5 Times Gamers United to Affect Change in MMOs

Sometimes it feels like we're left to the whims of MMORPG developers, destined to play whatever game they throw out there for us. But no, friends, we have the power to enact change, and here are five examples of when we did just that.

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

When Final Fantasy XIV initially launched, it just flat out wasn't good enough. There were a ton of interesting systems that just didn't play well together, optimization was nonexistent, and the whole package was just subpar by pretty much any MMORPG standard. Fans weren't happy and they weren't having it. Players united to let Square Enix know that the 1.0 iteration just wasn't good enough, and as a result, the game was reworked over the following years and finally relaunched as A Realm Reborn. Thank goodness.

World Of Warcraft Classic

World of Warcraft's retail version was chugging along, minding its own business, as a groundswell of support emerged for a more old-school experience. Players were jumping into private servers to get their classic WoW experience, and the popularity of these servers finally caught the attention of Blizzard. Once Blizz released their own Classic servers, fans showed up in droves, surpassing the expectations many of us had for how many folks would be interested in the classic experience.

The Elder Scrolls Online

Remember when The Elder Scrolls Online first launched way back in 2014? At the time I believed the game had the base of a good game, but it was just missing something to set it apart from other MMOs out there. The player base as a whole knew exactly what was missing. It just didn't feel like an Elder Scrolls game. Players remained adamant that more should and could be done to make ESO fall more in line with the other games in the series, and over time Zenimax Online has done a fantastic job doing just that. Now you can adventure wherever you want, take part in the stories you want, and feel like you're in an Elder Scrolls world.

Group Finders Everywhere

Some of you love them, some of you hate them, but there's no denying that group finders were brought about by players. Not only did we ask for them, but our in-game behaviors demanded them. Thanks to players, group finders can be found everywhere, and even games that don't launch with them eventually have to go ahead and add them in order for us to consider them "feature complete". 

Duty Support / Delves

Delves are new to World of Warcraft, but the system they borrowed from, Duty Support, and its popularity are the reason Delves are coming to WoW. Even some of our own writers swear by Final Fantasy XIV's Duty Support system, not running group content any other way. The players have shown through their in-game behavior that the system is extremely popular, so Blizzard, the king of "borrowing" things from other games, has reacted and is adding it to their game.

And that's our list of five times players enacted change in MMOs. We know you've got some ideas for this list as well, so let us know in the comments your favorite, or least favorite, way players have influenced MMORPG development.