Why people still overhype new MMOs?

Off-Topic Games, Gaming and Hardware
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Like the many of you, we all heard about New World ad-nauseam at this point. Everybody is talking about it, since it’s getting close to release day. Talking about the graphics, the gameplay of crafting and PvP, comparing how the two companies here and how much Amazon listens (yet still keeps in microtransactions), the fact that the company doesn’t have a great track record with games, such as Crucible didn’t even last a year before getting canned, and that New World makes GPU’s explode like cars from GTA.

Personally, unless New World has an offline single-player mode with mod support, i’m not really interested in it. Aside from it being mostly PvP, i honestly thought it was just going to be a straight up 1700’s American colonial etse game, but the magic included just pretty much ruined it.

But i digress, a lot of people are excited for it, and there is nothing wrong with that. I mean i get excited for new things all the time. Once upon a time, i was excited for The Sims 4… and then i played it and went back to The Sims 3. :confused:

And yes, competition is good and all. It makes the companies work hard to earn the customer’s dollar. and in turn, make the games better, while at the same time, showing there’s an interest for (as well money to be made from) this particular genre. Again, going back to The Sims, how many of you heard of Paralives? I love The Sims (just not the The Sims 4 obviously), but i am interested in see how it plays out, not just for the Paralives, but for the The Sims as well.

Also, here’s wishing for Thrive to also finish it’s stages. I’m really interested in seeing how the rest of the stages play out. Hopefully there’s an aquatic stage. :pleading_face:

But what i don’t understand is after all the MMO’s or games in general that were hyped to hell and back and lead to disappointment when it doesn’t live up to the hype, why we are still doing this?.. I mean it has to be on purpose at this point, given how many times we have this happen and we have historical evidence that would make somebody pause and go like… “Hmm, i’l wait and see” or at least be like “I’m excited for it, but i’m going to wait and see”. I’m sure we all heard the term “WoW Killer” at some point. A moniker that is used to kill the hyped up MMO rather then WoW itself.

That isn't to say the MMO's involved are terrible or bad. Infact, some of these MMO's are pretty good, once you ignore the "WoW killer" hype.

While i didn’t enjoy FF14, i’m not going to go on record and say it’s a terrible game… i just don’t enjoy Final Fantasy anything honestly. My alternatives or my main MMO in a world where if WoW wasn’t my main MMO, would be either Star Wars: The Old Republic or Guild Wars 2.

No, it’s simply the mentality behind of hyping up these games, that is terrible and/or bad. This unrealistic expectation set by those involved, are “Either this kills WoW and be super amazing and fantastic, or else it’s completely worthless and it’s garbage.”, instead of enjoying it or looking at it even for it’s own merits. Some even praised unreleased games before there’s any reviews for it that give it a definite rating or score, or recommendation even.

And really, what is all this for?.. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

You dislike WoW and you needed some sort of game to be very good to not only pull you away, but have it make look like the game you hate so bad that everybody else will quit, hence why you’re hyping it up? You know there’s like tons of MMO’s right now to pick from that you might never even heard of but chances are you will enjoy?

“But Bari, there’s nothing wrong with being excited for a game!” That’s never was my point. I said it’s bad to hype the game up that you didn’t even play or don’t know if it would be any good because it builds this unrealistic exception for the game you’re hyping up here to live up to. It does nothing but hurt the game your hyping. And if you’re only doing this because you dislike WoW right now, just unsub and go to Steam. Steam alone has a pretty substantive amount of MMORPGs on to offer. About 30 pages of it. Even a bit more when you include early access games. I mean it doesn’t have to be what’s the most relevant, hyped or popular or even a WoW killer. Try something you wouldn’t normally go for.

Just wait until launch, see how the game performs at launch, look at it based on it’s own merits, and most of all, manage your expectations. Just manage your expectations. That’s all i ask.

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As you said, people are looking for that game that will advance the genre.

As for the hype, people have opinions even if they aren’t very good objectively and/or subjectively.

I’m pretty hyped for halo infinite even though I know it’s just going to be more of the same. There really isn’t any reason to be hyped for it. I’ll play through the campaign, then get bored with the multiplayer like I did with reach.

I’m still hyped for it and will tell my friends about it.

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I think it’s a psychological thing. Game trailers, gameplay previews, and demos highlighting fun aspects of a game that gets people interested and excited are what get people hyped. You see this behavior with anything that needs to sell: food, music, movies, animation, cars, technology…you name it.

It’s the reason why I never buy anything on day one and wait until I get substantial reviews from people who purchased such things and actually used it over a long period of time and not just critics getting paid to leave blogs and reviews. Even then, I’d still try it on my own because someone else’s experience may not reflect my own, since everyone has their preferences.

Now mix all of the above with people’s own displeasure with whatever they’re enjoying now, sometimes they want to draw the attention of a new product with hopes of building additional competition and have them succeed because they feel the developer/MFGR of the product they’re currently enjoying aren’t doing enough to improve the product, and it’ll give them a good kick in the rear.

In the specific example of new MMOs, we’ve seen all sorts of threads of players expressing their concerns about Blizz only now implementing changes they were told to do ages prior, or new features they want to see so they can stay subbed and enjoy the game. When new MMOs come out sharing those features players want - BOOM - now you have that hype.

Sadly, more often than not nowadays, you have games that feel incomplete because they lack substance :confused:

The old MMO formula is… not necessarily bad… but getting overdone and stale, and gamers are constantly searching for new MMOs that can do something new or just different.

This is the very problem players have. They spend so much time comparing, trying to get one game to be exactly like another rather than enjoying it for what it does have. Like how it’s often mentioned why other MMOs don’t have mod support when functionality from so-said mods is sometimes already built into the core client in newer MMOs. That comfort zone is a killer to get out of to try something new/different.

Another common behavior I see. Like how there’re so many western MMOs being mentioned yet there are a handful of eastern ones besides the popular titles that don’t get talked about at all, having players thinking the genre is dry. I follow this guy on Youtube; he talks about titles in the genre from both regions: https://www.youtube.com/c/MMOByteGames/featured
https://www.mmobyte.tv/

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I get the same question for my self but more in line with entire gaming industry as a whole given that many beloved game dev companies went from being nerds doing it for passion to being corporate. Its hard for me to get hyped for new releases now and days just because the industry has changed, I have seen Cyberpunk 2077, No Man’s Sky (on release) and Fallout 76 to name a few that were hyped but when they released they became massive disappointments, hard to trust AAA Video game companies now and days to make atleast a decent product.

For MMOs since it is the topic at hand, there hasn’t been an MMO that actually lasts enough in recent years and the MMO community is desperate to find a new MMO that hopefully sticks, ignoring any criticism, research and possibilities of what may happen during release, example I can provide is Bless online, it was hyped to be the big thing for MMOs before release and where did it end up? getting shut down and from what I heard its getting a rebrand into Bless Unleashed… but the reviews on Steam is mixed.

For New World I don’t have high expectations given its coming from Amazon games which they have botched games before (like you said with Crucible) and from what I have seen during beta for it I have seen some enough bugs close to release and the fact it still torches GPUs is still concerning (unless it is fixed). Ashes of Creation does seem promising… but I’m not going to give into the hype and willing to spend money if it fails.

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I do not get it either.

I tend to hype up games I have already played, but not games I have yet to play. New World is not going to be massively succesful - it may find its niche players, but that niche playerbase is much smaller within the MMORPG genre, and it shares a potential playerbase with games like Mortal Online 2.

I am still waiting for that MMORPG that will truly transform the MMORPG genre, and I have found none that tries to do that.

Ashes of Creation has a lot of potential though, but I do not trust it.

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There is a hunger for something new on the market.

I just wish we got Dark Millenium…sigh…

One day maybe. Maybe. I might get my 40k mmorpg.

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Ditto.

Kind of an odd but interesting thought in my opinion. Transform into what? :thinking:

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That is the question, isn’t it.

Personally I am tired of the old formula that every MMORPG developer comes out with. Rush the leveling, get to the real game which is the endgame, raids, dungeons, arena PvP. Only FFXIV breaks the mold here by actually offering a worthwhile leveling experience, but it still isn’t too different from most other MMORPGs.

I guess I want something more cohesive in the MMORPG genre, I want the genre to improve in all of its aspects.

For long now, the MMORPG genre have been in a constant state of reinventing the wheel, a wheel which, as can be seen in WoW’s state, is breaking down.

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Fair enough. Honestly i kind of feel that way too, or similar to it at least.

Sometimes i just wish i can do some endgame stuff but as low level. Or wish there’s more content to do while leveling. Or something like that.

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It’s called marketing and these companies spend a lot on it. The historical trend is that most of the MMORPGs released in the last 10+ years end up losing most of their player population after a year and never recover. I would say probably 95% of them. GW2 in particular is only making 10% of the money it did in 2013 when I look at the data.

The problem with the MMORPG genre in general is a lack of innovation, too much market saturation, and everyone is trying to copy the formula that made WoW successful.

MMORPGs went from 40-60% market share to only being 10%.

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