Why is the MMORPG genre the most difficult to work on?

Unlike many games that are created and released, MMORPGs are constantly in production and present a very high degree of complexity.

The production of an MMORPG is long and complex; the amount of information that must be acquired is very large. A game designer has an enormous and fundamental job within an MMORPG, requiring dedication and a lot of creativity.

During the production of a game of this scale, it is quite common to come across various problems and mechanics that must be developed exclusively for that game, all aimed at the player experience. The game designer must creatively solve problems that fit with the game's concept. For example, class balancing often presents some form of imbalance. If the game designer has a wealth of detail from the project, when in production, the balancing problems that may occur will be smaller and easier to solve.

The focus on the user experience is very important, and everything that is inserted into an MMORPG must be thought out and tested with the user experience in mind. There are several mechanics for the same purpose, so choosing the best one that fits with the concept is a very important role to ensure a satisfying experience for the players.

The world of an MMORPG is very large and vast. Because of this size, the game designer needs to think of different ways for the player to explore, interact with the world, and return to some areas within the world. In addition to thinking about and exploring community interactions within the game, such as group content and commerce, this part of the community needs a lot of attention so that interactions between players are not harmful to them.

Maintaining an MMORPG is very laborious and requires attention at all times. Problems that can occur sometimes can result in bad experiences or the player feeling left behind, such as a mechanic that is not working properly and causing the player to lose some kind of resource. This is frustrating, and this type of problem can happen if it is not appropriately tested or if there is some problem that the team did not see. So, maintaining these types of problems and keeping the world alive, in addition to inserting new content, is laborious and requires a lot of attention, just like all the other stages.

Creating all the visual and sound aspects of an MMORPG is very important in the game and laborious for the artists. A long period is necessary for the creation of all the audiovisual components, and they must follow the same concept stipulated in the project, maintaining quality, and then organizing all the art and sounds within the game.

Basically, we can summarize that the development of an MMORPG should be done with a greater amount of information, and the game designer should think from the beginning about how the player will experience each aspect within the game. And, considering that an MMORPG has many elements, the production is also very long and time-consuming. The production quality must be impeccable, and maintaining the game with regular maintenance and adding new content is another thing that elevates the difficulty in producing an MMORPG. An MMORPG needs to always be evolving, adding new content that maintains or elevates the quality. Therefore, the difficulties in creating a game like an MMORPG are everywhere.

So, even though it is the most difficult, in my point of view, working on something of this complexity is very motivating, as it is something that can be built and polished until it becomes an exceptional game.