the case just before I stopped playing (which was during WotLK and partly into Cataclysm). There might be different Tiers of dungeons I don't know about that came into existence since Mist of Panderea and Warlords of Draenor, but I can't imagine that the tiering system has changed much.

 

They don't put you right at the top; they put you at level 90/100. Even when you hit 100, there is still a lot of "end game" content to make you even stronger. You also get to boost one character for free when you buy the new expansion pack, so pretty much everyone can be 90 easily. So basically if you're at level 90, most of the people are still more powerful than you on the server anyway.

The whole thing happened because the game has just been around for so darn long. The grind path got so long that new people just get pushed out, which is bad for people who want to play the game as a team. I don't think the designers thought that far ahead when the game first came out.

 

Since I don't play WoW, I will refrain from commenting anymore about it, other than to say, if I were someone who had put lots of hours into a character and so had my guild members, but I had no money to spend (college student maybe or poor parent), I would resent all these people who have money buying level 90 characters to win against my guild. It is pay to win, essentially.

But again, since I don't play that game and probably never will, it isn't my problem. Maybe folks don't really mind..shrugs.

 

As Stoven said it's not as bad as it seems. A character that hits level cap in WoW is about 30% as powerful as a character that has been playing the endgame for awhile(percentage made up but you get the rough idea). It's simply an option for newbs and experienced players alike to skip to the "endgame" where you start running all the high level content. If you just grind up a character normally and follow some guides you could be at the same point in a week or two anyways.

People like to rag on WoW but it is a brilliant game in many regards. Also, you don't HAVE to skip the leveling process, it is actually quite fun the first couple times you do it. The amount of content you can play between 1-level cap is immense and I think people do themselves a disservice if they play the game and never did all the quests/dungeons along the way at least once as they can be quite fun(and funny).

 

I see. I am not "ragging on the game", just to let you know. Those sorts of games just are not enjoyable for me and I have little time so I am rather particular. I love MMO's, but not ones where you mindlessly level up by killing stuff over and over. I played a number of them in the past but over them now.

 

Yep, there's more (should be/will be) to mmorpgs than grinding mobs to level

 

Sorry that comment was not directed at you, but in general to the amount of blanket hate the game gets. For what it's worth I stopped playing it a long time ago although for slightly different reasons(the cartoony style is not my thing). I think if you're studying it objectively as a game designer it's pretty much a masterpiece of a game though, just so...much...content.
I know a lot of roleplayer types who really loved the levelling process in the game, which is a side that doesn't get much attention. You can level without ever grinding and just doing handwritten quests. The quests can be quite involved and wellwritten and there is an overall story that is done quite well. (The grinding kicks in once you're max level)

 

The interesting thing about WoW is that there's more than one way to do things in that game and each additional thing to do actually seems meaningful.

Some examples:

-Raiding
-Transmogrify Raiding (obtaining some of the older items and using their models/textures for new items)
-Arena PvP (2v2, 3v3, 5v5)
-Normal PvP
-Playing the Auction House (its very active, especially on high-pop servers)
-Addon Development
-Addon/UI Customization (It's harder than it sounds, unless you get a customized package and it has the functionality that you want)
-Twink PvP (low level characters with BiS equipment for their level)
-100% Quest Completion (much harder than it sounds due to the large amount of quests available)
-100% Achievement Completion (Extremely difficult because some achievements are tied to certain raids and special conditions may need to be met to complete an achievement from a boss encounter)
-100% Mount Completion (Partly goes hand-in-hand with Achievement Completion, because some Achievements award mounts as a result)
-Theorycrafting and Theory proving (there used to be hidden niches about certain trinkets, spells, and mechanics for certain encounters and there are debates about what spec is best overall or for certain encounters, so theorycrafting to get optimal results is necessary. Check out EJ to get a sense of how this works in WoW)
-Crafting
-Dailies (almost forgot about this one)

The list might actually go on. The amount of things that WoW has to offer marks a pretty high bar for other MMO's to try to build up to, and they have to do it quickly or on release otherwise players will have the "Why play this other game when I can just play WoW and have more things to do?"

 

That's a lot of player created goals.

WoW is crack. You're constantly bombarded with messages in a frantic feedback whirlwind, click this, click that, press this, remember that... shiny light, boom, bam, bing. It has a strong social component as well. Therefore, it's a life substitute, rather than a game.

Of course, I'm a spurious conclusion making douche bag... whatever you do don't listen to me.

 

When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth.

When there's no more room on Earth, the living will walk the MMOs.

 

Japan.

 

Like I said, everyone gets one boost for free with the new expansion pack anyway. The paid boost is only for your alts. I don't think it would bother me. I don't play WoW though, but I tried it for a bit a long time ago.

 

Maybe because as MMO players, we all have different ideas of what is a "pretty high bar". I don't find this all that interesting or different. Yeah, it does attempt to be the game for everyone and attract masses of players by throwing in everything it can, but not all of us want that sort of game.

In fact, I have met thousands of people on other game forums who are looking for something different. The thing is they all want different things so it is tough for a company that needs a zillion players so that at least a fraction will buy store stuff to pay for the servers to serve those niche players.

WoW is not the perfect game for everyone.

 

But it's the ones your friends are playing, so you'll probably end up playing it (if you're into MMOs).

 

LOL
No, my friends are not playing WoW. You really shouldn't make assumptions about what other people do. Yeah, a lot of people like it, but not everyone.

Do you work for Blizzard?