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Is the "New" just around the corner? and some other thoughts (long read)
hidden1
Member UncommonPosts: 1,244
Today I've been hit by a touch of inspiriational, energy, and have dared to attempt my first really long post. Call it universal providence, wishful thinking, or just dumb luck. Of the first I am little to know and and less do with the spiritual aspects of consciousness expansion, of the second, I suppose wishful thinking is just another way of saying hopefullness, of the latter, dumb luck, or perhaps that spark from some unknown quarter of ones mind manifesting itself for yet even more unknown, and mysterious reasons. Let's just leave it at dumb luck for the sake of simplicity.
One of the questions I have put to the test time and time again, and this after purchasing various MMORPGs in hopes of the next thing to wow me, is when will I find that new thing, that new idea, that newness that will excillerate and tantalize me again? Mind you if anyone has read any of my posts, you'll get a sense that I am a bit of a graphics whore, and really need that visual eye candy to draw me in first and foremost. But what happens shortly after around level 20 or 30 (my usual generic level cap to deciding whether I will stay and play or leave for wild blue yonder yet again)? It is usually around that level range in most MMORPGs I've tried that I usually find myself falling into the cracks of familiarity, and those old mundane feelings of disappointment start to set in yet again. I start to notice the similarities to past MMOs I've played, and start to find my concious mind wandering, as I'm running through reppettive feelings; this occurring almost as if I've driven in autopilot that seemingly endless, straights stretch of highway, only to miraculously find that at the end of my journey, I had no concious recollection of that endless drive. This is how I strart to feel when I play most of these games.
Yes, I said graphics earlier, and yes they need to hook me in, and perhaps this is due to being the male of species, and perhaps this is due to some biological imperative and/or to the theory of roughly 6.5 million years of human evolution; an anthropological idea that vision and 3D depth perception evolved due to the males' gathering and/or hunting game food. Regardless, this is only the entry way for me in deciding which new MMORPGs I want to try, and not the here-all say-all of the matter. Sure I want to try out Berkanix, or TERA online... but graphics alone won't determine wether I'll play it long term, or give up on them after level 20 or so (or maybe even less).
I always have to remind myself, am I still having fun at level 10... then ask that same questions at level 20, or 30 respectively. Am I enjoying the storyline of the world I'm playing in, do I enjoy the gameplay mechanics? Is it a point-n-click "auto target lock" system, or is it closer to a 3rd or 1st person fps? Inasmuch that it takes more user skill to aim at your targets, be they AI-controlled or other players. Is the game's menu's and hotkeys as customizable as possible? Are there proper and logical collision dection checks around buildings and obsctacles for wich a hasty retreat could help you avoid loosing the last few hitpoints of your character's life. Or is the game treat damage checks automatically... basically if you're targeted by the mob, the projectile (be it magical or non) will automatically hit you regardless if you successfully hid behind a wall, or doorway in a vain attempt to avoiding the inevitable? These are just some of the questions my mind goes through; a mental checklist that at times I have not concious control over. And, these questions if answered to my distaste may help to deciding the longevity of any given MMORPG's shelflife on my PC.
One of things I've often pondered upon was that feeling of anticipation mixed with excitment as the possiblities the MMORPG had to offer; of the excitment of connecting with other players, and in hopes world wide. I reckonned that this gaming environment can be socialogical vehicle for self-enrinchment and at best an experience of world curltural growth and understanding. However, reality harshly slapped me in the face when most MMORPGs I've played I've found myself playing solo. This if course is not necessarily the developer's fault, or perhaps not entirely, but may have more to do with generations of younger and younger gamers growing up, getting jobs, getting married, finding a partner, etc... This is to me is quite understandable human condition. It is the situation of the gamers of today, not wanting to fully give up their gaming, but instead allocating less time to for them to get thier gaming fix. It is the environent of today. One must manage their time, as the world grows larger, and populations increase, and immergent countries growing and being groomed for the next "super power" status are productively growing exponentially as if overnight. We are hence forced to allocate more time to our businesses and jobs, to ensure they are more successful against the growing competative world markets. And that is no easy task considering more immergent countries have cheaper labor foreces and higher profit margin goals. What does this all translate to? One thing comes to mind is that we are forced to work longer hours, and even though one is on hourly wages, they too more often than not find themselves staying later and later into the late hours of the night at the office to not only get the job done, but also to ensure that the best quality of work is in par and competative in the current world market. Subsequently, this also means more stress for the MMO gamers out there.
After long hours of work and no play, you may find yourself coming home to your spouse/partner,bf,gf,shitzu, etc... only to realize that your work is not done. You have to now upkeep your appartment/home, make a list of groceries, make dinner for your family, vaccuum the rug, do some laundry, etc... It's now late at night, and after such and exhausting day, all you can think of is a quick shower, and bed. But wait, there's that gamer's craving rearing it's ugly head, egging you on to turn on your pc/laptop, and try to get some exp grind on your current toon? You log into your favorite game, and if you're one of three types of gamer, you'll either play for 4 hours and think that you'll only need the remaining 4 hours sleep for work, play all night, all the while nearly overdosing on your 8th energy drink of the night, or login and kill 10 mobs, shut your computer off and head right to bed. I believe that these three MMORPG gamer archtypes are what seems too push the market in regards to the target audience that many of these companies are trying to get.
While some companies trying strategies of using f2p models, all the while hoping that the more afluent 1 or 2% of their subscribers base are feverishly buying in their items/cash shops, and that it will make enough money to break even or make a marginal profit. It is my general belief, and not stating this as fact, but more of a loose, or broad, generalized theory/speculation, that this model can only successfully work by the wealthy few subscribers, and that the f2p game in question is popular enough to make some profit or just break even. Most of the other gamers seem to fall under middle class, to lower middleclass and are not privy to continous expenditures on such a model. For the most part we will either play the free portions of the game as it stands, or have a small budget equivilant of something we would pay monthly. So hence, most of us gamers will plan to roughly allocate 10-15 dollar monthly budget for items/cash shop purchases. And in most cases, you can't get much for 10-15 from these shops. Is this to say that f2p models can't succeed like p2p, ... not at all what I'm suggesting. Mearly stating that f2p models and their respective companies have to understand their market. Whether a f2p MMORPG fails or succeeds is in part planning and knowing their target audience, and the rest just dumb luck, or ... in most cases, some new f2p mmo that's just around the corner offering the a similar gaming experience with the benefit of offering new looks, new worlds to live, better software technologies to showcase better graphics.
P2p models seem to offer the best bang for the buck (in theory anyways) when it comes to MMORPGs, and this I can only surmise that has as strong appeal for lower to upper middle class gamers. I for one like being able to acquire unique items, bosses, and play all of the games content for a monthly fee. In p2p models if you are a frugal, middleclass gamer like me, I would immagine one would feel less inclined to rush through the game, and get your bang for your buck, as that is how I usually roll when it comes to p2p models. I like to explore every area, and every nook and cranny, occassionally finding my character in areas that I'm not supposed to be at due to bad planning in their collision detection check, wherin my character would either fall through the game world's geometry, or simeply crash the game. I'm not really bug testing and doing world collision dectection checks, but respectly following my heart and try to experience every moment of the game (and usually I'm disappointed by incidently finding some sort of bug instead). I mention this so that you all get an idea as to how I like to squeeze every bang for my buck. I like to craft in games, and try to craft every possible special item, and I like to experiement with different skill builds and make multiple toons to test out new skill/character builds. I'm just curious that way. I also like solid game content in regards to pve, but not only good story-driven content but a type of group dynamic of teamwork and puzzle-solving in certain quest (DDO is the best example of this that I can think of as some quests required the party memebers to split up, and yet other quests required a certain class to unlock other parts of the quest line for the party). I've never been the type of gamer who is heavily into pvp, but I do from occassion and time to time as a change of pace from continous questing, have enjoyed some what I would personally call "light" pvp. I would say I like the racial or factional pvp as apposed to FFA. I don't have anything against FFA or full loot pvp MMO's but it's just not what I prefer. I like to have some safe areas and/or safe zones to get away if needed, and not get constantly ganked/griefed as it seems to be the case in the more hardcore pvp MMO's. I suppose it is because I'm more a cooporative than compettative personality type overall. I get a rush in helping party memebers, often saving any of them in the nick-of-time, and enjoying giving any item/gears that othe party members and specific classes could use. I've never been into the economy of any MMORPG I've played, however I do understand that economy seems to be a popularly discussed topic in most MMORPGs. In retrospect, it is these types of aforementioned substances, or ideas that I like to enjoy when playing p2p model MMORPGs... just to give you an idea of where I'm coming from.
And what to say about the hybrid models, except that they get better gas mileage, and are more ecofriendly? Yes I call them hybrids and suits my needs for describing any MMORPG that employes both a p2p with an item/cash shop. This seems to be one growing trend in that some, if not most (and if successfully excecuted) new developers/publishers seem to be leaning towards. On the one hand my personal belief is that if there is certain game content that can only be bought in the shop, and I'm paying monthly for it, then I start to wander why I'm paying monthly. I would hate to think that the future could be monthly fee's with the gamers being forced to pay for additional content (i.e., One time instant dugneons/quests, and entire new map with new quests and item drop content). I have no problem with this in a f2p model, but if I'm paying monthly then this should free in my humble opinion. Having supreflous item shop electronic items that don't add and/or change your character's attributes, but are merely for "bling bling factor" is acceptable to me, as bling items are for looks and not in any way change the game's paramters or the character's attributes in any way to give some sort of advantage (either in pve or pvp). Hybrid models can work, but it's success might be dependant of how transparent they are with their target audience. What I mean to say is information and plans about the game's development freely and in a timely fasion disseminated into i's target community, or are they tightlipped and stingy, and pretty much uncarring as to their target's input and/or reaction. Whether they be forthcoming with their ideas in regards to what you get to p2p and what is sold in the item/cash shops and what kind of impact it will have on the gaming subscribers? If they are honest with what they are attempting, informing their target audience such that there will be a p2p model, and will be selling "chash shop only items" that happen to change your character's parameters to some sort of advantage in pve/pvp; perhaps that could work, honesty goes a long way. How much information should a company give out pre-beta/open/launch to it's target audience/community? I for one would prefer to be in the know as to what billing model they may adopt. Some information about what their plans are in regards to the item shop, and respectively what type of items (wether supreflous or passivley stat affecting) could be communicated and plan such that a "happy medium" is reached. They could offer through their item shop such items that may even be dropped by bosses/pittbosses/various "elite" mobs. I would tend to wonder that most people would frown upon such a model that employs item shop only weapons or weapons dropped by certain mobs. However, if done correctly such that the developer allows for in-game only super items that will never be sold in the shops but are in some way an equvilant or "equalizer" to the item shop only weapons. This creates an option that can be beneficial to those who game and don't have time due to various real life time constraints, and don't want to spend hours grinding a boss for a certain "special" drop, and equally beneficial to those who have the time to grind for "special" in-game only weapsons/gear, and so would have no need to buy an item shop weapon. As long as both types of gamers have an option there should be no problems. As far as selling cash shop items dropped in-game by certain mobs, that could help those players who don't have the time to aqcuire them due to the minute every day to day life, such as work, family, or what-not. This in a way creates a certain fairness to those who won't or just simply can't afford the item shop only weapons/gear/item. So will the hybrid model be the way for upcoming MMORPGs?... Only time will tell.
As for "that something new" around the corner, that new idea, that new evolotion of MMORPGs; who can say for sure. Often times I've seen various people complain about how every MMORPG is a clone of this that or the other, but when you look at evolution in nature, does it not stand to reason that those same forces of evolution apply not only to the evolving animal kindom and ecosystems created thereof, but also apply to the various art movements thorughougt human history; of which trying to represent in their respective art styles the current human condition and the current state of human conciousness (and where it's heading towards), to the evolving permutations of MMORPGs with all their similarites, and also slightly different renditions and variations of the subject. Can you call them clones or permutation? Or are they both? Are MMORPGs subject to and pertraining the characteristics thereof akin to art movements, nature and it's continous cycles, the rise of and fall of past empires, not disimilar enough to merit such a comparison. And yet these games of an ever evlolving genre that is subject to the same forces of lifeclyles and eveolutionary permutations as though living itself, should they also give birth, not eventually, but innevitably, birth to the new idea... all of which these MMORPGs, currently released exponentially faster and faster as each year goes by. With shorter development times, and and usually released in a somewhat unfinished state, rapidly so to the chagrin and disppointment to many gamers, MMORPGs seem to sprouting at what appears to be an overaboundance. Choices are nice, but don't sacrifice the quality! To me it's not what is the next, new thing, or idea wether small or humble, grandoise or revolutionary, and latter being ofwhich of the of highest risks for any developer, but when this new idea will appear? In understanding the scale of historical chronology of gaming as both a possible art form, pontentially social tool for new types of human interaction and sharing of experiences, or to simply offer a humble to grand vision of something new, it will probably be the biggest of risk takers, developmently speaking, that will usher in this new idea. I don't know what the "when" will happen, or to even speculate which company will be the one to find this "new idea," but I do know we will all know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, and without reservation when it does finally show itself, unveiled in all it's glory as it hits the market. It will be something to perhaps revolutionize in some way (and this could perhaps be graphical in nature and/or combined with a new system for gaming, and interacting with other players... or perhaps it could even be a hardware technology that will surprise us in the end... Holographic MMO stations/buildings designed to put the player directly into the world somehow, 3D Monitors, or using true evolutinary software algorythms to cause random mutations based on complex formulas such as what your character kills, what skills you use the most, your figthing patterns, wether you are an agressive player risking death on nearly every encounter, or simply a 'sniper' type player... perhaps even what your character eats may factor in as your character gains levels and discovers some new skill/power/ability randomly selected by this non-transparent algorythm). Well the sky's the limit, and imagination is but the germ of a future seed yet to happen.
Before every age of art, there lies the putrefaction of the old established knowledge or art style, until someone finally breaks through the old with a new art style/movement. The question here then becomes moreso a question of wether MMORPGs can be considered their own artform, with their own "ages" so to speak. Looking back one could argue that video games in general can and should be considered an art form, though it's an artform that is heavily biased by market trend.... Considering our economic capitalist system, that influence cannot be helped. However that's not to say that MMORPGs don't have to be creative or offer something new, and evolve as they have (some by leaps and bounds, while others by minute permuations to some system or aspect of the game) simply because of "bottom line". It's also not to say that economic considerations like marketting release dates, and prescheduled time slots at SDM for mass disc production doesn't have a negative impact on the creative process, as those pressured release dates loom clooser and clooser as each day passes. Sure economic factors will, can, and have affected the creative process of many a development studio? Again that is the nature of the beast when regarding scheduling and target release date. I suspect, the new idea will be from a combination of a really creative devloper studio, who perhaps is new, and full of that fresh and vibrant potential energy, with employees fearlessly asking the questions of what can we create that is this "new idea"? Questions that lead to ever more questions, as this new idea is flushed out into a Story.... until the "new idea" is tested as valid, and not just some permutation of the established studio/publisher status quo, of which a plethora of the mundane seems to be the standard. And so you have a studio house/developer, taking a big risk, and huge 360 degree view on perhaps the mechanics of gameplay, how players interact, or and even scarrier question, why they would want to interact, and what are the reasons, incentives, and/or opportunites to do so? I forsee this happenning, now as we speak. This new, fresh idea, in my mind's eye is so clear and vivid I c an see the art team talking with the Game Director about the character's look, and and impact of animations for every type of skill to be different and unique. I can see them coming in on the morning, and this group of individuals, perhaps a small development house of 40 or so employess, getting together casually yet passionately, continously asking those tough questions. They're not talking about WoW or what we can do to make shaman like character build... they're not talking about some cool flying idea that AION employed for travel..nor are they disscussing what new type of tank class skills haven't players seen, nor what new spells and their effects on mobs/other players have gamers not witnessed? I see them asking about certain NPC characters, their specific story, and why this character is motivated and for what reason (perhaps a story of vengeance, or redemptions of the character struggling with an inner-demon of his/her violent past, and shaped by the events of their lives, their parent's lives, ...) What type of training this character started with(and perhaps this could start a creative dialogue of the beginnings of the first class (or skill if non-classbased), the city he/she started his life in, his/her relation to the other townspeople. Perhaps his hometown he/she lived in for most of his life in is constantly raided at night by some mysterious creatures who leave in their wake missing people. Perhaps this character wants to solve the mystery of it, and is a novice archeologist (again, a class that could usefull in parties to unlock areas or special questlines as one idea, or with other abilities, the archeologist could somehow use ancient artifacts that other classes can't use... again this is just an example of one of many possible ideas). The imiganition of this development studio, fueled by it's "new" energy, is constantly meeting in the mornings as a company, discussing in a roundtable type, open and casual open forum, each day feeding off and respectively inspiring their co-workers to newer imaginative heights.
These dangerous, new, risky questions, and their almost subversive approach to the creative process leaves a strong impression in my imagination. Who can this new development studio be? When will this all come to fruition? What new discovery have they cooperatively worked and reworked from their ideas, constantly sharing, and asking more inspired questioning? In my hope I can only await as my own imagination for this "new idea" to be given birth, nurtured daily by the fluid minds of those creative thinktank people, ofwhich are bouncing thoughts, questions and ideas back and forth, soars to heights undreamt of, fueled by the winds of anticipating the nearness of this new idea. All I can leave you all with is just a glimmer of hope, a hope that this is not just in my imagination, or that I suffer from an optimism percieved from the standpoint of rose-colored glasses, but from and understanding of how things evolve. How nature is in a constant state of flux, and change within it's subsequent lifecycles occur generationally. How countries, and empires and historic ages rise, expand then fall, leaving in it's death a vacuum for some new immergent country to have a chance to start the process all over again; adding its own distinctive mark in the pages of history. Where does that leave you and me, and all bewildered, yet hopeful gamers...
it leaves us with endless possiblities.
Comments
That is pretty epic for a forum post.
I don't think this thread will be too appreciated here. It might be available for more people to read if you make a blog instead. Not many here will have patience to read through all that, and the topic will fade away sooner than it should.
Ironically I had it originally as a blog, but took it down as I didn't want to blog everyday... too tiring, or perhaps too lazy. In hindsight, I agree with your comment, ... I have a feeling not too many people will read this as a post. But hey, thanks for the comments and taking the time to read it yourself.
It's okay to not to blog everyday..
Quality's what matters, anyway.
For some reason i find what your saying difficult to understand. But when i read it through it isn't anything difficult at all. Shorten your sentences; there's a lot of information here, just break it down a little. This will test some people's patience.
Edit: Reread: Quite an engaging read. I don't know what to say though, just read like a grandiose version of what ppl write on these forums day in, day out.
Its nice that you can write rather well but as some already said its way to long and to complex also.
You could have said it in shorter sentence and less complex explanations.
Ive read 25% then fuck it tl;dr pop up in my brain...... sorry about that:(
Still nice seeing someone serieus trying to say something with substance.
Part ive read where you try mmo's and after a while in your case 20lvls is something many have these days.
I think the feeling you had when for firstime started a mmo with that tantalizing felling you prolly will never get it back.
So my advice try rid of that, and just try have fun find new ways to play an mmo do it different then most do or what yourself have done so far you will find it very satisfying and refreshing and prolly stick longer with your new mmo.
Be also more selective make sure you wanne play it.
Ive not played for years mmo after i quit asherons call 2 and lineage2.
Now after 4 years im still playing after almost year playing Darkfall and still love it.
I can't write much becouse my english sucks so i mostly reply with short sentence and prolly not very well written sorry about that.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
I'm sorry OP, and please don't take offense to this, but in the future please don't write like that for a forum. This post isn't intended to troll, but I'm going to try to offer you a bit of advice here.
I tend to be long and drawn out too, but never to this extreme.
I read the post in it's entirety and it came off as incoherent babble to me. You attempt to use large vocabulary words far too often especially for the medium you are posting on. Not only that, but sometimes your vocabulary usage is just flat out wrong in context, like your use of tantalize.
Even if you were writing something, such as an essay, that didn't require brevity, you fail to keep on a single main topic. I still have no clue what point you were trying to make by making this post. The first paragraph was completely unnecessary and just added to the already convoluted mess later. You took 3 ridiculously long sentences just to say "I'm making a long post", which didn't even need to be said in the first place, it's flat out obvious. The next few paragraphs could have easily be reduced to single sentence posts also. We don't need your background information or elaborate prose on how you feel about anything unless it's relevant to the topic. We don't need analogies on every single sentence either. You aren't writing a novel, and even for a blog post or essay this would be far too much creative writing.
Finally in the future, if you are going to take the time to write pages about something, please use spell check. You make a myraid of spelling errors including:
Inspiriational = inspirational, excillerate = exhilarate, reppettive = repetitive, socialogical = sociological, wether = whether, enrinchment = enrichment, obsctacles = obstacles, appartment = apartment, thier = their, equivilant = equivalent, compettative = competitive, eveolutionary = evolutionary
There are more spelling errors. Those are just the few I caught in a short period of time.
I'm sorry to come off as a total ass here, but you honestly have talent for writing. I'd hate to see it go to waste because you can't keep on a specific topic and tend to overdue it.
I must have cut and pasted the wrong document. I could have sworn I spellchecked it. Sorry about that. Oh and no you don't come off as an ass, I agree with all of your addendums and/or constructive criticism. Well it was my hope to get across just an opinion as to where MMORPGs are evolving towards, and was my hope to inspire that human spark of imagination in all of us towards that regard. In the end, I was hoping that it not only would we get to see into the future using our imaginations, but also to provide my readers with and enjoyable read.
I've reposted this as a Blog, and appologize to anyone who may be confused by writting and/or possible ramblings.
Long posts aren't good posts. (Actually it's more to do with content-per-word-use; a long post can be good, but it must contain much meaty content.) I'm as guilty as any (particularly in real-life speach where I don't get time to distill my ideas down.)
Also, formatting pays off huge in readability.
P2P/F2P: disagree with the idea that middle/lower class somehow benefit more by shackling themselves to a sub fee -- versus having the option to play a game for free and pay for only as much as they want. However your view is common (as a result of badly-designed item shops being common.) I imagine we'll see better-designed item shops in the future. DDO is a start, but they bleed over in a few places I think (I suppose I should check their shop again. If XP potions are the worst thing they have, they're really not bad at all.)
Hybrids are fine for similar reasons. As long as they're the better-designed shops. Still, it should be noted: hybrids are no excuse for the base game being poor or unfinished. If the customer feels ripped off by their initial purchase (the game box) do you really think you're gonna sell em item shop stuff?
Game design is definitely evolution. If gamers want to help that evolution along, they simply need to be discerning with their dollar and let evolution do the rest. Bad companies won't sell products, and will go out of business.
The 40-man MMO team is in some ways a myth, and in other ways the future. They're a myth because they are simply incapable of creating a blockbuster-style MMORPG. But they're also the future because a small team can still create a genuinely new experience (which is why you see games like Farmville having runaway success.) Also Farmville is proof that not every "new experience" is for everyone (even if there's at least 31 million who enjoy it.) Still, the point isn't that small teams results in casual games so much as that small teams can produce games which are MMOs but are a completely new experience. And some players do want that.
None of the narrative questions are new, exactly. Narrative designers on existing MMORPGs already ask them, and try to infuse their respective games with the answers to those questions. They try, but unless narrative is an absolute focus of the game it's not going to come through strongly, and will be skimmed (or skipped) over by gamers.
Inevitably, companies who make narrative games make single-player games. Because if you're going to make a game about narrative, you want things focused and you want to be able to present that narrative strongly. That's harder in a multiplayer game (and TOR is attempting to make a narrative MMORPG by manhandling it and twisting it to be very similar to a singleplayer game, I imagine.)
Ugh..see? Long original posts create long replies (like this one,) and the topic becomes so fragmented and hard to read. Better to stick to one topic at a time.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I woke up at the crack of noon today to find your post here in the Pub. I started reading it and after getting down to the 2nd paragraph I realized that this piece of writing could not be tackled on an empty stomach, so I went and ate. Now that my meal was done I steeled my resolve and waded in to your post.
I must agree with Magnum for the most part that the elaborate writing style you selected today was a bit of a waste considering the subject of your choice as well as the audience you are presenting to. I think it would have done a lot better given the use of simpler words and being more to the point.
However I must also give credit where it is due and tell you that you obviously have writing talent like Magnum said and in no way want to discourage you from continuing to write in the future. I would just like to offer you one suggestion and that is to know your audience and how they relate to your subject matter. Once you learn to do that, you'll have a lot more success.
And yes that was quite epic for a forum post.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
Thank you. I appreciate your comments, and agree now... especially reading posters' responses. Yikes I'm really sorry everyone, I didn't mean to cause anyone any undue headaches... Even after reading my own post a few times, I developed a bit of mental strain myself, and must declare that I must have been posessed by some cosmic devil/diety at the time.
Next time I'll be more to the point, and less creative in writing... My intent in my eleborate writing prose/style was not only ilumine, but entertain... of which I see now of the latter part I failed!
Again, my appologies for my obvious blunder, and misreading of my audience. Next time I'll apply that old, cliche, "Less is more."
I don't really agree with your idea that game evolves in the same way as animals. Games evolves in larger large steps with a few smaller in between.
Take FPS games. You had Doom -> Quake 2 --> Half life/Counterstrike -> Battlefield. Between those games you had a lot of small steps like you predicted but these games really changed a lot at the same time. I don't see why MMOs shouldn't do the same.
As for if the next new game is just around the corner or not is hard to say but there are 3 good candidates that most likely launch in 2011. 2010 will not launch the next big game, it will be ruled by Wow just like the last 5 years.
World of darkness online: The mix between sandbox and RPG game that is rather due now. CCP is known for new thinking and White wolf have made successful pen and paper RPGs for 20 years now. They are very secretive about the game but it can be tha game that changes everything.
The old republic online: Bioware are trying to create a RPGMMO where roleplaying and a good story is the main thing. If it works is anybodys guess but the concept has the potential to evolve the genre.
Guildwars 2. Ironically is a sequel my top guess. The idea of a permanent dynamic world where what the player do affect the whole server is new and interesting. And say sayonara to the pesky "holy triad" of tank, healer and DPS. The story is made up by a real author, and the game have no monthly fees but will launch smaller expansions at times, 2 a year or so that costs money if you want them (no item-shop).
The problem with getting the next generation of mmorpgs is that the AAA ones take so long to make. So whatever we have now, and unless something really awesome is already in the pipeline and tightly under wraps, expect more of the same for another 6 years or so.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I agree, if STO proved us nothing else it proved us that a AAA MMO needs more than 3 years or so to be made, 6-8 is what it takes.
But there are however a few devs that have been working on different stuff for years now and there games will release next year or 2012 in worst case.
Most games for the next 5 years will however most likely be more of what we already seen, and most of those will fail miserably.
I don't know, I got that idea through generally observing these "unconcious" and creative forces that seem to work from bacteria to human, and to world eco systems and their subsequent lifecyles. I guess what I'm saying is that those same forces work on the human pysche in subtle yet overcompassing ways. Such as art movements, empires, eco systems... heck even corporations have lifecycles and when some fall to curb of obscurity, another one takes it place in the vacuum left in it's wake. Even when you list the progression of games as you did above, they are permutations, and as the new ones are improvements and hence part of a lifecycle. You disagree yet list a progression in games and in a way, chronologically list their evolution. It's odd but you seem to be making more a case for my argument than not. I'm not talking about biological evolution, but more of the forces and drives behind them that affect in some way the human creative processes, and that those processes follow in a similar pattern to evolutionary ones.