We already know what happens when you have great ideas with a shitty implementation. On the other hand, you can't just churn out the same product over and over, expecting the same success.
The WoW generation has already had their introduction to the genre. Put a WoW 2.0 out there and I guarantee it won't have the nearly the same success.
What's the best selling game right now? Give up? It's Modern Warfare 2. Yeah, we've never seen that before. Wanna takes bets as to what game will be on the top of the charts when the next GTA game comes out?
AND?
if game companies took your approach we wouldn't even have games like GTA that REVOLUTIONIZED that genre or Modern Warfare.
like i said I understand you are defending your favorite game by any means, since one of the things people bash WOW is its lack of innovation. but to defend it by saying innovation is overrated is downright stupid.
and i think even most of the non blind fanboys of WoW would completely disagree with you.
Okay, this is the second time you've accused me of being a WoW fanboy so I'm gonna go ahead and reply to this one.
I see that you only have thirteen posts here. Since you're new here, I'll just tell you straight up. I don't play MMORPGs anymore. For the last week or so I've been doing the unlimited free trail for WAR, but I just can't get into it. The last MMORPG that I actually paid money for was Eve Online, and I really couldn't take the slow pace of it. Everything else about Eve Online was great, but pacing just killed it for me. I also occassionaly go back to Guild Wars, but most people here don't consider that an MMO.
I see a lot of potential in the MMO concept, but what looks good on paper just falls apart in practice. It's also disheartening to see games like Saga of Ryzom and Planetside struggle while completely derivitive crape like Aion rakes in all the money. Seriously, it's a sad day when I'm looking forward to the F2P release of Fantasy Earth Zero rather than any AAA P2P release on the horizon.
oh by the way, only a madman can buy the same game twice and be happy about it.
For the same reason it's never good business to not innovate. A player who's already played WoW would never keep playing another MMO that tries to be a better WoW(and obviously fails because there's no such a thing as a WoW better than WoW, being a paradox)
And because of that the old MMO's like planetside, UO and EVE are gushing cash.
here's the beautiful thing about innovation, it can encompass a large or a small amount in a video game. what i mean by this is that you as a game developer do NOT have to make a whole game innovative. you can add small innovative ideas to a game that borrows from other games and still push the innovation envelope. for example
warhammers public quest - great innovative idea that will probably get looked at in other games
Tabula Rasa cover system
AOC combat system
Aions Flight combat
and yes 3 of those 4 games failed but it wasn't because of those items in fact especially with warhammers case the public quest system was one fo the best things to come out of the game.
the Evil Raider that outgears you and makes you cry for welfare epics on the forums.
here's the beautiful thing about innovation, it can encompass a large or a small amount in a video game. what i mean by this is that you as a game developer do NOT have to make a whole game innovative. you can add small innovative ideas to a game that borrows from other games and still push the innovation envelope. for example
warhammers public quest - great innovative idea that will probably get looked at in other games
Tabula Rasa cover system
AOC combat system
Aions Flight combat
and yes 3 of those 4 games failed but it wasn't because of those items in fact especially with warhammers case the public quest system was one fo the best things to come out of the game.
I don't really agree. Changing the very same quest from NPC to non-NPC isn't such a great change. You just don't click upon a little guy. Big deal.
Neither is changing combat.... you can't reinvent FPS gameplay, it was there already. So you put it inside an MMO who cares? Infact killing 200 rats pushing some cooldown skills or killing 200 rats pushing the L-MB to swing the sword doesn't change much.
Innovation exists only if you change the framework of games.
Innovation MIGHT exist in The old republic. How? Because if the game revolves around choices and story, it changes the whole player's mindset while he plays. Explanation: at the end of TOR's story-line the player might end up having an "unplayable" character, basically hated by everyone, without support, a complete criminal, hunted sentenced to death by all tribunals of the galaxies. A player might not exactly be happy about it. This should convince him to CARE about story in a MMO, reflect on it, and not just looting gear, make a guild, go to raids, be a WoW-retard.
This would be true ground-breaking innovation because, i repeat, it changes a player's mindset... atm in MMO's it's practically impossible to be immersed, to obtain a suspension of disbelief, there's constant metagaming in it... you know it's a game, you know you do it for relaxation, you have friends in it and you talk in the chatrooms about R/L girls and movies. Putting back a STORY, and not just some lore nonsense, but something you are FORCED to interact with, would unite single player games and online games. And even not counting online socialization, the very idea of a single player game that's persistantly online it's a NEW ERA only by itself.... think about it, it's like a modern warfare game, in a world that's constantly there, the developers add new story bits and fixes directly, and they can even enter your game. It's actually mind-numbing.
I don't really agree. Changing the very same quest from NPC to non-NPC isn't such a great change. You just don't click upon a little guy. Big deal.
Neither is changing combat.... you can't reinvent FPS gameplay, it was there already. So you put it inside an MMO who cares? Infact killing 200 rats pushing some cooldown skills or killing 200 rats pushing the L-MB to swing the sword doesn't change much.
Innovation exists only if you change the framework of games.
Innovation MIGHT exist in The old republic. How? Because if the game revolves around choices and story, it changes the whole player's mindset while he plays. Explanation: at the end of TOR's story-line the player might end up having an "unplayable" character, basically hated by everyone, without support, a complete criminal, hunted sentenced to death by all tribunals of the galaxies. A player might not exactly be happy about it. This should convince him to CARE about story in a MMO, reflect on it, and not just looting gear, make a guild, go to raids, be a WoW-retard.
This would be true ground-breaking innovation because, i repeat, it changes a player's mindset... atm in MMO's it's practically impossible to be immersed, to obtain a suspension of disbelief, there's constant metagaming in it... you know it's a game, you know you do it for relaxation, you have friends in it and you talk in the chatrooms about R/L girls and movies. Putting back a STORY, and not just some lore nonsense, but something you are FORCED to interact with, would unite single player games and online games. And even not counting online socialization, the very idea of a single player game that's persistantly online it's a NEW ERA only by itself.... think about it, it's like a modern warfare game, in a world that's constantly there, the developers add new story bits and fixes directly, and they can even enter your game. It's actually mind-numbing.
garbage, innovation comes in big and small packages, you don't have to change the entire genre to have innovation. Public quests were innovative. And your description of them makes me wonder if you actually played in one.
action oriented IS wanted by many MMORPG players a more fluid fast pace fighting system. AOC attempted that, your example of having to kill 200 rats is bullshit and has nothing to do with the combat system itself.
as for the Old Republic, really this is what we want MMORPGs to innovate to? persistant single player online RPGs? to me thats not innovation that's dumbing down the genre.
the Evil Raider that outgears you and makes you cry for welfare epics on the forums.
First of all i played public quests and they were really stupid and unoriginal. Collect 100 kills, then 50, then the big bosses. What's the only difference from WoW [elite] quests? You don't take it off an NPC, it pops in automatically approaching the farming spot. BIG DEAL. You saying it's innovative is more of a ECHO of the hype that surrounded it and you're a victim of it
Regarding fast paced action combat, sure, many people might want that, maybe even i do, but is it innovative? HOW? WHY? We've already seen any possible type of combat in offline games, and the fact it appears in online persistant games doesn't change anything about it, you gank a player with the mouse buttons or you gank a player with keyboard ? Who cares? It doesn't change the game one bit.
While the application of ethical choices & consequences ASIS inside a massively populated world gives amazing social consequences and it makes an ENORMOUS difference, because it has repercussions in the ENTIRE way one interacts with the game and with people, the player actually faces a pre-scripted drama inside a virtual environment, a story has impact on a LIVE world!
It's like playing Hamlet inside one's life. IT's an incredible concept.
That is, if Bioware are smart enuff to do it right. *fingers crossed*
I think the problem is that for the most part, innovation happens at the beginning, when the decisions are being made by people with a passion about the project. Once something shows there is money to be made (mmos for example) most of what we think of as "innovation" was probably thought up by someone in marketing, based on research.
I am definetly in the 'innovation can be big or small' camp. One of the things I loved about WoW was that its crafting system had both a Create All button and let you specify a number of items you wanted to make in one run. That might seem like a trivial thing to many here but to me at that time that was 'best thing since sliced bread'. All the MMORPGs I played before that either required me to make stuff one item at a time or had a complex system where making a simple starter item required a manual. The idea might not have been done before but for me in that point in time that was innovation that made the game a ton more enjoyable.
I agree with what the OP says as a statement about the market not desiring innovation, and I think Champions Online is a good example of a game that is unpopular in part because of its attempts at innovation. Here are some things that I would consder innovative in that game, for better or worse:
(1) There are no classes in CO, no tanks/heals/CC etc, open power selection, by max level each character has 14 powers, 7 of which can be cherry picked from absolutely any in the game.
(2) Fast travel e.g. rapid flight after a 45 minute tutorial. Alread 60% of end-game speed availible without limit from that point on.
(3) Virtually no death penalty: at most lose a minor bonus of 6.5% damage and then instantly recover at most 30 seconds away.
(4) Most abilities have no recharge/cooldown time, resembling an action RPG like diablo in that sense.
(5) A single server for all players + a system that allows multiple characters with the same name to be distinguished by an account-wide @handle.
(6) Nearly full support for the Xbox 360 controller, only some menu type functions ommited
If you feel like arguing with me that all those things are why you dislike CO, then obviously that matches the pattern the OP is pointing out.
Having said all that, I was looking for a pay-2-play MMO with innovations in (1), (4), and (6) as my highest priority, which is why I bought a CO lifetime sub that I still enjoy very much. Since launch however I have come to understand that my case is unusual, and the main prospective audience for CO (city of heroes players who are ready for something new) disliked all the innovations, as a majority.
I think STO may fare better precisely because it innovates less: from a game design point of view STO is more similar to CoH than CO is to CoH! My opinion as someone who follows Cryptic closely is that after the poor sales of CO they decided to play it safe and regress from innovation with STO.
YEah and i disagree with all First of all i played public quests and they were really stupid and unoriginal. Collect 100 kills, then 50, then the big bosses. What's the only difference from WoW [elite] quests? You don't take it off an NPC, it pops in automatically approaching the farming spot. BIG DEAL. You saying it's innovative is more of a ECHO of the hype that surrounded it and you're a victim of it its not the actions or the steps of the quests that were innovative, its the implementation and how they worked that was innovative. you again taken things out of context. the fact that they put these mini raid encounters in sections of the world that people can just wander into and do is innovative, no other game has done that. Regarding fast paced action combat, sure, many people might want that, maybe even i do, but is it innovative? HOW? WHY? We've already seen any possible type of combat in offline games, and the fact it appears in online persistant games doesn't change anything about it, you gank a player with the mouse buttons or you gank a player with keyboard ? Who cares? It doesn't change the game one bit. well i could use this same exact argument on your next point .... While the application of ethical choices & consequences ASIS inside a massively populated world gives amazing social consequences and it makes an ENORMOUS difference, because it has repercussions in the ENTIRE way one interacts with the game and with people, the player actually faces a pre-scripted drama inside a virtual environment, a story has impact on a LIVE world! regarding ethical choices and consequences inside a massively populated world, sure many people might want that, even myself but is it innovative? HOW, WHY? We've already seen this type of interaction in offline games, and the fact that it appears in an online persistant game doesn't change anything about it. You talk to an NPC, choose your answer gain or lose faction with them ... Who cares? it doesn't change the game one bit. It's like playing Hamlet inside one's life. IT's an incredible concept. That is, if Bioware are smart enuff to do it right. *fingers crossed*
the Evil Raider that outgears you and makes you cry for welfare epics on the forums.
Just because rehashed products sell a lot doesnt mean innovation sucks, that's just ridiculous.
WoW is the top MMO, Backstreet Boys sold millions of albums, the Snuggie is a top selling consumer product... just because somethings are popular doesn't mean new ideas can't flourish. I especially think you see this with the WoW wannabes, everyone thought they could ripoff WoW and make tons of money.. many of them are bombing out because they arn't innovative.
This is referring to the OP and to people who think like the OP:
You will be the death of gaming.
I hate you and everyone like you.
What, do you think that McDonald's is the best burger on the planet because they sell the most burgers? Figure that Sizzler has the best steaks because they push out more of 'em than Botin in Madrid? They're not even -known- for their steaks, but let me tell you, -they make a great steak-. Sangria's punchy, too.
Talking down about folks who do things newer, different, or better simply because they aren't immediately comfortable for you is fine so long as you understand that it makes you look like a colossal hack with no taste and no mind of your own.
Goddamn do I ever hate this line of thought. Innovation is what caused gaming to become gaming in the FIRST place. Every game you hold dear is there because someone thought and idea was neat and ran with it, or took a system and iterated it with some interesting twists. Sometimes people have whole new concepts! Dune 2000 didn't blow just because it wasn't about a pair of Italian plumbers, did it?
I'd tell you and everyone like you to go die if I didn't want all the grocery stores and gas stations and Denny's to shut down in your collective absence.
Where innovation is going to come from is the hardware side of things, imo.
There will be some kind of visor you can wear that replaces your monitor. This visor will give you a 180 degree arc of vision.
Other hardware too, like gloves.
I'd be surprise if we see any earth shattering innovation on the software side. Not saying it can't happen. But games have been out for what 30 years now?
This is referring to the OP and to people who think like the OP: You will be the death of gaming. I hate you and everyone like you. What, do you think that McDonald's is the best burger on the planet because they sell the most burgers? Figure that Sizzler has the best steaks because they push out more of 'em than Botin in Madrid? They're not even -known- for their steaks, but let me tell you, -they make a great steak-. Sangria's punchy, too. Talking down about folks who do things newer, different, or better simply because they aren't immediately comfortable for you is fine so long as you understand that it makes you look like a colossal hack with no taste and no mind of your own. Goddamn do I ever hate this line of thought. Innovation is what caused gaming to become gaming in the FIRST place. Every game you hold dear is there because someone thought and idea was neat and ran with it, or took a system and iterated it with some interesting twists. Sometimes people have whole new concepts! Dune 2000 didn't blow just because it wasn't about a pair of Italian plumbers, did it? I'd tell you and everyone like you to go die if I didn't want all the grocery stores and gas stations and Denny's to shut down in your collective absence.
LOL .. stupid rant. As if wishing very hard will make things happen. You can quit gaming if you don't like incremental improvements. For every game that is new and successful, there will be 10 good ones with the same theme and minor improvement.
The whole market works this way, and most are quite enjoyable. Your hate will get you nowhere.
Innovation is important, otherwise where will the larger MMO companies get their ideas from? We've seen it time and time again, even when a game fails, their ideas often live on. A game can fail for many different reasons, but it doesn't mean they didn't spark a new idea that other MMO's won't use in the future.
Credit Blizzard for doing what Microsoft do best...they take ideas, and evolve & merge them into their own products. They often tweak other's ideas and make them slightly better. And most importantly they take ideas and make them work for their games/products.
With that said, you need people out there willing to come up with something new, willing to take a chance. Without them, this world would be a very boring place. Innovation isn't overrated, but I would say innovation does not guarantee success. Just because a company comes out with a MMO that totally changes the way you play, doesn't mean people will embrace it. Just because they come up with a new feature ingame, doesn't mean it'll become mainstream.
On the subject of old school MMO's like EQ1, AC1, and DAOC, yes I really would love to see those games be remade with new graphic engine, new UI, but they must have evolved new mechanics to make sure they will fit the gameplay styles today. Classic EQ ruleset won't work today, but evolved classic EQ ruleset can work. Maybe these companies haven't remade their classics because they simply don't know how to. They fear revamping graphics & engine won't be enough to attract old fans, while if they change the game too much they risk backlash. Turbine did just that with AC2, they changed the game too much to something too different from AC1, and it lost fanbase support, and eventually failed.
So innovation doesn't guarantee success, but revamping old school MMO's don't either. I think key is people want quality, polished games with plenty of FUN content....content that cater to all playstyles be it solo, group, raid, or PvP.
Many of you seem to forget that innovation, when used as a term not applied to paradigm changing novelties, does not mean 'new' as in 'never before seen', to expect that bi-annually is foolish. One assumes use of the word when something has been altered, done is a different way, hopefully to ends of progress.
One could argue that a carriage is essentially the same thing as a car, both serve the same purpose, there is no innovation. However the innovation in this scenario comes from the change in execution, a beneficial variation on the notion of 'getting around'.
As with movement, in gaming we pretty much have all the pieces in place, we have the storyline, character customization and progression, enemies, allies, quests/missions etc. Such things are the basis of the game experience, we cannot get rid of, for risk of moving too far from the mmo paradigm and creating something other then that. Whether you grind xp for levels or train skills, its the same thing, the same grind. Most we can hope for is a pleasantly refreshing twist on those mechanics, in short, improvement, possibly progress in a more general sense.
One can make a radically deviant game wherein one plays a nose hair, besides being stupidity of the highest order, it is also not an innovation, whatever the gameplay might be, it still must adhere to the core pillars of the gaming experience to be a game. By sticking to the unreasonable expectations that the word 'innovation' implies one is effectively predisposing himself for disappointment, whipping himself and the gaming industry needlessly. Abandon the silly notion that anything truly 'new' is possible, or indeed needed or wanted, then we can start to look at things reasonably, in perspective. Innovation should mean improvement as far as gaming goes at least.
Even though WoW brought absolutely nothing new to the MMO table, it was innovative in its refinement of existing principles, it was innovative in bringing them together and making them work in a coherent manner.
In short, we seek refinement of the gameplay elements, let us not delude ourselves in believing there is much 'new' to be had, without leaving the mmorpg concept altogether, or that of gaming itself for that matter.
So innovation doesn't guarantee success, but revamping old school MMO's don't either. I think key is people want quality, polished games with plenty of FUN content....content that cater to all playstyles be it solo, group, raid, or PvP.
Polish is the opposite of innovation. You can't polish an idea that hasn't been tried yet.
Look, I don't have a problem with developers trying to innovate. My problems are:
1) players demanding innovation and then not supporting (monetarily rewarding) developers that take the risk of actually innovating.
2) Developers not prototyping and testing their more innovative ideas before implimenting them in commercial games.
Taking the public quests in WAR, they should have known long before the beta that this mechanic added nothing to the game. It's an idea that sounds great on paper, but when you see it in practice, you can tell right away that it's a non-starter. Same thing with the whole Capturing bases thing in Tabula Rasa. Sounds great until you find yourself defending the same base every five minutes to no tangible advantage.
But then there are games that were both innovative AND good, but failed. Earth & Beyond is the poster child for this. When gamers do get something completely unique, they don't buy it. Sure, there are exceptions. But for every Portal there's ten Tribes. For every Okami, there's a thousand Sacrifices. Yeah, none of those games seem all that innovative now, but in their day, they were completely out of the box. Most games that go that far outside of expectations don't do so hot. Then later, someone takes the ideas and makes a Battlefield 1942 or Brutal Legend out of them.
What you want is the refinment of already proven ideas. Real innovation.... not so much....
if the basic components of an MMORPG are A B & C and another mmo tries to be innovative and fail, it is usually because they replaced either A B or C with E G or P and it looks like A B E or G or P. Get it? Innovation is not about replacing what already is, it's about improving or adding something new without removing A B or C you add D E and F and boom you've set the new standard, in order to be noticed you will now have to make another game that at the very least contain A B C D E F. That is why "innovation" today sucks because no one is really being innovative.
I actually think the public quest idea from WAR was a really good one. The problem wasn't with PQ's, it was how much they overused it. They used public quests in PvE, in PvP, in endgame RvR, in looting, in everything. They simply overused it, and they didn't design it right for the higher-end content.
So here's a great idea that other MMO's can look into in the future, and perhaps implement it in a good way so they aren't overdoing it, but they do it enough to make it fun. I had fun with early PQ's but they became lame later on, but mostly only due to how it became a grind, with very poorly itemized loot rewards.
I actually think the public quest idea from WAR was a really good one. The problem wasn't with PQ's, it was how much they overused it. They used public quests in PvE, in PvP, in endgame RvR, in looting, in everything. They simply overused it, and they didn't design it right for the higher-end content.
So here's a great idea that other MMO's can look into in the future, and perhaps implement it in a good way so they aren't overdoing it, but they do it enough to make it fun. I had fun with early PQ's but they became lame later on, but mostly only due to how it became a grind, with very poorly itemized loot rewards.
At the risk of having the thread get all tangential.....
I'm on the ulimited trial, I can't speak for anything other than the lower level public quests. What I saw of the public quests in WAR leaves me very unimpressed. After I finish writing this, I'll probably go and get into a public quest and play it all the way to the end just to make sure that what I have to say is more or less accurate.
Basically, you just get roped into a public quest que when you enter an area that has a public quest in it. Then there are usually several parts to the public quest and you're expected to finish the whole thing. Right off the bat, the game is hard-selling you another time sink. Unlike regular quests that you can finish at your own pace, public quests are right now and in your face. What's more, anyone that takes the public quest seriously, there will always be at least one, will resent you if you either ignore the quest or just complete one part of it.
Next, is the lack of any real teamwork. I'm reminded of the early days of EQ where someone would send you a party invite, you'd join and then you'd never see that person again. You see, you would be off doing your own thing and they'd be off doing their own thing and you'd both get the bonuses that were associated with being in the same party (XP boost). The public quests in WAR have the same feel. It's like multiplayer Whack-A-Mole with everyone scrambling to take mobs on their own so they can get the highest kill count and earn the PQs best rewards. About the only time that everyone (appears to) work together is at the end of the PQ against the boss. Of course, that isn't really teamwork, that's just a bunch of people batting at the same loot pinata.
Of course, since you can choose not to do public quests, the whole concept just doesn't affect my game one way or another. They would have been ahead to just ditch the quest bullshit and just have automated events break out sporadically in those areas. Remove the artificial gameyness of the public quest and you might just be on to something. As it stands, it was a cool idea that just needed more testing and refinement before implimentation.
Originally posted by Jimmy_Scythe Of course, since you can choose not to do public quests, the whole concept just doesn't affect my game one way or another. They would have been ahead to just ditch the quest bullshit and just have automated events break out sporadically in those areas. Remove the artificial gameyness of the public quest and you might just be on to something. As it stands, it was a cool idea that just needed more testing and refinement before implimentation.
The point is it is something a tad different from the same questing we've seen since 1999, and it's completely optional. Choices are a good thing, I like a bit of everything in my MMO's.
They have some really interesting encounters, I enjoyed many of them when I played WAR. Just over half of them are too simple, too much of a grind, and they overused it. When WAR first came out, T3-T4 were not itemized properly, so that definitely didn't help.
I call public quests in WAR a great idea, a good innovation, just poorly implemented. Unfortunately we've seen too many of these poor execution & implementation in the past few years.
Comments
ONE example. For everyone you name, i can name 5 good games just because of implementation. Here we go:
Halo 3
COD Modern Warfare
COD Modern Warfare 2
Marvel Ultimate Alliance
F.E.A.R
Auto Assault is WoW with cars, IMO.
for the rest, how do people decide that innovation is bad? We haven't seen any ever since WoW.
Warhammer and Tabula Rasa failed because they copied WoW.
EVE, a huge revolutionary MMO, is a succesful game.
Innovation can turn out bad. Cloning is ALWAYS bad. I'd say innovation is safer for business at the moment.
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You need both, innovation and implementation.
We already know what happens when you have great ideas with a shitty implementation. On the other hand, you can't just churn out the same product over and over, expecting the same success.
The WoW generation has already had their introduction to the genre. Put a WoW 2.0 out there and I guarantee it won't have the nearly the same success.
AND?
if game companies took your approach we wouldn't even have games like GTA that REVOLUTIONIZED that genre or Modern Warfare.
like i said I understand you are defending your favorite game by any means, since one of the things people bash WOW is its lack of innovation. but to defend it by saying innovation is overrated is downright stupid.
and i think even most of the non blind fanboys of WoW would completely disagree with you.
Okay, this is the second time you've accused me of being a WoW fanboy so I'm gonna go ahead and reply to this one.
I see that you only have thirteen posts here. Since you're new here, I'll just tell you straight up. I don't play MMORPGs anymore. For the last week or so I've been doing the unlimited free trail for WAR, but I just can't get into it. The last MMORPG that I actually paid money for was Eve Online, and I really couldn't take the slow pace of it. Everything else about Eve Online was great, but pacing just killed it for me. I also occassionaly go back to Guild Wars, but most people here don't consider that an MMO.
I see a lot of potential in the MMO concept, but what looks good on paper just falls apart in practice. It's also disheartening to see games like Saga of Ryzom and Planetside struggle while completely derivitive crape like Aion rakes in all the money. Seriously, it's a sad day when I'm looking forward to the F2P release of Fantasy Earth Zero rather than any AAA P2P release on the horizon.
oh by the way, only a madman can buy the same game twice and be happy about it.
For the same reason it's never good business to not innovate. A player who's already played WoW would never keep playing another MMO that tries to be a better WoW(and obviously fails because there's no such a thing as a WoW better than WoW, being a paradox)
And because of that the old MMO's like planetside, UO and EVE are gushing cash.
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here's the beautiful thing about innovation, it can encompass a large or a small amount in a video game. what i mean by this is that you as a game developer do NOT have to make a whole game innovative. you can add small innovative ideas to a game that borrows from other games and still push the innovation envelope. for example
warhammers public quest - great innovative idea that will probably get looked at in other games
Tabula Rasa cover system
AOC combat system
Aions Flight combat
and yes 3 of those 4 games failed but it wasn't because of those items in fact especially with warhammers case the public quest system was one fo the best things to come out of the game.
the Evil Raider that outgears you and makes you cry for welfare epics on the forums.
I don't really agree. Changing the very same quest from NPC to non-NPC isn't such a great change. You just don't click upon a little guy. Big deal.
Neither is changing combat.... you can't reinvent FPS gameplay, it was there already. So you put it inside an MMO who cares? Infact killing 200 rats pushing some cooldown skills or killing 200 rats pushing the L-MB to swing the sword doesn't change much.
Innovation exists only if you change the framework of games.
Innovation MIGHT exist in The old republic. How? Because if the game revolves around choices and story, it changes the whole player's mindset while he plays. Explanation: at the end of TOR's story-line the player might end up having an "unplayable" character, basically hated by everyone, without support, a complete criminal, hunted sentenced to death by all tribunals of the galaxies. A player might not exactly be happy about it. This should convince him to CARE about story in a MMO, reflect on it, and not just looting gear, make a guild, go to raids, be a WoW-retard.
This would be true ground-breaking innovation because, i repeat, it changes a player's mindset... atm in MMO's it's practically impossible to be immersed, to obtain a suspension of disbelief, there's constant metagaming in it... you know it's a game, you know you do it for relaxation, you have friends in it and you talk in the chatrooms about R/L girls and movies. Putting back a STORY, and not just some lore nonsense, but something you are FORCED to interact with, would unite single player games and online games. And even not counting online socialization, the very idea of a single player game that's persistantly online it's a NEW ERA only by itself.... think about it, it's like a modern warfare game, in a world that's constantly there, the developers add new story bits and fixes directly, and they can even enter your game. It's actually mind-numbing.
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I don't really agree. Changing the very same quest from NPC to non-NPC isn't such a great change. You just don't click upon a little guy. Big deal.
Neither is changing combat.... you can't reinvent FPS gameplay, it was there already. So you put it inside an MMO who cares? Infact killing 200 rats pushing some cooldown skills or killing 200 rats pushing the L-MB to swing the sword doesn't change much.
Innovation exists only if you change the framework of games.
Innovation MIGHT exist in The old republic. How? Because if the game revolves around choices and story, it changes the whole player's mindset while he plays. Explanation: at the end of TOR's story-line the player might end up having an "unplayable" character, basically hated by everyone, without support, a complete criminal, hunted sentenced to death by all tribunals of the galaxies. A player might not exactly be happy about it. This should convince him to CARE about story in a MMO, reflect on it, and not just looting gear, make a guild, go to raids, be a WoW-retard.
This would be true ground-breaking innovation because, i repeat, it changes a player's mindset... atm in MMO's it's practically impossible to be immersed, to obtain a suspension of disbelief, there's constant metagaming in it... you know it's a game, you know you do it for relaxation, you have friends in it and you talk in the chatrooms about R/L girls and movies. Putting back a STORY, and not just some lore nonsense, but something you are FORCED to interact with, would unite single player games and online games. And even not counting online socialization, the very idea of a single player game that's persistantly online it's a NEW ERA only by itself.... think about it, it's like a modern warfare game, in a world that's constantly there, the developers add new story bits and fixes directly, and they can even enter your game. It's actually mind-numbing.
garbage, innovation comes in big and small packages, you don't have to change the entire genre to have innovation. Public quests were innovative. And your description of them makes me wonder if you actually played in one.
action oriented IS wanted by many MMORPG players a more fluid fast pace fighting system. AOC attempted that, your example of having to kill 200 rats is bullshit and has nothing to do with the combat system itself.
as for the Old Republic, really this is what we want MMORPGs to innovate to? persistant single player online RPGs? to me thats not innovation that's dumbing down the genre.
the Evil Raider that outgears you and makes you cry for welfare epics on the forums.
YEah and i disagree with all
First of all i played public quests and they were really stupid and unoriginal. Collect 100 kills, then 50, then the big bosses. What's the only difference from WoW [elite] quests? You don't take it off an NPC, it pops in automatically approaching the farming spot. BIG DEAL. You saying it's innovative is more of a ECHO of the hype that surrounded it and you're a victim of it
Regarding fast paced action combat, sure, many people might want that, maybe even i do, but is it innovative? HOW? WHY? We've already seen any possible type of combat in offline games, and the fact it appears in online persistant games doesn't change anything about it, you gank a player with the mouse buttons or you gank a player with keyboard ? Who cares? It doesn't change the game one bit.
While the application of ethical choices & consequences ASIS inside a massively populated world gives amazing social consequences and it makes an ENORMOUS difference, because it has repercussions in the ENTIRE way one interacts with the game and with people, the player actually faces a pre-scripted drama inside a virtual environment, a story has impact on a LIVE world!
It's like playing Hamlet inside one's life. IT's an incredible concept.
That is, if Bioware are smart enuff to do it right. *fingers crossed*
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I think the problem is that for the most part, innovation happens at the beginning, when the decisions are being made by people with a passion about the project. Once something shows there is money to be made (mmos for example) most of what we think of as "innovation" was probably thought up by someone in marketing, based on research.
I am definetly in the 'innovation can be big or small' camp. One of the things I loved about WoW was that its crafting system had both a Create All button and let you specify a number of items you wanted to make in one run. That might seem like a trivial thing to many here but to me at that time that was 'best thing since sliced bread'. All the MMORPGs I played before that either required me to make stuff one item at a time or had a complex system where making a simple starter item required a manual. The idea might not have been done before but for me in that point in time that was innovation that made the game a ton more enjoyable.
Cryptic is trying a Customer Development approach to MMO creation.
the Evil Raider that outgears you and makes you cry for welfare epics on the forums.
Just because rehashed products sell a lot doesnt mean innovation sucks, that's just ridiculous.
WoW is the top MMO, Backstreet Boys sold millions of albums, the Snuggie is a top selling consumer product... just because somethings are popular doesn't mean new ideas can't flourish. I especially think you see this with the WoW wannabes, everyone thought they could ripoff WoW and make tons of money.. many of them are bombing out because they arn't innovative.
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This is referring to the OP and to people who think like the OP:
You will be the death of gaming.
I hate you and everyone like you.
What, do you think that McDonald's is the best burger on the planet because they sell the most burgers? Figure that Sizzler has the best steaks because they push out more of 'em than Botin in Madrid? They're not even -known- for their steaks, but let me tell you, -they make a great steak-. Sangria's punchy, too.
Talking down about folks who do things newer, different, or better simply because they aren't immediately comfortable for you is fine so long as you understand that it makes you look like a colossal hack with no taste and no mind of your own.
Goddamn do I ever hate this line of thought. Innovation is what caused gaming to become gaming in the FIRST place. Every game you hold dear is there because someone thought and idea was neat and ran with it, or took a system and iterated it with some interesting twists. Sometimes people have whole new concepts! Dune 2000 didn't blow just because it wasn't about a pair of Italian plumbers, did it?
I'd tell you and everyone like you to go die if I didn't want all the grocery stores and gas stations and Denny's to shut down in your collective absence.
One mans innovation is another mans old clunker it seems.
Where innovation is going to come from is the hardware side of things, imo.
There will be some kind of visor you can wear that replaces your monitor. This visor will give you a 180 degree arc of vision.
Other hardware too, like gloves.
I'd be surprise if we see any earth shattering innovation on the software side. Not saying it can't happen. But games have been out for what 30 years now?
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
LOL .. stupid rant. As if wishing very hard will make things happen. You can quit gaming if you don't like incremental improvements. For every game that is new and successful, there will be 10 good ones with the same theme and minor improvement.
The whole market works this way, and most are quite enjoyable. Your hate will get you nowhere.
Innovation is important, otherwise where will the larger MMO companies get their ideas from? We've seen it time and time again, even when a game fails, their ideas often live on. A game can fail for many different reasons, but it doesn't mean they didn't spark a new idea that other MMO's won't use in the future.
Credit Blizzard for doing what Microsoft do best...they take ideas, and evolve & merge them into their own products. They often tweak other's ideas and make them slightly better. And most importantly they take ideas and make them work for their games/products.
With that said, you need people out there willing to come up with something new, willing to take a chance. Without them, this world would be a very boring place. Innovation isn't overrated, but I would say innovation does not guarantee success. Just because a company comes out with a MMO that totally changes the way you play, doesn't mean people will embrace it. Just because they come up with a new feature ingame, doesn't mean it'll become mainstream.
On the subject of old school MMO's like EQ1, AC1, and DAOC, yes I really would love to see those games be remade with new graphic engine, new UI, but they must have evolved new mechanics to make sure they will fit the gameplay styles today. Classic EQ ruleset won't work today, but evolved classic EQ ruleset can work. Maybe these companies haven't remade their classics because they simply don't know how to. They fear revamping graphics & engine won't be enough to attract old fans, while if they change the game too much they risk backlash. Turbine did just that with AC2, they changed the game too much to something too different from AC1, and it lost fanbase support, and eventually failed.
So innovation doesn't guarantee success, but revamping old school MMO's don't either. I think key is people want quality, polished games with plenty of FUN content....content that cater to all playstyles be it solo, group, raid, or PvP.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
Many of you seem to forget that innovation, when used as a term not applied to paradigm changing novelties, does not mean 'new' as in 'never before seen', to expect that bi-annually is foolish. One assumes use of the word when something has been altered, done is a different way, hopefully to ends of progress.
One could argue that a carriage is essentially the same thing as a car, both serve the same purpose, there is no innovation. However the innovation in this scenario comes from the change in execution, a beneficial variation on the notion of 'getting around'.
As with movement, in gaming we pretty much have all the pieces in place, we have the storyline, character customization and progression, enemies, allies, quests/missions etc. Such things are the basis of the game experience, we cannot get rid of, for risk of moving too far from the mmo paradigm and creating something other then that. Whether you grind xp for levels or train skills, its the same thing, the same grind. Most we can hope for is a pleasantly refreshing twist on those mechanics, in short, improvement, possibly progress in a more general sense.
One can make a radically deviant game wherein one plays a nose hair, besides being stupidity of the highest order, it is also not an innovation, whatever the gameplay might be, it still must adhere to the core pillars of the gaming experience to be a game. By sticking to the unreasonable expectations that the word 'innovation' implies one is effectively predisposing himself for disappointment, whipping himself and the gaming industry needlessly. Abandon the silly notion that anything truly 'new' is possible, or indeed needed or wanted, then we can start to look at things reasonably, in perspective. Innovation should mean improvement as far as gaming goes at least.
Even though WoW brought absolutely nothing new to the MMO table, it was innovative in its refinement of existing principles, it was innovative in bringing them together and making them work in a coherent manner.
In short, we seek refinement of the gameplay elements, let us not delude ourselves in believing there is much 'new' to be had, without leaving the mmorpg concept altogether, or that of gaming itself for that matter.
- Shijeer
Polish is the opposite of innovation. You can't polish an idea that hasn't been tried yet.
Look, I don't have a problem with developers trying to innovate. My problems are:
1) players demanding innovation and then not supporting (monetarily rewarding) developers that take the risk of actually innovating.
2) Developers not prototyping and testing their more innovative ideas before implimenting them in commercial games.
Taking the public quests in WAR, they should have known long before the beta that this mechanic added nothing to the game. It's an idea that sounds great on paper, but when you see it in practice, you can tell right away that it's a non-starter. Same thing with the whole Capturing bases thing in Tabula Rasa. Sounds great until you find yourself defending the same base every five minutes to no tangible advantage.
But then there are games that were both innovative AND good, but failed. Earth & Beyond is the poster child for this. When gamers do get something completely unique, they don't buy it. Sure, there are exceptions. But for every Portal there's ten Tribes. For every Okami, there's a thousand Sacrifices. Yeah, none of those games seem all that innovative now, but in their day, they were completely out of the box. Most games that go that far outside of expectations don't do so hot. Then later, someone takes the ideas and makes a Battlefield 1942 or Brutal Legend out of them.
What you want is the refinment of already proven ideas. Real innovation.... not so much....
if the basic components of an MMORPG are A B & C and another mmo tries to be innovative and fail, it is usually because they replaced either A B or C with E G or P and it looks like A B E or G or P. Get it? Innovation is not about replacing what already is, it's about improving or adding something new without removing A B or C you add D E and F and boom you've set the new standard, in order to be noticed you will now have to make another game that at the very least contain A B C D E F. That is why "innovation" today sucks because no one is really being innovative.
I actually think the public quest idea from WAR was a really good one. The problem wasn't with PQ's, it was how much they overused it. They used public quests in PvE, in PvP, in endgame RvR, in looting, in everything. They simply overused it, and they didn't design it right for the higher-end content.
So here's a great idea that other MMO's can look into in the future, and perhaps implement it in a good way so they aren't overdoing it, but they do it enough to make it fun. I had fun with early PQ's but they became lame later on, but mostly only due to how it became a grind, with very poorly itemized loot rewards.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
At the risk of having the thread get all tangential.....
I'm on the ulimited trial, I can't speak for anything other than the lower level public quests. What I saw of the public quests in WAR leaves me very unimpressed. After I finish writing this, I'll probably go and get into a public quest and play it all the way to the end just to make sure that what I have to say is more or less accurate.
Basically, you just get roped into a public quest que when you enter an area that has a public quest in it. Then there are usually several parts to the public quest and you're expected to finish the whole thing. Right off the bat, the game is hard-selling you another time sink. Unlike regular quests that you can finish at your own pace, public quests are right now and in your face. What's more, anyone that takes the public quest seriously, there will always be at least one, will resent you if you either ignore the quest or just complete one part of it.
Next, is the lack of any real teamwork. I'm reminded of the early days of EQ where someone would send you a party invite, you'd join and then you'd never see that person again. You see, you would be off doing your own thing and they'd be off doing their own thing and you'd both get the bonuses that were associated with being in the same party (XP boost). The public quests in WAR have the same feel. It's like multiplayer Whack-A-Mole with everyone scrambling to take mobs on their own so they can get the highest kill count and earn the PQs best rewards. About the only time that everyone (appears to) work together is at the end of the PQ against the boss. Of course, that isn't really teamwork, that's just a bunch of people batting at the same loot pinata.
Of course, since you can choose not to do public quests, the whole concept just doesn't affect my game one way or another. They would have been ahead to just ditch the quest bullshit and just have automated events break out sporadically in those areas. Remove the artificial gameyness of the public quest and you might just be on to something. As it stands, it was a cool idea that just needed more testing and refinement before implimentation.
The point is it is something a tad different from the same questing we've seen since 1999, and it's completely optional. Choices are a good thing, I like a bit of everything in my MMO's.
They have some really interesting encounters, I enjoyed many of them when I played WAR. Just over half of them are too simple, too much of a grind, and they overused it. When WAR first came out, T3-T4 were not itemized properly, so that definitely didn't help.
I call public quests in WAR a great idea, a good innovation, just poorly implemented. Unfortunately we've seen too many of these poor execution & implementation in the past few years.
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