Where are the next gen MMO's?

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Zorachus

[H]F Junkie
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I used to be a big WoW player, now I barely play at all, and would love a new WoW 2 on a whole new game engine, or WoD ( World of Diablo ) but that's not happening.

Anyways, I recall years ago, about several future MMO's being in development by former Blizzard guys or other big studios, and this was pre COVID time, so like 2018 or so, and most of them said their game was years away, maybe not until 2023 / 2024 or so. And back then I was like dang, that's a million years away from now. But it is end of 2023 now, and 2024 is next month, and from what I've read, none of these MMO's seem any closer to release if at all? I don't even hear about them much anymore.


-Riot Games MMO
-Ghostcrawler's MMO
-Ashes of Creation ( last word is maybe 2027 / 2028 release )
-Thought there was a couple other big names making a new MMO?
 
I think the days of the MMO are over, to many big companies see how much it costs to develop and set one up and dont want to spend the money on them. They would rather do a live service game with little effort and tons of microtransactions and season passes, then watch the money roll in.
 
Zorachus said:
I used to be a big WoW player, now I barely play at all, and would love a new WoW 2 on a whole new game engine, or WoD ( World of Diablo ) but that's not happening.

Anyways, I recall years ago, about several future MMO's being in development by former Blizzard guys or other big studios, and this was pre COVID time, so like 2018 or so, and most of them said their game was years away, maybe not until 2023 / 2024 or so. And back then I was like dang, that's a million years away from now. But it is end of 2023 now, and 2024 is next month, and from what I've read, none of these MMO's seem any closer to release if at all? I don't even hear about them much anymore.


-Riot Games MMO
-Ghostcrawler's MMO
-Ashes of Creation ( last word is maybe 2027 / 2028 release )
-Thought there was a couple other big names making a new MMO?
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View: https://youtu.be/nWm_OhIKms8?si=ethCO9FH2DLL6jMu
 
Zorachus said:
several future MMO's being in development by former Blizzard guys or other big studios
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This was back in the day when there was a large misconception about the number of persons willing to pay $15 a month for an MMO sub, which was the core business plan for those "WoW killers". Now we have more realistic data that the number is much smaller than originally thought, hence the business proposals for all those MMOs were now inaccurate and inevitably cancelled.

Unless you are one of a very few lucky devs working on specific MMO franchises, you need to work around no monthly subs. A one time payment, plus expansions and some MTX, which is a harder ask.
 
LukeTbk said:
Was Amazon New world the big last one ?
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Amazon Studios is working on a US release of "Throne and Liberty" I don't think we'll have to wait 3-4 years for "Ashes of Creation".
Basically that is the biggest game in development that won't look Korean or underbaked. I'm still holding onto "Camelot Unchained" they got some
new talent or within the past year or two working on that game. I think part of the problem is people except really complex MMOs and they were easier to make 20 years ago
because they were less complex. "Dark Age of Camelot" only took 2 years for development and became a really big hit. I thought Diablo 4 was going to be the great game it has all the makings of a good game but when it launched alot of people were disappointed int eh overall mechanics and feels. It didn't feel like Diablo at all unless you were really drunk.
"Patheon Rise of the Fallen" could be really good holding out on that game because that is all anyone can really do. Dark Paw studios is also working on "Everquest 3" with a rummored 2025 release date.
 
A new Lord of the Rings MMORPG is supposed to be coming. Forgot by who, anyone remembers?
 
The genre is basically dead outside of the true MMO's still running. Reality is that it's a dead category given the market capture of the pre-existing games that have it nailed down. The average 'gamer' doesn't want the sophistication of something like the glory days of SWG, and most the market wants a WoW style which already exists.

Also, enough of the old ones are still around and running. AO is still going. Same goes with LOTRO, ATITD, STO, etc..
 
I don't think it's Dead nobody besides Amazon Studios had the money to make a good game.
New World is ok but it's not perfect by any means. It's just an Impass at the moment with MMOs.
 
Zorachus said:
Isn't the U.S. version of Throne and Liberty releasing soon?
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Since Amazon is the one localizing it, it's going to be heavily censored like Lost Ark. Blue Protocol is going to be the same way.
 
The Riot Games LoL ( League of Legends ) MMO is the only one to actually have potential success based on the popularity and name branding and legit studio behind it. We shall see what kind of MMO they are making, I have no clue. Is it going to be a cute looking Torchlight ][ type styled game? I know Torchlight was an ARPG, but I could see LOL MMO almost going with that fun style and design. Or will they go more serious like an Ashes of Creation design?

And has there been any screenshots or even early in development videos of the LOL MMO? Didn't they announce it quite awhile ago? Like 3+ years ago? I know MMO's probably have a 5+ year development time, but would've thought we'd at least get some screenshots of it.

https://theriotmmo.com/riot-mmo-leaks/
 
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Zorachus said:
The Riot Games LoL ( League of Legends ) MMO is the only one to actually have potential success based on the popularity and name branding and legit studio behind it. We shall see what kind of MMO they are making, I have no clue. Is it going to be a cute looking Torchlight ][ type styled game? I know Torchlight was an ARPG, but I could see LOL MMO almost going with that fun style and design. Or will they go more serious like an Ashes of Creation design?

And has there been any screenshots or even early in development videos of the LOL MMO? Didn't they announce it quite awhile ago? Like 3+ years ago? I know MMO's probably have a 5+ year development time, but would've thought we'd at least get some screenshots of it.

https://theriotmmo.com/riot-mmo-leaks/
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I didn't even know about that game seem pretty speculative. League of Legends is probably the most popular game ever.
There were guys at work just watching games in the lunchroom at work but I never got into it.
 
Their producer on the MMO left back in March or May, but no idea how or what effect it had on the MMO in production.

I would love to see new tech make advances like better AI incorporated in the NPCs and see MMOs revisited. There are just so many interesting things that could be done like worlds changing in real time rather than shifting like WOW does or only updating during down time .
 
I could see someone making a really interactive game world with chatgpt+ type of level AI on servers, in much more advanced PPI--> PPD VR someday. (Shadow of mordor/war showed that having engaging enemies even in their very limited nemisis system could be fun, for example). Engaging AI and/or mixed reality at some % scale on tabletops and floors or cut-away scenes in rooms. Then it would be like a holographic game world experiences.

I think MMOs, and really a lot of game genres, have hit a wall just like cellphones have as far as bringing anything really innovative for quite awhile now. Ironically, the multi-user aspect of mmos can be problematic. The min/maxing surgical aspect combined with the cookie cutter class gear set costumes (almost like uniforms) and such gets old. Everything for the sake of balance can make things iterative and less interesting/unique (aka bland) by definition. Neutering fundamental class abilities for the sake of shoe-horning PvP into games is kinda lame imo too. Re-playing the same instances over and over can also get monotonous after a huge # of runs (though scaling up in power and taking it to them several runs after formerly struggling can be rewarding). Online communities can also be toxic, especially those without strong moderation.

I'm not saying it could never be done in a newer, more engaging way but I think MMOs along with a lot of game genres have hit a wall other than the graphics eye-candy increases and a few quality of life improvements. Modern AI, among other things like more advanced AR/MR/XR glasses in the future, could bring a lot to the table but just making another wildstar or something isn't very appealing.
 
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elvn said:
I could see someone making a really interactive game world with chatgpt+ type of level AI on servers, in much more advanced PPI--> PPD VR someday. (Shadow of mordor/war showed that having engaging enemies even in their very limited nemisis system could be fun, for example). Engaing AI and/or mixed reality at some % scale on tabletops and floors or cut-away scenes in rooms. Then it would be like a holographic game world experiences.

I think MMOs, and really a lot of game genres, have hit a wall just like cellphones have as far as bringing anything really innovative for quite awhile now. Ironically, the multi-user aspect of mmos can be problematic. The min/maxing surgical aspect combined with the cookie cutter class gear set costumes (almost like uniforms) and such gets old. Everything for the sake of balance can make things iterative and less interesting/unique (aka bland) by definition. Neutering fundamental class abilities for the sake of shoe-horning PvP into games is kinda lame imo too. Re-playing the same instances over and over can also get monotonous after a huge # of runs (though scaling up in power and taking it to them several runs after formerly struggling can be rewarding). Online communities can also be toxic, especially those without strong moderation.

I'm not saying it could never be done in a newer, more engaging way but I think MMOs along with a lot of game genres have hit a wall other than the graphics eye-candy increases and a few quality of life improvements. Modern AI, among other things like more advanced AR/MR/XR glasses in the future, could bring a lot to the table but just making another wildstar or something isn't very appealing.
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Great post totally agree.
 
I think the MMO genre as we know it is essentially dead. Though I suspect WoW and the few MMO's that continue to sustain a moderate amount of financial success will continue on for several more years, I think the genre has hit a point of stagnation. Not just in terms of gameplay, but in terms of market demand.

Even if there was still a big demand for them, MMO's aren't something companies are willing to roll the dice on anymore. MMO's are an absolutely enormous undertaking both financially and in terms of development time. That makes them a high risk/high reward proposition and the potential for failure is just too great as history has proven. It doesn't make any sense to build traditional MMO's from a business standpoint. Comparatively, looter shooters are a far better endeavor from a risk/reward standpoint. They probably aren't anymore difficult to create than a single player game and don't take the time or money to create as a traditional MMO would.
 
Comixbooks said:
That was canceled a few months back.

https://www.mmorpg.com/news/john-smedley-has-left-amazon-game-studios-2000127072
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Incorrect. Amazon was going to make a Lord of the Rings MMO and that was cancelled. However, Amazon came back a year or two later and said it was going to work on one again.

That said I expect the second attempt to also be cancelled. Even if it wasn't cancelled it would likely be a huge failure and a terrible game. I wouldn't expect anything else from Amazon on the gaming front.
 
Remastered versions of old MMOs can bring them back to life. Blade and Soul showed that this works well. What kills every MMO every time is the P2W model.
 
wow killed the genre. Too hard to capture and retain market share. Also, p2w mini mmo phone games scratch the same addiction and dilute the field. If you're really looking.... phone is the current platform. Today with social media etc - hard to see ppl wanting the classic mmo style. HOWEVER, like others said, i think the VR platform has the potential for some great MMO games - actually Zenith is already really good and demonstrates what VR can open up - highly rec if you haven't tried it.
 
pendragon1 said:
https://hardforum.com/threads/the-quinfall-biggest-open-world-mmorpg.2032606/
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Runs on Unity and lists this under requirements:

1704376842300.png


Looks like a flashback to 2016.
 
Where are the next gen MMOs?

They all retreated to their safe spaces and won’t come out.

We’ll have to entice them out with new model smart phones, maybe.
 
flegg said:
wow killed the genre. Too hard to capture and retain market share. Also, p2w mini mmo phone games scratch the same addiction and dilute the field. If you're really looking.... phone is the current platform. Today with social media etc - hard to see ppl wanting the classic mmo style. HOWEVER, like others said, i think the VR platform has the potential for some great MMO games - actually Zenith is already really good and demonstrates what VR can open up - highly rec if you haven't tried it.
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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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I guess
Final Fantasy XIV if you jhaven't already played it could be a good one to jump into?
 
Zorachus said:
I used to be a big WoW player, now I barely play at all, and would love a new WoW 2 on a whole new game engine
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I guess I don't really understand it when people talk about wanting a "WoW 2" or similar. There are significant changes made to the game every expansion, and many/most of the content patches also. The 64-bit DirectX 12 game with Ray Tracing that we have today is a lot different than the 32-bit DirectX 7 game that came out in 2004. Nevermind "WoW 2", we're already playing WoW 10.2.

There is definitely some legacy code in there still, and I'd love to see the game continue to become more multi-threaded, but I still find myself impressed by the improvements that they've already made. I did some updates to my vintage gaming rig recently and wanted to see how WoW ran on it these days. It has a 2500k @ 5Ghz in it, which was what I used in my main PC from 2011-2015 or so. I was actually very surprised to see WoW peg the CPU at 100% utilization, which would only occur if it's actually making full use of all 4 cores. That never happened back when it was the CPU in my main PC, and even recently it was pretty rare to see WoW fully utilize more than 3 cores at most. So kudos to the devs for continuing to make those improvements. I think it's also pretty amazing that they already announced the next 3 expansions - although granted that in no way means those expansions will actually be good... it certainly does show that they are not giving up on WoW now or any time in the next handful of years or more. It's not a dead or dying game by any means.

I think that the longevity of the game is one of the best things it has going for it. I know that as a WoW player, I like playing a game that I'm already good at, familiar with, etc. We don't need a ground-up revamp of WoW (aka "WoW 2") any more than we need a Football 2.0, Baseball 2.0, Basketball 2.0, or Hockey 2.0. WoW's longevity also tends to mean that the average WoW player is a bit older than many other games, which I think is a good thing. I don't know that we really need changes that would result in a massive influx of 13-year-olds or whatever.

I do like that they are continuing to think outside the box a bit and do new things, even things that most assumed wouldn't be practical or wouldn't work well not that long ago. Soon players will be able to include NPCs in their dungeon groups, new tech allows for creative spells that weren't possible before, etc. They've removed barriers that prevented players on different realms and different factions from playing together, etc.

So I am kind of curious, aside from a full revamp of the game engine, what would you like to see out of WoW going forward?
 
mr_zen256 said:
I guess
Final Fantasy XIV if you jhaven't already played it could be a good one to jump into?
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FF14 is going on 14 years old. It came out September 2010. If you only count from the Realm Reborn release, it's still over a decade old.
 
GotNoRice said:
I guess I don't really understand it when people talk about wanting a "WoW 2" or similar. There are significant changes made to the game every expansion, and many/most of the content patches also. The 64-bit DirectX 12 game with Ray Tracing that we have today is a lot different than the 32-bit DirectX 7 game that came out in 2004. Nevermind "WoW 2", we're already playing WoW 10.2.

There is definitely some legacy code in there still, and I'd love to see the game continue to become more multi-threaded, but I still find myself impressed by the improvements that they've already made. I did some updates to my vintage gaming rig recently and wanted to see how WoW ran on it these days. It has a 2500k @ 5Ghz in it, which was what I used in my main PC from 2011-2015 or so. I was actually very surprised to see WoW peg the CPU at 100% utilization, which would only occur if it's actually making full use of all 4 cores. That never happened back when it was the CPU in my main PC, and even recently it was pretty rare to see WoW fully utilize more than 3 cores at most. So kudos to the devs for continuing to make those improvements. I think it's also pretty amazing that they already announced the next 3 expansions - although granted that in no way means those expansions will actually be good... it certainly does show that they are not giving up on WoW now or any time in the next handful of years or more. It's not a dead or dying game by any means.

I think that the longevity of the game is one of the best things it has going for it. I know that as a WoW player, I like playing a game that I'm already good at, familiar with, etc. We don't need a ground-up revamp of WoW (aka "WoW 2") any more than we need a Football 2.0, Baseball 2.0, Basketball 2.0, or Hockey 2.0. WoW's longevity also tends to mean that the average WoW player is a bit older than many other games, which I think is a good thing. I don't know that we really need changes that would result in a massive influx of 13-year-olds or whatever.

I do like that they are continuing to think outside the box a bit and do new things, even things that most assumed wouldn't be practical or wouldn't work well not that long ago. Soon players will be able to include NPCs in their dungeon groups, new tech allows for creative spells that weren't possible before, etc. They've removed barriers that prevented players on different realms and different factions from playing together, etc.

So I am kind of curious, aside from a full revamp of the game engine, what would you like to see out of WoW going forward?
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Well here is a living breathing example of why I disagree with Dan_D. I played a reasonable number of MMOs post wow and I'd always hear people talk about "going back to wow." Like, just stop playing it man, just stop.
 
WoW 2.0 would need more stuff to do. Player housing, sideways progression, meaningful crafting, etc.

A good MMO should be a theme park. Get done with work, come home, kill a couple hours doing whatever (and actually matter). Current WoW the only thing that matters is chasing gear score.

It's boring and played out. The expansion "honeymoon" phases are shorter. The player base gets smaller.

They should really learn some lessons from FFXIV.
 
flegg said:
Well here is a living breathing example of why I disagree with Dan_D. I played a reasonable number of MMOs post wow and I'd always hear people talk about "going back to wow." Like, just stop playing it man, just stop.
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Why should I stop playing something that I enjoy? Do you actually have anything constructive to contribute to the conversation or do you just hate WoW?


NightReaver said:
WoW 2.0 would need more stuff to do. Player housing, sideways progression, meaningful crafting, etc.
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I've never understood the concept behind player housing. What are you going to do, invite your virtual friends over to have a virtual beer inside your virtual house? Soothe your OCD because your character fell asleep in a virtual bed at night? I mean, I'm not against the idea per se, I've just literally never heard even one single person explain what they would actually do with their "player house".

The closest they came was with Garrisons, and it sucked.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "sideways progression" but there are already multiple pillars of end-game content. There is already considerable crossover between Raiding and Mythic+ 5-man content, with PvP being the 3rd pillar. Nothing prevents people from doing more than one, or all three.

Crafting currently awards 486 gear, when the highest ilvl aside from the last few bosses in Mythic Raid is 489. Seems pretty meaningful to me. Embellished crafted items are some of the most powerful items in the game. What else did you want out of crafting?

NightReaver said:
A good MMO should be a theme park. Get done with work, come home, kill a couple hours doing whatever (and actually matter). Current WoW the only thing that matters is chasing gear score.
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You can already get 3 Mythic ilvl item choices from your vault each week just from doing 1 or 2 5-man dungeons each day (8 per week). There is plenty of world content. Of course world content doesn't give gear that is as good as the harder 5-man and raid content. But if that is what is holding you back, then it sounds like you are the one that cares about "gear score".

NightReaver said:
It's boring and played out. The expansion "honeymoon" phases are shorter.
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I'd recommend finding a good casual guild (because the hardcore guilds are usually full of pricks). Being part of a great community makes the game 10x better. It's also important to play a class and spec that you enjoy and can feel really invested in.

NightReaver said:
The player base gets smaller.
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No matter what you're doing you're never seeing more than a tiny tiny fraction of the player base at any given time, due to different servers, sharding, etc. The game could lose 95% of it's players and you'd still see the exact same number of people in-game. There are still quite a few people who play WoW, especially among those who aren't still in K-12.

NightReaver said:
They should really learn some lessons from FFXIV.
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Like what?
 
And this is why WoW will never get better. Any constructive criticisms? Nah everything is fine.

It's cool. I have no horse in this race. Many people like me played since vanilla/TBC and haven't come back. I did play BFA for a month or so just to see what modern WoW was like and what do ya know, pretty much every single thing to do revolved around chasing random higher iLvl gear. World quests. Rep. Dungeons. The weird little open pve things they had going on.
 
NightReaver said:
And this is why WoW will never get better. Any constructive criticisms? Nah everything is fine.
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Unless I'm missing something, it seems like you're the one who'd rather fire-off a couple vague one-liners than have an actual discussion. I guess you have no responses to anything I said?
 
i'm largely being facetious when i say stop playing. keep playing if you are enjoying. i dont think it's a bad game like the crap that's coming out these days (BG3, Starfield, etc etc)- my argument is that it's success has stifled MMO development - which Dan_D disagreed with but i think you single handedly destroyed his point of view
 
Starfalcon said:
I think the days of the MMO are over, to many big companies see how much it costs to develop and set one up and dont want to spend the money on them. They would rather do a live service game with little effort and tons of microtransactions and season passes, then watch the money roll in.
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You mean they're using science against us?
 
NightReaver said:
WoW 2.0 would need more stuff to do. Player housing, sideways progression, meaningful crafting, etc.

A good MMO should be a theme park. Get done with work, come home, kill a couple hours doing whatever (and actually matter). Current WoW the only thing that matters is chasing gear score.

It's boring and played out. The expansion "honeymoon" phases are shorter. The player base gets smaller.

They should really learn some lessons from FFXIV.
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That already exists. It's called Black Desert Online.
 
flegg said:
i'm largely being facetious when i say stop playing. keep playing if you are enjoying. i dont think it's a bad game like the crap that's coming out these days (BG3, Starfield, etc etc)- my argument is that it's success has stifled MMO development - which Dan_D disagreed with but i think you single handedly destroyed his point of view
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Starfield ok.. but BG3 is crap?

It's GoTY on multiple fronts.. . lauded by players for the fact that the devs listened to player feedback and actually acted on it to make the game better from it, didn't do any pay for play microtransaction stuff at all, massive voice acting library including essentially every living entity in the game, developed interesting npcs, comedy, drama, great graphics and gorgeous artful vistas, good replay value with so many different builds and some story arc decisions, true to d&d 5e but still accessible to more casual players. Any game can have a few bugs at release but a lot of people consider BG3 a masterpiece and a love letter to gamers in stark comparison to how some of the other game franchises and dev houses treat their gamer base in modern times.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Baldur's Gate 3 (Steam):

Overall Reviews:
Overwhelmingly Positive (473,531 reviews)

Recent Reviews:
Overwhelmingly Positive (34,496 reviews)

"I often like to post a nice long rant of a review but in this case I don't think it is necessary. BG3 won Game of the Year for a reason, it sits at Overwhelmingly Positive and has embarrassed
and pissed off a lot of AAA devs for good reason (it showed them up big time).

The game is fantastic, it is incredibly deep to the point it is a bit overwhelming at first but it's enjoyable enough it made me feel okay that I was clueless and just enjoyed the journey. I am nowhere near finished... but I already know this game is going to have me dodging IRL stuff to play it. Larian really delivered a gem here!"
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. . . . .

Starfield (steam)

Overall Reviews:
Mixed (90,995 reviews)

Recent Reviews:
Mostly Negative (8,075 reviews)

"We've been hearing for years that Starfield is Bethesda's passion project, a game that they've been wanting to make even before Morrowind came out.

If this game is Bethesda's passion project, then they've lost their passion.

Plenty of reviewers are dragging Starfield for its technical issues. While it's true that Bethesda should not get a free pass on that stuff just because "lol, they're Bethesda", I was prepared to accept a certain level of jank if it meant experiencing an inspired world. What really kills this game is that the setting itself is deeply, relentlessly boring. It's a haphazard collage of space frontier tropes. And you know what? That could have been fine. Tropes can be effective when wielded in service of a strong creative vision. But here, there is no greater vision. There is nothing, and I mean *nothing*, to this setting beyond the tropes that serve as its foundation.


This aggressive blandness persists at every scale. We have planets that run the gamut of environmental conditions, but none of them impose meaningful gameplay changes"
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