MMOs died out?

[ZeniBot]

I think RUST is actually a decent tech - it works pretty well from a technical point of view, but I wish there was a medieval equivalent, like Reign of Kings, that could be taken a bit further than they did.

Bannerlord says watch this space me thinks. There's a few mods that if ported from Warband could easily be this. Persistent World for example if they allowed you to build what ever and where ever you wanted.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

I think RUST is actually a decent tech - it works pretty well from a technical point of view, but I wish there was a medieval equivalent, like Reign of Kings, that could be taken a bit further than they did.

Bannerlord says watch this space me thinks. There's a few mods that if ported from Warband could easily be this. Persistent World for example if they allowed you to build what ever and where ever you wanted.

I think its an exciting idea, what could be done with Warband. I think its very achieveable as well, which makes it all the more exciting. Its not pie in the sky like Star Citizen, to just want 50-200 players in a shared Bannerlord with the ability to build, trade and battle.
Its a shame their game is so buggy because otherwise they could have easily crowd funded this capability.

 

[Norfleet]

MMOs in a persistent, buildable world is basically a cursed concept: At some point you're going hit the uncomfortable reality of what happens when everything worth a damn and most things that aren't belong to someone, and being new to the game starts to really, really suck. And honestly, that happens pretty fast.

At that point your options are "reboot the game", violating persistence, or "spin off endless new shards", fragmenting your one game into many only-tangentially-related games that divide your community.

Although I just had a crazy concept idea...

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

I dont think the occasional server wipe is that big a deal. Not to me at least.

 

[Azdul]

MMOs in a persistent, buildable world is basically a cursed concept: At some point you're going hit the uncomfortable reality of what happens when everything worth a damn and most things that aren't belong to someone, and being new to the game starts to really, really suck. And honestly, that happens pretty fast.

Yes, people playing 24/7 or in large, well organized clans are going to monopolize resources. But the alternative is worse. If the world is static and player experience is tightly controlled then it is not even MMO. WoW or ESO are just single player games with chat, with occasional PvP match or cooperative mission.

Some sandbox MMO had the right idea how to solve it - by adding another layer where the vets compete among themselves to shape the world. Upper, strategic layer creates emergent gameplay situations for noobs.

For example: Noobs build rafts, and veteran clans build frigates. They do not directly compete - because noobs have no use for a ship that requires crew of 20, have cannons that can level city walls, costs a small fortune, and is not really suited for fishing.

Another way is to involve veteran players in game design. In some MUDs you can become a "wiz" which is something between powerful magician and junior world designer.

 

[Norfleet]

Yes, that's why I'm saying it's a cursed concept: It's very difficult to reconcile the two ultimately contradictory goals, namely, "having a place that people can join new later on" and "having a world that persists and gets built up", which essentially permanently alters what a new player is going to experience and immediately puts them at a growing competitive disadvantage against the established base. It SOUNDS very nice, but the cracks quickly become apparent the moment you run into a vet spawncamp blockade. You see this essential curse going as far back as games like TW2002, where if you're not in within the first few hours of the game at latest, you're dead meat as there will likely be at least one major space interdiction in place by then.

 

[J1M]

The idea of an MMO played on small servers operated by players is an interesting one. With cloud technologies you wouldn't need to share the server code, the players running a server would have to pay higher fees, and anyone could start their own progression server whenever they want. You'd still want a method of slowing player progress, so the server owner would need to have limited access to game-breaking cheats. Perhaps something like XP boosts for new players could be unlocked by a certain number of players on a server reaching a certain level or finishing a specific dungeon.

Basically one guild per server, allowing the guild to have an outsized impact on the game world. PVP would essentially be server vs. server engagements.

 

[Saerain]

Most MMO communities seem to rrrreeeeeeeecoil from that notion as it's "not a real MMO" if you "only" have hundreds of players in one place. As if that hasn't been the norm in all of them and the max in most of them.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Diablo Eternal

Spoiler

Forever
Eternal
Infinite... shit.

 

[Farewell into the night]

✡︎

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

What were Richard Garriott's philosophical influences? Some fairly generic new age mumbo-jumbo I always assumed without getting in any specifics.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

There's a whole vid on it somewhere. It just before U4 when he wanted games bigger than "Kill da Foozle."

Most major mainstream religions including stuff from India. Obviously more than a bit of Jesus shiz here and modifications of Sins vs Virtues.

The Seven Contrary Virtues which are specific opposites to the Seven Deadly Sins: Humility against pride, Kindness against envy, Abstinence against gluttony, Chastity against lust, Patience against anger, Liberality against greed, and Diligence against sloth

Problem with old were some redundant vices. Like lust, gluttony, greed (easily could br twisted with wording to be the same rather than sex, food, money; esp since wording could apply to just about anything).

8 makes more sense if you consider the Infinity symbol. Otherwise i guess maybe astrology.

Number 8 symbolizes its ruling planet, Saturn, which is the most powerful planet among all. People who are born on the 8th, 17th and 26th of a month, are ruled and influenced by the strong Saturn. Such people, Number 8 people, are generally powerful (like their ruling planet), money-minded, ambitious and desirable.

. More emphasis on ambition, than greed.

 

[Drelkag]

Looks like the audience moved to survival sandbox and battle royale games.

MMOs will always be my favorite genre but I miss the oldschool party based MMOs like EQ and FFXI. Good times.

 

[Baron Dupek]

https://massivelyop.com/2020/07/10/...lab-has-been-acquired-by-an-investment-group/

another one bites the dust

 

[Azdul]

MMOs with yellow exclamation marks and raid bosses are basically dead, and creating new one is not commercially viable. Huge worlds that become deserts 2 months after launch are not sustainable.

But I still believe that MMOs are a sound idea.

Noone thinks about multiplayer Minecraft server as a MMOs, but it got few things right - it's fun with 2 players and 200 players, the world is infinite, but not empty - and the players shape it themselves. If someone could merge these ideas with idea from EvE - that large scale conflicts fuel economy and create social relations and demand for goods and services - it would create foundations for MMO that does not implode.

Maybe we just need to wait for players expectations to change. As long as audience expect questlines, raids and bosses - MMOs cannot shed the EverQuest and WoW heritage, and go back to the basics - emergent experience that is created for players by other players.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

EVE is famous for large scale conflict, but that's not what's fun. Mid-size conflicts, and lots of them, all around the map, is what is ideal. Many small wars and skirmishes, between a reasonably sized groups of players (20-100) instead of current 10k vs 10k conflicts of bees/dinos. It's great that you can have those big conflicts, but it sucks when all wars become like that. Same goes for your small gang of fireworks launcher frigs get hot dropped by a dozen titans (if you haven't played eve - couple of Yamato-style battleships dropped on couple people in kayaks, literally launching fireworks to the sky). IMO, all MMOs suffer from this power inflation curve, and that's what makes them less fun than they could be.

 

[Quatlo]

Lineage 2 had limits in place where you could only hold 1 castle, in theory, but it didnt stop you from creating alts or fake clans with only minimal amount of members that were part of coalition with the "main" clan, when you got strong enough you didnt even have to join the siege, you could just PK attacking clans like a real PvP PK mofo, because what they are going to do? You hold the power on the server so they can't do shit. And you having more resources, meant you had better gear, better XP/hour, the best farming spots, everything. Pretty much its all a giant snowball in all of these games.

Look at WoW - servers tend to have 80:20 ratio when it comes to player sides (horde or alliance, your pick) because ages ago one side had better guild, they got bettter gear quicker, first realm kills, all the jazz people want to gain their e-fame in mmo's, so naturally all players join the winning side, maybe except hardcore PvP'ers that are happy to have more targets to kill. And in that game you have pretty much no rewards for being "powerful" because everything is gated behind timegates.

MMOs with yellow exclamation marks and raid bosses are basically dead, and creating new one is not commercially viable. Huge worlds that become deserts 2 months after launch are not sustainable.

But I still believe that MMOs are a sound idea.

Noone thinks about multiplayer Minecraft server as a MMOs, but it got few things right - it's fun with 2 players and 200 players, the world is infinite, but not empty - and the players shape it themselves. If someone could merge these ideas with idea from EvE - that large scale conflicts fuel economy and create social relations and demand for goods and services - it would create foundations for MMO that does not implode.

Maybe we just need to wait for players expectations to change. As long as audience expect questlines, raids and bosses - MMOs cannot shed the EverQuest and WoW heritage, and go back to the basics - emergent experience that is created for players by other players.

Everquest tried that, and failed miserably, but probably because SOE is hilariously incompetent - they had a golden goose like Planetside 2 and murderfucked it.

 

[Azdul]

EVE is famous for large scale conflict, but that's not what's fun. Mid-size conflicts, and lots of them, all around the map, is what is ideal.

The actual resolution of large scale conflict in EvE simply suck. However, while small scale PvP is fun, but does not drive the economy, and does not create social dynamics.

Large scale conflict usually involve large masses of unskilled players, create large demand for raw materials and crafted goods in both good and poor quality. Goods and wealth are simply taken from economy and destroyed on battlefields - and it prevents stagnation.

Without high stakes political conflict, at some points vets and skilled players have just too much of everything - and MMO becomes a chatroom.

 

[Drelkag]

Open world PVP is hard to get right when it's mostly based on numbers.

Albion is a good game to look at and how many changes it went through since launch. Making land control battles 5v5, then debuffing zergs, now they're limiting how many people of the same alliance can enter an area at once.

 

[Norfleet]

All I see in this chart is that some elements seem to be missing. Like, there's "Honor", "Valor", but where is "Buttor"? I assume that must be the unlabelled section on that side of the chart. Otherwise it's incomplete.

SUPPORT THE MUNICIPALITY: Honor. Valor. Buttor.

 

[Zeriel]

MMOs were a "trendy" genre, like RTSes in the late 90s or MOBAs after them, and the Fortnite/PUBG clones the last few years. Unfortunately for MMO fans, MMOs require massive investments to make competent and interesting titles, so unlike other genres that fall out of being trendy the chances that good ones can emerge after the trend dies is a lot lower.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

What's this Torchlight III ad?

 

[Caim]

MMOs got replaced by live services.

 

[kreight]

mmos are still alive and well for those who want to play them. Old as mammoth shit Runescape has launched on steam just recently. Korean keep making them mmos like hot dogs. It is a matter of perspective.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Ultima Online is still around as is
Everquest. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.