Asheras wrote on Dec 13
th, 2019 at 3:04pm:
Can't create your own character. have to play as drizzt, bruenor, Cattie or wulfgar. Its about unlocking combos and moves. Not leveling and gathering gear. No persistent world. Sounds pretty cookie cutter, even for a coop RPG.
BG3 is probably a bigger threat, just by drawing eyeballs for a while. Even that isn't an MMO, though.
Don't get me wrong. I'll check it out. But after a few play thrus I doubt it has much legs.
(Also what's with that "running into the camera" view?)
The thing is, it doesn't have to have legs to deal a serious blow to SSG, they clearly aren't "plan for the future" types so I sincerely doubt they have significant reserves. Even a mere 3 month hit to income could "force" them to make some really bad monetization choices that trigger another round of player attrition. They wouldn't even understand what was happening.
Your point about not being an MMO is interesting, in this day and age, how important is MMO vs online coop? I'm not sure how localized a phenomenon it is, but nobody I play with regularly plays just one game anymore. Connecting outside of a game and hopping into an online coop isn't noticeably more difficult than hooking up in an MMO now. In fact, for most of my play, online coop is better because I don't get lag from some rando spamming auras in another quest.
I agree that 10 years ago an MMO would have a strong competitive advantage, but today an online RPG seems to be on nearly equal footing.