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Indy games are more innovating than todays MMO's
snoocky
Member UncommonPosts: 724
Title says it all...
I'm enjoying for example Rust more than any MMO that has come out the last years.
Much more innovating and fresh gameplay than todays MMO's, wich all have the same ideas/gameplay.
And it's only in Alpha! That says it all......
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
Edgar Allan Poe
Comments
It's much easier to deliver either an innovative game or a polished, completed game than to deliver both at once in the same game. That said, "easier" should not be read as meaning "easy".
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
This
There's plenty of innovative games out there, the problem is they are all terrible because they sacrificed quality and gameplay.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
To start off with the words "innovation" and "rust" in the same sentence is like shooting yourself in the leg. Rust has absolutely zero innovation. It took what DayZ mod had been doing few years prior and added simple structure building and crafting (which have existed in many games before it).
And what DayZ did, was change a mil-sim into a "survival" FFA-pvp full-loot arena (which has been in MMO's since like meridian59 and UO.
I've yet to see a single indie game introduce any real "innovation", but just rehashes of old and true-tested mechanics that some just have forgotten or aren't old enough to know.
Do you mean you have yet to see any real invention?
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
Indie games may (or may not) be innovating, but I haven't played a single one that wasn't pure crap.
My biggests issue with indies, is that I cannot filter them out from Steam's store. I have zero interest in paying for underdeveloped crap, usually with sub-par graphics. Never again will I pay for such garbage.
While this is 100% true, i also have zero interest in paying for overdeveloped crap, usually with sub-par gameplay. Never again i pay for such garbage. (WoW, I'm looking at you).
Wish they could finally find some mid-ground for this matter. How 'bout a good looking game with a great gameplay and good support and professional and dedicated developer team to back it up for several years and a promise not to change anything drastically for a very long time?
Indy games can't compete in quality or polish against AAA game that costs 50 million dollars to make, they need to compete with something else. Being innovative and focusing on smaller market is a good way to do that. Indy games are also often cheaper, which means that people are more willing to buy some different game and take the risk even if they're not sure whether they like the game or not.
Whereas an AAA game that costs 50 million dollars will need to have a large market in order to sell enough copies to make profit, and they need to keep the unit price high which means that people will want to be sure they like the game before making the investment and are less likely to purchase something different than what they usually buy.
Mount and blade is the best melee combat in a video game to date. The best.
I was going to list a bunch of games, but Ill stop with one.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
Indie stuff has always been vastly more innovative than MMORPGs.
The total body of work containedi n MUDs is 2 orders of magnitude more innovative and creative than the total body of work of MMORPGs. Literally a 1000 times more variation and interesting mechanics. Of course there was also an asston more failures and stutters.
Not only are MMORPGs as a body vastly less variable but 80% of the mechanics of these MMORPGs were directly taken from MUDs. EQ was directly based on a MUD. A large number of the things people think are innovative or new in MMORPGs are in fact misidentified and have existed for decades in one form or another.
For example City of Heroes had its global user id that allowed communication between different servers and such. Some people considered this innovative as it did not exist in many other MMOs at the time. Well I know for a fact this sort of feature existed in MUDs in 1993, and even more it was not exclusive to MUDs made by the same people or organizations. It was possible across many MUDs of many types.
In other words other than a few UI and social stuff there almost nothing new or "innovative" in the vast majority of MMORPGs, with a few notable exceptions such as EvE or UO.
While making an MMO is a quite technically challenging endeavor, gaming wise when you look at the features the genre is completely stagnant as far as innovation and pretty much always has been. This is partially because it IS such a complex and hard endeavor for a game, this forces conservative design in many ways.
However having said all this one should not underestimate just how big a deal the social experimentation and interaction portion of MMORPGs really is.
The basic baseline expectation of an indie game is actually higher than that of a AAA MMO.
For example, currently EverQuest Next is proud that they will have day and night cycle. Really? That is expected in indie games. In fact, I somewhat expect seasons as well.
Housing in indie games vs housing in AAA is radically different. Indies are much better pretty much at everything.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
AAA games and especially MMOs have become so expensive to make that there's rarely room for innovation. The game is designed by some suits in a boardroom who will probably never play it and are relying on focus groups and want features that they are easy to market because the target audience understands them.
Mostly it's the same in any media. If you want innovative music or film you won't find it in the mainstream stuff except the odd time when something like Nirvana breaks through through a combination of sheer luck and talent.
People may say they want innovation but mostly they vote with their wallets for "same old...same old...."
Indies have to innovate because they don't have polish or marketing behind them. Basically the only reason people play most indie games is because there isn't a real AAA equivalent to the experience they offer.
And as some others have said even among indies, a lot don't actually innovate because it's easier to just cash in copying Minecraft or some platformer.
If you think about it 2012 / 2013 pretty much took me back to the days of the Speccy and Commodore 64,and 1990's boom with 16/32 bit games in those days they had to put game play in games they could not rely on fancy graphics or generic gameplay.
Just glad the KS era is also saving the PC and putting it back as the no.1 platform for Indies and innovation and after checking out the demo for Elite Dangerous, it's amazing that one of the greatest games ever is back with the same dev but he is free to do what the heck he likes no publisher pushing for a release date with a bugged broken game.
And to get back on topic Mo's have stagnated they followed the same formula then F2P made more copy cat Mo's more than ever,of course the odd one tried something different but even let's say Vanguard,was left to rot until SOE decided to cash in with the F2P model and no doubt kill it stone dead one day when something shinier comes along.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Not really. The fun thing about indie game is that there is no expectation, and many surprises.
Gone Home .... can you imagine a FP dramma with no violence and still good?
Republique ... can you imagine a touch stealth game where there is no take-down, and a real good story?
The Room 1 & 2 .. can you imagine a gorgeous physical puzzle game?
The list goes on and on .. i don't expect any of them but enjoy them tremendously. And oh .. they are all short but great .. perfectly showing that a game does not have to be long, nor have "replay" value to be good.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
This video kind of sums up the entire non-indie problem
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
I disagree. Many indie games have the same levels of polish (The Room 1 & 2, Republique, even the Sherlock Holmes games). The only difference is that those indie games are smaller than the big name AAA games.