We have got a little off topic its is not the systems in MMO's that drive people away it is the MMO it self and be honest the people or lack there of, Think about it if Wow never hit the amount of fame and population Wow would have failed from the start, 40 man raids?? how could this have been pulled off it there was 200 maybe 300 people on a sever at a time? Battle grounds got stale cause pvp became nothing more then a title fest and once you knew that you did not have 70 hours a week to sink into pvp you gave up.
Now look at other games AOC for instance if the release of this game went off without issues and the overall game had good content from start this game would have owned. now look at games like CO or DCU STO, why did these fail? Simple same issues we all have very little content huge limits on what you can do, Now DCU combat is awesome i mean awesome but the lack of everything else leaves it to the dogs, But look at small publisher games like POTBS when this game first came out i was looking forward to it, then about 2 week later i was reaaly disapointed, No seiges, No ship boarding i was really hoping for Sid Mieres pirates as an MMO it fell short big time, The reason these games and MMO's fail in general is they do not grip us like they did,
Remeber on UO when it was all Felucia pvp was everywhere and the gankers and murder guilds owned the game, then they gave us tram and for some let people discover UO without penalty the game got big and bigger and bigger until like every good MMO changed it so much that you can not even start the game again and know what your doing. That is the issue with these games like EVE if you did not start playing EVE back in the day dont even try it unless you got high lvl friends and people that can throw you stuff.
MMO's now we play for a week and see hey its the same combat system as any the same old grind but this time with less friends and we get bored cause we done this all before in another game. We need something that is like hey this is new and fun and spend the time learning and feeling like your getting some where, Games now I feel like okay I did this in SWG or WoW already i do not have it in me, reason why i did not like rift I was like hmmm okay i done all this before in other games WoW, ROM, Aion, WAR EQ, it was like restarting one of those games from scratch with a slightly better looking GUI.
Your idea of innovation is different than mine I guess.
Apparently. Apparently it seems you're only willing to recognize and acknowledge innovation when it's about something that you like. Which is a point of view that's hardly objective or sensible.
Plus, I'm still missing the huge list of revolutionary innovations in the last 6 years in genres like FPS and RPG, as examples so we can see what's regarded as innovations per genre.
I think MMO.Maverick kinda brings a murky problem into specific relief actually. Things can be innovative in bits and pieces while not feeling "as a whole" being an innovative product.
I can admit the things in say .."Wow" are innovative additions to the game and to the genre , but the game itself is still the gear grind treadmill. In the sense of innovation to get away from the treadmill - no they havent been innovative in any sense of the word. They have been innovative in regards to the "treadmill geargrind" for their game - and Inovative for the genre by developing things like x-server BG's instances etc etc.
Eve online has been innovative to the genre by proving a single game world can function and be profitable. A player based econonomy could also (by today's game economy standards) be considered incredibly innovative. Etc etc.
I believe the "Themepark" genre as a whole has had little innovation as far as how mmo's are played (in general). But the innovations to the "Themepark" genre as a "whole' have been significant.
Example: Putting in motion control devices to control your characters in an mmo environment would be innovative.... It would change pvp -pve -raiding -interactions across the board. The MMO game that came out with that first ...would be considered innovative. (Talking MMO now ...not the Wii.) This is just an example that I could think of fast etc etc ad nasuem before you trash it to pieces.
I think in the end people just wan't a "new" way to play mmo's. If I "Knew" what that was I would be a insanely wealthy man. I would be ....Innovative.
I'll give you that the last years MMO progress was less than it could have been. Still, there has been a steady (even if slower) progress even in the past few dry years, and seeing what has come out and will come out, evolution in game mechanics is stepping up more than a notch.
I'll also agree with this.
If one follows mmo evolution then there is an evolution.
the problem comes back to the "7 year old waiting for christmas" mentality. There is this fervent, laser focused intensity on "new new new" when if one looks at the evolution with a more geologic pace then one can see it.
But for some reason mmo'ers need fast and need it now. It's coming. It's just slower than people seem to have patience for.
I think it's a matter of cognitive dissonance at work here, not only with the OP but also seen in various other discussions on this site.
Some people aren't having fun with MMO's anymore or they have become disappointed or disillusioned with them.
They still have fun with singleplayer games in other genres though.
This makes them see MMO's in negatively colored glasses while seeing other game genres where they found games they did like to play in positive colored glasses. This as a result makes them belittle or wave away all innovations or progress made in MMO's because those were innovations that weren't important to them since they still can't enjoy MMO's anyway, while at the same time putting on a pedestal the genres of the games they do like to play.
In general, it's very hard for (most) people to see and acknowledge some or any good in the subjects (or is it objects? Hmm, English... ) they're disappointed or disillusioned with, while at the same time it's also hard for (most) people to see and acknowledge anything bad in the subjects, whether it's games, persons or a genre, that they're fond of and like very much.
List the top 3 innovations in the mmorpg industry in the last 6 years.
Phasing - whether you like it or not its innovation and the scope for its use is the real innovation here.
Instancing - When used properly it allows players to get on and play the game rather than wait in a queue to play the game.
F2P & Hybrid payments options - These are opening up games to a more flexible way of playing an MMO rather trhan laying down an upfront payment to play a game you've already paid for.
Cross server LFG tools - similar to instancing as it allow you to get on and play the game as oppsoed to "Wizard LFG has a big wand"
Diversity in styles - the first 4 AAA MMO's were classic D'n'D style fantasy MMO's now you can play in Nautical (POTBS & UWO), SciFi (EvE & Black Prophesy), Post Apocalyptic (Fallen Earth, Argo, Xsyon), Alternate Universe (Atlantica, SOTNW), TBS (Atlantica), Historical (any Three Kingdom games) real time group based (SOTNW), Puzzle based (Puzzle Pirates & Wizard 101) and pure Sandbox (Wurm, UWO, ATITD, Xsyon, Haven and Hearth), Political simulator (FOM), 2.5D (BOI, EOI, Haven and Hearth)
and all the little things like Costume slots, slicker UI, more customisable UI, better graphics, better musical scores, quests, auction houses, now all these things have bad sides but on the whole they've made playing the games less time consuming and more fun. Those were of the top of my head there are many many more to chose from.
BUT many on here want a specific type of MMO (basically an updated version of their favorite MMO) and ignore all the options out there did you really go to bed at night in 1997 and dream of an online RPG that consisted of standing in one spot killing monsters or waiting for monsters to spawn for hour upon hour?
Cal.
Well I asked for 3 innovations in the industry in the last 6 years. And you listed some...things.
Heres the last innovation i can remember.
SWG jump to light speed expansion. Twitch based massive multiplayer ship combat in addition to a ground game. Crafted ships with reverse engineering of looted parts to craft better ones. Multiplayer ships. Not only could you do twitch combat, but one guy could fly and 19 others could sit in the ships lounge and hang or repair damage taken or man the turrets. If all was lost they could run for the escape pod. Pushed the boundaries of mmorpgs with real innovation.
Your idea of innovation is different than mine I guess.
See this is the problem people are confused to what innovation is...... Innovation is the refinement and improvement of existing ideas as in MMO quests becoming more interactive ala phasing or dungeons becoming instanced inorder to allow for groups to have their own individual experience and not have to wait 10 hours for a boss respawn.
Now your example is really invention as its adding a whole new layer of gameplay that really never existed before and thats what many people want in games the problem is that inventing new gameplay is a lot tougher than just thinking it up and bingo it works ingame so companies have to balance that out, unless you are Trion Worlds or Mythic and you just cut and paste. The invention in SWG pre-cu is on a pretty mammoth scale as the whole game really was an unknown quantity and thats why it was a bit of a mess when it released. Inventing new gameplay options is risky and time consuming so big AAA devs avoid them pretty much and stick to tried and tested means but the great dev houses are able to refine and inprove upon the existing ideas and over time games evolve in something thats completely different to what went before, but that takes time, GW2 is great example don't expect to see it this year, and as others have mentioned the MMO playing public are of the impatient type so its no wonder MMO's are either released inventive but buggy (Vanguard, POTBS, EQ2) or working but dull and generic (Rift, Aion and for lots of players WoW).
Cal.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
I'll give you that the last years MMO progress was less than it could have been. Still, there has been a steady (even if slower) progress even in the past few dry years, and seeing what has come out and will come out, evolution in game mechanics is stepping up more than a notch.
I'll also agree with this.
If one follows mmo evolution then there is an evolution.
the problem comes back to the "7 year old waiting for christmas" mentality. There is this fervent, laser focused intensity on "new new new" when if one looks at the evolution with a more geologic pace then one can see it.
But for some reason mmo'ers need fast and need it now. It's coming. It's just slower than people seem to have patience for.
I think it's a matter of cognitive dissonance at work here, not only with the OP but also seen in various other discussions on this site.
Some people aren't having fun with MMO's anymore or they have become disappointed or disillusioned with them.
They still have fun with singleplayer games in other genres though.
This makes them see MMO's in negatively colored glasses while seeing other game genres where they found games they did like to play in positive colored glasses. This as a result makes them belittle or wave away all innovations or progress made in MMO's because those were innovations that weren't important to them since they still can't enjoy MMO's anyway, while at the same time putting on a pedestal the genres of the games they do like to play.
In general, it's very hard for (most) people to see and acknowledge some or any good in the subjects (or is it objects? Hmm, English... ) they're disappointed or disillusioned with, while at the same time it's also hard for (most) people to see and acknowledge anything bad in the subjects, whether it's games, persons or a genre, that they're fond of and like very much.
List the top 3 innovations in the mmorpg industry in the last 6 years.
Phasing - whether you like it or not its innovation and the scope for its use is the real innovation here.
Instancing - When used properly it allows players to get on and play the game rather than wait in a queue to play the game.
F2P & Hybrid payments options - These are opening up games to a more flexible way of playing an MMO rather trhan laying down an upfront payment to play a game you've already paid for.
Cross server LFG tools - similar to instancing as it allow you to get on and play the game as oppsoed to "Wizard LFG has a big wand"
Diversity in styles - the first 4 AAA MMO's were classic D'n'D style fantasy MMO's now you can play in Nautical (POTBS & UWO), SciFi (EvE & Black Prophesy), Post Apocalyptic (Fallen Earth, Argo, Xsyon), Alternate Universe (Atlantica, SOTNW), TBS (Atlantica), Historical (any Three Kingdom games) real time group based (SOTNW), Puzzle based (Puzzle Pirates & Wizard 101) and pure Sandbox (Wurm, UWO, ATITD, Xsyon, Haven and Hearth), Political simulator (FOM), 2.5D (BOI, EOI, Haven and Hearth)
and all the little things like Costume slots, slicker UI, more customisable UI, better graphics, better musical scores, quests, auction houses, now all these things have bad sides but on the whole they've made playing the games less time consuming and more fun. Those were of the top of my head there are many many more to chose from.
BUT many on here want a specific type of MMO (basically an updated version of their favorite MMO) and ignore all the options out there did you really go to bed at night in 1997 and dream of an online RPG that consisted of standing in one spot killing monsters or waiting for monsters to spawn for hour upon hour?
Cal.
Well I asked for 3 innovations in the industry in the last 6 years. And you listed some...things.
Heres the last innovation i can remember.
SWG jump to light speed expansion. Twitch based massive multiplayer ship combat in addition to a ground game. Crafted ships with reverse engineering of looted parts to craft better ones. Multiplayer ships. Not only could you do twitch combat, but one guy could fly and 19 others could sit in the ships lounge and hang or repair damage taken or man the turrets. If all was lost they could run for the escape pod. Pushed the boundaries of mmorpgs with real innovation.
Your idea of innovation is different than mine I guess.
See this is the problem people are confused to what innovation is...... Innovation is the refinement and improvement of existing ideas as in MMO quests becoming more interactive ala phasing or dungeons becoming instanced inorder to allow for groups to have their own individual experience and not have to wait 10 hours for a boss respawn.
Now your example is really invention as its adding a whole new layer of gameplay that really never existed before and thats what many people want in games the problem is that inventing new gameplay is a lot tougher than just thinking it up and bingo it works ingame so companies have to balance that out, unless you are Trion Worlds or Mythic and you just cut and paste. The invention in SWG pre-cu is on a pretty mammoth scale as the whole game really was an unknown quantity and thats why it was a bit of a mess when it released. Inventing new gameplay options is risky and time consuming so big AAA devs avoid them pretty much and stick to tried and tested means but the great dev houses are able to refine and inprove upon the existing ideas and over time games evolve in something thats completely different to what went before, but that takes time, GW2 is great example don't expect to see it this year, and as others have mentioned the MMO playing public are of the impatient type so its no wonder MMO's are either released inventive but buggy (Vanguard, POTBS, EQ2) or working but dull and generic (Rift, Aion and for lots of players WoW).
Cal.
No we're talking about innovation, not invention.
See you in the dream.. The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
My friend, you need to be patients and check out the games you mentioned. I'm not saying you WILL like them but I know I will be giving them a fair shot and so should you.
See this is the problem people are confused to what innovation is...... Innovation is the refinement and improvement of existing ideas as in MMO quests becoming more interactive ala phasing or dungeons becoming instanced inorder to allow for groups to have their own individual experience and not have to wait 10 hours for a boss respawn.
Now your example is really invention as its adding a whole new layer of gameplay that really never existed before and thats what many people want in games the problem is that inventing new gameplay is a lot tougher than just thinking it up and bingo it works ingame so companies have to balance that out, unless you are Trion Worlds or Mythic and you just cut and paste. The invention in SWG pre-cu is on a pretty mammoth scale as the whole game really was an unknown quantity and thats why it was a bit of a mess when it released. Inventing new gameplay options is risky and time consuming so big AAA devs avoid them pretty much and stick to tried and tested means but the great dev houses are able to refine and inprove upon the existing ideas and over time games evolve in something thats completely different to what went before, but that takes time, GW2 is great example don't expect to see it this year, and as others have mentioned the MMO playing public are of the impatient type so its no wonder MMO's are either released inventive but buggy (Vanguard, POTBS, EQ2) or working but dull and generic (Rift, Aion and for lots of players WoW).
Cal.
No we're talking about innovation, not invention.
[Mod Edit]
Still, we were talking about innovation.
No one is confused. We have differences in what is considered innovation. Not the definition. I look at gameplay only because im weird and i think alot of fixes are being passed off as innovation. he looks at things differently. We were both talking about innovation however.
See you in the dream.. The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
I agree wit the OP, seems like MMOs just don't do it for me anymore as well. Played wow for a bit, nothing special there, played Rift for like 3 months, same thing. It seems at least to me that MMOs have de-volved. We used to have MMOs were things were important, like if you got killed the penalty was enough to keep you on the edge and being careful when you were out. Or if you got scammed out of gold it was a big deal or you needed to be really skilled and/or creative to achieve certain things. Now MMOs have turned into instant-gratification machines with nothing to lose and where everyone can be great with minimal skills. I'd like to see a step in another direction, but I think the main problem is that running MMOs are like running hotels, if your competition is giving out free breakfast and you're not then you might be induced to follow suit.
Off the top of my head I think EvE is the only MMO that actually has some challenges that is somewhat successful right now. That says a lot.
Recently I thought I had started to agree with the OP... but like any addict I did the appropriate thing, doubled my dose. And suddenly I was high flying on top of the world again playing MMOs like I did back in my youth. Maybe I have a thing for multi-tasking but seriously... I took two boring MMOs (one admittedly a very bad game, asda 2) and played both at the same time. What happened? Next thing I knew I was starving and 8 hours has passed by. wtf? I never expected this from games... but maybe I've become so accustomed to MMOs that any challenge has dissappeared. Even the "challenging" end-game content of these games has gotten boring. I never thought I would say this, but pushing myself past my own limits of gaming has made the boring fun again.... boy do I sound like an addict or what.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
I'm fully in agreement with the OP. MMO's have just lost their luster. Everything now is instant gratification met with general gaming communities of spoiled annoying people who expect the (virtual) world. There's little challenge anymore, there's little in the way of real accomplishment. In the beginning, at least for me was Ultima Online. If you were a guy with a Large L-Shaped House (or Keep, Castle, etc) a Nightmare, and a Pet Dragon, you were top $h**. It was an accomplishment. None of those things happened overnight, they were years in the making, and your determination to get to some of these things and commitment to the game and community made it possible. Cause in old UO, there was consequence. There was true community. And truth of it, it was played by people of higher age and /or intelligence at that time. So the game itself, was a pleasure to be in.
These days, with the 'gaming community', it is a disaster. Since online gaming went mainstream (ie: WoW) the genre as a whole as suffered. Now, I like everybody else played the hell out of WoW, I'll never say it WAS a bad game, but it forever changed the genre's landscape from the 'niche' type to the main-stream.
And once something becomes popular, and enough people become involved. It becomes ruined.
A general truth that I've always accounted for when building a program or designing something, if you give people a choice, or control of anything, they will find a way to f*** it up.
This is true in the MMO genre, the examples and argumetns made in this thread, people have direct control over the games we play and the games we will play. WoW became a hit because as a gaming collective community, we let it, we made it so popular. And now we're doomed to be stuck with it, and games like it for the next 10 years to come.
At the end of it all, I think I'm done with gaming entirely. None of these new games, PC, Console, MMOs alike offer anything new or exciting. Every major release these past couple years and the years going forward seems to be a direct sequal to something that has been done to death a dozen times before. New IPs fail left and right and new ideas never take off because the gaming community won't let them.
The 'gamers' want Call of Duty #9965, they want a Halo 13, Grand Theft Something 99, or God of FightDifferentMonsters 3000. If this wasn't true, some of these wouldn't be the best selling games out there.
So, we did this. We killed the genre. In fact, we killed gaming entirely.
Hey TSW Players http://www.unfair.co/ for Mission guides, Lore Locations and stuff....
At the end of it all, I think I'm done with gaming entirely. None of these new games, PC, Console, MMOs alike offer anything new or exciting. Every major release these past couple years and the years going forward seems to be a direct sequal to something that has been done to death a dozen times before. New IPs fail left and right and new ideas never take off because the gaming community won't let them.
The 'gamers' want Call of Duty #9965, they want a Halo 13, Grand Theft Something 99, or God of FightDifferentMonsters 3000. If this wasn't true, some of these wouldn't be the best selling games out there.
So, we did this. We killed the genre. In fact, we killed gaming entirely.
You should give "L.A. Noire" a try. It is different from all the usual games. Reminds me a little of 'Jack Orlando', which was a fabulous game back then.
"And on the other side of spectrum you have alternative "sandbox" approach - that is actually just a lazy excuse for - game for PVP where devs didnt need to bother with content."
This is your problem right here. Seek player-created content (join a semi to heavy rp guild, participate) and click the link below and your problems will be solved.
Hipster I think that MO is part of the problem that he is talking about. It is a sanbox devoid of tools to make player created content. And there is not Developer made content as well. SV released a game with nothing in it and said "it's a sandbox". I would like to know when "sandbox" games got so diluted from UO, that MO can be called a sanbox and not just a fantasy version of Unreal with some MMO skills.
I think saying that MO is devoid of tools is an exaggeration. MO does have more to do in it than it's being given credit for, though it still needs more. And, I believe they are moving in the right direction, with the Dawn expansion being a good step.
I also think that a game like Perpetuum is being overlooked for what it does.
Xsyon and Earthrise could turn themselves around with some time.
ArcheAge is something to look forward to as well.
And, there's still EvE.
As far as I'm concerned, though they are fewer in number than the standard MMOs, there are still games out there that are trying to give a different experience from the norm.
Problem with new gerne inovative games is that our current technology is limited.
Internet and servers still cant cope a decent amount of players in one region no matter how outdated the graphics are.
New and complex systems of new inovation ideas like building your own engine for your motobike, crafting materials, housing, loot, powers, landscape, weather, on and on and on requires a huge load of coding and development not to mention a nightmare of bugs and codes.
And then we have the players, rabid hungry monsters that eats content in a few months that took years and years to make.
Its just not posible, not in this "era".
Unless a new einstein comes along and creates a artificial entity that can create in a short time span.
Alas for your mortal life you still have, you will have to do with little content, and a graphic with player limits till you die.
Maybe your children will have a chance in the dreams you once had.
Comments
We have got a little off topic its is not the systems in MMO's that drive people away it is the MMO it self and be honest the people or lack there of, Think about it if Wow never hit the amount of fame and population Wow would have failed from the start, 40 man raids?? how could this have been pulled off it there was 200 maybe 300 people on a sever at a time? Battle grounds got stale cause pvp became nothing more then a title fest and once you knew that you did not have 70 hours a week to sink into pvp you gave up.
Now look at other games AOC for instance if the release of this game went off without issues and the overall game had good content from start this game would have owned. now look at games like CO or DCU STO, why did these fail? Simple same issues we all have very little content huge limits on what you can do, Now DCU combat is awesome i mean awesome but the lack of everything else leaves it to the dogs, But look at small publisher games like POTBS when this game first came out i was looking forward to it, then about 2 week later i was reaaly disapointed, No seiges, No ship boarding i was really hoping for Sid Mieres pirates as an MMO it fell short big time, The reason these games and MMO's fail in general is they do not grip us like they did,
Remeber on UO when it was all Felucia pvp was everywhere and the gankers and murder guilds owned the game, then they gave us tram and for some let people discover UO without penalty the game got big and bigger and bigger until like every good MMO changed it so much that you can not even start the game again and know what your doing. That is the issue with these games like EVE if you did not start playing EVE back in the day dont even try it unless you got high lvl friends and people that can throw you stuff.
MMO's now we play for a week and see hey its the same combat system as any the same old grind but this time with less friends and we get bored cause we done this all before in another game. We need something that is like hey this is new and fun and spend the time learning and feeling like your getting some where, Games now I feel like okay I did this in SWG or WoW already i do not have it in me, reason why i did not like rift I was like hmmm okay i done all this before in other games WoW, ROM, Aion, WAR EQ, it was like restarting one of those games from scratch with a slightly better looking GUI.
I think MMO.Maverick kinda brings a murky problem into specific relief actually. Things can be innovative in bits and pieces while not feeling "as a whole" being an innovative product.
I can admit the things in say .."Wow" are innovative additions to the game and to the genre , but the game itself is still the gear grind treadmill. In the sense of innovation to get away from the treadmill - no they havent been innovative in any sense of the word. They have been innovative in regards to the "treadmill geargrind" for their game - and Inovative for the genre by developing things like x-server BG's instances etc etc.
Eve online has been innovative to the genre by proving a single game world can function and be profitable. A player based econonomy could also (by today's game economy standards) be considered incredibly innovative. Etc etc.
I believe the "Themepark" genre as a whole has had little innovation as far as how mmo's are played (in general). But the innovations to the "Themepark" genre as a "whole' have been significant.
Example: Putting in motion control devices to control your characters in an mmo environment would be innovative.... It would change pvp -pve -raiding -interactions across the board. The MMO game that came out with that first ...would be considered innovative. (Talking MMO now ...not the Wii.) This is just an example that I could think of fast etc etc ad nasuem before you trash it to pieces.
I think in the end people just wan't a "new" way to play mmo's. If I "Knew" what that was I would be a insanely wealthy man. I would be ....Innovative.
See this is the problem people are confused to what innovation is...... Innovation is the refinement and improvement of existing ideas as in MMO quests becoming more interactive ala phasing or dungeons becoming instanced inorder to allow for groups to have their own individual experience and not have to wait 10 hours for a boss respawn.
Now your example is really invention as its adding a whole new layer of gameplay that really never existed before and thats what many people want in games the problem is that inventing new gameplay is a lot tougher than just thinking it up and bingo it works ingame so companies have to balance that out, unless you are Trion Worlds or Mythic and you just cut and paste. The invention in SWG pre-cu is on a pretty mammoth scale as the whole game really was an unknown quantity and thats why it was a bit of a mess when it released. Inventing new gameplay options is risky and time consuming so big AAA devs avoid them pretty much and stick to tried and tested means but the great dev houses are able to refine and inprove upon the existing ideas and over time games evolve in something thats completely different to what went before, but that takes time, GW2 is great example don't expect to see it this year, and as others have mentioned the MMO playing public are of the impatient type so its no wonder MMO's are either released inventive but buggy (Vanguard, POTBS, EQ2) or working but dull and generic (Rift, Aion and for lots of players WoW).
Cal.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
No we're talking about innovation, not invention.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
My friend, you need to be patients and check out the games you mentioned. I'm not saying you WILL like them but I know I will be giving them a fair shot and so should you.
Guild Wars 2's 50 minutes game play video:
http://n4g.com/news/592585/guild-wars-2-50-minutes-of-pure-gameplay
Everything We Know about GW2:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/287180/page/1
Still, we were talking about innovation.
No one is confused. We have differences in what is considered innovation. Not the definition. I look at gameplay only because im weird and i think alot of fixes are being passed off as innovation. he looks at things differently. We were both talking about innovation however.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
I agree wit the OP, seems like MMOs just don't do it for me anymore as well. Played wow for a bit, nothing special there, played Rift for like 3 months, same thing. It seems at least to me that MMOs have de-volved. We used to have MMOs were things were important, like if you got killed the penalty was enough to keep you on the edge and being careful when you were out. Or if you got scammed out of gold it was a big deal or you needed to be really skilled and/or creative to achieve certain things. Now MMOs have turned into instant-gratification machines with nothing to lose and where everyone can be great with minimal skills. I'd like to see a step in another direction, but I think the main problem is that running MMOs are like running hotels, if your competition is giving out free breakfast and you're not then you might be induced to follow suit.
Off the top of my head I think EvE is the only MMO that actually has some challenges that is somewhat successful right now. That says a lot.
http://legalbinary.wordpress.com/ - LegalBinary, were the law and mmorpgs, botting, computers and gaming intersect.
Recently I thought I had started to agree with the OP... but like any addict I did the appropriate thing, doubled my dose. And suddenly I was high flying on top of the world again playing MMOs like I did back in my youth. Maybe I have a thing for multi-tasking but seriously... I took two boring MMOs (one admittedly a very bad game, asda 2) and played both at the same time. What happened? Next thing I knew I was starving and 8 hours has passed by. wtf? I never expected this from games... but maybe I've become so accustomed to MMOs that any challenge has dissappeared. Even the "challenging" end-game content of these games has gotten boring. I never thought I would say this, but pushing myself past my own limits of gaming has made the boring fun again.... boy do I sound like an addict or what.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
I'm fully in agreement with the OP. MMO's have just lost their luster. Everything now is instant gratification met with general gaming communities of spoiled annoying people who expect the (virtual) world. There's little challenge anymore, there's little in the way of real accomplishment. In the beginning, at least for me was Ultima Online. If you were a guy with a Large L-Shaped House (or Keep, Castle, etc) a Nightmare, and a Pet Dragon, you were top $h**. It was an accomplishment. None of those things happened overnight, they were years in the making, and your determination to get to some of these things and commitment to the game and community made it possible. Cause in old UO, there was consequence. There was true community. And truth of it, it was played by people of higher age and /or intelligence at that time. So the game itself, was a pleasure to be in.
These days, with the 'gaming community', it is a disaster. Since online gaming went mainstream (ie: WoW) the genre as a whole as suffered. Now, I like everybody else played the hell out of WoW, I'll never say it WAS a bad game, but it forever changed the genre's landscape from the 'niche' type to the main-stream.
And once something becomes popular, and enough people become involved. It becomes ruined.
A general truth that I've always accounted for when building a program or designing something, if you give people a choice, or control of anything, they will find a way to f*** it up.
This is true in the MMO genre, the examples and argumetns made in this thread, people have direct control over the games we play and the games we will play. WoW became a hit because as a gaming collective community, we let it, we made it so popular. And now we're doomed to be stuck with it, and games like it for the next 10 years to come.
At the end of it all, I think I'm done with gaming entirely. None of these new games, PC, Console, MMOs alike offer anything new or exciting. Every major release these past couple years and the years going forward seems to be a direct sequal to something that has been done to death a dozen times before. New IPs fail left and right and new ideas never take off because the gaming community won't let them.
The 'gamers' want Call of Duty #9965, they want a Halo 13, Grand Theft Something 99, or God of FightDifferentMonsters 3000. If this wasn't true, some of these wouldn't be the best selling games out there.
So, we did this. We killed the genre. In fact, we killed gaming entirely.
Hey TSW Players http://www.unfair.co/ for Mission guides, Lore Locations and stuff....
You should give "L.A. Noire" a try. It is different from all the usual games. Reminds me a little of 'Jack Orlando', which was a fabulous game back then.
I think saying that MO is devoid of tools is an exaggeration. MO does have more to do in it than it's being given credit for, though it still needs more. And, I believe they are moving in the right direction, with the Dawn expansion being a good step.
I also think that a game like Perpetuum is being overlooked for what it does.
Xsyon and Earthrise could turn themselves around with some time.
ArcheAge is something to look forward to as well.
And, there's still EvE.
As far as I'm concerned, though they are fewer in number than the standard MMOs, there are still games out there that are trying to give a different experience from the norm.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
Problem with new gerne inovative games is that our current technology is limited.
Internet and servers still cant cope a decent amount of players in one region no matter how outdated the graphics are.
New and complex systems of new inovation ideas like building your own engine for your motobike, crafting materials, housing, loot, powers, landscape, weather, on and on and on requires a huge load of coding and development not to mention a nightmare of bugs and codes.
And then we have the players, rabid hungry monsters that eats content in a few months that took years and years to make.
Its just not posible, not in this "era".
Unless a new einstein comes along and creates a artificial entity that can create in a short time span.
Alas for your mortal life you still have, you will have to do with little content, and a graphic with player limits till you die.
Maybe your children will have a chance in the dreams you once had.
Amen.