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MMO are dying.
CalmOceans
Member UncommonPosts: 2,437
Well that's my conclusion after thinking about it.
While MMO do well and sell well, they are not really MMO anymore, they're all small scale dungeon instancers (LoL, Vindictus), solo quest grinders (WoW SWOTOR), , or glorified action Hack & Slash multiplayer games (Tera, GW2).
I haven't seen a game with a true community where the primary focus was the world and human interaction and the gameplay came second in MMO in a number of years. Now the gameplay is frist and if it isn't too much trouble maybe you'll be interacting with someone too, and if no ones interacts, join an artificial bubble called a guild and interact in the bubble.
Most people don't need MMO to interact online, there are plenty of chat opportunities, facebook, twitter, disqus, liveFire, forums, email, messengers, smartphones, youtube. You have all these ways to interact with people you want, there is way too much noise to make a world where people will be truly immersed and willing to spend time with each other in a game outside of gameplay.
There's no need for it anymore, there are thousands of other and arguably better ways to interact online.
I think the term MMO lives on even though the games are now becomes multiplayer action games, but the idea behind MMO is long gone I think, it's replaced by other communities online that are far easier and more effective way to interact.
Comments
The article makes some valid points, particularly the change in social media.
Whilst the opportunity for online interactions have risen, mmo's have gone the opposite way. This may be seen as a missed trick by the mmo market, with the failure to truly integrate mmos into other online interactions.
But the question begs: do the majority of modern day mmo players really want this level of interaction in their mmo or are they content with a more solo oriented game, only occasionally joining with others?
The current state is the former with only sparse interaction. There are various reasons for this:
- Easier levelling content designed as purely a path to end content, not in itself a source of genuine satisfaction.
- The LFG/LFR grouping options: this has removed the need to get to know people in the game. Click the button - wait - join - finish - loot - leave.
However, there are both plusses and minuses to this.
A game that enforces group play is open to player and class discrimination. When was the last time you saw a raid group recruiting with the message that they where happy to take new players to help them through the instance?
Rather the recruit message says the player must be experienced, have xxx gear score, and cannot be x or y class as they are not currently flavour of the month.
I recall Tanks kicking Bezerkers from Tera groups as they wanted any plate drops purely for themselves - frequently and witnessed first hand on several occasions.
So, is it a bad thing?
As usual, the market will decide. We post on here with personal experiences, however the games companies have depts of people analysing game trends and behaviours. If they see a more solo oriented mmo as the model likely to succeed - then that is the way it will be.
You make some interesting observations, but using those same observations is how MMO's will get back to their roots, voice communications, facebook & twitter, those were really extrapolations of what was once found in MMO's, the niche community, then those concepts went mainstream & in the process maybe got diluted.
I can see a trend emerge where MMO's will be even better than in their niche days when they fully embrace all of those social interaction tools, and tools is really all they are in the same way the chat box in an mmo was a tool, to connect people with a common interest.
I don't see MMO as dying, just going through a phase that they have to re-invent themselves in & adapt to the new interaction standards, the potential is that MMO's will be able to reach a more diverse & far expanded range of people.
I miss playing EQ and DAOC pre2004... back when you could have an hour long discussion ONLY talking about the game (not a word said about real life) that has nothing to do with a DPS meter, boss phases or who sucks. I miss those days when the world was an unknown, and the only real way to figure it out, whether finding rare mobs or epic quests was to experience it first hand and communicate that information with other players.
I think the idea of "end game" also kind of helped kill community. Nobody has time to talk out a quest or contemplate leveling locations, everyone is in a big damn rush to get to "the real game" that they miss the journey along the way. The developers cater to this notion as well, there's no real benefit to taking your time, not in a story sense or any other. It takes about 30 seconds to read a quest then u just do what everyone else did minus the reading part. Gone are the days of "Quests" actually being Quests! everything now is just an errand, or a happened by chance.
MMORPG's have invented this idea of "end game" in a genre that has no use for it. Nobody is skipping chat, looking up guides and looking for the easiest route to beat the game in a single player RPG, or in Pen and Paper. The adventure IS the gameplay of an RPG, thats what we play for. But modern MMO's have completely negated this concept in favor of blatantly displaying that the "level up" content is just there to get a monthly fee or a XP boost purchase from the customer with no real value.
It wasnt until very recently that i sort of came to this conclusion because i was rather young back in '99-'04 and i guess i never really understood what i was experiencing in those player interactions. And now, not being able to play a modern mmo for more than a month at a time, i know its not the gameplay, its the game design and lack of community. I really wish i had kept in touch with anyone i met back in those days.
Thats why there are more then 200 MMO's in development in any given year.
Yup MMO's are dying!!!!! On the otherhand, maybe there arent games you want to play but to say they are dying is hyperbole at best.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Well AAA wow clones might be dying yes...
but there are some really good indie developed sandbox MMORPGs on their way and even some AAA sandbox games..
I think finally the industry will try somthing different..
I believe the title of the post is misleading, rather it should be traditional mmo's with good social interactions are dying - but that's got near zero headline attraction.
So the current headline is working in attracting comment, although a little sensational in relation to the actual well thought out post.
Back in vanilla WoW we had very tight server community, I knew a lot of people from our own side, and a lot from the enemy faction through PvP and forum interaction. The server forums were like home, a cozy home.
Now it's all automated and crossrealm, I'm not talking only about WoW but every MMO these days. There cannot be good communities when everyone you meet on every dungeon, PvP, or world PvP run are nameless and faceless people you might never see again. You are playing on megaservers where it is just one huge cesspool of people where communities does not form like back then.
I think the OP has a point, but I feel a lot more of the fault is on the games them self and this "make it easy and accessible" trend of today where you are supposed to play in quick half an hour spurts and you arent even supposed, or expected, to know anyone outside your guild. Hell you dont even need a guild anymore to raid in WoW. How can great communities form when you essentially dont even need anyone for anything anymore and meet mostly random people from other servers or from a single (trailer dude voice:) megaserver.
I don't know if they're dying. I personally lost the interest in current era MMOs. Like, during some free days, I recently logged in to my old Rift account. I thought "hm, graphics still good, sound good, some changes to skills and such", and started questing a bit, and then I got bored, because in those three days, I saw, outside of the cities, two other players, and the quests were all the generic "kill X of that / find Y of that" and so on.
Don't get me wrong, Rift is a great themepark MMORPG, but I guess I just had too much of the same. So those game offer nothing for me anymore.
Once MMORPGs are advanced enough to allow extensive terramorphing, powerful everchanging weather systems, creative crafting, and more such stuff, I'll be interested again. But as soon as most is the standard formula: not for me.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
This and just this.
These games are dying because the industry who once made massive multiplayer games first of all for the general social experience gave in to an audience that isn't able to socialise anymore.
People want to solo everything, don't want to partake in a guild, don't want to spend 10mins of their 30 mins gaming time each day to look for a group, don't want to need or give some help now and then ..etc. It all comes with the self-centered state of perception that is being suggested everywhere.
MMOs of today are singleplayer games with a shared world. Latest example is Defiance.. a supposed to be MMO -without a functional chat. To hell with this...
This post is factually false.
The number of players that play the 'good-old-MMOs' has largely stayed the same.
The so called 'casuals / WoW kiddies' are new players into the market.
Staying the same amount of players is hardly dying.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
MMO's really should have gone the virtual reality route. Full immersion with no distractions, drop everything, be transported to this world that takes up all of your attention. If you couldn't make the time commitment or were part of the instant gratification crowd, you were left behind - those people could be satisfied with facebook games well enough.
I'll openly admit I'm one of those players that, most of the time, only uses a fraction of my attention playing the game, with another window open to do other stuff. The idea of VR headsets have kind of sputtered off in the mainstream media since its brief stint in the 70's and 80's, but I always thought they'd make some sort of comeback. Maybe I was wrong.
None of the Sword Art online kids remember it today, but over 10 years ago, right when mmo's started to pick up steam, .hack//Sign went live with a similar concept and I had a "this is it" moment. I think we have the technology to pull it off, but there's no commitment to do so. Perhaps the original concept of escaping into another reality that drove earlier MMOs (and MUDs/boardgames before it) will simply die before that can happen.
VR is coming but it'll come through a huge company that is willing to throw massive amounts of $$$ at it. Larger than what 'Gaming' companies are willing to do and should do really; including Activision.
Google glasses is probably the first real application.
Concept of 'player driven' is always a division of writing a book and reading a book.
Most people would rather read for entertainment than write. That might not be what you find entertaining but that's the majorities taste.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
GW2 similar to TERA?...lol not even close and next point hack and slash also not even close yeh diablo is hack and slash.
GW2 is full grown mmo with all the ingredients needed to be top notch mmo offcorse gamers themselfs and devs ruined this in no time endless instance grinding treatmill and people try solo everything then realise not posible they keep whining untill GW2 becomes a WoW.
But GW2 is not TERA and no hack and slash thats way to simple put game world is open and beuatifull to explore.
I quit GW2 only becouse of empty world and 80% grind instance for gear mats and dynamic events (wonderull idea and implemented but gamers zerg them and move on nobody talks and eventually all main out world bosses left alone thus failed.
EVE: all on 1 servercluster, game doesn't hold your hand from start to finish, it does everything a themepark MMO doesn't do....and it's still growing after 10 years with breathtaking visuals.
Mind you: this is the only one MMO I can come up with and I played dozens...so it is a very exclusive club.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Then they should, quite rightfully, stick to Singleplayer games, not Massively Multiplayer Online games which have taken a swift dive into the shitter thanks to people who want, for some rather idiotic reason, to play singeplayer games with others from time to time... this is not an MMO, themeparks can, these days, rarely be called MMOs, what they are for the most part are limited interactive experiences.
Last I checked, people that play the traditional MMOs back in the day are still playing those MMOs. The population of those MMOs haven't chnaged much over the years so from that point of view, nothing has changed.
You play what you like and other people will play what they like.
If you have a problem with that, tough.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
If you were to play EQ1 nowadays it is nothing like the EQ of old. I would imagine the same could be said of all the older games as companies have tried to make their games more open to newcomers.
WOW,eq2,Vanguard,WAR,LOTRO,AOC,Rift Aion, SWTOR, TERA.
Currently playing GW2.
I buy singleplayer games to relax and do things at my own pace (enjoy the story etc).
I buy multiplayer games like Counterstrike etc to find a challenge and test my mettle against others.
I buy MMO games to play a game of the genre it is based with a large amount of other people. It is the interaction I seek. Without that a co-op game, or a singleplayer, would be almost certainly cheaper and more often than not more fun from a gaming perspective. People make MMOs. Communities make MMOs.
The community comparison makes perfect sense and to treat these games as singleplayer fast food proves the OPs point.