After all,those MMORPGs that are still online and still developing right?

Edit: Also include the "failed the expectation of the developers" situation.

At least Darkfall is gaining subscribers (and not on your list).

Define successful.

If successful means covering the initial investment and making steady money, there are plenty of those that did that, although they had major issues at launch.

If successful means rivalling the current MMO leader, then all MMOs are failures, they should shut down and we should go play the MMO leader for the rest of our lives.

Originally posted by Xasapis

Define successful.

If successful means covering the initial investment and making steady money, there are plenty of those that did that, although they had major issues at launch.

If successful means rivalling the current MMO leader, then all MMOs are failures, they should shut down and we should go play the MMO leader for the rest of our lives.

I consider games like EQ,EVE,LOTRO,DAoC,i.e those games who didn't have their initial player base leaving in droves, gain enough or more subscribers that suit the game's potential base on budget and hype, keep growing until they get beaten by better games. Those games are what I consider successful MMORPGs.

Originally posted by -Zeno-

At least Darkfall is gaining subscribers (and not on your list).

 From what I've seen Darkfall's player base is stabilizing, not increasing.

Mortal online shouldn't be included with the other games... it probably has less than 1k active subscribers.

Originally posted by jusomdude

Mortal online shouldn't be included with the other games... it probably has less than 1k active subscribers.

Well, but according to some people, alive and developing is enough to be considered as "successful".

It's successful if they make a profit or make it sustainable enough to fund future projects. Same with any business. Any other gauge of success is pure ideological.

Mortal Online recieved a crapton of money from the expensive CE pre-orders, where people spammed F5 to get one before they sold out within minutes. The initial cost of the game could of also been very little by the looks of it. So, ironically, it could be that they are classed as successful...if they get away with it and jump ship before it starts eating into profits.

An MMORPG doesn't have to retain one million subscribers for me to consider it successful, as Everquest peaked at a mere 500,000 subscribers.  The problem is that modern MMORPGs are far more expensive to create than older titles such as EQ, DAoC, and UO, so developers need to attract a much larger subscriber base to truly see success.  From that standpoint, I would say that Vanguard was a monumental failure and that  Warhammer, while until recently a moderate success, is slipping further and further into obscurity with next to no new content since the release of Land of the Dead in 2009(?).

Just about the only big name MMORPGs outside of World of Warcraft that I would consider a relative success at this point are Aion, Lord of the Rings Online, EQ2, AoC, and CO in that order.

You forgot EVE.

Based on this chart I'd hardly call EVE a failure, EVE's always been a niche games, and it didn't lose half of it's playerbase after it's first month, and it's been growing well.

My response was for superhero and his listing of relatively successful MMOs.

If it ain't dead, it's still lives. If it still lives it's a success, or at the very least has a chance to succeed.  It's only failure when it dies.  There's your black and white answer.

A better answer would go into detail about struggling to stay alive, and conditions of a failed launch such as over hype, and advertisers playing the game up, etc. But that wasn't asked for.

add: nice graph Snark

That's the thing though.  EVE is a completely different beast that appeals to a completely different type of gamer than most MMORPGs.  It's also relatively bug free, content rich, and mechanically solid, unlike Darkfall and MO.

In terms of big name titles that model themselves after WoW (the fast majority of them), success has been fleeting at best.

I think the reason is fairly obvious.  EVE is successful because it gives players something different.  Games that imitate WoW have huge initial success because i believe the World of Warcraft players are like me and grow tired of playing the same game over and over.  Hence they buy the game, play for a few weeks, then go back to WoW once the shine wears off, and the reason is because outside of that "new car smell," I feel that there's relatively little separating WoW from games like EQ2, LotRO, WAR, Rift, and others.  The only ones left in said games are people who are strangely attracted to one or two of the key features of each game or those who are playing it simply because they get intrinsic joy in being able to say they play an MMORPG that is not WoW.

I would define successful not on a financial basis though. (odd for a Blizzard fan isn't it ? :))) )

I explain: I think we have all seen too many very mediocre products launched with the SIMPLE mechanic of getting money out of our pockets.

I explain: Every underdevelopped and mediocre supported MMO gains money when it can get to 100K players and keep it up for a number of years.

It all has nothing to do with gameplay or fun but with money grabbing techniques.

That's the SIMPLE reason why P2P MMO games go FREE to p(l)ay, get published and are hyped about.

The money grabbing thechniques became more important than thinkling about the fun for the players.

I know you Blizzard haters will come and say: but they are the biggest money grabbers. And of course you are right too. BUT BUT the big difference is that Blizzard never set out to grab the money as their prime goal when launching WOW.

They thought 500K would be a massive success. They were caught by the money machine they found and since then EVERY maker is more obsessed by the MONEY machine then anything else.

So to reverse the reasoning: every game out there with less than 100K subs in the west (practically all except Wow and EVE) are complete and utter failures.

Because EVEN in their money grabbing  they failed their investors. Players  and fun became even more secondary.

Still going, still making money = success

How is it possible to put both WAR next to Mortal Online? WAR sold over 1 million copies and has a subscriber base of, aproximately, 150-200k.

As a comparison I doubt MO sold more than 50k copies and probably has less than 10k active subscribers and was practically unplayable at launch.

No way you can equate those. However I do think WAR failed to meet the expectations of the producers, and most of the fans, so in that regard it is a failure.

Originally posted by Xasapis

Define successful.

If successful means covering the initial investment and making steady money, there are plenty of those that did that, although they had major issues at launch.

If successful means rivalling the current MMO leader, then all MMOs are failures, they should shut down and we should go play the MMO leader for the rest of our lives.

I think successful is more if it met the expectations of the ones who funded the project. Making money may not be enough for that.

Originally posted by Yamota

How is it possible to put both WAR next to Mortal Online? WAR sold over 1 million copies and has a subscriber base of, aproximately, 150-200k.

Err according to the graph WAR now has less than 90k subscribers and still falling.

Originally posted by Yamota

How is it possible to put both WAR next to Mortal Online? WAR sold over 1 million copies and has a subscriber base of, aproximately, around 150-200k.

As a comparison I doubt MO sold more than 50k copies and probably has less than 10k active subscribers and was practically unplayable at launch.

No way you can equate those. However I do think WAR failed to meet the expectations of the producers, and most of the fans, so in that regard it is a failure.

I think it is time to put everyone with his feet on the ground. Look at server numbers and the max capacity they offer.

200K for WAR?

You can't have 200K subscriptions with 4/4 servers... total.

Every western P2P MMO launched over a year ago except Wow and EVE are clearly under or around 100K players.

The number of servers is very clear for this.

And launching volume is one thing, but if you launch with ... 113 (!) WAR servers and 8 are manned after 2 years, you know you have a "gaming" problem.

A "successful" MMO has 3 characteristics:

1) It's profitable and has repaid the initial development costs.

2) A stable or growing subscriber base

3) It is still being actively developed.

Any MMO which has these three attributes is a success. It would be nonsense to describe such a game as a failure. All that's left is to argue about how successful it is compared to other MMOs.