The ERA of WoW clones is over, now let's look back at UO.

evemaster00

The day of reckoning is near, we are presented with WoW clone after WoW clone, they all fail hard. I personally don't think SWTOR is going to be any different in that regard. WoW is losing subs, down almost 2 million this past year. Blizzard has a new mmo on the horizon, and say it's nothing like WoW.

Diablo 3 is going to be released early next year, sure it's not hugely different to WoW, infact it's not even a full mmo, but what it does do different is an important one - it's an isometric game. Isometric mmos haven't really been considered for years, not since EQ came along and became very popular back in the days of UO. Perhaps that time is finally over, are people sick of not only WoW clones, but also the 1st/3rd person view?

Diablo 3 is going to be a hit, it's going to break records, the Diablo: book of cain is already breaking book selling records, beating twilight for top spot, and it's still only a preorder.

Diablo 3 is going to bring isometric back to the mainstream. What other popular mmos were isometric? I  can think off one, Ultima Online. Isometric doesn't have to mean crappy graphics any longer.

Have the Lineage developers forseen all of this? Their new isometric mmo, Lineage: Eternal would point toward this fact

I foresee a new ERA  of isometric mmorpgs, except the WoW clone formula has already proven no longer effective, people are bored of the themepark grind for levels and gear that is the same in almost every mmorpg that has released in the past 10 years. This could mean a new beginning for the style of game that Ultima Online once was.

"But that game will just attract griefers who want to kill players and ruin their day" I'm sure it will, but even games like WoW attract griefers, but they just grief you in other ways, and you can't retaliate.

That game may attract griefers, but I am not a griefer. I am just a player who is sick of the themepark ezmode level grinds that exist today, playing them feels more like a job, and not even a job I enjoy. Hell, i'm not even into pvp, but i'd sure as hell buy this game if it were made.

I am the kind of player who enjoys the thrill of adventure, there is no adventure without risk. There is no risk in todays themepark mmos, and where there is no risk, there is no real reward, no gratification.

At times you will be griefed, you will die and lose something valuable, this is certain, but other times the opposite will happen. and you will be overjoyed. You can not experience this thrill in todays themepark mmos, playing them makes me feel like a zombie.

I will restate "where there is no risk, there is no reward". An example of this I shall give, imagine if the whole world is open pvp, except for towns where you are mostly safe. On death, you lose everything you were carrying including your gear. Now it's up to you to decide how much risk you want to take, do you equip an expensive, rare but powerful set of gear with you? Or do you wear what most people are using, average affordable to lose gear. That's up to you, but there may be such monsters in the game that are so powerful that you need powerful gear just to stand a chance to beat them. These monsters can carry insane riches and you can be very wealthy if you can kill them. That there is risk vs reward my friend, do you take the risk of using expensive and powerful gear to gain the huge reward?

Then there is the idea of player housing. Most games today don't have it, and even in those that do it doesn't seem all that great. Why was player housing so awesome in Ultima Online? Because it was a dangerous wilderness, and that made your home in the wilderness feel that much more special. It's your safe haven in a dangerous yet rewarding world.

Ultima Online over 10 years ago:

Meaningful risk vs reward

Player Housing

Crafting that meant something, not something every had because they could.

Player Driven economy

Flexible Skill Trees

Open world PvP

Open world dungeons

Great community

Not a gear grind

Player Skill mattered

Good Lore

Multi Faction Wars - Guild Wars That meant something

I'm not asking for a UO clone, but perhaps it's time for mmorpgs to return to the old and try something new. Seriously, how dumb does that sound? If only a major developer had the intelligence to try something like this. Perhaps now that the WoW-clone cash cow has been milked dry, they might.

Who knows, it could even be Blizzard who will pull this off, i shall mention again, we all know about "Titan" and how it's supposedly nothing like WoW.

For those who think isometric graphics are crappy. Please watch this gameplay video for Lineage Eternal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCdbdsFgNGI

 

 

 

 

Ramonski7

Here we have a couple of iso games coming out and you're quick to call the death of a whole decade of gaming style? Isn't that like wishing jazz would die to make more room for country music? Seriously when will you wake up and finally come to grips that nothing needs to die if what you wanted did a better job of selling itself. The PC industry has tried for years to make a tablet computer work, but it only took the right one to show people what they were missing (ipad anyone). Blackberry had been making smart phones for years before the iphone changed the way everyday consumers new how addictive they were. In neither instance did any company had to kill it's products so those after could thrive. That's the beauty of competition. You just don't know who's going to dream up that next big idea, but burning a whole forest down to plant a few trees that you believe are nicer is the wrong way to go to improve it.

EndDream

I wish you were right. But you aren't. You may as well embrace the change or get a new hobby. =

evemaster00

The coming isotmetric games arn't why the WoW clone formula is dying, it's dying because people are bored with it. I never said isotmetic games were what is going to kill it, but that the popularity decrease of this formula will greatly increase the chances of something other than ever more WoW clones being churned out .

evemaster00

Originally posted by EndDream

I wish you were right. But you aren't. You may as well embrace the change or get a new hobby. =

Don't lose hope, i'm sure that sometime in the next decade we'll finally see a new ultima online style game.

These days re-hashing old top IP's is all the rage. Just look at the movie industry, re-hashing old IPs with new technology is big money. EA will see this sooner or later, hopfully by then they'll realise that people no longer want the WoW clone formula. EA is sitting on a gold mine with the UO IP, they're just too blind to realise it (yet).

Blizzard have always proven to be an intelligent company though, I would not be surpised atall if it turns out to be the ones who created the WoW formula to be the ones to break it. (yes I know WoW was essentially an EQ clone but they polished it and made it mainstream)

sagil

I agree with you somehow.

Someone can come up with a great idea but that idea has a timeglass on it. It can not survive for more than 10 years. People have overplayed it and want to retire from that kind of gameplay. And newcomers (mostly youngsters) are not willing to play the last generation of games. Such as people don't  want to wear the same clothes people did in the 90s or 80s.

However, the game mechanics will still be accepted from the elites of the game. Such as elite golfers like what they are best at (plus get money out of it).

I believe Minecraft is a game that is a successful game, but so early for it's timespace. I believe that this kind of game will be immensely popular in the future when someone pulls unlimited photo-captured atomic models, animated and textured, to a game environment. This will also make space games come into a good era, but very expensive to make.

 

The thing that will be popular in 2014, might be Titan. Since it's 10 years apart from WoW and is not a similiar game. We will have to wait and see.

Alders

I can't be the only one that cannot stand isometric view. It's almost as bad as first person.

FikusII

Why would publishers keep making MMORPG's at all. You can make FPS and sports games, charge a sub fee for online play, and resell the same game year after year. They have their purpose now, but if you can charge for online play..why take the risk with mmorpgs?

robert4818

Ive said it before.

 

There's only one thing that will "Kill" WoW.  That is TIME.  

EQ1 was never killed.  There was no EQ Killer, even though before WoW came out this forum was filled with questiona about what the "EQ Killer" was going to be.

It may have seemed like WoW kille EQ, but it didn't.  EQ was, in its heyday the king of MMO's when a killer subscription base was around 500k, and that was thought to be the max of the market.

Then WoW hit big, and left 500k subs in the dust.  Funny thing was, EQ STILL had an active subscriber base at that point in time.  WoW didn't kill it (though looking back I can see how someone might get that impression).

WoW is now almost 8 years old.  EQ was 5 years old when it was displaced from the top spot.  We aren't going to see someone topple WoW the same way, as there just isn't the subscriber base.  But WoW won't fall victim to a new game, so much as it simply falls victim to its own aging game.

Igorcht

I love all the ideas in the OP, except I really don't like isometric MMOs. Now, all that in a 3d 1st/3rd person MMO, and suddenly I am very ineterested.

sagil

The key thing is: social. You can play a game and be social. Before you just were isolated in a room and played a game or watched TV. Then you would go outside and do what basically? Collect mushrooms? Go to a bar? Only thing you do outside is work nowadays. Some people are bored of being outside and want to challange their minds on an interactive game. And they can be another person. There's no physical or psychological restrictions in an open world mmo game, except for serious people.

Stay in your house = no accidents.

evemaster00

Originally posted by Igorcht

I love all the ideas in the OP, except I really don't like isometric MMOs. Now, all that in a 3d 1st/3rd person MMO, and suddenly I am very ineterested.

The beauty of the death of the wow-clone era is that both types of games will hopfully be made, i'm hoping we'll start to see more games of that style, both isotmetric and 1st/3rd person.

sagil

OP, have you even played the latest isometric games? They are not worthy of an award. It's very boring and yes, they have updated graphics. But they are themepark. I don't see why it would make difference if it wasn't. It's just very annoying to play isometric games. Diablo and Blizzard has a fanbase, like UO had, and that is why people get excited by it, even the people who have not played a game by Diablo or Blizzard. It gets so much coverage in magazines, it gets hyped...

evemaster00

Originally posted by sagil

OP, have you even played the latest isometric games? They are not worthy of an award. It's very boring and yes, they have updated graphics. But they are themepark. I don't see why it would make difference if it wasn't. It's just very annoying to play isometric games. Diablo and Blizzard has a fanbase, like UO had, and that is why people get excited by it, even the people who have not played a game by Diablo or Blizzard. It gets so much coverage in magazines, it gets hyped...

 

Could you give some examples? I'm not aware of any recent isometric mmorpgs other than a few crappy asian grindfests. Diablo 3 is isometric, while not an mmo, it looks awesome. Lineage eternal is isometric, and it looks visually awesome.

Lineage eternal:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCdbdsFgNGI Lineage eternal shows perfectly well how much isometric graphics has improved since UO. A new Ultima remade with lineage eternal graphics? Do it!!!

Supersoups

Relax guys it is just an opinion not some fact. Even though wishful thinking but WOW clones are not going anywhere and UO era is not coming back in any forseeable future. Infact we are getting more sandbox / themepark hybrid MMOS.

 

Sorry OP but i disagree with you.

Benthon

I disagree. I hate the isometric view. I think hybrid MMO's are going to start booming like no other.

SkillCosby

Education is a major problem in America. This is why good games like UO / SWG Classic / DAoC are cosidered to be too complicated. People blame the devs. I blame the devs AND the parents.

evemaster00

Originally posted by Supersoups

Relax guys it is just an opinion not some fact. Even though wishful thinking but WOW clones are not going anywhere and UO era is not coming back in any forseeable future. Infact we are getting more sandbox / themepark hybrid MMOS.

 

Sorry OP but i disagree with you.

WoW clones are done, that much is obvious. In a few months when the SWTOR hype fades and people see it as a failed game that will be the final nail in the coffin, it doesn't matter how much money you pour into the game, it doesn't matter if you use a hugely popular IP like starwars, and it doesn't matter if you use a top game developer like Bioware, the game will still fail if it follows the WoW formula.

Isometric games are on the horizon. Put the two together, and we have a chance at a UO style game, or even possibly a new Ultima MMO. It might not be any time soon, but let's get one thing straight, to say that there will be be such a game is dumb. I at least believe that at some point in future EA will decide to make a new Ultima MMO, the question isn't if it will happen, the question is will it be any good if EA are behind it. I suppose that all depends on if they learn from previous lessons.

Many old IP's get revamped, many are highly successful for it. Ultima online is the grandfather of mmorpgs and its never had a re-vamp, that time will come, maybe not now, it could be years, a decade even, but to say it will never happen just shows how ignorant you are.

Whoever keeps reporting this thread as spam, you're being very childish.

waynejr2

The future is obviously side-scroller mmorpgs!

Cameo3

UO was good back in the day. It's trash now.

You can hope to have open world pvp, no-holds-barred, and masses killing masses again...but I doubt it's going to happen. Gaming & MMOs are now at the micro-level. Micro-parties, micro transactions, micro gaming. (You can switch micro with solo if you prefer.)

Axehilt

On isometric: Nobody ever really had an issue with iso, it's just that 3rd person gets you closer to 1st person (and 1st person is a drastically more immersive vantage point for players.)  Iso is a functional camera style for games which aren't going for heavy immersion, but I really don't think we're going to see a big shift in MMORPGs to iso cameras.

It's a stretch to call it a "new era of iso" just because of a couple major releases being iso.

On griefing:  The more a game lets its players ruin each others experience, the worse it does.  Period.  (With the common sense caveat that consentual PVP isn't ruining anyone's good time, since it's consentual.)

On risk: Some players care about it, most don't -- especially if it means any significant backtracking of progress made in a progress-centric game.  But this leaves a big loophole in non-progress-centric games; after all, nobody complains about starting each LoL match back at level 1.  That's just not what the game is about.

The more logical reward is big challenge = big reward. That's something everyone enjoys.

On player housing: This one we already see a moderate amount of, but it's always been attached to games which were just a tiny bit too boring for me to stick with (EQ2 and LOTRO) so I never really got to enjoy housing. Basically until the game convinces me to care enough about the gameplay, I'm not going to care about having a house in that game world.

Somewhat ironically it's the games which don't have housing (and thereby focus on gameplay) which tend to rise above that bar (RIFT, WOW, and CoX mainly.)

ilikepielol

I think most will agree with me when they say they want a game that feels like they're actually IMMERESED in a world.  And I think most would agree that an iso just doesn't do it.  I'm not saying iso games are bad, I loved UO.  But I did not feel like I was truely immersed within that world.

 

Personally I prefer 3rd person view as I enjoy seeing my badass looking char do his thing.  I don't enjoy first person in MMOs cause I actually want to see my char and his armor; why work so hard to get it if I can't see my awesomeness?

 

As much as you wanted to make a productive post....you really didn't.  This is no better then making "WoW killer" #23092309 thread.

Igorcht

Originally posted by evemaster00

Originally posted by Igorcht

I love all the ideas in the OP, except I really don't like isometric MMOs. Now, all that in a 3d 1st/3rd person MMO, and suddenly I am very ineterested.

The beauty of the death of the wow-clone era is that both types of games will hopfully be made, i'm hoping we'll start to see more games of that style, both isotmetric and 1st/3rd person.

No doubt. Variety is definitely a good thing. As long as devs from now on remain focused on making a quality game that fufills the desires of a particular niche, instead of trying to make the next "WoW killer", we'll hopefully see more of it. Obviously these niches need to be big enough for the game to be profitable, but there's certainly room for many different genres and design philosophies.

VirusDancer

There are several ISO games out there - they tend to be...F2P.  It is considered a dated technology by most folks looking for immersion in a MMORPG.  Sure, we didn't know any better back then and we were fine with it.  Then again, we found immersion in text and 2D as well.

For some, it is tough to play ISO RTS games - with so many having taken a more action TPS view.

The main issue I have with most of those ISO games out there - is they have just plain silly graphics/art style.  Hundreds of thousands...millions of people...love the cutesie stuff.  I gag.

mcrippins

I've always wondered why a game like UO was never remade to have updated graphics and like the original. I played that game for years until about a year after Trammel came out. It was probably the best gaming experience i've ever had, and nothing has really come close to matching up to it. 

 

  The best points about this game are unlike any other game that I have tried. 

1. The game world was literally a massive canvas created by the players. Your house placement mattered so much depending on what type of player you wanted to be. If you wanted to be a miner, you build or bought a house near a mining area. If you wanted to compliment that with blacksmithing, it was always a benefit to find a good house area with a lot of traffic. Specifically near a town or where a lot of pvp would happen. 

2. Player Housing in this game is far better than anything i've seen. Real estate mattered so much in this game it was ridiculous. Being able to decorate your house wether it was large or small was always fun. My guild and I built a dueling arena at the roof of our tower. Then one day I got a girlfriend who played, and she turned it into a swimming pool. (chics..). But the point is that it looked cool. So many people would come check out our house just to see the cool crap we did with it.

3. Being a thief was actually BEING A THIEF. This goes for every skill that you picked. They had depth in such a simplistic style game. You could actually steal from people, and make elaborate plans on how to steal an item in town and hand it off to a friend so you dont lose it if you get killed. Or figure out a way to loot your enemies house or boat. Yeah that's right.. I said boat. You could sail and be an awesome fisherman. Or be a Cartographer and find treasure in the ocean or on land. The list goes on and on..

4. The PvP. I wont go too much into this as the OP covered a lot of points about risk vs reward. This to me is what made the game so crazy and fun. Yeah sometimes it would really suck because I would make a mistake and lose an awesome weapon. But in the long run I gained so much more than I lost. 

 

This game created so much synergy between players. There were so many epic moments in this game that my friends and I still talk about to this day, when we get together to have a beer or a lan party. Even though none of us play anymore, we act like it just happened yesterday, because it was that epic. So I hope the OP is right. I hope a game like this comes to fruition one day, as I am so bored and tired of the crap we have today.

arctarus

uo is fun back.than because it's new, and players take that as a standard way of playing mmo. but it didn't garner much players because of its playstyle.


out comes wow and the rest is history. tedious game play won't make anymore, and even now theme park is start to face issues.


players wants more innovative things to do, more innovative new game play, not returning to the old.


we will see how the next Gen of devs brings us.