2 years later... the almost sad state of MMOs in the new era

Lambourne · Feb 10, 2020

Kharzette said:
Anyway, some answers I'd like out of polls or whatever:

Actiony dodgey spazzy combat, or diku style real time dice rolls ala EQ
Art styles? Weeb, Lowfi, western stylized, blocky, etc
Genre? Scifi hard, generic scifi, fantasy low or high, modern (expensive)
PVP? (aww shit here we go again)
Questy or Grindy? (I've got a new idea for the grindy side)
General interest? Whose willing to throw soy dollars to pay my internet bill.

I think high fantasy just works best for RPGs, there's a reason it's been a staple of RPGs since the 1980s. EQ's races, classes and starting areas were pretty generic fantasy fare, and it also had obvious D&D Forgotten Realms influences. At first glance this may seem uninspired but it did make it easy for the intended audience to feel at home in the world. You want the players to quickly bond to the world and to their characters and if the game world feels familiar quickly that helps them do that.

Only MMO PVP I ever enjoyed was battlegrounds in WoW. Didn't like arena, nor did I ever play on a PVP server.

I'd like something more freeform than railroaded questing. The WoW model of moving from quest hub to quest hub, each with 3 quests you can conveniently do at the same time started feeling like a chore quickly.

uniqueuser · Feb 10, 2020

Pharone said:
EQemu is a really good starting point for creating an OPEN SOURCE MMORPG engine, and here's why. It's already made from scratch by the EQ Emu community.

EQEmu is useless for doing anything but running a private EQ server.

It'd take more time and effort to tear out all the EQ-specific functionality and retrofit it for your purposes than to just write an ad hoc server from scratch (or employ one of the many off-the-shelf networking solutions available).

MusicForFish · Feb 10, 2020

bleedat said:
Start the Kickstarter

This.
The FOH name alone should drive donations.

Malakriss · Mar 16, 2020

Randomly saw that PSO2 Open Beta starts tomorrow night (17th), is that even worth messing around with during our virus time off?

edit: oh nvm, appears to be xbox only with PC coming later. Not an option.

a c i d.f l y · Mar 16, 2020

Malakriss said:
Randomly saw that PSO2 Open Beta starts tomorrow night (17th), is that even worth messing around with during our virus time off?

edit: oh nvm, appears to be xbox only with PC coming later. Not an option.

Looks like a shinier version of PSO1. If it's in anyway like the first one, it's a mindless grind with no real story. And a lot of load screens. Standard Korean style mmo. Combat was fun, but that was about it.

TecKnoe · Mar 16, 2020

Malakriss said:
Randomly saw that PSO2 Open Beta starts tomorrow night (17th), is that even worth messing around with during our virus time off?

edit: oh nvm, appears to be xbox only with PC coming later. Not an option.

im assuming you guys are referring to phantasy star? that shit was amazing when it came out imo, im surprised my dreamcast didnt blow up from how much i played that thing.

i never knew a second one came out looking at the wiki it says it was released for windows in japan in 2012 i tried looking for it on torrents but no luck, i guess its supposed to be coming to PC early this year...so maybe well get lucky?

Ukerric · Mar 17, 2020

TecKnoe said:
i never knew a second one came out looking at the wiki it says it was released for windows in japan in 2012 i tried looking for it on torrents but no luck, i guess its supposed to be coming to PC early this year...so maybe well get lucky?

I looked at a stream from MMOByte of the beta (creation + first mission). It's a very basic ARPG in 3rd person. Full of flashy animations with 2012 graphics (nice, but just), tiny-ass zones with a wormhole travel-style loading screen (because sci-fi). It's a lobby-based game with your instances being shared with people also soloing.

Coleslaw · Mar 18, 2020

Didn't see a dedicated thread to it, so ill just post this here. Maplestory 2 shutting down about after a year of service. Original Maplestory still going strong

MapleStory 2 Service Closure on May 27, 2020 | Official MapleStory 2 Website

We're saddened to inform you that we will discontinue service of MapleStory 2.

maplestory2.nexon.net

Ukerric · Mar 18, 2020

Coleslaw said:
Didn't see a dedicated thread to it, so ill just post this here. Maplestory 2 shutting down about after a year of service. Original Maplestory still going strong

MapleStory 2 Service Closure on May 27, 2020 | Official MapleStory 2 Website

We're saddened to inform you that we will discontinue service of MapleStory 2.

maplestory2.nexon.net

90% of these korean MMOs have a max shelf life of 2 years. They consolidate every server per region in one after 6-9 months, then they coast until there's not enough sales to pay for the one cluster running on AWS or similar.

Raes · Mar 18, 2020

Ukerric said:
90% of these korean MMOs have a max shelf life of 2 years. They consolidate every server per region in one after 6-9 months, then they coast until there's not enough sales to pay for the one cluster running on AWS or similar.

Nah, they just don't like sequels. Lineage 1 is still going strong too. Since 1998.

Pyros · Mar 18, 2020

Raes said:
Nah, they just don't like sequels. Lineage 1 is still going strong too. Since 1998.

Lineage 2 is still running too iirc though and is actually relatively popular, they even ported it to mobile somewhat recently. A lot of the sequels are just bad games that are worse than the originals though so that's kinda the problem. Isn't just a korean problem though, Asheron's Call 2 was so shit it shut down in like a year and a half while AC1 was still running, and FFXIV(which in a way is FFXI 2) was so bad they had to shut it down and remake the entire game. EQ2 launch was rough but it's still there though so it's not everything. MMOs are just not about the IP, need the game to be decent if you want people to play it over the other hundreds of mmos and online games.

Raes · Mar 18, 2020

Pyros said:
Lineage 2 is still running too iirc though and is actually relatively popular, they even ported it to mobile somewhat recently. A lot of the sequels are just bad games that are worse than the originals though so that's kinda the problem. Isn't just a korean problem though, Asheron's Call 2 was so shit it shut down in like a year and a half while AC1 was still running, and FFXIV(which in a way is FFXI 2) was so bad they had to shut it down and remake the entire game. EQ2 launch was rough but it's still there though so it's not everything. MMOs are just not about the IP, need the game to be decent if you want people to play it over the other hundreds of mmos and online games.

Lol, yeah, dude, I know. I was there for all those launches. I just mentioned Lineage because I've always found it hilarious that a UO clone from 98 has been like top 5 mmo in Korea for its entire run and still going. Another funny thing I to this day don't understand is how the fuck Turbine, after it's sequel tanked, somehow got the licenses for not one, but BOTH of the top fantasy IPs.

I enjoyed AC1, not to mention Lotro and DDO, but I'll always despise Turbine for bringing FTP to the West to save their failing games. Talk about an infection.

Ukerric · Mar 19, 2020

Raes said:
Lol, yeah, dude, I know. I was there for all those launches. I just mentioned Lineage because I've always found it hilarious that a UO clone from 98 has been like top 5 mmo in Korea for its entire run and still going.

Runescape.

Another funny thing I to this day don't understand is how the fuck Turbine, after it's sequel tanked, somehow got the licenses for not one, but BOTH of the top fantasy IPs.

I enjoyed AC1, not to mention Lotro and DDO, but I'll always despise Turbine for bringing FTP to the West to save their failing games. Talk about an infection.

/solidarity!

Flobee · Mar 19, 2020

I've started to feel that these games replicate the wrong parts of their predecessors. They're in good company though as I feel that nearly all MMO's have done this in recent years. I haven't totally put my finger on what it is, but I am starting to believe it has to do with Roleplaying, or at least making a game world with enough depth and personality to warrant players wanting to role play.

Modern mmo's are barely veiled Skinner boxes. They unapologetically design it this way. Old MMO's were designed to replicate the tabletop experience and as such were built as worlds for players to explore and participate in at whatever level they wanted to. It wasn't designed by power gamers for power gamers. I think shit went sideways when raid guild leader types started taking over design. They have good idea's in a vacuum but I think they've unintentionally killed the genre.

I guess I'm just shower-thoughting that this shit is all Furor's fault.

Neranja · Mar 19, 2020

Flobee said:
I think shit went sideways when raid guild leader types started taking over design.

We are currently on the second generation of raid guild leaders with Ion. You may be on to something, because the trajectory is certainly worrying.

Randin · Mar 19, 2020

I'd agree with that. The endgame stuff in EQ held no real appeal to me (granted, I was casual as fuck, but nevertheless...), nor really the chasing of carrots, it was the whole feeling of, 'here's this full fantasy world, go experience it,' that it had. But it seems like devs have felt little incentive to innovate on that front, to make something more than EQ. And some of what EQ did have has been cut out of succeeding games in the name of efficiency ("who really needs more than one leveling path?"), or to improve the appeal of the skinner box ("can't have items that hold their appeal across multiple expansions, then there'd be no reason to gear back up with every release").

Aside from general EQ nostalgia, that was the big reason I latched onto EQNext when it was alive; it was the first time in a long goddamn while that I had seen devs talking about trying to innovate on the 'world' side of MMO design.

Barraind · Apr 16, 2020

I had some amount of hope in Yoshida and the 14 team when they redeveloped 14 and talked about their plans and where they drew inspiration from and what their goal was and how they would keep progressing towards new things.

And 14, within 3 expansions, is every bit as stale as every other game, if not worse, since fuck you, your horse, your dog, and your mother if you DONT want to level your alts through the one and only one leveling path (since everything worth doing has weekly caps you can hit in 1 night, except for the stuff that also has daily caps, and even then, you can log in on Tuesdays and be done for the week) though it does have a fantastic 2 or 3 hours of story (and a few hours of decent story).

TJT · Apr 16, 2020

Randin said:
I'd agree with that. The endgame stuff in EQ held no real appeal to me (granted, I was casual as fuck, but nevertheless...), nor really the chasing of carrots, it was the whole feeling of, 'here's this full fantasy world, go experience it,' that it had. But it seems like devs have felt little incentive to innovate on that front, to make something more than EQ. And some of what EQ did have has been cut out of succeeding games in the name of efficiency ("who really needs more than one leveling path?"), or to improve the appeal of the skinner box ("can't have items that hold their appeal across multiple expansions, then there'd be no reason to gear back up with every release").

Aside from general EQ nostalgia, that was the big reason I latched onto EQNext when it was alive; it was the first time in a long goddamn while that I had seen devs talking about trying to innovate on the 'world' side of MMO design.

Yah. Compared to EQ WOW didn't really have a lot of off the beaten path places. There were loads of dungeons I barely ever set foot in in Everquest. Zones too. If you wanted to take the road less traveled in Everquest you REALLY could.

MusicForFish · Apr 16, 2020

TJT said:
Yah. Compared to EQ WOW didn't really have a lot of off the beaten path places. There were loads of dungeons I barely ever set foot in in Everquest. Zones too. If you wanted to take the road less traveled in Everquest you REALLY could.

That was my fave part of old EQ.

zzeris · May 10, 2020

All worlds were built like EQ except for one key aspect that WoW promoted... easy, productive questing based in hubs. You just moved from quest hub to quest hub until you needed dungeon gear. In EQ, you primarily gained exp from killing shit. So, in a crowded world where certain leveling areas were already camped, you had to explore. Throw in true penalties for death and that quest for the next area to get exp turned into an adventure. GW 2 tried to bring back the exploration with exp gains for every new area you explore but it's not the same. If a game removes the exp value of quests and just makes it an item reward while pushing the mob kill aspect, exploration may return.

Designers will never do it because they want you to do the areas they worked hard on. The quests they put in game. They build the games as much if not more for their own gratification and will never just build a world and let you do what you want. That would waste all of their hard work.

2 years later... the almost sad state of MMOs in the new era

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