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The MMO of MMORPG evolves rather than the RPG?
zwei2
Member Posts: 361
First post. As stated, would it be more correct to say that The MMO portion of MMORPG evolves rather than the RPG? Take note this is my opinion (yes, it looks like it is an unwritten rule as of late in forums to make this disclaimer in order to make valid discussions, especially this is my first post) so please feel free to refute with your OPINIONS. Please try not to flame, thanks 
Now I am not really a great knowledged gamer that has touched every single MMORPG out there, only have played Everquest and League of Legends, with a little of some others like DDO, but can I say that, in this stagnent MMORPG market, plus improved internet services - all the way to fibre internet connections - has given rise to all other massive multiplayer online games? Ok, maybe not that massive.
From the 2000s, there is MMOFPS (started all the way from late 1990s?), MMORTS, MOBA (note there is no 'massive' word), MMOSIM, MMO-survival, MMO-co-op, MMO-this, MMO-that. And the omnipresent MMOtransaction (you know, MMOs where you just create items to sell and make legit real life money! 
). Sure MMORPG still being created, and still has that rare AAA that is awesome. But it is still an MMORPG. While somewhere in this galaxy a new MMO style gaming may emerge from a black hole...
Other than the themepark vs sandbox everlasting conflict, is there anything lately, especially from latest AAAs, that stand out to be claimed as a evolution? Or revolution. Kill ten rats, kill ten rats in tutus only, walk into the cave and the screen flashes "Kill rats until we say stop", raid rats.... you get the gist. From raids to housing, from dynamic invasion raids to building a house by clicking on that brick in your inventory and manually place it on the screen ground... it will still be the same good ol'MMORPGS which are the real money makers. 
The possibility of the universe collapsing into a singularity is higher than the birth of a perfect MMORPG.
Comments
The evolution of the RPG part has been happening since CRPGs started. I agree that the MMO part has been evolving as well, but it's possible it looks like the RPG part has been stagnant because we reject the evolution as not even being an RPG.
The core 'RPG' functionality diverges a good bit as advancement - the main aspect of most RPGs - takes various forms.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
What you have describe about rejecting the evolution makes sense. Perhaps this is part of the reason why anything considered "innovative" is trashed hard by players who believe it is not to be expected in a RPG, thus ended up stalling the whole MMORPG line, while the rest of the MMO series have free reign because there is no angry mob to stop them from branching out to different paths.
The possibility of the universe collapsing into a singularity is higher than the birth of a perfect MMORPG.
I think a lot of the newer pool of MMO players (post WoW) are looking for more of the Massively aspect than the Roleplaying one.
The rpp portion has atrophied and will fall off like a vestigal limb. While players are indeed free to rpg as much as they like, the environments in which to do so have become less and less encouraging for rp. For me, mmorpg's were world simulators the way flight sim games were flight simulators. And the expectaion was that over time that simulation would become deeper, richer and have more fidelity. More immersive. That didn't happen. Instead the world simulation was deemphasized. Now mmorpg's are no longer wold simulators, they're just video games. Which isn't necessarily bad, unless you wanted a simulator.
Yep, describes pretty much how I view the marketplace. MMO's certainly have diverged into many different forms and along the way many things have been lost as well as gained as the genre changes.
I won't call it evolution, that implies improvement and while some areas have certainly improved in many ways they've shed some of the mechanics that made them enjoyable to some portion of the player popuulation.
Divergence is a better term I think, off into many more styles of games and each has their proponents and detractors.
And to be sure, some styles have largely disappeared from the landscape, for better or worse.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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i agree - especially with common threads like How popular is XX mmo?
that was never one of my criteria for choosing a mmo
EQ2 fan sites
The marriage of MMO to RPG is more a case of historical happenstance than anything; a natural outgrowth of D&D to MUDs to text-based online games. That the grip of RPG-style gaming on massive online games is slackening somewhat is no surprise, as the potential for massive online games is immense and the strictures of the classic RPG experience placed within a massive online context have often proven problematic (see any thread about gripes with the genre on this forum).
I think the reason you're not seeing too many exciting new developments in the "kill ten rats" school of RPG gaming is that it has hit a sort of creative dead-end. Developers have done lots of those games and they've done some of them quite well and frankly there's not much more to do with those conventions. There is, however, a lot of untapped design space in other forms of massive online gaming, including the sandbox MMO, which is really almost a different genre in itself. Many of these alternate forms borrow what they like from the RPG experience (they usually have some kind of character/player progression/skills) and rewrite the rest. So in summation I think these games ARE the updating of that RPG experience in an MMO context. On the other hand, you have purists who are trying to distill just the best parts of the existing RPG genre and often shirking some of the baggage of the MMO because it's proven to be kind of an awkward fit for traditional RPG mechanics (you can't have thousands of players thinking they're the hero in a storyline when they all end up doing the same quests and gaining the same abilities), Richard Garriott's new project being a good example of this.
I agree with this. Most people just skip over any story related content and just want the loots. It's pretty sad really.
What is so sad about that? Games are entertainment. There is no better or worse way to be entertained. It just depends on what players like.
Is liking The Avengers more "sad" than liking Lincoln? I think not.
You sound like you are better than those who want cheap thrills. Really? We are talking about entertainment here. Not real achievement or work.
I think that has alot to do with the evolution or reduction of the MMO part...Today gamers want to be entertained...Pre WoW gamers wanted challenge and to be part of an online world.....Entertainment wasn't really ever a term you heard back then....I didnt hear entertainment until WoW pretty much came out because it was viewed as a game that was more for entertainment than for difficulty.