I find the genre more exciting than ever after 8 quite "stale" years of WoW clones.
Companies try new things, like ANet with GW2, SoE with EQ Next, Richard Garriot's Shroud of the Avatar, or hell, even Age of Wushu which got me bored quite fast but which is apparently a decent success.
Would you have posted this two years ago, I would have agreed, WoW clones, WoW clones, and more WoW clones. But today... nope. I think a new era is about to start for the genre.
I have to agree, the MMO genre is looking more interesting than it has in quite a while, it's just most of the titles I'm following are a bit off in the distance.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I find the genre more exciting than ever after 8 quite "stale" years of WoW clones.
Companies try new things, like ANet with GW2, SoE with EQ Next, Richard Garriot's Shroud of the Avatar, or hell, even Age of Wushu which got me bored quite fast but which is apparently a decent success.
Would you have posted this two years ago, I would have agreed, WoW clones, WoW clones, and more WoW clones. But today... nope. I think a new era is about to start for the genre.
I have to agree, the MMO genre is looking more interesting than it has in quite a while, it's just most of the titles I'm following are a bit off in the distance.
Soon.....
Don't hold your breath. 95% of the advertising budget goes on hype with the intention of getting people to buy the games pre-release. They all do this. They just had a bigger advertising budget for SWTOR so it seemed a bit more noticeable.
That's why 95% of the development budget goes on graphics improvements (so it all looks exciting), leaving the other 5% to make the game appear 'different' from the rest.
Originally posted by Mors.Magne I think it's common for developers to make all sorts of bold statements. It's a marketing tactic to get you to buy games pre-release. After the release, you discover the game isn't so good after all.
For example, SWTOR was billed as being the most epic MMORPG ever, and it basically turned out to be WoW with different skins.
I don't expect EQN to be the greatest game ever but I do tend to pay more attention to how a game goes about pushing the genre forward. SWTOR's big claim was by introducing more story and more voice work but neither of those things are really important to me or are particularly big innovations.
Rift and GW2 talked a lot about dynamic content and that got me more excited, once they showed how the content worked though it was just chained events which isn't nearly as interesting.
AI driven mob spawns and a world that can build structures on the fly etc is the biggest leap I've read about in the genre though. If they can pull it off at all I think it revolutionizes the entire genre. Even if that particular game ends up being crappy it will drive future games in a meaningful direction. That is what I'm excited about.
Bold AI claims have disappointed in the past.
For example, Rome Total War II was billed as having superb AI. The AI turned out to be worse that Rome Total War I.
Commercial companies generally don't have time to mess about with AI. They tend to concentrate on tangible visual aspects - keeping up with the graphics hardware technology.
Because it's never been a problem of the AI or any other technical hurdles. Like any large gathering the more varied the demographics involved the lower the the common denominator HAS to be. Quite often Developers in the past had more.... hmmm "robust" ai than we see today but as mmo's became more mainstream they became too "hard".
You've proved my point exactly.
Games are a visual medium - just like pornography.
Why spend money on the gameplay when it's the graphics that sell the game.
As you say "..it's never been a problem of the AI..."
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I have to agree, the MMO genre is looking more interesting than it has in quite a while, it's just most of the titles I'm following are a bit off in the distance.
Soon.....
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Don't hold your breath. 95% of the advertising budget goes on hype with the intention of getting people to buy the games pre-release. They all do this. They just had a bigger advertising budget for SWTOR so it seemed a bit more noticeable.
That's why 95% of the development budget goes on graphics improvements (so it all looks exciting), leaving the other 5% to make the game appear 'different' from the rest.
You've proved my point exactly.
Games are a visual medium - just like pornography.
Why spend money on the gameplay when it's the graphics that sell the game.
As you say "..it's never been a problem of the AI..."