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The State of MMORPGs

An Corp

An Corp

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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?
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
jshackles said:
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.
Click to expand...

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?
 
An Corp said:
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?
Click to expand...
Come Here The Simpsons GIF by Playember


jshackles

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

EdmVexRtft9iyKOE.png


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

Runescape 3 just removed pay2win microtransactions.
 
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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.
 
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
 
An Corp said:
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?
Click to expand...
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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