When was the peak of MMORPG hype?

d_20

As I remember it, it seems like 2008.

WoW was hugely popular and Age of Conan and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning were hotly anticipated to be the next big things in competition with each other. AoC launched like the Hindenburg ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster ). There was kind of a blip around 2011 when Rift was going to launch, but we know how that went. 

The old dinosaur WoW is still the top of the heap in numbers, but seems to be diminished from its heyday -- during WotLK?

Anyone have a different idea on this?

immodium

SWToR was announced in 2008 I think so that would've also generated a lot of hype, being Star Wars.

iixviiiix

Around 2008-2010 , a lots MMORPG pop out with the success of WOW , the hype was high , but it droped when most of those game released around 2011-2012

Phaserlight

Late 90's.

heerobya

Yeah I remember the days when WoW was still huge (it's still huge, just not as huge) and you had big-ticket games like WAR, AoC, TOR on the horizon... if that was 2008-2010 or whatever, makes sense.

Xarko

6.11.2009 10:38:52

SEANMCAD

I think it was the same year Steam started Early Access not because of Early Access just the same time frame, but I think the reason is because of Steam overall.

TheDarkrayne

I think the hype is still there, but less obvious. The genre is just really over saturated now. It's not that less people are playing MMOs, in total there's likely more people playing them than ever before, it's that they are spread out across literally hundreds of games. There's no way everyone will flock to a small group of popular MMOs now.

Po_gg

AoC wasn't that bad, but maybe I had just the right pc for it (not the best, a buddy had huge issues with it, and not too weak either)  For me the only problem was the disappearing voice-acting after Tortage and a few bugged missions.  I live through much, much worse launches, but again, maybe I was just lucky.

For the question, I'd say 2006-2007. When it started to seep over to pop culture and regular news (as much as I loathe wow, it happened mostly due to the wow fad), when you had the announcement of a new game every month, and publishers rushed in to grab a slice from this new pie called mmo market. And I guess the big rush-hour ended when Nc killed off Auto Assault, and made it clear that a) they're idiots, b) the mmo market is just like any other, not all sugar and rainbows.

Flyte27

Phaserlight said:

Late 90's.

I don't think it was the late 90s.  Most people didn't know what the internet was yet.  I was one of the first to use it on Dial Up modem in the early 90s.  I don't think MMOs gained hype until Cable modems were commonly in use.  That was into the mid-2000s I believe.  We were the first on our block to have a Cable modem.  By the time MMOs hit mass market I was pretty much burnt out on playing them from Ultima Online through to early World of Warcraft.  That is when the real hype began and everyone started jumping on board.

Amathe

The day before WoW launched.

Jacobin

Pre League of Legends, DOTA 2 and Twitch Streaming.

Basically F2P games came along that cost a fraction to produce yet demolish MMOs in monthly players and hours played.

Phaserlight

Flyte27 said:

Phaserlight said:

Late 90's.

I don't think it was the late 90s.  Most people didn't know what the internet was yet.  I was one of the first to use it on Dial Up modem in the early 90s.  I don't think MMOs gained hype until Cable modems were commonly in use.  That was into the mid-2000s I believe.  We were the first on our block to have a Cable modem.  By the time MMOs hit mass market I was pretty much burnt out on playing them from Ultima Online through to early World of Warcraft.  That is when the real hype began and everyone started jumping on board.

There's a difference between hype and mass market adoption.  I distinctly recall looking over a friend's shoulder playing Everquest in the late 90's while I was still in high school and thinking 'this is amazing, this is the future'.

It could be argued that this time period was when expectations regarding the pregnant MMORPG industry were highest.

By the time WoW arrived on the scene it was already taking ideas that had been tried in MMORPGs and refining them, emphasizing what worked and discarding what didn't. 

Another all time hype high came for me in mid 2003 when I discovered a twitch combat, physics based space MMORPG in early development.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Kabulozo

2008 had several big announcements, i was very hyped on TERA Online announcement unlike any other MMO because I thought it would be the unofficial Lineage 3. But the hype died when it ended up just one more themepark focused on questing and instanced dungeons.

SavageHorizon

Amathe said:

The day before WoW launched.

No it wasn't. 

Flyte27

Phaserlight said:

Flyte27 said:

Phaserlight said:

Late 90's.

I don't think it was the late 90s.  Most people didn't know what the internet was yet.  I was one of the first to use it on Dial Up modem in the early 90s.  I don't think MMOs gained hype until Cable modems were commonly in use.  That was into the mid-2000s I believe.  We were the first on our block to have a Cable modem.  By the time MMOs hit mass market I was pretty much burnt out on playing them from Ultima Online through to early World of Warcraft.  That is when the real hype began and everyone started jumping on board.

There's a difference between hype and mass market adoption.  I distinctly recall looking over a friend's shoulder playing Everquest in the late 90's while I was still in high school and thinking 'this is amazing, this is the future'.

It could be argued that this time period was when expectations regarding the pregnant MMORPG industry were highest.

By the time WoW arrived on the scene it was already taking ideas that had been tried in MMORPGs and refining them, emphasizing what worked and discarding what didn't. 

Another all time hype high came for me in mid 2003 when I discovered a twitch combat, physics based space MMORPG in early development.

The rest, as they say, is history.

I don't recall much hype for Ultima Online or Everquest.  Most people didn't know what an MMO was and didn't care.  I didn't play the other early MMOs, but games were still fairly niched at the time.  That was my favorite time playing games.  Everything was catered to this small group of people and they had their own terminology that most people didn't understand.  It was like talking in another language.  

I feel like there was a lot of hype for games like World of Warcraft, Everquest 2, SWG, and Vanguard Saga of Heroes.  There was also a lot of hype for other MMOs I forgot that just seemed to fail entirely.  Some never made it out of beta.

Luiden

WoW brought MMORPGs into the main stream.  They actually had a marketing department and would put ads on TV and other locations.  Before WoW, everything was pretty much word of mouth or magazines.  

I remember playing DAOC, the greatest PvP/RvR game ever created and thinking.. everybody is playing and loving this game.  Years later I went to a game developers meeting in Boulder and in a room of over 100 students/developer no one, I mean no one had heard of the game.  Blew my mind!

Funny thing was I remember back then DAOC and EQ2 were like, we aren't going to waste our money on marketing, tv ads are stupid.. and then here comes WoW showing them just how immature they were.

Note that WoW didn't bring anything new to the world of MMORPGs at release, they basically just copied what other games were doing but what they did do was put together a solid product with few bugs.. plus they took out the things that people hated about MMORPGs (losing xp on death, losing loot on death etc).

And btw, before you say that WoW was super buggy at the start.. it actually wasn't.  It was the most solid game ever released at the time, what did plague them though was growing pains, so many people wanted to play that it made that first or 2 very difficult.

Flyte27

WoW also appealed to the old school players who were burnt out on the time it took to complete things, mad that they couldn't solo, and frustrated that they couldn't compete for items in raids due to having no instances.  It was like going on vacation from your job.  It was able to pull in many of the old school and a lot of people who wouldn't have been interested in MMOs in the first place.  Other second gen games with hype like EQ2 and Vanguard I almost felt like were a step back from the original games in many areas.  WoW was actually probably the closest in terms of gameplay, world constructions, and rules to the first few MMOs that existed.  It was just a lot easier.

Other games with a lot of hype were Warhammer and Age of Conan.  I don't think they lived up to it.  A lot of the ideas they talked about never came to exist.

Octagon7711

It was the day they started showing Mr. T, Dark Elf Mohawk commercials on TV.

ConstantineMerus

2013 was also a crazy year. EQNext on the horizon, Archeage, Black Desert, and the rise of crowdfunding MMOs. 

Phaserlight

Octagon7711 said:

It was the day they started showing Mr. T, Dark Elf Mohawk commercials on TV.

Either I'm old or just hipster cool; MMORPGs as an idea were relatively played-out by then as I recall. 

Igguns

I think it was around 2008.  So many older MMOs were still popular and so many new ones were right around the corner.  It was the Golden Age of MMOs.

Octagon7711

Phaserlight said:

Octagon7711 said:

It was the day they started showing Mr. T, Dark Elf Mohawk commercials on TV.

Either I'm old or just hipster cool; MMORPGs as an idea were relatively played-out by then as I recall. 

I was thinking that's when the hype peaked for the general masses.  I've not experience a peak to date but it's getting close.  Picked for me would be being able to play nearly every game on any device. I still look for to VR and AR hitting their stride, that's the hype I'm waiting for.

Flyte27

Phaserlight said:

Octagon7711 said:

It was the day they started showing Mr. T, Dark Elf Mohawk commercials on TV.

Either I'm old or just hipster cool; MMORPGs as an idea were relatively played-out by then as I recall. 

I don't recall many people knowing about D&D, elves, dwarves, etc. before the LOTOR movies came out.  I was one of the fow who read D&D books, read and watched the Hobbit/LOTR cartoons/books, and was generally into fantasy/sci fi.  I actually miss those days a lot as I'm not a big fan of what they have transformed into to appeal to the mainstream audience.  I remember when the library was actually quiet instead of a social hub and I could sit in the fantasy section where no one else would go for the most part.  Anime was also unknown to most.  I remember watching Robotech on TV and no one knew what it or Anime was.  Things were so much better for me entertainment wise in those days.  The days before Star Trek and Star Wars became something for everyone.  The days when Dark Elves were created by RA Salvatore.  When Indiana Jones was popular.  It was a great time for my imagination.

I think LOTRO was actually overhyped as well.  I remember a lot of people being excited about its release and not many actually enjoying it once it came out.  It was quite a niche group that did.  I am more of a fan of high fantasy when it comes to playing games myself.  I like to be able to cast spells and things like that.  LOTOR only offered very basic classes.

laxie

The 2004-2008 era was very interesting due to the metaverses popping up. I think those were definitely overhyped.

You had worlds like Second Life, where people were buying properties for ludicrous amounts of money. You had universities owning virtual classrooms there. I recall even scuba diving companies giving virtual training in Second Life. Every brand you could imagine was either invested in a virtual space or building their own one. There was the promise of "This is it, the life is moving to the metaverse now." and people were pushing it heavily - and I mean heavily.

Entropia Universe sold their virtual space station for 100.000$ in 2006. People were investing their life savings into ship hangars, so they could ferry people from the planet to the station. In Second Life, people were quitting jobs to sell virtual clothes.

People still invest in virtual worlds today, but they do so in a much more structured manner. In 2006, everyone was scrambling to move into the big virtual world full of promise, without any plan what so ever.

sunandshadow

Around 2012 I think.  MMO hype-advertising didn't get big until after it started to seem like MMOs as a genre were failing or at least severely underperforming, and also after MMOs became a common topic of manga and anime.