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Why are most MMO's the same ? (WoW is absolutly no exception)
pnK1986
Member Posts: 4
Hi !
So i don't know exactly how or where to begin but i'll try anyway.
Why is almost every MMORPG out there the same ? I played my first MMORPG about umm well 6-7 years ago - Ultima Online. In the past 7 years i played or tried about 20-30 maybe even more MMORPG's. After all these years i find it a bit disappointing, that almost none of these games are really innovative. All of them have the same concept with some minor innovations (like for exampla Dungeons&Dragons Online - thought it was goin to be great, but after a while, it was as dull as all the other games, even if i like the combat system and the dungeons etc). That's because most people play this game wrong but on the other hand it's way to simple. I mean you just have to take Ultima Online for example. You could do so much stuff like go to a tree and use your knife cutting some brushwood then kill a bird, use your knife again, get some raw flesh and feathers, make a campfire, roast the flesh and maybe use the feathers to build some arrows (or a bow whatsoever) from a bit more wood you collect using a axe.
Let alone the City System where players could buy house deeds and build city's etc.
That were just examples but my point is - most of the games today don't offer much freedom or options to allow the player to really individualize themselves.
WoW is the classic example - it has everything that was there before, but nothing groundbreaking new. It is newb friendly, has an appealing look and a big merchandise behind it with the Warcraft Series.
Yet, it is not the most in depth game or has anything special to offer - that's fact even if 100.000.000 WoW Fans will flame me to death.
But it's not only WoW, i find most games like Lineage 2 - especially games from Asia are almost the same. All they have are new cities, new weapons, new names for 'credits' whatsoever. But what goals do you have ? Level your Character up and gather Items ?
Like Richard Garriot, creator of Ultima Online, said - he is suprised how less innovative all the current MMO's out there at the moment are.
I mean really - think about it, if YOU could make an MMO, would you really make it all like i.e. WoW but just with a SciFi Setting or whatsoever ?
Let's pretend you have a big company and no money problems and you could try whatever you want. In my eyes the evolution of MMO's is standing still or even moved backwards a bit. That's because, like i said, one of the first, if not the first real MMORPG - Ultima Online - offers so much but over time the other MMORPG's offered less and less.
Well yeah, IF i was in the position to design a game and IF i had the options to do so with no restrictions i would definitly try to cover all cool ideas from one of my fav game Ultima Online BUT try to bring a real lot damn sh#tload of new ideas into the game also.
All that companies like Blizzard have done is taking what was there, give it an appealing look and earning a lot of cash for it.
I really don't like that concept and i wish, that someday a truly innovative game which really grants the player freedom will be released.
I like the concept of leveling your character etc but that shouldn't be almost all a game has to offer (no - i don't count raids either to everything that a game can be about).
Maybe that's just my point of view, but i get bored really fast if i play a new game and all it is about is leveling, gathering, pvp'ing. I want choices.
Comments
because the people with creative ideas are few.
And most companies just want fast money. So copy copy copy, clone clone clone. Nothing really new.
And they will continue to do this until they find themselves can no longer making money.
What jazia said.
so long as people continue to subscribe to games that come in under par at best its going to keep on happening its either going to take one or two actually innovative companies breaking new ground in MMOs or the entire gaming community rallying together saying im just not going to deal with this garbage til its done right. either way its going to be quite some time before either happens. Its sad but its true. They do it because they can get away with it, and they can get away with it because people still continue to send them 15 USD a month or so for games that dont really "earn" it.
They do earn a lot of cash. Ask yourself why that is. It's because remaking EQ or UO or Meridian 59 or classic MUDs or PNP or whatever ultimate grand daddy source of the genre you care to point out still sells. You yourself contribute strongly to this cycle by buying 20-30 remakes of UO/EQ/Whatever.
Also I'd point my accusing finger squarely at this idea that innovation would be popular. I doubt it would. You can just look at the dissent that clusters around most any design concept on forums like these.
If I could design a game? I'd probably make it a lot shorter than most MMO fans like and removing a lot of the time investment (personally as soon as I realize I need to put in exponentially more time for logarithmically increasing rewards I reject the algorithm and play first person shooters). I like dynamic content, so if possible more dynamic stuff. Randomly generated dungeons and as much as possible plot elements. Emphasis on co-op probably, most of all in resource gathering. Where MMO devs get the idea that two people working together in a mine is as efficient as two people working separately I have no idea. But it ought to go. Two people working on a large enough job ought to be significantly more than two times as productive as a person working alone.
One idea I thought might be interesting would be to somehow incoperate player's backstories into existing story lines. Some kind of interface that lets you define an element of your fictious past in terms the game can understand and convert into its existing quest-plot scripts. Of course, the philistines among would hopelessly abuse such a system. Ah well. I'd try it anyway.
You'd also get some kind of flight ability relatively early on. Flying is awesome.
It's not that developers dont want to do huge, crazy things with their games; it's that they dont have the freedom to do so.
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WoW (61 Orc Hunter - Blackwing Lair)
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