Originally posted by Caskio

Originally posted by grawss

MMORPGs are required to innovate more than any other game genre, so please stop making pointless comparisons.

Please prove this statement.  To me the MMO genre encompasses a lot of different styles.  I don't think it is as much innovation people want, but a game that fit their wants perfectly.

FPS: First Person Shooters are similar to RPGs without much progression (in some) for the single player mode, and the multiplayer mode will continuously sell simply because people understand that it's still going to be pointing and shooting, with strategy and various items mixed in. Aside from graphics, there has been very little innovation in FPS games, and yet they are some of the biggest sellers in existence.

RPG: I'll give an easy example: Zelda. Aside from graphics (again), Zelda is pretty much the same exact game it was from the start. And yet, it still sells by the millions. RPGs rely on the story almost completely, with very little change between games.

RTS: What's the difference between Warcraft 3, Starcraft 2 and Warhammer 40: Dawn of War? Pretty much just the skin and story. They play slightly different, but most of the time RTS games are almost exactly the same under the hood.

MMO games cannot rely on graphics for their "innovation." Take WoW for example: They started with instances, almost non-existent PvP and basic PvE. To keep their numbers, they couldn't just create another thousand "collect 10 bear tongues" quests. They had to continuously create features and make everything more "epic." Story alone will not hold an MMOG together.

I suppose none of that is "proof" as you want it, but what you said is not mutually exclusive to what I said.

Originally posted by StealthSLI

@grawss, what you just said is exactly why MMOs are needing change which is the topic of this thread. Your pretty much saying MMOs are fine how they are and CANT change? Also i dont think my comparrison is pointless at all, its actually very relavant to the discussion. Im not comparing them in terms of "i wish MMOs were more like shooters" but more or less that shooters (battlefield as an example) are pushing the limit on what we are able to achieve with online play .

 

Also there is an end to every game no matter how you look at it. If you play WOW like its life as you know it, and you complete the current expansion too fast then you are left with not much else to do until the next expansion is released and the story is EXPANDED so that you have more content. So your logic has a hole in it. No offense though, im just pointing it out. The story can be as intricate and grand as any other game and still be an MMO with an ending, or at least a conclusion to the current content that is available am i right? I think that I am otherwise WoW and others like it would have been long dead.

I was actually replying more toward BadSpock's post, where he compared the genres as though they were even close to each other. And no, I am not saying MMOGs are fine and can't change. I have absolutely no clue how you gathered that from my post. :o

And yes, people can "complete" MMO games, but the developers want to have the next expansion/patch out before they get to the end. WoW has killed off 99% of its heroes of the past, but I guarantee they'll just make up some more to continue the story. ;)

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by Kenze

I think the "open world" idea is a little archaic. We need a game with a huge Social area with interactive mini-games and crafting. where all levelig, questing, raiding  etc are done through instances using a great LDF tool.

The days of Huge worlds with huge zones are over. How many Eq, Eq2, WoW, Lotro etc etc have all these Huge massive  EMPTY zones that noone uses. Like all things in life convenience and efficiency should lead design.

 

I cry for the future of MMO's 

Some of you guys have been asking for an Open World. Some of those games were made with that feature. Look at EVE as example,  look at how big that is. I find it hard to believe that a lot of those area are constantly flowing with traffic, or full of players. I know when I was exploring just for the hell of it I saw a lot of of empty space with no one in them,.

I'm playing on Aion at them moment, granted it's instanced but I still see it.

So what happens when a new game rolls out with Open free world and when eventually the majority of players hit max level?  All I see is empty spaces in the game.

My answer to when. When there's more blood on the corporate boardroom floor. Most of the mega game companys(not all) are followers...not leaders.IMO todays gamer is looking for   A  LOT. Innovation....graphics....depth.....polish.So what do we get....RIFT like major intoductions.Subscription  and a WOW clone  to boot. For change to occur we need failure of major companys.So other major companys  will be afraid NOT to innovate. And along the way we need some Apple type compays that innovate and become incredibly rich.Greed and fear  will lead some of the big companys to innovate...or just run away from the mmog market as TOO risky.

There will not be a change in MMOs until the player evolves.

Many games over the years produced concepts that would have changed the landscape, but at the core of all MMO genres, we have to look at the player. Most players forgot the true meaning of MMO. 

It's all about community, and the sad thing is that the fabric that is the core of all MMOs is greatly tattered. Changes cannot happen until the player actually allows change to happen.

It's all about the newest coolest thing, right now nobody can argue that the mobile market is playing a role, but the console player is effecting the landscape as well, sometimes in a good way but in my opinion it's killing the MMO creativity. Everything has to be dumbed down to facilitate the specs of a console, so a pc gamer suffers because the market wants to combine the availablity of their games to the largest sector. and sad to say statistics show it's the damn console that has more players for big game titles.

This debate could go on and on, but bottomline it's all about allowing change to happen.

Originally posted by Slowdoves

Some of you guys have been asking for an Open World. Some of those games were made with that feature. Look at EVE as example,  look at how big that is. I find it hard to believe that a lot of those area are constantly flowing with traffic, or full of players. I know when I was exploring just for the hell of it I saw a lot of of empty space with no one in them,.

 

I'm playing on Aion at them moment, granted it's instanced but I still see it.

 

So what happens when a new game rolls out with Open free world and when eventually the majority of players hit max level?  All I see is empty spaces in the game.

I can see your point, but moving away from open worlds isn't the way to go in my opinion.

The current leveling system is more of an issue. People pass up a zone, and suddenly that zone is absolutely worthless to everyone that isn't leveling. It's such wasted space that I find it hard to believe they haven't invented a better way.

Without the leveling system, what would the developers do with all that saved content and space? They'd make it useful, right? And with that, we'd move away from the "instances!" phase and more toward open-world and perhaps player-created content.

And yes, of course EVE has a lot of open space. It's set in space. :P

Originally posted by grawss

Originally posted by Slowdoves

Some of you guys have been asking for an Open World. Some of those games were made with that feature. Look at EVE as example,  look at how big that is. I find it hard to believe that a lot of those area are constantly flowing with traffic, or full of players. I know when I was exploring just for the hell of it I saw a lot of of empty space with no one in them,.

 

I'm playing on Aion at them moment, granted it's instanced but I still see it.

 

So what happens when a new game rolls out with Open free world and when eventually the majority of players hit max level?  All I see is empty spaces in the game.

I can see your point, but moving away from open worlds isn't the way to go in my opinion.

The current leveling system is more of an issue. People pass up a zone, and suddenly that zone is absolutely worthless to everyone that isn't leveling. It's such wasted space that I find it hard to believe they haven't invented a better way.

Without the leveling system, what would the developers do with all that saved content and space? They'd make it useful, right? And with that, we'd move away from the "instances!" phase and more toward open-world and perhaps player-created content.

 

And yes, of course EVE has a lot of open space. It's set in space. :P

Actually, every zone is space has a purpose, is useful and in the case of low sec or 0.0, less people you see there the better, especially if they aren't allied with you.

The real issue is levels, they need to be done away with in favor of alternate advancement systems so that every area of the map can be designed to accomodate players from the newest to the eldest.

@grawss, "MMORPGs by design do not have endings. The story gets the back of the bus while gameplay, features, immersion and combat sit up front.

If an MMORPG has an amazing story, but is practically a clone of the last game, it will take the following route: Sell a bunch, have a boatload of subscribers until they finish the "story," then take a huge dive once they realize they've already played the game."

I assumed by this statement that you mean there is no other way an MMO can be made other than its current model. Otherwise anyone who did would be an epic fail. I see now that that wasnt quit what you meant and appologize for my misunderstanding. Still I see the story can be done far better than it is being implemented into current MMO's. All the stupid side quests where you gather this and kill a bunch of that are all in place to make you work for the next level. Once you make som much progress and reach a certain level another main story quest opens up, and so on. This makes the gameplay repetative as all hell. I think that the LVL of your character is irrelevant to the story, or that it should be anyways.

I dont think that the leveling system is bad. No matter how you implement character progression its still based on the level of power you achieve with said character, wether thats represented by a number or not. I just think that the story should be better than what is offered currently. Instead of quests with side quests it should be story with side story. Does that make sense?

The lack of feeling like my character has any real purpose other than to grind kills and collect things for people just isnt enough to keep me interested. I dont want to play a game simply to have the best gear and look at my character once hes decked out in EPIC battle armor and watch my e-peen grow 3 times its size. I want content, i want entertainment, i want purpose and a means to an end, albeit a temporary end so I can play more with an expansion or sequel.

Just a side thought, what if an MMO was ONLY released in small chunks for 15-20 dollars a month which gave you roughly half a months worth of content to play but was custom content each month with great storylines that progressed the overall game. Then each month had freshly thought up story and content, sort of like episodes, rather than one large expansion that the developer hopes will keep you busy GRINDING silly meaningless quests for the next 4 to 6 months.

All this is speculation of course. I doubt that some gamer with more money than you can shake a stick at is goin to put some devs to work to make a game FOR gamers lol. We can dream though

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by grawss

Originally posted by Slowdoves

Some of you guys have been asking for an Open World. Some of those games were made with that feature. Look at EVE as example,  look at how big that is. I find it hard to believe that a lot of those area are constantly flowing with traffic, or full of players. I know when I was exploring just for the hell of it I saw a lot of of empty space with no one in them,.

 

I'm playing on Aion at them moment, granted it's instanced but I still see it.

 

So what happens when a new game rolls out with Open free world and when eventually the majority of players hit max level?  All I see is empty spaces in the game.

I can see your point, but moving away from open worlds isn't the way to go in my opinion.

The current leveling system is more of an issue. People pass up a zone, and suddenly that zone is absolutely worthless to everyone that isn't leveling. It's such wasted space that I find it hard to believe they haven't invented a better way.

Without the leveling system, what would the developers do with all that saved content and space? They'd make it useful, right? And with that, we'd move away from the "instances!" phase and more toward open-world and perhaps player-created content.

 

And yes, of course EVE has a lot of open space. It's set in space. :P

Actually, every zone is space has a purpose, is useful and in the case of low sec or 0.0, less people you see there the better, especially if they aren't allied with you.

The real issue is levels, they need to be done away with in favor of alternate advancement systems so that every area of the map can be designed to accomodate players from the newest to the eldest.

Maybe they need to come up with something that forces players to go back or go through content, but then again your back asking for a free open persistant world.

Originally posted by Slowdoves

Maybe they need to come up with something that forces players to go back or go through content, but then again your back asking for a free open persistant world.

 
What's the issue with an open world again? I'm still not seeing it. :/

Originally posted by StealthSLI

@grawss, "MMORPGs by design do not have endings. The story gets the back of the bus while gameplay, features, immersion and combat sit up front.

If an MMORPG has an amazing story, but is practically a clone of the last game, it will take the following route: Sell a bunch, have a boatload of subscribers until they finish the "story," then take a huge dive once they realize they've already played the game."

 

I assumed by this statement that you mean there is no other way an MMO can be made other than its current model. Otherwise anyone who did would be an epic fail. I see now that that wasnt quit what you meant and appologize for my misunderstanding. Still I see the story can be done far better than it is being implemented into current MMO's. All the stupid side quests where you gather this and kill a bunch of that are all in place to make you work for the next level. Once you make som much progress and reach a certain level another main story quest opens up, and so on. This makes the gameplay repetative as all hell. I think that the LVL of your character is irrelevant to the story, or that it should be anyways.

 

I dont think that the leveling system is bad. No matter how you implement character progression its still based on the level of power you achieve with said character, wether thats represented by a number or not. I just think that the story should be better than what is offered currently. Instead of quests with side quests it should be story with side story. Does that make sense?

The lack of feeling like my character has any real purpose other than to grind kills and collect things for people just isnt enough to keep me interested. I dont want to play a game simply to have the best gear and look at my character once hes decked out in EPIC battle armor and watch my e-peen grow 3 times its size. I want content, i want entertainment, i want purpose and a means to an end, albeit a temporary end so I can play more with an expansion or sequel.

I don't exactly disagree with anything you've said here, but improving the story as a way to avoid innovation and new ideas isn't the way to go imo.

The "story" in games is always told through the eyes of NPCs, which is by itself extremely limiting because they only have a few lines of text/script to give you. A story as told by scripted AI is boring and requires that I actually care about said AI. Moving toward a story-based game is moving even more toward quests, and quests are only so much fun for so long. Tell me a way to get the story told without doing quests, and I might be on board. ;)

Rather than story, I'd prefer more freedom. I suppose that alone would make me a Sandbox fan rather than a Themepark fan, but I'm tired of going quest to quest just to get a tidbit here and there of some story I barely care about. Even if they say it's my story, it's still just bits and pieces picked from a set pool of possible outcomes. That is not realistic in the least bit, and yet some MMOGs are pushing toward it and calling it innovation. :/

As for levels, I feel they have several problems which can easily be fixed by removing them entirely. :D

• They separate players, splitting the population and possible group members.
• They require that zones be specific to a level range, making the entire zone worthless to anyone but that level range.
• Rather than balance everything for a single level, they're forced to make all the early content extremely easy because they can't possibly balance every class for every level range.
• It might be somewhat fun once because people get to see the world, but then they're forced to see it for every new character they create.
• They allow for bad, unskilled players to decimate amazing players for no other reason than some arbitrary number.
• The system does not differentiate between those who learn quickly and those who learn slowly. Quick learners only level marginally faster than the slower learners.
• They require that some quests be "epic" so as not to be boring. Being told by a level 100 god of war that he is afraid of the level 11 demons outside his keep and I, the mighty level 13 sorcerer am the one to save the day is just idiotic.
• If friends want to level with each other, one must wait for the other (GW2 kind of fixes this with the sidekick system).

What's better: 60 levels worth of content, or the current amount of "end-game" content times 60? Only one of those options allows for repeatable content and allows everyone to be equal. :D

Originally posted by Kenze

I think the "open world" idea is a little archaic. We need a game with a huge Social area with interactive mini-games and crafting. where all levelig, questing, raiding  etc are done through instances using a great LDF tool.

The days of Huge worlds with huge zones are over. How many Eq, Eq2, WoW, Lotro etc etc have all these Huge massive  EMPTY zones that noone uses. Like all things in life convenience and efficiency should lead design.

Or a company could do somethign like actually making the world intriquing and dangerous to explore. I mean put say 2 or 3 different lvl ranges of content and creatures in each zone...this way, you'd have to be careful where you run, and it would make older zones still of importance to higher level characters and worth returning to.

A  world full of instances is not a true world, and not an MMORPG IMO.  It's GW's all over again.

Originally posted by Slowdoves

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by grawss

Originally posted by Slowdoves

Some of you guys have been asking for an Open World. Some of those games were made with that feature. Look at EVE as example,  look at how big that is. I find it hard to believe that a lot of those area are constantly flowing with traffic, or full of players. I know when I was exploring just for the hell of it I saw a lot of of empty space with no one in them,.

 

I'm playing on Aion at them moment, granted it's instanced but I still see it.

 

So what happens when a new game rolls out with Open free world and when eventually the majority of players hit max level?  All I see is empty spaces in the game.

I can see your point, but moving away from open worlds isn't the way to go in my opinion.

The current leveling system is more of an issue. People pass up a zone, and suddenly that zone is absolutely worthless to everyone that isn't leveling. It's such wasted space that I find it hard to believe they haven't invented a better way.

Without the leveling system, what would the developers do with all that saved content and space? They'd make it useful, right? And with that, we'd move away from the "instances!" phase and more toward open-world and perhaps player-created content.

 

And yes, of course EVE has a lot of open space. It's set in space. :P

Actually, every zone is space has a purpose, is useful and in the case of low sec or 0.0, less people you see there the better, especially if they aren't allied with you.

The real issue is levels, they need to be done away with in favor of alternate advancement systems so that every area of the map can be designed to accomodate players from the newest to the eldest.

Maybe they need to come up with something that forces players to go back or go through content, but then again your back asking for a free open persistant world.

Well, EQ 2 actually has such a thing, many players mentor down to lower levels so they can kill bosses they missed while leveling up for AA credit and to help other folks.  I see lots of higher level players roaming around the lowbie zones due to these features.

When will we see change?

Well, GW2 is bringing some, but as other said it is tweaking the current way of doing things. Still it will be interestig to experience and I am looking forward to it.

That being said, real change we will probably never see as long as we keep financing game after game that the AAA industry is churning up. When the wallet starts moaning, then they will all convene a General assembly and seriosuly discuss what is wronga nd how it can be improved.

Because everyone loves their job and salary and no one wants to see that go away.

Right now the Industry has a winning formula.

Find a cool IP with a following, announce a game for it, create Buzz, and launch your marketing campaign before even starting to code anything, Secure Investement, Hire your team, create the game using the same Mainstream Design as the previous one, find a single element or two on it and do it slightly different, express your convictions that these elements will make the difference from the previous game, and start coding and creating the art...the rest is all about marketing in the mean time, a bone here another there, some presence in E3 or some other convention, a Trailer a Demo, some interviews...more coding, more art creating, internal QA..Alpha version, Beta Version, network Infrastructure, Closed beta, testing, tweaking, testing, ng tweaking, testing tweaking, phase one two three of beta, feedback tweaking, polisihing open beta, more polishing..launch day...people buy your game (that is us guys this is where we finance the project)...pay back your investors and pocket profits..thank your dev team and send em on their way, Month one, month two Month 3 to probably 6, down size server numbers, consolidate, bring out an expansion..gauge reaction, consolidate more or stabilise...Call it a financial success (because all of it was paid during launch) and move to the next project! Rince and Repeat....have a Happy Life as a Game Develloper and Publisher...it works, people pay for it, it finances itself so everyone can keep doing it.

Who needs change?

*takes a big breath*

Another alternative is to make our own game, I beleive some are doing it already and many others are thinking about it.

And I am seriously thinking about it too ;)

Cheers!

I think SWTOR may have a lot of the story elements you spoke about. 

Unfortunately, it also has the same, tired combat system. Everything else about that game excites me, but when I see combat, I just don't know how long I can play it.

GW2 seems to be trying to make a more dynamic world, but I am skeptical that, in practice, it won't be much different than Rift. 

I don't really know how we could get advancement in MMOs. If we don't subscribe to the crap that's out there, there wont be any monetary incentive for companies with big budgets to jump in to the scene. However, companies with big budget (and only a big budget could make all the great elements you spoke of) are also subscribing to the same tired systems; systems that we are desperate enough to buy in to. 

Originally posted by Kabaal

At the current stage of technology i think we've seen them go as far as they can. Until said technology can go as far as looking realistic whether its on a screen or through VR we'll be in for more of the same for quite some time, the mechanics themselves wont change and will just be remixes of whats already been seen.

The things they can do with video games now is astounding.

But the problem with the MMORPG genre right now is just exactly what are they doing with that technology?  I'll bluntly say right now that genre gameplay has taken a nosedive and the "Massive Multiplayer" part of "MMORPG" is a bit of a joke now.  Despite the unheard of number of players in the genre compared to when UO came out, the "Massive Multiplayer" gaming is worse (more Single-Player RPG requiring an internet connection), gaming options in a title have significantly narrowed, and you can do less and less with the world.

The only thing the genre has improved on is graphics and the way it tells how you're the biggest hero they've evar seen and only you can defeat Mr.Bad (just like all the other heroes that passed through earlier).

But the rest of it?  Gone down the tubes.

==================

Now, as for the thread title, "When will we see a REAL change in MMO's?"

The answer is quite simple.  The genre needs to collapse for some reason(s).  Only then can you see some group come out of the ashes to finally get a chance to do something different.  Only then can you see devs take chances and try something different and push out.  Only then can we finally see devs make their own design and not be forced the WoW road.  Because, let's face it:  Trying to get money for a AAA title that doesn't follow the WoW formula?  Good luck, you'll need it.  Only indies can try, and they're not going to have $$$ backing.

It's right now hard to see change in the genre because of WoW's established, long running success.  Developers are still falling head over heels and slavishly try to mimic the King of the Hill.

If you want to see change in MMORPGs, it needs to die first.  Until then, the cycle that's been going on for almost 7 years now will keep on going.

Tera seems the biggest change in MMos so far. Its trying to blend action with a persistant world. There are other games that attempt it, but never to the levels Tera is. GW2 seems promising but its still just going to be an instanced based action game, which a lot of games have made a presence in that style for some time. Not saying its anything bad but its not really much of a change. Even Tera you can argue doesn't really shift a big change in the MMO scene all that much if you really want to argue about it.

All I know is. SWTOR will NOT do anything new for MMos. There are MMos that have a story drive and they don't really work out. the game won't be much of an exception. You can't realy keep the sense of shaping a 'story' when your playing on an MMO. You can have quests and all be influenced, but in the end you can only do so much in a MMO game. Don't get me wrong, the company makes amazing games particularly with story elements,  Its just they lack knowledge of MMOs and their strong point is one of the lesser aspects of a a MMO. If it wasn't Star Wars, i feel the hype for it would be far less. Sure it would still be looked at by many as being a good idea, but lets face it, the lightsabers are what draws most of the audience, not the story.

Originally posted by StealthSLI

I just thought I would start a thread of my own, regardless of how many other threads might try to tackle similar topics.

I want to discuss the kind of changes MMORPGs should make. Where does the player community want to see them go? We already know the current formula that, to be honest, is just OLD and boring as all hell. Game mechanics within MMO's havent changed in years. In small ways maybe, but nothing has really changed the 'face' of MMO's. Its still the same ugly face we all know and love, but desperatly want to inject with botox.

 

So I know that this whole DYNAMIC EVENT thing is something new to the genre, or is at least being adopted by some big titles. To me though its not much. I have played RIFT for about 2 months and while I did enjoy the random events, thats all they were. Random events. The events had no weight to them. They were simply random and scripted, and really irritating once you played through the same scripted event twice, maybe three times or more a day, even a week. To me thats not dynamic at all. To me thats repetative and lacking in originality.

 

I know that its a change in the right direction though, and for that I am thankful. Guildwars 2, imho, is upping the anty with thier version of the DYNAMIC EVENT system. They claim that if the centuars attack said villiage and the players do not succesfully defend it then the centaurs will kill all the townsfolk and lay claim to the village. They will even fortify it and expand taking over other nearby locales until someone does something about it. That all sounds really cool and a step forward with this event system but I ask this: If we the players, push the attacking force back after they have destroyed a village or 2 and fortified them all centaur like, once we defeat them will all the townsfolk magically appear again? And to that extent will they be the same exact NPC's that died at the hands of the centaurs? Will the villages instantly look like they did before they were sieged? Or did they change to begin with?

 

Another thing that hasnt been changed in seemingly forever is the very stagnant and extremely un-interactive form of combat in MMO's. Sure there are a few that have dynamic combat, but how dynamic is it truthfully? The same system of point, click, wait for ability to recharge, click again, press 3 for fireball, wait, click again, chew fingernails, click again, bash head against keyboard simply to give my head a workout, is getting tiresome and boring. Playing a game that way for hours on end really makes me feel like im wasting away in my computer chair. Why not some combat that really gets your adrenaline pumping? The ability to slash my sword around in realtime. I want to dodge enemy attacks and parry them. I want to cast magic at a tree branch and have it fall on top of my enemy, or toss a bottle of oil on the ground beneath there feet then set it on fire. Combat needs to be dynamic and diverse. Make me defeat my enemies in ways I never would have thought of. Maybe my enemy is a level 20 orc warchief and im only lvl 12, but through my skills with blade and magic, and my ACTUAL intelligence I am able to defeat him, narrowly escaping death through some means of strategy and endurance.

 

Story!!! I love doing quests. I like to feel like im the local hero and I can help out the people. But why? The quests in current MMO's are equally as stagnant as DYNAMIC EVENTS and COMBAT. Go kill 10 kobolds, gather 13 blossoms of this flower, blah blah blah. Even if i kill 10 kobolds what happens? Nothing. I get my loot and exp and head to the next robot quest giver. I want quests with meaning.

 

I want to be sent on a quest to find a local womans missing child only to find that shes being held captive by a renegade band of thieves and fight my way into there base of operations and heroically rescue the child, bring her back to her mother and recieve my reward only to find out that her mother had sold her to these thieves and when shes caught by me she fights back and I am forced to kill her leaving her child parentless (dads dead I guess lol). After that I have the choice to take her under my wing if im feeling compasionate or she gets sent to the orphanage. I want quests with plots and twists and turns. I want to be made sad, happy, or angry at the characters in the game. I never FEEL in MMO's. No sense of urgency, pain, anger, sadness, overwhelming joy.

 

Graphics are so far behind in MMO's as well. I realize that WoW is a style more fitting to its RTS roots and thats fine. Simply put though, the average computer can handle xbox 360 and ps3 level graphics. You can spend the same money it costs for a console system and upgrade your video card and outperform consoles. Why are the graphics in MMO's so outdated? Furthermore im tired of MMO's taking on such a cartoon look? Im not 15 yrs old, and while a lot of players are teenagers, im sure a good chunk would agree with me that catroon is yesteryear.

 

I would like to see an MMO' utilize some newage graphics. Unreal 3 on DX11. Something that will make our jaws drop. I do not want an MMO that tries to look like real life, but something close to it, something gritty and believeable, with characters that are equally as beliveable, and a story that is simply EPIC in scope, that unfolds with style and grabs you from the moment the game begins and wont let go till the end.

 

Maybe im asking for too much? Maybe this wont happen for YEARS to come, but I think that if we as the players raise our expectations then we will start seeing what we want in our games rather than the crap we get fed in our computer desk high chairs. Anyways, this is simply my opinion and nothing more. If you share my vision then great lets discuss it. If you dont agree and you hate my guts, then go on and tell me about it i got all day. Either way start talkin people. Thanks

 

-Stealth

GW2 might not be what you're looking for, maybe you want something more sandboxy, but maybe this can give you a little more info about it.  It does have some features you may be interested in.

 That they "change the world" to me is one of the least compelling aspects of GW2's dynamic events.  It's a nice touch, and it helps with immersion because they chain from one to another, but it can't be the reason you're doing them because they're just going to be undone later.  I do believe they're an amazing, revolutionary innovation to MMOs but for other reasons.  I really can't talk about them without going into a page of detail but they're community building where quests are isolating, they're immediate, visual, immersive, repeatable, scalable.  Maybe some day we'll have a more flexible, organic, world changing system, but for right now enjoy the idea of just being in an MMO where you WANT to see other people instead of just finding them a nuisance or ignorable.

To answer your question, btw, the NPCs will be dead on the ground, and anybody could rez them mid combat to help fight or rebuild turrets or whatever they do.  So yes, they'll be exactly the same NPCs.  They town might get destroyed and rebuilt to be the same town, but again, changing the world is a side effect of their community building aspects.

Combat is GW2 is pretty active.  You can cast while moving, dodge attacks and projectiles.  I don't know about parry, but warriors have a toggled shield stance that blocks attacks and projectiles from not only hitting you, but hitting people behind you.  If you're skilled, maybe you can take out enemies higher level than you.  There is a limit to how much you can dodge though, so maybe not.  There are hundreds of cross profession combos, we don't really know too much about them so far, but elementalist fire wall causes ranger arrows shot through it to ignite and do more damage.  Thief bullets shot through a guardian warded area heal players near the impact point, etc.

GW2 does have a personal story mode with consequences.  Again, we don't know a ton about it but we know things like you'll have a choice to save an orphanage or a hospital and the other one stays demolished in your home instance.  Same thing with saving a person or not.  Unlike dynamic events, which are world based, your personal story is the one big questline your character progresses on from start to cap.

As far as graphics go, it does have a painted style, but it's a design choice so that it'll continue to look great even as hardware advances, as well as being able to run on midrange machines (some of the graphics cards they test on can't even be bought anymore).  I happen to like the style, you might not, it's personal preference.

Originally posted by Purutzil

Tera seems the biggest change in MMos so far. Its trying to blend action with a persistant world. There are other games that attempt it, but never to the levels Tera is. GW2 seems promising but its still just going to be an instanced based action game, which a lot of games have made a presence in that style for some time. Not saying its anything bad but its not really much of a change. Even Tera you can argue doesn't really shift a big change in the MMO scene all that much if you really want to argue about it.

All I know is. SWTOR will NOT do anything new for MMos. There are MMos that have a story drive and they don't really work out. the game won't be much of an exception. You can't realy keep the sense of shaping a 'story' when your playing on an MMO. You can have quests and all be influenced, but in the end you can only do so much in a MMO game. Don't get me wrong, the company makes amazing games particularly with story elements,  Its just they lack knowledge of MMOs and their strong point is one of the lesser aspects of a a MMO. If it wasn't Star Wars, i feel the hype for it would be far less. Sure it would still be looked at by many as being a good idea, but lets face it, the lightsabers are what draws most of the audience, not the story.

Hmm...guess you missed my reply above. Tera is nothing different, it is another themepark MMO, holy Trinity, Levels Gear, greed or Need, Quests, Raids etc etc. Same Model.

They just chose one element and tweaked it a bit, removed Tabed Combat and made it Real action one and then expressed their conviction that is is the element that will change everything. SW:TOR is taking the same stance with the emphasis on Story.

So they both threw their nets in the sea, and lets see who catches more Fish.

None of the two bring any Change to the Genre.

+1 to Suraknar. TOR has shown these colors the most so far, going so far as to tell everyone there will be a first-come-first-serve limit on who gets into the early access. Oh look, pre-orders are still available after what, 1.5 million? At $60 per box, that's $90,000,000 before taxes, not counting the collector's edition price, and not counting anything sold after. That's also using a low estimate (WAR's numbers); it's more likely they'll have closer to 2 million boxes sold the first day. Initial sales paid off Warhammer, and they'll pay off Star Wars. :/

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Originally posted by Purutzil
Tera seems the biggest change in MMos so far. Its trying to blend action with a persistant world. There are other games that attempt it, but never to the levels Tera is. GW2 seems promising but its still just going to be an instanced based action game, which a lot of games have made a presence in that style for some time. Not saying its anything bad but its not really much of a change. Even Tera you can argue doesn't really shift a big change in the MMO scene all that much if you really want to argue about it.
 
All I know is. SWTOR will NOT do anything new for MMos. There are MMos that have a story drive and they don't really work out. the game won't be much of an exception. You can't realy keep the sense of shaping a 'story' when your playing on an MMO. You can have quests and all be influenced, but in the end you can only do so much in a MMO game. Don't get me wrong, the company makes amazing games particularly with story elements,  Its just they lack knowledge of MMOs and their strong point is one of the lesser aspects of a a MMO. If it wasn't Star Wars, i feel the hype for it would be far less. Sure it would still be looked at by many as being a good idea, but lets face it, the lightsabers are what draws most of the audience, not the story.

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I do like the way they're setting up diplomacy, but everything else is just so generic and boring. They're moving in the right direction for one thing (diplomacy, even with the lamers rigging the system and how shallow it is), moving sideways for another (combat; it needs better controls), and moving backward with everything else.

And "Lancers" seriously? A lance? That isn't how lances work, moronic developers.

SWTOR does bring something special... it feels like a REAL RPG... its like Age of Conan night quests, but they are well done and online...it works amazing...and still feels like a complete MMO.

But i still think that Guild Wars 2 its the only next gen mmorpg.

I have played SWTOR and i have saw GW2 on gaming events...and it seems that GW2 its a lot better.

And remember, GW1 wasnt a MMORPG...GW2 will be the best B2P MMORPG out there.

Originally posted by odinsrath

a REAL change in mmorpg's..

never

its a booming cash cow of theamparks and cash shops...devs and companys know this..they wont change untill the gamer dose or untill they think they are loseing money

Well, Wows income is going down rather fast now, and the genre is going over to F2P to survive. It isn't as peachy in MMO land as it was 5 years ago and if the games are the same in another 5 years I think some of the studios making them will be gone.

EQ styled themeparks have controlled the genre for 10 years now with Eve as the only exception. With almost exactly the same combat and loot mechanics that means many old MMO player have become tired of it all and quit along the road.

If the genre want to revitalize itself something new really needs to be done.

The question is not if it can stay the same but how big those changes needs to be. I am not so sure that we will move to sandboxes as some people think.

The 2 main changes I believe will happen is combat mechanics and quests. Since we spend so much time in combat  the devs of new games must give us a feeling of something new and more interesting. The easiest way to do this is killing of the hoy trinity that been in almost all MMOs since Meridian 59 1996.

As for quests, that is trickier. Maybe quests indeed will turn into DEs like in GW2 or maybe just making them more interesting like OP suggests is enough. Maybe CPs WoDO crew is right and player created quests is the right way. Or something else but killing 10 rats is on it's last turnin.

Game genres needs to change eventually or they will die out like the platform games did, once almost all games were platform games, now they only exists in java and on cellphones. The genre just couldn't change with time.

I hope MMOs will do better and last longer, but they can't stay the same if they want to do that. There will always be room for a few "classic" games but they will not be in pole position but rather far back in the nostalgic bin.