Guild Wars 2

World of Warcraft did many things the right way, which let it be a MMO king for a decade. Guild Wars 2 re-defined the MMO genre, and many GW2 players can not enjoy other MMOs anymore. This would make it second great MMO.
When can we expect the third great MMO? After Rift, SWTOR and ESO failures, I’m getting more cautius with my expectations.

Revan.4653:

I’m getting more cautious with my expectations.

So are most gaming companies, VC is drying up. MMO’s are failing left and right. (continuing and succeeding are two vastly different things. Some companies don’t know when to pull the plug). GW2 is back peddling a bit each major update. Rethinking game mechanics that they previously wouldn’t use. One example is the Mega Server. It’s the Disctrict system from GW1, with a few features removed.

Blizzard put their shiny new MMO back to alpha about the time GW2 launched (I doubt one had anything to do with the other, just worked out that way).

See: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/124406-Blizzard-Restarts-Titan-Project-Wont-See-Release-Until-2016

ESO, launched in an environment where the monthly subscription model is dieing.

Swtor, thought mimicking WOW was the way to go and goofed. They ended up dropping their sub model and went to FTP in the first year.

Micro transaction games are not fairing any better IMHO. The economy etc has most weighing every purchase carefully.

So that leaves gaming companies scrambling to figure out what works, they know what doesn’t.

Revan.4653:

Guild Wars 2 re-defined the MMO genre, and many GW2 players can not enjoy other MMOs anymore. This would make it second great MMO.

I’m still waiting for the 2nd great MMO.
GW2 did not redefine the genre. Many features are borrowed from various other MMO’s, while others are the same old with a fresh coat of paint.
The 2nd great MMO will be the one that truly reinvigorates and revolutionizes the genre.

In many MMO’s that support micro-transactions, what you are buying is further hidden behind RNG. Many of these games have endgame equipment this way. GW2 has avoided this, but still sticks rare skins and things in the exact same model.
Other MMO’s have endgame grind for gear. GW2 has endgame grind for AP’s and skins.
Hardly reinventing the wheel here.

I’m not saying GW2 didnt do some things right and yes, there are some new innovations, but hardly enough to revolutionize and redefine a stagnant genre.

Technically by this definition WoW was the second great MMO. The first one would be whichever you want to pick as defining the genre originally. Something like Ultima Online, Everquest or Runescape probably.

(And if you’re wondering what on earth I’m talking about because you know WoW was the first ever MMO then you’ve missed a lot of interesting games.)

I’m not sure you can put GW2 in the same category until we start seeing games that copy it’s new/altered features the way so many games copied WoW. It might happen, it might not, but unless it does you can’t say it redefined the genre.

Revan.4653:

World of Warcraft did many things the right way, which let it be a MMO king for a decade. Guild Wars 2 re-defined the MMO genre, and many GW2 players can not enjoy other MMOs anymore. This would make it second great MMO.
When can we expect the third great MMO? After Rift, SWTOR and ESO failures, I’m getting more cautius with my expectations.

In my opinion Jury is still out on “Gw2 is the second great MMO” in my opinion City of Heroes " had Gw2 beat.

So maybe Gw2 may be the " Third" but as I said, that is still debatable.

Edit:

Ultima Online has to be considered “The First great MMO”

EverQuest is “The second Great MMO”

World of Warcraft is “The third great MMO”

in MY opinion …City of Heroes/Villains, is " The Fourth Great MMO"

That makes Gw2 is scrambling to be 5th… maybe… so no it is not “The Second Great MMO” by a longshot.

Edit: Oops forgot

Eve Online is “The Fifth Great MMO” that makes Gw2 scrambling for 6th? .. 7th?

There will probably never be another universally appreciated MMO as the market has split too much. There’s a place for final fantasy, a place for Wildstar, and so on. Any new breakthrough could be quite unexpected, perhaps as much like facebook as like an MMO, or perhaps as much like a movie as like a game.

Stooperdale.3560:

There will probably never be another universally appreciated MMO as the market has split too much. There’s a place for final fantasy, a place for Wildstar, and so on. Any new breakthrough could be quite unexpected, perhaps as much like facebook as like an MMO, or perhaps as much like a movie as like a game.

The way I see it " great" is Not about universal appreciation, as much as i is about innovation, and beating a path for others that then copy you.

No one can deny the first 3 I mentioned. The reason I say " City of Heroes/Villains is " The 4th" is, it’s highly customizable character creator , it’s VERY unique Power progression, that allows anyone to create almost any hero they can imagine, and the fact that if it were not for it’s popularity, there would More than likely be no:

1. DC Universe Online.
2. Marvel Online
3. Champions Online

Champions costume developer is actually a close mimic to City of Heroes.

But you have a point. The market is too fragmented, and the Money-men are in the genre. The WORST thing that could have happened to it is the popularity, and financial success of World of Warcraft. before that…no one knew we existed. Now every banker and lawyer that reads a " trrend" report knows about MMO’s and wants a piece of the market. ALL of them want to own " The Next World of Warcraft."

i have designs, just not the funds and team to create.
WoW is a nice try, GW2 shows a basis to work from and wildstar has some cute improvements within generic content.
ill see when the next best thing comes, the only game i take on high regard is GW1 and no other game has ever surpass that quality, not even GW2.

Personally I think the market being more fragmented is a good thing for players because it means we have more choice, from games which are virtually identical to the market leaders but with slight differences to ones that are barely recognisable as being within the same genre. It makes it much more likely that everyone will be able to find a game they like.

The tricky part is trying to find a balance between that and games maintaining enough players (and therefore enough income) to keep going.

sorudo.9054:

i have designs, just not the funds and team to create.
WoW is a nice try, GW2 shows a basis to work from and wildstar has some cute improvements within generic content.
ill see when the next best thing comes, the only game i take on high regard is GW1 and no other game has ever surpass that quality, not even GW2.

+1 see my sig.

I have to admit, I enjoyed Guild Wars Immencely, Anet garnered a Lot of good will from me while I played it, and Factions, and Prophesies.

in my opinion, this game is so different from Guild Wars, that I cannot even think of it as a sequel. The only things it has that link them are the names of a few classes, a few skills, and some locations.

The game seems Like the developers had another game in mind, and NCSoft said " we need to make a Guild wars 2." And they slapped the name on, gave it a tyrian skin, … and just launched what they had.

The mechanics aren’t the same, the skills don’t work the same, the elites don’t work the same, the Bosses and Mobs don’t behave the same…

Aside from the tyrian skin, and the lore, which can be changed by writers, what is there in common between Gw2 and Guild Wars?

First great was WoW? I played Wow for 6-7 years, saw several guilds born and die. I still wouldn’t call it anything more than the right game at the right time. Here are several others that are at least as good if not better than WoW:

1) Meridian and Ultima – both set the framework for all MMOs to come
2) Everquest – Set the bar for an expansive world and raiding content – my personal favorite MMO. Who can forget Corpse runs in places like LGuk or Plane of Fear, hoping you get there in time to loot your stuff
3) DAoC – First to bring real realm war via RvR – my personal second favorite. Biggest rush ws some of the first nights we went out in Emain and had three way battles where everyone was still noobs
4) SWG – great sandbox till they ruined it, loved the gathering aspect of it (especially mining)
5) CoH – great game

In my mind, all of these were at least as good or better than WoW (except Meridian, never played it so can’t speak for it). WoW built on the best of several of these, just like any other game does. GW2 has built a solid framework, they made WvWvW work better than WHOL

Xisk.3451:

2) Everquest – Set the bar for an expansive world and raiding content – my personal favorite MMO. Who can forget Corpse runs in places like LGuk or Plane of Fear, hoping you get there in time to loot your stuff

I still remember Grimfeather killing me after i went to North Karana to buy my group teleports from the druid merchant at the rings. Someone saw me advertising Taxi service. And offered me 50 platinum for a ride out. While I waited I heard a sound that i would fear for weeks… whooomp….. whoooomp……whooooomp…….

Grimfeather came by and everyone was running, I had no clue why, til I look over my shoulder… red conned…. I tried to pretend I was a piece of rock, it killed me, I lost my level… I lost the use of My spells… and 50 platinum…. sucker still owes me 50 platinum.

4) SWG – great sandbox till they ruined it, loved the gathering aspect of it (especially mining)

A lot of memories as an image designer and dancer. What I enjoyed was i actually roleplayed, and socialized In this game.

5) CoH – great game

RIP CoH. I think CoH was probably as close to perfect a superhero game I ever played. A shame it closed it’s servers.

But ya… Gw2 is not anywhere near “The second Greatest” I think it’s a good game, and i know there are plenty of people that love Gw2. But to say " second greatest" is stretching it, and denies the trully awesome games that came before it their due.

I wouldn’t put GW2 on the same position to the likes of WoW as a “big thing”.

When it comes to innovation, GW2 is somewhere at the middle of the road. It took some existing “innovations” from previous mmos, polished them, tried new stuff, asuccessfully and unsuccessfully, and now players are waiting for the next MMO that takes the ideas of GW2 but executes them better.

Outside of GW2 fan community websites and the high launch reviews, GW2 is not that big. Many MMO players seem to have forgotten about it already.

It’s certainly a good game, but it did not live to its hyped potential. Two years of Anet priotizing festivals and then an entirely new living world concept did not help much, either. So far, season 2’s first patch content is much superior to most of the previous patches, but to many players, 2 years have passed and they have moved on.

UO
EQ1
WOW

Everything else are barely blips on the radar in terms of mass appeal for their times and genre changing in their implementations.

There has not be a truly “new” experience in a very long time since these games.

1) runescape
2) gw2

I believe the next Holy Grail in MMO is Virtual Reality.
Heck VR will be the next Holy Grail in entertainment in general.

Azreell.1568:

UO
EQ1
WOW

Everything else are barely blips on the radar in terms of mass appeal for their times and genre changing in their implementations.

There has not be a truly “new” experience in a very long time since these games.

Actually, many modern MMOs probably have more players that UO and EQ1 did, because those were niche games, made at a time before MMOs were popular. WoW did more to make MMOs a household name (so to speak) than the other two did, even though they were first.

I’d say Guild Wars 2 is an evolutionary step along the path, but no one can say how it will be remembered ten years from now.

Black Desert seems interesting

Whenever someone programs truly immersive AI.

When the holy trinity becomes obsolete, not because of combat mechanics, but because of an AI that knows to target healers and casters first. One that knows to interrupt certain skills and most importantly one that knows to rally and support other AI.

When that happens, I think we will see the next gen MMO.

Rezzet.3614:

Black Desert seems interesting

But mostly for the visuals. Ok .. taming horses and milking cows is also nice, but things like no exp for quests, so pure grinding, and of course the Open PvP like in all asian games is for me something that i would maybe play around with the char editor, play some days .. but not really longer.

Same with Archeage.

My highest personal hopes at the moment are on EQNext … if they don’t make it another raid-grinder.

Playes EQ2 for nearly 5 years .. but the raiding thing in the end drove me away from it. However i still think it was a great game that had sooo much content and also loved the housing there

Somebody mentioned Champions Online … played that the last 2 years before GW2 .. great Costume Editor .. freeform characters were also great .. sadly the game didn’t got content updates for years

Xisk.3451:

First great was WoW? I played Wow for 6-7 years, saw several guilds born and die. I still wouldn’t call it anything more than the right game at the right time. Here are several others that are at least as good if not better than WoW:

1) Meridian and Ultima – both set the framework for all MMOs to come
2) Everquest – Set the bar for an expansive world and raiding content – my personal favorite MMO. Who can forget Corpse runs in places like LGuk or Plane of Fear, hoping you get there in time to loot your stuff
3) DAoC – First to bring real realm war via RvR – my personal second favorite. Biggest rush ws some of the first nights we went out in Emain and had three way battles where everyone was still noobs
4) SWG – great sandbox till they ruined it, loved the gathering aspect of it (especially mining)
5) CoH – great game

In my mind, all of these were at least as good or better than WoW (except Meridian, never played it so can’t speak for it). WoW built on the best of several of these, just like any other game does. GW2 has built a solid framework, they made WvWvW work better than WHOL

1-UO
2-EQ
3-DAoC
4-Shadowbane (Great sandbox- worked skills up, player built/run cities and merchants, destroyable cities, war system, etc… Ruined by No China IP blocking so most wars were Stacked and at odd hours of the night if NA.)
5-WoW
6-CoH/V
7+- Everything else

Stooperdale.3560:

There will probably never be another universally appreciated MMO as the market has split too much. There’s a place for final fantasy, a place for Wildstar, and so on. Any new breakthrough could be quite unexpected, perhaps as much like facebook as like an MMO, or perhaps as much like a movie as like a game.

This is why I said in a post about a year ago, the MMO as we know it will probably never “be” again.

There are too many differentiating tastes among the player/customer base… in fact, there’s no SINGLE player base anymore – look at the various threads on THIS forum and you can prolly categorize a handful of archetypical player bases.

The latest archetype I’ve seen (and I’m not in the industry, so this is likely an old observation) has been the “no purpose”/“sandbox” crowd (Goat Simulator, for example).

What makes it worse, is there are subsets of each of those that are crossovers.

Evercrack, UO, and the other “MMO Forefathers” actually had LESS of a challenge with this since they were breaking new ground – there weren’t a lot of comparisons to be drawn.

As long as subscription or microtransactions – as each is defined today – stay the model, a for-profit entity will necessarily pick the most populace archetypes and develop to their preferences (because doing anything else will create a completely schizo feel to almost all players). This is how WoW succeeded – it had enough of what each archetype wanted to get the players “invested” in the game (at the time, another relatively new phenomenon).

Because I don’t see the content offering changing any time soon, the only thing remaining will be the next company to create quality content but backed by a compelling monetization model that ‘feels" transparent to the user base. No i don’t know what that is yet; because if I did, I’d be rolling in dough.

I base that speculation upon the fact usually the first question out of anyone’s mouth when a new MMO is brought up is “what’s the monetization model?” (not in those words… usually something like “is it sub-based or what?”), it’s obviously a major factor in the players’ minds… even if they don’t know it is and say “compelling content is important to me” or something similar overtly.

GW2 was close to this for me – B2P was attractive to me and others I brought to the game. The EDIT: Gem Store is not a mandatory thing (whether literally mandatory or sneakily mandatory like so many other games).

Wildstar is an example of what won’t work in current form UNLESS they get better at communicating their “pay for game time” thing. I understand it now, but the combination of their FAQ and the web page layout when explaining it almost made me distrust it outright (“if it’s that hard to explain, they’re hiding something”). Felt like an AmWay pitch.

This thread will be deleted but now I desperately miss CoH.

I was planning on playing it in conjuction with Gw2 for when I would be bored of it (which I am really bored of gw2 right now… I even started up gw1…)

The only thing keeping me on my computer right now is FFXIV. It’s not great but I like it, and is different to GW2. Also it’s my first ever Final Fantasy game so it’s new to me.

LumAnth.5124:

The only thing keeping me on my computer right now is FFXIV. It’s not great but I like it, and is different to GW2. Also it’s my first ever Final Fantasy game so it’s new to me.

That was the first MMO ever i got a beta key for and deleted it 15 minutes after start playing. You could only play it in a 800×600 window or so .. and it was lagging like hell .. that was really really the worst i’ve ever seen

Anyone remember Asheron’s Call?

It came out in 1999 a couple months after EverQuest, and featured what I would call the predecessor to GW2’s Living Story.

Monthly content updates, with some story arcs taking multiple months to complete. They even destroyed a town (Arwic) as well during one of those arcs.

GW2 is the first MMO I really played, so it’s obviously the best I’ve ever played.
That said, the requirements to beat GW2 are sinking with every patch.
I am hoping for an expansion 2016.

Beldin.5498:

LumAnth.5124:

The only thing keeping me on my computer right now is FFXIV. It’s not great but I like it, and is different to GW2. Also it’s my first ever Final Fantasy game so it’s new to me.

That was the first MMO ever i got a beta key for and deleted it 15 minutes after start playing. You could only play it in a 800×600 window or so .. and it was lagging like hell .. that was really really the worst i’ve ever seen

Sorry to de-rail lol but really?
I played the original FFXIV and that was just horrible so I waited for FFXIV ARR. It’s a good game and idk what you mean by playing 800×600 I’m playing with my screen resolution which is something in the thousand (I’m not very computer literate…). Also I am on a good ish computer that plays it on max so maybe it was your computer.

Runescape peaked with roughly 200-250k concurrent players back roughly 6-7 years ago and it stayed around those numbers until they updated to EoC which killed the game for tons of ppl …this was even during the early years of WoW…. that’s an impressive amount of players

GW2 is not even close to that amount and will never be.. heck I doubt it even beats RS as it is now… even at this moment theres 50-60k concurrent players which is still probably more than GW2 lol…

Hell you can look at twitch viewers and see how bad GW2 does compared to other MMOs…esports was a complete flop… barely had any viewers during ToLs…..

I think at this point the MMO community in general is just waiting for gw2 to breakthrough which it certainly has the potential too… its just a matter of NCsofts push but its not looking too good at the moment

Makes me happy to see people giving credit to UO, EQ, AC, DAoC, and Shadowbane. Great games. WoW was a game made by a smart company. They took the aspects that made these other games great packaged it in a more accessible game and marketed it heavily. They had the advantage of learning from the mistakes those other games made. Can’t say I’m the biggest fan of WoW but gotta give them credit for what they did, they created the biggest MMO ever by opening it up to a much larger audience.

As far as the next big MMO, honestly I’m looking forward to EQ:Next, it should be good I think, but we’ll see. SOE makes good games as far as I’m concerned, their problem is the upkeep on those games. I have to say I’m very sad to see what they did to DCUO, it was a very unique game combining a fighting game and an MMO into something pretty unique… but they dumbed it down so now GW2 feels more fast paced so … /shrug just another disappointment by SOE and their post release devs.

we will have to wait for everquest next.

in before lock…

In one sense, I’m glad that GW was not considered to be an MMO. That way, I can safely say that I have never seen a great MMO.

IndigoSundown.5419:

In one sense, I’m glad that GW was not considered to be an MMO. That way, I can safely say that I have never seen a great MMO.

Might be the best post ever.

Just my personal observation : There are many “MMOs” but not many “MMORPGs”. WoW around 2005-2007 was that second type imho.

Second thing -“next” MMO will be 5th World of Warcraft expansion this year.

Third thing – there may be revolutionary products, but most of them aren’t even known outside of fanbases or asians.

The next MMO genre will be Titan. By Blizzard. Why?

Because even if this company doesn’t bring up tons of new ideas, over the years they’ve not only built trong playerbases, but it’s also a market brand, known by every gamer and far beyond.

Another thing is, they’re not afraid of copying good features from other games and they don’t give a kitten if they created it. Their games and brands adapt.
They also have their game universes. Two decades old universes which have kittenload of lore, stories and references. They’re enormous.

Last thing is, whatever Blizzard does, they want to make it more fun and accessible. They make multiple mistakes, but there’s always profit.

Before Hearthstone, how many players did play card games? Fans. But Blizzard managed to link this genre with their universe, humour, easy to pick up gameplay and well-known characters/music/themes + their brand.
Now this game, despite being “casual” have tons of tournaments, streamers and players.
Blizzard did not invented it. They just adapted to genre and made it fun.

So, there’s your answer.

UO, EQ1, EVE and WoW are the “great” and “defining” western MMO’s. You could possibly throw SWG in there if you want to factor in controversy and an example of how a developer chasing the mass market dollar can kill a game.

As for the next “big thing” well it will most likely be EQ:Next.

Rym.1469:

…
Another thing is, they’re not afraid of copying good features from other games and they don’t give a kitten if they created it. Their games and brands adapt.
…

and this is where arenanet fails so hard – arenanet wanna reinvent the wheel on everything
everything what was working in other games they dont just copy they think they can do it better and brainstorm everything to death

things like raids → worldbosses with complete map = horrible

good game you all forgot was:
Lineage 2 (this game had alot good features and new things and was up same time as wow)

my first mmo was Legend of Mir 3^^

Romek.4201:

Rym.1469:

…
Another thing is, they’re not afraid of copying good features from other games and they don’t give a kitten if they created it. Their games and brands adapt.
…

and this is where arenanet fails so hard – arenanet wanna reinvent the wheel on everything
everything what was working in other games they dont just copy they think they can do it better and brainstorm everything to death

things like raids -> worldbosses with complete map = horrible

good game you all forgot was:
Lineage 2 (this game had alot good features and new things and was up same time as wow)

my first mmo was Legend of Mir 3^^

If everyone just copies from others and nobody ever tried something new, everything would be the same. And I’m glad Arenanet made GW2 into something that is completely different from WoW because if I wanted to play WoW instead of GW2 I’d be playing WoW instead of GW2.

noone said copy the game – only the “working” features^^

- and not to copy the working features but cripple them to death

Hi everyone,

Please keep in mind that this forum is dedicated to Guild Wars 2. Therefore, discussions about other games are not allowed.

Thank you for your understanding.