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Brief Observation: MMO genre defined?
King_Kumquat
Member Posts: 492
So let's say in gaming terms.. EQ2, WoW, AoC, and RIFT- along with a few others; are successful and definitive titles. They have a lot of things in common and their own unique little touches to stand out from one another (like who's logo is on their packaging and the typeface used to write their names).
It's a whole lot easier now in 2011 to define what a MMORPG is, than it was in 2001 when there seemed to be a limitless potential for the genre.
I believe this no longer is true.
MMORPG=WoW with a few multiplayer games sort of dotting the sidelines who may need to be redefined. EVE standing out at that, is it any longer a MMORPG?
I mean forget the whole theme park vs sandbox discussion.
With RIFT offering nothing new to the genre but being a moderate success, and really nothing super unique coming downt he pipeline (even World of Darkness from what info we've seen looks like it's going to have scripted questing progression). Are MMORPGs no longer limitless?
You level to 10, grow your class a little, fight in a dungeon, pvp in battlegrounds, look for purple pants that allow you in to a good raid team? That's the genre now?
I guess it is safe to say if this is it, then yeah I don't think I'd call myself a mmorpg enthusiast any longer.
Will develop an original MMORPG title for money.
Comments
Well, players nowadays really love new games coming out on the market.. even though it offers same features... players tend to be always on the trend line.. what's new everone will try it...
That's the sad thing isn't it?
There was a time when I thought MMO would be about limitless adventure. Shadowrun and EVE; a host of other games, really attempted this despite technology not being caught up with them. Then, people started really loving limits.
I hate having to level up, get certain gear, to eventually wear the same stat pants everyone else wears.
There's nothing ROLE PLAY about any of it.
It's hardly even a game.
The funny thing is, the developers didn't really choose this path. The consumers did with their wallets. The devs are making games that they know will sell. To do anything else is corporate suicide or very ballsy.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
There are better examples of the genre:
As a quick aside, it frustrates me to no end that Mythic Entertainment, did such a poor job on supporting their title, Dark Age of Camelot that SO many folks have no idea what they missed out on when the game really was worth playing. The fact they [Mythic] swayed investors to move on to Warhammer and let DAoC just sit on 1 easily hacked server is upsetting as well. And finally, that you think battlegrounds = pvp (and it's not your fault), and that WoW is the example of the genre, well let me say this, sorry kids, but capture the flag was never originally intended to be a part of the fantasy genre market. It was only instituted because it made sense to pull players from popular FPS (First person shooter) titles and video games in general into the WoW mold - oh, and it was brilliant. However:
WoW is good at what it does - in the same way McDonald's is good at providing what it provides.
There has been ONE mmorpg in the Medieval fantasy mmorpg genre that has dedicated as much real fantasy feel as anyone could ever hope for. Battlegrounds be forgotten - they had three realms of casles and towers - no multi questing in my pve zone with some other faction that is only COSMETICALLY different. These were three unique fantasy level 1-50 worlds that produced players that met in a persistant NON-instanced siege warfare environment. We also had guild housing, crafting that mattered, etc. None of the plastic mmorpg non-immersive theme park stuff you get now.
SO please - and I know you are just expressing what you have experienced, but please, realize that McDonald's is not the example of nutrition. There were (are) other options that show that the potential for something really epic is possible - it just has temporarily been swept under a rug to protect other financial interests.
Finally, it's not just Dark Age of Camelot that had so much sincere talent and mmorpg immersion. Everquest had some amazing lore, difficulty levels, variation in race and culture. Ultima wrote the book on the genre in a lot of ways as well - and games like Asheron's Call, though graphically hideous since forever - have more fun and sincere community in one zone than I have seen in an entire 3 expansion packs in other titles.
I disagree . Sure consumers tend to put there money into themeparks before sandbox games. I think it has more to do with patience then like or dislike.
I read a nice article on this. Themepark game with all the dev driven content tend to be smoother games. Sandbox ones take time to develop content and a huge player base and genrally have more bugs then themeparks.
People dont put up with that nowadays despite the clamoring for more sandbox games. Star wars galaxies may be the exception. eve is a great game by all accounts yet has less then 1 mil subs.
The thing is devs made themepark games. We didnt . If there had never been a themepark game made ala wow then players would be playing sandbox games or not playing mmo;s so devs are just as responsible.
Playyers though are at least 50 pct responsible. There need for smooth games at start and unwillingness to let a game grown and give it time to grow all contribute to thempark games dominating the market.
That said that doesnt make any of these games less an mmo today.
An mmo is any game that allows multiple players to congregate in a huge virtual world and enjoy themselves together. Questing killing, or just socializing.
As long as a game has the ability to group at will, group based content ala dungeons , bgs, and raids, and has a player drvien economy its an mmo. What type of mmo is succesful vs another doesnt define what an mmo is though
I appriciate the food analogy but for every 1000 McDs there's a Tasty and Sons or a Genos vs Pat's King of Steaks. Now I've been at MMOing it for a decade now and had a lot of fun, but now it's just.. Everyone wants to celebrate this one model of game.
And I had fun with it.
I played EQ2 probably a total of 2 years, I played WoW probably about the same, been pranking with LotRO. You know I really liked Shadowbane, the King was there when he found it much too late. The other pvp focus games seem to miss the dynamic world quality it had tho'. Nothing like building a guild, then building an actual city and defending it or progressing it's power.
Just why is everyone so content with static?
I have to say abou the comment that the consumers chose this; are they all dullards? Is hand holding that important?
You just asked for 3 very different and potentially contradictory things.
Games, by their nature, end - or at least have to be played in segments which end - so there's nothing endless about them (other than replayability).
To play a role can mean any number of things, but again, presumably roles reach completion at some point.
Even adventures have to end at some point or they stop being adventures.
Even role playing within a game is in a sense, not playing the game as such. It's sort of like playing "dolls" with chess pieces. Nothing is stopping you from just imposing your own rules on the same pieces, but you can't expect it to be like chess.
And an adventure is obviously unlike a game in that playing a game means adhering to rules, while an adventure implies that there are few to no rules and you'll go off the beaten path.
It seems like you might want to think a little more about what you can really expect something to be as an MMORPG, or if you simply want something else entirely.
Yep. It's been that way for years. A successful mmo, though, is defined as one that launches and sustains ~300,000 subscribers 6-months to a year post-launch. You just have to find the one you like; do you prefer themepark pve, or themepark pve or themepark pve. You can only choose one.
All that typing for me to look at your last paragraph and go; well duh.
You just bantered yourself to pose my very question. Is WoW and it's clones MMORPGs and their definitive definition? Or can something like Shadowbane, where players have control over most aspects of their characters and even the world around them even a game in the genre.
Also your definition of the word game is too 18th century. Look at the definition now and update it.
I was just illustrating that your expectations may be a little unrealistic - but I didn't agree with you that the archetypal WoW-like game we have now is the final incarnation of popular online gaming.
And btw, I was probing a conception of what a "game" is, not using a dictionary definition. If we were going to do that, why not just look up what an MMORPG is on wikipedia and see what it is (a persistent online game with role playing elements) - which would make it just about limitless potentially (though whether a single game can be an endless adventure is another issue).
Hmm, some comments:
- if you only limit yourself to AAA titles, then yes, it may look like only one subgenre of MMO's seems to prevail. But you'd miss out on a whole lot of other interesting titles.
- what WoW caused was a preference for polish and high quality, and a lower tolerance if those are lacking. Also it put a larger focus onto the game aspect of MMORPG's above the world aspect of MMO's. Since 2004 a lot of new MMO gamers entered the scene for whom the game aspect is far more important in the MMO's they play, and care very little about the world aspect.
- all is not 'lost'. A number of MMO's are arriving that seem to be a break from the main type of MMO's that currently dominates the scene: GW2, TSW, ArcheAge, Firefall and World of Darkness, all are expected to do things differently from what we've seen in the themepark subgenre so far.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
What you're saying is what used to be the accepted way to talk about MMORPGs. There were different genres.
But even that's changed. Too many games have changed to be even more of a themepark and honestly I can only think of a few social games (Second Life) and EVE as being anything to the contrary to the successful trend. I've played every MMO I could fortunately get my hands on and it's not really changed.
A Tale in the Desert? It's great, and as sandboxxy as it is, there's still an end to it. Or rather it's limited because the goals are pretty specific.
Now my ideal game isn't really needed to be discussed.
I think most people can guess what I'm looking for.
But if it ever got made would it be a MMORPG per today's standard? I don't think it would be. I think a whole new name needs to be declared when there's a sandbox game where players actually can have a say on what is happening around them. Rather than just move along a preprogrammed path.
I mean Guitar Hero and modern MMOs have the same game play. You watch this liner bar come down the line and you press the buttons accordingly to an existing track. It has it's use, it is MMORPG, but is there room for anything else?
Let's be honest, in a lot of those oldschool MMO's that seem so charming now, EQ, DAoC, you name it, you didn't do much else, following preprogrammed paths and existing tracks.
Only we weren't aware of it yet that this was the case because of our inexperience with MMO's, and some of those preprogrammed paths were veiled albeit thinly by making things not too obvious.
That doesn't change the fact though that there was a lot less actual freedom in things to do outside of those preprogrammed, existing paths.
If you're looking for something very specific in MMO's like a pure almost Second Life-like sandbox approach - with a lot more focus on world than on game - then yes, your choice will be very, very limited even with the future MMO's.
That doesn't change the fact though that new MMO's as GW2, TSW, Firefall, Black Prophecy, ArcheAge and (presumably) World of Darkness are all very different from the WoW-style of MMO's.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."