I’ll set aside the theme and tackle the format instead. Is there really an audience for MMORPGs anymore? It was a deadly space to enter when WoW was in its prime and it’s only gotten harder. I’m not so sure the MMORPG even “died” as much as slowly diffused into every other genre as live-service capabilities began to spin up. These massive worlds where everyone shares the same story just don’t feel right without a strong ludonarrative dissonance, as opposed to most games that make you the exclusive hero. Sandbox MMOs, on the flip side, rarely have any staying power or purpose. It’s just a really hard design space, in my opinion, when other genres now have all the same benefits of letting you seamlessly play with strangers or friends en masse, without the limitations or side effects of having a single shared world.
Rambling thoughts for discussion. Also I love MMORPGs, to be clear. I just wouldn’t want to be in the business of making one after about 2010.
F2P & “micro” transactions completely killed the genre for me. They also had a tendency to be way too samey in their theme park structure / formula. Sandbox ones imo aren’t feasible today anymore either though because the whole mainstream aspect brought just the worst of people into those games. So they kinda turn from a game with interesting possibilities into a pure pvp gank feast.
The first part is not something I’m going to lay at the feet of this genre. Every category has them and it can be done fairly or poorly by any game, really.
I’m with you on the second part. Can you even design a game that empowers the player while every other player shares an almost identical story and you are seeing that all the time? Again, ludonarrative dissonance in the extreme and that’s not something most players can swallow. That’s that theme park-y feeling.
I think if the right game was made with clever instancing, something to appeal to all the subcategories of MMO players, and a pricing structure that isn’t unfair in today’s landscape, it could work. Who wants to volunteer to make and risk that though when you can make something magnitudes cheaper and more likely to make money?
Yea it would take a lot of money and experience to break into the space, mostly cause you would need to take players from existing games. People who like mmorpgs already play them.
That’s probably why riot put their mmo on ice for a while until they figure it out. But if anyone I’m putting my money on them to nail it.
There are even huge fractures inside that community. You have the intense raiders who want an extremely refined and tuned endgame, the pvp people who just want this refined competitive experience and finely balanced classes, and then you have the more casual story and exploration players like me. Striking a balance between these three is nigh impossible and has killed otherwise fun MMOs with cool new ideas. RIP Wildstar, we hardly knew ye.
I enjoyed wilstar as well. Haven’t thought about it in years.
Yea those points are sorta why I have some hopes for the riot mmo if it ever comes out. They already have teams for pvp and story and they’re working on pve games. Like em or not their pvp games have a huge player base so they must be doing something right and they have decent world building and stories to pull from already. Legends of runeterra added A LOT of really cool concepts to the universe that can be used for anything. Pve is where I suspect they need to improve but who knows.
I’ll set aside the theme and tackle the format instead. Is there really an audience for MMORPGs anymore? It was a deadly space to enter when WoW was in its prime and it’s only gotten harder. I’m not so sure the MMORPG even “died” as much as slowly diffused into every other genre as live-service capabilities began to spin up. These massive worlds where everyone shares the same story just don’t feel right without a strong ludonarrative dissonance, as opposed to most games that make you the exclusive hero. Sandbox MMOs, on the flip side, rarely have any staying power or purpose. It’s just a really hard design space, in my opinion, when other genres now have all the same benefits of letting you seamlessly play with strangers or friends en masse, without the limitations or side effects of having a single shared world.
Rambling thoughts for discussion. Also I love MMORPGs, to be clear. I just wouldn’t want to be in the business of making one after about 2010.
F2P & “micro” transactions completely killed the genre for me. They also had a tendency to be way too samey in their theme park structure / formula. Sandbox ones imo aren’t feasible today anymore either though because the whole mainstream aspect brought just the worst of people into those games. So they kinda turn from a game with interesting possibilities into a pure pvp gank feast.
The first part is not something I’m going to lay at the feet of this genre. Every category has them and it can be done fairly or poorly by any game, really.
I’m with you on the second part. Can you even design a game that empowers the player while every other player shares an almost identical story and you are seeing that all the time? Again, ludonarrative dissonance in the extreme and that’s not something most players can swallow. That’s that theme park-y feeling.
I think if the right game was made with clever instancing, something to appeal to all the subcategories of MMO players, and a pricing structure that isn’t unfair in today’s landscape, it could work. Who wants to volunteer to make and risk that though when you can make something magnitudes cheaper and more likely to make money?
Yea it would take a lot of money and experience to break into the space, mostly cause you would need to take players from existing games. People who like mmorpgs already play them.
That’s probably why riot put their mmo on ice for a while until they figure it out. But if anyone I’m putting my money on them to nail it.
There are even huge fractures inside that community. You have the intense raiders who want an extremely refined and tuned endgame, the pvp people who just want this refined competitive experience and finely balanced classes, and then you have the more casual story and exploration players like me. Striking a balance between these three is nigh impossible and has killed otherwise fun MMOs with cool new ideas. RIP Wildstar, we hardly knew ye.
I enjoyed wilstar as well. Haven’t thought about it in years.
Yea those points are sorta why I have some hopes for the riot mmo if it ever comes out. They already have teams for pvp and story and they’re working on pve games. Like em or not their pvp games have a huge player base so they must be doing something right and they have decent world building and stories to pull from already. Legends of runeterra added A LOT of really cool concepts to the universe that can be used for anything. Pve is where I suspect they need to improve but who knows.