The Stagnation of MMO industry/genre and why

Isn't stagnation the goal of every MMO? The goal of an MMO game is to keep people playing your game for...well, forever. If your game is a success, people keep playing it. They don't move on.

So on the notion of "hit" MMOs, once you have a hit MMO, shouldn't it make the rest of the industry seem stagnant?

Someone mentioned this above, but the genre is stagnant because the consumer is happy. If the majority of MMO players really wanted innovation, then the innovative MMOs that have come out would have done much better.

Innovation matters in FPS so much because players will move on to the new shiny. They don't "lose" anything by upgrading a game. But MMOs is a much different beast. I played DDO for a while (sidenote: I play SWTOR now because I am sick to death of MMO-style grinding, and am greatly enjoying the immersive story-focused gameplay of SWTOR leveling), and when SWTOR came out, a lot of players bailed for it...then came back after a couple months. Why? Because they got to endgame and realized they could either grind SWTOR, where they would have to start grinding from scratch, or they could go back to DDO, where they already had a lot of progress in the grinding. Players are much less likely to jump MMOs because so much "work" is lost when they do switch games.

That's why a really successful MMO, like WoW, keeps players, and makes the rest of the industry seem stagnant--players won't leave a successful MMO for the new shiny.

Personally, I think SWTOR did it right. They gave players something new with the immersive character-driven story-based leveling, while still giving people a familiar MMO experience (the trinity, endgame grinding, etc), all while putting it in an interesting and fairly open part of the Star Wars universe. And I do think it's funny with how many people call the game a failure. At over a million subscribers still (last number I heard was 1.3 million), this game can hardly be called a bust.

1. Get rid of sharding, have one single world
not possible with today's technology
2. Get rid of trinity, everyone is DPS OR invent new fun roles
um no thanks. You mention that more people choose dps than tanks or healers.....that's why there's supposed to be 6 people in a group. 1 healer 1 tank and 4 dps. BW choosing to have 4 people groups was a horrible design decision.
3. Get rid of static factionalism. Everyone is same faction with the ability to form their own rival groups or have dynamic factions.
I don't think this is a reason for the stagnation. I don't really disagree or agree. I think it works for some games, like TOR, you have sith and jedi. same with WoW. alliance horde. Some games multi faction is best. Like shadowbane, you form your own nations.
4. Get rid of levels and grinds. Introduce fun in the journey and forget about the destination. Introduce vanity, quality-of-life and title rewards for the achievement oriented players.
NO. I, like many many others, enjoy leveling. If anything they need to make it take longer to level. That's the real problem with MMOs these days. It take a week to level your char. MMOs in the past were successful because it took a long time to build your char, this caused you to build a close relationship with your char and you cared about the game more.
5. Do all the above and the MMOG industry becomes less stagnant, more vibrant
I disagree. I think the things you listed are minor factors. and some would make the industry worse.
I think the problem with the industry is them trying things like the things you listed.
They try to change core rpg mechanics, that don't need changing.
They don't focus on what actually needs to be improved, like the actual gameplay(gasp), and to innovate new quests.
Instead they focus on features that no one has ever asked for, like voice acting, or try changing core mechanics. like the grouping system. 1 healer 1 tank and 4 dps was proven to be the best a long time ago. Because that's the ratio of healers to tanks to dps on average in games. Getting rid of healers because people were dumb and went to 1 healer 1 tank and 2 dps in a group is going even further in the wrong direction. 1/3 of people like playing either a tank or healer. Why get rid a style that many people enjoy?

The actual gameplay/combat in TOR is extremely simple, and not innovative.

The reason no one is innovating what needs to be innovated is because people aren't demanding that. They aren't demanding complex intricate combat. Companies are only trying ot make money, not the best game they can. So they only listen when the cries on the forums reach a certain level.
Transfers for instance. They waited on those until 70% of people were demanding them....
Space combat off rails has some support but the majority aren't asking for it. So BW isn't going to change it much.
They are trying to cater to a large audience, and this large audience is rather dumb. So they demand things that don't make the game better.

TLDR: It's really a combination of the companies and a larger audience that doesn't know what's best for MMOs.
The companies want to please the most people possible. So they listen to the people who yell the loudest and the longest. These people usually don't know what made MMOs successful in the past, before it went mainstream. So the companies don't care about innovating things that matter, combat, quests, and raid layouts, and instead focus on things that a bunch of idiots want, even though these things don't make the game better.
LFG tool for example. Every flashpoint is centralized on the fleet. Meaning if someone was LFG, they'd probably be in the fleet. A LFG tool doesn't do anything. People thought that the fact they couldn't find a group, was because there was no LFG tool. When in reality, they weren't finding groups because no one was looking for a group.

You can not out World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft

Um, people called SWTOR a flop because it started with 2.4 million subs, and last we heard, in late march, it was 1.2 million subs.
And most call it a flop because it's a bad game, they don't even look at the subs. They only use the subs because you can't argue with numbers.

Except they do, in fact, have it easier from the perspective of skill required. In your situation, you require the DPS to do either of carefully monitor and manage the aggro between themselves, or chain taunt- which requires first a taunt *ability*, which not all DPS have, and second requires a higher level of skill than simply having one person tank it does.

Being able to kill it quicker doesn't equate to it being easier.

Wrong, at least in my view... Perhaps in 2007 yes. Not now. People want : Game with a budget akin to hollywood film that delivers content biannually.

SW:TOR had the hype, but only deliver 2 weeks of average 'fun'.

If they can start to reverse the population collapse then SWTOR might still have a chance... But given EA current bad situation (it's like 2008-2009 all over again).... Well I think subs is still over a million so that is still a sign that not ALL is lost... yet. If this game continue as the ~#2 MMO out there... well we'll see if people are happy or not in a year still. SWTOR is exciting but at the same time disappointing.

I could design, not code, a better MMO. BUT I know the current market, and what they want. They want crappy mmos where they can succeed with simple combat. If they aren't directed to every part of every quest, and if the quests aren't in a straight line, if they have to press more than 4 buttons to be successful, the majority won't play the game.
It's going to take a big name designer to push an actual good MMO. And when I say good, I am talking objectively, not what I would like.
Death penalty for example. The current death penalties in game need to be increased, not to the level of some older games, but they are still too weak. You're supposed to fear death. It makes the game better overall. You actually feel like you're in the world, not playing a game. Do I enjoy being penalized for dying? No, but I know it makes the game better.
Designers forgot about trying to make you feel like you're in a different world, and that's probably the most important part of an MMO.

Sharding is a useful option for the MMO, mostly for 'battleground', 'esport (huttball)' scenarios and warzones and pve instance.

I think this game will soon be rid of it's shard (or simply if the game dies) because of technology or some other evolution. It seems clear sharding [on the main planet and fleet] is a temporary solution until hardware and software catches up.

You’re absolutely right … You can not out World of Warcraft

That’s why you can’t build WoW with a new paint job.
By Blizzard’s own admission 7 out of 10 players that tried WoW didn’t make it past level 10 …. The MMO you have to make is for those 7 out of 10 players that showed an interest in MMO’s but turned there nose up at WoW.

Building another WoW is pointless, the next huge MMO will have to take every established MMO standard and break it.

I agree with you on all points except the trinity.

It's here to stay. Sorry, bud.

The "trinity" will always be. It reaches all the way back to the basic foundations of our society. The Tank, DPS, and healer has a direct correlation to the builder, the warrior, and the farmer.

One could make the same argument there: the warrior get's to run off and have all the fun while the builder and the farmer stay home and to the work. Yet they still choose to do it. And if everyone became a warrior, the society would fall apart.

An anthropologist, a biologist, a sociologist, a physiologist, and a philosopher could all give you a different reason for how this came to be, but all are valid. And they all apply to something as simple as a gaming environment.

So, while a game focused solely on DPS would succeed on the novelty alone at first, it eventually would spiral into a disastrous clusterfudge. You thought pugs were bad now.?

People need that disambiguation that definitive roles give them.