Where are all the MMORPG games? lol

Burns said:

The girls in our group disliked all the ugly horde, so don't think I ever made it through their quest lines before I gave up on the lore. Night Elves had the weakest quest line with one side dead ending in Desolace (I think it was). Kalimdor, in general, seemed less polished than EK, so Ally had that going for it.

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I think really it boils down to each individual. Not everyone is going to like every story. WoW's stories just didn't interest me enough. For you, it obviously was more enjoyable.

Tide27 said:

There was very little "questing" in Everquest at the end of the day.

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I agree with your overall point. I use to have this exact sense too, however after being involved with some eqemu dev and a long time p99 and takp player I can tell you there are actually TONS of quests that basically no one knew of back then. Granted 75% of these quests provided useless results (well honestly a little bit extra coin, or spells isn't entirely uresless) but there is definitely at least 1-2 low level turn in quests per noob yard and in some cases 1-2 teen level turn in quests for the general next area. In Rivervale alone there are 19 quests, the majority being lvl 1-5 stuff and not one over lvl 20.

We all play MMORPGs for the "grind" and fun with friends. Killing hard bosses, collecting dank loot, and getting huuuuuge. Nobody plays this shit for quests in 2024, when there are dozens and dozens of single player RPGs that do it 100x better. In '99 maybe people had a point about "quests" not being good/numerous enough. In 2024, I just want to slay the dragon with the bros.

Give the player a world and good gameplay - that's literally all you need. They'll figure out the rest.

Masakari said:

Here's what ChatGPT said regarding creating a successful modern MMO:

Of course, here are some detailed examples for each aspect:

1. **Unique Setting and Lore:**
- Create a world where magic and technology coexist in unexpected ways, blending steampunk aesthetics with high fantasy elements.
- Develop a rich history filled with conflicts, alliances, and mysterious ancient civilizations that players can uncover through exploration and quests.
- Populate the world with diverse cultures, each with its own customs, traditions, and conflicts, offering players a wide range of experiences and stories to discover.

2. **Innovative Gameplay Mechanics:**
- Introduce a dynamic weather system that affects gameplay, with storms that can damage structures, create temporary obstacles, or spawn rare creatures.
- Implement a player-driven economy where supply and demand affect prices, and players can establish their own businesses, trade routes, and mercantile empires.
- Create a "living world" system where NPCs have their own schedules, relationships, and goals, leading to emergent gameplay and dynamic events that unfold even when players are offline.

3. **Meaningful Player Interaction:**
- Design group-based challenges that require coordination and teamwork, such as massive world bosses that require dozens of players to defeat or large-scale faction battles for control of territory.
- Implement player-run factions with their own territories, resources, and objectives, allowing players to form alliances, wage wars, and vie for dominance in the game world.
- Introduce cooperative crafting systems where players can specialize in different professions and collaborate to create powerful items, structures, and enhancements that benefit the entire community.

4. **Content Updates and Events:**
- Release regular content updates that introduce new areas to explore, quests to complete, and challenges to overcome, keeping the game world fresh and exciting.
- Host seasonal events and festivals with themed activities, rewards, and cosmetic items, encouraging players to participate and celebrate together.
- Launch expansion packs that introduce major updates, such as new classes, races, dungeons, and storylines, expanding the game world and providing long-term goals for players to pursue.

5. **Accessibility and Flexibility:**
- Offer multiple difficulty levels for quests, dungeons, and other content, allowing players to tailor their experience to their skill level and playstyle.
- Provide diverse progression paths, including traditional leveling, skill-based progression, and horizontal progression systems that focus on customization and specialization.
- Support player choice and agency by allowing them to shape their character's story, appearance, and abilities through meaningful decisions and customization options.

6. **Engaging Storytelling:**
- Create branching questlines with multiple outcomes and consequences based on player choices, allowing players to shape the world and their character's destiny.
- Introduce dynamic storytelling events that unfold over time, with NPCs reacting to player actions and the world evolving based on the outcome of major story arcs.
- Incorporate player-driven narrative features, such as player-generated content and user-created quests, giving players the opportunity to contribute to the world's lore and shape its future.

By incorporating these detailed examples into the design of an MMORPG, developers can create a game that stands out and succeeds in today's competitive market.

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ez

My dream mmo has basically no twitchy gameplay and combat is closer to autochess or backpack battles than to a normal game. You hunker down and grind by setting up your shit and the reactive elements in combat would just be potentially changing up a loadup or something for different encounters. All this button mashing and ability spam is bullshit. Original eq (and early tlps) have very little requirement beyond face mob and attack, yet found a way to reward experience and intelligence with things like pulling, splitting, kiting, quadding, etc. Mashing attack keys is for the adhd.

Most "mmo" gacha games and a ton of mobile stuff already do this. Those stupid ones with the big tiddy anime chicks that pop up to remind you your adblock is off are almost all autobattlers. Raid shadow legends has very little twitch. All the clash of clans style city games are set up your shit and then launch it, zero interaction in combat itself. These games blow dicks because they're moneygrubbing whale pens or coomer fests. Mechanically, you can clearly be profitable as a game without mashing buttons, but the ones proving it sells are otherwise shit games. I want this kind of autobattler but in a real mmorpg, not some softcore porn or p2w bait, at its core.

The actual fun of the game would be via strategy elements, group and raid type content, collection type shit, etc. You can have the gearing and skilling go basically path of exile levels of loot autism and its still ok. Further, since combat interaction is all preparation and strategy, players can easily be "boxed" or "merc" and just have people running them in their group or hiring them or what have you.

Any time I hear a complaint about a game where someone says they're bored because they aren't DOING anything and need more things to do meaning buttons to incessantly keep clicked, I immediately check out of any interest in their further opinions. I'm in the middle of a hussite run in eu4, that game is way beyond more "intelligent" than anything similar to wow, and my interactive combat gameplay amounts to merging unit stacks or timing a retreat. If I want twitch gameplay, I enjoy rts, I can play that. In fact, I can add rts minigames or battle royales or whatever fotm I want. But fuck having it as core gameplay. Let me apply my autism to the char management side and not have to put in jerking off levels of button spamming.

yerm said:

Most "mmo" gacha games and a ton of mobile stuff already do this. Those stupid ones with the big tiddy anime chicks that pop up to remind you your adblock is off are almost all autobattlers. Raid shadow legends has very little twitch. All the clash of clans style city games are set up your shit and then launch it, zero interaction in combat itself. These games blow dicks because they're moneygrubbing whale pens or coomer fests. Mechanically, you can clearly be profitable as a game without mashing buttons, but the ones proving it sells are otherwise shit games. I want this kind of autobattler but in a real mmorpg, not some softcore porn or p2w bait, at its core.

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Do you think everyone is just somehow too stupid to be like "hmm, lets do what these mobile games are doing but put it on PC as a 'real MMORPG'" or do you think it might be because they've all decided it would not be profitable.

zombiewizardhawk said:

Do you think everyone is just somehow too stupid to be like "hmm, lets do what these mobile games are doing but put it on PC as a 'real MMORPG'" or do you think it might be because they've all decided it would not be profitable.

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These mobile games do a lot of shit that arent mmorpg related or compatible. It's the actual combat interaction I was referencing. People don't play gacha games for the riveting gameplay, they want something else - strategy, competitive citybuilding, anime tits, collections, etc etc. Well, guess what, I dont see why mmos all seem to want gripping gameplay themselves. People play for the shared world, social elements, character progression, etc.

Kirun said:

A lot of the boomers on here that bemoan about "interdependence", "name mattering", meaningful consequences, blah blah blah? It almost perfectly describes Albion Online. Yet almost nobody plays it. Almost as if nostalgia is the only reason people think they actually want that shit in their MMOs in 2024.

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No one plays Albion online because even boomers wearing rose-colored glasses can see that it’s designed-for-mobile trash that only pays lip service to the ideals your blind ass mentions.

It’s true Albion’s insistence to being a mobile game is hot trash but it’s very, very active.

your_mum said:

I agree with your overall point. I use to have this exact sense too, however after being involved with some eqemu dev and a long time p99 and takp player I can tell you there are actually TONS of quests that basically no one knew of back then. Granted 75% of these quests provided useless results (well honestly a little bit extra coin, or spells isn't entirely uresless) but there is definitely at least 1-2 low level turn in quests per noob yard and in some cases 1-2 teen level turn in quests for the general next area. In Rivervale alone there are 19 quests, the majority being lvl 1-5 stuff and not one over lvl 20.

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Dude the game came out in 1999. We made our own quests back in that day. Like asking every wood elf chick that wandered around "A/S/L?"

I think I played for like 8 months and made it to level 13 as a kid lol

Feels like there aren’t many new MMORPGs coming out anymore. Most people are still playing old favorites like WoW and Everquest. The genre really peaked in the mid-2000s, and now it doesn’t seem like there’s much new happening.
If you’re looking for something different, you might want to try some play games for cash. It’s a fun way to mix things up and maybe even make some money while playing.

Too costly to make and to maintain. Not to mention the mindset of the typical gamer has changed over the last decade or so. No longer willing/able to invest the time most MMOs required due to an increase in RL obligations as well as market saturation of games as a whole.

The only real hope I have is AoC. The gameplay footage I've seen recently has me pretty excited for it and any lingering concerns regarding scope creep seems to have waned a bit recently as they approach Alpha 2 in the coming month or so. Fingers crossed big time for this one.

Monsters and Memories is also in there but I'm not sure of my interest in it even if it does launch. EQ emulators have shown me that a spiritual successor to EQ sounds good on paper but probably won't keep my interest for very long.

Then there's Panth...lmao, nvm.

Vinjin said:

Too costly to make and to maintain.

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Yea, now they make live service games as their boondoggles

We got the best games when the devs made games they wanted to play. Now it's all major corps making them to reinvent the World of Warcraft cash cow. I think the core problem is the "leveling" of player skill. For example, in EQ1 the difference between a skilled enchanter and non-skilled enchanter may be being able to complete the content or not. Then, when you add PvP into the mix it gets way worse. The top 10% of players then take a giant shit on everyone's heads. In World of Warcraft the game was designed in a way to attempt to negate a large amount of player skill so all the "average" players wouldn't be discouraged from playing.

You see this trend throughout the entire industry. Developers "leveling" the playing field to get as many people playing as possible. I think what developers have missed on is the "if you build it, they will come" gamers of yesteryear that came up with EQ, AO, DAoC, RS, etc.

Just look at what happens when someone manages to make something that's "ok". People flock to it.

I think the next big thing will be other games that are created off the Cloud Imperium Games tech, not necessarily Star Citizen itself, but games that use the true 64-bit float positioning, real server meshing, object container streaming, and entity authority with replication layer streaming. Not saying they "invented" these things but bringing them all into the same engine is a pretty big deal.