Board 8 > Did the MMO Craze die?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I came into the MMO scene after it had been going on for a while and only caught the tail end of it. Things broke down there and its been years since then even, but Ive always wanted to recapture that sense of community that I felt being able to come on everyday with a group of people.

Ive been looking out for a new good one for a while and I remember a time when it seemed like a new one would come out almost all the time. There havent really been any that Ive seen. So did it die off, and its a nostalgic past Ill never recapture? Seems kinda sucky to go crawling back to WoW or SWTOR after all these years with the changes for the worse theyve made to them. Kinda like their time has passed, and nothing ever rose up to replace it.

Are there any good prospects left?

yes
no
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I haven't played it in a little while but warframe is a pretty popular one that I enjoy. It's a shoot n loot with space ninjas.

It's also free to play, and not pay to win.
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Final Fantasy XIV is still going strong and getting a new expansion later this month
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Yeah FFXIV is super popular and i'm pretty sure it passed WoW but there is no way to know
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FFXIV is the subscription game and nothing else seems to be remotely close.

For free stuff, Phantasy Star Online 2 was just announced to finally be coming westward and is quite beloved. Those aside, it definitely feels like we've moved well beyond the genre's heyday.
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FFXIV Is the best option, but I'll definitely be hopping onto PSO2 when it drops.
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people at that Bethesda conference seemed excited about Elder Scrolls Online
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FF14
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WoW and FFXIV are both still moneymakers.

The days of people trying to get some of the MMO pie with things like WildStar are behind us though.

Chances of seeing a big MMO without an already huge existing IP behind it are basically zero.

Dungeon Fighter Online is pretty good, but the leveling process is honestly too streamlined now. I kind of want bosses to be threats, not speedbumps >_>
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WoW Classic is launching soon.
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City of Heroes is back on private servers, if you want a classic MMO that didn't last long enough to be turned into a hollow shell of its former self.
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Wow and ff14 and eso are all still going strong but yes the craze has died down.

A genre that requires lots of people active to be most fun got oversaturated. The genre has been shit for a while now.
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I would say that since general online gaming have been far more accessible since last gen, that people have geared towards that.

It could also be a matter that most people dont have time to commit to MMOs these days.
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Eh plenty of people have the time (not us as much anymore, since the average gfaqser is like 30 now), its just they are gravitating to the other games/netflix/etc.

Id also argue the exploration aspect of these worlds (why i played WoW to begin with) because they all have massive beta tests and have already been mapped out by dozens of websites. The social aspect to mmos seems to be dead too
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Metal_DK posted...

Eh plenty of people have the time (not us as much anymore, since the average gfaqser is like 30 now), its just they are gravitating to the other games/netflix/etc.

Thats exactly my point, theyd rather do something else or play other online games than commit to getting into an MMO, which can be a huge timesink.

Now yes, you could say that these people would never touch an MMO to begin with, but then youre splitting hairs.
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oh i read it as you are saying they dont have enough time because of important stuff, not they dont have enough time because they are wasting it somewhere else. My b
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I would argue the genre jumped the shark the minute WoW came out. I played EverQuest extensively, and while I would much rather play WoW vanilla than EQ any day, the experiences I got out of playing EQ have never been replicated in any of the games produced since. WoW was too popular, and every game made since has been in its image.

Plus, EQ was designed with the intent of playing with a group for a long period. If you had less than an hour of time, you might as well not even log in. That's the main reason nobody makes games like that any more. It simply doesn't have the mass appeal. You could give Project '99 a shot and see what EQ was once like, but I seriously doubt you will ever see a new game that's anything like it.
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I could have worded it better, but in regards people being too busy, I guess someone with less time on their hands may rather play an FPS/Sports/Racing/Fighting/etc... game online than an MMORPG since those are easier to get into, as is watching stuff online.

Just matchmake and youre good to go.
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I would imagine publishers don't want to sink so much development cost into all the leveling zones that don't really contribute to the lifestyle component to the game.

I don't know that we'll see games in the future with the same feel.
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FF14 is fantastic and the hype among the fanbase for the new expansion in a couple weeks is huge. We've had 2 great expansions in a row and this one looks to continue the trend from what we've seen so far.

granado espada is the best

pretty sure it's awful but that comes with the territory and it has the best soundtrack besides maybe PSO
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Oh well thats a shame. Disappointing. I dont know why but I always hated the FF mmo every time I played it. Phantasy Star Online could be worth a look. Thanks for the responses.

BlackMageJawa posted...

City of Heroes is back on private servers, if you want a classic MMO that didn't last long enough to be turned into a hollow shell of its former self.

Wait wait wait what- City of Heroes?! That was my game before the end. Private servers? How do I get on that?

If you're looking for community, forced interaction and hype, the key is to find some players that care about a game and just bum around with them. It still exists

Basically, people kind of just hang out in discord channels and hop from game to game with each other instead of grind in an mmo

There is eve and the fantasy eve albion as places to start, I guess. Full loot and territory control cause people to care and supply drama
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The craze died, the genre will never though.
The craze is now BR games, though this probably peaked.
Who knows what craze will come next! Maybe nothing and the crash will happen!
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LOLIAmAnAlt posted...

Who knows what craze will come next!

Auto chess
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PerfectChaosZ posted...

BlackMageJawa posted...

City of Heroes is back on private servers, if you want a classic MMO that didn't last long enough to be turned into a hollow shell of its former self.

Wait wait wait what- City of Heroes?! That was my game before the end. Private servers? How do I get on that?

Check r/cityofheroes for all the details.

Basically, it turns out that one of the CoH developers leaked the full server code to a friend, and they'd been running a super-secret private server for years while everyone else was fantasising about reviving it via reverse-engineering the code or creating new CoH-like games. Then there was some controversy about moderators on various fansites being aware of all this and conspiring to keep it hidden so as to keep the cash flowing to the various other projects, someone finally blew the whistle, and all the software was made public.
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Crazy. In their defense, I imagine that leaking the actual code would be illegal sonegow
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Well, now you know what it feels like to be a DDR player.
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PerfectChaosZ posted...

Oh well thats a shame. Disappointing. I dont know why but I always hated the FF mmo every time I played it.

Which FF MMO?

FF11 was...kind of a mess from what I've heard. More designed to be like Everquest than designed to be like WoW. Slow. Grindy.

And FF14 was...really bad in 1.0, really really bad, almost tanked Square as a company bad, so bad they fired their director, had Bahamut blow up their world in a cutscene that you can find on youtube, took the servers down, and then re-launched the game a while later. 2.0 saved the game six years ago. 3.0 and 4.0 are the expansions that people really like. 5.0 is coming out in like two weeks.

You can get 2.0 and 3.0 for free at the moment through some kind of promotion. (1.0 no longer exists; it was exploded by Bahamut).
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MoogleKupo141 posted...

people at that Bethesda conference got paid to seem excited about Elder Scrolls Online

ftfy
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FF11 is a lot of fun but its definitely a pre-WoW MMO. Theyve updated it some in recent years (for example soloing is now viable for a lot of story stuff, thanks to being able to summon NPCs to fill out your party rather than being forced to find a group for everything).
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BlackMageJawa posted...

City of Heroes is back on private servers, if you want a classic MMO that didn't last long enough to be turned into a hollow shell of its former self.

From what I heard, they have 9,000 people playing still at peak times. Pretty awesome, really.
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Dungeon Fighter Online is a good MMO. People are more focused on the endgame, so leveling is more fast paced than it used to be. Fortunately, accessing the endgame is no longer RNG restricted to a stupid degree.
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I think it's hard to look at some of the biggest games out there and say that the MMO craze died. WoW was a sea change in the industry and you can see that DNA still around in a lot of those other games. WoW derivatives though? Yeah, we're never getting those again. The only ones that are still around in any meaningful way are the ones with a big enough brand attached to get through the door and stay there.

There's also a ton of Korean MMOs out there that make hundreds of millions of dollars and we all just ignore them until they come to Steam.
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TomNook posted...

Well, now you know what it feels like to be a DDR player.

I was going to make a comment about how a literally golden DDR anniversary machine just came out but then I realized there are only a handful of Round Ones in the country. Easy to forget considering there are like three within driving distance from me!
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I think it was the latest one I played but I cant be sure. A Realm Reborn sounds familiar the last time I tried it. I just cant get into it.

I cant believe City of Heroes might be active again in some capacity. Thank you so much for altering me. I hope they dont expect me to remember my account information. Ive been waiting on City of Titans for what seems like forever.

Is Tera still considered a big game in the MMO space?

That was pretty fun to play for a bit, was free too.
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PerfectChaosZ posted...

I think it was the latest one I played but I cant be sure. A Realm Reborn sounds familiar the last time I tried it. I just cant get into it.

I cant believe City of Heroes might be active again in some capacity. Thank you so much for altering me. I hope they dont expect me to remember my account information. Ive been waiting on City of Titans for what seems like forever.

They weren't able to keep all of your characters, so you'll have to start from scratch.

They have a lot of quality of life stuff added though. I believe they have double XP boosters, new power sets, among other things. Incarnate level stuff is supposed to be easier to get.
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EVE Online is great if only for the insane drama that happens in it

https://kotaku.com/the-year-long-undercover-plot-to-blow-up-eve-onlines-m-1831574442
https://www.pcgamer.com/eve-online-stories/ (I like the heist one here)
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I enjoy reading about the things that happen in EVE but the game is not my favorite, and atrocious without a group to play with.

I am now officially playing City of Heroes in 2019. Thanks all!

PerfectChaosZ posted...

Oh well thats a shame. Disappointing. I dont know why but I always hated the FF mmo every time I played it. Phantasy Star Online could be worth a look. Thanks for the responses.

BlackMageJawa posted...

City of Heroes is back on private servers, if you want a classic MMO that didn't last long enough to be turned into a hollow shell of its former self.

Wait wait wait what- City of Heroes?! That was my game before the end. Private servers? How do I get on that?

were you playing 11 or 14? Cause if it was 11... yikes. If it was 14 then maybe MMOs arent really your thing.
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MMOs have been a slowly dying genre for a while.

Mainly because all the original people who used to play them have moved on from them due to having too much to do in life to actively play them, which is the boat I'm in. I simply do not have the time to play those kinds of games anymore.
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Side note, I was trying to get a sense of MMO population and stuff for another topic, and came across this which estimates based off...various questionable sources, but it's still interesting:

https://mmo-population.com/activity

1 2007Scape 1,689,112
2 FFXIV 1,280,941
3 WoW 1,078,571
4 ElderScrollsOnline 429,688
5 GuildWars 2428,726
6 RuneScape 364,331
7 BlackDesertOnline 335,646
8 EVE 289,518
9 MapleStory 229,284
10 starcitizen 240,156

And in terms of growth:

https://mmo-population.com/growth

1 CityofHeroes 23.67%
2 PSO2 7.95%
3 treeofsavior 7.02%
4 albiononline 6.04%
5 ElderScrollsOnline 5.16%
6 FFXIV 5.02%
7 Dofus 5.00%
8 WorldofDarkness 4.44%
9 ArcheAge 4.40%
10 Elsword 4.16%

(Of these games I've only played Tree of Savior and FFXIV).
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