The current state of MMORPGs

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Hello,

via a soon closing RPG News site (RPGWatch), I came across this article : "Why do modern MMOs feel so different than old ones ?" https://www.mmorpg.com/editorials/wh...nes-2000124945

There are several points I agree with, but fewer within DDO, because it is so old school that I like it a lot.

However, what i also see is pressure from forum posters to try to nudge it into the direction of more modern RPGs.

I can recommend this article, as it tells you something about DDO as well.

And I do like DDO because it is *not* modern !

Alrik

[spifflove]

Corpse runs? Brilliant! Maybe only in end grind wilderness areas.

[fatherpirate]

I can predict the next hottest trend in MMOs
(really easy if you keep up to date)

>>> as soon as VR capable server farms have become the 'norm'<<<

VR mmorpgs will take over the market.
The catch is, the server farms need to do most of the heavy
lifting and the speed must be consistent to reduce nausea.

once that is achieved, the regular mmorpg days will be numbered

I will guess Eve online has already seen the writing on the wall
and has already made contingencies on it since their game
will be a relatively ease convert.

Not sure what WOW will do, given all their current internal problems.

Being DDO is a nitch title, it will be largely unaffected.

But that is the likely state of the MMORPG market in the near future.

I had kinda brought this up about a year ago and was quickly shut down because
'VR was a fad that had no real future in gaming except for a few nerds'
-------- that didn't age well.

THIS IS ALL MY OPINION
Some folks get the idea that I am trying to sell this stuff
as fact ---- it is just opinion.

[Artos_Fabril]

I will guess Eve online has already seen the writing on the wall
and has already made contingencies on it since their game
will be a relatively ease convert.

I don't know how Spreadsheet the MMO is going to be improved by manipulating drop down menus in VR, but sure, I guess it would be easy to implement.

[KoobTheProud]

I don't know how Spreadsheet the MMO is going to be improved by manipulating drop down menus in VR, but sure, I guess it would be easy to implement.

Eve Online tried to go the FPS route with an add-on game called Dust 514 about 9 years ago. The idea was to have a Halo-esque ground game to go along with the space combat and spreadsheet wars. Players had drop suits and armored powershells that were effectively tiny vehicles that allowed them to navigate the void and planetary surfaces.

There are persistent rumors that Dust 514 may be reworked in an optimized shell that lets players walk around ship and station interiors. The original was supposed to be a full FPS client that would let players go anywhere. That failed due essentially to the fact that it was about 90% as good as the average Halo-esque Sci-Fi shooter. This version would be just for breaches on ships and station assault and defense. With a limited environment to simulate the game would likely be easier to optimize to industry standards.

[Bjond]

>>> as soon as VR capable server farms have become the 'norm'<<<

VR mmorpgs will take over the market.

VR as a norm for online gaming has insurmountable physical problems. The VR fan club is insanely rabid for trivial and (imho) stupid reasons. VR is cool. Not just a little cool, but "OMG" cool. It owns trade shows. It makes a fantastic and very popular splash there. But, 30s of incredibly cool doesn't translate to a 3H MMO session.

Take it home and it's just plain horrible for long online sessions due to latency. It's a fundamental problem for VR v humans. Guess what server/client adds? Latency. Shared worlds require sharing data -- server/client or client/client it's the same thing. Latency has a hard limit called lightspeed. The few milliseconds added simply by the underlying physics (ie. distance) means VR isn't likely to ever fly for MMOs or any virtual world that is shared past a local network. Sorry guys, no Matrix for you!

Sims? Hell yes. Driving and flying sims will go VR-only very quickly. This will carry over into solo games. Those aren't shared-world applications, though.

[misterski]

VR as a norm for online gaming has insurmountable physical problems. The VR fan club is insanely rabid for trivial and (imho) stupid reasons. VR is cool. Not just a little cool, but "OMG" cool. It owns trade shows. It makes a fantastic and very popular splash there. But, 30s of incredibly cool doesn't translate to a 3H MMO session.

Take it home and it's just plain horrible for long online sessions due to latency. It's a fundamental problem for VR v humans. Guess what server/client adds? Latency. Shared worlds require sharing data -- server/client or client/client it's the same thing. Latency has a hard limit called lightspeed. The few milliseconds added simply by the underlying physics (ie. distance) means VR isn't likely to ever fly for MMOs or any virtual world that is shared past a local network. Sorry guys, no Matrix for you!

Sims? Hell yes. Driving and flying sims will go VR-only very quickly. This will carry over into solo games. Those aren't shared-world applications, though.

Lol yeah, imagine lag causing rubber-banding while you're in VR, eww.

[Lorianna]

Lol yeah, imagine lag causing rubber-banding while you're in VR, eww.

Every copy of the VR version of the game better come with a few dozen free barf bags.

[Weemadarthur]

I can predict the next hottest trend in MMOs
(really easy if you keep up to date)

>>> as soon as VR capable server farms have become the 'norm'<<<

VR mmorpgs will take over the market.
The catch is, the server farms need to do most of the heavy
lifting and the speed must be consistent to reduce nausea.

once that is achieved, the regular mmorpg days will be numbered

I will guess Eve online has already seen the writing on the wall
and has already made contingencies on it since their game
will be a relatively ease convert.

Not sure what WOW will do, given all their current internal problems.

Being DDO is a nitch title, it will be largely unaffected.

But that is the likely state of the MMORPG market in the near future.

I had kinda brought this up about a year ago and was quickly shut down because
'VR was a fad that had no real future in gaming except for a few nerds'
-------- that didn't age well.

THIS IS ALL MY OPINION
Some folks get the idea that I am trying to sell this stuff
as fact ---- it is just opinion.

But didn't you also predict that Zenith was going to be the next big thing in MMO's? Yeah that did well lol.

I'm not sure here if you really believe (despite all evidence to the contrary) that VR is the future of MMO's or are just trying to convince yourself that you didn't waste your money. Either way I doubt very much if the VR scene will ever take over the gaming market as for most people it is 1) too expensive (over time this will change though) and 2) too impractical (this will never change).

[fatherpirate]

But didn't you also predict that Zenith was going to be the next big thing in MMO's? Yeah that did well lol.

I'm not sure here if you really believe (despite all evidence to the contrary) that VR is the future of MMO's or are just trying to convince yourself that you didn't waste your money. Either way I doubt very much if the VR scene will ever take over the gaming market as for most people it is 1) too expensive (over time this will change though) and 2) too impractical (this will never change).

they have more players online than DDO

[Oxarhamar]

they have more players online than DDO

Better check steam charts again

Last 30 days DDO was more than double

[Weemadarthur]

they have more players online than DDO

Rofl you may want to check your figures. What started as 4.5k average players per day is now down to less than 100. I would say that is a lot less than DDO.

[Eantarus]

>>> as soon as VR capable server farms have become the 'norm'<<<

VR MMOs are never going to take off. The average person can't really spend more than 45 minutes a pop in VR, how is that going to work with the hours of grinding?

Besides, facebook is going to kill VR in the cradle by turning it into pay2win micro-transaction garbage. Imagine your average "Free" facebook game, but in VR. Ain't nobody gonna buy that trash.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Good article. The two best points are how you get attached to your character in old games because the progression is a lot slower and you learn your skills more and how the community was more of an emphasis.

[Oxarhamar]

I can predict the next hottest trend in MMOs
(really easy if you keep up to date)

>>> as soon as VR capable server farms have become the 'norm'<<<

VR mmorpgs will take over the market.
The catch is, the server farms need to do most of the heavy
lifting and the speed must be consistent to reduce nausea.

once that is achieved, the regular mmorpg days will be numbered

I will guess Eve online has already seen the writing on the wall
and has already made contingencies on it since their game
will be a relatively ease convert.

Not sure what WOW will do, given all their current internal problems.

Being DDO is a nitch title, it will be largely unaffected.

But that is the likely state of the MMORPG market in the near future.

I had kinda brought this up about a year ago and was quickly shut down because
'VR was a fad that had no real future in gaming except for a few nerds'
-------- that didn't age well.

THIS IS ALL MY OPINION
Some folks get the idea that I am trying to sell this stuff
as fact ---- it is just opinion.

Not even close yet VR is way too clunky and heavy yet to be played for hours like MMOs are

Short bursts are fine but VR has a long way to go it’s still too soon for VR and most games are gimmicky at best

Until VR greatly improves becomes lighter and in it isn’t going to rival console or pc gaming

Even when VR becomes more common Non VR titles will go on along side it

[hit_fido]

Claiming modern MMOs are easier than old-school titles is a bit of a misnomer. Let’s face it - old-school MMOs weren’t actually hard. Those corpse runs weren’t hardcore. You just ran back to where you had died, gathered up your stuff, and high-tailed it out of there before the mobs could kill you again. It was even easier in the MMOs where you stayed dead until you picked up your stuff.

In the good old pvp MUD days, you were just as likely that some other player would roll up on your corpse and loot it of anything good before you finished running back - even if they weren't the one that killed you.

Anyway, DDO might have started wanting to be an MMO but is more fundamentally a casual first person shooter with a fantasy theme derived from Dungeons and Dragons and a character avatar/doll system very loosely influenced by the classic six ability/d20 system. The flow of play feels much slower than an ARPG but much more fluid and dynamic than WOW or the typical WOW clone. It's really like someone deliberately threw Duke Nukem and Ultima Online into a blender and let whatever came out go to market, and it didn't appeal to as wide an audience as it needed to really be called a hit; despite that, those few of us playing it do adore that mix. Over time they've broadened the character system so that frequent replays can feel different enough to pursue and they've managed to give it a wide range of player-selected difficulty so achievement oriented players can beat up on bigger numbers.

[Eantarus]

In the good old pvp MUD days, you were just as likely that some other player would roll up on your corpse and loot it of anything good before you finished running back - even if they weren't the one that killed you.

But of course in those days "getting good stuff" wasn't quite as challenging as it is today. You could keep older but still pretty good backup loot in your bank or pick up new stuff fairly easy. Getting re-equiped took some grinding but it wasn't the huge loss. Now imagine loosing that Family Recruit Sigil you spend 500 chest-pulls trying to get on DDO. Ugh.

[Oxarhamar]

In the good old pvp MUD days, you were just as likely that some other player would roll up on your corpse and loot it of anything good before you finished running back - even if they weren't the one that killed you.

Anyway, DDO might have started wanting to be an MMO but is more fundamentally a casual first person shooter with a fantasy theme derived from Dungeons and Dragons and a character avatar/doll system very loosely influenced by the classic six ability/d20 system. The flow of play feels much slower than an ARPG but much more fluid and dynamic than WOW or the typical WOW clone. It's really like someone deliberately threw Duke Nukem and Ultima Online into a blender and let whatever came out go to market, and it didn't appeal to as wide an audience as it needed to really be called a hit; despite that, those few of us playing it do adore that mix. Over time they've broadened the character system so that frequent replays can feel different enough to pursue and they've managed to give it a wide range of player-selected difficulty so achievement oriented players can beat up on bigger numbers.

I think that the FPS of DDO is one the things that made of way more fun that other MMOs

Definitely understand that Nukem UO blender comparison having played both

+1