Should MOBAS have an 'endgame'?

by **TheHidden01** Fri Dec 18, 2015 2:17 pm

Taken from Massively, join us on weekdays as we discuss the daily topic. Remember, the thoughts of the OP are not always my own.

Earlier this week, RPS did a piece on Jeffrey Lin, League of Legends’ “social systems” dev. One question about the MOBA’s “endgame” struck me because he didn’t stop at just talking about Riot’s endgame or the end of the natural lifespan of the game:

We believe that League is a game that can go on for decades. We’ve shown our commitment to this end vision with the recent re-make of Summoner’s Rift, and the new Champ Select and client update coming in the future. Although the core game of League is pretty fun, we think we’ve just scratched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to social experiences around League of Legends. One of our end-game goals for League is to give each match a meaning and purpose, and to give players more ways to show off their story in League. What have they accomplished, and what are the next goals in their League career? We don’t celebrate accomplishments very well in League today, and we definitely don’t do a great job of showing players what’s their next goal as a player.

It’s almost as if MOBAs are finally coming full-circle, confronting the fact that as a genre, they have pretty small ambitions design-wise. Story and character development and achievements and goals might be the next step… and their next step back toward online RPGs.

That said, I don’t even want MMORPGs to have an endgame, let alone MOBAs. How about you? Should MOBAs have an endgame, and if so, what should it look like?

TH