MMO Similarities.

[Deleted]

I would like to say from the get-go this thread is not a "WoW vs X Game" thread. Please do not start a "X game is better, because..." rant.

This thread is about how MMO's have a lot of similarities - Especially, for example Rift. Throughout this post I will probably refer to Rift a lot, not because I want to attack it but because it is the game that currently explains my point easily. Other games do the same thing - just know it is just an example.

I have been reading posts from Devs and avid players from many different MMO's defending why making games look similar is a good thing. In some sense they are right, Making the game have the same UI and the same overall style is probably good in some ways. I understand where they are coming from, people understand how to play a game and its easy to switch from one game to another.

I understand why, but I am really starting to dislike it.
When I started playing WoW it was one of the best experiences in a game I have ever had. Learning the UI, the things the game had to offer. A simple task of completing a quest - learning the quest system. All of these small challenges made the game have a fantastic feel - learning not only the story, but the game at the same time. I understand a feeling like this can never be replicated when you have been playing an MMO for so long, but what I don't get is why Developers are trying to lower the learning effect in their games.

When I play a new game, I play it because I want something different. I'm still looking for a new MMORPG, so I know what to expect from the genre. When I played Rift I had this sense that the game could be so much more if it had its own style. The only thing that feel different is the Story and the graphics. I want to look at my spells, I press P. I want to look at my talents, I press N. I want to open my bags, B. After 2 hours I just thought "what a minute, I'm just playing WoW with a different story". Don't get me wrong, Rift is a great game to play, but when everything you do feels the same as the last game you played - how can it possibly feel like a new game?

WoW is a great game, because it took what other MMO's had and it didn't copy everything. It took the best bits and expanded on them until they created their own feel for their own game. Similarities are going to be there in every game - I don't mind that in the slightest. When I think of the next MMO I will play, it will be a game that takes what WoW has and uses it in their own way. A great game is a game that takes tips from the biggest and best rival games and creates their own game based of the lessons they have learned. I know a great game when it advances the genre with their own ideas based of not-so-good attempts. Guild Wars 2 is trying, Rift for me isn't.

Looking at the gameplay videos of Guild Wars 2, it looks like they have really tried to make a different and fun experience. They have looked at WoW and taken the bads points and tried to make them good. Too many abilities on the bars, lots of farming quests, more interesting things to do at lower levels etc. They take what they already know from big games and try to fix it in there own way.

Sorry about the probably poorly written text, the question I am trying to ask is: Do you dislike MMO's looking alike? Would you prefer a fresh idea when you play a new game?

I deliberately didn't do a poll because I wanted to read your thoughts instead of looking at a score.
Thanks for reading, please let me know how you feel.

Thanks
V

[Sunseeker]

Part of the button connection is that fact that those things are obvious. What's the first letter of "bag"? "B", so having "y" open bags would make little sense.

But yes, while it's nice to maintain a level of familiarity to enable players to easily move from X game to Z game, many MMOs are taking this FAR too literally, and as you say, making games that are basically a reskin of WoW. Granted, WoW draws heavily from previous games, but it's the "staple" so that makes it the "baseline" game.

Graphics are not enough to make a game "new".

[unholytestament]

I tried out Champions online when it went free to play. When you first enter the game it asks you what control scheme you want to use. They worded it differently, but here's what anyone who has played a few MMOs will think upon seeing these options.

1. Brand new control scheme we made up!
2. World of Warcraft-ish.
3. City of Heroes-ish.
4. Shut the fuck up and let me into the game.

[cookiesncreme]

Its like many games that are similar with other games in their genre.

I guess its a genre thing. Like shooters...really, they're almost all the same game.

[Drakhar]

Definitely not a new thing, but I agree. It's pretty awful when you end up having the same game in a newer, shinier wrapper. Rift is obviously targeted at past and current WoW players though, makes it easier to pick up a game if it's so similar. And like you said, GW2 has potential because they are trying to get more innovative with it. Dropping these carbon copy games does nothing for the genre.

Buuuut:

WoW is a great game, because it took what other MMO's had and it didn't copy everything.

Guess you never played EverQuest then.

[cookiesncreme]

I would like to say from the get-go this thread is not a "WoW vs X Game" thread. Please do not start a "X game is better, because..." rant.

This thread is about how MMO's have a lot of similarities - Especially, for example Rift. Throughout this post I will probably refer to Rift a lot, not because I want to attack it but because it is the game that currently explains my point easily. Other games do the same thing - just know it is just an example.

I have been reading posts from Devs and avid players from many different MMO's defending why making games look similar is a good thing. In some sense they are right, Making the game have the same UI and the same overall style is probably good in some ways. I understand where they are coming from, people understand how to play a game and its easy to switch from one game to another.

I understand why, but I am really starting to dislike it.
When I started playing WoW it was one of the best experiences in a game I have ever had. Learning the UI, the things the game had to offer. A simple task of completing a quest - learning the quest system. All of these small challenges made the game have a fantastic feel - learning not only the story, but the game at the same time. I understand a feeling like this can never be replicated when you have been playing an MMO for so long, but what I don't get is why Developers are trying to lower the learning effect in their games.

When I play a new game, I play it because I want something different. I'm still looking for a new MMORPG, so I know what to expect from the genre. When I played Rift I had this sense that the game could be so much more if it had its own style. The only thing that feel different is the Story and the graphics. I want to look at my spells, I press P. I want to look at my talents, I press N. I want to open my bags, B. After 2 hours I just thought "what a minute, I'm just playing WoW with a different story". Don't get me wrong, Rift is a great game to play, but when everything you do feels the same as the last game you played - how can it possibly feel like a new game?

WoW is a great game, because it took what other MMO's had and it didn't copy everything. It took the best bits and expanded on them until they created their own feel for their own game. Similarities are going to be there in every game - I don't mind that in the slightest. When I think of the next MMO I will play, it will be a game that takes what WoW has and uses it in their own way. A great game is a game that takes tips from the biggest and best rival games and creates their own game based of the lessons they have learned. I know a great game when it advances the genre with their own ideas based of not-so-good attempts. Guild Wars 2 is trying, Rift for me isn't.

Looking at the gameplay videos of Guild Wars 2, it looks like they have really tried to make a different and fun experience. They have looked at WoW and taken the bads points and tried to make them good. Too many abilities on the bars, lots of farming quests, more interesting things to do at lower levels etc. They take what they already know from big games and try to fix it in there own way.

Sorry about the probably poorly written text, the question I am trying to ask is: Do you dislike MMO's looking alike? Would you prefer a fresh idea when you play a new game?

I deliberately didn't do a poll because I wanted to read your thoughts instead of looking at a score.
Thanks for reading, please let me know how you feel.

Thanks
V

OP.

Guild Wars right now, which btw has a good 7 million subscribers, only allows the player to have 8 skills on their bar.

But if you play Guild Wars you notice that WoW and GW are two vastly different games when it comes down to the core.

What I am worried about with GW2 is that you don't get much options to customize your skillbar. From what I know, your right hand weapon gives you 3 skills and your offhand gives you 2 if you're a melee. The sixth skill is a healing skill and the last four are skills of YOUR choosing.
Therefore, you only have 4 skills you can customize to fit your playstyle. Although the game looks gorgeous, I think the skill customization still needs work. I know they're trying to make it different but sometimes, different isn't always the best.

[Dashield28]

Companies tend to go with what works and tweak it. Its like most copanies dont invent a new car and be like "lets make all the seats toilets, in case ppl gotta crap and make it 7 wheels because 4 is 3 less than 7 wheels" That would be silly.

You go with what works and just make it more appealing. BTW. RIFT is awesome.

[Digits]

Your complaint, from how I understood it, is the way you control it.
Almost every game within a certain genre has a similar control scheme.
Almost every console platform game has the same button mapped to jump. Pretty much all shooters have you move with wasd, primary fire with left and secondary fire on right click and space to jump. I can't think of an rts that didn't map squadrons to the numeric keys or have you draw a box around units you want to select.

I hear the complaint that Rift is a lot like WoW a lot, because it plays almost the same and has you do the same old quests. If you expected much different from an mmorpg, guess what? You didn't expect an mmorpg to begin with. To me it is like complaining how Modern Warfare 2 is exactly like Wolfenstein 3D because you're still shooting the same old baddies with the same old guns.

[cookiesncreme]

Your complaint, from how I understood it, is the way you control it.
Almost every game within a certain genre has a similar control scheme.
Almost every console platform game has the same button mapped to jump. Pretty much all shooters have you move with wasd, primary fire with left and secondary fire on right click and space to jump. I can't think of an rts that didn't map squadrons to the numeric keys or have you draw a box around units you want to select.

I hear the complaint that Rift is a lot like WoW a lot, because it plays almost the same and has you do the same old quests. If you expected much different from an mmorpg, guess what? You didn't expect an mmorpg to begin with. To me it is like complaining how Modern Warfare 2 is exactly like Wolfenstein 3D because you're still shooting the same old baddies with the same old guns.

Rift is horrible. I've played the beta and I am never picking it up again...

[Deleted]

Guild Wars right now, which btw has a good 7 million subscribers, only allows the player to have 8 skills on their bar.

But if you play Guild Wars you notice that WoW and GW are two vastly different games when it comes down to the core.
.

Guild Wars and WoW are indeed quite different. They were the two games I was juggling between when trying to decide what to go with back in 2004-2005-ish. In the end, the limited skill system and other things turned me away from Guild Wars and onto WoW.

Unless Guild Wars 2 is vastly different, they are as different from each other as any games can be within the same genre, I'd say


EDIT: Fixed a very confusing typo

[Sunseeker]

OP.

Guild Wars right now, which btw has a good 7 million subscribers, only allows the player to have 8 skills on their bar.

But if you play Guild Wars you notice that WoW and GW are two vastly different games when it comes down to the core.

What I am worried about with GW2 is that you don't get much options to customize your skillbar. From what I know, your right hand weapon gives you 3 skills and your offhand gives you 2 if you're a melee. The sixth skill is a healing skill and the last four are skills of YOUR choosing.
Therefore, you only have 4 skills you can customize to fit your playstyle. Although the game looks gorgeous, I think the skill customization still needs work. I know they're trying to make it different but sometimes, different isn't always the best.

That and their decision to my GW2 a mostly persistent world makes me worry that GW, which was a big WoW competitor may degrade into a WoW-clone with only a little trumped up "innovation".

[microtonal]

What's that old adage about how there are only eight basic plot archetypes and everything else is just details?

Look, within a given experiential framework, there are only a certain number of ways to do things. There are, for example, a finite number of ways to play basketball. You can play a run-and-shoot, a Princeton-style delay game, grind-it-out halfcourt ball built off defensive intensity, or an NBA-style isolation game. Everything else is just variations on a theme. At the end of the day, everyone's just bouncing a ball around and throwing it through a hoop.

Innovation is great. That's how progress happens. Pointless innovation merely for the sake of innovation, though? Not so much. Novelty is a tool, not a self-sufficient goal in and of itself.

[Digits]

Rift is horrible. I've played the beta and I am never picking it up again...

Fair enough, I enjoyed it for the first 7 levels then couldn't log in anymore until it ended. It felt an awful lot like Warhammer to me, meaning it runs on a terribly outdated engine that doesn't seem to like the 3 systems I've ran that game on.

[Frosted Ivy]

This is always an interesting conversation. The problem here is so many people are so wrapped up in WoW that it makes it difficult NOT to compare it to other MMOs. Personally I find RIFT to be much more a cross of Warhammer and Lord of the Rings than WoW. Why? The control scheme feels like WoW of course.. we're all WoW players there's no way for it to not feel like WoW. That is the control scheme though, the UI.. not the game itself. The game play from PVE to PVP feels much more LoTRO and WAR than WoW. WoW was the first MMO to go completely mainstream. WoW is full of normal average every day non gamer type people. Due to that unexpected phenomenon most MMOs releasing now will try to take the good and familiar parts of WoW (the parts that bridged the gap between gamers and average people) and reuse them while adding in their own flair, their own ideas, and their own fixes for the bad parts.

A lot of these things are good things.. as someone said earlier: Who wants to push "Y" for bags? Honestly, who cares if it uses the same hot keys? Using the same hot keys is a convenience on the memory. I'm more interested in a new story, new abilities, new perks, and seeing old "problems" fixed... Which RIFT seems to do. Also per the GW2 controls.. I do not play GW myself I do however play DC Universe Online and it uses a "trinket" "consumable" and "6 player chosen skills" bar option that sounds similar to GW... I have to say it irks me to no end. Why on earth do I have a zillion skills if I can't use them? arrrrrrgh Thats simply a personal opinion.... but yea it drives me insane.

Also a personal opinion: I like RIFT I think it fixes a lot of WoW problems, a lot of MMO problems in general. I think it takes a lot of the good parts of LoTRO, WAR, WOW, and adds in its own touches... Even if it had 0 new things but took all the good parts of previous games... I'd love it. I don't have to have OMG new features if the game gets rid of the crappy features and combines the great features of other games all with its own story and graphics. In fact.. I'd love to make my own MMO by custom choosing parts from every MMO out there.. I see no problem with that