Mostly referring to the release of the latest WoW extension which isn’t discussed anywhere (or maybe I missed it)
Dead? WoW, FFXIV, RuneScape, ESO, have millions of players. What world do you live in that these games are dead?
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.
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.
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.
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 👌
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
By MMO you mean MMORPG specifically? Because MMO in general is the most popular type of games imo… League of Legends, Dota, Fortnite, Valorant, Overwatch - all are super popular. Regarding MMORPG, I see a lot of youngsters play Genshin. I’ve personally been playing a classless WoW pserver lately.
How the hell are League of Legends or Valorant considered MMOs? Are Rocket League or Team Fortress 2 MMOs? Is Battlefield 5 an MMO now?
The expansion of this term to include 5v5 games is never not going to piss me off.
I always considered “MMO” as a synonym for “multiplayer”. Anyway, if you take the word “massively” into account, you could also treat is as “massive number of players you could POTENTIALLY reach by joining one of the rooms” (word “potentially” as opposed to “actually reaching at any given moment”). In actual MMORPGs it’s not like you can actually interact with all the people online at the same time, you still are limited by geometry and game logic of the world at least, like no one will ever gather in a single town because people are doing other stuff, or are from enemy factions, etc. And in many MMORPGs there is instancing going on, so even players in mob farming locations can be assigned to different instances and not see each other because of reasons.
