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Is the mmo genre evolving or stagnating towards doom?
PigEye
Member Posts: 78
Dunno about the rest of you, but it seems with each "new" title, it's just more of the same old boring stuff. I think the last game that I actually played to cap was War... and it was a miracle I made it that far. The only reason that I made it to cap was that I was playing with some RL friends. Otherwise, I wouldn't have made it then.
I'm not sure if I am becoming jaded, or not. But it seems that the genre has gone as far as it can... at least as far as I can see. Maybe some holographic, 3d action would change my mind, but I don't see that happening for a long time.
Your thoughts?
PigEye McNasty
DFOUW NA
Comments
You said it yourself, playing with others kept ya gaming.
A lot of game mechanics are listed as "needed" from past games, and yet it many times is the rose colored goggles. A lot of what is missed is communities, and games have evolved past forcing it upon folks. If you want the group exp, it is up to you to make it happen.
There are times I miss hanging out with friends in EQ, or knowing someones rep pretty much by the guild tag they kept. That said, I dont miss the days of LFG cause my pali couldnt tank PoP zones. It made me move to a necro, and since then I am more at ease with playing to my pace. Even more as my gut has gotten worse over the yrs.
I see gaming mechanics advancing more so in SP games, but as time goes on, they will make their way into the MMO realm as well.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Dont think so. Genre just has to grow out of copying every other genre and get back to making virtual worlds. It'll get there. Kicking and screaming heh
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
The problem isn't that the genre has gone as far as it can go, the problem is that the genre is dominated by large greedy corporations run by jack wagons who are just in it for a quick buck.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
The last game I played to Capped was ToR and ony because 1. I love Star wars 2. Loved Bioware games (until ME3's last few minutes). 3. Loved KOTOR. I feel the main reason is a really lack for grouping as being needed as much as it once was. Everyone wants solo content while I'm all for solo cotent I feel it should take longer. EQ/DAoC/FF11 got it right in my eyes however this is just my opinion. I enjoyed making friends in-game that I could level up with, explore, help, receive help and so forth, an still have the option to solo.
It really is based on who you are, what you like, and such if the genre is stagnating or evolving really. To players that like this style of gaming with pretty fast leveling, story driven content, and directed play over the more free-frorm styles of the earlier games it is still evolving still. Yet as a person who prefered the older generation of mmos no amount of small or large changes will seem like evolution as they are pushing the genre away from the style desired. t is like with D&D or other table top games that have changes to the rules or style of play even to the settng of the game, the players will see the changes as stagnating or evolving the games based on what they prefer or like not trully on if it improves the style or not.
The genre very well stagnating in that very few large scale high quality mmos are made outside of the themepark style that is quite popular Yet themeparks are evolving as a sub-set of the mmo genre in many ways to improve the gaming experince an the enjoyment of the players that enjoy them. It would be the same though if sandboxes, pvp-centrict, sandbox/themepark hybrids, or any other style of mmo became overally popular, as that sub-set over the overall genre would evolve while leaving the others stagnating. In many ways you could say that in the uo/eq eras the games stagnated til the next big game released, and till wow opened the models were pretty close, yet the genre was still really new, and because of this any change was going to be new an fresh in it. As the genre gets older the manitude of a change to feel new or diferent is increasing, since many players have seen so much or things have been used before.
FREE BEER TOMMORROW !
Saw this sign the other day at a local pub. Of course tomorrow never comes, so it was a pretty easy promise for the owner to make. So what does this have to do with MMO's? Just as tomorrow never comes, the perfect game never will never come along either.
First of all the ancient history. My first experience with online gaming was a game known as Gemstone III. That was way back in 1989 or 1990, I was also a big text mud fan with MUME as my all time favorite, was in the 2nd beta of UO back in August of 97.etc etc etc.
One thing I see that a lot of people may not is all of these games share a common design known as a DikuMud. UO,EQ, even WOW. Some games use a level based grind. Some use a skill based grind. Either way you still swing a pointy or glowing stick x amount of time so you can do more damage with the pointy stick and swing it x amount of times at mobs with more HP so you can do more damage.....etc etc
Over the years the graphics have gotten better and leveling has gotten less painful. There is a trend toward storyline games rather than sandbox games. On the subjecy of sand boxes, I really don't have too many fond memories of the original SWG. I tend to remember losing millions of credits worth of goods when my vendor disappeared, unfinished professions such as the bio eng, flavor of the month professions etc etc. I think my favorite game of all time was DAOC, which had maybe a dozen quests total at release. You leveled by grinding mobs, oh mygawd the horror
So what does this have to do with anything? I was just reading the forums and never cease to bne amused with the claims that a game is just a WoW clone. No kids it is a graphical DIKU mud clone, just as WoW is a graphical DIKU mud clone LOL. And that perfect game it ain't never gonna come, so find a game with a community you enjoy and enjoy it. When you get burned out on it move to a new one, but for gods sake quit believing the next game around the corner is gonna be the perfect one.
Is the industry stagnating. Nope , back in the days of EQ1 we would have killed to have the storylines, quest chains, kick ass graphics, travel options, crafting options...etc etc that the new game have. Id the design the same, yep. Same as it was 20 years ago, just like the car in your driveway stil has 4 wheels and a sterring wheel, But is sure a lot more of a car than the Model T was
I miss DAoC
Threads like this, made this year, just make me laugh. Last year, sure, I'd bitte. This year.. come on. Take off the tinfoil hats.
If you can't find innovation in this wave of MMOs, then I'm sorry but you aren't going to find innovation anywhere. I wouldn't be surprised if you thought the iphone / ipad wasn't innovative. Or netflix, or gamefly, or the internet.
This current wave of MMOs is so vastly different what what we are used to, that if you can't at least see that, it might just be time for you to take a break from gaming. Hell, this year we only have 2 fantasy RPGs. Previous years we had 100% fantasy RPGs. Furthermore, we have MMOFPS games, and the only MMO released this year with traditional questing was TERA.
This year should be a breath of fresh air for MMO gamers. This is the first year in a long time when I've felt this genre legitimately had options for us to play. There's TERA currently, if that's your thing. TSW is coming out shortly. GW2 is also following later this year. Then we have Defiance, and Planetside 2 which are looking to be due out sometime next year, Archeage, Firefall.
Unless you're the type of person who is a backseat developer (expects someone else to make a game exactly how he/she wants it, without doing the work themselves), it's going to be pretty difficult to not find one game to enjoy. And that's really all that games are supposed to be about, right? Fun!? Or is that something we have forgotten about in this genre.
After playing gw2, I don't think there is going to be anything positive from mmos until Planetside 2, and teso isn't even worth caps as that will just copy gw2.
but have no fear, World of Darkness
www.daneslaw.com
@GamerKurisu
Awaiting Darkfall Unholy Wars
Funnily enough my thread is the complete opposite of this one talk about Ying and Yang
I think the reason is that different people mean different things when they talk about MMOs.
One group only means the mainstream "AAA" themepark games cause that's all what they play anyway. The MMO-ers. They will only play games with a huge marketing budget.
They're the mainstream.
The other group is interested in MMORPGs and also considers indy titles and non-AAA games, for example with kickstarter funding. Sure, they get less polish, less hype, less marketing, less convenience, less acessability, less instant action, that's just how it is.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
Tsw
Gw2
Planetside2
Archeage
TESO
Wod
And with the cancellation of a couple of other games (wh40k, koa)
We are finally moving out of the wow clone with a single gimmick era in my opinion.
This year I have been pleasantly suprised by the tsw and gw2 betas, neither is same old shite we've been playing for the last 8 years.
Very true but now with the net do we really need massive advertiseing with jungle drums to coin a phrase word of mouth as in social networking can get a project noticed, this site pulled in quite a few for other projects and as AAA are becoming quite rare we may see a divergance towards gameing in general Wasteland2 and Doublefine got the ball rolling and Kickstarter into the public eye and stuff like Minecraft was done on a shoestring budget and only got noticed through the webs social network sites.
I think the genre is starting to come around in a good way. Instead of seeing a bunch of theme-park games attempting to achieve WoW's success, we're starting to see some innovative ideas and games that cater to different types of MMO players instead of just trying to lump us all into one.
While the Kickstarter program has yet to produce anything tangible, I think it's a good thing for the genre as well and may encourage more startups with unique ideas.
Stagnating towards doom unless some dev steps up and finally makes a mmo that is not biliantly trying to clone world of warcraft like every damn title pretty much for the last few years. Only mmo coming out that I know for sure couldn't give a rats ass about wow or its formula's and doesn't clone anything from it is phantasy star online 2. Its the only mmo I am currently waiting for since the rest seem like the same generic fantasy wow-like garbage that they been spewing out for years. Its pretty bad when you buy a mmo and go on the first day "I have been here and done this too many times in too many diffrent titles" Its why Rift and Swtor aren't doing as good as they could be, mostly because they are biliant wow clones that offer nothing that is actually interesting. GW2 will be fine, it'll get alot of people because its buy 2 play with no sub fees so that alone draws interest.
Overall mmo's need to mvoe away from the wow formula's and fantasy and do their own thing, I don't mind swords and magic but so sick of the old human elves and dwarfs crap, its so over used.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
Yes, MMO's are evolving, more into short term, single player game experiences (as opposed to virtual worlds) which appears to be stagnation to some of us.
They gain new features, mechanics every new title that comes along, and while change might seem subtle, it does keep going onward.
It seems the current business model works, even if a lot of money is spent, as long as initital release sales are strong, a rapidly falling sub base is enough to sustain the game until it makes the transition over to F2P (part of almost all MMO's business plans these days I'm guessing).
It would appear that developers have accepted the fact that WOW was an anomoly, but by copying the standard model there's still money to be made and it's the safe way to bet.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Doom was a pretty good game ... Seems like a good thing to me.
Yeah the main aaa MMORPGS like GW2 and TSW at the end of the day are just more of the same. TSW is a bit different because of the world setting so I will be playing that for a bit. GW2 is just more of the same fantasy Themepark MMO...
Nothing ground braknig in either of the games but i had more fun and enjoy the world setting more in TSW so thats what im gonna play until i get bored or until PS2
Is the genre going to evole or stagnate? IF its left up to the AAA publishers then i think it will stagnate its almost there now really.. AAA release after AAA release we get promised its gonna be the best thing since sliced bread but all we get is the same old stuff wrapped up slightly different.. ala GW2, SWTOR, TSW and so on.. same same same same..
I think things like kickstarter will help chagne the MMO industry for the better but its still very early on so will have to wait and see.
Actually is the old model pulling in the punters in my thread i stated that people are in need of a change SWTOR was a surefire money spinner, and i hate to use the WOW reference here but Bioware used that model pretty much copy pasted it and still with the massive IP it failed in a so called rock steady business model so likelihood is a F2P model as it's now the favoured course of action in the Mo Market, maybe B2P will be the next big thing but the quality will have to be AAA or GW2 would not be a success which i'm sure it will be.
The MMO Genre is a Kraken, it may plug a few tentacels into a dead end, it may even lose a few but they regenerate and regrow. And it's always shifting it's main body over the ground it can reach.
Certainly a different way of looking at it
I agree if things are going to change it won't come from a big budget game or a well known publisher. I'd even be willing to bet that when some really innovative game comes along it won't get much public recoginition at first. The masses will dismiss it because it's not like WoW. The players bored of the current model will jump on it right away but it will be some time before the sheeple pile on too.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
The MMO genre is evolving at an incredible rate, and it's leaving behind those who fear change - both developers and gamers alike.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
With games like TSW, GW2, Planetside 2, Firefall, Defiance, End of Nations, Archeage comming out this year or next year, I'd say there are companies that want to expand it, diversify it. That doesn't lead me to belive, in any way, that it's stagnating. Also, if games like Pathfinder, Embers and The Repopulation manage to do decently, it will be more reason to belive that we are getting more diversity. No, it's not stagnating in any way.
After trying the apparant big hitters,TSW and the hyped up beyond belief GW2, I've lost all hope for a decent MMO for the next couple of years. I'll try Planetside 2 but that isn't even a RPG. My last hope is that Titan will be good, but I don't even know what genre of game it will be yet.
Guess I'll have to stick to online co op games for the time being.