The Stagnation of MMO industry/genre and why

because,if you did that it would be a 3d avatar chatbox...basically,just another version of facebook

and there are alot of people who dont want this game turning into facebook

Leveling gets the average player to play the game more.

The is a reason every single game including FPS games now involve some sort of level process.

Wow was successful on many levels.

1. They leverage on their IP. Warcraft was already a popular IP. And they integrate their last RTS game with their new MMO.

2. They created a seamless world with many interesting place to visit fill with LORE. It is really a role player's dream come true. I cannot emphasis enough for an explorer, this is very important. It makes me WANT to explore the world. Players want to see a WORLD, not some location. (To digress, why do you imagine people want to visit Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, the Pyramid? Because these place has stories and history. People don't want to visit ABC Mall that has no history)

3. They make the game easier to play.

4. They give player a PURPOSE to play. (I can't stress this enough because before WoW, I quit MMO games in a day because after playing for a few hours, I lost interest because there was no reason to do anything)

5. They don't punish player (too much)

Now look at what SWTOR did in comparison.

1. SWTOR used the Starwars IP with some success but some not so successful. (e.g. not utilising space portion well)

2. They can't have seamless world (actually they can if they implement a free form space travel, even if it means near instant hyperspace travel, with freefrom landing and taking off instead of cutscenes. But more importantly, leveraging on the lore.

3. SWTOR definitely makes it even easier to play. This one I must give them credit.

4. Again, SWTOR takes this to the next level by putting story. But unfortunately, the execution is flawed. They should have gone with one single epic story instead of split into 8 different no-consequential storyline. (by all means have class story but you still need one main story to carry the entire universe)

5. SWTOR did this well....TOO WELL if that is such a thing. On the other hand, they punish players in other ways, like making players travel through hoops when it is not necessary (why are there no flight point/bind point next to the starship/shuttle?)

Regarding trinity, I have already said my piece. Trinity is tied to dungeon design. Nothing more. Change the dungeon design and trinity is irrelevant.

Let's see it another way, is there "trinity" in PvP? If you noticed, tanks and healers are irrelevant to winning a PvP. They helped but they are not a necessity.

yep..even the once level less fps games now have lvls...

every mmo that focuses even mildly on storyline and the like has levels...

levels give you a goal,and without levels,there is no goal and thus its all pointless....

removing levels would just turn this game into a lousy interactive movie

Funding...

I'm actually surprised at a different take on the model that Funcom is doing with The Secret World. It has copied a few things but I tried it out as per a friends suggestion and it has been a real surprise for me.

I never even played Guild War. I don't consider it MMO anyway. I think they are just glorified online game. But I must admit I am not qualified to comment on GW/2.

In any case, any game that has sharding already violated the design principles I laid out. Again I admit this is my opinion and you are free to agree or disagree.

By the way, my emphasis has always been "mainstream" games. I felt many games like SWTOR, WAR, AOC etc... could have been much more. But my prediction is they will just fizzle out eventually. Again, look for the pattern. Initial massive influx of players. After 1 month subscription exodus of players. Servers merging. And then some sort of equilibrium at maybe 100K players or so. I'm not saying these games are failures. I am saying they could have been much more if they dare to breakthrough.

Can games like SWTOR "fix it"? If they want to, sure. Just don't do another NGE and piss off some many players.

At first, start something small. Create ONE flashpoint where any levels can join and focus on the fun part. Maybe the reward can be an orange set (no mods) or some spiffy looking mount. Make that flashpoint dynamic so fights will be different. Allow classes of both imperials and republic to join. (The story could be enemies forced to co-operate to defeat a greater enemy, I know, it's a bit cliched) This experimental flashpoint already test level-less, faction-less and role-less concept.

As for single-shard concept. They can do this to a certain extent. Allow cross-server everything (and allow players to have same name but unique identifier) In fact, they are already considering "mega-server" so single shard concept is really not that far away. It just needs time.

I just wish they had used an updated engine.. I couldn't handle it. While I like the premise of the game and their concept the overall 'no levels' is actually just a play on words. You still have to level per se in that you have to get the additional abilities. If it truly was a no level game you could select them all from the wheel in the beginning.

I wonder how much hardware technology is part of this limitation.

I also think SWTOR don't have lack of content. In fact, SWTOR has TONS of content. The problem is because SWTOR did not have the 4 principles that I mentioned, players cannot enjoy those content due to various restrictions.

I mean, can I do Eternity Vault in level 10/20/30/40? Why not?

Or, can I do Hammer Station at level 50 and still have the same challenge when I was 15? Why not?

Why can't I (a Jedi) team up with a light side Sith?

Why can't I (and imperial Agent) hire a smuggler to infiltrate this enemy location with me?

Why can't I play with another player in another server, just because we're both called Han? (can we even call ourselves Han? Or Luke?)