this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2025
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I decided to play some destiny 1 after leaving it in disappointment from its disastrous launch and found myself appreciating the format a lot more than most MMOs around today.

Due to Bungies contract with Activision they had to make a sequel so D1 was abandoned after 3 years of content and left in stasis which I now believe is the best way for an MMO to be. This means the game has an end, a clear story arc, doesn’t attract people who seem to foam at the mouth when there isnt something new to play and is generally chill. If you wish to experience it again you can just make a new character and play a new class its all pretty well paced. All three years of content seem to have somebody playing its not the most populated game ever but I havent had any trouble doing some strikes or raids and there’s no creeping sense of fomo, no rush just chill and enjoy the game.

This is how all MMOs should be instead of tacking on piece after piece until the entire thing falls over either from a technical perspective, narrative perspective or community perspective or maybe even all three.

MMO players seem to be the more neurotic of the bunch driven entirely by fomo and logging new content the millisecond it releases and dropping anyone who had to go poo before coming on to raid because if you dont do the stuff the second its out everyone dies or something. I think out of all the MMOs i have played ESO does it better mostly because the additions to the game are distinct portals into other places with their own storylines but it will never overcome the fact that old content will just be barren or that new players cant join without paying for level boosts if they want to play with friends because legacy content gets in the way.

Thoughts? I think D1 accidentally was what MMOs should be, much shorter more concise experiences with a definitive ending that can be easily replayed and isnt too long. Most of the magic that comes from these types of games is a bunch of people coming together to figure out and experience it for the first time so recreate that first time over and over instead of making it once then dumping crap after crap for 20 years until you only have addicts playing.

OSRS gets a pass

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[–] Comrade_Cat@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

I think the real problem is the refusal to actually progress the story and have a plan for that progress. WoW is a good example of this. They keep rehashing the same old shit with the same old characters that can’t really have any growth anymore because anytime they do the player base hates it and Blizzard backs down. So expansions basically become “what is this older expansion again, but with a twist!”. They never move on so they’re always trapped in this liminal comic book reality that just gets exhausting. I keep wanting to get back into retail WoW because I started playing with Warcraft 2 so I’ve got a lot of nostalgia and love for some of the story and characters, but I just get exhausted with them teasing character growth that never happens, a world that changes only superficially, needlessly convoluted end game systems, and one of the most toxic communities in gaming. I’m happy just mucking about in Classic with IRL friends for nostalgia anymore.

FFXIV is an example I like. I haven’t played since Endwalker because that felt like a true ending. I’m glad that it’s still going for people and I may jump back in at some point, but for now I’m fine.

Warframe has been doing a good job of keeping their story going with interesting stakes and good character development and progression. It’s the one that has my attention at the moment, but with any of these MMOs when it starts to feel like a chore I just let myself move on and I have plenty of books and other games also to break things up.

[–] PKMKII@hexbear.net 13 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

That was my wife’s gripe with WoW back in the day, she didn’t want to sink hours and hours into 40 or 25 man raids, she wanted the party of five dungeon crawl aspect that was the fun part that hooks you to just keep going.

Which makes me think if there’s a genre hybridization that would make a lot of sense for MMO’s, it would be a roguelite. Not full roguelike, you want to go into the dungeon with a certain consciousness choice of your character setup, but then the dungeons themselves are built around dynamic generation, random attribute manipulation, buffs that exist just for that individual run. That way the game can have a definitive endgame that’s continually engaging with no mass raid endgame getting tacked on every 12-18 months.

[–] Snort_Owl@hexbear.net 12 points 13 hours ago

My dream mmo is basically 5 person party stuff where i can roleplay a typical DnD group with my friends where we go defeat the big bad and treat it like a digital campaign. I feel like at one point pre WoW this is what MMOs were supposed to be but the raid logging grindfest seems to be what it turned into. I want to roam a world that resists me not grind a theme park to do Evil Dickman 3 dungeon over and over until the correct coloured fart drops

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 7 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I disagree but i have drank too much to form an argument

[–] Snort_Owl@hexbear.net 6 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I pre-emptively disagree with your argument. Have a fun drinks!

[–] Evilsandwichman@hexbear.net 9 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Guild wars 2 is like this (I haven't read your entire post, too sleepy, but I think I understand what it's about); you can play through the entire campaign of the game solo and actually finish it, defeating the last boss of the story and even get a credits sequence, but then there's also the rest of the game where you can do dungeons and raids and such. I liked this aspect as it gave me a story to experience and didn't put me in a position where I needed others to help me and force me to rush the campaign's storyline without enjoying it.

OSRS gets a pass

If you like OSRS and want an idle game that was designed SPECIFICALLY to mimic it and is actually quite fun, I highly recommend Melvor idle; you can leave your character skilling and switch off the game and come back and it'll calculate how much your character accomplished in that time; I don't think I'll ever play runescape, but this game absolutely made me consider it. If you know OSRS well you probably won't need my thread on Melvor idle, but here it is: https://hexbear.net/post/6508849

Genuinely enjoying the heck out of Melvor idle.

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 2 points 11 hours ago

Melvor is good, but the 3rd expansion was so glacially slow that I dropped it.

[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 4 points 11 hours ago

porky-scared-flipped but my business model!

[–] Carl@hexbear.net 6 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (2 children)

I haven't touched FF14 since Endwalker. I didn't even play the post game for that expac at all. The ending to that storyline was the perfect place to stop, and as a result I have warm fuzzies whenever I think about that game. Unfortunately warm fuzzies don't pay the bills, which is why they released another expac that I've heard sucks.

I told this story as a roundabout way of saying I think you're right. It's fine for an MMO to keep going for a few years (I played FF14 from about 2015 to 2021, so that's six) but it does need an ending. Slowly falling off a game just doesn't feel good in the way that wrapping things up does.

[–] Snort_Owl@hexbear.net 6 points 13 hours ago

Endwalker would have been a good place to end the game so they can make a sequel that has functioning anti aliasing. Its time for a ff17

[–] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Unfortunately warm fuzzies don't pay the bills, which is why they released another expac that I've heard sucks.

the main story's kind of a slog i'll grant them that, anything would be after endwalker's climax, but fwiw if anyone does happen to like raids at all they've been knocking that aspect out of the fucking park this entire expac

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 7 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

Sorry my comment doesn't address the actual question

ESO has switched to scaled enemies a while back so you don't need to buy any sort of boost to play with high lvl characters unless you only want to do endgame content.

(Scaled enemies meaning that you can go anywhere in the world at any level and it will be appropriate for your character even if you group with high level or low level players)

[–] Snort_Owl@hexbear.net 7 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (2 children)

I remember that system being in GW2 which was great at the time but it still fell ill to the early zones being dead issue as more end of end of end game content was made. I have such a strong nostalgia for release GW2 and will eternally hate my parents for never fixing the router so i couldn’t play the fekin thing after a point and got left behind.

Completely unrelated but i never got why mmo’s only focus on endgame content. If the good content is at the end of the game why am i playing at all

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 7 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I'm a big MMO hater but GW2 was awesome because i didhave to play any stinky story or quests to make a max level PvP only character and immediately be having fun

[–] Snort_Owl@hexbear.net 6 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Jumping into WvWvW was craaaazzzyyyyy. I can’t remember if this was before planetside 2. Another game desperately in need of a sequel

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 6 points 14 hours ago

Honestly warhammer online was the best shit because of the world pvp but i also played the tabletop at the time and i figure you had to know about the game to play it back then

[–] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 4 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

i dug out my account early this year and i've been playing it after over a decade of not touching it, and yeah the core tyria zones are emptier than at launch but anet seem to have made a pointed effort to have new content include bits where you revisit old zones, i've been led repeatedly all over the core zones while catching up, stopped to do whatever events and shit cropped up along the way and none of it has ever been dead dead

expansion zones in particular have basically permanent populations too because the mapwide event rewards are still fantastic value, if you're not running meta trains to build legendaries you can do whatever events you like thanks to the other group being ambient bodies for the events and then sell the rewards to them later lol

[–] Snort_Owl@hexbear.net 4 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Is it worth going back? The sheer number of expansions kinda made me not wanna try i log in and my screen flashes up a bunch of shit and I quit again. Maybe sounds like starting a new character might be better. I dont think anything can match the chaos of random overworld boss fights following the zerg of like 50 people to some spontaneous raid boss fight like the early days.

[–] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

i've got some brainworms for unlocking all the characters/classes/whatever in a game (i also play warframe shrug-outta-hecks ), so it was fun to do the story once over and then go around unlocking all the elite specs and doing a chunk of stuff with each one, made some characters to fill out the classes i'd never touched, even built a couple legendaries over that time

if that's not your vibe then i can't say for certain if you'd enjoy it, but that's what i liked. at least there's no sub fee for trying, and you can get the first 2 xpacs as a set for like seven bucks now

[–] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 5 points 13 hours ago

I still never got my Vex Mythoclast in either Destiny kitty-birthday-sad