The PC that I am typing this on is quite capable of playing modern games. It cost a lot more than I would ever spend on one strictly for home use because I mainly use it for work. But when I am not doing things for my job with it, what do I play in my spare time? Well let's see, since July 2025 I have been playing LoTRO. Before that it was SWTOR, and before that the most time was spent in DDO, EQ II and Guild Wars. Yes, the original Guild Wars that came out in 2005.
My problem, if you want to call it that, is that the only games I find "sticky" are MMORPGs. There was a whole back and forth about what that actually means that got me a nice little traffic bump a couple of years ago. But in short I would define a MMORPG as a shared world with crunchy roleplaying game mechanics, where the mechanics are used at least in part to help the world feel more "real", and that at the very least has some public areas where lot's of people can hang out together and socialize. I just don't find other types of games compelling for more than maybe a month at a time, regardless of how awesome they are.
For example, to my tastes Cyberpunk 2077 looks like the best offline game anyone has ever made or thought about making. It's got a jaw-droppingly beautiful world you can run around in. It has deep storylines that play out differently depending on what choices you make. It's set in a genre I love. I even loved the PnP game it's based on back in the 1990s, and the cartoon prequel on Netflix is also wonderful. Perhaps most winningly, the RPG mechanics let you try out builds that do all sorts of stuff, from "kick down the doors and shoot everyone", to a close combat assassin, to someone that talks or hacks their way around most obstacles. I would have been over the moon to play it when I was a console jockey in my 20s.
But do I play it? Nope, of course not. Once they ironed out all the launch issues, I bought the "all of it" edition for like $20 and installed it on my PS5. It runs very well, and looks great on a TV I would have killed a busload of orphans for in the 90s/ early 2000s.* However, I have played it for all of six hours. Just long enough to confirm that it absolutely was just as awesome as I thought it would be. I then immediately went back to whatever fugly decade+ old MMO I was playing at the time. Probably DDO.
For me the biggest issue with offline games is that they don't feel as "real" to me because none of the other NPCs are being run by real people. The way that I play MMOs, this is also a genuinely stupid, or at least odd, concern. For all the interaction I have the with other players they may as well be run by a computer. If world chat has something particularly interesting going on, or someone needs a pointer, I may pipe up there occasionally. However, in general that's as much direct socializing as I do. I mean why not play an offline game and hang out on discord or something?
I don't because direct social interactions are not really the point for me. To me a MMO is like alternate digital universe that me and everyone else playing has decided to inhabit. Other people being there makes it seem more alive and "real." Just seeing what outfits other players have on when I head into town is a delight. I also love the indirect interactions I have with everyone on the server in the auction house. "What can I get for this? Are there any crazy bargains on cosmetic pets today?" Even if I never do it, I like the fact that if I cared to I could indeed group up with some people and have "an adventure." It doesn't matter that I won't, as long as I could.
Perhaps the most important thing for me is one that's also kind of subtle. A player run character is hard to predict in the same way that real people are hard to predict. NPCs tend to just stand around waiting for me to interact with them. They feel like part of the graphics. PCs on the other hand are always clearly doing their own thing, and don't really care what I am doing the same way that people in a grocery store don't. I can interact with them if I want to. But they haven't been placed there by a developer for me to interact with, or as window dressing. Only a very few offline games have tried to mimic that, and with generally limited success in my experience. A team of developers with even the most expansive imagination can't really capture that feeling of a world inhabited by other people with their own individual intents. That one small detail makes these worlds really pop for me.
In some ways my predilection is also a bit unfortunate. It's not a style of game that is really growing or attracting a lot of attention any more. For example, almost no-one is putting even moderate budgets new games in the MMOPRG genre. Nor should they if I'm honest. The market to support it isn't there anymore. For example, the last really big one we got kind of just fizzled out. I am not sure how many players it ended up with, but clearly New World did not have the kind of success needed to justify the budget that Amazon put behind it, or even to keep the servers running.
It's gotten to the point that whenever I see someone get a Kickstarter for "the next big thing" in MMORPG space off the ground, I'm not really all that excited. I just feel a little sorry for everyone that desperately wants this new thing to thrive. If this guy couldn't do it, and I am sorry to say things are not looking promising for Star's Reach, whoever this new person no-one has even heard of that just "won" Kickstarter almost certainly can't. It doesn't help much that kickstarted games are also often chasing nostalgia for other games that are still alive and playable. If I am looking for that experience, I will just play the original game.**
Beyond few teams having the needed expertise, budget to build something truly ambitious, or goals that don't put them in direct competition with games that are still going, the broader issue is that an online space where you can hang out with other people just isn't a novelty any more. Many many more games that allow you to do that than were available when I fell in love with this genre are available now.*** There is so very little that makes MMORPGs really stand out any more.
Even if you want crunchy roleplaying mechanics along with your shared digital social spaces, there are survival games that have you covered pretty well.*! And that is a genre that does seem to be thriving. There are numerous survival games that have crunchy RPG mechanics. They also often arguably do an ever better job than a typical MMO of simulating a real world, and let you hang out with characters run by other real people. So why am I not playing more of those?
I think it basically comes down to two issues. One is that many of them are a little too grounded. One of the things I love about MMOs are gob smacking experiences like exploring the Mines of Moria, flying into Coruscant, or participating in the Battle of Helm's Deep. Games like Valheim or even Ark just don't tend to include set pieces like that, experiences that make you lean back and say "Wow, I can't believe I am here!" Even if they do they generally don't have a anywhere near the variety that a 10+ year old game that's been under constant development can. You just don't generally get something like the 800+ zones of Everquest, or the dozens of planets in SWTOR. Beyond that, even if they did, a game where you manage a private server for thirty of your closest friends just doesn't feel the same to me.*$ It feels more like a really well realized fantasy neighborhood or town than an Alternate World.
However, in the end this issue doesn't really require this level of analysis. This post is a really long-winded way of saying that offline games, and even online multiplayer survival RPGs that on paper do almost everything I like about MMORPGs better, don't suck me in and hold my attention like MMORPGs do. Dying genre or not, I doubt any other type of game ever will ever be as sticky to me!
*That is, of course, my idea of a joke.
**In fact, I have been getting a slight urge to fire up EQ again. I often miss it, fugly graphics and all.
***If you stop by here regularly, you will likely have noticed me going on and on and on about it!
*!At least if you are prepared to make every single thing you own out of digital rocks and sticks :-)
*$While doing research for this post, I discovered that this may be a bit unfair. In fact bespoke servers that host up to 1000 players at a time are actually out there. 30 is the maximum number of players on a default GTA 5 / GTAO server
No comments:
Post a Comment