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Innovation vs. Fun - A Perspective
pharazonic
Member Posts: 860
For quite a while now, I've noticed boorish fans of a certain game (won't mention it) attack any who criticize their beloved game by accusing it of not being innovative (which it really isn't, no matter how you slice it). The argument always seems to culminate with this fans saying, "A GAME DOESN'T HAVE TO INNOVATIVE TO BE FUN!!!!!!!! YOU'RE A TROLL!!!!!!!!!"
I'm making this post not only to start a discussion on this, but also to provide a perspective.
Yes, that is true - a game does not need to be the newest hottest thing to be fun. From personal experience, I can say I adored RIFT even though aside from its class system, it was WoW 2.0. Clone does not have to be a bad word.
However, here's the deal: Many of MMORPG players have played MMOs for a long time. Many have played certain types of MMOs for a long time.
For these people, the game unfortunately *has* to be innovative to be remotely enjoyable. It's not enough for us for the developer to simply replicate some previous game - because we've seen it all, it is uninspired to us. Because it has been done before, what good reason is there for us to start all over? If I wanted to play game X, I'd play game X and not game Y which is basically game X in another skin.
For us, who have established, level 968 character with titles, mounts, friends in game X, there needs to be a good reason to leave and often that reason is innovation.
So yes, while innovation isn't important to you, it is to others. And it doesn't make our viewpoint any less valid then yours.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
Comments
Part of the problem is that if you don't innovate, you must polish. And thus far I haven't found a game which I felt exceeded WOW's smooth controls and tight gameplay mechanics. And since they also haven't innovated (enough,) they've failed pretty miserably.
The smartest way to innovate isn't to be completely innovative. The phrase "don't reinvent the wheel" springs to mind. If you're a tire manufacturer you take a proven concept and innovate it in specific ways (as WOW and RIFT did.) Redesigning completely from scratch usually results in a very unpolished product
That said, if we only ever had people interested in automobile manufacture we'd never have invented airplanes. (But it took a lot of failed innovations to reach that point, and the first airplane was a very unpolished product.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
I think it depends on what you consider innovative? I mean, some define innovative as taking an existing idea and making it better. Others may consider it as more or less invention where it's a completely new idea.
When you talk about taking something existing and making it better, then most try to take that approach. The main reason for that is because invention is hard to pull off in a game sense. Good example would be a entirely new approach to your user interface. Although it may be something entirely new, the concept may be so unfamilar or foreign to the player because they played MMO's that had similar user interfaces that it actually is unattractive where they don't play the game. Thus, taking an existing idea, making it better can sometimes be a good option to helping keep things on track while being in term, innovative.
One of the things I've noticed over the years is that sometimes innovative approaches are not innovative enough for players to take notice. Game Designers pride on the fine details of their creations when sometimes those fine details are not examined enough by the players who play their games. Using the user interface example again, many players will simply judge the user interface by how it looks rather than how it actually functions at first glance. The innovative aspects of that system may not just be in the looks, but rather in the functionality (the fine details of the system).
But as above, I think it really depends on what you define terms into overall. I'm super oldschool from the MUD days and I've seen a lot of things in my time.
Glen ''Famine'' Swan
Senior Assistant Community Manager - Funcom
I agree that a game doesn't have to innovate to be fun. Why do you think people still play fighting games? Those haven't changed in any significant degree for years. The issue is that if you're looking to siphon players from another game with your game, which is essentially the same thing as the established product, then what's the incentive for people to switch over? For some people, graphics is all they need. For me it would be a big part of a decision to get off of WoW, as I have a monster rig at home and I'd like to push it wherever possible. I play Battlefield 3 with almost everything cranked all the way up at 1920x1200 and it looks incredible.
The reason why many devs don't innovate is because innovation carries with it an inherent risk. This risk is not present when you make a clone of something, as you know that the forumla works. What if your innovation simply isn't fun? In this day and age, I don't think innovation is a healthy thing unless you can survive the game completely tanking. In the MMO market specifically, there's really not much to innovate. In the grand scheme of things, an 'innovation' like encouraging exploration over quest grinding... how much does it really mean in the end? Case in point, the new Star Wars MMO. You can have different dialogue options with NPCs and the story is more in-your-face than it is in other games as presented in text in a window. How much does this really mean as a whole? You're still quest grinding, you're still clicking on things and attacking, you're still getting better gear and buying/selling things.
I think what many people are looking for in terms of MMO and innovation is simply too much to ask for. Some people are looking for a total rewrite of the formula. How do you rewrite the formula of a fighting game? A racing game? Same thing for MMOs, I think some people just expect someone to come along and completely destroy every convention present in an MMO game, and it's simply not going to happen.
I think it's more important to innovate the little things. When the traditional MMO experience is supplemented with a lot of neat little innovations and features not found in many other games, while the core game itself is rock solid, I think that will put a game up to the next level. For example, in RIFT you can dye your clothes. Some other MMOs do this, WoW does not. For many people WoW has been their first MMO. I believe Dark Age of Camelot had clothes dyeing of some kind from what I've heard in Vent chatter from someone that used to play it. Going from WoW to RIFT, you think, "oh wow that's a nice feature". I certainly enjoyed this similar feature on my import copy of Capcom vs SNK 2 on the Dreamcast, a fighting game where you could edit the sprite palettes of all the fighters. It was such a simple feature in CvS2 that not many fighting games did(the new King of Fighters XIII does this as well), but I got a lot of hours out of it. I think little things like this are more important than any huge sweeping innovation in MMOs.
Now Playing: Mission Against Terror, Battlefield 3, Skyrim, Dark Souls, League of Legends, Minecraft, and the piano. =3
Visit my fail Youtube channel(don't leave me nasty messages!): http://www.youtube.com/user/Mirii471
If someone did call you a troll, it wasn't the 'innovation' posts. It was all the other posts attacking pretty much every other feature of the game. Which isn't necessarily trolling (imo), but it's not the innovation thing that is tweaking the fanboys.
SWToR has innovated. Just not in a way that you want. For what appears to be a lot of people, SWToR is the next step in mmorpg story telling that is lacking in the genre.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Like genres of music (jazz, blues, etc) there is only so much you can do that can be completely different. Innovation in music in recent years has a lot to do with technology (sampling, new tools, etc). MMO's in general will have a very hard time pulling away from it genre limitations. Problem with mmo's now is that they are popular and have become hollywood so to speak. We all know what happens to movies when they take the hollywood approach (fast sales, good effects, no backbone or creativity)
The answer is surprisingly simply..
Do not play games where ignorant people believe Innovation stuffles phun. Don't argue with dumb, ignorant types. Look at them and say Oh... really..! (derp!) and give the little child a blue star on his forhead for participating.
You must treat ignorance, as if the're an infant child... by illustrating how their ill-informed opinion means NOTHING, because it is framed from nothing. As there is no experience driving his/their remarks, or ideas.. so their words are nothing but Banter.
Heck, u cannot even consider half of the posts (anymore) here on these forums as even an opinion. Because to have an opinion u need to know something about the facts..!! So, most of the posts in many of these threads are not even opinions, because most of these kids don't even know the game's mechanics, let alone other aspects of the game engine, gameplay, etc. Most posts here are about little kids wanting moAr of something.
Though, I really do think this website has alot to do with why younger kids & adults (12~20) think MMORPG are children gamess. And the reason we have so many ill-fated MMORPG. As MMORPG.com does its very best to skew the facts, or blure the lines between real MMORPG's, and fake Asian ones, etc. We'd never know about a good many of these fake MMORPG, if they weren't advertised all over this website.
But hey, MMORPG.com gets money from these arcade games, so why not advertize non-mmorpg games.. all over an MMORPG website, right...?
*laugh*
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
You mean reading is out of fashion? Because as a fellow MMORPG player, I am more than happy to read text. cinematics are nice but I don't think I can endure them with repition - the way things are in MMOs.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
If the game stuck with having players read quest text from a quest window, it would be the opposite of innovative...it would be exactly the same as every other mmorpg that has quests.
Your response illustrates what I was talking about fairly well in regards to story telling. You do not like what Bioware has done with SWToR and their story telling. That doesn't mean it isn't innovation in the mmorpg genre.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Very true; this post got me thinking of the arcade nature of games lately... made a post about it. Seems that people just want to get in and get out. They don't want to savour the experience.
And I think devs know that if they put out a polished piece of crap, it will be consumed. They know that the people who are really after a deep experience will go out of their way to find it even if it means playing deserted, 8 year old games, for example.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
AoC and Aion both heavily employ cutscenes though not in the same fashion as SWTOR. Also, SRPGs basically do the same.
What I see here is someone saying, "Well they made a superficial change and I'm willing to settle for it". Is that right?
Because that isn't enough for me especially in the grand scheme of things - MMOs have no ends, so what's the point if you make a change taht effects 10% of the game? A change that wis meaningless in time as opposed to a UI change that will effect gamers till the day they stop playing said MMO?
SO if you're saying that I am not settling for a superficial, irrelevant change then yes we are on the same page.
(Also, let's not turn this into a SWTOR thread... not the intention)
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
What I'm saying they've done something innovative with the game. You don't like it. That doesn't make it "not innovative". That just means you don't like it. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't matter what they did with game because you don't like it.
** edit **
The more complicated part of the quote tree got borked, so I snipped it.
** edit edit **
AoC was half @ssed all the way through. Some quests had voice overs, but most of them were the standard read the quest window and accept the quest. Part of the innovation of SWToR is that every quest has a voice over, every quest has options and a back and forth with the quest giver.
In SWToR, the story doesn't end at max level unless you want it to. If you want to be done with the story and run off to do raids and such, you can. You can also continue with your story line, which will probably take you to some of the raids anyway.
Finally, 'story telling' isn't just cut scenes, or voice overs. Voice overs and cut scenes are the methods used to tell the story. They aren't the story itself. Bioware managed to actually tell a cinematic story. Kind of like the serial movie shorts of the 30's and 40's. There is a single story line comprised of many shorter stories that you are the star of. I don't think any other game has done this. Certainly no other mmorpg has done this. It is innovative. You don't have to like it or enjoy it, but again, that doesn't mean that innovation doesn't exist.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.