Mostly referring to the release of the latest WoW extension which isn’t discussed anywhere (or maybe I missed it)
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 was always behind the curve of whatever the core game was on wow, so I was always trying to catch up to the guys who introduced me to it, never really had the time to do endgame stuff with them, because of having two little kids. By the time WOTLK dropped, I was PUGing a DK all the time because I was nowhere near the endgame where my buddies were. After that I became incredibly casual. Just questing the storyline of wherever I was. Dropped it and came back in classic. When Cata dropped on classic, with no era to play on with, and again, I was no where near cap the whole second time around I unsubbed. I have just rolled a PS and intend to casually bum around until my server falls over and I’ve maxxed out every char and class I want to.
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.
I’ve been meaning to pick it up but I heard it was buggy last I checked. I might wait more on it (patient gamer and all that).
Touche, forgot this was PatientGamers. Grim Dawn is basically the same sans MMO. It’s the best ARPG I’ve played like, ever, and it’s due for a huge DLC soon. Goes on sale for very cheap often.
Unlike Last Epoch, it’s more item-focused. Unlike PoE, the items aren’t a total nightmare to optimize…
It is fun, but buggy + doesn’t have great performance in some areas. I’ve recently played it for a bit on 1.1 patch drop, and lasted for about 6 hours until I hit a brick wall of a progression blocking bug. There was a decently large thread about it on the forum, no dev response, no fix in the next 3 hotfixes, so I stopped playing. Might come back for 1.3 or something.
Very interesting - I haven’t hit a single bug during my play.
Dead? WoW, FFXIV, RuneScape, ESO, have millions of players. What world do you live in that these games are dead?
Do you see the latest WoW expansion discussed anywhere on Lemmy?
I only look at !wow@lemmy.ml, 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 !helldivers2@lemmy.ca vs !finalfantasyxiv@lemmy.world, 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.
You’re right. I guess FFXIV players are too busy playing to be here too ha ha
WoW hasn’t been synonymous with the MMORPG scene since at least the last 5 years. You didn’t hear much from it because it’s just another expansion, for one of the many currently running MMOs. When was the last you heard about GW2 expansions? Or Elder Scrolls Online expansions?
Copy pasting the comment below
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 !helldivers2@lemmy.ca vs !finalfantasyxiv@lemmy.world, you instantly see which one is a more active game.
But neither BG3 nor Helldivers were MMOs though. Activities in those was a spike when the game released. WoW released 20ish years ago lol
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.
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.
Yep it’s still chill. The war just started so I’ve spent the past 2 hours driving materials from my regiments stockpiles to the Frontline, eventually partisans (enemies behind the Frontline) took out my truck so I flagged the location, next time I drove through they were all gone and I kept delivering supplies. Even if you mess something up in logistics, no one is going to get mad at you. It’s competitive in that each team hates each other, but largely unless you start trolling or team killing people are positive.
If you do end up getting it I can help ya get started learning stuff if you need
Okay, thanks for the information! I appreciate the offer, I’ll have to keep that in mind if I decide to get it. I think the logistics end of the game could be a lot of fun.
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.
I had been talking with someone else on here about trying EVE in that playstyle a while back! I never tried it, but it always sounded interesting. Logistics sounds like it could be an interesting thing to try in Foxhole, I may need to give it a go.
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.
Nice, I didn’t know!
I was just about to say. My friends wanted something to just mess around in, and I had no idea it was still as popular as it is.
Gw2 is like the sleeper MMO that no one talks about but everyone still plays. I think the lack of subscription and never raising level cap does that to it. It’s a very welcoming game to pick up and put down as time allows.
I was an og GW player. I hadnt played GW in like 15-20 years? I came into GW2 just 2 months ago and was overwhelmed at first with everything an old mmo adds over the years. I finally found the play groove and we are all enjoying it, even the ones still playing WoW. So much so I might grab the living story addons.
They’re a lot of fun actually. Especially if you like open world exploration. They add a lot of very cool maps.
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 👌
Most of the game is solo-friendly. Some things are very difficult to solo, but if you get really good at the combat system it’s still possible.
Coordinated end game party stuff isn’t my bag so much, so I’m not sure about soloing it. There are a lot of different things you can do with different names that all amount to dungeon/raid style content. The things actually called “dungeons” are all from the original game and are really old at this point. The newer 5 man dungeons are called “Fractals”, and there are also 10 man raids, and 10 man boss only encounters called “Strike Missions” (basically a single raid boss with no dungeon around it).
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.
And they are even working on GW3. I really liked GW2 but I am not sure if it’s worth coming back after years. But my hopes are up for the new one.
Well that’s the rumor at least. No actual news about that one yet, right?
according to some sources they said that they started working on it. but they also didn’t want to confirm it later.
Man, some of my buddies picked it back up and I just can’t understand. How much fuckin money have they given that piece of shit company over the years? And now it’s Microsoft? Sigh
I still play guild wars 2. It’s the only MMO that doesn’t piss me off. No subscription fee. Never raised the level cap. Only added a new tier of gear once close to launch and said that’s it. Plays like a real video game.
Because the level cap and gear cap doesn’t change, you can take a break and come back just fine. My characters I made years ago are just as mechanically viable as anyone else. (Knowing how to play them is a separate question. I’m pretty bad at thief, but some people are little immortal jerks with it)
It also feels more like a real video game than some MMOs. You can dodge attacks. Like there’s a dodge button that moves you and gives you iframes. There’s a lot less of the old timey “your character moved away on the screen so the monster did its attack animation way over there, but you still get hit”.
They also solved a lot of the anti social problems of old MMOs. You don’t need to form a formal group for most content. There’s no kill stealing. You just go into the world and do stuff.
There’s no mandatory quest chains. There’s the main story you can follow, but there’s very little MMO filler. There are “hearts” you can do that are kind of MMO busywork, but you can also just not do them.
I know the game is old but it’s still very good. I haven’t been able to get a lot of friends to play it. I think they think it’s like a shitty MMO where you just grind for gear to grind for more gear, and level up so you can level up and grind for more gear. It’s not.
Many might have also played Guild Wars 1 which had a lot of that content you could only access with a certain minimum party size from what I remember.
Oh yeah GW1 was harder at launch because you only had limited NPC support, but the later expansions really expanded that (no pun intended) by adding more robust npc Heroes that could join your party and be customized.
Though GW1 came out 19 years ago, so a good chunk of potential GW2 players were in diapers when it came out. Gosh, I’m so old.
GW2 is very “solo” friendly. I put solo in quotes because there will typically be other people around, but you don’t have to talk to them or wait on them for most stuff. Like, earlier I was flying around one of the maps doing a little quest thing, and I joined in several events to fight monsters with other people. Didn’t say a word. It’s all very seamless.
WoW is still massive btw and the latest xpac seems to be a success so far.
Interesting, thanks!
I still play Old School RuneScape and Guild Wars 2, and they are both very active.
However, I’ve not tried a new MMORPG in ages. I don’t even really know if any relatively new ones could be interesting to try out.
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
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.
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)
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.
It’s not too terrible to set up a RO server. There’s even a guide to running one on a Raspberry Pi.
I followed the guide a few years back and it worked out pretty well. Instead of setting up a site to create user accounts I just ended up manually adding users to the database.
I got it working, my issue was a commented out ip_bind variable in one of the .conf files. And you can also allow the new account variable. Users just type in their account name as if logging in, and put an _M or _F at the end and the server knows to append their account info to what password they input to the login server
Though my friend swear they want that 1x rates… we shall see.
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
My understanding is that at least some WoW players switched to ffxiv, which does seem to be popular and well updated. If you’re looking for a new game, might be worth a look?
I just don’t have time. RPGs are still my favorite genre, and I used to even work in the MMORPG space. I have a fulltime job, a house I just bought and have to upkeep (I was renting until now), and farming. On top of that, spending time with the wife and all of the regular shopping and chores still exist. Further still, I try to always be learning something for fun, but I haven’t even really had time to do that. The most entertainment I have these days is listening to podcasts and youtube vids whilst working outside.
I am playing turtle wow—a private server game.
It’s mostly like the vanilla wow, but has some optimized updates.
I played a bit over there a while ago, how is it going now?
I don’t know when you last played. They added two new races: High Elf for the Alliance and Goblin for the Horde in 2023, a few new dungeons, some new glyphs/challenges, and a radio feature. But mostly, it’s the same as the original game.
Star wars the old republic is pretty great, not perfect but super solid story, essentially just Kotor 3. I played it reguarly for last few months and truly enjoyed it like how I used to enjoy WoW back in the day. I know certain fans are going come at me with knives for saying this, but imp, it has much better story content than FF14.
Do you know if people still play galactic starfighter (GSF) in SWTOR? Or if it’s gotten any updates? It became my favorite thing to do in game, but it wasn’t very popular, and last time I tried I sat in queue for a while before giving up. (I liked Squadrons but that also tapered off quickly.)
The rest of the game is great too. I treat it like FFXIV - play every now and then to catch up on the story, though it’s been a while since I’ve played SWTOR. I don’t know if I agree the story content is better than FFXIV (after ARR at least - especially Shadowbringers and Endwalker), but I can see why some people would like it more. It’s consistently good from start to finish. Anyone who likes Star Wars and gaming is missing out on a huge variety of stories and fun if they don’t play it.
Anyway, might need to give it a go again.
So they have a couple servers and I had charcters on all of them. On most, yeah GSF was kinda dead. But omg on Star Forge? You can chain pop matches all day. It’s by far the most populated NA server and much more active than the others. Would highly recommend heading there if you wanna scratch that dog fighting itch. 😉
(after ARR at least - especially Shadowbringers and Endwalke)
Oh yeah, those were the best storylines for sure. And I am absolutely not here to say the story in FF14 is bad, I’ve played most of the FF games and the story is always solid. But the amount of choices, variations and alignment options really seals swtor as my favorite in this regard. Absolutely no shade for anyone that disagrees, just my personal opinion. ♥
