MMORPG Wasteland.

And so August is upon us, but the weather is not so typical of the season. Windy-wet days interspersed with patchy sunny days, then overcast and ultimately baking hot sizzlers that turn your home into a storage heater, seeping out the day's heat throughout the evening and well into the night, making your sleep a sweat-soaked misery.

At least that's how it is here in the UK.

Moving on. The great beast that is the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game - what's happened to it? It hasn't gone anywhere, but it hasn't improved or moved forward - at least to my mind.

My very first MMORPG was the amazing Guild Wars - NOT 'Guild Wars 1', as many muppets keep referring to it, due to the fact a second game was released by ANet entitled, 'Guild Wars 2'.
From there I moved into World of Warcraft, dabbled with Age of Conan, and bounced in and out of WoW and Guild Wars & GWs2.

Copyright ©. ANet.

But something is missing from the genre. Many new developers are trying to find the 'thing' to reinvent the genre, but are falling short. It is a great shame, as the MMORPG can offer such a diverse and rewarding experience for those players invested in the lore, the characters and world settings. 

So where does it go wrong?

Players. They moan about a game not adding anything new. They move on to new game territory, where they proceed to pick it apart, bemoaning that it is not like their previous game, which they cite as being much better (odd to say, but they do say it). Said players then return to old game, grind a bit, then moan about it, all the while keeping a beady eye open for any new MMORPG to fling its doors open. So the cycle repeats itself.

Humans (gamers) are odd creatures. They get set in their ways, distrust change, prefer familiarity even though they will complain about it, seek something new only to return to the old.

For developers they face the gaming equivalent of re-inventing the wheel. It will take a very brave, and skilled developer to come up with an MMORPG that breaks away from old 'traditions' and seeks to do something original, fresh and new. I very much doubt this will ever happen, as today's games are so heavily entrenched in sponsors, investors, boards of directors, shareholders, etc, that developers are hard pressed to release a game when the devs want to release it - good point in case: CD Projekt Red and their ruined baby 'Cyberpunk 2077'.

Copyright ©. CD Projekt Red 2020.

I can only hope that someday something amazing will manifest with the MMORPG genre and World of Warcraft will, once and for all, be laid to rest as the King of MMOs.

Here's hoping.