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General: Five Truly Innovative Game Features
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In The List today, we take a look at what we believe are five truly innovative game features from five of the most popular MMOs of today, both released and unreleased. See what you think and then leave us your comments.
Many of us complain about the increasingly stale features to be found in our MMOs and that true innovation is missing in the genre as a whole. In The List today, we take a look at five features in five different MMOs that we believe are truly innovative and genre-altering.
Read more of Suzie Ford's The List: Five Truly Innovative Game Features.
Comments
GW2 gets points for not beign so much inovative BUT bringing alot of new features together in one game!
that is where it stands out! and it seems it is learning from past mmos mistakes and bringing solutions to their new game!
only time will tell! after all-its is the year of the dragon.
I would disagree with getting credit for "open" WvWvW.. If I understand it correctly, you have to que up for it. Through that necessity alone, it makes it instanced, not open. You can't just go out and join, you have to wait in line.
DAoC is the only game that had true open, non-istanced WvWvW (RvRvR), and technically when they clustered servers (Before the merged to Ywain, or whatever the super cluster is called) 3 or 4 at a time, they did it first.
GW2 WvWvW might be persistant, which in and of itself is good, but it's not truly open. Although if I am wrong about the necessity to que up, than I apologize.
Nice list. I hope your Nomex knickers are in good shape.
I keep telling myself I'll get around to prodcuing a foundry mission just to try it out. I'm not real creative, but the draw of telling a story in the Star Trek universe is appealing.
I hope more games go the route of voice acting throughout. I was pleasantly suprised when I logged into DCUO for the first time and found everyone but my character to be voiced, and voiced well at that. TOR goes on step further with the cinematic story telling.
I fully support a game in which I can fully choose how I look without being gimped by not taking the "best" gear.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
I shudder to think that other development studios may also see SWTOR's cinematics as "innovative" and trundle along the same tracks as BW, completely ignoring other fundamental game systems (UI, guild functions, PvP).
The only one I see as being right (though this Foundry thing is intriguing) is ArenaNets WvW PvP system. Its so reminiscent of the early RvR from DAoC...
PAST: UO-SWG-DAOC-WOW-DDO-VG-AOC-WAR-FE-DFO-LOTRO-RIFT-GW2
PRESENT: Nothing
FUTURE: ESO
is this article pertaining to recent years? If not, consider:
Cryptic studios: city of heroes ; character customization - one of the best customization games out in its time.
DDO: Intergrated voice chat. For one that hated fiddling with ventrilo, temspeak and the like, I thought this feature was nice. I wish games in the future try to put it in there. yes it can be anti-immersive, but make it optional to turn on and off.
RvR - DAOC
Public Quests: Warhammer Online
Monster Play: LORTO
Well, CoH had the Mission Architect system long before the Foundry. Maybe that game should have gotten the nod.
I'd like to mention TSW's classless, levelless skill wheel progression; Wildstar's class/vocation? hybrid; and GW2s personal story that is affected by choices made at character creation.
"5. Fully Voiced Quests – Star Wars: The Old Republic – Bioware
I know that this horse has been beaten to death and some who play SWTOR are tired of every quest in the game being voiced but even they have to admit that this is something new in the MMO genre. Never before has any other MMO done so extensive a job in breathing life into a game world. Love it or hate it, the fact that BioWare brought this to the table is something unseen in the current generation of MMOs."
Really? Why does everyone think BioWare was the first to do this? SoE had the same ambition for EQ2 years ago, and it proved too costly for them to maintain. Its amazing how quickly people forget.
I agree with you to an extent, and this is the problem I have always had with describing them only as fully voiced over. That isn't all they are. They are fully voiced over cut-scenes that allow you choices in your response. Every quest does this, and this hasn't been done before. AOC did this through a portion of their game, but it was (if I remember correctly) only for main story quests, and not for every quest. You could argue about whether or not it is worthwhile or a good thing, but I don't know of any other game that had every quest that you pick up from an NPC being an interactive cut-scene.
I strongly disagree with #5 and #1.
#5: Story = Not my story. The story in SWTOR became so long-winded and boring that I had to resort to creating an elaborate leveling macro because I couldn't take it anymore. There is nothing innovative about sitting through 5 minutes of speech just to collect bantha paws.
#1. Guild Wars' WvW does seem like a cool idea. However, it's ultimately still scripted pvp. In MMO games, I yearn for unpredictability. We need an elaborate World PvP setting with meaning and proper sanctions.
---------
Here is my list of "innovative".
#1. LoTRO's playable instruments.
#2. SWG's deep crafting and resource gathering.
#3. WAR's deep achievement journal and public raiding.
#4. EQ2's "Aesthetic Slot" system. This let players have two slots of equipement: one for stats and the other for how your character will look to others. I'm not sure if EQ2 developed this idea, but it's a must in every MMO.
#5. EQ2's huge variety of playable races.
#6. STO's ability to create your very own race via Character Customization.
#7. CoH's extremely deep Character Customization system.
#8. SWG's player cities and world housing.
#9. SWG's "social classes", e.g.., entertainer, musician, dancer, image designer, politician, merchant. I've met players who have played for years and have never fired a shot.
#10. WoW's flying mounts. I'm not sure if they are first to do this, but the feature is fantastic.
I don't get it. What's scripted about it?
Anything that is instanced with an objective (destroy the fort or take the hill) is scripted pvp.
There is no element of surprise. Everything becomes so rinse and repeat. Everyone learns the best strategies for each map; thus, everything becomes predictable. All who join know exactly where the enemy is coming from. All who join are pre-buffed and ready for combat. All who join have done this countless times before.
1. You queue up only if the WvW zone you want to enter is overcrowded. But you have 3 other zones to choose from. It's the same as queuing for an overcrowded server.
2. As I recall, DAoC's RvR took place in specially designated zones. Just like GW2. And unlike in DAoC you can go and meaningfully RvR (WvW) from level 2... So, GW2's open PvP is actually more "open" than DAoC's.
Not in any particular order I would suggest
Battlegrounds
User Created Content
Looking for Dungeon Tools
Public Quests
Server V Server PVP
Neither DAoC nor GW2 has open world pvp. It's all instanced or "dedicated zone".
I want a game where the ENTIRE WORLD is the battleground. EverQuest II's Nagafen PvP did this to a very mild extend. There were no guild bases to take down or anything, but pvp was certainly more exciting that this "expected" pvp balogna.
For me it would be the following ( I do not know what games originally came up with the ideas... but the game I list would be the 1 I played first with it)
1. EQ: AA's- The ability to still improve your characters stats, abilities, and skills, even after reaching maximum level. This for me was the greatest thing ever. Today, I get so bored with games because I get max level, top end gear and then its onto an alt or onto the next game.
2. WoW: Warzones. I really enjoyed the additions of warzones for Pvp... the only downside was the addition of pvp gear. I always wished they would have done similar to EQ AA's and made PvP warzone an xp bar to buy additional stats (meaning a well rounded player in PvE and PvP would ultimately have a better character)
3. DF: Aiming ( I am sure they are not the first) I liked that they made it more like a FPS in a sense that you had to click on the target you were attacking. (I probably would not like this with most other games but I did like this when I played Darkfall)
4. MO: Skill Caps (Not the first) I liked for this type of PvP sandbox game that the skills you could have had a cap. This prevented you from learning every weapon skill, every spell skill.
5. Dungeons: I hate and love the idea of dungeons or instances. It is good when the game is overcrowded and the are not enough raid targets to share... unfortunately I feel this also ruined games for me as it was done wrong. ( I personally hate games that you get gear easily and simple quests for xp and gear in general) I would say this feature is the only thing that really kept me able to play these themepark MMO's because it kept me grouping opposed to solo questing.
You know I envision that queue system to be a problem for them in the future...The sad part is they have already stated there is no way around it but I see many people flamming at the thought of having to queue up for such an important feature.
Because integrating a console MMOFPS into a PC MMORPG (aka Dust+EVE) is something we see every day... lol.
Two thoughts -
1) I thought Ryzom beat both CoH and the Foundry with it's "Ryzom Ring" where you could make quests - but I never participated in that, so I dunno.
2) I hope I don't sound like a hater (I'm not), but how can top slot go to a planned feature in a game that hasn't been released yet? It made me think "one of these is not like the others..." the other 4 have all delivered - GW2 has not yet. Hopefully they will do everything they promise (and more), and it will be great. But I've been disappointed in too many MMOs thanks to "promises."
EDIT: heh, I'm stupid - TSW also hasn't been released...so that's also just a promise...
What do you mean by its still scripted pvp? It seems that if you want open "ganking mess" world pvp with sanctions you end up with what you seem to be calling scripted pvp.....
agreed. it's nice to have obviously, but completely unnecessary fluff that adds nothing to the genre. the article also brings up a good point about only having VA for the main story quests, because why would anyone want to listen and respond to a 15 minute convo about collecting power generators and killing space rats?
I'd be curious to see a story done right in an MMO some day, as long as they don't just hamfist a single player game set up into an online game with a monthly fee
Not showing my edit for some reason, but I forgot also TSW since not released it's just a promised feature.
Well, it's "scripted" just like a game of chess is "scripted" - I mean, it's all about who gets the king first, right? Yawn... And RL wars are soo scripted and predictable as well, you know that you can't shoot guys wearing your own uniform.. Booooriiiing.
Joking aside, I see your point with whole world being PvP zone. That's a matter of taste for sure and I totally would like a game like that... HOWEVER The WvW area is so huge and varied it could basically be a game in itself. You don't have to set foot into any other part of the game if you wish to...
Personally, I've been waiting for a DAoC style three way massive warfare for so long, I'd happily pay the box price if GW2 had nothing except WvW.
hmm that sounds like a good helping of gank fest to no end......fun...
You can go out and join unless the zone you're trying to enter is full or has reached the max amount of characters your World can have in that zone.
This is not a game.