Online Role-Playing Games 2017: Boredom? 5 Recipes for MMORPG Fans

Go Indie – Indie MMORPGs are shaping up, but probably not in 2017

The problem: Fans of online role-playing games want a game outside the mainstream, want to have a say in the development and seek a “tailor-made MMORPG.” They have no interest in mainstream alternatives.

The situation: The indie revolution is in full swing in the gaming world: The hype train is running full steam. However, with MMORPGs, the train is still at the station. The hopeful MMORPGs are not yet far enough along to be really playable.

All indie MMORPGs have in common that they do not want to provide a complete MMORPG like before, but instead specialize in partial aspects:

• For example, Camelot Unchained wants to offer realm-vs-realm PvP like the old Dark Age of Camelot. The old recipe for success thought a few steps further.
• Crowfall mixes MMORPG with ideas from strategy games to an interesting mix and is considered one of the most exciting new MMORPGs with a distinctive art style.

• Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen aims to appeal more to conservative PvE fans and serve them an MMORPG like before, just much better.
• Chronicles of Elyria combines interesting ideas with a lot of enthusiasm for a new MMORPG approach. Players should be able to age or gain weight.
• Ashes of Creation wants to carry the torch that Everquest Next has dropped, with node systems and a world that adapts to the players.
• Star Citizen looms as a giant over this sextet with a massive production budget and even bigger ambitions.

All 7 games are highly interesting, none of them has a real release date on the horizon or is “already reasonably playable.” Fans spend a lot of time following the development of these games. But really playing them so that they are fun is still not possible for any of them. For some, that’s still years away.

Our recipe for fans of indie projects: Keep an eye on them, but gain distance. Observe and enjoy, but perhaps play something else in the meantime to pass the time until your favorite releases.

Getting too deeply in love with “unfinished games” can lead to serious disappointments. If the game is not yet played, players tend to project all their wishes onto it and are then disappointed when it does not meet expectations.

It’s a bit like falling in love with a woman you only know from a distance and onto whom you project all your fantasies. As long as you never talk to her, she can be everything you dream of. But at some point, you have to talk to her.

Falling in love is fun, but being stuck in such a dream state can be exhausting. Indie fans should keep their eyes open for something else – it won’t really take off until next year or even later!