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The reason we are saturated with "SAME OLD SAME OLD"
UnleadedRev
Member UncommonPosts: 568
It is due to the "Fonzie Syndrome"...Please let me explain.
For those not old enough to remember, there was a sitcom on TV back in the late 1970's called "Happy Days" which was based on a great movie called "American Graffiti" directed by George Lucas (Star Wars), both took place in the 1950's.
Well, there was a cool character in Happy Days named Fonzie played by Henry Winkler, who would only appear for brief moments in each episode if at all. He was so popular viewers could not get enough of him and whenever her appeared it was a big deal, same for another character named "Mork" played by Robin Williams.
So what does this all have to do with MMORPGs? Well, here it is....because people were going nuts of Fonzie he began to appear more and more, until he was in every episode and the series began to revolve around him as the main character. He was literally being shoved down the viewers throats and soon viewers became sick of him and Happy Days ratings began to slide.
Ever since then, every freaking marketing department for almost every product has adapted this same "Fonzie Syndrome" of shoving products down consumers throats even if they are tired of it, to the point where due to lack of choice the consumer "just settles" for it.
Some examples...because of the success of "Twilight" on HBO, other cable stations are adopting "Vampire" based series. When you go into Barnes and Noble books store, there are two entire rows of the Sci-Fi Fantasy section now dedicated to very tom, dick, and harry Vampire novel clone...same goes for Zombies...hey I love Zombies, but enough is enough....KEY WORD..."CLONE"...sound familiar?
How often do you hear in and out of MMOs the term "WoW Clone"?
Now I used to get angry when people used that term! I have heard it in regards to almost every
MMO I enjoy , i.e. WAR, AoC, LOTRO...and even ones I dont enjoy as much, i.e. AION, Darkfall, even unreleased MMOs such as RIFT and now even Sci-Fi MMOs such as Warhammer 40K Dark Millenium...DOH! How the heck can that be a WoW Clone?!?
But now I know why this term is used...it is used not because the game in question is trying to be like WoW, its because is it uses a large part of WoW as its model, or as a model for smaller parts of teh game.
Much to the chagrin of us players, we begin to realize that regardless of whether you like WoW or not, when you see elements of WoW to any degree in any other MMO, you moan and get upset because "geezuz....same old same old!!!
Can someone please use their imagination and do something WoW has not done? PLEASE...
Thus, if you look at the good MMOs out there it is saturated with "FANTASY" / "HACK AND SLASH" MMOs...aka WoW...
WHERE are all the Sci-Fi MMOs? There are not many..why? Because of "FONZIE SYNDROME"!!!!
You see...it takes money, it takes backing, it takes some zoot suit executive and marketing executives who know NOTHING about MMOs who end up financing most of these projects.....investors...investors...investors...
Investors in a MMO of any scale want to make money and just as the stock market they look at historical indicators...what do they see? WoW!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thus, regardless of teh great ideas Developers and Designers come up with the executives first look at historical and trends, and they look at Fonzie...they look at WoW...adn thus, without being some sort of WoW clone, they wont give their stamp of approval.
As result, we are saturated with hack and slash fantasy MMOs....its getting old.....where is the Sci-Fi, where is the innovation? No wonder Star Wars Galaxies is getting so much attention..YES its Star Wars, yes its Bioware, but OMG finally a triple AAA MMO thats Sci-Fi! and not hack and slash fantasy!
If I see one more Elf I will scream!
So next time you see the term "WoW Clone" or wonder why most MMOs still seem to based on the same old same old model...you can blame FONZIE.
Comments
err do you actually knows what hack and slash means?
Heck you even confused the name of the game you are hyped
What you want is a sci-fi mmo, there are some handful being made now, I dont see a problem with the fantasy background, its the way its done which really makes it or breaks it
Fantasy background =/= lack of creativity
"It has potential"
-Second most used phrase on existence
"It sucks"
-Most used phrase on existence
Still eating hamburgers? Have they really changed notably in the last {insert X} decades? Various tweaks are performed (BBQ burger, swiss mushroom, etc), but it's pretty much the same hamburger.
Why do we still eat that same hamburger? Because we still enjoy the taste.
The point of my thread is that there comes a point where popularity ends or wanes, but yet the zoot suits will still ride that horse at both the developers and consumers expense, thus many good games or good designs will never see the light of day.
Using Blizzard as an example, if any of their future products is a Sci-Fi MMO, then and only then will you see a rush and saturation of Sci-Fi MMOs, until then Fantasy MMOs will outnumber Sci-Fi MMOs with a wide margin.
If you look at this site, you will see the list of AAA MMOs in the Sci-Fi genre are small. The 75% of trash titles you see on this site are not AAA quality.
Also, yes Vampire as a pre-PC game back in the 1990's was huge, especially at gaming conventions. But, yet...the 2 Vampire PC game Titles had limited success, and they were good...now we see World of Darkness MMO being revealed...of course it has to do with the success of Twilight and its popularity. And there is nothing wrong with that.
However, once again, I stress its the point where popularity begins to wane due to a type of product/subject being shoved down ones throat for years after its no longer that popular and results in inferior products saturating the market.
Now, I do feel Wow is and always has been a great game, and is not shoved down our throats, however I do feel many WoW clones are, and even worse are low quality products.
Basiclally, is the MMO market being taken over by mindless publishers who do not see outside the box, and look at WoW as the yardstick in which to judge their designs? If WoW raises the bar on quality, thats GOOD, but most often it results in a over saturation of poor quality MMO titles.
But raising the bar on quality is not what I see happening..instead all these publishers run with the WoW clone ball disregarding other models and designs and resulting in low quality games...just look at teh huge list of released MMOs on this site and how many are good?
Most are not.
As far as hamburgers are concerned LOL...there are still only 3 big franchises - BK, McD's, and Wendys.
Just remember, McDonald hamburgers have been proven to be the only "food(?) product that doesnot decompose...bacteria refuses to eat it.
My question to the OP. What would you so different?
It's easy to say that mmo's should be much different than what we have now, but in practical terms, honestly, the technology to make a game so far from what we have now is impossible.
MMORPG's are forever evolving, and one day i can forsee that these type of games will let the player be immersed in a true virtual setting.
As of now, we as mmo players will have to be content with having new games expand and polish on older ysytems that are tried and true.
Well, several things to note, the Fonzie Syndrome (and yes, I was there when fonzie jumped the buses and was also there when they anounced the exciting conclusion was to come the week after) has been around way before fonzie. For many hundreds of years actually.
Because of this I suspect that it is says more about human nature and how we approach business than anything else.
As far as more sci-fi over fantasy, for me I prefer fantasy. Oh, I like science ficiton and will just as readily go to a sci-fi movie as a fantasy movie but I tend not to follow through on sci-fi games. I usually start them and eventually my play time peters out over preference with fantasy.
So I suppose I'm part of the demographic that is constantly eating up fantasy products.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
not sure about everyone, but for myself, i just don't like sci fi mmos. not my flavor. i know a lot of the people i play with are the same. it could be why they put out so many more fantasy style, as they may just be prefured.
Because the Hamburgers "I" grill are extremely convenient, as I grill them in my backyard; they're also good 'and' their nutritious.
McDonalds on the other hand, is an extremely convenient grab at lunch, they aint that 'good', but ok, and they certainly aren't nourishing. But hey, millions take advantage of McDonlads, like me, probable because of the convenience, rather than the nourishment.
That's why this "pessimist" is hoping beyond hope that The Secret World is gonna be good...
There's a genre you really don't see much of in MMO's.
The only problem is funcom xD
But I seriously doubt that even them can screw with a game that have a complete original background and a niche gameplay...
"It has potential"
-Second most used phrase on existence
"It sucks"
-Most used phrase on existence
And all WoW did was copy EQ adding speed and flash. And all EQ did was copy the single player rpg formula and place it into a multi-player world. People like what they are comfortable with.
As far as SWTOR goes I will definately be playing the game but changing to sci-fi doesn't really change the same old formula they are still using.
I figured it had something to do with the five to ten year development required to come out with something new rather than something derivative.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Yes, publishers control what gets made, they hold the purse strings.
Yes, they want to make money, and they want a sure bet, WoW makes money and is a sure bet.
Yes, Twilight is popular, and more hacks have joined the fad to try and cash in.
Twilight is popular for the same reason Bieber is popular, young girls fantasize over that awful trash. Stephenie Meyer wrote those books so that women/girls could insert themselves into the role of Bella and be part of the fantasy. No description of Bella yet painstaking detail is given of the Male lead. Its fucking horrible how she is making truckloads of money from idiots.
No!!! WoD is nothing like Twilight, however the community will be overrun with these base subrace of human.
Twilight, Bieber and pop music, WoW, makes money, LOTS of money, by being shallow, vapid, and appealing to the mass audience of casuals that dont care about how shallow it is. It is an indictment on the human race that such abberations exist, and remain uneradicated.
Basically, the game developers depend their game output on what the community wants in a game. They don't just release a game because want it. The marketing department do a survey first and the game is planned out of the players requests through these surveys. The developers will then build the game from the survey results because they know that it will be sold out.
Out of 10, only a few (maybe 2 or 3) will surely request for a sci-fi type of game and the other 7 or 8 will request for fantasy games. That's how the gaming market goes. Game developers will not gamble for anything that they know will not be bought by players like us.
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Have hamburgers changed in the last 30 - 40 years? The answer is YES..
They have gotten worse...people do not know how to cook well or prepare meat as well as days come past. I always argue on why Americans accept so much crap for food. I took a trip to Europe several times and almost every regular market I bought ingredients from, they were fresher than most American Ingredients of the same caliber...Same with meats. If anyone here ever found my house and came here, I would cook you a real burger that would put all your opinions and beliefs about the burger to "shame" and open your eyes to all the crap you have been eating and calling "great."
Being saturated with same old same old is simply called "playing it safe." Developers want to sell a game in a saturated market without taking a risk that a game may fail, so they keep all the working elements of a game and put in their own innovation. Few try a full, new game from scratch.
I think Funcom has the power and talent to release a good game, it just needs to be polished.