The Untapped Potential of MMORPGs

[iindigo]

I posted this on the Games, Gaming, and Hardware forum on the official WoW forums originally, but these boards seem to get more traffic

Does anybody else feel like WoW, as great as it is, is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to MMORPGs?

To be honest, I think the field of MMORPGs (not even counting other variations of MMOs) has ungodly amounts of potential. There's so much out there... even just inside of my own head, hundreds of ideas are floating around just begging to be made into reality. Based on this, I'm sure others far more brilliant than myself have some truly ingenious ideas that would turn the industry on its head, similar to how WoW did 7 years ago.

The problem is that investing in getting an MMORPG released and on its feet is so costly that game companies are simply too horrified to create a game with enough radical concepts to take the genre to the next level for fear of a supermassive failure.

If only I had a boatload of cash, a team of excellent artists, and a fleet of first-class programmers, haha... I might end up not being capable of forging a first-class MMORPG, but I sure as hell would love to try.

[Wildmoon]

I read Bill Roper's interview long ago that the reason Hellgate failed because they tried to do too many things at once at the game's release..

Many of people's ideas are good on paper but when you put it into game, it doesn't work well.

[iindigo]

I read Bill Roper's interview long ago that the reason Hellgate failed because they tried to do too many things at once at the game's release..

Many of people's ideas are good on paper but when you put it into game, it doesn't work well.

I think it's also a matter of implementation and intuitiveness. People are more likely to accept something new if it's implemented well and is exceedingly obvious and easy to pick up, even for someone normally outside of the world of gaming. In other words, new concepts have to dovetail cleanly into the tried and true concepts in your game while maintaining a similar level of playability to the tried and true concepts. While I haven't played Hellgate myself, I'm not sure this is something the developers managed to achieve.

I also heard that Hellgate was incredibly buggy at launch and was forced to launch a long time before it was actually ready. That probably signed its death warrant more than anything - people these days expect games to be very stable at initial release.

[Wildmoon]

I think it's also a matter of implementation and intuitiveness. People are more likely to accept something new if it's implemented well and is exceedingly obvious and easy to pick up, even for someone normally outside of the world of gaming. In other words, new concepts have to dovetail cleanly into the tried and true concepts in your game while maintaining a similar level of playability to the tried and true concepts. While I haven't played Hellgate myself, I'm not sure this is something the developers managed to achieve.

I also heard that Hellgate was incredibly buggy at launch and was forced to launch a long time before it was actually ready. That probably signed its death warrant more than anything - people these days expect games to be very stable at initial release.

They had to ship the game because they ran out of money. Which is because they wanted to do too many things and end up bad at everything. I doubt that there will be any company that have unlimit money to fund their product.

[Deleted]

Personally I was a bit miffed that a game called Hellgate: London only had about a handful of locations, which had anything to do with London. The rest of it was either the tube or randomly generated "dungeons" (if you want to call them that, seeing as they were mostly outdoors).

[dlouhys]

Outside of changing the way we interact with our toons I am not sure how much room there is for something truly innovative. The in game stuff itself is mostly variations of single player RPGs and board games that have been around for decades. Here's to VR and holographic displays!

[iindigo]

I doubt that there will be any company that have unlimit money to fund their product.

That's true, but if you think about it, an industry-changing game doesn't have to be ALL new ideas. All it needs is a few really great ideas and killer reimaginations of older ideas. Blizzard nailed this with WoW, mixing in just the right amount of new concepts in with strong implementations of the older ones.

So perhaps what's most difficult is figuring out which of these ideas are the great ones and then producing a well-oiled implementation of them.

EDIT:

Outside of changing the way we interact with our toons I am not sure how much room there is for something truly innovative. The in game stuff itself is mostly variations of single player RPGs and board games that have been around for decades. Here's to VR and holographic displays!

I can't speak for anybody else, but my ideas all relate to how things work in-game rather than the medium through which the game is experienced. There's a lot of room in this area, seeing as there are a lot of potentially fun things that no MMORPG to date has even touched.

[Wildmoon]

That's true, but if you think about it, an industry-changing game doesn't have to be ALL new ideas. All it needs is a few really great ideas and killer reimaginations of older ideas. Blizzard nailed this with WoW, mixing in just the right amount of new concepts in with strong implementations of the older ones.

So perhaps what's most difficult is figuring out which of these ideas are the great ones and then producing a well-oiled implementation of them.

EDIT:


I can't speak for anybody else, but my ideas all relate to how things work in-game rather than the medium through which the game is experienced. There's a lot of room in this area, seeing as there are a lot of potentially fun things that no MMORPG to date has even touched.

Perharps we will see something new with Titan.

[dlouhys]

I can't speak for anybody else, but my ideas all relate to how things work in-game rather than the medium through which the game is experienced. There's a lot of room in this area, seeing as there are a lot of potentially fun things that no MMORPG to date has even touched.

Well in order to be a MMORPG it has to fall between certain lines so there are certain "limitations" of the genre. Also, can't discuss innovation within a genre by claiming to have great new ideas and then not sharing them.

[Deleted]

I think its the other way around - A lot of people have spent many years playing the Biggest MMO -World of Warcraft then realize you get nothing out of it but many years of wasted time and effort which could have been concentrated elsewhere...

[Zantumall]

A lot of people have spent many years playing the Biggest MMO -World of Warcraft then realize you get nothing out of it but many years of wasted time and effort which could have been concentrated elsewhere...

You get entertainment. That's kind of the point of an online game. When you stop having fun, then stop playing, but don't claim you "didn't get anything out of it", because you got exactly what you asked for going in, which is a good time.

On-topic: the problem with serious innovation in the MMO genre is the amount of time and money it takes to start the game up in the first place. If your innovation doesn't work, you just blew several years and potentially millions of dollars for something nobody wants to play. WoW does so well that it's just safer for companies to build around it then to make something radically different.

[Merendel]

That's true, but if you think about it, an industry-changing game doesn't have to be ALL new ideas. All it needs is a few really great ideas and killer reimaginations of older ideas. Blizzard nailed this with WoW, mixing in just the right amount of new concepts in with strong implementations of the older ones.

So perhaps what's most difficult is figuring out which of these ideas are the great ones and then producing a well-oiled implementation of them.

I would suggest you look into ArenaNet and what they are doing with guildwars 2. They are trying to reimagine and redefine many aspects of MMO's that we take for granted as just being part of the genre. They also seem to have the funding to take the time to get it right. If you think your ideas are so amazing try talking to them, heck try to get a job with them. If you do have good ideas I can see it coming to life through them over most of the other big names out there atm.

[blackblade]

The catch isn't so much having a limit on an otherwise massive scope, but thoughtfully adding new features. there's a few mmo's out there that have some great ideas that don't really mesh well with the rest of the game.

City of heroes is a good example of this. lots of really interesting, unique concepts; not much thought in how they're implemented. like the user-content system. the base system. etc.

risk is also a valid concept. there's many ideas that just aren't usable, how often do you use looking-for-guild? how often did people sign up for groups at the old meeting stones? both of those probably cost blizzard valuable development time.

[Wildmoon]

I haven't seen many interesting ideas. I know many developers have crazy ideas but they won't take a risk with it. GW2 looks good too but I still don't find any crazy ideas.

[Stealthedbear]

I am 100% serious when I say this

The thing that WoW does well is steal other peoples' intuitive ideas and give it the polish it needs. So I seriously wonder if Titan will be the next generation of "best stolen ideas"
The problem is that it is so successful other companies just try to copy it.

And now I wonder if I even contributed to this thread or just am talking nonsense.

[Merendel]

I haven't seen many interesting ideas. I know many developers have crazy ideas but they won't take a risk with it. GW2 looks good too but I still don't find any crazy ideas.

None of the ideas in GW2 are outright crazy. In fact most are fairly logical progressions of things. However quite a few raise eyebrows as they totally go against the grain of the WOW formula that most other companies take as gospel. In a sense they are takeing a rather crazy risk in abolishing the trinity and the skinners box gear treadmill that are core concepts of wow and all its clones. I think it will work in the end but I dont see any other MMO's willing to take even that much risk to break away from the path wow has taken.