I understand what you're saying Tilion. But, the fact of the matter is the Star Wars languages are more fictional than Tokien's Elvish. Tolkien's was in a way considered a REAL language. He had verbs and nouns and all the same aspects that any REAL language has including symbols to portray them in writing. Star Wars alien languages however do not. If you remember the languages from KOTOR 1 and 2 they're basically just a bunch of similar sounding noises based off the movies. Also if you really listened to them in dialogues they were just repeats of the same maybe 10-20 sounds each. That's nothing like an entire language. It doesn't even come close to actually passing off as what the subtitles are actually saying.
I wouldn't really know if the Star Wars universe languages, other then basic, is in fact any real attempt on a language as I have no dictionary or sentence structure guide to tell me. However a "small" attempt has been at least made to emerse the player/movie goers that there was different languages. I only come to the defense of languages as I'm a English Literature major and find fictional languages, especially ones done extremely well, fascinate me. In fact I did my term paper last year on Tolkien's Elvish.
Neither here nor there. TOR looks great from what they've shown us. I do give Bioware all the hope in the world as they've yet to do anything but keep me intrigued over the years. As for FFXIV I actually wish it the best, used to play a long time ago, but got a sick taste in my mouth when my preferred class was well for a lack of a better word awful. (Dragoon) As it is the more competition in the market place the people who win is the consumers.
One thing I do like is how much the story cutscenes and regular interruptions will make a game that may be exciting and engaging for game-players, yet a pain in the backside for RMTs and the like...
...after all, it's going to be a bit hard to try and automate everything when the dialogues are going to be constantly popping up and selections have to be made, and the options in those will change depending on what you've previously chosen.
I know it's possible, everything's possible - but it will make things harder
Oh there are entire lexicons of Hutteese and whatnot. So they can add more than gibberish. I always loved those pseudo-languages, like Klingonese or Elvish or what. Utinni! XD
As to the combat; yeah it looks way too easy. Hack left, dead, shoot right, dead. I dunno. I connect a certain level of difficulty with heroic. I mean, I like the idea to fight multiple enemies. This idea of EQ style MMOs to focus on one mob alone always has something very dull. I just wish they did a bit more than just standing there and wait to be hacked to sish kebab by some Sith or Smuggler.
And holy smokes of batman, but this landscapes and interiors look SO like 10 years ago!
No, not mission accomplished. I honestly hated KOTOR 1 and 2 because of the combat and the lack of control over your character. I wasn't hoping for KOTOR 3. I was hoping to be immersed. This is more like WoW with a KOTOR skin and Clone Wars tv series graphics.
Same here, but I can't say the fact that this is just generic wow clone number 156 really surprised me though, the direction they've gone with the graphics style is a little unexpected though
Only in your world does "Wait and See" = Fully Voiced with hundrends of thousands of lines of dialouge. Next time, go easy on the Kessel Spice kid.
"How will the story be told? Powerful story is an essential part of the FF-series, and as far as the producers have said it will be important in XIV as well.
Yes the story is definitely very important for FF14. We will have high quality cutscenes with voiceovers and fx, please look forward to it.
There will also be voiceovers on mostly every character/npc in the game."
Actually in my world this means Full VO, but you can keep assuming things as much as you want. Too bad your assumptions couldn't be further away from the truth though.
Read what you are quoting, it says "There will also be voiceovers on mostly every character/npc in the game". So that means it is not a fully voiced mmorpg, just a partly voiced mmorpg.
Read what you are quoting, it says "There will also be voiceovers on mostly every character/npc in the game". So that means it is not a fully voiced mmorpg, just a partly voiced mmorpg.
'mostly every'. These 2 words contradict each other, so they can be ignored for now.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
First off I'd like to say that i know they still have a year and half to work on it but I did think that given the ammount of 'sell' they've placed on the cut scenes thay would have been alot better. Badly scripted dialogue and acting so wooden some oak floorboards would have shown more emotion.
Also could someone please explain to me what the big deal is, various levels of voicing and storylines exist within mmorpgs already and therefore what bioware is doing isn't original just an extension of this form. If they had done something innovative with this idea I would understand, such as the idea above about cutscene combat or made the some storyline instances fully open i.e. from the video when the sith & bh where defending the ship you had players of the opposite faction boarding it. Fyi I'm not trolling here just genuinely curious.
I don't intend to troll but first impression I got when first in-game screen loaded is that I am watching Chronicles of Spellborn in space - huge feets, huge hands, big head and enormous chest with tiny coxal part, sketchy character animation.
I hoped cartoon times are over, especialy regarding to Star Wars
Originally posted by Gdemami I don't intend to troll but first impression I got when first in-game screen loaded is that I am watching Chronicles of Spellborn in space - huge feets, huge hands, big head and enormous chest with tiny coxal part, sketchy character animation. I hoped cartoon times are over, especialy regarding to Star Wars
Actually I agree a little bit with this. When I was watching the demo I thought it had more in common with the current cartoon series, The Clone Wars. Personally, I don't mind the art style. I can get into anything as long as their is good story and music and gameplay, which already looks fun and intriguing. Love the smuggler class the most so far.
how is this game an MMO? maybe they should call it the first COOP online RPG. game looks ok wish combat was more than your standard MMO combat.
what like SWG NGE? Spellborn? Tabla Rasa? Because those games did so well lol. Some thing should not change, like the RPG combat standard. I did here there may be no auto attack in TOR, that's about the only difference.
i love people bitching about the combat, which seems very KOTOR (not the awful sequel which Bioware wasn't even a major part off). And if i remember i used that same combat through 50 hours of the original game.
What was i thinking, using tedium combat through 50 hours, i must be crazy... *hits head on wall against all idiots* i'm trying to wonder what in an RPG/FPS etc anything, would constitute as "faboulous non repetative combat"
did you all lose what little brain cells you have, don't you play any other MMORPGs.... (or didn't you pay attention to the levels, they were fighting levels 5-8, and the sith was a level 10, not sure what the bounty hunter was)
i'd mock you all some more.. but lets face it, if you think this combat is tedious... games and mmorpgs, aren't for you... read a book, you might enjoy it better. Although some of the combat in them is pretty repetative.. more so than films, i mean what's the deal with some of these films.. all they do is use guns and shoot people.
madness.
A story driven MMORPG, with content upgrades, expansions.... lets face it, if they had added KOTOR expansions, we'd have all bought it, if they had added even an online duel mode that you had to pay for, we'd have shelled out the money. How quickly people forget.
Lets not forget Bioware does a far better story.. than anything lucas can ever hope to emulate.
"nothing actually matters, we're just slightly evolved monkeys clinging to a dying piece of rock hurtling through space waiting for our eventual death." - Frankie Boyle, Mock The Week
With that said - I hope they prove me wrong. i am disappointed thusfar. Maybe I was just hoping for someone to swoop down and take what SOE had done to their terrible attempt at a sandbox and show them how it should really be done. Instead I get something that divides players into their own realm instead of sharing it with everyone else.
This is a BioWare game, this has nothing to do with SOE - nothing nothing nothing. And BioWare has never done a Sandbox game, they do Story-driven and they do it best.
Couldn't they be innovative and do both? This is basically Guild Wars but in Star Wars / Sci-Fi setting. I don't get a sense of community. How do my actions affect EVERYONE and not just myself? Do they? If they affect only my character, what's the point of making this an MMO?
I have my doubts as I have said, and I want to be proven wrong. As of now, instanced games irk me. Call me old-school, but I want to be a part of the greater whole.
Becuase you like something different doesn't make it better or innovative. Your choices are like it or leave it.
I tried to read through the posts to make sure no one else mentioned this, but I'll just risk it.
Did anyone else notice that during the Cut-Scene on the ship with the captain each player had a number from 0-99 appear next to his face graphic at the bottom left of the screen each time a response was needed, and that only the player with the higher of the two numbers spoke? At first I had mistook this for the characters' level but now I see it changed every time.
They didn't exactly mention it in video but it appears that everyone in a team will have a random number generated to give them the chance to respond or make a decision. The only time it looked odd was when the Sith got to choose whether or not the Captain was to die or live. My guess is that the numbers were rigged here.
Possibly there will be skills, like diplomatic or social skills, that give you a better chance to roll a higher number?
It felt like single player game.. you're a hero/antihero and now go save/kill something. Mmos shouldn't be so movie like. It might be nice as a coop game but I doubt it will be good for ppl who like mm i mmorpgs...
Yes they showed an instance, flashpoint. And a bit "tutorial" for couple of classes. That must be the whole game.
well yes that is the whole game... If you read up that what they just showed will be pretty much the whole game besides the pvp aspect. Really everything that has been said and showed about this game. SCREAMS singleplayer MMO.
Edit: Once again Bioware has made a co-op game be considered a mmo. WTF
To this guy and EVERYONE ELSE SAYING THIS ISN'T GOING TO A TRUE MMO!!!
LOL, WHAT!?!
The game is still a year away, they are no where near done with it yet. Just because they chose to show us game play and the amazing innovations this game it bringing to the MMO world, but didn't show 100's of people running around like chickens with there heads cut off does not mean this isn't a real MMO.
This is just the beginning of them showing off the game and your already saying that this is it, this is what the entire game is going to be like? Is this the first time you've watched a game play video of a n MMO that's still a ways off from release? I don't see how you can't see so much innovative MMO potential from that video. For starters you can't see yourself doing the "instance" stuff in the video, but with like 5 or more friends, and everything you do together is going to effect your character's story lines?
Plus, they showed you open areas as well. Areas where you can totally just go kill enemies randomly if you'd like. Areas where I can totally see other people running around and doing stuff as well, whom you can group up with explore together.
Now correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't that an MMO?????
Quite unimpressive (especially after such hype buildup) And the white lies : The only MMO to use cover syster ... hello ! How about Tabula Rasa ?
Actually if you listen to what he said, he used tricky salesman speak and said it was the only MMO to use a cover system 'of this type'. He may also have said 'of this kind' I can't remember the exact wording. Either way what he said was technically correct, he never claimed that it was the only MMO with a cover system in place but rather that they made theirs slightly different.
I work at an auction though and everyone does this, you notice it more when you are trained to listen for it. It might be sneaky and imply something else but what he is saying is regardless technically correct.
I've watched the video all the way threw 2 times now and just can't get enough of it. This is next gen MMO gaming at it's best. Big time kudos to Bioware. They've seemed to figured out how to take a story driven game, there specialty, and flawlessly put it into an MMO. It's just unbelievable. I knew this game was going to be good, but not this good.
I love KOTOR and didn't think Bioware was going to make Old Republic an MMO version of KOTOR, because I didn't think they could. Man am I glad I was wrong.
I'm not entirely sure, but I think this is going to be the most innovative and evolved MMO to date. And just when I thought companies were running out of ideas. ;p
i'd mock you all some more.. but lets face it, if you think this combat is tedious... games and mmorpgs, aren't for you... read a book, you might enjoy it better. Although some of the combat in them is pretty repetative.. more so than films, i mean what's the deal with some of these films.. all they do is use guns and shoot people. madness.
MANY games have very fun and exciting and interesting combat systems. How many players would love an MMO with God of War combat, or Vagrant Story's? Why aren't there more in-combat maneuvers (like side-roll, or tumble) in MMOs?
Why is it that MMORPG players are so forgiving of tedium and monotony?
...Or are they players at all?
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
i'd mock you all some more.. but lets face it, if you think this combat is tedious... games and mmorpgs, aren't for you... read a book, you might enjoy it better. Although some of the combat in them is pretty repetative.. more so than films, i mean what's the deal with some of these films.. all they do is use guns and shoot people. madness.
MANY games have very fun and exciting and interesting combat systems. How many players would love an MMO with God of War combat, or Vagrant Story's? Why aren't there more in-combat maneuvers (like side-roll, or tumble) in MMOs?
Why is it that MMORPG players are so forgiving of tedium and monotony?
...Or are they players at all?
There are many extreme technical difficulties with God of War style combat (or DMC combat or any type of crazy combo combat) in an MMO. Arena style games have a much better chance at that type of system then open world type games. The origin of the MMO was socialization, its expanded well above that now.... now its both competetive and casual, and right now there is a simple system in place with many mmos that allows for min/maxing and simple casual play. Most MMOs are this way because it work.
Then again some of the most played arena games are FPS. The combat in those is extremely repetetive... across a number of best selling titles... albeit they are known more as a skill game being twitch based. We'll see more MMOs moving towards action-packed gameplay in the future... right now though, its baby steps.
:Edit: I didn't read the whole thread so if this is off the topic of what you two were talking about. ...then...... oops?
i'd mock you all some more.. but lets face it, if you think this combat is tedious... games and mmorpgs, aren't for you... read a book, you might enjoy it better. Although some of the combat in them is pretty repetative.. more so than films, i mean what's the deal with some of these films.. all they do is use guns and shoot people. madness.
MANY games have very fun and exciting and interesting combat systems. How many players would love an MMO with God of War combat, or Vagrant Story's? Why aren't there more in-combat maneuvers (like side-roll, or tumble) in MMOs?
Why is it that MMORPG players are so forgiving of tedium and monotony?
...Or are they players at all?
When MMO developers have tried to make combat "Interesting" it has usually failed to attract the attention of the MMO community, Look at Spellborn for example, a unique combat wheel, yet the game has been forced into F2P, Tabula Rasa had a more FPS approach yet it's no longer with us, AoC had a more complex combat system which got dumbed down but which is still more complex than your run of the mill MMO, yet it is struggling.
Now we take a look at your "Normal" MMO's and there button mashing combat experiences and we see that these games are considered "Popular", the majority of ppl don't want to work too hard at their game, in a single player experience like God of War your buying the game due to it being a much more involved experience, in an MMO your sharing that experience with others and the combat aswell.
Also I highly doubt that the technology is far enough along for an MMO to reproduce the incredible combat styles we see in the single player games, or if we can get it into an MMO only a few will actually be able to play it due to them having the top spec PC at that time.
However if MMO's are really so bad it would be better to turn around and walk the other way and leave the genre to get on with what it's been doing for the past decade and what it will still be doing in years to come. There really will be no huge leap in our gaming experiences within the MMO market for the foreseeable future.
Comments
Yeah.. Bioware localizing the game in 3 languages is impressive, but the hell with alien languages...lol.
I understand what you're saying Tilion. But, the fact of the matter is the Star Wars languages are more fictional than Tokien's Elvish. Tolkien's was in a way considered a REAL language. He had verbs and nouns and all the same aspects that any REAL language has including symbols to portray them in writing. Star Wars alien languages however do not. If you remember the languages from KOTOR 1 and 2 they're basically just a bunch of similar sounding noises based off the movies. Also if you really listened to them in dialogues they were just repeats of the same maybe 10-20 sounds each. That's nothing like an entire language. It doesn't even come close to actually passing off as what the subtitles are actually saying.
I wouldn't really know if the Star Wars universe languages, other then basic, is in fact any real attempt on a language as I have no dictionary or sentence structure guide to tell me. However a "small" attempt has been at least made to emerse the player/movie goers that there was different languages. I only come to the defense of languages as I'm a English Literature major and find fictional languages, especially ones done extremely well, fascinate me. In fact I did my term paper last year on Tolkien's Elvish.
Neither here nor there. TOR looks great from what they've shown us. I do give Bioware all the hope in the world as they've yet to do anything but keep me intrigued over the years. As for FFXIV I actually wish it the best, used to play a long time ago, but got a sick taste in my mouth when my preferred class was well for a lack of a better word awful. (Dragoon) As it is the more competition in the market place the people who win is the consumers.
One thing I do like is how much the story cutscenes and regular interruptions will make a game that may be exciting and engaging for game-players, yet a pain in the backside for RMTs and the like...
...after all, it's going to be a bit hard to try and automate everything when the dialogues are going to be constantly popping up and selections have to be made, and the options in those will change depending on what you've previously chosen.
I know it's possible, everything's possible - but it will make things harder
Oh there are entire lexicons of Hutteese and whatnot. So they can add more than gibberish. I always loved those pseudo-languages, like Klingonese or Elvish or what. Utinni! XD
As to the combat; yeah it looks way too easy. Hack left, dead, shoot right, dead. I dunno. I connect a certain level of difficulty with heroic. I mean, I like the idea to fight multiple enemies. This idea of EQ style MMOs to focus on one mob alone always has something very dull. I just wish they did a bit more than just standing there and wait to be hacked to sish kebab by some Sith or Smuggler.
And holy smokes of batman, but this landscapes and interiors look SO like 10 years ago!
SW Languages:
www.completewermosguide.com/
starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Language
Same here, but I can't say the fact that this is just generic wow clone number 156 really surprised me though, the direction they've gone with the graphics style is a little unexpected though
"How will the story be told? Powerful story is an essential part of the FF-series, and as far as the producers have said it will be important in XIV as well.
Yes the story is definitely very important for FF14. We will have high quality cutscenes with voiceovers and fx, please look forward to it.
There will also be voiceovers on mostly every character/npc in the game."
Actually in my world this means Full VO, but you can keep assuming things as much as you want. Too bad your assumptions couldn't be further away from the truth though.
Read what you are quoting, it says "There will also be voiceovers on mostly every character/npc in the game". So that means it is not a fully voiced mmorpg, just a partly voiced mmorpg.
Richijefe
'mostly every'. These 2 words contradict each other, so they can be ignored for now.
First off I'd like to say that i know they still have a year and half to work on it but I did think that given the ammount of 'sell' they've placed on the cut scenes thay would have been alot better. Badly scripted dialogue and acting so wooden some oak floorboards would have shown more emotion.
Also could someone please explain to me what the big deal is, various levels of voicing and storylines exist within mmorpgs already and therefore what bioware is doing isn't original just an extension of this form. If they had done something innovative with this idea I would understand, such as the idea above about cutscene combat or made the some storyline instances fully open i.e. from the video when the sith & bh where defending the ship you had players of the opposite faction boarding it. Fyi I'm not trolling here just genuinely curious.
I don't intend to troll but first impression I got when first in-game screen loaded is that I am watching Chronicles of Spellborn in space - huge feets, huge hands, big head and enormous chest with tiny coxal part, sketchy character animation.
I hoped cartoon times are over, especialy regarding to Star Wars
If a character is a mute, and therefore unvoiced, is the game still fully voiced? Madness!
Yawwwwn.
Looks like we'll be pressing TAB and 1,2,3,4,5 to win a fight. How dull. Darkfalls combat is so much more interesting.
Actually I agree a little bit with this. When I was watching the demo I thought it had more in common with the current cartoon series, The Clone Wars. Personally, I don't mind the art style. I can get into anything as long as their is good story and music and gameplay, which already looks fun and intriguing. Love the smuggler class the most so far.
You mean like horizontal slap, vertical slap, shoot bow, shoot pixelated crap.
All the while circle strafing.
Cus that's what darkfall is about ...
They obviously upped the stats for the chars significantly to not die during their presentation...
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
what like SWG NGE? Spellborn? Tabla Rasa? Because those games did so well lol. Some thing should not change, like the RPG combat standard. I did here there may be no auto attack in TOR, that's about the only difference.
i love people bitching about the combat, which seems very KOTOR (not the awful sequel which Bioware wasn't even a major part off). And if i remember i used that same combat through 50 hours of the original game.
What was i thinking, using tedium combat through 50 hours, i must be crazy... *hits head on wall against all idiots* i'm trying to wonder what in an RPG/FPS etc anything, would constitute as "faboulous non repetative combat"
did you all lose what little brain cells you have, don't you play any other MMORPGs.... (or didn't you pay attention to the levels, they were fighting levels 5-8, and the sith was a level 10, not sure what the bounty hunter was)
i'd mock you all some more.. but lets face it, if you think this combat is tedious... games and mmorpgs, aren't for you... read a book, you might enjoy it better. Although some of the combat in them is pretty repetative.. more so than films, i mean what's the deal with some of these films.. all they do is use guns and shoot people.
madness.
A story driven MMORPG, with content upgrades, expansions.... lets face it, if they had added KOTOR expansions, we'd have all bought it, if they had added even an online duel mode that you had to pay for, we'd have shelled out the money. How quickly people forget.
Lets not forget Bioware does a far better story.. than anything lucas can ever hope to emulate.
"nothing actually matters, we're just slightly evolved monkeys clinging to a dying piece of rock hurtling through space waiting for our eventual death." - Frankie Boyle, Mock The Week
This is a BioWare game, this has nothing to do with SOE - nothing nothing nothing. And BioWare has never done a Sandbox game, they do Story-driven and they do it best.
Couldn't they be innovative and do both? This is basically Guild Wars but in Star Wars / Sci-Fi setting. I don't get a sense of community. How do my actions affect EVERYONE and not just myself? Do they? If they affect only my character, what's the point of making this an MMO?
I have my doubts as I have said, and I want to be proven wrong. As of now, instanced games irk me. Call me old-school, but I want to be a part of the greater whole.
Becuase you like something different doesn't make it better or innovative. Your choices are like it or leave it.
I tried to read through the posts to make sure no one else mentioned this, but I'll just risk it.
Did anyone else notice that during the Cut-Scene on the ship with the captain each player had a number from 0-99 appear next to his face graphic at the bottom left of the screen each time a response was needed, and that only the player with the higher of the two numbers spoke? At first I had mistook this for the characters' level but now I see it changed every time.
They didn't exactly mention it in video but it appears that everyone in a team will have a random number generated to give them the chance to respond or make a decision. The only time it looked odd was when the Sith got to choose whether or not the Captain was to die or live. My guess is that the numbers were rigged here.
Possibly there will be skills, like diplomatic or social skills, that give you a better chance to roll a higher number?
The best thing I have seen all year. Keep them coming!
Yes they showed an instance, flashpoint. And a bit "tutorial" for couple of classes. That must be the whole game.
well yes that is the whole game... If you read up that what they just showed will be pretty much the whole game besides the pvp aspect. Really everything that has been said and showed about this game. SCREAMS singleplayer MMO.
Edit: Once again Bioware has made a co-op game be considered a mmo. WTF
To this guy and EVERYONE ELSE SAYING THIS ISN'T GOING TO A TRUE MMO!!!
LOL, WHAT!?!
The game is still a year away, they are no where near done with it yet. Just because they chose to show us game play and the amazing innovations this game it bringing to the MMO world, but didn't show 100's of people running around like chickens with there heads cut off does not mean this isn't a real MMO.
This is just the beginning of them showing off the game and your already saying that this is it, this is what the entire game is going to be like? Is this the first time you've watched a game play video of a n MMO that's still a ways off from release? I don't see how you can't see so much innovative MMO potential from that video. For starters you can't see yourself doing the "instance" stuff in the video, but with like 5 or more friends, and everything you do together is going to effect your character's story lines?
Plus, they showed you open areas as well. Areas where you can totally just go kill enemies randomly if you'd like. Areas where I can totally see other people running around and doing stuff as well, whom you can group up with explore together.
Now correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't that an MMO?????
Actually if you listen to what he said, he used tricky salesman speak and said it was the only MMO to use a cover system 'of this type'. He may also have said 'of this kind' I can't remember the exact wording. Either way what he said was technically correct, he never claimed that it was the only MMO with a cover system in place but rather that they made theirs slightly different.
I work at an auction though and everyone does this, you notice it more when you are trained to listen for it. It might be sneaky and imply something else but what he is saying is regardless technically correct.
Amazing, truly, truly amazing...
I've watched the video all the way threw 2 times now and just can't get enough of it. This is next gen MMO gaming at it's best. Big time kudos to Bioware. They've seemed to figured out how to take a story driven game, there specialty, and flawlessly put it into an MMO. It's just unbelievable. I knew this game was going to be good, but not this good.
I love KOTOR and didn't think Bioware was going to make Old Republic an MMO version of KOTOR, because I didn't think they could. Man am I glad I was wrong.
I'm not entirely sure, but I think this is going to be the most innovative and evolved MMO to date. And just when I thought companies were running out of ideas. ;p
WOOT! Can't wait for next year!
MANY games have very fun and exciting and interesting combat systems. How many players would love an MMO with God of War combat, or Vagrant Story's? Why aren't there more in-combat maneuvers (like side-roll, or tumble) in MMOs?
Why is it that MMORPG players are so forgiving of tedium and monotony?
...Or are they players at all?
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
MANY games have very fun and exciting and interesting combat systems. How many players would love an MMO with God of War combat, or Vagrant Story's? Why aren't there more in-combat maneuvers (like side-roll, or tumble) in MMOs?
Why is it that MMORPG players are so forgiving of tedium and monotony?
...Or are they players at all?
There are many extreme technical difficulties with God of War style combat (or DMC combat or any type of crazy combo combat) in an MMO. Arena style games have a much better chance at that type of system then open world type games. The origin of the MMO was socialization, its expanded well above that now.... now its both competetive and casual, and right now there is a simple system in place with many mmos that allows for min/maxing and simple casual play. Most MMOs are this way because it work.
Then again some of the most played arena games are FPS. The combat in those is extremely repetetive... across a number of best selling titles... albeit they are known more as a skill game being twitch based. We'll see more MMOs moving towards action-packed gameplay in the future... right now though, its baby steps.
:Edit: I didn't read the whole thread so if this is off the topic of what you two were talking about. ...then...... oops?
MANY games have very fun and exciting and interesting combat systems. How many players would love an MMO with God of War combat, or Vagrant Story's? Why aren't there more in-combat maneuvers (like side-roll, or tumble) in MMOs?
Why is it that MMORPG players are so forgiving of tedium and monotony?
...Or are they players at all?
When MMO developers have tried to make combat "Interesting" it has usually failed to attract the attention of the MMO community, Look at Spellborn for example, a unique combat wheel, yet the game has been forced into F2P, Tabula Rasa had a more FPS approach yet it's no longer with us, AoC had a more complex combat system which got dumbed down but which is still more complex than your run of the mill MMO, yet it is struggling.
Now we take a look at your "Normal" MMO's and there button mashing combat experiences and we see that these games are considered "Popular", the majority of ppl don't want to work too hard at their game, in a single player experience like God of War your buying the game due to it being a much more involved experience, in an MMO your sharing that experience with others and the combat aswell.
Also I highly doubt that the technology is far enough along for an MMO to reproduce the incredible combat styles we see in the single player games, or if we can get it into an MMO only a few will actually be able to play it due to them having the top spec PC at that time.
However if MMO's are really so bad it would be better to turn around and walk the other way and leave the genre to get on with what it's been doing for the past decade and what it will still be doing in years to come. There really will be no huge leap in our gaming experiences within the MMO market for the foreseeable future.