WoW is still massive btw and the latest xpac seems to be a success so far.
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024
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Patient Gamers
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Dead? WoW, FFXIV, RuneScape, ESO, have millions of players. What world do you live in that these games are dead?
Just because people still log in to grind dailies and world quests doesn't mean the game has the same presence in pop culture it used to. I remember seeing commercials with Ozzy for wotlk, people would talk about the game, you'd see references to it, there was a south park episode about it. It's just not that relevant or popular anymore.
You don't see those commercials anymore because television isn't relevant anymore. The internet is full of ads for the new WoW expansion, just like it was full of ads for the new XIV expansion and ESO expansion when those released.
Commercials weren't the only example I listed.
I consume as much media as anyone, a lot of gaming content, and I don't recall seeing a single WoW ad in years, not on websites, youtube, or streaming, Maybe you see those ads because you play WoW or other mmos. I haven't heard any streamers talking about it, no articles or memes outside of dedicated communities.
I'm not saying those things dont exist. I'm just saying, as a general consumer of gaming media, it really doesn't come up nearly as often as it used to. It's more niche now, less mainstream. Which, unfortunately, means the player base is less dynamic.
Look you can go to the WoW, FFXIV, ESO, and OSRS subreddits or search for them on Twitter and see that the communities are still extremely active for these games. WoW has 75k on Twitch right now and MMOs are awful stream games. If you don't use mainstream platforms you're not getting an accurate read on what the mainstream opinions are.
Do you see the latest WoW expansion discussed anywhere on Lemmy?
I only look at [email protected], which has a 3 comments on a 4 days post, maybe I'm missing something?
You don't see anything except Linux discussed on Lemmy because Lemmy has a couple thousand active users. There are Facebook groups bigger than the entire fediverse.
I think you're missing that lemmy is a pretty tiny slice of the internet and niche(ish) communities either don't exist or are mostly inactive. Just because something doesn't seem to be making waves on lemmy, doesn't mean it isn't popular. The community for it just isn't really here (yet).
Indeed, so that's my point.
There were quite active BG3 and Helldivers 2 communities when they released as those are worldwide hits.
If you look at [email protected] vs [email protected], you instantly see which one is a more active game.
https://steamdb.info/app/553850/charts/
https://steamdb.info/app/39210/charts/
I probably just wouldn't use lemmy as an indicator of popularity/activity levels.
Just a thought, maybe the MMO player base is just aging out? I started with WoW back in 2005, I just don't have the bandwidth in life anymore for an MMO. I imagine that is a similar feeling for a lot of us millennials.
I miss that feeling a little bit. My undiagnosed-ADHD highschool self with like 18 characters hovering around level 20, never maxing one out because the ~30-40 slog was real, just chatting up strangers for fun while hopping around various towns' mailboxes and occasionally actually doing game content. (Remember when Barrens chat was a meme for basically being like the /b/ of WoW? LOL)
... And it didn't feel like impending doom or that I was somehow wasting my life away. It's just what I did after school and that was alright.
It's how I met my wife though, so it all worked out. :)
I could go on for days but WoW's peak was a neat way to build social skills while being behind an avatar kept you from being too vulnerable.
I feel like online gaming now has gotten so anti-social and that the mere fear of potential toxicity just has everyone locked up and suspicious; Afraid to talk to anyone they don't already know. Thanks to, what, basically Discord? Game chats are completely dead.
I remember trying Guild Wars 2 and thinking every other player might as well just be a bot because nobody interacted. :(
I remember trying Guild Wars 2 and thinking every other player might as well just be a bot because nobody interacted. :(
I'm sorry that was your experience, but this is very much opposite of mine. Not only is the game still going strong (new expac came out like two weeks ago btw, and it's pretty good!), but in all my years playing (and that's been since Day 1), I've had so many fun interactions in the game.
And that's without even counting the ones with my guilds. I've even had some fun chats in ranked PvP, the saltiest place in the game. I'm playing in European servers, which probably doesn't change much versus NA, but yeah, there are often conversations going on in map chat, or locally, between total strangers. Also between teams in WvW, during events, during festivals, waiting at the Wall after the Chak Gerent...
It's a very friendly community and I encourage you to give it another try! And yeah, if you can find a guild suited to your tastes it's even better!
I don't think they're dead. They were wildly popular in the earlier days of the internet when it was still a relatively small place. Now there's more people playing games than ever before. And a much lower proportion playing MMOs
Old School RuneScape is alive and well, we got a new boss yesterday, and we've been getting drip-fed content all year this year.
I’m attempting to host a private Ragnarok Online server for my small group of friends. Its a shame that game is all but forgotten, the music has not been topped… except by ffxiv maybe.
Ragnarok was so weirdly awesome. I loved how unique it was and somehow the jank was charming. The sprites and job tree were fantastic too, and I could listen to that music all day. :D
When the kids these days called the jupiteros music the roblox theme, i lost my shit. (BGM89 we have lee but you don’t have)
My GAWD the game was CHARMING. I loved the broken English, i loved all of the classes, I loved all the friends I made… RO legit probably saved my life. I had a bad time in school and it was my escape. I wasn’t sure if I loved Moonlight Flower or wanted to be her.
Never did get that GTB card. DID get Angeling for my GC ‘sader! And an ice pick for my SD SinX.
I miss that game so much. But it’s not the same.
HMU if you do and want another player, it’s my favorite game of all time. SoundTEMP did SO GOOD with the music… I still listen to the soundtrack today. Bless them for just including the MP3s with the game.
I generally just don't play a lot of online games anymore. I have a job where I have to deal with people all day, so the last thing I want to do is go home and deal with angry people while I'm trying to relax!
I do play some Elder Scrolls Online and Star Trek Online, but I primarily do single player content. The normal extent of my interaction with human players is to help them if they need help, or to thank them if they help me.
I stopped playing MMORPGs around the Blitzchung incident. FF14 didn't hook me the same way WoW did, and Warframe isn't really an RPG, but it did end up filling the space.
I am playing turtle wow—a private server game.
It’s mostly like the vanilla wow, but has some optimized updates.
I haven't seen a lot of chatter around live-service games in Patient Gamers communities in general over the years, but from what I can tell, very little of the Warcraft community made it over to Lemmy. I can think of a couple possible explanations for that.
First, because everyone uses Discord for voice chat over WoW anyway, with the Reddit exodus last year, Discord was always a more natural fit for discussion. Second, /r/wow has increasingly become a place for discussion around the game among former players, especially after Shadowlands. Seeking out a new space on Lemmy and actually participating in the necessary, proactive contributions to grow a community requires more enthusiasm than I think the jaded players have.
It certainly feels like there are fewer MMO players, but I'm not sure. I think we can be certain that younger players are being captured by different forms of live-service games though (shooters, various gacha) rather than traditional MMOs.
The next war in foxhole starts today, it's a war MMO and I highly recommend it. No subscription (one time $30 purchase on steam), no microtransactions, no paid expansions, no cosmetic bs, grind is optional. New players are in the same spot as veterans, all resources are shared (regiments/people can have private stockpiles, but they decay after 48 hours of being inactive) and are all made by players. You don't get anything for making or transporting supplies except for the joy of supporting the war effort - which is good because if no one made supplies, no one could fight.
Want to chill? Mine scrap and make basic materials, throw in your nearest seaport for anyone to take (or put in your regiments stockpile if you're in one). Or transport supplies from far backline stockpiles to Frontline/closer via truck, train, or boat. Or drive supplies to the Frontline, just make sure you have a gas mask and radio! Or make bullets, medical supplies, or anything else in the game at factories. Or trucks, cars, boats, tanks, trains, etc.
Want to plan? Either start building up production centers at the start of the war, rebuild them as we take land, or build defenses in the backline or on the front.
Want to fight? Get on a ship crew in an artillery gun and listen to your captain to tell you when and where to fire. Get in a tank with a crew and go balls to the wall on the front line. Grab a gun and some supplies and charge into trench warfare. Mortars? Yep. RPG's? Yep. Want to be a doctor? Move with friendlies and fix them up when they get messed up, or carry them back to your hospital to get new supplies for people to spawn from.
Want to be sneaky? Sneak past the Frontline and sabotage their logistics people or buildings.
Want to be a gigachad? Join the wardens now.
I keep looking at Foxhole, but I've never tried it yet. Is the non combat segment of the game pretty chill overall? I'm not really a big fan of competitive MMOs, but the behind the scenes aspect does interest me. I hear about a decent amount of positivity in the playerbase, but I've definitely heard negativity about the recent state of the game.
I used to be a heavy industrial player in EVE Online and Foxhole fills the hole, surprisingly. Each faction has at least one group whose sole purpose is logistics, and they're both decent.
FF14 has taken over most of the MMO hype, but plenty of others like Runescape and Path of Exile are also doing really well. It's just that if you don't have people you know actively playing them, you won't hear much about it.
A handful if my PoE friends have picked up Last Epoch which I've found to be more approachable. Little less MMO but a very similar game.
Guild wars 2 just released a new expac and I've been really enjoying it. Lots of people online, so I'd say not dead at all.
Is it still approachable if you’re someone who hasn’t played since before there were expansions for gw2? Asking for a … friend.
I'm probably not the best judge cause I've been playing semi regularly since launch, but I'd guess it's a really good time actually.
Long story short they've recently changed to a yearly expansion model with smaller scale expansions that tell more contained stories. The first one was pretty rocky, not gonna lie, but this new one is really good so far.
If you're someone who wants to go through the entire story and catch up you've got a very long road ahead of you (up to you whether that sounds good or not), but if you wanted to get back in quickly the new expansion is a totally reasonable starting point I'd say. You won't get a lot of the references, but I think you'd still get plenty of enjoyment being dumped in. I'm guessing it would feel like picking up a long running book series on book 20--there are lots of references and characters you don't know, but it's also doing its best to catch you up as a new reader and not expecting you've read it all.
Aside from story stuff, the game has had a bit of a Renaissance lately and there are a lot of new players from what I can tell.
This is EXACTLY what I was wondering about, thanks so much!!!
Good to know they acknowledge that not everyone is interested in the ff14-esque story grind where you have to travel from start through finish. Definitely going to at least check it out. Heard something about where you can do dungeons solo-party? I think that was gw2.
Anyways the book series comparison is perfect 👌
Heard something about where you can do dungeons solo-party? I think that was gw2.
"Dungeons" as a general term is understood to be "group content".
In GW2, these are:
- Dungeons, which you go through with the Core (base game) story, then are available as a max level (don't worry, you get there fast) content with 3/4 different paths each. They are made so you go through with 5 people. There's a LFG system which (while ugly,) works and if you don't find one you can just put up a group yourself with the title "Ascalon Catacombs - Story Mode" or "Caudecus Manor - 1st Path (or P1)", and it should fill up pretty fast. However, once you have enough mastery over your character, you should be able to solo them. I don't recommend expecting to be able to solo them easily right off the bat, however.
- Fractals, which are also 5-men content, and are accessible from max level. Those go in difficulty degrees from 1 to 100, and also have a LFG section dedicated to them. Like Dungeons, you could I guess solo them, however this gets harder the higher level you go, and I honestly consider people who can solo the higher levels as madmen.
- Strikes are 10-men content, and are shorter (one boss) events, and go from easy to hard content to go through. They are usually considered end-game content already. With 10 people. I suppose some of the easier ones are soloable, but that seems like an absolute slog to me and very un-fun. A few of them have challenge modes for the challenge-addicted.
- Raids are older content (though they are bringing back a new one in the current expac) which are the highest level of difficulty available of content (though the challenge strikes are harder than some raids, iirc). Those are harder to get into because of the smaller population of dedicated players, you usually need to find a raiding guild to get some training runs in so you can then find a regular roster. I'm honestly not sure how it is nowadays, but my experience with them is limited because I did not enjoy that difficulty level.
- Group Instances are 50-men content, limited in number but generally accessible in difficulty. You just generally pop up at the entry spot whenever it is time for the public entry, then get randomly assigned to an instance completing it (although you can find specialized squads doing them if you look). Those are not soloable, but you don't need to speak with anyone as people generally know what they have to do and manage to get through.
- I guess World Bosses count also? Those are open world, so just be there a bit before the event starts and you'll have enough people waiting to do them on the map, so while again they are not "solo", you don't actually need to talk to anyone to get your fill of content.
Thank you!! Fantastic comment content.
I’m not sure exactly what I was referring to earlier, because it’s not in your description 😂 Too much longbottom leaf. I love that they put raids in tho! That’s my jam.
By MMO you mean MMORPG specifically? Because MMO in general is the most popular type of games imo... League of Legends, Dota, Fortnite, Valorant, Overwatch - all are super popular. Regarding MMORPG, I see a lot of youngsters play Genshin. I've personally been playing a classless WoW pserver lately.
How the hell are League of Legends or Valorant considered MMOs? Are Rocket League or Team Fortress 2 MMOs? Is Battlefield 5 an MMO now?
The expansion of this term to include 5v5 games is never not going to piss me off.
I always considered "MMO" as a synonym for "multiplayer". Anyway, if you take the word "massively" into account, you could also treat is as "massive number of players you could POTENTIALLY reach by joining one of the rooms" (word "potentially" as opposed to "actually reaching at any given moment"). In actual MMORPGs it's not like you can actually interact with all the people online at the same time, you still are limited by geometry and game logic of the world at least, like no one will ever gather in a single town because people are doing other stuff, or are from enemy factions, etc. And in many MMORPGs there is instancing going on, so even players in mob farming locations can be assigned to different instances and not see each other because of reasons.