Can MMO's get beyond World of Warcraft?

[Amnestic]

World of Warcraft might fail in the...story departments

It doesn't.

 

[Scarecrow38]

World of Warcraft might fail in the...story departments

It doesn't.

It does in the telling. I really, really like the game but, because I haven't played the warcraft series of strategy games and so on, there are lots of times where you are doing things just to gear up. Which is fine by me but there are people who like something more to sink their teeth into.

 

[tiredinnuendo]

Everything I play lately even non mmo's have design borrowed from World of Warcraft! The color coded loot and the little exclamation point above quest givers is making me ill.

How many years will it take to get past the outdated design of WOW?

1. Let's drop lame quests that ask me to kill 20 boars. Fun quest lines can be done without having to grind every area. How about dropping quests for some other goals? Need gear go find it.

2. with RPGS we have levels that show how long we've been playing in comparison to new players, way bored with levels. How do I compare myself to other gamers? how about by skill instead, choices of gear and how well you can play mean more to me than a level number of how many hours you spent in game. Tired of out leveling the area? How about the gear you have determines where you can go.

3. Static instances that never change. Wouldn't it be fun to have the difficulty of instances change so sometimes it is really tough? The loot could scale to the difficulty and sometimes you would have to make a tough decision and decide you just don't have the right gear or the right skills to make it. This should always give a reason to go in and test your mettle. Random mobs and random pathing would be fantastic as well.

4. Server wide goals and events. Let's say after 2 weeks of play some huge mob tries to destroy a town that everybody is familiar with. PC's can repel the attack if they can get organized enough fast enough. Make the community of the server actually feel like they change the outcome of the game rather than get to endgame and get bored.

Does anybody else think the MMO genre is stale and it's true potential is not realized?

You're describing the original release of Star Wars Galaxies. And for the record, it sucked.

- J

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

Guild Wars 2 looks to be a major contender to bash WoW off its high horse, with new features like randomised instances that actually effect the world.

but thb i never realy liked WoW in the first place, just could not get into it

 

[gim73]

Everything I play lately even non mmo's have design borrowed from World of Warcraft! The color coded loot and the little exclamation point above quest givers is making me ill.

How many years will it take to get past the outdated design of WOW?

1. Let's drop lame quests that ask me to kill 20 boars. Fun quest lines can be done without having to grind every area. How about dropping quests for some other goals? Need gear go find it.

2. with RPGS we have levels that show how long we've been playing in comparison to new players, way bored with levels. How do I compare myself to other gamers? how about by skill instead, choices of gear and how well you can play mean more to me than a level number of how many hours you spent in game. Tired of out leveling the area? How about the gear you have determines where you can go.

3. Static instances that never change. Wouldn't it be fun to have the difficulty of instances change so sometimes it is really tough? The loot could scale to the difficulty and sometimes you would have to make a tough decision and decide you just don't have the right gear or the right skills to make it. This should always give a reason to go in and test your mettle. Random mobs and random pathing would be fantastic as well.

4. Server wide goals and events. Let's say after 2 weeks of play some huge mob tries to destroy a town that everybody is familiar with. PC's can repel the attack if they can get organized enough fast enough. Make the community of the server actually feel like they change the outcome of the game rather than get to endgame and get bored.

Does anybody else think the MMO genre is stale and it's true potential is not realized?

Let's see here...

1. Quests are VERY nice. The generally keep you in the area for the appropriate amount of time so that you aren't just randomly attacking stuff to grind out a level. EQ had quests, but they were like hidden behind text and there was no quest log in case you forgot something. I don't mind the 'go kill x enemies of y type' quests. Those are not so bad. I hate the 'go gather v of p's body parts' Those were horrible! I've never seen so many heartless raptors!

2. Bored with levels? Levels are also a progression of stats. Once you hit max level doesn't mean it's the end either. A fresh 80 on wow is MUCH weaker than somebody who has been raiding constantly and is endgame geared. FFXI is kind of like the gear determines where you go. You can't even get in a group unless you have the gear set appropriate for your level. Every couple levels you have to buy a new set of gear. And it's a total grind fest where you gain NO experience from quests.

3. Uh... you do know that WoW does this, don't you? All endgame instances have both a normal and heroic version. All BC instances also have heroic versions that you unlock with certain keys. The new 10 and 25 man raids have heroic versions of the instances. All the new raids also have specific HARD modes for each boss that drops improved loot. And random mobs really suck. Many old world dungeons would spawn things after you cleared part of the area so that if you die and have to come back in to your party, those mobs will kill you before you get there. I don't know how many times slimes in wailing caverns got me because of this crap.

4. Server wide goals has been done tons of times! Certain raids wouldn't open up until somebody on a server beat a certain boss. I can think of several certain events that preceded expansions where the servers were under siege by the enemy and (then) endgame players got cool items and stuff for defeating the forces of evil.

Most of us don't 'get to the endgame and get bored'. Endgame has awesome gear that gets better with every new patch. New content is released every couple of months keeping it fresh and exciting. For people that are mentally handicapped, endgame has plenty of pvp options as well. Also the endgame perspective changes drastically depending on what your party role is defined to be. Tanks have perhaps the most active roles in endgame content. Or you can be an achivement whore and work towards that goal of 'all achivements'.

MMO's are not stale. Maybe you are a bit stale because all your suggestions have already been done by WoW years ago.

 

[GrinningManiac]

When do you think WoW will die, anyway?

Will the next generation like it?

I hope it dies...I really do

 

[Doug]

Does anybody else think the MMO genre is stale and it's true potential is not realized?

Well, yeah, but I think that of every genre. Also, physics. We need a genius or 10 to push gaming (and physics) forward and beyond.

 

[dommyuk]

Well there's those who try to copy WoW completely, check out Alganon: http://www.alganon.com/screenshots

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Guild Wars 2 looks good and if it is as good as the first it will be a strong contender and I would Guild Wars 1 but is technically not an mmorpg.

 

[scaledriver]

Does anybody else think the MMO genre is stale and it's true potential is not realized?

Absolutely. I've had this idea for quite some time about a zombiepocalypse (hold your groans) MMO. Survivors would be forced to band together and create makeshift homes/defenses to repel the zombies. Would never REALLY have an endgame so far as I've figured, but damned if it wouldn't be intimidating to spend your daylight hours stocking up your house so you can defend against the onslaught at night. And, if you lose your house? God help you!

I know a lot of gamers are thinking about this, I think if the right company did this it would be fun. Needs a final goal or destination though just sitting in your defendable house would get old.

 

[Admiral Stukov]

Try out Eve Online. No leveling system, no exclamation points and an economy thats completely player controlled.

 

[Twad]

Yes, with World of Starcraft, World of Diablo, World of Harry Potter, WOrld of Twilight, World of Zelda, World of POKEMON, world of COD-MODERN WARFARE..
i mean, the possibilities are endless there.

MMOs, IMHO, are all about the mindless, near-eternal grind. And frankly they all feel like work. No fun at all. THe day some gang manage to make a MMO wich isnt centered around grind, and linear power progression (so a lvl'80 player can obliterate a million level one players for example)THEN i might look into it.

Edit- Oh, and i dont wanna pay a fee every month to play. Make it free (except initial cost), and make players able to mod it to hell, and host their own «worlds»

 

[Archemetis]

I keep hoping someone will make a good MMORPG one day, or rather, and MMO where the combat requires more than clicking on an enemy once and occasionally throwing a spell, and where the quests don't mostly involve killing x amount of some generic monster.

EDIT: I've actually thought of a possible system that makes it so that everyone isn't constantly doing the same quest. It doesn't seem that hard to do either. You make it so that who you choose to work for determines which quests you can do later. Doing one quest may disable another (for now let's just say that the quest giver's don't like each other) and at the same time a new job opens up that wasn't previously available. There's branching paths. Otherwise, things just start to feel like a check list (Runescape)

They do that in WoW already.
Gaining reputation with a certain faction can earn you hatred points with another, thus rendering the quests you'd get from the now unfriendly faction un-doable.

In fact they've been doing stuff like that since classic WoW (before the expansions) it's just that in classic WoW rep quests involved just grinding shit to gain reputation with a certain faction and THEN doing their quests.

In TBC they implemented the neutral City Shattrath which housed the Scryers and Aldor, both factions hate eachother and upon arriving in the city you're forced to choose a side, whichever side you choose determines what things you'll grind to get rep and what loot you'll get for gaining rep.

In WotLK they worked on it futher, in fact basing "Cutscenes" on a rep-gain quest, you start off killing things for little wolf people who hate fish people, you then save a fish person from near-death ('cos the fuck do you care about a pointless squabble between dumb animal people?) when you do that a wolf guy pops up and tells you never to return and that they now hate you.

So yeah, like I said it's been done... in WoW.

I think the main problem isn't so much people aren't trying to out-do WoW.
The real problem is people are trying new things but by the time they've shown them off, WoW already done it better.
And even if they didn't do it before, they'll see it, implement and people will think it's better.

 

[theCMNDER]

I keep hoping someone will make a good MMORPG one day, or rather, and MMO where the combat requires more than clicking on an enemy once and occasionally throwing a spell, and where the quests don't mostly involve killing x amount of some generic monster.

EDIT: I've actually thought of a possible system that makes it so that everyone isn't constantly doing the same quest. It doesn't seem that hard to do either. You make it so that who you choose to work for determines which quests you can do later. Doing one quest may disable another (for now let's just say that the quest giver's don't like each other) and at the same time a new job opens up that wasn't previously available. There's branching paths. Otherwise, things just start to feel like a check list (Runescape)

Problem there is that developers arent willing to spend too much time on content that many players will never see. It is, in effect, a waste of money and time on their part.

 

[ItsAPaul]

No mmo will beat wow ever, and it damn sure won't be any companies around right now. NCSoft can't succeed considering people are always going to quit their games because of spammers and bots (or in Aion's case, lack of content).

 

[Lenny Magic]

does that answer you question?

 

[Doug]

Try out Eve Online. No leveling system, no exclamation points and an economy thats completely player controlled.

True; however, the skill system can be annoying; 18 days I have to wait for my skill to complete for me to ride in the next level of ship!? And their's not alot I can do to speed it up.

 

[solidstatemind]

Rofl. I am reminded of the old adage: "One man's trash is another man's treasure." Been playing WoW since closed Beta. I definitely have gotten my money's worth out of it. I would not be interested in 'moving on from WoW' until it stops being fun.

You are completely entitled to find WoW (and its design principles) outdated and stale. I have bad news for you, however: more than 12 million people disagree with you, and I think that almost every game company in existence is going to give more weight to those 12 million opinions as opposed to your lone opinion... so, unless you make your own game and it's wildly popular, you're going to find a lot of WoW-influenced concepts in RPGs and MMOs for quite a while. It works, after all.