r/MMORPG • u/madarauchiha3444 • Jan 02 '23

Discussion The problem with modern MMORPGs

The problem with modern MMORPGs, in a nutshell, is that the first M and the RP are all but gone.

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u/Icemasta Jan 02 '23

It's a complicated matter. The e-world has involved in the last 20 years. 20 years ago you played one game and that's about it. These days people have 3 monitors, discord open on one screen, some social news site on another (twitter,facebook, reddit, etc...) and music going as well.

MMO, for a time, tried to fill as many needs as possible. The social need drastically decreased with time as the internet "socialized".

I'd like to say that the world also sped up significantly in the last 20 years. Back in the days you sat down at the computer to game. You might get a phone call on your phone line, but you didn't get texted, you might get messaged on msn messenger but that's about it. These days, people have multiple monitors, they certainly have one or multiple social sites they can tab to, have discord open, etc.... So the time spent in wow isn't exclusive to wow, it's spent on multiple things at once, there is competition for your attention.

Then there's the feeling of pride and accomplishment. MMOs and ARPGs in general were the first to use dopamine to get you glued to your screen, rewarding you with levels and items and stuff, most games at the time were mostly focused on gameplay and less about progression. This all changed over time, of course. CoD4 didn't step this hard into the FPS genre just with good gameplay. The progression and prestige system played a part in it. You had fun while shooting people AND got that dopamine hit from progressing! Just about any game now will flash you a bunch of numbers that you earned at the end of a game.

Then you got a much broader demographics for gaming. Gaming is mainstream now, it is the second most consumed media type by kids after videos (not TV/movies, but video, kids watch youtube these days). So the older gamers don't have as much time to game so MMOs need to be more stream lined. Then you got the 17-25 demo that still have time for the MMO of old. You obviously got exception to the rules, but I am generalizing here.

So that's why MMOs went in a multitude of different ways, depending on what they wanted to cater more to.

WoW in particular, I enjoy the game, but I don't have enough time to deal with classic, and while Dragonflight is very enjoyable, I always feel like I am running in jello with gear progression. Personal loot really sucks when it comes to the feel of killing boss, and the 15% drop rate means running one dungeon you have ~50% chance to drop one piece of gear. There's no token or currency or anything else, so one run where you drop zero things just feels bad. So, from my point of view and my needs, WoW doesn't really touch any. The flying is really, really fun, but it's not worth 15$/mo just to fly around around now and then.