Your choice of examples is not necessarily seminal, but that does not matter. You have understood the direction of travel which has got us where we are today.
There are many more factors than you have mentioned, such as the interaction between MMOs and solo games, between western and eastern MMOs and the change from subscription to cash shop. But in end we arrive at the same place; cheap tinyMMOs. Will we see a AAA ever again? It would take an IP of stellar proportions for a gaming company to even think about it.
I agree, I take my OP and add yours and that's where we stand now, in a huge downward spiral.
The end of the end
Reading your last line got me thinking.... Could you imagine if an indie creates a major hit. The triple A's will try and cash in again !!
I am not sure that an Indie could ever afford the sort of IP that could be a new WoW. Look at ESO, the last triple AAA in my eyes, developing your own IP into a AAA MMO is the cheap option. But Indie has surprised before, they could do something to change the MMO playing field, just not getting the Game of Thrones license.
MMORPG.Com also ought to give this guy a job. His threads are even more o̶u̶t̶r̶a̶g̶e̶o̶u̶s̶ ̶ "controversial" than @BillMurphy 's list for best story driven MMO.
Bill is more listing the games he enjoys the story best in. This thread is an opinion why MMOs seems to be losing players (or at least long term players) but just listing 3 things for that is simplifying the whole thing a lot.
The genre has changed, but it needs to change again if it want to really start growing in the west again. I don't think either old school or modern mechanics can reboot the genre though, it needs fresh new ideas and mechanics if we want a growth spurt like 2005.
The problem is of course what mechanics and ideas it would take and I fear we wont know until we see them. The whole "MMOs took a wrong turn at Albuquerque" sadly does not help us for more then maybe giving us a few interesting niche games.
MMOs huge problem is that they are rather repetetive and when a game is that way eventually most fans will tire, we have already done the same thing in many other games over and over.
I am not saying that you can make a massive persistent game without repetition (unless you have a great AI that actually can create good new content really cheap) but that we need to change the type of content, starting with the endgame if we want to get somewhere.
Just recycling old ideas wont work, no matter if they are 5 or 20 years old.
The problem here is that new mechanics and ideas are not wanted. Developers seem to have decided that anything too new will put players off, that extends even to what buttons you press to perform an action. Everything is homogenised to appeal to as many people as possible.
But I agree new gameplay mechanics, new world themes, new ways of interacting in MMO's are the only way forward. I do think there is a place for both old school and current school thinking if a new generation of MMOs were ever to come. You take the best of every world when you create a new one, that's what WoW did in many ways.
Comments
I am not sure that an Indie could ever afford the sort of IP that could be a new WoW. Look at ESO, the last triple AAA in my eyes, developing your own IP into a AAA MMO is the cheap option. But Indie has surprised before, they could do something to change the MMO playing field, just not getting the Game of Thrones license.
The problem here is that new mechanics and ideas are not wanted. Developers seem to have decided that anything too new will put players off, that extends even to what buttons you press to perform an action. Everything is homogenised to appeal to as many people as possible.
But I agree new gameplay mechanics, new world themes, new ways of interacting in MMO's are the only way forward. I do think there is a place for both old school and current school thinking if a new generation of MMOs were ever to come. You take the best of every world when you create a new one, that's what WoW did in many ways.