Also, EverQuest isnt without blame. the massive shift to cater almost exclusively towards people who want to raid and the elite guilds was a huge shift away from what made vanilla EQ great, which was small groups of players tackling challenging dungeons. Im not spending my weekends sitting in endless raids, so some guy who I dont know or care about can get his rare sword.
@@ChaosSlayerZX the exodus due to hardcore raiding actually started around 2000 with the release of Kunark. So this is not "because of", it was as a "result of." wow didnt come out until 2004. the switch to raid content started in 2000 with kunark, well before WoW.
@@Central_Media3656 ok true, but it was not as noticeable, and and casuals still had ton of content to do in small groups, and soloing also opened up a lot due to twinking. EQ was still gaining number all way up to 2004. Expansions like LDON were clearly made with casual players in mind and was huge success.
@@ChaosSlayerZX true, didnt happen overnight....but Kunark is when this shift all started....it got worse and worse over time. as, the casuals left do to this new change in focus for the game, as a result most all that remained was the hardcore raiders.
@@ChaosSlayerZX yes LDoN was great as a casual player, but PoP was a big raid focus and then they released GoD at the beginning of 2004, months before WoW released, and that to this day has a sour taste in the mouth of many former players. it was so punishing even for people who were raiding that made the game seem out of reach. the developers absolutely pushed people away with this direction.
Social media killed MMO's. It replaced the social aspect of MMO's. People don't "hang" out in games anymore as a way of socializing since people have changed.
While I agree with all the points, the lack of struggle is the one that most resonates with me. I’ve returned to EQ after 20 years away for that reason-it’s been a lot of hard (yet fun) work to get to my character to where it is, and I’m really proud of that fact.
@@Igorath Because of the way raiding works now, no one cares if they cheat. They're not cheating you out of anything when you make your own raid zone. Now, if this were old eq with week long spawn times in the OW, then yeah, it would be a problem.
The speed isn't the problem, it's the fact that there is no difficulty. You can play these modern MMOs by smashing your face on the keyboard and you still won't die. It's boring.
One of my biggest gripes is knowing developers take months and years to create a game or expansion just for gamers to complete it in 2-3 days then complain there is no content. Gaming needs to be slowed down.
There’s no way to please the gamers, they’ll complete days worth of content in hours and then complain that there’s nothing to do, but if things are time gated then they complain about content being held back and there’s nothing to do. No way to fix the issue other than people fixing their expectations and habits
@@vannthybun2546 They need a baldurs gate 3 approach. Work on an MMO for like 7 to 8 years and have months upon months of content so that even if they complete all the content, it will still take them over few thousand 1000 hours. BG3 is not your typical RPG and there is so much jam packed of content, MMO's should seek to jam the MMO with as much content as possible if in dev for over 10 years. Look at SWTOR with Bioware, every one of class stories for each class was so creative and unique both for light side and dark side and thats why SWTOR is a great MMO for storytelling bc of class breakdown.
--- months to create a game ---... as a game developer, I died a little bit hearing that... if anyone knows any dark lords I could sell my soul to for a competent and shipped game in the measure of months, please do have them reach out.
This. People thinking that pulling 100 mobs and one shooting all with AOE is "fun" are the problem. Brainless "fun" more like. I'm not even going to mention how defensive they become when PVP comes into question - god forbid any challenge and consequence beyond playing the same repeatable dungeons and raids against the same scripted content!
@@GregJ22 Vanguard died because Smedley and SOE killed it. Brad looked for funding. Smedley and SOE bought it and shelved it because EQ2 was launched and flailing. Vanguard was awesome
MMO's are dead because they all follow the same boring WoW game loop....log in do stupid dallies then raid...rinse and repeat....until devs have balls to do more than just that MMO"s will continue to fail.
i agree with you calling out dailies. i think thats a very boring mechanic and it has the same effect that streaks did for me in snapchat. you want to keep it going when you have them, but the moment it breaks i lose all desire to get back in. its not the game thats drawing me in its only the pressure that i need to do my chores. i would rather log in because i want to and find an adventure where i want to rather than being directed to do the same shit every day.
Which baffles me because as a dev you can just scale the stats and create endless loops thru combat and gathering/crafting. So the questions is, "what is endgame?"
EQ was the first MMO to capture my attention. I had some friends that played UO before that but honestly that would never do it for me. EQ, for me, stood out because it was immersive. I felt like I was logging into a world. A dangerous world where night-time was scary and traveling across a continent was a task. A game where you needed friends to do anything that was "worthwhile". A game where good gear had an identity and major upgrades were hard-won. The game I just described is not exactly dead but it will never be relived for the first time again. I will add that Pantheon is the only game I am excited for in this genre. I have checked out M&M and Project Gorgon. They are just too dated and do not provide the nostalgia. Pantheon on the other hand, has things like climbing, the perception system, acclimation, and modernization in just the right areas (IMO). It also sounds great - which helps with that immersion. It is getting close to early access so we can see if it scratches the itch once and for all. I have my fingers crossed.
"A game where good gear had an identity and major upgrades were hard-won." PREACH. Name another game where an item with basically zero stats, is both hard and easy to get, that people use until the day they log off like the Guise of the Deceiver. I'll wait.
Lots of reasons not to play MMO's, the biggest of course, they are monetized, boring and soulless. having said that, I have limited playtime, so why would I play an MMO over Witcher 3 or Elden Ring?
Because you like games dont you? You may be playing witcher 3 or elden ring but each time you just starting over. A mmo, if done right, is a chance to have multiple stories but keep all that progression you have earned. If they are monetized right it is with fun that keeps you in game and gives you enough to do to be of value enough to be worth a monthly subscription.
I really struggle with single player games.. To me they feel like watching a movie with extra steps. An good mmo is like stepping into a new world full of adventure and other people. The interactions are unique every day, and the social aspect is always there.
I think player time is a big factor. Being a veteran player (played EQ at launch) I now have a real life and have much less time to devote to gaming. A 16 hour raid is just not an option anymore.
they are great games but not true MMos I could argue that GW2 is the most MMO out of the entire genre right now. They actually have good group content but its not forced. MMos today play more like open world Single player games with other ppl running around. bring back forced grouping and forced socializing. bring back camping. Bring back forcing ppl to communicate. THIS IS AN MMO. MAKE ME FEAR EXPLORING YOUR WORLD WITH OTHERS. dont force me to easter egg hunt to just explore THAT IS BORING AF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just started on Quarm last week and spun up a druid. I have played dozens and dozens of MMOs since my original adventure in Everquest in 2000. I haven't felt a sense of adventure with ANY MMO since the except maybe WoW on release. Personally, I enjoy having the world be dangerous and like you're living in it. Not when the world is a punching bag for you.
You nailed my thoughts exactly and expanded to include so many other discussion points. I’m new to MMOs and can see their potential, but I lack the ability to rely on nostalgic memories of the classic MMOs…because I don’t have any! So my experience has been with what’s out there now and they all feel identical: fast paced, top-down, hand-held, solo experiences where you hit level 12 at the end of the tutorial. This is why Pantheon hit so hard for me: VR is boldly doing something different because it NEEDS to save the MMO genre. Great vid and thanks for including me!
I can't find anything better or even equal to Ultima Online Outlands. Wish someone made a modern version of that graphic wise, but not wreck it with much other changes. But really the graphics are forgotten mostly once you get into it.
Good watch. My hot take: MMO's are the most popular they have ever been, but MMO is no longer a genre like it was back in the earlier 2010's and before. It is now instead a feature that incorporates other genres. This shift happening because so much of what a MMO a MMO (the social stuff) is getting outsourced to Discord etc. So instead they are making persistent online worlds that are ARPG's, FPS and more! Nostalgia, and just a simple shift in playerbase, won't give us back what we had in those early games. But at least we were lucky enough to be alive during the time that they were around and we can enjoy those great memories.
I want to put in my two cents also. Everquest and Ultima were basically chatrooms with a fantasy game attached. The down time between pulls, talking to your group was equally if not more fun than the fights. That and the the software sweep that lets people know every map and mob in everyzone before the game actually comes out. Wow was the beginning of the end. I tried playing WoW when it first came out and I i was like "damn, i just fell down a hill and gained a lvl." The audience said they wanted easier and more soloable. Well, we got it and it ruined the gene. Is it dead, no. Is it good? No.
Here's a wild idea. instead of having levels linked to a certain amount of xp, have it also linked to a quest chain say every 5 levels. you can't progress in level until you've progressed in the quest chain. or possibly even a number of quests completed. example, you can't reach level 20 until you've made the requisite xp value and completed at least 200 quests. This would mean quests would need to be meaningful as well, lore-driven and not just mundane task oriented. Make "RP" mean something.
The only thing I would change about your idea is to not tie it to a certain number of quests, but just certain "elite" quests, so to speak. So as an example (this is completely off the top of my head), you can level up to level 10, but then to progress to level 11 and beyond, you need to do a difficult quest where you take down a lich and destroy his phylactery, which can be a difficult dungeon crawl with high level/elite monsters. Maybe it takes 2-3 groups of players who understand their class's functions to be able to complete the quest. Then once you've destroyed the lich's phylactery, THEN levels 11-20 are unlocked to you, and you can progress, until you get to the next quest hurdle. Maybe we call them "raid quests" or whatever. Overall I like the idea, I just don't want it tied to "complete 200 quests" because then that just makes it seem like the game will have to be bloated full of "kill 10 rats in the cellar" type quests that players just have to grind through, and I don't like that.
@@boredfangerrude8759 I don't apologize for that. It's an MMO after all, should expect to play with people. Then they can implement some sort of mentor system where higher level people can scale down to help run lower level people through the quests or something, I dunno. But I do think something like this would help slow down the playerbase.
I play Runescape, Dofus, and LOTRO because I cant stand the issues you talked about with the bigger games. In these 3 games I will NEVER hit max level, and that is the best thing about an MMO.
My favorite MMO was Star Wars Galaxies 2003-05. Almost everything in the game was player created and had an insane depth of economy. It took me 9 months to max out the level of my first character. There was just so much to do, farming, crafting, trading, running shops, decorating houses, PVP, ect... I played 8-12 hours a day for 2 two years while working as a full time plumber with a cool girlfriend that would do her hobbies next to me. At the time I was excited for the future of MMO's. The possibilities were endless. Thinking they would only get better from there lol. I held out hope for 10 more years but have long since given up and play ARPG's and solo games.
how you feel about ESO is 100% my experience with it the level scaling made progression feel none existent for me the main drive of getting higher level in an MMO is so i can explore/play in zones i once was to weak for it generally felt pointless for me to level so i stopped playing
ESO did it terribly, but FF14 did it well. having higher levels join your dungeon queues and get scaled down to the appropriate abilities made it possible to keep clearing old dungeons or raids years after they were released.
It depends why you play. Having no progression isn't a problem in a video game. Even if some people only play video games to progress, they are wrong - and will inevitably find a game they really love and enjoy that has no progression. There was a common belief among gamedevs that "There is no target demographic." The idea, backed up in one article by some data, is that the vast majority of people who play your game aren't doing so because they're fans of the genre. In fact quite the opposite, they just find your game appealing for some reason. You can see this in many forum posts too. Whether it's gamers who like some recently released AAA 2024 MMORPG but hate all other MMO's because they aren't action-y enough, or it's some person who only plays a single niche WW2 strategy game because it's the only one which represents X or Y in it, or someone who only plays Starcraft but hates all other RTS games for reasons that are incoherent and clearly wrong (like saying they hate RTS games for 5 reasons, all of which Starcraft have). People pick games for weird reasons sometimes too. For multiplayer games, it's even worse - a lot of people only play stuff they see as currently active live service. So 99% of MMORPG's are off the table for being released yesterday. In the end, people just want a fun game. As long as it works out to be fun, that's what actually matters to people. Nothing else, really. There are exceptions to this though. For example, in MMORPG's there are people who genuinely want a virtual world they can live in - not a game to actually play. That's a big difference, bc fun doesn't matter to them. They want something else entirely.
@@nowayjosedaniel i think that progression does play a big role in whether people enjoy something. this is why GW2 and ESO weren't fun for me and i stopped playing them shortly after i started. it seems to be more common that this is important to people than that it isn't.
@@rynejones8513 I agree level scaling in eso is very different than in 14 and bringing higher levels down to do old content and teach new players makes more sense. More people need to play final fantasy 11.
Too many people have forgotten that MMORPGs are supposed to be RPG's first, MMO's second. IF you focus on the RPG first, that allows the players to create their own content when the MMO part is in a "content drought" and such. More sandbox, less gift shop theme parks.
That’s why I like Lotro so much. You can increase the difficulty after the intro for the home leveling. It’s a nice little feature that every MMO should have
I've been playing a private server for Final Fantasy XI for a while now. That game absolutely hooked me and this is coming from the perspective of someone that never played FFXI back in era. I can't find any enjoyment in modern mmo's and I assumed I had just gotten tired of the genre but now I realize something important has been lost. I'm not going to hold my breath for an indie studio to make a niche product because I feel like as it stands even an indie mmo would be prohibitively expensive to develop, too much to eschew catering to the more casual, mainstream audience.
I'm gonna be honest. Everything ... And I mean EVERYTHING is set now to such a fast pace that. Our live are faster, people want work faster. Everything is go go go go gogogogogogo. I feel we need to slow down in a lot of aspects. Rant over . Yes slow down. 😂
Sometimes the masses aren't correct in the moment. When companies add questionnaires at the unsub screen for a game that asks people what they thought as they are unsubbing, especially in a moment that often follows bouts of frustration, that is not the sole place for game devs to decide the future of an MMO. It's a data point, yes, but too much emphasis has sometimes been given to that solution of averages. Was it frustrating when you died and the game was too hard? Yes. If we change the formula to a milquetoast tincture consumable by everyone, will it sell well? Probably. Will that game ever be great? Probably not.
There are too many devs that are chasing the next big thing. That’s why so many mid WoW clones came out, and since then they have been chasing BR, survival, and extraction games. I want to see more innovation!
I think Blue Protocol is proof that the genre is dead. Yes, there are MMOs that are thriving but those are the select elite. Its pretty much impossible for a new MMO to succeed nowadays and citing Blue Protocol as an example, if that game couldn't do it, I don't think anyone can.
what went wrong is all the daily quests as retention mechanisms. all the funding went to cosmetics and then the game just kept getting worse, forcing you to do things you don't want to do or else you will fall behind.
You're not wrong. Monetization, greed, beholden to shareholders to the point where you over do it and/or cut your teams to make your portfolio look better than it is...
I miss EverQuest's attention to detail! Get this: you play a druid. Maybe a Halfling. Your adventures take you to Freeport. The guards like you and everything's chill. You gain a few levels and you can turn into a wolf. Because you move much faster, you stay in wolf-form all the time. Your adventures take you to Freeport--where the guards f*cking KILL YOUR ASS. Why? Because you're a goddamn wolf! What else would they do? "Oh, we have women and children in this city. Let's allow this wild wolf to run in. NOT!" Compare that to Age of Conan, which I loved. You play a Stygian Necromancer. You go to Conarch, a Cimmerian village. Cimmerians are northern barbarians who fear magic and strangers. You show up there with a small army of zombies following you, and the guards...don't react. "Right, in you go. Our women and children love the undead." If EQ designers had made AoC, you would not have set one black toenail in Conarch Village!
Fun thought provoking video Red! The last comment made me think of the song by Miiike Snow, Genghis Khan. In the context of the video imagine your favorite EQ Character singing the chorus: "I get a little bit Genghis Khan I don't want you to log on With nobody else but me With nobody else but me"
I agree with pretty much all of the points made. An mmo is about the journey. Exploring, discovering, crafting, and most importantly making friends. When I first started playing my first mmo I didn’t even know there was an “end game” and didn’t care. Didn’t know about raids or any of that stuff. I was just happy to soak in the world that was created and share experiences with other people from all over the world. F the destination. I’m in it for the journey. The road analogy works well: if it’s straight and smooth paved, it’s boring. If there are hills, turns and cliffs it’s fun AF. I’m hoping pantheon nails the journey part and I’ll be happy. Thanks to all the content creators who contributed.
They got way too complex and full of microtransactions. Private servers for older MMOs are the only good MMOs left. PSO Blue Burst, Warhammer Online, Warcraft of all kinds of flavors, etc.
I agree with you about ESO. The one Tamriel update changed the foundation of the game and I grew to resent it. I thought it was good at first and ended up changing my opinion after realizing I can create a new character and get to max level and end game content in a day or a weekend if I put my mind to it. It cheapened the experience of playing an MMO. It also made all overland content, minus some world bosses, to be trivial. You didn’t need to know anything about how your class or role worked and you’d be fine doing any content outside of veteran dungeons and raids.
I have played EQ1/2, WoW, Vangard, and ESO over the years, imo ESO is one of the best as the barrier to entry is low enough for a new player to start off without any background and pick the game up and solo or group their way through the content. EQ games fail on the solo part which is why boxing and the use of MQ are so common to where when they do a crackdown ban half of the raid guilds can't field enough people to raid. In MMO you need to be able to solo the storyline and take 2-3 months to level up but then take another 2-3 months to max out skills and AA/CP/Mastery etc. The issue with ESO is that there is no real stair step to power because the stats are so limited and the level cap is low that a level 1 and a level 50 are fundamentally the same when naked.
I've been recently thinking about how so many MMORPGs have let me down. They either shut down (VG), forget the face of the fathers (Pantheon/ESO), or their population shrinks to an unsustainable level (Embers). I'm unlucky in MMO love I guess.
ffxiv is basically a walking simulator for 200+ hours where literally nothing can kill you, nothing can chase you properly, no link mechanic, and extremely simple dungeons. Most other mainstream mmos are like this but not nearly as long before you reach the instanced raiding portion. Yet somehow people like this. A single player ffxiv would flop hard with everyone asking where is the gameplay so why is it accepted in an mmo?
because everyone playing FF14 is dozens of levels past the point that the first raid starts. also the game is FREE until you reach that raiding portion.
@@Solstyse79 lol so you have no idea what you are talking about. FF14 healing is actually one of the most complicated healer types in MMOs because you are expected to DPS AND HEAL. so if you are only mashing heals then you were not doing your group justice and were likely the worst healer they had in quite some time. congratulations, you suck!
I totally agree with the idea that MMOs should be about the journey and that "dynamic scaling" of content is just bad. That said the EQ model does have a serious flaw that I'm not sure how can be solved. The longer a game like EQ is out the more people "outgrow" all the leveling content. You end up with 80% of the game being a barren wasteland of low level content that nobody uses anymore.
I guess that is why progression servers are the most popular. Wonder if there is a way to take advantage of some form of reset model .. like rebirth of your character, have to level up again and some point system for number of rebirths. Also, have a more dynamic world where mobs temporary gets buffed, or even better take it all the way to the EqNext idea of a dynamic evolving world where factions rise and fall helped by players with GMs managing the overall world events so it doesn't get out of control. Have more level variety in zones, making players go back and play (it does not "fix" the problem of outlevelling content, but it will help on zone feeling dead problem) I am sure with a little imagination, we can come of with a few more improvements .... that doesn't break the spirit of the game.
@@JK-nk6tl Yeah I thought of TLP servers as well. That issues doesn't seem to be present on TLP servers because they are locked so players are confined to a smaller space. It does sort of fix the barren leveling areas but then exacerbates the top heavy end game problem (assuming you have contested content as opposed to instancing). IMO the answer would be to find some way to reuse the leveling zones once at max level but not sure how exactly. Maybe you could have a mix of enemies in the zones. The higher level enemies not being aggressive or maybe they just ignore players below X number of levels below them.
Too many options not enough players. The time spent in games and the popularity of old school ones was so high and memorable because there was not as many. Games are just made for different audience. The players that want slow gameplay is just noticeably lower. When you're talking to an echo chamber it's going to sound good. New gamers don't want slow they want to be done and move on.
Back in the early 90s, when I was around 14 to 15, my best friend and I first envisioned an MMO to be a living, breathing world with a real economy and true kingdom simulation, where every single player filled a specific role. Some players would be farmers or miners. They would sell their goods to a merchant, who would sell to other players with other jobs. Some players would be soldiers in the army. Player kingdoms would go to war with each other and be conquered with real world changing consequences. This, to me is what the MMORPG should have always been. Ultima Online originally had that concept, but it quickly got abandoned.
Modern MMOs are all about getting to the end game as fast as possible now and to me it's like what's the point of the leveling process then? Just a while back I leveled a character from scratch in retail wow and I didn't see a single player out in the world until I got to the most recent expansion and that's just sad especially being on one of the most populated servers. Meanwhile I started playing UO Outlands a few months back and I'm fucking hooked. It's so in depth leveling to get to "end game" isn't a focus I was able to do stuff with my guild without maxed out skills or crazy gear and I even got loot distributed out to me. Seen tons of people role-playing and going out in the world doing different things interacting having conversations even people talking shit and fighting. I wouldn't say the mmo genre is dead because I even got that with ffxiv meeting and chatting with people while leveling and doing content with people regardless of level of course with what was restricted to me, it's that companies that make/ fund these mmos have lost the sight of vision of what these mmos are supposed to be, a social hub where you can make progress on a character together creating bonds and memories. Another big factor to me too is how gamers these days treat games. You have to be min maxed or your kicked from the group, you have to eat sleep breathe theae games and if you're not the best then you're the worst or even worse people who think they have to buy the 3 day early access that really doesn't matter. The amount of people I say saying that the newest wow expansion was a $90 expansion because no early access wasn't an option to them is genuinely concerning I miss when games were just about having fun with friends or just to blow off some steam not some competition that some people treat as life or death.
I play LOTRO. Been so for 14 years. Never made it to End Game. Just love chillin' and exploring the massive world. Yes, there is a cash shop, but it is not required to have fun. I buy certain things, like expansions, but it is a conscious effort to put into the game for the enjoyment I get from it. With the new Landscape Difficulty slider, you can adjust the challenge to where you find it comfortable, and the upcoming mini-wraith and Ringwraith additions will add more challenges to your landscape experience. The Devs know their player base loves the world building above most other considerations.
Its hard to call the genre dead when millions still play. I think stagnant is a better description. Champions from beyond the rift heed my call! The time is come to deliver your brethren from darkness! Join with me now in hope and prayer for the salvation of all!!! 🤷♂️
Every point made in this video is great, but I want to focus on the idea of the game being too fast/easy and never learning your class. There is a fix for this. A painfully simple fix that every single game could implement. At specific break points in leveling, you just stop gaining XP until you complete a story quest. That story can be the same for every class or whatever, but the content is tailored to the class. And the only way to complete the quest is for you to learn and use your class abilities. A contrivance of the story will be stripping you of all your gear, so you have to complete it using a standard gear set that makes the quest a challenge if you're not using your abilities right. No face rolling. You have to follow instructions, learn what you're doing, and then apply what you've learned. If it's a game that allows multiple specs, the quest is broken into sections where you have to learn each spec. For example, a tanking section, a healing section, a DPS section. Or if your class has CC abilities, a section where you have to use those abilities, or you'll just get overwhelmed and fail. If done right it isn't immersion breaking for the folks invested in the story, and it's only marginally irritating for the power levelers who have to take an extra 10 - 20 minutes to complete this story bit before they can get back to the non-stop grind. And for extra learning, it should be repeatable. So, if you kind of forget, or need a refresher, you can do it again, where you're scaled back to the appropriate level.
Everything is there to make good games, the developers just want to pander to casuals. Take the skill system in Guildwars 1, it had you spending hours reading skill descriptions and chaining them together, in a way you composed them like a scientist and it was really satisfying when it worked. Take the '55 monk' for example, you'd equip runes that lowered your hp massively to exploit spells like protective spirit that made it so that you couldn't lose more than X percent of your total health from a single attack, and with that total being low, your other spells could easily mitigate the incoming damage (healing hands, healing breeze etc), then you'd stand in a swarm of enemies dealing AOE and tanking their hits. You had to watch your skillbar like a hawk to makesure protective spirit was running because with your HP so low you'd be smashed by an unfiltered hit, and you had to figure out how to make the mana costs and cool downs coexist like clockwork. You felt really involved in keeping your character alive, and the 2-class system gave you so much to play with. Then you'd do that in the context of your 6-player teams - ensuring your skillsets were complimentary & your role would be critical. This made for excellent PVP too. They took the pressure off in Guild Wars 2, and they took that fun with it. Now you just spam 123 and your skillbar can be whatever you like, you don't stress over class roles, everyone is rogue. Just mash space at the right time and you're gucci. The other thing is the quality of the content and the denial/reward distribution. GW1 was polished, great music, it felt medieval and rich, you could only look badass if you did difficult stuff to earn it, you had alliance battles, Huge PVP, skill hunting, elite armour, Farming, player generated economies like 'running' and self governed trading, that was you the player making it happen. Now they just want your daily log-ins, there's only convoluted and long-winded crafting processes & repeated easter egg hunts / animal crossing-level tasks so that you can look like a cartoony weeboo with a weapon design equivalent to Vanilite. The rich medieval feeling is lost, and you can look as menacing on day 1 with cash-shop skins as anyone whose played the game for years. All to be inclusive of the people who care this much👌at the expense of people who want to play longer and want their progress to reflect that. I don't know who i'm saying that to but I've been holding it in for too long. That was supposed to be the successor of the franchise and they made it feel paper thin and like every other MMORPG. Now everyone's just making the same hybrid game, You've got one you've got all of them, with the exception of some 'innovative new system' that feels like fresh air for 30 seconds.
I think once you play Everquest whether you played on Official Servers back in day with heavy populations or even TLP's or Private Servers like P99 or Project Quarm, it really makes you appreciate how old MMO's used to be and how the journey and leveling experience actually meant something. I know every time I've tried playing other MMO's that have more of a Wow Model where you have to rush to end game to enjoy the game, it just really puts me off because I'd rather play an MMO where each zone or even the world means something on the players journey and how there is a lot of choice or even difficulty on that journey depending on what race, religion or even faction you choose. I realize there are two types of MMOs, the journey ones and then the end game ones but I think there's less "Journey" mmos being made these days by Triple A devs and more end game mmos being made with predatory monteization schemes. Which is downright sad. However, its nice to see indie companies leading the way to recreate journey MMOs and its also nice to see that journey mmos still live on in private servers. I will say before I started playing Everquest, I played a lot of Old School Runescape which is more of a single player MMO than Everquest but that game is sorta of a journey mmo because your always leveling up different skills and it takes a while to hit 99. Regardless, I enjoyed your video. I would like to see more journey mmos in the future.
Its always the journey that is important in an MMO I'd say we SEA players love the grind in an MMO its the Western players who wants to reach max lvl in 2 days
I'm a grown man with a lot of hobbies. I can't spend 50 hours a week leveling and raiding. I would love a game with a deep, rich, lore-filled, thoughtful world and similar playstyle to games like EQ, but less of a time commitment. I do really miss games being less forgiving, but at the same time I cannot spend hours and hours waiting for camps and grinding. I have no idea if this is possible because I reckon a part of what made these games special _was_ the fact you sunk so much effort into them. Another thing is that it is hard to have a mysterious game now -- everything is revealed and public so quickly it seems.
World creation is hard. Part of the issue is us gamers. We want a game that we can play for years, be we don't want to give the developers time to make it. We like the grind of EQ but we told developers that we aren't going to put in the time anymore. When the developers made games where we leveled faster, we complained again. Same with monthly subs, fashion shops, exp potions, ect... Every time a developer worked hard to meet our demands we would complain "thats not what we really want". Developers should spend less time listening to gamers. Make a game, don't try and cater to everyone. Pick the things you will think will make an MMO, make it and see if there is a demand.
i do not like the grind of EQ. the leveling process in the game was awful, was sped up multiple times and is still too slow. it needs to be in the middle of that and the newer MMOs.
I was playing Monsters and Memories the other day and I made a new char to try it out. It started me in an area that was, although around the same city, far away from where everyone was hunting. I actually had to run thru a large town with no map. It was amazing. I think MMO's put too much emphasis on leveling and not enough on living in the world. I would like a game where I can really live my best rpg life. Like building a campfire anywhere in the world and just having *that* be your home for several levels while you mine or explore the dungeon nearby. Also, bring back the mentor system of eq2. Or another system where I don't outlevel and area I really enjoy. Unrest is my favorite spot to level in, but I'm only there a day before I have to move on. SAD.
The game needs to be designed at level 1. I know it sounds insane to say that statement but let me expound on it. Early games like everquest and final fantasy 11 made the journey as important as level cap. Now today everything is the rush towards the end game raids and getting number go up at cap. There needs to be fun things to do at low level like in ffxi getting your artifact pieces and then reforging them as you get closer to level cap and making them go from a level 50 some item to a cap item to then an ilvl 119 item. There needs to be more of an emphasis on the journey with rich world building. MMOs now feel more like lobby based arpgs similar to Phantasy Star and i get that people like that but i crave a world with lore that i can go explore in at any level that doesn't seem streamlined and designed with so much throughput that it pushes me to level cap. It feels way gamey now and purposefully designed rather than a world i fell into and exist in.
7:56 I don't think we'll ever have the struggle back, people will find the meta and they'll create guides and they'll run up to you when they see you struggling and tell you to reset your talents and to play this or that way - taking your experience and making it theirs. I try to ignore the guides so I can play my own way but the knowledge that I'm "playing wrong" can sometimes ruin the fun. Not to mention people won't let you in guilds or groups for any "serious" (it's a game?) dungeoning/raiding if you dare have the wrong build. It's probably different in action games where you can still have the sense of achievement from learning the moves and doging correctly but in traditional tab targeting MMOs, not so much. Also, what's the game showing there?
I started playing MMOs back in 2021. I have played the 4 big ones plus a multitude of other newer MMOS. Yet I keep returning to the likes of Everquest, Everquest2, LoTR, SWG, Anarchy Online, DAoC ... retail or private server. All I want, is these older games with updated graphics and UI.
I enjoy questing, a lot. So I have always had alts. I quit WoW because it became a race to endgame and they removed difficulty for alts. And if I didn’t rush to endgame, I would be left behind by my guilds. I decided it was more fun to play games that I can do at my own pace.
Hey Red. You should come check out Dalaya. Used to be known as Winter's Roar then Shards of Dalaya. One of the oldest EQ private servers. Relaunch is on Friday at noon. Shoot me reply if you wanna check it out together. This is scratches my EQ itch.
I got a little bit of a different take on the MMO game play style and it is the player base. You have so many who want rush, who have to get to the end and then go farm the so called "BIS". Best in slot item, for those that are not sure what BIS means. BIS are items that random people out in the internet dem as the best for a particular build. They can provide whatever data they want to support this claim of BIS and most will accept it and not challenge this notion. My point is that so many gamers these days just follow a crowd instead of trying new things. Taking a different path. Playing to your style, not the style of a random internet person. We have a player base who want to go out and destroy a game instead of beat the game. By destroy, I mean they will do whatever it takes to win, be it watching every video out there or download 800 mods just so nothing will surprise them. I am not against mods, just they get so over used in MMOs these days that it takes away struggle. To me beat the game is working through the game as is, with little to no mods uses. Learning the game as I adventure, only looking up stuff when I get to a point of frustration. I just feel we as gamers have gotten away from wanting to struggle. Be it with a mod that shows you where the quests points are, or the ones that warn you when a boss is about to something, granted most new mmos already have these in the game, but my point is when WoW classic came out most player went and got all kinds of mods to change the game, to take away struggle.
Life went wrong. MMOs destroy lives, they require way too much time and commitment for a healthy entertainment. And that comes from someone who played them for over 20 years.
They should just do an mmorpg, with no class, your class becomes what you explore and what you train with. You fight enemies with what you got and acquire skills through fighting. Also rare gear should be all over the world like eldenring where you have to look everywhere to get them. And dungeons should be able to be done solo and multiplayer only difference is that when entering solo the boss should be like an eldenring boss.
Imo the real question is if the mmo playerbase majority likes more arpgs or old school mmos. Because I would guess all these games evolved to be like they are because people dont want slow progression, they always asked for diablo like progression.
i dont want the slow progression of old MMOs but i want the identity of old MMOs. having unique items where im going to a specific dungeon looking for a drop because its so good for me. i dont like the new MMO thing like Lost Ark of upgrading a single piece of armor again and again with gacha rolls. thats boring af.
For those people, the saying "You think you do, but you don't." applies. Between creating a locust swarm mentality and feeding the greed of big studios, Diablo style MMOS has ruined the genre. Diablo style is fine for non-MMOS, but it's terrible for MMOS. Folks need to get their 'fix' from other games and make the choice to play MMOS for different reasons.
MMORPGs in 2024 struggled with outdated mechanics, monetization greed, fragmented communities, and increasing competition from faster, more accessible genres. To regain their former glory, the genre would need a significant reimagining-both in terms of gameplay and how it connects with a modern audience. EDIT - ECO is back for another Alpha test in October, Hell Yeah!
It's weird to me that people can play these games and even think level scaling sounds good in theory. The moment you tell me that everything is my level my first thought is "then why progress at all?".
Yeah it is baffeling that people cannot see that scaling and horizontal "progression" kills feeling of accomplishment, and makes the whole experience kinda pointless. Then there is only story left. Which is one of the problems with modern mmos; story should not be carrying a mmorpg, story is the foundation of a single player rpg, but in a virtual world (mmorpg) the role, the choices and paths the player takes (aka their characters actions), should become the story ... not some thing a developer thought up and made a cutscene of, or made two versions of so you get the illusion of choice.
lol 400+ attempts reminds me of my first big EQ guild struggling with Avatar of War during Velious. We didn't do quite that many but it sure as fk felt like we did.
I actually liked ESO before the level scaling. I know people complained that Elder Scrolls is supposed to be an open world game where you go anywhere and do anything, but the level scaling actually made you feel significantly weaker upon gaining levels. You level up so fast and your gear falls behind so enemies start feeling like damage sponges. Eventually at max ILV everything just feels the same and it takes dozens of champion points to even feel slightly stronger.
I have been playing the war within (world of Warcraft) as it just came out- but I’m already getting bored of it because it’s just a race by everyone to consume every ounce of content like a plague of locusts. And everyone just wants to do more dps than their friends and brag how good they are at their class to each other. It’s honestly sad and not what an MMO really is imo. TWW is better than WoW has been in recent years, but still lacks something - I agree everything is too fast There’s a video out called “a history of MMO’s and what went wrong” or something - it’s like 3hours long. I recommend anyone who likes the genre to watch it tho. I recently also tried LOTRO again and still am. It feels the most like a true MMO, closest I’ve felt in years. Mainly because it’s slow, and huge, and you struggle a little. Struggling is good. Slow is good. Watch the history of MMO’s and what went wrong video. He describes current mmo playing like I mentioned, a plague of locusts consuming everything as fast as possible. Then say there’s nothing to do. It’s the most apt description I’ve seen in recent time.
The last few expansions of WoW the devs have been holding back some content to release in game updates, which is a step in the right direction. Time-gating content, transmog/mount collecting and achievement hunting can really help slow things down for the average player, but nothing is going to ever satisfy the hardcores I'm afraid.
I have played Vanilla WoW on and of, sens 2004. And between, i have been jumping on all kind of new MMOrpg's like Age of Conan, Rift, Star Wars the old republic, Guildwars2, and Wildstar to just name a few. The last big one for me was Wildstar, and after that i have only been playing Vanilla WoW ..And finally i'm done with it - Pantheon rise of the Fallen is far from finished, but manage to scratch my MMOrpg itch, as if it were 2004 all over again (have never happened me before).
I was talking with a friend the other week both MMO players since the late 90's and we were talking about what game to play next and we both sat there and just couldn't come up with anything other than Ashes of Creation which was even vaguely interesting to us. By the end of the conversation we had both installed Ultima Online again......
Eh. Throne & Liberty launches Friday. If modern video games (and their crap monetization) aren't your thing, and you're okay with private servers... TurtleWoW is popping off, and Dalaya (a customized version of EverQuest with its own lore and altered world) relaunches on Friday.
To me, MMOs haven't changed much at all, but gamers and the world have. MMOs are no longer the way "to be social". In fact, most games are now vastly inferior at social interaction. Discord, FB, Twitter, etc. have replaced the chat box, and for good reason. This has reduced the reason to play an MMO because you wanted to be with friends. You can do that anytime now. And MMOs are no longer one of the few places to play online with others. The vast majority of games have coop modes nowadays. Most MMOs have pretty dead worlds, even if there's stuff going on. There's no player agency between you and the world. MMOs touted themselves as having "persistent" worlds, but the fact of the matter is that most are "static" worlds. To me, there's not a lot of immersion if nothing I can do alters the game. The setting becomes a painting. I've said it before: MMOs have not embraced what it means to be "MM". The only one (IMHO, though maybe there are others) is Eve Online. Take away the playerbase and the fundamental reason to play would vanish--it's a game that could never "hang on" as a solo experience. The problem with Eve, though, is that I just have no interest in the PvP aspect that is the core of the game. Ashes seems to want to try to address this with the nodes aspect, but it seems so invested in PvP that I've lost interest.
You didn't really mention the robust communities that arose in older MMOs that were bound together from many different directions, including the ones that difficult and challenging gaming presented. There's also something to be said about what the theme and flavor of a game does for the communities it creates. For example, City of Heroes still has the friendliest and most helpful community in MMO history, and it's partly due to the superhero sensibilities of the game, in addition to the fantastic team play that makes each role useful and important. The original Everquest presented a world to both explore, adventure and sort of live within, and even "normal" servers had people embracing the lore and culture when making characters and interacting with one another. So much of that doesn't and can't really exist in modern MMOs, since they're built as games first rather than narrative worlds that players game within.
The problem with "struggle during levelling" is it almost ALWAYS just equates to grinding boring content to out-level something. This sort of grind is precisely why I stayed away from MMOs for decades. I have no interest in farming open world mobs.
Vanguard thats a name I havent heard for years. I am playing Fallout 76 now and its taken me a couple of weeks to get to level 26. I am probably doing it wrong though, I am just having fun.
I think the biggest problem of MMO gender is that all of them try to be Wow. To be honest many game studios lack the capacity or budget of the team to compete with Wow. I would say there could be some innovation in gender if some technical of the network-related issues could be solved.
I thought these contributions and your analysis were spot on. I honestly think that marketing the games has become almost non-existent. With the recent "re-discovery" of D&D I think it would be wise of studios to find a way to tie into that.
I think there is a bit of stockholm syndrom too going on here. Esp in the case of WoW. the players hate the game, or have, but still played because they felt like they had to or something. I don't think the mmo is dead, but for any new mmo to break into the market it is incredibly tough because of the well established WoW, and even now FFXIV. The titams truly rule, with strong support in form of GW2 and ESO. People tend to go with what they know, and as much as they want the new, they just keep going back because those old mmo's are comfy. I know I always come back to my beloved Mi'quote, Wyndi, in FFXIV because I love the game, despite taking breaks. Its a comfy home. I look forward to pantheon, and stuff, but know, new content in FFXIV, my butt will be there, and reason i havent made it to PoP in any EQ TLP yet, despite my desire to. MMO's arent necc is a bad situtation overall, but until something truly revolutionary comes out, and well made with fair monetization(this is here and sadly wont ever go away), the kings will reign because comfy imho.
I like how i've been saying this for years, and everyone use to yell at my face that they dont want a grindy mmo. Now..... everyone i saying is saying what i was saying smh
it's not dead it will die when all of the old vanguard get shut down so when WoW and FFXIV get shut down, and there are no other MMOs to play, THEN it will die but until then, the genre isn't dead
I don't want to push for the latest piece of optimized loot so my DPS gets 2% better. I want to venture into the unknown, drink a flagon of ale with my friends, and kill a goddamn dragon. That's it.
I have been playing MMORPGs going back to at least 2006. The genre has been slowly dying since its creation. It just took years for players to realize this fact. The genre needs to redefine itself completely. No more using other MMORPGs as an example of what should be done.
I would suggest DDO for anyone looking for the old school feel. I wanted to go back to EQ but the graphics and worse the UI is just unbearable for me. DDO still is challenging and has a massive leveling experience not just a rush to end game. Reincarnation system further emphasizes the leveling.
I do understand struggles aka challenges. But I don't like to bash my head into the wall that many times. It needs a balance, and not be so balls-to-the-wall-tough. Then I opt out, and find something else to play. But I'm all for that struggle, but at a bare minimum. I don't care if others do stuff after only 3 attempts, while yourself or others need to struggle for 400. I only care what I think of it, and I like it mid-ground hard. Which is why I stay the hell away from ALL souls-like. Those games are not for me.
Great mmos are still out there the problem is the same ppl who complained about old school mmos are the same ones that are complaining about the modern ones and now since it all went to shit now they want to shift back in time, you don’t know what you had until you loose it and thats why wow classic exists.
Also, EverQuest isnt without blame. the massive shift to cater almost exclusively towards people who want to raid and the elite guilds was a huge shift away from what made vanilla EQ great, which was small groups of players tackling challenging dungeons. Im not spending my weekends sitting in endless raids, so some guy who I dont know or care about can get his rare sword.
true, but it was because all casuals left for EQ2 and WoW back in 2004.
@@ChaosSlayerZX the exodus due to hardcore raiding actually started around 2000 with the release of Kunark. So this is not "because of", it was as a "result of."
wow didnt come out until 2004. the switch to raid content started in 2000 with kunark, well before WoW.
@@Central_Media3656 ok true, but it was not as noticeable, and and casuals still had ton of content to do in small groups, and soloing also opened up a lot due to twinking. EQ was still gaining number all way up to 2004. Expansions like LDON were clearly made with casual players in mind and was huge success.
@@ChaosSlayerZX true, didnt happen overnight....but Kunark is when this shift all started....it got worse and worse over time. as, the casuals left do to this new change in focus for the game, as a result most all that remained was the hardcore raiders.
@@ChaosSlayerZX yes LDoN was great as a casual player, but PoP was a big raid focus and then they released GoD at the beginning of 2004, months before WoW released, and that to this day has a sour taste in the mouth of many former players. it was so punishing even for people who were raiding that made the game seem out of reach. the developers absolutely pushed people away with this direction.
Social media killed MMO's. It replaced the social aspect of MMO's. People don't "hang" out in games anymore as a way of socializing since people have changed.
While I agree with all the points, the lack of struggle is the one that most resonates with me. I’ve returned to EQ after 20 years away for that reason-it’s been a lot of hard (yet fun) work to get to my character to where it is, and I’m really proud of that fact.
@@Igorath Because of the way raiding works now, no one cares if they cheat. They're not cheating you out of anything when you make your own raid zone. Now, if this were old eq with week long spawn times in the OW, then yeah, it would be a problem.
The speed isn't the problem, it's the fact that there is no difficulty. You can play these modern MMOs by smashing your face on the keyboard and you still won't die. It's boring.
Or worse, have so many spell effects from every player on the map that it looks like a 70's dope fueled orgy.
LMAO, I'm dying!
One of my biggest gripes is knowing developers take months and years to create a game or expansion just for gamers to complete it in 2-3 days then complain there is no content. Gaming needs to be slowed down.
But then they would complain "progress is too slow". Attention spans are measured in seconds now, not hours. It is a no-win situation for devs.
Ya I would never play an MMO where I can play the new content within a few days of it releasing. If I'm caught up, the game is too easy
There’s no way to please the gamers, they’ll complete days worth of content in hours and then complain that there’s nothing to do, but if things are time gated then they complain about content being held back and there’s nothing to do. No way to fix the issue other than people fixing their expectations and habits
@@vannthybun2546 They need a baldurs gate 3 approach. Work on an MMO for like 7 to 8 years and have months upon months of content so that even if they complete all the content, it will still take them over few thousand 1000 hours. BG3 is not your typical RPG and there is so much jam packed of content, MMO's should seek to jam the MMO with as much content as possible if in dev for over 10 years. Look at SWTOR with Bioware, every one of class stories for each class was so creative and unique both for light side and dark side and thats why SWTOR is a great MMO for storytelling bc of class breakdown.
--- months to create a game ---... as a game developer, I died a little bit hearing that... if anyone knows any dark lords I could sell my soul to for a competent and shipped game in the measure of months, please do have them reach out.
There is NO DANGER. EQ was dangerous long ago. Everything could kill you
This. People thinking that pulling 100 mobs and one shooting all with AOE is "fun" are the problem. Brainless "fun" more like. I'm not even going to mention how defensive they become when PVP comes into question - god forbid any challenge and consequence beyond playing the same repeatable dungeons and raids against the same scripted content!
Pantheon creators have said it themselves...PeOpLe DoNt WaNt CoRpSe RuNs. /wrists
@@zer05tar pantheon died when brad did unfortunately
@@baronofgreymatter14 vanguard died with him alive. Brad's longterm commitment was always problem.
@@GregJ22 Vanguard died because Smedley and SOE killed it. Brad looked for funding. Smedley and SOE bought it and shelved it because EQ2 was launched and flailing. Vanguard was awesome
MMO's are dead because they all follow the same boring WoW game loop....log in do stupid dallies then raid...rinse and repeat....until devs have balls to do more than just that MMO"s will continue to fail.
i agree with you calling out dailies. i think thats a very boring mechanic and it has the same effect that streaks did for me in snapchat. you want to keep it going when you have them, but the moment it breaks i lose all desire to get back in. its not the game thats drawing me in its only the pressure that i need to do my chores. i would rather log in because i want to and find an adventure where i want to rather than being directed to do the same shit every day.
Which baffles me because as a dev you can just scale the stats and create endless loops thru combat and gathering/crafting. So the questions is, "what is endgame?"
EQ was the first MMO to capture my attention. I had some friends that played UO before that but honestly that would never do it for me. EQ, for me, stood out because it was immersive. I felt like I was logging into a world. A dangerous world where night-time was scary and traveling across a continent was a task. A game where you needed friends to do anything that was "worthwhile". A game where good gear had an identity and major upgrades were hard-won. The game I just described is not exactly dead but it will never be relived for the first time again. I will add that Pantheon is the only game I am excited for in this genre. I have checked out M&M and Project Gorgon. They are just too dated and do not provide the nostalgia. Pantheon on the other hand, has things like climbing, the perception system, acclimation, and modernization in just the right areas (IMO). It also sounds great - which helps with that immersion. It is getting close to early access so we can see if it scratches the itch once and for all. I have my fingers crossed.
"A game where good gear had an identity and major upgrades were hard-won." PREACH. Name another game where an item with basically zero stats, is both hard and easy to get, that people use until the day they log off like the Guise of the Deceiver. I'll wait.
Lots of reasons not to play MMO's, the biggest of course, they are monetized, boring and soulless. having said that, I have limited playtime, so why would I play an MMO over Witcher 3 or Elden Ring?
Because you like games dont you? You may be playing witcher 3 or elden ring but each time you just starting over. A mmo, if done right, is a chance to have multiple stories but keep all that progression you have earned. If they are monetized right it is with fun that keeps you in game and gives you enough to do to be of value enough to be worth a monthly subscription.
I really struggle with single player games.. To me they feel like watching a movie with extra steps. An good mmo is like stepping into a new world full of adventure and other people. The interactions are unique every day, and the social aspect is always there.
I think player time is a big factor. Being a veteran player (played EQ at launch) I now have a real life and have much less time to devote to gaming. A 16 hour raid is just not an option anymore.
GW2 and ESO, those are my go to MMOs
FFXIV and GW2 for me, with a dip into EQ TLP's from time to time.
ESO is one of those games where the leveling is incredibly boring and tedious. Mostly because it's way too easy.
@@Jidarious I find all leveling in MMOs brain dead easy, maybe EVERQUEST is the only harder one
they are great games but not true MMos I could argue that GW2 is the most MMO out of the entire genre right now. They actually have good group content but its not forced. MMos today play more like open world Single player games with other ppl running around. bring back forced grouping and forced socializing. bring back camping. Bring back forcing ppl to communicate. THIS IS AN MMO. MAKE ME FEAR EXPLORING YOUR WORLD WITH OTHERS. dont force me to easter egg hunt to just explore THAT IS BORING AF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Play ESO for the questing and exploration. If you want to push harder content, you 100% have to group and synergize with others.
I just started on Quarm last week and spun up a druid. I have played dozens and dozens of MMOs since my original adventure in Everquest in 2000.
I haven't felt a sense of adventure with ANY MMO since the except maybe WoW on release.
Personally, I enjoy having the world be dangerous and like you're living in it. Not when the world is a punching bag for you.
You nailed my thoughts exactly and expanded to include so many other discussion points. I’m new to MMOs and can see their potential, but I lack the ability to rely on nostalgic memories of the classic MMOs…because I don’t have any! So my experience has been with what’s out there now and they all feel identical: fast paced, top-down, hand-held, solo experiences where you hit level 12 at the end of the tutorial. This is why Pantheon hit so hard for me: VR is boldly doing something different because it NEEDS to save the MMO genre. Great vid and thanks for including me!
I can't find anything better or even equal to Ultima Online Outlands. Wish someone made a modern version of that graphic wise, but not wreck it with much other changes. But really the graphics are forgotten mostly once you get into it.
Good watch. My hot take: MMO's are the most popular they have ever been, but MMO is no longer a genre like it was back in the earlier 2010's and before. It is now instead a feature that incorporates other genres.
This shift happening because so much of what a MMO a MMO (the social stuff) is getting outsourced to Discord etc. So instead they are making persistent online worlds that are ARPG's, FPS and more!
Nostalgia, and just a simple shift in playerbase, won't give us back what we had in those early games. But at least we were lucky enough to be alive during the time that they were around and we can enjoy those great memories.
I want to put in my two cents also.
Everquest and Ultima were basically chatrooms with a fantasy game attached. The down time between pulls, talking to your group was equally if not more fun than the fights.
That and the the software sweep that lets people know every map and mob in everyzone before the game actually comes out.
Wow was the beginning of the end. I tried playing WoW when it first came out and I i was like "damn, i just fell down a hill and gained a lvl."
The audience said they wanted easier and more soloable. Well, we got it and it ruined the gene. Is it dead, no. Is it good? No.
On an unrelated note, if the new ES game (i know its SP) has level scalling, I wont buy it. Hate that game mechanic.
Here's a wild idea. instead of having levels linked to a certain amount of xp, have it also linked to a quest chain say every 5 levels. you can't progress in level until you've progressed in the quest chain. or possibly even a number of quests completed. example, you can't reach level 20 until you've made the requisite xp value and completed at least 200 quests. This would mean quests would need to be meaningful as well, lore-driven and not just mundane task oriented. Make "RP" mean something.
i am applying the same idea to my private EQ1 server I am working on - you cannot grind XP past certain level - you must quest it in
It's too tedious for most people, quests like those need to be spread out more.
The only thing I would change about your idea is to not tie it to a certain number of quests, but just certain "elite" quests, so to speak. So as an example (this is completely off the top of my head), you can level up to level 10, but then to progress to level 11 and beyond, you need to do a difficult quest where you take down a lich and destroy his phylactery, which can be a difficult dungeon crawl with high level/elite monsters. Maybe it takes 2-3 groups of players who understand their class's functions to be able to complete the quest. Then once you've destroyed the lich's phylactery, THEN levels 11-20 are unlocked to you, and you can progress, until you get to the next quest hurdle. Maybe we call them "raid quests" or whatever.
Overall I like the idea, I just don't want it tied to "complete 200 quests" because then that just makes it seem like the game will have to be bloated full of "kill 10 rats in the cellar" type quests that players just have to grind through, and I don't like that.
@Erekai That means you can't progress at all without a party, which is bad. This especially becomes bad with low populations.
@@boredfangerrude8759 I don't apologize for that. It's an MMO after all, should expect to play with people.
Then they can implement some sort of mentor system where higher level people can scale down to help run lower level people through the quests or something, I dunno. But I do think something like this would help slow down the playerbase.
I play Runescape, Dofus, and LOTRO because I cant stand the issues you talked about with the bigger games. In these 3 games I will NEVER hit max level, and that is the best thing about an MMO.
My favorite MMO was Star Wars Galaxies 2003-05. Almost everything in the game was player created and had an insane depth of economy. It took me 9 months to max out the level of my first character. There was just so much to do, farming, crafting, trading, running shops, decorating houses, PVP, ect... I played 8-12 hours a day for 2 two years while working as a full time plumber with a cool girlfriend that would do her hobbies next to me. At the time I was excited for the future of MMO's. The possibilities were endless. Thinking they would only get better from there lol. I held out hope for 10 more years but have long since given up and play ARPG's and solo games.
how you feel about ESO is 100% my experience with it the level scaling made progression feel none existent for me the main drive of getting higher level in an MMO is so i can explore/play in zones i once was to weak for it generally felt pointless for me to level so i stopped playing
ESO did it terribly, but FF14 did it well. having higher levels join your dungeon queues and get scaled down to the appropriate abilities made it possible to keep clearing old dungeons or raids years after they were released.
Its so bad some people are playing with no skill points and no armour to get some sort of challenge.
It depends why you play. Having no progression isn't a problem in a video game. Even if some people only play video games to progress, they are wrong - and will inevitably find a game they really love and enjoy that has no progression. There was a common belief among gamedevs that "There is no target demographic." The idea, backed up in one article by some data, is that the vast majority of people who play your game aren't doing so because they're fans of the genre. In fact quite the opposite, they just find your game appealing for some reason.
You can see this in many forum posts too. Whether it's gamers who like some recently released AAA 2024 MMORPG but hate all other MMO's because they aren't action-y enough, or it's some person who only plays a single niche WW2 strategy game because it's the only one which represents X or Y in it, or someone who only plays Starcraft but hates all other RTS games for reasons that are incoherent and clearly wrong (like saying they hate RTS games for 5 reasons, all of which Starcraft have).
People pick games for weird reasons sometimes too. For multiplayer games, it's even worse - a lot of people only play stuff they see as currently active live service. So 99% of MMORPG's are off the table for being released yesterday.
In the end, people just want a fun game. As long as it works out to be fun, that's what actually matters to people. Nothing else, really. There are exceptions to this though. For example, in MMORPG's there are people who genuinely want a virtual world they can live in - not a game to actually play. That's a big difference, bc fun doesn't matter to them. They want something else entirely.
@@nowayjosedaniel i think that progression does play a big role in whether people enjoy something. this is why GW2 and ESO weren't fun for me and i stopped playing them shortly after i started. it seems to be more common that this is important to people than that it isn't.
@@rynejones8513 I agree level scaling in eso is very different than in 14 and bringing higher levels down to do old content and teach new players makes more sense. More people need to play final fantasy 11.
Too many people have forgotten that MMORPGs are supposed to be RPG's first, MMO's second. IF you focus on the RPG first, that allows the players to create their own content when the MMO part is in a "content drought" and such. More sandbox, less gift shop theme parks.
There is a video Josh Stryfe Hays did that talks about this and his take was pretty much spot on
That’s why I like Lotro so much. You can increase the difficulty after the intro for the home leveling. It’s a nice little feature that every MMO should have
I've been playing a private server for Final Fantasy XI for a while now. That game absolutely hooked me and this is coming from the perspective of someone that never played FFXI back in era.
I can't find any enjoyment in modern mmo's and I assumed I had just gotten tired of the genre but now I realize something important has been lost. I'm not going to hold my breath for an indie studio to make a niche product because I feel like as it stands even an indie mmo would be prohibitively expensive to develop, too much to eschew catering to the more casual, mainstream audience.
I'm gonna be honest. Everything ... And I mean EVERYTHING is set now to such a fast pace that. Our live are faster, people want work faster. Everything is go go go go gogogogogogo. I feel we need to slow down in a lot of aspects. Rant over . Yes slow down. 😂
Sometimes the masses aren't correct in the moment. When companies add questionnaires at the unsub screen for a game that asks people what they thought as they are unsubbing, especially in a moment that often follows bouts of frustration, that is not the sole place for game devs to decide the future of an MMO. It's a data point, yes, but too much emphasis has sometimes been given to that solution of averages. Was it frustrating when you died and the game was too hard? Yes. If we change the formula to a milquetoast tincture consumable by everyone, will it sell well? Probably. Will that game ever be great? Probably not.
My favorite mmorpg Black Desert online gladly is a marathon :D One of the main reasons why I like it, because there is always something to do
There are too many devs that are chasing the next big thing. That’s why so many mid WoW clones came out, and since then they have been chasing BR, survival, and extraction games.
I want to see more innovation!
I think Blue Protocol is proof that the genre is dead. Yes, there are MMOs that are thriving but those are the select elite. Its pretty much impossible for a new MMO to succeed nowadays and citing Blue Protocol as an example, if that game couldn't do it, I don't think anyone can.
what went wrong is all the daily quests as retention mechanisms.
all the funding went to cosmetics and then the game just kept getting worse, forcing you to do things you don't want to do or else you will fall behind.
You're not wrong. Monetization, greed, beholden to shareholders to the point where you over do it and/or cut your teams to make your portfolio look better than it is...
I miss EverQuest's attention to detail! Get this: you play a druid. Maybe a Halfling. Your adventures take you to Freeport. The guards like you and everything's chill. You gain a few levels and you can turn into a wolf. Because you move much faster, you stay in wolf-form all the time. Your adventures take you to Freeport--where the guards f*cking KILL YOUR ASS. Why? Because you're a goddamn wolf! What else would they do? "Oh, we have women and children in this city. Let's allow this wild wolf to run in. NOT!"
Compare that to Age of Conan, which I loved. You play a Stygian Necromancer. You go to Conarch, a Cimmerian village. Cimmerians are northern barbarians who fear magic and strangers. You show up there with a small army of zombies following you, and the guards...don't react. "Right, in you go. Our women and children love the undead."
If EQ designers had made AoC, you would not have set one black toenail in Conarch Village!
Fun thought provoking video Red! The last comment made me think of the song by Miiike Snow, Genghis Khan. In the context of the video imagine your favorite EQ Character singing the chorus:
"I get a little bit Genghis Khan
I don't want you to log on
With nobody else but me
With nobody else but me"
I agree with pretty much all of the points made. An mmo is about the journey. Exploring, discovering, crafting, and most importantly making friends. When I first started playing my first mmo I didn’t even know there was an “end game” and didn’t care. Didn’t know about raids or any of that stuff. I was just happy to soak in the world that was created and share experiences with other people from all over the world. F the destination. I’m in it for the journey.
The road analogy works well: if it’s straight and smooth paved, it’s boring. If there are hills, turns and cliffs it’s fun AF. I’m hoping pantheon nails the journey part and I’ll be happy. Thanks to all the content creators who contributed.
They got way too complex and full of microtransactions. Private servers for older MMOs are the only good MMOs left. PSO Blue Burst, Warhammer Online, Warcraft of all kinds of flavors, etc.
I agree with you about ESO. The one Tamriel update changed the foundation of the game and I grew to resent it. I thought it was good at first and ended up changing my opinion after realizing I can create a new character and get to max level and end game content in a day or a weekend if I put my mind to it. It cheapened the experience of playing an MMO. It also made all overland content, minus some world bosses, to be trivial. You didn’t need to know anything about how your class or role worked and you’d be fine doing any content outside of veteran dungeons and raids.
I have played EQ1/2, WoW, Vangard, and ESO over the years, imo ESO is one of the best as the barrier to entry is low enough for a new player to start off without any background and pick the game up and solo or group their way through the content. EQ games fail on the solo part which is why boxing and the use of MQ are so common to where when they do a crackdown ban half of the raid guilds can't field enough people to raid.
In MMO you need to be able to solo the storyline and take 2-3 months to level up but then take another 2-3 months to max out skills and AA/CP/Mastery etc.
The issue with ESO is that there is no real stair step to power because the stats are so limited and the level cap is low that a level 1 and a level 50 are fundamentally the same when naked.
Players are part of the problem. Even on private servers it's not the same since people just funnel to the most efficient activities and play styles
I've been recently thinking about how so many MMORPGs have let me down. They either shut down (VG), forget the face of the fathers (Pantheon/ESO), or their population shrinks to an unsustainable level (Embers). I'm unlucky in MMO love I guess.
ffxiv is basically a walking simulator for 200+ hours where literally nothing can kill you, nothing can chase you properly, no link mechanic, and extremely simple dungeons. Most other mainstream mmos are like this but not nearly as long before you reach the instanced raiding portion. Yet somehow people like this. A single player ffxiv would flop hard with everyone asking where is the gameplay so why is it accepted in an mmo?
because everyone playing FF14 is dozens of levels past the point that the first raid starts. also the game is FREE until you reach that raiding portion.
I hated that game. Made it to lvl 40 as a healer just mashing 1 button.
MMorpg my butt.
@@Solstyse79 lol so you have no idea what you are talking about. FF14 healing is actually one of the most complicated healer types in MMOs because you are expected to DPS AND HEAL. so if you are only mashing heals then you were not doing your group justice and were likely the worst healer they had in quite some time. congratulations, you suck!
Yeah, Red's comparison of FFXIV to WoW only applies to endgame and not the first 100+ hours
I totally agree with the idea that MMOs should be about the journey and that "dynamic scaling" of content is just bad. That said the EQ model does have a serious flaw that I'm not sure how can be solved. The longer a game like EQ is out the more people "outgrow" all the leveling content. You end up with 80% of the game being a barren wasteland of low level content that nobody uses anymore.
I guess that is why progression servers are the most popular. Wonder if there is a way to take advantage of some form of reset model .. like rebirth of your character, have to level up again and some point system for number of rebirths.
Also, have a more dynamic world where mobs temporary gets buffed, or even better take it all the way to the EqNext idea of a dynamic evolving world where factions rise and fall helped by players with GMs managing the overall world events so it doesn't get out of control.
Have more level variety in zones, making players go back and play (it does not "fix" the problem of outlevelling content, but it will help on zone feeling dead problem)
I am sure with a little imagination, we can come of with a few more improvements .... that doesn't break the spirit of the game.
@@JK-nk6tl Yeah I thought of TLP servers as well. That issues doesn't seem to be present on TLP servers because they are locked so players are confined to a smaller space. It does sort of fix the barren leveling areas but then exacerbates the top heavy end game problem (assuming you have contested content as opposed to instancing). IMO the answer would be to find some way to reuse the leveling zones once at max level but not sure how exactly. Maybe you could have a mix of enemies in the zones. The higher level enemies not being aggressive or maybe they just ignore players below X number of levels below them.
Too many options not enough players. The time spent in games and the popularity of old school ones was so high and memorable because there was not as many. Games are just made for different audience. The players that want slow gameplay is just noticeably lower. When you're talking to an echo chamber it's going to sound good. New gamers don't want slow they want to be done and move on.
Back in the early 90s, when I was around 14 to 15, my best friend and I first envisioned an MMO to be a living, breathing world with a real economy and true kingdom simulation, where every single player filled a specific role. Some players would be farmers or miners. They would sell their goods to a merchant, who would sell to other players with other jobs. Some players would be soldiers in the army.
Player kingdoms would go to war with each other and be conquered with real world changing consequences.
This, to me is what the MMORPG should have always been. Ultima Online originally had that concept, but it quickly got abandoned.
I loved this and how you compiled all of these takes. Great watch!
Modern MMOs are all about getting to the end game as fast as possible now and to me it's like what's the point of the leveling process then? Just a while back I leveled a character from scratch in retail wow and I didn't see a single player out in the world until I got to the most recent expansion and that's just sad especially being on one of the most populated servers. Meanwhile I started playing UO Outlands a few months back and I'm fucking hooked. It's so in depth leveling to get to "end game" isn't a focus I was able to do stuff with my guild without maxed out skills or crazy gear and I even got loot distributed out to me. Seen tons of people role-playing and going out in the world doing different things interacting having conversations even people talking shit and fighting. I wouldn't say the mmo genre is dead because I even got that with ffxiv meeting and chatting with people while leveling and doing content with people regardless of level of course with what was restricted to me, it's that companies that make/ fund these mmos have lost the sight of vision of what these mmos are supposed to be, a social hub where you can make progress on a character together creating bonds and memories.
Another big factor to me too is how gamers these days treat games. You have to be min maxed or your kicked from the group, you have to eat sleep breathe theae games and if you're not the best then you're the worst or even worse people who think they have to buy the 3 day early access that really doesn't matter. The amount of people I say saying that the newest wow expansion was a $90 expansion because no early access wasn't an option to them is genuinely concerning I miss when games were just about having fun with friends or just to blow off some steam not some competition that some people treat as life or death.
I play LOTRO. Been so for 14 years. Never made it to End Game. Just love chillin' and exploring the massive world. Yes, there is a cash shop, but it is not required to have fun. I buy certain things, like expansions, but it is a conscious effort to put into the game for the enjoyment I get from it. With the new Landscape Difficulty slider, you can adjust the challenge to where you find it comfortable, and the upcoming mini-wraith and Ringwraith additions will add more challenges to your landscape experience. The Devs know their player base loves the world building above most other considerations.
Its hard to call the genre dead when millions still play. I think stagnant is a better description.
Champions from beyond the rift heed my call! The time is come to deliver your brethren from darkness! Join with me now in hope and prayer for the salvation of all!!! 🤷♂️
Stagnant is a great word for it! Well said
@@Redbeardflynn #EQ4Life
Every point made in this video is great, but I want to focus on the idea of the game being too fast/easy and never learning your class. There is a fix for this. A painfully simple fix that every single game could implement.
At specific break points in leveling, you just stop gaining XP until you complete a story quest. That story can be the same for every class or whatever, but the content is tailored to the class. And the only way to complete the quest is for you to learn and use your class abilities. A contrivance of the story will be stripping you of all your gear, so you have to complete it using a standard gear set that makes the quest a challenge if you're not using your abilities right. No face rolling. You have to follow instructions, learn what you're doing, and then apply what you've learned.
If it's a game that allows multiple specs, the quest is broken into sections where you have to learn each spec. For example, a tanking section, a healing section, a DPS section. Or if your class has CC abilities, a section where you have to use those abilities, or you'll just get overwhelmed and fail.
If done right it isn't immersion breaking for the folks invested in the story, and it's only marginally irritating for the power levelers who have to take an extra 10 - 20 minutes to complete this story bit before they can get back to the non-stop grind.
And for extra learning, it should be repeatable. So, if you kind of forget, or need a refresher, you can do it again, where you're scaled back to the appropriate level.
Everything is there to make good games, the developers just want to pander to casuals. Take the skill system in Guildwars 1, it had you spending hours reading skill descriptions and chaining them together, in a way you composed them like a scientist and it was really satisfying when it worked. Take the '55 monk' for example, you'd equip runes that lowered your hp massively to exploit spells like protective spirit that made it so that you couldn't lose more than X percent of your total health from a single attack, and with that total being low, your other spells could easily mitigate the incoming damage (healing hands, healing breeze etc), then you'd stand in a swarm of enemies dealing AOE and tanking their hits.
You had to watch your skillbar like a hawk to makesure protective spirit was running because with your HP so low you'd be smashed by an unfiltered hit, and you had to figure out how to make the mana costs and cool downs coexist like clockwork. You felt really involved in keeping your character alive, and the 2-class system gave you so much to play with. Then you'd do that in the context of your 6-player teams - ensuring your skillsets were complimentary & your role would be critical. This made for excellent PVP too. They took the pressure off in Guild Wars 2, and they took that fun with it. Now you just spam 123 and your skillbar can be whatever you like, you don't stress over class roles, everyone is rogue. Just mash space at the right time and you're gucci.
The other thing is the quality of the content and the denial/reward distribution. GW1 was polished, great music, it felt medieval and rich, you could only look badass if you did difficult stuff to earn it, you had alliance battles, Huge PVP, skill hunting, elite armour, Farming, player generated economies like 'running' and self governed trading, that was you the player making it happen. Now they just want your daily log-ins, there's only convoluted and long-winded crafting processes & repeated easter egg hunts / animal crossing-level tasks so that you can look like a cartoony weeboo with a weapon design equivalent to Vanilite. The rich medieval feeling is lost, and you can look as menacing on day 1 with cash-shop skins as anyone whose played the game for years.
All to be inclusive of the people who care this much👌at the expense of people who want to play longer and want their progress to reflect that. I don't know who i'm saying that to but I've been holding it in for too long. That was supposed to be the successor of the franchise and they made it feel paper thin and like every other MMORPG. Now everyone's just making the same hybrid game, You've got one you've got all of them, with the exception of some 'innovative new system' that feels like fresh air for 30 seconds.
Great video..... All I want to know is where can I get that shirt.
I think once you play Everquest whether you played on Official Servers back in day with heavy populations or even TLP's or Private Servers like P99 or Project Quarm, it really makes you appreciate how old MMO's used to be and how the journey and leveling experience actually meant something. I know every time I've tried playing other MMO's that have more of a Wow Model where you have to rush to end game to enjoy the game, it just really puts me off because I'd rather play an MMO where each zone or even the world means something on the players journey and how there is a lot of choice or even difficulty on that journey depending on what race, religion or even faction you choose. I realize there are two types of MMOs, the journey ones and then the end game ones but I think there's less "Journey" mmos being made these days by Triple A devs and more end game mmos being made with predatory monteization schemes. Which is downright sad. However, its nice to see indie companies leading the way to recreate journey MMOs and its also nice to see that journey mmos still live on in private servers. I will say before I started playing Everquest, I played a lot of Old School Runescape which is more of a single player MMO than Everquest but that game is sorta of a journey mmo because your always leveling up different skills and it takes a while to hit 99. Regardless, I enjoyed your video. I would like to see more journey mmos in the future.
Its always the journey that is important in an MMO I'd say we SEA players love the grind in an MMO its the Western players who wants to reach max lvl in 2 days
WoW classic still going great idk what people are smoking
I don't believe anyone's hot take was that wow classic is dead?
I'm a grown man with a lot of hobbies. I can't spend 50 hours a week leveling and raiding. I would love a game with a deep, rich, lore-filled, thoughtful world and similar playstyle to games like EQ, but less of a time commitment. I do really miss games being less forgiving, but at the same time I cannot spend hours and hours waiting for camps and grinding. I have no idea if this is possible because I reckon a part of what made these games special _was_ the fact you sunk so much effort into them. Another thing is that it is hard to have a mysterious game now -- everything is revealed and public so quickly it seems.
World creation is hard. Part of the issue is us gamers. We want a game that we can play for years, be we don't want to give the developers time to make it. We like the grind of EQ but we told developers that we aren't going to put in the time anymore. When the developers made games where we leveled faster, we complained again. Same with monthly subs, fashion shops, exp potions, ect... Every time a developer worked hard to meet our demands we would complain "thats not what we really want".
Developers should spend less time listening to gamers. Make a game, don't try and cater to everyone. Pick the things you will think will make an MMO, make it and see if there is a demand.
i do not like the grind of EQ. the leveling process in the game was awful, was sped up multiple times and is still too slow. it needs to be in the middle of that and the newer MMOs.
If they made a game that's actualy fun none of those gripes would matter to players. The problem is the gameplay loops are boring as fuck.
You are talking out of your ass.
I was playing Monsters and Memories the other day and I made a new char to try it out. It started me in an area that was, although around the same city, far away from where everyone was hunting. I actually had to run thru a large town with no map. It was amazing. I think MMO's put too much emphasis on leveling and not enough on living in the world. I would like a game where I can really live my best rpg life. Like building a campfire anywhere in the world and just having *that* be your home for several levels while you mine or explore the dungeon nearby. Also, bring back the mentor system of eq2. Or another system where I don't outlevel and area I really enjoy. Unrest is my favorite spot to level in, but I'm only there a day before I have to move on. SAD.
The game needs to be designed at level 1.
I know it sounds insane to say that statement but let me expound on it. Early games like everquest and final fantasy 11 made the journey as important as level cap. Now today everything is the rush towards the end game raids and getting number go up at cap. There needs to be fun things to do at low level like in ffxi getting your artifact pieces and then reforging them as you get closer to level cap and making them go from a level 50 some item to a cap item to then an ilvl 119 item. There needs to be more of an emphasis on the journey with rich world building.
MMOs now feel more like lobby based arpgs similar to Phantasy Star and i get that people like that but i crave a world with lore that i can go explore in at any level that doesn't seem streamlined and designed with so much throughput that it pushes me to level cap. It feels way gamey now and purposefully designed rather than a world i fell into and exist in.
7:56 I don't think we'll ever have the struggle back, people will find the meta and they'll create guides and they'll run up to you when they see you struggling and tell you to reset your talents and to play this or that way - taking your experience and making it theirs. I try to ignore the guides so I can play my own way but the knowledge that I'm "playing wrong" can sometimes ruin the fun. Not to mention people won't let you in guilds or groups for any "serious" (it's a game?) dungeoning/raiding if you dare have the wrong build.
It's probably different in action games where you can still have the sense of achievement from learning the moves and doging correctly but in traditional tab targeting MMOs, not so much.
Also, what's the game showing there?
I started playing MMOs back in 2021. I have played the 4 big ones plus a multitude of other newer MMOS. Yet I keep returning to the likes of Everquest, Everquest2, LoTR, SWG, Anarchy Online, DAoC ... retail or private server. All I want, is these older games with updated graphics and UI.
good video, and I will counter that final hot take with City of Heroes, the greatest MMORPG that had no EverQuest in it's DNA.
I enjoy questing, a lot. So I have always had alts. I quit WoW because it became a race to endgame and they removed difficulty for alts. And if I didn’t rush to endgame, I would be left behind by my guilds. I decided it was more fun to play games that I can do at my own pace.
Hey Red. You should come check out Dalaya. Used to be known as Winter's Roar then Shards of Dalaya. One of the oldest EQ private servers. Relaunch is on Friday at noon. Shoot me reply if you wanna check it out together. This is scratches my EQ itch.
I got a little bit of a different take on the MMO game play style and it is the player base. You have so many who want rush, who have to get to the end and then go farm the so called "BIS". Best in slot item, for those that are not sure what BIS means. BIS are items that random people out in the internet dem as the best for a particular build. They can provide whatever data they want to support this claim of BIS and most will accept it and not challenge this notion. My point is that so many gamers these days just follow a crowd instead of trying new things. Taking a different path. Playing to your style, not the style of a random internet person.
We have a player base who want to go out and destroy a game instead of beat the game. By destroy, I mean they will do whatever it takes to win, be it watching every video out there or download 800 mods just so nothing will surprise them. I am not against mods, just they get so over used in MMOs these days that it takes away struggle. To me beat the game is working through the game as is, with little to no mods uses. Learning the game as I adventure, only looking up stuff when I get to a point of frustration.
I just feel we as gamers have gotten away from wanting to struggle. Be it with a mod that shows you where the quests points are, or the ones that warn you when a boss is about to something, granted most new mmos already have these in the game, but my point is when WoW classic came out most player went and got all kinds of mods to change the game, to take away struggle.
Life went wrong. MMOs destroy lives, they require way too much time and commitment for a healthy entertainment. And that comes from someone who played them for over 20 years.
Slower level gives a better sense of achievement. Been playing EQ2 origins and it’s been a breath of nostalgia and freshness
They should just do an mmorpg, with no class, your class becomes what you explore and what you train with. You fight enemies with what you got and acquire skills through fighting. Also rare gear should be all over the world like eldenring where you have to look everywhere to get them. And dungeons should be able to be done solo and multiplayer only difference is that when entering solo the boss should be like an eldenring boss.
Imo the real question is if the mmo playerbase majority likes more arpgs or old school mmos. Because I would guess all these games evolved to be like they are because people dont want slow progression, they always asked for diablo like progression.
i dont want the slow progression of old MMOs but i want the identity of old MMOs. having unique items where im going to a specific dungeon looking for a drop because its so good for me. i dont like the new MMO thing like Lost Ark of upgrading a single piece of armor again and again with gacha rolls. thats boring af.
For those people, the saying "You think you do, but you don't." applies. Between creating a locust swarm mentality and feeding the greed of big studios, Diablo style MMOS has ruined the genre.
Diablo style is fine for non-MMOS, but it's terrible for MMOS.
Folks need to get their 'fix' from other games and make the choice to play MMOS for different reasons.
MMORPGs in 2024 struggled with outdated mechanics, monetization greed, fragmented communities, and increasing competition from faster, more accessible genres. To regain their former glory, the genre would need a significant reimagining-both in terms of gameplay and how it connects with a modern audience.
EDIT - ECO is back for another Alpha test in October, Hell Yeah!
It's weird to me that people can play these games and even think level scaling sounds good in theory. The moment you tell me that everything is my level my first thought is "then why progress at all?".
Yeah it is baffeling that people cannot see that scaling and horizontal "progression" kills feeling of accomplishment, and makes the whole experience kinda pointless. Then there is only story left.
Which is one of the problems with modern mmos; story should not be carrying a mmorpg, story is the foundation of a single player rpg, but in a virtual world (mmorpg) the role, the choices and paths the player takes (aka their characters actions), should become the story ... not some thing a developer thought up and made a cutscene of, or made two versions of so you get the illusion of choice.
lol 400+ attempts reminds me of my first big EQ guild struggling with Avatar of War during Velious. We didn't do quite that many but it sure as fk felt like we did.
I actually liked ESO before the level scaling. I know people complained that Elder Scrolls is supposed to be an open world game where you go anywhere and do anything, but the level scaling actually made you feel significantly weaker upon gaining levels. You level up so fast and your gear falls behind so enemies start feeling like damage sponges. Eventually at max ILV everything just feels the same and it takes dozens of champion points to even feel slightly stronger.
I have been playing the war within (world of Warcraft) as it just came out- but I’m already getting bored of it because it’s just a race by everyone to consume every ounce of content like a plague of locusts. And everyone just wants to do more dps than their friends and brag how good they are at their class to each other. It’s honestly sad and not what an MMO really is imo. TWW is better than WoW has been in recent years, but still lacks something - I agree everything is too fast
There’s a video out called “a history of MMO’s and what went wrong” or something - it’s like 3hours long. I recommend anyone who likes the genre to watch it tho.
I recently also tried LOTRO again and still am. It feels the most like a true MMO, closest I’ve felt in years. Mainly because it’s slow, and huge, and you struggle a little. Struggling is good. Slow is good.
Watch the history of MMO’s and what went wrong video. He describes current mmo playing like I mentioned, a plague of locusts consuming everything as fast as possible. Then say there’s nothing to do. It’s the most apt description I’ve seen in recent time.
The last few expansions of WoW the devs have been holding back some content to release in game updates, which is a step in the right direction. Time-gating content, transmog/mount collecting and achievement hunting can really help slow things down for the average player, but nothing is going to ever satisfy the hardcores I'm afraid.
I have played Vanilla WoW on and of, sens 2004. And between, i have been jumping on all kind of new MMOrpg's like Age of Conan, Rift, Star Wars the old republic, Guildwars2, and Wildstar to just name a few. The last big one for me was Wildstar, and after that i have only been playing Vanilla WoW ..And finally i'm done with it - Pantheon rise of the Fallen is far from finished, but manage to scratch my MMOrpg itch, as if it were 2004 all over again (have never happened me before).
I was talking with a friend the other week both MMO players since the late 90's and we were talking about what game to play next and we both sat there and just couldn't come up with anything other than Ashes of Creation which was even vaguely interesting to us. By the end of the conversation we had both installed Ultima Online again......
Have yall tried fractured online?
Eh. Throne & Liberty launches Friday.
If modern video games (and their crap monetization) aren't your thing, and you're okay with private servers... TurtleWoW is popping off, and Dalaya (a customized version of EverQuest with its own lore and altered world) relaunches on Friday.
To me, MMOs haven't changed much at all, but gamers and the world have. MMOs are no longer the way "to be social". In fact, most games are now vastly inferior at social interaction. Discord, FB, Twitter, etc. have replaced the chat box, and for good reason. This has reduced the reason to play an MMO because you wanted to be with friends. You can do that anytime now. And MMOs are no longer one of the few places to play online with others. The vast majority of games have coop modes nowadays.
Most MMOs have pretty dead worlds, even if there's stuff going on. There's no player agency between you and the world. MMOs touted themselves as having "persistent" worlds, but the fact of the matter is that most are "static" worlds. To me, there's not a lot of immersion if nothing I can do alters the game. The setting becomes a painting.
I've said it before: MMOs have not embraced what it means to be "MM". The only one (IMHO, though maybe there are others) is Eve Online. Take away the playerbase and the fundamental reason to play would vanish--it's a game that could never "hang on" as a solo experience. The problem with Eve, though, is that I just have no interest in the PvP aspect that is the core of the game. Ashes seems to want to try to address this with the nodes aspect, but it seems so invested in PvP that I've lost interest.
Pretty ironic that you condensed the journey of your video and pushed us to the end game premise :)))
You didn't really mention the robust communities that arose in older MMOs that were bound together from many different directions, including the ones that difficult and challenging gaming presented.
There's also something to be said about what the theme and flavor of a game does for the communities it creates.
For example, City of Heroes still has the friendliest and most helpful community in MMO history, and it's partly due to the superhero sensibilities of the game, in addition to the fantastic team play that makes each role useful and important. The original Everquest presented a world to both explore, adventure and sort of live within, and even "normal" servers had people embracing the lore and culture when making characters and interacting with one another.
So much of that doesn't and can't really exist in modern MMOs, since they're built as games first rather than narrative worlds that players game within.
I mean, I’m having a ton of fun playing through Dawntrail currently, so alive and well for me at the moment!
Great video. Thank you for bringing so many people together. Plus props.
The problem with "struggle during levelling" is it almost ALWAYS just equates to grinding boring content to out-level something. This sort of grind is precisely why I stayed away from MMOs for decades. I have no interest in farming open world mobs.
Vanguard thats a name I havent heard for years. I am playing Fallout 76 now and its taken me a couple of weeks to get to level 26. I am probably doing it wrong though, I am just having fun.
I’m very excited to see what the EQ team is doing for next year. I don’t currently own a computer so I hope for some Sony remasters like champions.
I think the biggest problem of MMO gender is that all of them try to be Wow. To be honest many game studios lack the capacity or budget of the team to compete with Wow. I would say there could be some innovation in gender if some technical of the network-related issues could be solved.
I thought these contributions and your analysis were spot on. I honestly think that marketing the games has become almost non-existent. With the recent "re-discovery" of D&D I think it would be wise of studios to find a way to tie into that.
Spot on, hadn't even considered the return and rise of dnd lately but that's a great point. Thank you fornthe comment and for the watching
I think there is a bit of stockholm syndrom too going on here. Esp in the case of WoW. the players hate the game, or have, but still played because they felt like they had to or something. I don't think the mmo is dead, but for any new mmo to break into the market it is incredibly tough because of the well established WoW, and even now FFXIV. The titams truly rule, with strong support in form of GW2 and ESO. People tend to go with what they know, and as much as they want the new, they just keep going back because those old mmo's are comfy. I know I always come back to my beloved Mi'quote, Wyndi, in FFXIV because I love the game, despite taking breaks. Its a comfy home. I look forward to pantheon, and stuff, but know, new content in FFXIV, my butt will be there, and reason i havent made it to PoP in any EQ TLP yet, despite my desire to. MMO's arent necc is a bad situtation overall, but until something truly revolutionary comes out, and well made with fair monetization(this is here and sadly wont ever go away), the kings will reign because comfy imho.
I like how i've been saying this for years, and everyone use to yell at my face that they dont want a grindy mmo. Now..... everyone i saying is saying what i was saying smh
it's not dead
it will die when all of the old vanguard get shut down
so when WoW and FFXIV get shut down, and there are no other MMOs to play, THEN it will die
but until then, the genre isn't dead
I don't want to push for the latest piece of optimized loot so my DPS gets 2% better. I want to venture into the unknown, drink a flagon of ale with my friends, and kill a goddamn dragon. That's it.
I have been playing MMORPGs going back to at least 2006. The genre has been slowly dying since its creation. It just took years for players to realize this fact. The genre needs to redefine itself completely. No more using other MMORPGs as an example of what should be done.
That last one made me chuckle.😂😊
What game is shown at 17:50? Looks like EQ but different?
I would suggest DDO for anyone looking for the old school feel. I wanted to go back to EQ but the graphics and worse the UI is just unbearable for me. DDO still is challenging and has a massive leveling experience not just a rush to end game. Reincarnation system further emphasizes the leveling.
Slow down vs grindy how do you slow it down without making it feel grindy? I loved Asheron's Call and WoW original 1-60.
Once a company goes public they are held to fiduciary responsibilities so they're forced to make all the money than enough money
I do understand struggles aka challenges. But I don't like to bash my head into the wall that many times. It needs a balance, and not be so balls-to-the-wall-tough. Then I opt out, and find something else to play. But I'm all for that struggle, but at a bare minimum. I don't care if others do stuff after only 3 attempts, while yourself or others need to struggle for 400. I only care what I think of it, and I like it mid-ground hard. Which is why I stay the hell away from ALL souls-like. Those games are not for me.
So what we are saying is that we need journey before destination. I've heard that somewhere
Oct 1 throne and liberty, 0ct 8 EQ expac beta, Oct 15 New World Aeternum
The leveling experience should be long and hard with very small improvements each level
Great mmos are still out there the problem is the same ppl who complained about old school mmos are the same ones that are complaining about the modern ones and now since it all went to shit now they want to shift back in time, you don’t know what you had until you loose it and thats why wow classic exists.