I was listening to a discussion about the lack of middle-ground MMORPGs in development over at the Massively OP podcast (about 80% into the episode from 20th Feb). This linked in my mind to discussions about Sea of Thieves from my blogroll and the attempted justification of the randomised character generation makes me cringe it’s so bad. Upcoming MMORPGs are for the most part pretty low ambition as well, lacking breadth and focused on a niche playerbase. The loss of the middle-ground, of ambitious upstart MMOs is being felt – there some existing games around that cater to pve/raiders, pvpers, altoholics, tradeskillers and roleplayers, but what about games under development?
It seems that if you’re not looking for a survival game or a pvp-focused sandbox or ‘battle royale’ style game (and I’m not) then it’s going to be slim pickings going forwards. That, of course, is discounting the solid games that fit the middle-ground today: Everquest 2, Rift, LOTRO, SWTOR – these games all have expansive worlds, end-game content, crafting and pvp. But they’ve had waning fortunes and the pace and volume of content development has slowed since launch.
Expansive MMORPGs do still exist
But when I look at what games are coming I honestly don’t see anything that exciting or attractive to someone who wants a broad variety of activities without an assumption that pvp must be front-and-centre. Heck even last years big releases, Blade & Soul and Black Desert Online have a heavy pvp focus in the high levels that detracts from my desire to progress in them (well in BDO especially). Sea of Thieves is also being discussed now in terms of its pvp and the lack of disincentives from just ganking all the time. I’m not that interested in the details to be honest as I was never going to be playing this game, but it brings back painful memories of just how excited friends and I were for Allods back in the day.
Three cute characters for the price of one!
That game had *so* much potential, being developed as it was in a much more optimistic era for MMO development. The game had (probably still has) oodles of personality and graphical style. The classes were interesting and the race choices flavourful. But we learned soon after starting in the beta that level 20 onwards, the third zone if memory serves, was a big pvp gankfest. Worse still the end game pve dungeons were in the astral (think magic space), so on your way to or on your way back from a dungeon you could be ganked by a pvp crew on their bigger, badder ship. Oh and if you triumphed in the dungeon you could lose the dungeon rewards as they were stuck in a chest on your ship until you got back to your home port. Maybe the devs fixed that idiocy since, but it stopped our enthusiasm dead for a game that could have become our new home (and the cash shop had nothing to do with our decision). Piloting a ship as a team against astral demons would have been such fun, but the lack of pve ruleset server surely limited the games broader appeal.
We could have sailed those ships…
So I find myself happily playing older games, as I did last year. At the same time there’s a twinge of sadness dragged up by recent discussions, as I think back to the heady mid-2000s when there was always something new on the horizon with a grander vision than “players make your own entertainment, we don’t have the budget”…
GamingSF 
There must be something in the air – I just posted along much the same lines, bouncing of the Sea of Thieves discussion, a game I never even thought of playing.
Allods is a real forgotten gem. The world is beautiful, the races and the classes are interresting and there’s been continual development post-launch…but no-one in the blogosphere or the wider MMO hinterlands ever mentions it, let alone plays it. I’m not sure how realistic the PvP threat there ever was – I did get as far as the 3rd zone in beta and it wasn’t a problem then, although betas are notoriously unrperesentative of Live behavior.
Ashes of Creation is currently planned as a PvP MMO but whether that plan will survive engagement with the market remains to be seen. Black Desert has done pretty well with a similar PvPvE model, though. Pantheon may have PvP servers but the main thrust is for PvE and any PvP there will be entirely optional as far as i can tell from the FAQ.
Those are literally the only new MMOs I’m looking at for the next 3-5 years and I think only Pantheon will fill that middle ground we are so lacking in games in development. When he poked his head back around the door I was as skeptical (even cynical) about Brad McQuaid’s return to making MMOs as anyone but increasingly I’m coming to believe that it’s going to be him or no-one. He has basically been making the same game since he was a teenager and for all his very well-known faults he does know how to make that game. I just hope the money holds out long enough to get Pantheon in front of the wider public. I think if he can just get a solid, working version out there, there may be more of an audience for it than anyone expects.
(Second attempt – bloody NoScript!).
I guess this could have been the next big thing, but the devs really seem to be following the current niche audience vibe. Pantheon hasn’t caught my eye as yet, perhaps I should watch it more closely.
Depressingly, I can do nothing but agree with this post. I enjoyed some BDO until the PvP kicked in. Apart from that I’ve not played a ‘new’ game for years – unless you count Secret Worlds reboot (but I don’t really).
There is literally nothing on the forseeable horizon in the sense of a new ip that I have one iota of interest in as a PVE / RP player. Still, on the upside, I’m making serious inroads to my Steam / GOG singleplayer backlogs.
I shouldn’t be wanting any new MMOs to try, there are so many games already, but that feeling of discovering a new world for the first time is hard to replace…
Yes exactly Telwyn. The explorer in me loves a new world to wander around in. But I’d rather not be ganked as I’m staring dreamily at a wonderful landscape. Ah well.
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