Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
General: Editorial: MM Oh My Gosh!
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
Today, MMORPG.com presents a new Editorial. This one shows off the quick wit and dry humor of writer, Robert Fitzgerald as he discusses the idea of innovations in MMORPGs. Robert doesn't pull punches in this one as he takes a look beyond the cookie-cutter MMO:
|
It's alright, you can say it out loud. The MMO market has become much the same as the empty dance floor. Everyday we are flooded with new and "innovative" ideas with which we can get our grooves on and we don't take the chance. We find ourselves heading to the crowded dance floors of the tried and true titles such as World of Warcraft and Everquest II. While these games offer few new features (server queues are not a feature) and stay the course of time tested formulas. It's like dancing to re-mixes of the same old songs over and over again. Sitting on the fringe are titles that have truly taken a step in a different direction and attempt to offer features never before attempted in MMO's. The life of these titles is shorter than a Dixie Chicks concert in Texas, over before it starts. |
You can read the article, here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I endorse everything the article says, up to a point. The average player is generally unimaginative when it comes to appealing for more content. They build on what they can see or borrow from another successful game rather than call for truly new content. When they do think of something really original, its usually wholly impractical. However the inertia is often all driven by the commercial risks. When a project is demanding upwards of 10 million dollars of venture capital, few people are prepared to take big leaps into the unknown.
If anyone has followed the Turbine chapter of the Lords of the Ring Online saga from its infancy they will know how many original or innovative concepts lie trampled inthe dust on the road to what now sounds like a very generic but commercially safe MMO. The original designers, both from VUG (the former publisher) and Turbine (then only the developer) were talking about a lot of original ideas. Players would live in Middle Earth, not be steered automatically at adventuring content. There would be no wizards flinging fireballs around. Players would develop skills rather than follow rigid careers. Everyone was in danger of succumbing to corruption while battling the minions of Sauron, with juicy rewards trying to tempt you away from the moral high ground. Players would be able to develop a range of weapon skills, not be locked into class-defined modes of combat. All that is now changed beyond recognition and other former mainstream concepts like housing have slipped off into expansion pack territory. PvP has been "definitely out", "in but only in a startlingly innovative way that doesn't involve characters hurting characters", and now "in". Who knows where we will be by the time it reaches final beta. While no community is ever unanimous most of these changes have been greeted with resounding disappointment from the long lasting community members. Living in Middle Earth is precisely what many were looking forward to, not EverCraft III.
2nd yay
/agree
I'm not new but a recent convert to mmo's and i find them to be a cookie cutter of one and other. I've played games all my life and i think MMO's are the future of gaming but devs needs to move on from WoW and find new inovations oh and fantasy is getting old..... FAST
Tin Foil hats dont work.. its all a conspiracy
Sums up my frustrations pretty well.
I've played most MMOs (except WoW) and besides Everquest in 1999 then DAoC and some crafting interfaces for A Tale in the Desert, there have been no real innovations since, at least in the mainstream.
Sadly the only upcoming game with some innovations that i know of is Roma Victor, which is delivering that location based damage model which EQ2 promised so much but never delivered.
Sadly that game has the budget of an average FPS mod, so it suffers from a lack of content and very poor graphics.
But also tells a lot about the main stream industry, when a shamble attempt at an MMO is more innovative than multi-million dollar projects.
Firstly the link to this thread from the story is broken.
But that aside it's a great article. However, ironically, it doesn't say anything new. Anyone with half a brain who has played more than one MMO can see that all the innovation has gone out of the industry. But the problem isn't limited to them; speak to almost any member of these fora at random and they'll regale you with their ideas for their ideal MMO and 9 times out of 10 they'll end up going on about elves, swords and magic. Ask them about character systems and it'll be either "skill based" or "levels". Infact most will talk about both in "hybrid" systems. The current buzz word amongst players-with-dreams is "Dynamic"; game worlds that grow and change instead of remaining static but most people advocating them give little thought to the implications of such unlimited chaos.
Anyway my point is that the players are almost as bad as the industry itself; we lack real innovation and immagination because we're all coming from the same sources and having the same sort of day dreams. When I approached my own project (oh gods, here I go again) it was almost from the standpoint of subverting all I knew about existing MMO's. Then I realised that I was heading down exactly the same garden path as everyone else who wants to subvert existing MMO's. I eventually hit on the idea of designing a setting, as I would a PnP RPG, and then asking myself how I could do it justice in the form of an MMO. Along the way I discovered the real reason there is no innovation in MMO's.
Firstly being original is hard work; I just channelled some outside sources and synthesised them into something vaguely original. I'm slightly good at that and I can only name about a dozen other people I know of who are brilliant at it; many of whom were my sources.
Secondly it COSTS. They spent fifty million euros on WoW and I doubt any of the players even notice! If you're going to be investing millions in a project you're going to want to see a return on it; doing it like something else that made a return is safer than risking it all on an outside bet.
Anyway I'm beginning to ramble (sorry that should read "continuing to ramble"); on with the thread!
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
-- The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Another lousy bit of writing from a substandard editorializer. Lots of adolescent complaining, but no real solutions. Go back to school, get a college education, make something yourself. Then, come back and give us all the pearls of your 'wisdom'.
Until then, STFU !
The same debate goes on for shooters were everyone wants innovation instead of a solid game.
Nowadays a game to be succesful needs to appeal to the masses and niche games will not survive and that goes for all games not only MMO's.
Who the hell cares if an MMO is cookie butter as long as it is fun, i have no need for wasting my money in games that may or may not bring innovation but are boring like hell, unfinished and buggy.
DnL anyone?
If brand recognition is the reason for WoW success. How do you justify how D&D Online is doing?
You need a good game, not only a good name or brand. The reason why WoW is such a hit, is it the most casual and fun friendly game out there. No force grouping and no grinding (under lvl 60), unless you want to do it in dungeon or faction grinding. After EQ1, with those long grinding and time sink, people wanted a game to have fun, not that look like a job. WoW offer that kind of game, fun and no time sink (At least for level 1 -59).
If you check the current poll on the EQ2 board, 40% of those playing EQ2 prefer to solo. And the best MMORPG for solo player is WoW.
This article is highly predictable and very correct. But there is cause for optimism....
I may make the short and saddening perception that many players aren't bulk PC gamers. Many gamers have dispositions originating from a market/gamer mechanics you find in Magic the Gathering, Monopoly or Boardgame puzzles. These gamers, and some friends of mine are that way, want it predictable, formulaic and "more of the same". They can watch the same Cartoons on TV over and over again, laughing again and again at dexter's lab or some superhero soap that never ever truly changes. These are the simpletons that are shocked that between season 1 and 5 of startrek the Enterprise security officer and the spandex suits slightly change... Continuity errors they'd call that. *shrug*
But when the appeal television fades, as it will in the next few years, a change in MMO's will also occur. We will see new paradigms... I can even see it happening inside WoW. Blizzard will obviously experiment with dynamic persistence, as they are doing already.
Imagine a whole continent organized like alterac valley but better... I've made this point on this forum before. Create land areas with changing allegiances. One day a land area is owned by trolls. Then the damn night elves come around and claim it, blacksmith by castle by graveyard. The land then shifts from red deserty to more covered with trees. After a few weeks the land is an elven land, slowly having shifted, with new objects, monsters, vegetation, color scheme etc.
However then the ogers come. Then the land becomes barren again, but now in iconic oger style; many caves, ruined buildings, cadavers and cooking pots. The ogers hold the land for a while and then a dragon comes in and everything is more or less dead and blackened for a few weeks. What next? Goblins !
A troll blacksmith would be replaced by a modular night elf blacksmith. A graveyard of the ogers looks different than that of the elves. Maybe a location doesnt merely show a graveyard, but it has a spot that allows something to be built on it, say a 4X4 space. On a 4X4 space you can create a blacksmith, lumberyard, courthouse, medium size farm, necromancer grotto or sorceror's tower.
Any player or group of players can decide what to build there, limited by resources, available space, skills or whatever. Some lands would have lower levels, with limited resources, lower level monsters, etc. ... Other lands have high levels, many resources, ore, special bonuses... etc...
I don't see the familiar continents in WoW change.
But not even an anonymous monolithical and terrified-of-change company like Blizzard will eventually experiment with novelty. I can easily see them create a new continent, maybe in a year, that works with this formula, a continent as big or bigger than the existing continents!!!
In this new cont(in)ent you'd have one homeland for each starting race or faction, a city, a port, but anything else would be for grabs. A little village could be held by orcs one month and then fall to sieging elves and become more mainstream alliance, with appropriate alliance buildings. A valuable place with ore could be mined by gnomes one month and then grabbed by blood elves. Next to the mine there would be place for a *special* 5X5 building... one month it would be a paladin's fortress but once the blood elves moved they erect a warlock tower.
As the game progressed possession of very rare buildings would allow tangible benefits. Development of a Warlock tower through several stages would allow the Blood Elf Warlocks to tap new warlock powers, learn warlock recipes or train rare talents. As such it would be damn desireable to move into a high level territory, claim such a rare building spot from NPC's through a campaign of siege and demolition lasting days, then erect the structure (taking 14 hours), upgrade it (taking 18 hours), upgrade it again (taking 24 hours)... all the time guarding.
This would logically also allow characters control over NPC's and Monsters. A player would go to a city, hire a smith, escort the smith through dangerous countryside to the new settlement and put him to work in the mine. Or he could travel to Orgrimmar and hire a fresh NPC alchemist, travel by foot, boat and zeppelin to the new land, travel to the warlock tower, and put the alchemist to work in the Warlock tower - possibly as a component for upgrading the tower from level 3 to 4.
The same goes for monsters. As the new location would be filled with monsters of applicable needs and level, the players, organized in a guild, could command monsters. For instance: holding a level 25-35 area, put in a kind of thorny vines and a special kind of harpies, air elementals and centaurs. Some monsters would be incompatible, other monsters would have special requirements (food? nests?) that players would have to manage.
The next step would be to implement skills, talents, professions etc. that tie in with this investment. A professional Trader would come to mind. Imagine scarcity in such a land. Because of player choices grain would have become scarce in the far north, around the mine and warlock tower. This would prompt players to organize caravans with beasts of burden, laden with sacks of grain. Which they sell at inflated prices.
Or it would be interesting to allow players to run tax collectors. Or a smith could revert a small percentage of services rendered to their owner - all characters using the smith for regular stuff thus provide the owner with a small but steady income - or that same income, in a chest located on the second level of the smith could also be plundered by gnome rogues looking for revenge.
Imagine players discovering a totally deserted city for the first time. Imagine the greed in their eyes seeing a dozen empty sites for businesses, buildings, structures... or maybe these 3X3, 3X4, 5X5 spaces were initially inhabited by monsters, need to be demolished, building goods need to be imported.
An outdated concept in this vision: guilds. Why not organize groups of players in a military structure? You would be able to have small cohorts of 10 players. A possible career would be officer. Several such cohorts would form a larger military unit. You can keep guilds, but it would be interesting to see if players would be able to muster the discipline and focus and raw dedication to work on projects that, even if everything goes right, take a week or more to fully realize !
All this we have seen before, in screen resolution. Since the mid 1980s games have seen a steady increase in graphics resolution. The same will happen in MMO game content. The very detail and resolution of these games will slowly grow, expand. In some cases the old content will be replaced by more detailed content (a new orgrimmar?!) to be compatible with the new lands.
I am not so worried by MMOs developing. Sure, for a few years the suits and investors will demand status quo, stifling carefullness and the same old hollywood-esque stupidty that is ruining the movie, TV and entertainment industry. But MMO's are fresh. The merest inkling of originality in one industry player will destroy the competition overnight. It's still the wild west out there, lots of space to experiment with new ideas.
I have LOADS more ideas btw. This is just an inkling.
If anyone wants to hire me... mail dagonweb(at)hotmail(dot)com !
The only truly innovative MMORPG out there atm, sadly, is Shadowbane. Yeah it has a bad rap for bugs, exploits and duping, but the game broke serious ground with city building, nation building, conquest, housing and seiges.
The game is free now and admitedly its in a poor state atm, but still playable. What we need is a more developed community. We need more people to come and play....its free so it should be a no-brainer to give it whirl. Eveyrone's input is important. As the next iteration of this game, whether it retains its name or released under a new name will be the holy grail of MMORPG innovation.
I do agree with the article, but there are innovative games out there. Darkfall looks very promising and should be in beta by the end of this year.
The biggest issue in MMORPGs is the PvP issue and thats where things break down and I beleive that this is where the innovation gets stopped at the gate.
Lets hope that the people at Stray Bullet games (Shadowbane's home) and Adventurine (Darkfall's home) can lead us into the next generation of MMORPGs.
The day will come. I have faith.
The reason World of Warcraft is so successful is because of it's polish and refinement, it's ease to start playing. You want to do something? Just click on it. Done!!
Many times I start a new MMO and I'm turned off because of the LONG tutorial on learning how to play. Even after, I find myself with many questions on how to start crafting, or where do I buy things. Soon after, I stop playing the game altogether. It could have even been a better game than World of Warcraft, but I didn't get in to it because it was too difficult to learn.
Also, many MMOs just aren't polished! I can't stress this enough. The colisions are off. The game runs laggy even after 5 years (not my comp). It just feels like a beta if that!
I also have to comment on the end game. I hear more about it than anything in games,"How is the end game?". "What is there to do at end game?", "The End game in this game is terrible." What do you expect?
Deep down, these games are about role-playing in the world, or treasure hunting. Well, the end game isn't keeping you from role-playing, and why is the treasure hunting bad? Most people say it's because it's difficult to get the large party and play for 3-4 hours trying to kill the boss. Agreed? Okay, how is this fixed? Simple...GET RID OF THE LARGE RAIDS!! Make the game more small group/casual friendly. Maximum group shouldn't exceed 10 if that.
A lot of people like the large groups. How about this, scalable dungeons like Diablo II. When you had 6 people, the monsters dropped more loot, more exp, and were more difficult. Too hard to program? How about "EASY" servers for the casual gamers? Molten Core is 40 man raid, but on an EASY server, it's 10! Why can't they do that? Oh yeah! It's about money. It's more programming time to have the same people pay for it.
None of these games are about catering to all audiences. It's all about making as big a profit as possible. As long as this is happening, the only way we'll get better games is if more companies can raise the bar. It's obvious Blizzard has the upper hand. Some other game has to ante up and give even more gamers what they want. This will trigger Blizzard to do even better! But as long as Blizzard is on top, us gamers have to pay $15 for their game that we've played for the last year and a half, play something worse, or don't play MMOs at all.
Part of the reason WOW is so succesful has to do with how polished the game is. Its extremly friendly to casuals and there are no bugs aswell as alot of eye candy. Its very polished, alot of mmo's come out in a bad state and still call themselfs released versions of the game when in reality it feels like I am paying to play a beta.
My big gripe with WOW is that there comes a time when you have nothing left to do aside from some 40 man scheduled raids. The only real solo acomplishment is HWL which I already reached (was first hwl rogue on server) aside from that there is just a few rep grinds you can do, I like to walk away from a game at the end of a day and physicaly see the difference in strength from my char at the start of the day and the end thats just not possible with wow anymore.
Dont get me wrong its a fantastic game and I think it deserves to be played I just wish it wasnt so casual friendly cause I am not a casual, If I could grind up to level 200 and pwn armies of casuals I would still play but sadly every newb and his mother is level 60 with atleast MC epic gear.
My advice is butterfly some betas like me. You never know what next game will be the "IT" game give them all a chance. Im currently checking out hero which isnt that bad is pretty grindy however it isnt sit back and watch the fight its very heavy skill / potion spamming which is a must for my play style. I am also eagerly waiting to see Cabal online which promises "the innovation of action".
Dont turn a game down cause the graphics arent that good either take gameplay / depth over flash.. Id rather play an amazing 2d game like nexus kingdom of the winds then play a fantasicly beautiful crappy game like eq2
Next time, please at least give us a solution. Even if it's bad, throw a solution out there. Articles like these, all complaining and no problem-solving, just contribute to the view of gamers as being whiny children.
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
Erm, my two cents: Looking at the list of upcoming games I get the same feeling like when seeing remakes of old Super Mario games. 'I used to enjoy this, but I played it "and beat it" and now there's nothing more to do but look for another genre'.
Only it isn't really another genre I want, I'm already playing RTS and FPS games regurarly. The current MMORPGs are clones of themselves and all I really want is a _different_ new MMORPG.
Spore interests me a great deal and I think the game would be awesome if played in the same universe as other players having them able to eat your creature or blow up your galactic empire. Granted there would be grieving both my behalf and the opponent, but with the right system in place to preserve your civilization even after complete destruction it could well promote war as well as diplomacy. Now that would truly be a nonstatic world to live in.
Seeing how the bigger companies right now have profits leaking from their behinds the only thing keeping them from making worlds which are constantly evolving and progressing its storyline forward as towns crumble and dragons are hollowed out and used as parade balloons is their will to try. Certainly they could produce the tools along with new games to allow game masters to add things on the go and even provide ingame events daily. But they don't have to try because they still get their pay
Ideas like letting players have controll of games progression and adding their own content as they wish while they play raises brows because "Oh noes, it would ruin the ingame economy" or "It would be impossible to provide a balanced experience". Just that in these sort of fictional games you wouldn't necessarily have an economy, or need balance at every turn before running into your mother's skirts crying. It's thinking outside the box which will be the big win and is the only reason potential ideas are labelled radical.
Ah well this text ended up longer than I'd intended. I have the patience to sit on the sidelines waiting for change.
I started playing Warcraft after fighting the earge for a year and having people tell me how it was for kids and dumbed down. But I have recently picked it up and it is fun to play. Sure it may not last forever but what game does. I don't know crap about the world or the characters - if anything it is the biggest turn off to the game - I dont particularly care for the races and the class restrictions and the back story. But the game is fun and easy to learn and I can jump on for an hour and have fun or for a marathon quest for 6 hours if I like. Hell I am even crafting my own armor for my level in this game - I have never wasted my time doing that in a MMO before because it was not fun and a waste of time.
So maybe at first the founding members were Warcraft geeks that got their friends fired up but I can't imagine the name was that huge all around the world to be that popular still over a year later. It is a solid game that is fun - it may not be a classic but if somebody made a star wars game that was as good as this with the same linear quests and crappy end game and whatever people are bitching about I would subscribe in a second.
---MMO EXPERIENCE:---
WoW - 06-2006 to current
COV - 40 Corruptor - 10-2005 to 04-2006
COH - 50 Scrapper - 04-2004 to 04-2006
EQ2 - 35 Barb Berserker - 12-2004 to 04-2005
EQ1 - 55 Barb Warrior - 2000, 2001
Tried: DaoC, DDO, Auto Assault, SWG, Lineage II
The editor mentions innovative games out there that we fail to jump in on. However he doesnt mention any great innovative games to date which are worthy of the so called "taking the plunge". I think there are alot of people who would rather break away from the cookie cutter mmo. But at this point some of the more innovative games are not well rounded enough for the average gamer. They can be really innovative but have horrible graphics, innovative but have tons of bugs ,innovative but geared toward pvp , innovative but have no pvp, etc etc.
Point is, the market is full of competition. Unless the company gets every piece of the puzzle right, chances are they will lose or not even get players to buy the game. Games like WOW, EQ2 and Guildwars are raking in the customers not only because of avertising and a big pocket book. But because they put out the most well rounded game. It may be a shallow part of the game but graphics play a huge role for a lot of people on buying a game today. I check a screenshot...if it sucks, chances are I wont give it a 2nd thought no matter how innovative it is supposed to be.
What really wrong with cookie cutter? as long as they continue to make improvements to each "cookie cutter". I believe that is why WoW is so popular. They took other similar ideas and improved on graphics, game play and simplified the learning curve. As long as games keep improving innovation will evolve in a natural progression.
I never liked playing WoW because they did simplify it so much, just giving my opinion.
WoW was designed very well, with lots of thought put into simplifying pointless complexity and making things intuitive. They didn't 100% succeed, but it's way better than any other MMORPG out there in that sense.
That said, it's deadly boring after a while. I quit around level 45 because it didn't feel like there was any point. PVP is inferior, raiding and rep grinding are not my cup of tea... so don't assume I'm some fanboy here. WoW is a success because it is carefully tuned to suck you in and make playing easy. It's not innovative; it took what was out there and refined it to a higher degree. That's what Blizzard does best.
That being said, it's true most of the industry is now just making WoW clones to get a slice of the pie, and doing it poorly.
I liked the article. It makes sense. I'm not sure why people talk about WoW so much. The whole crafting, autofighting, pvp, auction system, etc. migrated directly from muds. In fact I think I've seen every feature in the mmorpg's I've played in muds that I have played years ago. Granted there are things that are unique to most mmorpg's, but the same basic systems existed in text based online games long before everquest, and certainly before WoW.
Still, I generally agree that there is a serious lack of innovation. The only mmo I ever stuck around in was Dark Age of Camelot. The game sucked overall, but the pvp was a lot of fun. If you played with other people who didn't suck you could have a lot of fun in Emain, etc. Of course that game became rife with cheaters using radar, speedhacks, etc. Although Mythic (recently acquired by EA may god have mercy on Mark Jacobs soul) has worked hard at fixing the radar issues it has continued to be a problem. What's probably the most amusing thing to see is how other successful mmorpg's have coped many features from WoW. I mean blatant copying, and generally lackluster execution as well. I personally am looking forward to games that appear to be fun and engaging. Huxley for instance, and Cabal Online, are just 2 examples. I just recently started playing Saga of Ryzom. It's really no better in terms of features at the moment than most other mmorpgs. It is adding an expansion that will allow players to create in-game events and encounters.
In terms of innovation I think that what mmorpg's lack the most if roleplaying, and this has to do with a serious lack of involvement on the part of the game companies. If they spent less money doing stupid shit, like adding 10 more dragons for me to kill, they should hire real gamemasters who actually do cool stuff with players. It would be great if gm's didn't have to waste time with customer service and could actually be masters of the game. Unfortunately many people seem to think that such encounters can be programmed into the game, and that a live person isn't necessary. Personally I think these people are stupid. A real human isn't predictable. This is why pvp can be so much fun. So it only makes sense that gms should be intimately involved in the environment (npc's, mobiles, etc). If there were constantly things happening that you could participate in with outgoing to such and such npc off in a random dark corner, then running across the world to find a certain mob type and kill it and then running back to get credit these games would be a lot more fun. Not only would the content be more dynamic, but it would be easier to get to, and it would feel like a grind anymore, but like you were doing something because you were genuinely interested in seeing what was happening down the road, or over the hill, or in that forest over there, etc.
I apologize for the rambling on.
It is pathos we lack, and this lack of pathos makes the worlds we explore quite stale.
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Antioche
/ramble off
It is pathos we lack, and this lack of pathos makes the worlds we explore quite stale.
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Antioche
/ramble off
So do nothing. That's the solution? Alright, so I and everyone else will stop paying for MMOs altogether, because you said so. MMOs as a whole will then be deemed a failure, and you and your friends can go back to stroking your consoles.
I took the time to read the article. The point was buried, if what you said is the point really IS the point. I don't care about catchy lines or anything else like that. I play a game because I deem it to be fun, plain and simple. Most games DO suck, that's why I don't play most games. But "suck" is a relative term.
Now, how about a solution that actually solves something? Instead of saying "we need something different because we're a bunch of ADHD mushbrains and things aren't fast and furious enough for us and I'm not going to tell you what it is you're just going to have to guess insert continuous runon sentence here", try offering a solution like "More sandbox environments" or "Keep complexities in games as they challenge people, and that's what people want nowadays".
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
Stradden mate, I have done that and so far I have been BANNED from 3 official gaming forums as a result. MMO dev's don't want to hear about innovation, all they want to hear is the "Cha-ching, Cha-ching" of cash registers as they make game sales!
This article totally describes my state of mind, good job man.
People hiding behind WoW numbers are walking straigth into a wall. Been playin' MMOs since 98, and, besides UO which was really in a different category by its depth and incredible community, once i played EQ, all the upcoming games just looked the same to me, except the fact that Everquset was much deeper in content than anything u can see now.
Few brought nice features, DAOC brought PVP which was fun, so it was original for this point.
Anarchy Online was original cuz it was kinda the first big mmo that was in a futuristic world, and the skill points feature was quite unique back then, was cool too (even if the many bugs at start were boring, and the 'same old mission gee' was boring too).
After these 3 games, i didn't find anything innovative (or almost);SWG who got totally destroyed by its own creators, it was 1000x better at release than anytime after (imo); Lineage 2 was eye candy but just click and slash ol' korean type game (same for RF); FFXI had a nice idea of letting people switch classes when they went back to their homes but seriously 20 different monsters as a total, and stupid quests post lvl 60 that just allow u to be able to xp further on were a downer; WoW to me is terrible, ultra linear, i hate toon graphics, and with maybe the worse community in history (which is understandable since it's the biggest), filled with people who play MMO for the first time and think they know everything about em.
On the other part EQ2 had a nice feature on the PVP servers which allowed u to xp uniquely by killing other players (went from lvl 19 to lvl 38 just by killing peeps), and EVE had a lot of interresting features, including the mass production, the "ur ship goes boom then u really lose stuff u just don't respawn without any penalty so babies don't cry", and the huge galaxy. The only problem with EVE, to me, is that i don't really feel the action, even fighting a big war like the bob vs Iron one wasn't that exciting, it was more like watching it on TV.
For now, i think that finding innovative games will be kinda difficult, because a lot of companies will try to catch the "casual 12 years old gamer" like WoW did, just to make a large profit, rather than trying to find a really interresting idea gamewise. Maybe games like Fury can be quite refreshing, if their gameplay is as fast paced as they say.
The problems with mmorpgs is that they bring so much money compared to other games, that they fall in the same twisting sins than music or movies, they are made based on marketing point of view now and not on gamer point of view. Because if u make a movie on a gamer pov, u won't have big companies giving u a lot of $$ to make a nice lookin and up to date game, and, even if ur game is damn interresting with cool features, it'll go down in flames cuz u won't have enough peeps to fix all the bugs, ur engine will suck and u won't have time to solve problems before new ones arrive (ex : Shadowbane). On the other hand, if u make moves based on what big companies marketing directors say, u'll have a lot of cash, u'll attract the maximum players, and u'll do a nice eye candy aimed to the 12-18 years old kiddos, with a linear gameplay, that doesn't require much thinking, so they can stay up all day long instead of studying or do what they are supposed to (since mom and dad play too), ex : WoW.
Now the question that has to be asked is : What is the aiml of MMOs ? Is it to bring muchos fun to the players ? Or is it to bring muchos $$ to the 2 or 3 companies that share the market (SoE, Blizzard, EA (sorry mythic)) ?
You're a Hardcore Survivor!
You not only survived the zombie apocalypse, but did it with style! Your mastery of zombie knowledge, survival tactics, and weaponry is nearly unmatched. Congratulations, for you are hardcore!
I agree with the point made in the editorial that more innovation is needed. I've argued here at MMORPG.com recently for several changes in the now-conventional design thinking that I think would improve these MMOG things generally... and if I can think of them, surely some veteran game designer is capable of doing even better.
That said, I don't think it's entirely fair to criticize WoW for a lack of innovation -- that's not what WoW was shooting for. Blizzard was looking for commercial success, not artistic leadership, and followed the same path traveled by many of the most successful companies, including Microsoft. Which is to look at the industry, see what sells well, and take all the most popular ideas and integrate them into a single coherent product.
I wouldn't say that Blizzard got it right on all counts, but obviously they've gotten enough right to be very successful commercially, just like other companies that benefit from the second-mover advantage. What I wish other developers would recognize is that once someone gets the second-mover advantage, it's gone -- there is no "third-mover advantage." Copying WoW's features is not going to help you... which is where innovation comes in.
This is still a very young industry. Eventually someone's going to come along with the right new idea(s) at the right time and make us forget that WoW ever existed....
--Flatfingers