Is the MMO Market imploding?

Are there any open source-ish MMO frameworks out there ? I would imagine there are tools out there to build something... even mod another game like Skyrim or something... anyone know of any projects like this going on ?

Thanks for the effort man... But sadly the only games on that list that even come close are actual Everquest, Vanguard and obviously project 1999 which I already play.

And again 'making EQ again is dumb' claim with no supporting data... You populate a list of EQ-like MMOs with games that are either straight up not MMOs (Minecraft, Daggerfall) or not even close to EQ (Wurm is a crazy crafting centric survival MMO - EQ was always a theme park, And Archeage is a WoW era MMO with hang gliders and housing) or EMUs of games made over a decade ago...? This kind of stuff makes me question if people on this board actually played EQ, and if they did, did they understand what made it great.

This shit is just like the 'space sims are dead' claims of a few years ago.

I'm not asking for much in an MMO. Just a fully open world that fosters player interaction in all it's forms (both positive and negative), and rewarding and dangerous character advancement. I don't need some long ass Experience grind or spawn camps for days... Just the ability to be part of a world again rather than a beautiful lobby with dungeons attached.

Edit: and Mortal Online is a bug ridden abortion of a game.

Quaid_sl said:

Thanks for the effort man... But sadly the only games on that list that even come close are actual Everquest, Vanguard and obviously project 1999 which I already play.

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You're not really setting realistic expectations then. I'm not sure what you're looking for.

Bruman_sl said:

You're not really setting realistic expectations then. I'm not sure what you're looking for.

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I'm looking for someone to support their 'the EQ model is ineffective for retaining large amounts of subscribers' assertions. Give some kind of data, in the form of comparable launch/failures, or something else. Please sow me these EQ-like games that have been released since 2005 because I would like to try them out.

Hint: they don't exist. WoW released and the strength of the IP sucked the floundering remnants of The Omens-of-war-battered EQ community right to its shiny new doors. SOE had been watering down EQ since SOL. Vanguard's launch was a rushed and underfunded catastrophe... And now every mmohut.com newfag is claiming 'MMOs with EQ mechanics don't retain players!'. Where is the evidence to support this kool-ade?

Quaid_sl said:

I'm looking for someone to support their 'the EQ model is ineffective for retaining large amounts of subscribers' assertions. Give some kind of data, in the form of comparable launch/failures, or something else.

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You don't need data. To be clear, we are talking about the Everquest model before it started implementing ideas from DAOC, FFXI, WoW and other MMO's.

Everquest and UO were some of the first major players in town, and Everquest in particular fostered player loyalty from the sheer level of pain it inflicted on you while getting your character to where he/she was. You worked your ass off to get where you were and invested massive amounts of time. Lest we forget:

- double death penalties (loss of XP and the corpse run)
- Massive time sinks (guild wide encounter keying, epic quests, bane weapons, etc.)
- Unforgiving encounters requiring 50+ players,
- Seven day mob spawn timers
- Spawn camps for prime XP grind spots
- Extremely limited fast travel options
- No in game map (want know if your running North? Better level that compass skill)
- No auction house (for a long while)
- No real quest system
- Hellacious XP grinds


The expansion model in EQ is one thing that I think todays games should consider. What I mean is that in EQ, an Expansion was mostly end game continuation, with very little geared towards lower level characters. This preserved content, and served to increase the size of the world, rather than render nearly all of the old content obsolete. Granted, this changed over time. Launch to Kunark to Velious had a very nice progressive feel to it. Over time however, it was inevitable that some zones empty out.

Quaid_sl said:

WoW released and the strength of the IP sucked the floundering remnants of The Omens-of-war-battered EQ community right to its shiny new doors.

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You do a great disservice to the WoW team by making this assumption. There were many good titles that came out during that era, and none managed to hold sway over the disgruntled Everquest players, and don't think for a second it wasn't because players weren't trying them. Everything from FFXI to Dark Age of Camelot...

The pedigree of Blizzard was very strong, but it was so evident that it was made with a lot of passion by people who loved the MMO genre but wanted something better. WoW at launch was amazing in every way, but its also very different to what WoW is today, some ways better, some worse. When WoW was released, it was incredible. The UI redefined modern MMO UI's and became the gold standard for how players should interact with their game. No game before WoW had such a rich questing system. Travel was near perfect, with limited fast travel that came with a cost but retained the size of the world. Dungeons were huge, and the encounters were engaging. It was an achievement that stood on its own two legs and needed no help from either the IP or the company name behind it.

Yes, the fact remains, i do need data, and nothing you said even comes close to satisfying that need.

Yes, WoW was a great game, but if you think it didn't get a boost from battle.net and it's decade+ strong IP, you are kidding yourself.

So who here thinks its a good idea to let players/guilds block another player or guilds progression in a game? Show of hands and the reason why.

Warrik_sl said:

You don't need data. To be clear, we are talking about the Everquest model before it started implementing ideas from DAOC, FFXI, WoW and other MMO's.

Everquest and UO were some of the first major players in town, and Everquest in particular fostered player loyalty from the sheer level of pain it inflicted on you while getting your character to where he/she was. You worked your ass off to get where you were and invested massive amounts of time. Lest we forget:

- double death penalties (loss of XP and the corpse run)
- Massive time sinks (guild wide encounter keying, epic quests, bane weapons, etc.)
- Unforgiving encounters requiring 50+ players,
- Seven day mob spawn timers
- Spawn camps for prime XP grind spots
- Extremely limited fast travel options
- No in game map (want know if your running North? Better level that compass skill)
- No auction house (for a long while)
- No real quest system
- Hellacious XP grinds
.

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Need to add
-No Google to look up the answers on

Even if someone makes an EQ clone it won't be the same. One of the things that made EQ amazing was people caring about what's going on. No one gives a shit no more. The markets too different and the players are too different. It's not the same without massive shit talking and drama.

etchazz_sl said:

not it's not, and you've obviously never taken a psych class in your life. what made camping exciting is the same thing that makes casinos exciting. is sitting in front of a slot machine really that exciting? is sitting for hours on end playing 3 card poker or pai gow or black jack fun from a viewer's standpoint? not really. but what makes it exciting is the chance that you'll hit it big, that you'll get on that streak that piles up the chips in front of you. that's the exciting part. gambling stimulates the brain much the same way that drugs do, and that's the hook of camping: that you'll stay for hours on end, exp grinding, and hoping for the big payoff when the rare spawn finally pops and drops the ultra rare loot. that's the part of the original EQ that no one in the industry seems to comprehend anymore. EQ worked just like a casino works: give them just enough to keep them coming back for more, in the hopes that you'll hit the jackpot at some point. that's the exciting part. games today make it so fucking easy to obtain the loot, and the loot is so fucking boring and meaningless that there is absolutely no excitement or incentive to play the game whatsoever.

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Sorry just getting to this thread but I have to agree completely here. EQ and AC were very similiar in this. EQ had rare mobs that dropped common uncommon and rare loot. AC was a bigger loot pinata than WoW but 99% of the loot was nothing you needed because it was all ROG so you pretty much vendored everything. Every once in a blue moon though the ROG would give a mob something incredibly rare and special. Like that 113% Yumi and that's what you craved.

Both EQ and AC were giant slot machines and man did we love them.

Ukerric_sl said:

I beg to differ. Dark Age of Camelot had almost exactly the same questing system. The only significant difference I can think of was the quest marker above the NPC's head.

(they had a severe lack of quest content at the later stages of levelling, but the system from 1 to 30+ felt like WoW)

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I beg to differ. The only questing I remeber from initial DAoC was your class quests that took place I believe every 5 levels or so, that's pretty much it. Other than that you just ran around and killled mobs ala EQ style to level.

I was about to say - DAOC had shitloads of low level kill quests - if I remember right the dialogue had brackets or bold around the words in them for what you had to kill ?

I didn't play DAOC for very long, but I thought it actually had something that was explicitly called "Task Master" or some such, that gave you 100% no story just "I want you to kill 10 bears" tasks, with some bonus exp once you got done, that were repeatable forever.

I wouldn't say wow's questing system was rich. It was shit. Go kill ten mobs and come back for some food and water is not a good quest. Quests are epic, long, and hard fucking journeys. They not this pick up 10000 "quests" at a hub and grind anyway and come back to turn them in for useless shit and exp. An awful fucking quest system.

Had wow took out half their bullshit grind quests and only kept a small few with more meaningful quests added in, then the game would have been the epitome of what an MMO should be. Sadly, Blizzard did not do that. They expanded upon it. Huge opportunity wasted IMO.


**Had to edit, it is too damn early!**

Siddar_sl said:

Need to add
-No Google to look up the answers on

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The Safehouse existed, but the top guilds were reluctant to share much in the way of details or screenshots of encounters, and videos were near non existent. No one wanted to share strats or give an edge to any competing guilds. If WoW wasnt instanced and you had to compete for what you got, you wouldnt be seeing strat guides and videos, but you also would have a lot of frustrated pissed off people.

Bruman_sl said:

I didn't play DAOC for very long, but I thought it actually had something that was explicitly called "Task Master" or some such, that gave you 100% no story just "I want you to kill 10 bears" tasks, with some bonus exp once you got done, that were repeatable forever.

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They had those for crafting at release and then nerfed them shortly after because people got "crazy rich" off the tasks. So sadly, after the nerf, it was just more time effective to grind it out and eat the GP loss. Even taking breaks to go farm trash loot to vendor and coming back to craft more widgits you took less time than running the tasks.

Dunno if they ever put that system in for xp mobs.

Edit: The class quests in DAOC really were pretty nice, but it wasn't at all a questing game until TOA. And TOA (while imho one of the best xpacs for a MMO to date) was simply thewrongxpac for that game.