It is not easy to successfully sustain MMORPGs in the market over a long time. Therefore, today we present to you 5 online role-playing games that started strong and are still running, but that hardly anyone has on their radar anymore.
At the beginning of the millennium, MMORPGs were considered the big genre. Many games came out vying for the player base. Some, like World of Warcraft or The Elder Scrolls Online, managed to remain successful even today. But that was not the case for every online RPG.
In this list, we present you with genre representatives that were released after World of Warcraft. These are titles that have not been discontinued, but that you can still play today. However, little of their initial success remains, and the titles are no longer really relevant.
What these titles have in common:
- All games started successfully
- The release took place after WoW
- You can still play them today
- The number of players and also the interest in the MMORPG genre has decreased so much that hardly anyone is interested anymore
- They now have less than 500 players according to Steamcharts
Age of Conan
Developer: Funcom | Platform: PC | Release Date: May 20, 2008
What is Age of Conan? Age of Conan was launched in 2008 with the subtitle “Hyborian Adventures.” The game immerses you in the world of Hyboria, the setting of the Conan novels by author Robert E. Howard.
In the role of a soldier, rogue, priest, or mage, divided into three subclasses each, you explore a large world where NPCs assign you quests. The battles against enemies occur actively, with your attack direction being particularly important. Enemies can be hit from different sides.
The rather brutal fights earned the game a USK rating of 18 years and older.
How did the game start? The launch went very well. In the first five weeks, over a million copies of the MMORPG Age of Conan: Hybrian Adventures were sold. Additionally, the game received several awards.
What does it look like today? Today the MMORPG is still playable under the title Age of Conan: Unchained. In 2013, it shifted to a Free2Play model. However, this did not really help the MMORPG to achieve great success. New content arrived too slowly, and there were constant technical issues.
In spring 2017, Funcom put the game into a “Maintenance Mode.” This means that hardly any new content follows, but the operation of the game will continue.
According to Steamcharts, the number of players currently lies at 68 simultaneous users, with a peak of 141 players in the past 30 days (as of October 12, 2020).
Why did the game fail? There was criticism of bugs right at launch, which were only addressed slowly over a long period of time. This drove away some players. PvP and the crafting system do not work properly.
Essentially, the MMORPG was released unfinished and failed to achieve a good status quickly, costing Age of Conan a significant part of its community.
In the MMORPG on the next page, players are on floating islands.
