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western mmos fail rate
dwarflordking
Member Posts: 265
people have always talked crap about korean mmos or eastern mmos.. yet they all seem to survive just fine even in the states.
and with latest innovations like blade and soul and t.e.r.a i might even say they could dominate. yet people seem to talk to much crap, plus they have games of every genre.. even kart rider
but if u look at the western market.. there arent that many, they fail more then they succeed with an exception of the big ones... and not many seem to even come out.
so dont act like western games are so much more innovative and better. if it is, its not by much. and with how quick the koreans are.. they might win, propbably overall they already are winning.
p.s. probably because the eastern mmo chicks are way hotter
Comments
80%
EDIT: Blade and Soul has been around for a year, they plan to have it in closed beta testing by Q4 2009.
And you should also check out Mabinogi: Heroes, very similar to Blade and Soul, however I'm more excited for that one.
EDIT 2: The only reason Western MMO's seem more successful here, is because they spend a LOT of cash on marketing, here and abroad. And I definitely agree with you 100% about Korean/Foreign MMO's taking over, I really don't think companies here are going to be able to compete, I mean take a look at what they are making over there, and what we're making here.
We have: Earthrise, Star Trek, TOR, Champs, Fallen Earth, etc.
They have: Mabinogi: Heroes, Blade and Soul, Metalblack, Tera.
Based on graphical, and combat properties of the stated games, I'd have to say that with their licensing of the Unreal Engine 3, they really surpass everything I've seen out of here, (except AoC, but that failed by not having DX10).
Gameplay, well that will be determined later.
I think the biggest problem with the reputation of korean mmorpg's is simply that a lot of people are unaware of the existance of high quality korean mmorpg's.
The vast majority of korean mmorpg's avaible here are all first and 2nd generation korean mmorpg's. they are all either old and outdated or were developed with a small budget.
I'm convinced that the reputation of Asian MMORPG's would increase significantly if games such as Aion, Blade & Soul and Tera Onlinee would be released here in the west. It's old and low budget games that companies like Acclaim and Aeria gamers are publishing that ruin the reputation of these games.
what i really like about the koreans, is that they are pushing for real-time combat, and alot of their games have already demonstrated this and it looks frakin awesome.
I can't stand stats type battle system, and seems western market future mmos, is pretty much stale. even the new starwars mmo is the same crappy battle system.
Or maybe it's just MMO's in general copying the same old designs and mechanics and not doing anything new?
I feel like I'm buying a new baseball glove over and over, only with different stitch patterns and accents.
WTB SOMETHING NEW AND DIFFERENT. If I wanted to play something that looks and feels like WoW, I'd play WoW, not the stupid copy cat some schmoes with no original ideas decided they might be able to get rich on.
I have always been a fan of Asian MMOs. I love the Art, Music and Battle Systems that there games have. I find western mmos to be dull looking, slow and boring. From the looks of the games comming from Asia like Blade & Soul, Terra and Continent Of The Ninth they dont really look like grind games and I agree with the above poster that they are really raising the bar when it comes to combat. Also there graphics engines are looking truly stunning for MMO games.
To me East and West style MMOs are two completeley different styles. Eastern styles are more for grinding pvp and loot. Western styles are more for immersion, social, roleplayer aspects... Or so they used to be. They seem to have take the route of, "lets just do what the whiners say so we can make our money" route. That leaves you with games like Age of Conan and Warhammer with barely any content and the worst crafting ever.
I am hoping soon enough there will be a developer that will break the mold and realize sweet loot and soloing to the max level isn't the answer.
I better stop ranting before I write a 400 page novel here.
I have no problem with Asian games as long as they are subscription based p2P games. I think F2P item mall games are crap, either American or Asian.
+1
Cash-shop grinders will suck your soul, leaving only a burnt-out husk, regardless of the country of origin.
funny u said social, when every western game caters to solo players, and everyone plays solo.
when koreans actually coordinate attacks in giant groups.... so ur social comparison is way off
I have no problem changing my ideas about korean games, and I would love to discover there are good no-grinding games show here.
And with here I mean europe. And with europe I mean withouth these fucking crappy ip-bans.
I have to agree, and I'm looking forward to trying some of these newer games as I "almost" liked the Korean games I played before. Just a few changes and I'm sure I would enjoy them.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Korean MMO will never win over Western MMO. To understand why you have to know how they develop MMO in Korea. The Korea MMO market (the China market is currently operate the same however, there are some changes in the China market lately) works very different from the Western MMO market.
In the Western MMO market, each game is oftenly consider a major investment. People usually consider more carefully when they pick up a new game and usually stick with their choices for a while after the purchase. The main reason for this is the business model for most big title in the Western MMO market. You have to pay the box price (usually $50) and then pay montly subscription fee afterward (usually $15).
In Korea MMO market, they operate on a totally different mode except NCSoft. NCSoft is currently operate more like their counter part in the western world. They do not develop any faster than the western developers. They have about the same development cycle time if not slower. They currently have 3 released MMORPG developed in house (Korean NCSoft). That's Lineage, Lineage II and AION which has just been released in Korea. Do not confuse games have been developed by NCSoft and games developed by studio that has been bought by NCSoft over the years.
The rest of Korea is 180 degree different. They operate on what was called "instant noodle" or in a more familiar term "fast food" mode. Korean players do not buy MMORPG games. They do not pay for box price and most games use microtransaction business models. They download and play and then download and play kinda like a rotation. Whenever a new game out, they download it, play it, then move on to the next game. The idea of the market is to push out as many MMO as they can as fast as they can, try to get players to play with new games then move on instead of trying to hold long term customers hence the lack of contents you usually see on these Korean MMOs. They will never be able to create MMOs with the depth of say LOTR Online or WoW. This even apply to NCSoft as well. Just do a quick comparison on the amount of contents of Lineage II when it was released with say LOTR Online when it was released and you can see the different (don't even try to compare with WoW).
Let's not confuse between graphic technology - special effect flare with true quality games. The Korean are very good at this, most games they develop usually have huge graphical special effect plare to max out the pulling they want but that's just a hollow shell over an almost zip to nothing contents behind it.
Biggest contra point for me are the anime graphics
I enjoyed playing Perfect world so to me it was a good asian mmo. I dont care too much for item malls and and usually avoid games that have them.and unf many Asain MMO's have them. This may turn a few ppl away.
Played : WOW, LOTRO, COH/COV, EQ2, SWG, and WAR.
Playing EVE Online and AOC.
Wtg for SW:TOR and WOD
It's amazing how much people just assume and then convince themselves they know what they are talking about. The "fast food" restaurant is only describing a part of the market. Games such as Lineage 1, Lineage 2, Ragnarok Online and Maple Story still have tons and tons of players in korea. In fact, Lineage 1 and Lineage 2 still both have nearly 1 million subscribers. There are lots of companies that aren't just pushing out stuff whenever they can.
Saying they will "never" be able to create mmo's with the depth of LOTRO and WoW Is downright ignorant. VERY ignorant. First of all how does a game like Lotro have "Depth"? Because it drowns you in "Go kill XX" quests or "Go find XX" quests? Lineage 2 had a very complicated Castle siege system in place and PVP clan politics was the heart of the game. There is nothing like that in Lotro. Saying Lotro had more content at launch is VERY debetable. While it had more "Go kill XX quests" or "Go talk to XX" quests, Lineage 2 had a much larger world at release than Lotro had. In fact, Aden completely dwarfs middle earth in size.
I'd love to hear your reasoning for "They will never be able to create MMO's with the depth of Lotro and WoW" the fact you used these games as example of mmo depth already gives it away you really don't know a lot about this genre.
yah.. nobody wants the same "crappy" battle system that 11 million WoW players enjoy.... I personally like RPGs. I agree that there is room for other types of MMO combat, but it's a bit far fetched to imply that everyone hates RPG style combat.
-----Zero Punctuation Eve Online Review-----
Played: UO,DAOC,EQ,AC,AC2,Lineage 2, FFXI,AOC,WoW.
Playing: Age of Conan.
Because thats the only game most of them have played. They played Lineage 2, possibly a few free to play games and then consider themselves experts on korean game culture and game design.
It's amazing how much people just assume and then convince themselves they know what they are talking about. The "fast food" restaurant is only describing a part of the market. Games such as Lineage 1, Lineage 2, Ragnarok Online and Maple Story still have tons and tons of players in korea. In fact, Lineage 1 and Lineage 2 still both have nearly 1 million subscribers. There are lots of companies that aren't just pushing out stuff whenever they can.
Saying they will "never" be able to create mmo's with the depth of LOTRO and WoW Is downright ignorant. VERY ignorant. First of all how does a game like Lotro have "Depth"? Because it drowns you in "Go kill XX" quests or "Go find XX" quests? Lineage 2 had a very complicated Castle siege system in place and PVP clan politics was the heart of the game. There is nothing like that in Lotro. Saying Lotro had more content at launch is VERY debetable. While it had more "Go kill XX quests" or "Go talk to XX" quests, Lineage 2 had a much larger world at release than Lotro had. In fact, Aden completely dwarfs middle earth in size.
I'd love to hear your reasoning for "They will never be able to create MMO's with the depth of Lotro and WoW" the fact you used these games as example of mmo depth already gives it away you really don't know a lot about this genre.
Now now, you just did the same mistake you thought I did. You just assume that I don't know what I am talking about based on what you thought you know. When I said they operate on "fast food" mode, I have the statistic numbers to back that up. I can't give those number to you because they cost money. Of course, you can obtain those numbers too from many Korean companies dedicated to do research and sell information. One of them with fairly reasonable price is gametrics.com. Go, spend money and see for your self. Ragnarok Online and Maple Story do not have tons and tons players anymore. Lineage and LIneage II both from NCSoft and like I said in my post above, they are exception because NCSoft is operating very similar to western developers.
If you look at the top 50 most played MMO in Korea over a long period of time (you can buy this kind of information by the way) you can see (with the exception of Lineage, Lineage 2 and WoW Korea) new MMOs comming in fast and furious push old MMO down very quickly. You wouldnt believe how fast they can make MMO - from scratch. Well, not from scratch, they have kind of a production chain much like the automotive production chain to make MMO.
Come back to the "depth" of an MMO. The Lineage II castle siege system is not "complicated". As a matter of fact, at launch (especially Korean launch) the siege system was rather very simple. If you want to know what "depth" I talked about, try to login say LOTR Online when there are no other people but you, run around, visit city, village and then do the same with Lineage II (I would like to say Lineage II C1 but the only place you can find that is a private server) or any Korean other MMO and see what's the different. I spent time playing Korean MMOs more than enough to put out my opinion.
It's amazing how much people just assume and then convince themselves they know what they are talking about. The "fast food" restaurant is only describing a part of the market. Games such as Lineage 1, Lineage 2, Ragnarok Online and Maple Story still have tons and tons of players in korea. In fact, Lineage 1 and Lineage 2 still both have nearly 1 million subscribers. There are lots of companies that aren't just pushing out stuff whenever they can.
Saying they will "never" be able to create mmo's with the depth of LOTRO and WoW Is downright ignorant. VERY ignorant. First of all how does a game like Lotro have "Depth"? Because it drowns you in "Go kill XX" quests or "Go find XX" quests? Lineage 2 had a very complicated Castle siege system in place and PVP clan politics was the heart of the game. There is nothing like that in Lotro. Saying Lotro had more content at launch is VERY debetable. While it had more "Go kill XX quests" or "Go talk to XX" quests, Lineage 2 had a much larger world at release than Lotro had. In fact, Aden completely dwarfs middle earth in size.
I'd love to hear your reasoning for "They will never be able to create MMO's with the depth of Lotro and WoW" the fact you used these games as example of mmo depth already gives it away you really don't know a lot about this genre.
Now now, you just did the same mistake you thought I did. You just assume that I don't know what I am talking about based on what you thought you know. When I said they operate on "fast food" mode, I have the statistic numbers to back that up. I can't give those number to you because they cost money. Of course, you can obtain those numbers too from many Korean companies dedicated to do research and sell information. One of them with fairly reasonable price is gametrics.com. Go, spend money and see for your self. Ragnarok Online and Maple Story do not have tons and tons players anymore. Lineage and LIneage II both from NCSoft and like I said in my post above, they are exception because NCSoft is operating very similar to western developers.
If you look at the top 50 most played MMO in Korea over a long period of time (you can buy this kind of information by the way) you can see (with the exception of Lineage, Lineage 2 and WoW Korea) new MMOs comming in fast and furious push old MMO down very quickly. You wouldnt believe how fast they can make MMO - from scratch. Well, not from scratch, they have kind of a production chain much like the automotive production chain to make MMO.
Come back to the "depth" of an MMO. The Lineage II castle siege system is not "complicated". As a matter of fact, at launch (especially Korean launch) the siege system was rather very simple. If you want to know what "depth" I talked about, try to login say LOTR Online when there are no other people but you, run around, visit city, village and then do the same with Lineage II (I would like to say Lineage II C1 but the only place you can find that is a private server) or any Korean other MMO and see what's the different. I spent time playing Korean MMOs more than enough to put out my opinion.
Oh yeah? Well I'll have you know that my hidden numbers, which I paid for ofcourse and thus can't show you, completely disprove your numbers and it's obvious that my source is far more reliabe than your source and.....wait, hold on, whats that noise? I hear something...Oh wait, thats my Bullshit detector that went off when it detected your post.
Ragnarok Online and Maple Story are still widely popular mmorpg's in South Korea, just like Lineage and Lineage 2. There are lots of korean companies putting a lot of time and effort in their games. Is there a group that is constantly looking for the next big thing? Ofcourse there, this is a huge group. But this is no different from the west. Aside from World of Warcraft, all old mmorpg's have small subscribtion numbers. Everquest, Asherons Call, DAOC, Ultima Online, they all have small subscribtion numbers, Meanwhile new mmorpg's such as Age of Conan and Warhammer Online made it to some of the best selling games of this year, and Lotro is also very successful. It really isn't that different in west.
I'm not sure what you're getting at when you talk about "depth". Try to login online in Lotro when there are no other people but you? Well you see, the fact that Lotro is, you know, an MMOPRG, there usually are other people around. There is nothing special about the towns, it the standard mmorpg fare of NPC's giving out quests, skill trainers and shops. When you say "the siege system is not complicated" you're really missing the point.
In game like Lotro and WoW, the way a player experiences the game is very controlled and directed by the game. The game tells the player what to do, it's very clear what you should be doing and when to do it. The game makes it very obvious when you should group up and when you should solo.
Ofcourse there is nothing wrong with that, thats just what set the game apart from a game like Lineage but it also lacks the depth of true social interaction in a virtual world. in a game like Lineage 2, you're not directed by quests. This mean that hunting in spot A is just as profitable as it is in spot B. You can "explore" and "hunt" freely without being being punished for it by not doing quests. This also means that you can group whenever and wherever you like. If you group up in a game such as WoW, you're making it more difficult for yourself as you're now doing content that is designed for solo play with other players,thus slowing down your progress, unless you're playing group specific content such as an instance.
Another example is PVP. Now, World of Warcraft is a faction vs faction pvp where as Lineage 2 is full open PVP. In a game such as WoW, PVP is very controlled. The game decides who your enemy is and encourages or discourages you to attack another player by rewarding you for it, or not rewarding you at all. In a game such as Lineage 2, You kill a player not because the game tells you to, but because of social interaction. There is usuaully a reason why you kill another player...or there is not! it's entirely up to the player.
I'm sure you are aware of the concept of guild drama. You know what happens, guilds get into a clash and bad things happen. Do you know what happens in WoW? A guild will go to the official forums, bitch how much the other guild sucks and put them all on the block list. Do you know what happens in a game like Lineage 2? The guild master will gather the clan together, if possible other clans part of the alliance, and fight the other clan in full pvp warfare. If possible, fight them in castle sieges as well thus taking away part of their control over the world.
Another example, what if you're at a hunting spot and another player is disturbing you? In WoW, there is nothing you can do about it unless that player is of another faction. in Lineage 2, you have the option to attack that player...or not. again, thats up to the player.
It's the depth of social interaction that's only possible in a virtual world thats completely absent in games such as WoW and Lotro. When a person is trying to prove the depth of western mmorpg's, I'd expect them to mention games such as EVE or Ultima Online, but not WoW and Lotro.
Gameloading I have to stand up and applaud you. I have been playing Lineage 2 for almost 4 years now and you completly nailed it on the head when you described the differece between it and western games like Lotro and WoW. I laugh when I hear people talk about PVP in games like WoW compared to PVP in Lineage 2. Now I dont have to woder anymore. Lineage 2 does own!!!!!
It's amazing how much people just assume and then convince themselves they know what they are talking about. The "fast food" restaurant is only describing a part of the market. Games such as Lineage 1, Lineage 2, Ragnarok Online and Maple Story still have tons and tons of players in korea. In fact, Lineage 1 and Lineage 2 still both have nearly 1 million subscribers. There are lots of companies that aren't just pushing out stuff whenever they can.
Saying they will "never" be able to create mmo's with the depth of LOTRO and WoW Is downright ignorant. VERY ignorant. First of all how does a game like Lotro have "Depth"? Because it drowns you in "Go kill XX" quests or "Go find XX" quests? Lineage 2 had a very complicated Castle siege system in place and PVP clan politics was the heart of the game. There is nothing like that in Lotro. Saying Lotro had more content at launch is VERY debetable. While it had more "Go kill XX quests" or "Go talk to XX" quests, Lineage 2 had a much larger world at release than Lotro had. In fact, Aden completely dwarfs middle earth in size.
I'd love to hear your reasoning for "They will never be able to create MMO's with the depth of Lotro and WoW" the fact you used these games as example of mmo depth already gives it away you really don't know a lot about this genre.
Now now, you just did the same mistake you thought I did. You just assume that I don't know what I am talking about based on what you thought you know. When I said they operate on "fast food" mode, I have the statistic numbers to back that up. I can't give those number to you because they cost money. Of course, you can obtain those numbers too from many Korean companies dedicated to do research and sell information. One of them with fairly reasonable price is gametrics.com. Go, spend money and see for your self. Ragnarok Online and Maple Story do not have tons and tons players anymore. Lineage and LIneage II both from NCSoft and like I said in my post above, they are exception because NCSoft is operating very similar to western developers.
If you look at the top 50 most played MMO in Korea over a long period of time (you can buy this kind of information by the way) you can see (with the exception of Lineage, Lineage 2 and WoW Korea) new MMOs comming in fast and furious push old MMO down very quickly. You wouldnt believe how fast they can make MMO - from scratch. Well, not from scratch, they have kind of a production chain much like the automotive production chain to make MMO.
Come back to the "depth" of an MMO. The Lineage II castle siege system is not "complicated". As a matter of fact, at launch (especially Korean launch) the siege system was rather very simple. If you want to know what "depth" I talked about, try to login say LOTR Online when there are no other people but you, run around, visit city, village and then do the same with Lineage II (I would like to say Lineage II C1 but the only place you can find that is a private server) or any Korean other MMO and see what's the different. I spent time playing Korean MMOs more than enough to put out my opinion.
Oh yeah? Well I'll have you know that my hidden numbers, which I paid for ofcourse and thus can't show you, completely disprove your numbers and it's obvious that my source is far more reliabe than your source and.....wait, hold on, whats that noise? I hear something...Oh wait, thats my Bullshit detector that went off when it detected your post.
Ragnarok Online and Maple Story are still widely popular mmorpg's in South Korea, just like Lineage and Lineage 2. There are lots of korean companies putting a lot of time and effort in their games. Is there a group that is constantly looking for the next big thing? Ofcourse there, this is a huge group. But this is no different from the west. Aside from World of Warcraft, all old mmorpg's have small subscribtion numbers. Everquest, Asherons Call, DAOC, Ultima Online, they all have small subscribtion numbers, Meanwhile new mmorpg's such as Age of Conan and Warhammer Online made it to some of the best selling games of this year, and Lotro is also very successful. It really isn't that different in west.
I'm not sure what you're getting at when you talk about "depth". Try to login online in Lotro when there are no other people but you? Well you see, the fact that Lotro is, you know, an MMOPRG, there usually are other people around. There is nothing special about the towns, it the standard mmorpg fare of NPC's giving out quests, skill trainers and shops. When you say "the siege system is not complicated" you're really missing the point.
In game like Lotro and WoW, the way a player experiences the game is very controlled and directed by the game. The game tells the player what to do, it's very clear what you should be doing and when to do it. The game makes it very obvious when you should group up and when you should solo.
Ofcourse there is nothing wrong with that, thats just what set the game apart from a game like Lineage but it also lacks the depth of true social interaction in a virtual world. in a game like Lineage 2, you're not directed by quests. This mean that hunting in spot A is just as profitable as it is in spot B. You can "explore" and "hunt" freely without being being punished for it by not doing quests. This also means that you can group whenever and wherever you like. If you group up in a game such as WoW, you're making it more difficult for yourself as you're now doing content that is designed for solo play with other players,thus slowing down your progress, unless you're playing group specific content such as an instance.
Another example is PVP. Now, World of Warcraft is a faction vs faction pvp where as Lineage 2 is full open PVP. In a game such as WoW, PVP is very controlled. The game decides who your enemy is and encourages or discourages you to attack another player by rewarding you for it, or not rewarding you at all. In a game such as Lineage 2, You kill a player not because the game tells you to, but because of social interaction. There is usuaully a reason why you kill another player...or there is not! it's entirely up to the player.
I'm sure you are aware of the concept of guild drama. You know what happens, guilds get into a clash and bad things happen. Do you know what happens in WoW? A guild will go to the official forums, bitch how much the other guild sucks and put them all on the block list. Do you know what happens in a game like Lineage 2? The guild master will gather the clan together, if possible other clans part of the alliance, and fight the other clan in full pvp warfare. If possible, fight them in castle sieges as well thus taking away part of their control over the world.
Another example, what if you're at a hunting spot and another player is disturbing you? In WoW, there is nothing you can do about it unless that player is of another faction. in Lineage 2, you have the option to attack that player...or not. again, thats up to the player.
It's the depth of social interaction that's only possible in a virtual world thats completely absent in games such as WoW and Lotro. When a person is trying to prove the depth of western mmorpg's, I'd expect them to mention games such as EVE or Ultima Online, but not WoW and Lotro.
I actually pointed you to the site where you can obtain the number, get it or not, it's up to you. If you really want to know the numbers reflect the Korean market, you can get it and see for your self. It is really no use for me to post the number here because you can also question the validity of those numbers just as easily. Like I said, the number are there, available, worth for you to pay the money to obtain them or not, it's up to you.
You said there is no different from the west, you miss the whole point. Of course the order of most played game will be similar. What make the Korean market different is that list change very very quickly. How long do you have you wait for Age of Conan? How long do you have to wait for Dark Fall? New MMOs in Korea come out every month pretty much. So that picture you see, the list you see change monthly. Do you see that happen in the western market? Of course not.
On the "depth" of an MMO, I think you and I talking about 2 different things. Let's bring our point together. What I meant for the "depth" of an MMO in my previous posts, I mainly point out the immersive of the virtual world contents. Western developers tend to pay more attention to make their world lively, more connected and generally give the player the sense of belonging in the world. For example, if you see a house, in an western MMO, you are likely to be able to open door and enter it and see the decoration inside the house and in many cases you can sit in the chair or something similar while in a Korean MMO, these details are usually skipped and deem unnecessary, a house is just like a rock no more. Of course, I am talking in general here. But you probably get the idea.
Now, let's talk about what you consider "depth". You see, my friend, your view of depth does not necessary come from the game contents. It comes from the what usually consider as a player generated type of contents. This type of contents does not attach to any certain game but rather more to the design of the game - more like an archtype. Depends on the type of an MMO, you will see a different in the kind of social interaction. You see, a PvE, more controlled game does not lack of social interaction, far from it. It come in a different form, perhaps you don't see it, but it's there. WoW is a little difficult to see this type of social interaction, let's me give you a different example, Everquest. This is where you can see a shining example of a community pushed together by the hash environment of the game. While people certainly don't like force grouping, unforgiving death penalty; but the truth is, those make people work together, depends on each other and form a wonderful community where people really understand each other, the good side and the bad side. Many many best friends in real life come from this virtual social interaction.
Now, come back to what you have describe as the depth of social interaction in Lineage II. It's not Lineage II the game it self build this type of social interaction. It's the archtype design of the game. Any open PvP game could develop the very same social interaction you described. It's not unique to Lineage II. Like you have mentioned, EVE have this type of social interaction, corporation control and very heavy player generated contents. Ultima Online before Trammel also have this. Shadow Bane has this type of social interaction and it's much more "depth" than Lineage II ever do. Oh, Shadow Bane, while it has so much technical difficulty which ultimately killed the game, has a much superior PvP system and social structure design than Lineage II ever has. The player social interaction and guild politics were incredibly intensed. Just a few example to let you see that the type of social interaction you mentioned was not comming from Lineage II the game or by NCSoft efforts. It is not Lineage II has more depth in the social interaction, it's the open PvP environment of it usually generates that type of social interaction. Also, WoW or LOTRO do not completely lack of social interaction, it just come in a different form and you just chose to not acknowledge it.
I am going out on a limb here, it's a pretty big one, and say maybe the success of Eastern mmo's has a correllation to the fact that the eastern market outnumbers the westerners significantly. Also you don't define what you mean by success or innovation. Personally I prefer western games because:
a) They usually have a different, non-JRPG art style which I prefer.
b) They usually are more action oriented and usually feature a greater degree of realism (no giant swords or huge armor)
c) Western fantasy mmos ofter share a Tolkien, and R.E.Howard (and other western authors) influence which are IP's I enjoy.
Maybe rather than anaylitcally choosing games based on so called 'innovations' or 'success' isn't how everyone does it. Perhaps people choose what they know or what they like.
To Each His Own.
Don't forget about all the damn bots!
I tried Lineage 2 for one day. First I had a heart attack when I saw the prices of things. Then I saw about 50 people totally naked jumping off of a building killing themselves, then repeating. It was obvious they were all scripted. I later learned this was to reduce their level so they could make money faster, another turn off.
Stuff like that is just a big turn off for me.
That's only one game, but it left a really bad impression on me.
Dont know what game you were playing but it was not Lineage 2. Been playing 4 years and never saw anything like that and you cant even die in Lineage 2 from falling or jumping from a high distance. Also if you take off all your Armor you still wont be naked. You will have on a shirt and pants always.