Are MMOs DYING!?...or are we just expecting too much?

It's honestly pretty sad to see, because growing up I was a big fan of MMOs in general and would spend countless hours in those worlds
From Neverwinter, to Wildstar, to Aion, GW2, Eden Eternal, Aura Kingdom, etc. I genuinely enjoyed the genre of games but it definitely seems like companies aren't willing to push forward with it anymore

Ashes of creation seems promising, but we'll see how that goes

I'd personally love if they brought the dragon quest MMO back, considering that's my favorite franchise but I'm pretty sure they made it a singleplayer game lol

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Originally Posted by Auro_Seldaris

But believing they might desperately try to overthrow WoW is probably silly, because Yoshida and co. are perfectly content with being second-place for eternity.

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You're not wrong but you're just looking at it from another angle. I think they don't care about making the game the best they can because there's no competition and all their players are already hooked because of in-game social networks. You're suggesting that it could be because they see no point of becoming the best because it's impossible. Regardless of the reason there's obviously very little competition between the MMOs because they are already entrenched and even significant amounts of innovation can't overcome high switching costs (on the part of the player). So ultimately they have no incentive to innovate or to make a good game.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

So fire away at the insults

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What insults? You literally compared tractors to art. You are ridiculous. If that offends you, that's not my problem.

“It’s good enough for a game.”

One can only wonder how Soken feels when he read lines like that. Not just him. Maybe other big game music maker like Iwadare, Sakuraba, and Shiina, too tbh.

/smh

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Originally Posted by Red-thunder

You're not wrong but you're just looking at it from another angle. I think they don't care about making the game the best they can because there's no competition and all their players are already hooked because of in-game social networks. You're suggesting that it could be because they see no point of becoming the best because it's impossible. Regardless of the reason there's obviously very little competition between the MMOs because they are already entrenched and even significant amounts of innovation can't overcome high switching costs (on the part of the player). So ultimately they have no incentive to innovate or to make a good game.

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You say that, but plenty of people were willing to abandon WoW when it went through it's "bad period" during BfA and (especially) Shadowlands. So to say that people won't ignore their sunk cost fallacy and leave a game is maybe a bit disingeunous. FFXIV literally had its chance to overthrow the king, and it failed. However, it's the fault of Yoshida and co. for not innovating and iterating enough to keep people engaged here in XIV. Did you ever see Pacific Rim? Yoshida didn't "check for a pulse". Endwalker would have been the time to really make serious changes and prove they can offer something Blizzard can't, but they just... stubbornly stuck to their formula. Because there is never a single bit of wiggle room in Yoshida's precious spreadsheets.

The point though is that... they don't want to. They COULD blow WoW out of the water, if they just wanted to, but they don't. They're complacent and lazy. They're fine with being an "also-ran".

Also, it's hard to be hooked because of in-game social networks when all of them are collapsing due to disinterest in the game itself. It's hard to keep up an FC or a group of friends when they disappear for two or three years at a time. Not that I want XIV to take up literally every hour of free time I have. There's so many games I have still not played, that I've missed out on. There's also the aforementioned wargaming hobby. I don't want it to be a second job, no, but I want there to be SOME reason to want to play.

FF 14 is dying with the horrible content they have been giving us... Its like they dont care anymore

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Originally Posted by Ath192

SE in particular is asset constrained, otherwise they wouldn’t be re-using them every expansion.

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You know what's cheaper than paying someone to generate AI assets? Reusing old ones.
Asset reuse will always be cheaper and more efficient than making new ones. That's why they do it, not because of constraints. Additionally making new assets for every little thing for no reason would balloon file size absurdly.

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Originally Posted by Cort1237

You know what's cheaper than paying someone to generate AI assets? Reusing old ones.
Asset reuse will always be cheaper and more efficient than making new ones. That's why they do it, not because of constraints. Additionally making new assets for every little thing for no reason would balloon file size absurdly.

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xD ah yes, the missing piece appeared. Got to love people who self sabotage to score a gotcha. While we're at it why don't they stop the new exploration zones and the next expansition can just be a reskinned heavensward? IMAGINE the savings. Cheaper and efficient.

Doesn't matter if you stop cancer research for the whole world as long as that person doesn't get to "win" by curing it right?

Unfortunately these types of posts are all too common.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Doesn't matter if you stop cancer research for the whole world as long as that person doesn't get to "win" by curing it right?

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Nice whataboutism. This isn't about practical uses for software algorithms in healthcare, its about replacing artistic skill with a generic remixing software algorithm. Try again.

You obviously don't know a thing about software or game development, and it shows. Cort1237 is right here, the bottleneck in the development of FFXIV is not a lack of assets. Just look at how often skeletons are reused(And in case you don't know what it is - look at Träumerei and Hades, and see if you can spot any similarities.), and how little people care.
What this game is lacking is actual Game Designers who work on making future proof, repeatable content, a better project management team, and more talent on the dev floor (you know how hard they try hiring people and fail because you have to speak japanese to get in?) All of those things cannot be replaced by an algorithm.

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Originally Posted by ovIm

Nice whataboutism. This isn't about practical uses for software algorithms in healthcare, its about replacing artistic skill with a generic remixing software algorithm. Try again.

You obviously don't know a thing about software or game development, and it shows. Cort1237 is right here, the bottleneck in the development of FFXIV is not a lack of assets. Just look at how often skeletons are reused(And in case you don't know what it is - look at Träumerei and Hades, and see if you can spot any similarities.), and how little people care.
What this game is lacking is actual Game Designers who work on making future proof, repeatable content, a better project management team, and more talent on the dev floor (you know how hard they try hiring people and fail because you have to speak japanese to get in?) All of those things cannot be replaced by an algorithm.

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I even showed you a game designer talk about it and an article of a major game studio admit that they’re using it for a game already. Do they not know about game development either because you don’t like what they’re saying and doing? I don’t think you’re thinking straight. Not liking to hear the truth and it not being actually true are two different things.

While you’re not wrong in that the game does need more game designers and repeatable content, something I’ve argued for plenty in the past, it doesn't invalidate it needs more assets either.

As much as you like Colt, he’s not right, but again, if you want argue in favor of reusing assets to defend a companies bottom line none of us can help you. And it’s one of the reasons this game gets away with all the things it does.

There’s always a multitude of people defending their bad habits for everything so they don’t actually feel any need to improve. And it shows. That is self sabotage. No one but the company benefits from reusing assets but again, people defend it just go on the contrary in an argument.

Let me know if you need more clarification or if you are still confused.

The reason ffxiv is ‘dying’ (or at least bedridden) can be summed by the complete absence of a single thing. Creativity

As far as I’m aware no AI can supply that (and if they did you’d get hilarious alien looking stuff like 6-finger people or bearded belly dancers)

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Originally Posted by Connor

The reason ffxiv is ‘dying’ (or at least bedridden) can be summed by the complete absence of a single thing. Creativity

As far as I’m aware no AI can supply that (and if they did you’d get hilarious alien looking stuff like 6-finger people or bearded belly dancers)

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Oh, it certainly can be creative in writing, given the right direction.

On the visual side, though? Without heavy curation, most of it seems like somebody would create who, what I would presume, is on acid.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

I even showed you a game designer talk about it and an article of a major game studio admit that they’re using it for a game already. Do they not know about game development either because you don’t like what they’re saying and doing? I don’t think you’re thinking straight. Not liking to hear the truth and it not being actually true are two different things.

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You are still wildly flaying things at me. So, let me help you with your confusion and let me tell you exactly WHY you are wrong and why the things you have posted are hurting your case, not helping you.

1. An increase in assets would not help FFXIV. Asset creation is not the bottleneck.
2. That youtuber is an amateur. Anyone can slap things together, but actually designing a game is a whole different process.
3. Activision cheaping out on graphics designers by letting AI create cheap slop is not indicative for anything but the possibility to reduce quality. There is no way to see if using that method was even faster or not, or how it benefited the development process, if at all. It may just have been cheaper.

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While you’re not wrong in that the game does need more game designers and repeatable content, something I’ve argued for plenty in the past, it doesn't invalidate it needs more assets either.

As much as you like Colt, he’s not right, but again, if you want argue in favor of reusing assets to defend a companies bottom line none of us can help you. And it’s one of the reasons this game gets away with all the things it does.

There’s always a multitude of people defending their bad habits for everything so they don’t actually feel any need to improve. And it shows. That is self sabotage. No one but the company benefits from reusing assets but again, people defend it just go on the contrary in an argument.

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I am not arguing for the reuse of assets, and if you look at my post history I am highly critical of CS3/Square Enix and their business decisions.
I am arguing that simply adding in AI generated slop textures/models would not help the development of this game because it is not where the bottleneck of the development is. When you look at how FFXIV is currently being developed, then you will see that the big problem this game has is not based on assets at all. They already have a lot of them, and they can produce them relatively easy and quick, just look at the amount of stuff on the mogstation. The issue lies with the development of the content, and a different way of creating assets will, imho, not free up enough dev ressources to make an noticeable difference.
Even if I tell ChatGPT to "create me a dungeon with 3 different pathways", that would still need to be refined and worked on and molded onto how FFXIV plays that in the end you may not even have saved time. Everyone can grab a piece of paper and draw a couple lines on it and say "yeah this is a sunken cave". You know what I mean?

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Let me know if you need more clarification or if you are still confused.

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You misunderstand, I am not confused, I think your arguments are not based on perceivable reality, but on make wish believe sold to you by AI bros to justify their existence.

People still want them clearly.

I just wish people would be nicer on them. So many times I've quit a game or unsubscribed for years was because of toxic players.

That's my biggest issue with mmos currently. I can't even stay in my lane anymore. They populate it and complain that nobody studied how to do the content beforehand. It's frustrating. Let me play and learn and go do your hardcore stuff. Not everyone likes metaing the fun out of everything.

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Originally Posted by ovIm

You are still wildly flaying things at me. So, let me help you with your confusion and let me tell you exactly WHY you are wrong and why the things you have posted are hurting your case, not helping you.

1. An increase in assets would not help FFXIV. Asset creation is not the bottleneck.
2. That youtuber is an amateur. Anyone can slap things together, but actually designing a game is a whole different process.
3. Activision cheaping out on graphics designers by letting AI create cheap slop is not indicative for anything but the possibility to reduce quality. There is no way to see if using that method was even faster or not, or how it benefited the development process, if at all. It may just have been cheaper.



I am not arguing for the reuse of assets, and if you look at my post history I am highly critical of CS3/Square Enix and their business decisions.
I am arguing that simply adding in AI generated slop textures/models would not help the development of this game because it is not where the bottleneck of the development is. When you look at how FFXIV is currently being developed, then you will see that the big problem this game has is not based on assets at all. They already have a lot of them, and they can produce them relatively easy and quick, just look at the amount of stuff on the mogstation. The issue lies with the development of the content, and a different way of creating assets will, imho, not free up enough dev ressources to make an noticeable difference.
Even if I tell ChatGPT to "create me a dungeon with 3 different pathways", that would still need to be refined and worked on and molded onto how FFXIV plays that in the end you may not even have saved time. Everyone can grab a piece of paper and draw a couple lines on it and say "yeah this is a sunken cave". You know what I mean?




You misunderstand, I am not confused, I think your arguments are not based on perceivable reality, but on make wish believe sold to you by AI bros to justify their existence.

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I think you are still confused as what I'm arguing for and the one wildly making claims. You even admit you don't know, and just think AI doesn't speed up the process due to your own illogical bias.

To directly counter all your points in your list I will present you arguments of why they are all wrong or just assumptions.

1. If assets are not a bottleneck, they wouldn't have a problem creating unique armor sets for each dungeon, assets for Viera/hrothgar hat models that account for their anatomical differences, and assets that can be used as rewards for the failed Criterion dungeons. Which failed, due to lack of assets. The rewards weren't there to justify running the content making it DOA. This was directly witnessed by the success of Chaotic raids, which were run WIDLEY due to the assets that were used as rewards.

2. That youtuber is not an amateur. An ounce of knowledge or research into him would tell you as much. His own BIO on youtube says the following: "Welcome to my channel! I'm Rafał Obrębski, a Game Developer with over 8 years of experience in the AAA gaming industry. Here, you'll find in-depth analyses of recently released games, deep dives into game design and production, and insights into the tools shaping the world of video game creation. "

- If you can't be bothered to look at a bio in 5 seconds and spit out lies how can anything you say be trusted? You are just making things up because it suits you. liar.

3. Activision Embracing AI is indicative of the usefulness of AI tools that do save time on resources and enable faster development of games, which in turn leads to more content, which is a problem in this game. If it Is just cheaper, which is your worst assumption, it is still a benefit to the development process because more development can be done with the same budget. Your entire statement contradicts itself

It is incredibly ignorant and tribalistic to fear innovation and creative uses of new tools. During the entire human history technology has been used to enable people to do more for less, and this has led to an explosion of people doing MORE with their time and budgets. Not LESS. People are constantly afraid of change and "losing" when automation and technology has done nothing but led to people gaining in every possible sense.

We don't look at our highly modernized world today and go: "Jeez, people certainly were better off back in the medieval ages when everything was manual". It stands to all logical reason that allowing people to do things faster and cheaper will result in them doing MORE for the game. And we would benefit from it.

I clicked in here to see what the discussion of JSH's video is, and instead its just one super indignant person trying to defend AI art against everyone else in the thread with "u mad bro?" tier arguments.

Yeah, guess I shouldn't have expected much else out of the forums.

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

I clicked in here to see what the discussion of JSH's video is, and instead its just one super indignant person trying to defend AI art against everyone else in the thread with "u mad bro?" tier arguments.

Yeah, guess I shouldn't have expected much else out of the forums.

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People can be mad and jaded all they want to be, use of AI and doing creative work with it will be implemented in the professional field exceptionally fast. Some people will throw an ego-based tantrum, but as long as the presented work is good enough for the receiving audience, they won't care whether it is created by a human or an AI tool.

It's just a help tool which makes things more easy and accessible for a wider array of people to be more creative. Of course, some will rely on it too much and face-plant, but as those tools get more sophisticated, they will make a significant difference in the quality of a creative piece. Be it a movie, series, or a game.

AI will solve some problems with this game... But the game just has so many fundamental problems that really won't be solved with AI. . .

And that will only drag the quality down anyway.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

And this is why executives at Ubisoft, Activision or EA have no issue treating costumers like drones who deserve no more than mass produced soulless content from the machine without any care for quality or artistry. Because some of you listen to some generic bombastic AI trash song and think it's "good enough" and just gobble it up. People like you, with no respect for the artistry and the skill involved with making games have no right to ever complain about the current state of gaming.

For shame.

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AI can only replace mediocrity. If your work is replaced by an AI that is actually not all that advanced to begin with, perhaps you need to take a step back and re-evaluate your options and plans.

AI should be used as a tool to enhance creativity and work together with humans to produce a better end result. Since the industrial revolution started, humans have always been replaced with machines, and thank god they did because many of those jobs were also very high risk, or boring and repetitive.

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Originally Posted by Auro_Seldaris

If you can't dethrone the king, why even try? If you're not trying to BE the best, why would you even try to do any of those things you discuss?

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Why bother to write books or create movies or write songs or create art if you can't "dethrone the king"?

People do those things because they have something to say and a medium to say it in. Whether it becomes number 1 or not is irrelevant. It's a nice bonus if it attracts more attention, but that is not a requirement for the creation of the work.

It is as true with video games as it is with art, with one exception. The goal in the video game industry is to create something that first and foremost makes a profit.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Why bother to write books or create movies or write songs or create art if you can't "dethrone the king"?

People do those things because they have something to say and a medium to say it in. Whether it becomes number 1 or not is irrelevant. It's a nice bonus if it attracts more attention, but that is not a requirement for the creation of the work.

It is as true with video games as it is with art, with one exception. The goal in the video game industry is to create something that first and foremost makes a profit.

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What is FF14 saying other than "let's regurgitate content from 10 years ago and call it a day"

Are we expecting too much, is exactly the language devs want to hear. Means they have to pull off less effort.

That's why devs got mad at BG 3 as well, meant they had to actually start putting in effort again and they were mad.