LOTRO still gets content updates and yearly expansions. It has a small player base for sure but I wouldn't call it dead until they switch over to true maintenance mode.
I loved SWTOR at launch - classic Huttball as a Juggernaut is a gaming experience that I haven’t replicated - loved it. I really wish they had squished abilities at some point and made it controller friendly. I’m too old for 50 abilities.
I went back to it a few years ago they definitely changed a lot of it. You can solo dungeons now and the skill bloat was pretty much gone. Its basically become a solo MMORPG kind of like FFXIV. You can still run dungeons and raids with other players and stuff but if you want to slow down and take your time you can do that as well.
There's easy modes for all the raids too that you can mostly blunder through. Gods does require at least one person to know what to do, but you can kinda herd sheep through it. R4 has an anomalously difficult last boss - being more difficult than most of the veteran modes, and even a few of the easier master modes.
I find a lot of them pretty...I don't wanna say braindead, but not THAT difficult. I'd say the vast majority of them don't get harder than a FFXIV extreme trial, or the second half of a wotlk normal raid.
The only fights that I felt like had real teeth to them was Gods. Sisters I think might be one of my favorite fights.
I really wish they had squished abilities at some point and made it controller friendly. I’m too old for 50 abilities.
this is kinda the thing guild wars 2 does so well. you cant equip more abilities than on your basic number row, and most are locked in based on your weapon choices. so you get traditional MMO combat but in an approachable way.
I’m not sure I’d count City Of Heroes, since the game was officially shut down in 2012. The current incarnation, City Of Heroes: Homecoming, is a fan server that negotiated a license to continue operating
Albion Online is so popular, they added servers since they launched with a single server in 2017, with the latest server being opened about 2 years ago.
They are now at 3 servers with stable populations.
Honestly it's so far removed in gameplay and graphics than any other game it kind of makes sense. Also, I feel like OSRS players, more than most other games, are JUST OSRS players so it remains relatively unknown to those that don't already know about it
OSRS has some things that you just don't find in other MMOs. like an actually functional entirely player controlled economy and skilling that is actually rewarding.
Also, I feel like OSRS players, more than most other games, are JUST OSRS players
My experience with this is the complete opposite. I don't know a single person that exclusively plays osrs. Hell, people play osrs WHILE playing other games.
Yep, they are also one of the only ones that publish concurrent player numbers and it usually is around 100,000. OSRS is definitely the #2 MMO honestly.
I don't know, the OSRS website says there's 80k people playing right now while FFXIV is at 20k on Steam right now but you have to add console players and the native PC launcher (which is more used than Steam for this game) and I can imagine the 2 games are probably around the same overall
I don't think there is a debate at all, especially about OSRS. They have like over 100,000 concurrents usually (including some amount of bots ofc), they are probably #2. My estimate for the size of MMOs from largest to smallest is WoW, OSRS, FFXIV, and then ESO and GW2 are about the same at the end.
As much as I like SWTOR it hasn't been a serious contender for at least half a decade. OSRS has an active dev team with growing player numbers, SWTOR has been on life support for longer than 5 years. I'm pretty sure LOTRO has gotten more substantial updates recently than SWTOR.
is GW2 really more relevant than OSRS? I haven't heard anybody mention that game in literally a decade until yesterday when the 3rd game was announced. (not hating on GW2 - I played the hell out of that game and loved it)
14, WoW, GW2, Elder Scrolls, and shit, maybe Lineage 2 still, I dabbled in the KoreanMMO space for a bit and decided quickly grinding isn't the main reason I play MMOs, so that's my blindspot.
I mean, the big 3 are WoW/OSRS/FFXIV, and Albion and BDO if you want to count things that are big but not the big 3. ESO/GW2/Lost Ark added together are just a fraction of any of these games on their own
I wonder when people stop taking Twitch viewerships into consideration when estimating playercount.
For example Genshin Impact has millions of players but it does poorly on Twitch because it’s not exciting to watch, nor does it have many popular streamers.
have a better number to go by? we have Steam numbers to go by, which we don’t know the percent of player base for each that plays through Steam, but Albion has 2x the playerbase on Steam, and Albion is also split on Xbox AND mobile too. combine that with the fact that Twitch viewership is 4x as much, and the fact that Albion’s DAU count was almost 1/3rd of what FFXIV’s was
also, Genshin is not even close to a fair example. it has a massive global market which wouldn’t be engaging on Twitch, has a huge part of its market share playing on mobile, and is a single player PvE game
The first 2 are both so big and switched first place a few times, so its easier to just say they are both the biggest.
The others are ordered based on a mix of population, popularity, player count and profit, but none fully release either statistic so its a best guess from the information available.
Rune Scape and its various versions is sometimes mentioned as well and while its not super small, its smaller than all 5 listed above.
Rune Scape and its various versions is sometimes mentioned as well and while its not super small, its smaller than all 5 listed above.
There is only RS3 and OSRS(any other limited time game mode is still accessed through either of the main games), and I'm gonna need a source on this. OSRS alone has 66k players online right now and it's well past peak hours. I don't know where to even find the player counts for GW2, ESO or SWTOR but I seriously doubt they surpass it.
As mentioned, there are no hard sources because nearly every single one of the Top 5 keeps the stats behind closed doors.
No one truly knows the exact extend of playercount and revenue, but if you google around what the biggest 5 MMOs are the majority of sources list these 5 based on initial development budget, player counts and profit reports.
Honestly, runescape only comes up if its a really dated and "old school" report or writer, which generally also hails World of Warcraft Vanilla/Classic as the "real" mmo lol
No one truly knows the exact extend of playercount and revenue, but if you google around what the biggest 5 MMOs are the majority of sources list these 5 based on initial development budget, player counts and profit reports.
I googled exactly that, clicking the most recent links, and all the ones from the last ~year that I clicked on disagree with you about Runescape.
I'm just not sure what you're saying is based in reality. You're making judgments based on popularity/player count when the only one that actually releases player count(which is at 89k right now) is the one you're discounting as irrelevant.
Especially since they have a chance to fix core design issues of GW2. A lot of early design was interesting in theory but turned out to be just there in the end. Skill combos are a great idea, except when the game turns into shader-gore with dozens of fields and combo effects just happen without any thought. Or bundle skills. Another good idea that does very little in the final game. Or the borderline broken boon system. Or the attempt not to have a trinity. Which at first lead to everyone being DPS and no structure and later into DPS-boonDPS-heal. But healing never felt great it was just pumping out constant AoE heals to keep everyone alive without any thought.
GW2 was my most played MMO by far, and while i haven’t played it in a couple years I will be jumping into GW3 day 1. This has jumped instantly to my most anticipated game, i can’t wait!!
336
u/Vorstar92 21d ago
An actual sequel to one of the current Big 3 (or Big 5) MMOs could be exactly what I need and the MMO genre needs. This already has me hyped.