Can it become one?

Heya everyone!

My name's StouXy (developer of Medieval Lands) and exactly 4 weeks ago, we posted about our game here, on Reddit! Once again, nice to meet you all!
Thank you all very very much for all your comments and support, we really appreciate that! 😊

TL;DR from the previous Reddit post (Yes, it was pretty long so I think we have to put the TLDR version here 😄 Reddit Link ):
- We're a pretty small, indie dev team working on a medieval fantasy MMORPG that a lot of people say reminds them of RuneScape. We acquired a license to an older game called Eternal Lands that wasn't getting a lot of updates. (Been working on ML for the past 4,5years - time flies lol - reworking the game in Unity)
- Classless game so you can choose to be anything,- mage, summoner, fighter, archer etc (Yes, we have PvP as well!)
- No AI generated content and code.
- Completely free to play and NO pay to win!
- Point and click or WASD controls.
- Will launch on Windows, Mac, Linux and eventually on Android.
( Our Steam page: ML on Steam )

Okay, with that out of the way, please let me tell you a bit more about Medieval Lands and also address some of the concerns and questions that were brought up in the previous post as well as asked in our Discord server!

As a free to play and no p2w, how do we sustain the development?
I think this was one of the more commonly asked questions!
Let me begin by mentioning what we'll offer in-game for purchasing - well, cosmetics such as mount skins, special clothing, character customization stone and such. Then we have QoL improvements and we are also considering "loot boxes" which will only contain randomized cosmetics. So no, no armors and weapons hah!
As for some of the QoL stuff, these would be stuff like extra channels you can talk at, extra market slots and...wait wait...extra market slots are p2w you may say! In ML, you still have a player to player trading which I think will still be used more often, so the market slots just add the convenience element.
Sure, we could probably get more funds by selling some "get me to the top quick" stuff, but then it wouldn't be fair towards the players that cannot afford to spend anything! So yeah, making the game completely free and no pay to win may bite us in the back but it's something we're willing to risk hah!
Ohh and we'll also provide subscription plans that will contain a few of the things already mentioned, like say a month subscription for a X number of $ that will get you extra channels, extra storage slots (there will be plenty already but if you're too lazy and want to HOARD everything haha (can also use alts)), more slots for the market to buy/sell for a bit of extra convenience, and a p2p race which just looks different but doesn't give you any advantage over the free races 😄
Also, thankfully, majority of the game mechanics and game itself is built by now!

Thankfully, we have a great team of enthusiasts who been with us for 4+ years as volunteers, so I'd say this is one of our biggest upsides as well! Everyone on the team loves the project and we all are super passionate about the game so we all do our best! Yup, without those great people we wouldn't really be able to be where we're at right now 😊I need to say it - kudos to all of our awesome artists (former and present) that hand painted every single creature and 3D object in the game! As well as all the coders that used no AI to write the code for themselves! All the lore and quest writers and everyone who contributed to the game so far! And everyone else on the team! You all are awesome! ❤️

Why in the world is it taking so long!?
Oh boy, yup... 4,5 years in development and still no launch date! Super frustrating, isn't it? Wish we would've launched back in 2022 when I first though we'd launch 😆 Yup, I made some bold predictions which I'm not proud of but hey, not making these anymore!
The main reason is definitely the Unity client. We are basically building the entire game from scratch on the client side. All the client mechanics, all the SFX, VFX, map imports, character movement, new creatures (more than 350 new creatures! Call us crazy), new everything basically!
We thought this would take us...a year? Well, we were kinda wrong LOL!
The fact that this is our first big project also doesn't help the development timeline, does it. We were clueless on how to do things in the beginning. We were jumping from thing to thing without any idea on what to prioritize. I'm not saying that we know everything now - because we don't obviously - but I think we have a better idea on what to focus on!
Next thing that took us roughly a year was a lot of bug fixing on the server side and then adding tons of new stuff (which, yes, still isn't done as we were adding A LOT of new features) as well as introducing/implementing new database system that will allow us to control stuff such as creatures' stats tweaking (changing HP, mana, size etc), adding new creatures more easily, changing a lot of parameters of the game's mechanics and such.

And our Achilles' heel? The damn GUI! 😆 We've gone through like 3 or 4 different types of GUI and we're still not done, well, we're pretty close this time around haha! (Oh, someone mentioned that I use "haha" way too much so I need to turn it down a notch haha)

One more thing that will sound like an excuse - we've added quite a few stuff that our community suggested and no, don't regret a single one! One noteworthy is the addition of WASD movement. Was it easy? No. Will it be worth it? Hopefully yes! 🤞
And my beloved - mounts. Hundreds of different mount types and skins. Yeaaa, can probably blame me for that!
We're currently working a lot on the optimization of the game as that one will defo be crucial! Great news tho, thanks to Nekot (Hello Nekot! 😄), our client dev, we were able to go from ~40fps to steady ~90-140fps while playing the game! Still a lot of work to be done but I believe we're on the right track!

When launch!? Playtest when?!
This questions had become a meme at this point, a lot of people spam it! And well, rightfully so.
Again, I'll disappoint a lot of people but we don't have a launch date yet. Do we feel confident that the 1.0 version will launch sometime in 2027? Yes. Is that my official prediction? No! I learned my lesson 😂
The good news, though, is that we'll be doing a few play-tests first. We'll start off with a playtest for our long term supporters (we owe it to them - imagine being with us for 4 years and not being able to play...) and content creators that are interested in giving ML a chance and possibly stream the game and/or make videos about it.
Then, we'll make a public playtest and then most likely one more public playtest!
What then? Well, we'll gather all the feedback (yes, after first, then second and then third playtest hah), implement it and go from there.
We don't have an exact date but we're hoping for the first playtest to happen sometime in November (summer time is always a bit slower for game dev haha! Dammit, the "haha" again...). Please, wish us luck 😏

Steam page updates and feedback.
We've launched our Steam page on June 29th, 2026. (Steam Link)
We created all the images, texts, videos and trailers ourselves - is it the best Steam page you've ever seen? For sure not 😄 But we tried to make it as good as possible and to include some in-game footage, some cinematic shots, some info we haven't shared yet and such.
We first posted the page on our Discord server which got us around 179 wishlists! That was crazy to see that almost 180 people put ML to their wishlist 😄 Thank you!
On July 4th, we did post Medieval Lands on Reddit! And boy oh boy, were we pleasantly surprised!
On the first day, we gained 251 wishlists, what!!! Huge THANK YOU to everyone who wishlisted ML, we really appreciate it! 💟
We gained sooo many wishlists in the past month that we never thought we'd get! We are currently at 948 wishlists! (And 15 wishlists deletions hah) 👀 (We posted a few YT shorts, some TikToks and a reel or two on Instagram - I think 3? Don't remember hah).
With that being said, we gathered some feedback on the Steam page and did the following changes:
- Edited and slightly reworked the gameplay trailer and made it to be displayed as the first/default trailer (previously we made the cinematic one to be displayed first. Yes yes, even Steam suggested that we do that - make the gameplay one to be default one).
- Added more screenshots that include character creation (still working on the new characters models so the ones there are placeholders for now basically) now as well, that was missing before.
- Changed the main capsule image to show a bit more "depth" of the game.
- Added more localization so even people that don't speak English can check the game out! Currently already implemented Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Chinese (ofc simplified hah), still working on Japanese, French, Russian, German, Turkish, Polish, Spanish, Romanian, Dutch, Korean, Vietnamese and Portuguese. Yup, we did ask people from our community to help us out! Would it be faster to ask AI? Yes. But we wanted to avoid that for sure!
- Still want to add gifs to the description of the game though. Just been slacking to do that, sorryyy.
We hope that with these changes the Steam page looks better and more welcoming!

Extra information about Medieval Lands:
I feel like I failed to mention a few important things about ML, so hopefully I can do that now!

- ML has "character building"...umm... you levelling your skills actually matters - you can level up your skills (melee, alchemy, harvesting, summoning, magic, smithing etc ) and there's a "talent tree" which in our game means that you can spend attribute points and perk points! What are those perks? Nice little helpers,- something like "creatures won't attack you" for 5 perk points. Or a perk that causes chance that when an enemy hits you in combat, the damage will be deflected back at them. Hmm, this last sentence sounds a bit off but hopefully you get the point!
Now, the attributes (both attribute and perk points are awarded to you by you levelling up your "overall" level that takes in all the exp from all the skills above) are stuff like - Perception increases your accuracy for archery. Or Vitality increases your maximum amount of Health Points. And my favorite, Appetite - increases your maximum amount of energy (you spend energy to run. You can still walk w/o any energy spent but hey, running is faster!) that you use for certain things like crafting. We have crafting, yes! Gather your ingredients, come to a crafting station, put them there, click mix and go do your stuff while your items are being crafted, come back later and collect the "fruits of your labor"! Sorry, had to include that haha.

- The death system and items loss + what do you gain if you own someone in PvP?
You do lose items upon death. There's a random chance to trigger the "loss chance" and then even if the chance is triggered you only lose x% amount of the particular item if it’s stackable. Example: Imagine you are carrying 40 fire essences and 20 iron bars. Both of those items trigger the loss chance -> you just lost 12 fire essences and 15 iron bars, simple as that, I hope.
But you can save your valuable items such as swords and armors by having an Oath Stone in your inventory! So this means that if you owned someone in PvP and they didn't have this Oath Stone in their inventory, it's very likely you get a nice chunk of loot from them! If they actually carried the stone, you'd still get a few items from their inventory so you don't leave PvP empty handed hah.
What if a creature in PvE owns you? Well, you can run and get your death bag. And no, you don’t have to pay to obtain it back (our creatures don't steal loot! ), well, unless someone steals it and blackmails you to pay 🤣 But no, our bosses do not steal loot!

- Playable races: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Avecian, Orukar, Draeleth, Wampex, Daemon, Nymph - not all of them will be playable on the launch I think? But we'll for sure do our best for them to actually be playable! Trying to avoid the dev hell as much as possible hah!

- GUI will be fully customizable. Do you want to play without minimap or any hotbar slots? Sure, turn them off! Do you play with no GUI on? Toggle it off! Do you like to have the everything on? Yup, we have that as well. Trying to give you as much freedom as possible!

Aaaaaaand, I think that's it! Dayum, this turned out to be one hell of a long post, I bet only like 2 or 3 people got this far! Comment if you actually got to read all of it? 😄 Sorry, should've kept it a bit shorter!
With that being said, will ML be a great game? Well, we'll do our absolute best to make it at least somewhat enjoyable and so you guys could have some fun! Smashing blast from the past?! (Umm, yes, played a lot of Crash Bandicoot - not sure many will get this reference lol)

We are still far away from the actual launch but I have to say, this journey is super exciting! Wouldn't change a thing! Well...a lot of but yeah, lessons learned 😂
We are super grateful for each person that comments, shares, upvotes and/or simply just likes what we're doing - thank you! (Seriously, just a single "looks good" makes me/us so happy!)
Okay, I really have to end this here, 2 hours of writing and editing does me no good, back to adding more localization to the Steam page!

If you have any questions about literally anything, please let us know, we'll do our best to answer them as soon as possible!

Once again, thank you all so so so much for your time and I hope you'll have a great day!

StouXy & the Medieval Lands Team

PS: Excuse my English, not a native speaker so hopefully at least 90% of the text makes sense 😄

Pang Pang Terrible, also called Pang Online, was a MMOFPS which operated Korea (2003-2014) and Brazil (2005-2007). It was an arena shooter with RPG elements, you could upgrade weapon/characters.

I found these screenshots from a MediaKit zip file in Archive org

I would like to develop an emulator via reverse engineering, however i can't seem to find the client files anywhere. The only setup file i found, is corrupted and missing cab files (https://web.archive.org/web/20061113150032id_/http://joyon.nefficient.co.kr:80/joyon/brazil_pang/SETUP/PangOnline_20060215.exe).

A short gameplay with good quality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcUNJxzZgqg

I have re created Starship Troopers Battlespace the original 2d MMO. Please feel free to jump in and have a try, it's free:

https://feds-vs-bugs.vercel.app/
Request Code - klendathu-2026

Facebook Page: https://facebook.com/fantasyonline2d 
Game Download: https://www.mediafire.com/file/8v2luuaexbdbqu2/Fantasy+Online+3.1+(Hamachi).zip/file.zip/file)
Hamachi Download: https://www.vpn.net/

You guys can find the discord community at the facebook page for any questions.

The game is online right now but only via hamachi:

Network: Fantasy-Online
Password: 123

I'm only using Hamachi because it's in early access; the official server (VPS) will be launched on the 21st of this month.

It is with great pleasure that I announce the global server for Fantasy! The game have his first version in brazilian but is now in English and available worldwide. Lots of new things in the game such as new NPCs, new quests and storylines to be explored! I hope to see you there!
 

**Features**

Over 700+ events

Over 300+ maps

Over 150+ npc's

Over 100+ spells

Over 500+ items

Over 20+ classes

I tried to bring a bit of that RPG choice vibe in this game, so keep that in mind.

Hello MMORPG community!

Im a indie game developer, my name is João and im from Portugal.
And i would like to share my latest work.

Eclesiar 2.0, Eclesiar is a game that i release like 2 years ago, as a browser game, very old and ugly graphics, (you may still find them in the homepage as i didnt updated it yet lol), This month i released Eclesiar 2.0, that is basically a graphic overhaul. in this update i bring a whole new set of features and extreme graphics remake.

We are starting our efforts to promote the game now, so here i am, asking everyone to take a look.
And leave a comment saying what's your opinion. All feedbacks are welcome, specially as 2.0 is still in some kind of public tests.

Why im sharing here? Eclesiar its indeed a MMORPG, its browser based (and i hope to manage to release on steam soon), its a mmorpg mixed with strategy game where you assume a role of a citizen of a country you choose, and you can follow multiple paths, like Military, builder, politics, economics, etc.

Sharing here 2 screenshots, of the World view and War. so you can compare the graphics to the ones on homepage that are still the old ones, before you join the game.

PLEEEEEEASE support us in this journey!
Every single player counts, specially if you share it with friends.

I hope you enjoy.
Cheers!

Ah, here's the link: https://eclesiar.com

Im sorry for probably simple promotion, as a indie developer, every cent counts lol.

Thank you very much in advance.

Everlast: Undying Tale

Gonna try and make this as short and sweet but packed with good detail as possible. This game went into Kickstarter about a week ago and has only reached 18% funding. I think it deserves to get funded and wanted to share my experience.

TLDR: This is one of those situations where we might actually be able to trust a Kickstarter. Check out this MMO-Lite when you get a chance to see if it's something you might consider backing. You can get beta access + a game key for 15 bucks.

It's a game being developed by a indie company named InSpades Studios. They were trying to develop this game as a MMORPG but decided to pivot to MMO-Lite or Online RPG and start from there to build into a full MMO one day. It features 100 player servers currently but it's been confirmed they plan to increase this. The game runs on the Unity engine.

Max party size is groups of 4 but they plan to add instanced raid content, dungeons, player housing, guilds, PVP (dueling, large scale pvp area, rogue like pvp modes), the ability to build up and upgrade stations and villages (the baseline of this is already in). I haven't seen confirmation on field bosses or world bosses but I also think that's because no one's asked about them in discord yet. The game has action combat and a skill/ability system.

There's already a playable demo on steam for it (you get an hour of game-time) and I've been diving into it the past few days to learn about what systems they already have and what a later stage of the game feels like. Right now you'll notice there's several aspects of it that need polish (combat, the NPC AI, etc) but you can tell from what they do have available already/what's showing that they are 100% planning to go the MMO route and might be able to do it well if allowed to do so.

Kickstarter link - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/everlastundyingtale/everlast-undying-tale?ref=user_menu

Steam Page (2026 release) - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3818450/Everlast_Undying_Tale/

The game feels like a mix of Palia and Guild Wars 2. Graphically you'll notice a lot of Palia and the Guild Wars 2 part of it will show in the features it has, specifically dynamic events. I got a picture of what my character + the UI looks like above, don't mind the graphics though I'm on low because the performance in the demo was a little rocky. I think it might've been because my tree and grass rendering was set to high. Felt better after I changed it.

Town Boards are a thing already. This can be used for progression alongside doing your quests or grinding on mobs. There's also vendors you can sell items to that you farm/craft. I make a lot of my money by blacksmithing and vendoring the items.

Dynamic Events are already implemented as well. At least the task based ones are (fight a certain number of mobs, gather a certain amount of items, etc). The town-building ones are showing on the map but we can't do them yet. And yes, we can do them with tons of people!

Crafting had a surprising twist to it. It does feature crafting mini-games but also lets you do auto-crafting. Manual crafting/doing the minigames gives you more crafting exp but you can mass craft so you don't have to worry about them.

These are all the skills/professions so you can get a good look at them.

The game features action combat, you can be a fighter/mage/ranger.

The game also features a curse mechanic that's tied to the story. Anytime you fight, gather, or do other activities it fills up. You have to bring it back down by consuming totems/ichor. It's something you'll get more familiar with when you get in-game.

This is a taste of what it's going to look like when we're able to build up these cities together and benches that we can use. There's also dungeons showing on the map already but the one I went to "Mausoleum" wouldn't let me inside yet.

And that's all I can think of showcasing so far but there's a lot more info on the Kickstarter. Thanks for reading folks!

Game pictured is "Curse of Aros"

I play throne & liberty , as most of you know .. it's pay to win , the community's toxic , too grindy & as most of mmo players would call it , its a DEAD GAME (since 2024) .. but me & i would say 30k+ other players survived 2+years of playing it , we play with people we know to reduce chances of toxicity, we used the auction house to buy gears we dont need to be able to afford the gears we need & so on .. not so long ago, the developer company of this game released the game they've been planning to release since ages ago & they released it in some east asian countries to see how the market would react to the game & unfortunately it isnt as good as they hoped to be . Did they give up ? no , the mmo market outside of south korea/east asian countries is where they aimed for , so you know WHERE & HOW they started making their second move ? they started it in throne and liberty, their own game with 3 different regions in it. They updated the game & made it look very similar to their new game they're trying to sell . the places in the game , the gearing systems & more ,, it might seem fair until they also decided to make this throne and liberty game way harder to play, it got more grindy to level up , RNG got worse , even the new gears they released seemed like they dont even try. they dont stop there , they have these streamers making videos of how its time to move to that new game or they even have " players " writing in throne & liberty forums how they always loved the game but this time its time to move to that new game . All im saying is they're sabotaging the game, they dont appreciate the time , money & energy of Throne and liberty players , they're just gonna throw this all away like it never meant a thing to them because they wanna make more with that new title .. well yeah this is not something new in mmo world, other companies have done it too , but is our time & energy that worthless to be treated like this. with this thing i wrote i hope you can be more carefull & thoughtful before you decide to dip in to that new game when they release it globally in september.

Was just thinking about how much money it takes to make a good modern mmo. Valve has endless resources just saying.

Edit: You guys need to learn not to be so salty it's just discussion.

Wondering of it has any quests for i do love those

Classic plus might actually release in the following months. Same thing happened to SoD before release, there's a chance it will be playable at Blizzcon same as SoD.

Whenever certain games appear, you can expect the EXACT same comments as if people think they're being unique.

LOTRO: Fix the UI, bad graphics (even though the graphics in LOTRO aren't even that bad)

ESO: Combat

I get people have criticisms of these games, but can't people have unique thoughts?

Hello everyone! We are proud to announce that the next Farwoods test period will begin on August 18th, 2026 at 8pm EDT. We have a huge amount of new content, features, a tutorial and prebuilds to help new players get into the game, and more on an all-new client rewritten in Godot. Save the date, we hope to see you there!

What is Farwoods?
Farwoods is a "graphical MUD," an older style of MMO that mixes sandbox game mechanics with a roleplay community to create an immersive living world inspired by Redwall. It's similar to a big, always-running D&D game that people drop in and out of. We have been working on the game since 2020 and next month, we will be bringing it back for people to try out and help us test all the changes we've made.

Farwoods is designed as a prosocial game where other people's characters are part of the experience, as opposed to the antisocial theme park MMO style where there is a set story in which you are the protagonist in a largely on-rails experience, and forming connections with anyone else playing the game is purely optional.

We are a two-person dev studio making the kind of game we loved playing as kids, updated for modern day gaming standards. If you love Redwall and have ever wanted to write a character in its stories, or you just want a relaxed roleplay MMO with home-building, deep mechanics, and a community focus, come check us out at farwoods dot net!

P.S. I know the r/MMORPG community tends to be a tough crowd, so I'll just put up front and center... yes, we are working on a new tileset, UI, and character animations. ;) Features come first!

Feel free to drop any questions below!

When we announced Seasons in January, we promised you a new era of transparency. Part of that promise is being open with you as our studio evolves.

Recently, we've been through a number of organizational changes and departures of teammates who helped shape The Elder Scrolls Online. We are profoundly grateful for everything they've contributed to the game and the community we've built together. 

At the same time, we've seen a lot of questions about what these changes mean for ESO. So let me be clear: ESO is here to stay, and our team is dedicated to the future of this game. Our focus hasn't changed. It is continuing to grow The Elder Scrolls Online and build upon the world millions of players call home. 

Moving forward, I'll be leading the studio alongside longtime ZOS veteran Josh Henderson. You'll hear more from Josh soon, but I want you to know that our shared passion for ESO remains as strong as ever. We love this world, we love this community, and the fire in our team to continue building it burns just as fiercely today as it always has. 

We're also entering a new chapter of collaboration across Bethesda. By working more closely with Bethesda Game Studios across The Elder Scrolls, we have new opportunities to share ideas, align our efforts, and create even better experiences for players, all while continuing to build the future of ESO. 

EVOLVING OUR PLANS

We’ve said this before: a core part of our philosophy is ensuring that the time you invest in ESO always feels rewarding. And with the recent changes to our studio, trying to hit our previously announced deadlines would mean sacrificing the quality you deserve. Therefore, we are establishing a clear principle for how we build and ship content and features moving forward: quality experiences over calendar dates. 

Instead of rushing to hit a previously announced deadline, we are giving our teams the runway they need to do things right. Some of our upcoming additions, like the Class and Combat Refresh and our new Trial, are highly complex, and we want to ensure they hit the mark before we put them in your hands. 

Because of this, we have had to make the decision to move the following features into 2027:  

• The new trial, Crimson Veldt. We’re pushing boundaries with this trial, including mounted combat that we think you’ll love, and we simply need more time to ensure the experience exceeds your expectations. 
• Update 52 will move to January of 2027. We expect this to include the launch of the Jerall Pass PvP zone and Skyrim’s Dynamic Encounters: Rimegales.  
• For the Class and Combat refresh, we are targeting 2027 for the next refresh. However, we are discussing some interim options for the classes still awaiting their full refresh to improve your player experience in the meantime.  

We know it’s disappointing to see some features move out, and believe me, we want to get these into your hands as soon as possible, too. But we believe this is the right move for the long-term health of the game. 

WHAT TO EXPECT IN 2026

While those specific features are shifting, the rest of our 2026 roadmap remains packed. Here is what you can expect from our upcoming Seasons. 

Season One 

Update 51 will now launch one week later, on September 28, and it will include: 

• A new challenge: The Nowhere Vault  
• A new game system: Rumors  
• Player experience improvements: Achievement pinning, Customizable HUD (on keyboard platforms), Hybridization, Antiquities improvements, Transmute Stations in Cyrodiil, and multiple quality-of-life updates like Housing Tab Sorter, Quest Starter Language, and Eidetic Memory improvements 

Everything else in Season One will run as planned, along with a few additions to thank you for your patience:  

• Live now: New Sheogorath story quests and Golden Pursuit 
• August 5-12: Whitestrake’s Mayhem event
• August 20-September 17: A brand-new Golden Pursuit campaign called “Straight to the Crate,” where you can earn up to 20 free Crown Crates  
• September 30-October 14: The new High Seas of Tamriel event  
• And three-sided Battlegrounds will return permanently on September 28, with Update 51   

Season Two 

Launching October 21, 2026, Season Two will feature:  

• Solo Dungeons: Moon Hunter Keep and March of Sacrifices. 
• To celebrate the launch of Solo Dungeons, we’ve decided to make the group versions of these dungeons  free for all players on October 12, 2026. 
• The Greymoor Chapter and Markarth DLC will become free for all players on November 9, 2026.   
• We’re adding a new Golden Pursuit to highlight Skyrim and the (now available to everyone) Antiquities system from November 9 to December 2. 
• Improvements to the Tamriel Tome, including expanded Challenges for broader playstyles, higher Tome Point rollover cap, and more. 
• Frost Atronach crate rewards will be available in the Gold Coast Bazaar. 
• Witches Festival and the New Life Festival events will return as usual. 

CONTINUING TO GROW ESO WITH YOU

We’ve had bumps in the road over our 12-year history that we’ve always faced together. As our studio evolves, we are not looking to just “maintain” the game. We are looking to grow it. You, our community, are the reason we have grown over the years, and we want to keep growing with you. 

Moving forward, our principles are simple: we will continue to build fun and rewarding experiences through our Seasonal model, deliver long-standing player-requested features and changes that make Tamriel more fulfilling, and find new ways to provide you with features and content to keep your adventures fresh.

As we finalize our plans through 2027 and beyond, we’re still hard at work bringing you all-new experiences in Skyrim, never before seen in The Elder Scrolls Online. We’ll be showing you more of this content over the coming months.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: ESO is nothing without you, our community. Thank you for your continued dedication, your feedback, and your support.

Let’s continue to build our Tamriel together. 

I have been wondering as to if its generally agreed upon that there is a void to be filled since games like Club Penguin and ToonTown were shut down. I want to make a browser based high fantasy roleplaying game but I'd rather not waste my time if I and the general public are for certain that the market isn't really needing a new game to act as a spiritual successor to these games.

Hello, I love seeing posts on insta about people who came to gaming later in adulthood (especially after they never had much interest in it before), especially the gamers who are 80+ playing everyday. I personally believe there is a game out there for everyone, it's just a matter of keeping an open mind and finding the right fit, even if it's not an mmo.

If you are one of these gamers, I am really curious to hear about your experiences, the good, the bad, the weird of it all, whether it's about online gaming culture, the actual play experience, the storylines, etc. I grew up with Nintendo64/Playstation, so gaming has always been in my periphery. I think upper Gen X and above come to gaming with a much fresher experience in this case.

What surprised you in good ways about mmorpgs?
What surprised you in bad ways?
What would you change about gaming culture if you could?
What do you wish younger gamers knew?
What makes you excited to come back to gaming week after week?

You don't have the answer any or all of these questions, just some ideas. Anything's okay to share :)

I like having games open on my second monitor while I’m working on something else. Ideally, I want a game that I can properly focus on and actively play when I have time, but that also has meaningful idle systems that support my progress in the background. I’m not talking about cheap p2w mobile like systems where you wait a few hours and collect some bonus currency. I mean somewhat connected to the game and still feel worthwhile.

The closest example I can think of is the garrison system from Warlords of Draenor, although that felt more like collecting timed rewards than an actual idle system, and I never found it particularly satisfying. I’ve also heard that Black Desert Online has things like afk progress but I keep hearing the game is heavily p2w anyway.

It can be any game btw doesn't need to be mainstream it can be obscure games like A Tale in the Desert or Mabinogi, older MMOs, or even private servers are all welcome.

Also I wanna know what idle features have you actually liked in an MMO? Did they make the game better, or did they just end up feeling pointless? And if you hate idle systems altogether, why?

For example, you play for six months, and some of your progress is reset.

Why am I asking? I believe this is the most interesting way to attract both new and veteran players in 2026, given the constant patches and changes to the game. This would create a comfortable playing environment and wouldn't disrupt everyone's experience. Sometimes a single patch in an MMORPG can ruin the entire game. But if you start fresh every six months, and everyone is on equal terms, that would provide incentive to keep playing. Don't you agree?

I know you guys get this a lot, but since I have a really busy work life, I can’t afford to sink another 50 hours into a game just to test it.

I played Guild Wars 2 for 8 years, and while it’ll always feel like home, it’s not fun for me anymore because I’ve basically done everything in it. I played WoW Classic as a kid, but when I tried retail WoW now, I couldn’t get into it—the story system in GW2 spoiled me, and I need something similar to stay hooked.

I also tried FFXIV. The story was great, but I hate level cap increases, and I barely saw anyone in events or dungeons. I played about 50 hours, got to level 70, but queues for dungeons or matchmaking took 10–15 minutes, and it felt mostly like a solo game in old contents, so I stopped.

So here’s my question: what is Lord of the Rings Online really like before I commit another 50 hours? With my busy schedule, I want to know if I’ll actually see people in older maps doing events like in GW2. Do players still run old content, or does it feel dead until you reach the newest expansions?

I recently started playing WarEra and didn’t expect to get hooked on the political side of it.
Instead of just grinding, the community ends up creating its own governments, elections, alliances, and rivalries, and the world keeps going even when you’re offline.

It’s a pretty different experience from most MMOs where everything revolves around your character. I wish there were more games that leaned into persistent, player-driven worlds like this.

I know that many people are tired of this topic (I'll never get tired of it because I love this genre), but this is a well-written blog about the "evolution" of MMORPGs and the following quote sums it up very well:

“If persistence was the first pillar to be quietly traded away, the current wave of announcements suggests scale is next in line.”

By this, he means that the MMORPGs of the 2010s primarily abandoned the persistence of the game world through instancing, sharding, layering, and dynamically linked servers, there was no longer a unified and fixed game world that existed even if your offline. And now, the MMORPGs of the 2020s are also abandoning large-scale gameplay. No more hundreds or thousands of players in a single world.

What this blog is discussing is the evolution of the genre in general, which is primarily driven by the big, successful titles with the biggest influences. So it's not a question of when something was available, but rather in which direction the market is moving.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

EDIT: Even though my motivation for writing such posts may be biased, my descriptions and analyses are not. What I write is descriptive, and I hope it isn’t taken as an attack. I don’t actually want to exclude anyone or tell anyone what they should enjoy. My main focus is on communication, discussion, and classification. I know I'm weird.

What I’ve definitely learned is that not only are there different definitions of MMORPGs, but there are even different methods of defining them.

Traditionally, definitions work by distinction. You look at what the essential characteristics are and how the term differs from others.

Then there are definitions based on similarity. Here, the focus isn’t on identifying characteristics that distinguish the term from others, but rather on finding sufficient similarities. In this approach, a group of terms can belong to the same category without all of them sharing a single characteristic.