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Non Competition Agreement: At the executive level in many companies, you are given stock options and a severance package. There are contracts involved legalities, ect. In many cases there are different severance packages. One example would be a non-competition clause. In order to get a large and beneficial severance package, you may have to sign one. They could last 5 to 10 years. All depending on the package. If one or all of the former WoW developers signed them, then they cannot create a competing product.
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MMoRPGs require large budgets and robust teams to produce them in a reasonable timeframe if you are going to compete with AAA titles. What is Reasonable? 5 years? 8 years? 10 Years? How many crowd funded MMO’s or MMO’s in general are still cooking after a long time. Crowfall, Pantheon, Star Citizen to name a few. Others get pushed to launch as a cash grab to recoup production costs. All of the MMO’s that launched then flopped in Western Markets over WoW’s lifecycle.
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Development Time. In order to build an MMO world from the ground up, you need a metric TON of lore craft. You need a detailed and involving story to build a theoretical world. Then breathe life to that world. Many games get lost in their Developers minds. They cannot build what they envision. Their vision is just too vast to be nailed down. And all of this takes a lot of time. Not to mention building systems after building the world. And with an MMO, you have to attempt to predict what the market is going to be on release. Is the game you are building going to be relevant 6 years from its inception?
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Competition: For a smaller studio you cannot realistically compete on the large market with an MMO. You dont have the stable to support it. You can release a game with a finite ending. Once released, you do not need a large team to keep it running. You can begin the next project. Large companies have stables of games, that they release. Games like CoD or the hundreds of sporting games. Stand alone titles as well. All these add to a revenue stream that can support large teams. They can handle a population of a MMO dropping off during a content drought. They can play the long game. Small studios cannot support that. If the population drastically drops during a content drought, they have to shrink their team. Thus their production slows down.
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Dedicated Consumer Base: The three Western MMO’s going strong are WoW, Elder Scrolls, and Final Fantasy. They have a long history of games propping them up. Years and even decades of history. All of these contribute to the market. Building a game with no external content is severely limiting in this day and age. All of the mentioned games, have books, supporting games, parallel stand alone game titles. They already had a dedicated and invested consumer base at launch. Building a new MMO from scratch, doesnt carry that. If anything I see a MMO based perhaps in the Harry Potter Universe, or the Witcher Universe having a chance at being largely successful.
If Dreamhaven does decide to make an MMO, I imagine it will go like many others. They will achieve financing to develop the idea. Then when they have an idea to present, they have to get a buyer or investors to commit to funding it. Funding X% of the projected cost over Y Timeframe. Once they can get 100% of their projected funding, they can begin development. Hire the rest of their team. Then go. Ultimately the investors will have the say. They will want a return on their investment. If the development isnt going well, the investors can pull funding, or force them to release the unfinished work.
Either that or Make a game on a much smaller scale. A small foundation of the game, that doesnt require a large population playing it to support. Then build from that. I am talking a world smaller than classic wow. Perhaps akin to Everquest at Launch. Something that was build to survive on a small player base, then grew to accommodate its growing base.
These are all hypothetical situations, but they are based on facts. You dont even need to look hard to see all these barriers for a small company producing a AAA MMO. Now that doesnt mean, they cant create some Amazing Games. I imaging they already have a few titles on the docket that I will buy. I just see the barriers to an MMO to be too high for a smaller studio to undertake at this state of the gaming market.
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I’m sure if they want to make an MMO…they make one. Blizzard started out small as well. But that’s just me making stuff up too.
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Everything I Said is a hypothetical situation based on the facts of producing a MMO or AAA game for that matter. I would love a new MMO. There are a few MMO’s that have been in development for 7 to 10 years now. I was excited for these games, but looking at where they are in Development at this time is far from a finished product. And many of them have " Founders Packages". Where you pay to access the testing portions of the game. Not even pre-alpha states. They are trying to cover development costs, but having people pay to test the game. And after 5+ years they arent even close to an alpha or pre-aplha.
Another post on this topic? Wow, it really is Flavour of the Week isn’t it. Still, I suppose if you come up with interesting points it’s not that bad a discussion, even though it does not pertain to World of Warcraft (as stated in the forum requirement). Then again, when has that ever mattered 
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How long does it take and how much does it cost to develop a high quality mmo nowadays? It would be brand new with no backstory. Doubt they’d make that big a bet on a single project. My guess is more like Hearthstone type games and single player rpgs, maybe multiplayer mode where you play on your own server.
Depends what their goals are. But for any new developer starting out, an MMO is probably the worst venture to take.
An massive online game is not as appealing in 2020 where everything is connected to the internet as it was in 2004 -> 2008.
Star Citizen Has been in development for 10 years and has raised just over $300 Million.
Pantheon Rise of The Fallen has been in development for Almost 7 years and Raised close to 1 million and received seed backing from and investor, most likely in the 1 to three million range. Then you add in all the pre-sale packages and Testing Packages. So it could be in the $5+ million range.
Depending on the scope of the game, maybe $1 Million a year for a small team. It also depends on their focus. If they are focused on building a studio, then they will most likely tackle small revenue generating projects before they attempt anything big.
Also it depends on how they choose to run the studio. When they get their first game or two funded, are they going to furnish it with a game room and coffee shop with a full time barista? Are they going to get lunch catered in every day? Are they going to do company happy hours and wine and dine potential clients? Will they decide that because they hit their first deadline, that the employees all get bonuses? I only use these examples, because there have been quite a few start up studios that make these same pitfalls. I recall reading about one studio that had a pretty successful game. They then moved to a new studio and went ham on all the luxuries and extras. The year they went bankrupt they had spent $100,000.00 That year on catered meals every day for the office.
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I hope they make an mmo. I want wow to have real competition. every new mmo is just trash these days. Only other mmos that are played have been around for a decade or so.
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I am honestly hoping it’s a Sandbox Survival Game.
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This is a big thing to note.
Late 90s, Early 2000s was a crazy time. Internet was becoming much more accessible and much better in general.
Playing with thousands of people across the country (or world) at the same time was insanity. That’s basically the basis of the MMORPG genre.
I’m honestly not convinced it’s anything more than a gimmick that people have convinced themselves is interesting. Sometimes I think a game like Destiny is the “right” way to handle an MMO. Especially when looking at how World Content in basically any traditional MMO pans out. Limited “lobby” size lets devs create more engaging content outside of instanced dungeons/raids/etc.
The amount of wild speculation going on here is amazing.
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Hopefully they avoid the overcrowded MMO, MOBA, Hero Shooter, Battle Royale, Looter Shooter and Crafting/Survival genres entirely. Those have been milked to death over the last 3-4 years.
A good Action RPG or RTS would be welcome, on the other hand. Or, if they wanna go a bit more mainstream and outside of Blizzard’s traditional schtick, some action adventure, or even a souls-like. I think they’d have waaaay more breathing room, and appeal, in those genres. And ex Blizzard devs would have the cred to make those genres work.
And if I was them, as a first title… Harkening back to Warcraft’s potential roots three decades ago… I’d try to convince Games Workshop to let me have a crack at either Warhammer or 40k. That way they have an established popular IP with large gamer appeal overlap to work off.
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Something is wrong with those people who put that kind of money into a Kickstarter game. Talk about developer job security for life. I read an article about a guy who tried to get his $4.5k contribution refunded. Who pays $4.5k to play a video game? Hope it doesn’t turn out to be the longest running con involving a video game. 
something dnd related would be interesting as it has decades of lore to tap into
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I hope they start with other genres personally. Make an open world single player rpg, to scratch my ever-present skyrim itch. Make a rts war game like total war, or a really good hack n slash isometric dungeon crawler. Create IP’s that strum the old fantasy/scifi tunes that I associate with old blizzard and I’ll look at Dreamhaven like the blizzard successor it [perhaps] aims to be.
Edit: if they want to try borrowing an IP to warm up, maybe they can try their hand at making a truly good warhammer/wh40k game. There are so many bad ones, and so few good ones out there.
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Here’s my 2 cents werth of opinion…
There won’t be any new MMO’s until some groundbreaking tech gets released. I’m talking VR that’s not annoying to wear. Something like that. Something super easy to wear and that’s immersive.
Until then, there will just be clones of WoW etc…
A quote from the article linked in MMO-Champion…
“But we also love gaming. We love the community, and we believe there is a great opportunity to use technology and entertainment and games to bring people together in a new way.”
He added, “Especially with the pandemic. People are so separated from each other for such a long time. That has highlighted how powerful gaming is as a way for people to bond with each other.”
I added the bold as those phrases sound like more than a single player game. It’s hard to bring people together and bond with other players in a single player game.
A longer and more detailed version of what I tried to tell people in one of the other threads. Starting with an MMO would be suicide for a new company.
I disagree. I have bonded with complete strangers and had hour+ long conversations about Skyrim. That said, a realistic and reasonable goal would be a multi-player or co-op game of some sort.
That was never true, even going all the way back to the NES and 2600 era. It was just a different dynamic because weren’t all inherently connected. But when we “connected” at work, school, the pub, etc… we talked about our great gaming experiences and it brought us together. In this digital age of game lobbies, the experience of ANY single player game is still communal.
That being said, the OPs entire thread was one long whine of “you can’t do it because of this… you can’t do it because of that.” The greatest moments throughout ALL of the history of mankind have always come from great thinkers who stood in the face of people outlining the very detailed and specific reasons they couldn’t do something… and getting it done anyway.
Just look at the 3 successful MMOs you list: they’re all in the fantasy genre.
So I posit, all you need to do is pick a long running novel series in the SciFi universe and the groundwork is already done for you, in terms of history and backstory. All you have to do is bring it to life. I’d say Ringworld Engineers, but I think Halo was largely based on this idea. Even if it was, Larry Niven is a great example of someone that has already fleshed out TONS of ideas someone could create an MMO universe upon.
edit: I use this example because I have friends who REFUSE to play WoW for no other reason that it’s a fantasy game. They just hate the genre. But if there was a SciFi MMO, they’d play it all day long. I bring up this fact when people say a Starcraft MMO would “never succeed.” PLENTY of people who would never touch WoW would DEVOUR a SC MMO.
Bottom line is the OPs post is just … it thinks so SMALL. I hate when I hear/read people do that. There’s a reason wildly successful, strokes of brilliance happen the way they do-- they fly in the face of people who sit around all day moping “you can’t do that.” Yes you can!
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With all the mmorpgs on the market, and with the threat of battle royale, what would they offer?
I don’t want to be the rain in the nascar… but:
