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Can the League of Legends MMO be as large as WoW was as its height?

cormack12

Gold Member
We know the LoL MMO is in development and Greg Street, the lead systems designer of World of Warcraft is involved.

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It's going to be surfing the wave of the NETFLIX show and lead ins before thegames release. At the same time, they are saying this might have a smaller core audience than appeal to casuals. They look to be expansions of earlier aRPG codename projects:



Riot warns “not everyone will love” title​

Recently, Riot Games issued a warning about their new League of Legends MMORPG ⁠— “not everyone is going to love” the planned open-world Runeterra title and that’s okay; they’re not aiming to make a total-crowd pleaser.

“One thing I can say about the unannounced MMORPG is you won’t all love every feature in it,” the title’s executive producer Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street warned. “We’re going to make some choices that you may not agree with. Players want different things in their games. That’s fine.

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Will the LoL MMO have RPG raids?​

Simple answer: yes!

In fact, lead producer Greg Street has admitted that, at least in his eyes, the end-game Raids included in Riot’s new League of Legends MMO RPG will be one of the most important factors. He even added he will be “crushed” if the team fails to deliver on the promise of endgame battles.

“Anyone that knows me from my World of Warcraft dev days would know that I love dungeons and raids as a player,” he added.
 

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
If anyone can do it, it's Riot. They're carving out a spot as the new Blizzard.

LoL has over 115,000,000 monthly players. Valorant is already at something like 15,000,000 and frequently one of the most watched on Twitch. Arcane has been a surprise hit.

No better time to build hype for an MMO than when love for WoW is at a historic low. New World was a total disaster because AGS have no idea how to support a game - Riot do.

I'll be playing.
 

Kumomeme

Member
did you mean large as WoW at its peak where it has 12 million paid subscriptions? i believe it is hard to reach level of what WoW achieved especially today. there lot of factor. first, the genre not mainstream anymore. then another one of main reason is, today's landscape is not same like how WoW is at that time. during that time, everyone playing MMO particularly WoW but now, situation and trend is different. what mainstream before is not same with what mainstream today. people has lot of other 'attraction' that would keep them from logging or even try the game or even the genre. there lot of popular game with different genre on market which is gonna affected the number. there is battle royal, moba, fps for example. this not counted on single player game today. there also mobile phone. it is depend also on the demographic.

most of people today also doesnt bother to log in for hours grinding and chasing time gated content everyday anymore. so i dont think we can expect same active users number since the trend is changing. failure to adapt to it also one of reason why lot of WoW player leave the game now. not to mention how bussiness model would affect the reception. will LoL new MMO be a F2P? monthly subs or even buy once type like Guild Wars 2?. the bussiness model also crucial to determine it success. to continuously release good content patch and maintenance required steady flow of money. people nowdays doesnt prefer to monthly subs. they want F2P but this model usually end up with microtransaction shop slapped in face. there often happened where free ingame item end up suck because of this. devs has no choice. they need funds to run the operation. not to mention asking for quality content. so basically it is hard to reach that same number again. best number that time is not same as what considered 'best' is today. simply to say the 'competition' that time is on whole different than what we have today. unless if they manage to make reinvent the genre and make MMO mainstream again..

Even FFXIV, that become new home for lot of veteran WoW player still not reach their number.
 
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Whatever they're making I doubt i'll be interested. The mmo genre has "evolved" into something that's just casual/tedious grinding, like a job more than a game. No longer are MMO's about the world and the mystery, the friendships, the fucking awesome pvp and the difficulty in gaining stuff, what WoW was at its peak. Can't blame them tho, since the new generation of kids are fucking idiots.
 

Urban

Member
I think it’s going to be a mobile / pc hybrid version.
The mobile mmo market is huge and their main audience is in Asia anyway. So yeah, it will be big.
 

Flintty

Member
I think I tried it just once and I could never get on with LoL, the MOBA type game just doesn’t interest me. I liked the look of the character design though.

I started watching Arcane last week though and it’s superb world building and with ex Blizz staff working on the MMO, I have high hopes.
 

Whitecrow

Banned
I never thought we would see a LoL MMO before a pokémon one...

Game Freak are not swimming on money because they dont want to.
 

Inviusx

Member
I never thought we would see a LoL MMO before a pokémon one...

Game Freak are not swimming on money because they dont want to.

Based on how Sw/Sh turned out and what we've seen of that Arceus game I don't think Gamefreak are a very competent studio. They just happened to find insane success with the early Pokemon RPGs and have coasted ever since.
 
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SpokkX

Member
What even is LoL? isnt in another Dota game with hero powers? Is there even any real lore besides just paying for new cool hero characters (assuming LoL is free to play?)
 
Whatever they're making I doubt i'll be interested. The mmo genre has "evolved" into something that's just casual/tedious grinding, like a job more than a game. No longer are MMO's about the world and the mystery, the friendships, the fucking awesome pvp and the difficulty in gaining stuff, what WoW was at its peak. Can't blame them tho, since the new generation of kids are fucking idiots.
That's a little funny considering when WoW came out it was the casual choice for an MMO. :messenger_winking:

As for the question? Severely doubt it. Even Riot knows this and is trying to set expectations. Could it be fun? I hope so! I'm always looking around to get a good MMO fix that few other genres hit. The major thing FF14 did right that WoW stubbornly refused to do was bring the experience to consoles. Hopefully this one makes it there as well.
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
What even is LoL? isnt in another Dota game with hero powers? Is there even any real lore besides just paying for new cool hero characters (assuming LoL is free to play?)
Go watch Arcane on Netflix. It may be late in the coming, but it has better storytelling than WoW ever had.
 
i don't think any MMO could top WoW at its peak but i think Riot will still make a damn good game. i just hope it beats FFXIV. can't stand Final Fantasy and i need a good MMO to play.
 

hlm666

Member
What even is LoL? isnt in another Dota game with hero powers? Is there even any real lore besides just paying for new cool hero characters (assuming LoL is free to play?)
They have character lore similar to how blizzard did for Overwatch. This video can catch you up.

 
What even is LoL? isnt in another Dota game with hero powers? Is there even any real lore besides just paying for new cool hero characters (assuming LoL is free to play?)
LoL was inspired by the Warcraft III mod Defence Of The Ancients. DOTA 2 by Valve is the official sequel whereas LoL is just Riot's take on it.

it's 5v5. you pick a champion and you level up during the match with gold, xp, items. the ultimate goal is to get to the opposite of the map and destroy the enemies Nexus. That's a basic explaination but it goes way deeper.
 
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Fbh

Member
Maybe? You never know.
I think it would have to be different though, if it's just a "regular" MMO with a LOL theme it's going to be popular but probably not as much as WOW once was.

For me personally if there's a cool story like FFXIV but no monthly fee I'd give it a try.
 

Merkades

Member
I wonder if this might be up my alley. LoL doesn't interest me, but I didn't mind playing Ruined King : LoL story. Not amazing, but not terrible. The world could be interesting. Though that said, I already spent 300 on Pantheon, so it would have to be pretty good to make me ditch that game.
 
That's a little funny considering when WoW came out it was the casual choice for an MMO. :messenger_winking:

It was casual in the sense that it attracted more players, had more appeal rather than being very obscure or annoying to play/get into compared to say SW Galaxies or whatever else but yes, casual gamer back then is pretty much hardcore/pro these days.
 

Atrus

Gold Member
I’m not a LoL fan but the show did make me interested in the more enough to buy the RPG and research if they were making an MMO.

The problem with an MMO is the gameplay and design team behind it.

The lore is amazingly solid to base an MMO on but you need the expertise of a team to keep people engaged and Riot would need to spare no expense on the design and implementation.

With a fan base as large as it has, and now a newer set thanks to Arcane, it can afford to spend on quality and get repaid quickly in subs.

They can’t afford to Cyberpunk 2077 it.
 

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
I'm a huge dota fan, I even played the original dota, back before TFT and before the guinsoo allstars remix that became standard dota and lead to dota 2, wich is what dota is today.

So as you can imagine i'm somewhat salty that this game became the succes it has been.

So I won't say anything on the topic.
 

Bogeyman

Banned
Oh dear god, I'm just picturing some large MMO world chat with LOL's toxicity and player base :messenger_grinning_sweat: What a nightmare.

First time I'm hearing they're even developing one. If I understand the OP right, next to nothing is known about the specifics yet?

So from that very limited knowledge about their project, I'm going to take a wild guess: If it's an MMORPG in the classic sense of what I'd picture, then it'll fall way short of WoW's popularity back during peak times.
The only way I could see it come close (or surpass it) is if turns out to be a very different kind of game to what we may all be thinking of when picturing WoW, EQ, DAoC, or whatever else.

Unfortunately, I think the times of old school MMOs are done for good. There's definitely still a market for those - classic WoW has proven that - but nowhere near as big as it used to be anymore. I think shorter and shorter attention spans and impatience on the players' side, and more greedy business models on the publishers' sides have both fundamentally changed how successful these kind of games can really be.

Then again, MMO just means "lots of players" and RPG is a fairly flexible term as well, so if they develop something that fits the terminology, but not really what we associate with them - different story.
 

AJUMP23

Member
Riot has yet to make a game that I am interested in. Doesn't mean the games aren't good, I haven't seen anything they put out that I want ot play.
 

Holammer

Member
First as Urban mentioned (post #5), the game on PC and Console might get crippled in terms of art and scope as they want to release it on mobile devices too.
But if I have to predict why they say "We’re going to make some choices that you may not agree with", I think that's because you can't make your own character. You select and play as the established characters, making them similar to the frames in Warframe. Do the quest, grind the materials/craft or just buy the new champion in the shop.

In fact, Warframe would be a good framework to base a new MMO on. Master server merely acting as the item server and the lion's share being handled by listen servers.
Server costs are minimal, win-win!
 

Bkdk

Member
If tencent can actually convince Chinese government to let them do nft at least for the international version of the game, that riot coin will be worth 200 billion at the very least at launch. Tencent's market cap will surpass Tesla within one day. Tencent should probably asking ccp that they will turn 90% of those profits as taxes and they will still come out ahead just from nft hype alone.
 

dezzy8

Member
What even is LoL? isnt in another Dota game with hero powers? Is there even any real lore besides just paying for new cool hero characters (assuming LoL is free to play?)
It really has a deep lore if you read the character bios in the game. It’s pretty cool.
 

Fare thee well

Neophyte
After my friends tried to get me into different mmorpgs, I've sort of lost interest in general. GW2 was the only community I ever had fun with, and I still had to get past the dull personal story and leveling to get to wvw. FFXIV, BDO, WoW, New World, and Crowfall have been a total letdown to me.

I love the idea of the endgame content in some mmorpgs, ie - pvp and carefully working as a team to beat a raid, but I will never understand the obligatory grind road it takes to get there. What would be so broken if you went straight to the content? Are they afraid they have nothing to offer otherwise if you don't chop 10,000 trees to make some damn boots?

TLDR, I think mmorpgs are off the list for me until they really prove otherwise. Just can't get excited for them.
 
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Coolwhhip

Neophyte
Hell no. In 2004 Wow was a world shattering phenomenon. It was the first online world for millions. The riot MMO will be just another popular mmo at best. The next time I see a culture shock like Wow happen again is with a VR MMO.
 
Can I play as one of those short guys with the big ears? I remember the little squeeky gnomes in WoW.
I've never looked into LOL beyond the netflix Arcane series.
 

jakinov

Member
Never, wow had 12milion paid subs

Free to play means pay to win, almost always.
League of Legends has over a hundred million active users a month who altogether bring in as high as $2.1 billion in revenue. There's a lot of people that are really into the IP, we're talking fucktons more than the people who were into Warcraft before WoW. If you build a better mouth trap and assuming the genre hasn't died down too much I don't see how a game based on an IP played by over 200 million players has 0 chance (based on you saying "never") at beating a game based on IP with a tiny fraction of fans. Even FF14 is looking to eventually beat WoW's peak.

Also free to paly does not mean pay to win. It litterally means free-to-play. You can have a non free to play game be pay to win too. The free to play games that tend to be pay to win are on mobile; the ones for PC and consoles tend to die and the ones that are super popular today are not pay to win.
 

H4ze

Member
Seems like I am the only one not giving a fuck about that company or their products, everything Tencent related can fck off.
 

Vaelka

Member
If anyone can do it, it's Riot. They're carving out a spot as the new Blizzard.

LoL has over 115,000,000 monthly players. Valorant is already at something like 15,000,000 and frequently one of the most watched on Twitch. Arcane has been a surprise hit.

No better time to build hype for an MMO than when love for WoW is at a historic low. New World was a total disaster because AGS have no idea how to support a game - Riot do.

I'll be playing.

Sure but they're also free games.

With Chinas help tho they probably could Riot is already huge in China and I am sure they're working with Tencent to launch it there and get that Chinese money.
I doubt their MMO will be free tho it's not going to reach those kinds of numbers.

MMO's do have a very large audience but not at the same level of the giants.

Probably a Genshin clone more than a MMO.

They'll want to sell heroes.

Honestly this is what I am thinking of too, I don't think that MMO's are really THAT appealing to the average joe too time intensive.
If they want to make the big money then they'll make a Genshin game with loot boxes and RNG roulettes.
 
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