You may be right. But lets just look at swg. Sandbox had the most subs, hybrid had fewer, themepark had fewest. If your going by design only, with a popular IP, given all 3 types. The last was even a free client. Sandbox wins. With your opinion, i proved my point.
Eh? I don't know what you're referring to. What examples of this did you have in mind?
Personally I don't consider any of the MMO's before WoW themepark MMO's, looking at the differences in MMO design I don't find it strange that the term 'themepark MMO' came in use with WoW, because that's the best example of that type of design, and MMO's that came afterwards come closer to that kind of design than the MMO's before WoW ever did.
And with WoW, the rise and popularity of the themepark MMO design became clear, themepark MMO raked in the most subs consistently collectively from 2005 onwards to now.
I was talking precu cu and nge. Sandbox. Hybrid. Linear themepark. The rise of theme is wow. It is the end of theme. Isn't enough to clone wow. They didn't help the popularity of theme. They tempted wow players before failure When wow stops being cool. So will themepark. There is wow. Wow is themepark.
See you in the dream.. The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
i'm about to puke every single time i see a new post about WoW, it's just a piece of shet for which some people have wasted less time then playing runescape, and No WoW isn't the first mmo to "come out", there were plenty before and after that are still making wow look like a piece of crap, cuz infact there is nothing else to it but that.
if you're so inlove with that crap and you can't find something to match it with, try Solitaire, there aint no diffs
I was talking precu cu and nge. Sandbox. Hybrid. Linear themepark. The rise of theme is wow. It is the end of theme. Isn't enough to clone wow. They didn't help the popularity of theme. They tempted wow players before failure When wow stops being cool. So will themepark. There is wow. Wow is themepark.
Even without WoW, it should be clear to even you that the larger number of subs and players is found in the non-sandbox/themepark style of MMO's.
That's not speculation as you seem to do with some wild guessing how the future will be, those are just facts and hard data of the last 6-7 years.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I was talking precu cu and nge. Sandbox. Hybrid. Linear themepark. The rise of theme is wow. It is the end of theme. Isn't enough to clone wow. They didn't help the popularity of theme. They tempted wow players before failure When wow stops being cool. So will themepark. There is wow. Wow is themepark.
Even without WoW, it should be clear to even you that the larger number of subs and players is found in the non-sandbox/themepark style of MMO's.
That's not speculation as you seem to do with some wild guessing how the future will be, those are just facts and hard data of the last 6-7 years.
Without wow, all those themepark failures wouldn't have been nged into clones. There would be a variety of all types. That's just wild guessing again. I guess if you don't repeat what everyone else says no matter how many times they're wrong you're crazy.
See you in the dream.. The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
I was talking precu cu and nge. Sandbox. Hybrid. Linear themepark. The rise of theme is wow. It is the end of theme. Isn't enough to clone wow. They didn't help the popularity of theme. They tempted wow players before failure When wow stops being cool. So will themepark. There is wow. Wow is themepark.
Even without WoW, it should be clear to even you that the larger number of subs and players is found in the non-sandbox/themepark style of MMO's.
That's not speculation as you seem to do with some wild guessing how the future will be, those are just facts and hard data of the last 6-7 years.
Without wow, all those themepark failures wouldn't have been nged into clones. There would be a variety of all types. That's just wild guessing again. I guess if you don't repeat what everyone else says no matter how many times they're wrong you're crazy.
Without reading the entire thread... along with the thread title sure you can blame WoW. Just like once upon a time you could blame EverQuest.
Companies don't sit around wondering what kind of game is fun to play. They have investors and a desire to make a lot of money. So as I like to often do when you put Ultima Online versus EverQuest... the EQ "core design" won because it was a larger success from the business perspective.
Same thing with WoW and sure its why we got the CU and NGE in SWG... but you can't blame WoW for the fact that other developers have done such a bad job at various things. As well as the fact nobody seems to realize.. and they must have someone with a degree and a brain.. that in an overly saturated market you need to do something different...
Don't worry after the next few failures.. added in with the soon to come "free to play" wave that will fail even more epicly... eventually we'll get back to actually trying to be creative with... game play.
How long that takes... I don't even have a guess.. we might actually have a Rapture or Mayan doomsday before then..
*edited* fixed a few things and I remember when we used to have real variety in gaming.. back when I owned a Commodore 64!! I played all kinds of games back then.. Its not even just "clones" .. the MMO focus is so high that the other PC gaming markets are non existant compared to what they once were.. lucky to find a decent game a year and sometimes not even that.
Without wow, all those themepark failures wouldn't have been nged into clones. There would be a variety of all types. That's just wild guessing again. I guess if you don't repeat what everyone else says no matter how many times they're wrong you're crazy.
No, I think you're actually right. Without WoW, I doubt the NGE would have happened, at least not in that format, WAR and LotrO wouldn't have changed their looks into a 'stylised' version and their gameplay and the gameplay of a lot of AAA MMO's (excl Aion, bc that was more an evolution of Korean MMO style like L1 and L2) would have been different in several ways than it is now. You only have to look at EQ2, which also had more quests than EQ and was more modernised, but it didn't have the WoW look and feel to it that later MMO's got. Also, you wouldn't have masses of new MMO gamers in the MMO market that had a totally different gaming background and preferences than the MMO player base before WoW, thus forever since then skewing any dominant preferences that are seen in the MMO playerbase towards WoW-style preferences and tastes.
WoW showed MMO companies what design could be massively popular and caused a flood of new people to enter the MMO scene that had a different taste in gaming than the MMO playerbase as a group did before.
So yes, without WoW I think the MMO market would have been smaller with less big money projects, but it would also have been more diverse.
Luckily enough, I think that we enter a time that there'll be more variety in the AAA segment again.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I don't think that all MMOs after WoW are crap. There are several that are pretty good. The community however is totally different since WoW. Before WoW, the MMO community was tight-knit (I still have most of my friends pre-WoW on my msn contact list, facebook, etc.). However, counting my contact list in my e-mail, I only have 13 people after WoW's release that I still remain in contact with.
You can see it on this site's (and almost all other site's) forums. Everyone seems so negative and doom and gloom. I think it has been lost, or maybe those newcomers with WoW never learned, MMOs are what the community make them. Devs can control very little of what you do while ingame. If you don't want to do quests today, who says you have to? Go out and slay some beasts, what's stopping you? Want to go grief some noobs? go do it (just not in some games with strict anti-greif rules). Want to just walk around and do absolutely nothing (that Bruno Mars Lazy song comes to mind), then just go walk around. People today have gotten so caught up in leveling thier character and crafting, we've lost what made the "old" MMOs fun. The Journey.
I don't think that all MMOs after WoW are crap. There are several that are pretty good. The community however is totally different since WoW. Before WoW, the MMO community was tight-knit (I still have most of my friends pre-WoW on my msn contact list, facebook, etc.). However, counting my contact list in my e-mail, I only have 13 people after WoW's release that I still remain in contact with.
I think it's a question of perception. And server size. On smaller servers in WoW, or in games that are not as popular, you can find that kind of community. If you prefer high pop servers, well, it's anonymous. Cross-realm tools might skew this ' tight-knitted community' feeling too.
Servers all got bigger nowadays, due to technological evolution. In Shadowbane, my server peaked at 3000 players and it was barely stable. I believe this number is puts any wow realm at 'low' in the selection screen. And since games are also starting to offer more dynamic open world content, servers have to handle more players to have their population be 'healthy'.
I don't think that all MMOs after WoW are crap. There are several that are pretty good. The community however is totally different since WoW. Before WoW, the MMO community was tight-knit (I still have most of my friends pre-WoW on my msn contact list, facebook, etc.). However, counting my contact list in my e-mail, I only have 13 people after WoW's release that I still remain in contact with.
I think it's a question of perception. And server size. On smaller servers in WoW, or in games that are not as popular, you can find that kind of community. If you prefer high pop servers, well, it's anonymous. Cross-realm tools might skew this ' tight-knitted community' feeling too.
Servers all got bigger nowadays, due to technological evolution. In Shadowbane, my server peaked at 3000 players and it was barely stable. I believe this number is puts any wow realm at 'low' in the selection screen. And since games are also starting to offer more dynamic open world content, servers have to handle more players to have their population be 'healthy'.
That is true too. In most of today's games, I like to stick to RP servers. As most of the players there are alot like me and been playing MMOs for a long time. RP pretty much forces the community to be close. Even those that RP as "Evil" people still feel closer than any player I've met on normal servers.
I think that MMo companies tried to take stuff in a direction to similar to WoW and implemented new things along the way to try and compete. The unfortunate thing is that WoW would gobble up those ideas and implement them within a few months of the other trait of the other games being deemed a success.
This lead to WoW dominating because they continued to steal and steal accumulating everything decent about other MMos that they had to radicly change their design in order to be considered different. The IP theft will not change and Blizzard has seen how lucrative it has been for them. I do not think this will change much in the future as one game will always piggy back off the ideas of another.
It's just the game industry unfortunately, and it saddens me to see but I can always hope for that renegade company to show up and break the mold.
UO in my book was the KING of all mmorpgs. The UO before carebear Trammel. Nothing more exciting and heart pumping then being chased by Dreadlords (PK's). No other game has gave me the excitement as this one. Perhaps developers need to go back to this original game model.
-Rig
Former GM and associate game designer for SOE and Square Enix. (2001-2008)
UO in my book was the KING of all mmorpgs. The UO before carebear Trammel. Nothing more exciting and heart pumping then being chased by Dreadlords (PK's). No other game has gave me the excitement as this one. Perhaps developers need to go back to this original game model.
-Rig
Just because that game got you excited and now you believe it to be the ultimate mmo, doesn't mean everyone shares your opinion. Nobody has eyes in the back of their head including devs. Yes you can glance back at the past but forward progress is what is needed to making mmorpg's much better.
Like i have expressed before. No game will be like your first. We all can only hope that there is a game coming out where the lore, settings, and systems can bring excitment back on a personal level. There will never be this ultimate mmorpg, because it is impossible to cater and satisfy everyone's needs.
This lead to WoW dominating because they continued to steal and steal accumulating everything decent about other MMos that they had to radicly change their design in order to be considered different. The IP theft will not change and Blizzard has seen how lucrative it has been for them. I do not think this will change much in the future as one game will always piggy back off the ideas of another.
That's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard. Every game has been the same since back in the UO days, just innovated. Blizzard has just proven that they are the superior innovators. No reason to call them thieves.
It seems that it is indie developers that are able to push boundaries in the MMO world for the next decade. Major developers will shy away from the risks, which is actually makes a lot of sense considering how expensive bets these games are and how long it takes to make them.
That's usually how the markets work. The big players have too much red tape, worrying about stock price, investors and board members to really make risky moves. This doesn't just apply to the game market, you hardly see innovation come from larger well established companies. The only exception I can think of is google, and they base their entire company around innovation such to the point that one day of each week people can work on their own projects.
Kind of talks about what happens when a studio actually decides to do something different, whether some might like it or not.
The problem with this whole discussion, which we've already had thousands of times before is that it has already been discussed to death thousands of times before video games were even invented.
Whether it be movies, music or books, when something becomes popular the more experimental offerings become "less".
This is nothing new.
There are games out there that are different. They aren't perfect and some have serious flaws. But they are there.
If players don't play them then what happens is that the games that are played, and played a LOT, will get investement dollars.
This is always the way it will be.
Whether people like it or not. Movies, music, TV, books, clothes (yeah clothing styles are affected as well) and anything else where the major part of the populace decides where the bucks go will be affected.
These discussions on art and music and literature, where some simplification was involved have gone on looooong before the 19th and 20th centuries.
Yep.... Money talks. That's really all there is to it.
WoW does what it does well, but it didn't really break any new ground. This is why people dislike WoW. It's gotten so successful for being meh. I mean I honestly thought TR was way more innovative than WoW could have even dreamed, but TR got canned. I didn't pay money for it though...
The only innovation I am seeing right now is TSW and maybe GW2 with respect to big money companies. Heck even AoC and AION have more innovation than WoW as do many many F2P mmos. EVERY Indie sandbox that comes out has some sort of innovation involved that drastically differs from the unfortunate norm, but they fail because they took everything out of the oven before it was really cooked. They can only afford so much wood... You will not see a super fun innovative MMO rack in the cash that WoW has because of the tastes of the audience. Simply put, if WoW wasn't so successful, you'd definitely see more interesting mmos. WoW isn't evil. Blizzard was just smart and the majority of consumers don't look for depth.
what do you mean since wow came out, wow was like the first giant turd that hit the pile, it just happened to be a golden turd that made alot of money so greedy people that run the gaming companies tell a developer to go make another wow so we can get more skittles.
btw city of heroes came out way more than one month before wow. coh was out in april or may and wow came out november of 2004.
maybe swtor and guild wars 2 will be different, im sure they will have raiding and instance gear gating and that kind of stuff, but hey even coh has went to raiding to get the end game stuff done, rather than raiding for fun, but at least swtor might be fun to get to the top instead of just a grind to get to the top so i can grind some more.
People in charge of making money saw a gold mine. Same thing happened with comic book to movie conversions. For decades you had maybe one or two every few years. Look at the glut of them now coming out in the past couple years. Holywood saw dollar signs and they churn it out. Same thing applies to the gaming industry, they saw what Blizzard did and now everyone wants a "Wow" cash cow.
UO in my book was the KING of all mmorpgs. The UO before carebear Trammel. Nothing more exciting and heart pumping then being chased by Dreadlords (PK's). No other game has gave me the excitement as this one. Perhaps developers need to go back to this original game model.
-Rig
Some of us see the text based online games as the best rpgs ever done. Most flexible game mechanics systems, most variation on what you as the player can do with your character skills, looks, gear etc wise. Also interaction in 'world events" were more on the fly and constant in their change which led you as a player to be more immersed and that you cared about what happened to your characters, others characters and the world itself.
One of the best out there and sitll around is Dragonrealms or Gemstone IV put out by Simutronics who have been around since the late 1980s. I played both off and on since the fall of 1992. I still wish and dream of a day when someone makes a graphical version of a game like DragonRealms, the crafting, combat, character on going custmization etc were simply the best.
Isn't the reason obvious? Because what you consider crap doesn't have to be crap for another gamer.
As example, you might dislike golf or hockey or R&B, but that doesn't mean that there are whole masses of people around the world that enjoy those things that you might not enjoy.
In the end, what kind of design an MMO is doesn't mean shit.
People play the things that they have fun in, and they keep playing what they think is most fun.
It doesn't mean that there aren't better possible alternatives, but what they're playing right now is what people think is most fun for them right now. You can make the point that there's too little actual choice and variety for people to choose from(although that's only partially true with the hundreds upon hundreds of MMO's that's out there), but you can't make a point that people choose to play this or that MMO because it bores them most: they pay and play it because it provides gaming fun to them.
Wow you totally thought I was telling everyone to stop paying for all the games I think are crap, you are naive. I was saying if you dont like it, DONT PAY FOR IT! Simple as that. I am all for fully supporting games that you do like. But if you are unhappy with the state of something, why bitch about it on some third party forum, stop paying for it, post a review and move on.
It's strange, I used to think MMORPG players were some of the most individualistic, self motivating folks on the planet.. But as it turns out, we are more sheep than most any other hobbyist population..
We don't care about the game anymore, we just want to know sub numbers, and we can't wait to cry 'FAILURE" if our family and friends and uncles and aunts and grandmothers aren't all playing 10 million strong..
We refuse to believe that the most popular title today had to grow.. The genre was still in its mainstream infancy when the giant was born and it had to start somewhere and grow.. People really expect for every MMO to start of with 10 million players just so they have a reason.. An excuse to play it..
I think in order for the industry to grow and innovate once again, it has to lose the "pop culture".. The developers must go back to being humble and honest creators who have a vision and want to truly make a masterpeice.. The quick money grab "business men" must go back to stocks and real estate, and leave the passionate few to take the control and direction back.. The "F2P" era must either officially take over or officially die so the remaining MMO's without population and their studios can merge or close the doors to remove clutter and ease the oversaturation..
To keep the industry afloat, we need the true fans to stay in support through it's rapid downfall.. There are a few good honest companies that only want to bring you something made with you in mind and not about taking your money, and we need to make sure they survive long enough to support themselves and build greater things.. Money doesn't grow on tree's for them either, and celebrating when we put more people out of work, shutting down the company and causing more honest developers to lose interest in the genre does not help us..
We all claim to like these games, but a good bit of us don't show it.. We'd rather fight over which games "suck" in our personal opinions than to support the ones we actually like.. It is a wonder that any of you actually PLAY an MMO at all..
I understand what the original poster means.. The only games that I can have fun now is Wonderking, Maplestory and Flyff... The rest pretty much bores me.. The only thing is they lack content unfortunately =/
Yep.... Money talks. That's really all there is to it.
WoW does what it does well, but it didn't really break any new ground. This is why people dislike WoW. It's gotten so successful for being meh. I mean I honestly thought TR was way more innovative than WoW could have even dreamed, but TR got canned. I didn't pay money for it though...
The only innovation I am seeing right now is TSW and maybe GW2 with respect to big money companies. Heck even AoC and AION have more innovation than WoW as do many many F2P mmos. EVERY Indie sandbox that comes out has some sort of innovation involved that drastically differs from the unfortunate norm, but they fail because they took everything out of the oven before it was really cooked. They can only afford so much wood... You will not see a super fun innovative MMO rack in the cash that WoW has because of the tastes of the audience. Simply put, if WoW wasn't so successful, you'd definitely see more interesting mmos. WoW isn't evil. Blizzard was just smart and the majority of consumers don't look for depth.
I would be interested in knowing how innovation and depth have any relation? WoW offers more to do than most mmo's, especially the ones you mentioned. I currently subscribe to none, but have at one time or another played most. WoW offers tons of content, intuitive controls, casual play, tons of events, side games, crafting, etc... not to mention it runs well and has been relatively bug free compared to its contemporaries. This site is long known to have a large supply of posters who hate anything beyond nastolgic memories of old games that are on life support. I played them and they were good due to the fact it was a new concept and there were few options at the time.
WoW had a magnificent affect on the industry by proving the potential income to investors. There are so many big projects in the works with many more in planning stages. All of them want a piece of the pie, thanks to WoW. Hating any industry or business that suceeds seems more like jealousy if you ask me. Blizzard has produced a product that millions agree is worth playing and paying for. Just because some people do not like it, does not mean it is the world's evil.
Some people did not like Barney the dinosaur. Did that mean the end or ruination of the kids programming. No, it sparked an upsurge in kids programming. Same thing here. I think too many posters just hate for the sake of hating. Eventually (hopefully) people grow up and realize not everyone shares their opinions and/or the world does not revolve around them.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
Well yeah, we've known this for a long time. Now, almost all big budget MMOs aim to clone WoW rather than innovating even the slightest bit, and fail because they don't understand the MMO sphere. The market is saturated with clones focusing on singleplayer, and going BACKWARDS. It's sad that MMOs from the 90s had more features than most million dollar games have now after 6 years of development...
You're preaching to teh choir. Anyone who tries to argue that the genre has improved clearly wasn't around before WoW. The genre has improved for ONE type of gamer, the non MMO gamer, the gamers that WoW appealed to. And they already have WoW. Now they have a choice between, WoW with low graphics, realistic graphics, WoW with blasters, WoW with more instancing, WoW with super heroes, ect ect. Nowhere are there games for the core MMORPG demographic being made by large companies, only indie companies that work to push the genre forward, but lack the funds or manpower to ever put out a game that can truly compete. And at the same time, those indie companies are the only MMOs growing and getting better over time. WoW clones get big box sales then settle into a steady rapid decline. Games like Eve or Darkfall start off small and have been exponentially growing.
It's a sad time for the genre.
I'll argue that the MMO genre as a whole as improved light years ever since WoW.
This is a genre where '500k sub' was considered a huge income stream. Nothing like $$$ to spur companies to invest into something. EVE, DF, MO Ryzom are all around and successful in their own right.
It is an awesome time for the genre, it has millions of people playing and more MMOs with different things coming out each year.
I can't fault something for its popularity. Sometimes my taste isn't what the majority of people want and thus I have to accept that my taste in something won't have much variety. Nothing wrong with that.
You speak in terms of stock ticker... not as an end-user/gamer..
MARKETING is the only thing that gotten better in the MMORPG space, not the games. That is why ur whole post is utter failure.
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
I'll argue that the MMO genre as a whole as improved light years ever since WoW.
This is a genre where '500k sub' was considered a huge income stream. Nothing like $$$ to spur companies to invest into something. EVE, DF, MO Ryzom are all around and successful in their own right.
It is an awesome time for the genre, it has millions of people playing and more MMOs with different things coming out each year.
I can't fault something for its popularity. Sometimes my taste isn't what the majority of people want and thus I have to accept that my taste in something won't have much variety. Nothing wrong with that.
You speak in terms of stock ticker... not as an end-user/gamer..
MARKETING is the only thing that gotten better in the MMORPG space, not the games. That is why ur whole post is utter failure.
So making something mainstream so more people enjoys the same thing I enjoy is bad?
what the.... logic?
Yes, back in the UO/EQ days there were instances, areas that changes hands (EVE) and public questing (War) /Sarcasm
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Comments
Eh? I don't know what you're referring to. What examples of this did you have in mind?
Personally I don't consider any of the MMO's before WoW themepark MMO's, looking at the differences in MMO design I don't find it strange that the term 'themepark MMO' came in use with WoW, because that's the best example of that type of design, and MMO's that came afterwards come closer to that kind of design than the MMO's before WoW ever did.
And with WoW, the rise and popularity of the themepark MMO design became clear, themepark MMO raked in the most subs consistently collectively from 2005 onwards to now.
I was talking precu cu and nge. Sandbox. Hybrid. Linear themepark. The rise of theme is wow. It is the end of theme. Isn't enough to clone wow. They didn't help the popularity of theme. They tempted wow players before failureWhen wow stops being cool. So will themepark. There is wow. Wow is themepark.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
i'm about to puke every single time i see a new post about WoW, it's just a piece of shet for which some people have wasted less time then playing runescape, and No WoW isn't the first mmo to "come out", there were plenty before and after that are still making wow look like a piece of crap, cuz infact there is nothing else to it but that.
if you're so inlove with that crap and you can't find something to match it with, try Solitaire, there aint no diffs
Even without WoW, it should be clear to even you that the larger number of subs and players is found in the non-sandbox/themepark style of MMO's.
That's not speculation as you seem to do with some wild guessing how the future will be, those are just facts and hard data of the last 6-7 years.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Even without WoW, it should be clear to even you that the larger number of subs and players is found in the non-sandbox/themepark style of MMO's.
That's not speculation as you seem to do with some wild guessing how the future will be, those are just facts and hard data of the last 6-7 years.
Without wow, all those themepark failures wouldn't have been nged into clones. There would be a variety of all types. That's just wild guessing again. I guess if you don't repeat what everyone else says no matter how many times they're wrong you're crazy.See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
Without reading the entire thread... along with the thread title sure you can blame WoW. Just like once upon a time you could blame EverQuest.
Companies don't sit around wondering what kind of game is fun to play. They have investors and a desire to make a lot of money. So as I like to often do when you put Ultima Online versus EverQuest... the EQ "core design" won because it was a larger success from the business perspective.
Same thing with WoW and sure its why we got the CU and NGE in SWG... but you can't blame WoW for the fact that other developers have done such a bad job at various things. As well as the fact nobody seems to realize.. and they must have someone with a degree and a brain.. that in an overly saturated market you need to do something different...
Don't worry after the next few failures.. added in with the soon to come "free to play" wave that will fail even more epicly... eventually we'll get back to actually trying to be creative with... game play.
How long that takes... I don't even have a guess.. we might actually have a Rapture or Mayan doomsday before then..
*edited* fixed a few things and I remember when we used to have real variety in gaming.. back when I owned a Commodore 64!! I played all kinds of games back then.. Its not even just "clones" .. the MMO focus is so high that the other PC gaming markets are non existant compared to what they once were.. lucky to find a decent game a year and sometimes not even that.
No, I think you're actually right. Without WoW, I doubt the NGE would have happened, at least not in that format, WAR and LotrO wouldn't have changed their looks into a 'stylised' version and their gameplay and the gameplay of a lot of AAA MMO's (excl Aion, bc that was more an evolution of Korean MMO style like L1 and L2) would have been different in several ways than it is now. You only have to look at EQ2, which also had more quests than EQ and was more modernised, but it didn't have the WoW look and feel to it that later MMO's got. Also, you wouldn't have masses of new MMO gamers in the MMO market that had a totally different gaming background and preferences than the MMO player base before WoW, thus forever since then skewing any dominant preferences that are seen in the MMO playerbase towards WoW-style preferences and tastes.
WoW showed MMO companies what design could be massively popular and caused a flood of new people to enter the MMO scene that had a different taste in gaming than the MMO playerbase as a group did before.
So yes, without WoW I think the MMO market would have been smaller with less big money projects, but it would also have been more diverse.
Luckily enough, I think that we enter a time that there'll be more variety in the AAA segment again.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I don't think that all MMOs after WoW are crap. There are several that are pretty good. The community however is totally different since WoW. Before WoW, the MMO community was tight-knit (I still have most of my friends pre-WoW on my msn contact list, facebook, etc.). However, counting my contact list in my e-mail, I only have 13 people after WoW's release that I still remain in contact with.
You can see it on this site's (and almost all other site's) forums. Everyone seems so negative and doom and gloom. I think it has been lost, or maybe those newcomers with WoW never learned, MMOs are what the community make them. Devs can control very little of what you do while ingame. If you don't want to do quests today, who says you have to? Go out and slay some beasts, what's stopping you? Want to go grief some noobs? go do it (just not in some games with strict anti-greif rules). Want to just walk around and do absolutely nothing (that Bruno Mars Lazy song comes to mind), then just go walk around. People today have gotten so caught up in leveling thier character and crafting, we've lost what made the "old" MMOs fun. The Journey.
I think it's a question of perception. And server size. On smaller servers in WoW, or in games that are not as popular, you can find that kind of community. If you prefer high pop servers, well, it's anonymous. Cross-realm tools might skew this ' tight-knitted community' feeling too.
Servers all got bigger nowadays, due to technological evolution. In Shadowbane, my server peaked at 3000 players and it was barely stable. I believe this number is puts any wow realm at 'low' in the selection screen. And since games are also starting to offer more dynamic open world content, servers have to handle more players to have their population be 'healthy'.
That is true too. In most of today's games, I like to stick to RP servers. As most of the players there are alot like me and been playing MMOs for a long time. RP pretty much forces the community to be close. Even those that RP as "Evil" people still feel closer than any player I've met on normal servers.
I think that MMo companies tried to take stuff in a direction to similar to WoW and implemented new things along the way to try and compete. The unfortunate thing is that WoW would gobble up those ideas and implement them within a few months of the other trait of the other games being deemed a success.
This lead to WoW dominating because they continued to steal and steal accumulating everything decent about other MMos that they had to radicly change their design in order to be considered different. The IP theft will not change and Blizzard has seen how lucrative it has been for them. I do not think this will change much in the future as one game will always piggy back off the ideas of another.
It's just the game industry unfortunately, and it saddens me to see but I can always hope for that renegade company to show up and break the mold.
UO in my book was the KING of all mmorpgs. The UO before carebear Trammel. Nothing more exciting and heart pumping then being chased by Dreadlords (PK's). No other game has gave me the excitement as this one. Perhaps developers need to go back to this original game model.
-Rig
Just because that game got you excited and now you believe it to be the ultimate mmo, doesn't mean everyone shares your opinion. Nobody has eyes in the back of their head including devs. Yes you can glance back at the past but forward progress is what is needed to making mmorpg's much better.
Like i have expressed before. No game will be like your first. We all can only hope that there is a game coming out where the lore, settings, and systems can bring excitment back on a personal level. There will never be this ultimate mmorpg, because it is impossible to cater and satisfy everyone's needs.
That's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard. Every game has been the same since back in the UO days, just innovated. Blizzard has just proven that they are the superior innovators. No reason to call them thieves.
Do you know for certain?
Yep.... Money talks. That's really all there is to it.
WoW does what it does well, but it didn't really break any new ground. This is why people dislike WoW. It's gotten so successful for being meh. I mean I honestly thought TR was way more innovative than WoW could have even dreamed, but TR got canned. I didn't pay money for it though...
The only innovation I am seeing right now is TSW and maybe GW2 with respect to big money companies. Heck even AoC and AION have more innovation than WoW as do many many F2P mmos. EVERY Indie sandbox that comes out has some sort of innovation involved that drastically differs from the unfortunate norm, but they fail because they took everything out of the oven before it was really cooked. They can only afford so much wood... You will not see a super fun innovative MMO rack in the cash that WoW has because of the tastes of the audience. Simply put, if WoW wasn't so successful, you'd definitely see more interesting mmos. WoW isn't evil. Blizzard was just smart and the majority of consumers don't look for depth.
People in charge of making money saw a gold mine. Same thing happened with comic book to movie conversions. For decades you had maybe one or two every few years. Look at the glut of them now coming out in the past couple years. Holywood saw dollar signs and they churn it out. Same thing applies to the gaming industry, they saw what Blizzard did and now everyone wants a "Wow" cash cow.
Some of us see the text based online games as the best rpgs ever done. Most flexible game mechanics systems, most variation on what you as the player can do with your character skills, looks, gear etc wise. Also interaction in 'world events" were more on the fly and constant in their change which led you as a player to be more immersed and that you cared about what happened to your characters, others characters and the world itself.
One of the best out there and sitll around is Dragonrealms or Gemstone IV put out by Simutronics who have been around since the late 1980s. I played both off and on since the fall of 1992. I still wish and dream of a day when someone makes a graphical version of a game like DragonRealms, the crafting, combat, character on going custmization etc were simply the best.
Wow you totally thought I was telling everyone to stop paying for all the games I think are crap, you are naive. I was saying if you dont like it, DONT PAY FOR IT! Simple as that. I am all for fully supporting games that you do like. But if you are unhappy with the state of something, why bitch about it on some third party forum, stop paying for it, post a review and move on.
So much crap, so little quality.
It's strange, I used to think MMORPG players were some of the most individualistic, self motivating folks on the planet.. But as it turns out, we are more sheep than most any other hobbyist population..
We don't care about the game anymore, we just want to know sub numbers, and we can't wait to cry 'FAILURE" if our family and friends and uncles and aunts and grandmothers aren't all playing 10 million strong..
We refuse to believe that the most popular title today had to grow.. The genre was still in its mainstream infancy when the giant was born and it had to start somewhere and grow.. People really expect for every MMO to start of with 10 million players just so they have a reason.. An excuse to play it..
I think in order for the industry to grow and innovate once again, it has to lose the "pop culture".. The developers must go back to being humble and honest creators who have a vision and want to truly make a masterpeice.. The quick money grab "business men" must go back to stocks and real estate, and leave the passionate few to take the control and direction back.. The "F2P" era must either officially take over or officially die so the remaining MMO's without population and their studios can merge or close the doors to remove clutter and ease the oversaturation..
To keep the industry afloat, we need the true fans to stay in support through it's rapid downfall.. There are a few good honest companies that only want to bring you something made with you in mind and not about taking your money, and we need to make sure they survive long enough to support themselves and build greater things.. Money doesn't grow on tree's for them either, and celebrating when we put more people out of work, shutting down the company and causing more honest developers to lose interest in the genre does not help us..
We all claim to like these games, but a good bit of us don't show it.. We'd rather fight over which games "suck" in our personal opinions than to support the ones we actually like.. It is a wonder that any of you actually PLAY an MMO at all..
I understand what the original poster means.. The only games that I can have fun now is Wonderking, Maplestory and Flyff... The rest pretty much bores me.. The only thing is they lack content unfortunately =/
I would be interested in knowing how innovation and depth have any relation? WoW offers more to do than most mmo's, especially the ones you mentioned. I currently subscribe to none, but have at one time or another played most. WoW offers tons of content, intuitive controls, casual play, tons of events, side games, crafting, etc... not to mention it runs well and has been relatively bug free compared to its contemporaries. This site is long known to have a large supply of posters who hate anything beyond nastolgic memories of old games that are on life support. I played them and they were good due to the fact it was a new concept and there were few options at the time.
WoW had a magnificent affect on the industry by proving the potential income to investors. There are so many big projects in the works with many more in planning stages. All of them want a piece of the pie, thanks to WoW. Hating any industry or business that suceeds seems more like jealousy if you ask me. Blizzard has produced a product that millions agree is worth playing and paying for. Just because some people do not like it, does not mean it is the world's evil.
Some people did not like Barney the dinosaur. Did that mean the end or ruination of the kids programming. No, it sparked an upsurge in kids programming. Same thing here. I think too many posters just hate for the sake of hating. Eventually (hopefully) people grow up and realize not everyone shares their opinions and/or the world does not revolve around them.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
We all know this by now. Why do we keep talking about it?
We've known it since 2005/6
Social interaction has gone to crap since the Internet came out.
You speak in terms of stock ticker... not as an end-user/gamer..
MARKETING is the only thing that gotten better in the MMORPG space, not the games. That is why ur whole post is utter failure.
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
So making something mainstream so more people enjoys the same thing I enjoy is bad?
what the.... logic?
Yes, back in the UO/EQ days there were instances, areas that changes hands (EVE) and public questing (War) /Sarcasm
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.