[Rant] MMO's need to evolve. I'm getting tired of the same formula for 12 years.

[Schattenlied]

Last time Blizzard tried to reinvent the MMO, they failed so spectacularly that all we got was a lackluster arena FPS/MOBA hybrid thing.

[Kokolums]

I imagine the "Wow killer" will be the new MMO which hits on just the right balance of features/gameplay/environment. Some of those things probably havent even been thought of yet or we would have seen a successor by now.

No. Your belief is why the MMO genre is in the sad state it currently is in.

The WoW killer will be the one that is a truly social MMO:

1. The TOP priority is to construct a vibrant in-game community. Everything is secondary to that until it is constructed.
2. Below that are the things people usually mention like good gameplay, challenging encounters, well designed mechanics, etc.

MMOs are actually social entities. But not a single MMO out there offers the in-game community experience people actually gravitate towards. All of them now have community killers like automated match-making tools, phasing, lack of a simple social chat interface. Even guilds are actually kinda antisocial.

[Deleted]

That's the trick, it wasn't revolutionary then either.

WoW's playability has just been honed to perfection so that there are only a few bugs.

Still WoW has a lot to learn from other games with what comes to stuff like alt-friendliness.

[InfiniteCharger]

I agree with the OP, but then again, I am not sure how many people actually understand what an MMO is conceptually or where WOW fits into the grand scheme of MMO design. In truth in the beginning of MMOs there was no real "rules" other than the world had to be persistent and support multiple players at one time. Everything else was largely up in the air. The most influential set of "rules" were those established by D&D classes, but those were only very loosely used as guidance.

In MMOs there was no guarantee that every player could get any specific item, especially unique trinkets. That is something that only came as an enticement in recent incarnations of games like WOW. Now, mind you, the assumption behind this was that there were multiple types of 'unique trinkets' that could be discovered and found so that there was some balance to it in theory. But I recall in the early days of WOW and even farther back in MUDs, there was only one instance of each type or class of special trinket and whoever found it was the only player with it. Of course in some variations of MUDs you could actually kill the person and take it. Unfortunately, none of this kind of game play made it into WOW or it has since been changed if it did exist.

In MMOs originally there was no concept of a cap to player power or unique trinket power or even boss power. Nothing about an MMO in theory establishes a power cap (aside from the previously mentioned D&D classes). In some MUDs, the creator gave the ability for players to attain god like abilities, on the level of being a see all and know all sort of super user and go anywhere/do anything they wanted. Of course there has to be some established levels for bosses and characters but theoretically there has never been a limit on what that could be. One good example of how all of this affects game play is in how Vanilla implemented many of the spells as having ranks. That was absolutely a Blizzard decision and many people have come to assume it was a MMO thing. No it was a Blizzard thing. Just like the way Blizzard decided to implement classes overall in the game and the customization options for each. All a Blizzard thing as the MMO genre really establishes no limits on what classes of magic a user can learn or what level of power that they can reach. Although in theory the "fun" in it from a MMO perspective is in the fact that a) it is not guaranteed that an individual player will be able to max out their power and b) it is not guaranteed that every user will find or discover every spell, school of magic or attain the prerequisites to use or master any of them... (just like in D&D these things could be determined by roll of the dice).

In MMOs originally there was no concept of "instances" for a dungeon. A dungeon was another room in the game just like any other. It just so happened to be full of demons, monsters or whatever and you could kill them. But there was no limit on how many folks could be in that room and nothing really stopping other players from entering at any time, unless the devs put some kind of puzzle or other mechanic into finding the dungeon and accessing it. Normally the "bar" to entry would be in the fact that the power level of the boss was such that most players had no hope of surviving the encounter and hence did not go there. Likewise, there is nothing stopping that boss from getting up and moving out of that room into other areas and causing havoc. Again, this is the part of MMOs that most folks have long been excited about but only have not really seen fully implemented in practice. I would say there is nothing stopping a situation where the end boss and his citadel is a zone just like any other where everyone knows about and has access to UP front but rather than having an instance the players have to eventually gear up and level up to beat the boss and all of its lieutenants and minions in whatever time frame and format they wish and along the way they have to find those unique trinkets but of course those are always limited in number.

The purest sense of an MMO and the appeal is its open ended nature, as opposed to everything being scripted, where things progress and evolve with player interaction with no guaranteed outcome in any specific direction. The "good" guys don't have to win and the "bad" guys don't always lose. And at least in MUDs and other variations of early MMOs, this was true.

I could go on here, but the gist is that an MMO at its base level is a very open blank canvas for the DEVs to paint on and create whatever rules they want for the world and either go in one of two directions: 1 the players have the power to affect the world and create the story or 2 the DEVs make the story and everything is pretty much scripted. WOW since the very beginning has chosen to follow along path 2. And even with all the grind and time commitment, WOW still was much more casual than many other MMOs.

The strong points for WOW is that they found a good formula for success within the MMO landscape. Unfortunately, this means many folks are trying to take the WOW rules of MMOs as gospel instead of making their own rules. There are a lot of things about WOW that I always wished could happen but the devs never decided to implement which some other game or even WOW could eventually decide to make. Or there were things that WOW did do but did them in a not so pleasing way (see: players want player housing, but lets give them garrisons instead). So the "evolution" of the game really boils down to choices on the side of the game devs. And there is much fertile territory still yet to be dealt that provide for that evolution going back to the idea of an MMO being an open ended canvas.

The weak points for WOW is that the game Devs have definitely decided that players do not really have the power to alter the game world or even their own characters. A perfect example of this is the Tarren Mill, Crossroads, Southshore spontaneous battles that spawned during Vanilla. Now that is exactly the kind of game play that you would expect in a true MMO. But what did Blizzard do? They created tarren mill into a battleground and eventually removed Southshore as an alliance town altogether.... Not to mention they have never really allowed for players to truly customize their toons to any real degree as all the skills and abilities are tuned around certain options which are "best" for the class and therefore the only options you should take. In reality there is nothing about an MMO that says this should even exist.

All that said there are plenty opportunities for evolution, but with the current formula and success that Blizzard is having I doubt they are going to do anything drastic any time soon to alter that formula.

[Lane]

The WoW killer will be the one that is a truly social MMO:

I disagree. I think that's actually what the main issue with a lot of MMOs is right now, an ongoing conflict between solo players and devs continuing to cater to group players. I remember one of the Wildstar devs saying that ~60% of MMO players are soloers and that they're an under-served demographic, yet they designed their game around hardcore raiding.

My belief is the opposite, that a successful MMO is going to need to quit trying to force people into group activities and offer a robust gaming experience they can do without having to be reliant on other people.

[stigz]

Not sure what else can be done besides making everyone in the game able to play with each other on one server, it being completely VR, or improve upon GW2's mechanics of combining each other's abilities in the playing field (Mage frost fields, then warrior smashes into frost field to shoot out frost shards).

[Thimagryn]

Just try to innovate and revolutionize the genre already. We are all waiting for the next Steve Jobs of MMO's. Where is him?
Blizzard i'm looking at you. You have the obligation to be the hero. To step in and change everything because...you are the number 1 after all.
It may not be safe for business to try and change the genre but we are all waiting.

They tried with Titan. It didn't work out.

[Risale]

Wait for VR stuff to further develop.

That was my thought also but even then you would still see or even need an MMO like WoW or else you will fail.
Look when WoW came out it was the most casual of MMO's out there but because of this it made it accessible to a large number of people who got turned of from the epic grindfest games with harsh penalties.
Now we and with we I mean those that have played WoW since launch or TBC may bitch and moan that it has become casual craft most of us always come back after trying another MMO (Rift/Aion/Wildstar etc) because each of those games doesn't quite hit the mark like WoW does.
We need the trinity, we need ease of access to everything and we need to feel like we actually accomplished something and WoW gives us that (not counting content droughts).
If (and it's a big if) VR becomes mainstream we might see at some point WoW 2.0 the VR experience, you never know but until that time which may be another 10 years or more from now it may happen (or not ofcourse).
Until then we already know that Blizz is working on the next 2 expacs after Legion and Legion only just started and they said they want to do it right this time without any droughts so if each expac lasts 2-3 years we might be covered WoW wise for almost the 10 year I mentioned earlier.

[Jazzhands]

First person shooters need to evolve, I'm getting tired of the same formula after 12 years.

[Socialhealer]

hahaha what a newbie, mmo's have been like this for 12 years? ah poor child, mmo's are much older than you and have a history, they haven't changed for a much longer period of time, because thats the fucking genre, you're looking for a different type of game and you seem quite clueless as to what you are looking for.

you need to do some soul searching to understand wtf you really want.

[Veyne]

No , everytime someone tries to innovate it goes horribly wrong

Pretty much this.

[Gemini Soul]

I'm waiting for the day when i can play Pokemon on a Holodeck!

[Drekker17]

Yeah I'd like to see the next level of mmos, but it is a slow moving genre, 4 years ago I was very obsessed with all the new mmos and complained like you did op, but I realized its best to just be surprised you'll be happier overall. When wow becomes boring, and every other mmo, just shrug it off. You can complain and try to give ideas, but all the ideas have been said, so I think it's best to just leave it be or make it. I mean for all we know the next great mmo is being made right now, or the great minds that will design the next great mmo is learning game dev right now.

[Deleted]

The next "big" mmo will be when Virtual Reality is better in like 5-10 years I'm guessing

[Deleted]

Just try to innovate and revolutionize the genre already. We are all waiting for the next Steve Jobs of MMO's. Where is him?
Blizzard i'm looking at you. You have the obligation to be the hero. To step in and change everything because...you are the number 1 after all.
It may not be safe for business to try and change the genre but we are all waiting.

Blizzard already proved they are the best at polishing and delivering the best interface and presentation possible. Legion is the best looking expansion ever.
Class Halls, Artifacts, World Quests, everything is polished and new but is just an illusion of new gameplay.

Every other company just copies the already in place formula with a new setting/license and they are failling because of it.

We need you Blizzard to be the dreamer, break walls, blow the minds of the people with something new never before seen.
Free your mind from the notions, pillars, walls you have created. It was revolutionary before but it was 12 years ago!

I love you Blizzard for being the father of MMO's but you are getting old!
Get some rejuvenation potion or ask for a bit of whatever Gandalf is smoking in his pipe to come up with new ideas to change the genre entirely.

May the force be with you

The problem is that the moment you change it up too much, it's no longer an MMORPG, just a multiplayer game with RPG elements or something else.

Well, 12 years is old by any games life expectancy. But the playerbase would never, NEVER, allow for actual innovation that you're asking for. It'd be too much.

- - - Updated - - -

Didn't Steve Jobs actually deliver in the end?

Neither did much inventing. The former was a supreme douchebag and the latter is a lying, self-absorbed twat.

[Calfredd]

Neither did much inventing. The former was a supreme douchebag and the latter is a lying, self-absorbed twat.

That's actually what I was going for. Glad someone got it.

[Lightwysh]

The next evolution will be "boss fight 2.0". They will eliminate any progression outside of actual dungeons, raids and pvp scenarios. You sit in a lobby and queue for the bosses/dungeons you want. There are no player levels outside of maybe a prestige type system to show how badass/much time you've invested. All bosses will be tuned around pure ilvl and ilvl barrier bosses will be a thing. You basically log in, select the content you want to run, select your role and either join a pug or create custom groups with your clan/guild.

[Deleted]

The guy who's #1 typically isn't the innovator, they have little incentive to innovate, particularly when innovations tend to disrupt the current profit base.

But the MMO genre is asking for innovation so much it hurts to see...it's so obvious because the genre stagnated AND lost almost all RPG elements with the excuse of "there is no need for customization because there is always something optimal". lol

MMO's have infinite potential. The genre is asking for evolution but no one dares to do it and i'm not sure anymore if Blizz will do it either.

The problem is that the moment you change it up too much, it's no longer an MMORPG, just a multiplayer game with RPG elements or something else.

WoW is lost. I guarantee you.
The gameplay of WoW is composed by leveling, raids, dungeons and daily quests for ArtPower.
This gameplay is basic and old. It's outdated.

To think that a world with endless possibilities is dedicated to raids, dungeons and daily quests is sad

[dexx]

My belief is the opposite, that a successful MMO is going to need to quit trying to force people into group activities and offer a robust gaming experience they can do without having to be reliant on other people.

Wouldnt that take the 'multiplayer' out of the definition? Such a game would not be an MMO.

[Deleted]

Horror movies need to evolve, I'm getting tired of this whole 'being scared' formula