Are MMOs fulfilling their potential?

I don't think they are.

I think that SWG came closest so far but in my opinion the money men got a hold of MMORPG's once they saw how popular WOW became and realised they could make a Quid or Two out of these games, from then on I think componies have copied the WOW model for quick buck and now no one else dare try anything to out of the box through fear of failure.

The best chance we have of see'ing another truely innovative MMORPG in my opinion is if it is made in someones bedroom. but then the money men will take hold again, rince repeat...

I see where you're coming from, but I have a little more faith in the creativity and ambition of a select few professional developers.

Nope. Simply because of the cost of making MMO content. Anything a singleplayer does cost at least twice as much to do in an MMO. Along with that, unlike Singleplayer games, MMO players focus heavily on the end-game content. In a way, we can blame our playstyle for the "raiding" priority focus in MMOs.

well, if your going to bring up Alan Turing, I will raise you the Abacus and the Antikythera Mechanism. In otherwords citing Alan Turing as the inventor of the modern sci fi genre of artificial intelligence assumes that he set out with intent of creating an artificially intelligent being and not a computational machine. In which case you might as well assume that the same was true of both those ancient artifacts.

MMO potential isn't actually creating virtual worlds, Elf. Sorry to burst that bubble.

You see, the reality is that the potential of the MMO game is to waste your time. That's it. It's purpose, intention and end result is a massive time waste. Seems a bit wrong, sure, but it's all in the name of good entertainment. I mean really, name some for of fun that's productive. It's impossible.

Are MMO's fulfilling their potential?

No, they are not.

Other than bells and whistle being improved, the games themselves are devolving.

The players have been "tricked" into thinking that endgame is what it is all about. This means the adventuring (levelling) part of the game, which used to actually be the game, is now an afterthought to be burned through as fast as possible. This has been done because it is either too much work or too expensive to design and develop compelling adventuring games. It is much cheaper and easier to knock out a few short missions and have people play them over and over. It's been a brilliantly nefarious plan. Devolve the adventuring/levelling part of the game into nothing more than a boringly repetitive grind to minimize the importance of it so that you can yank it away from players and have them actually be thankful for the removal of content.

The multiplayer part of the game has devolved into near irrelevance. An MMO that can be solo'ed from start to finish is a complete waste of the genre. Yes, some people prefer to solo but why bother playing an MMO if that is the case? Why pay a subscription to play a game when you have so many actual solo games to play for the price of the box.

Cash shops are another sign of this devolution. Everything in cash shops used to be included in the game for the price of subscription. Again, they have conditioned the customers into not only accepting this, but to actually embrace it. They have done this gradually. It started by holding features back long enough that the players will be so happy when they are finally added that they will pay extra for them. Now players actually think charging extra is good and that these features would never be implemented without extra charges even though that was not the case just a few years ago. And they haven't stopped there. Now, new content and features can't even bought outright, but have to be purchased via gambling bags/lottery tickets.

The "innovation" in TOR is voice over and cutscenes. Wing Commander had both, with much better actors. Fallout had many known actors voicing the NPC's, and had branching plots with actual multiple outcomes that actually affected the outcome of the story. This was nearly 20 years ago, and now an "innovative" feature is a lesser version of these predecessors.

That's a bit nihilistic a viewpoint, isn't it?

So what? A subscriber playing an MMO will pay more than double the cost of a solo game in less than 4 months.

Some MMO players do focus on the endgame but MMO's are now designed to do just that. The game has been changed to make it easier and cheaper to make, not to make it more fun to play. That is accomplished by shifting the focus to what used to be 5% of the game.

A bit, yeah. But it's the accurate viewpoint. Video games, hell all games in general, were created solely to waste time. Can't spend your whole life with a goal, you'd go mad and kill yourself. Though, flip side, too much wasted time and you'd die of stagnation. That's why it's good to have a blend of both. A good balance of waste and work and you'll generally live to see 80, give or take a falling piano.

I could potentially list half a dozen things that are fun or for fun that are productive in some manner of argumentation. MMO's (at least the first person shooter variety or so I am told) are one such example. Did you know that Brain Surgeons practice their eye hand coordination by playing video games?