If you want innovation, there's plenty of innovation out there, even if you restrict to the last ten years. For example, try Uncharted Waters Online. See if you can find any major mechanics that are not innovative. If you think you've found one, that probably just means that you don't understand how it works in UWO and are trying to shoehorn it into being like something else that it's not.Guild Wars 1 and 2 both introduced a lot of cool stuff, as ArenaNet is one of the few game studios that will build a lot of grouping content around trying to make it easy for practical to get groups. In GW1, the approach was to let you fill out your group with henchmen and later heroes. In GW2, you had auto-grouping for dynamic events, and having combat designed such that you really just needed to get 5 people for a dungeon group rather than having to track down particular classes.Guild Wars 1 introduced hard mode and I think they were the first MMO to do it. That's a huge deal. I'm not sure if GW1 was the first MMO with the achievement system that now seems to be ubiquitous, but they had it. Guild Wars 1 also brought a system of, you get to the cap fast and then can just go play the game and have fun. To this day, that's unique or nearly so among MMOs. It also brought map travel.Guild Wars 2, meanwhile, brought dynamic events to the game. Other games had public quests, but GW2 was the first to largely build a world around it, rather than having a few public quests off in a corner for people to ignore.
City of Heroes brought Dynamic Events long before GW2 was in development.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Originally posted by VengeSunsoar I don't recall dynamic events in coh. What were they?
Nor do I. Warhammer, DCUO and later iterations of WOW had dynamic events of a sort, and then Rift developed them and then GW2 developed them further. I didn't think there were any other mmo's on that timeline.
The problem with the OP is context and scope, IMO. It's kinda like saying that there haven't been any innovations with cars in the past 100 years. It's true, too, if we're talking about something with 4 wheels that carries people around. Gawd! When are we ever going to innovate that wheel? I yearn for the day when I can buy a square wheel. So epic!
Progress is the sum of small innovations, or weak innovations as you put it. If a game were to attempt to re-invent the genre, it would ultimately fail because it's unfamiliar. It's these so-called weak innovations which drive change for future generations of games.
Next time you're thinking that games are seriously lacking in innovation, go ahead and drive through Mennonite country. I lived in a small community full of Mennonites once and I saw a number of people get literally kicked by their "car". My car has never kicked me once. That seems like a pretty good innovation.
The problem with the OP is context and scope, IMO. It's kinda like saying that there haven't been any innovations with cars in the past 100 years. It's true, too, if we're talking about something with 4 wheels that carries people around. Gawd! When are we ever going to innovate that wheel? I yearn for the day when I can buy a square wheel. So epic!
Progress is the sum of small innovations, or weak innovations as you put it. If a game were to attempt to re-invent the genre, it would ultimately fail because it's unfamiliar. It's these so-called weak innovations which drive change for future generations of games.
Next time you're thinking that games are seriously lacking in innovation, go ahead and drive through Mennonite country. I lived in a small community full of Mennonites once and I saw a number of people get literally kicked by their "car". My car has never kicked me once. That seems like a pretty good innovation.
This kind of response has been brought up a lot. But I still agree with the OP. Maybe this is a problem of scope but the other way around. Your expectations are to low. If you ask me the praised innovations in the mmo genre are more like the difference between the Whopper and the Big Mac. I mean the Big Mac hast two patties instead of one how could a meal be any more different. ... I'm not even asking for a six course dinner but maybe we could at least try out Taco Bell next time.
If you ignore that they have different graphics you have to agree that every AAA-mmo after 2004 was basically a recreation of WoW with a little twist to it, but the games still all played the same and felt the same. Even in GW2 you first grind levels and then you grind dungeons. To stay within the car-metaphor, what the major developers are doing is normally referred to as a face-lift. They add a cup holder and a trim and try to convince us that it is a totally new and better car. But maybe cars are not a good analogy, what about cell phones. Do you remember what they where like in 2004? I'm not satisfied with a Motorola RAZRV3 anymore even if it had a Elder Scrolls or a Star Wars sticker on it.
Maybe this is just the customers fault. Apparently they couldn't get enough of WoW for the last 10 years. Somebody mentioned Rysom. That was really a sad story. I assume that if it came out today and had more action based combat it would be more successful since the customers start to get bored by the WoW-model. Zenimax didn't get that if I want a Whopper I go to Burger King. Why should I buy the Tamriel-Burger at their restaurant across the street when I already know that it tastes the same. I believe the reason why GW2 was kind of successful was because it was able to convince people that it was different from WoW even though it really wasn't and only took back some of what made GW1 different. It is the most innovative game we have as long as you don't want to explore the world of half finished indi-mmos. I know they should get more support, but I can understand that most people prefer a polished game experience.
I haven't given anyone a thumbs up since Blizzard came out with WoW.. That to me was the last of the games there were worth a damn.. I have tried some games since then, such as Rift, SWTOR, GW2 etc etc and they "ALL" have failed.. The game worlds are just way too damn small, and each one of them plays like a linear connect the dots.. GW2 was the most tolerated one.. Each one of then focused on end game grind as their main catching point.. That is a huge game breaker for me..
Open world public interaction is what means most to me.. I have never seen such a bunch of lazy greedy programmers as I have seen in the past 10 years.. It feels as tho the RPG part of gaming has died, and been overrun by the "arcade" shoot em up Mortal Kombat players..
One of the top marketing guys at EA once said "Gamers don't know exactly what they want, and that's why they aren't developers". People always scream for something "innovative" but hardly ever have ideas that would catch on and be a major success in a game. Unless it's a proven formula that works, it's not a very good business decision to make something truly innovative, cause if it flopped, then that company is out of alot of money. The majority of gamers stick to what they know or else devs wouldn't keep milking the same franchise, innovation is left to the indie devs.
Originally posted by kabitoshin One of the top marketing guys at EA once said "Gamers don't know exactly what they want, and that's why they aren't developers". People always scream for something "innovative" but hardly ever have ideas that would catch on and be a major success in a game. Unless it's a proven formula that works, it's not a very good business decision to make something truly innovative, cause if it flopped, then that company is out of alot of money. The majority of gamers stick to what they know or else devs wouldn't keep milking the same franchise, innovation is left to the indie devs.
That is not really a designer's perspective that's a salesman's perspective. A salesman doesn't really care whether his products are any good or what the customers want, but only what they will buy and what is cost-efficient to produce. This explains why there are so many cheaply made F2P games out there. That's the way to make easy money if that is your only concern. There are always some suckers who will dump their money on it.
But we are not really discussing business plans around here our only concern is whether a game is good or not. I believe that gamers do know what they want better then you think, the only problem is that they don't really care whether their ideas will make a lot of money or not. They see the whole issue from an artists perspective.
Of course in the end someone hast to pay the bills but don't trick yourself into believing that video games where all about the money. Nobody ever accomplished something great by thinking like an accountant.
Another consideration is right now there is a plethora of choices. Ten tears ago the choice were much more limited. As more and more games infiltrate the market, it becomes harder and harder to do something innovative and often sometimes innovation is ridiculed when it doesn't go over well.
PioneerStew, you should actually take a deep look at games before opening a thread. Gaming industry while having it's new or refined concepts here and there is actually more or less the same in the first place. And WoW (and most fantasy MMO's) are an extension of the old RPG games of the 80's and 90's with the addition to be a social gaming experience. Instead of leveling your warrior or mage alone from level 1 to X, and killing the end game boss by yourself like RPG's do, you have to team with people to actually do those boss kills. That's why the term MMO in the first place.
But at the end all games are the same. You use the control of your choice (keyboard, mouse, joystick, pad), move an object to perform some actions in hope to increase levels and beat the game "End Game". So all games are a clone of Ping Pong (Atari 1972) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong
You have your Warcraft and plenty of other carbon copies that already represent your playstyle, otherwise you have a plethora of single player games and consoles to indulge upon. The rest of us that want an older style experience, where community and social interaction is not only encouraged but often required for many parts of the game with a diverse open world and meaningful actions along with deep exploration and crafting/looting systems that allow every item to be useful do not have such game.
The ONLY reason I want to play an MMO is to be immersed into a world where I have every action made my own, not told to go to quest hub to quest hub or loot boiled down to "Leather belt of Strength" where items are basic 'stat sticks' that you only worry about whether or not the singular number is higher than your previous number. I want meaning and depth, not shallow pools of mediocrity that is spoon-fed to the masses like we're all brainless sheep. The same reason I hate consoles and those players, they are told what to play and what to think and still believe their opinions matter.
So again, please, for the sake of others, stop being so god damn selfish. You have so many games that represent your opinions; let the rest of us, regardless of minority of majority, have something to desire.
If you really want this to change, the sandbox community must first prove they still exist. Games like UO, SWG, etc.. are communal games, without a real community who comes together to help each other by making a fun experience, it is nothing at all and a wasted effort.
You're talking about companies investing money in players, not a game, that's a huge risk, especially when those players and their ways can be a detriment to your service.
This is why games like Darkfall suffer, titles like Rust and dayz become undesirable etc.. It's probably why SOE was trying to market H1Z1 to SWG fans, they're communal players and can make such a game work. Yet SWG fans know exactly what such a game may turn into hence the reaction from them.
As long as there's a risk of players being the major turnoff to the greater community, devs will cater to players with content (ala EQ, WOW, etc). The ways in which players can ruin such an experience are controlled, by taking away such freedoms.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Do you think that the mmo industry has made sufficient innovations over the last decade? Or should we have seen something truly new and innovative by now?
I know you use the term innovation, but it really isn't the correct term to describe art. Innovation is more aptly applied to the technology behind MMOs.
I would describe MMOs as lacking creative game mechanics and worlds over the last decade. Visually they have been getting better and better, but it just seems that there been little progress in creating a unique world with interesting interactions.
I would describe MMOs as lacking creative game mechanics and worlds over the last decade. Visually they have been getting better and better, but it just seems that there been little progress in creating a unique world with interesting interactions.
Some MMOs have been very innovative over the last decade. I would say that only high-budget fantasy MMORPGs have been lacking serious innovation.
For example, a sci-fi MMORPG called Face of Mankind was a very innovative game in 2004-2007. The game was designed, so that players could play as police officers, prison guards, military personnel, special agents, politicians, corporate businessmen, mercenaries, criminals, drug manufacturers, prison inmates, and human rights activists. The game was based purely on player-to-player and faction-to-faction interactions. It didn't have any computer-controlled creatures originally, except for aliens, which were extremely rare.
If you chose to play as a police officer for the Law Enforcement Department, you would start the game as a Rank 1 patrolman. You could further your career in the Law Enforcement Department by becoming promoted to a Rank 2 constable and then to Rank 3 Inspector by participating in missions which were set up by Rank 4 detectives or Rank 5 superintendents. After that you could possibly become a detective and then a superintendent yourself if you had achieved enough merit in the Law Enforcement Department. A few people, who were really dedicated to the "police work" and who had connections inside all Global Dominion factions and within the government, became Rank 6 Commandants and Rank 7 Commissioners.There was also an internal affairs division within the L.E.D. which investigated police officers themselves.
Police missions usually involved patrolling the streets on Earth, scanning citizens for drugs and firearms, stunning and arresting people who violated the laws, pursuing wanted criminals, sending people to a prison planet, and guarding the prison facilities. Mission objectives were all predesigned by developers of the game and missions were set up by players who selected mission objectives, time limit, planet and area.
If some faction became very ambitious and began to oppose the Global Dominion, the government would impose martial law. In that case Law Enforcement Department would be ordered to leave the area or planet and another Global Dominion faction called Freedom Defense Corps would arrive to deal with the situation. The Freedom Defense Corps was the army faction and daily gameplay for that faction involved super strict discipline and a lot of military drills like in the real army.
The game even had missions for prisoners like "Walk around the prison yard", "Do jumping exercises", "Crush mineral ore in refinery", "Pick the Soap". Unlike all other missions, these were assigned automatically by the game and not created by other players.
People who talk about the hearts in GW2 as if those are the only form of event only show how ignorant they are or how they haven't actually played the game.
Either way I will call you John Snow because you know nothing...
GW2 dynamic events are far from perfect but it definitely created a different sense of action and urgency in content delivery. Normal quest systems you get the quest when you feel like it and then you complete it at your leisure. But in GW2 when you first started a new zone you never quite knew what was going to happen where. You couldn't wait to stop the Centaur invasion because if you waited the town would be taken over and you'd be reclaiming the village instead of defending it.
The heart quests are not the only type of open world content GW2 has and in fact as you level theres less and less heart quests and more dynamic/random events.
I wasn't talking about it in reference to mmo's. I was talking about an industry that has made strides forward in the last ten years. If you want others then just look at almost any technological industry.
Ridiculous to compare technological industry to game industry. 90% of innovation in technology you use in your home is just a leftover of medical and military technology, where innovation is a necessity. It is not like a bunch of scientists spend years in laboratories to make your pc run new mmo, computer entertainment corporations salvage from others.
There is no army or medical aplication for mmo games so I wouldn't count on anyone wasting years of their life on research... What a dumb comparision, seriously. Like PCs were invented for entertainment....
Innovation is made to help survive our species, it just so happens, that same technology can be used for entertainment. Don't except people to put the same effort into making computer games.
Comments
City of Heroes brought Dynamic Events long before GW2 was in development.Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Nor do I. Warhammer, DCUO and later iterations of WOW had dynamic events of a sort, and then Rift developed them and then GW2 developed them further. I didn't think there were any other mmo's on that timeline.
I don't think I'm applauding innovation, weak or not. I do applaud solid game design, which is about as rare as innovation these days.
The problem with the OP is context and scope, IMO. It's kinda like saying that there haven't been any innovations with cars in the past 100 years. It's true, too, if we're talking about something with 4 wheels that carries people around. Gawd! When are we ever going to innovate that wheel? I yearn for the day when I can buy a square wheel. So epic!
Progress is the sum of small innovations, or weak innovations as you put it. If a game were to attempt to re-invent the genre, it would ultimately fail because it's unfamiliar. It's these so-called weak innovations which drive change for future generations of games.
Next time you're thinking that games are seriously lacking in innovation, go ahead and drive through Mennonite country. I lived in a small community full of Mennonites once and I saw a number of people get literally kicked by their "car". My car has never kicked me once. That seems like a pretty good innovation.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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This kind of response has been brought up a lot. But I still agree with the OP. Maybe this is a problem of scope but the other way around. Your expectations are to low.
If you ask me the praised innovations in the mmo genre are more like the difference between the Whopper and the Big Mac. I mean the Big Mac hast two patties instead of one how could a meal be any more different. ...
I'm not even asking for a six course dinner but maybe we could at least try out Taco Bell next time.
If you ignore that they have different graphics you have to agree that every AAA-mmo after 2004 was basically a recreation of WoW with a little twist to it, but the games still all played the same and felt the same. Even in GW2 you first grind levels and then you grind dungeons.
To stay within the car-metaphor, what the major developers are doing is normally referred to as a face-lift. They add a cup holder and a trim and try to convince us that it is a totally new and better car.
But maybe cars are not a good analogy, what about cell phones. Do you remember what they where like in 2004? I'm not satisfied with a Motorola RAZR V3 anymore even if it had a Elder Scrolls or a Star Wars sticker on it.
Maybe this is just the customers fault. Apparently they couldn't get enough of WoW for the last 10 years. Somebody mentioned Rysom. That was really a sad story.
I assume that if it came out today and had more action based combat it would be more successful since the customers start to get bored by the WoW-model. Zenimax didn't get that if I want a Whopper I go to Burger King. Why should I buy the Tamriel-Burger at their restaurant across the street when I already know that it tastes the same.
I believe the reason why GW2 was kind of successful was because it was able to convince people that it was different from WoW even though it really wasn't and only took back some of what made GW1 different. It is the most innovative game we have as long as you don't want to explore the world of half finished indi-mmos. I know they should get more support, but I can understand that most people prefer a polished game experience.
We doesn't mean "ME" tho..
I haven't given anyone a thumbs up since Blizzard came out with WoW.. That to me was the last of the games there were worth a damn.. I have tried some games since then, such as Rift, SWTOR, GW2 etc etc and they "ALL" have failed.. The game worlds are just way too damn small, and each one of them plays like a linear connect the dots.. GW2 was the most tolerated one.. Each one of then focused on end game grind as their main catching point.. That is a huge game breaker for me..
Open world public interaction is what means most to me.. I have never seen such a bunch of lazy greedy programmers as I have seen in the past 10 years.. It feels as tho the RPG part of gaming has died, and been overrun by the "arcade" shoot em up Mortal Kombat players..
That is not really a designer's perspective that's a salesman's perspective. A salesman doesn't really care whether his products are any good or what the customers want, but only what they will buy and what is cost-efficient to produce.
This explains why there are so many cheaply made F2P games out there. That's the way to make easy money if that is your only concern. There are always some suckers who will dump their money on it.
But we are not really discussing business plans around here our only concern is whether a game is good or not. I believe that gamers do know what they want better then you think, the only problem is that they don't really care whether their ideas will make a lot of money or not. They see the whole issue from an artists perspective.
Of course in the end someone hast to pay the bills but don't trick yourself into believing that video games where all about the money. Nobody ever accomplished something great by thinking like an accountant.
You only have 2 choices: WoW or Eve.
so, basically every shooter is like quake?
you aim your crosshair at an enemy, and press a button. and then something happens to kill it.
been the same since wolfenstein basically (but since that was not really 3d i started with quake).
same for cars. basically they've been rollin around on the same damn wheels since carl benz.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Yes, and Charles Babbage invented your iPad.
If you really want this to change, the sandbox community must first prove they still exist. Games like UO, SWG, etc.. are communal games, without a real community who comes together to help each other by making a fun experience, it is nothing at all and a wasted effort.
You're talking about companies investing money in players, not a game, that's a huge risk, especially when those players and their ways can be a detriment to your service.
This is why games like Darkfall suffer, titles like Rust and dayz become undesirable etc.. It's probably why SOE was trying to market H1Z1 to SWG fans, they're communal players and can make such a game work. Yet SWG fans know exactly what such a game may turn into hence the reaction from them.
As long as there's a risk of players being the major turnoff to the greater community, devs will cater to players with content (ala EQ, WOW, etc). The ways in which players can ruin such an experience are controlled, by taking away such freedoms.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I know you use the term innovation, but it really isn't the correct term to describe art. Innovation is more aptly applied to the technology behind MMOs.
I would describe MMOs as lacking creative game mechanics and worlds over the last decade. Visually they have been getting better and better, but it just seems that there been little progress in creating a unique world with interesting interactions.
Some MMOs have been very innovative over the last decade. I would say that only high-budget fantasy MMORPGs have been lacking serious innovation.
For example, a sci-fi MMORPG called Face of Mankind was a very innovative game in 2004-2007. The game was designed, so that players could play as police officers, prison guards, military personnel, special agents, politicians, corporate businessmen, mercenaries, criminals, drug manufacturers, prison inmates, and human rights activists. The game was based purely on player-to-player and faction-to-faction interactions. It didn't have any computer-controlled creatures originally, except for aliens, which were extremely rare.
If you chose to play as a police officer for the Law Enforcement Department, you would start the game as a Rank 1 patrolman. You could further your career in the Law Enforcement Department by becoming promoted to a Rank 2 constable and then to Rank 3 Inspector by participating in missions which were set up by Rank 4 detectives or Rank 5 superintendents. After that you could possibly become a detective and then a superintendent yourself if you had achieved enough merit in the Law Enforcement Department. A few people, who were really dedicated to the "police work" and who had connections inside all Global Dominion factions and within the government, became Rank 6 Commandants and Rank 7 Commissioners.There was also an internal affairs division within the L.E.D. which investigated police officers themselves.
Police missions usually involved patrolling the streets on Earth, scanning citizens for drugs and firearms, stunning and arresting people who violated the laws, pursuing wanted criminals, sending people to a prison planet, and guarding the prison facilities. Mission objectives were all predesigned by developers of the game and missions were set up by players who selected mission objectives, time limit, planet and area.
If some faction became very ambitious and began to oppose the Global Dominion, the government would impose martial law. In that case Law Enforcement Department would be ordered to leave the area or planet and another Global Dominion faction called Freedom Defense Corps would arrive to deal with the situation. The Freedom Defense Corps was the army faction and daily gameplay for that faction involved super strict discipline and a lot of military drills like in the real army.The game even had missions for prisoners like "Walk around the prison yard", "Do jumping exercises", "Crush mineral ore in refinery", "Pick the Soap". Unlike all other missions, these were assigned automatically by the game and not created by other players.
* more info, screenshots and videos here
People who talk about the hearts in GW2 as if those are the only form of event only show how ignorant they are or how they haven't actually played the game.
Either way I will call you John Snow because you know nothing...
GW2 dynamic events are far from perfect but it definitely created a different sense of action and urgency in content delivery. Normal quest systems you get the quest when you feel like it and then you complete it at your leisure. But in GW2 when you first started a new zone you never quite knew what was going to happen where. You couldn't wait to stop the Centaur invasion because if you waited the town would be taken over and you'd be reclaiming the village instead of defending it.
The heart quests are not the only type of open world content GW2 has and in fact as you level theres less and less heart quests and more dynamic/random events.
Ridiculous to compare technological industry to game industry. 90% of innovation in technology you use in your home is just a leftover of medical and military technology, where innovation is a necessity. It is not like a bunch of scientists spend years in laboratories to make your pc run new mmo, computer entertainment corporations salvage from others.
There is no army or medical aplication for mmo games so I wouldn't count on anyone wasting years of their life on research... What a dumb comparision, seriously. Like PCs were invented for entertainment....
Innovation is made to help survive our species, it just so happens, that same technology can be used for entertainment. Don't except people to put the same effort into making computer games.