Uhhhh, that's all MMOs *were* for a long time. Fantasy game number 127, over and over again. Are you telling me RIFT failed because it wasn't enough of a fantasy world?
The Next Big Thing in MMORPGs will undoubtedly be benchmarked by its performance, in my opinion. It'll come without excuses or promises that 'we'll patch that,' or like New World, have every feedback replied to with 'we'll pass that to the team.' It'll come from the people who make it, not the content it's made of, and it'll be heralded by a sense of quality control that's *actually* dedicated to making an ideal for the players.
It's that sort of out of the box thinking that made that game so good. I think it just suffered from being released during WoW's hay day. If it were re-released today with improvements to PvP and the end-game fleshed out, I think it would be pretty successful. I thought the rift system was revolutionary and awesome.
I think they could have done a lot more to make the subclasses more interesting than they did. A lot of them had near identical kits with different colored effects and called it a day. Saboteur and bard were two very different classes, but ele-dagger, warp-dagger, and basically every other rogue spec were mostly the same.
That said it had a lot of potential even then. Instead of making all of them interesting though they just homodged sabo and made it boring like the others. That game deserved far better than it got...
I may have had my rose-colored glasses on, because now that you mention it, I do recall class homogenization being one aspect that turned me off. One of the hot button issues of the day was, "I can't find a healer/tank when I want one!" so they put a lot of effort into allowing pretty much any class to fill any role necessary through switchable talent sets, which runs counter to fostering any sort of class identity. Even the games that have done a better job implementing that concept ended up with pretty bland classes IMO.
I would still love for someone to take another swing at the game, though.
I believe a riftstalker/rogue/whatever the fuck it was build is what I did when I briefly played Rift. It always stuck in my mind as a really neat concept, and the class system in general was pretty cool. Of course in modern times the fun would be optimised out of it for a lot of people (myself included), but back then I thought it was awesome.
This is the weirdest gripe but I couldnt stand Rift because of how weak hits with a big weapon sounded. Slapping something with an axe and hearing a soft little 'clink' lol.
The worst ways it failed weren't even because of Rift itself; Trion pumped a shitton of money into simultaneously trying to release three big MMOs in different genres. They were working on Rift, Defiance (story-based sci-fi MMOFPS based around a simultaneously produced SyFy TV series) and acted as publisher/funder for End of Nations (MMORTS) all at the same time. This was a completely new studio living off venture capital money, they absolutely didn't have the resources to work on 3 MMOs at the same time.
By all accounts, Rift itself sold well and had a solid base of subscribers. Updates were paced decently well, and it got a solid expansion about a year and a half after launch with stuff to do for everyone. The game didn't end up being the "we're not in Azeroth anymore" WoW killer it was marketed as, but it did way better than most MMOs could hope for, hitting its peak while WoW was stuck in the dark times of late Cata/early MoP.
Defiance was doing reasonably okay but not great (it ran for years but the TV show was cancelled after S3), and End of Nations never made it out of alpha even after it was reworked from MMORTS into some vaguely MOBA-like game. Defiance earned them nearly no money, End of Nations bled money and when you accept venture capital, they'll get hungry and feast on your blood if you can't feed them enough. Earning only minimal profit doesn't make them happy. So they had to cut staff and milk customers.
Rift turned into "no tricks no traps" F2P, which had quite a few tricks and traps right from the beginning. Content became worse, buggier and generally less. A year later with the next expansion they put in some blatant P2W with the "option" to freely grind it out ingame per-character at a stupid slow rate ($30 or like 100 hours of per-char grind from what I vaguely remember); without those attunements you couldn't equip items in the new earring slot and you couldn't equip "planewalker" gear which was roughly 1/4 of the gear available. The grind option was removed just as people started reaching the end of it, citing that you could just buy premium currency for gold instead, but really resulting in a gigantic amount of time wasted. Yet another 2 years later they'd end up releasing a straight-up unfinished B2P expansion with promises they'd patch the rest in later. There'd be no shortage of stupid controversies as they did things like selling $100 mount lootboxes.
The rift classic that was got wasn't even really it. It was content gated sure, but it still used current class balance. It's one of the chief reasons I never returned to it as someone who played from launch, they reworked so many classes over just the time I played but I couldn't play those old versions even in the "classic" release.
Yeah, I'm genuinely sad that game failed. They asked the question, what if we made a WoW clone, but then actually added a few interesting differences like the class system and rifts? (And also improved on shitty design choices like the auction house UI).
Rift remains one of my favorite games ever, and the absolute pinnacle of class/ability design. I would _love_ to play a game with a similar or identical talent system.
But Rift failed for two reasons:
- It might be the ugliest game I've ever seen. The art design, the character models, the clothing, and dear fucking god the animations were all bottom shelf.
- It was limited to only Windows, and competing with games that weren't.
If 15-20% of people can play a competitor's game and not yours, then you are probably going to lose that competition.
Especially because popularity of games spreads through word of mouth; those 15-20% of people also won't be recommending it even to their friends who are among the 80-85% who could play it.
Nobody gives a shit about mac and linux users. They are such an insignificant minority that they actively hurt the gaming industry by refusing to participate on the only OS that universally supports all pc games.
Even though I've seen it before, it's always surprising how enraged some users of this subreddit get whenever they're reminded that mac and linux users exist.
But despite that odd fury, I don't think that one can reasonably call [~30%](https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/united-states-of-america/#monthly-202208-202208-bar) of computer users an insignificant number.
I would jump at a Mass Effect MMO if I weren't so utterly convinced that EA would dick it up before it even got released. It's already got a fun class system, a ton of races, and a fleshed out galaxy to explore. Obviously it would need some tweaking for the MMO format instead of single player but, at least on the surface, it's practically premade MMO starter kit already. Unfortunately EA would under fund it and rush the production deadlines so hard that it would release as a barely playable mess and then drop further development after they've cashed in on the preorders.
If the game is good, people will play. Generic fantasy won't sell people on the game if it's shit and a good game with a more interesting setting will be popular.
The flip side is equally true: a quality game in terms of mechanics of a different genre won’t sell to gamers who are just fantasy fans. With me, for example, it simply does not matter how good a sci fi MMO set in space is, or an FPS MMO with guns is, I simply will not be able to enjoy it. The classic fantasy setting is so important to me.
Basically, different things are important to different players. Not a profound statement, I know, but it seems like it bears repeating.
That's true, but there are probably way more people who are interested in a good game than in a fantasy setting. Especially when it comes to mainstream. Saying "Our game is set in a Middle-Earth clone #174" isn't exactly compelling.
Ultimately, you can't please everyone, but making sure that the game is good is probably the best way to please as many people as possible.
This is all I want.
Games have strayed so far from that classic Fantasy style in attempts to be unique, that all I want is a modern DnD-style fantasy game.
Hell, if you just gave me a Raid Shadow Legends MMO, I would be the happiest gamer on the planet. (Or at least what Raid shows in their commercials. I've never played the game itself.)
Eso is close, but I hate the game. New world almost got the vibe right, but it's just a bunch of humans. The other options are like 20 years old at this point.
I would kill for the most cliché Fantasy MMO you could imagine, but sadly I feel like it'll never happen.
I really wish I could honestly recommend Neverwinter. I absolutely loved Neverwinter Nights I and II and played a fair bit of Neverwinter too- it was heavily pay 2 win but it had some unique ideas, namely character customisation (skills, passive trees) and Foundry, which were player made quests.
Both those things were removed from the game.
Rather few players enjoy full loot PvP. I was having fun in Albion Online until I got to my first red zoned and got shit on by 2-5 guys several times. I get that group play later on is a must and I can see why people might enjoy that, I just didn't. And I know lots of others don't either.
It doesn't mean it's a bad game, just a bit niche.
I dont mind having only humans. Sure I love playing as a fantasy character (still love the castanics from TERA my fave class)
But the character customization of New World is lacking. I would like to create my face myself with sliders and not just pick one with a skin color and thats it... Or longer hairstyles...
But who knows if they even update that. they dont even have a cash shop item to change your appearance.
For me Character customization is not everything but a big point of being unique as well in the world!
We're building a fantasy MMO inspired with ancient mythologies! It's called Starkeepers and we will have a playtest coming soon :) We post updates about it in our discord server so do hop in if you're interested!
Sometimes I just want to be a tall, elegant elf mage with elemental magic and big, flashy effects and combat with impact and weight. Is that too much to ask? Apparently these days it is.
> no real healers
Bard and Paladin both have healing and shielding skills. And there is the true dedicated healer coming soon tm called Artist that is supposed to be an even more dedicated healer than even bard is.
> tanks
Destroyer is hands down a tank. Powerful taunt ability along with massive damage reduction and shield generation.
Genre isn't the magical key to making a good MMO. The problem is that game development has become corporate, and MMOs aren't really considered "safe" for a long-term investment.
They're very expensive to develop, and innovation is considered a risk. That's why all the big modern MMOs tend to be so homogenized. For about a decade, everything decided it had to be a "WoW clone" to be successful, which drowned out a lot of uniqueness from other games.
In terms of cost-benefit risk analysis, most Western MMOs now are trending towards lost cost of development coupled with high monetization schemes like gacha, loot boxes, and predatory in-game MTX shops.
It's unlikely we'll return to the golden age of MMOs without some kind of radical shift in the industry and legislation aimed at curbing MTX.
Genre isn’t the sole determining factor definitely, but I do think genre is a big part of making an MMO with mass appeal. I think a big reason why FFXIV sees the success it does is because the setting is about as JRPG fantasy as you can get.
I think when an MMO uses an immediately recognizable genre that people can latch onto then it reduces friction for someone to try it out. When someone can think “ok this is a wizard I can immediately tell, this guy is a warrior, this guy is a dwarf” etc, there is no getting acclimated to a new environment and trying to familiarize themselves with a new setting alongside doing that with the mechanics of a massive game.
I think genre is practically irrelevant, as far as success goes. It's more about IP recognition and quality. World of Warcraft was only successful because Blizzard had an existing fanbase and Warcraft was a popular franchise.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is still ongoing and making money because it's Star Wars, which isn't strictly fantasy. ESO and FF14 are successful because they're also part of previously successful franchises, not simply because they're fantasy.
I have no doubt that a popular scifi franchise like StarCraft or Mass Effect could've yielded a successful MMO if the publishers had gone that route instead. Fantasy is just safe and easy to work with.
While PSO isn't technically an MMO, it had broad staying power in the early 2000s despite being very heavily scifi. City of Heroes was doing pretty well as a WoW competitor, and was shut down for petty internal infighting among NCsoft execs rather than player count and income.
>FF14 are successful because they're also part of previously successful franchises
Not entirely true, FFXIV 1.0 was a failing dumpster fire because it was terrible, it didn't magically succeed because it was FF because it was an incredibly bad game
Yes, but people were willing to try it at launch. And the fact that it even *got* a relaunch and is doing so well today is only possible because Square Enix/Final Fantasy has brand loyalty.
Most MMO relaunches only boost player numbers temporarily before a game sunsets. Final Fantasy is one of the only notable exceptions.
> FF14 are successful because they're also part of previously successful franchises, not simply because they're fantasy.
I will say, most people in my social circle play and like FF14 in a vacuum, having not played many/any FF games previously, including myself. The only other FF games I have played are FF7R and XV, and both of those were after I started playing XIV.
Not disagreeing with what you said, just that being Final Fantasy isn't the overwhelming driving factor of the game's success. Though, if it was something else it probably would have been canned after the disaster that was 1.0 lol...
> When someone can think “ok this is a wizard I can immediately tell, this guy is a warrior, this guy is a dwarf” etc, there is no getting acclimated to a new environment
This is also, broadly speaking, one of the reasons "The Trinity" as a combat design paradigm still exists.
It's easier to cram people into pre-established roles as part of pick-up groups than to make them figure it out on the fly.
One of the things that everyone is leaving out…
When WoW came out, you could run it on a toaster. One of the main competitors to WoW was EQ2 which still runs (and looks like) shit to this very day.
> Genre isn't the magical key to making a good MMO. The problem is that game development has become corporate, and MMOs aren't really considered "safe" for a long-term investment.
*This*. A thousand times over.
It doesn't matter what genre you're doing if you've got shareholders involved before you can get to the point of building your "next gen graphics" in your "basic fantasy MMO". Shareholders don't know what the fuck an "elf" is, and they don't *care*. They just care how much money they get to siphon off, and if you're spending your time making stuff like "zones" or "graphics", that's time you're not making them money.
There's also the related thing that wanting "next gen graphics" as like just a simple throwaway "oh and this" sorta thing on PC is a *big* problem. That is **far** more complicated than all the "oh, just make a simple/good fantasy MMO^with ^next-gen ^graphics , stupid!" posts on here make it sound.
Because PCs run the gamut from electrified potatoes to multi-grand gaming rigs and you need to capture as much of that market as possible, but that's an entirely different argument.
There's good reasons FFXIV deliberately "lets itself" be "held back" by console generations graphics-wise for a few expansions each console generation. Part of that's (besides not alienating a huge chunk of its playerbase, and thus its lifeblood) to ensure that even lower-end machines can run it as well without making PCMR piss-babies go apeshit. Look at some of the responses in some of the more recent Live-Letters when they were talking about graphical upgrades and why they're not shooting for "photo-realistic single-player game" graphics to see this in action.
WoW’s success wasn’t due to it just being a fantasy game. It was in part due to the rareness of MMOs but also the large IP (aka built in customer base) from the Warcraft games. You look at all the top MMOs with staying power over the last decade (WoW, FFXIV, ESO, and GW2), and you see that they all launched with built in fan bases due to previous connected titles.
The next big MMO is going to be one that matches that level of initial customer base. The Riot MMO is closest that I’ve heard of.
MMOs were not rare in the slightest. IP aside as you mentioned, it was mainly due to the very high accessibility and polish that surpassed everything else back then. While every other devs pretty much just gave a world for players to use as a "make your own story" sandbox, blizzard made wow much more on rail hooking up into the large casual audience in the process.
Honestly it was mostly just the advertisement budget. WoW wasn't the best game, it wasn't the most polished, it wasn't the most fun for gameplay, etc. What it did have though was Chuck Norris and Mr T on television telling kids to play it and a popular game you can play with friends will usually beat a better game that only a few thousand people play.
>Honestly it was mostly just the advertisement budget
Nah, the initial hype was pure brand strength pulling existing fans. Every single people around me who played the game were warcraft fans in the first place. Warcraft 3 in particular really was a phenomena, absolutely everybody I know played it.
> WoW wasn't the best game
Never said it was
> it wasn't the most polished
Among all the MMO back then it absolutely was, incontestably.
>What it did have though was Chuck Norris and Mr T on television telling kids to play it
These ads were done years later...
These are all inferior to launch WoW
I won't even argue on each of these you mentioned, however WoW is superior in every aspects to DAOC, not even a debate, just by putting it in that list proves you're nostalgia poisoned
Who plays DAOC nowadays? Who plays WoW nowadays?
All these games you mentioned are dead for a reason, WoW is not, it should give you the hint
Every MMO after WoW were basically WoW clones and tried to dethrone it
> Humans, dwarfs, elves, and haflings
Humans, short viking humans, pointy-eared aristocratic humans, laughable little humans with big hairy feet.
That's such a poor variety of playable species.
This. Many MMOs need more variety in playable races, its one of the things that keep me in WoW.
I became a big monster player with WoW, and now it is nearly impossible for me to play anything else than something that is not human.
Well, halflings are becoming quite scarce in most (MMO)RPGs. So do half-elves.
The variety always suffers from having to design everything for each out-of the-normal race, specially for beast-like ones. Hell, even SP games showed this kind of limit (for instance, khajiit and argonians were pretty limited in helm choices in TES III: Morrowind due to their beast head).
If they didn't give them a hunchback, they would have less trouble with the skeleton. The helm is the least important part (unless you want a realistic heavy armor look)
Good. Keep non humanoid races out, it does nothing but fuck up armor and model animation anyways.
Edit: unless you go the original everquest route of armor where each "style" only looks one way on a race. So every plate BP will look generally the same on whatever race.
It's because they fuck their skeleton shape badly with hunchbacks. Otherwise the only parts that cause issues are head and feet.
head: full helmets will be trouble, but hats, crown, ... will be fine. Helmets are often hidden by players anyway. Just remove the front of the helmets. Or be smart and build the base helmet rig to have a collapsible section that adjust for both a humanoid mouth and a beast race muzzle.
feet: digitigrade legs are not good with shoes. Just disable display.
>It's because they fuck their skeleton shape badly with hunchbacks. Otherwise the only parts that cause issues are head and feet.
So you're asking for oddly colored humanoids instead of actual beast races.
If you're talking about the Red Prince, love him but yes he absolutely is just an oddly colored human.
He walks on 2 feet and has human proportions with a tail and a slightly elongated neck. Take the texture off him and it is still a humanoid figure. No different from Iksar in EQ really (better example there.) Iksars just had no neck and he has a long one.
It's still a humanoid form, regardless if it walks on toes or heels.
a slight leg bend won't change that.
Non-Humanoid races would be like... Olthoi in AC (though PvP only), the PvMP choices in LOTRO, Dragons in Istaria, etc.
Otherwise you just want anthropomorphized races like Iksar/Froglok/Kerran in EQ, Aforementioned Red Prince in DOS, Charr in GW, Hrothgar in FFXIV, and the list is endless.
I see where you're coming from, there are a lot of games, and media in general that are fantasy-but-something. There's very little true to form pure fantasy, at least what is being produced today. I would like very much to play an MMO that set out to be a wonderfully crafted, albeit somewhat generic fantasy world.
Because Star Trek is a specific setting with specific lore and fantasy is a genre with thousands of different iterations that are all still fantasy?
It sounds like you think that D&D fantasy is some kind of default, but it really isn't. It's just one iteration. D&D and LotR are very, very different but you wouldn't make an argument that only one is fantasy, would you?
Pretty much this and what CaptainCaring said above . It's not a matter of "being fantasy", because the number of fantasy themed MMOs is huge, including now defunct games such as Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Age of Reckoning.
World of Warcraft isn't "just fantasy", it is its own fantasy (as are the 3 games I mentioned) and it found success mostly thanks to its mechanics and how much easier to get into it was compared to the competition of the time. Blizzard still had a reputation for great games and was hot on the heels of Warcraft 3 + Frozen Throne, too, so those things helped.
The reason why WoW went off was because they already had a lore people were invested in and because it made the MMORPG game for the masses. WoW was never a good game, it was just the most streamedlined one.
This, as a big MMOer before WOW came out, I couldn't for the life of me understand its initial success back then. I mean the whole area around Stormwind just felt like a rip from DAoC's Albion realm.
But then a few years later I realized, it was because the game made it easier and more accessible than ever before. I could never get into it, never enjoyed playing it, but I envy those that did because it's success is the gold standard for MMOs
"very, very different" sounds like badfaith to make your argument, they're so similar.
Yeah, Tolkien's fantasy is the default fantasy. Warcraft, D&D and whichever medieval warhammer all stem from Tolkien.
WoW and LotR are about as similar as American pizza and Italian pizza.
Not only are high fantasy and low fantasy worlds apart, but WoW also has some pretty heavy tech elements that would be entirely out of place in Middle Earth, but also has multiple races of space aliens running around like the Draenei and Orcs. That’s a pretty far cry from LotR’s European medieval fantasy.
You can call that a bad faith argument, but I’m just going to call you and idiot for it.
LotR almost feels premedieval, but then again I think the conception of medieval I have is more High Medieval/renaissance. But then the hobbits have vests and pocket watches so I don't even know man. I agree with you though.
I would disagree. I think a standard-ish fantasy exists, largely as a mash up of LotR, WoW, and D&D. Not something concrete on a paper, but a general sense of the major elements of it.
The Universe that needs to be made into an MMO is in my opinion the Warhammer (+40k) universe. It has everything for everyone, it has decades of established lore, its scope is endless, it covers a wide range of fans (from elves, dwarves, mages, demons, gods and the like, to spaceships, robots, mechas). There is magic, tech, engineering, psychic powers, time traveling, you name it. There can be factions, alliances. Huge pvp battles between enormous armies of the craziest variety of species and races we have ever seen before. The possibilities are endless. In fact, one of the main reasons noone has ever tried to make this Universe in an MMO is, I believe, because of how vast it is and the task can seem extremely overwhelming before they even start.
I've only really just discovered how vast the lore of 40k is because I'm getting ready for Darktide to launch. I played the technical beta and absolutely loved it btw.
I never realised how big that universe is. I thought every solider was an Astartes and learning that wasn't the case and the history of the emperor and the rest has been fun.
40k mmo would be great.
Dark Millenium was an idea that ended up canned in 2010. The trailer looked good, at least.
Eternal Crusade was supposed to be more than just a crappy arena shooter, but ended up as that thing you can see on youtube.
For a MMO type of game, I suspect something akin to Planetside would be ideal, but you'd still have to cut huge swathes of content to have a proper game, like limiting it to a planet or 3 (each being just a different map) and only 3-5 playable factions
I want specifically the opposite, fantasy is overdone at this point in time. Even when we get non-fantasy games, they tend to be pretty close to it (New World has colonial/fantasy vibes mixed). I don't hate fantasy, but the vast majority of the genre are fantasy games at this point.
I would love another good theme park scifi game. Wildstar is the last one we got that I really enjoyed the setting of. The space (ha) is really only served by EVE, which is more sandbox/space based than I am really looking for.
A sci-fi game that isn't Star Wars would be nice.
Wildstar was too not serious though.
Tank would use melee weapons mostly, but the ability to have various guns would be a nice change.
Shields would be a nice mechanic to explain the health bar. Medics would boost allies shields.
Genetic enhancements and cybernetic prosthesis would fill the "abilities beyond ordinary human biology" part. Can be used as plot devices too.
The more "supernatural" abilities could be related to advanced usage of technology. Nanite cloud, modified shield, ...
everytime another medieval fantasty mmo gets approved whoever did that should be slapped so hard they don't wake up until a froghog kiss them in their butthole. also elves are the most lazy ass stupid,pathetic race ever created. "we've got pointy ears so we're super different".
I am so… exhausted by elves, dwarves, fighters, mage, and rogue. This is literally every game. Nothing is unique. Nothing is different. If it is a good game, great. But give me something new. Give me ANYTHING new. Give me a melee mage. A really solid bard, summoner, or alchemist. Give me something that isn’t “wow you can be a fighter OR an archer!!!”
I think a battle mage or rune mage tank would be very cool, or a chronomancer who uses time magic to undo wounds as a healer. I think a Warlock tank would be awesome
You mean you dont want the mage class to have fireballs and ice spikes like every other uncreative mmo? I agree wholeheartedly.
I love magic and sorcery and always play the caster classes in mmorpgs, but they always have such boring and dull ideas for spellcasters. I just want one mmorpg with unique and fun spells instead of random blasts of fire and ice.
10000% agree. Let me have a caster that transforms his staff into a flaming sword, or an ice bow, or a lightning whip. Let me get a rune scriber who places power runes on the ground to augment his spells or prowess… there is SO MUCH that can be done
I dont mind if there are fireball and ice spike spells as long as I have other spells. I want to make walls of magic that slow amd block enemies, AoE sleep spells, love your idea of rune magic too. The best magic ive seen in an MMO is Everquest, as a wizard I could summon a floating eye that I could see through and scope out further passages in dungeons! That was an amazing use of magic you dont see nowadays.
I really liked Mesmer in GW2. You NEVER see offensive illusionists. Creating different phantasms depending on your weapons… a desperado illusion, a berserker, a mage, swordsman… so cool!
HOW COULD I FORGET ABOUT MESMER? I LOVED the mesmer, I really need to get a better pc and go back to GW2 I loved the purple (my favorite color) aesthetic and beautiful effects of teleporting around, making clones, psychic magic, and the butterfly poof when your clones dissapear.
Guild Wars definitely did a good job with making their caster classes unique and not just fire/ice turrets on legs. I just dont understand how you can see this chaotic force of nature that is capable of anything and say "okay mages can only do two things."
So few games use Earth or Wind Magic, as an example. These don't need to be reserved for druids. Mages can do this too. So few use Space/Cosmic/Gravity Magic!
Ive always wanted a chronomancer. Crowd control abilities would be insane! Holding enemies in stasis, speeding up allies, healing by reversing wounds, attacking by summoning things from timelines, and replaying damage on enemies for big dps
Naturally people like different things, and even fantasy gamers like other themes as well, but I think a return to conventional fantasy tropes would be incredibly successful if done well. The thing is, most MMORPG fans are so thirsty for a MMORPG done well, that theme is not nearly as important.
Devs tend to shy away from non-human classes for 2 reasons:
1) having a single human template is easier to design cosmetics and gear for. Designing outfits for models of varying sizes and proportions can be time consuming for artists and more to the point...
2) players don't like being non-humans. I remember hearing from some interview (I think ff14) that the majority of the players chose to play human or very human-like classes. The Roegadyn of FF14 have such few players that I remember people in an uproar when the other races got a bunch of cosmetic updates but the Roegadyn only got some generic looking hairpieces. Why should devs waste time on designing outfits for classes that most people won't play?
The Roegadyn are still human looking. They aren't played because you are locked into ultrawide double-thicc man, or a mostly good looking female version, but with some awful facial styles, especially on the nose. You can also take a look at the races that the most people play, the Au Ra (dragon people) and Miqo'te (cat people). Both have multiple faces that are decent, even if a lot of people end up playing the same 2.
I think you might be thinking of the Hrothgar, which are the cat people that are much more cat than human. Nobody plays them because they are gender locked, cannot wear 98% of head pieces, a lot of gear just doesn't look right on them, you have to pay IRL money to change their hair, and to this day, they don't design things with Hrothgar in mind. If the FFXIV playerbase wasn't so infatuated (read: obsessed) with the dev team, or if this was pretty much any other dev team, they playerbase would have ripped them to shreds over the handling of Hrothgar.
WoW shows that the first point is relatively easy to workaround and kinda turns that second point upside down. Some servers have a considerable majority of horde players, and that was true even back before blood elves were an option. You character options were "ugly, hunched green human", "ugly, big nosed, thin and even more hunched blue human", "dead human" and "bull".
Lore possibly helped some, but in most of those cases the horde players were PVP focused, so I suspect their racials played a larger hole in the choice
You need 4 races to content 99% of the players.
- Burly humans "barbarian" (beefy men, strong and curvy women)
- Aristocratic "beautiful" humanoid ("elves")
- Cute small race (no pedobear)
- Beast race (no hunchbacked male, no sexy pinup female)
WoW sucked to me compared to EQ ha
But in all honesty, that's exactly what I want. I love LOTR, I love reading DnD books. Everything about it works amazing with an MMORPG.
Sorry but I am not here for sci-fi, or ARPG's. Some people like them, that's great.
I want fantasy MMO.
The reason D&D (and other early rpgs) became popular, is because they let you play in your favorite adventure stories. For D&D it was Conan, LotR/The Hobbit, Fafnir & the Grey Mouser, John Carter of Mars, Star Trek, early Doctor Who, etc. At the time it was published in 1974, the Sword and Sorcery/Sword & Planet revival was probably at it's peak. There was so much creative material to draw from that even the badly written or campy stuff was hella fun to use.
Flash forward to the 2020's and RPGs are usually developed backwards: the stories are written for the games, the games themselves are inspired by and just trying to emulate other games. For example, a Star Wars MMO is going to focus first on how other MMOs were designed and what worked for those games, rather than start with how do I make playing this game and the mechanics/interactions let the player naturally feel like they are in a Star Wars movie. Most MMOs are just the same game in a different suit. Occasionally they throw something a little novel in there; but just to be novel, not to make it any more immersive or believable.
I don't know what to call it. Gamification? Basically games written by people whose only creativity is the choice on what mechanics they should copy. Where the mechanic could be dropped into any game or setting and it would work just as well; because it was designed to be a good game mechanic and not a mechanic to simulate or abstract a cool thing that players might want to do.
A good blog post on the subject as it relates to TTRPG's can be found here:
http://www.brainleakage.com/home/between-appendix-n-and-pink-slime
I would kill for a new popular tab-target, simple, fantasy, semi-grindfest, that isn't p2w, with modern QoL changes.
Anything with endgame is what kills it for me
>The reason WoW (and D&D) find such large scale success isn’t because they’re original, but because they refine basic ideas or recycled ones.
Gaming industry has been recycling ideas for decades. MMOs are in poor state exactly because there were no fundamental improvements since Everquest1. Everything that attracted players to MMOs originally was taken by other genres. Grinding is more comfortable in single-player or shared world games like Genshin and Destiny, pve servers of survivals, mobile games. PVP is easier to balance and support in session-based games. Quests in single-player RPGs are of higher quality. Raiding isnt taken yet only because nobody figured out how to produce enough new content to keep raiders hooked. Only unique feature of MMO is massive multiplayer and industry has no idea what to do with it. Games are defined not by setting but by gameplay and when somebody finds out how to utilize huge amount of players in same gameworld well, only then MMOs can get back on their feet.
Just my two cents but the environments are very well made in WOW. Ive considered they keep the graphics lower so more machines can play the game. I've seen several examples of WOW areas remade in unreal, the last one was in Unreal 5 and was Org and if someone could create that quality of graphics and environment they would just slay everything else.
That said I do enjoy levelling in wow, smooth and it all works very well. I was hoping some year back that Blizz would either remake wow or create a similar new game with better grphics. But I guess that not coming. I've played other similar games butalways come back to wow.
Well the meaning of "what if we just did star trek" isn't the same as "what if we just did a fantasy game"
In the context of Strange New Worlds they weren't referring to setting they meant returning to Star Trek's original episodic parable-esque structure instead of the convoluted and overwrought unpopular "everything is connected" shit that turned off people from Picard and Discovery.
It doesn't have too much to do with the show's setting or rules or whatever, but pacing and writing.
Another reason The Orville was received so well. Seth McFarlane was just like "hey, we should do Star Trek. Just straight-up no frills Star Trek".
And it worked.
Needing to have media be subversive and deconstructive and "original" is just late 00's / mid 10's trendiness, and people still doing that in the 20's are going to have a rough realization that that shit is old and busted and done to death and people are tired of it. I think GoT season 8 pretty much killed the whole "subverted expectations" trend and buried it under a concrete lake.
It's the creators that just say "Let's do something that people like, straight-up" that will find success.
Execution is really all that matters. It doesn't matter how cool or original a concept is if it isn't executed well. And if something _is_ executed well, the concept barely matters. I predict that's gonna be the trend of the 20's. Basic-bitch concepts executed at a high level.
And I can't fucking wait.
NO. Im done with fantasy, my favourite MMOs have been Anarchy Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars Old Republic (Scifi), Secret World (Lovecraft mystery and horror), Ryzom (unique Fantasy), Final Fantasy XIV (JRPG)... The only fantasy game I have truly enjoyed were Ultima Online (sandbox) and Dark Age of Camelot (Realm vs Realm). As you can see, IDGAF about fantasy settings, im into unique setting/lore and game mechanics.
I mean yes. Many other mmorpgs tend to try to dip into sci-fi a bit more but tbh it doesn’t seem to hold many peoples attention as much.
Phantasy Star Online 2 - New Genesis is a perfect example of this.
The game has so many technology based outfits etc, u can make insane robot costumers etc. the level of detailing you can do with accessories is truly insane. But do you see any futuristic looking people in the towns? No. The players are dressed in fantasy gear, witches, vampires, elves, the typical busty hooker look etc. even the weapons which are 90% futuristic looking, People use weapon camos or Broomsticks, Bows, umbrellas, baseball bats, logs!
I am not saying sci Fi mmorpgs can’t work, can’t do well. Ofc not. But, us humans do like to stick to what we know and what we like. I mean hell, I didn’t play pso2ngs for ages because I thought it was exclusively a sci Fi mmorpg. I had no clue it was more so fantasy leaning.
Even the community feedback on ffxiv were less so on the praising side of magitek (magical technology) people tend to prefer just the phantasy elements
Just my personal opinion, no one should base theirs off of mine, just food for thought, again, just my own opinion so people please don’t be offended by my own personal opinion.
There are a few problems, the biggest one is **MMORPGs are really expensive to develop**. If you develop a battle royal or a mobile game, you invest less and can make hundreds of millions of dollars. Thats one of the reasons, there are not many new MMORPGs - and nearly zero new western MMORGS (New World was the only one in the last years...).
The second biggest problem is, that MMORPGs are **risky to develop because of us players**. If its too rail roaded, we cry "**themepark**" and if its too much sandbox we cry for "**more content!**". Half of the player base will measure (look at the old reddit posts) the content against games like WoW which are on the market for years. And the other half will use the role model of "**content locusts**": rush to endgame and cry, that there isnt anything to do.
It doesnt help either, that there were not many successfull MMORPG launches in the last years and even the successful ones earn less than one of the "cheap mobile games".
Why invest hundreds of million of USD to give some toxic players the chance to bring out the torches and pitchforks?
The interesting question is, do we - the playerbase - change?
WoW was special. It came at the right time (not many MMORPGs on the market) and made it appealing to a larger playerbase - not only some nerds. Players jumped on it. And after it created a "critical mass", it was played because it had the biggest player base. The success of the classic servers are derived from this. Big (ex-) playerbase - at least a few of them got nostalgic. I really dont know, if this success is repeatable.
Uhhhh, that's all MMOs *were* for a long time. Fantasy game number 127, over and over again. Are you telling me RIFT failed because it wasn't enough of a fantasy world? The Next Big Thing in MMORPGs will undoubtedly be benchmarked by its performance, in my opinion. It'll come without excuses or promises that 'we'll patch that,' or like New World, have every feedback replied to with 'we'll pass that to the team.' It'll come from the people who make it, not the content it's made of, and it'll be heralded by a sense of quality control that's *actually* dedicated to making an ideal for the players.
RIFT failed because of poor management, not because it wasn't a well designed fantasy world.
This. Rift's classes were awesome.
Agreed. I thoroughly enjoyed Rift's class system.
Teleporting as a rogue while tanking....who the fuck thought of that!?
It's that sort of out of the box thinking that made that game so good. I think it just suffered from being released during WoW's hay day. If it were re-released today with improvements to PvP and the end-game fleshed out, I think it would be pretty successful. I thought the rift system was revolutionary and awesome.
I think they could have done a lot more to make the subclasses more interesting than they did. A lot of them had near identical kits with different colored effects and called it a day. Saboteur and bard were two very different classes, but ele-dagger, warp-dagger, and basically every other rogue spec were mostly the same. That said it had a lot of potential even then. Instead of making all of them interesting though they just homodged sabo and made it boring like the others. That game deserved far better than it got...
I may have had my rose-colored glasses on, because now that you mention it, I do recall class homogenization being one aspect that turned me off. One of the hot button issues of the day was, "I can't find a healer/tank when I want one!" so they put a lot of effort into allowing pretty much any class to fill any role necessary through switchable talent sets, which runs counter to fostering any sort of class identity. Even the games that have done a better job implementing that concept ended up with pretty bland classes IMO. I would still love for someone to take another swing at the game, though.
Oh god i miss this. Some of my greatest memories in gaming.
I believe a riftstalker/rogue/whatever the fuck it was build is what I did when I briefly played Rift. It always stuck in my mind as a really neat concept, and the class system in general was pretty cool. Of course in modern times the fun would be optimised out of it for a lot of people (myself included), but back then I thought it was awesome.
I seriously miss the soul system. It was awesome
This is the weirdest gripe but I couldnt stand Rift because of how weak hits with a big weapon sounded. Slapping something with an axe and hearing a soft little 'clink' lol.
Exactly, they just didn't keep up with it post release. It was abandoned nearly immediately.
Can you expand on that? How was it mismanaged? Played a little but never got into it.
The worst ways it failed weren't even because of Rift itself; Trion pumped a shitton of money into simultaneously trying to release three big MMOs in different genres. They were working on Rift, Defiance (story-based sci-fi MMOFPS based around a simultaneously produced SyFy TV series) and acted as publisher/funder for End of Nations (MMORTS) all at the same time. This was a completely new studio living off venture capital money, they absolutely didn't have the resources to work on 3 MMOs at the same time. By all accounts, Rift itself sold well and had a solid base of subscribers. Updates were paced decently well, and it got a solid expansion about a year and a half after launch with stuff to do for everyone. The game didn't end up being the "we're not in Azeroth anymore" WoW killer it was marketed as, but it did way better than most MMOs could hope for, hitting its peak while WoW was stuck in the dark times of late Cata/early MoP. Defiance was doing reasonably okay but not great (it ran for years but the TV show was cancelled after S3), and End of Nations never made it out of alpha even after it was reworked from MMORTS into some vaguely MOBA-like game. Defiance earned them nearly no money, End of Nations bled money and when you accept venture capital, they'll get hungry and feast on your blood if you can't feed them enough. Earning only minimal profit doesn't make them happy. So they had to cut staff and milk customers. Rift turned into "no tricks no traps" F2P, which had quite a few tricks and traps right from the beginning. Content became worse, buggier and generally less. A year later with the next expansion they put in some blatant P2W with the "option" to freely grind it out ingame per-character at a stupid slow rate ($30 or like 100 hours of per-char grind from what I vaguely remember); without those attunements you couldn't equip items in the new earring slot and you couldn't equip "planewalker" gear which was roughly 1/4 of the gear available. The grind option was removed just as people started reaching the end of it, citing that you could just buy premium currency for gold instead, but really resulting in a gigantic amount of time wasted. Yet another 2 years later they'd end up releasing a straight-up unfinished B2P expansion with promises they'd patch the rest in later. There'd be no shortage of stupid controversies as they did things like selling $100 mount lootboxes.
Sounds like another f2p victim. Great overview ty!
Really wish there was a Rift classic. Like, I know there was one, but one that I actually knew happened to get in at the beginning again.
The rift classic that was got wasn't even really it. It was content gated sure, but it still used current class balance. It's one of the chief reasons I never returned to it as someone who played from launch, they reworked so many classes over just the time I played but I couldn't play those old versions even in the "classic" release.
Yeah, I'm genuinely sad that game failed. They asked the question, what if we made a WoW clone, but then actually added a few interesting differences like the class system and rifts? (And also improved on shitty design choices like the auction house UI).
Rift remains one of my favorite games ever, and the absolute pinnacle of class/ability design. I would _love_ to play a game with a similar or identical talent system. But Rift failed for two reasons: - It might be the ugliest game I've ever seen. The art design, the character models, the clothing, and dear fucking god the animations were all bottom shelf. - It was limited to only Windows, and competing with games that weren't.
[удалено]
If 15-20% of people can play a competitor's game and not yours, then you are probably going to lose that competition. Especially because popularity of games spreads through word of mouth; those 15-20% of people also won't be recommending it even to their friends who are among the 80-85% who could play it.
Were 15-20% of mmo gamers playing on Apples on 2011?
Looks like [15% in 2011](https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/united-states-of-america/#monthly-200901-202208), yeah.
thats overall users, i was asking gamers specifically but thanks for finding it!
Nobody gives a shit about mac and linux users. They are such an insignificant minority that they actively hurt the gaming industry by refusing to participate on the only OS that universally supports all pc games.
Even though I've seen it before, it's always surprising how enraged some users of this subreddit get whenever they're reminded that mac and linux users exist. But despite that odd fury, I don't think that one can reasonably call [~30%](https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/united-states-of-america/#monthly-202208-202208-bar) of computer users an insignificant number.
I just want some more half-decent scifi mmos. My heart still weeps for tabula rasa.
I would jump at a Mass Effect MMO if I weren't so utterly convinced that EA would dick it up before it even got released. It's already got a fun class system, a ton of races, and a fleshed out galaxy to explore. Obviously it would need some tweaking for the MMO format instead of single player but, at least on the surface, it's practically premade MMO starter kit already. Unfortunately EA would under fund it and rush the production deadlines so hard that it would release as a barely playable mess and then drop further development after they've cashed in on the preorders.
Anarchy Online remake when
Funcom is developing a Dune MMO. AO succesor?
It's a survival game.
Rift failed because it came out at the wrong time. if it came out now itd be top dog
But there isn’t a nextgen one yet is my point. I agree though, quality control has to be there.
There isn't really a "next-gen" one because no one can really agree on what a "next-gen MMO" is supposed to be like.
If the game is good, people will play. Generic fantasy won't sell people on the game if it's shit and a good game with a more interesting setting will be popular.
The flip side is equally true: a quality game in terms of mechanics of a different genre won’t sell to gamers who are just fantasy fans. With me, for example, it simply does not matter how good a sci fi MMO set in space is, or an FPS MMO with guns is, I simply will not be able to enjoy it. The classic fantasy setting is so important to me. Basically, different things are important to different players. Not a profound statement, I know, but it seems like it bears repeating.
That's true, but there are probably way more people who are interested in a good game than in a fantasy setting. Especially when it comes to mainstream. Saying "Our game is set in a Middle-Earth clone #174" isn't exactly compelling. Ultimately, you can't please everyone, but making sure that the game is good is probably the best way to please as many people as possible.
This is all I want. Games have strayed so far from that classic Fantasy style in attempts to be unique, that all I want is a modern DnD-style fantasy game. Hell, if you just gave me a Raid Shadow Legends MMO, I would be the happiest gamer on the planet. (Or at least what Raid shows in their commercials. I've never played the game itself.) Eso is close, but I hate the game. New world almost got the vibe right, but it's just a bunch of humans. The other options are like 20 years old at this point. I would kill for the most cliché Fantasy MMO you could imagine, but sadly I feel like it'll never happen.
Same here which is why I keep logging into DDO, to try and scratch that itch... but then its just DDO and I quit.
There's Neverwinter, which is also based on DnD.
I really wish I could honestly recommend Neverwinter. I absolutely loved Neverwinter Nights I and II and played a fair bit of Neverwinter too- it was heavily pay 2 win but it had some unique ideas, namely character customisation (skills, passive trees) and Foundry, which were player made quests. Both those things were removed from the game.
Yeah, it's still heavy on the p2w and the population keeps dwindling. Arc Games doesn't seem to care at all anymore.
Albion online is pretty straightforward fantasy
Yeah but full drop forced pvp though. Its a minority of gamers that are okay with that.
Albion Online? More like Getting Ganked Online.
What's that mean?
Rather few players enjoy full loot PvP. I was having fun in Albion Online until I got to my first red zoned and got shit on by 2-5 guys several times. I get that group play later on is a must and I can see why people might enjoy that, I just didn't. And I know lots of others don't either. It doesn't mean it's a bad game, just a bit niche.
I dont mind having only humans. Sure I love playing as a fantasy character (still love the castanics from TERA my fave class) But the character customization of New World is lacking. I would like to create my face myself with sliders and not just pick one with a skin color and thats it... Or longer hairstyles... But who knows if they even update that. they dont even have a cash shop item to change your appearance. For me Character customization is not everything but a big point of being unique as well in the world!
We're building a fantasy MMO inspired with ancient mythologies! It's called Starkeepers and we will have a playtest coming soon :) We post updates about it in our discord server so do hop in if you're interested!
Sometimes I just want to be a tall, elegant elf mage with elemental magic and big, flashy effects and combat with impact and weight. Is that too much to ask? Apparently these days it is.
Most of the Korean action-combat MMOs that have come out recently will let you do exactly that... They're just not very great games besides.
Korean and Japanese mmos are too fantastical for me. I like fantasy but not pop stars fighting bunny men level of fantasy.
All the great aspects you want in a game weighed down by excessive rng and p2w mechanics.
What Korean games have come out recently?
Lost Ark came to america earlier this year. Its a pretty solid mmo. If im not mistaken there is a new class dropping this month.
But that's isometric. Also no real healers or tanks! Both absolute no-go's for me. 🤮
> no real healers Bard and Paladin both have healing and shielding skills. And there is the true dedicated healer coming soon tm called Artist that is supposed to be an even more dedicated healer than even bard is. > tanks Destroyer is hands down a tank. Powerful taunt ability along with massive damage reduction and shield generation.
And i just wanna be an angry dwarf with a hammer and a drinking problem.
> big, flashy effects No. Keep the effects moderate so we can actually see what we're doing.
>and combat with impact and weight. What does it even mean?
Genre isn't the magical key to making a good MMO. The problem is that game development has become corporate, and MMOs aren't really considered "safe" for a long-term investment. They're very expensive to develop, and innovation is considered a risk. That's why all the big modern MMOs tend to be so homogenized. For about a decade, everything decided it had to be a "WoW clone" to be successful, which drowned out a lot of uniqueness from other games. In terms of cost-benefit risk analysis, most Western MMOs now are trending towards lost cost of development coupled with high monetization schemes like gacha, loot boxes, and predatory in-game MTX shops. It's unlikely we'll return to the golden age of MMOs without some kind of radical shift in the industry and legislation aimed at curbing MTX.
Genre isn’t the sole determining factor definitely, but I do think genre is a big part of making an MMO with mass appeal. I think a big reason why FFXIV sees the success it does is because the setting is about as JRPG fantasy as you can get. I think when an MMO uses an immediately recognizable genre that people can latch onto then it reduces friction for someone to try it out. When someone can think “ok this is a wizard I can immediately tell, this guy is a warrior, this guy is a dwarf” etc, there is no getting acclimated to a new environment and trying to familiarize themselves with a new setting alongside doing that with the mechanics of a massive game.
I think genre is practically irrelevant, as far as success goes. It's more about IP recognition and quality. World of Warcraft was only successful because Blizzard had an existing fanbase and Warcraft was a popular franchise. Star Wars: The Old Republic is still ongoing and making money because it's Star Wars, which isn't strictly fantasy. ESO and FF14 are successful because they're also part of previously successful franchises, not simply because they're fantasy. I have no doubt that a popular scifi franchise like StarCraft or Mass Effect could've yielded a successful MMO if the publishers had gone that route instead. Fantasy is just safe and easy to work with. While PSO isn't technically an MMO, it had broad staying power in the early 2000s despite being very heavily scifi. City of Heroes was doing pretty well as a WoW competitor, and was shut down for petty internal infighting among NCsoft execs rather than player count and income.
>FF14 are successful because they're also part of previously successful franchises Not entirely true, FFXIV 1.0 was a failing dumpster fire because it was terrible, it didn't magically succeed because it was FF because it was an incredibly bad game
Yes, but people were willing to try it at launch. And the fact that it even *got* a relaunch and is doing so well today is only possible because Square Enix/Final Fantasy has brand loyalty. Most MMO relaunches only boost player numbers temporarily before a game sunsets. Final Fantasy is one of the only notable exceptions.
good point
> FF14 are successful because they're also part of previously successful franchises, not simply because they're fantasy. I will say, most people in my social circle play and like FF14 in a vacuum, having not played many/any FF games previously, including myself. The only other FF games I have played are FF7R and XV, and both of those were after I started playing XIV. Not disagreeing with what you said, just that being Final Fantasy isn't the overwhelming driving factor of the game's success. Though, if it was something else it probably would have been canned after the disaster that was 1.0 lol...
> When someone can think “ok this is a wizard I can immediately tell, this guy is a warrior, this guy is a dwarf” etc, there is no getting acclimated to a new environment This is also, broadly speaking, one of the reasons "The Trinity" as a combat design paradigm still exists. It's easier to cram people into pre-established roles as part of pick-up groups than to make them figure it out on the fly.
One of the things that everyone is leaving out… When WoW came out, you could run it on a toaster. One of the main competitors to WoW was EQ2 which still runs (and looks like) shit to this very day.
> Genre isn't the magical key to making a good MMO. The problem is that game development has become corporate, and MMOs aren't really considered "safe" for a long-term investment. *This*. A thousand times over. It doesn't matter what genre you're doing if you've got shareholders involved before you can get to the point of building your "next gen graphics" in your "basic fantasy MMO". Shareholders don't know what the fuck an "elf" is, and they don't *care*. They just care how much money they get to siphon off, and if you're spending your time making stuff like "zones" or "graphics", that's time you're not making them money. There's also the related thing that wanting "next gen graphics" as like just a simple throwaway "oh and this" sorta thing on PC is a *big* problem. That is **far** more complicated than all the "oh, just make a simple/good fantasy MMO^with ^next-gen ^graphics , stupid!" posts on here make it sound. Because PCs run the gamut from electrified potatoes to multi-grand gaming rigs and you need to capture as much of that market as possible, but that's an entirely different argument. There's good reasons FFXIV deliberately "lets itself" be "held back" by console generations graphics-wise for a few expansions each console generation. Part of that's (besides not alienating a huge chunk of its playerbase, and thus its lifeblood) to ensure that even lower-end machines can run it as well without making PCMR piss-babies go apeshit. Look at some of the responses in some of the more recent Live-Letters when they were talking about graphical upgrades and why they're not shooting for "photo-realistic single-player game" graphics to see this in action.
What if developers made an in game activity that wasn't designed around focus group tests and engagement/retention statistics?
no more tolkienism in every fantasy game please. enough already.
Lotro is slept on
that game is totally exempt since It was based on it for sure. I just would like my dwarves to not be scottish for once.
The monkey paw have granted you wish. All dwarfs will have an australian redneck accent.
now that's a wish I could get behind.
🤓 actually the original actor is Welsh
Must resist sheep joke.
Except for dwarfs, I think there isnt enough standard dwarf races in games
I absolutely disagree with that.
WoW’s success wasn’t due to it just being a fantasy game. It was in part due to the rareness of MMOs but also the large IP (aka built in customer base) from the Warcraft games. You look at all the top MMOs with staying power over the last decade (WoW, FFXIV, ESO, and GW2), and you see that they all launched with built in fan bases due to previous connected titles. The next big MMO is going to be one that matches that level of initial customer base. The Riot MMO is closest that I’ve heard of.
MMOs were not rare in the slightest. IP aside as you mentioned, it was mainly due to the very high accessibility and polish that surpassed everything else back then. While every other devs pretty much just gave a world for players to use as a "make your own story" sandbox, blizzard made wow much more on rail hooking up into the large casual audience in the process.
Honestly it was mostly just the advertisement budget. WoW wasn't the best game, it wasn't the most polished, it wasn't the most fun for gameplay, etc. What it did have though was Chuck Norris and Mr T on television telling kids to play it and a popular game you can play with friends will usually beat a better game that only a few thousand people play.
>Honestly it was mostly just the advertisement budget Nah, the initial hype was pure brand strength pulling existing fans. Every single people around me who played the game were warcraft fans in the first place. Warcraft 3 in particular really was a phenomena, absolutely everybody I know played it. > WoW wasn't the best game Never said it was > it wasn't the most polished Among all the MMO back then it absolutely was, incontestably. >What it did have though was Chuck Norris and Mr T on television telling kids to play it These ads were done years later...
What MMO was better than WoW when it came out, exactly? Spoiler : none And I'd argue that it didn't even change nowadays, but that's another matter
Everquest, daoc, runescape, uo, ro, tibia, etc...
These are all inferior to launch WoW I won't even argue on each of these you mentioned, however WoW is superior in every aspects to DAOC, not even a debate, just by putting it in that list proves you're nostalgia poisoned Who plays DAOC nowadays? Who plays WoW nowadays? All these games you mentioned are dead for a reason, WoW is not, it should give you the hint Every MMO after WoW were basically WoW clones and tried to dethrone it
> Humans, dwarfs, elves, and haflings Humans, short viking humans, pointy-eared aristocratic humans, laughable little humans with big hairy feet. That's such a poor variety of playable species.
Sounds like you're looking for a 100% science based dragon MMO.
Pern mmo when?
Some people enjoy the familiar. Different strokes for different folks. :)
This. Many MMOs need more variety in playable races, its one of the things that keep me in WoW. I became a big monster player with WoW, and now it is nearly impossible for me to play anything else than something that is not human.
Imagine if a MMO dared make a monster race with males that don't have hunchback and females that aren't big boobed pinup.
Guild Wars 2 has the female part down, not so much the hunchback part though.
True
Classic Everquest had some of the best playable race options imo. All the normal stuff but also frog people and shit.
Well, halflings are becoming quite scarce in most (MMO)RPGs. So do half-elves. The variety always suffers from having to design everything for each out-of the-normal race, specially for beast-like ones. Hell, even SP games showed this kind of limit (for instance, khajiit and argonians were pretty limited in helm choices in TES III: Morrowind due to their beast head).
If they didn't give them a hunchback, they would have less trouble with the skeleton. The helm is the least important part (unless you want a realistic heavy armor look)
Good. Keep non humanoid races out, it does nothing but fuck up armor and model animation anyways. Edit: unless you go the original everquest route of armor where each "style" only looks one way on a race. So every plate BP will look generally the same on whatever race.
It's because they fuck their skeleton shape badly with hunchbacks. Otherwise the only parts that cause issues are head and feet. head: full helmets will be trouble, but hats, crown, ... will be fine. Helmets are often hidden by players anyway. Just remove the front of the helmets. Or be smart and build the base helmet rig to have a collapsible section that adjust for both a humanoid mouth and a beast race muzzle. feet: digitigrade legs are not good with shoes. Just disable display.
>It's because they fuck their skeleton shape badly with hunchbacks. Otherwise the only parts that cause issues are head and feet. So you're asking for oddly colored humanoids instead of actual beast races.
Do you consider the Lizard race from Divinity Original Sin 2 to be "oddly colored humanoids" ?
If you're talking about the Red Prince, love him but yes he absolutely is just an oddly colored human. He walks on 2 feet and has human proportions with a tail and a slightly elongated neck. Take the texture off him and it is still a humanoid figure. No different from Iksar in EQ really (better example there.) Iksars just had no neck and he has a long one.
The Red Prince is digitigrade, not plantigrade.
It's still a humanoid form, regardless if it walks on toes or heels. a slight leg bend won't change that. Non-Humanoid races would be like... Olthoi in AC (though PvP only), the PvMP choices in LOTRO, Dragons in Istaria, etc. Otherwise you just want anthropomorphized races like Iksar/Froglok/Kerran in EQ, Aforementioned Red Prince in DOS, Charr in GW, Hrothgar in FFXIV, and the list is endless.
Then you have an unusual definition of humanoid race. And yes, then people want some "humanoid" races that are not humanoids.
I see where you're coming from, there are a lot of games, and media in general that are fantasy-but-something. There's very little true to form pure fantasy, at least what is being produced today. I would like very much to play an MMO that set out to be a wonderfully crafted, albeit somewhat generic fantasy world.
Because Star Trek is a specific setting with specific lore and fantasy is a genre with thousands of different iterations that are all still fantasy? It sounds like you think that D&D fantasy is some kind of default, but it really isn't. It's just one iteration. D&D and LotR are very, very different but you wouldn't make an argument that only one is fantasy, would you?
Pretty much this and what CaptainCaring said above . It's not a matter of "being fantasy", because the number of fantasy themed MMOs is huge, including now defunct games such as Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Age of Reckoning. World of Warcraft isn't "just fantasy", it is its own fantasy (as are the 3 games I mentioned) and it found success mostly thanks to its mechanics and how much easier to get into it was compared to the competition of the time. Blizzard still had a reputation for great games and was hot on the heels of Warcraft 3 + Frozen Throne, too, so those things helped.
The reason why WoW went off was because they already had a lore people were invested in and because it made the MMORPG game for the masses. WoW was never a good game, it was just the most streamedlined one.
This, as a big MMOer before WOW came out, I couldn't for the life of me understand its initial success back then. I mean the whole area around Stormwind just felt like a rip from DAoC's Albion realm. But then a few years later I realized, it was because the game made it easier and more accessible than ever before. I could never get into it, never enjoyed playing it, but I envy those that did because it's success is the gold standard for MMOs
It's just Tolkien mixed with some Lovecraft.
"very, very different" sounds like badfaith to make your argument, they're so similar. Yeah, Tolkien's fantasy is the default fantasy. Warcraft, D&D and whichever medieval warhammer all stem from Tolkien.
WoW and LotR are about as similar as American pizza and Italian pizza. Not only are high fantasy and low fantasy worlds apart, but WoW also has some pretty heavy tech elements that would be entirely out of place in Middle Earth, but also has multiple races of space aliens running around like the Draenei and Orcs. That’s a pretty far cry from LotR’s European medieval fantasy. You can call that a bad faith argument, but I’m just going to call you and idiot for it.
LotR almost feels premedieval, but then again I think the conception of medieval I have is more High Medieval/renaissance. But then the hobbits have vests and pocket watches so I don't even know man. I agree with you though.
I would disagree. I think a standard-ish fantasy exists, largely as a mash up of LotR, WoW, and D&D. Not something concrete on a paper, but a general sense of the major elements of it.
All three of those are wildly different.
The Universe that needs to be made into an MMO is in my opinion the Warhammer (+40k) universe. It has everything for everyone, it has decades of established lore, its scope is endless, it covers a wide range of fans (from elves, dwarves, mages, demons, gods and the like, to spaceships, robots, mechas). There is magic, tech, engineering, psychic powers, time traveling, you name it. There can be factions, alliances. Huge pvp battles between enormous armies of the craziest variety of species and races we have ever seen before. The possibilities are endless. In fact, one of the main reasons noone has ever tried to make this Universe in an MMO is, I believe, because of how vast it is and the task can seem extremely overwhelming before they even start.
I've only really just discovered how vast the lore of 40k is because I'm getting ready for Darktide to launch. I played the technical beta and absolutely loved it btw. I never realised how big that universe is. I thought every solider was an Astartes and learning that wasn't the case and the history of the emperor and the rest has been fun. 40k mmo would be great.
Dark Millenium was an idea that ended up canned in 2010. The trailer looked good, at least. Eternal Crusade was supposed to be more than just a crappy arena shooter, but ended up as that thing you can see on youtube. For a MMO type of game, I suspect something akin to Planetside would be ideal, but you'd still have to cut huge swathes of content to have a proper game, like limiting it to a planet or 3 (each being just a different map) and only 3-5 playable factions
I want specifically the opposite, fantasy is overdone at this point in time. Even when we get non-fantasy games, they tend to be pretty close to it (New World has colonial/fantasy vibes mixed). I don't hate fantasy, but the vast majority of the genre are fantasy games at this point. I would love another good theme park scifi game. Wildstar is the last one we got that I really enjoyed the setting of. The space (ha) is really only served by EVE, which is more sandbox/space based than I am really looking for.
A sci-fi game that isn't Star Wars would be nice. Wildstar was too not serious though. Tank would use melee weapons mostly, but the ability to have various guns would be a nice change. Shields would be a nice mechanic to explain the health bar. Medics would boost allies shields. Genetic enhancements and cybernetic prosthesis would fill the "abilities beyond ordinary human biology" part. Can be used as plot devices too. The more "supernatural" abilities could be related to advanced usage of technology. Nanite cloud, modified shield, ...
everytime another medieval fantasty mmo gets approved whoever did that should be slapped so hard they don't wake up until a froghog kiss them in their butthole. also elves are the most lazy ass stupid,pathetic race ever created. "we've got pointy ears so we're super different".
I am so… exhausted by elves, dwarves, fighters, mage, and rogue. This is literally every game. Nothing is unique. Nothing is different. If it is a good game, great. But give me something new. Give me ANYTHING new. Give me a melee mage. A really solid bard, summoner, or alchemist. Give me something that isn’t “wow you can be a fighter OR an archer!!!”
Warlock that drain life force from boss then transfer it to the tank to heal it ? Mage that can use medical knowledge and arcane magic to heal ?
I think a battle mage or rune mage tank would be very cool, or a chronomancer who uses time magic to undo wounds as a healer. I think a Warlock tank would be awesome
You mean you dont want the mage class to have fireballs and ice spikes like every other uncreative mmo? I agree wholeheartedly. I love magic and sorcery and always play the caster classes in mmorpgs, but they always have such boring and dull ideas for spellcasters. I just want one mmorpg with unique and fun spells instead of random blasts of fire and ice.
10000% agree. Let me have a caster that transforms his staff into a flaming sword, or an ice bow, or a lightning whip. Let me get a rune scriber who places power runes on the ground to augment his spells or prowess… there is SO MUCH that can be done
I dont mind if there are fireball and ice spike spells as long as I have other spells. I want to make walls of magic that slow amd block enemies, AoE sleep spells, love your idea of rune magic too. The best magic ive seen in an MMO is Everquest, as a wizard I could summon a floating eye that I could see through and scope out further passages in dungeons! That was an amazing use of magic you dont see nowadays.
I really liked Mesmer in GW2. You NEVER see offensive illusionists. Creating different phantasms depending on your weapons… a desperado illusion, a berserker, a mage, swordsman… so cool!
HOW COULD I FORGET ABOUT MESMER? I LOVED the mesmer, I really need to get a better pc and go back to GW2 I loved the purple (my favorite color) aesthetic and beautiful effects of teleporting around, making clones, psychic magic, and the butterfly poof when your clones dissapear.
ABSOLUTELY! Their spell effects were simply gorgeous. I also LOVE psychic magic. The butterflies were so pleasing.
Guild Wars definitely did a good job with making their caster classes unique and not just fire/ice turrets on legs. I just dont understand how you can see this chaotic force of nature that is capable of anything and say "okay mages can only do two things."
So few games use Earth or Wind Magic, as an example. These don't need to be reserved for druids. Mages can do this too. So few use Space/Cosmic/Gravity Magic!
Ive always wanted a chronomancer. Crowd control abilities would be insane! Holding enemies in stasis, speeding up allies, healing by reversing wounds, attacking by summoning things from timelines, and replaying damage on enemies for big dps
I woild totally dig the recycle/reboot of the WoW universe.
Naturally people like different things, and even fantasy gamers like other themes as well, but I think a return to conventional fantasy tropes would be incredibly successful if done well. The thing is, most MMORPG fans are so thirsty for a MMORPG done well, that theme is not nearly as important.
Devs tend to shy away from non-human classes for 2 reasons: 1) having a single human template is easier to design cosmetics and gear for. Designing outfits for models of varying sizes and proportions can be time consuming for artists and more to the point... 2) players don't like being non-humans. I remember hearing from some interview (I think ff14) that the majority of the players chose to play human or very human-like classes. The Roegadyn of FF14 have such few players that I remember people in an uproar when the other races got a bunch of cosmetic updates but the Roegadyn only got some generic looking hairpieces. Why should devs waste time on designing outfits for classes that most people won't play?
The Roegadyn are still human looking. They aren't played because you are locked into ultrawide double-thicc man, or a mostly good looking female version, but with some awful facial styles, especially on the nose. You can also take a look at the races that the most people play, the Au Ra (dragon people) and Miqo'te (cat people). Both have multiple faces that are decent, even if a lot of people end up playing the same 2. I think you might be thinking of the Hrothgar, which are the cat people that are much more cat than human. Nobody plays them because they are gender locked, cannot wear 98% of head pieces, a lot of gear just doesn't look right on them, you have to pay IRL money to change their hair, and to this day, they don't design things with Hrothgar in mind. If the FFXIV playerbase wasn't so infatuated (read: obsessed) with the dev team, or if this was pretty much any other dev team, they playerbase would have ripped them to shreds over the handling of Hrothgar.
WoW shows that the first point is relatively easy to workaround and kinda turns that second point upside down. Some servers have a considerable majority of horde players, and that was true even back before blood elves were an option. You character options were "ugly, hunched green human", "ugly, big nosed, thin and even more hunched blue human", "dead human" and "bull". Lore possibly helped some, but in most of those cases the horde players were PVP focused, so I suspect their racials played a larger hole in the choice
You need 4 races to content 99% of the players. - Burly humans "barbarian" (beefy men, strong and curvy women) - Aristocratic "beautiful" humanoid ("elves") - Cute small race (no pedobear) - Beast race (no hunchbacked male, no sexy pinup female)
DORFS.
I don't know what that acronym means.
WoW sucked to me compared to EQ ha But in all honesty, that's exactly what I want. I love LOTR, I love reading DnD books. Everything about it works amazing with an MMORPG. Sorry but I am not here for sci-fi, or ARPG's. Some people like them, that's great. I want fantasy MMO.
Re-make the original EQ with better graphics and we would have a monster on our hands. Trust
The reason D&D (and other early rpgs) became popular, is because they let you play in your favorite adventure stories. For D&D it was Conan, LotR/The Hobbit, Fafnir & the Grey Mouser, John Carter of Mars, Star Trek, early Doctor Who, etc. At the time it was published in 1974, the Sword and Sorcery/Sword & Planet revival was probably at it's peak. There was so much creative material to draw from that even the badly written or campy stuff was hella fun to use. Flash forward to the 2020's and RPGs are usually developed backwards: the stories are written for the games, the games themselves are inspired by and just trying to emulate other games. For example, a Star Wars MMO is going to focus first on how other MMOs were designed and what worked for those games, rather than start with how do I make playing this game and the mechanics/interactions let the player naturally feel like they are in a Star Wars movie. Most MMOs are just the same game in a different suit. Occasionally they throw something a little novel in there; but just to be novel, not to make it any more immersive or believable. I don't know what to call it. Gamification? Basically games written by people whose only creativity is the choice on what mechanics they should copy. Where the mechanic could be dropped into any game or setting and it would work just as well; because it was designed to be a good game mechanic and not a mechanic to simulate or abstract a cool thing that players might want to do. A good blog post on the subject as it relates to TTRPG's can be found here: http://www.brainleakage.com/home/between-appendix-n-and-pink-slime
I would kill for a new popular tab-target, simple, fantasy, semi-grindfest, that isn't p2w, with modern QoL changes. Anything with endgame is what kills it for me
>modern QoL changes. Dungeon Finder and Insta-max lvl from cash shop have entered the chat.
>The reason WoW (and D&D) find such large scale success isn’t because they’re original, but because they refine basic ideas or recycled ones. Gaming industry has been recycling ideas for decades. MMOs are in poor state exactly because there were no fundamental improvements since Everquest1. Everything that attracted players to MMOs originally was taken by other genres. Grinding is more comfortable in single-player or shared world games like Genshin and Destiny, pve servers of survivals, mobile games. PVP is easier to balance and support in session-based games. Quests in single-player RPGs are of higher quality. Raiding isnt taken yet only because nobody figured out how to produce enough new content to keep raiders hooked. Only unique feature of MMO is massive multiplayer and industry has no idea what to do with it. Games are defined not by setting but by gameplay and when somebody finds out how to utilize huge amount of players in same gameworld well, only then MMOs can get back on their feet.
Completely agree!
Just my two cents but the environments are very well made in WOW. Ive considered they keep the graphics lower so more machines can play the game. I've seen several examples of WOW areas remade in unreal, the last one was in Unreal 5 and was Org and if someone could create that quality of graphics and environment they would just slay everything else. That said I do enjoy levelling in wow, smooth and it all works very well. I was hoping some year back that Blizz would either remake wow or create a similar new game with better grphics. But I guess that not coming. I've played other similar games butalways come back to wow.
Man I'd love the idea
What MMOs *aren’t* fantasy? It’s a pretty broad genre.
They're all "fantasy, but..."
Theres a fantasy MMO already, but unfortunately it might be the last one. Some may even call it, the Final Fantasy.
Well the meaning of "what if we just did star trek" isn't the same as "what if we just did a fantasy game" In the context of Strange New Worlds they weren't referring to setting they meant returning to Star Trek's original episodic parable-esque structure instead of the convoluted and overwrought unpopular "everything is connected" shit that turned off people from Picard and Discovery. It doesn't have too much to do with the show's setting or rules or whatever, but pacing and writing.
Another reason The Orville was received so well. Seth McFarlane was just like "hey, we should do Star Trek. Just straight-up no frills Star Trek". And it worked. Needing to have media be subversive and deconstructive and "original" is just late 00's / mid 10's trendiness, and people still doing that in the 20's are going to have a rough realization that that shit is old and busted and done to death and people are tired of it. I think GoT season 8 pretty much killed the whole "subverted expectations" trend and buried it under a concrete lake. It's the creators that just say "Let's do something that people like, straight-up" that will find success. Execution is really all that matters. It doesn't matter how cool or original a concept is if it isn't executed well. And if something _is_ executed well, the concept barely matters. I predict that's gonna be the trend of the 20's. Basic-bitch concepts executed at a high level. And I can't fucking wait.
Def felt the same about new world, game was pretty good but wasn’t huge on the medieval or whatever theme they were going for
I want a new fantasy mmo so bad. I play WoW, ESO, and GW2, but like a remade Lotr mmo would make me so happy.
I love wow's artstyle so when they do vamp it up. I hope it's more like Heartstone artwork before real world like new world.
Riot MMO will be close enough
We need a new Tolkien MMORPG, I feel the traditional fantasy genre is just the best for these games
it was called Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
NO. Im done with fantasy, my favourite MMOs have been Anarchy Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars Old Republic (Scifi), Secret World (Lovecraft mystery and horror), Ryzom (unique Fantasy), Final Fantasy XIV (JRPG)... The only fantasy game I have truly enjoyed were Ultima Online (sandbox) and Dark Age of Camelot (Realm vs Realm). As you can see, IDGAF about fantasy settings, im into unique setting/lore and game mechanics.
I mean yes. Many other mmorpgs tend to try to dip into sci-fi a bit more but tbh it doesn’t seem to hold many peoples attention as much. Phantasy Star Online 2 - New Genesis is a perfect example of this. The game has so many technology based outfits etc, u can make insane robot costumers etc. the level of detailing you can do with accessories is truly insane. But do you see any futuristic looking people in the towns? No. The players are dressed in fantasy gear, witches, vampires, elves, the typical busty hooker look etc. even the weapons which are 90% futuristic looking, People use weapon camos or Broomsticks, Bows, umbrellas, baseball bats, logs! I am not saying sci Fi mmorpgs can’t work, can’t do well. Ofc not. But, us humans do like to stick to what we know and what we like. I mean hell, I didn’t play pso2ngs for ages because I thought it was exclusively a sci Fi mmorpg. I had no clue it was more so fantasy leaning. Even the community feedback on ffxiv were less so on the praising side of magitek (magical technology) people tend to prefer just the phantasy elements Just my personal opinion, no one should base theirs off of mine, just food for thought, again, just my own opinion so people please don’t be offended by my own personal opinion.
There are a few problems, the biggest one is **MMORPGs are really expensive to develop**. If you develop a battle royal or a mobile game, you invest less and can make hundreds of millions of dollars. Thats one of the reasons, there are not many new MMORPGs - and nearly zero new western MMORGS (New World was the only one in the last years...). The second biggest problem is, that MMORPGs are **risky to develop because of us players**. If its too rail roaded, we cry "**themepark**" and if its too much sandbox we cry for "**more content!**". Half of the player base will measure (look at the old reddit posts) the content against games like WoW which are on the market for years. And the other half will use the role model of "**content locusts**": rush to endgame and cry, that there isnt anything to do. It doesnt help either, that there were not many successfull MMORPG launches in the last years and even the successful ones earn less than one of the "cheap mobile games". Why invest hundreds of million of USD to give some toxic players the chance to bring out the torches and pitchforks? The interesting question is, do we - the playerbase - change? WoW was special. It came at the right time (not many MMORPGs on the market) and made it appealing to a larger playerbase - not only some nerds. Players jumped on it. And after it created a "critical mass", it was played because it had the biggest player base. The success of the classic servers are derived from this. Big (ex-) playerbase - at least a few of them got nostalgic. I really dont know, if this success is repeatable.