Are MMORPGs dying?

[Asvinia]

Far from it. It feels like it's a dying genre because the players are spread so thinly.

Back when you played Runescape and WoW, there wasn't much in the way of competition, everyone who played an MMO only had maybe like 5 to play, so the players were concentrated into those handful of games.

Now we have a new MMO coming out every week, people bandwagon around into the 'next best thing', a few stay forever but most move on to another 'big thing'. This means that the players are spread really thin on the ground compared to what they used to be. This also means we have a population of people that haven't 'settled' into a 'home' MMO.

 

And then you have MOBAs, who were big anyway and things like LoL and DotA are their own beasts. But other games like Smite and HotS came along and absorbed some more people.

Then you have things like PUBG and Fortnite, which themselves have absorbed a good amount of people, but it's a novelty genre and will wear out everntually.

And finally, you have Minecraft. When I played MMOs in 'ye good olde days', a lot of the fresh, new players were about 12-14ish. Well, now those kids are playing Minecraft and so the amount of fresh blood joining MMOs has slowed down considerably.

 

You might also feel like it's a dying genre to you as well because you're old. In terms of MMOs anyway. I'm 28 and have played MMOs since I was about 16ish and I played things like FlyFF and stuck with WoW up until early Pandaria. I've hopped around nearly every new MMO release on the market and have recently moved from GW2 to FFXIV. Maybe it doesn't affect you or maybe you haven't realized it - and I didn't myself until someone else said it - people are like broken records. You join a guild and the same types of people are in there. The squeaker, the slut, the LGBT person, the married couple, the wannabe cool guy, the inappropriate guy who thinks he's a 'playa', the neckbeard, the 'mother figure', the couple who aren't together but might as well be etc.

Maybe you're just tired of the same thing all the time? Maybe it's not the games.

 

I disagree though that MMOs are more expensive than ever. A subscription is £8.99 a month, and you can play however long you want. You could play all 24 hours of a day if you wanted. I've paid £8.99 for a month of FFXIV and I play maybe 4 hours a night. That's 120 hours a month, that's less than 10p an hour. As far as value for money goes, I'd say it's a pretty good investment for an entertainment product, and the more time you spend playing, the more cost effective it gets.

 

My only gripe with MMOs, is that you have to live with them one day shutting down. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth investing so much time into something that will eventually shut down, and all that time spent and effort invested will just poof into the ether. At least in single player games I enjoy a story and move on. I guess you could say friendships you make in MMOs aren't a waste of time, and having fun is a legitimate use of recreation time. I know I've started rambling but it's 5AM and this kind of topic always ends with me thinking about my own mortality. I'm not getting any younger after all, the time required is far more to ask than the money spent now.

[AJ_Radio]

I think the biggest regret is knowing that you’ve wasted all those hours on a single MMO, like I did. I poured in around 8000 hours or so on Runescape. Several years of work. 

 

Not even Star Ocean 4 comes close to the amount of time it takes to build an account on Runescape. 

 

I used to spend hundreds of hours to train skills and finally after all that work I was finally prepared to tackle a boss. King Black Dragon, Corporeal Beast, Fight Caves, that took a lot of hours getting the gear and mats. 

 

People who’ve only played mostly console games have no idea on the time investment. 

 

There are other MMOs that require a similar time investment, but you get the idea. 

 

One of the reasons why I’m playing older PS3 games is because I missed out on them years ago when they came out. As much I enjoyed Runescape and World of Warcraft, I sacrificed a bit of my life on those games and everything else as far as gaming goes went under the carpet. 

[ddracarys]

I kinda do hope they die off, as MMORPG is among my least favourite genre of gaming. I only make certain exceptions for Destiny and, soon enough, Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker. I, too, used to play Runescape quite a lot in my childhood. But despite all of the fun times, I'm glad they're over honestly. Always seemed like there was no endgame there, always a better piece of equipment to make, find, or buy. Always a quest to receive when you're just about done clearing your log. It was exhausting. I'm all for as much content as possible, but Runescape didn't know when to stop.

[AJ_Radio]

What’s bad about Runescape now is you’re being thrown into an entirely different game as opposed to the one you played three years ago. 

 

Every time I came back to the game I had to readjust and read up on all the updates Jagex implemented. 

 

And then I realize that most of the training methods I used to gain XP for skills were then outdated. So I would have to force myself to learn to adapt to the new method which makes everything easier and more convenient. 

 

99 percent of all updates for MMOs like Old School Runescape is to make the game easier and more convenient for the players. 

 

As I mentioned before, in World of Warcraft you could be a very good Frost Mage. You dedicated the time to learn your class, and while Mages are specifically damage dealers, you still had to use the right specs and gear in order to maximize DPS (damage per second). 

 

But then Blizzard can come along and completely nerf an ability, or in some cases make the class weak. A Frost Mage who was good in one update or expansion could be entirely weak in the next. So then you would think about switching over to Arcane or Fire, or reassigning your skill points into different abilities. 

 

In MMOs you constantly have to adjust to what the game developers are putting out. If an update came along that upset someone, they either continue to play or quit. 

 

Since I didn’t appreciate what Jagex was doing to Old School Runescape, I quit. There is nothing on there anymore that appeals to me. And I’m an old veteran of this game, so I’m not the target audience.

 

They are, like you said never ending. Eventually there comes a point in which you are considering quitting, and that is probably the better decision. 

[GT__Jedi]

I like MMORPG for a game like ESO, where you can travel as a group and have some fun.  No hostility, just fun.

[ddracarys]

6 hours ago, PermaFox said:

I like MMORPG for a game like ESO, where you can travel as a group and have some fun.  No hostility, just fun.

 

True, this is another example of a bearable MMORPG for me personally.

[DaivRules]

Yes. MMORPGs started dying when I quit Ultima Online in 1998 and have been limping along as zombies ever since. 

[Fing3rButt3r3]

Dying?? No way. Just because 1 mmo doesnt have as many players as it did before doesnt mean the genre is dying. Do you even know how many there is now?? Asians countries pumping them out dozens every year. Its not like 10-20 years ago where there was only like a handful for years. My first mmo was Everquest and during that period (6-8yrs there was mayybe 2 other mmos to compete for playerbase) there wasnt much choices. So everyone and their mothers and fathers, grandmas, brothers and sisters played 1 mmo game. Now we got hundreds. Even on consoles. Theres coming MMO for ps4 like Tera, even that fancy looking Black Desert Online has mentioned to port over their PC version. The playerbase is all over. So no, I dont see MMO dying.

[Chirithy84]

Na don´t like them; they can go where the sun never shine... have many bad experiences with free to Play mmos; wow; pay to Play mmos etc..

And we have enough good games in all Genres for the PS 4; so they can stay were there started; on pc.

just my two Cents..

Edited March 6, 2018 by Koromaru

[AJ_Radio]

On 3/4/2018 at 4:33 PM, DaivRules said:

Yes. MMORPGs started dying when I quit Ultima Online in 1998 and have been limping along as zombies ever since. 

 

You quit when MMOs were just getting started. You missed out on a lot of the big MMOs of the 2000s.

[AlchemistWer]

Nowadays the free to play format kill a lot of MMO, and I agree with @Spaz year 2000-2006 was the best time to play MMORPGs.

[DragonQuest238]

I have since returned to Wizard101, which is one of those "free-to-play" MMORPGs which require some money to explore all of the content and does have lootbox like mechanics with its card packs. That said, I did enjoy the game. Every line an NPC says is fully voiced. They are now upgrading their main hub to better graphics(you can switch back to classic if you want) and music but I do enjoy exploring the various realms.

 

That said, the problem is that there is no other reasonable way to ensure that everyone has fun and gets through the content with a minimum of busywork. Even Wizard101 has this problem - if you have real money, you can spend it on the Crown Shop to get powerful gear at your level (that is the only equalizer - all equipment in the game is level-restricted so you'll only get crappy gear when you start out and have to get to Level 10, 20, etc. to get better and better gear. The real overpowered stuff is locked to anyone under Level 90) but what you get is random, every booster you pull may not even give you gear, it may give you crappy crafting materials or gardening seeds which you cannot use at Level 1.

 

But you cannot disband lootboxing because then someone will be disappointed. If you take away lootboxes, how will players get better gear? They will have to either earn it by defeating enemies(which, as a Wizard101 patron, I can tell you that drop rates of enemy loot are just bad as pulling cards from a booster pack - you have a 10% chance of getting any sort of equipment, and even less of getting what you want, because equipment is level-restricted AND class-restricted; if you practice Fire magic and you get a robe that has awesome stats, chances are it's restricted to Wizards who specialize in Ice magic and all you can do is display it on a mannequi in your house or throw it in the trash as you can't equip it. ) or crafting it, and boy howdy, crafting sucks in an MMO. Even though Wizard101 has a great crafting progression, nobody in the game wants to spend a lot of time and resources crafting robes that will get thrown out when they find a better gear from a boss drop.

 

So if you say "From now on, you have to craft all of your gear", you are going to anger a lot of your big-paying fans and they will boycott you and drop out, which means you go bankrupt. On the other hand, if you say "All gear will be dropped by enemies", you anger the new players who are too weak to defeat the boss monsters which have their favorite-looking gear and no expert is gonna carry them. Then the newbies will quit playing while they are ahead and you lose future customers, meaning you have to monty haul it up for what players you have left, all of the cash-grabbers, and then the disgruntled newbies spread rumors that you are playing favorites to the rich, and it turns into a lose-lose situation which ends up you going bankrupt and shutting down your shiny MMO and selling all of the servers before the first year ends.

 

There is a video game video series called Extra Credits, and in one of their episodes, they talk about how one game company tried to reform their MMO so that enemies only dropped crafting materials and you had to craft all of your gear. This makes an RPG more realistic and believable - where would a Rabite be hiding a Plus+ Infinity Sword, anyways? Up its rectum? (Don't answer that. ?)

 

But the company almost died because all of their customers revolted en masse when they tried to implement the new changes and forced them to go back to the old ways. This is because we are a loot-based species. Human beings want to pull that Plus+ Infinity Sword from the bowels of that Black Rabite(?) rather than skin it and use the hide to make their own.

 

What MMOs need to do is to make sure that, no matter how much money you have, you'll have a fun time. Sadly, MMOs are service businesses and therefore need to make money, so they have to do microtransactions to pay the bills. There is no way around it unless people are willing to donate to the company, and I don't see us spending our good money on donating for a video game without a return.

[Alantor32]

I rarely play MMORPGs on PCs, only on consoles and on the F2P model like Neverwinter and Star Trek Online, so if I were to give out my honest opinion about this, I say MMORPGs are far from dying. There's some good MMORPGs like FFXIV and World of Warcraft though I never played them (I would like to play FFXIV since I'm a FF fan.). So I personally think MMORPGs will live on for a long time.

[AJ_Radio]

12 hours ago, DragonQuest238 said:

What MMOs need to do is to make sure that, no matter how much money you have, you'll have a fun time. Sadly, MMOs are service businesses and therefore need to make money, so they have to do microtransactions to pay the bills. There is no way around it unless people are willing to donate to the company, and I don't see us spending our good money on donating for a video game without a return.

 

I have no problem paying a monthly fee to play a MMO. My problem is when they start implementing microtransactions and gameplay options that you have to pay actual money for when you're already paying for your subscription.

 

I totally understand that any free to play MMO these days is going to have microtransactions, they have to make money. No MMO can really survive purely on donations, not enough people are going to do that anyway.

 

In the years I've played MMOs I find a lot of them lose their luster after a few years. I've invested years of time into World of Warcraft and Runescape and towards the end they were basically just a big chore I felt that I had to do, because of crap like daily quests and win X amount of gold by playing this minigame.

 

These days I get a lot more fun playing a variety of games rather than sticking to one or two MMOs like I did for a very long time.

 

8 hours ago, MMX20 said:

I rarely play MMORPGs on PCs, only on consoles and on the F2P model like Neverwinter and Star Trek Online, so if I were to give out my honest opinion about this, I say MMORPGs are far from dying. There's some good MMORPGs like FFXIV and World of Warcraft though I never played them (I would like to play FFXIV since I'm a FF fan.). So I personally think MMORPGs will live on for a long time.

 

I always felt MMOs were superior on the PC because there is a lot more customization and options at your disposal. You can't get a controller to implement as many options as you can with a keyboard, there's just not enough commands with a PS4 or Xbox One controller.

 

Perhaps MMORPGs aren't really dying from a business standpoint. But you definitely don't hear nearly as much about them like you used to. Back in the early to late 2000s you heard a lot on MMORPGs and this was a time when they were still evolving into their own. I look at a lot of them these days and most of them don't look like anything I want to bother spending my time with. It's like they're trying to copy too much from World of Warcraft, Everquest or Final Fantasy 14 rather than try to be their own thing.

 

The most popular online games are competitive PvP like League of Legends, DOTA 2 and Overwatch. I would love to see a Witcher 3 like MMO where quests are being added, new storylines are implemented and new characters are thrown in to keep us interested in the game. The Elder Scrolls Online has done this to an extent, but it hasn't been as successful and popular as it could be.

 

Plus, I think a good majority of people have moved on from MMORPGs for the simple fact that they NEVER END, unless the servers shut down or the companies who made the game declare bankruptcy.

[DragonQuest238]

7 hours ago, Spaz said:

In the years I've played MMOs I find a lot of them lose their luster after a few years. I've invested years of time into World of Warcraft and Runescape and towards the end they were basically just a big chore I felt that I had to do, because of crap like daily quests and win X amount of gold by playing this minigame.

Oh, I am definitely on board with that. Got some more time with Wizard101 again, but I wasted two days of that month of time not playing because I was enjoying randomizers of old SNES gamess that made the game more fun than I thought. Who knew that introducing a lot of random chance to a linear game brings it back to life? I am waiting for KingsIsle to bring the summer update live and then I'll run through the story again with the ability to take awesome screenshots before I delve too seriously into the game because I don't feel like trying to beat some really tough bosses in the later worlds because I am not confident in my ability to win.

Edited July 14, 2018 by DragonQuest238

[TJ_Solo]

Quote

Are MMORPGs dying?

 

No.

[SnowxSakura]

Man EQOA was the best on the PS2, they definitely are bigger nowadays, but with them trying to appeal to everyone it's just not working. Jack of all trades, master of none

[Milktastrophe]

On 7/13/2018 at 6:09 AM, MMX20 said:

I rarely play MMORPGs on PCs, only on consoles and on the F2P model like Neverwinter and Star Trek Online, so if I were to give out my honest opinion about this, I say MMORPGs are far from dying. There's some good MMORPGs like FFXIV and World of Warcraft though I never played them (I would like to play FFXIV since I'm a FF fan.). So I personally think MMORPGs will live on for a long time.

 

I don't think Star Trek Online really counts as an MMO though. So much of that game is instanced to just you (either that or the game is completely dead). The closest thing to multiplayer that I noticed when I 100%'d it was that you could buy/sell items with other players.

[DARKB1KE]

17 hours ago, TJ_Solo said:

 

No.

Yes.

 

What happened to the "massive" in massive online multiplayer? 

Instanced 4 player missions it's come down to.  A measly 4 players.

Gone are the days with hundreds of people in one location.

Edited July 15, 2018 by DARKB1KE

[DoctorGameGeek]

I have decided that after getting a nice, dedicated powerhouse of a desktop computer (that doubles for work and will be the anchor in a to-be-wonderful home office), I may try to get back into MMORPGs again.  It makes sense.  I think I'll be done with my backlog of PS3 RPGs to plat, and I'll need something else for a distraction.  

 

I have tried various MMORPGs on and off in years past.  MapleStory was fun when I had a diehard friend to play with.  I couldn't get into La Tale after being disappointed by instance dungeons.  I tried Ragnarok Online and couldn't get into it, and I probably stuck with Eden Eternal the longest.  Who knows?  Maybe I'll splurge and pick up FF14 as long as the subscription rate isn't too crazy.  I'll just say this:  I'm used to going solo on PS3 RPGs, and on occasion, I'll find a gamer whose trophy list overlaps with mine.  Mastering MMORPG mechanics may be a worthwhile challenge.  They differ so much, and I'm not jaded enough to think that they're all capable of being game-broken.

 

So, yeah, I don't see them dying anytime soon.  There are tons of 'em out there, and a good one will attract a faithful community.

[Cassylvania]

Battle royales are the new MMOs.

 

We deserve everything we get.

[AJ_Radio]

On 7/17/2018 at 9:40 PM, Cassylvania said:

Battle royales are the new MMOs.

 

We deserve everything we get.

 

More specifically, DOTA 2, League of Legends and other like minded games are the big draws. They aren't really MMOs are they are more on competitive PvP, because in DOTA 2 and League of Legends you're mostly playing against others, not helping them take on a boss like you do in World of Warcraft.

 

PvP is there in World of Warcraft and Runescape, but I think most would agree with me that PvP isn't the main draw in those games. It's interacting with thousands of other players, the option to work together in beating a raid and organizing a team. That is a MMORPG, and they usually come with their share of quests for you to partake in.

 

Then there is stuff like Counterstrike that has been popular for over a decade, but that is not a MMO at all.