What do you think is the Best MMO Innovation of the last Few Years?

Dahkoht

My favorite result of the past few years is a crash in the horrific , late WoW copy cats. (launch Vanilla WoW was still fun to me , not EQ launch fun , but still fun  ).

The best innovation of the past couple years is the realization of some like Jacobs that's there's an audience starving out there for decisions that matter , no cash shop F2P crap , and gasp , server communities.

hercules

i see a lot of mention of ingame voice acting.but this is older then wow since EQ2 (it never gets any credit) had full ingame voice acting including the late  christopher lee in it.some of it very long dialogues
if you wish to go back a bit then AC2 had some but to a much lower degree and was mostly  the mobs talking (don't remember all but there was one that said '"meet your ancestors now"")

Braindome

Tortage from Age of Conan

Wizardry

Oh i am well aware of EQ2 played for MANY hours,days,weeks ,years.Wow/Blizzard gets all the credit for SOE's design,even though most should realize the Wow team played EQ and designed their game entirely around the EQ template.
Like i said,i doubt there has been any innovation over the last several years,last game i saw to innovate anything was Vanguard,where trees actually fell over and had that political minigame.Vanguard also had ship building,i don't remember any other mmorpg doing that prior.
Runes of Magic is not new but it had a few unique ideas like actual Guild halls/Guild Wars...take note Arena net.

Thebeasttt

Pretty sad how hard I'm struggling to think of any notable innovation in the past decade......lol. I guess Tera incorporating street fighter'esque active combat was innovative with regards to MMORPG's. I hate that style of combat but it's been emulated quite a bit since.

To this day no one has smooth, lag free gameplay down like WoW and it's really the only reason they aren't forced into F2P yet. ArcheAge labor system was innovative in a bad way, does that count? LOTRO was the first AAA mmo to try and carbon copy another mmo(poorly i might add).

nariusseldon

Astropuyo said:

We never wanted S-rpg in our MMORPG. They just assumed we did.

wow wow wow .. who are "we"?

I do want s-rpg in my MMORPGs. In fact, if not for more s-rpg elements, i won't even be playing MMORPGs today. 

Kyleran

nariusseldon said:

Astropuyo said:

We never wanted S-rpg in our MMORPG. They just assumed we did.

wow wow wow .. who are "we"?

I do want s-rpg in my MMORPGs. In fact, if not for more s-rpg elements, i won't even be playing MMORPGs today. 

He was referring to people who paid money for their MMORPGS.

nariusseldon

Kyleran said:

nariusseldon said:

Astropuyo said:

We never wanted S-rpg in our MMORPG. They just assumed we did.

wow wow wow .. who are "we"?

I do want s-rpg in my MMORPGs. In fact, if not for more s-rpg elements, i won't even be playing MMORPGs today. 

He was referring to people who paid money for their MMORPGS.

You mean the whales? If so, he should have stated that clearly .. and not used the ambiguous "we".

Heronn

Astropuyo said:

I think the genre isn't so much dying as...it's boring.
MMO's used to be played because it's what we had. Now we have so many choices for Multiplayer games from Survival to Voxel building.

The only thing a mmo can do over the current mp games is host more gold farmers.

The genre simply hasn't had the innovations, the graphics upgrades, the aestics to stick a player for a long time let alone over 90 or so hours a single rpg can provide.

While I think this is very difficult to refute,  you have to remember what a role playing game meant in the first place. To those who read novels based on role play, they had a very different idea and a more indepth appreciation for MMORPGs then what  a casual gamer might of had.

I really doubt a survival game becoming as complex as they are will have any kind of persistence some time soon. The issue is what we have now.. do we try to influence this legacy or that. That is something the online community has the power to control.

All of these games are complex, a survival game just because you have more variables under your control does not translate to the fact that others can also see them. Its just  raw cpu power.

Kyleran

nariusseldon said:

Kyleran said:

nariusseldon said:

Astropuyo said:

We never wanted S-rpg in our MMORPG. They just assumed we did.

wow wow wow .. who are "we"?

I do want s-rpg in my MMORPGs. In fact, if not for more s-rpg elements, i won't even be playing MMORPGs today. 

He was referring to people who paid money for their MMORPGS.

You mean the whales? If so, he should have stated that clearly .. and not used the ambiguous "we".

No, the people who pull their own weight by paying for products they perceive to provide good value, you know..."customers." 

whisperwynd

nariusseldon said:

Kyleran said:

nariusseldon said:

Astropuyo said:

We never wanted S-rpg in our MMORPG. They just assumed we did.

wow wow wow .. who are "we"?

I do want s-rpg in my MMORPGs. In fact, if not for more s-rpg elements, i won't even be playing MMORPGs today. 

He was referring to people who paid money for their MMORPGS.

You mean the whales? If so, he should have stated that clearly .. and not used the ambiguous "we".

 If he was/is a whale, he doesn't need to make that distinction. He isn't obliged to, just like you aren't entitled to know. :pleased: 

Daderick

Man I have to say Star Citizen is shaping up to be everything I want in a MMO and I don't usually like sci-fi games or space sims! The next time there's a fly free week you guys should check it out. If they can even deliver on half of what they promise then it'll be amazing.