Holy shit… that game is still around? It was dead many years ago when I quit playing it. I mainly quit because of lack of players even in what should have been major activity hubs.
If you actually look at the MMO/MMO-adjacent landscape… most of the ones that are still alive are over a decade old with some legally allowed to drink.
Runescape: 2001
WoW: 2004
LOTRO: 2007
Star Wars TOR: 2011
Guild Wars 2: 2012
Final Fantasy MMO (that people actually liked): 2013
Old School Runescape: 2013
Elder Scrolls Online (about that…): 2014
And a lot of that has to do with people increasingly using MMOs as “comfort games” which… work best for the oldies. And most of the money going into game dev focused more on annual games and then live service games where you still spend about the same amount of money per year but feel better because it isn’t a monthly subscription. Instead of spending 10-15 bucks a month you spend 30-50 bucks every other month for the battle pass or the new expansion or the Officer D.Va skin and so forth. TOTALLY different.
So most of the newer MMO-ass MMOs are either doomed from the start for being overly niche or take a more Korean or Gacha oriented balance and monetization scheme where… they are competing against the juggernauts that are also closer to a decade old than not.
its because the “oldies” are well designed and aren’t overtly obvious cash grabs.
well I mean some are cash types. but quite a few old MMOs have a great life due to private servers and whatnot. And some “dead” MMOs are still alive solely on private servers (Star Wars Galaxies for example)
and ones like ESO are great for not needing a subscription to play. you have the option to just buy the content outright if you’d like.
but yeah I would love to see a new MMO come along to bring that feeling back. the good old days of competition between MMOs. it does feel like cash shop gacha trash is everywhere these days.
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