Originally posted by DavisFlight Modern "MMOs" are not designed as social virtual worlds. With very little player interaction, long term bonds are harder to form and content gets stale a lot quicker. Thus, people burn through the scripted linear content and move on. Whats more, these themeparks are almost all identical, which means people burn out all the quicker.
Very true... when it was more social, I did not care to rush through everything, I always wanted to stay just barely ahead of all my friends lol.
3. Did the fickle crowd complain so loudly it changed a genre?
4. Did the original base give up and accept crap?
5. What caused the change in quality?
1. I see a couple reasons. First, from 2000 to 2010 the amount and standards of graphical presentation changed driving up production costs. More costs needs more money. This caused the need to change design to open it up to a more mainstream playerbase (see #3).
Another side to this is that with market saturation it keeps getting tougher for any game to pull a large market share. Also, people who used to be MMORPG players have splintered off into other online game genres.
2. Run out of good ideas? I think more like ran out of players. Without demand, no game can ever achieve 8 digit success. Except for a few rare cases, many can't hold 500,000, which is less than 10% of WoW at peak.
3. I don't think the fickle crowd changed the genre. I think the genre changed as a way to draw new players from those who wouldn't have liked old-school MMORPG design.
4. I don't think so. I think that many got disgusted with the genre and simply gave up. This is evidenced by the "Disgruntled Vet Syndrome" people we often see in the forums.
5. I don't see it as a change in quality, but rather a change in design.
Overall, over-saturated market, dwindling playerbase, and high development costs pushed the genre toward people who don't like what MMORPGs used to be, and want them to be more like single-player games with lobby based multi-player content.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
Wrong! The economy is so bad that people are giving up their monthly MMO subscriptions. They have lost their job, and are out of work. They may have taken a lower paying job in the meantime.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
I think interest in the genre is starting to fade.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Originally posted by Axehandle When I started playing Mmorpg's a relatively recent 6 years ago the subscription p2p model was all we saw for the mainstream games with the f2p model used on the lesser known titles. Fast forward to today and we are seeing the death of the subscription model. The player base has grown exponentially with the mainstream success of wow, swtor and other mass marketed games which brought more attention to a once niche industry. I feel that the decline in subscriptions is because the base is beginning to normalize and the fickle masses are moving on to the next big thing leaving parts of the original base and some holdovers from the newer generation of mmorpg'ers. Less players means less money for the gaming companies and that is why i believed the f2p with microtransactions and cash shops will be the future of mmorpgs. Still that's just my reason for the decline in subscriptions I'd love to hear other theories on this and whether the shift is a good or bad thing for the industry.
Well, when you have 3 titles on the market, your subscribers do not really have many places to leave you for.
When you get 20 titles though...
Market competition and saturation.
You make it sound as if they have to play mmorpg's. There are a lot of other hobbies out there.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
Comments
Very true... when it was more social, I did not care to rush through everything, I always wanted to stay just barely ahead of all my friends lol.
1. I see a couple reasons. First, from 2000 to 2010 the amount and standards of graphical presentation changed driving up production costs. More costs needs more money. This caused the need to change design to open it up to a more mainstream playerbase (see #3).
Another side to this is that with market saturation it keeps getting tougher for any game to pull a large market share. Also, people who used to be MMORPG players have splintered off into other online game genres.
2. Run out of good ideas? I think more like ran out of players. Without demand, no game can ever achieve 8 digit success. Except for a few rare cases, many can't hold 500,000, which is less than 10% of WoW at peak.
3. I don't think the fickle crowd changed the genre. I think the genre changed as a way to draw new players from those who wouldn't have liked old-school MMORPG design.
4. I don't think so. I think that many got disgusted with the genre and simply gave up. This is evidenced by the "Disgruntled Vet Syndrome" people we often see in the forums.
5. I don't see it as a change in quality, but rather a change in design.
Overall, over-saturated market, dwindling playerbase, and high development costs pushed the genre toward people who don't like what MMORPGs used to be, and want them to be more like single-player games with lobby based multi-player content.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
You make it sound as if they have to play mmorpg's. There are a lot of other hobbies out there.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Thank you for the data.
Because there are games which are close to MMO in some play style.
Online ARPG
MOBA
Instanced pvp games
... you don't have to play a MMO to get many of the same type of gameplay.