Many MMO fans gather on MeinMMO, wanting to explore vast worlds alone or with others and experience fun adventures. But what is particularly important to you in online role-playing games? We asked, and you answered. Now here are the results!
This is how the MeinMMO community answered: We wanted to know from you: What is most important to you in MMOs? There were 6 options to choose from, and the votes from participants are distributed as follows:
- 1st place: Story, exploration & atmosphere (lore, quests, a lively open world) – 28 percent of the votes
- 2nd place: Character progression, loot & crafting (class builds, armor hunting, professions) – 25 percent
- 3rd place: Challenging PvE & endgame (raids, dungeons, boss fights) – 22 percent
- 4th place: Fair business model & support (no pay2win, regular updates) – 18 percent
- 5th place: Community, guilds & social (playing with friends, events, roleplay) – 5 percent
- 6th place: Engaging PvP & competition (arenas, battlegrounds, guild wars) – 2 percent
For more about the best genre in the world, you can also check out the MeinMMO YouTube channel. A new video there covers the current balance of Kickstarter MMOs:
A Reflection of Current Trends
How does MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz assess the results? My first thought when looking at the results was: “The last place does not surprise me at all.” Although there are many extremely successful PvP games out there, MMORPGs like WoW, Final Fantasy XIV, and Elder Scrolls Online have proven for many years that you can appeal to the largest possible audience with a strong PvE focus and optional PvP content.
Those who focus on mandatory PvP in their MMO do so because a) they are really into that niche or b) because there is no money for sustainable PvE content and hope that the PvP experience will carry itself over the long term.
While this creed has been observed in the West for a long time, Asian AAA developers have only recently started to shift the focus from competitive PvP content to cooperative story-driven or PvE content.
Sangtae Yoon, Executive Producer of Chrono Odyssey, supported this last year with the internal numbers of the team: Only about 5 to 10 percent of all players prefer PvP content. This explains why upcoming MMORPGs like Aion 2 and ArcheAge Chronicles are moving away from the roots of their predecessors and also want to focus much more on PvE.
ArcheAge Chronicles will be a very different MMORPG from the original ArcheAge:
Less MMO, more focus on the individual experience
The survey results also reflect other trends in the MMO genre. The social gaming experience in guilds is not so important to many players. An entertaining story, the rewarding exploration of an atmospheric world, and motivating character progression are considered by many to be more important.
In this regard, more and more so-called MMO-Lite games like Where Winds Meet, Honor of Kings: World, or Soulframe are emerging. In these you will never feel the “massively” aspect and encounter hundreds or even thousands of players. Instead, in these modern variants, a huge world awaits you where you can have great fun either alone or in co-op.
But are these MMO-Lite games truly the perfect solution to meet your priorities? Or would you prefer a different type of online role-playing game? Feel free to let us know in the comments! We just took a detailed look at one of the new MMO-Lite games and discovered various strengths: 5 reasons why Honor of Kings: World could be an exciting MMO for you
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