MMORPG games are in a somewhat difficult spot right now. These are games about the epic journeys through a vast in-game world and also about collaboration on a massive scale. Meaning, players expect to play them for years to come and they wish to engage with the progression systems of the game.
However, most of the popular games are designed to be fast-paced and with an assumption that players don’t have to put in 100 hours until they get to the good part. Similar to when we are gambling with the Casino.com welcome bonus, the game wants to give players a reason to play a lot right from the start, and they get to play through the good part immediately. This is why MMOs evolve continually and try to adapt their design to all sorts of players. So let’s see which one of these RPG games actually withstood the test of time.
Final Fantasy XIV
FFXIV is currently one of the most played MMORPGs. However, it wasn’t always like this and the game definitely had a rocky start, let’s say.
Given how this is a J-RPG it somewhat established itself as an experience aimed towards a specific group, but over time they made significant changes and made the whole experience more appealing.
Also, a recent exodus from the WOW community led to the increased popularity of FFXIV, and the game received more attention from popular streamers.
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft has been around since 2006, and despite all of the complaints and massive drops in player base, it is still one of the leading titles of the genre. Blizzard Entertainment also started releasing older versions of the game, and the players enjoy them very much. Hard-core fans have heard the story over and over again that the next big MMO will be the WOW killer but that simply never happened. The game does have its flaws and receives a lot of criticism, but it seems that lack of meaningful competition is holding it back to improve.
Guild Wars
Guild Wars has been around almost as long as WOW, but they did not operate on a subscription-based model. This is why a lot of players grew to like the game as it was more affordable, and offered a similar experience. They also did release Guild Wars 2 rather than focus all of their attention on the initial releases of the game.
Neverwinter
Neverwinter was probably a game that got a lot of people into the MMO genre, as it is basically a digital version of pen and paper RPG Dungeons and Dragons. It went through a lot of changes and fine-tuning, in order to keep up with the source material.
The Elder Scrolls Online
Elder Scrolls has also been around for quite some time. It already builds upon a popular franchise, and fans of that world really love this series. It’s not as popular as FFXIV or WoW, but it definitely has a stable player base, and it has managed to stay alive since 2014.