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Part of the problems with MMOs is that they are games that require many years of time and investment in an industry that evolves on a yearly basis; So you have games like World of Warcraft that are over 15 years old that look and play like 15 year old games in an industry were things have improved in combat, graphics, and interaction with other players and hte environment. . Whats more people dedicate a TON of time and money into them so for them to switch to newer MMOs is big struggle and, in truth, the loss of a financial, time, and emotional investment. MMOS need to find a way to update every 7-10 years and allow people to transfer their progress and items or at least the skins of said items, into the newer version, which will ensure players do not feel like they have lost their investment.
there is one mmorpg game that I played more than five years, one of its kind, spaceship mmo Pirate Galaxy, which has 20 mb client, a simple game written in Java, available more than a decade, made by a few German developers, now in 2020s you can't even find 100 people online in a server, only a few players left. there is no other game like Pirate Galaxy where you can land on planet surface and use spaceships to fight against ennemies called "mantis" or "ancients" or boss "Giza"... sometimes I imagine it would be awesome if some other big company buy this game and remake it with unreal engine!
The magic of MMOs back then came from a very simple reason: Internet connection revolutionary, especially when applied to video games. You didn’t really have social media being as prevalent as it is today and the MMOs at that time were treated as chatrooms with games attached to them, as Josh Strife Hayes likes to put it. That is something that will never happen again in this day and age, social media is more prevalent than ever, tech is way better, and information is easier to access now that internet is not run on a potato, MMOs today should focus on actually being great games that are worth their asking price, instead of just artificially made friction for friction’s sake.
Exactly. I remember taking 3 months to leave the start island on Tibia (rookgard), cause i didnt login to get exp, i logged to chat with other people and meet new friends. A few years later same thing in Maplestory. Leveling was secondary. People nowadays just want to rush to endgame, there is too much toxicity on the community in MMOs in general as well. Most irl friends dont play anymore, which force u to meet people online, but if they are all the time hostile, there is no point in playing those games.
I disagree, this is maybe a game for a newer generation but have you seen the success of fortnite? And these kids live in a social media sphere. Epic games managed to create a sense of community around their game where the players gather around just to hangout in games not only to play a competitive battle royale fps. I tried for the 1st time this month and understood why it was so attractive to a younger audience. Game is fun, easy to learn and have lot of pop culture reference. Hell you could even watch Dragonball z episode with your friends or stranger. Althought the permanent cash shop bait is predatory I get why it's so popular. Hard to compete with this and I get why develloper try to replicate this FTP business model. Not saying this is good but it's the reality nowadays.
Yep, spot on really. I think there was a confluence of factors that allowed MMOs to be incredibly popular. I doubt we'll ever see that again. Maybe only quite a bit in the future if VR technology improves a whole lot? But I wouldn't make that call with any confidence.
This opinion that I see regurgitated everywhere needs to die. Yes, there were tons of people in the starting zones just logging on time to time to socialise. But beyond the first 20 or so hours of playing, people played because the game was compelling enough. We're not asking for the days when WoW was the most talked about game. We're asking for a quality non P2W MMO that we can go in an explore for hours with other people for meaningful and fulfilling experiences. And no MMO has made anything remotely decent arguably since GW2. Imo WoW completely spoilt us with how good a game can be. And again. I'm not talking about the "social media" part. Classic wow dispelled that myth.
İn order to re-ignite you need novelty MMOs internet connection and beign able to play with other players was novel back then it is not anymore you need technological advancements to create something new.
You should interview some developers/creators to get some backstories on games or just in general the industry perspective on MMOs. I think you would be able to produce that kind of content because of your viewership and will be able to hold you through games.
What makes an MMO great is the same as what makes a society great. A collection of people with similar values all trying to achieve a goal. When WoW released, everyone's main goal was to face challenges with their irl friends in real time on the same map. There wasn't a massive fissure in the community over p2w, in store mounts, vertical vs horizontal progression, etc..
I honestly think the obligation to log in every day has pushed people away from the mmo genre. Daily quests, daily dungeons, daily login rewards, it all makes you feel like you can't go at your own pace any more, as before you start playing the game at your own pace you have to fulfil a daily checklist which in some cases can take a couple of hours
@@zepwafels It's one of the things I hated the most about RS3. I like there aren't many of them in OSRS and even so, it's just claiming some items from several NPCs, most of which I don't even bother with. This whole daily chore design is terrible.
Definitely ruined MMO's for me. I get more pleasure from grinding gear in Diablo like games than I do with games that offer up "daily rewards" since that seems like such a silly ploy to get me to play your game. If I don't want to logon to play you game but only to get a daily crumb for logging in like a good doggy then it's not a great game. The gameplay experience is what should drive a person to play your game; not some skinner box like manipulative tactic to force us into logging in.
I miss the first time i reached Stormwind and its music kicked in. I miss how amazing flying felt in Perfect World and Aion. I miss discovering how amazingly fun the Rift system was in Rift. I miss the huge amount of class combinations from Archeage. I miss all that and it sucks that nothing will ever reach those heights thanks to the massive focus on just finding ways to milk people.
i don't think it's the milking. MMO's were always a niche, and the cost to reward ratio is insanely low. they require insanely large servers comparative to other genre's, they take years and years of gathering content to compete with established titles, they take 8-9 figure upfront costs due to extreme development (and server) requirements, and there's every guarantee that your game may just fail after all that work/ We talk about FFXIV carrying square enix on their back, but we forget the many years that it was the other way around.
mmorpg will popular again after riot released their mmo game. because whatever they've made, it always popular. league of legends, valorant, arcane, ruined king, even cinematic videos and music videos for skin promotion became popular.
Sorry to burst your bubble mate but that was the case back then too. Seems that most people prefer to ignore this ugly truth though, as Is the case with dogmatic nostalgia fueled hatred.
Honestly the first bit of real feeling of nostalgia I've had in years that you've described in the video above was with Tombs of amascut in Old School Runescape. Nobody had any idea what to do on day 1, and I put it as a challenge to myself to beat the new raid all by myself, learning every single mechanic. Even if I got stuck I had to spend 20-30 minutes on a single puzzle just mindlessly thinking how to get past it as there was absolutely no information online about it. This new raid truly gave me some nostalgia for when I use to do my own route of killing rats in lumbridge swamp, selling their bones to general store enough times to then afford the mithril platebody for 2,000 gold, taking a picture on my old camera and uploading it to the PC to share with friends through MSN. The feeling of NOT knowing is incredible, data miners and people who try to max out in the fastest way possible takes away from the sense of progression and fun in my opinion, unfortunately we live in a day and age that unless the game comes out of bloody nowhere (what I'm hoping Riot's MMO will do) then there's absolutely no chance to go in blindly anymore unless you force yourself to stay away from the community, much like I did with tombs of amascut. Nothing beats the joy of beating the end boss in raids 3 and having that sense of accomplishment for dying 12 times and spending 2 hours on the raid to be rewarded a piece of fossilised dung at the end as your reward. Absolute bliss.
The concepts of "Leveling" and "Endgame" and how the perception around them changed is what has been killing mmos for me. It used to be that a developer would craft a world you could live in. There wasn't some arbitrary slog to get to whatever repeatable mindless content the suits mathed out to provide the most engagement. MMO's aren't what they used to be. They've become run of the mill multiplayer battle royals and coop action rpgs with a mandatory, no content, slog of bad dialouge to skip through for 60 hours before you can play that is hidden behind the "MMO" buzzword. It used to be that your journey was the content. Every time I hear "endgame content" i tune out. What an arbitrary term. If we are just shifting goal posts from the beginning of the game to the end of the game then the end of the game is now the beginning, yeah? So what's the point of calling it ENDgame content? Whats the point of the beginning game? Just cut it out. Oh wait, they want to sell you boosters to cut out the garbage walls they put in the way. And the cycle repeats. How does anyone look at this and go "Yeah this is fine and makes sense." Majority of the Runescape playerbase was f2p back in the day. Runescape was a giant in the mmo genre. What "endgame" was there for f2p people that kept them invested? Oh wait, runescape endgame didn't matter. Being in the world and being invested in the journey was what everyone now calls "Endgame". There wasn't an arbitrary 1-60. The game was just an experience. It may blow everyone's mind, but the majority of mmo players don't give two iotas about endgame. The tryhards and min maxers are always the minority playerbase. Thats why these games keep dying while old school runescape grows. New world blew up because it felt like runescape. But the world that seemed good ended up being pretty shallow. Everyone acting like 913,000 people wanted end game content and thats why the game started dying out. Lol. No, ya'll just vocal.
Well what you said makes sense but i feel that you think a bit one dimensional, a mmo with good endgame doesnt need to be bad leading up to the endgame. Runescape end game is basically starting new character, grinding for rare capes and inventing your own modes iron man and so forth. What mmom lacks nowadays is a good or great even leveling, questing and socializing path to a endgame which is an endgame until next expansion. I 100 agree with you that the beggining and middle of the game are neglected but dissagree that engames are inherently bad.
In everything in life you have to work towards something. That’s what”Endgame” is. No one is forcing you to level up in games like GW2. If other mmos do that I suggest you try GW2. It invites you to explore the world and you do level up but you’re not forced to quickly do it. Unless you want to play harder content which requires you to be at level 80. Life is like that also. You don’t have access to everything in life. But you can with the right qualifications
What I love in games is the leveling up, the questing (even if that gets repetitive), the area's to explore by doing so. I dont care about the best gear. I dont want care about needing the best stats. I like seeing new armors I worked for to get to. I like to farm a bit, to zone out a bit in order to just play and enjoy. I dont want to be pushed to the endgame. I dont want to be gifted all upgrade items and best equipment with minimum effort. Any and all cash shop items should be optional, not a need to enjoy or head further into the game. Want me to be invested? Let me enjoy the world and the game on its own, you bet I would throw money at it.
as a younger gamer, a lot of my friends dont play mmorpgs.. i think they get bored of how long they take/how much effort they take.. but i personally love it. i love to see my character and my knowledge of the game evolve over the years. it just feels so much more rewarding than a fps or something of that sorts imo.. maybe it was because i grew up this way, but mmorpgs have always been my favorite genre :D
Sooooo I'd like to know then. What if your character did grow and morph with you? Like literally aged with real world time... How would you recommend bridging the gap between your generation and old school gamers?
@@solidstehl9546 I noticed that the younger generation tends not to like as many slower games. The main reason being that they prefer instant gratification over long-term goal seeking. The popularity of games like Fortnite or Among Us are basically very short bursts of gameplay satisfaction, there's no real long term goals in each round. Fortnite has a bit of progression in their battle passes, but it's not really that much outside of cosmetics. If you wanted to bridge the gap between the two, you need a satisfying short-term game loop, while feeding into a long-term goal. Roguelites are the closest I can think of that approaches this goal, but that can't really be adapted very well into the MMO formula. Starting from the "beginning" every time defeats the whole point of progression that MMOs rely on. (Plus Realm of the Mad God says hi.) There was a small group of Dungeon/Mission-based MMOs, but the problem was that it was the same dungeon every time, and therefore wasn't really satisfying to repeat day after day.
I think the biggest reason why the old glory days wont return is that what drew players to mmos in those days is no longer exclusive to mmos. You get to play and interact with millions of other players. Social Media and the rise of other multiplayer genres are filling that desire players had back in the day, the people that remain with mmos tend to be after something more specific
Sadly in this day and age, we'll never experience or feel the same way we had back in the day. People change. Situation changes. We should be happy that we were able to experience the golden era of MMOs. We just have to move on and treasure the memories we had playing those games.
Ah yes, the 'people change' trope. Incorrect. If a player is enticed to play, the player will find time to play regardless of time input. You don't have to be a tween or teen to play ganes that require involvnent. There are plenty of players with your mindset that winge about not having time to play, yet they have enough time to RP and chat for endless hours. Accepting your doomer ideology because YoU have given up or decide that the timeline has passed and is never to return is subjective. Games shouldn't be shaped around the idea that one generation experienced and it and the next will not or isn't interested.
My first MMO was Everquest in 1999, and I remember the real fear of leaving Freeport and heading into the desert (it did not go well). I got into a good guild, became an officer (still keep in touch IRL with some of the other leaders), and spent far too much time playing - literally years of in game time. Looking back now though, I'm not sure I could cope with the slow levelling, corpse recovery (before corpse summoning was a thing), required grouping because many classes could not solo content, etc. There was a different expectation.
That's one thing that worries me about Monsters and Memories, a classic EQ spiritual successor being worked on (publicly) by some former EQ devs and designers. It looks very cool. But one of the devs (aLovingRobot) said that they want that slower progression like early EQ, because it created an environment where you spent a long time with people, and made friends that way. And while I do think *some* people will accept that, I think leveling that's too slow chases more people away than it keeps. I'm in my late 30s now. I enjoy MMORPGs, and that classic style of gameplay, the tactical dungeon crawling, and so forth. But I don't want to spend 8 hours in the same zone killing the same four mobs over and over again anymore. I'm not a 14 year old kid with nothing to do but chat on EQ all Summer along anymore. I've been playing WoW Classic on a Wrath pre-patch server, and the 70-80 hours it takes a "novice" player to hit level 70 seems reasonable. Maybe 100 or so hours is fine, too. I can level up a character over the course of 1-3 months, and casually work on some alts until the next expansion is released. That's great. That makes me want to keep playing. But... maybe, playing EQ on Project 1999 as an adult and leveling 1-60, and then thinking about doing it again -- especially on a class that doesn't solo well like my mage -- just sounds like a terrible, grinding experience. All of my P99 alts are level 20-25. I simply lose steam after that.
well go play a modern mmorpg then there's plenty to go around. i hate comments that say sh** like " I'm not sure I could cope with the slow levelling, corpse recovery" go play your modern mmorpg... or maybe you still don't know whilst playing those games.. maybe your mind is in a cocoon or something. omfg THINK!
tbh the more modern or even post Everquest MMOs are far different than the "slow levelling, class dependent" type of MMOs like EQ. Yes the expectations are now different and MMOs have already changed to meet those expectations a long time ago, at least a decade. MMOs like Guild Wars 2 are nothing like classic MMOs and it came out in 2012....
The "glory days" of mmo's didn't really include as many content creators pre reviewing ever aspect of a game before launch either. The *_mystery_* is gone at this point.
Idk man "mystery" in 2022 is more like landmines. Games are much more expensive now and i dont wanna preorder landmines. Rather watch if the game suits me or not
Companies need to stop being lazy about their QA and having the public testing. A good example of this is FF14's practices vs WOW's. In FF14 no one knows anything about an expansion until released and they're actively playing it, but Blizzard releases public testing for hype and to save money on QA for WOW. People know the build they'll use and the systems are known and planned out, but in FF14 you only know as much as screenshots will show you, and very little about changes to classes that the devs preview to you, but nothing can be planned. It's just bad companies not putting in enough resources to care about the player experience that creates the problem.
Pretty much this. In Ultima online in the late 90s, I was constantly stumbling into stuff I had no idea was there. I quit WOW before Legion because I could calculate everything before the expansion even launched, it simple was down to a ' to do ' list It was worse with WOW because the math was so open, so you knew (and your raid leader knew) exactly how you should be geared and specced. If you wanted to do any type of group content you needed to do everything for that last .1 fps that some internet guru had figured to be the best.
This. The negative affect it had on single player games. Dragon Age inquisition for example. I loved the game, but it had so many MMO concepts added to it.
I feel like the three things that appealed to me with old MMOs were the mystery of the huge world, the challenge of discovering it, and interacting with the community. The mystery aspect is out the window thanks to datamining and the constant minmaxing mindset leading to every game having a complete wiki before it's even launched (which is fine for singleplayer games as you can just not read it, but that doesn't work in MMOs). The challenge aspect seems unlikely to return because of modern monetization methods forcing developers to push the player into the endgame as quickly as possible (and that doesn't just apply to MMOs, pretty much all games-as-a-service games do that). The only thing I think could be worked on is the community aspect. I don't know how exactly, but I think it could be really interesting to see a developer think of new mechanics that encourage more social interactions on many different levels. Not just endgame raiding and PvP, but smaller things as well for more casual players. Things like, I don't know, having to ask another player to help you carry something heavy, or stir a pot for a few seconds while you're preparing ingredients for a potion. Something like that, maybe.
Made me think of when I used to play Dark Age of Camelot. Used to love that game because of how distinct the 3 factions were and how there were unique classes for each faction. Must have been a pain to balance but was it ever fun
mmorpg will popular again after riot released their mmo game. because whatever they've made, it always popular. league of legends, valorant, arcane, ruined king, even cinematic videos and music videos for skin promotion became popular.
@@Eldenbruh mmos live and die with their combat and interaction with the world/quests. They are grindy games by nature, so if the grinding activities are too repetitive the game becomes boring fast. Black desert lasted me longer than other mmos because of the combat.. But the quests and all the rest is so awful that in the end I dropped it before endgame.
My favorite memory from any MMO was going into Blackrock Depths for the first time ever. The journey itself getting there was amazing running into the mountain and going deeper and deeper until you finally got into the dungeon itself and that was just the beginning. I remember being in there for literally 7-8 hours with a group because none of us had done it before and there was just so much area to cover. Didn't even fully finish it until a few runs after and got more familiar with it. I feel that sense of adventure and mystery is nearly impossible to recreate in today's MMO's.
Yessss. Blackrock Depths is one of the pinnacles for MMO design in my opinion. That place is so massive and it just reeks of mystery and intrigue that keeps pulling you further in. Absolutely love Blackrock and all its lore.
Back in the 90's, I got my first computer and started playing MMOs. I was hooked. While playing Ultima Online, I heard of a new MMO that was going to change things---EverQuest. I still remember watching Brad McQuaid interviews and discussing all the latest info about the game with my friends at school. Finally, I was accepted in the EQ beta and they mailed the game CD to my home. I played that game from beta until the release of Shadows of Luclin, but that was the golden age of MMOs and there were plenty of distractions such as Dark Age of Camelot and Shadowbane. The biggest distraction was when I received my beta confirmation email from Blizzard to play World of Warcraft. Hot damn! I was an addict. However, nowadays, I don't feel the same about modern MMOs. Something just isn't right. I guess the closest thing I've experienced recently to that old MMO feeling was when I played vanilla Archeage. I'm 40 years old now and been playing MMOs for over half my life. How much longer will I need to wait to be "WoW-ed" again?
I think the important question here is how long have you been a English teacher and if you are into Brad McQuaid games you should mention Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, that really the only old school game being developed.
Can we talk about the fact you watched these videos on a dial up connection? You rich bas--tard, if I went online I needed to have a plan of what I'm going to search for, once I find the result I would unplug immediately lmao, forget videos
I feel one of the biggest things holding MMO's back are (obviously) the huge expectations set and (less obvious) the effect that data-mining/wikis/ and overall speed of info shared through the internet. MMO's are a big time-sink, we all know that. But why? Is it just the leveling process? Is it the endless grinding to min-max? RNG-gated enhancements? NO! Well, at least, they weren't _supposed_ to be the reason why. Nowadays, these very much are the reasons why MMO's are a time-sink. However, in the golden ages of MMO's, the main reason MMO's were a time-sink were because of freedom and discovery. It was a whole new world to discover and explore right? The problem is that we're all about finding the most optimal route through the 'grindy' aspects to reap the juicy rewards of endgame power fantasy. By having all this information online and all these guides to tell us what to do, we simply lose that fun from freedom and discovery which is half of what MMO's are all about. You should be roaming around, figuring out where you are, what you're doing (or need/want to do), and learn a bunch of things on your way to self-made greatness. You'd problem solve and find answers to your own questions. That feeling of TRUE progression where you pave the way yourself on your own unique journey, is a HUGE part of enjoyment from an MMO-genre game. At least in my opinion. Now, MMO's are all about getting to endgame as fast as possible to be as strong as possible and either PvP or do the same types of endgame missions/content over and over a mind-numbing amount of times. And since everyone started getting to the 'endgame' this way, game devs were forced to utilize garbage mechanics like RNG-enhancements, which shouldn't be RNG but instead guaranteed thanks to prior efforts such as gathered material or skill level. Hear me out. This is going to be very idealistic and bold of me to say. Endgame content should exist, but shouldn't be the main priority. In fact, I think 95% of players shouldn't be able to reach endgame in an MMO or 'max-level' despite not having 'max-level' gear. Players shouldn't reach endgame in a couple days, weeks, or even months. This fake and cheap ass design that most MMO's have, is absolutely ruining the genre and encouraging P2W. You shouldn't just grind for 30 hours straight and fly through a storyline to reach 'endgame' so you can start doing 'endgame' content, and then spend real $$$ to do it faster. You should only reach endgame when it's mostly likely going to truly be the end of your time with the game other than chilling around, helping others on their journey, and having fun with friends. All this effort into trying to figure out a game to last someone forever with 'endgame' content is pointless and inevitably doing more harm than good. You should only truly reach endgame when you've done everything there is to be done, you've tried every activity, you've been active in the community, you've reached the pinnacle of power not through endless attempts at RNG-gated enhancement, but by defeating enemies that are worth the rewards they give, by upgrading your character's skills and your own skill IRL with game mechanics and knowledge. I know I'm being idealistic, and such a game would be HARD-PRESSED to be successful in today's day and age with everyone's goldfish attention span. But I think it's still very possible, and more importantly: it's necessary. I think that MMO games should refrain from having its own wiki, and make it against regulations to share information/guides online. Anyone who 'leaks' info online would be handled in someway shape or form, whether it's a temporary ban, or a permanent IP ban. It should be against ToS for the core game-knowledge to be leaked for everyone to access with ease. Most of you might think this is absolutely ludicrous, outrageous, or downright impossible, and I get it. It does seem a bit extreme, but this is how it _SHOULD_ be. Maybe there could be a bit of leeway because content creators are vital to modern games, but anything like quests, dungeon-layouts, what have you, should all be kept confidential and enforced. There's no need to worry about content creators as guides aren't the only kind of content there is to make of an MMO. Instead it should be proper _content_ like drama, PvP, and sharing their own skills. Also, you might think that this will never work because information-sharing is crucial or important. The answer is simple. You can SHARE INFORMATION IN-GAME. This encourages social interaction in a positive manner, even creating potential information networks or groups of players (guilds, perhaps?) whose in-game jobs (because they want to do it) could be being an information broker. This will make the virtual worlds much livelier because people have REASON to talk to each other in-game that isn't being toxic/boredom. They have reason to go into a tavern and chat around or 'listen' around. Virtual friendships could be made from unsuspecting players that happened upon each other and traded info like "this village's blacksmith can create gear at higher quality but does it at the same price than the common blacksmith in the main city here" or something. You know? Then that guy might come across the same person and be like "holy crap you're amazing for telling me that info, it saved me on this dungeon run I just had. Lemme repay you!" or something. There's just so much more than could happen, so much more natural occurrences for social interaction. I personally get excited at the thought of this alone, it'd be so much fun. And then people could share information about OTHER PEOPLE that have their own roles in the game's community like making gear, recruiting for guilds, recruiting for RAIDS/Dungeon runs, etc! There's definitely the issue that people just aren't like that and wouldn't support such a game-style in modern days, and yes. That's probably true. Many humans are scum, loners, antisocial, or too busy with real life, we all know this. Except, we don't even give the chance for these scenarios to occur because game's don't provide the setup needed like this information-sharing issue. Once there is an environment to cultivate such things, more and more people will change to adapt and grow into it. If there's a really toxic and scummy person, they're gonna struggle because no one will help them or give them information. Then they're forced to change, so that other people will help, or they find their own way. Or quit the game altogether. There's also 1000% going to be discord groups that share information, and this should be regulated as well, but only large discord servers whose sole purpose is to be a completely free and open wiki should be shut down. Guilds sharing information within itself is alright because it makes sense. Though, I could imagine a whole discord server that would LITERALLY be a wiki, but is an Information Guild's ever-changing archive. That'd be interesting. Basically, as long as there is a process that encourages positive social interactions to trade info, it'll be okay. But sharing information with 0 social interaction or anything in-game is not. If you're your game character, it wouldn't make sense that you suddenly know everything or exactly what to do because your consciousness entered the fourth dimension and watched some UA-cam guides. I want to add that transmog/cosmetics should be REMOVED. GONE. There shouldn't be a cash-shop where you pay to have an outfit just placed over your gear. If there will be cosmetics, it'll be like cosmetics IRL. Jewelry, cool clothes, etc. But nothing like having a fully armored character with matching stats to suddenly have the same stats but be 99% naked and 0 armor because they're wearing a bikini cosmetic outfit. If you're just chilling with friends and you're wearing an outfit to match the occasion, that's fine. But you won't have the full stats that your battle equipment would offer, obviously. This helps immersion tons imo, and there's no level1 newbie looking like there some level 100 player because they bought a cosmetic pack. ----------- Anyways I went on wayy to long, but I know such an MMO is possible. We have the technology, we have the history of previous games, we know what works and what doesn't. We just need to put all the right puzzle pieces together with the right talents that are ambitious and carry little greed. I know. It's probably just a pipe-dream, the only way an MMO game like that could start production is if it's backed by a large corporation or something and there's no way a miracle group of genius indie devs that wanna flip the MMO genre on its head to release a smash hit would appear. The modern world is about money, there's no more room for passion and ambition I guess. That's how it feels at least. It's just how the cookie crumbles on this godforsaken planet.
I don't think MMOs ever lost popularity, there are simply less being made and most don't do anything new. Not to mention there are more game genres in general to spread players across. There's also the fact that modern business models instantly suck the magic out of anything special. Both Archeage and BDO had that magic and did almost everything different to what we were used to but quickly flushed all hype down the toilet via the cash shop. That right there is also why all these classic releases are so successful. It may not be the same magic as the first time you played it, but there is still some magic there and it doesn't have a cash shop to shit all over your fun. Also a massive mistake people make is thinking WoW's insane player count wasn't just a fluke. It had good marketing, the art style appealed to casuals and it had tons of player made videos to help spread the word. That last one in particular was huge in WoW's success. Blizzard really owe everything to those early machinima makers because so many people who weren't even gamers got into it based on a friend showing them a machinima. Then once it had gone viral as a result of stuff like this it was just the snowball effect. It really wasn't anything to do with the game itself which honestly compared to other MMOs at the time was pretty average at best.
I feel like GW2, FF14, and ESO are still pretty good. I just bought end of dragons for gw2 on paternity leave. And I was so distracted by wanderlust in that game that I just started exploring old maps on my level 80 character and played for 2 hours before I even touched the expansion.
I got back into GW2 from mainly hanging out in ESO in April, I still have not approached EOD fully, too busy with legendary armor and Aurora and PoF and season 4 mounts. Got myself specializations though.
Asheron’s Call was my first MMO. I’m going to get the opportunity to meet one of my old guild mates for the first time in 25 years. There is definitely something different about the community built in MMOs.
Nothing has beaten Asheron's Call in my opinion. Best loot/gear in any game period, best community, best quests (spanning solo, small group, large group, guild group, and server-wide scales,) best leveling system, best world... it just never got any better than AC.
@@ChristopherCDaniels You could loot 10,000 kills and never find the exact same piece of loot once. It would take many months to perfect your first suit of armor, and it encouraged people to use sub-par gear to fill in the gaps. On top of that, even junk loot was extremely valuable because you could salvage it into a base component that could be further applied to your equipped gear through tinkering. There were quest items, unique items, and event items on top of that. Towards the end, they introduced tailoring which even FURTHER allowed customization of your equipped gear. There were your weapon types, plus elemental versions of each, which then could be imbued/rended with the salvaged components mentioned earlier. It was an extremely deep, rewarding, and yet easy-to-understand system.
@@jong2359 Well said. The ability to work on gear was a fairly unique gearing method. I wonder how it would have worked if the game had continued to live and new expansions had been added. The one thing I really didn't care for, was the chance to break something on upgrading. I get the risk versus reward aspect, but as you said, finding that one perfect Orb, and then getting it all the way up to rank 9, just have the over-max buffed crafter break it, while trying to get it to level 10 - that was just heart breaking and felt awful.
@@ChristopherCDaniels They did change this in the final days with some options for full-proof salvage (100% success rate.) It helped reduce or eliminate the risk with extreme value items. The cost of full-proof salvage was high in either time or MMD's... but probably better than that heart breaking feeling you mentioned, lol. You do know the game is alive and kicking, right? I still play sometimes on Reefcull. Best MMO revival ever, imo.
I personally love FF14, the story is so gripping , the music is incredible, the developers actually care and the community is amazing. So I think the glory days are still going for me.
I was going to say this. I’ve been playing since ARR and Endwalker was a great finale. The patch story is fantastic so far leading up to the next expansion.
@@Hideo_Kojima_yt Thats an opinion sure, I played WoW for ten years and FF14 is way fucking better in everything. And objectively FF14 may not be your taste, but it is a great MMORPG. Way more than WoW ever was.
@@Ninja40K Raiding, mount farming, glam farming, maps, relic weapons, RP, social events like glam competitions, housing, crafting, can level every job (class) on one character. There's is a crap tonne of replay ability, and I've not even listed everything. Also I want to say FF14 probably has the hardest end game content of any MMO.
Honestly the biggest thing we need for the glory days to return is a change in the playerbase. We've already got quite a lot of MMOs that offer everything you need to make the secondary world your home but people just don't play these games like that anymore. Nowadays people are so fixated on rushing to level cap and minmaxing the fun out of everything by looking up stuff like leveling guides before they even decide if they'll buy the game or not. Even if the game has no cash shop people will buy gold from bots, that's the reason gold farming bots are as plentiful as they are. If there's no customers there's no gold sellers. On top of that people are constantly looking at steam charts and leave games as soon as they see the numbers dropping because nobody wants to play an mmo without a lot of players so people drop games that they otherwise enjoy just because they think it's dead on arrival.
Fantastic video. I truly do miss the glory days of MMORPG. The older MMOs had a true sense of adventure and exploration. The progression actually meant something. There was true danger in exploring and getting groups together took work. There were also social hubs which were a blast to be part of in game. The games now are created to annoy the player into paying money. It is such a vile biome that gaming is in now with cash shops.
mmorpg will popular again after riot released their mmo game. because whatever they've made, it always popular. league of legends, valorant, arcane, ruined king, even cinematic videos and music videos for skin promotion became popular.
The genre suffers from an extreme case of trope overload. The only real difference between games is how well the same old systems are implemented. Once you've played one fantasy mmorpg, you've essentially played them all.
@@agrippa2012 Merriam-Webster defines "TROPE" as: "a common or overused theme or device : cliché". Yes there is an alternate definition, but in English many definitions share the same word.
@@remus4283 I can't take Merriam-Webster seriously after they changed the definition of "literally". All cliches are tropes. But "Trope" doesn't mean cliche.
Its funny, for a while now I've had an MMO idea I've been sitting on where the game would have a discovery system. Idea would be to have items require identification, down to rocks, herbs, monsters, all the way to gear, magic, and other players. The plan would be to have items that become common to be named by the first person to study the item (Not just finding it, example being an alchemist that successfully finds out the herb is poisonous.) Within reason, likely have mods available to rename stuff as needed lol. Then the next bit of the game would be about regional loot/monsters. Make the world big, or make travel hard, and have it be populated based on region. So if a group were to settle on one continent, they might have access to relics that deal in fire magic, but across the sea, they have lightning magic. This way players can't just pick up the best gear or hunt down exactly what they need, but instead would have to make do with what they manage to get or it would encourage trading cross large portions of the map. This would also assume players build their own settlements, towns, cities, etc. Other bits of ideas: Currencies minted by settlement/country to reduce RMT, God influences/soft rep system to discourage players from becoming murder hobos, soft-permadeath to establish risk (Like full loot pvp or some sort of inheritance system.), NPC monster race diplomacy to allow players to recruit NPCs or maybe even join their ranks. Anyways, cutting the idea short, I came up with the idea as an attempt at limiting player pre-planning. While eventually things might shift and guides will be made, I'd hope at the very least each region would have a unique approach to gameplay. Middle of the video reminded me of this, thought I'd share. Any devs out there looking, feel free to steal.
EVE Online probably does regionality the best. A lot of logistics goes into collecting resources, trading, and fueling wars. Different factions have different equipment strengths and dominate certain sectors. I think one of the main things that killed regionality in MMOs is the ability to instantly teleport anywhere, which keeps you from consistently interacting with the same people, and thus subverts any sort of community-building. Most of what made an MMO an immersive experience was destroyed in the name of "accessibility."
In an ideal world, your mmo would be huge, in this world however it would gather a small fanbase cause the systems have inconveniences built into them, players hate those and don't want to work to surpass them
2002-2012 was also for me the golden era of MMOs for me. Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, Diablo II, Rift, Lord of the Rings online, that's where I spent that decade and 7 of them years was just in DAoC.
I love hearing this EQ2 music again. Such an underrated mmo that always seemed to get eclipsed by WoW in media and the public in general. I've played that game since I was 11, and played the TLE (time locked environment) servers numerous times throughout the past few years.
I do believe that great part of the fault lies with us, the players. The "GO GO GO!" mentality and the fact that before a new MMO launches there's already hundreds of videos showing the META and what people "need" to play to be viable or optimized takes the fun and wonder out of games. Part of the modern gaming scene I think.... such a shame.
More people need to realize this, the problem is no one cares. The majority of the community dictates what happens. Devs need to understand this too and create in-game systems/solutions to fix the problem. For instance, DONT GIVE AWAY INFORMATION ABOUT THE GAME PRIOR TO ITS RELEASE. Secondly, make information more difficult to document. The second one is harder because creating content that is "random" makes the world feel less realistic in some ways. There's a whole slew of problems that come with trying to make it more difficult to document information, but it's a necessary route to explore for solutions. The best solution I've seen is actually from back in Classic EQ! (What a shocker!) Remember when you would buy your spells and the only information you got was the spell name? You had to cast it on someone/mob in order to get feedback in chat/character sheet in order to FIGURE OUT what it did. Talk about knowing your class inside and out.
As a hobbyist game designer I've been thinking a lot about the "landscape" of gaming at the moment, and the weirdest realisation was that, in many ways, games didn't change at all. We did. Games have only gotten better, more immersive, more imaginative and creative, better looking and sounding. But a lot of gamers, with Steam Libraries full of fantastic titles, have been reduced to the quick-hitting Dopamine of the "Find Match" button (be that MOBAs, Battle Royales or FPS shooters). I can unfortunately say that this has plagued me for many years now. Don't get me wrong, I love playing a game of dota with my friends, but I do feel like the long-term value of the MMOs of old are completely lost, and, even if it would stare me in the face, would I really want that grind, that effort again, or would I just keep queueing for quick, empty matches of dopamine. Edit: I don't mean that MMOs are just "grind" and "effort" - I just mean that personally I've gotten so used to the slot machine dopamine hits that I wonder if I'll be able to play even a good MMO again. And if I wonder that about myself, at 30 years old, how would the new generation of gamers feel about MMOs?
I think exactly the same thing but oppositely of you (if i understood correctly) i completely hate "find match" games. They feel empty and all the time i dumped into them just feel like a waste. On the other side MMORPGs makes me want to keep play and never i felt time was wasted even if the game was bad and i abandoned it after 1 month or less... I think as Peon said that the biggest issue is having way too much information before the games even comes out killing the discovery and with it the feeling of adventuring in an unknown world...
Yeah, I try to regularly ask myself if I'm having fun. Game designers are really good at getting players to form habits, which lead to addiction. Imagine playing games out of compulsion instead of for joy. I think more people need to be educated on recognizing the habit forming mechanics in games.
I agree and disagree. A lot of development companies, and a common develop approach, has become McDonalds. Low quality goods pawned at high volume, and people mindlessly consume it because everyone else is. Also, nononw trusts AAA studios anymore, and they are really the only studies that can afford to make an expensive MMO. No one wants to get Fallout76'd, Cyber Punk'd, Anthem'd, etc...
it seems like the success of mmos back in 2002-2012 is due to their graphics, i speaking about world of warcraft and runescape, 2 games that i love, their graphics back in the day were amazing and somehow i feel nostalgic even when i play runescape today, because it takes me back to those days, its weird to explain, but those graphics are so beautiful, and modern games dont give you the feeling of what those games give you, i would never give up on them, and maybe thats why modern mmo rpg's dont get so many players, because the graphics influence the feeling that you have about the game, its like it seems wrong to make modern rpg's with todays graphics.
We need AI to be able to create dynamic quests on the fly that are not just switching out this enemy for another. Worlds need to be less shallow (hint: add politics such as warring countries and you taking part in something bigger than yourself). New content is always a big draw for players to remain engaged and new content is not reusing the same enemy but slapping a different hue on it and just upping the stats. I think that developers have a problem with turning out original ideas at this point because they are afraid to try new things. Especially when your investment costs so much and nothing is guaranteed to give you a return. I agree with Lazy Peon here that if we can drastically reduce development costs with AI, the main problem will start to be resolved which is new content.
"Whenever a new MMO is released, we're ready to min/max the shit out of it" ..and there's your problem, summed up nicely. Players who only care about the meta are the ones who kill the fun out of these MMOs. There's so much more to playing these games than that, but they all swoop in, treat the game like a spreadsheet, get bored of doing that, because ITS BORING TO DO THAT, then blame the game for lacking content, start claiming its dead, then they move onto the next victim. It really sucks
There is creativity problem with the entire game industry. In the early days of computer games, and in the glory days, there were no established rules and conventions. In those days games defined genres. Today, genres define games. The reason every game feels like a reskin of some other game, is ultimately because that is exactly what they are. Every game has to fit into a genre. The genre has hard and fast conventions that must be followed, and they define what the game is going to be, before the design process even starts. The lack of rules and established conventions that have to be followed is risky. If you don't follow the rules and work within the conventions you risk breaking customer expectations, you also risk making a game that doesn't work (not technically, but doesn't work as a concept). However, if you don't work outside of those limits, the entire industry will stagnate and slowly die. Which is what's happening now. I believe that many of the problems with both games and entertainment media in general (ie movies) is that the design decisions are made by market research in a vain attempt to appeal to the broadest market possible. This results in an uncreative, bland, game. These may sell well for the time being, but they have no staying power and nothing to hold people. No one will be nostalgic for these games in 20 years. Regarding MMORPG's in particular, I have basically given up on the Genre. I absolutely despise the arcade combat and graphical style that seems to dominate.
While there's some truth to the things mentioned in the video, I'm surprised to see that a few more important factors were left out (in my opinion). 1) ITEM VALUE- games have been focusing way too much on bringing in new items that it turns other items useless. RuneScape is a good example of this, each weapon specializes in a stat, and there aren't too many weapons. Which is good, in my opinion. 2) dress up MMOs - another consequence of these constant item releases are that it turns the game into a dress up game. So much so that it becomes the primary focus of the game, instead of the gameplay. 3) similar concept to monsters, if you release too many "cool" mobs, it desensitizes you from other mobs. After seeing a friggin' dragon, you won't have fun killing anything else
FF14 is pretty much all I need at this point and for the time I have. Sure, I'd like to see an engaging open RPG where you can have exotic classes, a deep combat system, tons of player-influenced lore, player run cities, etc... But I doubt that will ever happen again. The closest I've seen of any of that since Face of Mankind died was just... Minecraft faction servers. And even those got ruined by in-game community monetization on most servers, player counts killed by cataloguing servers, and just a lack of creativity among players.
XIV could be much improved. They became lazy after HW and decided to fast track many aspects of the game. In Arr, it definetely needed some help in that aspect, but it was also Lv.1-50, not 10 level increments. Where there could be large swathes of content they decide to hammerfuck the cash shop instead. Many doors have been closed and paths closed to which they could have expounded on the base of what they had made. No more GC quests, data centres have made all NM content a Zerg run. They've realized they can get away with that and more because a large part of the player base is more worried about race genders and housing than they are about class quests or anything similar. Patches are destroyed within hours leading to the linear end game sphere to rinse and repeat. I still play myself, and the visuals and most often than not, musical themes and story tellers have created a unique World that is compelling for the most part. They're going to have to do better than Criterion to impress me. The addition of Island sanctuary is a welcome addition, but the game could do much more.
I remember when you saw a level 100+ in RuneScape back in the day, you were stunned, how can a character be so powerful? It just isn't the same anymore, no one cares anymore, it doesn't have that same effect anymore. If you saw a level 126 in RuneScape they were basically seen as a god of sorts, people would kiss their ass, that red text you see when someone is a much higher level than you, like you don't mess with that guy. Man I miss that feeling. 😣
Lots of really good points in both the video and the comments section about societal, generational, and development factors that have led to the sunsetting of the Glory Days of MMOs. I've got another one to throw into the arena: Time investment. I honestly believe Time Investment requirements AND availability by players has contributed to the infuriating success of P2W, despite how much everyone hates it. No-Life-ing in video games during the golden era existed, but I don't remember it being anywhere near as prevalent. Some people played more than others, sure - but back then (as the stereotype goes) it was just a few greasy unemployed nerds in their Mom's basements. These days, with the success of streaming and UA-cam, talented players have financial incentive to play 16 hours a day. That massively warps the ability of people without that kind of time from being competitive in progression, guild formation, skill advancement, etc. People with full time jobs, family obligations, and/or a general limit on their available time look at P2W as a catch-up method to not fall "behind-the-curve". However, the curve invariably shifts as the P2W becomes mandatory for people to remain competitive. Now it's not a catch-up method, but an additional method for excelling. The P2W-Workers might be able to keep up with the F2P-Grinders, but the P2W-Grinders continue to pave the way. There are so many great reasons for why gaming was different in the golden era. I agree with Peon that discovery and a sense of exploration was the appeal of my first few MMOs (Asheron's Call, WoW, SW:G). But Min-Maxing absolutely has changed world exploration and immersion - likely for everyone, but certainly for myself. I was content to explore a world, try a quest, get humbled by a mob or boss that was too strong for me. But these days, I don't feel accomplishment unless I'm being efficient. I see mobs and wonder what they drop, or what part of a quest they're associated with. If none, I skip them. If the quest is too far out of the way, I drop it. I don't run up the mountain just to look and see anymore, I run over to Google and figure out what's up there to save me the trip. Asheron's Call was nothing but exploration. The only reason to get stronger was to feel safer exploring new parts of the world. That model would be DOA at this point, and I understand why. The mystery is gone. But MMOs can succeed again if they give us gameplay that evolves. The only way to do that is with insane development burden, or... to let it evolve by putting the power in the hands of the only other natural gaming evolution we've seen: the players. Make the game about the player interaction. Bring back the MMO of the MMORPG. Games where you click two buttons and instantly get paired with players to run a dungeon that only exists to complete a quest where nobody talks to each other and gets mad if the others aren't playing optimally because it hurts their efficiency? They might as well be playing by themselves with bots. Make community matter, make the Gameplay loop INVOLVE player interaction. Incentivize exploration. Slow down the leveling process, increase difficulty, make the world scarier. Make progress less linear. If we can find a game that accomplishes this, we can make equity for all gamers. No-Lifers can enjoy the game for hours and casuals can come online and still contribute meaningfully (put them on a catapult in a castle siege. Nominate them as Mayor of a town who comes in and reviews progress. Their lower stats no longer matter. Things like that). I think the Glory Days may be gone, but it's only the Golden Era because it's the best time we've had SO FAR. We can usurp that throne with new experiences, we just haven't found the magic yet. Crossing my fingers for Ashes of Creation. Steven Sherif and Intrepid seem to get it. Let's see how that goes!
Well, I hate to admit it...New World dev team are making the right moves lately and it's gaining traction again,been playing it for two weeks again now and I'm enjoying it very much.
There's a lot riding on Ashes of creation. That sense of wonder when you first log into a new MMO and throughout the leveling process. With each new skill and region to explore, that curiosity and childlike wonder sticking with you for months at a time. Whereas the MMO's we've had over the past 10 years, we get that feeling for a few days and then it's just the same thing over and over again. It's soooo demotivating and dissatisfying. P2W has ruined MMO's these days. The honeymoon period is the leveling process. Once that's over and the P2W comes into play then all the great things you thought the game was, are no longer great. The potential you thought the game had, dies and eventually you just feel sad inside while you're still playing and hoping for a miracle. Yet the miracle never happens. I have such high hopes for Ashes and I will be supporting it until it's release. As with many others, Ashes will be my last hurrah. I'll throw everything I have at it. If it doesn't live up to the expectation then that'll be it for MMO's for me. I'll take up a new hobby like fishing.... or hiking. Ew.
I mean, if the game becomes what it promises, and if it is released, it will never work imo, because the game bascially seems to demand to become your job with all its city and housing management etc. It's not something you can keep up with only playing here and there a few hours (especially as an full time working adult with family and kids etc)
ArcheAge 2 is also in development you know & Jake Song himself is leading the project, I'm talking for the revolutionary creator of the first ArcheAge & also Lineage, this is the guy who started everything this is the one who set the rules about how an OW-PVP MMORPG suppose to be & this is the guy who introduce all the sandbox elements & Sea/Naval content we have experienced in AA, I would suggest you to have your eyes & ears open for this game as I have no doubt that it's going to be a really amazing & unique game that will amaze everyone when it finally come out, me personally I'm more excited to hear news about AA2 than AoC.
@@patoo7989 mmo's have always been demanding on time though, nothing new. Just have to be able to enjoy it casually with time restraints ..if possible.
To come back to popularity I think MMOs should embrace private servers from the start. There would two versions available to buy: the client and the server one. The publisher would never have to bother with server costs. They could simply release extra assets and tools to keep money flowing.
The whole "global servers / queues" was a downgrade of gaming in my opinion. I miss the days where dedicated servers were top dog and you were playing with same people over and over and eventually bond with. Today people come and go, and you never see them again.
Love it, i need a Part 2 of this video. We need to discuss about emerging technology and how that can impact in real gameplay. Video game industry is repeating itself over old references, reusing elements, as basic as the minimap dude. Minimap Click here, click that, cast this and cast that. Sea of Thieves do one thing in an incredible way and that is the sailing system. You don't control the ship with buttons, you do it as if you where in the real ship, using the ropes, using the map and using the compass with the wind. I guess developers back then couldn't even dream with such technology, so they added minimaps and quest logs. Back then we did not have the computing power we all share today, and somehow, we have managed to use it with ideas that comes from 2005, using 2023 graphics. World of Warcraft was outstanding because it was the first of its kind bringing a more immersive, beyond anything seen before in multiplayer experience. The world seemed to have no limits, and you felt like part of something new. You can't achieve something-new feeling without really making something new.
I used to play an MMO called Asheron's Call back in the days before WoW and it's still the best gaming experience I've ever had. No other game has even come close to that one
One of the best videos you've made, absolutely love the change of philosophy and owning that we might be at fault. It's a human thing, the rat race mentality towards meta and 'feeling power' in a pixeled virtual world vs the possibility of interact and be part of a community, explore amazing lore's and worlds etc. Both developers with a cash grab mentality and us players are at fault.
Back in the day the phenomenon of MMO was something unique and separate from the rest of the genres. You had your single-player adventures, your multiplayer death-match arenas and then there's the massive open-worlds filled with real players. Of course the MMO genre looked very attractive to people. We even didn't have that many open-world games in general, let alone ones set in a fantasy world packed with real players. Today every other game has either an open world or an MMO-like multiplayer, plus we've gotten so used to the concept. It's not that new MMOs are bad. It's just that people need more of an incentive to keep playing them now. Old MMOs could afford to be clunky and hostile to newcomers, people still stuck with them because they wanted to experience that open-world role-playing. Today they're ten time more newcomer-friendly and accommodating in general, yet we keep finding flaws in them because we have many other cool things we could be doing instead of playing them.
If you ask me, the "glory days" of MMOs will never return because they are stained in nostalgia. And while I'm sure that there will always be companies making MMOs, I doubt much will change. F2P cash shops and pay for convenience are so ingrained into the genre that, unless you have passion projects like Ashes of Creation, it will likely not go any different route, particularly when the majority of MMOs nowadays still come from South Korea. The Riot MMO will probably shake things up a bit and knowing their usual business model they may actually do some stuff differently, but will it be enough to revitalize the entire genre? We'll have to wait and see I guess.
Knowing Riot's track record of games and media as a whole I'm confident it's going to forego the WoW route and subvert expectations. Legends of Runeterra, TFT and Valorant all have nice twists on their respective genres and Arcane is not like anything I'd ever seen before. I'm cautiously optimistic about the MMO.
Ultimate Online was a once in a lifetime experience at the time. I still think that open sandbox style with a modern unreal engine 5 tech and ways for users to generate custom content (like people hosting raffles in uo) would be a beautiful thing
I played the beta for ESO with some friends and wasn’t super impressed, but so they’d have a full group, 3 friends got it for me. So I jumped in on pc day 1 in 2014. No lie not even a week after playing, that whole group stopped leaving me all alone. As I was lonely and bored, I was gonna quit, when as a level 30, I decided to go to cyrodiil (open world PvP) and joined a campaign with really only 2 guilds battling it out for control. I joined the guild that repped my faction, and the rest is history. I put in over 10k hours into ESO, 90% of it in PvP. The player conflict created an element that the devs didn’t make. The drama between us was a hat kept me going. Getting emperor in an era where it was an actual accomplishment before players farmed it for it each other, and getting recognized afterward is what kept me going every single day. That guild eventually fizzled out too (and I tried making my own for a bit) but a group of players who also pvp’d since launch let me join them and we took it to a new level. Organization, roles and discipline allowed for our entire guild to be recognized as one of the best for our faction and revived my love once again. All this to say, the game can only be as good as the devs make it. For me, and many other players, it’s that social element the devs can’t code into the game that keeps us around. I long for that feeling again. I haven’t been active at all in ESO since about 2019, mostly because I had a kid. But I have time every night to play games and would gladly jump back in if my guildies returned. I hope ashes of creation is good. Many of us reconnected and said we’d give it a shot if it lived up to the hype
GW2 is another game that has seen growth in recent years, prolly not on the scale of FF14 but its doing well and worth checking. From my personal PoV its definitively the best one on the market right now as many of its design choices that were controversial when it first launched are actually very welcome now. Not sure why it can't ever seem to gain any mainstream traction though.
Well I came from Guild wars starting with day 1 proph, some former gw1 players hated gw2 when it came it because of the "gameplay" I was and still am one myself, I feel mmos were only good when you more or less needed to talk and party with people to get over bosses etc ala WoW originally (Classic got me back in) I can see why It doesnt get a mainstream audience though, it is the most fair but it is awfully boring to watch imo, so much more fun to actually play. Maybe thats why?
My main problem was that Gw2 aint a sucessor of Gw1. There is no hunting for skills, a sword lvl 1 has the same skills of a sword high level. If u cant change ur skills, whats the point on going for better gear? Just too se a bigger number on screen? Fuck that...
Some extra ideas: - rise of internet and easy access to information also makes it easier to find better games + games are easier than ever to buy (many are even free) - with social media being everywhere, just the fact that the game is online and alows you to meet new people is not enough to make it good anymore - new mmos have a really small pool of potential players to get, many players will only try them out but not play long therm because they already have a main game or they are only there to chase the new mmo high - mmos being massive and expensive doesnt promote experimentation and makes it hard for smaller indie dews to get in, its all big publishers with the preorder half baked product filled with mtx bs
The thing about mmo is that the genre uses 5th Aesthetics (look at "Aesthetics of Play" by extra credits) - fellowship. For that the collectivism is needed, but form sociological point of view, at the moment, the world is much more toward the individualism than collectivism (where "individualism + collectivism = 1; so collectivism = 1- individualism). People don't need too much fellowship aesthetics when the individualism is much higher then collectivism, so they can fulfill it with games like Monster Hunter; and they can fulfill other aesthetics connected with mm's (like competition by pvp) much faster with games focused on pvp like Overwatch etc. The premise of the return of mmo will be the return of classes that cannot exist without clans - like buffers from L2, and even Ashes of Creation won't change it. With higher collectivism people will be more willing to spend time for others and for clans, so they will play mmo once again, but you have huge point about sharing the information - back then the clan was needed for that. Today you have other channels for information exchange With individualism people do have time for such long interactions as were needed in old mmo's. Sooo the "mmo" of individualism times are games like the MH rise and Overwatch.
I remember the first time i played Lineage II on a local cyber-coffee, i created my first character and idk how i got to Dion around level 15, i went outside the city and died like 300 times. After some 30 minutes of frustration, i created an elf character, went to an unknown zone just by exploring the gatekeeper options and ended up on the "Neutral Zone" which was on the middle of 3 starting areas. Spiders started chasing me and after running for like 5 minutes straight, i died and spawned on a completely different city, the dark elf village, fell in love with the city and created a dark elf, and the story repeats, i created every possible character just to explore local cities. I think that games like WoW and Lineage II, had this feeling of being truly open world, i could run into a mob which is 30+ levels beyond me and i would feel the danger, also ambientation will change drastically, when you entered a new high level zone in Lineage 2, you felt like you were in danger(For example going from leveling outside Dion to leveling on Excecution Grounds). This feeling of danger is just not present anymore in modern mmo's, maybe Black Desert can give you that for a moment if you accidentally enter to Star's End during some quest. New World almost nailed this feeling too, when you get to higher level zones everything looks darker, and mobs start to hit you hard, but i feel that most mmo's are not trying to give that feeling of danger and dark ambience on high level zones. I agree on that min-maxing part, people are just creating a whole new mathematic system around games, i feel like most players today are not connected with that feeling of just playing, just like if you were a child. When kids are playing with new toys, they don't care about materials, how much it will last, who is the CEO of Hasbro, and so on, they just play, and enjoy their new toy. Nowadays i feel like people is more connected with a feeling of addiction/scapism and less connected with the pure joy of just playing something on a computer, which is fucking amazing by itself.
I am happy to see a few frames of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen in this video. I rarely hear you talk about it but it's the game I am currently most excited for.
Agreed! Pantheon is overlooked big time. Getting back to why we all played mmos back in the day. Hopefully it will be that surprise title that brings a rebirth. Not because of the hype, but because of the quality of the game and the passion of the developers which is not influenced by a pushy publisher to meet their economic deadlines.
I'm really looking forward to Ashes of Creation and hopefully that game will just breathe new life into the genre. I know it's the hopeium talking, but the game looks to be everything we could ask for in an MMO and the combat they displayed on the developer live stream looked very promising. I also enjoy watching the lore videos Necrit has been posting about the Riot MMO and I am super interested in seeing what comes of that game as well. I'm not invested in any of the Riot universe but those videos single handedly made me want to.
The glory of days of MMOs returning depends on both developers and the players themselves. A good MMO needs developers who cares about what they're making (Like Yoshi-P with FFXIV) and treats the players as valued gamers, not just cash cows. They also have to make the right choices on game design (Like not making long boring grinds). And on the other end, the players themselves need to form a good community and culture that welcomes new players and minimalizes or frowns upon rushing to endgame and worrying about FOMO. Players themselves need to be able to have fun just adventuring again without looking up stuff or rushing to max level.
I still play on official Ultima Online servers, on a low population local shard and there's still always someone online who is happy to talk. In saying that, I may only play for 30 minutes or less a day, in the morning before work. The time frame you mention pretty much covers my schooling life, when I had hours and hours to spare and did spend a lot of time in MMOs along with my friends. These days I just don't have the time sink hours into a game and I'm sure this is true for a lot of people, MMOs or not. I play Ultima Online because I can just run around and train my skills, much like RuneScape, in quick bursts here and there. I very rarely have time to sink into daily chores online which only then ruin those games for me because it feels like if you aren't doing those chores, you fall behind. And then maybe I do follow a questline in WoW only to find it ends with a raid and I just never have the time to be able to raid. I know it sounds like I'm complaining, but I love my life and I love my work, so that is why I don't have time and like I said, I'm sure there are countless people who grew up around the same time as I, who spent their days online, but now just don't have the hours to sink into an MMO anymore. I honestly believe the decline in MMOs is just the main playerbase from the "Glory days" getting older and finding they have no spare time.
I think we're going to see more smaller scale games with shared social hubs and instanced outside world than a more open world MMO like the older ones that are still around. Don't get me wrong, I like the former, but the later also has it's charms and but the other gives you a bit more control over your ability to interact with other players in either a co-operative or adversarial fashion.
If Classic WoW has taught us anything it’s that the magic of old school MMO’s as we remember them are highly unlikely to ever return. The community and goals of players is completely different compared to back then and the plethora of social media content telling everyone how to min-max adds pressure to follow along even if you don’t want to. A game that isn’t being flooded with guides and datamining will be quickly dropped by most players for that easy success alternative from a game that does cater to telling them everything. I think the best we can hope for is for one of these MMOs to be good enough to capture a small niche audience and maintain that stable playerbase actively but I fear even that is beyond hope due to the overhype and subsequent very publicly covered huge decline after the honeymoon period ends. Ashes is already well on that hype train and I fear it will never hit the lofty expectations everyone has for it.
I've seen people say otherwise though and like classic wow. Of course the game won't be bustling with new players though because new gen gamers care about graphics more, plus people aren't going to buy an older game or wow, there needs to be better ftp trails. Classic wow does feel similar to what it was, but it's most ppl second playthrough while the game didn't add or change things in a way that would be faithful to the spirit of older mmos.
I think it was discovering the internet that made the games magical, I remember being shocked that everyone in game was a real person and it was like jumping into a fantasy world in real people and just being excited to explore with people. It was the same when I started paying age of mythology and just played that game every single day for like 7 years with my clan it was such a magical moment when the internet wasn’t corporate and it was just normal people with total freedom and play and do cool things
@@HaiLsKuNkY I feel this! My first online game back in the day was Multi-Theft Auto: Vice City and would play for hours and hours for nothing more than fun, it was incredible to be playing with other people online. Original WoW was the same, think I took over 6 months to hit 60 the first time around just due to being immersed in the world. That kinda time would be unthinkable now.
if thats the case all of the kids today are jaded to MMO lmao since MMO as a genre is dead. the old people are the ones who keep the MMO genre alive. I cant blame the kids though almost all new MMO and as well as the old one are heavily p2w compare to the old days.
What I need is Elden Ring but as an MMORPG, I think the problem is with modern MMOs at least for me is that I don't feel that what I do actually matters, or that I accomplished anything... In From Software games like in Elden Ring you see something shiny guarded by one or multiple hard ass enemies who kill you a couple of times before you finally brute force your way through or outsmart them and even though that shiny item might be something useless like some herb or other type of consumable, you still feel a sense of accomplishment for deleting the enemies guarding it after failing hard a couple of times. Not to mention the visual progression, I started naked in Elden Ring and now I look like a samurai warlord.
WoTLK Classic feels more like an MMO back in the glory days more than ever right now. I joined three different groups in the first start area alone. New world has improved a lot, but still a ways to go
I agree. So far I've done raids and joined a guild which never happened in the almost 10 years I've played retail. Just never had to. WOTLK classic feels amazing and is super social!
One thing i always felt was working against MMOs is simply time When MMOs started coming out, i was a child, i wasnt overly critical of Storytelling, gameplay mechanics, or anything like that. I was simply bedazzled easily with a fantastic world and the fantasy of it. All of my friends was too, I knew VERY few adults who played video games, and even those were still only around 25 I'm 30 now, I have grown more critical of the games I play, more picky, it takes a lot more to ensnare me by a game than it used to. And I dont have the time to put into gaming I used to either. World of Warcraft, for instance, I think came out at just the right time. with the growing number of young children gaining access to PCs in the mid Naughties. there are still children today obviously and as a teacher i have seen them just as easily impressed with so so little from games as i would have been back then. The MMO Genre might gain popularity again but I doubt it will be from us, it will be from a potential new wave of young people. MMOs, Open World and all that just doesnt impress us enough anymore to keep our attention. We have too much experience, we have seen enough good and bad games to know what is worth our time, we cant enjoy new games uncritically any more cause we arent children anymore at least thats my take on it.
Well im 28 and im absolutely obsessed with lost ark since it came out..besides some downsides, its close to my dream mmo I have some friends which always talk about what they want to see in a MMO or some other genre of game, and then when they get it, they have sth to complain again and move on its just exactly what you explained + that most people dont actually know what they want One friend of me wants a mmo where he can absolutely lose himself in and where he can keep grinding to become more powerful and it also should have challenging content in endgame, but then in lost ark for example he complains that its too time consuming I dont believe people like him are ever gonna be happy with games anymore
MMO is fine , people will come if the game is worthy . A few things I look for 1- peoples time If you play PvP you should gets ranks / titles / outfits based on time spent . And it should be worthy , like you shouldn’t be able to get it in 1 month . A player who plays a game for 5 years should get a skin that represents that time spent. Then you should get something from skill . 2- adventures worth while Going to a dangerous area should require teaming with people , there should be multiple ways to get there and multiple ways to win . 3- beautiful chaos A MMO , you shouldn’t be completely safe , nothing should be guaranteed. It allows for people to play as pirates , smugglers or thieves . Others to play police and body guards . You have to give people fun things to do that aren’t as a scripted as a monster encounter or dungeon . Other small things but a lot of people are waiting for a MMO worthy of commitment
I think you hit the nail on the head here. I'm hoping the new mmo's will be big, different, and cater to casual players, unlike previous mmo's that basically caters to those who can play 24/7 and get a head start. There have been a lot of MMO's that I personally have enjoyed, but they rarely manage to keep me interested for more than a month or two - even if I really WANT to like the game!
So you basically want an ocean without water? An mmo that has no content for hardcore players simply means it has already failed. I don't think you're looking for an mmo, you should try mobile games instead.
The "Glory Days" in all things are nothing more than a fallacy. Most older MMO gamers tend to talk about the mid 90s to the early-mid 2000s as the golden era of the genre without looking at the context surrounding WHY MMOs were so big then. They were still in the infancy stage, people weren't adjusted to playing with people online while nowadays almost every big release is an always online live service. Instead of seeing the current era of massive games that you can jump into with your friends, people would rather reminisce on something that happened 20 years ago, while they were in high school or college, when they had no responsibilities; no bills, wife, kids, job. The games that released in that era compared to modern design are almost always far worse products. I'm only 20, so while some of you guys reading this comment were clearing, or failing to clear, molten core, I was in diapers. I have no nostalgia or attachment to older games, so I can view them through a lens of objectivity many of you can't. If there's a classic version of a game out there, I've played it and almost always quit after 100ish hours due to many factors that would've been overlooked at the time of release. Stop holding onto an ideal that never truly existed in the manner you remember, and look for new adventures, new worlds, new experiences. The MMO genre is at an unseen level of parity across the genre in the modern era; New World is steadily improving(despite how poor it was at launch), FFXIV has peaked story telling in MMOs and is pushing to be the best story told in a game period while also peaking in its Ultimate content, WoW is looking to reclaim its crown in Dragonflight with some massive shifts in ideology that improve the experience for casual players while removing many of the points of friction for more hardcore players, OSRS/RS3 remain the kings of seconds monitor gaming while also recently dropping some fantastic pieces of content in Tombs Of Amascut and Zamorak, ESO and GW2 both released great expansions, Lost Ark is great but of course is extremely P2W, and that's without mentioning the more niche MMOs like SWOTOR, I mean seriously, at this point if you're being a doomer about the genre; it's you not the genre. Even tangentially linked to the MMO genre, MMO-lites are in a great spot as well, Warframe is still great, Destiny 2 is the king of grinding games, PoE 2 and Diablo 4 are right around the corner and will fry the brains of many ARPG players. Stop being a doomer and realize that those nights grinding in DAoC on a late summer night as a 16 year old high school student with the guys will never come back. Look forward; because as long as you hold onto the past, you'll miss everything in front of you.
I honestly do miss having a good MMORPG to play. These days, I just find myself game-hopping, as there's nothing to really intrigue me for hours upon hours anymore. What I've also seen with a lot of MMO's in recent years; they only focus on combat, to appease the masses. MMO's need to return to the past; look at what has made things popular. Various classes. Non-gender lock. Free To Play, with membership options; nothing P2W. Various styles of combat. Intriguing quests. Puzzles. An amazing story and/or sidequests, or just many various quests with their own stories. Housing. Non-combat skills and gathering. I mean, I've been waiting for some to come out for a while - I know Ashes of Creation is the one "everyone is waiting for", but for me, the hype of it has died down considerably, especially when all I ever see with AOC is cash-shop backing and stuff. I also wasn't much a fan of when I heard that all the Battle Royale stuff people acquired will be provided to official game. Makes one think "backing" the game is now pointless, especially with how often they change the packs monthly. xD But that's just my viewpoint as to how, to me - it seems like they're just getting money, but, only time will tell what will happen with the game.
If all you've gotten out of TLP's coverage of AoC is they have cosmetic packs, you really haven't been paying attention. AoC is making the right moves, there's so much good to potentially happen for that game it just shows how jaded you are you're attached to them selling the packs as the thing you're concerned about.
I'm the same. New MMOs don't focus on giving a world to live in. they're so focused on this race to endgame to race to bosses to get gear to race to get bigger numbered gear.
@@jimjones9631 Well good thing Riot Games are developing an MMO! If you haven't checked out Necrit's video on the topic then you should, since as a lore fan of the world of Runeterra I can tell you the world is already insane and well built.
@@lostempyrean It isn't a bad game, I just found the side quests utterly boring compared to the main story (which was actually lovely). The classes I was able to utilize DPS, Healer and Tank. However, the non-combat skilling, I just wasn't much a fan of. It just didn't click with me, which was disappointing. As for Housing... I dislike how you have to have a bidding war every so often to keep the house. Overall, it's certainly not a bad game.
I think the dev should make mmo's with a offline single player and local/online multiplayer mode. This way when the mmo dies you can still keep selling game copies and players can still play the game with their friends. Basically make the "mmo" a single player game that players can connect to the internet to turn it into an mmo. (like the skyrim together reborn mod.) maybe even have 2 types of servers: one with the classic game and one when player can freely mod the game while still interacting with other players.
Gaming itself evolved and made MMOs redundant. Every multiplayer game nowadays connects people around the world. The magic of that first time you realized you were playing with tons of other REAL people can't be experienced ever again.
I think one of the problems is there are too many mmo games to choose from and players are divided not only by too many mmo games but from other game genre as well
I think the best MMO possible would be in Virtual Reality. It's the next iteration of discovery and exploration and that feeling of doing something completely new, the immersion is over 9000.
I agree with this, unfortunately I don’t feel VR is where it needs to be right now in order to be well paired with an MMO. Simply cause you spend so much time in MMO’s and if not immersed properly you’ll just want to get off. But I think when we hit the sweet spot of VR and MMO it will be great time
If anyone can ever be the, before so many times mentioned "WoW killer" and in this case bring the glory days back to MMO's, it's definitely Riot with their League Of Legends MMO. Riot has an insanely wide reach with their games and managed to already pull it off once and cement itself into the arguably most busy genre in the last decade or so, which is the FPS market. If that fails ... it's gonna be rought times for MMORPG games. There is also Ashes Of Creation and as amazing as that game looks, I don't think it will ever be widely known outside of the general "MMORPG Crowd"
@@spaceli0n damn buddy never seen somebody this wrong. 1. Even if dota 2 was a better moba, i’m talking about the lore. The league MMO will be an ACTUAL MMO set in the world. the LoL moba has nothing to do with it. 2. You dont know any league players if you think we are casual about the game, characters or world. Literally playing hundreds of ranked games, esports being big, everybody having favorite characters, every single person i met knows in which region their mains live.
@@lunahri4173 thats like saying warcraft 3 has nothing to do with world of warcraft. Sorry to hurt your feelings thst you play the worse version of dota 2. Enjoy your lore in what will probably be a crap mmo. Also I've never seen someone so wrong.
When a company reinvents the MMO and understands that it needs innovation, but it´s a heck of an undertaking and a risky one if not done properly. Just an example: Resource gathering isn´t done on the map, it´s done by starting or joining a mining company in a location of your choice. You hire a crew of miners who need to be paid, defended and dozens of related quests could be applied to the mining camp. The same for all gathering professions, each entangled in a web of questing, upgrading and defending.
I think you lightly touched on the core issue at hand here: in older mmo games the devs had an incentive to keep the game updated, current, fresh, and quality; now the devs focus instead on creating incentives for the player to keep coming back and spend more money. The former lends itself to quality game design, while the latter does not. Its focus isn't on good game design, but on good monetization. The incentives changed because of corporate greed, and gaming as a whole has suffered for it.
I think vr based is most likely going to be the experience that taps into the feeling of nastalgia of first stepping foot in to a new mmo. The immersion of my first mmo experience is what drew me into that world, and I really did get lost in it. Nowadays that just never happens anymore.
*Ashes Of Creation is the MMO that will push things forward, other studios will emulate their game trying to match it's success just as the WoW clones did.*
lots of valid points in this video ! tho i think people gotta give up on the "old school MMO" idea, it felt fantastic because these were different times. but all of what made MMOs magic at the time is just considered trivial nowadays : you can connect with millions of people around the world in a few clicks and that's just normal nowadays, discovering new worlds, marveling at their wonders and having an impact in these worlds is also something we're used to, RPGs do it much better than MMOs actually. that feeling of progression and theory crafting your character's build, roguelikes do it better and in a more replayable manner. tab target combat was fine 20 years ago, now that people have played games with better combat ( pretty much any action RPG those last 10 years ) they just expect more. to sum it up i think the problem is this : games have evolved and gotten better, MMOs didn't. now to be fair a few have tried, i played and actually enjoyed 2 MMOs ( so that's personal ) : phantasy star online 2 new genesis, and will get back to it since there's new content i didn't play and actually a game that was given a lot of shit : bless unleashed. both have good combat, that require you to actively dodge and/or parry or you'll get trashed by even basic mob packs, some very interesting mini boss fights that actually kinda feel like playing an easier soulslike game. also both have fast progression, i don't think the whole "progression over months or even years" concept can work nowadays. also subscription based games ? well the financial conjecture isn't the same as 20 years ago, you can't expect as much people being able to afford that. I think MMOs could do very well with a cosmetics only cash shop and maybe paid expansions but with a decent price tag, again if you're asking for 60 bucks every 3 months out of players it's gonna be tough. then again the access devs now have to procedural generation could greatly reduce the pace at which they need to pump out expansions so that's less development costs. I mean some games chose this model and are actually successful : destiny 2, the division 2 now I do realize FF14 kinda succeeded while retaining most old school MMOs concepts, including the subscription and honestly i can't really explain why, aside from the fact that it apparently has a great story, character development and I suspect the nostalgia from old timers plays a big role too, but you can't count on that everytime.
One of my biggest gripes with MMOs is the ease and difficulty of the game. The overworld content is usually drool inducing simple, even dungeons. While raids are difficult because some people are incompetent to the point you question if they're blindfolded and drunk. I don't want to waste my evening to kill a few bosses where I may not even get a piece of gear if we do manage it. It's a waste of time because I'm not enjoying it AND I'm not getting anything to show for it.
I believe MMOs will become impressive again once AI is building games. Coding at a rate that even a massive team could not, and adding things to the game that literally no one actually knows about cause a machine made it
Good Video. I do miss the glory days of MMOs because it seemed to meld progression systems I loved from RPG's with community. But because the ways of modern MMOs makes progression very taxing so they can monetize fast tracks... And the communities seem to be so focused on speedrunning these progression tracks. There is no longer that feeling of community or that feeling of good progression in MMOs. The two core tenets of what made an MMO amazing were devastated. Now the most popular MMO's are the ones that facilitate eRPers in the best manner because that's unfortunately the strongest community builders. It is why FF14 is the current king on community because the VAST amount of cosmetics that didn't get bogged down by WoW's same sense of Modesty that started in Wrath of the Lich king abandoning Cute or Sexy clothes. What do I know though I just write perverted things on the internet. But I feel like if an MMO wants to dethrone FF14 they need to release with THOUSANDS of high quality outfits and also the means to craft them. It creates content for crafters, Roleplayers, and PvE folks and an entire economy. Cosmetics and having a fancy hat and 30 types of swimsuits is infinitely more important to community and roleplayers then adding some 12 boss raid only 8% of the community will play. Thanks for reading my essay on why eRPers are the backbone of every emmersive MMORP community. And with an MMORP community really the only letter you are missing is the G and lets be real community doesn't care about the fucking "Game" part of these games.
For me, I have been playing MMOs for over 20 years now. I have at least 1 max level toon on every single MMO that was worth a try over all this time. MMOs are stale over the last several years, and classic WoW coming back out proved how hungry millions are for something to hit that urge. New world when it first came out was similar for the first month or 2. It had that feeling of adventure and exploring and open world combat that with voice chat enabled led to some hilarious times. My only hope is in Ashes of Creation, the Alpha testing has been quite fun and smooth. I cant enjoy any MMO right now, ff14 is either you enjoy doing the raids or mod the game to have orgy's in your house. New world there is literally nothing to do, tired of the 1 and only OPR and arena map. The weapon swap bug still happens 1/10 times and that will make me alt f4.
@@bigdaddynero I know over 500 people playing via discord servers. Half of them are literally ERPGers and some of them like the raids. None of them PvP or even talk about it lol. Shit my friend has every class max level every quest done. Has done everything there is to do and now she sends me nudes of her bunny girl.....
@@bigdaddynero yes 500 spread out across who knows how many servers. Across 100s of guilds full of 100s of people. Just because you do not partake in the lewd activities doesn't mean it's not rampant. Its why I do not play, every single guild I joined was not gamers. And I tried many times over the last 4 expansions that I just gave up once I got my samurai maxed I felt done.
@@bigdaddynero Well yeah, not saying its a bad game. It ate up a good amount of time with decent campaigns and had a nice flow to the job system. I wish I had that same experience, I joined maybe 7-8 guilds that were advertised as looking to do weekly raids. And they really were only raiding on 1 day a week. Maybe I am on the wrong server idk never tried to branch out more. Since no close friends were playing I just did as much enjoyable solo content I could. Legit my whole server felt like I was playing in some Goldshire twilight zone and everyone was trying to get me to get some mod that would let me see everyone else who also ran the mod...
So much has been written about this issue in so many places over the last several years, really. In short, that time frame was unique and won't return because people no longer look to games as primarily social experiences due to the rise of social media. The old skool MMOs were primarily social experiences, because they were pre-social media. And it was all very new, socializing on the internet with strangers. That moved into social media, and people became focused on playing games as games, and with pre-existing friends rather than people met in the game itself -- that shift made the games immediately less social, more "gamey", and therefore the designs shifted accordingly. At the same time, in the early 2010s other forms of online game became very popular -- first MOBAs and then battle arenas. These were free, attracted millions of players, generally had very hostile social environments (so people did not look to socialize in them with strangers generally), and were easy to play in short sessions while still feeling enjoyment and progress. MMO design changed accordingly to compete with these new genres (the same playerbase was playing the various genres and so it was the same players, generally, who were being competed for), which meant shorter sessions, more automated grouping, even less social focus, and emphasis on no subscription. This trend is durable, I think -- it isn't going to be reverted. The future? I think there is room for niche popular subscription MMOs. Ashes may become that, if it is done properly. But I don't think we will ever see another period like 2008-2012 in terms of popularity for the genre. People want games that are less time consuming, playable in shorter sessions, free, not forced socializing, and, generally, competitive in some way. That is most online gamers, including most people who play MMOs today. In the end, you're quite correct that the main reason is that players have changed. There is no way back to what it was, because the people who play the games are different, want different things, have different preferences, and so on. That's as true for the "new generation" of players as it is for oldbies who platyed UO and EQ back in the 90s ... very few of these people would tolerate a game designed anything like either of those in 2022. Even something like classic WoW, which clearly has some appeal, finds its appeal limited. Classic WoW in fact is a great example of the problem -- it wasn't the same precisely because people played it like it was a 2019 MMO because while you can bring back the 2004 game, you can't make the players the same as they were in 2004 -- people don't play that way any more, and we saw that in how people played classic WoW in 2019.
I don't think we can recreate those "good old days" again in the modern day, but there are things that can be done to regain that sense. Data mining will inevitably happen, but having a more aggressive policy against it like FF14 has made it harder to access compared to other MMOs like WoW. Another thing that really is a missed opportunity is having regularly scheduled community chats with a devs. I feel this is extremely underutilized. I know Ashes of Creation does this, and Yoshi-P and FF14 do too. One thing that Devs need to realize is respecting a player's time. It's okay to play other games for a well balanced "gaming diet". Playing one game to the exclusion of all else leads to boredom and burnout. Acknowledge that players want to try out other games, figure out ways to get them to come back and remind them why they fell in love with your game in the first place.
And then, a max level progression system, instead of simply an endless grind. For example, while daily quests in WotLK were mandatory for a few weeks after hitting level 80 (so you could get your shoulder enchants), for the most part they were just an optional boost to gold farming. There was a period of time where you needed to do the content, and after that you only did it if you wanted to. Compare this to MoP, where you have to meet your weekly cap of valor points so you can upgrade your raid gear. There was no end to that mandatory grind.
Palia looks beautiful. And it may be fun. But some of the Palia content creator fanatics has some super toxic political views that they inject into the game. There is an extreme amount of gatekeeping already. So I'm worried that the friendly, casual nature of what the community of Palia seems like will only be surface deep. Now, if they manage to keep the overt and controversial political stuff out of the game, great. We can just relax and have fun with people who have different opinions than us, and get along as people. Or... the gatekeeping shifts the community rapidly in one direction, and this results in the game design shifting in that same political direction, and people who just want to relax and explore a world together will be chased out. And that's a Palia that would lose my interest in a heartbeat.
@@nulltheworm oh wow I was not aware about any of that. hopefully it is as we hope and game stays relaxing and casual. I feel like many would benefit from it.
I played Fiesta Online for years when I was younger. Once, me and a friend of mine wanted to explore the world on an adventure. I remember very clearly, that we were so highly underleveled, that we died in a zone just from one attack. We waited 20mins before a priest came by and resurrected us. That was so much fun! It felt like a living busy world. We continued our journey and back then I didnt realise that this is a memory that would stay with me and that I still remember this journey to this day after over 13 years. The good old mmo times were the absolute best. My last hope is AoC.❤️
Holy shit, when you mentioned the peak of MMO glory days were around 2004-2012, that was around the time I was tweaking on Maple story, Runescape, and Vindictus. I was heavily addicted until I had to focus on college and find a job. I just didn't have time to be playing MMO's anymore, and honestly once Big Bang patch came out for Maple story and suddenly the challenge to level up disappeared, I just stopped. If anything, I think the biggest reason MMOs just dropped is because most of us millennials simply grew up and no longer had time to be playing games as much as we could before.
Simpe and fast Answer - Never. People who old dont have time to play only one game in this day and young must follow to trends - like New World in first month, then -> nobody play. People stuck with mmo like WoW because it's their daily routine, but only some people in this group want to try new MMO.
MMO's as a genera will never be the same as when they were at their peak because the playerbase that played them are way different from now, society itself and what is good or bad has completely changed, that feeling of social grouping and discovery is lost now in this latest generation of kids
I'm gonna echo the thoughts of a lot of people here and say that this myth of "the Golden Age of MMO's" isn't really reflective of the actual quality of the games now versus then, it's all about the novelty of playing online with friends and exploring not only these new virtual worlds with them, but also exploring the new accessibility of the internet to more and more people. A lot of folks would probably disagree with that, including yourself, but that's the way I see it. Gaming and MMO gaming was also a lot more niche than it is nowadays as well, and I think that's why a lot of the more "hardcore" games that cater to people who want to no-life and do full loot PVP and all that kinda stuff were considered a lot more popular than they are now. It's like a percentage thing almost where the ratio of hardcore gamers to normal and casual gamers was much higher back in the late 90's and early 2000's because gaming in general was less popular - and less "acceptable" to a large extent as well. Just pulling random numbers, 80/100 gamers were hardcore back then versus nowadays 20/100 are hardcore. So these games aren't necessarily bad, but people think they're bad, dead, or unsuccessful because it's not ALL THE GAMERS playing it, it's a small group of more hardcore people. On a related note, Josh Strife Hayes did a great video on why most modern hardcore full loot PVP MMO's have failed to gain much of an audience a few months ago I believe and that is somewhat similar to the point I'm trying to make here. Definitely worth a watch.
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What MMO have you been playing lately @TheLazyPeon?
Garrosh was right. *_" Times change. "_*
The answer is Sword Art Online and we all know it. Just replicate the show bit by bit and dont fuck it up
Part of the problems with MMOs is that they are games that require many years of time and investment in an industry that evolves on a yearly basis; So you have games like World of Warcraft that are over 15 years old that look and play like 15 year old games in an industry were things have improved in combat, graphics, and interaction with other players and hte environment. .
Whats more people dedicate a TON of time and money into them so for them to switch to newer MMOs is big struggle and, in truth, the loss of a financial, time, and emotional investment.
MMOS need to find a way to update every 7-10 years and allow people to transfer their progress and items or at least the skins of said items, into the newer version, which will ensure players do not feel like they have lost their investment.
there is one mmorpg game that I played more than five years, one of its kind, spaceship mmo Pirate Galaxy, which has 20 mb client, a simple game written in Java, available more than a decade, made by a few German developers, now in 2020s you can't even find 100 people online in a server, only a few players left. there is no other game like Pirate Galaxy where you can land on planet surface and use spaceships to fight against ennemies called "mantis" or "ancients" or boss "Giza"... sometimes I imagine it would be awesome if some other big company buy this game and remake it with unreal engine!
The magic of MMOs back then came from a very simple reason: Internet connection revolutionary, especially when applied to video games. You didn’t really have social media being as prevalent as it is today and the MMOs at that time were treated as chatrooms with games attached to them, as Josh Strife Hayes likes to put it. That is something that will never happen again in this day and age, social media is more prevalent than ever, tech is way better, and information is easier to access now that internet is not run on a potato, MMOs today should focus on actually being great games that are worth their asking price, instead of just artificially made friction for friction’s sake.
Exactly. I remember taking 3 months to leave the start island on Tibia (rookgard), cause i didnt login to get exp, i logged to chat with other people and meet new friends. A few years later same thing in Maplestory. Leveling was secondary. People nowadays just want to rush to endgame, there is too much toxicity on the community in MMOs in general as well. Most irl friends dont play anymore, which force u to meet people online, but if they are all the time hostile, there is no point in playing those games.
I disagree, this is maybe a game for a newer generation but have you seen the success of fortnite? And these kids live in a social media sphere.
Epic games managed to create a sense of community around their game where the players gather around just to hangout in games not only to play a competitive battle royale fps.
I tried for the 1st time this month and understood why it was so attractive to a younger audience. Game is fun, easy to learn and have lot of pop culture reference.
Hell you could even watch Dragonball z episode with your friends or stranger. Althought the permanent cash shop bait is predatory I get why it's so popular.
Hard to compete with this and I get why develloper try to replicate this FTP business model. Not saying this is good but it's the reality nowadays.
Yep, spot on really.
I think there was a confluence of factors that allowed MMOs to be incredibly popular. I doubt we'll ever see that again. Maybe only quite a bit in the future if VR technology improves a whole lot? But I wouldn't make that call with any confidence.
This opinion that I see regurgitated everywhere needs to die. Yes, there were tons of people in the starting zones just logging on time to time to socialise. But beyond the first 20 or so hours of playing, people played because the game was compelling enough. We're not asking for the days when WoW was the most talked about game. We're asking for a quality non P2W MMO that we can go in an explore for hours with other people for meaningful and fulfilling experiences. And no MMO has made anything remotely decent arguably since GW2. Imo WoW completely spoilt us with how good a game can be. And again. I'm not talking about the "social media" part. Classic wow dispelled that myth.
İn order to re-ignite you need novelty MMOs internet connection and beign able to play with other players was novel back then it is not anymore you need technological advancements to create something new.
You should interview some developers/creators to get some backstories on games or just in general the industry perspective on MMOs. I think you would be able to produce that kind of content because of your viewership and will be able to hold you through games.
Would definitely love to see that kind of video. Pls peon
Josh did this
Nah
this guy is running out of ideas lol
Everyone else is already trying to do this
What makes an MMO great is the same as what makes a society great. A collection of people with similar values all trying to achieve a goal. When WoW released, everyone's main goal was to face challenges with their irl friends in real time on the same map. There wasn't a massive fissure in the community over p2w, in store mounts, vertical vs horizontal progression, etc..
I honestly think the obligation to log in every day has pushed people away from the mmo genre. Daily quests, daily dungeons, daily login rewards, it all makes you feel like you can't go at your own pace any more, as before you start playing the game at your own pace you have to fulfil a daily checklist which in some cases can take a couple of hours
runescape is especially on the dailies aspect. you can easily do 6+ hours of them lol
@@zepwafels It's one of the things I hated the most about RS3. I like there aren't many of them in OSRS and even so, it's just claiming some items from several NPCs, most of which I don't even bother with. This whole daily chore design is terrible.
That's why I still like BDO
@@xxslysinxx BDO XD
Definitely ruined MMO's for me. I get more pleasure from grinding gear in Diablo like games than I do with games that offer up "daily rewards" since that seems like such a silly ploy to get me to play your game. If I don't want to logon to play you game but only to get a daily crumb for logging in like a good doggy then it's not a great game. The gameplay experience is what should drive a person to play your game; not some skinner box like manipulative tactic to force us into logging in.
I miss the first time i reached Stormwind and its music kicked in. I miss how amazing flying felt in Perfect World and Aion. I miss discovering how amazingly fun the Rift system was in Rift. I miss the huge amount of class combinations from Archeage.
I miss all that and it sucks that nothing will ever reach those heights thanks to the massive focus on just finding ways to milk people.
i don't think it's the milking. MMO's were always a niche, and the cost to reward ratio is insanely low. they require insanely large servers comparative to other genre's, they take years and years of gathering content to compete with established titles, they take 8-9 figure upfront costs due to extreme development (and server) requirements, and there's every guarantee that your game may just fail after all that work/
We talk about FFXIV carrying square enix on their back, but we forget the many years that it was the other way around.
mmorpg will popular again after riot released their mmo game. because whatever they've made, it always popular. league of legends, valorant, arcane, ruined king, even cinematic videos and music videos for skin promotion became popular.
it was always about money. but the older games actually gave you some fun in return.
Sorry to burst your bubble mate but that was the case back then too. Seems that most people prefer to ignore this ugly truth though, as Is the case with dogmatic nostalgia fueled hatred.
@@shamba4406 well, wildstar devs chose to shut down , rather than making the game more casual.
Honestly the first bit of real feeling of nostalgia I've had in years that you've described in the video above was with Tombs of amascut in Old School Runescape.
Nobody had any idea what to do on day 1, and I put it as a challenge to myself to beat the new raid all by myself, learning every single mechanic. Even if I got stuck I had to spend 20-30 minutes on a single puzzle just mindlessly thinking how to get past it as there was absolutely no information online about it.
This new raid truly gave me some nostalgia for when I use to do my own route of killing rats in lumbridge swamp, selling their bones to general store enough times to then afford the mithril platebody for 2,000 gold, taking a picture on my old camera and uploading it to the PC to share with friends through MSN.
The feeling of NOT knowing is incredible, data miners and people who try to max out in the fastest way possible takes away from the sense of progression and fun in my opinion, unfortunately we live in a day and age that unless the game comes out of bloody nowhere (what I'm hoping Riot's MMO will do) then there's absolutely no chance to go in blindly anymore unless you force yourself to stay away from the community, much like I did with tombs of amascut.
Nothing beats the joy of beating the end boss in raids 3 and having that sense of accomplishment for dying 12 times and spending 2 hours on the raid to be rewarded a piece of fossilised dung at the end as your reward. Absolute bliss.
The concepts of "Leveling" and "Endgame" and how the perception around them changed is what has been killing mmos for me. It used to be that a developer would craft a world you could live in. There wasn't some arbitrary slog to get to whatever repeatable mindless content the suits mathed out to provide the most engagement. MMO's aren't what they used to be. They've become run of the mill multiplayer battle royals and coop action rpgs with a mandatory, no content, slog of bad dialouge to skip through for 60 hours before you can play that is hidden behind the "MMO" buzzword.
It used to be that your journey was the content. Every time I hear "endgame content" i tune out. What an arbitrary term. If we are just shifting goal posts from the beginning of the game to the end of the game then the end of the game is now the beginning, yeah? So what's the point of calling it ENDgame content? Whats the point of the beginning game? Just cut it out. Oh wait, they want to sell you boosters to cut out the garbage walls they put in the way. And the cycle repeats.
How does anyone look at this and go "Yeah this is fine and makes sense." Majority of the Runescape playerbase was f2p back in the day. Runescape was a giant in the mmo genre. What "endgame" was there for f2p people that kept them invested? Oh wait, runescape endgame didn't matter. Being in the world and being invested in the journey was what everyone now calls "Endgame". There wasn't an arbitrary 1-60. The game was just an experience.
It may blow everyone's mind, but the majority of mmo players don't give two iotas about endgame. The tryhards and min maxers are always the minority playerbase. Thats why these games keep dying while old school runescape grows.
New world blew up because it felt like runescape. But the world that seemed good ended up being pretty shallow. Everyone acting like 913,000 people wanted end game content and thats why the game started dying out. Lol. No, ya'll just vocal.
Well what you said makes sense but i feel that you think a bit one dimensional, a mmo with good endgame doesnt need to be bad leading up to the endgame. Runescape end game is basically starting new character, grinding for rare capes and inventing your own modes iron man and so forth.
What mmom lacks nowadays is a good or great even leveling, questing and socializing path to a endgame which is an endgame until next expansion.
I 100 agree with you that the beggining and middle of the game are neglected but dissagree that engames are inherently bad.
In everything in life you have to work towards something. That’s what”Endgame” is. No one is forcing you to level up in games like GW2. If other mmos do that I suggest you try GW2. It invites you to explore the world and you do level up but you’re not forced to quickly do it. Unless you want to play harder content which requires you to be at level 80. Life is like that also. You don’t have access to everything in life. But you can with the right qualifications
@@zumasa9991 I love GW2. Just not enough space in a comment to go over every example of a good MMO, and everyone knows runescape.
RSN?
What I love in games is the leveling up, the questing (even if that gets repetitive), the area's to explore by doing so. I dont care about the best gear. I dont want care about needing the best stats. I like seeing new armors I worked for to get to. I like to farm a bit, to zone out a bit in order to just play and enjoy.
I dont want to be pushed to the endgame. I dont want to be gifted all upgrade items and best equipment with minimum effort. Any and all cash shop items should be optional, not a need to enjoy or head further into the game.
Want me to be invested? Let me enjoy the world and the game on its own, you bet I would throw money at it.
as a younger gamer, a lot of my friends dont play mmorpgs.. i think they get bored of how long they take/how much effort they take.. but i personally love it. i love to see my character and my knowledge of the game evolve over the years. it just feels so much more rewarding than a fps or something of that sorts imo.. maybe it was because i grew up this way, but mmorpgs have always been my favorite genre :D
Sooooo I'd like to know then. What if your character did grow and morph with you? Like literally aged with real world time... How would you recommend bridging the gap between your generation and old school gamers?
@@solidstehl9546 I noticed that the younger generation tends not to like as many slower games. The main reason being that they prefer instant gratification over long-term goal seeking. The popularity of games like Fortnite or Among Us are basically very short bursts of gameplay satisfaction, there's no real long term goals in each round. Fortnite has a bit of progression in their battle passes, but it's not really that much outside of cosmetics.
If you wanted to bridge the gap between the two, you need a satisfying short-term game loop, while feeding into a long-term goal. Roguelites are the closest I can think of that approaches this goal, but that can't really be adapted very well into the MMO formula. Starting from the "beginning" every time defeats the whole point of progression that MMOs rely on. (Plus Realm of the Mad God says hi.) There was a small group of Dungeon/Mission-based MMOs, but the problem was that it was the same dungeon every time, and therefore wasn't really satisfying to repeat day after day.
I think the biggest reason why the old glory days wont return is that what drew players to mmos in those days is no longer exclusive to mmos. You get to play and interact with millions of other players. Social Media and the rise of other multiplayer genres are filling that desire players had back in the day, the people that remain with mmos tend to be after something more specific
the challenge is what drove most of me and my friends
the challenge is gone, everyone gets a trophy for showing up to these things
I switch to real life mmo. I'm failing horribly. Near death.
@@bomcstoots1 Dont you dare go hollow
Sadly in this day and age, we'll never experience or feel the same way we had back in the day. People change. Situation changes. We should be happy that we were able to experience the golden era of MMOs. We just have to move on and treasure the memories we had playing those games.
I agree. People need to let go of what is now a dead genre. At least as far as quality goes.
There’s plenty of other games and hobbies to get into.
Just play ffxiv or eso? Both are classic mmo experiences and have huge playerbases
@@xbon1 eso sucks ass. I've never seen so clunky and boring animations and combat!
Ah yes, the 'people change' trope. Incorrect. If a player is enticed to play, the player will find time to play regardless of time input. You don't have to be a tween or teen to play ganes that require involvnent. There are plenty of players with your mindset that winge about not having time to play, yet they have enough time to RP and chat for endless hours. Accepting your doomer ideology because YoU have given up or decide that the timeline has passed and is never to return is subjective. Games shouldn't be shaped around the idea that one generation experienced and it and the next will not or isn't interested.
My first MMO was Everquest in 1999, and I remember the real fear of leaving Freeport and heading into the desert (it did not go well). I got into a good guild, became an officer (still keep in touch IRL with some of the other leaders), and spent far too much time playing - literally years of in game time. Looking back now though, I'm not sure I could cope with the slow levelling, corpse recovery (before corpse summoning was a thing), required grouping because many classes could not solo content, etc. There was a different expectation.
That's one thing that worries me about Monsters and Memories, a classic EQ spiritual successor being worked on (publicly) by some former EQ devs and designers. It looks very cool. But one of the devs (aLovingRobot) said that they want that slower progression like early EQ, because it created an environment where you spent a long time with people, and made friends that way. And while I do think *some* people will accept that, I think leveling that's too slow chases more people away than it keeps.
I'm in my late 30s now. I enjoy MMORPGs, and that classic style of gameplay, the tactical dungeon crawling, and so forth. But I don't want to spend 8 hours in the same zone killing the same four mobs over and over again anymore. I'm not a 14 year old kid with nothing to do but chat on EQ all Summer along anymore.
I've been playing WoW Classic on a Wrath pre-patch server, and the 70-80 hours it takes a "novice" player to hit level 70 seems reasonable. Maybe 100 or so hours is fine, too. I can level up a character over the course of 1-3 months, and casually work on some alts until the next expansion is released. That's great. That makes me want to keep playing. But... maybe, playing EQ on Project 1999 as an adult and leveling 1-60, and then thinking about doing it again -- especially on a class that doesn't solo well like my mage -- just sounds like a terrible, grinding experience. All of my P99 alts are level 20-25. I simply lose steam after that.
well go play a modern mmorpg then there's plenty to go around. i hate comments that say sh** like " I'm not sure I could cope with the slow levelling, corpse recovery" go play your modern mmorpg... or maybe you still don't know whilst playing those games.. maybe your mind is in a cocoon or something. omfg THINK!
@@n9ne I 'think' that you need to relax, and leave my cocoon alone.
tbh the more modern or even post Everquest MMOs are far different than the "slow levelling, class dependent" type of MMOs like EQ.
Yes the expectations are now different and MMOs have already changed to meet those expectations a long time ago, at least a decade.
MMOs like Guild Wars 2 are nothing like classic MMOs and it came out in 2012....
The "glory days" of mmo's didn't really include as many content creators pre reviewing ever aspect of a game before launch either. The *_mystery_* is gone at this point.
Idk man "mystery" in 2022 is more like landmines. Games are much more expensive now and i dont wanna preorder landmines. Rather watch if the game suits me or not
@@juvenileygo pre-ordering is the devil.
Companies need to stop being lazy about their QA and having the public testing. A good example of this is FF14's practices vs WOW's. In FF14 no one knows anything about an expansion until released and they're actively playing it, but Blizzard releases public testing for hype and to save money on QA for WOW. People know the build they'll use and the systems are known and planned out, but in FF14 you only know as much as screenshots will show you, and very little about changes to classes that the devs preview to you, but nothing can be planned.
It's just bad companies not putting in enough resources to care about the player experience that creates the problem.
Pretty much this. In Ultima online in the late 90s, I was constantly stumbling into stuff I had no idea was there. I quit WOW before Legion because I could calculate everything before the expansion even launched, it simple was down to a ' to do ' list It was worse with WOW because the math was so open, so you knew (and your raid leader knew) exactly how you should be geared and specced. If you wanted to do any type of group content you needed to do everything for that last .1 fps that some internet guru had figured to be the best.
Never is the answer. That original feeling is a 1 time only experience.
This. The negative affect it had on single player games. Dragon Age inquisition for example. I loved the game, but it had so many MMO concepts added to it.
@@civilian4live i feel that with Bethesda’s RPGs
This. Unfortunately, players have played it to death and devs have developed it to death.
I feel like the three things that appealed to me with old MMOs were the mystery of the huge world, the challenge of discovering it, and interacting with the community. The mystery aspect is out the window thanks to datamining and the constant minmaxing mindset leading to every game having a complete wiki before it's even launched (which is fine for singleplayer games as you can just not read it, but that doesn't work in MMOs). The challenge aspect seems unlikely to return because of modern monetization methods forcing developers to push the player into the endgame as quickly as possible (and that doesn't just apply to MMOs, pretty much all games-as-a-service games do that). The only thing I think could be worked on is the community aspect. I don't know how exactly, but I think it could be really interesting to see a developer think of new mechanics that encourage more social interactions on many different levels. Not just endgame raiding and PvP, but smaller things as well for more casual players. Things like, I don't know, having to ask another player to help you carry something heavy, or stir a pot for a few seconds while you're preparing ingredients for a potion. Something like that, maybe.
Made me think of when I used to play Dark Age of Camelot. Used to love that game because of how distinct the 3 factions were and how there were unique classes for each faction. Must have been a pain to balance but was it ever fun
glad you personally had fun, but fuck Mark Jacobs. Ill never buy anything that guy is involved with
mmorpg will popular again after riot released their mmo game. because whatever they've made, it always popular. league of legends, valorant, arcane, ruined king, even cinematic videos and music videos for skin promotion became popular.
Really makes me hope Ashes of Creation turns out as good as it seems that it will... it'll be a nice breath of fresh air if so
@@GerardMenvussa asses of cremation
I doubt it will be any diffrent, one can hope...but yeah, its gonna be just another mmo
@@Eldenbruh mmos live and die with their combat and interaction with the world/quests. They are grindy games by nature, so if the grinding activities are too repetitive the game becomes boring fast. Black desert lasted me longer than other mmos because of the combat.. But the quests and all the rest is so awful that in the end I dropped it before endgame.
AoC has forced PvP. That alone will turn people off.
@@georgeblair3894 I actually like that.. It is a multi-player game after all
My favorite memory from any MMO was going into Blackrock Depths for the first time ever. The journey itself getting there was amazing running into the mountain and going deeper and deeper until you finally got into the dungeon itself and that was just the beginning. I remember being in there for literally 7-8 hours with a group because none of us had done it before and there was just so much area to cover. Didn't even fully finish it until a few runs after and got more familiar with it. I feel that sense of adventure and mystery is nearly impossible to recreate in today's MMO's.
Yessss. Blackrock Depths is one of the pinnacles for MMO design in my opinion. That place is so massive and it just reeks of mystery and intrigue that keeps pulling you further in.
Absolutely love Blackrock and all its lore.
BRD was so good i was let down when I was doing Molten Core as a kid, but I remember i was shaking because I was doing a raid!! with 40 people!!
@@Sanguivore Don't forget the music in there. Music in WoW is 10/10 but the soundtrack in BRD made you feel like you were on a adventure of a lifetime
@@yilmazh3127 I definitely agree!
@@shawnk7720 it was even crazier that Molten Core was within Blackrock Depths and even larger than the dungeon itself lol.
Back in the 90's, I got my first computer and started playing MMOs. I was hooked. While playing Ultima Online, I heard of a new MMO that was going to change things---EverQuest. I still remember watching Brad McQuaid interviews and discussing all the latest info about the game with my friends at school. Finally, I was accepted in the EQ beta and they mailed the game CD to my home. I played that game from beta until the release of Shadows of Luclin, but that was the golden age of MMOs and there were plenty of distractions such as Dark Age of Camelot and Shadowbane. The biggest distraction was when I received my beta confirmation email from Blizzard to play World of Warcraft. Hot damn! I was an addict.
However, nowadays, I don't feel the same about modern MMOs. Something just isn't right. I guess the closest thing I've experienced recently to that old MMO feeling was when I played vanilla Archeage. I'm 40 years old now and been playing MMOs for over half my life. How much longer will I need to wait to be "WoW-ed" again?
I think the important question here is how long have you been a English teacher and if you are into Brad McQuaid games you should mention Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, that really the only old school game being developed.
Can we talk about the fact you watched these videos on a dial up connection? You rich bas--tard, if I went online I needed to have a plan of what I'm going to search for, once I find the result I would unplug immediately lmao, forget videos
I feel one of the biggest things holding MMO's back are (obviously) the huge expectations set and (less obvious) the effect that data-mining/wikis/ and overall speed of info shared through the internet.
MMO's are a big time-sink, we all know that. But why? Is it just the leveling process? Is it the endless grinding to min-max? RNG-gated enhancements?
NO!
Well, at least, they weren't _supposed_ to be the reason why. Nowadays, these very much are the reasons why MMO's are a time-sink. However, in the golden ages of MMO's, the main reason MMO's were a time-sink were because of freedom and discovery. It was a whole new world to discover and explore right? The problem is that we're all about finding the most optimal route through the 'grindy' aspects to reap the juicy rewards of endgame power fantasy. By having all this information online and all these guides to tell us what to do, we simply lose that fun from freedom and discovery which is half of what MMO's are all about. You should be roaming around, figuring out where you are, what you're doing (or need/want to do), and learn a bunch of things on your way to self-made greatness. You'd problem solve and find answers to your own questions. That feeling of TRUE progression where you pave the way yourself on your own unique journey, is a HUGE part of enjoyment from an MMO-genre game. At least in my opinion. Now, MMO's are all about getting to endgame as fast as possible to be as strong as possible and either PvP or do the same types of endgame missions/content over and over a mind-numbing amount of times. And since everyone started getting to the 'endgame' this way, game devs were forced to utilize garbage mechanics like RNG-enhancements, which shouldn't be RNG but instead guaranteed thanks to prior efforts such as gathered material or skill level.
Hear me out. This is going to be very idealistic and bold of me to say.
Endgame content should exist, but shouldn't be the main priority. In fact, I think 95% of players shouldn't be able to reach endgame in an MMO or 'max-level' despite not having 'max-level' gear. Players shouldn't reach endgame in a couple days, weeks, or even months. This fake and cheap ass design that most MMO's have, is absolutely ruining the genre and encouraging P2W. You shouldn't just grind for 30 hours straight and fly through a storyline to reach 'endgame' so you can start doing 'endgame' content, and then spend real $$$ to do it faster. You should only reach endgame when it's mostly likely going to truly be the end of your time with the game other than chilling around, helping others on their journey, and having fun with friends. All this effort into trying to figure out a game to last someone forever with 'endgame' content is pointless and inevitably doing more harm than good. You should only truly reach endgame when you've done everything there is to be done, you've tried every activity, you've been active in the community, you've reached the pinnacle of power not through endless attempts at RNG-gated enhancement, but by defeating enemies that are worth the rewards they give, by upgrading your character's skills and your own skill IRL with game mechanics and knowledge.
I know I'm being idealistic, and such a game would be HARD-PRESSED to be successful in today's day and age with everyone's goldfish attention span. But I think it's still very possible, and more importantly: it's necessary. I think that MMO games should refrain from having its own wiki, and make it against regulations to share information/guides online. Anyone who 'leaks' info online would be handled in someway shape or form, whether it's a temporary ban, or a permanent IP ban. It should be against ToS for the core game-knowledge to be leaked for everyone to access with ease.
Most of you might think this is absolutely ludicrous, outrageous, or downright impossible, and I get it. It does seem a bit extreme, but this is how it _SHOULD_ be. Maybe there could be a bit of leeway because content creators are vital to modern games, but anything like quests, dungeon-layouts, what have you, should all be kept confidential and enforced. There's no need to worry about content creators as guides aren't the only kind of content there is to make of an MMO. Instead it should be proper _content_ like drama, PvP, and sharing their own skills.
Also, you might think that this will never work because information-sharing is crucial or important. The answer is simple. You can SHARE INFORMATION IN-GAME.
This encourages social interaction in a positive manner, even creating potential information networks or groups of players (guilds, perhaps?) whose in-game jobs (because they want to do it) could be being an information broker. This will make the virtual worlds much livelier because people have REASON to talk to each other in-game that isn't being toxic/boredom. They have reason to go into a tavern and chat around or 'listen' around. Virtual friendships could be made from unsuspecting players that happened upon each other and traded info like "this village's blacksmith can create gear at higher quality but does it at the same price than the common blacksmith in the main city here" or something. You know? Then that guy might come across the same person and be like "holy crap you're amazing for telling me that info, it saved me on this dungeon run I just had. Lemme repay you!" or something. There's just so much more than could happen, so much more natural occurrences for social interaction. I personally get excited at the thought of this alone, it'd be so much fun. And then people could share information about OTHER PEOPLE that have their own roles in the game's community like making gear, recruiting for guilds, recruiting for RAIDS/Dungeon runs, etc!
There's definitely the issue that people just aren't like that and wouldn't support such a game-style in modern days, and yes. That's probably true. Many humans are scum, loners, antisocial, or too busy with real life, we all know this. Except, we don't even give the chance for these scenarios to occur because game's don't provide the setup needed like this information-sharing issue. Once there is an environment to cultivate such things, more and more people will change to adapt and grow into it. If there's a really toxic and scummy person, they're gonna struggle because no one will help them or give them information. Then they're forced to change, so that other people will help, or they find their own way. Or quit the game altogether.
There's also 1000% going to be discord groups that share information, and this should be regulated as well, but only large discord servers whose sole purpose is to be a completely free and open wiki should be shut down. Guilds sharing information within itself is alright because it makes sense. Though, I could imagine a whole discord server that would LITERALLY be a wiki, but is an Information Guild's ever-changing archive. That'd be interesting. Basically, as long as there is a process that encourages positive social interactions to trade info, it'll be okay. But sharing information with 0 social interaction or anything in-game is not. If you're your game character, it wouldn't make sense that you suddenly know everything or exactly what to do because your consciousness entered the fourth dimension and watched some UA-cam guides.
I want to add that transmog/cosmetics should be REMOVED. GONE. There shouldn't be a cash-shop where you pay to have an outfit just placed over your gear. If there will be cosmetics, it'll be like cosmetics IRL. Jewelry, cool clothes, etc. But nothing like having a fully armored character with matching stats to suddenly have the same stats but be 99% naked and 0 armor because they're wearing a bikini cosmetic outfit. If you're just chilling with friends and you're wearing an outfit to match the occasion, that's fine. But you won't have the full stats that your battle equipment would offer, obviously. This helps immersion tons imo, and there's no level1 newbie looking like there some level 100 player because they bought a cosmetic pack.
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Anyways I went on wayy to long, but I know such an MMO is possible. We have the technology, we have the history of previous games, we know what works and what doesn't. We just need to put all the right puzzle pieces together with the right talents that are ambitious and carry little greed.
I know. It's probably just a pipe-dream, the only way an MMO game like that could start production is if it's backed by a large corporation or something and there's no way a miracle group of genius indie devs that wanna flip the MMO genre on its head to release a smash hit would appear. The modern world is about money, there's no more room for passion and ambition I guess. That's how it feels at least.
It's just how the cookie crumbles on this godforsaken planet.
I don't think MMOs ever lost popularity, there are simply less being made and most don't do anything new. Not to mention there are more game genres in general to spread players across. There's also the fact that modern business models instantly suck the magic out of anything special. Both Archeage and BDO had that magic and did almost everything different to what we were used to but quickly flushed all hype down the toilet via the cash shop. That right there is also why all these classic releases are so successful. It may not be the same magic as the first time you played it, but there is still some magic there and it doesn't have a cash shop to shit all over your fun.
Also a massive mistake people make is thinking WoW's insane player count wasn't just a fluke. It had good marketing, the art style appealed to casuals and it had tons of player made videos to help spread the word. That last one in particular was huge in WoW's success. Blizzard really owe everything to those early machinima makers because so many people who weren't even gamers got into it based on a friend showing them a machinima. Then once it had gone viral as a result of stuff like this it was just the snowball effect. It really wasn't anything to do with the game itself which honestly compared to other MMOs at the time was pretty average at best.
I feel like GW2, FF14, and ESO are still pretty good.
I just bought end of dragons for gw2 on paternity leave. And I was so distracted by wanderlust in that game that I just started exploring old maps on my level 80 character and played for 2 hours before I even touched the expansion.
What is wanderlust?
I got back into GW2 from mainly hanging out in ESO in April, I still have not approached EOD fully, too busy with legendary armor and Aurora and PoF and season 4 mounts. Got myself specializations though.
@Anonymous Cheese If you have to create your own focus, and you are burning out, isn't that your fault? Just grind something else man, LOL
GW2 is so slept on I don’t get it. Incredible game
Asheron’s Call was my first MMO. I’m going to get the opportunity to meet one of my old guild mates for the first time in 25 years. There is definitely something different about the community built in MMOs.
Nothing has beaten Asheron's Call in my opinion. Best loot/gear in any game period, best community, best quests (spanning solo, small group, large group, guild group, and server-wide scales,) best leveling system, best world... it just never got any better than AC.
@@jong2359 What do you think made it the best loot and gear system you've experienced.
@@ChristopherCDaniels You could loot 10,000 kills and never find the exact same piece of loot once. It would take many months to perfect your first suit of armor, and it encouraged people to use sub-par gear to fill in the gaps. On top of that, even junk loot was extremely valuable because you could salvage it into a base component that could be further applied to your equipped gear through tinkering. There were quest items, unique items, and event items on top of that. Towards the end, they introduced tailoring which even FURTHER allowed customization of your equipped gear. There were your weapon types, plus elemental versions of each, which then could be imbued/rended with the salvaged components mentioned earlier. It was an extremely deep, rewarding, and yet easy-to-understand system.
@@jong2359 Well said. The ability to work on gear was a fairly unique gearing method. I wonder how it would have worked if the game had continued to live and new expansions had been added. The one thing I really didn't care for, was the chance to break something on upgrading. I get the risk versus reward aspect, but as you said, finding that one perfect Orb, and then getting it all the way up to rank 9, just have the over-max buffed crafter break it, while trying to get it to level 10 - that was just heart breaking and felt awful.
@@ChristopherCDaniels They did change this in the final days with some options for full-proof salvage (100% success rate.) It helped reduce or eliminate the risk with extreme value items. The cost of full-proof salvage was high in either time or MMD's... but probably better than that heart breaking feeling you mentioned, lol. You do know the game is alive and kicking, right? I still play sometimes on Reefcull. Best MMO revival ever, imo.
I personally love FF14, the story is so gripping , the music is incredible, the developers actually care and the community is amazing. So I think the glory days are still going for me.
I was going to say this. I’ve been playing since ARR and Endwalker was a great finale. The patch story is fantastic so far leading up to the next expansion.
It's a one time play game, only good for anime rp'ers
@@Ninja40K never done raiding before?
@@Hideo_Kojima_yt Thats an opinion sure, I played WoW for ten years and FF14 is way fucking better in everything.
And objectively FF14 may not be your taste, but it is a great MMORPG. Way more than WoW ever was.
@@Ninja40K Raiding, mount farming, glam farming, maps, relic weapons, RP, social events like glam competitions, housing, crafting, can level every job (class) on one character.
There's is a crap tonne of replay ability, and I've not even listed everything.
Also I want to say FF14 probably has the hardest end game content of any MMO.
Honestly the biggest thing we need for the glory days to return is a change in the playerbase. We've already got quite a lot of MMOs that offer everything you need to make the secondary world your home but people just don't play these games like that anymore.
Nowadays people are so fixated on rushing to level cap and minmaxing the fun out of everything by looking up stuff like leveling guides before they even decide if they'll buy the game or not. Even if the game has no cash shop people will buy gold from bots, that's the reason gold farming bots are as plentiful as they are. If there's no customers there's no gold sellers.
On top of that people are constantly looking at steam charts and leave games as soon as they see the numbers dropping because nobody wants to play an mmo without a lot of players so people drop games that they otherwise enjoy just because they think it's dead on arrival.
Fantastic video. I truly do miss the glory days of MMORPG. The older MMOs had a true sense of adventure and exploration. The progression actually meant something. There was true danger in exploring and getting groups together took work. There were also social hubs which were a blast to be part of in game. The games now are created to annoy the player into paying money. It is such a vile biome that gaming is in now with cash shops.
mmorpg will popular again after riot released their mmo game. because whatever they've made, it always popular. league of legends, valorant, arcane, ruined king, even cinematic videos and music videos for skin promotion became popular.
The genre suffers from an extreme case of trope overload. The only real difference between games is how well the same old systems are implemented. Once you've played one fantasy mmorpg, you've essentially played them all.
I blame eastern mmos for that, they release 150 same games per year.
"trope" doesn't mean what you think it means
i do agree with what you're trying to say though.
@@agrippa2012 Merriam-Webster defines "TROPE" as: "a common or overused theme or device : cliché".
Yes there is an alternate definition, but in English many definitions share the same word.
@@remus4283 I can't take Merriam-Webster seriously after they changed the definition of "literally".
All cliches are tropes. But "Trope" doesn't mean cliche.
Its funny, for a while now I've had an MMO idea I've been sitting on where the game would have a discovery system. Idea would be to have items require identification, down to rocks, herbs, monsters, all the way to gear, magic, and other players. The plan would be to have items that become common to be named by the first person to study the item (Not just finding it, example being an alchemist that successfully finds out the herb is poisonous.) Within reason, likely have mods available to rename stuff as needed lol.
Then the next bit of the game would be about regional loot/monsters. Make the world big, or make travel hard, and have it be populated based on region. So if a group were to settle on one continent, they might have access to relics that deal in fire magic, but across the sea, they have lightning magic. This way players can't just pick up the best gear or hunt down exactly what they need, but instead would have to make do with what they manage to get or it would encourage trading cross large portions of the map. This would also assume players build their own settlements, towns, cities, etc.
Other bits of ideas: Currencies minted by settlement/country to reduce RMT, God influences/soft rep system to discourage players from becoming murder hobos, soft-permadeath to establish risk (Like full loot pvp or some sort of inheritance system.), NPC monster race diplomacy to allow players to recruit NPCs or maybe even join their ranks.
Anyways, cutting the idea short, I came up with the idea as an attempt at limiting player pre-planning. While eventually things might shift and guides will be made, I'd hope at the very least each region would have a unique approach to gameplay. Middle of the video reminded me of this, thought I'd share. Any devs out there looking, feel free to steal.
Sounds interesting. I'm not a dev tho, sorry
EVE Online probably does regionality the best. A lot of logistics goes into collecting resources, trading, and fueling wars. Different factions have different equipment strengths and dominate certain sectors.
I think one of the main things that killed regionality in MMOs is the ability to instantly teleport anywhere, which keeps you from consistently interacting with the same people, and thus subverts any sort of community-building. Most of what made an MMO an immersive experience was destroyed in the name of "accessibility."
In an ideal world, your mmo would be huge, in this world however it would gather a small fanbase cause the systems have inconveniences built into them, players hate those and don't want to work to surpass them
Honestly sounds like a fun and adventurous game! I’d play it.
So people would basicly become Carl von Linné the dude that named most flora and fauna.
Yes please.
Guild Wars 2 has had a year full of player numbers growth, not just FFXIV.
2002-2012 was also for me the golden era of MMOs for me.
Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, Diablo II, Rift, Lord of the Rings online, that's where I spent that decade and 7 of them years was just in DAoC.
I started with runes of magic in 2008. Really stopped in about 2017. SWTOR.
I love hearing this EQ2 music again. Such an underrated mmo that always seemed to get eclipsed by WoW in media and the public in general. I've played that game since I was 11, and played the TLE (time locked environment) servers numerous times throughout the past few years.
EQ2, the 1st year of the PVP servers - absolute peak gaming experience of my life. We even had server-specific forums. Good times.
I do believe that great part of the fault lies with us, the players. The "GO GO GO!" mentality and the fact that before a new MMO launches there's already hundreds of videos showing the META and what people "need" to play to be viable or optimized takes the fun and wonder out of games.
Part of the modern gaming scene I think.... such a shame.
Yeah the meta shit ruined a lot too... Fucking hate that everything needs to be the same top builds... No fun love or soul left in gaming today.
More people need to realize this, the problem is no one cares. The majority of the community dictates what happens. Devs need to understand this too and create in-game systems/solutions to fix the problem. For instance, DONT GIVE AWAY INFORMATION ABOUT THE GAME PRIOR TO ITS RELEASE. Secondly, make information more difficult to document. The second one is harder because creating content that is "random" makes the world feel less realistic in some ways. There's a whole slew of problems that come with trying to make it more difficult to document information, but it's a necessary route to explore for solutions.
The best solution I've seen is actually from back in Classic EQ! (What a shocker!) Remember when you would buy your spells and the only information you got was the spell name? You had to cast it on someone/mob in order to get feedback in chat/character sheet in order to FIGURE OUT what it did. Talk about knowing your class inside and out.
As a hobbyist game designer I've been thinking a lot about the "landscape" of gaming at the moment, and the weirdest realisation was that, in many ways, games didn't change at all. We did.
Games have only gotten better, more immersive, more imaginative and creative, better looking and sounding. But a lot of gamers, with Steam Libraries full of fantastic titles, have been reduced to the quick-hitting Dopamine of the "Find Match" button (be that MOBAs, Battle Royales or FPS shooters). I can unfortunately say that this has plagued me for many years now. Don't get me wrong, I love playing a game of dota with my friends, but I do feel like the long-term value of the MMOs of old are completely lost, and, even if it would stare me in the face, would I really want that grind, that effort again, or would I just keep queueing for quick, empty matches of dopamine.
Edit: I don't mean that MMOs are just "grind" and "effort" - I just mean that personally I've gotten so used to the slot machine dopamine hits that I wonder if I'll be able to play even a good MMO again. And if I wonder that about myself, at 30 years old, how would the new generation of gamers feel about MMOs?
I think exactly the same thing but oppositely of you (if i understood correctly) i completely hate "find match" games. They feel empty and all the time i dumped into them just feel like a waste.
On the other side MMORPGs makes me want to keep play and never i felt time was wasted even if the game was bad and i abandoned it after 1 month or less...
I think as Peon said that the biggest issue is having way too much information before the games even comes out killing the discovery and with it the feeling of adventuring in an unknown world...
Yeah, I try to regularly ask myself if I'm having fun. Game designers are really good at getting players to form habits, which lead to addiction. Imagine playing games out of compulsion instead of for joy. I think more people need to be educated on recognizing the habit forming mechanics in games.
I agree and disagree. A lot of development companies, and a common develop approach, has become McDonalds. Low quality goods pawned at high volume, and people mindlessly consume it because everyone else is.
Also, nononw trusts AAA studios anymore, and they are really the only studies that can afford to make an expensive MMO. No one wants to get Fallout76'd, Cyber Punk'd, Anthem'd, etc...
it seems like the success of mmos back in 2002-2012 is due to their graphics, i speaking about world of warcraft and runescape, 2 games that i love, their graphics back in the day were amazing and somehow i feel nostalgic even when i play runescape today, because it takes me back to those days, its weird to explain, but those graphics are so beautiful, and modern games dont give you the feeling of what those games give you, i would never give up on them, and maybe thats why modern mmo rpg's dont get so many players, because the graphics influence the feeling that you have about the game, its like it seems wrong to make modern rpg's with todays graphics.
games did change, they focus on either story, visuals or cash grab all of these. back in the day, they focus on what actually matters, gameplay.
We need AI to be able to create dynamic quests on the fly that are not just switching out this enemy for another. Worlds need to be less shallow (hint: add politics such as warring countries and you taking part in something bigger than yourself). New content is always a big draw for players to remain engaged and new content is not reusing the same enemy but slapping a different hue on it and just upping the stats.
I think that developers have a problem with turning out original ideas at this point because they are afraid to try new things. Especially when your investment costs so much and nothing is guaranteed to give you a return.
I agree with Lazy Peon here that if we can drastically reduce development costs with AI, the main problem will start to be resolved which is new content.
"Whenever a new MMO is released, we're ready to min/max the shit out of it"
..and there's your problem, summed up nicely. Players who only care about the meta are the ones who kill the fun out of these MMOs. There's so much more to playing these games than that, but they all swoop in, treat the game like a spreadsheet, get bored of doing that, because ITS BORING TO DO THAT, then blame the game for lacking content, start claiming its dead, then they move onto the next victim. It really sucks
There is creativity problem with the entire game industry. In the early days of computer games, and in the glory days, there were no established rules and conventions. In those days games defined genres. Today, genres define games.
The reason every game feels like a reskin of some other game, is ultimately because that is exactly what they are. Every game has to fit into a genre. The genre has hard and fast conventions that must be followed, and they define what the game is going to be, before the design process even starts.
The lack of rules and established conventions that have to be followed is risky. If you don't follow the rules and work within the conventions you risk breaking customer expectations, you also risk making a game that doesn't work (not technically, but doesn't work as a concept).
However, if you don't work outside of those limits, the entire industry will stagnate and slowly die. Which is what's happening now.
I believe that many of the problems with both games and entertainment media in general (ie movies) is that the design decisions are made by market research in a vain attempt to appeal to the broadest market possible. This results in an uncreative, bland, game. These may sell well for the time being, but they have no staying power and nothing to hold people. No one will be nostalgic for these games in 20 years.
Regarding MMORPG's in particular, I have basically given up on the Genre. I absolutely despise the arcade combat and graphical style that seems to dominate.
While there's some truth to the things mentioned in the video, I'm surprised to see that a few more important factors were left out (in my opinion). 1) ITEM VALUE- games have been focusing way too much on bringing in new items that it turns other items useless. RuneScape is a good example of this, each weapon specializes in a stat, and there aren't too many weapons. Which is good, in my opinion. 2) dress up MMOs - another consequence of these constant item releases are that it turns the game into a dress up game. So much so that it becomes the primary focus of the game, instead of the gameplay. 3) similar concept to monsters, if you release too many "cool" mobs, it desensitizes you from other mobs. After seeing a friggin' dragon, you won't have fun killing anything else
FF14 is pretty much all I need at this point and for the time I have. Sure, I'd like to see an engaging open RPG where you can have exotic classes, a deep combat system, tons of player-influenced lore, player run cities, etc... But I doubt that will ever happen again. The closest I've seen of any of that since Face of Mankind died was just... Minecraft faction servers. And even those got ruined by in-game community monetization on most servers, player counts killed by cataloguing servers, and just a lack of creativity among players.
XIV could be much improved. They became lazy after HW and decided to fast track many aspects of the game. In Arr, it definetely needed some help in that aspect, but it was also Lv.1-50, not 10 level increments. Where there could be large swathes of content they decide to hammerfuck the cash shop instead. Many doors have been closed and paths closed to which they could have expounded on the base of what they had made. No more GC quests, data centres have made all NM content a Zerg run. They've realized they can get away with that and more because a large part of the player base is more worried about race genders and housing than they are about class quests or anything similar. Patches are destroyed within hours leading to the linear end game sphere to rinse and repeat. I still play myself, and the visuals and most often than not, musical themes and story tellers have created a unique World that is compelling for the most part. They're going to have to do better than Criterion to impress me. The addition of Island sanctuary is a welcome addition, but the game could do much more.
I think we'll see a global hype around MMOs when immersive, fully VR MMOs become a truly viable thing.
I remember when you saw a level 100+ in RuneScape back in the day, you were stunned, how can a character be so powerful?
It just isn't the same anymore, no one cares anymore, it doesn't have that same effect anymore.
If you saw a level 126 in RuneScape they were basically seen as a god of sorts, people would kiss their ass, that red text you see when someone is a much higher level than you, like you don't mess with that guy.
Man I miss that feeling. 😣
Lots of really good points in both the video and the comments section about societal, generational, and development factors that have led to the sunsetting of the Glory Days of MMOs. I've got another one to throw into the arena: Time investment.
I honestly believe Time Investment requirements AND availability by players has contributed to the infuriating success of P2W, despite how much everyone hates it. No-Life-ing in video games during the golden era existed, but I don't remember it being anywhere near as prevalent. Some people played more than others, sure - but back then (as the stereotype goes) it was just a few greasy unemployed nerds in their Mom's basements. These days, with the success of streaming and UA-cam, talented players have financial incentive to play 16 hours a day. That massively warps the ability of people without that kind of time from being competitive in progression, guild formation, skill advancement, etc. People with full time jobs, family obligations, and/or a general limit on their available time look at P2W as a catch-up method to not fall "behind-the-curve". However, the curve invariably shifts as the P2W becomes mandatory for people to remain competitive. Now it's not a catch-up method, but an additional method for excelling. The P2W-Workers might be able to keep up with the F2P-Grinders, but the P2W-Grinders continue to pave the way.
There are so many great reasons for why gaming was different in the golden era. I agree with Peon that discovery and a sense of exploration was the appeal of my first few MMOs (Asheron's Call, WoW, SW:G). But Min-Maxing absolutely has changed world exploration and immersion - likely for everyone, but certainly for myself. I was content to explore a world, try a quest, get humbled by a mob or boss that was too strong for me. But these days, I don't feel accomplishment unless I'm being efficient. I see mobs and wonder what they drop, or what part of a quest they're associated with. If none, I skip them. If the quest is too far out of the way, I drop it. I don't run up the mountain just to look and see anymore, I run over to Google and figure out what's up there to save me the trip.
Asheron's Call was nothing but exploration. The only reason to get stronger was to feel safer exploring new parts of the world. That model would be DOA at this point, and I understand why. The mystery is gone. But MMOs can succeed again if they give us gameplay that evolves. The only way to do that is with insane development burden, or... to let it evolve by putting the power in the hands of the only other natural gaming evolution we've seen: the players. Make the game about the player interaction. Bring back the MMO of the MMORPG. Games where you click two buttons and instantly get paired with players to run a dungeon that only exists to complete a quest where nobody talks to each other and gets mad if the others aren't playing optimally because it hurts their efficiency? They might as well be playing by themselves with bots. Make community matter, make the Gameplay loop INVOLVE player interaction. Incentivize exploration. Slow down the leveling process, increase difficulty, make the world scarier. Make progress less linear. If we can find a game that accomplishes this, we can make equity for all gamers. No-Lifers can enjoy the game for hours and casuals can come online and still contribute meaningfully (put them on a catapult in a castle siege. Nominate them as Mayor of a town who comes in and reviews progress. Their lower stats no longer matter. Things like that). I think the Glory Days may be gone, but it's only the Golden Era because it's the best time we've had SO FAR. We can usurp that throne with new experiences, we just haven't found the magic yet. Crossing my fingers for Ashes of Creation. Steven Sherif and Intrepid seem to get it. Let's see how that goes!
Well, I hate to admit it...New World dev team are making the right moves lately and it's gaining traction again,been playing it for two weeks again now and I'm enjoying it very much.
LEAGUE OF LEGENDS(RIOT) IS DOING WELL ASWELL
There's a lot riding on Ashes of creation. That sense of wonder when you first log into a new MMO and throughout the leveling process. With each new skill and region to explore, that curiosity and childlike wonder sticking with you for months at a time. Whereas the MMO's we've had over the past 10 years, we get that feeling for a few days and then it's just the same thing over and over again. It's soooo demotivating and dissatisfying. P2W has ruined MMO's these days. The honeymoon period is the leveling process. Once that's over and the P2W comes into play then all the great things you thought the game was, are no longer great. The potential you thought the game had, dies and eventually you just feel sad inside while you're still playing and hoping for a miracle. Yet the miracle never happens. I have such high hopes for Ashes and I will be supporting it until it's release. As with many others, Ashes will be my last hurrah. I'll throw everything I have at it. If it doesn't live up to the expectation then that'll be it for MMO's for me. I'll take up a new hobby like fishing.... or hiking. Ew.
You should give up on Ashes. There’s no way that game is ever releasing…ever
I mean, if the game becomes what it promises, and if it is released, it will never work imo, because the game bascially seems to demand to become your job with all its city and housing management etc. It's not something you can keep up with only playing here and there a few hours (especially as an full time working adult with family and kids etc)
ArcheAge 2 is also in development you know & Jake Song himself is leading the project, I'm talking for the revolutionary creator of the first ArcheAge & also Lineage, this is the guy who started everything this is the one who set the rules about how an OW-PVP MMORPG suppose to be & this is the guy who introduce all the sandbox elements & Sea/Naval content we have experienced in AA, I would suggest you to have your eyes & ears open for this game as I have no doubt that it's going to be a really amazing & unique game that will amaze everyone when it finally come out, me personally I'm more excited to hear news about AA2 than AoC.
@@patoo7989 mmo's have always been demanding on time though, nothing new. Just have to be able to enjoy it casually with time restraints ..if possible.
Ashes wont come out. The alpha is disappointing.
To come back to popularity I think MMOs should embrace private servers from the start. There would two versions available to buy: the client and the server one. The publisher would never have to bother with server costs. They could simply release extra assets and tools to keep money flowing.
The whole "global servers / queues" was a downgrade of gaming in my opinion. I miss the days where dedicated servers were top dog and you were playing with same people over and over and eventually bond with.
Today people come and go, and you never see them again.
Love it, i need a Part 2 of this video. We need to discuss about emerging technology and how that can impact in real gameplay. Video game industry is repeating itself over old references, reusing elements, as basic as the minimap dude. Minimap Click here, click that, cast this and cast that.
Sea of Thieves do one thing in an incredible way and that is the sailing system. You don't control the ship with buttons, you do it as if you where in the real ship, using the ropes, using the map and using the compass with the wind. I guess developers back then couldn't even dream with such technology, so they added minimaps and quest logs.
Back then we did not have the computing power we all share today, and somehow, we have managed to use it with ideas that comes from 2005, using 2023 graphics.
World of Warcraft was outstanding because it was the first of its kind bringing a more immersive, beyond anything seen before in multiplayer experience. The world seemed to have no limits, and you felt like part of something new.
You can't achieve something-new feeling without really making something new.
I used to play an MMO called Asheron's Call back in the days before WoW and it's still the best gaming experience I've ever had. No other game has even come close to that one
Daktide Server!.. Always an added dungeon loot bonus to find a player bot'ing..
One of the best videos you've made, absolutely love the change of philosophy and owning that we might be at fault. It's a human thing, the rat race mentality towards meta and 'feeling power' in a pixeled virtual world vs the possibility of interact and be part of a community, explore amazing lore's and worlds etc. Both developers with a cash grab mentality and us players are at fault.
Back in the day the phenomenon of MMO was something unique and separate from the rest of the genres. You had your single-player adventures, your multiplayer death-match arenas and then there's the massive open-worlds filled with real players. Of course the MMO genre looked very attractive to people. We even didn't have that many open-world games in general, let alone ones set in a fantasy world packed with real players.
Today every other game has either an open world or an MMO-like multiplayer, plus we've gotten so used to the concept. It's not that new MMOs are bad. It's just that people need more of an incentive to keep playing them now. Old MMOs could afford to be clunky and hostile to newcomers, people still stuck with them because they wanted to experience that open-world role-playing. Today they're ten time more newcomer-friendly and accommodating in general, yet we keep finding flaws in them because we have many other cool things we could be doing instead of playing them.
If you ask me, the "glory days" of MMOs will never return because they are stained in nostalgia. And while I'm sure that there will always be companies making MMOs, I doubt much will change. F2P cash shops and pay for convenience are so ingrained into the genre that, unless you have passion projects like Ashes of Creation, it will likely not go any different route, particularly when the majority of MMOs nowadays still come from South Korea. The Riot MMO will probably shake things up a bit and knowing their usual business model they may actually do some stuff differently, but will it be enough to revitalize the entire genre? We'll have to wait and see I guess.
Knowing Riot's track record of games and media as a whole I'm confident it's going to forego the WoW route and subvert expectations. Legends of Runeterra, TFT and Valorant all have nice twists on their respective genres and Arcane is not like anything I'd ever seen before. I'm cautiously optimistic about the MMO.
Ultimate Online was a once in a lifetime experience at the time. I still think that open sandbox style with a modern unreal engine 5 tech and ways for users to generate custom content (like people hosting raffles in uo) would be a beautiful thing
I played the beta for ESO with some friends and wasn’t super impressed, but so they’d have a full group, 3 friends got it for me. So I jumped in on pc day 1 in 2014. No lie not even a week after playing, that whole group stopped leaving me all alone. As I was lonely and bored, I was gonna quit, when as a level 30, I decided to go to cyrodiil (open world PvP) and joined a campaign with really only 2 guilds battling it out for control. I joined the guild that repped my faction, and the rest is history. I put in over 10k hours into ESO, 90% of it in PvP. The player conflict created an element that the devs didn’t make. The drama between us was a hat kept me going. Getting emperor in an era where it was an actual accomplishment before players farmed it for it each other, and getting recognized afterward is what kept me going every single day. That guild eventually fizzled out too (and I tried making my own for a bit) but a group of players who also pvp’d since launch let me join them and we took it to a new level. Organization, roles and discipline allowed for our entire guild to be recognized as one of the best for our faction and revived my love once again.
All this to say, the game can only be as good as the devs make it. For me, and many other players, it’s that social element the devs can’t code into the game that keeps us around. I long for that feeling again. I haven’t been active at all in ESO since about 2019, mostly because I had a kid. But I have time every night to play games and would gladly jump back in if my guildies returned. I hope ashes of creation is good. Many of us reconnected and said we’d give it a shot if it lived up to the hype
GW2 is another game that has seen growth in recent years, prolly not on the scale of FF14 but its doing well and worth checking. From my personal PoV its definitively the best one on the market right now as many of its design choices that were controversial when it first launched are actually very welcome now.
Not sure why it can't ever seem to gain any mainstream traction though.
The best and the most fair mmo
Well I came from Guild wars starting with day 1 proph, some former gw1 players hated gw2 when it came it because of the "gameplay" I was and still am one myself, I feel mmos were only good when you more or less needed to talk and party with people to get over bosses etc ala WoW originally (Classic got me back in) I can see why It doesnt get a mainstream audience though, it is the most fair but it is awfully boring to watch imo, so much more fun to actually play. Maybe thats why?
@@20048666 i played eso for 8 years , ZOS is very greedy company, but now i main gw2
FF14 clears it tbh
My main problem was that Gw2 aint a sucessor of Gw1. There is no hunting for skills, a sword lvl 1 has the same skills of a sword high level. If u cant change ur skills, whats the point on going for better gear? Just too se a bigger number on screen? Fuck that...
Some extra ideas:
- rise of internet and easy access to information also makes it easier to find better games + games are easier than ever to buy (many are even free)
- with social media being everywhere, just the fact that the game is online and alows you to meet new people is not enough to make it good anymore
- new mmos have a really small pool of potential players to get, many players will only try them out but not play long therm because they already have a main game or they are only there to chase the new mmo high
- mmos being massive and expensive doesnt promote experimentation and makes it hard for smaller indie dews to get in, its all big publishers with the preorder half baked product filled with mtx bs
MMORPG Community i appreciate you all, Let's not let this genre die out
The thing about mmo is that the genre uses 5th Aesthetics (look at "Aesthetics of Play" by extra credits) - fellowship. For that the collectivism is needed, but form sociological point of view, at the moment, the world is much more toward the individualism than collectivism (where "individualism + collectivism = 1; so collectivism = 1- individualism).
People don't need too much fellowship aesthetics when the individualism is much higher then collectivism, so they can fulfill it with games like Monster Hunter; and they can fulfill other aesthetics connected with mm's (like competition by pvp) much faster with games focused on pvp like Overwatch etc.
The premise of the return of mmo will be the return of classes that cannot exist without clans - like buffers from L2, and even Ashes of Creation won't change it.
With higher collectivism people will be more willing to spend time for others and for clans, so they will play mmo once again, but you have huge point about sharing the information - back then the clan was needed for that. Today you have other channels for information exchange
With individualism people do have time for such long interactions as were needed in old mmo's.
Sooo the "mmo" of individualism times are games like the MH rise and Overwatch.
I remember the first time i played Lineage II on a local cyber-coffee, i created my first character and idk how i got to Dion around level 15, i went outside the city and died like 300 times. After some 30 minutes of frustration, i created an elf character, went to an unknown zone just by exploring the gatekeeper options and ended up on the "Neutral Zone" which was on the middle of 3 starting areas. Spiders started chasing me and after running for like 5 minutes straight, i died and spawned on a completely different city, the dark elf village, fell in love with the city and created a dark elf, and the story repeats, i created every possible character just to explore local cities.
I think that games like WoW and Lineage II, had this feeling of being truly open world, i could run into a mob which is 30+ levels beyond me and i would feel the danger, also ambientation will change drastically, when you entered a new high level zone in Lineage 2, you felt like you were in danger(For example going from leveling outside Dion to leveling on Excecution Grounds). This feeling of danger is just not present anymore in modern mmo's, maybe Black Desert can give you that for a moment if you accidentally enter to Star's End during some quest. New World almost nailed this feeling too, when you get to higher level zones everything looks darker, and mobs start to hit you hard, but i feel that most mmo's are not trying to give that feeling of danger and dark ambience on high level zones.
I agree on that min-maxing part, people are just creating a whole new mathematic system around games, i feel like most players today are not connected with that feeling of just playing, just like if you were a child. When kids are playing with new toys, they don't care about materials, how much it will last, who is the CEO of Hasbro, and so on, they just play, and enjoy their new toy. Nowadays i feel like people is more connected with a feeling of addiction/scapism and less connected with the pure joy of just playing something on a computer, which is fucking amazing by itself.
I am happy to see a few frames of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen in this video. I rarely hear you talk about it but it's the game I am currently most excited for.
Agreed! Pantheon is overlooked big time. Getting back to why we all played mmos back in the day. Hopefully it will be that surprise title that brings a rebirth. Not because of the hype, but because of the quality of the game and the passion of the developers which is not influenced by a pushy publisher to meet their economic deadlines.
I'm really looking forward to Ashes of Creation and hopefully that game will just breathe new life into the genre. I know it's the hopeium talking, but the game looks to be everything we could ask for in an MMO and the combat they displayed on the developer live stream looked very promising. I also enjoy watching the lore videos Necrit has been posting about the Riot MMO and I am super interested in seeing what comes of that game as well. I'm not invested in any of the Riot universe but those videos single handedly made me want to.
The glory of days of MMOs returning depends on both developers and the players themselves. A good MMO needs developers who cares about what they're making (Like Yoshi-P with FFXIV) and treats the players as valued gamers, not just cash cows. They also have to make the right choices on game design (Like not making long boring grinds). And on the other end, the players themselves need to form a good community and culture that welcomes new players and minimalizes or frowns upon rushing to endgame and worrying about FOMO. Players themselves need to be able to have fun just adventuring again without looking up stuff or rushing to max level.
i stopped reading after the Yoshi P comment. Your FF14 cultists need to come to grips with reality.
@@ataridc based
I still play on official Ultima Online servers, on a low population local shard and there's still always someone online who is happy to talk. In saying that, I may only play for 30 minutes or less a day, in the morning before work. The time frame you mention pretty much covers my schooling life, when I had hours and hours to spare and did spend a lot of time in MMOs along with my friends. These days I just don't have the time sink hours into a game and I'm sure this is true for a lot of people, MMOs or not. I play Ultima Online because I can just run around and train my skills, much like RuneScape, in quick bursts here and there. I very rarely have time to sink into daily chores online which only then ruin those games for me because it feels like if you aren't doing those chores, you fall behind. And then maybe I do follow a questline in WoW only to find it ends with a raid and I just never have the time to be able to raid.
I know it sounds like I'm complaining, but I love my life and I love my work, so that is why I don't have time and like I said, I'm sure there are countless people who grew up around the same time as I, who spent their days online, but now just don't have the hours to sink into an MMO anymore.
I honestly believe the decline in MMOs is just the main playerbase from the "Glory days" getting older and finding they have no spare time.
SWG felt amazing back in the day but EQ2 was my favourite. That soundtrack was stunning, no surprised you used it for the background.
I think we're going to see more smaller scale games with shared social hubs and instanced outside world than a more open world MMO like the older ones that are still around. Don't get me wrong, I like the former, but the later also has it's charms and but the other gives you a bit more control over your ability to interact with other players in either a co-operative or adversarial fashion.
If Classic WoW has taught us anything it’s that the magic of old school MMO’s as we remember them are highly unlikely to ever return. The community and goals of players is completely different compared to back then and the plethora of social media content telling everyone how to min-max adds pressure to follow along even if you don’t want to.
A game that isn’t being flooded with guides and datamining will be quickly dropped by most players for that easy success alternative from a game that does cater to telling them everything.
I think the best we can hope for is for one of these MMOs to be good enough to capture a small niche audience and maintain that stable playerbase actively but I fear even that is beyond hope due to the overhype and subsequent very publicly covered huge decline after the honeymoon period ends.
Ashes is already well on that hype train and I fear it will never hit the lofty expectations everyone has for it.
I've seen people say otherwise though and like classic wow. Of course the game won't be bustling with new players though because new gen gamers care about graphics more, plus people aren't going to buy an older game or wow, there needs to be better ftp trails.
Classic wow does feel similar to what it was, but it's most ppl second playthrough while the game didn't add or change things in a way that would be faithful to the spirit of older mmos.
I think it was discovering the internet that made the games magical, I remember being shocked that everyone in game was a real person and it was like jumping into a fantasy world in real people and just being excited to explore with people. It was the same when I started paying age of mythology and just played that game every single day for like 7 years with my clan it was such a magical moment when the internet wasn’t corporate and it was just normal people with total freedom and play and do cool things
@@HaiLsKuNkY I feel this! My first online game back in the day was Multi-Theft Auto: Vice City and would play for hours and hours for nothing more than fun, it was incredible to be playing with other people online.
Original WoW was the same, think I took over 6 months to hit 60 the first time around just due to being immersed in the world. That kinda time would be unthinkable now.
We're just old lol, kids today who are not jaded can still feel this magic going into an MMO for the first time and to them it feels meaningful
if thats the case all of the kids today are jaded to MMO lmao since MMO as a genre is dead. the old people are the ones who keep the MMO genre alive. I cant blame the kids though almost all new MMO and as well as the old one are heavily p2w compare to the old days.
Thing is, kids don’t really play MMOS. It’s a genre for old folks now.
No
What I need is Elden Ring but as an MMORPG, I think the problem is with modern MMOs at least for me is that I don't feel that what I do actually matters, or that I accomplished anything... In From Software games like in Elden Ring you see something shiny guarded by one or multiple hard ass enemies who kill you a couple of times before you finally brute force your way through or outsmart them and even though that shiny item might be something useless like some herb or other type of consumable, you still feel a sense of accomplishment for deleting the enemies guarding it after failing hard a couple of times. Not to mention the visual progression, I started naked in Elden Ring and now I look like a samurai warlord.
Funny how quick a video can out date itself, New has now gained in 3 months over 25,000 in active players. I know you love it :D
WoTLK Classic feels more like an MMO back in the glory days more than ever right now. I joined three different groups in the first start area alone. New world has improved a lot, but still a ways to go
I agree. So far I've done raids and joined a guild which never happened in the almost 10 years I've played retail. Just never had to. WOTLK classic feels amazing and is super social!
Please keep doing what you're doing. The current state of gaming is literally heart breaking.
Figuratively, unless you rattle everywhere you go.
One thing i always felt was working against MMOs is simply time
When MMOs started coming out, i was a child, i wasnt overly critical of Storytelling, gameplay mechanics, or anything like that.
I was simply bedazzled easily with a fantastic world and the fantasy of it.
All of my friends was too, I knew VERY few adults who played video games, and even those were still only around 25
I'm 30 now, I have grown more critical of the games I play, more picky, it takes a lot more to ensnare me by a game than it used to. And I dont have the time to put into gaming I used to either.
World of Warcraft, for instance, I think came out at just the right time. with the growing number of young children gaining access to PCs in the mid Naughties. there are still children today obviously and as a teacher i have seen them just as easily impressed with so so little from games as i would have been back then.
The MMO Genre might gain popularity again but I doubt it will be from us, it will be from a potential new wave of young people. MMOs, Open World and all that just doesnt impress us enough anymore to keep our attention.
We have too much experience, we have seen enough good and bad games to know what is worth our time, we cant enjoy new games uncritically any more cause we arent children anymore
at least thats my take on it.
Well im 28 and im absolutely obsessed with lost ark since it came out..besides some downsides, its close to my dream mmo
I have some friends which always talk about what they want to see in a MMO or some other genre of game, and then when they get it, they have sth to complain again and move on
its just exactly what you explained + that most people dont actually know what they want
One friend of me wants a mmo where he can absolutely lose himself in and where he can keep grinding to become more powerful and it also should have challenging content in endgame, but then in lost ark for example he complains that its too time consuming
I dont believe people like him are ever gonna be happy with games anymore
MMO is fine , people will come if the game is worthy . A few things I look for
1- peoples time
If you play PvP you should gets ranks / titles / outfits based on time spent . And it should be worthy , like you shouldn’t be able to get it in 1 month . A player who plays a game for 5 years should get a skin that represents that time spent. Then you should get something from skill .
2- adventures worth while
Going to a dangerous area should require teaming with people , there should be multiple ways to get there and multiple ways to win .
3- beautiful chaos
A MMO , you shouldn’t be completely safe , nothing should be guaranteed. It allows for people to play as pirates , smugglers or thieves . Others to play police and body guards .
You have to give people fun things to do that aren’t as a scripted as a monster encounter or dungeon .
Other small things but a lot of people are waiting for a MMO worthy of commitment
Great vid!
chad
I think you hit the nail on the head here. I'm hoping the new mmo's will be big, different, and cater to casual players, unlike previous mmo's that basically caters to those who can play 24/7 and get a head start. There have been a lot of MMO's that I personally have enjoyed, but they rarely manage to keep me interested for more than a month or two - even if I really WANT to like the game!
So you basically want an ocean without water? An mmo that has no content for hardcore players simply means it has already failed. I don't think you're looking for an mmo, you should try mobile games instead.
@@yeahnope620 YEAH tell him. Play mobile games and pay for whatever boosts the game has to offer. Really fun. I promise
The "Glory Days" in all things are nothing more than a fallacy. Most older MMO gamers tend to talk about the mid 90s to the early-mid 2000s as the golden era of the genre without looking at the context surrounding WHY MMOs were so big then. They were still in the infancy stage, people weren't adjusted to playing with people online while nowadays almost every big release is an always online live service. Instead of seeing the current era of massive games that you can jump into with your friends, people would rather reminisce on something that happened 20 years ago, while they were in high school or college, when they had no responsibilities; no bills, wife, kids, job. The games that released in that era compared to modern design are almost always far worse products. I'm only 20, so while some of you guys reading this comment were clearing, or failing to clear, molten core, I was in diapers. I have no nostalgia or attachment to older games, so I can view them through a lens of objectivity many of you can't. If there's a classic version of a game out there, I've played it and almost always quit after 100ish hours due to many factors that would've been overlooked at the time of release. Stop holding onto an ideal that never truly existed in the manner you remember, and look for new adventures, new worlds, new experiences.
The MMO genre is at an unseen level of parity across the genre in the modern era; New World is steadily improving(despite how poor it was at launch), FFXIV has peaked story telling in MMOs and is pushing to be the best story told in a game period while also peaking in its Ultimate content, WoW is looking to reclaim its crown in Dragonflight with some massive shifts in ideology that improve the experience for casual players while removing many of the points of friction for more hardcore players, OSRS/RS3 remain the kings of seconds monitor gaming while also recently dropping some fantastic pieces of content in Tombs Of Amascut and Zamorak, ESO and GW2 both released great expansions, Lost Ark is great but of course is extremely P2W, and that's without mentioning the more niche MMOs like SWOTOR, I mean seriously, at this point if you're being a doomer about the genre; it's you not the genre.
Even tangentially linked to the MMO genre, MMO-lites are in a great spot as well, Warframe is still great, Destiny 2 is the king of grinding games, PoE 2 and Diablo 4 are right around the corner and will fry the brains of many ARPG players. Stop being a doomer and realize that those nights grinding in DAoC on a late summer night as a 16 year old high school student with the guys will never come back. Look forward; because as long as you hold onto the past, you'll miss everything in front of you.
Finally a comment that highlights the environment that isn't just some vague idea for how to fix the genre or rose tinted remembrances.
Good write up, fully agree
yeah, heavy rose tinted glasses vibe is coming off from this.
I honestly do miss having a good MMORPG to play.
These days, I just find myself game-hopping, as there's nothing to really intrigue me for hours upon hours anymore.
What I've also seen with a lot of MMO's in recent years; they only focus on combat, to appease the masses.
MMO's need to return to the past; look at what has made things popular. Various classes. Non-gender lock. Free To Play, with membership options; nothing P2W. Various styles of combat. Intriguing quests. Puzzles. An amazing story and/or sidequests, or just many various quests with their own stories. Housing. Non-combat skills and gathering.
I mean, I've been waiting for some to come out for a while - I know Ashes of Creation is the one "everyone is waiting for", but for me, the hype of it has died down considerably, especially when all I ever see with AOC is cash-shop backing and stuff. I also wasn't much a fan of when I heard that all the Battle Royale stuff people acquired will be provided to official game. Makes one think "backing" the game is now pointless, especially with how often they change the packs monthly. xD But that's just my viewpoint as to how, to me - it seems like they're just getting money, but, only time will tell what will happen with the game.
If all you've gotten out of TLP's coverage of AoC is they have cosmetic packs, you really haven't been paying attention. AoC is making the right moves, there's so much good to potentially happen for that game it just shows how jaded you are you're attached to them selling the packs as the thing you're concerned about.
I'm the same. New MMOs don't focus on giving a world to live in. they're so focused on this race to endgame to race to bosses to get gear to race to get bigger numbered gear.
you just described FFXIV lol
@@jimjones9631 Well good thing Riot Games are developing an MMO! If you haven't checked out Necrit's video on the topic then you should, since as a lore fan of the world of Runeterra I can tell you the world is already insane and well built.
@@lostempyrean It isn't a bad game, I just found the side quests utterly boring compared to the main story (which was actually lovely). The classes I was able to utilize DPS, Healer and Tank. However, the non-combat skilling, I just wasn't much a fan of. It just didn't click with me, which was disappointing. As for Housing... I dislike how you have to have a bidding war every so often to keep the house.
Overall, it's certainly not a bad game.
I think the dev should make mmo's with a offline single player and local/online multiplayer mode.
This way when the mmo dies you can still keep selling game copies and players can still play the game with their friends.
Basically make the "mmo" a single player game that players can connect to the internet to turn it into an mmo. (like the skyrim together reborn mod.)
maybe even have 2 types of servers: one with the classic game and one when player can freely mod the game while still interacting with other players.
Gaming itself evolved and made MMOs redundant. Every multiplayer game nowadays connects people around the world. The magic of that first time you realized you were playing with tons of other REAL people can't be experienced ever again.
I think one of the problems is there are too many mmo games to choose from and players are divided not only by too many mmo games but from other game genre as well
very true, people game jump waiting for next expansion
I think the best MMO possible would be in Virtual Reality.
It's the next iteration of discovery and exploration and that feeling of doing something completely new, the immersion is over 9000.
I agree with this, unfortunately I don’t feel VR is where it needs to be right now in order to be well paired with an MMO. Simply cause you spend so much time in MMO’s and if not immersed properly you’ll just want to get off. But I think when we hit the sweet spot of VR and MMO it will be great time
If anyone can ever be the, before so many times mentioned "WoW killer" and in this case bring the glory days back to MMO's, it's definitely Riot with their League Of Legends MMO. Riot has an insanely wide reach with their games and managed to already pull it off once and cement itself into the arguably most busy genre in the last decade or so, which is the FPS market. If that fails ... it's gonna be rought times for MMORPG games. There is also Ashes Of Creation and as amazing as that game looks, I don't think it will ever be widely known outside of the general "MMORPG Crowd"
bro a league mmo sounds so lame.......................
@@spaceli0n if you have no idea about league's lore and world you would say that, yeah
@@lunahri4173 why would I? Dota 2 is much better and a league mmo would not be mainstream. League is a very casual game they don't play mmos.
@@spaceli0n damn buddy never seen somebody this wrong.
1. Even if dota 2 was a better moba, i’m talking about the lore. The league MMO will be an ACTUAL MMO set in the world. the LoL moba has nothing to do with it.
2. You dont know any league players if you think we are casual about the game, characters or world. Literally playing hundreds of ranked games, esports being big, everybody having favorite characters, every single person i met knows in which region their mains live.
@@lunahri4173 thats like saying warcraft 3 has nothing to do with world of warcraft. Sorry to hurt your feelings thst you play the worse version of dota 2. Enjoy your lore in what will probably be a crap mmo. Also I've never seen someone so wrong.
When a company reinvents the MMO and understands that it needs innovation, but it´s a heck of an undertaking and a risky one if not done properly.
Just an example: Resource gathering isn´t done on the map, it´s done by starting or joining a mining company in a location of your choice. You hire a crew of miners who need to be paid, defended and dozens of related quests could be applied to the mining camp. The same for all gathering professions, each entangled in a web of questing, upgrading and defending.
I think you lightly touched on the core issue at hand here: in older mmo games the devs had an incentive to keep the game updated, current, fresh, and quality; now the devs focus instead on creating incentives for the player to keep coming back and spend more money. The former lends itself to quality game design, while the latter does not. Its focus isn't on good game design, but on good monetization. The incentives changed because of corporate greed, and gaming as a whole has suffered for it.
I think vr based is most likely going to be the experience that taps into the feeling of nastalgia of first stepping foot in to a new mmo. The immersion of my first mmo experience is what drew me into that world, and I really did get lost in it. Nowadays that just never happens anymore.
The unfortunate reality is never. The world has changed and so have we
*Ashes Of Creation is the MMO that will push things forward, other studios will emulate their game trying to match it's success just as the WoW clones did.*
I bet that's not gonna happen. Although I wish it would.
that is a pipedream.
lots of valid points in this video !
tho i think people gotta give up on the "old school MMO" idea, it felt fantastic because these were different times.
but all of what made MMOs magic at the time is just considered trivial nowadays : you can connect with millions of people around the world in a few clicks and that's just normal nowadays, discovering new worlds, marveling at their wonders and having an impact in these worlds is also something we're used to, RPGs do it much better than MMOs actually. that feeling of progression and theory crafting your character's build, roguelikes do it better and in a more replayable manner.
tab target combat was fine 20 years ago, now that people have played games with better combat ( pretty much any action RPG those last 10 years ) they just expect more.
to sum it up i think the problem is this : games have evolved and gotten better, MMOs didn't.
now to be fair a few have tried, i played and actually enjoyed 2 MMOs ( so that's personal ) : phantasy star online 2 new genesis, and will get back to it since there's new content i didn't play and actually a game that was given a lot of shit : bless unleashed. both have good combat, that require you to actively dodge and/or parry or you'll get trashed by even basic mob packs, some very interesting mini boss fights that actually kinda feel like playing an easier soulslike game. also both have fast progression, i don't think the whole "progression over months or even years" concept can work nowadays.
also subscription based games ? well the financial conjecture isn't the same as 20 years ago, you can't expect as much people being able to afford that. I think MMOs could do very well with a cosmetics only cash shop and maybe paid expansions but with a decent price tag, again if you're asking for 60 bucks every 3 months out of players it's gonna be tough.
then again the access devs now have to procedural generation could greatly reduce the pace at which they need to pump out expansions so that's less development costs.
I mean some games chose this model and are actually successful : destiny 2, the division 2
now I do realize FF14 kinda succeeded while retaining most old school MMOs concepts, including the subscription and honestly i can't really explain why, aside from the fact that it apparently has a great story, character development and I suspect the nostalgia from old timers plays a big role too, but you can't count on that everytime.
One of my biggest gripes with MMOs is the ease and difficulty of the game. The overworld content is usually drool inducing simple, even dungeons. While raids are difficult because some people are incompetent to the point you question if they're blindfolded and drunk. I don't want to waste my evening to kill a few bosses where I may not even get a piece of gear if we do manage it. It's a waste of time because I'm not enjoying it AND I'm not getting anything to show for it.
I believe MMOs will become impressive again once AI is building games. Coding at a rate that even a massive team could not, and adding things to the game that literally no one actually knows about cause a machine made it
Good Video. I do miss the glory days of MMOs because it seemed to meld progression systems I loved from RPG's with community.
But because the ways of modern MMOs makes progression very taxing so they can monetize fast tracks... And the communities seem to be so focused on speedrunning these progression tracks. There is no longer that feeling of community or that feeling of good progression in MMOs.
The two core tenets of what made an MMO amazing were devastated. Now the most popular MMO's are the ones that facilitate eRPers in the best manner because that's unfortunately the strongest community builders. It is why FF14 is the current king on community because the VAST amount of cosmetics that didn't get bogged down by WoW's same sense of Modesty that started in Wrath of the Lich king abandoning Cute or Sexy clothes.
What do I know though I just write perverted things on the internet. But I feel like if an MMO wants to dethrone FF14 they need to release with THOUSANDS of high quality outfits and also the means to craft them. It creates content for crafters, Roleplayers, and PvE folks and an entire economy. Cosmetics and having a fancy hat and 30 types of swimsuits is infinitely more important to community and roleplayers then adding some 12 boss raid only 8% of the community will play.
Thanks for reading my essay on why eRPers are the backbone of every emmersive MMORP community. And with an MMORP community really the only letter you are missing is the G and lets be real community doesn't care about the fucking "Game" part of these games.
For me, I have been playing MMOs for over 20 years now. I have at least 1 max level toon on every single MMO that was worth a try over all this time. MMOs are stale over the last several years, and classic WoW coming back out proved how hungry millions are for something to hit that urge. New world when it first came out was similar for the first month or 2. It had that feeling of adventure and exploring and open world combat that with voice chat enabled led to some hilarious times. My only hope is in Ashes of Creation, the Alpha testing has been quite fun and smooth. I cant enjoy any MMO right now, ff14 is either you enjoy doing the raids or mod the game to have orgy's in your house. New world there is literally nothing to do, tired of the 1 and only OPR and arena map. The weapon swap bug still happens 1/10 times and that will make me alt f4.
@@bigdaddynero I know over 500 people playing via discord servers. Half of them are literally ERPGers and some of them like the raids. None of them PvP or even talk about it lol. Shit my friend has every class max level every quest done. Has done everything there is to do and now she sends me nudes of her bunny girl.....
@@bigdaddynero yes 500 spread out across who knows how many servers. Across 100s of guilds full of 100s of people. Just because you do not partake in the lewd activities doesn't mean it's not rampant. Its why I do not play, every single guild I joined was not gamers. And I tried many times over the last 4 expansions that I just gave up once I got my samurai maxed I felt done.
@@bigdaddynero Well yeah, not saying its a bad game. It ate up a good amount of time with decent campaigns and had a nice flow to the job system. I wish I had that same experience, I joined maybe 7-8 guilds that were advertised as looking to do weekly raids. And they really were only raiding on 1 day a week. Maybe I am on the wrong server idk never tried to branch out more. Since no close friends were playing I just did as much enjoyable solo content I could. Legit my whole server felt like I was playing in some Goldshire twilight zone and everyone was trying to get me to get some mod that would let me see everyone else who also ran the mod...
So much has been written about this issue in so many places over the last several years, really.
In short, that time frame was unique and won't return because people no longer look to games as primarily social experiences due to the rise of social media. The old skool MMOs were primarily social experiences, because they were pre-social media. And it was all very new, socializing on the internet with strangers. That moved into social media, and people became focused on playing games as games, and with pre-existing friends rather than people met in the game itself -- that shift made the games immediately less social, more "gamey", and therefore the designs shifted accordingly.
At the same time, in the early 2010s other forms of online game became very popular -- first MOBAs and then battle arenas. These were free, attracted millions of players, generally had very hostile social environments (so people did not look to socialize in them with strangers generally), and were easy to play in short sessions while still feeling enjoyment and progress. MMO design changed accordingly to compete with these new genres (the same playerbase was playing the various genres and so it was the same players, generally, who were being competed for), which meant shorter sessions, more automated grouping, even less social focus, and emphasis on no subscription. This trend is durable, I think -- it isn't going to be reverted.
The future? I think there is room for niche popular subscription MMOs. Ashes may become that, if it is done properly. But I don't think we will ever see another period like 2008-2012 in terms of popularity for the genre. People want games that are less time consuming, playable in shorter sessions, free, not forced socializing, and, generally, competitive in some way. That is most online gamers, including most people who play MMOs today.
In the end, you're quite correct that the main reason is that players have changed. There is no way back to what it was, because the people who play the games are different, want different things, have different preferences, and so on. That's as true for the "new generation" of players as it is for oldbies who platyed UO and EQ back in the 90s ... very few of these people would tolerate a game designed anything like either of those in 2022. Even something like classic WoW, which clearly has some appeal, finds its appeal limited. Classic WoW in fact is a great example of the problem -- it wasn't the same precisely because people played it like it was a 2019 MMO because while you can bring back the 2004 game, you can't make the players the same as they were in 2004 -- people don't play that way any more, and we saw that in how people played classic WoW in 2019.
I don't think we can recreate those "good old days" again in the modern day, but there are things that can be done to regain that sense. Data mining will inevitably happen, but having a more aggressive policy against it like FF14 has made it harder to access compared to other MMOs like WoW. Another thing that really is a missed opportunity is having regularly scheduled community chats with a devs. I feel this is extremely underutilized. I know Ashes of Creation does this, and Yoshi-P and FF14 do too.
One thing that Devs need to realize is respecting a player's time. It's okay to play other games for a well balanced "gaming diet". Playing one game to the exclusion of all else leads to boredom and burnout. Acknowledge that players want to try out other games, figure out ways to get them to come back and remind them why they fell in love with your game in the first place.
ff14 has topped all other MMO devs in regards to gamer burnout.
"More time to get to max level" That's the main thing. Older games focus on the progression whilst newer games focus on what to do at max level.
And then, a max level progression system, instead of simply an endless grind. For example, while daily quests in WotLK were mandatory for a few weeks after hitting level 80 (so you could get your shoulder enchants), for the most part they were just an optional boost to gold farming. There was a period of time where you needed to do the content, and after that you only did it if you wanted to. Compare this to MoP, where you have to meet your weekly cap of valor points so you can upgrade your raid gear. There was no end to that mandatory grind.
I still remember playing a game where a mob of similar level would only net you 0.001 exp every kill.
I'm kinda excited for Palia. A super casual MMO might be refreshing.
Palia looks beautiful. And it may be fun. But some of the Palia content creator fanatics has some super toxic political views that they inject into the game. There is an extreme amount of gatekeeping already. So I'm worried that the friendly, casual nature of what the community of Palia seems like will only be surface deep.
Now, if they manage to keep the overt and controversial political stuff out of the game, great. We can just relax and have fun with people who have different opinions than us, and get along as people. Or... the gatekeeping shifts the community rapidly in one direction, and this results in the game design shifting in that same political direction, and people who just want to relax and explore a world together will be chased out.
And that's a Palia that would lose my interest in a heartbeat.
@@nulltheworm oh wow I was not aware about any of that. hopefully it is as we hope and game stays relaxing and casual. I feel like many would benefit from it.
I played Fiesta Online for years when I was younger. Once, me and a friend of mine wanted to explore the world on an adventure. I remember very clearly, that we were so highly underleveled, that we died in a zone just from one attack. We waited 20mins before a priest came by and resurrected us. That was so much fun! It felt like a living busy world. We continued our journey and back then I didnt realise that this is a memory that would stay with me and that I still remember this journey to this day after over 13 years. The good old mmo times were the absolute best. My last hope is AoC.❤️
Holy shit, when you mentioned the peak of MMO glory days were around 2004-2012, that was around the time I was tweaking on Maple story, Runescape, and Vindictus. I was heavily addicted until I had to focus on college and find a job. I just didn't have time to be playing MMO's anymore, and honestly once Big Bang patch came out for Maple story and suddenly the challenge to level up disappeared, I just stopped. If anything, I think the biggest reason MMOs just dropped is because most of us millennials simply grew up and no longer had time to be playing games as much as we could before.
Simpe and fast Answer - Never.
People who old dont have time to play only one game in this day and young must follow to trends - like New World in first month, then -> nobody play.
People stuck with mmo like WoW because it's their daily routine, but only some people in this group want to try new MMO.
MMO's as a genera will never be the same as when they were at their peak because the playerbase that played them are way different from now, society itself and what is good or bad has completely changed, that feeling of social grouping and discovery is lost now in this latest generation of kids
I’ve been watching your channel for years mate. For this exact reason, you provide the nostalgia for me.
Josh´s video "Have guides ruined MMOS" would´ve been well implemented for further analyses on early the subject of information polution.
I'm gonna echo the thoughts of a lot of people here and say that this myth of "the Golden Age of MMO's" isn't really reflective of the actual quality of the games now versus then, it's all about the novelty of playing online with friends and exploring not only these new virtual worlds with them, but also exploring the new accessibility of the internet to more and more people. A lot of folks would probably disagree with that, including yourself, but that's the way I see it.
Gaming and MMO gaming was also a lot more niche than it is nowadays as well, and I think that's why a lot of the more "hardcore" games that cater to people who want to no-life and do full loot PVP and all that kinda stuff were considered a lot more popular than they are now. It's like a percentage thing almost where the ratio of hardcore gamers to normal and casual gamers was much higher back in the late 90's and early 2000's because gaming in general was less popular - and less "acceptable" to a large extent as well. Just pulling random numbers, 80/100 gamers were hardcore back then versus nowadays 20/100 are hardcore. So these games aren't necessarily bad, but people think they're bad, dead, or unsuccessful because it's not ALL THE GAMERS playing it, it's a small group of more hardcore people.
On a related note, Josh Strife Hayes did a great video on why most modern hardcore full loot PVP MMO's have failed to gain much of an audience a few months ago I believe and that is somewhat similar to the point I'm trying to make here. Definitely worth a watch.