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It finally feels like MMO's are evolving.
GrayGhost79
Member UncommonPosts: 4,775
With the new batch of MMO's on the way things really feel like they are finally progressing after a stagnant decade or so lol.
More interaction with the environment, more interactive combat systems, better progressions systems and gameplay (Yes it looks like we are finally steering away from the errand boy online style quests and the grind till your blue in the face type of gameplay).
Here's my list of MMO's that are bringing me hope for the futures of MMO's whether I plan on playing them or not they at least have some things that they are bringing to the genre that just warms the cockles of my heart.
APB (All Points Bulletin) MMOTPS with a PvP focus that DOESN'T revolve around months of PvE grind or random rolls. It's also a nice break from Tolkien 'esque fantasy. (sorry with as many goblins and orc's I've killed I need a break lol).
TSW (The Secret World) A PvE & PvP game with something to offer beyond your traditional fantasy MMO.
SW:TOR ( StarWars The Old Republic) Heavily Story based, with more than your traditional random roll lock on generic systems. The companion's influencing the story is also a bit nice to hear about.
GW2 (Guild Wars 2) Scalable world missions, a actual persistent changing world for once, posibilities for actual exploration or for things to really have an impact on the world. Interaction with the environment and a unique take on benefits to grouping.
Tera & Rift - Both going with more interactive combat systems.
DCUO (DC Universe Online) More interaction with the environment, good interactive combat, and some mechanics I wasn't sure we were ready to see in MMO's yet.
I could list a few more but I will stop here. Regardless of whether I end up playing any of these long term or not or even at all I still am excited about what they are bringing to our little hobby. Lots of innovation and advancement's are comming soon. A lot of this or all of it really may have been around in Offline games for a while but for us MMO players this is a great boon imho.
It's nice to actually see some change and some different style games come along. I don't know if I could handle another random roll, quest grind or traditional grind, generic, bland, MMO that felt more like work than fun.
I am also liking the fact that we are seeing some interesting payment options or business models being used. Competitive pricing, potential to earn free time, Buy to play, etc. It's better than seeing that god awful Hybrid pay to play with item mall system they tried to say would be dominate.
Anyways this just has made me smile and give me a good outlook on the future of MMO's. Whats your take on it? What games are you looking forward to redefining our little genre? Do you see innovation and change comming? Are you looking forward to it or dreading it?
Comments
I agree that there are a bunch mmos on the horizon that are saying they are going to do some new things. And hopefully they will. But I remember WAR promoting how revolutionary it was going to be, and that turned out to be another bummer. I guess we'll just have to see.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
hey OP you a little too hyped.
SWTOR's story driven MMO is not new. Ever hear the term Themepark get thrown around these boards? Well there you have it.
GW2's expanding world, is NOT new. Notice, the Developers worded it the same way Darkfall Developers worded their game before release (During Hype Stages)
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Hmm, I'm not too sure about a positive turn around coming. The more I read of these new games on the horizon, the less interesting it sounds, lol. There are a few things that sounds interesting, a lot that sounds like garbage, but I'm just going to stick with my current wait and see view.
If I don't get too excited, I hopefully will be pleasantly surprised and not hugely disappointed.
yeah
Talk is cheap whiskey costs money.
we shall see, I had high hopes for
War *sigh*
Champions *yawn*
STO *dear GAWD RUN*
I am trying Fallen earth again it was pretty well not playable at release, but seems much better now.
we shall see
played:WoW and Eve off and on 5 years
Tried:CoH/V, PoTBS, War, TR, STO, FE
TOR is likely to rock
Yeah, it's still a wait and see situation but the fact that they are trying to stray away from the same old same old is truly what has me hyped. Any attempts at straying away from the tried and true is enough to give me hope atm considering how stagnant the MMO genre has gotten. With the exception of very minor difference every MMO feels the same now days. Every Asian grinder feels like every other one, Every western style quest grinder feels like every other, they largely share the same mechanics and system and game philosophies and it has just gotten so friggin borring lol.
I think you're missing something REALLY important here... MMO's have been evolving for a long, long time.
Remember when you watched a fish grow legs and walk out of the ocean?
Remember when the ape jumped out of that tree, shed all of it's hair, and put on a digital watch?
Evolution takes time. There are two major factors involved in the slow evolution of mmo's: Time and Money. It takes years to put out an MMO, so any changes are going to be a long time coming. Now, because of the money involved, that ensures that the changes are small. There's something out there that is already working and making companies a lot of money, so there isn't a lot of encouragement to really shake things up.
Yes, I know they've been slowly evolving. AoC, CO, Aion, and a few more have each taken small steps into a direction of evolution but this new batch has upped the ante.
Interactive and destructible environments is present in most of these games, a far more interactive combat system seems to be another comman theme, involving the player more in the world is also another reaccuring theme, more unique ways of interacting beyond the basic trinity seems to be another comman theme.
I mean we really have went from baby steps to some leaps and bounds.
AoC is a evolutionary game? WTF?
AoC took a step backwards with its instances.
Aion is evolutionary? what the hell did Aion do to make it evolutionary?
CO= failure.
I don't know if evolving is the right word for what the OP is describing...hybridizing and diversifying is probably more accurate.None of the games mention really strike me as evolving the MMORPG but either hybridzing the MMORPG with another genre or moving into a new gnere of MMO altogether.
Not that there's anything wrong with that....I love RPGs and will always play them but I also love FPS,TPS,strategy games etc.If anything it's the MMO genre that cna be said to be evolving to become mroe rounded in subgenres like it's older single player sibling.
Not sure if SWTOR is evolving; might be another over-hyped gltisy STO with lack of massively-multiplayer content.
Bioware is a cinematic single-player gaming company.
Where is the evidence that SWTOR is going to be a product where thousands of players are cooperating and competing together and against each other (as opposed to simultaneously) in a massively-multiplayer
No durability on equipment of items.
No crafting.
No resource control.
No non-combat professions.
No housing or vendoring.
No space flight or control.
No Star Wars, or space combat.
No Space station building.
No open-world dark vs light and merc player massive conflict.
No player looting.
No phsyics weight system.
This list is just gonna grow.
Why I added SW:TOR on the list is becuase it's making the attempt to actually introduce a story centric MMO which would be a welcome change from the crud errand boy quest system thats been plauging MMO's.
And to correct you Player Housing is definitely in for SW:TOR.... player Space Ships will be the player housing.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/view/news/read/17258/Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic-E3-2010-Player-Ships-Trailer.html
The list just shrunk. In any case, Bioware is fortunately not the type to release info about a game unless there is a very good amount of certaintly that it will be in game and it will work. The downside to that is we don't get a lot of info ahead of time.
I'm going to have to wait and see for myself before I make that claim.
Man
Comparing GW2 to Darkfall is mean.
GW1 actually had quite a few sales. If GW2 sells half as well, I would have to think it will dwarf anything DF has done in sales/subs to date.
If you are gonna compare the game to something, at least use a game a fair number of folks purchased.
As indicated...comparing it to an epic fail game, when we dont know too much about it, is just mean. :P
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Uh huh, post this again when its about games that we've actually played. Most of us have learned time and again that when all is said and done, MMOs keep turning out to be more of the same.
Except for APB, guess I do have to concede that it is different. Its looking like I might be wrong about its popularity, but I'm still perplexed by what people see in it. Evolved, though? Really?
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
For an MMO yes lol. If we are talking about in general even Age of Conan is still in the dark ages of gaming. Single player games simply outshine MMO's in polish and mechanics.
Edited to add: As far as wait and see a lot of this stuff we've already seen working lol.
DCUO - Much of what I talked about it bringing to the genre has been proven to work already lol. Just waiting on launch and to see how stable the servers are etc.
APB - Same deal.
Tera and Rift - Same deal
That just leaves SW:TOR, GW2, and TSW.
Funcom will have to prove itself, Bioware and Arenanet I have a decent amount of confidence in and have proven to be very capable developers but it is a still wait and see on them.
This coming from the man that slapped down STO as hard as he could. Many of those games are supposedly going to be heavily instanced. One of the things you absolutely hated about STO. Granted that STO didnt really bring anything new to the table, but it sounds like your willing to overlook the stuff you hate if they just have soemthing interestingly different to do eh?
I think DCUO could be fun and it might even be fun, at least for the first month, then sony will screw it up just like they do to every single other mmo's that they own, but of course, I will probably be right there playing it anyway. (I never learn).
SWTOR also does not:
Cure cancer.
Bring about world peace.
Solve everyone's problems.
Have a built in popcorn machine
Have an acronym longer than five letters
They have made no announcement about the game being packaged with a life-sized Slave I
This list is just gonna grow.
Well in all fairness I hated STO for many reasons and I slapped it down for many lol. Frankly it did and still does deserve it lol. Instancing in an Star Trek universe is horrible, it didn't fit the IP in any shape or form. CO I cut slack on the instancing because it was more appropriate for the setting. Same deal with APB, with the setting it works ok.
But to answer your question, yes I am willing to give in on a lot I am adamantly against in other MMO's because I don't have to deal with all the extra crud that I would normally have to deal with.
I don't have to worry about badly done AI, Grinding, levels (Granted my encounter against NTec users wasn't the greatest at first but ramming a dump truck up there arse and lobbing a few grenades solved that fairly quickly lol) and the physics and game mechanics help me over look a lot. The freedom you can find within these instances really helps out a lot too, I mean kicking in a door and running through a building and out the back, hoping in a car that my team mate comandered, hanging out the window firing at the thugs behind us and watching there car explodes seems to help me over look a good bit lol.
Basically it boils down to this I guess, if an MMO allows me to hop in and simply have fun for however long I have to play and delivers an experience that really has no comparison among other MMO's and will do so for a very modest price and even allows me the potential to buy game time without ever investing real life cash, allows me to do things in an MMO that simply isn't possible in any other, allows me to have pretty much complete customization control over every aspect of my avatar, then yes I can forgive some things that usually chap my hide.
And thats just APB.
And for the record no most of those will not be as heavily instanced as STO. Some MIGHT be, but others will be mostly a seemless world with some instancing.
Well, we do have seen a few games that have a very impressive feature list from the start and who cut out most of the ideas that were new thinking. Games like DFO and WAR had many good ideas that were scrapped during development.
But those games were made by rather green programmers, Mythics had the experience from a single game that sold relativly ok while DFOs guys were mostly totally green, they probably just realized that the promised features didn't work when they started to try to implement them.
Bioware and Arenanet however have very experienced programmers even if neither of them have made a game like TOR or GW2 before. And both companies have a policy to not talk about a feature until it actually works.
Then you have CCP, they already have experience of sandbox games so they should pull WoDO off, even if Mythic proved to us that a single success doesn't really prove that much.
Do I think TOR, GW2 or WoDO will change MMOs totally and forever? No but they will actually implement more new ideas into the genre than we seen in many years. Even if none of those games will become the huge new game many people are hoping for will they affect future games.
However is TORs ideas and GW2s in many ways opposites. TOR is building most of it's mechanics in instances (like Wow but a lot more personal and small instances in many places to tell your story) while GW2 instead are trying to create a dynamic living world. Only one of these ideas will be the next thing in MMOs. My hope is for GW2 since it is a radically different and new idea that have so many possibilities while TORs world is taking current systems and implement a lot more small instances and therefor divide the players.
But I for one is happy that some companies actually is trying to do something new, I am rather tired of all EQ styled MMOs.
I am also keeping my eyes on several other new thinking games but they are way in the future, Strains zombie MMO is one of them...
It all still looks like the same ole stuff to me. You're fooling yourself if you don't think these games will be filled to the brim with money sinks, time sinks, or grinds.
So new gameplay conventions in combat mechanics mean nothing to you?
Because that is all the rage right now, everyone is scrambling to get out of the EQesque rut of queued combat.... besides Bioware that is. (and I love it, the changes that is)
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
I pretty much agree with OP. It seems that finally the devs (you know, "them") finally realized that yes, something is rotten in the state of Denmark (not real Denmark, ofc for it is a fine country) and that some changes are in order...
Yupp, the need for change is now pretty obvious and new features and a divergence from the "traditional" EQ and UO models are pretty important considerations in how a game is going to fare nowadays. In short, WoW reskinned isn't going to wash anymore, if it ever did. It is a pity however that we had to endure 5 years of misery waiting for the devs and especially their publishers to truly realise this simple fact. (And besides WoW model is a pretty poor one, the only reasons that game suceeded and was truly revolutionary at the time was UI, gfx and general polish, rather than game concepts but I do digress)
However, saying that it was all doom and gloom is a bit harsh. Yes there were many failures but on the other hand that is evolution - a slow, gradual almost imperceptible progress. You have this feeling that nothing is changing from day to day but when you look down to what the state of the genre was a few years ago you go "whoa things did change!" As a previous poster said - a fish didn't suddenly decide to grow legs and walked out of the sea - it took millions of years of imperceptible gradual changes. "Hey fish, you're growing legs!" "Jeez! Am I? I didn't notice. That's what these are called? I thought they were only my old flippers."
And besides, evolution does not mean only something that is "positive". Nature does not give a rat's ass about good and evil, positive and negative. It is all about adaptation to the environment and ethics or some nebulous "quality" have nothing to do with it. Nature is strewn with buried examples of unsuccesful evolutionary designs which were quite succesful in their environments. You can't really say that mammals are more positive or "better" than dinosaurs. You can only state that mammals turned out to be more succesful in the new environment.
Don't be too harsh. Here are some evolutionary changes from a couple of games of the past few years. Whether you like them or not is a completely different pair of socks.
WAR - yes WAR (gasp). I don't know about you folks but WAR brought about a couple of evolutionary changes to the genre. Can anyone remember what was the attitude of the general populace towards PvP back then? PvP is for freaks. PvP is for bullies and griefers. Any PvP in a MMO cannot be anything more than ganking. PvP was a dirty word back then. You want world PvP - gtfo you perv! LotD: NO PvP. Vanguard: NO PvP. WOW: We hate PvP, here's a box for you to play your dirty game. Some MMOs were almost marketed as "PvP free". WAR proved that you can have casual and yet enjoyable PvP that the "masses" can enjoy and have it griefing-free. It made it truly "casual" with removal of the death penalties which were in fact the real culprit why PvP was equated with griefing back then. You can't have griefing when you don't get punished for dying, it's as simple as that. In addition the ability to PvP from level 1 and to advance in the game doing nothing but PvP if you so wish could be even called revolutionary by some. Again, do you remember what the mmos were like back then? I know that I won't be able to play a game that I cannot PvP from level 1 just like I wouldn't buy a steam-engined car. PQs were a nice evolutionary addition too. Whatever GW2 and Rift are doing right now is going to be heavlily influenced by WAR's PQ design, and especially its flaws. You can thank WAR for its mistakes with PQs because those two games will be able to avoid them exactly because WAR made them beforehand.
AoC - Evolutionary too. You've got directional targetting that works. You've got mature setting and graphics. Before AoC MMOs had to be made for 12 crowd and that was considered like the immutable law of nature. AoC proved this a nonsense. AoC also showed that being a MMO is NOT an excuse for primitive or low-poly graphics. Since AoC mmos are expected to look like "proper" games rather than "Wtf is that thing you're playing?" "It's a mmo" "Oh well, it's all right it looks like shit then." Oh yes, and the beginnings of personal story system in Tortage. You might not like the concept very much (like I don't) but you can bet your ass that GW2 and SWToR devs studied this extensively while designing their own takes on the concept.
Aion - dunno.. Flying? Yes that's it.. flying. Umm...
I'm sure you can find your own examples from the past few years. Remember, the point of evolution is that it is gradual and imperceptible. What most folks are protesting right now is that there is not enough revolutionary changes in the genre... and revolution in most cases means nothing but consolidation of the evolutionary changes already present into a new coherent whole. Earthquakes may happen in a flash, but the pressures and underground changes causing them usually take many many years to build up.
There is nothing evolutionary about SW:ToR.
http://www.massively.com/2010/06/18/e3-2010-hands-on-with-the-old-republics-smuggler-class/
They even have NPCs that can shoot you through walls, just like Star Wars Galaxies. lol
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
I read most of it, really I did, but I am feeling the urge to stretch this part out.
Aion does flying, yes, but I think we are both in the same camp of feeling it was not put to real use. I kept hearing about it's arboreal approach to levels in part to the ability to fly, but the end result was a game you spend entirely on the ground, besides the 20 or so seconds you can actually stay adrift. I think they made it that way because aerial combat didn't turn out so well, and by limiting the time you can spend flying they expected it to change into an escape/ambush tactic alone. A huge waste imo.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Sounds like what you are looking for is a sanbox game which isn't actually evolving the genre. Sandbox games have been around for a while, their features don't change where the genre heads.
To address your points, yes there will be crafting. Yes there will be housing. Yes there will be space exploration and customization. Yes there will be open world PvP and world changing events.
Some of those you listed are specific to sandbox games which this will not be. Player looting? Don't count on it.
The genre is moving forward, take the newest games and put their feature lists side by side, these next upcoming titles are very telling on where the genre is heading. The similarities are staggering between GW2, SWTOR, TSW, FFXIV, TERA and even RIFT (a game I'm just now starting to learn about) has a similar focus on its features.
Does this mean all of these games are the same? No, but it means that the future of gaming doesn't reside on the features of one single game.