The fact are two: or i m not a good sercher or programmers aren't  realy able to make good moorpg

I cant understand why seams so diffucult to find a good idea to make them .I cant understand it becose to my eyes look so easy. You take the engine of  every good first shooter game  like for exemple call of duty . You ambient it in a village. You are a citizen of it and you live there. You will be a wood cutter or a butcher or every thing the ppl have always done olso in the real life  . So you grow in this village and you work in this village but  you can move too to see how the near villages are, or you will be able to become the citizen of another willage. In those willages election will take place and you will be able to become the Mayor.

You will decide the politic of this village and you will decide that this village will have good relashion or bad relascion with the others. You will be able to invade the other village and conquer them. You will be able to fight with enemies and friends ( in the real life you can kill your neighbor right? ) .you will be arrested from the "police" if you will be catch from it after have done something bad . You will have your home and why not your shop. if you die ppl will be able to loot you  . I want to fight using the mouse for pointing enemies like a normal first shooter. You dont like this ambient? Place all those things in the future in another planet or bring this in a fantasy world but dont change this base. In the normal life you dont grow with items that you will never be able to sell to someone else or give to someone alese ( souldboud ? what is that? ). In the real world you will be able to fight enemies and friends . In the real world you will be able to work or have a house to built as you like . you dont kill someone just to ern point to be able to "buy a pvp armor. What is the point of it?you do pvp for new armors and you make pve for new armors instead WoW you could call it World of  Walentino ( or if you prefer Wersace).In a serius game  you shoud  be able to loot ppl you have killed. In the real world you dont have the look of a starship ALWAYS ( will you ever get down from it ? ) someone can tell me why ,who make games ,just think them as they shoud have as target only  little babys that would start to cry and quit after they have been looted from his enemie or friend? Istance shoud exist just for lvling but not as the only target of the game . Im starting to hate those stupid istance . Some game consider them just the funniest thing to do. What is the point of them? just to go in the mainplaza of the game to screem that you have killed the last boss? or you like it just becouse you will show to the others your last loot of the boos you killed? THIS IS BORING . WHAT ABOUT STARTING TO MAKE A NICE GAME? after Neocron  no more realistic game was ever done.

P.S. sorry for my english , but i believe that my italian would be less understandable

I feel there's multiple reasons which conspire to push the bar very, very high for most new MMOs.

1. Unreasonable expectations.  WoW got huge not because it was good (it is good, but that's not the point).  WoW got huge because it pulled from a huge, established, already-gaming-online pool of people known as "Battle.net", as well as having the name "Blizzard" on it.  No non-F2P game before or since has been able to pull in more than a million subs (or at least maintain that for any length of time).  100K-200K subs should be the goal, not millions.  Given that someone paying 15 bucks a month for an MMO still buys the equivilent of 3 or 4 retail games every year it's still a success by any reasonable standard.
2. Paying to play a beta.  This is 2008, almost 2009.  Nobody is willing to do this anymore.  Back in the 90s the MMOs and other online games then (which were the first generation of graphical MMO-type games) tended to have looooooooong public betas (like, a year long) which were great as they got a lot of people playing while the game was free and they didn't start charging until the game was actually worth what they were asking.
3. Devs hype the shit out of thier game, then don't deliver the goods.  I really don't think this needs explanation.
4. Game companies not realizing that MMOs have a life cycle more like traditional pen and paper games than video games.  People will play an MMO they like for a long, long time - it's not like with regular games where it gets played for a month, put down, and the gamer goes on to play the next game of X genre which is just like the old game but with different levels and a few tweaks.  In order to garner more than a token following an MMO has to offer something compelling - revamped gameplay, an interesting IP, new ways to develop your character, something that will get people to spit out the old hook and take yours.
5. Excessive casualization.  I think WoW is about as casual as it can get before it starts driving people away because it feels like a massivly single player online game.  Any genre that requires that you treat the game like a second life will never be mainstream - the things that make the genre what it is (long-term character development, in-game social structures, working together to accomplish a common goal, etc) will never hold the interest of Joe Sixpack who logs in twice a week for an hour.  And if your game caters to those kinds of players they won't stick around long, and it'll drive away the more traditional MMO types who do play for a year or three.

In my opinion, programmers aren't able to make good MMO's because most  MMO's continue to try and copy WoW. The next "big" MMO will not be a WoW clone - it will be something new and different that totally consumes its playerbase. Other factors why programmers aren't able to make good MMO's include the rush to market, unfinished games, broken promises, lack of fun factor, and primarily the feeling of deja vu.

I'd be more inclined to ask why develpoers can't develop good mmorpgs. Programmers only code and implement what they are told to by the developers.

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Originally posted by Indo
In my opinion, programmers aren't able to make good MMO's because most  MMO's continue to try and copy WoW. The next "big" MMO will not be a WoW clone - it will be something new and different that totally consumes its playerbase. Other factors why programmers aren't able to make good MMO's include the rush to market, unfinished games, broken promises, lack of fun factor, and primarily the feeling of deja vu.

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Mostly this. I think the biggest issue plaguing our genre right now is that there are no more REAL developers anymore. Everyone sees how successful WoW has been, and it's attracted a massive following of what Penny Arcade refers to as "carpetbaggers" - businessmen who know that MMOs are growing and just want to cash in on the craze for a quick buck.

Only one sentence is needed to properly and completely answer your title question

  "Because they do not listen to what their potential customers tell them what they want in a game" !

Originally posted by Cochran1

I'd be more inclined to ask why develpoers can't develop good mmorpgs. Programmers only code and implement what they are told to by the developers.

Exactly. It has nothing to do with programmers, but the companies that hire them. They can't just make what they want, but have ot listen to the suits who are telling them "Yes, making this game JUST LIKE WoW will net us BILLIONS of dollars!"

I've played quite a few very good MMOGs, so I believe your theory is false.

They are either too busy copying/cloning other games and/or listening to the whiners too much that probably aren't even playing their game anymore.

This is my view and only my view on it.

Most Games in general (SPRPG and MMORPG) have pushed the graphics more than the design. Some newer released games are design around the engine and not around actual ruleset. The ruleset is taking a backseat to the pixels in other words. After the game actually hits the public do the developers actually sit down and say "ohh.. I should have added this rule." or "Shit, didn't think a player would need to do that."

For a well designed game with few bugs, it needs to be well thought out and documented with all the ruiles in place and coded before the actual world gets built. 

Programmers can do a good job coding an MMO.  They just need a ridiculous amount of time to make it all perfect.  The current game market is trying to do way too much with the technology it has.  We are not advanced enough in our internet technology to make perfect action packed MMO that are easily bug free. 

There are just way too many varioables in an MMO that can go wrong.  I think there is double the amount of features and variables in an MMO than in a single player game. 

The fact these games are on computers makes it worst.  Most console MMO games turn out really well.  Usually they have no bugs.

I strongly believe the MMO market should do the same thing that the FPS market does.  Buy and sell gaming engines to companies.  The comapnies then use the engines to give them a 1 or 2 year headstart on their MMO title.  All they have to do is edit code.

Oh come on.  WoW did have a lot going for it, but compared to The Matrix, LotR, or frikkin STAR WARS?  They died (not LOTRO) for various programming related reasons.  The Matrix because of a pitiful launch, tons of bugs, and generally... hell, no one plays that anymore.  Star Wars Galaxies died because of a horribly unfun combat system and various bugs and imbalances which kind of snowballed into them cutting apart the game and then doing unmentionable acts to the corpse. LOTRO just left people feeling like they were playing WoW, but with Hobbits. 

WoW just managed to make an MMO that, when released, was just head and sholders above everything on the market.  Maybe not in every area (hell, DEFINITELY not in every area) but it was reasonably well polished, well balanced, entertaining, a good mix of difficult and easy content, and overall just entertaining. 

And the OP is right.  Programmers are failing at making good MMOs.  You can't look at things like Tabula Rasa, Hellgate, or AoC limping to market and tell me these guys know what the hell they are doing.  It's like someone made Wolfenstein, then Doom, but then instead of making interesting new FPS games, they all decided "Hell, lets make crappy Doom knockoffs or absolutely unplayable games that we can claim are different from Doom because they have swords and crap."  We're stuck in an endless cycle of Heritic and Hexen for, from what I can tell, no good reason. 

I'm going to respond to what I got from your post (and sorry if it's already been said, I didn't bother but read 2-3 replies in this thread). What you are assuming is that programmers are the ones that do the design, storyline, or such? No, no, and no. The conceptual aspect is what game directors, designers, and writers are for. By no means should the concept or design of the game be credited upon the programmers. Programmers do just that: PROGRAM. They write lines of code that interact with the computer. Blame poor design on the designers, not the programmers.

Here is the problem and the only problem....

Companys are looking for a big group of people .. This in tern makes them have to aproach the game in a wide spectrum Instead of focusing on a single aspect . B y this i mean there trying to add great pvp and great pve with economy and and balancing and what ever else you can think of.  This all relates to one thing They are trying to make a game were all these aspects and trying to round them out dulling down each point that made them fun in the first place, to try and make a game thats accessable to everyone.  This ideal of thinking just wont work.  Every aspect of a game takes a major amount of time in itself, and there trying to round out all these aspects in the same amount of time and with the same budget it would take to make a fantastic game with just one of these.

You heear fps producing companys say it all the time (and its true) the way to make a great game is to make 30 seconds of fun then managing to multiply it across the entire length of the game.  And now-a-days there adding little by little to them to make them fantastic and more customable to the player.

RPG's on the other hand was not evolving, now there trying to evolve it at a rate that just tears the fun out of it. And apart from companys being to scared to take a chance and make something unique does not help the situation any at all eaither.

Originally posted by ZDearborn

I'm going to respond to what I got from your post (and sorry if it's already been said, I didn't bother but read 2-3 replies in this thread). What you are assuming is that programmers are the ones that do the design, storyline, or such? No, no, and no. The conceptual aspect is what game directors, designers, and writers are for. By no means should the concept or design of the game be credited upon the programmers. Programmers do just that: PROGRAM. They write lines of code that interact with the computer. Blame poor design on the designers, not the programmers.

Kind of the point I was trying to make myself but I missed the mark. The programmers do what the game designers relay to them and nothing more and the designers are building the games now days for pixels and not based on decent well though out rules.

Don't blame the companies, blame the customers for eating their shit and says it's good.

The topic sounds as if mmos are still made by a few lone guys in the basement that are coding away ;). As several posters have pointed out, that is no longer the case...

I guess companies design a game that they think will sell well and start designing a game like wow and don't dare to think too far out of box as there is too much money at stake.

you are right , i had to talk aboout game designers  instead programmers but my english is realy poor.

You are right whene you say that the companies choose just looking at money. What im asking my self is : there would be so few ppl that would like to play a more realistic game like the one i was talking in my first post?

I dont want to believe that i would be one of the few ppl that would buy a game realistic as the one i described you before.Something more attached to the rules of the real life. I talked about Wow and indirectly about all the game like eve whene i was talking about playing always over a starship, but i could go on talking about everquest or Guild wars. They are 2 opposit game but the target is always the some Take down the big boss in a PVE istance or kill the best fighter in a pvp fight . What you get is an armor or a weapon to show to the other friends like a Manager do going around the city with his Ferrari , or in the second case you win a battle and you become the first fighter in a list over a webpage on internet. Is this RPG? How can you call those, RPG? The armors or the wepons you get from a constructor shoud be just a tool to get to the real target , defend your village and the ppl that live inside it from invasions . This is an RPG. Or you use the weapons and the armors to attack another village if this is the decision taken from the mayor you elected togheter with the other citizens of your village. or you kill your Mayor becouse you dont accept the rules he give you . You make the story of the game in this way. Instead with the actual MMORPG "getting the tool" has become the target . In wow everquest and all the clone of them  you live a story just written from someone else That monster will die in the upgrade of the story olso if noone will never be able to finish that istance . This isnt an RPG this is another way to read a book or looking a film called "WOW "

The OP is proposing a really interesting concept in gaming, however, it's not MMORPG based imho.   All successful MMO's to date have either successfully implemented an existant lore that people want to *experience* in a gaming setting -- role play within, but stay within the realm of the lore concept (LOTRO, WoW for example) or created their own lore base (everquest) and so the story unfolds.  This style of game play is generated from first person RPG's that are always story based and back to text based MUDs, and first person text based games from the 80's all the way back to Paper and Pencil.  The kind of game the OP is describing -- imho -- is more of a simulation style game that allows a lot more freedom than Sims.   That's just my opinion though

Also the numerous comments about make MMO"s like FPS games or if they were on consoles they'd be more successful again alienates a TON of the community.   I don't own a console doubt I ever will -- I dislike consoles immensely, the games designed for them, etc -- just not my cup of tea.  So no I don't feel an MMO would be superior on a console by any stretch of the imagination -- as far as generated an MMO with a FPS combat system -- I bet it would get a good following but it wouldn't be the overwhelming success predicted -- I wouldn't even try it whatsoever.

I love how everyone thinks that all games are immitating WoW just because it has the largest player base when I"m sure it's been said before but WoW owes a lot of their ideas to Everquest -- actually as the OP points the raiding and reward system that WoW uses is identical to Everquest practically -- it only evolved a PvP component.  All games currently are useing a WoW quest based system -- but EQ2 and WoW generated a similar system simultaneously -- EQ2 slightly different if you care to dig a little deeper and most games have utilised similar ideas since then.    I've often said that LOTRO's quest system is more similar to EQ2 but EQ2 and WoW have such similar systems that it really doesn't matter.   The  point is it was generated as a response to earlier games that didn't have marked NPC's and had poor in game quest descriptions and made quests pretty hard to follow.   The system was successful for both games so why not implement it in future games?

The only other thing I'd say is that most MMO's really don't start to develop a unique identity until the higher levels -- but the main uniqueness is generated by the lore not the UI.  It seems most criticts just stop at the UI and say all of the play the same -- but they don't take the time to look in to the game's lore, see what people are RPing about, and look in to raid instances and what the stroy is behind kiling the bosses.   

An MMORPG will not and can not be 30 seconds of fun generated through the whole game like an FPS because there's too much lore and story involvement.  My advice -- read the quests, don't just click accept, level toons closer to the end game so you can see where the lore is going and hang out around RPers and see what they are accomplishing/doing.  

Anyway just some thoughts and my opinions -- the only other thing is that it's going to be very hard to generate an MMO that has universal appeal.   World of Warcraft's success was based on timing, an evloution of a simpler user interface and keeping things technilogically assessible to the majority -- EQ2 coming out at the same time failed to be technilogically assessible to the majority it required machines that most people just didnt' own and that effect game play in a major way.  That's why Wow took off and EQ2 didn't -- it was a time when there were fewer titles as well so most folks migrated to the same game that had the best playability.   It was not the most unique and definately not a developmental miracle -- just better implementations, etc

Play Mount & Blade to see the ground work for an awesome MMORPG engine.   Just tweak M&B to play MMORPG style and tada - greatest MMORPG ever made!