Not really. People have just grown tired of them, even if they are implemented decently. More traiditional MMO's are shutting down faster than ever before, as the interest for them decreases. Individuals want more unique features to be implemented within the genre, which has experienced a stagnatation of new and innovative ideas ever since the shutdown of Tabula Rasa.

Depends on your definition of "dead". The situation is pretty much as with graphic adventure games - people are still play them and new games do come out, but there are simply no big releases that draw attention of mass audience.

As already said above, MMOs simply require too much of investment for creating huge world and content in it. Indie developers simply unable to do that and games from AAA developers simply don't have innovations (just look and Anthem - they barely made gameplay fresh enough with ability to fly, but there was no resources left to make other aspects of the game good).

I think the idea of a massive persistent universe is too an alluring of an idea to go away. As for WoW-style? Difficult for me to judge objectively, since at least half of what drew me towards the game was the setting and atmosphere. If it weren't for the story, which I've completely fallen out of favour with after WC3, I'd probably still want to play today. Sadly this nitpick ruins the atmosphere a lot for me.

Until recently I played a bit of ESO every now and then. I think that is till doing pretty well, though it very different from WoW, especially when it comes to the combat. In some ways better, and in some ways worse than WoW imo.

WoW itself is slowly dying as other games with better ideas, presentation, story, and generally less tedium have come along.

What's the fun of having to be the guy who waits for 10+ minutes before you get told, "okay now", when you and your mates can just run around and have fun?

I would say yes and no - it probably depends on the age of the gamer. More and more MMOs and games in general lacks good valued content and/or story/quests (which makes it worthwhile in the long run), subsequently makes it, at least for me, harder to justify my money and time into a game or MMO that really is boring, bland, grindy and repetitive. It would seem that the younger generation really doesn't care what they throw money at and can't see what micro-transactions and pure pay-to-win does in the long run. To be fair - they are, as others mentioned, flooded with not only easy games because they are used to it, they're also getting group-pressure from friends, online or real.

And seriously; who in their right mind would throw money at FO76 and Anthem? The companies behind these ones didn't exactly make the situation any better after the "Fortnite-plaque" that rushed over the internet. Yep, WoW has been dead for a long time. The fact that Blizzard are keeping WoW alive and now throwing out a Diablo phone game (especially just for the Chinese marked and easy cash) without showing any creativity, effectively shows that they themselves are a stranded whale that either needs to submerge fast or be put out, sooner rather than later :P

Now, playing with friends and strangers in a pure multiplayer setting is always fun, like in Unreal Tournament or RenegadeX, but with MMO it just has to deliver better content. Besides, there are plenty of other MP games out there that are free.

WoW: Always been boring and banal. I tried it shortly it came out and immediately smelled long-time drivel and crap-ware for immature "children". South-Park also got this one right :P

World of Tanks: Purely pay-to-win and teaming with puerile children with no skills. Noe real sense of in-game accomplishments.

War Thunder: A much better game than WoT. Better graphics, and even has a "kill-cam" which makes you see where you hit, projecting splinters, and the damages. Fun at times.

PoE: A lot of fun for instant action and lot's of content.

Warframe: Pretty much the same, but I haven't played it in a long time now, as I much more prefer PoE and WT.

EVE Online: The only MMO that is worth paying for (now free to play up to a certain point) with it's sheer size, however, the real down size is that it takes up a huge chunk of ones time. I like the intricacy, toughness, the massive content, and the steep learning curve but there often comes issues in real life that makes it harder to just "jump" in. Still, excellent MMO in my mind. No other MMO I know of can match this one, especially when you consider that every single player is on the "same" server (always has been), and they can cram 600-800 players into the same fight without the system crashing is just staggering. XD

tl-dr: I don't play much MMOs any longer as most of them are just not worth it, neither time nor money. Actually, haven't played a single MMO since last summer or so. Still, EVE Online is always something I tend to get back to once in a while ;)

EDIT: And seeing this list there has to be A LOT of crappy MMOs out here :)

EDIT2: I also think that MOBAs and lack of creativity are killing the MMOs.

for one world of tanks is not pay 2 win anymore since they removed premium ammo, warcraft does have alot of immature people, please tell me a popular online game that doesnt have immature people. warfram is eye cancer fast paced movement wi th a close up camera wtf were the devs of that game thinking.
if your basing wow off an episode of south park then your completely mis guided, yes there are those neckbeard types ok, but if you want a good MMO game that popular you have 3 choices warcraft,GW2 and FF14 and mayube runescape if u can look past its shit graphics

Baloney.

A large chunk of the player base believes the only part of the game worth doing is the end game area. The only people here who think at all are the ones who figure out the tactics required to beat new bosses. The rest simply does what they are told.

And then there are the ones who can't even be bothered to figure out what class they like to play. They do what they are told from day one.

Most WoW player really are nothing more that headless chickens running around in circles grinding new gear in the end game area that will be made worthless when the new expansion comes out. Using your brain isn't required to run around in circles on autopilot.

no cos most raid guilds want all of the people to read the tactics cos it makes it easier for the whole raid then, if you play in a heroic or mythic progression guild all of you read the tactics or you aint raiding. and alot of bosses nowadays target specific players so they have to do things like heroic GHUUN with the orbs.

I don't respect or even read posts that reminds me of Fairfox... I've already Fairfox on my mute list.

Grow up and write like you actually care - your written language is a total mess. My autistic head gets massive headache when reading posts like that.

Just saying :P

To be fair, I always greatly disliked the subscription model. I would probably have stuck with WoW for a couple more months if it didn't charge me every month for the privilage, and I only returned to Star Trek Online (for a short while but still) after the initiall free month once it went free-to-play.

A lot of free to play games are junk, it's true, but the biggest problem with the model itself is that a)usually it's actually pay-to-win and b)even when it's not people seem to have serious issues with controlling how much they spend on silly in-game shit c)not to mention kids buyig shit willy nilly with their parents money. Best and most fair option is of course buy-to-play wiht no further microtransactions.

I never understood that logic, but I've heard it often. What would be the point of a game only the very end of which is fun? Why would that even be? Why would anyone play such a game?

I'm afraid they are not dead but they should be because it looks to me like they employ a number of mechanics that do nothing but abuse the customer.

Character names - What is the point of restricting a customers character name to one name that must be unique across all accounts on that server? Are the coders too lazy to come up with a more robust way of separating one character from another?

A way around this and still be able to use that name you want is to misspell the same. For example, Elen instead of Ellen. In game you already got a high level character that makes some new dagger for your rogue Elen but you spell it Ellen in the address bar of the mailing system. Is it going to you? Nope. You just gave some brand new dagger to another player who probably won't give them back. The only way to fix this is to open up a trouble ticket.

What if its a free to play game? They make their money off of the company store that's in the game. These free to play games need anyone who want to play to have easy access to their store but by employing these naming rules they are demanding you prove your worth to shop with them.

The naming rules prevent you from playing for no good reason, create unnecessary work from the customer service team, and demand you prove your worth to shop with them.

Kill locking - Who ever starts the fight get full credit. I start it and land one or two blows. It locks to me. You jump in and do the rest. I can do nothing but just stand there while to do 99% of the fight and I'll still get all of the rewards while you get your hand slapped for being helpful and friendly.

This mechanic is why people run right by fights and ignore players who are clearly in trouble, wait and see if you fail in a hopes of taking over where you left off, or jump in because they know the sooner your quest is done they sooner it will respawn so they can do their quest aka shoving you out of the way.

The kill locking mechanic doesn't seem to do anything but establish and promote a poisonous gaming environment. This is absolutely inexcusable and any level.

Need and Greed - Since there is nothing to stop you from rolling need on something you don't need or can't use the success of this mechanic is not based on how it runs but on the teams sense of fair play, their sense of integrity, their sense of honor. That's right. Its an honor system …………. on the internet. Even people who don't play games can quickly see the stupidity of using such a mechanic.

The term loot ninja is someone who exploits a game mechanic for quick gain. The phrase exploits a game mechanic should have stopped development dead it is tracks until the problem is fixed. This did not happen.

Each and every time a team melted down or the forum boards lit up in rage and fury should have been a crystal clear message to developers that there is a serious problem and we need to fix it. Blizzard first responded to this problem when the frost orbs became a issue in expansion number 2 but didn't fully remove it until just before expansion 7 came out.

Given how bad the need and greed system has been I would not be surprised at all if its boiled over into the real world and caused so genuine harm not just to the player but the people they know.

At the start of WoW it worked because ironically people were more sociable and interested in having fun.
You're right about some of the mechanics preventing people from working together. Some of the elite quests were like that were you couldn't join properly because people were at different stages of a quest chain.

I dont think the genre is dead but its definition has definitely changed, its become heavily micro transactioned and seems to rely more on milking new players rather than retaining a long term player base. High turnover of players brings in those impulse buys better than old players who have most of everything and are jaded. Used to play them alot, for years but got totally burned by the changes to the industry as they left the montly fee model to pay in order to have even the most basic aspects of gaming such as fast travel, inventory space, revives and the list goes on. while ill never play another i dido enjoy the mentality of gaming with others long term with a united goal.