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Rant about new MMOs.
Konner920
Member UncommonPosts: 295
MMOs today try way to hard to clone WoW instead of trying their own thing. Games like Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa died due to not following the regular MMO formula. I can't understand why people don't try something new, and why everyone attempts to clone WoW in every way possible. If you add something new to it, it doesn't make it more fun. If it plays like WoW and looks anything like WoW, it's going to fail. If developers would look around at all the games that have tried cloning WoW and have extremely low population, wouldn't you think they would do something different? Everyone I have talked to about this say "Well who wouldn't try to clone something successful?" I reply with "Well look around to all the other games. Pretty much any game that has tried cloning WoW has very low population."
Now I'm not saying MMOs with low population are bad games, there are tons of games that are fun, but just not enough content. Age of Conan has the low population due to the trolls just talking bad about the game not leaving the buggy launch alone. And Warhammer Online has the low population due to extremely low content at the end. I enjoyed these games to death. But the low population really ruins the enjoyment and excitement brought in a MMORPG.
Things I'm wishing they would do is attempt to change the MMO formula and leave the WoW clones alone. If I want to play WoW I'd play WoW. I like unique MMOs that have unique fun gameplay not done in a MMO and depth to the game.
Sandbox MMOs and MMOs with a good story are also good games.
Another thing that's annoying is the Korean MMOs. They end up doing bad in the west due to no one likes paying for a Korean MMO that is full of grind. Free to play MMOs are good for it, but not Pay to play MMOs. All I've heard about Aion is that it's actually fun but the Korean Grind gets EXTREMELY tedious and boring. That's a reason I think Korean MMOs should be Free to play unless they are not going to use the Korean Grind thats commonly used in Korean MMOs. All MMOs have grinding, but Korean MMOs over do it.
Comments
same could be said about sandbox mmo's .. been there done that, if I want to play one there are many already on the market.
Problem is, youve got companie sthat are out to do nothign but try to ride on WoWs success, so they clone it but dont do it as well as WoW, so WoW stays on top.
Then youve got companies that do something different, but they tend to be indie games with low budgets, inexperienced programmers/devs, etc that create lots of issues and poor execution especially at launch which cause these games to fail. Those few who do succeed tend to only have a niche audience because millions are so stuck on only 1 way of playing.... the EQ/WoW way, and cant be bothered to learn anything else, or anything that doesnt follow exactly what WoW did = too hard = "this game sucks"
Luckily the future is looking a little brighter, especially with Guild Wars 2 and steps they are taking to break the mold. Hopefully Arenanet pulls everything off well and can improve on the success of GW1.
I get what you are feeling. Seems you have somewhat already answered your question in your first few sentences.
If developers try something innovatingly new: no one likes it.
If developers try to regurgitate the mainstream formula: no one likes it.
So really, what options do developers have? When you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. And when you cater to a niche crowd, its deemed a failure because it only has 150K subs (which is still very profitable imo).
Due to the first two games you mention I think you mean just AION when you say 'Korean MMOs.' Yes, games that try really hard to avoid replicating World of Warcraft do not immediately meet with success, however the problem with the first two games you mention and the game I think you mean to mention is the publisher: NCSoft. Some games just get really bad support and I mean 'support' as fully as possible. All that said, deciding what game to play (if any) in the MMORPG genre is a pretty frustrating task due in part to what you've mentioned.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
It's not likely to make something new, because almost all the possibility is already done before.
All the new games, even not using wow model is just copying of other model. Perpetuum is trying to copy Eve's mechanic. Blue Mars trying to make a better version of second life. Darkfall/Mortal Online is a rip off version of UO with better graphic.
The truth is I have never seen anyone posting new idea on this forum. All of them are just ideas that have been used before but for whatever reason developers stop using them.
Really...?
TR and AA died because of NCSoft (and in TR's case, also Richard Garriot).
wow is a warhammer rip off anyhow. Who cares if they clone wow, not like they have any thing to be copyrighted anyways.
Getting so tired of hearing wow clone this, wow clone that. Warcraft would not even exist if it wasn't for Games Workshop and warhammer.
That company was built off the ideas of other people, that were pretty much stolen and dressed up so there was enough difference that they could not be sued for it.
if by "copy WoW" you mean "use swords" or "has a mage class" then yes, a lot of MMORPG's are copying WoW. but no, most MMORPG's don't copy the things that really make WoW what it is. well, i haven't seen one that has.
Do you know of any car maker that has made a "different" car? When something works, it just works. No need to reinvent the wheel. The style of wow just works, those "clones" and other games have failed due to poor execution.
This is an interesting read it's the view of a former NCsoft Europe executive that was not involved with Tabula Rasa.
Nothing can be original, because Simpsons already did it. Besides original ideas are only original for the first 3 seconds, after that they are no longer original.
Allow me to demonstrate the above statement by inventing an original sandwich, spread watermelon jelly on one toast bread and sprinkle some uncooked rice grains on it, spread mayo on another toast bread and sprinkle some sonflower seeds on it, put the breads together and viola you have an original snadwich. 1, 2, 3, and now this sandwich is no longer original.
Yes I do realise that Gibbs Aquada and Tweel are contrary examples to my first paragraph but that's not the point, besides how many of you knew of their existance?
Part of the problem is that people want money, WoW makes money, so they make a half-assed clone to try and get some of the sweet ice cream cake that is WoW's cash income. The only difference is that the clones suck. Which is crazy because WoW has so many damn problems, the clones just do them worse.
Thank you for the link, Tecumseh, this was an incredibly interesting read and underscores what I say about NCSoft when I say it. It also perfectly follows the point I make to the OP in my posting: games fail because of a lack of support and when I say 'support' I mean that as broadly as possible.
NCSoft has to be the absolute worst publisher of MMORPGs when it comes to support, at least insofar as support for their Western audience is concerned, and it really is evidenced in the Tabula Rasa and AION debacles. To emphasise this I want to point out that a petition I put in to NCSoft support for Guild Wars on 09 July was finally answered today, 32 buisness days later, and there is simply no reason for that kind of support gap. (Honestly, how much flesh can you strip from skeletal support staff for a petition to take 32 business days to answer?) People rail against Blizzard as well and they should, especially because they have the funding to do better, and especially because the RealID fiasco underscores just what 'support' entails, viz. how you take care of your product and your customers.
The issue with MMORPGs isn't that they try to borrow too much or not enough from a given game or that they don't have enough subscribers, the issue is support and when something doesn't have support....well, to grossly oversimplify, the current climate is what we all get.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.