You see it all the time, post saying "why don't MMOs do this or that?" Why doesn't anyone try this?" all we get are Wow clones".
We seek the holy grail.
On the other end, MMO devs stick to tradition like it was gosphel and lord himself would smite down the one to stray from "the way".
The marching morons
But we the players march too, only to the beat of a different drum. We march steadfastly on into the jaws of every new MMO release we know isn't what we are looking for but hope against the odds maybe beyond reason, that somehow it will be. The Devs have their "holy grail", forever chasing the juggernaut player base of WoW in hopes of snagging a few of them. Somewhere in the middle of that mess are the broken husk of dozens of ruined and failed MMOs of today.
And that is where things get tripped up. Devs assume (like most players) that the WoW player base is made up of traditional MMO players. They bring their games to the holy alter of WoW and gladly sacrifice them in hopes that the god of blizzard will smile down apon them and grant them a few hundred thousand players. But the harsh reality is, the diety named blizzard isn't listening. careing nor are its masses of followers. (as SOE and SWG soon found out)
MMO devs are having an identy crisis of sorts. You see IMHO, WoW players are not interested in other MMO's. There is ample evidence of that. Pick any MMO released in the last 2 years and fine one with more then 150k subs. If that was the case, most MMO's would not be dieing off like they are. MMO's as a whole have not benefited from the WoW explosion. WoW continues to grow and maintain while the rest of the genre stagnates and dies. It was made for the Blizzard player base not MMO players.
MMO players don't like WoW. Simple truth. I enjoyed the game myself, I won't lie. Its a great game..but its not what I'm looking for in an MMO. I don't like raiding and if I want to play capture the flag, I will play BF2 / BF2142 / MoH or dozens of other games that frankly, do it better. The backlash against WoW within the MMO community is enormous.
Devs don't see it for some odd reason. They continue to emulate WoW at every opportunity. Look at LotR's, a fine well made game...only its not doing as well as Turbine thought it would. No record breaking announcements, no benchmarks, no new servers, no log in queues...just another average MMO launch. So clean and quite, you could hear a pin drop. The masses of WoW players seeking an alternitive didn't come. SOE brought SWG to the alter and sacrified it in hopes of a truely grand reward, the reward of masses of players flocking to a "new" SW game with simpler mechanics and more accessibility. Only...no one showed up and the party stopped, the game died.
Those are just two examples, there are more and there will continue to be more until the inevitible happens:
Investors get tired of getting shafted by devs promises of riches.
Tabula Rasa is going to crash hard. No one wants to kill 10 space pigs Rich. You promised something new and unique and what do you give us? Some bastardized version of space Wow mixed with GW instancing and a rehashed SWG - NGE combat system. (and for pete's sake people stop saying TR is a FPS, its played in the third person with random mechanics running the "to hit" its about FPS as WoW is....) Gods and Heroes? Not chance, same old crap only with Romans (and sh*tty performance on top of it) Go kill 10 rats. Been there, done that guys. Will Conan be any different? Unlikely, on top of it, technical requirments will keep this one niche of the niche.
MMO players are not the same as WoW players. I guess what I'm saying is
WoW players don't play other MMO's. They don't want immersive worlds, depth of play or dynamic impact...they want clear objectives with clear rewards. They want points and loot. They want to finish a level and kill the boss.
MMO players don't like WoW. We like depth of play, we like immersive worlds, we like complexity, we like dynamic worlds and choice. We don't want to kill 10 rats, we would like a plot. We don't want an endgame, we would like a continous game. We would like a game world that we could play a part in, not a place to harvest points.
The first dev team to figure this out before they kill off the genre will win.
