Where are the next gen MMO's?

Most people have given up on MMO's. The market is so small for a hardcore PVE centric MMO like Pantheon. I really want that game to succeed but lord knows at this point. Even if it does come out, I struggle with the thought of being able to participate in a way that isn't just purely casual. Long gone are the days of multi-hour raids (for me at least). Everything that comes out seems to die off pretty quickly these days, and the money is in stupid battle royales with microtransactions. WoW seems to be the sole survivor in terms of actually generating revenue and even it needs to just die at this point.
 
I am still playing EVE Online. Waiting for the next big thing, but EVE Online is still very viable these days. It's been updated a lot with DirectX12, new UI, etc. The gameplay is probably still the same as the past. But I'm still enjoying it.
 
Pax Dei is Unreal5 based and looks pretty good.. seems gorgeous and fun social... they have had two alphas and are planning a third alpha this spring.

Sign up for the next alpha here: https://playpaxdei.com/en-us

I am eagerly awaiting it.


View: https://youtu.be/8v-rfLkqFEE?si=Ulx18uhvdpBIMHs9

Looks like the next alpha will not be free though.. and some people are concerned that it won't be worth spending $$ on in whatever state it's in based on how it was during the alpha which ended in Dec 2023. So ... idk.... I guess we will wait and see what YT thinks when the next one drops.
 
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The age of MMO's is basically over. WoW is all that's left, those battles were mostly fought in the 00's, and to a lesser degree 10's.

The only competitor at this point is Final Fantasy Xiv.

The problem in general is that MMO's take massive teams to create large world that actually contain content. WoW because of its first mover advantage wins here in every way shape and form. Blizzard at this point just milks it, makes sure it's maintained, releases more content and moves on. And Blizzard themselves have said that when WoW players die off, they will likely never bother to make another MMO. While it's profitable now because of massive player base, trying to build that again on another game and expend huge amount of money to build that out just doesn't have the ROI on it.

Sad as it is to say: why would Blizzard bother when they can make loot boxes for Overwatch 2 and make more ROI? It is definitely a cynical cash grab to the extreme, but it's also true. A skin takes many times less work and generates them way more money per work hour of any employee(s) they have.

The only way another MMO is going to come is if there is someone passionate enough to make one and they have insanely high funding and extreme user demand. As in the reason why they are making it is because they want to make an MMO and not because it makes any form of business sense. And I just sort of feel like that that combination of things will never happen unless a company like say CDPR or Larian that are already established feel like gambling a huge amount of resources into a title that may not even have a future. The failure rate other than WoW is 100%. So, it's a pretty bad gamble to get into a market that is highly entrenched and that most people aren't really looking for a new one on - so they'd have to be able to support losses for likely multiple years after launch to even "try" to get in.

EDIT: Lol, just read through parts of the thread and basically Dan_D said all the points I said but in a much better way:
Dan_D said:
I disagree with this. WoW redefined the genre and gave birth to an MMO development craze that led to virtually every MMO that succeeded it. There are still a few around that are essentially WoW clones in different skins. Some of which even had a certain amount of success in their own right. Unfortunately, none of them ever had the staying power or the success of WoW. Companies kept chasing its success repeatedly trying and failing to create the next WoW killer.

As for what really killed the genre, I doubt WoW really had much to do with it beyond being an impossible bar to match. The market at one time craved additional MMOs with different licenses and gameplay models. Game developers just quit making MMOs as the they are too costly and time consuming to develop. Not to mention, they are high risk given most don't seem to succeed or are unsustainable in the long run. I don't think mobile stuff really had anything to do with it. I don't think there is a lot of cross over and I don't think people stopped playing PC games like WoW just to play Candy Crush on their phones. There maybe some crossover, but I don't think the phone, consoles and PC compete directly.
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UnknownSouljer said:
The only way another MMO is going to come is
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I'm not counting on it or anything, or even necessarily wanting one, but theoretically there is one other new way that kind of amount and detail of content could be made in the future and that is with AI. Creating and designing stories/quests/campaigns, characters, monsters, landscapes, architectures, room objects, etc, classes/talents/spell-systems, etc. Also better interacting npcs, monsters, world of motivations and personalities populated by AI, probably even with different AI voice acting.
 
elvn said:
I'm not counting on it or anything, or even necessarily wanting one, but theoretically there is one other new way that kind of amount and detail of content could be made in the future and that is with AI. Creating and designing stories/quests/campaigns, characters, monsters, landscapes, architectures, room objects, etc, classes/talents/spell-systems, etc. Also better interacting npcs, monsters, world of motivations and personalities populated by AI, probably even with different AI voice acting.
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That's a real possibility. But in terms of one that people will accept and want to play? I think that will be a longer while.

The issue with generative AI is that it's not capable of being inventive. It can't create anything 'new'. It basically is incredibly good at making things that have already been done. That includes copying art, models, locations, etc.

The problem is that without a huge amount of human people doing actual design, I think it would still fall on its face. I'll never play another MMO again (well never say never, but it would take a huge change) because: a majority of WoW is fetch quests, grinding, dailies, etc. That is to say time wasters. And a "better system" for players that don't want mechanics that have no value other than "in game currency" and an "illusion of progression" needs to exist for me to even consider it, and I think all the people that finally have quit WoW, likely feel the same. The stories area all basically throw aways that everyone skips or just reads they synopsis on, and the only things "of value" is raid progression with friends.

So getting enough "real" content to exist in an MMO that people want to invest as little as 40 hours a month (let alone some people that will be playing 5+ hours a day) I think is also one of the most significant hurdles to a new MMO. Otherwise, you really might as well continue playing WoW. Generative AI would effectively "at best" create a reskinned WoW.
 
I wish LOTRO would get an Unreal5 makeover … shit I’d go back to that game in a heartbeat if so.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
That's a real possibility. But in terms of one that people will accept and want to play? I think that will be a longer while.

The issue with generative AI is that it's not capable of being inventive. It can't create anything 'new'. It basically is incredibly good at making things that have already been done. That includes copying art, models, locations, etc.

The problem is that without a huge amount of human people doing actual design, I think it would still fall on its face. I'll never play another MMO again (well never say never, but it would take a huge change) because: a majority of WoW is fetch quests, grinding, dailies, etc. That is to say time wasters. And a "better system" for players that don't want mechanics that have no value other than "in game currency" and an "illusion of progression" needs to exist for me to even consider it, and I think all the people that finally have quit WoW, likely feel the same. The stories area all basically throw aways that everyone skips or just reads they synopsis on, and the only things "of value" is raid progression with friends.

So getting enough "real" content to exist in an MMO that people want to invest as little as 40 hours a month (let alone some people that will be playing 5+ hours a day) I think is also one of the most significant hurdles to a new MMO. Otherwise, you really might as well continue playing WoW. Generative AI would effectively "at best" create a reskinned WoW.
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I think you are underrating AI a little bit. At the very least AI would help generate a lot more content per man hour -have the human be the inventor and the AI fill in the gaps. Certainly the bar has been pretty low for a lot of crap quests - not a big hurdle to have massive improvement.
 
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UnknownSouljer said:
That's a real possibility. But in terms of one that people will accept and want to play? I think that will be a longer while.

The issue with generative AI is that it's not capable of being inventive. It can't create anything 'new'. It basically is incredibly good at making things that have already been done. That includes copying art, models, locations, etc.

The problem is that without a huge amount of human people doing actual design, I think it would still fall on its face. I'll never play another MMO again (well never say never, but it would take a huge change) because: a majority of WoW is fetch quests, grinding, dailies, etc. That is to say time wasters. And a "better system" for players that don't want mechanics that have no value other than "in game currency" and an "illusion of progression" needs to exist for me to even consider it, and I think all the people that finally have quit WoW, likely feel the same. The stories area all basically throw aways that everyone skips or just reads they synopsis on, and the only things "of value" is raid progression with friends.

So getting enough "real" content to exist in an MMO that people want to invest as little as 40 hours a month (let alone some people that will be playing 5+ hours a day) I think is also one of the most significant hurdles to a new MMO. Otherwise, you really might as well continue playing WoW. Generative AI would effectively "at best" create a reskinned WoW.
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Well mmos have all taken from turn based rpgs and from other other major mmos before them, reinventing the wheel but with a lot more quality of life enhancements. Story lines and combat/boss dynamics across a lot of games repeat similar themes and dynamics, similar zones/areas, gear, character tropes and monologues, etc. Sure you'd need a team of human oversight and steering of a project but AI, especially in the following years, could prob do a huge amount of the work to construct the game world that takes humans a lot more time to do.

As far at the genre itself and questing, time sink, gear/stat treadmill... and balancing the lifers vs. the part-timers, etc. keeping it fun and a kind of "workout progression" with appreciable, earned gains or like a DiY project or model building exercise, art, etc. that you can enjoy making progress on as the thing advances so to speak - without being a "job" yet not making it a tourist mode game or generic arpg arena .. . are all a big problem for sure. Some single player turn based rpgs require a large time investment too though. They aren't for everyone.
 
revenant said:
Pax Dei is Unreal5 based and looks pretty good.. seems gorgeous and fun social... they have had two alphas and are planning a third alpha this spring.

Sign up for the next alpha here: https://playpaxdei.com/en-us

I am eagerly awaiting it.


View: https://youtu.be/8v-rfLkqFEE?si=Ulx18uhvdpBIMHs9

Looks like the next alpha will not be free though.. and some people are concerned that it won't be worth spending $$ on in whatever state it's in based on how it was during the alpha which ended in Dec 2023. So ... idk.... I guess we will wait and see what YT thinks when the next one drops.
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Looks like they made a MMO out of Dragon's Dogma.
 
MMO’s are dead, and its mostly because people are freakishly opposed to schedules. There’s no more x-night raids. Everyone thinks they are awesome and don’t want to follow directions or have any pride in ‘the guild’. My once successful guild in WoW is now just me. I still enjoy it as a time waster and enjoy leveling and equipping many different toons and that’s all there is. You are lucky if there’s one good guild that pushes content, but its all dumbed down now. Those times are over, but man it was fun at its peak…
 
Nasty_Savage said:
MMO’s are dead, and its mostly because people are freakishly opposed to schedules. There’s no more x-night raids. Everyone thinks they are awesome and don’t want to follow directions or have any pride in ‘the guild’. My once successful guild in WoW is now just me. I still enjoy it as a time waster and enjoy leveling and equipping many different toons and that’s all there is. You are lucky if there’s one good guild that pushes content, but its all dumbed down now. Those times are over, but man it was fun at its peak…
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This is not true alot of people have no life like me and plenty of time to burn. When Ashes of Creation hits game will hit people like fire


View: https://www.youtube.com/live/0HEKOuhNtqI?si=uPmeFl60CPlhLDRE
 
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Nasty_Savage said:
MMO’s are dead, and its mostly because people are freakishly opposed to schedules. There’s no more x-night raids. Everyone thinks they are awesome and don’t want to follow directions or have any pride in ‘the guild’. My once successful guild in WoW is now just me. I still enjoy it as a time waster and enjoy leveling and equipping many different toons and that’s all there is. You are lucky if there’s one good guild that pushes content, but its all dumbed down now. Those times are over, but man it was fun at its peak…
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Guild im in just pushes heroic raids, dont mess with mythic. A few in our group run in mythic prog guilds and those are still 5-6hr raids. Still plenty of guilds pushing world firsts as well. Problem is we all got older and so did our friends so our own circles have migrated out of this a bit. I know my peak raiding lifestyle was friday nights 10-3am and saturday 10-3am. Now in my 40s, not feeling like sitting that long anymore.

The younger ones in our guild still raid to god awful hours in the night lol.
 
Darunion said:
Guild im in just pushes heroic raids, dont mess with mythic. A few in our group run in mythic prog guilds and those are still 5-6hr raids. Still plenty of guilds pushing world firsts as well. Problem is we all got older and so did our friends so our own circles have migrated out of this a bit. I know my peak raiding lifestyle was friday nights 10-3am and saturday 10-3am. Now in my 40s, not feeling like sitting that long anymore.

The younger ones in our guild still raid to god awful hours in the night lol.
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Yeah I used to play LOTRO like that... all weekend until 4am Fri and Sat nights. So much fun. I had a tight group of people I would play with every weekend until they got 'bored of the rings' and went off to play Warhammer. Oh well. I did play a lot of Guild Wars (original) I enjoyed that a lot as I could solo it easily when my friends were not around. I never really got into Guild Wars Factions or Guild Wars 2 that much.. but it sounds like I could give GW2 another try as it seems to be alive and well. Guild Wars had some fantastic Halloween parties or "Mad Kings Day". It was a legit online party! LOTRO is still alive as well but the performance was terrible when fired it up last.. horrible "hitching" and such while I was walking around Rivendell ... it was basically unplayable.

EDIT: as a single man who works from home full time I have all kinds of time to play games if I find one I really love... the last game I really got into was Apex Legends not exactly an mmo but very social and very fun with the right people. Shit even randos that don't get on coms can be good.. and I have for sure been that guy when I just want to crank tunes and shoot guns lol. Not sure I am looking to get that obcessed with a game again but it was very fun. If there was an MMO that was like Cyberpunk 2077 I feel like I could get into that..
 
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My question is - where are next gen RPG's that offer 8 player co-op (if that ever existed)?

The only MMO I've played is Elder Scrolls Online, which seems like a co-op RPG because you form small co-op parties vs MASSIVE raids.

Have mercy - I am new to the genre.
 
usa all day said:
My question is - where are next gen RPG's that offer 8 player co-op (if that ever existed)?

The only MMO I've played is Elder Scrolls Online, which seems like a co-op RPG because you form small co-op parties vs MASSIVE raids.

Have mercy - I am new to the genre.
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If you want to get technical, that is what all MMORPGs are. In Final Fantasy XI, for example, your party size is a max of 6 if you want to go out leveling and questing together. Raids like Dynamis are just made up of several parties of 6. In World of Warcraft you're limited to parties of 5, and different content can have different max group sizes.
 
Armenius - Thanks - as noted - I am new to the genre.

I thought MASSIVE meant daily / weekly / monthly "big deal" special constructs with special prizes, but what do I know?
 
Armenius said:
If you want to get technical, that is what all MMORPGs are. In Final Fantasy XI, for example, your party size is a max of 6 if you want to go out leveling and questing together. Raids like Dynamis are just made up of several parties of 6. In World of Warcraft you're limited to parties of 5, and different content can have different max group sizes.
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Technically in WoW you are only limited to 5 in dungeon's and quest content credit. When the 6th person joins it converts to a raid (Raids and World bosses, etc)
 
I'm hoping that Dune Awakening brings the MMO genre back with its unreal 5 graphics. Unfortunately, IMHO, the gameplay reveal look really vague and boring.

I've said it numerous times before, I really feel companies need to evolve the Planetside 2 platform. With current or next gen graphics and an entire continent or world for players to duke out and conquer is just nothing short of unlimited potential. From Star Wars to Helldivers/Starship Troopers to Battlefield to anything else relevant. Actual MASS scaled wars between thousands of players would be epic.
 
Eshelmen said:
I'm hoping that Dune Awakening brings the MMO genre back with its unreal 5 graphics. Unfortunately, IMHO, the gameplay reveal look really vague and boring.

I've said it numerous times before, I really feel companies need to evolve the Planetside 2 platform. With current or next gen graphics and an entire continent or world for players to duke out and conquer is just nothing short of unlimited potential. From Star Wars to Helldivers/Starship Troopers to Battlefield to anything else relevant. Actual MASS scaled wars between thousands of players would be epic.
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Totally agree on Planetside next gen type game seems a no brainer.
 
Eshelmen said:
I'm hoping that Dune Awakening brings the MMO genre back with its unreal 5 graphics. Unfortunately, IMHO, the gameplay reveal look really vague and boring.
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Well there are two problems with bringing it back. The first is as you note it seems like when a new MMO comes out the gameplay is boring, and it is pretty generic, and usually buggy (New World being an excellent example).

However the other, perhaps even bigger, problem is people just get stuck on their MMO. So most people only play one at a time, no surprise since they take a lot of time. That becomes a bigger problem though when you can't get people to switch even to newer versions of the same game. Numerous companies found this, Everquest being a famous example. They decided to make EQ2 because, let's face it, EQ was extremely dated and needed a lot of updates. However, a ton of people wouldn't switch, they wanted to keep playing the old EQ, and did.

That makes it real hard as a company to invest a ton of money in developing an MMO (they are more expensive than a normal game) only to have players say "No, not changing games."
 
EQ2 was completely different than EQ1 though. Most people who went into EQ2 was thinking it would just be EQ1 with a better engine/streamlined experience but it was radically different. It was a button mashing, instant recovery (no downtime), crawl through dungeon experience.

EQ was known for long down time and camping dungeons with little button bashing (unless you played a bard and were swapping songs)... This led to people actually talking between fights and getting to know people which was completely missing in EQ2.

Most people I know who tried EQ2 didn't like the gameplay and went back to EQ1... Because they wanted to socialize. This is also the reason most newer MMO's fail. Because they lost what was important. Massively multiplayer AKA socializing with others. ESO for example is a completely solo adventure unless you want to run a dungeon to finish a quest, and even then you don't even say hi to anybody else. I couldn't believe it and immediately quit...
 
Scoobydo2 said:
ESO for example is a completely solo adventure unless you want to run a dungeon to finish a quest, and even then you don't even say hi to anybody else. I couldn't believe it and immediately quit...
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It was actually not like this in beta and at launch. Unfortunately everyone whined it was too difficult and required socializing, or some content required a competent group talking to each other, and that cyrodiil pvp was too scary, so they overhauled it into a beyond casual, braindead fest as you experienced now. It had deep combat and build systems, vibrant ava pvp, difficult content in the first year or two, etc. :( They ruined it and I've stayed away since.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the servers were lag free during beta and early on live in PvP but they slowly degraded and were left to continually get worse to where it was basically unplayable. They then began reducing the original population caps for it from around 600 per faction to today's 60 per faction. It destroyed the zone (cyrodiil).
 
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I got my Pax Dei alpha invite..
Your spot is reserved! We're excited to welcome you to our upcoming Alpha, codenamed Wilderness.

This Alpha test is set to start on April 23rd, 12:00 pm UTC (14:00 CET; 6:00 am PST; 9:00 am EST) and conclude on April 30th at 10:00pm UTC (23:00 CET; 2:00 pm PST; 5:00 pm EST). Enjoy it while it lasts!
 
revenant said:
I got my Pax Dei alpha invite..
Your spot is reserved! We're excited to welcome you to our upcoming Alpha, codenamed Wilderness.

This Alpha test is set to start on April 23rd, 12:00 pm UTC (14:00 CET; 6:00 am PST; 9:00 am EST) and conclude on April 30th at 10:00pm UTC (23:00 CET; 2:00 pm PST; 5:00 pm EST). Enjoy it while it lasts!
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Awesome! I got one too.
 
Same! Hopefully I can get it working on linux!

Follow-up: The game uses easy anticheat but it's looking like the devs aren't supporting the linux runtime (yet?). From the discord it sounds like the game ran OK on linux before the anticheat was added.
 
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jonneymendoza said:
Ashes of creation is shaping up to be the next gen mmo
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Eh, I'm not so optimistic about that one offhand, if it ever launches.

Throne and Liberty has potential from trying it, but we'll see... the P2W in it and lack of on-demand PVP (arenas are coming soon, but I want a persistent zone and failing that, battlegrounds/scenarios) may be hurting it. It had little content at kr launch but it's better now.

It's got the basics of an oldschool MMO down well and runs really well even in huge fights which is amazing nowadays. Just needs more to show that off than castle sieges once every 2 weeks :(.
 
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I enjoyed my hour in Pax Dei this morning before server crashed.

The only problem is there seems to be a lack of mobs roaming around. You have to run for awhile to find something. There are camps of bad guys but they are too tough for my lvl 1 guy. You have to group to kill them I'm guessing, but I have not seen a single player roam in the direction of a camp I'm near. So, I've been building on my plot near the camp spot and building all the crafting stations.

So far people who like crafting will likely like this game. Those that just want to bonk heads, maybe not.
 
Scoobydo2 said:
I enjoyed my hour in Pax Dei this morning before server crashed.

The only problem is there seems to be a lack of mobs roaming around. You have to run for awhile to find something. There are camps of bad guys but they are too tough for my lvl 1 guy. You have to group to kill them I'm guessing, but I have not seen a single player roam in the direction of a camp I'm near. So, I've been building on my plot near the camp spot and building all the crafting stations.

So far people who like crafting will likely like this game. Those that just want to bonk heads, maybe not.
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Nice.. I have it installed and am going to play today if the servers hold up. Gonna try it on my Legion Go also just for grins. I like crafting if the gathering portion goes fast enough and the mechanics are good, environment is nice etc.. This is an UE5 game so should look pretty nice at the very least.
 
Pax Dei is pretty good so far.. I built a little base and have run around a lot.. getting my bearings. Gathering isn't too tedious. Game is gorgeous.

EDIT: Servers are melting down today lol.
 
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