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It's not coincidence I come here and make a thread after visiting that link. This has long been a theme in my endeavours. So lets get that out of the way, and I won't pretend to suddenly come upon this.
Unlike Wolfshead, I think I actually DID something about it. In 2012, I stopped playing Project 1999 and took the plunge in Wurm Online. I LOVED it. Admittedly, I play(ed) on the FFA PvP servers, eventually settling on Chaos. Still, the base game is very sandbox-oriented. Long story short, it's the opposite of tightly controlled and scripted. In fact, I was deposited into the world with only my backpack and a couple tools. I wasn't told where to go! And that was true on the PvE-servers too. Most of what I saw around me were player-made things, and sparse playermade signs informing me where things were! There was no ingame map! The list goes on. I had to rely on other players, and my own intuition.
I think there's always been a divide between story-driven players and action-driven players. Action-driven players tend to create the story as they go along, dependent on what they do. The story isn't particularly breathtaking, since it's composed of mostly menial labor and random circumstances, but these players tend to give it more meaning than it deserves. Story-driven players want a story delivered to them with all the bells and whistles of great storytelling. They revel in exploring the characters and playing through the different--re: branching--points of view. One seems oriented to making stories, and the other in living from moment to moment.
It's hard to please both in the same game, or MMO. I think story-driven players are by far the most common, resulting in the surge of themepark MMORPGs over the years. So it seems then most players drawn to RPGs are story-driven in their nature, or this is at least true for MMORPGs. If you examine a story, what you'll see is it's not particular interactive in nature. When you read a book, you read it from the first page to the last, it runs like a movie, and then ti's over. You don't interact, you don't act on it. THIS is why themepark MMO's dominate. They're precisely constructed. Every moment is controlled to deliver the powerful narrative and iconic symbolism. Sandboxes, contrastingly, are chaotic s***storms, more ackin to a roller coaster running off the tracks and collapsing into ruins. Thus, the two aren't very compatible with each other, and so tend to be separated into different games, or MMO's.
So I don't think they're overdesigned. They're just being made for the largest pool of players, to maximize profits. Early on in the MMORPG industry, it wasn't well understood yet this was what MMORPGs should be. They didn't know yet this is what players would most desire. I do think they try to appeal to the action-driven players in the SAME MMORPGs, or games, but that has met limited success.
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And the second that content is exhausted, they don't make their own fun. They quit or come to the boards and say "there's nothing to DO."
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I'm not sure "overdesigned" is quite the right word for it, maybe over-controlled.
There is nothing more fun to me than doing things your own way. In everything from your looks, to your skill sets, to developing your own tactics vs. a variety of situations/encounters, to what your home is made out of and looks like, to your guild's purpose, your choices in anything and everything.
While it's true that most gamers want it made to paint-by-numbers, there are a huge number of gamers. And there are plenty out there for an MMORPG with freedom and choices to be wildly successful in an industry that's lacking in this world type.
Once upon a time....
Game was PvP unless you were in town, set foot out of town and you were instantly a free target again. Kept people on their toes, they chatted to each other more, offering advice on where players were that would kill you .. they'd even be sort of 'hunting parties' where they would hunt down the Reds and slaughter them ... which was all good cos after all, you were a blue so you hadn't done wrong lol
After that it was SWG
Then AO
after that .. sort of just got on with whatever i could
The controlled aspect is just a side effect of vertical progression and themepark only content. Controlled is not required but it is the path of least resistance. Allow players to sort out camping or have instances? Allow players to train or have very controlled NPC behaviors? Allow players to learn and possibly quit or hold hands? Make players look for groups or auto grouping tools?
The control is just collective refinement in not a very diverse genre.
The Importance of MMO History And Why Developer Hand-Holding Is Killing It (Penny-Arcade.com)
What'ya think? It's stating almost exactly the same thing:
And this is why I say that there are plenty of gamers out there who are an attractive target for a new style of MMORPG. One where there are all kinds of REAL magical moments or ideas or accomplishments or player choices. (This list can be misinterpreted based on the common definitions in this industry based on current game designs, so take it loosely please.)
Edit: this sort of "magic" is old style design. It's not new. UO was the cream of the crop and each successive game lost bit by bit by design, and even some newer games have a small degree of this sort of magic (i.e. not based on things everyone does, quests, raids, etc.).
Once upon a time....