Are preconceptions about the MMORPG genre holding it back?

MikeJT

What do most people think about when they hear the term MMORPG?

Most people think "World of Warcraft".

Currently, most MMORPG's are defined by a few things:

1. 3rd person view.

2. Essentially 'turn based' combat made to look 'real-time', which is often completely automated.

3. Alot of numbers (Damage: 6 - 12, alot of character and skill stat levels).

4. A series of pre-determined quests which make no difference to the game world.

 

So lets say that an MMORPG came out that had a first person view, a real-time combat system which totally involved the player and relied on both the players skill and their characters stats, a character system that simplified the numbers and hid them within the game mechanic, and totally dynamic quests and a dynamic persistant state gameworld.

If a survey asked people "do you plan on playing an MMORPG this year", how many people would think "World of Warcraft" and say no, even though there is an MMORPG out there that is completely different to WoW with the only similarities really being that it's online and supports thousands of players per server?

Is the MMORPG genre being held back because developers aren't willing to develop "MMORPGs" because alot of people don't want another WoW, but probably would play a game that operated on a completely different mechanic?

rr2real

*face palm* there are already games like that out there

Scot

MMO's have become the Clone Wars of the gaming industry, the additional funding needed to finance them has made investors very wary of trying anything new. The only hope I see is in small incremental changes, which will take a long, long time.