The state of the MMO genre: Interesting Thoughts

[ScytheReaper]

I realize I just posted something similar to this in a different thread but as its own topic I am curious as to what others think.

 

Lots of talk has been done recently about how important innovation is. People say the MMO genre is starved for innovation. Yet don't we already have many innovative alternatives?

AoC brings real time combat and hack and slash, WAR brings server wide PvP, Tabla-Rasa brings shooter mechanics, TERA brings its own spin, hell rift tried to beat WoW at its own game by refining the entire experience so does AION and many others.

 

Recently I've actually been thinking its the developers who are starved for innovation, and trying desperately to convince the masses its for the best.

 

Innovation has already been here. Each of those MMO's came out and couldn't shake the customers from blizzards tree. Literally everything has been tried. Developers are now just combining those past innovations into new games.

 

It kind of seems like its the masses that DON'T want innovation and are sticking to their guns? As developers scramble to come up with originality each one is just shot down and talked about as the plague.

 

I'm curious as to what's really going on here. Is innovation happening but just slowly? Have these innovations just not been refined enough to attract the masses? Have there not been enough innovations in each title? Or is the cry for innovation just really loud and without substance?

 

Trying to keep this as objective as possible. I am very interested in this and it strikes me as odd. I myself am completely guilty. At the launch of AoC I cried "Innovation is here!" and then it came. Then it went, I never even bought the game. I did the same with vanguard which is now almost unheard of.

 

I thought for sure the things they brought to the table would interest many. Yet it didn't. It didn't even interest ME. Personal Takes?

[ScytheReaper]

Bump, fast board.

[ScytheReaper]

Sad Panda

[Smzel]

Those games you mentioned failed because they were bad games, not because they were innovative. In fact a lot of MMOs that came out after WOW have failed because instead of being well designed games in their own right, they relied on having some new innovative feature (aka gimmick) that WOW didint have. Tabula Rasa, AoC and WAR didint fail because they did new things and people wanted no part of it, they failed because they were bad games.

 

If you want innovation in your MMOs go play EVE Online.

[ScytheReaper]

Those games you mentioned failed because they were bad games, not because they were innovative. In fact a lot of MMOs that came out after WOW have failed because instead of being well designed games in their own right, they relied on having some new innovative feature (aka gimmick) that WOW didint have. Tabula Rasa, AoC and WAR didint fail because they did new things and people wanted no part of it, they failed because they were bad games.

 

If you want innovation in your MMOs go play EVE Online.

 

So then they just weren't implemented good enough. But what then made them bad games?

 

I played AoC at least and it seemed its own innovation was its downfall for me.. I ended up hating the combat style that I thought would be awesome (free trial).

 

There didn't seem to be anything overtly bad about it.

 

Not necessarily saying they failed BECAUSE of innovation. I am only questioning the actual demand level of it. It just didn't seem like any of their innovations were really noticed.

 

They certainly did not change the MMO world. I don't believe they were actually BAD per-se. I just see a whole slew of attempts to revolutionize a genre that apparently wants no part in it.

[blackcerberus]

I really wonder what do you call innovation.

 

all the generic mechanics in WoW are present in every and each of the games you mentioned. any of them innovated anything, they just expanded a selected few (minor) features with varying degrees of success while 99% of the foundations remained exactly the same.

 

 

I think "innovation" will take us back to sandboxes (ironic, i know, going forward by going backwards) or to MMOFPS. the themepark, railroaded, quest-driven, endgame-raiding, class-with-trees model is exhausted

Edited December 15, 2011 by blackcerberus

[Lolliipopp]

Tabula Rasa... wow, how long is it since they shut their servers down? Damn that was a really fun game.

[Demorgoth]

UO innovated the MMO concept, EQ made it first person 3d instead of isometric (well, M59 did first, but EQ was a giant leap ahead graphically).

 

Since those two huge leaps, everything else has been tweaks, variations, and improvements on the same core games.

[NDLaos]

I can you tell some of the reasons why some games failed, and none of them is too mich innovation. Like the previous poster said, these games were bad (or had just some problems).

 

WAR for example was in my opinion a really solid game, copied a lot from Wow, did a lot of things right. BUT: It made some really bad mistakes after launch. Hoping that zonewide open PvP as ONLY endgame content was enough killed that game more than everything. (even more than the balance problems because of non mirrored classes, hehe)

 

Vanguard: Well, again in theory a lot of great ideas. I liked a lot in vanguard, f.e. the diplomatic minigame. But here it was clear from the beginning that it could only be a nichegame because of high hardware hunger and high difficulty - add to this really bad implementation and you have a fail game. (if you go into a full level of negative Exp because of respawn bugs you quickly play something else, lol)

 

Sure, I wish SWTOR and other games to come would copy some more of the innovative ideas that worked in past games, not just copy the one game that was a massive success. But I also think this are only small steps (f.e. Rift took WARs public quests and made aehem "Rifts"..). The big innovation will almost for sure be MMORPG-FPS, I guess Blizzards Titan will start the Era of these...

Sandbox, like another poster stated as innovation, I fear is utterly dead. (As much as I love it, most sandbox stuff needs a lot of implementation with only a part of the people ever experiencing it, so it is not too great from a business side of view)

[ScytheReaper]

I really wonder what do you call innovation.

 

all the generic mechanics in WoW are present in every and each of the games you mentioned. any of them innovated anything, they just expanded a selected few (minor) features with varying degrees of success while 99% of the foundations remained exactly the same.

 

 

I think "innovation" will take us back to sandboxes (ironic, i know, going forward by going backwards) or to MMOFPS. the themepark, railroaded, quest-driven, endgame-raiding, class-with-trees model is exhausted

 

On the contrary many of these were huge leaps sideways. AoC had real time combat with dodging, and resembled more of a hack and slash. (each of these have free trials to see what I mean if you are up for it). Tabla-Rasa was an MMOFPS so..yeah, theres that. It was literally a first person shooter in an MMO world (if memory serves) Lots of buzz around it when it was first announced.

 

WAR had server vs. server combat I believe and was heavily invested as a PvP title.

 

You are right though that they are generally all themepark. (kind of). Class with tree's will never get old though. So long as there are classes people will want to customize them. That was a natural evolution.

 

Oblivion and Skyrim really personify Scripted events versus random quests. The random dungeons in oblivion were attrocious and the hand crafted experiences are almost 100x better.

 

I feel the same about the themepark conundrum. I'd rather be in a great themepark that provides the same grand experience then a random ameba that provides a different mediocre experience each time.

[Darkalleycat]

The big problem alot of those games had, is that they were pushed out before fully developed, most times trying to counter the expansion drive of WoW.

 

Some of them did have other problems, but the majority was the fact they were released too soon.

 

Hopefully SWTOR doesn't have that.

[Amorphium]

you also have to remember that, typical for blizzard, wow was not a great reinvention of the mmorpg genre either, they carefully took things from other mmorps (mainly everquest i think), blended them together with some new ideas and voilá. Also a lot of problems of the wow killers (i really wanted to like warhammer) were from the fact that they were too resource hungry. most of the people dont have a highend gaming system which leads to frustration when trying to play warhammer or especially age of conan.

Combine that with the fact that many failed mmos could imho have vastly profited from ~3 months more of beta and listening to feedback instead of rushing release to make cash and you get a good idea why so many mmorpgs failed.

[ScytheReaper]

you also have to remember that, typical for blizzard, wow was not a great reinvention of the mmorpg genre either, they carefully took things from other mmorps (mainly everquest i think), blended them together with some new ideas and voilá. Also a lot of problems of the wow killers (i really wanted to like warhammer) were from the fact that they were too resource hungry. most of the people dont have a highend gaming system which leads to frustration when trying to play warhammer or especially age of conan.

Combine that with the fact that many failed mmos could imho have vastly profited from ~3 months more of beta and listening to feedback instead of rushing release to make cash and you get a good idea why so many mmorpgs failed.

 

I wouldn't quite say they failed. They have loyal followings and most have at least a few heavily populated servers.

 

Your theory is interesting. So, actually, you believe it is the limited entry that prevented the domination of these games?

 

True they would have definitely profited from some more listening. We all know the effect too much listening can have though.

 

Although I don't quite remember if AoC had a high spec requirement?

 

I kind of realized, personally, that I DON'T want innovation. Although I asked for it, every time It came around I simply dismissed it. I want refinement. The reasons I couldn't get into WoW were not because of its combat style, which I've always loved. It was actually the over all appeal of the game. Its overly cartoonish style, appeal to pop culture, and lack of story in classic MMO tradition (wall of pointless text) are what really kept me at bay.

[snowmon]

i dont feel its innovation, its investment. me for example have played WoW for 7yrs, how ever epic swtor will be (and i have no doubt in my mind it will be) it will not stop me playing wow simply because of the amount of time and effort i have put into wow for these 7 yrs, im not just going to throw it way completely. WoW is engraind in the industry and it will take a dam long time for it to die simply because of the investment people have put into playing it.

[Smzel]

So then they just weren't implemented good enough. But what then made them bad games?

 

I played AoC at least and it seemed its own innovation was its downfall for me.. I ended up hating the combat style that I thought would be awesome (free trial).

 

There didn't seem to be anything overtly bad about it.

 

Not necessarily saying they failed BECAUSE of innovation. I am only questioning the actual demand level of it. It just didn't seem like any of their innovations were really noticed.

 

They certainly did not change the MMO world. I don't believe they were actually BAD per-se. I just see a whole slew of attempts to revolutionize a genre that apparently wants no part in it.

 

What made them bad games in the end was lack of content, especially when compared to WOW. Lack of content is pretty much death to any MMO, Champions Online for example had an awesome character development system, and a partially real time combat system that worked really well (standard MMO combat, but you could block stuff on reaction), but it shipped with only 3 zones, the quests were boring and the instances were a joke. Similarly AoC had a cool combat system that ultimately didnt work and WAR had no content besides PVP. TR was just a badly designed game overall, buggy, boring combat, boring content.

 

As far as truly innovative MMOs go I have to mention EVE Online again. The whole design of the game approaches MMOs from a completely different angle, single server, player control and used generated content. Its pretty much just a big sandbox where you can play at politics, trading and war. Of course even after (or if for that matter) you get past the infamous learning cliff, your ability to enjoy the game is entirely dependent on who you play with. I think its a very cool game, but ultimately has no general marked appeal, but I appreciated it fr what it is even if I personally dont enjoy it much.

[Korvenn]

The way I see it you're right the developers aren't starved for innovation but they are forced to make WoW clones by the guys with the big bucks who are scared to take any risks. Perhaps rightfully so? But that is another debate.

 

I don't see that players themselves are resistant to change or innovation. Most innovative MMO games have failed for other reasons than being innovative. Lets take Tabula Rasa as an example, has the potential to be a great game but was changed so many times in development it ended up as a half-finished mess. Same could be said for a lot of MMOs which released incomplete, unpolished or both.

 

I made this point before but when was the last time someone tried to make a big budget sandbox MMO game for example? Meanwhile Minecraft and Skyrim one pure sandbox the other with heavy sandbox elements are selling millions of copies.

 

There's some hope in the form of GW2 which is doing away with the kill 10 mobs questing and Boeing 747 cockpits of modern MMOs in favour of a more action driven dynamic experience. Who knows if it's a big success it could spawn the next wave of GW2 clones.

 

Other than that there's a few other developers who are thinking outside the box with projects on the horizon. Also I'm extremely curious to know what Zenimax's big MMO project is.

[ScytheReaper]

The way I see it you're right the developers aren't starved for innovation but they are forced to make WoW clones by the guys with the big bucks who are scared to take any risks. Perhaps rightfully so? But that is another debate.

 

I don't see that players themselves are resistant to change or innovation. Most innovative MMO games have failed for other reasons than being innovative. Lets take Tabula Rasa as an example, has the potential to be a great game but was changed so many times in development it ended up as a half-finished mess. Same could be said for a lot of MMOs which released incomplete, unpolished or both.

 

I made this point before but when was the last time someone tried to make a big budget sandbox MMO game for example? Meanwhile Minecraft and Skyrim one pure sandbox the other with heavy sandbox elements are selling millions of copies.

 

There's some hope in the form of GW2 which is doing away with the kill 10 mobs questing and Boeing 747 cockpits of modern MMOs in favour of a more action driven dynamic experience. Who knows if it's a big success it could spawn the next wave of GW2 clones.

 

Other than that there's a few other developers who are thinking outside the box with projects on the horizon. Also I'm extremely curious to know what Zenimax's big MMO project is.

 

I won't comment too much on GW2 as it isn't out yet and I don't want to turn this thread into a hypothetical debate of a games success. People tend to get very volatile. The problem with sandbox and random stuff is that it usually ends up paling in comparison. The random events have to be on the same level as the scripted ones which is almost impossible.

 

I'll point back to Oblivion in this. Random dungeons are notably less interesting then scripted ones. Do you know what's in scripted dungeons? yes, but they are hand crafted.

 

So far hand crafted stuff has always been superior to randomized events. It also depends on what your view of "Kill X Mobs" is.

 

All of these games are going to have quests to ultimately kill or retrieve something. Its all in how the quest is wrapped. And, until now, the wrapping has always been a bland wall of text.

 

The main thing here that changes things up in this and upcomming titles is the wrapping paper. They don't feel generic even though all games really are at their hearts.

 

In ME and ME2 all of my quests boiled down to mostly killing something, clearing a base, or talking to someone. The wrapping is what made it all feel unique.

[ScytheReaper]

What made them bad games in the end was lack of content, especially when compared to WOW. Lack of content is pretty much death to any MMO, Champions Online for example had an awesome character development system, and a partially real time combat system that worked really well (standard MMO combat, but you could block stuff on reaction), but it shipped with only 3 zones, the quests were boring and the instances were a joke. Similarly AoC had a cool combat system that ultimately didnt work and WAR had no content besides PVP. TR was just a badly designed game overall, buggy, boring combat, boring content.

 

As far as truly innovative MMOs go I have to mention EVE Online again. The whole design of the game approaches MMOs from a completely different angle, single server, player control and used generated content. Its pretty much just a big sandbox where you can play at politics, trading and war. Of course even after (or if for that matter) you get past the infamous learning cliff, your ability to enjoy the game is entirely dependent on who you play with. I think its a very cool game, but ultimately has no general marked appeal, but I appreciated it fr what it is even if I personally dont enjoy it much.

 

Now lack of content is another interesting notion. I wonder how much content matters when faced with story?

 

Previously content has been the main focus since story has been non existent. With MMO's of today, however, story is becomming more and more prominent.

 

I haven't tried EVE online so I can only barely touch on it. I've only heard it uttered in some circles. I understand its very complex. Which is actually pretty cool.

 

Again though I fear with that I may not know what I'm actually saying. I've heard everything about it from praises to "It's microsoft excel: The game".

 

Regardless it did try some new things and literally it is almost the basis for sandbox MMO style gameplay.

 

Sadly that was not what the masses seemed to want either.

 

So far the list of innovations presented are as follows:

FPS

Real time combat (hack n' slash)

PvP emphasis

Server vs. Server combat

Destruction of the holy trinity

Random events

Complex nature

and Sandbox

 

I'm sure there are actually many more but none of these seemed to have "worked". The reasons we have come up with so far are:

They were not done well enough

The barrier to entry was too high (the games were too demanding on peoples systems)

They were released too early

and they did not listen to customers.