I have dusted off EQII and gotten my first character to 80 ... anything ... not 80 adventuring yet, but getting there..... and as I play EQII and my wife takes a break from it to play Sims3 I have been in contact with various people from various games I've played and alot of them are saying the same things.....
"My current game isn't holding my interest, but nothing on the horizon is capturing my attention like 'x' did."
Is this because the things that caught our attentions disappointed, or is this because the things we have come to look for aren't being addressed in the games that are coming out.
IP's or Developers get peoples attentions it seems. I know a number of people (myself included) that are SW:tOR .... oohooh. or what is that next Blizzard IP going to be? or 'don't you think there are too many Super hero games taking shape.
The developers are looking at the mechanics that currently work. and the frameworks that currently are popular, does that cause the 'originality and innovation' to take the back seat, and is that why people are not 'finding anything to capture their attention'?
The games that were noticed were 'revolutionary' in some form or other.... EQ, the first of its kind. WoW, the first of its kind in a different way (truly mainstream). DAOC, maybe no the first RvR, but it allowed Mythic to establish itself as one of the 'kings of that genre' which they dropped with WAR (in alot of peoples minds) Vanguard, the first throwback (that kind of flopped). CoH (heros heros heros, without which there wouldn't be Marvel Online, DCUO, Champions)
anyway... more rambling... and dunno if i'm actually saying anything more useful than the last time....
just mutterings of a player that is wondering 'what next' and who will i know there?
There are so many reasons that combine to make today's scene. I don't believe any single group is to blame, instead the players, the studios, and their backers all have their part.
The backers/investors have a single goal, make money. Ideally as much as possible. Long term multi-million dollar investments are required to make these dreams into AAA realities.
Players- well what a miserable bunch we are. We demand a perfectly tailored experience, for potentially millions of individuals who don't agree on much of anything. Just on PvP (as an example) we rarely agree on how much of it, it's structure (FFA, RvR, None), it's rules (duel, flagged, or whatever else) , or it's rewards. To some extent, we could do this for every game element.
Finally there are studios. These guys need to take the smaller than requested investment and build something to appease all these disparate players. Their ranks are also filled with players "gone pro", so they bring a certain perspective to what other players "want".
All this together makes it difficult, if not impossible, to make a "revolutionary" game. Familiar things are a double edged sword, players will bitch either way (too familiar or too different). So it's cheaper and safer to keep core mechanics familiar. With the all too familiar core, everything "cool and unique" about a game will feel largely tacked on (often not feeling very important and being easy to ignore). Which leads to why IPs and studios are the focus of any discussion.
Sat Jun 20 2009 11:12PM ReportMMORPG.com writes:
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