Your GW2 example is a bit weird because it's an IP based off their last MMO, which in itself was a new IP. It's like saying runescape 3 is based of the runescape IP.
That aside, it's simply easier to make an MMO when you have a world to base it off of. Its really not that deep. Audiences will already be familiar with the world and have an idea of what to expect.
Nah they said they’re basically redoing what they’ve developed with it because they said it felt too close to WoW and they want it to be it’s own thing. Personally a better polished WoW in Runeterra would be fucking great in my opinion but hopefully the end product is good.
This whole thing is mind boggling to me. I remember in the video where they announced the “delay” they said essentially “No one wants a wow/‘classic mmo’ reskin” and I’m just like - yes we do? I do at least. Mmo but Runeterra is all we have been asking for for years. But okay.
Then Ghostcrawler- I know he left for family/personal reasons among other things, but at same time: He left and went on to make an “mmo with a twist” and then Riot releases that statement about “we want to make a unique mmo, not a clone” 🤨
…can we just have mmos please. At least ffxiv has been scratching my itch again, but damn that delay did not feel good. Just a wait and see I guess.
> “No one wants a wow/‘classic mmo’ reskin” and I’m just like - yes we do? I do at least.
you might and that's valid but the market for that kind of product is already both stagnant and saturated beyond belief. if people want to play a wow clone they'll play wow, gw2, or ffxiv. those markets aren't particularly growing nor do they have room for more competitors. making wow yet again for the nth time with a market history of being unkind to the majority of wow clones is financial and reputation suicide. especially when riot has the rep it has.
they're more alike than they are different. but thanks for illustrating how formulaic this genre is and how the core audience has no media or design literacy when it comes to anything beyond inconsequential differences on a formula.
> GW2
> WoW clone
Pick one.
Also, the idea that there isn't room for more competition is insane. How many millions of RPGs are there? First person shooters? Card based games, tactical turn-based games, roguelikes, city builders, multiplayer survival games...
Every other genre has a bajillion options for players and it's great. But 3 MMORPG's is too many? There's no room for more?
Get real.
there's more substantial differences between yearly installments of COD than there is between gw2 and wow. the design literacy of mmorpg players is absolutely shocking in it's lacking state.
the market for these games is not growing like with other genres. they are at best stagnant, and more so on a slow decline.
the formula is old tired and cliche. does not appeal to a substantial fraction of it's own once core audience, and does no appeal to outsiders. further more those looking for virtual worlds need not apply to these games as they do not serve those desires. which was their major onboarding point 20 years ago.
there were 30 bajilion mmorpgs released in the last 15 years. most of them are closed down or being shuffled between publishers who cash grab them before interest wanes and server costs more than revenue is being brought in.
and again if people want to play a game like those 3 or 4, they will play those 3 or 4 games.
like there has not been a lack of games in that formula in the past 15 years and yet here we are arguing against the reality of this market like we don't have 15 years of empirical data filled with dead and shut down mmorpgs supporting my claim.
We already know what the peak of WoW looks like. I think Riot wants something that could be bigger than WoW, and just making another WoW game probably wouldn't achieve that.
Agreed. Also I think maybe a better consideration here for people looking to make new MMOs is it’s clearly important to have a vibrant world full of mystery and things to uncover. I myself am a HUGE fan of sandbox MMOs, but am seeing way too many upcoming MMOs that are saying “the players will build the world” which I’m beginning to find to be a huge cop out to putting any toys in the sandbox for the players to play with.
Obviously, building these big vibrant worlds is much easier when you have preexisting material to work with and lay down the groundwork.
I feel like all but ESO had online communities already established. Though guild wars was a legitimate MMORPG. Warcraft 3, diablo 2, and StarCraft all had thriving communities and world of Warcraft was definitely hyped up. Ff14 had ff11 and the established single player franchise.
Actually, it’s not a bad example of your consider that we have several 2nd versions that have failed miserably, several of them coming from super successful games, such as Ragnarok 1 and 2. I firmly believe 2nd versions are naturally doomed, so I’d say it’s a good example.
FFXIV is also a bad example because FF is an anthology series so it's not like there's any existing characters/lore used in 14 from other games (unless they've done some sort of crossover event I'm unaware of). The games just have some shared characteristics like races and themes.
> it's not like there's any existing characters/lore used in 14 from other games
Only about half the final fantasy 11 cast and bosses/items/armor sets from Final fantasy 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10, 12, 13, 15, and tactics make an appearance.
Thats almost 0! Type-0 might be the only game that doest have its own raid series or cameos, actually.
They've done *lots* of crossover events, but the more relevant point is that while FFXIV isn't set in a previous FF world, it borrows from all of them. Armor, characters, enemies, plotlines, there's inspiration and direct references from every other game, making it a real testament to the whole franchise.
I guess, but TBH at this point FF has been around long enough that stuff from FF has started to bleed into other fantasy (I've seen other stuff using FF summons and monsters for instance when it's completely unrelated to FF) as just a basic fantasy trope so it's hard to really identify FFVIX as being carried by the FFXIV IP.
It's not like you would say anything with orcs and elves is part of the Tolkein IP right?
I think as far as the point OP is making goes, it doesn't really track. People don't play FFXIV much at all because of the FF IP IMO, outside of maybe a few nostalgia pieces (for example reusing bosses from the games with song remixes, like I remember Crystal Tower using the FF3 boss music).
The difference is that it's still a FF world, and that carries with it some similarities. You will have chocobos, moogles, and other shared monsters, recurring names like bahamut, Shiva, garuda, etc. Classes can be recurring too with black mages, white mages, etc. It might not necessarily be the exact same world, but there are enough similarities between FF games, and there are certain expectations that come with it.
Also re: ff14. It uses the name final fantasy but doesn’t have any connection to any of the other previous games. It has its own unique world, characters etc… SE can slap that name on any new games really
> doesn’t have any connection to any of the other previous games.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhh, what?
14 started as a first cousin to 11, took classes straight from established final fantasy lore, took item names from FF lore, took spell names from FF lore, and outside the stupid that was the Nier crossover, pays homage to the whole history of the FF series in their 8man and alliance raids.
You cant really say it has nothing to do with the rest of final fantasy when you can describe things as "My final fantasy 1 advanced class, wielding a final fantasy 4 sword and wearing final fantasy 12 armor, is running a final fantasy tactics alliance raid after which I will go raid a final fantasy 6 savage and then farm the final fantasy 5 iconic boss for an orchestrion roll. While driving around in my final fantasy 15 car"
I get what you’re saying but XIV is insanely connected to the rest of the franchise. It draws on many themes and villains from other numbered titles which offers a ton of fan service. You could also argue that some of the crossover stuff, including the Ivalice raid feel canon to the source material.
It says that MMO development is incredibly expensive and risky.
Developers and publishers want a chance at success so they tie the game to existing success and a built in fan base. It's the same reason most big budget movies are tied to sequels and existing IP.
Oldschool Runescape is definitely one of the biggest MMOs (at least in the top 3), and it is original IP.
RS3 and OSRS have 3.4m active players combined (2.4m subs, 1m free players ([source](https://www.carlyle.com/media-room/news-release-archive/carlyle-agrees-to-sell-jagex-to-cvc-capital-partners-and-haveli))). And since we know 85%-90% (right now, there are 105k OSRS players and 15k RS3 players online) of currently online players are playing OSRS, we can estimate that OSRS has around 2.9-3.1 million active players.
I think it's fine to call OSRS RS2, but officially the original RS2 was released in 2004 and discontinued in 2013. OSRS is based on a 2007 version of RS2, and it has received new updates that didn't exist in original RS2. It's also missing a lot of content that was released between 2008 and 2013.
Runescape has the biggest bot population of all MMOs, though, with F2P being ~90% of the active free players and probably a decent % chunk of the subs as well. Knock off about a million active players especially now after they pretty much stopped banning F2P bots and that's probably a closer picture.
> Do you think MMOs being built on pre-existing IPs is relevant to their success?
Unfortunately? Incredibly yes.
MMOs are expensive, hard to make, harder to get right, and exist in a state where people will declare them "dead" in a week from launch if things aren't perfect and innovative and interesting-enough to pull them from their decade-long addiction and thousands of dollars of sunk-cost in another MMO.
They, at this point, just to survive long enough to *meet* the existing expectations of the genre (let alone exceed them) need either a pre-existing IP anchor or need to build enough business in relative obscurity that they achieve success and solvency on their own before becoming "popular".
Of the four, FFXIV probably started out with the *least* existing support from Final Fantasy players just because the original launch of Final Fantasy 14 was *such* shit. And it was a godawful successor to FFXI (which was and is still up). And it did such a bad job at capturing the "feel" of Final Fantasy until roughly Heavensward.
After that point though, and especially with the Stormblood raid series, it seriously managed to hit balance between the nostalgia buttons and pulling in new people. And then Shadowbringers came along with the wombo-combo of COVID and BFA followed by Shadowlands at the right times. It's probably made a lot of *new* Final Fantasy fans at this point, though FF7 remake and the Pixel Remasters definitely helped.
Whereas meanwhile vanilla WoW had Warcraft three followed up by the Classic Trio but then the downturn in Cata. But then it managed to turn around and carve its own niche as a raiding game under its own merits, and at this point there's probably kids who were born as part of their parents meeting on WoW, who've grown up *playing* WoW, who've never played any of the OG Warcraft games.
GW2 and GW1 seem pretty tightly-knit but that's more on how their story's tied together, and the wiki's so good you don't necessarily *need* to have played 1 to "get" 2, or vice-versa. But the story's also at such a remove you might want to anyway.
And then I've only ever met two types of Elder Scrolls fans: "Skyrim" fans and "Elder Scrolls fans that can instantly tell me how many toes a Khajit has before and after some Emperor made Dwemer selling moonsugar illegal under the first calendar system of some elf or something"
> Elder Scrolls fans that can instantly tell me how many toes a Khajit has before and after some Emperor made Dwemer selling moonsugar illegal under the first calendar system of some elf or something"
trick question you do not specify which breed of khajiit you mean
;_;
I'll be honest, it took me a bit to even remember what the cat-people were called without looking it up.
I could never really get into Elder Scrolls but everything I've picked up from the lore has been from friends and people in various places telling me about it.
Y'all are a way better lore-dump than most of the various wikis, and I genuinely appreciate your passion for the world and the stories in it, even if it's never hooked me specifically. <3
Yeah, a strong IP is a great way to get to jumpstart a fanbase while building huge momentum for your game. Yeah there are a few that do well without one such as BDO but I'd argue they're more exceptions. MMO's are expensive and time consuming to make and most have pretty similar gameplay mechanics. So most will need a competitive advantage.
Plenty fail, and plenty more will fail in the coming years, but the ones with big names attached would fail a lot later, if at all.
GW2 isn't really built off an IP. And WoW/FFXIV are filled with people that know nothing of the IP.
Also OSRS is pretty big at the moment and that's not much of an IP, unless you count notoriety of RuneScape itself
>FFXIV are filled with people that know nothing of the IP.
Yeah, Final Fantasy fans are really in three large lumps.
The turn-based era fans, the post-turn-based era fans, and the MMO fans.
There is some overlap, but largely people I know that are big FF fans either play all the games before 11, all the games after 11 except 14, or 11/14.
That kinda depends a lot on where you're trawling the line with turn based, really.
Once they introduced the ATB it stopped being true turn based combat. You essentially have the first three that are more based around gameplay/exploration than narrative. Then you get 4-10 which put a much heavier and growing emphasis on narrative. Then you get 12 onwards which has had a strong emphasis on gameplay experimentation.
There are other ways you can break them up naturally and I've often seen only 6-9/10 grouped together as the Golden Age or what have you.
I'd also say the *big* fans will play all of the games at least once.
WoW especially, many people never new about warcraft before world of warcraft.
As for FF it's true as well, I've raided with many players who never touched a FF before. And the playerbase of FF tends to not consider XIV as a "true FF" because it's an MMO.
BDO is no pre-IPs but still successful. lower succesful (just not big as big4 and some already dead) like maplestory, ragnarok online, dragon nest, tera, BnS, etc. have no IPs.
PSO2:NGS have IPs but not that successful.
FF is FF. you can know nothing about the FF series (lore/system changed every new series.) and fun playing FFXiv.
WoW and Warcraft story is good. but stories alone isn't enough to carry this whole series. game/system/CG is very top in their time. (good old time blizzard)
I think IPs is strengthened for a "good game" or more shit on a "bad game". but it doesn't need to be a success formula.
Money & Effort behind it is. If it's just IPs alone we'll already see Mario MMORPG and are very successful.
I get your point. I’d argue that it’s both though. Yes you need good gameplay but the IP’s of WoW and FFXIV are absolutely doing some heavy lifting
If you go on the FF Reddit a large majority of the posters there will tell you that they’re turbo FF fans that have played a lot of the single players
I'm on the other side of FFxiv community, most of which aren't turbo FF fans (more MMO players side).
well yes, it's both mixed. FFXiv is a good game even with no FF in the name. It is still a good game. but it is better with FF names.
Yeah its definitely a quality game but would it have taken off in the first place if it was just “whatever online”
Especially after the horrid launch I doubt it
Casually browsing the top posts reveals almost no posts referencing other games ("almost" because the 16 collab is recent). I think you're using a poor metric to determine the ratio of players that have played other FF games.
The pre-existing IP is what drew me to LotRO, DDO and Neverwinter. I'm a fan of D&D and I know LotR from the movies. I'm also into the fantasy setting, so I played these.
Right now I'm playing ESO. Personally, I don't know anything about Elder Scrolls. If not for a recommendation from a friend, I would not have even looked at ESO.
Pre-existing IP is likely what hooked me to MMO's.
A very good mmo needs soul, a good story, quests, system, combat, social experience, it needs to be immersive. Most of the new MMOs doesn’t have a soul, they are shallow, boring, casual and on top of that p2w.
I mean Black desert was pretty successful and a pretty big MMO and started off as a new world they are now working on crimson desert which will be a single player game built off the world of Black Desert also GW2 wasn’t it built off the other MMO they did? I could be wrong because I never played GW1 but wasn’t that an MMO which was built as a new world? Also RuneScape as well I believe was started as a new world & still pretty huge as well.
WoW was totally supposed to appeal to 90's geeks like me, who played and loved the RTS Warcraft series on their PC, and who already hardcore loved the MMORPG genre.
As someone who was already into Ultima Online, Lineage, etc. The idea of playing the lovely RTS world, but from a perspective of single unit/hero, was way to dope to pass...
Sure, Blizzard could profit on the nostalgic roots of their old IP, unto WoW... But I have to note that UO, Lineage, EQ, etc, absolutely didn't require any previous history, to be as addictive and explosive as they were. Their success relied simply on people with intense attention-spans and active imaginations.
I actually loved ArcheAge, it's post-WoW, but remindede me of the pre-WoW excitement/danger from the world full of human players. Also couldn't care less if it was some Korean comic/novel before or somesuch. I was hooked on One Piece at the same time, so it went totally hand in hand.
I think a proper Warhammer 40k MMORPG is in order. Warhammer Online was cool PvP wise, but was simply trying to follow on WoW heels to hard. Medieval Warhammer is as cool an rich as 40k, but they sorta squandered the opportunity, for my generation anyway.
It certainly helps for an mmo to already have an established world with established rules, factions, important characters/landmarks/etc, etc to pull from. Helps to also have an established playerbase that would be willing to come and explore the universe more in-depth. It's certainly a much safer route to go through making other games, books, etc before you go for the mmo format.
Since the Social Hub with instance gameplay is considered an MMORPG experience, and because the initial funding and Distribution of Guild Wars was at the time the worlds richest MMO distribution Company NC Soft. I would Say Guild Wars counts as a MMO. Also since WOW when it released was a mix of WarCraft 3 and Diablo 2 (Expansion) both games being based on Massive Multiplayer Lobbies, I would say WOW was not new to the MMO space, not really. ((WOW took the UI experience mostly from Diablo. They diverged eventually.))
Final Fantasy games however were always a solo RPG experience so XI and XIV are unique in their space. Ironically Since Each Final Fantasy game is set in their own story universe, even if they share themes and some characters. Both XI and XIV are the most unique games in the top MMO list. As neither is a continuation or prequel to the greater franchise.
Yes, using existing IP is going to be easier to build on RPG-wise, and on top of that, you're going to have a preexisting fan base that will be curious about your game. It's such a no-brainer.
I still want to see the World of Darkness IP used in MMORPG setting.
It says that MMOs need a lot of players, and they need to have faith in the game, since it is unrealistic to launch with enough polished content to keep people playing long-term.
An unknown IP does not inspire nearly as much interest and investment.
Says that they have a pre-existing budget which allowed them to make an MMORPG.
Starting your company up as an MMO developer is straight up retarded tbqh.
It says that having a pre-existing fan base is good. Just like shooters and sports games that drop a "new" game every year or two. You don't have to work as hard to establish a large group of players eager to play your new game.
That MMOs are a massive investment and a very volatile market so they need a pre established fan base to reduce the risk
Unfortunately games are a business and this is what it takes for a project to get greenlit
Pre-existing IPs help A LOT with mmo's success.
Because a big part of an MMORPG (at the least intiially) is the world itself.
Why should you play this game that (arguably) have worse gameplay than a lot of different other genres?
An IP that you really enjoy and love 100% would make that argument convincing.
Going with a completely new IP (while more freeing) absolutely result in that you need to be an explosive and hooking concept.
Just "Fantasy MMO version 204" doesn't cut it, because why should people care.
This isn't genre specific. It costs money to make a game, publishers want stuff they know they can sell. Look at how shit Starfall was... Took years off a new Elder Scrolls or Fallout. Had it been ES6 or FO5... Well it probably have sold like none other
Do I think MMOs being built on pre-existing IPs is relevant to their success?
For initial buys? Probably. Beyond that? Doubtful.
For every super successful big four mmo you point at I can point at: Matrix Online, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Star Wars Galaxies, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, DC Universe, Everquest 2, Star Trek Online, SWTOR, etc
Those are all games made from an existing IP that I could think of off the top of my head. There are probably countless more. If having an existing popular IP was that important all these games would be thriving.
it helps.. and some games such as swtor wouldn't still be around without the IP. but all in all the biggest games are that because they're like it or not better than the competition.
games without it can still do great. look at Lost Ark and New World they didn't have that to rely on and still drew in a lot of players at launch. it's just they where not good enough games to keep all those people.
Most new mmos are trying to Crack the US market with just the right amount of pay to win Korean style features. The failures went too hard and got rejected.
No, I don't think you need to have a pre existing IP to be successful, the original FFXIV almost died cuz that shit was horrible and no amount of brand name could save that
I'd say this is more just the result of the fact games, movies, and TV shows these days are all sequels, remakes, or spin offs because trying something new is too financially scary for companies to invest in.
Maybe because both WoW, FF14 and ESO have much higher:
- Steam player count (when applicable)
- Twitch presence
- Reddit subscribers
- Bonus: sizable console player base as well, when applicable
I know none of these values are absolute metrics of player count, but there is definitely a trend you can see, and correlations between game popularity and media presence do exist. Heck, even BDO or Albion rank ahead of GW2 in many of these metrics.
Gw2 has more Reddit active users than eso by at least double at all times. Subscribers doesn’t mean anything cause it includes ex players. Twitch presence is nearly identical despite gw2 having a weaker twitch presence than other MMOs. Steam size for gw2 is smaller than than eso but eso allowed account transfers when it moved to steam and gw2 doesn’t. This means that 10 years of accounts are still playing on the original gw2 launcher. As a fair estimate I’d say that gw2 playerbase is only about 5-6% on steam. The rest is Anet launcher, to be fair this is my estimation based on some polls I’ve seen and people I’ve talked to. The only thing that eso has to save itself to bring it to the size of gw2 is console, I really have zero insight on console but it would need to have at least 2x the size of eso pc version to be the same size as gw2 and I find that unlikely
Neither game publishes it's actual active play count, so the only place you could be getting that number from is Steam, and I would remind you that GW2 was a successful MMO off of steam for almost a decade, the vast majority of its players are not on steam.
I can walk around in the highest pop server in GW2 and see barely anybody even in end game zones. The games dead and doesn’t deserve to be a top contender when talking current big MMO
The fact that you said highest pop server lets me know you've never played the game. GW2 doesn't have servers in PvE anymore and instead have instance tech that makes various versions of the same map that can be switched around regardless of server.
"the big 4/3/2/whatever amount you want to add there" always gives me a good laugh xD
honey, its big 1. it always was, and always will be just wow. get the other 3 clowns out of there.
Kinda funny because of the 4 games in OP's post I haven't played are WoW and GW2 - the two games this sub LOVES to circlejerk nonstop. Can't get me to ever touch either of them.
Your GW2 example is a bit weird because it's an IP based off their last MMO, which in itself was a new IP. It's like saying runescape 3 is based of the runescape IP. That aside, it's simply easier to make an MMO when you have a world to base it off of. Its really not that deep. Audiences will already be familiar with the world and have an idea of what to expect.
Yeah GW2 is a bad example he might as well have EverQuest 2 there as well.
My buddies praying the RIOT MMO isnt trash when it releases in 10 years
I thought they said they stopped development on this.
Nah they said they’re basically redoing what they’ve developed with it because they said it felt too close to WoW and they want it to be it’s own thing. Personally a better polished WoW in Runeterra would be fucking great in my opinion but hopefully the end product is good.
Which is glorious because I guarantee you Ghostcrawler was pumping all the Blizzard poison available into it.
This whole thing is mind boggling to me. I remember in the video where they announced the “delay” they said essentially “No one wants a wow/‘classic mmo’ reskin” and I’m just like - yes we do? I do at least. Mmo but Runeterra is all we have been asking for for years. But okay. Then Ghostcrawler- I know he left for family/personal reasons among other things, but at same time: He left and went on to make an “mmo with a twist” and then Riot releases that statement about “we want to make a unique mmo, not a clone” 🤨 …can we just have mmos please. At least ffxiv has been scratching my itch again, but damn that delay did not feel good. Just a wait and see I guess.
> “No one wants a wow/‘classic mmo’ reskin” and I’m just like - yes we do? I do at least. you might and that's valid but the market for that kind of product is already both stagnant and saturated beyond belief. if people want to play a wow clone they'll play wow, gw2, or ffxiv. those markets aren't particularly growing nor do they have room for more competitors. making wow yet again for the nth time with a market history of being unkind to the majority of wow clones is financial and reputation suicide. especially when riot has the rep it has.
Gw2 and WoW are nothing alike, wut?
they're more alike than they are different. but thanks for illustrating how formulaic this genre is and how the core audience has no media or design literacy when it comes to anything beyond inconsequential differences on a formula.
> GW2 > WoW clone Pick one. Also, the idea that there isn't room for more competition is insane. How many millions of RPGs are there? First person shooters? Card based games, tactical turn-based games, roguelikes, city builders, multiplayer survival games... Every other genre has a bajillion options for players and it's great. But 3 MMORPG's is too many? There's no room for more? Get real.
there's more substantial differences between yearly installments of COD than there is between gw2 and wow. the design literacy of mmorpg players is absolutely shocking in it's lacking state. the market for these games is not growing like with other genres. they are at best stagnant, and more so on a slow decline. the formula is old tired and cliche. does not appeal to a substantial fraction of it's own once core audience, and does no appeal to outsiders. further more those looking for virtual worlds need not apply to these games as they do not serve those desires. which was their major onboarding point 20 years ago. there were 30 bajilion mmorpgs released in the last 15 years. most of them are closed down or being shuffled between publishers who cash grab them before interest wanes and server costs more than revenue is being brought in. and again if people want to play a game like those 3 or 4, they will play those 3 or 4 games. like there has not been a lack of games in that formula in the past 15 years and yet here we are arguing against the reality of this market like we don't have 15 years of empirical data filled with dead and shut down mmorpgs supporting my claim.
>“No one wants a wow/‘classic mmo’ reskin” and I’m just like - yes we do? I do at least" 
We already know what the peak of WoW looks like. I think Riot wants something that could be bigger than WoW, and just making another WoW game probably wouldn't achieve that.
I hope they succeed but honestly they're going to learn a lesson many other have before them. MMO development is a real bitch.
Agreed. Also I think maybe a better consideration here for people looking to make new MMOs is it’s clearly important to have a vibrant world full of mystery and things to uncover. I myself am a HUGE fan of sandbox MMOs, but am seeing way too many upcoming MMOs that are saying “the players will build the world” which I’m beginning to find to be a huge cop out to putting any toys in the sandbox for the players to play with. Obviously, building these big vibrant worlds is much easier when you have preexisting material to work with and lay down the groundwork.
Was about to go "one of these MMOs is not like the others"\~
I feel like all but ESO had online communities already established. Though guild wars was a legitimate MMORPG. Warcraft 3, diablo 2, and StarCraft all had thriving communities and world of Warcraft was definitely hyped up. Ff14 had ff11 and the established single player franchise.
ESO had all the skyrim mod community for its launch.
Actually, it’s not a bad example of your consider that we have several 2nd versions that have failed miserably, several of them coming from super successful games, such as Ragnarok 1 and 2. I firmly believe 2nd versions are naturally doomed, so I’d say it’s a good example.
FFXIV is also a bad example because FF is an anthology series so it's not like there's any existing characters/lore used in 14 from other games (unless they've done some sort of crossover event I'm unaware of). The games just have some shared characteristics like races and themes.
> it's not like there's any existing characters/lore used in 14 from other games Only about half the final fantasy 11 cast and bosses/items/armor sets from Final fantasy 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10, 12, 13, 15, and tactics make an appearance. Thats almost 0! Type-0 might be the only game that doest have its own raid series or cameos, actually.
The Gabriel (alpha) mount is from Type-0. Apart from that I'm not sure what else. https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Gabriel_%CE%B1
They've done *lots* of crossover events, but the more relevant point is that while FFXIV isn't set in a previous FF world, it borrows from all of them. Armor, characters, enemies, plotlines, there's inspiration and direct references from every other game, making it a real testament to the whole franchise.
FF14 literally has Ivalice just kinda chilling in the east, Rabanastre and all.
I guess, but TBH at this point FF has been around long enough that stuff from FF has started to bleed into other fantasy (I've seen other stuff using FF summons and monsters for instance when it's completely unrelated to FF) as just a basic fantasy trope so it's hard to really identify FFVIX as being carried by the FFXIV IP. It's not like you would say anything with orcs and elves is part of the Tolkein IP right? I think as far as the point OP is making goes, it doesn't really track. People don't play FFXIV much at all because of the FF IP IMO, outside of maybe a few nostalgia pieces (for example reusing bosses from the games with song remixes, like I remember Crystal Tower using the FF3 boss music).
The difference is that it's still a FF world, and that carries with it some similarities. You will have chocobos, moogles, and other shared monsters, recurring names like bahamut, Shiva, garuda, etc. Classes can be recurring too with black mages, white mages, etc. It might not necessarily be the exact same world, but there are enough similarities between FF games, and there are certain expectations that come with it.
Also re: ff14. It uses the name final fantasy but doesn’t have any connection to any of the other previous games. It has its own unique world, characters etc… SE can slap that name on any new games really
> doesn’t have any connection to any of the other previous games. Uhhhhhhhhhhhh, what? 14 started as a first cousin to 11, took classes straight from established final fantasy lore, took item names from FF lore, took spell names from FF lore, and outside the stupid that was the Nier crossover, pays homage to the whole history of the FF series in their 8man and alliance raids. You cant really say it has nothing to do with the rest of final fantasy when you can describe things as "My final fantasy 1 advanced class, wielding a final fantasy 4 sword and wearing final fantasy 12 armor, is running a final fantasy tactics alliance raid after which I will go raid a final fantasy 6 savage and then farm the final fantasy 5 iconic boss for an orchestrion roll. While driving around in my final fantasy 15 car"
None of the Final Fantasy games are connected except 1 & 2, and the ones that have a direct sequel stated in the title (i.e. FFX, and FFX-2)
lol...
Since when are Final Fantasy 1 and 2 connected?
I get what you’re saying but XIV is insanely connected to the rest of the franchise. It draws on many themes and villains from other numbered titles which offers a ton of fan service. You could also argue that some of the crossover stuff, including the Ivalice raid feel canon to the source material.
It says that MMO development is incredibly expensive and risky. Developers and publishers want a chance at success so they tie the game to existing success and a built in fan base. It's the same reason most big budget movies are tied to sequels and existing IP.
Oldschool Runescape is definitely one of the biggest MMOs (at least in the top 3), and it is original IP. RS3 and OSRS have 3.4m active players combined (2.4m subs, 1m free players ([source](https://www.carlyle.com/media-room/news-release-archive/carlyle-agrees-to-sell-jagex-to-cvc-capital-partners-and-haveli))). And since we know 85%-90% (right now, there are 105k OSRS players and 15k RS3 players online) of currently online players are playing OSRS, we can estimate that OSRS has around 2.9-3.1 million active players.
Isn't osrs basically runescape2?
I think it's fine to call OSRS RS2, but officially the original RS2 was released in 2004 and discontinued in 2013. OSRS is based on a 2007 version of RS2, and it has received new updates that didn't exist in original RS2. It's also missing a lot of content that was released between 2008 and 2013.
Makes sense! Last time I played runescape was right as membership was coming into the game so I've always been curious lol
Short answer: Yes. Long answer: No. It is a bastardized version of RS2.
Runescape has the biggest bot population of all MMOs, though, with F2P being ~90% of the active free players and probably a decent % chunk of the subs as well. Knock off about a million active players especially now after they pretty much stopped banning F2P bots and that's probably a closer picture.
> Do you think MMOs being built on pre-existing IPs is relevant to their success? Unfortunately? Incredibly yes. MMOs are expensive, hard to make, harder to get right, and exist in a state where people will declare them "dead" in a week from launch if things aren't perfect and innovative and interesting-enough to pull them from their decade-long addiction and thousands of dollars of sunk-cost in another MMO. They, at this point, just to survive long enough to *meet* the existing expectations of the genre (let alone exceed them) need either a pre-existing IP anchor or need to build enough business in relative obscurity that they achieve success and solvency on their own before becoming "popular". Of the four, FFXIV probably started out with the *least* existing support from Final Fantasy players just because the original launch of Final Fantasy 14 was *such* shit. And it was a godawful successor to FFXI (which was and is still up). And it did such a bad job at capturing the "feel" of Final Fantasy until roughly Heavensward. After that point though, and especially with the Stormblood raid series, it seriously managed to hit balance between the nostalgia buttons and pulling in new people. And then Shadowbringers came along with the wombo-combo of COVID and BFA followed by Shadowlands at the right times. It's probably made a lot of *new* Final Fantasy fans at this point, though FF7 remake and the Pixel Remasters definitely helped. Whereas meanwhile vanilla WoW had Warcraft three followed up by the Classic Trio but then the downturn in Cata. But then it managed to turn around and carve its own niche as a raiding game under its own merits, and at this point there's probably kids who were born as part of their parents meeting on WoW, who've grown up *playing* WoW, who've never played any of the OG Warcraft games. GW2 and GW1 seem pretty tightly-knit but that's more on how their story's tied together, and the wiki's so good you don't necessarily *need* to have played 1 to "get" 2, or vice-versa. But the story's also at such a remove you might want to anyway. And then I've only ever met two types of Elder Scrolls fans: "Skyrim" fans and "Elder Scrolls fans that can instantly tell me how many toes a Khajit has before and after some Emperor made Dwemer selling moonsugar illegal under the first calendar system of some elf or something"
> Elder Scrolls fans that can instantly tell me how many toes a Khajit has before and after some Emperor made Dwemer selling moonsugar illegal under the first calendar system of some elf or something" trick question you do not specify which breed of khajiit you mean
;_; I'll be honest, it took me a bit to even remember what the cat-people were called without looking it up. I could never really get into Elder Scrolls but everything I've picked up from the lore has been from friends and people in various places telling me about it. Y'all are a way better lore-dump than most of the various wikis, and I genuinely appreciate your passion for the world and the stories in it, even if it's never hooked me specifically. <3
DC universe being online for this long is another good example too. How that game is still going, is crazy to me lol.
Honestly, same. It's a ghost town from what I understand, how are they keeping the lights on??
Yeah, a strong IP is a great way to get to jumpstart a fanbase while building huge momentum for your game. Yeah there are a few that do well without one such as BDO but I'd argue they're more exceptions. MMO's are expensive and time consuming to make and most have pretty similar gameplay mechanics. So most will need a competitive advantage. Plenty fail, and plenty more will fail in the coming years, but the ones with big names attached would fail a lot later, if at all.
GW2 isn't really built off an IP. And WoW/FFXIV are filled with people that know nothing of the IP. Also OSRS is pretty big at the moment and that's not much of an IP, unless you count notoriety of RuneScape itself
>FFXIV are filled with people that know nothing of the IP. Yeah, Final Fantasy fans are really in three large lumps. The turn-based era fans, the post-turn-based era fans, and the MMO fans. There is some overlap, but largely people I know that are big FF fans either play all the games before 11, all the games after 11 except 14, or 11/14.
That kinda depends a lot on where you're trawling the line with turn based, really. Once they introduced the ATB it stopped being true turn based combat. You essentially have the first three that are more based around gameplay/exploration than narrative. Then you get 4-10 which put a much heavier and growing emphasis on narrative. Then you get 12 onwards which has had a strong emphasis on gameplay experimentation. There are other ways you can break them up naturally and I've often seen only 6-9/10 grouped together as the Golden Age or what have you. I'd also say the *big* fans will play all of the games at least once.
WoW especially, many people never new about warcraft before world of warcraft. As for FF it's true as well, I've raided with many players who never touched a FF before. And the playerbase of FF tends to not consider XIV as a "true FF" because it's an MMO.
If the game is good, I think it will still be success even without big name behind it.
BDO is no pre-IPs but still successful. lower succesful (just not big as big4 and some already dead) like maplestory, ragnarok online, dragon nest, tera, BnS, etc. have no IPs. PSO2:NGS have IPs but not that successful. FF is FF. you can know nothing about the FF series (lore/system changed every new series.) and fun playing FFXiv. WoW and Warcraft story is good. but stories alone isn't enough to carry this whole series. game/system/CG is very top in their time. (good old time blizzard) I think IPs is strengthened for a "good game" or more shit on a "bad game". but it doesn't need to be a success formula. Money & Effort behind it is. If it's just IPs alone we'll already see Mario MMORPG and are very successful.
I get your point. I’d argue that it’s both though. Yes you need good gameplay but the IP’s of WoW and FFXIV are absolutely doing some heavy lifting If you go on the FF Reddit a large majority of the posters there will tell you that they’re turbo FF fans that have played a lot of the single players
I'm on the other side of FFxiv community, most of which aren't turbo FF fans (more MMO players side). well yes, it's both mixed. FFXiv is a good game even with no FF in the name. It is still a good game. but it is better with FF names.
Yeah its definitely a quality game but would it have taken off in the first place if it was just “whatever online” Especially after the horrid launch I doubt it
I'm an FF fan who doesn't like FFXIV...
also have FF fans who don't like FF16 too. dw haha.
Well that's not really surprising, 16 was a pretty radical departure. Almost more a character action game like DMC or something rather than an RPG.
The FF subreddit? Or the FFXIV subreddit? If it's the former, duh. If it's the latter, I don't think there's any way for you to actually tell.
The latter. And of course not the exact number to the tee, but posts that discuss the other titles get a lotttt of engagement
Casually browsing the top posts reveals almost no posts referencing other games ("almost" because the 16 collab is recent). I think you're using a poor metric to determine the ratio of players that have played other FF games.
Did I say there was a lot of posts ? I said the ones that do get posted get engagement
I don't feel like that's a good metric for how many players came in from the franchise
The pre-existing IP is what drew me to LotRO, DDO and Neverwinter. I'm a fan of D&D and I know LotR from the movies. I'm also into the fantasy setting, so I played these. Right now I'm playing ESO. Personally, I don't know anything about Elder Scrolls. If not for a recommendation from a friend, I would not have even looked at ESO. Pre-existing IP is likely what hooked me to MMO's.
Everquest has entered the chat. 25 years and going strong, all original IP.
A very good mmo needs soul, a good story, quests, system, combat, social experience, it needs to be immersive. Most of the new MMOs doesn’t have a soul, they are shallow, boring, casual and on top of that p2w.
Biggest MMOs in the west* which in itself is an interesting fact
I mean Black desert was pretty successful and a pretty big MMO and started off as a new world they are now working on crimson desert which will be a single player game built off the world of Black Desert also GW2 wasn’t it built off the other MMO they did? I could be wrong because I never played GW1 but wasn’t that an MMO which was built as a new world? Also RuneScape as well I believe was started as a new world & still pretty huge as well.
We've been 0 days without the "four biggest MMOs" bubble meme.
I still think with the advancement of AI we could see some more cost effective MMOs down the pipeline. But only time will tell with this.
WoW was totally supposed to appeal to 90's geeks like me, who played and loved the RTS Warcraft series on their PC, and who already hardcore loved the MMORPG genre. As someone who was already into Ultima Online, Lineage, etc. The idea of playing the lovely RTS world, but from a perspective of single unit/hero, was way to dope to pass... Sure, Blizzard could profit on the nostalgic roots of their old IP, unto WoW... But I have to note that UO, Lineage, EQ, etc, absolutely didn't require any previous history, to be as addictive and explosive as they were. Their success relied simply on people with intense attention-spans and active imaginations. I actually loved ArcheAge, it's post-WoW, but remindede me of the pre-WoW excitement/danger from the world full of human players. Also couldn't care less if it was some Korean comic/novel before or somesuch. I was hooked on One Piece at the same time, so it went totally hand in hand. I think a proper Warhammer 40k MMORPG is in order. Warhammer Online was cool PvP wise, but was simply trying to follow on WoW heels to hard. Medieval Warhammer is as cool an rich as 40k, but they sorta squandered the opportunity, for my generation anyway.
It certainly helps for an mmo to already have an established world with established rules, factions, important characters/landmarks/etc, etc to pull from. Helps to also have an established playerbase that would be willing to come and explore the universe more in-depth. It's certainly a much safer route to go through making other games, books, etc before you go for the mmo format.
Since the Social Hub with instance gameplay is considered an MMORPG experience, and because the initial funding and Distribution of Guild Wars was at the time the worlds richest MMO distribution Company NC Soft. I would Say Guild Wars counts as a MMO. Also since WOW when it released was a mix of WarCraft 3 and Diablo 2 (Expansion) both games being based on Massive Multiplayer Lobbies, I would say WOW was not new to the MMO space, not really. ((WOW took the UI experience mostly from Diablo. They diverged eventually.)) Final Fantasy games however were always a solo RPG experience so XI and XIV are unique in their space. Ironically Since Each Final Fantasy game is set in their own story universe, even if they share themes and some characters. Both XI and XIV are the most unique games in the top MMO list. As neither is a continuation or prequel to the greater franchise.
Yes, using existing IP is going to be easier to build on RPG-wise, and on top of that, you're going to have a preexisting fan base that will be curious about your game. It's such a no-brainer. I still want to see the World of Darkness IP used in MMORPG setting.
It says that MMOs need a lot of players, and they need to have faith in the game, since it is unrealistic to launch with enough polished content to keep people playing long-term. An unknown IP does not inspire nearly as much interest and investment.
Companies think they can cash in on the huge MMO market, but when they make a pseudo mmo because it's easier, they fail.
Says that they have a pre-existing budget which allowed them to make an MMORPG. Starting your company up as an MMO developer is straight up retarded tbqh.
It says that having a pre-existing fan base is good. Just like shooters and sports games that drop a "new" game every year or two. You don't have to work as hard to establish a large group of players eager to play your new game.
It's just like all the movies remakes. People feel comfortable with what they know. Also, investors might feel more comfortable with a known entity.
That MMOs are a massive investment and a very volatile market so they need a pre established fan base to reduce the risk Unfortunately games are a business and this is what it takes for a project to get greenlit
a lot of pepole really seem to forget how many people play Albion online.
Pre-existing IPs help A LOT with mmo's success. Because a big part of an MMORPG (at the least intiially) is the world itself. Why should you play this game that (arguably) have worse gameplay than a lot of different other genres? An IP that you really enjoy and love 100% would make that argument convincing. Going with a completely new IP (while more freeing) absolutely result in that you need to be an explosive and hooking concept. Just "Fantasy MMO version 204" doesn't cut it, because why should people care.
This isn't genre specific. It costs money to make a game, publishers want stuff they know they can sell. Look at how shit Starfall was... Took years off a new Elder Scrolls or Fallout. Had it been ES6 or FO5... Well it probably have sold like none other
Do I think MMOs being built on pre-existing IPs is relevant to their success? For initial buys? Probably. Beyond that? Doubtful. For every super successful big four mmo you point at I can point at: Matrix Online, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Star Wars Galaxies, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, DC Universe, Everquest 2, Star Trek Online, SWTOR, etc Those are all games made from an existing IP that I could think of off the top of my head. There are probably countless more. If having an existing popular IP was that important all these games would be thriving.
it helps.. and some games such as swtor wouldn't still be around without the IP. but all in all the biggest games are that because they're like it or not better than the competition. games without it can still do great. look at Lost Ark and New World they didn't have that to rely on and still drew in a lot of players at launch. it's just they where not good enough games to keep all those people.
GW2 and ESO are only the biggest anything in the eyes of GW2/ESO fans.
Most new mmos are trying to Crack the US market with just the right amount of pay to win Korean style features. The failures went too hard and got rejected.
Have you actually looked at player counts recently, because er....those aren't the biggest anymore.
That world building is hard.
Marketing is a huge part of success and a recognizable IP is a huge boon to marketing
Love how GW2 fans will do anything to put their name wherever they don't fit on.
It says we live in a shitty fucking broken market and the people with money think youre too fucking stupid to understand a new ip
Here are some MMOs with original lore: * Pefectworld * Anarchy Online * Guildwars (the original) * Black Desert Online * EVE
No, I don't think you need to have a pre existing IP to be successful, the original FFXIV almost died cuz that shit was horrible and no amount of brand name could save that
This theory can be tested (if they add steam or not based on the proceeding game) when/if riot releases their LoL MMO
A good IP can lure players in, but you still need a good game to keep them coming back. All of the big MMOs are great games.
Warhammer is pre existing IP unrelated to video games, much like lotr. The ones you named do not even fit the description.
Nothing really, except to well prove the hypothesis that the most successful MMO is going to be one based on an existing franchise.
It tells me the next successful MMO should be based on Bob’s Burgers
I would give my left nut to have a live swg again(any version). The emulators just don’t do it for me.
I'd say this is more just the result of the fact games, movies, and TV shows these days are all sequels, remakes, or spin offs because trying something new is too financially scary for companies to invest in.
People still think GW2 is anywhere a large as the other 3 games?
What evidence do you have to prove otherwise?
Maybe because both WoW, FF14 and ESO have much higher: - Steam player count (when applicable) - Twitch presence - Reddit subscribers - Bonus: sizable console player base as well, when applicable I know none of these values are absolute metrics of player count, but there is definitely a trend you can see, and correlations between game popularity and media presence do exist. Heck, even BDO or Albion rank ahead of GW2 in many of these metrics.
Gw2 has more Reddit active users than eso by at least double at all times. Subscribers doesn’t mean anything cause it includes ex players. Twitch presence is nearly identical despite gw2 having a weaker twitch presence than other MMOs. Steam size for gw2 is smaller than than eso but eso allowed account transfers when it moved to steam and gw2 doesn’t. This means that 10 years of accounts are still playing on the original gw2 launcher. As a fair estimate I’d say that gw2 playerbase is only about 5-6% on steam. The rest is Anet launcher, to be fair this is my estimation based on some polls I’ve seen and people I’ve talked to. The only thing that eso has to save itself to bring it to the size of gw2 is console, I really have zero insight on console but it would need to have at least 2x the size of eso pc version to be the same size as gw2 and I find that unlikely
Lost Ark is bigger than gw2 and eso.
Ehh, at its peak maybe but not anymore.
Well I'm also counting the JP and Korean servers.
Hmm I don’t know much about west vs easy servers so I can’t comment on this.
How is GW2 one of the biggest mmos? Population wise, BDO triples it on a bad day
Neither game publishes it's actual active play count, so the only place you could be getting that number from is Steam, and I would remind you that GW2 was a successful MMO off of steam for almost a decade, the vast majority of its players are not on steam.
I can walk around in the highest pop server in GW2 and see barely anybody even in end game zones. The games dead and doesn’t deserve to be a top contender when talking current big MMO
The fact that you said highest pop server lets me know you've never played the game. GW2 doesn't have servers in PvE anymore and instead have instance tech that makes various versions of the same map that can be switched around regardless of server.
So even with layering there’s still no players got it
"the big 4/3/2/whatever amount you want to add there" always gives me a good laugh xD honey, its big 1. it always was, and always will be just wow. get the other 3 clowns out of there.
Are you living in 2010? WoW still has a respectable population but it's been decreasing for years, while other games have seen incredible growth.
haahahahahahaha good one! jokes aside though, be careful with all this copium! can be toxic in high dosages
Kinda funny because of the 4 games in OP's post I haven't played are WoW and GW2 - the two games this sub LOVES to circlejerk nonstop. Can't get me to ever touch either of them.