"#2. SWG's deep crafting and resource gathering. Lol..."deep"...try Eve Online's system. Stomps SWG's into the dirt"
Eve's resource gathering is so broken it is done mostly by bots, please explain how that is deep? In that respect, SWG's resource gathering was far superior. Both games have excellent crafting, don't think either is better, they are just different.
I'm dissapointed that the OP mentions nothing about sidekicking being a huge innovation to MMOs (Allowing players who have been in the game for ages, able to play with their friends who just joined, rather than forcing them to reroll)
Seriously, it lets the nerds play with their casual friends without suffering the horrid life of rolling alts for all of them.
I'm dissapointed that the OP mentions nothing about sidekicking being a huge innovation to MMOs (Allowing players who have been in the game for ages, able to play with their friends who just joined, rather than forcing them to reroll)
Seriously, it lets the nerds play with their casual friends without suffering the horrid life of rolling alts for all of them.
Yes, definitely, +1.
I've got to say FFXI did this best, with Level Sync. You didn't bring your friend up (thus making them feel falsely and prematurely powerful) but brought your own level down. There were several advantages.
If your group got overwhelmed, you could disable level sync, and have the power of people's real levels in about 30 seconds.
It also allowed groups to kill certain elities, "notorious monsters", that got in the way.
It made a reasonable attempt at scaling the stats on your gear so that you didn't need to have a separate set to play with your friends.
You could sync in any group to anyone's level so if you had a small level spread and say your sync, and thus group, just dinged, you could sync to someone a few levels lower and gain better exp again.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug. 12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
I would disagree with getting credit for "open" WvWvW.. If I understand it correctly, you have to que up for it. Through that necessity alone, it makes it instanced, not open. You can't just go out and join, you have to wait in line.
DAoC is the only game that had true open, non-istanced WvWvW (RvRvR), and technically when they clustered servers (Before the merged to Ywain, or whatever the super cluster is called) 3 or 4 at a time, they did it first.
GW2 WvWvW might be persistant, which in and of itself is good, but it's not truly open. Although if I am wrong about the necessity to que up, than I apologize.
1. You queue up only if the WvW zone you want to enter is overcrowded. But you have 3 other zones to choose from. It's the same as queuing for an overcrowded server.
2. As I recall, DAoC's RvR took place in specially designated zones. Just like GW2. And unlike in DAoC you can go and meaningfully RvR (WvW) from level 2... So, GW2's open PvP is actually more "open" than DAoC's.
Neither DAoC nor GW2 has open world pvp. It's all instanced or "dedicated zone".
I want a game where the ENTIRE WORLD is the battleground. EverQuest II's Nagafen PvP did this to a very mild extend. There were no guild bases to take down or anything, but pvp was certainly more exciting that this "expected" pvp balogna.
Wrong. It wasn't a dedicated zone in DAOC. You could, in theory, push through the border keep and into the enemy PvE zone. It only happened once or twice, but it was possible. Also, on the PvP servers the entire server was a battleground.
Wow, pretty much only one thing on this list is a real innovation. [Mod Edit]
Innovations generally refer to new ideas, no?
First, voice acting. Simply taking an old idea that other MMOs have done (voice acting) and doing MORE of it, is not an innovation. It just means Bioware had a bigger budget. It's not a new idea, it's just a natural progression of tech.
Second, no armor snobbery... ever heard of City of Heroes? Same exact thing.
The Foundry, a true innovation, though other MMOs had the seeds of it. None to the extent of the Foundry though. Well...except for City of Heroes, though I'm not sure which did the feature first.
Instant raiding in Rift. This one is arguable. In older MMOs like DAoC you could drop into raids without needing to be invited or being a specific class. You'd get put into a group and have a random shot at the loot, just like it works in Rift. The only difference is there were no game mechanics that enforced this, it was just the way the game worked. Raids were open to everyone and everyone had an equal shot at the loot because there was no gear progression bs.
And finally.. WvW... seriously? How much is Bioware and Arenanet paying you guys? No, even Arenanet say this idea was lifted directly from Dark Age of Camelot, someone at MMORPG just must have fallen asleep at the wheel. It's not even open world either, it has a cap on how many people can join. And can we please stop calling it world vs world? It's RvR.
#1. Guild Wars' WvW does seem like a cool idea. However, it's ultimately still scripted pvp. In MMO games, I yearn for unpredictability. We need an elaborate World PvP setting with meaning and proper sanctions. That and DAoC did this bigger and better already. With 1/20th of the budget.
#2. SWG's deep crafting and resource gathering. Lol..."deep"...try Eve Online's system. Stomps SWG's into the dirt
#3. WAR's deep achievement journal and public raiding. The journal, kind of. LotRO's and CoH had similar systems, though perhaps not as robust. But public raiding is as old as the MMO genre.
#4. EQ2's "Aesthetic Slot" system. This let players have two slots of equipement: one for stats and the other for how your character will look to others. I'm not sure if EQ2 developed this idea, but it's a must in every MMO. That feature is so old it's not even worth mentioning.
#5. EQ2's huge variety of playable races. DAoC has, what, 32 races? 40? But as we established with the voice acting, more of a pre existing thing is not an innovation.
#6. STO's ability to create your very own race via Character Customization.
#7. CoH's extremely deep Character Customization system
#8. SWG's player cities and world housing. Eve Online's sovereignty system in Nullsec and POS's wherever you want them beat this. Also Ultima Online had this, though SWG built on it. Both systems were kind of broken in the fact that soon there was urban creep and overpopulation.
#9. SWG's "social classes", e.g.., entertainer, musician, dancer, image designer, politician, merchant. I've met players who have played for years and have never fired a shot.
#10. WoW's flying mounts. I'm not sure if they are first to do this, but the feature is fantastic. Definitely not the first at this. Flyff had flying "mounts" (i.e. hoverboards and brooms) long before WoW did. As did CoH
I attacked the other list, must as well attack this one too. In Green.
When did Guild Wars 2 release a budget?
I have a quick question:
Is DAoC WvW really better than GW2 WvW? What makes them different, similair etc? I never played either, so I do not know.
#1. Guild Wars' WvW does seem like a cool idea. However, it's ultimately still scripted pvp. In MMO games, I yearn for unpredictability. We need an elaborate World PvP setting with meaning and proper sanctions. That and DAoC did this bigger and better already. With 1/20th of the budget.
#2. SWG's deep crafting and resource gathering. Lol..."deep"...try Eve Online's system. Stomps SWG's into the dirt
#3. WAR's deep achievement journal and public raiding. The journal, kind of. LotRO's and CoH had similar systems, though perhaps not as robust. But public raiding is as old as the MMO genre.
#4. EQ2's "Aesthetic Slot" system. This let players have two slots of equipement: one for stats and the other for how your character will look to others. I'm not sure if EQ2 developed this idea, but it's a must in every MMO. That feature is so old it's not even worth mentioning.
#5. EQ2's huge variety of playable races. DAoC has, what, 32 races? 40? But as we established with the voice acting, more of a pre existing thing is not an innovation.
#6. STO's ability to create your very own race via Character Customization.
#7. CoH's extremely deep Character Customization system
#8. SWG's player cities and world housing. Eve Online's sovereignty system in Nullsec and POS's wherever you want them beat this. Also Ultima Online had this, though SWG built on it. Both systems were kind of broken in the fact that soon there was urban creep and overpopulation.
#9. SWG's "social classes", e.g.., entertainer, musician, dancer, image designer, politician, merchant. I've met players who have played for years and have never fired a shot.
#10. WoW's flying mounts. I'm not sure if they are first to do this, but the feature is fantastic. Definitely not the first at this. Flyff had flying "mounts" (i.e. hoverboards and brooms) long before WoW did. As did CoH
I attacked the other list, must as well attack this one too. In Green.
When did Guild Wars 2 release a budget?
I have a quick question:
Is DAoC WvW really better than GW2 WvW? What makes them different, similair etc? I never played either, so I do not know.
I might be able to jump on on this one.
First, there were actual enemy factions that stayed persistent. That meant, your enemies were real people, not rotating sports teams competing for the super bowl. You had realm pride. The other team was alien, different races, different classes, you couldn't speak to them. This game it a real world immersive feeling. Your enemies could build names for themselves, the same as you. We had a legendary Scout on our server who would snipe down entire groups and evade discovery.
Two, there were no limits on how many people could enter the frontier zones.
Three, the frontier wasn't instanced, it was part of the game world. It also had naval combat.
As for GW2's budget, unless it was smaller than 3 million dollars, then its bigger than DAoC's budget was. They don't have to deal with dial up either.
You don't queue ever in GW2, if a server/instance is full it creates a new mirror of the instance for you to experience until the original has space for you. Though even so, the first WvW wasn't GW2, GW2 has tonnes of new innovations, but they hit one that really isn't original.
...How does that work in an RvR scenario, running around in a mirror world with mirror keeps? So you could just get a bunch of people to fill everything up then take out all the keeps in your mirror world without anyone there? No. I doubt they do that.
WvW you do queue other than that you won't have to see a queue screen in GW 2.
Umm any way, why was this list created, innovative is subjective I'm guessing, I mean hell it doesn't mean something that is "new" but more so improved and works better in a sense.
I
Funny enough going by this you miswell say GW 2 as a whole game is innovative not individual features because people will argue and say such in such had this feature first. Well I'd like to challenge someone...
Name me one MMO that has done all of what GW 2 has in one game,
That's the same argument that people used to try to use to argue that WoW was innovative. Which it isn't.
That kind of logic holds no water.
Obviously there's no MMO that is identical to GW2. As for its individual features, there are many games that did very similar things, but even more extensive than GW2, in one game. Like Dark Age of Camelot.
That was my point, honestly innovative is looked at as new to many on this website when it isn't just something new. Same reason SWTOR is claimed innovative on its story because its engaging compared to other stories for an MMO , it has choices and what not. Not because it's new but because it is more so an upgrade.
Lol WoW sply focused on improving ish and put effort in a bit more than pve and pvp least when it was around I heard arguments of what it was it was pve centric to some and it was pvp centric to some as well lol. Personally I figured it as pve centric at first, but they did innovate opinion things but never really had new features lol. I mean shit, cars are innovative but as for transportation it wasn't really new since we could use horses and what not. Peanut butter jelly sandwich is an innovation but I be damn if what put it together wasn't already there.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
"5. Fully Voiced Quests – Star Wars: The Old Republic – Bioware
I know that this horse has been beaten to death and some who play SWTOR are tired of every quest in the game being voiced but even they have to admit that this is something new in the MMO genre. Never before has any other MMO done so extensive a job in breathing life into a game world. Love it or hate it, the fact that BioWare brought this to the table is something unseen in the current generation of MMOs."
Really? Why does everyone think BioWare was the first to do this? SoE had the same ambition for EQ2 years ago, and it proved too costly for them to maintain. Its amazing how quickly people forget.
they (SOE) had the ambition but they didnt put it in game. EQ2 has talking npcs but its nowhere near full conversations with cinematics like Swtor did. Thats why i think Swtor is in this article's list.
So to echo some of the other complaints about this article ....
I'm not completely sure if it was the true first, but I don't recall any other game before City of Heroes divorcing a player's appearance from their defensive capabilities. However since then there have been several other games that did the same thing which makes The Secret World a just another in a line of MMOs doing it. Personally I wish more games did it to be honest.
I'm not sure how the features list differs between City of Heroes's Mission Architect and Star Trek Online's Foundry, but even then player created missions aren't exactly a new thing either. Heck, if I remember correctly there was a decent hubbub about CoH claiming to have the first player created missions since Ryzom did it even before them.
Guild Wars 2's WvW is nearly a flat-out copy of DAoC's RvR system. All the way down to the little crossed swords on the map marking where there's a fight. Though I do believe the mercanaries you can get onto your side is a new thing.
I'll give you SW:TOR's fully voiced game since while other games have certainly done extensive voice-work before (EQ2) I've never seen anything quite so extensive before, and I can't really speak to RIFT's instant raids.
im sorry, i facepalmed when i saw that TSW was only up there once. getting rid of classes and levels doesnt even apply to being innovative but armor being purely asthetic does, your joking right.
the only reason i can see for this being listed that way is because TSW would have to be up there more than once. I know the Create a class feature was in Champions online aswell but they did it quite poorly, your still progressed basically the same and usually built the character to have matching powers.
Because i can. I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out. Logic every gamers worst enemy.
I'm sorry, but Rift's Instant Adventures seem like just a poor attempt to make Dynamic Events. My friend still has an account so we logged on to see what they were about.
They only occur in two zones, so It ports you to an area where you have a timed quest to do something. It's still totally mundane objectives with no context or consequences.
You do automatically group with someone else if they also went to do IAs, so I was with one other person. However, there was a different guy in the area killing mobs I needed and I wasn't getting credit because we were ungrouped. I tried to invite him but he declined, so now we're trying to run around and beat the clock with another player working against us.
After completing an objective, you get another one which can be in exactly the same area. Where previously I had killed a bunch of mobs around some scenery, I now had a quest to destroy the scenery (which had been unclickable only moments before). This of course meant that I was killing even more of the same mobs trying to get to these things. After 2 quests in an area, the next objective would be somewhere down the road for more killing, followed by more scenery smashing.
Eventually this all culminated in an elite who killed us badly in the several attempts we made on him in the 15 minutes we had to kill him. I don't know if he didn't scale, had a minimum number of people required, or if I just suck from not playing the game in a long time. In any case, time ran out and then another quest appeared and another timer started and I just logged instead.
I think the #1 was chosen to be WvW because choosing Dynamic Events would have meant Rift's contribution had no place on this list.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Speaking of WvW, I see a great number of people who don't get what it's about or why they're doing what they're doing.
WvW is totally separate because they want their PVE experience to be 100% cooperative. They want you to want to see other people because other people can never hurt you, you get xp and loot for helping them, and DEs scale up with more people to make them more chaotic and fun. There will never be true open world PVP in GW2, it's not what that game is about.
There will however, be 3 faction WvW PVP and it has several innovative features to it.
First, it's against other servers. Why? Because it completely solves the problem of server faction imbalances. No longer will it always be the more popular faction A against B & C combined. It doesn't matter how many people play humans, charr, norn or whatever. Everyone on a server works together against other servers.
It lasts two weeks. Why? So they can solve the problem of different servers being more popular by matching servers up against new servers at the end of the fight. Servers are ranked and pitted against similar strength servers. Fights will be more competitive. Fights will also be varied because you're seeing new people with new tactics. You also won't know whether you're going to be the big server or the little server so that changes how you play and what you can accomplish.
I totally disagree with the notion that the fights will be meaningless because they end. Are sports totally meaningless because the game comes to an end, or does the fact that it ends make people fight harder to win?
WvW will only be down for a few minutes while they figure out the new matchups. Otherwise it's a 24/7 battle. One with keeps, objectives, dynamic events, and seige equipment with a map wide range. Some reviewers have said they think WvW alone might be worth the price of the box. Give it a chance, will ya?
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
SWG's crafting/housing/gathering still deserves a spot on the innovative list. I've not seen anything else that even comes close, even after the servers came down. Going down through a planet and coming across a player-made city, complete with travel points, markets, houses, and micro-economy was simply amazing (and the fact the worlds were large enough to accomodate them).
I fail to find anything really innovative in SWTOR. Especially not voice acting with consequence options.
City of Heros has had player-created missions for a long time now (Mission Architect - was out in like... 2009). It's a pretty robust system. I guess it shouldn't be any surprise that Cryptic has one too now. I agree, it's a very fun system, and I wish more MMO's had it, but it wasn't Cryptic that innovated it in MMO's.
To be honest, I'd even put FFXI/FFXIV's class-changing on the innovative list (one character can be any/every class). The idea is innovative. The implementation is a bit dated now in FFXI and somewhat lacking in FFXIV. But it has potential (and I hope Secret World builds on this - this should be what your talking about in Secret World, not clothing - because "Surprise" - even WoW now lets you alter your visible appearance).
I think F2P in general should be listed as an innovation (and I suppose we can thank DDO for proving it viable for main stream). Really, think about how many fewer MMO's there would be available today without the F2P model (and how many fewer banner adds MMORPG.com would have...). I won't claim that it's any worse, or better, than B2P or P2P, but it has definitely altered the MMO landscape in the last couple of years.
I'd give Vindictus/TERA a nod too - they are totally renovating the classic tab-target combat model. Vindictus has been doing it for a while. There are other games that don't use locked targeting, but the live combat that Vindictus/TERA has is a whole 'nother level. I almost included DCUO in this, as it's possible to play that way, but the game still pushes you to "lock" onto your target rather than embracing open combat.
Eve's corporation system - it's hands down the most versatile and expansive guild/clan/etc system in any game, and made that much more by the ability to set formally alliances and expand/extend permissions and such inside not only your own corp, but to your alliances as well.
I don't think recent MMO history has been kind for "innovation" - we are seeing a lot of refinement, but the actual innovation has been out there, and in many cases, for years. It's just a matter of putting it together in the right package.
I wouldn´t really call full voice acting that innovative. AoC already had a large part of the game voice acted, TOR is just adding some more to it.
That not mean I think it is a bad feature (but it do take a lot of hd space and it can get annoying to get voice filler quests) but adding more of the same just isn´t truly innovative.
Besides, wait until you see what Undead labs and CCP are working on, from the little I heard and being able to puzzle together we will get some awesome features there never seen before...
A major problem with this list, and many forum posts and articles like it, is that it attributes success to games that haven't yet been released. GW2 and TSW both sound very promising, I'll give them that. But haven't we as fans of the genre learned that nothing really counts until the game is released?
I mean, I want the first part of The Hobbit to win Best Picture, Original Score, etc. - but it'd be absolutely ridiculous for it to have won an Oscar a couple nights ago just because the scoring committees were excited for it.
All this list and alot of replies shows is no one really knows wtf innovative really means. Taking someones ideas and improving on them is not innovative. Its improvement. There is a diffrence. But innovate is the word used for improvements these days. Verry few things, both in life and in games are truly innovative.
Besides, wait until you see what Undead labs and CCP are working on, from the little I heard and being able to puzzle together we will get some awesome features there never seen before...
If thats the case, as in "never seen before" then that would be innovative. Lists like this one? Not so innovative as much as it is improvments on whats already there.
I totally disagree with the notion that the fights will be meaningless because they end. Are sports totally meaningless because the game comes to an end, or does the fact that it ends make people fight harder to win?
Well...yes. If we compare DAoC to warfare and GW2 to sports, which one has more weight?
The server vs server thing does a lot to solve balancing issues but those balance issues were largely already solved in an organic way by the game community in DAoC. I'd say the only undisputably good thing about server v server is that all the classes are the same. Balancing different classes in DAoC was hell. All the same, it's going to be pretty boring just fighting copies of yourself.
So, in the end, it just goes more towards GW2 feeling very "gamey" rather than MMORPG virtual worldish. I don't know why they're trying so hard with dynamic quests when their RvR is an esport, they've got instanced dungeons, and you can teleport anywhere instantly. Seems counterproductive.
I totally disagree with the notion that the fights will be meaningless because they end. Are sports totally meaningless because the game comes to an end, or does the fact that it ends make people fight harder to win?
Well...yes. If we compare DAoC to warfare and GW2 to sports, which one has more weight?
The server vs server thing does a lot to solve balancing issues but those balance issues were largely already solved in an organic way by the game community in DAoC. I'd say the only undisputably good thing about server v server is that all the classes are the same. Balancing different classes in DAoC was hell. All the same, it's going to be pretty boring just fighting copies of yourself.
So, in the end, it just goes more towards GW2 feeling very "gamey" rather than MMORPG virtual worldish. I don't know why they're trying so hard with dynamic quests when their RvR is an esport, they've got instanced dungeons, and you can teleport anywhere instantly. Seems counterproductive.
I was giving an example of something which gains weight because it ends. Playing a never ending game of baseball would be pretty pointless. Fighting a never ending war doesn't seem like much fun either. I have to ask though, because I can't seem to find an answer. Did DAOC go down for maintenance? What happened to RvR during that time?
Gross side imbalances in GW2 are handed by the server vs server structure, but within the match balance issues are solved in the same organic way in WvW. Servers can still form unspoken alliances to gang up on the dominant server.
Server VS Server does also have another advantage that I forgot to mention. It's bigger. If there's 600 people on a server who want to PVP in an intraserver game, then it's 200 vs 200 vs 200 fighting three distinct battles. In GW2 it's one huge 600 vs 600 vs 600. It also benefits PVE because they don't have to make separate content for each faction, and friends can play with one another regardless of race.
Maybe we have to agree to disagree here but I don't know why it would be boring fighting copies of yourself as opposed to fighting different classes. I don't even know that PVP needs a reason at all, but different factions seem just as easily handled by essentially, "they're red/green/blue, we're not."
As far as a game vs a virtual world, I don't see it that way either. They're doing DEs because they're more cooperative and immersive than quests. WvW isn't an esport because people go in with their own skills and get scaled towards max level but not totally. Their structured PVP where everyone is balanced is designed to be an esport. Instanced dungeons solve a bunch of problems of contested dungeons and the game will have encounters that scale up to 100 people in the open world. Teleporting is only to areas you've already gone to on foot already or major cities. You still have to explore the world, and this game will definitely reward that with hidden events and easter eggs. Here's a cave (the video is cut off to prevent spoilers of the end of the cave)
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I totally disagree with the notion that the fights will be meaningless because they end. Are sports totally meaningless because the game comes to an end, or does the fact that it ends make people fight harder to win?
Well...yes. If we compare DAoC to warfare and GW2 to sports, which one has more weight?
The server vs server thing does a lot to solve balancing issues but those balance issues were largely already solved in an organic way by the game community in DAoC. I'd say the only undisputably good thing about server v server is that all the classes are the same. Balancing different classes in DAoC was hell. All the same, it's going to be pretty boring just fighting copies of yourself.
So, in the end, it just goes more towards GW2 feeling very "gamey" rather than MMORPG virtual worldish. I don't know why they're trying so hard with dynamic quests when their RvR is an esport, they've got instanced dungeons, and you can teleport anywhere instantly. Seems counterproductive.
I was giving an example of something which gains weight because it ends. Playing a never ending game of baseball would be pretty pointless. Fighting a never ending war doesn't seem like much fun either. I have to ask though, because I can't seem to find an answer. Did DAOC go down for maintenance? What happened to RvR during that time?
Gross side imbalances in GW2 are handed by the server vs server structure, but within the match balance issues are solved in the same organic way in WvW. Servers can still form unspoken alliances to gang up on the dominant server.
Server VS Server does also have another advantage that I forgot to mention. It's bigger. If there's 600 people on a server who want to PVP in an intraserver game, then it's 200 vs 200 vs 200 fighting three distinct battles. In GW2 it's one huge 600 vs 600 vs 600. It also benefits PVE because they don't have to make separate content for each faction, and friends can play with one another regardless of race.
Maybe we have to agree to disagree here but I don't know why it would be boring fighting copies of yourself as opposed to fighting different classes. I don't even know that PVP needs a reason at all, but different factions seem just as easily handled by essentially, "they're red/green/blue, we're not."
As far as a game vs a virtual world, I don't see it that way either. They're doing DEs because they're more cooperative and immersive than quests. WvW isn't an esport because people go in with their own skills and get scaled towards max level but not totally. Their structured PVP where everyone is balanced is designed to be an esport. Instanced dungeons solve a bunch of problems of contested dungeons and the game will have encounters that scale up to 100 people in the open world. Teleporting is only to areas you've already gone to on foot already or major cities. You still have to explore the world, and this game will definitely reward that with hidden events and easter eggs. Here's a cave (the video is cut off to prevent spoilers of the end of the cave)
You make good points and I agreed with just about everything except what I highlighted. In DAoC the war was indeed endless. I suppose like you said, because it ends it gains weight. Kind of like when you're watching a tv show, there are those that pump out endless filler to stay on air, and those that know when they're ending so they tell a powerful story.
For DAoC, when the servers went down (which, I"m not sure they did come to think of it..) everything stopped. What do you think would happen? When the server came up everything was the same as it was before it went down. I don't understand the question.
And why fighting different classes was more interesting than mere copies... well. Twofold. First, seeing something new is almost always a bit more exciting than the same thing over and over. There's a reason RTS games come packaged with multiple civilizations. DAoC each realm had different strengths that they could play up for advantage. But beyond that, what was unique to DAoC is that it made the other realm true enemies through the lore. Most of the main quests gave you a feel that this implending Dark Age was the fault of the other realms (and partly it was). As an Albion force, we hated Hibernia and Midgard because they were using the death of our king as an excuse to invade. They captured our relics, they killed our heroes. We could all have a great time saying that all Hibbies hugged trees, and Mids were too troll dumb to function. There was a sense of realm pride. A bit of artificial racism. It was immersive and fun.
As for the instanced dungeons, I've never played a game without instances where I EVER had problems in dungeons that didn't already exist in the overworld. Contested dungeon problems are pretty much just a myth. They only ever really existed as problems in games that copied EQ's design. (aka, WoW). DAoC had no instances and it worked fine. And as far as "only places you've explored" I think they take it too far. If you could say, take a horse route to places you've already explored, that means you'd get a quick route of travel AND the world still retains its size. But just being able to pull out the map and click where you want to go whenever just... what were they thinking? Why BOTHER making a believable world?
Well, CoH had the Mission Architect system long before the Foundry. Maybe that game should have gotten the nod.
I'd like to mention TSW's classless, levelless skill wheel progression; Wildstar's class/vocation? hybrid; and GW2s personal story that is affected by choices made at character creation.
You make good points and I agreed with just about everything except what I highlighted. In DAoC the war was indeed endless. I suppose like you said, because it ends it gains weight. Kind of like when you're watching a tv show, there are those that pump out endless filler to stay on air, and those that know when they're ending so they tell a powerful story.
For DAoC, when the servers went down (which, I"m not sure they did come to think of it..) everything stopped. What do you think would happen? When the server came up everything was the same as it was before it went down. I don't understand the question.
As for the instanced dungeons, I've never played a game without instances where I EVER had problems in dungeons that didn't already exist in the overworld. Contested dungeon problems are pretty much just a myth. They only ever really existed as problems in games that copied EQ's design. (aka, WoW). DAoC had no instances and it worked fine. And as far as "only places you've explored" I think they take it too far. If you could say, take a horse route to places you've already explored, that means you'd get a quick route of travel AND the world still retains its size. But just being able to pull out the map and click where you want to go whenever just... what were they thinking? Why BOTHER making a believable world?
I was wondering if RvR reset to its default state when the servers went down for maintenance, like relics or whatever would return to their default positions. This would have essentially put an artificial ending and restart to what would otherwise be an endless war. I guess it speaks volumes about me or the current state of MMOs that I naturally assumed it would reset. I started to suspect that it did maintain persistence but I couldn't find an answer. Thanks for the clarification.
Having personally gone from EQ to WoW I think that instances do address a lot of things like giving everyone a shot at bosses, overcrowding, doing away with camping as opposed to crawling, griefing, but they do it at a cost to socialization. It doesn't help that WoW's instances have gone from the sprawling BRD to extremely linear hallways. I've heard of other games doing things like putting bosses on lockout timers so it's a dungeon crawl but everyone gets a turn. I think contested dungeons are definitely an area that an MMO might want to revisit and see if they can do something unique with.
As far as teleportation is concerned, I really don't think it shrinks the size of the world. In GW1 for example, I had to fight my way through all the zones one or two at a time and keep unlocking outposts. Now that I've done that I can zip from one end to the other, but the world still feels enormous to me because I know it would take forever to run it. I think the idea comes from wanting to get people to where their friends are quickly. At the same time though, taking the boat in EQ was like an adventure and people hung out on the docks. There's a tradeoff to everything I guess.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I agree with these, but I'm holding judgement on the GW2 WvWvW PvP until I've seen it on the live servers and put through its paces by thousands of players.
Honestly, bumping something like "25% or 50% voiced quests" to "fully voice quests" does not really feel like much innovation. Not to mention the innovative part in the "voiced quests" is not even the voice itself - it's the cinematics.
And even with that, the "voiced quests" loses the "one true innovation in SWTOR" badge to something else: Multiplayer dialogue.
That's because Multiplayer Dialogue is a full-blown game system that is supported by other core systems and thus ties in to the whole design of the game. So it manages to turn the necessity of dialogue, which is a bit too much of an "interactive story-ish" feature in itself, to a valid part of gameplay.
Plus, it's actualy novel: We have seen its like in neither single player RPGs nor MMORPGs.
Comments
"#2. SWG's deep crafting and resource gathering. Lol..."deep"...try Eve Online's system. Stomps SWG's into the dirt"
Eve's resource gathering is so broken it is done mostly by bots, please explain how that is deep? In that respect, SWG's resource gathering was far superior. Both games have excellent crafting, don't think either is better, they are just different.
I'm dissapointed that the OP mentions nothing about sidekicking being a huge innovation to MMOs (Allowing players who have been in the game for ages, able to play with their friends who just joined, rather than forcing them to reroll)
Seriously, it lets the nerds play with their casual friends without suffering the horrid life of rolling alts for all of them.
Yes, definitely, +1.
I've got to say FFXI did this best, with Level Sync. You didn't bring your friend up (thus making them feel falsely and prematurely powerful) but brought your own level down. There were several advantages.
If your group got overwhelmed, you could disable level sync, and have the power of people's real levels in about 30 seconds.
It also allowed groups to kill certain elities, "notorious monsters", that got in the way.
It made a reasonable attempt at scaling the stats on your gear so that you didn't need to have a separate set to play with your friends.
You could sync in any group to anyone's level so if you had a small level spread and say your sync, and thus group, just dinged, you could sync to someone a few levels lower and gain better exp again.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
Wrong. It wasn't a dedicated zone in DAOC. You could, in theory, push through the border keep and into the enemy PvE zone. It only happened once or twice, but it was possible. Also, on the PvP servers the entire server was a battleground.
Darkfall Travelogues!
Spot on.
Darkfall Travelogues!
When did Guild Wars 2 release a budget?
I have a quick question:
Is DAoC WvW really better than GW2 WvW? What makes them different, similair etc? I never played either, so I do not know.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovation
I might be able to jump on on this one.
First, there were actual enemy factions that stayed persistent. That meant, your enemies were real people, not rotating sports teams competing for the super bowl. You had realm pride. The other team was alien, different races, different classes, you couldn't speak to them. This game it a real world immersive feeling. Your enemies could build names for themselves, the same as you. We had a legendary Scout on our server who would snipe down entire groups and evade discovery.
Two, there were no limits on how many people could enter the frontier zones.
Three, the frontier wasn't instanced, it was part of the game world. It also had naval combat.
As for GW2's budget, unless it was smaller than 3 million dollars, then its bigger than DAoC's budget was. They don't have to deal with dial up either.
Darkfall Travelogues!
...How does that work in an RvR scenario, running around in a mirror world with mirror keeps? So you could just get a bunch of people to fill everything up then take out all the keeps in your mirror world without anyone there? No. I doubt they do that.
WvW you do queue other than that you won't have to see a queue screen in GW 2.
Umm any way, why was this list created, innovative is subjective I'm guessing, I mean hell it doesn't mean something that is "new" but more so improved and works better in a sense.
IFunny enough going by this you miswell say GW 2 as a whole game is innovative not individual features because people will argue and say such in such had this feature first. Well I'd like to challenge someone...
Name me one MMO that has done all of what GW 2 has in one game,
That's the same argument that people used to try to use to argue that WoW was innovative. Which it isn't.
That kind of logic holds no water.
Obviously there's no MMO that is identical to GW2. As for its individual features, there are many games that did very similar things, but even more extensive than GW2, in one game. Like Dark Age of Camelot.
That was my point, honestly innovative is looked at as new to many on this website when it isn't just something new. Same reason SWTOR is claimed innovative on its story because its engaging compared to other stories for an MMO , it has choices and what not. Not because it's new but because it is more so an upgrade.Lol WoW sply focused on improving ish and put effort in a bit more than pve and pvp least when it was around I heard arguments of what it was it was pve centric to some and it was pvp centric to some as well lol. Personally I figured it as pve centric at first, but they did innovate opinion things but never really had new features lol. I mean shit, cars are innovative but as for transportation it wasn't really new since we could use horses and what not. Peanut butter jelly sandwich is an innovation but I be damn if what put it together wasn't already there.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
they (SOE) had the ambition but they didnt put it in game. EQ2 has talking npcs but its nowhere near full conversations with cinematics like Swtor did. Thats why i think Swtor is in this article's list.
So to echo some of the other complaints about this article ....
I'm not completely sure if it was the true first, but I don't recall any other game before City of Heroes divorcing a player's appearance from their defensive capabilities. However since then there have been several other games that did the same thing which makes The Secret World a just another in a line of MMOs doing it. Personally I wish more games did it to be honest.
I'm not sure how the features list differs between City of Heroes's Mission Architect and Star Trek Online's Foundry, but even then player created missions aren't exactly a new thing either. Heck, if I remember correctly there was a decent hubbub about CoH claiming to have the first player created missions since Ryzom did it even before them.
Guild Wars 2's WvW is nearly a flat-out copy of DAoC's RvR system. All the way down to the little crossed swords on the map marking where there's a fight. Though I do believe the mercanaries you can get onto your side is a new thing.
I'll give you SW:TOR's fully voiced game since while other games have certainly done extensive voice-work before (EQ2) I've never seen anything quite so extensive before, and I can't really speak to RIFT's instant raids.
im sorry, i facepalmed when i saw that TSW was only up there once. getting rid of classes and levels doesnt even apply to being innovative but armor being purely asthetic does, your joking right.
the only reason i can see for this being listed that way is because TSW would have to be up there more than once. I know the Create a class feature was in Champions online aswell but they did it quite poorly, your still progressed basically the same and usually built the character to have matching powers.
Because i can.
I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out.
Logic every gamers worst enemy.
I'm sorry, but Rift's Instant Adventures seem like just a poor attempt to make Dynamic Events. My friend still has an account so we logged on to see what they were about.
They only occur in two zones, so It ports you to an area where you have a timed quest to do something. It's still totally mundane objectives with no context or consequences.
You do automatically group with someone else if they also went to do IAs, so I was with one other person. However, there was a different guy in the area killing mobs I needed and I wasn't getting credit because we were ungrouped. I tried to invite him but he declined, so now we're trying to run around and beat the clock with another player working against us.
After completing an objective, you get another one which can be in exactly the same area. Where previously I had killed a bunch of mobs around some scenery, I now had a quest to destroy the scenery (which had been unclickable only moments before). This of course meant that I was killing even more of the same mobs trying to get to these things. After 2 quests in an area, the next objective would be somewhere down the road for more killing, followed by more scenery smashing.
Eventually this all culminated in an elite who killed us badly in the several attempts we made on him in the 15 minutes we had to kill him. I don't know if he didn't scale, had a minimum number of people required, or if I just suck from not playing the game in a long time. In any case, time ran out and then another quest appeared and another timer started and I just logged instead.
I think the #1 was chosen to be WvW because choosing Dynamic Events would have meant Rift's contribution had no place on this list.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Speaking of WvW, I see a great number of people who don't get what it's about or why they're doing what they're doing.
WvW is totally separate because they want their PVE experience to be 100% cooperative. They want you to want to see other people because other people can never hurt you, you get xp and loot for helping them, and DEs scale up with more people to make them more chaotic and fun. There will never be true open world PVP in GW2, it's not what that game is about.
There will however, be 3 faction WvW PVP and it has several innovative features to it.
First, it's against other servers. Why? Because it completely solves the problem of server faction imbalances. No longer will it always be the more popular faction A against B & C combined. It doesn't matter how many people play humans, charr, norn or whatever. Everyone on a server works together against other servers.
It lasts two weeks. Why? So they can solve the problem of different servers being more popular by matching servers up against new servers at the end of the fight. Servers are ranked and pitted against similar strength servers. Fights will be more competitive. Fights will also be varied because you're seeing new people with new tactics. You also won't know whether you're going to be the big server or the little server so that changes how you play and what you can accomplish.
I totally disagree with the notion that the fights will be meaningless because they end. Are sports totally meaningless because the game comes to an end, or does the fact that it ends make people fight harder to win?
WvW will only be down for a few minutes while they figure out the new matchups. Otherwise it's a 24/7 battle. One with keeps, objectives, dynamic events, and seige equipment with a map wide range. Some reviewers have said they think WvW alone might be worth the price of the box. Give it a chance, will ya?
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
SWG's crafting/housing/gathering still deserves a spot on the innovative list. I've not seen anything else that even comes close, even after the servers came down. Going down through a planet and coming across a player-made city, complete with travel points, markets, houses, and micro-economy was simply amazing (and the fact the worlds were large enough to accomodate them).
I fail to find anything really innovative in SWTOR. Especially not voice acting with consequence options.
City of Heros has had player-created missions for a long time now (Mission Architect - was out in like... 2009). It's a pretty robust system. I guess it shouldn't be any surprise that Cryptic has one too now. I agree, it's a very fun system, and I wish more MMO's had it, but it wasn't Cryptic that innovated it in MMO's.
To be honest, I'd even put FFXI/FFXIV's class-changing on the innovative list (one character can be any/every class). The idea is innovative. The implementation is a bit dated now in FFXI and somewhat lacking in FFXIV. But it has potential (and I hope Secret World builds on this - this should be what your talking about in Secret World, not clothing - because "Surprise" - even WoW now lets you alter your visible appearance).
I think F2P in general should be listed as an innovation (and I suppose we can thank DDO for proving it viable for main stream). Really, think about how many fewer MMO's there would be available today without the F2P model (and how many fewer banner adds MMORPG.com would have...). I won't claim that it's any worse, or better, than B2P or P2P, but it has definitely altered the MMO landscape in the last couple of years.
I'd give Vindictus/TERA a nod too - they are totally renovating the classic tab-target combat model. Vindictus has been doing it for a while. There are other games that don't use locked targeting, but the live combat that Vindictus/TERA has is a whole 'nother level. I almost included DCUO in this, as it's possible to play that way, but the game still pushes you to "lock" onto your target rather than embracing open combat.
Eve's corporation system - it's hands down the most versatile and expansive guild/clan/etc system in any game, and made that much more by the ability to set formally alliances and expand/extend permissions and such inside not only your own corp, but to your alliances as well.
I don't think recent MMO history has been kind for "innovation" - we are seeing a lot of refinement, but the actual innovation has been out there, and in many cases, for years. It's just a matter of putting it together in the right package.
I wouldn´t really call full voice acting that innovative. AoC already had a large part of the game voice acted, TOR is just adding some more to it.
That not mean I think it is a bad feature (but it do take a lot of hd space and it can get annoying to get voice filler quests) but adding more of the same just isn´t truly innovative.
Besides, wait until you see what Undead labs and CCP are working on, from the little I heard and being able to puzzle together we will get some awesome features there never seen before...
A major problem with this list, and many forum posts and articles like it, is that it attributes success to games that haven't yet been released. GW2 and TSW both sound very promising, I'll give them that. But haven't we as fans of the genre learned that nothing really counts until the game is released?
I mean, I want the first part of The Hobbit to win Best Picture, Original Score, etc. - but it'd be absolutely ridiculous for it to have won an Oscar a couple nights ago just because the scoring committees were excited for it.
All this list and alot of replies shows is no one really knows wtf innovative really means. Taking someones ideas and improving on them is not innovative. Its improvement. There is a diffrence. But innovate is the word used for improvements these days. Verry few things, both in life and in games are truly innovative.
If thats the case, as in "never seen before" then that would be innovative. Lists like this one? Not so innovative as much as it is improvments on whats already there.
Well...yes. If we compare DAoC to warfare and GW2 to sports, which one has more weight?
The server vs server thing does a lot to solve balancing issues but those balance issues were largely already solved in an organic way by the game community in DAoC. I'd say the only undisputably good thing about server v server is that all the classes are the same. Balancing different classes in DAoC was hell. All the same, it's going to be pretty boring just fighting copies of yourself.
So, in the end, it just goes more towards GW2 feeling very "gamey" rather than MMORPG virtual worldish. I don't know why they're trying so hard with dynamic quests when their RvR is an esport, they've got instanced dungeons, and you can teleport anywhere instantly. Seems counterproductive.
I was giving an example of something which gains weight because it ends. Playing a never ending game of baseball would be pretty pointless. Fighting a never ending war doesn't seem like much fun either. I have to ask though, because I can't seem to find an answer. Did DAOC go down for maintenance? What happened to RvR during that time?
Gross side imbalances in GW2 are handed by the server vs server structure, but within the match balance issues are solved in the same organic way in WvW. Servers can still form unspoken alliances to gang up on the dominant server.
Server VS Server does also have another advantage that I forgot to mention. It's bigger. If there's 600 people on a server who want to PVP in an intraserver game, then it's 200 vs 200 vs 200 fighting three distinct battles. In GW2 it's one huge 600 vs 600 vs 600. It also benefits PVE because they don't have to make separate content for each faction, and friends can play with one another regardless of race.
Maybe we have to agree to disagree here but I don't know why it would be boring fighting copies of yourself as opposed to fighting different classes. I don't even know that PVP needs a reason at all, but different factions seem just as easily handled by essentially, "they're red/green/blue, we're not."
As far as a game vs a virtual world, I don't see it that way either. They're doing DEs because they're more cooperative and immersive than quests. WvW isn't an esport because people go in with their own skills and get scaled towards max level but not totally. Their structured PVP where everyone is balanced is designed to be an esport. Instanced dungeons solve a bunch of problems of contested dungeons and the game will have encounters that scale up to 100 people in the open world. Teleporting is only to areas you've already gone to on foot already or major cities. You still have to explore the world, and this game will definitely reward that with hidden events and easter eggs. Here's a cave (the video is cut off to prevent spoilers of the end of the cave)
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
You make good points and I agreed with just about everything except what I highlighted. In DAoC the war was indeed endless. I suppose like you said, because it ends it gains weight. Kind of like when you're watching a tv show, there are those that pump out endless filler to stay on air, and those that know when they're ending so they tell a powerful story.
For DAoC, when the servers went down (which, I"m not sure they did come to think of it..) everything stopped. What do you think would happen? When the server came up everything was the same as it was before it went down. I don't understand the question.
And why fighting different classes was more interesting than mere copies... well. Twofold. First, seeing something new is almost always a bit more exciting than the same thing over and over. There's a reason RTS games come packaged with multiple civilizations. DAoC each realm had different strengths that they could play up for advantage. But beyond that, what was unique to DAoC is that it made the other realm true enemies through the lore. Most of the main quests gave you a feel that this implending Dark Age was the fault of the other realms (and partly it was). As an Albion force, we hated Hibernia and Midgard because they were using the death of our king as an excuse to invade. They captured our relics, they killed our heroes. We could all have a great time saying that all Hibbies hugged trees, and Mids were too troll dumb to function. There was a sense of realm pride. A bit of artificial racism. It was immersive and fun.
As for the instanced dungeons, I've never played a game without instances where I EVER had problems in dungeons that didn't already exist in the overworld. Contested dungeon problems are pretty much just a myth. They only ever really existed as problems in games that copied EQ's design. (aka, WoW). DAoC had no instances and it worked fine. And as far as "only places you've explored" I think they take it too far. If you could say, take a horse route to places you've already explored, that means you'd get a quick route of travel AND the world still retains its size. But just being able to pull out the map and click where you want to go whenever just... what were they thinking? Why BOTHER making a believable world?
Yes exactly. This list is dumb.
I was wondering if RvR reset to its default state when the servers went down for maintenance, like relics or whatever would return to their default positions. This would have essentially put an artificial ending and restart to what would otherwise be an endless war. I guess it speaks volumes about me or the current state of MMOs that I naturally assumed it would reset. I started to suspect that it did maintain persistence but I couldn't find an answer. Thanks for the clarification.
Having personally gone from EQ to WoW I think that instances do address a lot of things like giving everyone a shot at bosses, overcrowding, doing away with camping as opposed to crawling, griefing, but they do it at a cost to socialization. It doesn't help that WoW's instances have gone from the sprawling BRD to extremely linear hallways. I've heard of other games doing things like putting bosses on lockout timers so it's a dungeon crawl but everyone gets a turn. I think contested dungeons are definitely an area that an MMO might want to revisit and see if they can do something unique with.
As far as teleportation is concerned, I really don't think it shrinks the size of the world. In GW1 for example, I had to fight my way through all the zones one or two at a time and keep unlocking outposts. Now that I've done that I can zip from one end to the other, but the world still feels enormous to me because I know it would take forever to run it. I think the idea comes from wanting to get people to where their friends are quickly. At the same time though, taking the boat in EQ was like an adventure and people hung out on the docks. There's a tradeoff to everything I guess.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I agree with these, but I'm holding judgement on the GW2 WvWvW PvP until I've seen it on the live servers and put through its paces by thousands of players.
Honestly, bumping something like "25% or 50% voiced quests" to "fully voice quests" does not really feel like much innovation. Not to mention the innovative part in the "voiced quests" is not even the voice itself - it's the cinematics.
And even with that, the "voiced quests" loses the "one true innovation in SWTOR" badge to something else: Multiplayer dialogue.
That's because Multiplayer Dialogue is a full-blown game system that is supported by other core systems and thus ties in to the whole design of the game. So it manages to turn the necessity of dialogue, which is a bit too much of an "interactive story-ish" feature in itself, to a valid part of gameplay.
Plus, it's actualy novel: We have seen its like in neither single player RPGs nor MMORPGs.