Bring back MMOs like the viision Ultima Online and Runescape had/has!

[Evenios]

Ok i dont mean to bash world of warcraft here, i actually am a fan, i have the last two CEs, i have the altases and some of the posters and really love the world for its vast locatons and such. But lets just be honest here. World of Warcraft and pretty much every single other MMO like it (which most are these days) have grown stale. In the old days MMOs were more about the social experence and having a more open world.. that instead of being cookie cut into preset holes players have the freedom to decide what they want to do. I think the reason that world of warcraft is losing so many people is because they are getting board with it and the shift has changed from a fun world to explore and hang out in, to a themepark. every time a new addon or major dungeon comes out people hop on run through it as fast as they can and then stop playing or play for hours and hours simpley to get the best gear thats it.

Starting out in a MMO today pretty much sets you in a preset path. you chose your class and based on what class you choose thats the set of abilities and gear you are stuck with. if you want to change that. you have to reroll, it discourages expermintation ... in games like Ultima Online (one of the grandfathers of MMos to start with) it wasnt class based you started out and you CHOSE the skills you wanted to improve and Runescape has followed that a lot. that is really a huge diffrence honestly because many times i said "you know i wanted to be a magic user but it would be nice to be able to wear some of the cooler heavier armor too" in runescape you can do that. your skills are based on what you use and not set because of a class you pick. the more you use majic the more it improves, the more you use swords or melee the more that improves.

not only that but you are also not limited to what server you choose in wow and in pretty much every other game you are stuck on the server you pick unless you pay 20 bucks or so to change. In runecraft you can log into any server you want (unless your free to play which you cant use member servers) which means if you have a buddie thats on another server you can easily join in and meet up.

not only that but the world feels more like a world to explore instead of a set of "zones" seperated by level. in pretty much every single other MMO out there (including wow) you pretty much have to follow a set path to progress through "zones" in runescape yeah there are areas starting out and higher level ones.. but there are more freedom of exploring as well. in world of warcraft you are limited to a few "professions" that sometimes can be tedious to train up and use. In Runescape you can train in ALL of of the skills (well a few more if you are a member) but you are not limited. you can be a miner. you can be a smith, you can make clothing, you can ..do pretty much anything in the game with a single charecter which i think is great because instead of creating a ton of alts to experence all the game has to offer , it encourages you to spend more time investing in a single character and it gives people more creative options. You want to be a mage that uses heavy armor? go ahead! it may not be "ideal" but its completely possible. and more realistic too!

player housing is also a cool feature thats diffrent in runescape. you dont just buy a base "set" and thats it. you can add onto your house by adding extra rooms through a skill and it makes it much more rewarding (its a tad more limiting you cant move some thing around but..) hey it provides just a little more flexiblity. and a lot of your skills can be trained or used in your home as well.

i think MMOs were ment to be that when they first came out. it was more about the social experence, people were still in awe of being able to be a part of a large game world and chat with others ... but i think now ..since everyones brother has a MMO the focus on these MMOs is just much much smaller its about leveing up as fast as you can and getting the best gear.

sure runescape has that too but......it seems on average its a bit less of a focus and there is just more options, the world is smaller sure, but considering once you level through most areas in world of warcraft youll never go back to......it really doenst matter much.

I am bored of most MMOs, i played a beta of a new mmo coming out soon and i just felt like "ugh same old mmo" the first few moments i played it.

i think MMOs need to change , and i think world of warcraft is growing stale. They could offer a lot more social options , player housing , guild housing, a reason to go back to old areas.. more social aspects etc. but no

instead wow places you in a cookie cutter design and thats all its about. its funny that maybe we dont need to look to the future for the next great MMO, maybe we need to look to the past. maybe we need to relook old MMOs like Ultima Online and runescape and see some of the features they have actually could be very useful in other MMos.

i just have had more fun in runescape in the past day or so then i have had in most any other MMO for a good whle also i gotta say leveling up in runescape is not a pain in the butt as it is in world of warcraft sure there are more levels but when you have a lot more skills and such you feel more of a progression then in world of warcraft when you can spend hours and hours on the same thing.

that gets boring.

lets bring the MMO back to MMOs World of Warcraft can learn a lot from that (and from games like guild wars 2 with some of the innovative options as well)

thats how i feel currently most MMOs are boring as heck. its nothing but a grind. and i hate grinds i HATE them. and when you have a lot more options and such like in Runescape things feel so much less of a grind. and more fun!

just some thoughts.

its like star citizen, it will be a single player game and a online game with MMO elements. but more of a open dynamic universe with lots of social options.

where are more games like that? MMOs have grown stale and are the same old same old.,every new MMO that comes out these days is more or less a clone of another.

i think honestly overall the game industry as a whole has grown stale . we have all this great technology and resources and computing power but few are using it to innovate , instead its become nothing more then "me too"

like all these damned card games because things like magic the gathering is popular so now all the game developers are making "me too" games same goes with tower defence or MOBA... its all "me too" no real innovations no real change

thats why world of warcraft is fading a bit......thats why other games are coming along and taking a bit of the action.

stop putting us in a corrner!

i say no more classes! woudnt that shake things up a bit? oh i bet most people would HATE that in world of warcraft but hey it woudl give you the option to make what you want. yeah now thats something to think about!

[Xeraxis]

I'd suggest reading the thread 'A great write up that Blizzard should think about'.

[Al Gorefiend]

I think there is a reason WoW has a million+ people online at once and Runescape teeters at around 50k. Yeah I love both games, but both have their charm and things that work for them.

[Darsithis]

There are quite a few threads like this open right now (one of which is linked in the thread). Please put your thoughts in those.