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Our Tastes Change With the Season: Why Future MMORPG Worlds Must Evolve
declaredemer
Member Posts: 2,698
If you look at WoW competitors, they might be superior in PvP. They might even have better Questing. They might even have more "gore."
But what do WoW competitors lack?
It is not sameness. People do not want sameness.
Instead, people want something different. Something even a bit unique. Something innovative. Something that woos and shocks and awes and impresses. It is not going to be easy to do, but this is what is required to be a WoW-competitor.
To compete with the giant, you must
- combat STR with SPEED;
- Simplicity with sophistication;
- Ease with complexity;
- Linear gameplay with options;
- Shallowness with depth;
- Static worlds with dynamic ones.
Comments
This it completely true. For a while there, game companies were trying really hard to imitate WoW due to its huge success. Now it seems like many companies are finally realizing that there are a lot of people people still waiting for something different. I'm just hoping that one of them ends up being relatively successful.
Currently on a quest to try every free-to-play MMORPG. Okay, maybe not every single one, but most of them.
The thing I hate the most about WoW is 500k subscribers is no longer consider a success.
I wish people would be more accepting of lower subscription numbers.
I would love to see 20 great MMOs with 500k subs each, rather than 2 big ones with 10mill each.
Aye I agree with the 20 great games carrying 500k subs each.
Well provided the 500k are North American game subs(and Europe).
Asian grind fest games do very well in their markets, but arent my idea of MMO play.
IMO a game should be just a notch lower in difficulty than EQ at launch thru say the Luclin era.
As an example....Instead of the insta-travel that came with PoP, reduce timer count on spires/boats/etc to between 3 and 5 minutes vs the 10 plus folks used to have to wait. You dont wanna bore folks to death, but then again you dont want to hand them everything on a platter.
Or you could go the route of making folks visit a place on foot the first time before allowing insta-travel.
Lets not forget a severe enough death penalty to make folks think twice.
Again as an example...in EQ's early years you could spend hrs trying to get a corpse back. If you didnt, you ended up losing all your gear when the body rotted. Not to mention that losing entire levels was possible.
That is a tad extreme...but it gave suspense to fighting in tough areas. Nowadays you just summon bod, and get a 96% rez. Getting stuff back is good...but the exp cost is low IMO. Bump it up to 7% or so with no Rez refund. Dont allow losing levels though...use the debt system for when they get down to 0% of lvl.
Anyways I think you get the idea of what I am refering to. Games that provide challenges, yet dont give ya RL sim play. There is already WoW, and its clones. I would hate to think of 20 more games that are not only exact copies, but they all dominate the market collectively as well.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
I totally agree. I hate how all newer MMORPGs have no death penalty at all. Sure it sucks when you happen to die a lot, but it really does add that suspense to higher areas. I remember my friend and I would go exploring in Everquest 2 and if we weren't able to avoid the monsters well enough, we'd die. Sometimes we'd end up having like 5 or 6 spirit shards in a zone because of that, but it was still fun going to get them back.
Nowadays people can go anywhere and die as much as they want with no penalty. In my opinion that seems to take away from the immersion and fulfillment of going to a new, higher level area. I'm not saying that you should lose everything when you die, games should just have some sort of penalty. The debt system in EQ2 seemed to work pretty well.
Currently on a quest to try every free-to-play MMORPG. Okay, maybe not every single one, but most of them.
I totally agree. I hate how all newer MMORPGs have no death penalty at all. Sure it sucks when you happen to die a lot, but it really does add that suspense to higher areas. I remember my friend and I would go exploring in Everquest 2 and if we weren't able to avoid the monsters well enough, we'd die. Sometimes we'd end up having like 5 or 6 spirit shards in a zone because of that, but it was still fun going to get them back.
Nowadays people can go anywhere and die as much as they want with no penalty. In my opinion that seems to take away from the immersion and fulfillment of going to a new, higher level area. I'm not saying that you should lose everything when you die, games should just have some sort of penalty. The debt system in EQ2 seemed to work pretty well.
I totally disagree. Harsh penalty basically prevent people with limited time to enjoy content. And a harsh penalty is really just more grinding.
If i have only 30 min left, i would hesitate to go anywhere where i may have to do a corpse run. That is preventing me from enjoying the game. WOW has the right idea .. just money penalty and no corpse run.
I honestly can't disagree with you, and it's definitely easier said than done.
It may be funny to suspect that the company that is making a game with closest to everything on your list can be Blizzard themselves with their new MMO!
I mostly agree, but newer MMOs aren't even doing anything better than WOW, besides maybe pumping out more polygons. The quests certainly are NOT better. WOTLK proved Blizzard still owns the market in quest variety and coolness. PvP is so subjective, but no one has outdone WOW"s control, mechanics and fluidity. Duels are just more fun due to how much control you have over your character compared to other MMOs and WOTLK proves they can even out perform others with massive battles as well. Wintergrasp is a whole lot more fun and interesting than anything in WAR at the moment...exploding walls amd mobile seige units compared to 200 people crammed in a stairwell and thrown room AOEing...not comparable actually.
Your list at the end is spot on except for the biggest reaosn why WOW is succesful...its INTUTIVE. Remove the words simple & shallow, since WOW is neither and repalce it with what actually matters.