The MMO genre is in bad shape. The most exciting news for years is the announcement of classic WoW

The most exciting development in the MMO world is the announcement of a re-release of a 13 year old game.

[datriax]

lol Hope you're not just figuring this out now. MMO's have been in trouble for a long, LONG time.

Same boring layout, same "quest" structure, same boring instance, same boring design as everything is invalidated within weeks for the sake of "bigger numbers", same boring "trinity" design system, and lastly, same old stupid chase of "balance" to continuously screw everything up entirely.

MMO's have been garbage for a very long time, and it's a good reason by WoW was the last truly killer subscription MMO.

For anyone stupid enough to even try to bring up FF XIV and it's "10 Million Players" bulls**t spin by SE, all I have to say is..... LAWL.

[ThatDudeMunkee]

It's not? I'm quite perplexed by this statement. It seems like the servers actually stay pretty busy. I logged in the other day for the first time after returning from a break and found the cities and zones to actually be quite busy. So I'm guessing GameRevolution doing a follow up doesn't provide evidence of this?

http://www.gamerevolution.c...

[notachance]

FFXIV has 10 million players

[MeteorPanda]

l swear.. my heart breaks they wont release oceanic servers - l can't play my monk cause l keep lagging the combos.

Dev's said when they tried on our ping it felt like a much harder impractical game...yet they think there's not enough players in oceanic to warrant a server...but if they made the servers they'd be players. a classical catch 32.

[notachance]

wow same here man, I'm on the oceanic too and I was forced to play on the japan server because they didn't have one here.

I only managed to play for 2 months because of the latency but if they decide to build a server here I'll gladly come back and play.

[Rachel_Alucard]

That "10 million players" is 10 million accounts on the game. Doesn't mean they're active and even the free trials that people used counted.

[gamer7804]

it seems you are conflating your certain MMO traits with healthy server population.

[chris235]

word!

[MeteorPanda]

the trinity is what players actually want. guild wars went away from it only to reintroduce because people like these roles... mmo's are very different in quest structure. through trial and error they have come a long way from simple fetch quests.

There's now instance world events, weeklies that change, world bosses, world events...

If you actually think classic wow is really that huge - it's not - they just want the people to shutup about it and later be like "we told you it was shit" and close servers a year later, lol

[Bahamut]

You're just a little turd with an awful opinion. Keep it to yourself.

[PurpHerbison]

"LAWL"

Took me back to 2005 with that one.

[LightofDarkness]

Irony in a nutshell.

[Lovable]

The ignorance is strong with this one.

[Rachel_Alucard]

As much as people disagree with this post he's right. How many subscription based MMOs are left? Why have all the F2P ones either died off or fell off the radar? I've played XIV since closed beta phase 3 and even I'll say all they ever do is repeat the same cycle of content releases with one shallow twist here and there and people are getting sick of it. I tried playing guild wars 2, Black desert online, and ESO and all 3 had me sick of them within a few hours. I think people don't know what they want in an MMO because even when an actual sandbox game like BDO comes you have people complain about the sandbox parts of it like non-instanced housing (which was in the game back in closed beta)

[agent4532]

What about Black Desert

[_LarZen_]

Yeah it's depressing. Thankfully Elder Scrolls Online and Final Fantasy Online are big and healthy.

[wraith9999]

also gw2 mate, very active no holy trinity and gear doesnt become obsolete

[Tobse]

Was hoping for Albion online to catch my interest but it fell flat sadly. Havent put big hours into any mmo after wow and guild Wars 1. Would love to have my go to mmo that motivates me to come back.

[ElementX]

I've tried a few MMOs but the gameplay is just hitting number keys repeatedly

[TankCrossing]

Sounds like you need an MMO built for Kinect :p

[Thunder_G0d_Bane]

Like how you hit buttons on a pad repeatedly?

When playing most console games...

[Rachel_Alucard]

Moving around and dodging and having to THINK Is different then just standing there without any thought to what you're doing just mashing 2 keys trying to level up.

[Pantz]

Looking forward to Ashes of Creation and Pantheon Rise of the Fallen

[PhoenixUp]

Final Fantasy XIV is doing quite well in fact

[yeahokwhatever]

because their website makes it almost impossible to cancel.

[joab777]

The age group of ppl who loved these games have gotten older and now this generation wants quick play and quick rewards. That and the comoetition is fierce for everyone’s attention and games that used to last 10-20 hrs are lasting 40+

[kevnb]

Why bother talk about something you have no idea about? Vanilla wow is a big deal for millions.

[Kosic]

Got a feeling classic servers are going to be a massive disappointment. Classic wow was broken, being forced to play a spec so you could raid. Half the specs in the game didn't work properly.
Farming required resistance gear took months, putting boss progress in hold (ragnaros, queen huraran).

I loved my first experience in vanilla wow. But that's because the game was new and exciting. The rise tinted glasses will fade when we see this reboot of the old world.

[TankCrossing]

Yup I feel Blizzard are in a real lose-lose situation with this one. They either:
-Keep all the crap that came with vanilla WoW and have people realise that actually, it was crap.
-Pick and choose some of the best quality of life improvements, and then people will be up in arms that it isn't the classic WoW they remember.

Besides... Wrath of the Lich King was my favourite WoW-time. Sod vanilla!

[Kosic]

Exactly. Try fix what's broken (good 60% off the game) or don't bother.

Wotlk was a great xpax. Really enjoy almost all of that. Missed out on Ulduar when it was current content ><

Vanilla was good. But it was super slow making progress. Gearing 40 people was a nightmare.

[MeteorPanda]

journalism in games is in bad shape. Their most exciting headline this season was "Single player games are dead!"

[frostypants]

To be fair, WoW vanilla was amazing. Today it's just a crappy one player game that you race through to get to end game multiplayer instances. So much of the world is just a barren lifeless graveyard now...existing as nothing more than a sad monument to what the game once was. They let the wrong crowd dictate the direction of the game, and absolutely ruined the atmosphere and gameplay. Time to go back.

[Tross]

Well, MMOs used to be the cutting edge of online gaming, even after a few titles in other genres dabbled a little in online multiplayer. Now however, so many titles not only have online multiplayer, but contain many of the staples MMOs originally brought to the table including lobbies, chat and player stats. Also, FPS, sports and fighting games have become the de facto genres for online play. Card games like Hearthstone also scratch an itch for PvP, and all the kids love Minecraft now. There's definitely still a place for MMO RPGs, but the market is way more saturated with a wider variety than ever.

[XxINFERNUSxX]

MMO genre in bad shape? Really now, well I'm having a hell of a lot of fun in the Guild Wars 2 Path of Fire expansion. So much to do, loving the new mounts, huge maps, so much to explore and do, and in another month comes the holiday event Wintersday. Best part of all is that there is no monthly fee, and this company only has 2 games under their belt GW 1 and GW 2 and they can afford this business model. Blizzard can do the same thing, they have much more $$ they can make WoW have no monthly fee but they choose not to. I'm sure if they did many more would buy WoW even though it's 13 yrs old.

[DarkKaine]

Tbh, a lot of it has to do with the fact that most don't have much gameplay depth at all.
Other than the cliche mechanics such as a job system and everything a lot of these games just boil down to having good gear and just follow your standard cooldown rotation based skill pattern over and over again. There's no real dodging involved as everything will just hit you regardless. And if you dare venture into the world of MMO's in China you'll see batshit OP players that emptied their creditcards winning a solo match vs 15 other people.

MMO's right now are pretty stale. Gotta innovate guys.

[agent4532]

I am going to play Black Desert and see for myself how innovative is that game

[Tetsujin]

If Final Fantasy 11 did this I'd go back; as long as it was free to play and not $13 a month. I tried WoW multiple times and just couldn't get into the game.

[bumbleforce]

mmo's seem fine to me.