Week in Review: It's all about souls

@ChromeBallz

Why fix what isnt broken? Every game that has tried something inovative has failed. And i still think EQ was the benchmark, more people started getting internet and better computers when WOW started so it became more mainstream. I am not real sure why you feel Rift is so familiar with WOW, maybe because you push buttons for actions, and the soul tree goes vertical, looks like wow talent tree but doesnt work anything like it. If games are accessible to play and somewhat familiar with what people are used to, they wont keep any subscribers. If people would just keep in mind that NO mmo has a perfect launch, and that it takes more than a week for a game to really come into its own, then Rift will do great. But i know that i am talking to the wall. In my opinion, the hardcore rush to max level people have ruined mmo's as of late, and then they complain about "There isnt any end game content!" People enjoy the leveling and questing and pvp, stop rushing it! I know people that were 85 within hours of Cata release, i just think that is silly, because now they have to level alts and such, because Blizzard wont put out another expansion for 2 years. That keeps people paying their $15 bucks a month for that much longer. I think people should try out other games and also give them a chance. I personally think EQ 2 is one of the best mmo's on the market nowadays, i hate sony, but compared to wow it is 10 times the size and not been dumbed down like so many other mmo's. But all are entitled to their opinion, and that was mine.

Thing is that WoW 'defined' the genre - A lot of people think of the classic EQ/WoW gameplay when they think of an MMO, even though the genre itself doesn't have a definition.

WoW is also very casual friendly because of it's design - It took EQ's basic principles and made them accessible.

These two things are what's wrong with the industry, and the public, at the moment. There is a certain expectation of what an MMO is. You click on a monster to target it and then you hit the buttons on your action bar to kill it. Somehow WoW cemented this view in the public's mind.

The problem here is that WoW is so popular. For it's type it's by far the most known one aswell, obviously. People have friends in the game they don't want to leave, especially if the other game is so much like the one they're trying to leave in the first place. There's no point. If you want to play WoW, play WoW.

For the industry it's mostly just a moneygrab. They see WoW's success, and somehow they think they can compete with their upstart company against a multi-billion dollar organization with their little new game against a game that has had 500 people behind it's development for over 10 years now.

Innovation doesn't come from copying WoW and changing a single mechanic, like so many games have tried, which is why they have failed. Innovation comes from introducing an entirely new gameplay. Get rid of fixed classes and levels, get rid of the basic "kill mob and get xp" scheme. The Elder Scrolls levelling system is an incredibly good try and creating something that falls outside the classic DnD system which so many (mmo)rpg's cling on to. EVE Online is another example of how to try something different and be succesful.

Thing is that the MMO industry has gotten into a slump. No one dares to try anything new anymore because they're scared of failure, but WoW clones defeat the point since they would compete directly against the giant of the genre.

New MMO's need to have a big selling point, something to keep people playing beyond dishing out classic dungeoneering style treasure drops. They need to be fun to *play* for no other reason than playing it. Rewards, stats, levels, and everything else should be secondary to that philosophy. Rift's design however follows EQ's design a little too closely, hence the game feels old, not just familiar but /too/ familiar. I guarantee that at least 50% of the people that buy the game at release will go back to their original game, be that WoW, EQ2 or whatever, because of this - Why play some new game where you hardly know anyone when you can play your old game that plays almost exactly the same, where all your friends are?

I could name another few arguments why Rift is "not good enough", but i don't want to make it too long. Crux of the matter is that 'new' MMO's aren't new at all, but they need to be to revitalize the market. Devs shouldn't try to dethrone WoW. WoW got so succesful because it managed to draw in so many new players into the MMO genre, and new players is what you should be aiming for. Poaching customers from competitors will only end badly, as has been shown time and time again.