The MMO Genre is Dying

And I blame both the developers of our time and the players.
I make these posts every so often to vent as I see the decline happening more and more. For people who haven't seen the others I am a long time gamer and online gamer I started in EQ1 and played many MMO's since then for about 12 years now.
As I watch more and more MMOs get hyped up and dropped out, I try a few here or there in hopes they are different, I find myself questioning why do developers continue the same pattern?
When I started MMOs it was about playing with others, adventure, and progressing. It seems anymore it's about getting to the end and attending a raid schedule. My favorite times in MMOs were in EQ1 of course and WoW in vanilla and BC. Why were they my favorite times? Things actually took awhile to accomplish and when you did complete them you got that feeling that you did something worthwhile. People nowadays (on forums primarily, sorry I don't hold much clout for people on forums even though I am one atm) just want instant gratification. They express that on forums all the time. I don't believe it though. Reason I don't believe it is because numbers don't lie. The highest increases in WoW's population numbers were Vanilla and BC and Everquest itself was quite popular back in the day even for it's "grindyness" as people would call it. Nowadays MMO, for the most part, can be capped in level within a few days playtime at most then either PvP or set and wait for your raid schedule and then developers question why their MMOs don't stay for the long haul? Heck a lot of MMOs don't have raids or battlegrounds just endgame dungeons, pretty certain that MMO stands for MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE. Massive means 5-6 people in a group? And Multiplayer means solo to cap and raid or pvp? Whatever happened to grouping being encouraged by developers? Where you COULD solo but it was harder and not near as worth it as getting a group to level or even a partner?
People on all forums, including probably in some of these responses, will set and say that they want to solo to cap and that they don't want to group and they don't want to grind at all but yet the most popular of MMOs in their haydays had all of that and that is what brought the people. I've never heard a person say that something was too hard as long as they were progressing on it, so why do we make things easier or, the worst term I hate, accessible? Accessible is a lazy term. Just because X player pays a sub doesn't entitle him to see everything I see when I put 10x more effort into the game. Wouldn't everyone be a gold medal winner at the olympics with that attitude? I'm not saying solo or casual people can't have their content but why can't we please both dynamics?
At this very point in MMOs it seems it's more about initial sales than longevity. It's more about the top than the ride to the top. It's more about copying a console solo game than about actually interacting with other players (mind you I met a lot of friends and my wife on online games). It's more about listening to the small minority on a forum than paying attention to your actual monthly sales numbers. Until this motto or whatever it is these developers are doing changes, MMOs will continue on a decline and pushing people away, especially myself.
Heres praying SoE can understand what is going on in a genre they helped establish and maybe change it back with EQNext.

I could not agree more!
When SWToR launched, their pre-game guild-formation was flooded with guilds all set on doing endgame content. If everyone is rushing to endgame content, the purpose of the game has failed! And if, as you also mention, the ride to the top takes days, instead of months or years, then we end up with a short-lived game. A game, that can only survive, by pushing new content at an incresing exponential rate.
My hopes for EQnext, is that Sony take heart of the lessons they learned in EQ1. That the game itself takes time, that it provides not merely content, but a real challenge. Aside from EQ1 (and maybe... MAYBE vanilla WoW), that is something I have yet to re-experience. I dont just mean a challenge on endgame raid-content, but also in the day-to-day levelling and in-game-experiences.
I thoroughly enjoyed EQ1. It was a game with a mature player base and a player base who knew and accepted, that everything required commitment and dedication. I miss that (I joined EQ2 too late - From what Ive heard the game had already become too easy)
I think my point is: Bring back the Challenge!!
Not just for EQnext, but for the entire MMO genre. If things get too easy, they dont last!

+1 ... but unfortunately i see EQNext following the trend and being much more simple than eq2

I do agree that the MMO genre is going through some changes, but video games of all type are struggling, so you can't really pinhole MMOs as the failing genre.
Here's my opinion. As electronics become more mobile, newer generations just don't want to wait to get home to get in front of their PC or consol to play games. Also, the main feature of mmos was that it provided a unique level of connectivity with people across the world, but now facebook and other social networking websites do a better job of it than mmos do.
I don't think it has anything to do with challenge or even game mechanics, it's accessibility and functionality that I believe is lacking in MMOs now.

While I agree with your points, its not just MMRPGs and gamers who behave this way.
You have to remember that EQ came out almost 15 years ago (God, has it been that long?) and games such as the original NWN on AOL came out years before that. Just as techonology has progressed, our society has become more and more accustomed to instant gratification.
The world has grown smaller, people (especially the young) have grown used to a conant bombardment of information, entertainment, and change. People want things 'fast'. Fast food, fast service, fast travel, etc...
Some of my fondest memories were from the older games, the grind, and finally gaining a level or an item. But the simple fact is that the gaming audience has changed. The younger gamers, and even some of us 'old folk' have come to expect things to happen quicker. For the young is the 'instant gratification' I spoke of, for the older it may be the same or simply balancing the stresses of being an adult with gaming. After all, with work, family, etc I dont have near the play time I used to lol.
As to the company side of things. Face it, the economy is in shambles. Sony has already sucked the life blood out of SOE and fired how much of their staff? They are but a skeleton crew compared to what they used to be. Corperate culture, like society, has become all about the quick buck. Companies are bought and sold for fast profits with very little care for the future of the company, its workers, or their products.
SOE is well aware of its financial position and will gladly go after the quick buck to save itself short term than risk everything on another long term style game hoping the audiences will stick with it. As you said yourself, these boards are filled with players wanting everything right here, right now. Its not about the 'quest', its about the reward. 'Its my money and I want it now!'

Most MMOs are more like sologames with a few moments of grouping. But most of the new ones, will end F2P fast then any of the old ones.... F2P seems to be the way, maybe if you put in some real bucks, you can gain things faster, maybe a solution.... New MMos are more like the quick and dirty buck, for less work...
Oh well, time changes, but the nex mmo should kick out levels... as they didnt count that much today oO
At least i hope ^^
To get to the topic, mmos will grow not die... but the RPG is dead already long ago oO

Well, the content locusts have about the same intelligence as a hamster running a treadmill.
All developers have to do for a buck is dangle a set of shiny gear in front of them and they will run the same dungeon raid treadmill over, and over, and over, ad nauseum, while flaunting their uber gear at the "noob" roleplayers. That's what pays for these F2P games, content locusts racing to end game.
Developers cater to these content locusts, they can sell them expansion after expansion every six months, complete with more raids, because each new expansion makes all that uber gear obsolete. In EQ2 the content locusts have to either pay to unlock that uber gear, or pay $15/month.
But if developers don't quickly cater to the content locusts, they turn like a pack of rabid animals on the developers and bash the game into the ground with endless complaints about it lacking "endgame content". The problem is, developers can't turn out content fast enough to keep pace with the locust that plays 16 hours per day, so they force a half baked PvP system in as "endgame content".
It isn't the "role" players that kill games like SWTOR, it's the "roll" players with their spread sheets and stats racing for the uber gear at endgame. "Role" players are perfectly happy with paying monthly and enjoying the ride. But when a "roll" player obtains that last piece of uber gear, you start hearing, "I'm bored".
It's really a lose-lose situation for developers, the days of steady funding of P2P games by roleplayers is almost at an end. If you're a "role" player in a MMO rpg, you're a dying breed. They might as well just drop the rpg from the name of the genre.
So, developers are learning to crank out hyped garbage for the least amount of effort and cost, let the content locusts burn through it in 30 days and start complaining, and hope they've made their investment back, plus some profits, on initial "box" sales. It's all about the advertising budget now.
Just watch, within 30 days the content locusts will burn through Guild Wars 2, and start complaining about lack of "end game content"........"I'm bored."

salty21db wrote:

This.
The destruction of the original reward system is at the heart of it all.

I could not agree more with the OP. Everywhere I go to read message boards, everyone is basically saying the same thing. There is a storm coming where players will refuse to play the garbage that is released. I mean just look at the secret world...that game hasnt been out a month and already people getting laid off. I say trash Themeparks and bring back sandboxes!

agnott wrote:

For me, the prime example was finally getting my update after killing Xygoz in VP and getting my Ragebringer on my rogue in EQ1. Both events happened with the help of friends and raiding with my guildies. I didn't want to pay the top guild on my server 500p in EQ2, because I wanted to work for my reward...not have it handed to me. Sadly, today's players just want things handed to them, and companies are enabling them by putting random mythical/ethereal drops within their reach with barely having to lift a finger.

GW2...nuff said.
Raf

Agree 100% Also a side effect of harder/grinder style MMO is community.EQ2 community is pretty decent, may have gone down hill a bit, but they did make it easyier so its a given. Try out a easyier mmo and its filled with kids that do nothing but trash talk and troll roll on gear they can't use just so they can laugh at you. Its so bad I hated grouping. Here totally diffrent story, I love it. Good conversation, bit a humor and a good time.

Edit: That's not to say theres not value in solo play. Sitting around LFG days on end hoping to progress further isn't fun. For the time I have I'd like it to have some value. Good example of this is Skyshrin faction. I sat for days on end LFG while watching a movie and was pretty unsuccessful, only time I saw it was with guildies if they were on. Perhaps it was my class choice. But ultimately the result was me rolling a alt. Its at 91 now, its a bard so I assume it should be easyier, or at least hoping. But while I value grouping and enjoy myself most doing so. I value my time more and refuse to pay to sit lfg. Solo should always be an option for the players and fiscal benefits.

I pretty much agree with the OP & with Filament.

agnott wrote:

I agree completely.
I still remember back in the day when I was in Shadow Company and we were all working on the Prismatic 1.0 quests. We had a 7 day lockout on most of the raid zones so we could only attempt them once a week, usually on a Monday night. It took us several weeks just to get a few of the steps done ...
but...
I will never forget the moment when we finally got the quest completed and all of us got our weapons. It felt like we had actually accomplished something that we could be proud of together.
Now a days I can run a 80+ toon through almost the entire Epic quest solo, maybe using a merc for the heroic instances and be done in a couple of hours. Then turn right around and get the Epic Repercussion quest and knock that out a couple of more hours really only needing help with Cella.
There is nothing rewarding about that or even a sense of accomplishment. It just has to be done because the buffs are required unless you want to have a lousy toon. I know that Epic/ER is not the best example but it's the first thing that came to mind. Point being that there really is not anything providing the feel of long term accomplishment unless you just count getting to end game to raid but even that gets stale after a while.

Sougad@Kithicor wrote:

I completely agree.

But it probably wouldn't work with the newer generations of mmo gamers spoilt by WoW etc - can you imagine if they were dropped into something akin to Ultima Online? The game would be dead within a year. I have toons on that game that are over 13 years old and still don't have full templates, it just wouldn't fly now.

MMOs are the most depressing game genre, mainly because the games change over time. No other genre do I wish I could go back in time and play at a certain point. I've had no better experience than the CoP expansion for FFXI. Even if I were to go back to that game, it is so old and has changed so much it will never be what it once was to me. Even if the game was reverted to what it was at that point in time, the population is no longer there making it pointless. In this genre, once the magic of a game is gone, it never comes back. I've had many friends over the years in EQ2, been a part of many guilds, and watched them come and go. I'm still playing, they are all long gone. Never really had feelings like this about other game genres.
For me, the WoW style progression and gameplay, and shift to RMT and micro transactions are a complete departure from the style of MMO gaming I enjoy, and I don't forsee staying with the genre once my time in EQ2 is done. As it is, I don't even follow the release of new games within the genre anymore. They are all the same. The artwork is different, they all have their own little gimick for character customization and combat mechanics. But they all follow the same basic generic model world of warcraft instantiated and became successful with.
I'm more of an EQ Live, FFXI style MMO gamer, and there is nothing current-gen like those games were in their hay day.

EQ2 is my first/last MMO. I won't even look at EQNext. More microtransactions. More people excluding you over the parse. More people excluding you for a myriad of gear reasons.
Ethereals are another example, the drop rate is so low I will not see one in 200AA levels gained so far this month. Yet some people are selling every kind and replacing them instantly.
People used to talk about risk vs reward which was a joke even then, now its just about the cash shop.
We will have to go back to paper D&D, good thing I never sold my stash.

MMO genre is not dying, it's just stagnating in ideas. Everything still follows the EQ1/WoW formula foundation. The amount of people who play mmo's today severely outweighs what it ever was prior.
And if you're complaning "oh people are just too picky nowadays, they wont let me group because of gear ect MMO's use to be about adventuring not raiding".....ummm it's always been about that way forever. What do you think the reason Planes Of Powers was released over a decade for? For the raid crowd.
And if you're not able to find a group, then you need to step your game up. Stop healing for 2.5k parse, start actually dpsing decently as a scout, start holding hate correctly as a tank. In other words, stop being a waste of space.
And to think people complain how things are 'too easy' yet then can't even hold their own on content that's out there pffft.

i honestly dont think the mmo genre dying.. i think company's are putting too much resource wise and are rushing to get a product out so they can trim the devolpment and prelaunch staff(alot of the layoffs we are seeing in the gaming news).

Uncle@Mistmoore wrote:

I dunno, the R&D costs to develop one are getting astronomical, and after they launch they're getting very litte retention time. As a result companies are losing money left and right. You would have a very hard time finding capital to make an MMO today. To the point that very soon there will be very few players left in the marketplace.
I have my doubts that SoE revenue is sufficient to continue to compete long term anymore.