- Joined
- May 12, 2001
- Location
- Huntington Beach
Motion control is a gimmick to make money. It is NOT the future of gaming at all. Can you imagine playing an MMO with motion control? Yeah fun stuff... motion control will not catch on to the mainstream. The future of gaming will be like in sci fi like The Matrix, with virtual reality. Motion control is just some junk people are experimenting with. Transfering real life motion to video game motion, no matter how good the technology it, will just have too much work and lag. When they figure out how to control computers/games with the mind, that is when games will change.
Anyway back on the MMO subject, I have also played a lot of MMO beginning with the first Everquest, way back near when it came out. I have played a lot. Unfortunately at this junction, the MMO will not be "innovative" for a long time.
First of all, no MMO has even come CLOSE to World of Warcraft. WoW has taken so much of the market that other MMO are having a hard time competing. WoW might be a monopoly at this point. Before WoW we had lots of MMO such as Everquest, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies. When WoW came, basically it killed most other MMO. A lot of other MMO that come out either outright fail or just don't do very well, going to freeware.
Since WoW does so well, everyone basically goes with the formula. The thing is, that if all these new MMO come out with the same formula, then why play them? They are usually just WoW with slightly different flavor but done FAR worse. Like Warhammer online. It had a PVP twist but was a horrible game.
Then there are other people who want MMO to be more like action adventure games, especially Star Wars. There are many problems to this. First of all, the technology isn't there for the masses. Not only do these games need great hardware ( imagine, say, 100vs100 jedi in real time action ) but you also need a great internet connection. Although most of us in these forums do not suffer from this, the greater population would not be able to play a MMO Action/Adventure game with large scale real time combat. Thusly, a large target audience would be cut off. Classic MMO combat is very hardware/internet friendly. There is no "twitch" gameplay.
Second is the fact that without a "grind" it is harder to justify a $15 a month subscription fee. Part of the reason why MMO can get away with it is because basically the whole format is one giant time sink. They add in levels that go by slowly, then after you level you do raid dungeons that take 3-4 hours. Sometimes you are expected to do 3+ dungeon raids a week. Then you add in all the random loot, and all it does is make your numbers go up, which are basically inflated with each new dungeon release. With a more "innovative" MMO, such as real time combat, this would be harder to implement.
Of course there are innovative MMO that come out, but they are far and few in between. UO was innovative for it's time and IMO is more "innovative" than other MMO out there, despite the fact it was one of the first three or so. The problem is that it won't really hook players like WoW will and nobody at this age would pay $15 a month to play a game such as UO, which doesn't have giant dragon raids and phat lewtz, etc.
One of the best examples of innovation is EvE online, but honestly that game is a genre in itself practically. I think the only reason why the game is still afloat is because it has some real DIEHARD fans that keep it alive. It is not for the masses at all. It is a real "gimmicky" game IMO. People like it because it is super hardcore. It is like a business simulator MMORPG at this point. Very weird game.
Enjoy my long rant.
Anyway back on the MMO subject, I have also played a lot of MMO beginning with the first Everquest, way back near when it came out. I have played a lot. Unfortunately at this junction, the MMO will not be "innovative" for a long time.
First of all, no MMO has even come CLOSE to World of Warcraft. WoW has taken so much of the market that other MMO are having a hard time competing. WoW might be a monopoly at this point. Before WoW we had lots of MMO such as Everquest, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies. When WoW came, basically it killed most other MMO. A lot of other MMO that come out either outright fail or just don't do very well, going to freeware.
Since WoW does so well, everyone basically goes with the formula. The thing is, that if all these new MMO come out with the same formula, then why play them? They are usually just WoW with slightly different flavor but done FAR worse. Like Warhammer online. It had a PVP twist but was a horrible game.
Then there are other people who want MMO to be more like action adventure games, especially Star Wars. There are many problems to this. First of all, the technology isn't there for the masses. Not only do these games need great hardware ( imagine, say, 100vs100 jedi in real time action ) but you also need a great internet connection. Although most of us in these forums do not suffer from this, the greater population would not be able to play a MMO Action/Adventure game with large scale real time combat. Thusly, a large target audience would be cut off. Classic MMO combat is very hardware/internet friendly. There is no "twitch" gameplay.
Second is the fact that without a "grind" it is harder to justify a $15 a month subscription fee. Part of the reason why MMO can get away with it is because basically the whole format is one giant time sink. They add in levels that go by slowly, then after you level you do raid dungeons that take 3-4 hours. Sometimes you are expected to do 3+ dungeon raids a week. Then you add in all the random loot, and all it does is make your numbers go up, which are basically inflated with each new dungeon release. With a more "innovative" MMO, such as real time combat, this would be harder to implement.
Of course there are innovative MMO that come out, but they are far and few in between. UO was innovative for it's time and IMO is more "innovative" than other MMO out there, despite the fact it was one of the first three or so. The problem is that it won't really hook players like WoW will and nobody at this age would pay $15 a month to play a game such as UO, which doesn't have giant dragon raids and phat lewtz, etc.
One of the best examples of innovation is EvE online, but honestly that game is a genre in itself practically. I think the only reason why the game is still afloat is because it has some real DIEHARD fans that keep it alive. It is not for the masses at all. It is a real "gimmicky" game IMO. People like it because it is super hardcore. It is like a business simulator MMORPG at this point. Very weird game.
Enjoy my long rant.