Does “The Perfect MMORPG” Actually Exist?

Over the last couple months I’ve been playing through quite a large variety of MMOs – both new and old – and I’ve come to the conclusion that what I used to view as the “perfect MMO” is a little outdated – it’s changed.
Today I want to talk about that very topic: The “perfect MMORPG.” Does it exist? What does it look like? What does it consist of?

Before I go into that though, I want you to take a moment and let me know what YOU think the perfect MMORPG would be. Be elaborate. Be descriptive. Developers watch the comment section of videos like this so your thoughts – your opinions could help shape the future of the genre.

When I was younger, the MMOs I’d look for were all PvPvE games. I think that the younger generation currently also gravitates towards the very same type of competitive gaming that I did years ago, which is why games like Fortnite, Fall Guys, Overwatch and Counter Strike are all as actively played as they are.
There was just something satisfying about grinding through the game with the sole purpose of being stronger than other players.. and then dominating them so completely, so absolutely that everyone on the server knew who you were. But maybe that was just me as I’ve always had a bit of an ego problem. Mrs Stix can tell you all about that.

However these days I don’t have the same drive – which could be due to the fact that I’ve just outgrown that type of competitive play, or because in several of the games I played I hit the top of the ladder and it just didn’t end up meaning much to me ultimately.
Either way, I’ve come to learn that PvP, which was once a large driving force behind whether I’d play an MMO is much less of a concern to me now. It’s an afterthought. I’m more than happy playing MMOs with or without PvP. I’ve played Final Fantasy XIV for years and only played the PvP mode 2, 3 times?
Yet in World of Warcraft I’ve got Warmode enabled and am more than happy fighting any Horde I see.

I’m sure you’ve all noticed the large shift in the type of MMOs being made these days, though, right? They’re less about the journey, and more about the destination. The destination in question being endgame.
The world seems to matter less to developers. Crafting a world that players can slowly explore, slowly learn about – the lore, the history behind everything and everyone. What we’re given now is a rush to hit max level so we can participate in the endless loop that is endgame grinding.
Dungeons. Raids. New gear. I completely understand the need for vertical progression in MMOs. It’s what the entire genre is built upon after all, but back in the 2000s, even during the early 2010s MMOs used to take substantially longer to complete.
You’d spend hours grinding for that single level up. You’d start a zone and remain in that zone, doing side quests, continuing the main story, grouping up with other players to tackle content to make it easier, to make it quicker.
An example of this is TERA and Blade & Soul. Back when I first played both you had so much to do in the open-world, so much to explore, so many different quest hubs to navigate between and so many quests to do that would contribute towards that level up you were working towards.
Now, both games have completely truncated leveling experiences so you either just run the main story – as the XP is enough that you don’t need anything else, or you queue dungeons back-to-back while watching Netflix or Youtube videos.
This is what the leveling experience has become, and it’s actually disheartening knowing that the future of the genre is going to be instant-gratification – which in my opinion is the exact opposite direction of where we should be going.
There’s a reason “Classic” servers are all the rage these days. WoW Classic doubled the game’s population. Aion Classic is coming, Lineage 2 Classic. It’s not just a passing fad. There are real, genuine players that want to relive a time where the genre was in a much better place.

To me, one of the most important facets of what make up a “perfect MMORPG” is the journey.
I want to be able to spend a hundred hours, several hundred hours making my way through a beautiful world filled with amazing environments, expansive lore that provides a purpose other than “here’s a pretty area that you’ll forget in 5 minutes.”
I want to be able to go out into the world and feel like the zone actually matters. That there is depth to it. That the content is actually worth doing as opposed to skipping.
I want to be able to group up with other players who are trying to make their way through the very same content. Talk with them. Actually engage – other than ignoring one another while spamming 1-2-3 and then autopathing to the next guy.
I know that a lot of people still prefer the “rush to endgame” mentality, but that’s one of the issues with the genre as it is currently.

Speaking of story, of the lore behind each zone, if you’ve been watching me – watching this channel then you’d know I’m a fan of story in my MMOs. In my games in general.
If the game lacks a clear, coherent story then it isn’t going to hold my attention long-term, and I’m going to end up bored.
I like to feel involved, engaged. I like to have a sense of being, a sense of importance in what I play – which is one of the things I know a lot of gamers enjoy about single-player games, right? You grow attached to your character. You grow attached to the story being told and want to see it through.
This is one of the main problems I have with most MMOs these days. But before we go any further, I do want to preface this by stating that I’m well aware the story in most MMOs – even back in the early 2000s were quite poor.
That’s an unfortunate side-effect of being an MMO. You have so much world to fill that the vast majority of each zone consists of “kill 10 boars” or “loot 15 wolf teeth.”
Yet there are a few MMOs that have perfected their stories: Final Fantasy XIV and Guild Wars 2 are the first to come to mind, so it’s definitely possible.

To me, another facet that I find important to what makes a “perfect MMORPG” is the story.
I like to know that there’s a purpose to what I’m doing.
I like to know that the characters I meet are going to have a continued presence throughout the course of the game.
I like to bounce ideas of why I think what is happening is happening and then sit here discussing things with Mrs Stix as we continue to watch things unfold.
Story gives us a sense of progression, so we’re not just leveling and equipping new gear for the sake of leveling and equipping new gear. We’re doing it because we need to – for the story, to get stronger. To grow.

Now we could stop here and we’d probably have a pretty good MMORPG, right?
An MMO that is expansive, has a good story, that involves you, that has you actively engaged and interacting in what is going on in the world. That has some basic PvPvE functionality, that doesn’t rush you to endgame.
To me that sounds like a game I’d probably play for a while. But there are three other things that are integral to making a “Perfect MMORPG” to me.

Freedom is one of the most important things an MMO can offer its players.
While Final Fantasy XIV has proven that a restrictive, linear leveling experience can definitely work for players, the opposite holds much truer in the majority of instances. Take WoW, Black Desert, Guild Wars 2 or The Elder Scrolls Online for example.
All of the above provide you with a large selection of different areas you can level in. You choose where you want to go, and then you pretty much.. just go there and start leveling.
There are a plethora of different means with which to level, but at the same time “freedom” doesn’t merely pertain to having the freedom to level where you please, but more so to do what you please to compliment the leveling experience.
As an example, you don’t need to level in Black Desert if you don’t want to. There are so many life skills you can invest into – I mean, heck, I see people fishing half the day, or sailing around the seas. There’s a housing system – or just endless areas for you to explore if you wanted to.
Mabinogi is an even better example of freedom in a game – providing you the option of getting a part-time job, there are various crafting professions to waste the day on, there’s a real economy present, there are tons of life skills. Leveling is.. secondary to the sheer number of things you can do in that game.
Providing players a variety of content to do in-game outside of the leveling experience means that they always have a surplus of things to do, and that means they have a variety of reasons to play, especially considering once you hit max level.. you’re stuck with whatever the game has left, right?
Which is traditionally either dailies, or dungeons and raids. Which are all great in their own right, but providing us the option of doing activities that aren’t exclusively repetitious grinds is key to keeping an active playerbase with a variety of interests.

Then there’s gameplay. Gameplay pertains to both the combat, and the animations present outside of combat. I’m going to be honest with you guys: Nothing disconnects me more from a world than watching my character lack basic motor functionality.
Like graphics, combat is subjective. I know a lot of people believe that action combat – Black Desert’s in particular – is by far the best combat achievable right now in an MMO. I’m also aware that games like Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft – both of which use a tab-target combat system are very popular world-wide.
See, I’ve never been a larger fan of either combat type. I can enjoy tab-target combat, I can enjoy action combat, heck, I can enjoy turn-based combat like the combat found in Atlantica Online.
As long as the combat is done well, then it isn’t of concern to me what type of combat is employed in the game, but if it isn’t of at least a certain quality, then I’ll end up feeling detached.
I don’t need flashy effects that clutter my screen to enjoy the combat. I don’t need a hundred different abilities with each one having their own unique shortcut like “left-shift+w+a after double-tapping the up arrow-key directly preceding a successful parry upon taking damage.”
I don’t think we necessarily require innovation in the area of combat, honestly. I feel like there are various games out there right now that do combat well, and if we use them as more of a benchmark going forward, we’ll have some pretty good combat in our games.

Graphics to me have never really been an issue. I enjoy Anime MMOs – if you’ve ever watched any of our videos you’d know this. I make it very evident.
But at the same time I love my 3D MMOs too. I’m not really very picky with how a game looks. I enjoy games that are much older, and some of the most popular MMOs at present were made almost 2 decades ago so I feel as though this sentiment is echoed from many MMO players.

Finally, the community.
I played Tales of Pirates as my first MMO and the community in that game was so competitive and toxic that I assumed that was how most MMOs were, so moving to my second MMO, Perfect World, I had the same mentality.
And you know what? Perfect World had a pretty toxic mentality as well, being a PvPvE MMO so for years I spent the majority of my MMO experience being a toxic ass, being of the firm belief that that was how MMOs generally were.
However after playing through other games like Final Fantasy XIV and Guild Wars 2 later on in my career I learned that that isn’t the case. While toxicity can definitely be a prevalent part of the MMO scene – specifically to competitive PvP and competitive raiding, that isn’t what the bulk of the MMO community is like.
Sure there are some games where you just can’t escape it, but I cannot begin to express how important having a friendly community is in an MMO.
Seeing someone get killed in Guild Wars 2, and having 3 people run over to res the poor guy was something I’d never seen done before in a game.
Seeing zone bosses downed by coordinated attacks from groups helping one another, seeing higher level players help lower level players.. it made me realize that that’s what I wanted out of an MMO I dedicate a large amount of time to.
And as such, I don’t think it would ever be possible for me to go back to an MMO where there wasn’t that same sense of camaraderie.

At the end of the day, what I believe makes up “The Perfect MMORPG” are several key things:
You need a leveling experience that takes time. You don’t want to rush to endgame as you’ll run out of things to do and be hit by a wall that ultimately ends up with you looking elsewhere for entertainment, for content to consume.
You don’t necessarily need PvP, but having PvPvE functionality provides additional things for players to do.
This isn’t just limited to PvP though. Having a wider array, a larger selection of content outside of the traditional “run dungeons, grind raids and do dailies.” Freedom is important, and allowing players to play how they want is not only more enjoyable, but provides additional replayability.
Providing a sense of identity – in the form of a narrative is important to keeping you engaged in not only the world, but also the circumstance surrounding your existence within it. Story is important and integral to the overall growth of an MMO.
Nobody likes a game with clunky gameplay mechanics. Making sure your game plays to a certain level of quality is very important, and should be one of the first things you work on.
Graphically, whether an Anime MMO, 2D MMO or beautiful 3D MMO – I don’t feel like it’s that big of an issue to me. I still enjoy games like Ragnarok Online and World of Warcraft after all.
And finally, the community.. one of the most important parts of the MMO genre. MMO does stand for “Massively Multiplayer,” right?

Now I’m well aware that “The Perfect MMORPG” is something completely subjective to every individual player. Everyone has different likes and dislikes.
Everyone likes different forms of combat, everyone enjoys different narratives and different forms of storytelling. No MMORPG is for every player and as such, there likely will never be a universally accepted “Perfect MMORPG.”
Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean we can’t continue developing our MMOs in the right direction.