Discover Top Posts Tagged with #a:ir

MMO gaming is rough right now

If you want to make the switch from one big title to another not only do you need to buy the base game, but their expansion as well. Some make that easier than others, but when you have friends in different games it gates expensive to keep up on that.

MMO gaming is pretty unforgiving when it comes to being luke warm about the game. Very casual gameplay that requires a lot of time. I honestly would prefer a hardcore playstyle that rewards skill over time spent in the game. But gameplay aside there is a difficulty in just the cost in keeping up on expansion prices on games you may not feel overly enthusiastic about.

I purchased WoW: Legion when the expansion came out to play with friends. Had a great time with them for a month or two before we split into other games. I also had spent time in the Beta and Launch of Elder Scrolls online but currently don’t have friends in that game. I enjoyed the soloing in ESO quite a bit. But with the release of Morrowind expansion and already being behind on changes, I don’t have a lot of motivation to pick the expansion up without friends being excited for it. The same goes for guild Wars 2, Final Fantasy, and others with a price tag on top of their expansion content as well as the pseudo Free to Play games that force players through inconvenient mechanics of play in order to encourage them for premium sign ups like Star Wars The Old Republic.

I believe its situations like this that have driven part of the MMO population to KR grinds that are given at flat rates with massive cash shops. With how Black Desert Online treats progression in the game I truly believe Archeage would still be a large force in the MMO scene had it not been terribly mismanaged by Trion.

This is really setting the playing field for new games like Crowfall, Ashes of Creation, and even other KR cash shop simulators like A:IR to do well. I think each of those will be big names in the MMO scene this year if they manage even a mediocre launch. A BAD LAUNCH WILL KILL THESE GAMES. Crowfall seems the most at risk for this due to his central mechanic being hinged on large scale pvp which MMOs have drifted away from in recent years in part due to server load and costs. I hope they are investing in DDoS protection, because all it would take is one person (or company with plausible dependability) to ruin the launch.

Time will tell, but until then I’ll probably end up buying a new game. I’m just not convinced it will be an MMO before these new games come out.