MMO Developers, please stop remaking World of Warcraft...

[Zaik]

i keep seeing people talk about apb being good but all i remember is the road being made out of butter

 

[migo]

They already are. Guild Wars does away with monthly fees, which is one reason people don't play WoW (a big one I'd think), and only has you buy up front.

D&D Online does away with paying altogether.

Guild Wars 2 will also get rid of instanced quests, which is something that makes MMOs less immersive.

EVE Online only has PCs with no NPCs.

They're not remaking WoW, but evidently WoW is more satisfying.

 

[AncientYoungSon]

The thing I lament is that really the 'wonder and awe' of an immersive game world has been lost to MMO's.
Everything has been pushed into tidy little "zones" that are essentially little valleys with multiple-skinned versions of already existing creatures. Worse, there is little incentive to stray too far off the beaten path on your own... sooner or later a quest-giver in town is going to send you to every single point of interest in the area.

Where is the feel of being part of a wide expansive world? Where is the thrill of exploration, of finding places or vistas that some have never seen and being encouraged to do so. Where is the fun of coming across a cave and upon entering deep into it you encounter some creature that you can battle without a full raiding party with you based on your own skills not the "level difference" and your reward is a chest with a weapon most people in the game didn't know existed?

I think MMO developers need to take a good long hard look back at Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot. Those game worlds were more than just an endless chain of mob-killing areas loosely tied together by a myriad of fetch quests. They were living, breathing questing worlds where you could wander (and WONDER!) for hours and days.

I couldn't agree more.

I've always felt that an "epic fantasy world" should never be too convenient as being "convenient" is the same as being predictable and therefore boring.

The best MMO I ever played was a small Mac-only 2D game called "Clan Lord". Instead of focusing on the notion of a constant stream of leveling areas that carts you from one zone to the next, the game had one town where all players resided and the further from town you went, the more dangerous everything became.

I played for years and I never saw the true size of the game world. Sometimes, I'd make suicide runs out into the mountain passes to see how far I could get before I was killed by powerful rock giants. It gave the game a sense of wonder and amazement that I've yet to see repeated. Just how big WAS the world? Only the devs knew for sure.

It was obviously a small community, so I've no idea how well the game would've worked on a grander scale, but I loathe the fact that there just aren't any MMOs out today that truly have the epic fantasy world anymore. Clan Lord went as far as to not even tell people about the new content that was added. The players had to figure it out for themselves. There was no real PvP, either: you could fight each other in arenas, but the primary focus of the game was players dealing with GM-controlled characters and invasions that would occasionally happen.

I see WoW as a huge nail in the coffin of real MMORPGs, ones that actually went the extra mile to present the epic fantasy world you believe you're getting as you start the game. It's the most convenient MMO out there and thus the most played.

 

[Marowit]

I already know the game that will beat World Of Warcraft. In fact, there are two games that will almost certainly close the door on the WoW era of MMO gaming:

1. World of Warcraft 2

and/or

2. World of Starcraft.

So basically, you're betting Blizzards next MMO will unseat it. I agree with you with one caveat - SW:TOR. Depending on how well BioWare implements questing, dungeons, and the extra goodies that keep people interested (such as WoW's achievement/titles) will be telling. If they don't follow through, then it's up to Blizzard to decide when they want to unseat WoW. With an IP like Star Wars though, it'll at least sell well initially.

 

[Catalyst6]

The problem with MMOs is that they always just turn into number games. No matter how the combat system works, no matter how much flavor text is on a spell, no matter the skin or particle effects that drapes everything, your Magic Fireball of the Eternal Fury of Aeneal is just going to become "ranged nuke for 120 damage". The only game that has changed this in the slightest is EVE Online, and they only did that by making it harder to play.

In short, you can't change it because WoW's formula is what a MMO innately is. No matter what the game is, it'll just become numbers eventually.

 

[UberLemonBoy]

I know that WoW's alleged 10 million players looks like a big, juicy pile of money, but there's something you need to understand...

Your target market, the MMO player or POTENTIAL MMO player, is entirely composed of two distinct types of people right now:

1. People playing World of Warcraft.

2. People who DON'T WANT TO PLAY World of Warcraft.

The people who fall into #2 could do so for any number of reasons. Maybe they quit WoW. Maybe they never played it at all. Maybe they've never found any MMO that appeals to them.

The bottom line is that you're not going to beat World of Warcraft by ripping off World of Warcraft and adding a few new elements to it.

Remember that WoW became the winner by being to Everquest what Everquest was to Ultima Online. You can't just deliver the status quo and expect players will leave WoW in droves for your MMO. These are people who left WoW because there was something about it they didn't like. Find out what that was and try delivering a different product.

I've seen too many MMOs released as of late that are carbon copies of WoW, often prettier and with some new, neat features, but they're still just WoW at the core.

The MMO that will dethrone WoW is going to do so by further shifting and advancing the entire MMO paradigm, not by being a prettier version of WoW.

You just watched the new Extra Credit video didn't you

 

[AncientYoungSon]

You just watched the new Extra Credit video didn't you

Check the date I created this thread...