The State of MMORPGs - End of an Era

[MissP]

- What do you think of the state of MMORPGs these days?
I think it needs more variety overall. Games like GW2 and Tera tried to bring in some new combat mechanics, and GW2 especially did a lot of things right (love the exploration in that game), but both had major flaws and I'd like to see future realeases continue to refine those good ideas rather than revert to the WoW formula.

- What is the last MMORPG you have played?
Guild Wars 2.

- Are you still playing it?
Nah, I hit the level cap and decided that the frustrating dungeons weren't worth farming for armor sets. The personal story was also a major letdown and badly botched in my opinion.

- Which MMORPG have you spend the most time on?
That would have to be WoW. I wouldn't want to calculate how many hours I lost to that game, but it was a lot.

- Are you looking forward to any new MMORPG?
I'm keeping an eye on TESO (in spite of the leaked beta footage) and Neverwinter, but I don't have high hopes for either. I'm perfectly happy right now playing other types of games and am not really eager for another MMO.

 

[Tactical Pause]

What do you think of the state of MMORPGs these days?

To sum it up in a word: "Meh." The last few 'innovative' MMORPGs that came out turned out to be... well, sort of shit. I think a lot of developers working on MMOs are too prone to confusing the word 'gimmick' with 'innovation'. That said, I'm not sure there absolutely needs to be innovation, some of the more standard MMOs can be quite engaging.

- What is the last MMORPG you have played?

That would be The Secret World. When it went buy-to-play I figured 'what the hell', and gave it a shot. Honestly it's one of the better MMOs I've played, mostly thanks to the fantastic cutscenes that just ooze atmosphere.

- Are you still playing it?

Eh, barely. I sort of stopped a week or so before Bioshock: Infinite came out, and ever since then I've had the post-Bioshock melancholy and been unable to really commit to a game, so I hardly log in anymore.

- Which MMORPG have you spend the most time on?

The MMO I've spent the most time on by far is Rift (1,034 hours according to Steam). I grew rather attached to my guild in that one and became altogether waaaay too loyal to them (a story for another time). Eventually I just burned myself out and quit.

- Are you looking forward to any new MMORPG?

Honestly, I haven't been interested in an upcoming MMO for some time now. Maybe something will grab my attention, but I haven't seen it yet.

 

[Jaeke]

I think MMO's were heading towards the same fate of the FPS genre, but the one thing MMO's had which actually hurt them but ended up saving them was the HUGE costs and Development time.

Everyone started making MMO's, but not enough of them started making money. Sure we aren't getting that many good MMO's but that's the thing, we aren't getting THAT many bad or good MMO's.

Now with the F2P/B2P Revolution, there's a new chance for MMO's to return to the golden days before World of Warcraft became the genre's Call of Duty equivalent (Or the other way around I suppose) and consequently... other companies obsessed with copying the success. You know... the days of Everquest, Dark Ages of Camelot, and even Vanilla WoW.

I think MMO's like Guild Wars 2 and TOR had steps in the right direction (the former much more so than the latter, but after the whore that became World of Warcraft it might take some time.

-The last MMO I played was FireFall a few weeks ago.

-No I stopped after about 30 minutes and never touched it again.

-World of Warcraft... indubitably... I don't even want to think about the amount of hours. My play time spanned from 2005-2011, with about the first 2 1/2 years being the most hardcore (about once a day), the next year or so checking in a couple times a week for some heroics and the last year and a half really just checking in on friends and the occasional raid.

-I'm still wishing well for Elder Scrolls Online but I'm not sure if itll be a game changer. Needless to say, Skyrim with Multiplayer doesn't sound bad at all to me. But really, it all comes down to if the game is subscription based or not.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

- The Elder Scrolls Online is coming, but IMO it doesn't look that great. Just a multiplayer version of Skyrim.

I thought most of the ire being directed towards it was because it doesn't look like it plays anything like an Elder Scrolls game?

What is the last MMORPG you have played?

Wizardry Online. It was fun!

Are you still playing it?

No, but only because I don't have time. I'll get back into it soon.

Which MMORPG have you spend the most time on?

Either DCUO, Grand Fantasia or Runescape. It's worth noting that I've never reached the "endgame" in an MMO.

Are you looking forward to any new MMORPG?

No.

 

[PeterMerkin69]

The last MMO I seriously played was World of Warcraft. I cancelled my account in November or December after I'd raised two characters to the new level cap and obtained full sets of purple items from available raid content. LFR, mind, not "real" raids, but the motivation to move on to those wasn't just there. It just didn't feel anything like vintage World of Warcraft to me. It didn't even feel like a MMO.

I cut my teeth on EverQuest. EQLive, baby. Plane of Fear, Trakanon, Kael Drakkel(<3 barby mask <3), Shhsrhaahzaz or whatever the hell that awful moon place was called, and ultimately the Planes of Power. I was hardcore, as hardcore as one could be while doing serious ass-sitting while raiding five nights a week in order to top the DKP charts.

I was second in command of a scrub raiding guild. It was punishing. It was gruelling. There was no room for error. I remember once, during a Planes raid, we wiped--all, what was it, 60? of us--because the Cleric dropped her baby on the floor and broke the CH chain. I remember not being able to attempt the boss if enough people didn't show up. I remember not being able to defeat the boss if they didn't give it their all.

World of Warcraft was a step towards easier content, but originally it wasn't anywhere near as bad as it is now. There was a strong sense of community World PvP facilitated rivalries amongst factions and individuals. There were opportunities for status symbols. I never wanted to put enough time into the game to achieve them myself, but knowing that a very small portion of elite players were out there with the absolute best gear, gear that I would never see, with which to fight battles I could only experience through YouTube, provided a sense of permanence that modern MMOs fail to capture.

Every subsequent MMO I've played has been more like a single player made to be enjoyed in the proximity of other single player gamers. Half the zones, even the newest ones, are empty. There's little group content; what's there is disposable. One need only run the Heroic dungeons once or twice to pass the LFR gear check. There's very little room to form bonds between players during dungeons due to the randomized nature. In levelling two characters from 1 to 90, I never encountered the same random players twice. You're dropped into a group with strangers, you don't talk outside of yelling at each other if you're intentionally terrible, usually referring to each other by class rather than name, and then they're gone just as quickly, never to be seen again. It's depressing, and completely defeats the point of playing a massively- anything.

I've tried the new Star Wars one, Lotro, Conan, and a few others here and there, but none have managed to capture the magic and grandeur of the originals. EverQuest, Dark Ages of Camelot, vanilla WoW, hell, even Anarchy Online and Shadowbane were better than the current crop. The end of an era? The end came at least a generation before the F2P explosion.

 

[loc978]

What do you think of the state of MMORPGs these days?

They're generally pretty terrible. The death of the theme park can't come soon enough for me.

- What is the last MMORPG you have played?

I'm not sure if it counts, since I don't really play it as an MMO, but... Star Wars: The Old Republic. It's KotOR 3 with an optional chatroom, as far as I'm concerned. Has been from the start.

Before that... City of Heroes/Villains. The only MMO I actually got into as an MMO. As in, I didn't actively avoid interaction with other players. I even preferred to play in teams.

- Are you still playing it?

yes (sort of) for SWtOR... as for CoH, rub it in, why don't ya?

- Which MMORPG have you spent the most time on?

City of Heroes... before Villains came out, actually.

- Are you looking forward to any new MMORPG?

Sort of. I'm morbidly curious about Pathfinder Online. I expect a train wreck.

 

[BrotherRool]

My last MMO was TOR and it absolutely drove me crazy. Not because it's a bad game per say, but the design was so stupid and inelegant the game almost felt like an insult. You buy force powers at a skills trainer. Because the feels Jedi. There's no difference between a 'run for 10 seconds longer' ability and using the force. The plot was you are the Chosen One! even though they knew this was an MMO and there would be thousands of people around you doing quests. It constantly bugged you to pay it money.

An intelligent human being did not design the Old Republic, a photocopier did. I'm not still playing it.

Saying that the most time I ever put into an MMO was Runescape (or Realm of the Mad God) I'm not really a fan of the genre. Particularly not how stagnant and un-using the multiplayer aspect they are.

Even now with so many failed WoW clones, EVE is still basically the only sandbox MMO in existence. Absolutely 0 people are taking a blank slate and actually asking what it means to have a massively multiplayer world and how to design interesting game concepts around that. Instead we've got a string of badly made, boring, padding filled RPGs with people kill-stealing your quest objectives under a sort of continual subscription content cycle with a multiplayer mode thrown in at the end.


Even the best of them, (probably WoW) isn't actually as fun as a normal RPG would be. We're just sort of accept that questing and gameplay will always be less interesting, less reactive, less vibrant with much much worse pacing in MMOs

 

[xefaros]

I shall point out that the post only accounts for western MMOs.Visit east and we shall decide the future patch of WoW since its latest policy is to rip mechanics off unknown games.Let's see how can they pull off an active action combat mechanic on their game.

World of Warcraft is pretty much a facebook for gamers,its a last chance of acquiring a subscription of a deadbeat horse that provides a cow-clicker gimmick.

The future is there,most just ignore it

 

[Jenvas1306]

I used to play WoW for a while, but I only loved the exploration and the grind wasnt my thing (what do you need the gear for?...) and by now it looks so old and has so many aspects that should be improved.

I tried lots of free mmorgs after that but none got a hold of me till I started playing DCUO with my bf. Its got a nice combat system, but the quest are pretty stale. most noteable is the costume system that allows you to wear any look you gathered before while wearing any item for its stats. I dropped it when it went regionlocked and I couldnt play with friends oversees anymore.

guildwars2 was annouched and I bought it shortly after its first beta-weekend. Even those test-weekends were brilliant, in the long run it proved to not be able to keep my interesst. Too many thing where lacking, even it did so much right and the dev team doesnt care about the playerbases opinion.

A friend got my attention on fallen earth and for a free-to-play it is quite neat, with a very extensive crafting system that is truely grind-a-licious, but the questing gets very repeatitive and the game seems often quite too dead even for post-ap

If you count League of legends as an mmorpg, even its actually a moba, then I have to list it aswell cause i am playing it for over a year now and despite the terrible comunity I still love to play it, nothing else scratches the lol-itch...

Currently I like to play warframe, its a tps and everything you could buy from the store is available by just playing the game, it doesnt not have too terrible grind and is in that way very rewarding. Its AI and factions need to be extended, but it still is in beta and the dev team is very responsive to the fanbase and very eager to make a good game.

All at all most mmorpgs just try to copy something, or are just not what they could be (GW2 or especially defiance) and you cant half-ass that type of game. to be able to hold up to WoW you would need to do everything as good as wow, but use that its a new game so you can make it prettier and include improvements that other mmorpgs showed. So I guess if you know enough about that type of game and what the players want, you could frankenstein a game together without adding anything new and still be successful.

 

[piinyouri]

What do you think of the state of MMORPGs these days?

A sea of sameness.
It's funny because many a year ago when MMO's were just a secret whispered word at my high school that I could only dream of since we didn't have a PC nor internet, I imagined they were the omega ultimate end all of gaming experiences.

I mean, playing a game, but with a thousand other people? How amazing! The potential for incredible stories of chivalry, teamwork, betrayal, and maybe even love astounded me. I basically thought it would be gods gift to gaming.

How naive I was back then. I had no idea what 'meta' was, not an incling of 'sword and board', DPS, tanks, and all the other stuff that in my opinion, takes the "game" out of MMO's


- What is the last MMORPG you have played?
Champions Online
- Are you still playing it?
Mhm.
- Which MMORPG have you spend the most time on?
Toss up between Dungeons and Dragons Online waaay back before it's makeover and Tales of Pirates.
- Are you looking forward to any new MMORPG?
I've went from being very indifferent upon the ES MMO announcement, to being fairly enthused about it.
So that one.

 

[Auron]

Even now with so many failed WoW clones, EVE is still basically the only sandbox MMO in existence. Absolutely 0 people are taking a blank slate and actually asking what it means to have a massively multiplayer world and how to design interesting game concepts around that. Instead we've got a string of badly made, boring, padding filled RPGs with people kill-stealing your quest objectives under a sort of continual subscription content cycle with a multiplayer mode thrown in at the end.

Well there's Ultima Online, it's what made publishers aware of the market in the first place, sadly everyone stopped making games in the same vein after WOW. Darkfall was the last MMO with a sandbox philosophy I remember but it failed badly. Even pvp MMO's died out, DAOC got too old and Warhammer online was wrecked by EA. It's a dire state, I still have a WOW sub and enjoy the pvp and what-not but the other games are mostly dead shells by now.

I played TOR when it didn't try to scam you for money at every turn(2 dollars for hiding a helmet?! Serious?) the campaign was interesting imo, it was basically KOTOR 3 with other people. The pvp was reasonable but they made some terrible mistakes with the balance and didn't develop it, the engine was incredibly laggy and couldn't handle the open world pvp on Ilum which died down, a lot about that game was sadly disappointing. The PVE was the same as every other goddamn game for the most part with the exception of some story-heavy flashpoints like the Revan one and the final one with Darth Malgus it was all filler. When it went f2p I tried to finish my Agent storyline but the xp was drastically reduced in rate to non-subscribers and there's a series of disadvantages(charging you to pvp more than thrice a week among a lot of other stuff.)

I've also played DCUO, pretty good game and gets f2p right, you have the entire base game at your disposal and if you want the content in the DLC packs(mostly new PVE progression.) you can buy it, great model and the game's good still play from time to time and even had a sub a while ago when I was more into it. If tor followed a similar model I'd probably still be into it.


I was ready to try GW2 but everyone I know that got swayed by the hype and bought at release forgot about the game already. Although the cooperative nature and the "dynamic" quest system stuff looked interesting it's not justifying the rather steep price tag just to be possibly disappointed.

 

[likalaruku]

Well, if that PS4 poll was to be believed, multiplayer has become mostly undesirabel...Most people are tired of it. Most people who play free-to-play MMOs are just soloers lured in by the ability to play a game for free.

- What is the last MMORPG you have played?

*LotRO/DDO/Conan.
*Maple Story/Trickster Online.

- Are you still playing it?

*When I go into me yearly "I feel like playing an MMO" phase, I play each one for a week.

*I've tried about 30-40, but these are the ones I come back to.

- Which MMORPG have you spent the most time on?

*LotRO & MS.

- Are you looking forward to any new MMORPG?

*Elder Scrolls Online.
*Neverwinter.
*Still holding my breath for Gamefreak to make a Pokemon MMO.
*Yogventures (Actually, I won't be using the multiplayer option).

 

[Carnagath]

I have tried many MMORPG's, but most of them seem to suffer from one of two (or both) problems:

1) Way too buggy
2) Frontloaded with content, but nothing to do within a couple of weeks.

There is also one common problem for people who love PvE/raids like me: Absolutely nobody out there apart from Blizzard can design good raid bosses it seems. They seem to be only able to create tank and spank fights or fights with very simple mechanics.

As for WoW, I've been playing it with some breaks since its release, and I can safely say that with Mists of Pandaria the raiding content is at an all time peak. Both tiers they have released this far have been chock full of completely new and fresh mechanics and the boss fights, although they vary in quality, always range from "good enough" to "holy shit this is awesome". Combine that with the fact that the heroic mode of the 25 man content is absolutely murderous (it took guilds that raid 18 hours a day 6 weeks to beat). That must be very hard for a game that is 8 years old, yet they are managing it admirably well. The only people who complain about WoW's current state seem to be, ironically, the ones who are not playing it, and are thus clueless about what is actually going on. So, all in all, I don't really need a new MMO right now, because noone comes even close to the level of PvE raiding that Blizzard can produce.

 

[synobal]

What do you think of the state of MMORPGs these days?

To many Wow Clones, I'd kill for some more Eve style MMOs, not space per say but something with real persistance, a market and depth.

- What is the last MMORPG you have played?

Tera

- Are you still playing it?

Not really no

- Which MMORPG have you spend the most time on?

Eve Online I played for 5 years

- Are you looking forward to any new MMORPG?

No not really, none of them are really new.

 

[KeyMaster45]

What do you think of the state of MMORPGs these days?

I think the mentality of companies towards MMO is incorrect. They want theirs to be some huge breakout hit like WoW was and that's simply not going to happen. Most of the MMOs I've tried over the years feel half-assed at best, and built blindly at worst. They spend almost no time testing them prior to release and then they don't take care of them afterwards. If I had to put it to words, the mindset seems to be that devs can't separate MMOs from a standalone console game. It almost seems like this ridiculous game of trying to make assloads of money initially then kill it before they lose what they made.

- What is the last MMORPG you have played?

Guild Wars 2

- Are you still playing it?

No, after about level 23 I lost interest because it felt like there really wasn't anywhere to progress. I had all of my key abilities by level 4 and I never seemed to really get stronger; in fact it felt like I was getting weaker. It was a beautiful game and the combat was interesting but not really game changing. That the game really seemed to punish you for doing typical MMO activities like farming was sort of the final nail in the coffin.

- Which MMORPG have you spend the most time on?

World of Warcraft, easily. I think my main character has something like 160 days of played time racked up. Honestly it's usually where I find myself after a new MMO fails to keep my interest.

- Are you looking forward to any new MMORPG?

Not really, and a large part of that is because I've been burned by so many new MMOs in the past. I'm sick of new MMOs. Hell I'm sick of buying into new MMOs; I'm practically guaranteed to not get my money's worth. I know this makes lots of people rage, but WoW is the only one that has been able to hold my interest. I just have fun when I play it.

At the present time I don't think it's possible for a new giant of MMOs to emerge. Everyone's jumped on the bandwagon of F2P and B2P; from what I've seen is that those two business models result in sub-par games. MMOs are like The Highlander, there can be only one, and until such time that WoW goes away of it's own accord I think we'll continue to see sub-par MMOs because they're financially unable to survive on a subscription model. Monthly subscriptions are the key to a great MMO as far as I can tell. With the other two the company's money either trickles in or comes in a large burst then dries up. WoW started off pretty bad off, but subscribers paying out money each month allowed it to get over that hurdle. Of course this also means there's not enough money in the market for other games to survive on a subscription.

 

[Aramis Night]

I can't talk about the last mmo i've played because it isn't out yet. I'll just say its one no one else here has mentioned yet. I can only play it during testing phases. I've spent so much time on so many mmo's that i cant even keep track anymore. I'm not sure if i'm looking forward to any mmo's atm. The one i want might already be out but i just don't know.

Ideally i would love to find one with good graphics(my gf is all about that), that isn't a gear treadmill or a constantly moving endgame. I'm tired of investing into my character to just have a new expansion or patch make all my progress obsolete. I'm tired of constant level cap increases and added gear tiers. I just wish that they would just add more content and different types of rewards vs. just slapping bigger numbers on new rewards, making my old gear garbage. I would love a game where you aren't forced to do any one type of content to get the best possible gear. I like the idea of being able to randomly kill an open world mob and have some possibility of an amazingly epic drop, rather than being forced to farm a dungeon for good loot which won't be good anymore come next patch.

Guild Wars 1 did a great job of this. Guild Wars 2 did until the august patch where they introduced ascension gear and told us they were going back on their word about gear treadmills. Just hoping to find something like this.

 

[MysticSlayer]

And while on the subject:
- What is the last MMORPG you have played?
- Are you still playing it?
- Which MMORPG have you spend the most time on?
- Are you looking forward to any new MMORPG?

The answer to all of those would be Lord of the Rings Online, and no, I'm no longer playing it anymore. I'm not necessarily a dedicated LOTR fan, but almost everyone I know is a huge fan, some even being dedicated enough to read through everything Middle-Earth related. Anyways, they got me into it, and I fell in love with it. No doubt, it was the best time I've ever had in anything LOTR related. I sort of ended when many of my friends stopped playing due to life getting in the way. It also helped that life got in the way for me around the same time.

 

[mad825]

What do you think of the state of MMORPGs these days?

bad, always trying to pander towards the player.

- Are you still playing it?

- What is the last MMORPG you have played?

World of Tanks cannot remember. Runescape maybe?

- Which MMORPG have you spend the most time on?

Runescape, played that alot as a teenager.

- Are you looking forward to any new MMORPG?

nope...Maybe World of Warships Nothing RPGish.

 

[baddog117]

What is the last MMORPG you have played?

The Secret World & EverQuest 2

Are you still playing it?

Yes, EQ2 once a week with a friend in New York, and TSW daily.

Which MMORPG have you spend the most time on?

EverQuest 1 likely, due to the length of its life.

Are you looking forward to any new MMORPG?

Interested in Elder Scrolls, but will likely stick with TSW for quite some time to come.

 

[Auron]

Well, if that PS4 poll was to be believed, multiplayer has become mostly undesirabel...Most people are tired of it.

That's a wild claim, there are lots of people who hate multiplayer here in the escapist but that doesn't mean it's become mostly undesirable there's still a very large audience for multiplayer games, and not just MMO's. Every Blizzard game is multiplayer focused, Counter Strike GO is doing big on tournaments again, LOL is the most popular game in the world and Dota is doing very well.