FAANG huh... Considering the recent track record of the bigger US studios, I'm not holding my breath for anything that's more than a fleeting curiosity.
>A fully dynamic cloud backed world running AI agents, GPT-3+ storylines, Unreal 5 graphics.
So here's some MMORPGs roughly in order of current popularity: 1. FFXIV/Lost Ark, 2. OSRS, 3. WoW.
They're doing fine without fancy cloud tech, GPT generated nonsense will make any of these games worse (good side-quests aren't about having lots of text nobody reads), and players tend to not care about graphics beyond "is it good enough?" (Graphics sell games, they don't retain players). I think AI will be able to write, design and code interesting and fun quests about five years after it starts writing mostly good novels.
Looking at the games in general, it would appear that at the top end creativity, craftsmanship, and unique opinionated design beats formulaic games with pretty graphics and cool tech every time. If creating "the next big game" is what you're aiming for, technology should be the means to realize your vision and not the goal itself.
Then again I couldn't stand the awfulness for more than a few hours. Maybe there's a gem in there but damn if it isn't rough on the outside.
It's still relatively newly released in the west, there was lots of hype, the game has a high amount of spit and polish, and its gameplay was filling an under served space. If it played like your typical tab-targeting MMO, nobody would have cared.
Also there's probably some bots increasing the steam player numbers, but that's another story. For now I decided to put it up there with FFXIV.
>Hell, I can't think of any game that placed so much emphasis on bodily noises.
I can: Genshin Impact. Genshin went in really hard on using micro transactions to let you play more, as well as having characters making sounds that are indistinguishable from pornography. Compared to what is typical for the Asian market, Korean games tend to be tame.
> The game where every fun little privilege seems to be a time-limited rental?
The way I understand LA is supposed to be played, is creating lots of alt characters so you can do the time-gated "fun" content on each them every day.
Personally I hate daily tasks in games ("dailies"), because then the game starts feeling like a chore and also I'd have to play every day to keep up. LA is full of those.
I don't find it impossible that the "new WoW" might pop up from a FAANG-level company. They have the resources, the tech and they can acquire IP that's already made by indie and build on top of that, or hire talent and actually let them do their job. I know it's dreamy, but it's not impossible.
> So here's some MMORPGs roughly in order of current popularity: 1. FFXIV/Lost Ark, 2. OSRS, 3. WoW.
> They're doing fine without fancy cloud tech,
They mostly don't have it, so have to do fine without it. Also WoW: Shadowlands had massive lag for shared zones, fancy cloud tech could probably help a bit
> GPT generated nonsense will make any of these games worse (good side-quests aren't about having lots of text nobody reads),
Transformer models can be used for more than just text generation, and you can use other models to produce a lot of quirky content. I think if sprinkled on correctly, it would really give life to some NPC and locations.
> and players tend to not care about graphics beyond "is it good enough?" (Graphics sell games, they don't retain players).
Well good graphics on decent machines certainly don't shy players away either. Personally I like the WoW engine as it's somewhat timeless, but I would love to see a shiny new one with all the foo and bar.
> Speaking of AI in general... I think AI will be able to write, design and code interesting and fun quests about five years after it writes its first good novel.
I guess it could be used to manage biomes, regional planning, urbanism, random events, some needs for NPCs etc. Imagine the team of writers comes up with a 'harsh winter' event, where apart from the content they produce, it requires the "Weather AI" to create the conditions for that harsh winter. It would be magical to have this kind of creative control over the world and have NPC AI react to it.
Want to add a pirate event? AI can suggest realistic locations, NPC, maybe some storylines for inspiration that can be tweaked. Maybe the villager AIs would start having trouble from the raids so they would try to solve the problem locally by forming a militia and fighting the pirates. Maybe it wouldn't work, but that town's demographics would be forever altered. Famine could come next collapsing the village even though the pirate threat has been dealt with. I don't know if this level of world dynamism can be done without AI and AI agents.
> Looking at the RPG space in general, it would appear that creativity, craftsmanship, and unique opinionated design beats formulaic games with pretty graphics and cool tech every time.
Surely such an awesome technical feat such as the game I'm imagining, with perfect code and CI/CD pipelines, minimal resource consumption and an amazing team behind, it would be trivial to add handcrafted experiences in this massive world.
Actually, high lag in shared zones has been for the past several expansions been because of cloud tech. Sometime around Cataclysm they switched from dedicated hardware to cloud shards, and since then lag in packed zones has been bad because the shards that get spawned are almost never big enough to keep up with the load.
This is exacerbated by ever more complex combat — a large battle between players in Shadowlands is many times more demanding than the same size battle in original WoW.
I'm mildly worried about the societal implications of something like that. EverQuest was pretty addictive as it was. Hard to fathom what something even more immersive with essentially infinite content would be like.
If you think this is all video gaming industry is your going to have a bad time, none of these would contribute to making a half decent game, let alone an mmo.
A FAANG would fuck up any MMO it tried. Trust me on this. I could say more, but I'd dox myself. They simply don't have the DNA for it. What would happen is that control of the thing would be given to CEO's pets and corporate bikeshedders and the product would be mediocre.
If a company is going to create a new great MMO, it needs to be a single-purpose company dedicated toward just that... and, of course, that means it's taking a huge risk. It will also need to resist the temptation to get bought by an existing FAANG, because as soon as it is, the quality will decline.
> Graphics matter but aren't the most important thing, and anyone who thinks GPT-3 can write compelling storylines doesn't understand GPT-3 or story craft.
I asked GPT-3 (let's pretend for a moment that it's not going to be replaced soon with something more powerful): "You are a pig farmer. Recently, kobolds have started stealing your sheep. You're asking any stranger that looks like he might be up for the job, to help you get rid of the kobolds. Write ten ways in which you'd tell people to help you. Make it a bit verbose.". I'm adding the result after the post [0]. Is this really so bad for a random off-quest out in the world? I also tried variations where I described the context of the farmer (wife, kids, jolly fellow) and it adapted outputs. I think these kind of tools will be invaluable for NPC of the future, and indeed, for story writers.
> A FAANG would fuck up any MMO it tried. [...] What would happen is that control of the thing would be given to CEO's pets and corporate bikeshedders and the product would be mediocre.
> If a company is going to create a new great MMO, it needs to be a single-purpose company dedicated toward just that... and, of course, that means it's taking a huge risk. It will also need to resist the temptation to get bought by an existing FAANG, because as soon as it is, the quality will decline.
Surely this can't be the case for all present and future FAANG-level companies. I'm sorry but it just feels like you have a beef with whatever company is that you're projecting onto this. Would this new company not have a CEO that would have some pets, and other people involved that might contribute to some mediocre decisions? Is it somehow isolated because it's a single purpose MMORPG company?
[0] ``` 1. "I'm a pig farmer, and I've been having some trouble with kobolds stealing my sheep. If you're up for the job, I could really use your help."
2. "I need someone to help me get rid of the kobolds that have been stealing my sheep. I'm willing to pay for your services."
3. "I'm not sure if you're the right person for the job, but I need someone to help me get rid of the kobolds that have been stealing my sheep. Do you think you could help me out?"
4. "I'd be very grateful if you could help me get rid of the kobolds that have been stealing my sheep. I'll make it worth your while."
5. "I don't know if you're up for the challenge, but I need someone to help me get rid of the kobolds that have been stealing my sheep. Are you interested?"
6. "I don't know if you have the skills for this, but I need someone to help me get rid of the kobolds that have been stealing my sheep. Would you be willing to help me out?"
7. "I can't do this by myself - I need someone to help me get rid of the kobolds that have been stealing my sheep. Can you help me?"
8. "I'm not sure if you're the right person for this, but I need someone to help me get rid of the kobolds that have been stealing my sheep. Would you be interested in helping me out?"
9. "I could really use your help to get rid of the kobolds that have been stealing my sheep. I'll make it worth your while."
10. "I need someone to help me get rid of the kobolds that have been stealing my sheep. If you're up for the job, I'd be very grateful." ```
All I'm is saying is that I'd like a new age MMORPG using these new technologies that can help create dynamic rich worlds, populate them with reasonably realistic NPC and have nicely polished clients, especially with the $bajillions that get thrown around tech nowadays.
WoW does still have millions of players and is a recognizable part of pop culture. Though much less than it used to be. FFXIV seems to have around the same numbers these days, though with maybe less mainstream recognizability. But there doesn't seem to be much mass appetite for a new MMO property. There's some buzz when a new one gets released and then it quickly fades.
It's interesting to me that the WoW-killer wasn't another MMO. It was Minecraft back in the day. And then Roblox supplanted Minecraft. At least with kids. Kind of an interesting indication that many players preferred more creative environments over more rigid theme parks.
I don’t think we’ll see the next big MMO until the Metaverse and VR become mainstream. I’ve given up all hope of anything ever competing with WoW. It was such a phenomenal game that nothing else has ever even come close. We need the next iteration of immersion technology before something can compete.
I still miss that game so much.
I remember one New Year’s Eve in Goldshire. It still is honestly one of my favorite NYE. Getting drunk on voice chat, throwing fireworks, having engineers build all sorts of weird contraptions, some steamy chat with probably a balding dude playing a Night Elf chick.
I still play every expansion. I make a new character and level it to max. But it takes ages and I usually solo and when I hit max I mostly stop. It’s a little guilty pleasure.
I like to believe this is what kids today get with Fortnite and whatchamadoodle.
Maybe we’re already playing the next game.
At its peak wow dwarfs every mmorpg in history tho.
The current estimates are about 1.7m for FFXIV [1] and 1.2m for WoW [2] (+another 500k[3] if you include WoW classic, but there's some overlap between retail and classic). Since neither company releases subscriber counts that's our best guess.
It's clear FFXIV was ahead of WoW while FFXIV was undergoing it's endwalker pre-launch hype and did well to retain those players post-launch compared to prior expansions, while at the same time WoW was undergoing it's peak period of shadowlands discontent. But as WoW gets into dragonflight hype mode and FFXIV is between patches, it looks like WoW has drawn back even for a while.
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/u0gfwo/new_lucky_ban...
I remember being involved in the community for an ultimately vaporware MMO. Realms of Torment / Age of Mourning.
Then WoW came and the rest is history.
I think we need a new WoW, and I think it’s going to have to come from FAANG level company. A fully dynamic cloud backed world running AI agents, GPT-3+ storylines, Unreal 5 graphics.
I swear it doesn’t even seem that hard nowadays for those kind of resources.
I had hopes that Amazon’s MMO would show a glimpse of that. It didn’t yet.