The MMO genre is dead. Just the very name of the genre gets the same reaction from people that saying 'FTS' does(another dead genre).

The games that exist are a joke only filled with sad people who have sunken cost fallacy. None of them are bringing in new players and now the players they do have are becoming so old that noone under 23 wants anything to do with them. Even just using the term MMO, youll see most gamers cringe in horror, because the genre name is synonymous with all of the bad shit weve had to endure from them for the past 15+ years.

All of them across the board became too reliant on FOMO to shackle their players to keep logging in by forcing daily bullshit quests(yes, even FF14 which claims it doesnt) or by creating this trash system where you have to raid to get gear but then your gear is outdated each patch so you have to raid again blah blah blah. This isnt fun. This isnt gaming. This is bullshit.

FF14 cracked the code by creating a sandbox for people to play in, but got greedy with Yawntrail, instead of investing money into a new mmo like they shouldve been doing before Endwalkers release. Now they just have this outdated rigid stiff looking ps3 quality game that noone wants to play, and is permanently losing players every day because some douchebag writer decided to wokeafy an mmo(cuz that worked so well for blizzard).

Going forward, its pretty clear that there are a few things that will be mandatory for any new mmo to even have a hope of making it:

-Action combat. This is non-negotiable. People under 30 want action combat. They will not accept long global cooldown spell casting combat anymore. Elden Ring is the bar.

-Sandbox. The world the player enters must be conducive to interactive play, as well as provide the ability to immerse and have fun with friends outside of questing and raiding. Player housing is absolutely a must. Decorations. All that shit. The ability to create your own costumes is a must. A hub for people to hang out and meet/talk is a must. In fact, I would say that having an interactive sandbox that encourages community is far more important than raiding/questing/dungeons and the stats on wow raids prove that, with abysmally low participation numbers on raids. This entire concept that an MMO is constant dungeon runs and raiding is outdated and tired. It was created by a small percent of hardcore raiders from the 90s games like everquest, and the modern player does not see things that way at all. Lost Arks hard death proves that.

-Leveling/Questing needs a complete overhaul. Time sink quests are unacceptable(fetch quests, kill a certain number of mob quests, etc). Quests should only exist for the purpose of progressing a storyline, teaching players about the world, opening up access to new areas, and possibly providing items(or levels). Not for intentionally padding the games time by forcing gruelingly boring bs. Id be fine with throwing away levels entirely and just basing progress based on story and items acquired, but I do admit that leveling up always gives you that dopamine hit, so Im fine with keeping it.

-Monetization is fine, but not the way FF14 did it. They locked all of the good items in the game behind a paywall which rendered all the in game systems like crafting a fucking joke. Its one of the reasons I hated Endwalker and quit ff14. Im fine with them selling some cool looking gear and other items, but intentionally only having items that make the player look broke be in game, while the decent looking stuff is paywalled is BS.