Why do mmos fail

Unlike many others games on this list, Warhammer Online actually released to positive critical reception and performed solidly for the first year of its life, some even believing it could build itself to a true competitor of World of Warcraft. The game did not maintain its momentum, though, and over the next couple of years the player base drastically shrank.

This was primarily due to the game's focus on PVP combat and the RVR system, which players felt was too limited for a game that required a paying subscription. Mythic was working on a free-to-play version of the game, but when their license for the Warhammer property expired, they decided to shut down the game instead of renewing it, only five years after its launch. Originally developed as a Need for Speed title, EA decided to discard all single player elements in favor of a completely online game.

It was a very innovative game for its time, featuring roleplaying elements such as leveling from completing tasks, along with a supply and demand economy. MCO might have been a little too ahead of its time. As with many online games at the time, lag was a considerable issue, which, in a racing game, became a big deal, with cars acting unpredictably and even appearing to teleport at time.

Users were also on the fence about paying a subscription fee for a racing game. Eventually, the game was shut down after only two years. Remember those games of cops and robbers you played as a kid? It was being developed by David Jones, the mind behind the original Grand Theft Auto and Crackdown, which alone was a cause for hype. The game promised to be something like an online Grand Theft Auto, with players taking part in a constant battle between criminals and law enforcement.

It was released to poor reviews, made all the worse by a controversy regarding a review embargo which forbid any games journalist from publishing a review until a week after the game's launch. It never took off and was shut down a year after its launch. The game would be purchased by Reloaded Productions who would relaunch it as a free-to-play game under the title APB: Reloaded. Few game titles can cause as many feelings of nostalgia and sorrow as Star Wars Galaxies. Running for a total of eight years, it is the longest lived MMO on this list barring those that are still running but that entire time was filled with a struggle to find itself.

It had never been a very populated game, but it did have a very loyal base of players who celebrated its uniqueness. It was a game about being a citizen of the Star Wars universe and it spawned three highly acclaimed expansions during its first two years. Then came the four and final expansion, and along with it a game overhaul known as the New Game Enhancements, which removed from the game its more unique professions while simplifying many other systems.

So many players protested the expansion that Sony eventually had to start offering refunds. The mass exodus of players that followed left many of the major player town deserted.

The game would have largely copied WoW 's model, adding a few unique features such as a cover system and public quests. Ensemble Studios was also working on Halo Wars at the time and ended up canceling the MMO to focus all their resources on that.

But it scratched that massively multiplayer itch. There are even late-game raids, something missing from even the most boss-focused loot games. And you know what? The auto-play feature of that game gives players a direct path to the endgame, something that is surprisingly comforting. But even my time with the most auto-questing MMO out there came to an end. But hey, it was a good few weeks! But these kinds of thoughts are hard to untangle. Which needs to adapt more to get back to what I used to enjoy in this genre.

I really do wish a game would lock me in again. And with some of the leaps in loot game design, I feel confident that a developer is going to be able to draw me in eventually. Right now, I think I would be. I miss it. Yeah i want an albion like game that isnt a shit top down game that promotes ganking, so do a lot of people. Whats wrong with segmenting the server? They do that anyways with tons of stuff… crafting, pve, world pvp, instanced pvp, gathering, housing etc.

The problem is that open world PvP inherently promotes ganking. If you want fair fights, you need structured PvP like arenas. But the full loot PvP group complain about that. The problem is that what you want is full loot PvP with some kind of honorable solo or fair fight PvP system.

If a group has people, and then 3 people want to PvP with 3v3 fights in open PvP, how do you determine which 3 of the people get to 3v3? You need a flagging system, which is anti-open PvP. If you auto-flag the first 3 people attacked, then the small 3 man group can focus whoever they want and largely ignore the stronger players.

MANY people have had issues with broken promises and getting refunds. The lawsuits have been covered quite extensively. Big deal. How much of that is left to finish the game? UO - 17k peak this year on official servers, not sure if I can count some statistics from internet though.

There are plenty of games like Day-z by the way. I was there with full loot games, I still do play them. What makes these games still playable? Many things, and I really mean it. This is how games worked back in the day, you were literally smashed either by too hard riddles, too much skill required to do something, or players.

But people still did play these games because they liked lots of elements in them. A game takes a bit more investment to get up and running. The market is too small to defend such an investment. Players expect more of their games today. Would Ultima Online have survived if it had been made today? With its current graphics? There are too much expectations on graphics and gameplay elements, a massive shift in the general MMO player and not that high interest in open loot PvP games.

They could invest M on such a game and maybe get half of that back. And the open world PvP was so popular in UO they seperated it into Trammel and Felucia and trammel was by far more popular. Hahaha you are delusional and a clear pve bob. People want a risk factor that makes the game fun in pvp, endlessly killing people for no reason and dying to them with no penalty is boring for a lot of people.

The mechanics are great for a game like this and yeah full loot drop everywhere would be bad but a small zone that would also not have ganking would be sick for the tons of people that want it.