The Next Big MMO?

[nostylluan]

if free mmo's count in "the next big mmo" than your list would be huge. guild wars does not have a high active player count, only when the game releases. maybe guild wars 2 will change that but i doubt it.

it sounds like you're the one who is unfamiliar with free 2 play mmos. check out runes of magic, it has over 2 million players... the problem with free 2 play mmos is they suck compared to mmos that require subscription since their entire scenario is based on a cash shop... spend 10$ for a vanity hat... it adds no gameplay. the only reason they have high numbers is because they are free.

the only reason guild wars will sell lots of copies is because they coin the term MMO and "no subscription" is guild wars really an mmo or just an in game lobby? why isn't starcraft 2 an mmo? league of legends is considered an mmo for lots of people and it has 10 million active players.

the only real mmo is eve online, it is 1 server... i know there is 2000 or so player in each wow server but those servers aren't connected, you can't see x player in y server. yet they still call it an mmo. if mmo's are just a series of servers, than counter-strike is an mmo... heck xbox live is a huge mmo.

what is a big mmo? i asked this and you gave me false numbers. in terms of paid subscribers... you really only have wow, eve, dofus... so you added one game. i'm not trying to argue for no reason, i'm just saying there is no such thing as a next big mmo besides blizz titan which won't be released before 2018. so if you run osx or bootcamp, you should just stick to wow or eve since they won't die... the rest will. guild wars 2 will be a phase just like starwars.

 

[Huntn]

if free mmo's count...

First you felt duty bound to inform us that there are only two big MMOs for Mac. Thanks for the revelation. And when I told you most of us don't care, then you asked me what other big PC MMOs are there and I told you. Then you had an issue that free MMOs don't count, lol. How do you think no-subscription MMOs stay in business? So what if Guild Wars player base has dropped off? GW2 is hitting beta within a month.

Believe it or not, I'm not fighting with you. As you don't seem to have a point, just indignation over who knows what and I really don't care at this point. Grow up and have a good day, or take a few minutes, regroup your thoughts and express what it is you really want to say about the Next Big MMO besides "Macs are not gaming machines". If that is your message, thanks. You've all ready said it. We'll struggle forward without you.

ps- As far as I know, Xbox live is not a MMO by any measurement. What is the largest number of players that can be hosted in a single Xbox live game, thirty or a thousand, hmm?

 

[nostylluan]

that is what i am asking you, if xbox live is not an mmo, why is wow an mmo?

you only see a lot of players in the two cities otherwise you queue inside an instance of 5-25 or 40. in bf3 you can do 32vs32... in wow you can do 40vs40 but wow is an mmo because there is a lobby (stormwind or ogrimmar)? i'm not debating for the sake of debating, the thread is the next big mmo, i've asked many times what does that mean, does it have to beat wow? does it need to be more than 350k subscribers? what is an mmo according to you?

people consider league of legends an mmo... there is 1 server, there is lobbies, and there is global ranking. if league of legends is an mmo, then so is starcraft 2. i am grown up, i still say there is only eve and wow in big mmos. you haven't disproved me wrong besides dofus. do you even know what dofus is?

i only consider EVE to be an MMO like many other eve players, but for some reason there is runes of magic (wow rip off) and wow that fit in the same category. you only see players in towns.

MMO = massive multiplayer online, basically if wow is an mmo where a bunch of people who gather in towns and you get to see them as opposed to just loging in msn, then starcraft 2 is also an mmo, because there is chat channels (towns!)

so i'm going to end there because i just paraphrase myself over and over. i'll state again there is only two big mmos... EVE and WoW, and there will not be another "next big mmo" until blizzard titan.

if i am wrong, tell me which games are MMOs (mmorpg.com states diablo 3 as an mmo) and tell me whether free 2 play games counted in "big mmos". that's all i am asking for.

EVE / WoW ( over 350k subscribers, expansions and no plans to finish)
League of Legends / Diablo 3 / Starcraft 2 (mmo games with ranking, chat channels, 1 server per continent)
or Free2Play - Guild Wars / Runes of Magic / Perfectworld.com and other sites

there is also browser games to be added in the mix, if those are considered mmos, and if they are "big"

my statement was simply that only eve and wow are big and there won't be any bigger ones until titan, can someone say i was wrong here? other than that, please explain to me what a big mmo is because i don't get it if Dofus is added in simply because it has subscribers.

the other thing which baffles me is that i thought big had to be multi platform... eve/wow run on mac os x (hence the big mmo) dofus has a mac client, thats the only game you got me for, but i bet you no one knows what dofus is, is it really big or is it just the french community?

if the "next big mmo" is an mmo that beats wow, then your answer to this 13 page thread is Leage of Legends which has more active players than WoW.

so Huntn, what is a "big mmo" and how does it need to achieve that status? you have not clarified this to anyone

------

Big MMO's according to general public that require a subscription (more content, more gameplay than anothing else on the market)

OSX
EVE Online: 2003 - Present (2 free expansions every year) 350-375k subscribers and the only paid mmo where numbers are increasing, it has 1 server
WoW: 2004 - Present (1 expansion every 1.5 - 2 years) 10.2 million subscribers and numbers are lowering, 300+ servers
Dofus: 2004 - Dead soon (being replaced by wakfu.com) has 500k - 1.5 mil subscribers, numbers are going down due to wakfu (mainly french community), a few servers

PC Only
Starwars: 2011 - Dead soon, has 100-200k subcribers, numbers are going down, 50+ servers

besides starwars... we go in the "are they really mmos?" category. we need to establish what a big mmo is in order to debate or talk about which ones might be big. if everyone here says guild wars 2 is the next big mmo, i'm going to say diablo 3. (although nothing will beat eve/wow so its blizzard titan) ;p

 

[the8thark]

WoW... but as I said I believe most of the serious gamers around here are Bootcamping- it. Yeah, there are some pure ones who don't want nothing to do with Windows.

This is true. But it's silly. The OS X WoW client runs fine. And it has a feature the Windows WoW client does not. On the OS X version we can record WoW video direct within the Application with one key press. Using the Quicktime frameworks. The Windows crowd need a separate application to record any WoW video to put on youtube etc etc.

So I don't see why people would bootcamp WoW. There's no need, unless you spend 95% of your time in Windows. And if someone does that then I question why they even bought a Mac in the first place.

 

[Huntn]

This is true. But it's silly. The OS X WoW client runs fine. And it has a feature the Windows WoW client does not. On the OS X version we can record WoW video direct within the Application with one key press. Using the Quicktime frameworks. The Windows crowd need a separate application to record any WoW video to put on youtube etc etc.

So I don't see why people would bootcamp WoW. There's no need, unless you spend 95% of your time in Windows. And if someone does that then I question why they even bought a Mac in the first place.

The references to Bootcamp are for only when it's required. I played WoW under MacOSX and loved and always love avoiding Windows when I can.

 

[the8thark]

The references to Bootcamp are for only when it's required. I played WoW under MacOSX and loved and always love avoiding Windows when I can.

That's cool .

But as you know some people who own a Mac play all their games via bootcamp without even looking at the OS X clients.

 

[Huntn]

that is what i am asking you, if xbox live is not an mmo, why is wow an mmo?

If you don't know the answer to your question, I don't feel like obliging you. Google it.
If you want to talk about the next MMO that excites you (the purpose of this thread), feel free to do so.
If you want to fight about what "the Next Big MMO" means, you'll have to pick it with someone else. Now, write me another page long reply, lol.

There is no need to debate. I'm currently looking forward to Guild Wars 2 and Planetside 2. How about you? It's that simple.

That's cool .

But as you know some people who own a Mac play all their games via bootcamp without even looking at the OS X clients.

That is a shame. I never did a comparison of frame rates between the Mac and Windows WoW clients, but I do remember during the PPC days that the Windows client of Unreal Tournament produced almost double what the Mac client produced on comparable hardware. Some gamers want max performance and they float to the Dark Side for their games. Now with Intel in your Mac I would presume the gap is less, but I do know that because of the mechanics of ports, games written with Windows in mind and then ported to the MacOS, there is still a performance hit. How much is a case to case basis. I know that if I can, I'll play it on my Mac using OSX.

 

[SlickShoes]

that is what i am asking you, if xbox live is not an mmo, why is wow an mmo?

you only see a lot of players in the two cities otherwise you queue inside an instance of 5-25 or 40. in bf3 you can do 32vs32... in wow you can do 40vs40 but wow is an mmo because there is a lobby (stormwind or ogrimmar)? i'm not debating for the sake of debating, the thread is the next big mmo, i've asked many times what does that mean, does it have to beat wow? does it need to be more than 350k subscribers? what is an mmo according to you?

You only see players in the cities if you don't go anywhere else, you can still go anywhere on the continent you are on without setting foot inside an instance, just because players congregate in one area does not make the entire game a lobby. You fail to mention that in WoW you can do 100v100 if you want? or 167v473? if you get enough players on the server to do it you can. You can't do that on LoL or BF3, having a lobby doesnt make a game an MMO.

people consider league of legends an mmo... there is 1 server, there is lobbies, and there is global ranking. if league of legends is an mmo, then so is starcraft 2. i am grown up, i still say there is only eve and wow in big mmos. you haven't disproved me wrong besides dofus. do you even know what dofus is?

LoL is not an MMO, nor is Starcraft, just because mmorpg.com lists it does not make it so. I have no idea what DOFUS is.

i only consider EVE to be an MMO like many other eve players, but for some reason there is runes of magic (wow rip off) and wow that fit in the same category. you only see players in towns.

In EVE as soon as I am in another system I can't see every other player in the game, so although it is all one server don't pretend its not split up.

MMO = massive multiplayer online, basically if wow is an mmo where a bunch of people who gather in towns and you get to see them as opposed to just loging in msn, then starcraft 2 is also an mmo, because there is chat channels (towns!)

ridiculous.

so i'm going to end there because i just paraphrase myself over and over. i'll state again there is only two big mmos... EVE and WoW, and there will not be another "next big mmo" until blizzard titan.

There are plenty big mmo's, just because they dont have 30,000 people all in one single location, games dont need millions of players to be large MMO worlds.

if i am wrong, tell me which games are MMOs (mmorpg.com states diablo 3 as an mmo) and tell me whether free 2 play games counted in "big mmos". that's all i am asking for.

too many to list.

EVE / WoW ( over 350k subscribers, expansions and no plans to finish)
League of Legends / Diablo 3 / Starcraft 2 (mmo games with ranking, chat channels, 1 server per continent)
or Free2Play - Guild Wars / Runes of Magic / Perfectworld.com and other sites

there is also browser games to be added in the mix, if those are considered mmos, and if they are "big"

If your browser game can get 100's of people all interacting in one single location then it's an MMO, if they only interact via chat then it's not, suggesting MSN is an MMO is stupid.

my statement was simply that only eve and wow are big and there won't be any bigger ones until titan, can someone say i was wrong here? other than that, please explain to me what a big mmo is because i don't get it if Dofus is added in simply because it has subscribers.

the other thing which baffles me is that i thought big had to be multi platform... eve/wow run on mac os x (hence the big mmo) dofus has a mac client, thats the only game you got me for, but i bet you no one knows what dofus is, is it really big or is it just the french community?

Why would it have to be multiplatform to be big? Uncharted 3 is huge and its on one platform, Gears of War is huge and its on one platform. EVE was also only on PC for a long time.



so Huntn, what is a "big mmo" and how does it need to achieve that status? you have not clarified this to anyone

------

Big MMO's according to general public that require a subscription (more content, more gameplay than anothing else on the market)

OSX
EVE Online: 2003 - Present (2 free expansions every year) 350-375k subscribers and the only paid mmo where numbers are increasing, it has 1 server
WoW: 2004 - Present (1 expansion every 1.5 - 2 years) 10.2 million subscribers and numbers are lowering, 300+ servers
Dofus: 2004 - Dead soon (being replaced by wakfu.com) has 500k - 1.5 mil subscribers, numbers are going down due to wakfu (mainly french community), a few servers

PC Only
Starwars: 2011 - Dead soon, has 100-200k subcribers, numbers are going down, 50+ servers

which star wars game are you on about? Galaxies has shut down and TOR has way more subs that 200k, that game has horrible instancing though where you can only get 200 people max on each instance of a planet, that's still an MMO but not on the scale of some other games.

besides starwars... we go in the "are they really mmos?" category. we need to establish what a big mmo is in order to debate or talk about which ones might be big. if everyone here says guild wars 2 is the next big mmo, i'm going to say diablo 3. (although nothing will beat eve/wow so its blizzard titan) ;p

My comments in bold italics.

There are no arbitrary numbers to how many people = an MMO.

 

[SlickShoes]

I just resubbed WoW because nothing else is up to scratch, unsure whether to start fresh or jump back on my characters I left as soon as they hit 85.

I told myself I would never do this but its been a year and 2 months since I quit and nothing else holds my attention, i think I have spent more money on games in the last year than I had in the last 3 before that when I played WoW.

 

[Huntn]

I just resubbed WoW because nothing else is up to scratch, unsure whether to start fresh or jump back on my characters I left as soon as they hit 85.

I told myself I would never do this but its been a year and 2 months since I quit and nothing else holds my attention, i think I have spent more money on games in the last year than I had in the last 3 before that when I played WoW.

I loved it, but I just can't go back there. You should check out GW2 when able. Honestly I had no idea of the radical makeover in GW2 until I got a beta invite and started reading up on it. Most importantly they have changed it over from the original so now, there is a common world, not an "instanced" world to explore. In the original the only common areas where the town centers. All country side/questing space was instanced so you never could meet another player by chance. This is a great step for this franchise. The potential for a new combat based experience in a MMO is great, maybe even profound. But I'll have to wait until I actually had the chance to experience it. Most interesting as was stated in the GW2 Anticipation thread, is that you no longer have to wait around for a tank or a healer to start the rumble... My initial impression is that this will not diminish our preconceived notions of what MMO combat is all about, the holy trinity of healer, tank, DPS.

 

[skottichan]

I'm looking forward to GW2, I had fun with friends on the first one.

@nostylluan: According to EA, they have around 1.7 million active subs for SWtOR. Not terrible for a brand new MMO that only needs about 500,000 active members to be profitable.

 

[jedolley]

Haven't read the entire thread, but IMO the next big MMOs that come to mind are:

Guild Wars 2 (as mention at least on this page)
Secret World
and possible the Kingdom of Amalur MMO when it comes out since the game appears to being doing well.
I would also say Diablo 3, but I don't consider that a MMO.

 

[UIE]

Next MMO

You guys write too much! BioWare stated The Old Republic is coming to MAC soon, but they are fixing the bugs in the Windows version first. I think this topic is about MMORPG's. Not just MMO's in general, MMO is often used as slang for MMORPG.

 

[Huntn]

You guys write too much! BioWare stated The Old Republic is coming to MAC soon, but they are fixing the bugs in the Windows version first. I think this topic is about MMORPG's. Not just MMO's in general, MMO is often used as slang for MMORPG.

That's what I ment when I started the thread (way back when) to talk about MMORPGs, although I do use MMO for short.

 

[the8thark]

Technically an MMO does not have to be an RPG. It just has to be a massively multiplayer online game. So any online game that can attract the big numbers to play together all online is an MMO. So yes in this stance Starcraft and Diablo 3 etc etc are MMOs. You don't have to have all the players in the same game or in the same server. As long as the game's focus is multiplayer.

But they are not MMORPGs. The Eve and WoW styled games fit here. MMORPG is a subset of the wider MMO category.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_game

A massively multiplayer online game (also called MMO and MMOG) is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously.

This says nothing about all on the game server. Or in the same instanced game. There is that many playing Starcraft 2 at the same time. So it is an MMO. Totally made up of online vs matches but still hundreds or thousands of them are going at the same time so it's an MMO. Just one example but you get my point.

 

[UIE]

REPLY TO: the8thark

I think we are all on the same page now. I was just saying MMO is often used as slang to describe an MMORPG.

 

[SlickShoes]

I loved it, but I just can't go back there. You should check out GW2 when able. Honestly I had no idea of the radical makeover in GW2 until I got a beta invite and started reading up on it. Most importantly they have changed it over from the original so now, there is a common world, not an "instanced" world to explore. In the original the only common areas where the town centers. All country side/questing space was instanced so you never could meet another player by chance. This is a great step for this franchise. The potential for a new combat based experience in a MMO is great, maybe even profound. But I'll have to wait until I actually had the chance to experience it. Most interesting as was stated in the GW2 Anticipation thread, is that you no longer have to wait around for a tank or a healer to start the rumble... My initial impression is that this will not diminish our preconceived notions of what MMO combat is all about, the holy trinity of healer, tank, DPS.

I had GW1 and the only thing I didnt like was the instancing.

There is really nothing to lose buying GW2 much like the first because it has no subscription, so because of that I will probably buy the box and see what its like, but its not going to be out until Q3 this year. After all my waiting and aticipating SWTOR I set myself up for a fall getting caught up in the hype train one last time so now I am just going to keep playing WoW and then Diablo when it's out and see how the other games go when they release I won't be jumping in to anything day 1 and expecting the world from it.

I think with WoW I have spent that long away from the game there is plenty for me to do now that will at least kill a few months, anything that can stop me buying a stream of £40 console games every month!

----------

You guys write too much! BioWare stated The Old Republic is coming to MAC soon, but they are fixing the bugs in the Windows version first. I think this topic is about MMORPG's. Not just MMO's in general, MMO is often used as slang for MMORPG.

One of the reasons I stopped playing SWTOR was the chore of booting between windows and OSX all the time, if Paralells keeps getting better I may just invest in that in the future.

 

[Huntn]

I had GW1 and the only thing I didnt like was the instancing.

There is really nothing to lose buying GW2 much like the first because it has no subscription, so because of that I will probably buy the box and see what its like, but its not going to be out until Q3 this year. After all my waiting and aticipating SWTOR I set myself up for a fall getting caught up in the hype train one last time so now I am just going to keep playing WoW and then Diablo when it's out and see how the other games go when they release I won't be jumping in to anything day 1 and expecting the world from it.

I think with WoW I have spent that long away from the game there is plenty for me to do now that will at least kill a few months, anything that can stop me buying a stream of £40 console games every month!

----------



One of the reasons I stopped playing SWTOR was the chore of booting between windows and OSX all the time, if Paralells keeps getting better I may just invest in that in the future.

Lol, I waited for SWTOR for 2 YEARS. The basic satisfaction of playing the game had to be lacking or probably you would have endured switching back and forth. I can handle booting between the 2 OSs, no problem, but admittedly, not ideal. It goes all most without saying you'll get better performance from any game running in Windows as compared to being ported to Mac*. More of an issue if your hardware is on the edge. Fortunately the MMORPGs are specifically designed not to be cutting edge as to appeal to a larger base of players.

I am amazed frankly that Arennet can resist the lure of subscriptions, even say $5-10 per month. The original game (I believe) sold over 6 million copies. If you had 1 million players, that would be $5-10 million per month income. The attraction must be immense and servers have to be maintained, new content to be developed.

I guarantee that no subscription, a "non" instanced world to explore, and watching those combat videos, practically ensures success. Doing away with the traditional trinity of healer, tank, dps, could be huge, but will just have to wait and see how it actually feels. Cross Profession combos are really intriguing, but it means casual players may have to study other Professions to understand how to function, but it might not be that hard, as simple as lay down a ring of fire and let people shoot projectiles through it.

*Not to start that debate, but historically due to the way Windows games are created and optimized, using DirectX, Macs have always taken a (game) performance hit of some kind. I remember in WoW, Mac people talking about better performance when running the game in Windows. However I really enjoyed not having to switch to Windows to play it. The performance gap is probably less an issue today than it used to be in the PPC days and exists on a case by case basis.

 

[SlickShoes]

Lol, I waited for SWTOR for 2 YEARS. The basic satisfaction of playing the game had to be lacking or probably you would have endured switching back and forth. I can handle booting between the 2 OSs, no problem, but admittedly, not ideal. It goes all most without saying you'll get better performance from any game running in Windows as compared to being ported to Mac*. More of an issue if your hardware is on the edge. Fortunately the MMORPGs are specifically designed not to be cutting edge as to appeal to a larger base of players.

I am amazed frankly that Arennet can resist the lure of subscriptions, even say $5-10 per month. The original game (I believe) sold over 6 million copies. If you had 1 million players, that would be $5-10 million per month income. The attraction must be immense and servers have to be maintained, new content to be developed.

I guarantee that no subscription, a "non" instanced world to explore, and watching those combat videos, practically ensures success. Doing away with the traditional trinity of healer, tank, dps, could be huge, but will just have to wait and see how it actually feels. Cross Profession combos are really intriguing, but it means casual players may have to study other Professions to understand how to function, but it might not be that hard, as simple as lay down a ring of fire and let people shoot projectiles through it.

*Not to start that debate, but historically due to the way Windows games are created and optimized, using DirectX, Macs have always taken a (game) performance hit of some kind. I remember in WoW, Mac people talking about better performance when running the game in Windows. However I really enjoyed not having to switch to Windows to play it. The performance gap is probably less an issue today than it used to be in the PPC days and exists on a case by case basis.

Yeah I am sure there is still a performance dip from playing in OSX but I like OS, it makes it very easy to switch wow to window mode and use another app or internet browser. Playing on Windows that always takes me ages, SWTOR was terrible for it, you could alt tab out of the game but going back in took forever, I guess thats the games fault and not windows though.

I think you are correct that if I can't be bothered booting into windows to play SWTOR it says more about the game than anything else, I use windows every day and I don't mind it at all but if i have the option to use OSX and take a 20% performance hit I will probably do it. If a game is windows only and good like skyrim was I have no issue booting in to use it, the only thing i find lacking is the touchpad loses half its functionality even when you use the trackpad++ drivers its still not the same.

 

[UIE]

Swtor mac

Ok, I was talking about being natively on the MAC. I am also not sure if it is going to be ported or redone for MAC. I think we are going to see more natively MAC games that are made for it, not ported. However, if it's not a mainstream game I think we will see a lot of ports.

 

[eXan]

One of the reasons I stopped playing SWTOR was the chore of booting between windows and OSX all the time

That's the reason I didn't buy it. I knew I won't stand running it in Windows, even though I'm a big Star Wars fan.

The same thing happened with (long awaited) Unreal Tournament 3 - as soon as I got a powerful enough Mac I installed it in Windows, but the huge inconvenience of rebooting, dealing with Win, different mouse settings, etc made me abadnon it pretty fast. Shame, as I liked the game. Too bad the OS X port never happened, though there were even screenshots of it working from the developer.

 

[Huntn]

The April 2012 PCGamer published a good article on Planetside 2, the next big MMOFPS. Looks like they are going to classes. As compared to the original that had a wide open certification system. The good news is that you can change out your class at any "cert station", or whatever they called it exactly. You'll also acquire cert points when you are on or offline, but you can get more if your on.

Also if I understand it properly, the article mentioned the plan is to have it free to play- really?!

And they are taking beta applications now at: http://www.planetside2.com/. Go sign up!

 

[SlickShoes]

The April 2012 PCGamer published a good article on Planetside 2, the next big MMOFPS. Looks like they are going to classes. As compared to the original that had a wide open certification system. The good news is that you can change out your class at any "cert station", or whatever they called it exactly. You'll also acquire cert points when you are on or offline, but you can get more if your on.

Also if I understand it properly, the article mentioned the plan is to have it free to play- really?!

And they are taking beta applications now at: http://www.planetside2.com/. Go sign up!

Free to play with microtransactions really does seem to be the future of the genre, I can't see that many more games releasing and commanding a sub fee anymore.

 

[Huntn]

Free to play with microtransactions really does seem to be the future of the genre, I can't see that many more games releasing and commanding a sub fee anymore.

The good news regarding GuildWars2 is that although there will be a store, the only thing you can buy are vanity items, not stat items if I understand it correctly. In other words you don't have to spend $ to be competitive.

 

[SlickShoes]

The good news regarding GuildWars2 is that although there will be a store, the only thing you can buy are vanity items, not stat items if I understand it correctly. In other words you don't have to spend $ to be competitive.

I am quite happy with that really, as long as the items dont give you an in game advantage then fair enough. I would buy stuff from the WoW pet/mount store if I didnt also have to pay a sub, but paying a sub AND having microtransactions sucks.

Signed up for the GW2 beta so I hope to get in and see what the game is like!