Is the MMO genre dead?

Originally Posted by Philistine
No but I wish the resources used on MMO's were used on sp games instead: ESO applied to ESVI, SWTOR applied to KOTOR3, Fortnite applied to new sp Unreal, etc.

EDIT: I deleted what I wrote, as I found by rereading it that it did come across as a holier-than-thou message, which actuallly wasn't my intention.

pibbur in his holier-than-thou mode.

Originally Posted by porcozaur
Well when one new mmo comes around per year, you could say its dying and it will continue. I dont have patience anymore for mmos, in the last 5 years only played eso and wow, plus secret world, but that you could count it as a sp almost. And i dont think the generation that comes love mmos; sure they want to play online but at a much smaller scale and with almost instant rewards.

I think the genre will continue though, wow classic looks like a huge success from what i read on the forums, plus you have other mmos that continue to get profits.

I agree with what you say here.

There was a time when a lot of new MMO's were on the horizon, and I thought that there couldn't be room for all of them. No surprise that most of them - if I remember correctly - never saw the light of day.

From that perspective, fewer new MMO's is to some degree healthy, but it does indicate that developers/pusblishers have lost interest. And although there are (and probably will be for years to come) a number of games with a sustainable player population, it is also (again to some degree) a sign of stagnation.

pibbur

As Joxer said dead to me. It varies by player/user. For me it died when subscription left and was replaced by micro-transactions.

In the early days, when I played the original EQ1, WoW, DAOC, there were no MT's and when you played you could get more into the game itself. Now its less immersive, you feel nickel and dimed to death (well I do, I really dislike MT's), and its often about instant gratification. The focus seems different than it was in the past.

Could also just be I got really burnt out on them and thus they hold a lot less interest, combined with MT's, and a lack of time to invest in them these days.

Its hard to say if MMO as genre is dead. Unlike single player games, you are not going to get a many new MMO ever year. WoW has been going strong for well over 15 years now? Yes it has its up and downs but it still has million of players. FF14 has grown subscriber number year on year and it has the highest number of subscribers 4 or 5 years after release now. How many games have increased their player count 4 years after release?

None subscription based MMO such as ESO are also doing well and increasing player count each year. There are also many eastern MMO around as well and are also in development as well.

Given that MMO have longevity, I don't think its fair to measure if they are dead or not based on how many new MMO are in development.

I think there are more people playing MMO now than ever before and we have more MMO now than ever before. You many not like many of these MMOs but they are MMO in some definition.

Originally Posted by wolfgrimdark
It varies by player/user. For me it died when subscription left and was replaced by micro-transactions.

Micro-transactions made it into all game genres, though. They just make so much money that the subscription wasn't really needed, anymore, but developers tend to get greedy trying to give the big spenders more to buy and can put far too many in a game and ruin it. You could almost blame phones since they're making 40% of all game profits and they're entirely based on micro-transactions.

I warned people not to buy Oblivion horse armor, but no one listened!

Originally Posted by lostforever
Given that MMO have longevity, I don't think its fair to measure if they are dead or not based on how many new MMO are in development.

Yeah, this is true. The thing is, if a player is already invested in one MMO then they don't really need another. Same goes for MOBAs where people just play DOTA2 or LOL. There have been many more MOBAs but the players are already taken. The Battle Royale games seem to do alright getting BR players to take a look, but it's still largely dominated by PUBG and Fortnite.

Originally Posted by SirJames
Micro-transactions made it into all game genres, though. They just make so much money that the subscription wasn't really needed, anymore….

I think for some games it was a matter of survival. Lotro, and possibly DDO comes to mind, definitely Secret World. Don't know about ESO, which to me seems to have been a success from the start.

pibbur who stilll isn't sure that he knows what he's talking about.

Star Citizen?

DDO is FAR from dead let me assure you. Just check out the latest update patch notes linked in the Team Corwin thread!!

Originally Posted by pibbur who
I think for some games it was a matter of survival. Lotro, and possibly DDO comes to mind, definitely Secret World. Don't know about ESO, which to me seems to have been a success from the start.

pibbur who stilll isn't sure that he knows what he's talking about.

Yeah, could easily be. I've been having a look at a multiplayer idle game called Clickraid2 and even with 150 players, many of them being users with multiple accounts to have a full party, I'm amazed at how many $1 server-wide buffs it sells. Without selling any more copies he must make $100+ a day from buffs alone. Enough to ensure the games survival, for sure. (I would not recommend playing this game!)

Originally Posted by Kos
Star Citizen?

Who?

Originally Posted by Corwin
DDO is FAR from dead let me assure you. Just check out the latest update patch notes linked in the Team Corwin thread!!

I'm always tempted to come back when I see you're still playing! One of these days I will! Must be 10 years since I last logged in.

Originally Posted by Corwin
DDO is FAR from dead let me assure you. Just check out the latest update patch notes linked in the Team Corwin thread!!

I didn't think that DDO was dead. I just wondered if going "free to play" was caused by necessity, that like LOTRO there were too few subscribers to kerep the game going. Wasn't there also some talk of the game going into "maintenance mode" before Standing Stone took over?

Now it seems that both LOTRO and DDO are quite healthy.

pibbur who may be accused of wishful thinking regarding LOTRO.

Yeah, that happened to quite a few MMOs. The good thing about the F2P model is that it has saved certain MMOs from being shut down. The bad thing is that it motivates the developers to spend more time and effort on cosmetics/skins/etc than actual content, so said MMOs are generally progressing very slowly compared to the likes of WoW.

I really noticed that in the final few years that I was playing Everquest Two, hardly anything new really looked new, it just appeared to be reused old assets, thinly disguised at best. I'm one that totally avoids the micro-transaction gig, a subscription model is much more to my liking.

I would not say that the genre is dead per se, it would be that less people are interested in it nowadays due to the genre, for the most part, remaining stagnant in reinventing or advancing new mechanics and functions, to the point where they are starting to feel the same.

What about in the East? Does it run still strong in Asia?
I saw several games in the past coming from mostly South Korea. But that was few years ago.

Maybe the genre is undead, since vanilla servers seem to be the way to go nowadays. But seriuously, when can a genre be declared dead when it has been fading away for over a decade now?

I hope it is OK to comment in this older thread (there are not newer ones):
MMO is not dead to me - I have a dream MMO which doesn't even exist, but it seems like it is not the same version of MMO as yours. Breathing economy? Players cooperating together? Building something together? It feels like smaller community of early gaming, which can be now achieved by creating a guild/kinship? But if it is imbeded in the core of the MMO, it feels empty and almost forced - like all you will do dungeons to be able to finish the main quest, you will all do PvP, because others do need it. Or we will not give you factions because you all have to be in a guild.
It feels like cut of content in the name of "community" in reality check.

We revive old threads on a regular basis, so feel free to do so. After living in the MMO genre for over fifteen years, it's pretty much kaput for me, save for testing on Pantheon. And it's likely to stay that way.

OK, thanks for answer. I'm always afraid that instead of discussion I create just waves. But I like the process of comming to some solution, but maybe it is harder in written form and in English (I miss the point quite regulary).
Another idea to this thread is that maybe the old concept should die and a new one could be reborn, but the question is what kind of concept it should be. So players go back to what could have been missed - like creating their own world is one of the newer older concepts.
My concept is fantasy SIM. I have heard that Final Fantasy IV does have some mechanics like professions, but I would like to have something more mature with deeper lore. But everything is always or total SIM with RL jobs, or pure fantasy combat only and that can become repetitive aswell.

On the side note - I tried WoW recently and I couldn't get into it, so I tried classic before my sub run out and I actually liked it more. What was frustrating about it that I didn't know why. Atleast I know now what are wow players talking about.

If you enjoy MMO's, then consider DDO. We have an RPGWatch Guild and play regularly with each other.

Originally Posted by Corwin
If you enjoy MMO's, then consider DDO. We have an RPGWatch Guild and play regularly with each other.

How hard is it for a total noob to get started? The extent of my DnD experience is a million replays of BG (and I still am mediocre at combat), NWN2 and a few abortive attempts at NWN.