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I am flabbergasted with Most Innovative 2012 MMORPG.com Players' Choice Award.
RedJorge
Member Posts: 106
Please indulge me.
After the initial shock of GW2 getting GOTY second place against Pirates 101, I was really thinking about all the innovative features that must have contributed for GW2 Most Innovative award.
And besides Fractals, I could not find anything in GW2 that has not been already created before in other games.
Do you see any other innovation of GW2 that is eluding me?
Leonard: Penny, you are on fire.
Penny: Yes, so is Sheldon.
[laughs]
Sheldon: Okay, that's it. I don't know how, but she is cheating. No-one can be that attractive and this skilled at a video game.
[walks away]
Penny: Wait, wait. Sheldon. Come back, you forgot something.
Sheldon: What?
Penny: This plasma grenade.
[explosion]
Penny: [laughs] Look! It's raining you.
Sheldon: You laugh now. You just wait until you need tech support. (Big Bang Theory)
Comments
So what the hell was the award supposed to go to then? It isn't like this was a real remarkable year far as that goes with mmos.
Compared to what else is out there seems worthy of the award to me.
Now far as this winning game of the year accolades on other sites and publications I do have an issue with those. Doesn't deserve it far as I'm concerned. But I can see why the game would get the nod for this for points that have already been discussed ad nauseam around here. I'm sure you know what they are already so I'll save the bickering for someone else to dredge those up for the hundredth time.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
They spent most for advertising on these sites. That is all, nothing else to it. That is also why they won best game on so many sites. It's a payed competition, ask some insiders how "ratings" are done. It is a well known fact that review sites are all payed with advertisements.
I would say the layout of the world with its hearts, vistas, and discovery points and the structure of its classes are pretty innovative as well. However saying that, I don't feel that all of these are necessarily positive innovations.
I haven't played Pirates 101 and since I did not like Wizard 101 that much, I probably will never play it. I don't know how it compares to GW2 for innovation. The other entries on the list do not strike me as particularly innovative, so I am not surprised that GW2 beat the others to pick up this spot.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
Innovation and invention are 2 different things. To me innovation is taking something and improving apon it.
cars had crank windows and the innovation was the electic window. the innovation to the electic window was the automatic electric window.
Now as far as my opinion goes, i myself didnt see much innovation in GW2 ( I didnt feel they approved on much ) but that doesent mean its not there. prespective and all.
One mans innovation is another mans inconvenience. luck for me you can still buy cars with crank windows.
I made a thread about a week ago asking "if you are still playing, what are you doing?"
Answers were -
leveling alts
dailies
Spvp (battle grounds)
dungeons
WvW
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/5467199#5467199
Sounds fimiliar huh?
(just look at the Award thread) Innovation for Most Rabid Fanbase of any game to date?
That is until they grow bored of the game and drop completely off the map and we don't hear from them until they sheepishly start posting how they're not playing anymore "but but but it's a great game!"
As for the innovations? A short Google search yields a link to this very forum and a topic made here by someone who is now Deleted. Someone called him Cal *shrug* I don't know who that was.
The question was asked and I will simply post what was posted a while ago. I'd like to add that by posting the following, it doesn't mean I agree with the list or anything. I'd like to be as neutral as possible in this.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/view/forums/thread/333764/List-of-GW2-Innovations.html
Combat:
Casting while moving
No auto attack (you can set any skill on your bar to autocast, and one of them will be spammable)
Attacks don't need a target, they'll hit whatever gets in their way
Dodging attacks and projectiles
Shield stance blocks projectiles from hitting you and people behind you
Limited skillbar
No holy trinity, players aren't locked into one role to the exclusion of all others
Skills fit into broad categories of damage, control, or support
Weapon(s) determine half your skill bar and give different skills than other weapons
Players can potentially switch roles in combat (if weapon/skill choices plan for it)
No ally targeted abilities
Everyone has a self-heal ability which is the most powerful heal
Downed state before dying, killing an enemy rallies you
Downed state gives you a new, limited skillbar to fight back with
Any player can rez anyone mid combat anytime, including NPCs.
Very minimal death penalty.
Picking up an environmental weapon changes your skillbar
Thieves can steal environmental weapons from enemies
You get full xp and loot for helping kill a mob whether grouped or ungrouped
Hundreds of cross profession combos to enhance the effect of your skills, even ungrouped
Mob aggro based on proximity and other factors
NPC enemies can dodge your attacks
NPC attacks may be deadlier due to ability of players to dodge and revive
No mana/energy for any class (subject to change)
Only four attributes. Power affects melee, range and spell damage
All professions viable at both melee and range
Underwater:
Desire to have underwater be huge part of the world
You have underwater only weapons
Skills change to underwater versions
Skills use the Z-axis
No breath meter
Drowned state, it's like downed state, but you can also get to the surface to rally
Underwater friendly races and towns
Rangers have underwater pets
Dynamic Events:
Completely replace quests in the open world
Run whether players are there or not
They actually happen instead of just being told about them
Failable and not necessarily repeatable on failure
Allow for victory and failure conditions not easily accomplished with quests
Run in cycles so they're repeatable
Encourage community by letting everyone participate at the same time
Instantly scale up or down with number of players participating
Reward everyone involved based on their amount of participation
Chain together to keep people working together longer
Affect the world in terms of what merchants sell and which waypoints are available
Don't always run so you'll see different things when revisiting a zone
Constantly adding new events to enhance replayability
Boss fights which scale with number of players up to 100
Open World:
Entirely PVE
No factions
Designed to be as griefless as possible
No race/class restrictions
Phased gathering nodes that allow everyone to have a shot at them.
Everyone can gather everything so no waiting on others/making people wait
No set path through zones
Automentoring keeps entire world's content rewarding and challenging
Manual sidekicking to a higher level friend
City to city ports so you can play with friends immediately.
Teleportation to any waypoint you've unlocked
Hidden events to reward explorers
Day/night cycle which can affect your weapons' procs as well as trigger DEs at certain times
Dynamic weather can trigger DEs (when snow falls) or be changed by DEs (NPC causes snow)
Tasks to fill hearts in the open world, for completionists and NPC goodwill
Boss fights at the end of all the tutorials put you right into the action
Personal Story:
Everyone has one big storyline from creation to level cap
Choices made at character creation affect it
Choices in game have consequences and can branch it
Each player has a Home Instance section of town
Character personality gives different dialog options and affects how NPCs react to you
PVP:
3 Faction World PVP against two other servers in large 4-zone maps
No fixed limit to number of participants (though eventually technology would limit it)
W/L record is kept
After 2 weeks, your server is matched up against new, equal strength servers
Winning server gets PVE buff of some kind
Castles and keeps to hold, dynamic events to fight over, trade routes
Destructable environments
Players can level up entirely in World PVP
Enemy players drop loot as if they were PVE enemies
Hot joinable Structured PVP
Structured PVP with custom rulesets
Players in structured PVP are max level with all skills and gear so it's a level playing field
PVP balanced separately from PVE
Dungeons:
Dungeons have a story mode separate from your personal story
Completing story mode unlocks 3 explorable mode paths
These show the consequences of the story mode
There are random/hidden events in dungeons
No raiding
Get a token for armor/weapon everytime you complete a dungeon, no hoping for random drop
Miscellaneous:
Flat leveling curve
Players can be in multiple guilds
No endgame vertical gear progression in power
30+ Minigames in cities
400 dye colors, each piece of armor has three color sections
Gear that can take up more than one armor slot
Grindless crafting with discoverable recipes
Use an iPad to see what your friends are doing in game and send them messages
Auction house available from outside the game
Translatable fictional languages
Unconventional NPC races with deep lore
Add your own music to ingame playlists, your battle music will start when you enter combat
Playlists revert to in game music during cinematics
Carrier pigeons deliver your mail to you
No subscription fee
The endgame is pretty much the same true as many other games. The journey to get there is packaged differently than in many games and the classes are set up differently. So yes, some similarities and some differences.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
Well people just vote for their favourite game, GW2 got a decent fanbase I guess so thats that.
Also the game is hardly innovative, if anything it's good at reusing older less popular features from other games.
No, it's a win by default. This year was a complete bust after all the hype of what it was supposed to bring. Also the Fact that Pirate 101 won game of the year is making me think the Trolls are starting to win the take over of mmorpg.com.
Just read this massive list (well most of it, quickly)...
Almost none of it was innovative.
Game has a lot of nice features, but far from innovative. It should get an award for best "Free 2 Play" game award. Yes, i know you have to buy it up front but after that you're not limited AT ALL by having no sub fee.
I've seen nothing innovative in gw2, except if you can call endlessly looping "dynamic" *cough* events innovative.
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Best MMOs ever played: Ultima, EvE, SW Galaxies, Age of Conan, The Secret World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2X_SbZCHpc&t=21s
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It's a PLAYERS choice. You can't blame the website if that's what the people clicked. It's not the website's fault if you don't agree with what the majority clicked. I didn't vote for GW2 either, but I'm not going to spill my sour grapes all over the forums and blame 'the man'.
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
Keep in mind that innovative is not the same as inventing. Inventing means creating something new where as innovative means doing something new from something that already exists. So with that I think GW 2 deserved that because:
My gaming blog
WvW isn't a more innovative rvr.
It's watered down simplified rvr and while its better than say wow attempts at such a system it pales in comparison to daoc.
Very, its sounds like a typical themepark endgame, what else were you expecting?
Anyone who thinks a game shouldn't be considered innovative until they re-invent the MMORPG wheel, is in for a really long wait, i think.
Its the MOST innovative.. Perhaps the competition was even less so, no? I havent played enough other MMOs to form an opinion unfortunetly.
This comment makes no sense whatsoever. It is entirely possible to no longer play a game for a varied number of reasons but still think highly of the game in question.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Since you appear to be on some kind of a holy crusade against this game lately I suppose there's just no way any reply to this thread could change your mind even in the slightest, but believe it or not, there are people that don't share your opinion.
To begin with, I think you're mixing up innovation and revolution. Except for some bizarre indie games, no game is revolutionary. Revolution doesn't tend to come with any one game but with a series of smaller innovations across many years or decades. No matter what you do with a game, there will always be someone who'll say that this or that feature is similar to this or that game; in fact, it's even desired in MMOs more so than in any other genre, otherwise you totally alienate most of the playerbase on which the game so much depends.
Moreover, this holds true not only for games, but for any type of art: literature, music, movies or even painting or architecture. It's natural and ubiquitous. I would recommend watching the short series Everything Is a Remix which deals with this very subject.
Now, to get back to your question, I personally find Guild Wars 2 innovative but not revolutionary (unsurprisingly). In fact, it's the first MMO I have played that I wasn't bored with by the time I hit the level cap.
The most important innovation I see in the game is in the way of thinking and in the freedom. Once you complete the tutorial the game won't guide your hand ever again: at that point, some players find themselves lost and aren't immediately sure what to do; some stick to the stuff they're most familiar with - map completion and storyline - use that as a checklist and very soon they say they ran out of content and merge with the first category; while others just wonder off and do whatever they fancy doing. You don't even have to play PvE at all and can immediately jump to WvW or SPvP. You may not like it, but the fact that this happens at all should be a sufficient proof that it is indeed innovative.
Speaking of the lack of checklists to guide you through the entire game, the events. (You can't say you weren't expecting this...) Even if you say these are basically the same as public quests in Warhammer, it is certainly new to base your entire overworld persistent questing content on those. In my opinion, events do one thing really well and one thing really badly. To start with the positive side, once you find yourself in an event that you may or may not have seen in the area already, you can enjoy the truly cooperative nature they provide. Long gone is the frustration I used to have with kill-stealing and the likes. If an alchemist wants a certain amount of disgusting poisonous goo, why should he want them separately from everyone? In the events, you can just grab one glob and give it to him, at which point he simply wants one glob less. Obviously. However, on the other hand, the events do a horrible job at explaining themselves in terms of story. In order to really know what you're doing, you need to talk to a nearby scout to learn about the area in general, then be in the right place before the event begins, listen to the conversations, do the event, stay there or follow the NPCs and wait if the event has a follow-up (which they more often than not do have, but sometimes it takes way over a minute to show up on the UI). And even that might not be enough, since knowledge of in-game lore from other sources, including GW1, might be useful. Nevertheless, it's still different.
The combat is very subjective. I like how fluid, fast and flashy but still understandable it is and I love the emphasis on coordination with the combos. I even prefer it over TERA's combat, but that is probably a very controversial opinion. Still, it's certainly an improvement over the static combat previous MMOs usually had.
I could go on, but you have probably already stopped reading so I won't bother. But one last thing: where the game truly shines is in the little things, in the details, the things that are easily missed and overlooked. The conversations of NPCs, environmental (and artistic) design, (jumping) puzzles, dye system, subtle references, epitaphs on the tombstones, learnable writing systems, the sound of cartridge casing dropping on the floor depending on its material, and so on.
The game's far from perfect, but it's still by far the most fun I ever had in an MMO.
tl;dr: Innovation isn't revolution but small changes. The freedom, the lack of hand-holding, the events, the combat and all the other details are in my opinion innovations. Now go read it, it took me a long time to write.
Never argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
If you're actually being serious, then i really hope you aren't a game designer.
Innovation is either introducing someting new, reintroducing something that hasn't been used in a while in a new way, or reintroducing a feature that is common, in a different way.
GW2 does all of these. In fact it's the only MMO in 2012 that has tried to actively tackle a lot of the problems with the current MMOs. Games like TERA & TSW have some interesting features, but both are essentially repackaged versions of the same game. GW2 changes how EXP & Leveling is handled, provides a wide variety of ways in order to progress through the game, gets rid of the 'shopping list' nearly every game has now, brings back a lot of features older MMOs used to have and newer ones lack, removes a lot of barriers to content that most games have in spades. etc. etc. etc.
Love the game, or hate it, anyone who knows about game design understands why GW2 would get picked.
I'm curious, what game in 2012 do you think is more innovative?
Nothing in GW2 is innovative, everything have been done before, but is a players choices, and a lot of people think it is.
I do agree with the GW2 choice. I've never played anything like it. Is it the best game out there? Not for me at least, but I can't argue with the obvious new things the game is doing/trying (with various degrees of success).