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[An Corp]

Hey NeoGaf — I can finally create a new thread, so here goes...

I've sunk thousands of hours into this genre over the years, mostly Ultima Online back in the day, and man, does the current state of these games irk me. After the absolute bloodbath of 2025 with New World getting gutted & Ashes of Creation imploding right after early access in early 2026, and a dozen other projects canned or dead on arrival, it's time for a real discussion: How did we go from groundbreaking virtual worlds to these soulless, monetized theme parks?

The graphical revolution kicked off in the mid-90s: Meridian 59 in 1996 was the first true 3D internet MMORPG, clunky but revolutionary with its persistent world and guilds battling for control. Then came Ultima Online in 1997, my personal GOAT. UO wasn't a "game" it was a living, breathing world. Player housing you built and decorated yourself, a skill-based system (no rigid classes), full-loot PvP where you could get murdered and looted in seconds, crafting everything from swords to ships with cannons, and even a hidden virtual ecology where deer ate grass, wolves hunted deer, and the ecosystem balanced itself dynamically. Cities were ruled by player guilds, economies rose and fell based on real supply/demand, and emergent stories happened every day thieves guilds, player-run shops, epic castle sieges. It felt alive, like logging into Britannia where shit was always happening, independent of quests.

Enter World of Warcraft in 2004... Blizzard polished it to perfection with accessible quests, instanced dungeons, flying mounts later on, and a theme park progression that hooked casuals by the millions (peaking at 12M+ subs by 2008 I believe). It exploded the genre and suddenly everyone knew what an MMO was. WoW's popularity killed the sandbox soul. Devs saw dollar signs and churned out WoW clone after clone with Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Aion, Rift, etc. Even old games tried to patch in features to make it more similar to WoW. Most flopped hard because they copied the formula without innovating, leading to subscription fatigue.

Fast-forward to 2026 WoW, GW2 and FFXIV limp along as the old guard, but even they're showing cracks. New World? Dead content, abandoned by Amazon with servers dying soon. Ashes of Creation launched as a complete flop and somewhat scam. Shut down weeks after launch. The genre's shrunk from dominating charts to niche live-service slogs or mobile P2W garbage. Indies tease "sandbox revivals" on Kickstarter, but good luck funding against AAA caution.

We traded immersive virtual worlds for monetized slot machines. UO and EQ proved it was possible...

What about you? What's your most hours-sunk MMO and why? Did WoW ruin it for you too? Any hope for a true sandbox revival, or is the traditional genre basically on life support?

 

[jshackles]

The MMOs I've played the most are Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV. Literally thousands of hours in each.

Somehow XI is still kicking, but it's ancient at this point. XIV has gotten several facelifts over the years so it still feels pretty fresh, but the mechanics are feeling pretty dated and like you said the new content is pretty trash.

I kinda feel the entire genre has been on life support for the last ten years.

 

[Skifi28]

Liquid I believe.

 

[Kupfer]

I'd say at least 4

 

[T4keD0wN]

Wouldnt want to live there.

 

[An Corp]

Yeah, what a noob. Pressed a combo of a key and my baby was off before it was ready. embarrassing lol!

 

[L*][*N*K]

It is in shambles, that is what it is. Either shit mobile games or shit Kickstarter games with a trillion different promises that none deliver, at least we have Guild Wars Reforged which is really fun other than that all shit.

 

[Senua]

The GOAT lives on

 

[An Corp]

The MMOs I've played the most are Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV. Literally thousands of hours in each.

Somehow XI is still kicking, but it's ancient at this point. XIV has gotten several facelifts over the years so it still feels pretty fresh, but the mechanics are feeling pretty dated and like you said the new content is pretty trash.

I kinda feel the entire genre has been on life support for the last ten years.

The old dated stuff feels almost like a breath of fresh air if I'm being honest. Just tried FFXI for the first time last year and I was having an absolute blast in that game. Even the old EQ servers are fun even if they are grind.

To me GW2 was the last released MMO that felt...good?

 

[jshackles]

The old dated stuff feels almost like a breath of fresh air if I'm being honest. Just tried FFXI for the first time last year and I was having an absolute blast in that game. Even the old EQ servers are fun even if they are grind.

To me GW2 was the last released MMO that felt...good?

|OT|  Thread 'Horizon XI |Retro OT| Lets all play Final Fantasy XI like it's 2004'

Jan 24, 2026

Welcome to 2004! RAM shortages? AI? What are you talking about, man? We're heading back to Derrick's place to play the new Final Fantasy XI MMORPG.

What is this?
Horizon XI is an unofficial Final Fantasy XI server that's designed to emulate the game as it was when the Chains of Promathia expansion released in 2004. The level cap is 75, and all the bullshit that Square Enix added to the game later on that made it more of a single player experience has been stripped out in favor of doing things the old fashion...

• jshackles
• Replies: 13
• Forum: Gaming Discussion

• 
• 

 

[The_hunter]

Old school runescape had 250k concurrent players this year with the addition of sailing.

Runescape 3 just removed pay2win microtransactions.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

The games used to be good enough (and with regular updates subsisting primarily on subs, with a few giant expansions every so often). The genre hasn't fared well since the F2P epidemic. I played Maple Story for a bit because the gameplay was fun, but it was far too grindy to commit to.

The only MMO I've actually played and paid any more for are Planetside and Planetside 2, one which is dead and the other which is near dead now. Companies just aren't investing in these large games anymore, and it's sad they can't make it work financially now compared with what companies were able to do in the past.

 

[SaturnSaturn]

Old school runescape had 250k concurrent players this year with the addition of sailing.

Runescape 3 just removed pay2win microtransactions.

Wait what rs3 removed mtx from non ironman modes?

 

[Clear]

Still playing XI here... subbed for 22 years at this point !

 

[RJMacready73]

Loved EQ2 with it's PC killing graphics and played a ton, then out came WOW that just blew it away in every single department, huge seemless world, smooth graphics that felt fantastical with each zone being distinct... Man I lost a lotta hours to that game with the ex.

I tried pretty much all the clones chasing that WOW classic feel in the first few years and eventually give up AND got old AF so Simony didn't have the time to devote like I did back in the day, briefly bounced into New World and enjoyed it for a few months, gorgeous zones, smooth gameplay and mechanics then because the numbers didn't add up on some excel spreadsheet it's getting shuttered.

Nowadays I only get a few hours every now and then and would love a proper new mmo to get back into, there's just something fun about running around questing and seeing other players doing their thing and helping out

 

[Loomy]

What about you? What's your most hours-sunk MMO and why? Did WoW ruin it for you too? Any hope for a true sandbox revival, or is the traditional genre basically on life support?

EVE Online and FF14 has most of my MMO hours. And I haven't played either in years. If Square had the balls, they would do another ARR style reset of FF14. It really needs it.

 

[DarkShadowXI]

I definitely miss the early days where it was more about exploring and hanging out with friends and strangers and less about min/maxing.

 

[Skifi28]

I'd like to go back to GW2 one of these days, but the time commitment is significant and there's been like 4 expansions since I last played so it's a little discouraging.

 

[Tobimacoss]

Mostly dead genre imo, too high failure risk.

 

[Ribi]

Y'all laugh but Star Citizen

 

[Hawk The Slayer]

World of Warcraft remains the best and biggest and would continue to be so as it rightfully deserves.

But I hope the new big StarCraft game would dethrone it. If anything can kill Warcraft, it'll be by Blizzard themselves.

 

[Felessan]

Any hope for a true sandbox revival, or is the traditional genre basically on life support?

In west it's abandoned as West prefer PvP MP
In east it thriving, transitioning from ultra-light MMO (Genshin) to semi-light MMO (ToF, WWM), besides FF14 most of them f2p or even gacha f2p

 

[Sephimoth]

#TeamDransik

Played Dransik (name switched to Ashen Empires) a ton around 2000.

MMOs back then did a lot of new things that made them feel magical.

- Huge world: This is the norm now, but back then it wasn't as much. While you were doing something in village A, it was mindblowing to know there are other players in village B doing their own thing. No fast travel, you wanted to head to another city you were walking for 10 mins, so you had to prepare.
- Real players: Online play was a new thing. People would interact and converse, just chilling in the town banks talking. Forming guilds/friendships. This was before MMOs became single player games.
- Single server: Dransik wasn't big enough to have instances so you got to know people and their deeds.
- Harsh times: You get killed, you risk losing your shit. Going out into the wild was a risk. Hunting in a dungeon far from spawn you'd be on edge for swarms of mobs or player killers.
- Wars: Had some fun guild wars, often outnumbered and relying on locations/choke points/other tricks to gain advantage.

Anyway I used to playerkill / loot because it was fun being a villain. Schemes for days.

 

[falconhoof]

I find it a shame that hope in the genre seems to gaze backwards. I understand given the state of things these days, but we lost the progression that was leading the genre forward.

ASCII MUDs > 2D > 3D is an overly simplified view of progression, but it's a clear one. Benefiting from the ideas of before whilst putting something new into it. Hope was firmly looking forward to what might come next.

It's probably easy to say that WoW was the disruption because it did a sort of side-step and its popularity shook the industry and derailed the historic progression. The theme park put its focus in a different place to what came before.

I'm just pondering out loud here. But I feel confident in saying that I've felt little in the way of excitement about the games announced under the banner of MMO for a long time. There's too often some sort of chase to recreate what has already been done without a meaningful step forward or one that just sounds complicated and overly prescriptive. I don't know the full details of Ashes Mayoral feature but from what I heard it sounded too designed and would have better been something more organic and player driven.

 

[An Corp]

I definitely miss the early days where it was more about exploring and hanging out with friends and strangers and less about min/maxing.

Exactly my thoughts. That's when the mmo shined brightest when it wasn't about sweating to be top dog, but rather a hangout with friends in a virtual world (that felt like a world and not a game).

Nowadays I only get a few hours every now and then and would love a proper new mmo to get back into, there's just something fun about running around questing and seeing other players doing their thing and helping out

The starting of a new / good MMO is an experience unlike any other in gaming.

Still playing XI here... subbed for 22 years at this point !

Amazing. I know that feeling, been playing UO for going on 27 years now. Those old games just feel like a more complete package.

 

[An Corp]

It's probably easy to say that WoW was the disruption because it did a sort of side-step and its popularity shook the industry and derailed the historic progression. The theme park put its focus in a different place to what came before.

That's exactly it. Until WoW, EQ was our big hitter and just broke over a million players. That was a big deal back then. But yeah, Blizzard came in and just stomped all expectations and it's no wonder. The game was amazing back then, truly. It ironed out a lot of the pain points in the genre at the time.

I find it a shame that hope in the genre seems to gaze backwards. I understand given the state of things these days, but we lost the progression that was leading the genre forward.

The same could be said about the state of all games these days. Seems like a lot of people are looking back at what made games so great in the first place. To me I think we just got to a point where gaming became so monetized and predatory in general that we are all just looking back at what we used to have. Good point!

 

[Meicyn]

Been playing the genre since Ultima Online. Most hours played is on FFXIV. Most recently played MMO is New World, ran through another session today.

I am watching the Riot MMO closely, as they seem to be targeting sandbox elements as a major design focus. Marc Merrill made it clear he doesn't want another WoW clone which is why Ghostcrawler departed as the director years ago. As someone who's grown weary of theme park MMO design, this makes me hopeful.

 

[Wilhelm_85]

EverQuest was incredible. True virtual world for the time with thriving communities due to just the right amount of forced cooperation/competition and lack of instancing. I don't think it can ever be replicated, but I'm grateful I was able to experience it.

 

[diffusionx]

Do MMOs exist anymore? I mean, like, UO and EQ and early WoW were games where you lived in a pretend world and explored it and grew in it. Now, WoW is like you max level in 20 minutes and go straight to the endgame and grinding dungeons and daily quests. How different is it from shit like Destiny, really? I guess the older games exist but they are purely niche. I don't even think a new MMO could come out with that old design.

 

[Spyxos]

Probably played thousends of hours in Ragnarök online. But the whole Mmorpg genre seems to be dead today.

 

[Last Hearth]

Hey NeoGaf — I can finally create a new thread, so here goes...

I've sunk thousands of hours into this genre over the years, mostly Ultima Online back in the day, and man, does the current state piss me off. After the absolute bloodbath of 2025 with New World getting gutted, Ashes of Creation imploding right after early access in early 2026, and a dozen other projects canned or dead on arrival, it's time for a real discussion: How did we go from groundbreaking virtual worlds to these soulless, monetized theme parks?

The graphical revolution kicked off in the mid-90s: Meridian 59 in 1996 was the first true 3D internet MMORPG, clunky but revolutionary with its persistent world and guilds battling for control. Then came Ultima Online in 1997, my personal GOAT. UO wasn't a "game" it was a living, breathing world. Player housing you built and decorated yourself, a skill-based system (no rigid classes), full-loot PvP where you could get murdered and looted in seconds, crafting everything from swords to ships with cannons, and even a hidden virtual ecology where deer ate grass, wolves hunted deer, and the ecosystem balanced itself dynamically. Cities were ruled by player guilds, economies rose and fell based on real supply/demand, and emergent stories happened every day thieves guilds, player-run shops, epic castle sieges. It felt alive, like logging into Britannia where shit was always happening, independent of quests.

Enter World of Warcraft in 2004... Blizzard polished it to perfection with accessible quests, instanced dungeons, flying mounts later on, and a theme park progression that hooked casuals by the millions (peaking at 12M+ subs). It exploded the genre and suddenly everyone knew what an MMO was. WoW's popularity killed the sandbox soul. Devs saw dollar signs and churned out WoW clone after clone with Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Aion, Rift, etc. Even old games tried to patch in features to make it more similar to WoW. Most flopped hard because they copied the formula without innovating, leading to subscription fatigue.

Fast-forward to 2026 WoW, GW2 and FFXIV limp along as the old guard, but even they're showing cracks. New World? Dead content, abandoned by Amazon with servers dying soon. Ashes of Creation launched as a complete flop and somewhat scam. Shut down weeks after launch. The genre's shrunk from dominating charts to niche live-service slogs or mobile P2W garbage. Indies tease "sandbox revivals" on Kickstarter, but good luck funding against AAA caution.

We traded immersive virtual worlds for monetized slot machines. UO and EQ proved it was possible...

What about you? What's your most hours-sunk MMO and why? Did WoW ruin it for you too? Any hope for a true sandbox revival, or is the traditional genre basically on life support?

As I said in the other thread, the new generation doesn't have the attention span for the kind MMOs that require the kind of time and dedication of the classic MMOs of the past.

 

[Hari Seldon]

I definitely miss the early days where it was more about exploring and hanging out with friends and strangers and less about min/maxing.

I have replaced MMOs with Survival games for this exact reason. If the most fun I have in MMOs is exploring and fucking around with real friends, then why play MMOs which introduce needless friction to this?

 

[An Corp]

I have replaced MMOs with Survival games for this exact reason. If the most fun I have in MMOs is exploring and fucking around with real friends, then why play MMOs which introduce needless friction to this?

Have you found a survival game that fills that old mmo void? Last one I tried and got into was Conan Exile, after that I couldn't find anything else to grab my attention.

 

[Catphish]

I love being a healer. I loved being a holy priest in WoW and I loved being a White Mage in FFXIV.

But I hate subscriptions because then I feel like I'm obligated to play that game all the time to justify the cost. I like to play other games, so this is a problem.

Plus, I already have a job. MMOs are like reverse jobs where you work, but then pay your employer.

It was a fun jaunt, but I'm over it.

That said, I'll probably lose my fucking mind over a Harry Potter MMO, should it come to fruition.

 

[mitch1971]

I never really got into MMORPG's because of the monthly payments. Not that I'm a skin flint, but the fact of having to pay a monthly wod of cash I would of spent every waking hour trying to squeeze every last ounce of gametime out of my sub fees. This would of crippled my relationship with life in general. FTP has giving me a nice fix between an ongoing game with little to no outlay in money. Know I can go days or weeks without commiting money to the pass time.

 

[Kazdi]

Played a lot of MMOs back in the day. Lineage 2, WoW, EQ1,2 and some more. Last time ESO for 2 months cca 5 years ago. Cant really dedicate the time now.
The first one I played was little known obscure mmo rubies of eventide, any GAFer played it?

 

[DarkStream]

WoW really was my jam back in the day. I used to sign up for every beta there was.
I even remember signing up for the Korean Beta using a guide (the sign up form was in Korean!) and playing with the worst latency.

There was also a "final" beta before launch that you could access if you had preordered the game.
I had two weeks off from school, but nobody knew when it would start. Naturally, it started on the very last day of my break. What a ride.

I was in a guild years before launch, just hanging out in IRC. I was there day one when all the starter zones were flooded. So much fun. I played for about a year and then quit; I didn't even get to TBC.

A couple of weeks ago, I signed up for Classic WoW and leveled an Orc to 20. The nostalgia hit hard, but so did the realization: This is slow. This takes time. I'm a 36-year-old man now. I can't do this anymore. Such is life.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Have you found a survival game that fills that old mmo void? Last one I tried and got into was Conan Exile, after that I couldn't find anything else to grab my attention.

It depends on what you like about MMOs. If the goal is to be in a shared world with 2-10ish friends and explore and fight and progress, then most survival games are better suited than an MMO. Personal favorites are Valheim and the LoTR Moria one. Enshrouded is also great but wait for the 1.0 release later this year. Valheim is one game that significantly benefits from having your own server so the hardcore among your friend group can craft and farm and shit in between group sessions.

But the main two things that these games lack is loot and massive amounts of random people. For that you need to stick to MMOs, but personally I have aged out of wanting those things.

 

[vindafarna]

I think MMORPGs with horizonal progression such as Runescape will continue to last for some time. Though I enjoyed RS '07 during its heydays, I found it difficult to get back into it because I can't endure its style of grindiness anymore.

WoW was a lot of fun for me when I was a young adult. However, the series lost its gritty magic (atmosphere and integrity of the lore) with Cataclysm and subsequent expansions.

I recently got back into Classic WoW, and enjoyed the leveling experience. I had a few goals I wanted to achieve for raiding, but I got tired of competing with others for limited best in slot gear. Furthermore, I never got to see Naxxramas due to being constantly benched by full raiding rosters. I find it very unlikely I will ever play an MMORPG again.

 

[Svalr93]

The MMOs I've played the most are Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV. Literally thousands of hours in each.

Somehow XI is still kicking, but it's ancient at this point. XIV has gotten several facelifts over the years so it still feels pretty fresh, but the mechanics are feeling pretty dated and like you said the new content is pretty trash.

I kinda feel the entire genre has been on life support for the last ten years.

Wot the new content in FFXIV is the best we've ever had lmao.
I mean it's obviously subjective but that seems to be the overall consensus really.
The raid tier in particular has been a big W not just thematically but design wise too, the biggest criticism really has been that M4S was undertuned that's it.

Edit: If you're talking about things like Forked Tower then the content itself is actually really great the issue is mainly accessibility same with Chaotic raids and Criterion has been a big W ( for those of us who actually did it ).
South Horn definitely has issues tho.
I think they've kinda hit a wall with the playerbase tho in the sense that MMO players play MMO's like they're Diablo games so they just won't touch a lot of the best content because it isn't part of a non-stop gear treadmill.
Personally I am happy about that because I actually play the content because I think it's fun lol but it's how a lot of people engage with games they need to see the gear score number go up.

 

[iQuasarLV]

I have sunk around 650'ish hours into LOTRO since September. Sometimes going back and supporting what works(ed) is the only way to move forward.

After 2004-2013 in WoW
After 2014-2024 in FFxiv
I thought I was done with themepark MMOs, but then I clicked with LOTRO and it's still humming along exploring MIddle Earth.

 

[Pataponpon]

I wonder what Final Fantasy will get to be their next MMO in the future, I want to catch one of these games from the launch

 

[Meicyn]

Wot the new content in FFXIV is the best we've ever had lmao.
I mean it's obviously subjective but that seems to be the overall consensus really.

The consensus from what group of people, exactly? More folks are leaving than they're gaining. Active player count in FFXIV is now back to Stormblood levels, undoing all the gains made from Shadowbringers and Endwalker. I'm a legacy 1.0 player and I left a bit after Endwalker when it became clear that my subscription was getting me increasingly less MMO content than ever before. I watched my spouse play through Dawntrail followed by unsubscribing after the first patch. FFXIV went from being constantly hyped by its playerbase to being mocked. Most of the Youtubers that played it as their primary game have moved on.

It's great that you're still having fun, but the player counts don't align with your claim.