My perspective on current MMOs

Trokarn

Hi. I had an account on here awhile ago, but lost it. I've just been reading on here for awhile now and this is my first post. I guess this is a rant. Enjoy:



       I’m not sure why…but for some reason I don’t really think that AAA gaming companies, who probably should know how to run games well and what should be in them, are as good as they should be. If you look at the past 5 years or so, nothing new really has been brought to the table. I know big companies are kind of afraid to bring actual innovations into their games, because they might not get a massive amount of players, but you know making a “new” MMO that has a different look, different lore, and like 1 or 2 little features which distinguish itself from other MMOs, is not really accomplishing that goal, in my opinion. Yes, some of these games are pretty successful at the beginning with sales, but after a few months when a lot of the initial players have been lost, they don’t seem that successful anymore. (I’m determining success by how companies and some other people determine success and that is by how much boxes they’ve sold and how many subscribers they’ve had so far. I would think a MMO is successful if the company can pay its workers and keep the game running with fixes being added to the game each week or so.)

       If these AAA gaming companies decided to bring new innovations into the MMO world, they’d most likely at least get the amount of players and make the same amount of money, as they would making a “new” MMO. If I want to play WoW, I’ll play WoW, not a newly released game that has a new skin with one or two different features and most likely is not as polished as WoW. (I don’t actually play WoW, just getting the idea across) If MMO companies made an actual, new and interesting innovation that they could bring into their game. I bet that feature alone would get people interested with their game. Then, if there game was pretty solid by release, they’d probably make more than most recent/new MMOs.

       Also, maybe these companies aren’t afraid at all, maybe they think that making an MMO with some innovation might be too hard for the new player too grasp. Maybe this would not really be possible, but I think that this new innovation(s) could be introduced to the player during the tutorial at the beginning of the game. Still the learning curve could be big, I guess, but if new players (as in new to MMOs in general) can’t grasp the concept they can try to make it easier to learn. Also, the players who will be continuing to pay for that game are probably going to be older and more experienced MMO players. Currently with MMOs, it doesn’t really seem like companies care much about veteran players, and they’d prefer to try to make their games dumbed down so that they are extremely easy to play. I don’t find new MMOs a challenge anymore. I find them too newb friendly, I guess.

 

Palebane

If you step away for awhile, your expectations will be much lower, I've found. Its easy to become jaded after playing the same genre for a substantial period of time. When you are ready to come back, you will find that the things that make the genre really meaningful are still there. They just get lost behind all the muck once in awhile. Best of luck~

grndzro

I feel the same way.  The most fun I have had in a MMO had been FFXI, which is by most accounts extremely difficult to master.

WoW was fun for a while but it is plagued by the rush to cap then endless gear grind.

I'm hoping FFXIV and BP bring the tough back into mmo's.

Till then I'll be playing 12sky2

Eben

Here is my perspective, and I will be brief;

 

Most MMOs =

And the majority of the players are the flies.  Seriously, not trying to flame the thread, but in the past 10 years, I can count the number of MMOs that I've remained interested in longer than 3 months on one hand.  And it's not for lack of trying, and certainly not because they were in any way difficult.  The genre has always been rather weak.