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MMOs devs are out of ideas!
Samael
Member Posts: 31
I don't get it. I am into videogame industry (as a profesional and a hardcore gamer) since old Atari 2600 days. I remember we had a lot of new ideas almost every day with those very limited pieces of hardware. Nowadays, we have so much power in our hands... and seeing it wasted is very discouraging.
MMOs are an example of a very serious lack of ideas. Too much manpower used to create graphics, music, code... with no fresh ideas. Maybe we don't have real designers, or maybe developers does not want to risk a penny? . Face it. We have lots of online games and they are almost the same. And seems it is getting worse every day. The last "hit" based on Tolkien world lacks any innovation on it. It fails miserably in bringing us the feeling, the ambient that carries Tolkien work. Maybe some like the game, but its main goal, that the films acomplished more or less succesfully, is not even nearly achieved.
Every day, more and more mmorpgers are more and more bored. We are tired of the same grind history. Wow is really an example of this, not to mention the asian titles that clone the schema on every release. I couldnt stand more of this filling up bars specially with the Burning Crusade... the lack of new ideas ended in a crazy reputation grind. After the loot grind, came the honor grind, then the reputation grind...
Hear me: Working IS NOT fun. Well, maybe some masochistics enjoy working, doing repetitive things. I do not, sorry. But it is not only the grinding, there are more things that are not working well:
- COMMUNITY: No, community is not a bunch of online friends that gather for something. Community is a big number of people playing together, feeling that they belong to the whole server. The only games that gave me the feeling I was a part of a big bunch of bad boyz was Planetside (before SOE broke it to no salvation). I remember the happiness of seeing three galaxies flying over my position ready to drop comrades. Wow put 40 people together at most.
So community seems to be something "splitted" in subgroups. In fact, other players are needed only for trading or occasional questing, and very rarely for big pve encounters or events (rare). I want a real, strong, big community, with fellow players to aid each other against big challenges.
- BATTLES: When we say massive... we mean MASSIVE. We want epic! . I dont enjoy a battling with mobs alone. We have a lot of games for doing that with more sense. Also, battling with/against few players is a waste of possibilities (and with few I mean 40-100 players of a 2000 player server). As an EVE player, I expect big space battles and multiplayer ships. As a LOTR player, I expect a Minas Tirith big battle. I know that accomplish that maybe techinically difficult, but devs must go towards that objective, and seems they are not willing to. As said before, Planetside were in the right direction (talking about mmo and leaving the rpg or fps thing apart).
- MOTIONLESS WORLDS: Environment progression doesnt exist in mmo. What you do in the world does not change anything. To give some feeling of achievement we can see some tricks, like put a big dragon head in the big town entrance, head that dissapear later and dragon that is still alive hours after. It doesnt matter what we do, its pointless. Some MMO have some objectives that in fact changes things, but they still lack of true feeling that you can change anything around you. Korean games are a joke to mention here, as they are static as a big rock, but others also suffer here. Its very disheartening seeing that you helped that NPC, you accomplished your quest, and minutes after things return to the beggining positions. I want my quests actually serve to some real purpose.
- MONEY: I am tired that money is the objective of all efforts. I dont want a game that brings me real world problems. I dont want to "work" in order to get a mount or some stupid gadget. If I have to work for some pixels in a game, I will work in real world instead and have something I can touch. Money in games, despite some people may believe, are something totally useless, or at least something we can live without. I will put Planetside *again* as example (No, I am not a fan of Planetside, but it has some nice ideas poorly done however). There is no money in Planetside, you get what you need and capable to handle. You can concentrate now in the fun and not in earning money to get the fun.
- PVP : Player versus another player can be tricky to do right. When you see pvp fights, you have to ask yourself what is the meaning of them. I am not competitive, but I enjoy the advanced AI some humans have
. Other players may seek seeing their opponents defeated, they enjoy victory. Other dont like playing against other humans at all. But having a strong history, clear and really great objectives that can change world... that would make PVP more deep and fun, not mindless zombies shooting whatever...
The Conclusion:
We need new ideas. We need to have real fun, and be totally hooked on new titles. And please, dont waste more franchises (Star wars, LOTR, Matrix...) on poorly designed games. Thanks.
Finally, mention that this post is a mere opinion. I have not played all the mmo made, so maybe there is a title that can surprise me (please say it!) . I played a lot EVE, Wow, Ragnarok, Shadowbane, Everquest I-II, Starwars Galaxies, AO, AoC, and some minor ones, also betatested Face of Mankind, Wow, Granado Espada (still in beta) and some others. Made a php mud also some time ago, but now I dont have too much spare time to make something. I will try however in near future 
MMOs are an example of a very serious lack of ideas. Too much manpower used to create graphics, music, code... with no fresh ideas. Maybe we don't have real designers, or maybe developers does not want to risk a penny? . Face it. We have lots of online games and they are almost the same. And seems it is getting worse every day. The last "hit" based on Tolkien world lacks any innovation on it. It fails miserably in bringing us the feeling, the ambient that carries Tolkien work. Maybe some like the game, but its main goal, that the films acomplished more or less succesfully, is not even nearly achieved.
Every day, more and more mmorpgers are more and more bored. We are tired of the same grind history. Wow is really an example of this, not to mention the asian titles that clone the schema on every release. I couldnt stand more of this filling up bars specially with the Burning Crusade... the lack of new ideas ended in a crazy reputation grind. After the loot grind, came the honor grind, then the reputation grind...
Hear me: Working IS NOT fun. Well, maybe some masochistics enjoy working, doing repetitive things. I do not, sorry. But it is not only the grinding, there are more things that are not working well:
- COMMUNITY: No, community is not a bunch of online friends that gather for something. Community is a big number of people playing together, feeling that they belong to the whole server. The only games that gave me the feeling I was a part of a big bunch of bad boyz was Planetside (before SOE broke it to no salvation). I remember the happiness of seeing three galaxies flying over my position ready to drop comrades. Wow put 40 people together at most.
So community seems to be something "splitted" in subgroups. In fact, other players are needed only for trading or occasional questing, and very rarely for big pve encounters or events (rare). I want a real, strong, big community, with fellow players to aid each other against big challenges.
- BATTLES: When we say massive... we mean MASSIVE. We want epic! . I dont enjoy a battling with mobs alone. We have a lot of games for doing that with more sense. Also, battling with/against few players is a waste of possibilities (and with few I mean 40-100 players of a 2000 player server). As an EVE player, I expect big space battles and multiplayer ships. As a LOTR player, I expect a Minas Tirith big battle. I know that accomplish that maybe techinically difficult, but devs must go towards that objective, and seems they are not willing to. As said before, Planetside were in the right direction (talking about mmo and leaving the rpg or fps thing apart).
- MOTIONLESS WORLDS: Environment progression doesnt exist in mmo. What you do in the world does not change anything. To give some feeling of achievement we can see some tricks, like put a big dragon head in the big town entrance, head that dissapear later and dragon that is still alive hours after. It doesnt matter what we do, its pointless. Some MMO have some objectives that in fact changes things, but they still lack of true feeling that you can change anything around you. Korean games are a joke to mention here, as they are static as a big rock, but others also suffer here. Its very disheartening seeing that you helped that NPC, you accomplished your quest, and minutes after things return to the beggining positions. I want my quests actually serve to some real purpose.
- MONEY: I am tired that money is the objective of all efforts. I dont want a game that brings me real world problems. I dont want to "work" in order to get a mount or some stupid gadget. If I have to work for some pixels in a game, I will work in real world instead and have something I can touch. Money in games, despite some people may believe, are something totally useless, or at least something we can live without. I will put Planetside *again* as example (No, I am not a fan of Planetside, but it has some nice ideas poorly done however). There is no money in Planetside, you get what you need and capable to handle. You can concentrate now in the fun and not in earning money to get the fun.
- PVP : Player versus another player can be tricky to do right. When you see pvp fights, you have to ask yourself what is the meaning of them. I am not competitive, but I enjoy the advanced AI some humans have
. Other players may seek seeing their opponents defeated, they enjoy victory. Other dont like playing against other humans at all. But having a strong history, clear and really great objectives that can change world... that would make PVP more deep and fun, not mindless zombies shooting whatever...The Conclusion:
We need new ideas. We need to have real fun, and be totally hooked on new titles. And please, dont waste more franchises (Star wars, LOTR, Matrix...) on poorly designed games. Thanks.
Finally, mention that this post is a mere opinion. I have not played all the mmo made, so maybe there is a title that can surprise me
(please say it!) . I played a lot EVE, Wow, Ragnarok, Shadowbane, Everquest I-II, Starwars Galaxies, AO, AoC, and some minor ones, also betatested Face of Mankind, Wow, Granado Espada (still in beta) and some others. Made a php mud also some time ago, but now I dont have too much spare time to make something. I will try however in near future 
- Spanish Black Prophecy Fansite
Comments
The main problem is that in the days of the Atari and Amiga the cost involved with producing a game was substantially less than it is today. This meant that the devs could go out on a limb and produce ground breaking games. Sadly today the cost of producing a game is astronomical and therefore we get tried and tested game models. It makes business sense but it is destroying the gaming industry.
Oh and /signed x100.
I vote:
Yes, but developers will only offer MMOs with a formula most likely to maximize their profitibility, ie. a WoW clone.
Most of what you said is true, and I want to add a few more things into it.
Character Development/Progression: This is one of the system that many disagree on, and the reason being that each wants to play a certain way. I believe that if given enough choice and each choice is viable (may it be class/skill-tree), then people will not be penalize by the gameplay.
Level: This is another thing that many would disagree on. I believe that the idea of level needs to evolve past the just number. Levels and ranks needs to have meaning, not gaps between players.
I really hope that the developers will get out of their present mind-set and bring the MMO to the next height, not just in the tech spec of it, but the whole gameplay.
Current MMO: FFXIV:ARR
Past MMO: Way too many (P2P and F2P)
If you supply characters with equipment, then what you have is no longer an MMORPG. Now, lessening the importance of equipment is something I'm all well and good with, but you don't seem to supply any ideas for doing this. What I played of Planetside was just a persistent FPS with hardly any character advancement.
Massive battles are fine, as long as you don't mind Ultima Online-style graphics or worse. Today's computers and internet connections simply cannot handle 50-100 other players on screen without some serious lag problems. Not to mention that the servers would have a fit. Life doesn't need to be calculated by a computer.
Environment progression is a double-edged sword. Part of it is technical, because truly sophisticated AI (or a ton of developer direct involvement) would be required to make this happen. Most of it, though, is that as the environment progresses, things CHANGE. So what, you say? That's what you want? What about the new player who doesn't start until 2 years after the game launches? What are they to do? Oh, you say, the developers should be constantly making new content and updating every 10 days. If you thought $15/month was too much, how about $50/month for that?
PVP is more than "tricky" to do right. Do it slightly wrong, and your game will bleed players until it's done because of ganking, zerging and generally unfun practices. Your ideas are all about fun, right? Open PVP is *not* fun for anyone except the useless wastes of flesh who enjoy killing a lowbie over and over again.
All of these things, I agree, if done *perfectly*, would lead to an amazing title beyond anything we've ever seen. The real problem is that we need a self-funded visionary to try and bring it to pass. Right now, the formula that works makes TONS of money, and investors are not going to risk their hats on something unproven. That's just the way suits are.
Until that self-funded visionary comes along, we're going to have to deal with baby steps.
LOTRO has explored a world based heavily on storyline progression.
Age of Conan is exploring a new kind of combat system.
Warhammer Online is taking RvR and PvP to the next level.
Tabula Rasa is exploring the sci-fi genre in more depth, and is evolving tactical-style combat.
We may get there, eventually. The new ideas, the innovation DOES exist, it's just that right now, it's being taken in extremely small increments to not upset the investors.
By the way, there's really no reason to bash games. The people on this site seem to think it's 'cool' to call LOTRO, WoW, etc names, but you know what? You can express your opinion without resorting to flames and insults, and we could all have a more productive discussion.
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"Give a man a fire, and he is warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he is warm for the rest of his life."
Like it or not, graphics now a days is kind of a given, a game that looked made 5-8 years ago won't be picked up by today's gamers nor would you settle for "bloops and bleeps" for sound or pure dumbed down AI that takes out the " I " in AI .
What they can do though is bring back developer involvement and creation in the games. As I have posted in another thread, some of the most memorable events while playing MMOs wasn't that I got uber loot, wasn't that we killed some uber boss mob but when we became part of the game world's lore via events that effect and change the game world as we played. MMOs need more of that and less of "end game raids" because ultimately , repeatable "events" are just that...repeatable ...and after doing such so many times, its not fun anymore.
Fundamentally, the only way there will ever be a big change in the MMO market is if there's a back to 'home' effort from the MUD end of it. Granted text-based environments are not the end all be all, but they are the genesis for all of this, and it's from that old crowd of fellow geeks that I expect to see the next generation of MMOs to evolve, primarily as experiments with databases and crossplatforming. The only way to do that, of course, is for all this to be under a F/OSS license, which I expect will make big capital investors shriek, and some coders groan. None the less, if you want a real change you have to sometimes do it on your own. Graphics and sound are one thing, but gameplay and game mechanics are another, which can be handled purely from a coding standpoint outside of any game client.
-- Brede
1. RPG is not about equipment. RPG stands for Role Playing, that is, act as a living being that is not you. This post is not about giving alternatives to equipment problems. And more, I have said the problems of money and loot grind, but I am not saying that equipment is not important.
2. Massive battles are techinically possible with even 3-4 years old computers. Again, if you had played Planetside in 2004 you would understand what I mean. And with an outdated engine. I dont think a 1000 versus 1000 players is possible now, but you can set up the scenario for a scalable zone player limit. To leave the tech discussion out of here, and simplify, I only say that the simultaneous player limit nowadays is far below that technology can handle. Another history is profit and money that devs have to invest in order to increase those numbers.
3. You can do environment progression without following a "history". Again, its ideas what are needed. You are thinking in a scenario that is tied with NPC actions. But a world entirely driven by players can evolve without compromising the reality, and also you can join that world anytime. It is a large history to explain here in just a few words, but it is completely possible without having a full team of devs introducing new content every week. EVE online is a good approach to this.
4. Did I said anything about openPVP? As I said, killing for the simple fact of enjoying it is a mindless zombie type of acting. I have said the same thing that you do: PVP must have real objetives, clear, not the simple zergish.
The thing I dont like about your post, which opinion I respect and is as good as mine, is saying that I *bash* known games. Read my post, and tell me where I insult someone there. And if you mean that I can not express my opinion in public about if a game is good or not, or it failed to my expectatives, you are wrong then, as I can
I think people on this forum has the right to put names on their discussions. And that is good, so devs can see where they are doing good and where bad. Some are more polite, others are rude... we are a big community and all people have their personality. But we are all here talking about named games and its normal we discuss them.
Have fun and peace!
And don't forget about Tabula Rasa and Huxley.
So that's 5 games trying new things.
They are not out of ideas, the problem is that companies nowadays still look to find the best way to make profit. Since the mass of gamers like the warrior, mage, thief fantasy games and the mmorpg style like 50 games exist already, most of the companies wont take the risk to spent higher amounts of money in a project with a uncertain future. The market makes the ideas, that means we the consumers have to change and not to accept and buy every mmorpg which gets released and is just a copy of the other xx ones.
The problem is, that younger generation come along and they are into those games, dont have more years expirience and are not tired of the old ideas....Oftenm, new ideas need much more performance, but the current situation of detailed graphics let them only get small freedom. Only a handfull games are trying to fullfill their dreams, but they are not made for the mass, dont have the quality graphics but new ideas or often more game content.
I agree with Samael and most of the other members who have posted on this topic. I've tried over 30 different MMO's (especially lately) and could not find anything worthwhile playing for a long time anymore. IMO the static environment is one of the least original and most detracting features of modern MMO's. It is not only possible, but also would be a great appeal to intelligent gamers if the development of the game world was done 50%-70% by players from inside the game. The devs would just have to write up what happened in the past in a role-playing manner every so often and the new players would be encouraged by the massive interesting history of the game which they could participate in making. I've actually seen this done more or less in a couple of games (with some poor execution and some other big problems, check Entropia Universe).
It's true that the biggest problem for developers is probably the financial appeal of the game, but they will hopefully soon understand that games like WoW were different when they came out (in this case it was different bc it got all the existing elements executed right), but with more and more wanna-be-WoW's the appeal of all these games will go down and soon the players will only be attracted to originality. That's just the free market at work - but, how long this takes is another question.
IMO more ideas for games and even movies today should be taken from books (not blindly any books of course - the ones that would translate well). I don't know why devs try to reinvent the world, when there are already millions of great writers who did it successfully. For example, if you like fantasy like Tolkien (which is actually pretty bad fantasy story), there are hundreds of great writers who created even better worlds which would translate into original games/movies if done right. Perumov (a russian writer), for example, has been acclaimed worldwide as Tolkien's best follower-writer and he even wrote the sequel to the LOTR. His books would made awesome MMORPG (if done right). Check out the first one translated to English: http://www.amazon.com/Godsdoom-Book-Hagen-Nick-Perumov/dp/1934135380.
Sry, a little off topic, but still relevant I think. Anyway, my final point was supposed to be that instead of making games where the world exists solely for the convenience of the players in it, they should be making games with a world so interesting and appealing that the players will want to participate in it and develop it.
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"Si vis pacem, para bellum"
I want to address the why of what you asked. You mentioned how companies seem to hire tons of people to spend all this time on graphics, art, and sound, but the game itself is just a boring knock-off (not your exact words but the essence of what you said). I think there is a very simple reason for this: today's computer game designers are coming from the computer programming world, not the game design world. In the old days, with the old games you mentioned that were so good at using the limited resources available, computer programming was a very unusual field to go into (who the hell had a computer back then?), so the people who designed those games came from the game design industry. Now they come from the programming industry, so they think about making 3D models or writing bits of code, rather than designing solid games.
What would really improve the MMO industry is if the company big-wigs realized this and hired game designers instead of programmers. Programmers and coders are a dime a dozen. But good game designers are hard to find -- as is demonstrated by the fact that all these companies can come up with is re-skins of pre-existing games that were badly designed in the first place.
C
I largely disagree with the OP on his assessment of what is wrong with MMOs. There are plenty of pitfalls to be sure, but he misses the mark on almost all of them.
Tabula Rasa, Huxley, Hellgate: London, and Age of Conan are all ground breakers in the MMO genre, and BTW.... someone mentions Darkfall everywhere the MMO topic is mentioned, but to my knowledge the game is from a company that makes nothing but scams and requests money for vaporware. If you are anticipating Darkfall, I have a paypal account that could also use money for nothing. Thanks.
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Imagine your hero just got squished by a hugh protectile rock in the first 10 secs of the battle...., or your hero got killed in less than a second by 50 arrows...., or your hero was about to capture a flag, just to find out your teammate beat you to it... The reality of massive warfare may not be as glamorous/heroic as you might think. This is why controlled environment or controlling some aspect of the battle is still necessary.
I think when SWG was released, it was on the right track. It could have easily been what WoW is today. It just had poor management.
Graphics were good, sound was good, community was one of the most fun. You needed to interact with others. (IMHO though it could have done without macros).
I think taken in the right direction, it could have done all you have mentioned... PvP... big battles, etc.
But that's 20/20 now.
Whichever game can offer what you said will be the next big thing!
LotRO: Meneldor: Riders of the Riddermark
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------------ Blazeard----------
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"Si vis pacem, para bellum"
Yes, I would like to see some new ideas. However:
1. Although not mentioned in the OP, I would stipulate that putting 'player skill' or twitch in an MMORPG is NOT a new idea. It's called an FPS, and we have plenty of them already.
2. Money. I disagree with the OP. Players like to acquire items and money. It's fun. Yes, you don't want to make it a boring grind to acquire items, like doing the same raid a million times, but you still need to let players accumulate powerful items, because they like that.
3. I do not want 'massive' battles. DAoC sized battles are plenty big enouth for me. Why would I want to be in a battle of 1k players vs 1K players? That seems pointless, and like a chaotic cluster f*ck to me. 100 vs 100 is big enough to be fun, while still small enough to keep track of what's going on.
IMO, all the devs really need to do is concentrate on how to make MMORPG worlds more dynamic, and less static, and that's totally doable. At the same time you need to keep it simple stupid, and make it fun. EVE is on the right track with the dynamic part, but they kinda fall short on the keep it simple and fun part.
Same with SWG. They were on the right track, just needed a bit of work on the keep it simple (making Jedi was stupid) and fun. The also needed some work on the Rebel vs Empire part of the game, but it did have potential. So there are glimmers of hope out there.
Darkfall is vaporware, so set your sights on something else.
MMORPG Maker
Furthermore, It might be failing miserably in bringing YOU the feeling that carries Tolkien's work, not 'us'. Not even sure what the main goal of the movies was really? I kind of think it's 'to entertain' and 'to tell a story'? You lost me right there, with this paragraph
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Playing: Final Fantasy Online: ARR, Destiny
Most memorable games for me: UO, GW1, LoTRO
I agree with you here. I play MMOs to enjoy myself. This thinly veiled bar filling crap gets old fast to those who do not like treadmills.
I agree that the sense of community is lost, but I also think a big part of it is the age disparity. Teen ratings are killing the MMO genre because you have 30 year olds playing with 8 year olds. The types of entertainment and personality has lost focus. When UO came out, only people with great PCs could run it. In the wake of WOW, everybody is playing MMO's, even the retards. Add to the age disparity the fact that guilds pretty much mean nothing, and you have no meaningful community whatsoever.
This is something the genre is missing, but WOW has locked a lot of goons into the raid mentality. I think I speak for the OP when I say Big battle =/= raids, and raids = work =/= fun. The big difference here is that raids require very specific actions and very specific prep, which are time consuming. I don't know about other people, but I get about 3 hours to myself on a good day, and I don't want a game that puts me right back to work when I try to play. I'd also like to see massive battles where chaos ensues and factions go to battle with each other. Tabula Rasa, WAR, and AoC seem to address this issue. We will see.
I agree. Do persistent worlds exist anymore? Old school MUD/MMO = persistent world. New school version of the same game = teen rated grind with a chatroom attached.Here is where you and I part ways. I think the problem you are having is not with money as a concept, but with the slow grind it takes to get any useful amount of said money in most games. Money is great because it allows players to exchange goods and services between each other. Have you taken the Bartle gamer psychology test? As a KEAS 86% Killer, I disagree with your view of PVP. PVP is always the deepest and most immersive part of an MMO to me, because you are guaranteed to at least get partially dynamic content due to the unpredictable nature of human opponents. Obviously, Bartle would show your interest in killing to be low, but this does not necessarily translate into a problem. PVP does have huge problems in the genre though. The basic problem is that games like WOW almost never balance classes in 1 V 1 PVP. This means that the killer population finds itself divided. There are members of the killer pop who reroll when they find they rolled a weak PVP class, and members of the killer pop who just consider the game to be broken and quit outright.
You played a lot of Age of Conan? The tech beta started a couple of weeks ago. Explain.
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Furthermore, It might be failing miserably in bringing YOU the feeling that carries Tolkien's work, not 'us'. Not even sure what the main goal of the movies was really? I kind of think it's 'to entertain' and 'to tell a story'? You lost me right there, with this paragraph
Sure, as I said I am talking from my point of view. I understand there are players that find it ok. But I have tried to find the epic, the magic aura that sorrounds Tolkien works... and no, sorry, I dont find it . I will keep playing it though, perhaps I can change my mind, but I am not so motivated to keep on grinding whatever... put me a quest that begins with "Kill 20 whatever" and I fall into de dark pit of doom of despair...