Guild Wars 2

This is not a rant against Gw2, or any particular game. It’s just something I’ve noted in the various MMOs I play.
People say that GW2 is loosing players, I also visit the forums of WoW, Neverwinter, DCUO, Tera, and others, and you know what they ALL have in common? More players leaving than the new ones coming in.
So my question is, where are all those players going? Is the MMO genre becoming stale and people are prefering smaller more casual games?
Myself, I love MMOs, I love getting immersed in a rich world with a rich story and being able to play while I talk with people all around the world about game stuff or just general life stuff. But I wonder if people like me are becoming less and less interested in it, and prefer something quicker and more casual, like LoL or maybe World of tanks? (just to name some more casual games)
Please don’t turn this topic into a “I’m leaving GW2 because…” this is not about it, do you think the market is changing? Do you think MMOs need a change? How do you see the future of online gaming?

I think there is a shift towards game controllers – the Xbox/PS generation – and games that don’t use them don’t get considered by ‘youngsters’.

Essentially the proportion of game players who have never used a keyboard as a game controller is increasing, and I suspect such people are unlikely to consider using a keyboard in the future.

lilypop.7819:

I think there is a shift towards game controllers – the Xbox/PS generation – and games that don’t use them don’t get considered by ‘youngsters’.

Essentially the proportion of game players who have never used a keyboard as a game controller is increasing, and I suspect such people are unlikely to consider using a keyboard in the future.

you are right on this and it has been a slow one but yet now it seams to be picking up more and more. for reasons some people are not happy with the gaming company,s and the way they are doing thing.s and i will also say with some one who is part of the Nintendo Xbox/PS generation honestly i got to admit i have had more good fun with Nintendo then i have with a lot of the pc games be it mmo or other wise

People say that after 1 month of every single MMO. People are saying that from GW2 from almost day 1 and still I always have people to play, maps are full at all World Boss I go, my guild have a hard time keeping below the 500 limit, etc.

It’s not because ppl on internet say stuff that it’s true. Does Anet lost a good portion of ppl from lauch? Ya for sure. A lot of people play only for a couple of days or months. But imo it’s normal. A lot of people play MMO like a single player game. They go through the big stuff and go to another game.

MMO’s I think just feel a lot less personal, least that’s how I feel in GW2 compared to say dark souls. But I do enjoy the player to player interaction a lot more in GW2. Plus, a lot of people nowadays love instant gratification, think we can thank CoD for that….MMO’s can sometimes feel very Grundy and take forever to do things sometimes. Like in Skyrim, if I wanna get level 100 crafting, it’s just a few gold and maybe half an hour and I can make use of all those dragon bones. MMO’s require a lot more time, effort, and money because…well not like you can pickpocket a merchant in this game.

I don’t specifically know about GW2 player dwingling, but Neverwinter, WoW and Tera have evidence of people leaving (and not enough people coming) so I don’t think it’s just a wrong impression.
That being said, people o the internet tend to exaggerate things.

There is something of a shift from MMOs because they tend to be more of the same. Also, the latest batch of MMOs, to include expansions, have been complete flops. Sadly. But, I’ll say this much: GW2 has held my attention longer than any other MMO so far. And I’ve played a lot of MMOs.

But, again sadly, they moved from what made them unique and exciting to the standard same-old-same-old, and well . . . here we are discussing this topic.

When I spend more time of the forums than in the game, that’s never a good sign for me. Usually . . . it means I’m all but done with the game.

Hope this expansion walks on water.

Every game loses population as time goes on, including MMOs. When it’s new and shiny (and a good game), people flock to it. Later, people move on to other, newer, shinier games. So it’s not a useful metric to say “people are leaving” — we need to know by what fraction and how does it compare to other games after the same amount of time.

Similarly, controller-based games are always popular, too and always attract different types of players, in part because the interface is simple and so people always have a leg up when starting a new game. OTOH, the downside is that due to this same strength, games lose their charm faster (except the super addictive ones that assume a life all their own). Again, it’s not a very useful metric to say that controller games are “more popular” without comparing actual numbers.

Finally, this corporate-hosted forum for a specific game probably isn’t the most useful place to discuss this.

It’s good to ask if people are moving away from MMOs or even GW2. I don’t think you’ll find a useful answer to the question by asking it here.

Quiet simply, these players aren’t disappearing, they’re ultimately migrating to new MMOs.

The MMO market doesn’t exist in a vacuum, there are many factors going on.
On the people side: people come of age and start playing games/MMOs. And people get older and stop playing because of later life priorities (or death). As a general trend, the “gaming population” seems to be on the rise from what I recall (though don’t quote me on this).
On the game side, there’s a similar story. New MMOs appear on the market all the time, and when they do, some fraction of the “total MMO playerbase” (so to speak) tries these new MMOs. Inevitably, some fraction of those players stick with the new MMO they tried. Slowly, over time, players migrate away from older and less popular titles, and move towards newer or more popular titles. Eventually, these older games lose their playerbase and cease to be.

Yes, it may also be the case that the total MMO playerbase is shrinking (though I don’t know this to be the case), but inevitably some of the players are simply moving to new games. The player population for new games that come out have to come from somewhere after all. And in most cases, that “somewhere” is other games.

problem with mmos and people losing interest is that they are such massive games in content yet they are so designed to be grindy both sub fee games and non sub fee ones
they get overwhelmingly repetitive and lack any relaxing or interesting side activities wich kills any sense of progression for the time invested and effort.

I guess it could be true, it may be not that people are going for more casual games, but that people are becoming more casual gamers themselves, and moving to new “shinier” MMOs, it’s also a possibility.
People used to stay years on good games, now maybe people may just play for 1-2 years at most and move on.
it’s a pity because one of the things I like about MMOs is that they’re an ever evolving world. and playing it for jus a short while makes you miss most of that.

……

It is normal for gamers to move from one game to another. It is not uncommon to see games “lose” players, gamers simply have a change of interest and looking at other games after they got bored or completed the current.

I would say it’s a mix of a lot of things. Heres a few:

1 – Many new MMOs come out all the time so people move around and try them all out.

2 – Console games are also taking players away. Remember some of these MMOs can be played on consoles so some of these players may be going there too and away from the strictly PC only mmos.

3 – Many new games are coming out all the time as well as new genres dare I say? Heck even the traditional MMORPGs are changing. Look at this game for example and others that are becoming more fast paced and not the stand on the spot spamming skills type that are going out of fashion. This genre alone is changing and becoming more similar to FPS games.

4 – Gamers now have MORE choices of where/how to play games. Mobile phones, tablets the list goes on and on. For many people who don’t even have a computer or never have they may get their first taste of gaming on a tablet or their mobile. In the past these youngsters may have got into pc games as they grew up. Now however with the quality of these games getting better on these systems they may not even think to look at pcs or consoles for their gaming needs. Even myself a long time gamer across many systems such as PC and consoles have recently got into Ipad/app gaming. In fact it has got to the point now where my time playing on those things is competing with my console/pc gaming including GW2 lol.

So yeah, there is no simple easy reason why it may seem people are moving away from mmos. It’s just that there is a VAST selection out there now and across MANY systems. There’s probably hundreds of mmos we haven’t even heard of and many of those probably as apps right now.

Controllers! I loathe playing games with a KB&M. Full on Hate!
The problem is closed minded debs who don’t want to detour from their “vision”.
They say stupid things like, “if you want a controller buy a console” ….
Newsflash, I have a console! Guess what? I play that when I’m home most of the time!
Though right now, I’m at work as a night audit at a hotel. TONS of downtime. I want to get out my laptop & controller and enjoy an MMO.
Or perhaps I’m at the girls house, and want to enjoy a hour or 2 of game time before I fall asleep. Have you never played on a laptop with a controller while you sit up in bed?
What it falls down to is a bunch of PC elitist who think if your not at a tweaked desktop your doing it wrong!
These guys are so closed minded they won’t even allow you to change the pointer to a crosshair… I guess people playing the game the way THEY would most enjoy would hurt their feelings… lol so sensitive!

Tyler Allen.9047:

Controllers! I loathe playing games with a KB&M. Full on Hate!
The problem is closed minded debs who don’t want to detour from their “vision”.
They say stupid things like, “if you want a controller buy a console” ….
Newsflash, I have a console! Guess what? I play that when I’m home most of the time!
Though right now, I’m at work as a night audit at a hotel. TONS of downtime. I want to get out my laptop & controller and enjoy an MMO.
Or perhaps I’m at the girls house, and want to enjoy a hour or 2 of game time before I fall asleep. Have you never played on a laptop with a controller while you sit up in bed?
What it falls down to is a bunch of PC elitist who think if your not at a tweaked desktop your doing it wrong!
These guys are so closed minded they won’t even allow you to change the pointer to a crosshair… I guess people playing the game the way THEY would most enjoy would hurt their feelings… lol so sensitive!

Lol all I can say is I played FF14 the original release before the rebirth and it was amazing with a controller. For those devs who put the time into adding this feature it can be nothing but a nice bonus/option for some of their players. And heck who knows maybe some of us could say to some of our “console only gamer” friends “hey look you can use a controller on this pc game, give it a try!”

Tyler Allen.9047:

Controllers! I loathe playing games with a KB&M. Full on Hate!
The problem is closed minded debs who don’t want to detour from their “vision”.
They say stupid things like, “if you want a controller buy a console” ….
Newsflash, I have a console! Guess what? I play that when I’m home most of the time!
Though right now, I’m at work as a night audit at a hotel. TONS of downtime. I want to get out my laptop & controller and enjoy an MMO.
Or perhaps I’m at the girls house, and want to enjoy a hour or 2 of game time before I fall asleep. Have you never played on a laptop with a controller while you sit up in bed?
What it falls down to is a bunch of PC elitist who think if your not at a tweaked desktop your doing it wrong!
These guys are so closed minded they won’t even allow you to change the pointer to a crosshair… I guess people playing the game the way THEY would most enjoy would hurt their feelings… lol so sensitive!

There’s a problem with your theory though. In most cases, an overwhelming majority, when games are made for controllers and ported to keyboard, the keyboard functionally loses a lot of ground. So supporting your cause is absolutely affecting us.

Almost every game designed for a console first and ported to computer suffers when used with a keyboard and mouse. You may think having your way harms nothing, but it definitely changes the way games are designed and that does affect me.

Tyler Allen.9047:

Controllers! I loathe playing games with a KB&M. Full on Hate!

Why? KB&M gives fine control not possible with a controller. In PvP this level of control is vital.

I don’t think the audience for MMOs is shrinking so much as it was artificially inflated before.

In 2005 or so there really weren’t a lot of games that let you log into an account that kept track of your ratings and progress and play through competitive or co-op content with a group of friends. If you wanted that kind of experience an MMO was practically the only place to go to.

For example, if you were someone who played nothing but WoW Battlegrounds or Arenas there really was never any reason for you to play an MMORPG to get what you really wanted out of the game. Now that you can play something like LoL to get that kind of competitive play without a monthly fee, leveling, farming mobs and what not tacked on, why wouldn’t you?

I personally see this trend as a good thing, because as MMORPGs are shedding players who were never actually there for the RPG part we’re hopefully going to see more open world sandbox games again that really focus in on the roleplay aspect, rather than trying to capture a bunch of adjacent audiences that now have their own games.

coso.9173:

Is the MMO genre becoming stale and people are prefering smaller more casual games?

Sooo… You havent noticed that almost every big p2p MMO since WoW has failed? Of course its stale. It hasnt been until recent years that a big shift toward f2p happened – which often result in either incredibly mediocre games or quick cash grabs that revolted the players. The really good ones are often incredibly simple matchup style games. There is no new “WoW killer” and given the effort in the industry, there never will be.

The end result of this is that we are stuck on old games. GW2 is old, yes. Bigger games has been released and fallen to obscurity in the time its been out. That people stop playing should surprise no one, it always happen with time.

coso.9173:

This is not a rant against Gw2, or any particular game. It’s just something I’ve noted in the various MMOs I play.
People say that GW2 is loosing players, I also visit the forums of WoW, Neverwinter, DCUO, Tera, and others, and you know what they ALL have in common? More players leaving than the new ones coming in.

that is pretty normal for any game. When they are new, you get a peak of players, then slowly numbers bleed. There are really just a few exceptions from it.

coso.9173:

So my question is, where are all those players going? Is the MMO genre becoming stale and people are prefering smaller more casual games?

I think MMORPG often are way too similar games in different skins. And many players seem to demand that, causing their evolution to slow down. Just look at all the “I want trinity” threads in this very forum. Many people dislike playing basically the same game over and over again. Then you have devs or probably rather publishers who chase the golden calf of casual gamers, alienating classic MMORPG player types by trying to turn their games into something they are not – MMORPG lose their feeling of investment when being “casual” in my opinion. Some bold devs go into a mad kind of counter-mode, e.g. Wildstar, catering to a “hardcore” audience with game mechanics that were annoying even back in EQ, they understand the appeal of MMORPG as little as casual worshippers like Anet IMO.

coso.9173:

But I wonder if people like me are becoming less and less interested in it, and prefer something quicker and more casual, like LoL or maybe World of tanks? (just to name some more casual games)

Even though a single session can be played relatively quickly, those games could not be further away from “casual”.

MMOs are the most difficult games to make and keep going.

Poeple want something new. Then they get something new and cry because it is different from what they’re used to be playing.
Then they get the same stuff they’ve been used to, and then complain because there isn’t anything new.

I don’t know if the MMO audience overall is shrinking. I think there’s a lot of people who play MMOs. But there are more MMOs than there have ever been. The field is very crowded, so less people play each game.

There’ll be a shakeout at some point and a bunch of MMOs will lose their playbase to others. Until that happens the MMO playerbase will be greatly divided.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

MMOs are the most difficult games to make and keep going.

Poeple want something new. Then they get something new and cry because it is different from what they’re used to be playing.
Then they get the same stuff they’ve been used to, and then complain because there isn’t anything new.

That first line is just plain wrong. Why? If that were true none of these games would have been made. If it is not profitable it doesn’t get made simple as that. You guys worry about player bleed but I will be frank with you old school mmo players know that there is a point where the game starts losing money. It has to do with how many players have subs. But but …we have no subs! Well little ones let me explain what the model is.

The game is B2P with an item mall. Some players have more money and are dedicated to the game. As new items, expansions, etc. come out they will buy those items. For how long? Years if not decades. While many players will look at pop and state, “The sky is falling!”, players who have seen this for years know that it is not. The pop starts high and dwindles over time. THIS IS THE NORM.

Many of you go to the failure of the p2p AAA mmos as a reason for the dying of this market. Define failure? Of those that “failed” how many went f2p and live on? How many developers knew this would happen? If you think about it you will realize they are still making money off this genre.

The other part is in the OP itself. How many forums did he stop by? How many of those games did he purchase or make a micro transaction in? Tera, DCUO, WoW, Neverwinter I have played them all. How many of you have? The MMO market is crowded and people eat from many troughs. Like a herd they migrate from one game to the other.

Last but not least new mmos springing up over and over again is indicative that the population of people playing mmos is not shrinking. In fact it is growing but maybe not on the PC itself. From smart phones, to consoles mmo are being developed for them and are already in wide use.

So while mmorpgs like GW2 may seem to be losing population that does not mean they are hitting the point where they can not make money because they are making more money than ever.

……However, here is the caveat. Popularity in the WEST just doesn’t match up to the EAST. They have more players who live by mmo (Look at lineage the ORIGINAL 1998 Lineage btw another reason the first line is plain wrong). They spend more money on it and devote more time over all to it.

Gonna modify this qoute from “Thank You for Smoking”

“We don’t sell Tic Tacs, we sell MMOs. And they’re cool, available, and addictive. The job is almost done for us.”

I think the biggest problem now is that gaming companies are – they always were but I think the competitive nature of the MMO market now is a lot worse than it used to be – a lot more worried about how much they are making per quarter than perhaps they were 8 years ago.

This coupled with the fact, younger generations (perhaps the largest percentage of most online games player base) are more in tune with technology than they were even 10 years ago, at least the western market is more of a ‘we want it all now’ attitude.

People don’t want to spend months on end grinding a specific armor set. They want to have the set the moment its released. Thus meaning either companies and developers respond – making games more user friendly / easier for the majority – or they potentially lose a lot of their player base.
The issue with this ofcourse is that it undermines the very nature of the genre.

We are now seeing kittenised MMOs such as Aionf2p[EU](aka pay to win) that rely on people spending arduous amounts of money in their cash shop to stay afloat. While they don’t have a sub based model; they allow players to get what they want, when they want it for an exceedingly high price. These items allow players to press ahead of non paying customers putting them at a significant advantage that pressure non paying customers into either quitting the game, paying money themselves, or sinking a lot more time in to try and keep up.

Luckily for us, Guild Wars 2 doesn’t follow this same model, however we are seeing a radical shift in the monetization ideas that Arenanet is pushing since the days of Gw1.
Back then the in game shop items weren’t exactly shoved in your face like they are now. If you want to open the trading post and sell an item; you first have to look at the gemstore, where upon you are shown the latest offers. A special deal of a character slot, a special deal on the latest mining tool skin that is unobtainable in game, rewards you with items that sell for in game gold and is only on the shop for a limited time.
From a business point of view this is a very clever scheme, people that want everything, will purchase these items.. and potentially even multiples since they aren’t shared across every character without using the bank (this is tedious)
It’s not all doom and gloom however, we are able to purchase everything in the shop for gems – gems can be acquired in two different ways in gw2 ofcourse, we can get achievement chests, and we can exchange our hard earned gold for gems (132gold = 800 gems at this time)
This I do feel was a very positive descision from Arenanet. The one downside is that without tedious grinding (we have already discussed how the younger generations are probably against this) and limited time offers (think of the black wings) sometimes gold>gem conversion just isn’t practical

All in all, I personally feel that companies now developing MMos are too hung up on making as much money as possible. While it is true they are a business and turning a profit is the point, perhaps MMOs are being negatively affected by the greed of companies.

To me, this company made an intial great product and then failed to properly develop it. Thats what happened. A-Net made some very poor longterm business decisions that has lead to such a sharp decline in playerbase. These are the main points as I see them which they failed on:

Living Story – Biggest fail due to low quality content and by low quality I mean on all fronts. This game mode / feature just can not compete with proper RPGs such as Witcher 3 or DAI etc. If I were ultra casual player there would be absolute zero reason for me to play this as the otehr games are simply that much better in this area and can be saved and returned to at any time for any amount of time AND can be played both using KB+Mouse or controller hooked up to the PC.

Open World Bosses – too boring, not enough mechanics, can be defeated spamming only 1 skill or “getting a tag in” then lying dead for rest of the encounter and collecting full rewards for event success. This in itself is just plainly flat out wrong.

Bad RNG loot system

WvWvW – Biggest fail in this game, to me, biggest recent fail in all of this genre in recent history. they released a great platform with super potential in so many areas, and then just neglected it to the point that many servers today are down right unplayable / unusable for a wide plethora of reasons.

Decline in Communities – Major factor as to why play MMORPGs (this genre) over otehr games. The only real communities that ever developed in this game are those of WvWvW, when WvW failed and players started to leave it in droves, the communities collapsed, there are few remaining. The otehr game modes do not have anywhere near what WvW had in this area. PvE communities felt very dull and irrelevant and too casual to be sustained in any sense, and SPVP so small that I can’t even call them communities, they just do not qualify.

Overall Staleness – see dungeons LFG: 80s zerker only… for starters, then add staleness on other aspects. I came back to the game for the condi patch thinking the zerker meta problem would at least be gone and I could run dungeons on condi necro or condi mes, yea right …. I abandoned playing my mes, nec in PvE altogetehr so sick and tired of zerker style gameplay on them it makes me wanna puke. I do run Engi and Guard sometimes in dungeons now, but still cant join full speed runs cause “zerker only…”

Alienating of veteran players – A-net hit a brick wall here, since their best source of bringing new players into the game, be it casual or hardcore or whatever inbetween, were veteran longterm players and word of mouth. When these vets go, so does that source and they finally have seen the light on that, now it will take them another 2-3 years to fix it, by which time it will be long too late.

Game is too “kidlike” or “forkids” – average age of average gamer has moved forward while this product remains well under the PG rating. And no, you dont need to have nudity or porn or realistic violence, just more general adult subject matter to make things more interesting. The “kiddish” stories combined with ultra bad acting are just horribad here. A lot of games in this genre are stuck in this mindset, there are few that have broken it so far.

There are way more people playing mmo’s these days then 5 or 6 years ago, as there are way more gamers then 5 or 6 years ago. Only back then there were way less options. People get more picky and they do try different games, so the community of mmo players is divided over more games in general. The fact that more mmo’s are coming out also means some people change games way more often, and it’s only logical. This is why the new mmo’s always have bigger populations at release then a few months or years into it.

I do think we’ll see more mmo’s on console or at least console controllers in the future, wich is something i look forward to.

Fully agree with Tongku here.

I had really hoped for LS2 to be extraordinary good after I had a blast with LS1. I know that open world events are not everyone´s cup of tea, but I found them to be much, much more enjoyable than the sluggish, storywise recycled griniding for AP content that LS2 turned out to be.
The real kick in the family jewels for me was when they sent out the poor excuse of a story writer who told people how novel and exciting the script for LS2 was, beside it still being exactly the same like in the Zhaitan story.
Zhaitan:
Random background story – Introduction in order – Hero finds friend – Looses friend -allies turn undead – lots of mid level bosses(some traitors, some former allies you never heard of before your meet them) – Endbattle
LS2 Story
Find the clues story – Pact commander duties – Hero´s sidekick reconciles with Sister(Looking for my sister story anyone?) – Loses Sister -lots of mid level bosses – Endbattle with a midlevel boss and a traitor.

Sure, there are only so many narratives of a story you can use, but that obvious ripoff was neither innovative, impressive or just good concealed.^^

I would think it’s simply based on the quality of the games themselves, and not any dramatic shift against MMO’s in general.

Games like FF ARR and GW2 seem to be doing well enough, and I think it’s because they are, in general, good games (not taking into account personal taste). If they do start to falter it will be because the devs are no longer maintaining them properly over the course of years they run for. Other free to play MMO’s that you’ve made a case of just don’t seem to have hit the ground running, but the fact that they are still running at all means that money is still being made off them.

WoW is an example of an MMO that has done incredibly well, but that is now losing a lot of subs recently, and from what I’ve read, the reason is because most WoW players are unsatisfied with recent content and expansions. That being said, a lot of them say they’d continue if the next expansion ends up making up for it, so the interest is certainly still there. It seems to have less to do with a disinterest in MMO’s and more to do with a general interest in good content, which I think applies to any game genre.

First, a reply on this :

my guild have a hard time keeping below the 500 limit

That’s mainly because ppl move from less active guilds, to more active ones.

Then :

Is the MMO genre becoming stale and people are prefering smaller more casual games?

Not really.

1. people tend to leave a game and transition into another one, when that said game becomes a ‘chore’ , something you don’t feel comfortable playing because you’ve ‘been there, done that.". Once you’ve gone through everything, gotten your characters geared up, and done all that is possible for you (the things you wanted to anyways), you move on.

2. There are plenty of games in the mmorpg genre that people haven’t played before, and are willing to try once they see what it’s about. It’s like looking for the next ‘fix’.

While some people say, “no, nothing is changed”, the maps always seem full, my guild is active and full, others will say “yes, it seems less populated”.
Truth is, it’s somewhere in the middle.

After a certain time, there will be less people joining the game and more people leaving. Announcing an expansion will reduce that number leaving, and increase that number coming in. But that’s not by a huge amount.

Every day you have new players joining in the game, but every day you also have players leaving for something ‘better’ or ‘different’. At times it might seem that the game is going down in population, because a lot of gamers also play other games, and spend their time in those. And at times it might seem that more ppl are online because players return and new players come in, like with this expansion.

Before coming here, i’ve played a F2P mmo for 7 (seven) years with some breaks in between to play skyrim, farcry4 or some other game i was interested in, even from the same company another mmorpg.

The ONLY reason i came here is because i got this game as a gift. If it weren’t for that, i probably would never have played this. Why would i ? It’s almost the same as any other mmo that’s F2P, so why would anyone shift to this ?

- it’s got a cashshop : same as F2P
- it’s got endless grinding for gear (look at ascended with timegating) : same as F2P
- it’s got quests (hearts and dailies) : same as F2P
- it has a meta : same as a F2P

It claims not to have a ‘trinity’, but is that good or bad ? Players ask for certain support builds, almost like they want a ‘healing’ class… or a ‘tank’ class.

From my personal point of view of a 20+years playing gamer, what makes this game really stand out so that players would not leave ? Easy answer ? Nothing

Baseline it comes down to this : players DO leave the online games they play, either for another game, or to take a break until an expansion comes. There is no game, including this one, that has so much appeal that players are willing to stay almost permanently.

When i hear developers talk about their game as being “different” and “innovative”, it makes me cringe and think ‘what kind of crap are they coming up with now’ instead of ’wauw, i have to play this".

I’ll give an example : Raiderz.
“Amaaaazing ! No auto targetting ! A new and better and realistic combat system ! Amaaaazing huge bossfights !….blah blah blah..yadda yadda yadda.”
After 4 months, that game was DEAD. Only 1 viable server remaining.
Not 4 years. 4 months.

When players see things like this, do you really believe that announcing an expansion for a game that has almost the same things a F2P mmorpg has, can keep all of it’s players ?

MMOs are being negatively affected by the greed of companies.

And more and more gamers are aware of it, no matter how well they try to disguise it.

I’m not saying this is a bad game, i’m saying this is a game like any other out there : people will leave and other players will come in or some will come back.

Sadly enough, this could be a great mmo instead of just a good one.

Personally I don’t even know if I’ll buy GW2’s expansion. MMOs sometimes feels like waste of time, with all the grinding.

I suppose other people may be thinking like that and leaving the genre for good.

Every MMO that promises “no grinding” back pedal on their decision, like GW2 and FFXIV so I don’t even believe such things anymore.

I am surprised there is no one suggesting it maybe a market shift in interests. This decade is dedicated to the rise of the MOBAs. MOBAs all the way, all big studios produce now MOBAs and they have by an immense huge margin the biggest player base and they are the most popular in E-Sports (miss you, SC2…).

The era of MMOs is coming to an end and it’s okay. It doesn’t mean it’s going away, it’s going back to a (larger) niche product. Remember when everyone and their mother played WoW? People who didn’t even play any other game played WoW – it was so strange…

Some additional thoughts: it is easier to produce a MOBA and gain money through microtransactions than to produce a whole new MMO. Companies want to make money, so the shift is to small games which generate a lot of sales – i. e. look at Blizzard with the focus on rather small games (cancelling Titan, giving us Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm with a lot of microtransactions).

Guessing with the business model of F2Ps and B2Ps, people feel less “invested” in a game so its easier to move around. And with the rise of MOBAs, Voxels, E-Sports, and steam sales allows more options to bounce around.

PC gaming has been dying for <insert number> of years, so says the press. Of course the “press” are all Apple people and are just jealous that all the really cool games are on PCs.

Which is odd since Apple controls the hardware, has a limited number of configurations and whose hardware ecosystem has more in common with game consoles than Windows PCs. It should be easier to develop games for that platform.

Until you realize that Apple insists you should use the version of the C language with objects that isn’t the popular one (very hipster). That their desktop hardware concept is sticking a MacBook inside of a giant monitor, with all the limitations a laptop has in terms of performance including lower end GPUs with no path for upgrading. Heck they are actively hostile with the concept of upgrading since they use custom screws that use special drivers as well as glue to keep people out.

But that’s okay, gaming is what iPads and iPhones are for. SUGAR RUSH

You just have to look at the success of Steam to see that PC gaming isn’t dead. Now yes, maybe there’s some MMO fatigue. MMOs are time consuming and for some people they finally look up and realize years have past and maybe its time to take a break.

ProtoGunner.4953:

The era of MMOs is coming to an end and it’s okay. It doesn’t mean it’s going away, it’s going back to a (larger) niche product. Remember when everyone and their mother played WoW? People who didn’t even play any other game played WoW – it was so strange….

all i know is WoW is / was the game that ruined ALL mmo’s
MMO’s before WoW where hard fun and actually asking for some time to get kitten done.

WoW made everything easy mode casual etc, it ruined all the new mmo’s cus it was a success for the western world while i personally hate it.
i want to grind i want to work for stuff i dont enjoy running dungeons waiting for a drop to happen, i prefer to grind hours endless waiting for that random mat drop that i need in order to craft X it might take me 1 week to drop what i need or the amount but still its what i enjoy..

good luck finding mmo’s like this, nowadays all mmo’s are squeezed into dungeon at lvl 10 till 20 then u go to x dungeon for 20 till 30 etc etc
what happend t o good old open world grinding? crafting? FFA world pvp etc etc all this is gone and ruined by 1 game made for lazy western people who dont really enjoy korean grind mmo’s. many others tried to follow the model of WoW in different ways and all you got is crap game (in my point of view others may like it).
name me a mmo that came out after WoW without dungeons from lvl x to lvl y
tera has it
archeage has it
aion has it
go on with the list..

mmo’s are being squeezed into dungeons, you might aswell make a server list and join a “server” name Dungeon Y 5/7.
like playing a FPS game when server is full the dungeon starts, where is the concept off MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER <<<< OPEN >>>>>>>>>>> WORLD

anyway ill cut it off but in my opinion the name off mmo’s is being abused by dungeon runs only permanently feels like playing a FPS game u just join a lil server and u start doing the run and u go to next party to repeat..

Behellagh.1468:

PC gaming has been dying for <insert number> of years, so says the press. Of course the “press” are all Apple people and are just jealous that all the really cool games are on PCs.

Which is odd since Apple controls the hardware, has a limited number of configurations and whose hardware ecosystem has more in common with game consoles than Windows PCs. It should be easier to develop games for that platform.

Until you realize that Apple insists you should use the version of the C language with objects that isn’t the popular one (very hipster). That their desktop hardware concept is sticking a MacBook inside of a giant monitor, with all the limitations a laptop has in terms of performance including lower end GPUs with no path for upgrading. Heck they are actively hostile with the concept of upgrading since they use custom screws that use special drivers as well as glue to keep people out.

But that’s okay, gaming is what iPads and iPhones are for. SUGAR RUSH

You just have to look at the success of Steam to see that PC gaming isn’t dead. Now yes, maybe there’s some MMO fatigue. MMOs are time consuming and for some people they finally look up and realize years have past and maybe its time to take a break.

I don’t see what Apple has to do with this.

And you know that most MMO’s have a mac client? Do you?

Yes but they run poorly and are rarely native applications but PC versions running under cider like our nearly 3 year old “beta” Mac client.

And maybe it’s to early to be sarcastic. The question/supposition from the OP is “are MMOs dying?” Since the vast majority of MMOs aren’t on consoles but some form of personal computer and in this universe that means Windows PCs the question could be extrapolated as “is PC gaming dying”.

The dig at Apple is because they were openly hostile to game developers for over a decade. So their systems are excluded in the “PC gaming is dying” narrative that’s spun by the popular press every six months because Apple never saw their Mac line as something for “gamers”. It’s as if they excepted the popular narrative that gaming is a waste of time and they didn’t want their designer PC to be lumped in with the stereotypical uncouth, socially challenged, amoral, basement dwelling, obese slacker that popular media stereotype.

Say hi to Jenkins.

Zizuelle.5039:

ProtoGunner.4953:

The era of MMOs is coming to an end and it’s okay. It doesn’t mean it’s going away, it’s going back to a (larger) niche product. Remember when everyone and their mother played WoW? People who didn’t even play any other game played WoW – it was so strange….

all i know is WoW is / was the game that ruined ALL mmo’s
MMO’s before WoW where hard fun and actually asking for some time to get kitten done.

WoW made everything easy mode casual etc, it ruined all the new mmo’s cus it was a success for the western world while i personally hate it.
i want to grind i want to work for stuff i dont enjoy running dungeons waiting for a drop to happen, i prefer to grind hours endless waiting for that random mat drop that i need in order to craft X it might take me 1 week to drop what i need or the amount but still its what i enjoy..

good luck finding mmo’s like this, nowadays all mmo’s are squeezed into dungeon at lvl 10 till 20 then u go to x dungeon for 20 till 30 etc etc
what happend t o good old open world grinding? crafting? FFA world pvp etc etc all this is gone and ruined by 1 game made for lazy western people who dont really enjoy korean grind mmo’s. many others tried to follow the model of WoW in different ways and all you got is crap game (in my point of view others may like it).
name me a mmo that came out after WoW without dungeons from lvl x to lvl y
tera has it
archeage has it
aion has it
go on with the list..

mmo’s are being squeezed into dungeons, you might aswell make a server list and join a “server” name Dungeon Y 5/7.
like playing a FPS game when server is full the dungeon starts, where is the concept off MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER <<<< OPEN >>>>>>>>>>> WORLD

anyway ill cut it off but in my opinion the name off mmo’s is being abused by dungeon runs only permanently feels like playing a FPS game u just join a lil server and u start doing the run and u go to next party to repeat..

I think you are giving WoW too much (dis)credit. Computer gaming in general was already leaving its niche, the industry going casual was a natural, if lamentable, reaction. Also, art mirrors society, western society has shifted from rational and achievement encouraging to irrational and inclusive. Hence the trained monkey focus of todays industry.

Also, I don’t see why WoW is always the paradigm of ‘easy’ gaming. Initially, the dungeons were rather hard, don’t speak about vanilla raids, it took ages to get a group of good players to enter the harder raids and most people haven’t had a look of original Naxx.

Even later there some heroic raids (i. e. Firelands/Ragnaros Heroic in Cataclysm) is called one of the hardest raids ever and don’t start with all the instances in Burning Crusade…

seirensen.7583:

Personally I don’t even know if I’ll buy GW2’s expansion. MMOs sometimes feels like waste of time, with all the grinding.

I suppose other people may be thinking like that and leaving the genre for good.

Every MMO that promises “no grinding” back pedal on their decision, like GW2 and FFXIV so I don’t even believe such things anymore.

same here too as well and i have given thought to going back to the old days of when gaming was fun and enjoyable like Mario the hours i spent playing that game on end .and the fun i had with it . i will say iam tempted to go and pick it back up again . if i do not see any changes in this game and something that interests me in the new hot pack coming out.

It has seemed like the trend the last couple of years and its not hard to see why.
MMO’s as a genre are stagnant. There’s been no real innovation or changes to it.
Sure, some will argue that this or that game has changed this or that feature, but they all still follow the same stagnant paradigms.
GW2, while claimed to be an innovator, has merely taken some of the best parts of other MMOs and combined them into one. They’ve added a fresh coat of paint to some of it, but that’s all it is. The same generic MMO cliches are still at the heartThe shift from pay to play to microtransactions has affected this as well. The developers still need to make money, so they have to walk a fine line of what to put in their cashshop (GW2 I will admit has done a far better job of this than most).
MMO’s also tend to not be enticing enough on their own for daily play. This is why most have daily log-in rewards, or daily timed items/quests to instill the mindset in the player that they must login and do dailies/get daily rewards.
Their target audience probably lends to this problem, as their target is as many people as possible, so they try be everything to everyone..
I would assume MMO population numbers to stay down until someone truly innovates and reinvigorates the genre.
Personally, I’m not even interested in this tired genre enough anymore to buy the expansion for this game.

MrRuin.9740:

It has seemed like the trend the last couple of years and its not hard to see why.
MMO’s as a genre are stagnant. There’s been no real innovation or changes to it.
Sure, some will argue that this or that game has changed this or that feature, but they all still follow the same stagnant paradigms.
GW2, while claimed to be an innovator, has merely taken some of the best parts of other MMOs and combined them into one. They’ve added a fresh coat of paint, but that’s all it is. The same generic MMO cliches are still at the heart.
The shift from pay to play to microtransactions has affected this as well. The developers still need to make money, so they have to walk a fine line of what to put in their cashshop (GW2 I will admit has done a far better job of this than most).
MMO’s also tend to not be enticing enough on their own for daily play. This is why most have daily log-in rewards, or daily timed items/quests to instill the mindset in the player that they must login and do dailies/get daily rewards.
Their target audience probably lends to this problem, as their target is as many people as possible, so they try be everything to everyone.

“Their target audience probably lends to this problem, as their target is as many people as possible, so they try to be everything to everyone " I couldn’t agree with that quote more.

No, MMOs are moving away from players. Take GW2 for a perfect example.

Anet keeps ignoring feedback, won’t communicate with the player base, and time after time kittens on their loyal veteran player base in favor of grabbing new fleeting players.

Well, i urge those that don’t know it by now, or realise what difference a concept makes :

Take a look at Skyrim versus Elder Scrolls Online (ESO). When that came out, all the skyrim (and older installments) players expected something like skyrim, but then online.
Boy, did they get a surprise. Not only was it nothing like one of their most succesful games, it was a total loss, pushing people away from the mmo genre even.

And why was that ? Because the developers didn’t listen. and if they listened, they didn’t hear. And if they heard, they didn’t understand.

Players want an enjoyable time, they want to be IN the game as soon as they have free time or come home from work. They don’t want to strain their brains on some puzzles (although some like it) or have to grind mindlessly in a game, they have enough of that at work already.
What most players expect is an environment of fun, relaxation, with a bit of challenge, but not too much but not to mindnumbing either. A nice balance one might say.

The majority of players want loot. And lots of it, but not to the point they can’t see the forest because of the trees. They want a boss to drop something very nice, they want a bit of a challenge, and able to do things by themselves without having to follow a manual or trying 20 times over.

You put those kind of things in a game like GW2, and you bet that players will leave after a while. Just take a look at the forums here and see what people complain about :

- to complicated ways to make items
- timegating
- one or other class over or underpowered
- bugs in the living story, unable to remove it from notifications
- the need for a specific currency like laurels to obtain items
- pvp players not able to get certain items within pvp
-….and the list goes on and on.

These are the kind of things, if left unresolved, that frustrates players and causes them to leave. This is not just in GW2, but other mmo titles as well. So you get a shift from these games, to the more “relaxed” games where small bugs or setbacks don’t matter : cheap, short games that provide what players want : an outlet from their daily lives.

I do not envy the first person playing this game trying to figure things out or trying to find the JP by themselves. I can’t count the number of times i needed to look on the web to find some kind of info or some obscure item or weird way to kill a boss (in LS) after failing for the frustrating xxth time.

MMOs sometimes feels like waste of time, with all the grinding.

What developers call ‘exploring’ is what we call grinding. Really, who likes to do it for the Xth time on some alt they made. And who likes to grind endlessly to get 250 x3 of an item to be able to make something they don’t even use or need, just for a collection ?
I think dev’s should beforced to play their own game for 1 year before releasing it. That way they get an idea of how it must be like for those that play for 3 years now.
Horrifying.

Every game genres have its peaks and its lows. Game genres are like consumables they have same life arch. When there comes a new game genre innovators start to play this new genre. Little by little they make it more popular. Then comes most of the game genre players and at the end those whom are cautious to new game genres. At this point innovators have already found some new game genre to play. There are always a little portion of these players who are vowing to name of some game genre type and don’t change it very easily.

MMO game genre have been in a market quite long and it start to go on its downhill from its peak. So yes, I could say that MMO genre start to be losing its player base. If MMO game makers are not going to invent something revolutionary, MMO genre will be dying game genre. It will always have those players who are vowing to the name of MMO, but that will be very thin player base.

Dinks.2478:

No, MMOs are moving away from players. Take GW2 for a perfect example.

Anet keeps ignoring feedback, won’t communicate with the player base, and time after time kittens on their loyal veteran player base in favor of grabbing new fleeting players.

I wish people would stop saying this. Anet doesn’t ignore feedback. Which doesn’t mean they take all feedback. For example, some people ask for dueling. Many say they don’t want dueling. No matter what Anet does they’re listening to feedback.

When someone says Anet isn’t listening to feedback what they’re really saying is the decisions Anet is making is moving away from MY feedback.

Which is another story entirely.

“What most players expect is an environment of fun, relaxation, with a bit of challenge, but not too much but not to mindnumbing either. A nice balance one might say.”

This quote describes me perfectly. I play this game for my own amusement and entertainment. I have turned away from the television to the internet.

The only thing about this game that I don’t like are a couple of the real hard core challenging aspects of maps and jumping puzzles. That reflects on me more than the designers of this game.

The new maps for instance, are a pain in the kitten to run. I don’t mind challenge, but I don’t like spending enormous amounts of time in challenges. I want to progress efficiently, not at great cost of time and effort.

Jumping puzzles are a huge source of frustration for me. I can’t tell you how many jumping puzzles I’ve never finished because I don’t want to spend all my valuable time in game trying to get to the end of the jumping puzzles. And if I get half way through it and fail and have to start all over again, that’s a deal breaker with me.

I’m not the kind of player that demands huge challenge, but I appreciate that it is there available to all. If I choose to partake of the challenge, it’s there for me and I appreciate that.

The new maps now, I’ve not discovered everything. The harder the maps get, the less time I will spend in them. If something is to be challenging means it has to be extraordinarily time consuming and fraught with frustration, I don’t do it. I play for fun, not to be frustrated endlessly.

That reflects on me, the player, not the game. I have no criticism of the game, just saying how shallow I can be about it.

MMOs can feel a lot like single player games. Sure, for bosses and big missions you need to team up. If you play it mostly/solely in PVE and do not do fractals most of the time it feels single player though. Even dynamic events feel that way and the other players are almost really good NPCs.

Small groups (aka, parties) tend to be more cohesive than large groups, even if they break up right after the event, which is not always the case. One suggestion is to somehow encourage small groups and for people to stay in them longer.

Cuz all the good games get crap ‘publishers’ that make classes OP, make the game p2w, never listen to their players and make boring events.

E.G

Tera EU – Gameforge

C9 – Webzen

Amazing games, crap companies

There are more people willing to pay 300 dollars for a console than 1k + for a machine capable of comfortably running a MMO.

There are people that end up moving to pc when they realize their consoles make them pay another 300 every two years or so.

If you mean people have moved away from meaningless labels then that is great to hear.