Originally posted by DMKano Absolutely not. The problem is many are focusing on a handful of AAA studios as bwing an example of "all game developers on earth". Creativity is alive and kicking - you just need to look for it outside of 5 big name companies.
That's the issue though. The only MMOs that get any funding at all, or any experienced devs to make them, are all the same.
So the choice is, a polished MMO that's WoW reskinned for the 20th time.
Or an underfunded indie MMO with 3 developers that barely functions.
In the past, small studios could get fairly good funding for their MMOs without having to release WoW clones. Now they can't. Because investors are idiots.
I'm going to cite Betteridge's Law of Headlines on this thread: any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered with "no".
Asking whether developers are "loosing" (as in, unleashing) their creativity is kind of the opposite of asking whether they are "losing" their creativity, which is probably what the original poster meant. But if you really did mean the former, then congratulations, you managed to get a bunch of replies to the opposite of what you meant.
Sure, there are some really unimaginative games now. But it has been that way for more than 30 years. There are also a lot of games that do innovative things. What sometimes happens is that particular players are looking for particular innovations, and then when a game offers some other innovations instead, they see that it's not the particular creative things they wanted and denounce the game for a lack of creativity.
Originally posted by ryvendark Are movies tv or books any different? When I read a fantasy novel I can see all the same formulas being used.
I have to agree here. Movies are becoming so bad that they are making remakes of remakes!
Game Developers, though... I have to give them their due. They creatively find new ways (some more than others) to do the same things over and over again
I have to disagree. There are plenty of good movies out there. Your statement does not apply to all movies.
Good movies just for 2014 ....
- Cap American 2 ... even a sequel can do something new
- Galaxy of the Guardian
- even the Godzilla movie (a remake of a long series) is pretty good.
- Chef
.. and there are plenty more. Now i am just goes by the ratings ..but if you want to use personal tastes ... then i like all of these and more. If you don't like any of them, well, that only shows that "bad" is subjective.
Good and bad are subjective but innovation seems to have more to do with what you've seen in the past than what they actually did in their game/movie etc.
Even most of the examples here of games that innovated seem to follow that rule. Game makers 14 years ago innovated by taking what muds had and made them into visual games....so the graphics is what was innovative about them ? If you played muds were the first mmos more of the same, just with pictures now ?
We ask for innovation but apparently we don't really know what it is and are not sure we've found it when we're looking right at it.So rather than let it define what we're missing, people should probably focus more on what they actually want. Not just some fancy word they can't explain to anyone.
I bet the op got so awesome ideas for new MMO, everything will be great but just nobody want to give him credits, poor him.
To quote EC "Ideas are cheap and everyone got many, they are meaningless. The one of the best game off all times is about hydraulic on drugs, other about blue Hedgehog with sneakers, running really, really fast"
So to answer question - no, they are not. They make amazing games, they try to reach the broad audience and mostly give the best of them to see it. They spend YEARS in making thems, and milions of $. They are creative, they do stuff.
If you spend your 60-100 milion dolars on a project that MIGHT work, then you see how it is
They using formulas that has been in the genre. That is true but i dont think they become less creative. Just that players are more accustomed to old formulas.
On this forums i see everywhere grumpy guys that just spams "back in the days" all day long while cursing on ANY new MMO. There is EQ 2 for istance still up and runing, and even EQ if i recall correctly. But they want new thing i think, just when it is not the "old and good" they quit.
If you look you find creativity. Class trees and flexibility of classes - Rift. Good action based combat - Tera, GW2, Neverwinter. Awesome pvp IN SPAAAAACE - Eve online. Good and awesome crafting - FF XIV.
I think people just overreact on everything nearly, which is base on any net forum.
For istance - look on The Secret World. Nearly everything here is innovative and creative. Combat, skill wheel, deck building, atmosphere, PvE, story. There is that. But we only hear - game is awesome, but combat is boring/tab target/bad animated. If that was the case the people will play Tera, which gets everything bad except the combat mechanics and slut armors. And peps love slut armors.
It will be nice if people precise WHAT kind of creativity they want. Saying just "I demand to amaze me! I'm Bored!" is saying a lot about the people who say this but nothing more. And the op seems like that kind of person.
It's not just which ideas you have. It's also which ideas you can implement and make work properly. An idea that you've seen implemented in some other game is an idea that you know can be implemented and you have some idea of advantages and disadvantages from seeing it in action.
"Losing" their creativity? Obviously yes since almost every MMORPG is identical to WoW in more than 5-10 ways. Quest hubs, same types of "kill x number of monsters" quests, instance matching, list goes on and on. I honestly wish more games had class versatility or the ability to change classes on a single character. If every game had that, I'd actually stick with them longer than a week.
Comments
That's the issue though. The only MMOs that get any funding at all, or any experienced devs to make them, are all the same.
So the choice is, a polished MMO that's WoW reskinned for the 20th time.
Or an underfunded indie MMO with 3 developers that barely functions.
In the past, small studios could get fairly good funding for their MMOs without having to release WoW clones. Now they can't. Because investors are idiots.
I'm going to cite Betteridge's Law of Headlines on this thread: any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered with "no".
Asking whether developers are "loosing" (as in, unleashing) their creativity is kind of the opposite of asking whether they are "losing" their creativity, which is probably what the original poster meant. But if you really did mean the former, then congratulations, you managed to get a bunch of replies to the opposite of what you meant.
Sure, there are some really unimaginative games now. But it has been that way for more than 30 years. There are also a lot of games that do innovative things. What sometimes happens is that particular players are looking for particular innovations, and then when a game offers some other innovations instead, they see that it's not the particular creative things they wanted and denounce the game for a lack of creativity.
Good and bad are subjective but innovation seems to have more to do with what you've seen in the past than what they actually did in their game/movie etc.
Even most of the examples here of games that innovated seem to follow that rule. Game makers 14 years ago innovated by taking what muds had and made them into visual games....so the graphics is what was innovative about them ? If you played muds were the first mmos more of the same, just with pictures now ?
We ask for innovation but apparently we don't really know what it is and are not sure we've found it when we're looking right at it.So rather than let it define what we're missing, people should probably focus more on what they actually want. Not just some fancy word they can't explain to anyone.
I bet the op got so awesome ideas for new MMO, everything will be great but just nobody want to give him credits, poor him.
To quote EC "Ideas are cheap and everyone got many, they are meaningless. The one of the best game off all times is about hydraulic on drugs, other about blue Hedgehog with sneakers, running really, really fast"
So to answer question - no, they are not. They make amazing games, they try to reach the broad audience and mostly give the best of them to see it. They spend YEARS in making thems, and milions of $. They are creative, they do stuff.
If you spend your 60-100 milion dolars on a project that MIGHT work, then you see how it is
They using formulas that has been in the genre. That is true but i dont think they become less creative. Just that players are more accustomed to old formulas.
On this forums i see everywhere grumpy guys that just spams "back in the days" all day long while cursing on ANY new MMO. There is EQ 2 for istance still up and runing, and even EQ if i recall correctly. But they want new thing i think, just when it is not the "old and good" they quit.
If you look you find creativity. Class trees and flexibility of classes - Rift. Good action based combat - Tera, GW2, Neverwinter. Awesome pvp IN SPAAAAACE - Eve online. Good and awesome crafting - FF XIV.
I think people just overreact on everything nearly, which is base on any net forum.
For istance - look on The Secret World. Nearly everything here is innovative and creative. Combat, skill wheel, deck building, atmosphere, PvE, story. There is that. But we only hear - game is awesome, but combat is boring/tab target/bad animated. If that was the case the people will play Tera, which gets everything bad except the combat mechanics and slut armors. And peps love slut armors.
It will be nice if people precise WHAT kind of creativity they want. Saying just "I demand to amaze me! I'm Bored!" is saying a lot about the people who say this but nothing more. And the op seems like that kind of person.