The Stagnation of MMO industry/genre and why

1. Sharding - you can really get rid of this. Technology wise, a computer can only handle so much information at a time. If all the sudden you saw 10,000 people on your screen, i gurantee even the best computer would go on you. That doesn't mean though that there aren't ways around this so that the world still appears vivid and lively. Can you imagine chat with 10,000 people all talking at once So unless they are using really really really big super-computers.. sharding has to stay. But again, it doesn't means there aren't ways around it.

2. The Trinity - I think anyone who has played MMO's for any given time HATES this. It forces people to having to play certain ways. There's no dynamic play involved. You HAVE to have a Tank, you HAVE to have a healer, you HAVE.... why do I HAVE to?? just because I'm a Doctor, doesn't mean I don't know extensive Kung Fu / Karate / Tai Kwan Do / etc... And just becasue I'm a Boxer, doesn't mean I didn't graduate med school. Maybe you can throw a harder punch, or have a little more endurance becasue you have been training for it, but why is the healer ALWAYS so defenseless?? 2 hits and BAM - dead. WHY. Did I somehow forget how to fight just because I'm a "healer?"

I have seen some companies try and take it out, but it ALWAYS somehows creeps back in. And the excuse is "Well it's for class balance." Well then build the freaking classes / game equally. Quit using the Trinity as an excuse to change. Using the doctor (healer) example from above.. how come the Doctor can't Tank / DPS too?? he knows Martial Arts which means he can hit and dodge too. yeah, he might not hit as hard as the boxer, or have the same endurance as say a runner, but that doesn't mean he can't do it or that he's some involate that needs protection cause he's some weakling. Even an Archer, if someone got close enough, they could hold their own as they were trained as well in up-close battles - not just shooting arrows at people. By far the Trinity needs to go the way of the 8-track.

3. Factionism - This one is ehhhhh not quite sure. Still kinda on the fence with this one. it works in some, others it doesn't. There are options out there, but I'm still thinking on this one.

4. Grinding and Leveling - We understand why it's there - keep you playing as long as possible, but there is an inherent problem - it creates gaps and so if you don't keep up with the Jones', you're stuck at a level trying to level when no one is around your level to help (lots of levels in that sentence - I think I leveled it up)

I will say this DCUO had the right idea and SWTOR is also leaning in the right direction. With DCUO their whole thing was "Get to max level as fast as possible, cause that's where eveeryone wants to be anyways." I mean even a lazy lazy lazy casual player could make max level; it was "if you're not max level within 3 days - you really aren't trying." And that was playing only 2 hours a day. it was outrageously easy. Where they failed though was in content. There wasn't enough content and what they had became very repetative very fast.

We have these large planets with a bunch of open space that's not even being used. How is it epic to sit killing the same mobs over and over again for 10 hours? How is it epic to get a quest and it says "We need you to go and kill 20 of these. Now go kill 40 more" The basics of questing haven't changed AT ALL. It's overdue for an overhaul

A few things...

Everquest:
The OP barely even mentions Everquest. It was the true "grandaddy" of the modern MMO. There were games before it, and EQ borrowed heavily from those, but it was truely the beginning of what we now call an MMO. Almost every MMO that has come after it is a virtual clone of all of EQ's game mechanics.

WoW:
The real reason for the stagnation and slow crawl to the death of the MMO industry is WoW. Perhaps not WoW the Game, but WoW the Cash Machine. Nobody is trying to make a new MMO anymore, they are just trying to emulate WoW's money making formula of a game for non-gamers.

Us, The Players:
The modern MMO players, primarily WoW players, do not want to be challenged or tested in any way. We want everything to be simple and easy. We demand no-thought-required gameplay, and then we cry when we beat it in a few weeks of play. We want a world where every player can solo from creation to max level and then cry when nobody groups up and the gameworld has no sense of community. We want "balanced" classes and then we cry when all classes play exactly the same. We want a game we can log onto and play in an hour of playing time, and then we cry when we get bored of it in a month. We have only ourselves to blame!

I think this is a terribly unfair stereotype. WoW is still filled with hardcore raiders and far more active guilds than this or any other game. They have dungeons with boss mechanics to rival anything else out there, if that's what you want.

They *also* have a lot of easy, no-challenge content which most players prefer. You can ride around on your pretty pony or just hang out in the capital city all day with your infinity gold. WoW caters to everyone, and they certainly haven't made all classes play the same like this game does.

I don't see any reason to blame WoW or MMO gamers in general for giving people what they want - and yes, that even includes hard-core people who still have their hard/expert/insane dungeons in every MMO out there.

WoW has over 10 years of development behind it. Its nearly impossible for another game to pack that much experience and content out of the box on launch day. But that is what everyone expects and they are always disappointed when its not there. To be fair SWTOR packed in an enormous amount of content for its launch compared to other MMO's launch dates. But its still not enough because everyone has WoW's shadow falling over them. Its not fair for new games but that is the reality. No MMO since wow's launch has been able to overtake it for that very reason. Warcraft has become the black hole of MMOs, its so massive that it just sucks everything into it whether you like it or not.

There are a lot of great posts in this thread, and I enjoyed reading a lot of them. I would like to mention one thing I've seen a few times though; the "why add another world when we already have many?"

The reason is because it's a new planet, which is more attention-grabbing than an old planet. To a player already grounded in SW:TOR, it's something new to explore, completely different from everything else. I'd be more excited about a brand-new planet than I would be a brand-new area on Hoth, for example. It comes with its own people, its own place in the various power struggles, and more. The benefits of designing a new planet with new quests would outweigh the relatively little time saved from adding to an existing planet. It's just the way most people work.

I feel I am going to be in the minority here, but I have to disagree with most of your points.

I have always enjoyed the "holy trinity" mechanic. I have a group of friends I have been playing with for the past 5-6 years. We switch out rolls every now and then to mix things up and we all enjoy ourselves. I am not saying this is for everyone. Just look at how well Guild Wars 1 did, or EVE. There is a market for non-holy trinity games, but again, this is a niche market as you mentioned. There is a very good reason why the Holy Trinity has been around for so long ... it works, and most people enjoy the structure.

Factions make games more interesting. I remember playing EQ1 for a few years back in the late 90s early 00s then moving over to DAoC and feeling amazed at the PvP, RvR and faction based quest lines. WoW is a poor example of faction implimentation as there was very little interaction, or reason for interaction besides battle ground loot. I think the fix for this would be to impliment a REASON to kill the other faction ... add in some kinda system to "protect" your realm, and/or people from the oppisite faction. Add in relics, or artifacts that can be stolen by the opposing faction, and give them a reason TO steal it in the first place .. such as a realm wide buff for each realic your faction holds. Without this incentive world PvP, or RvR will never work. You can not expect people to just go out of their way to PvP for no reason at all, and all games that try will eventually gravitate towares a battleground type system.

On the other hand I do agree with you about sharding, it's been a bad habit of games for a long time to do this. Instead of breaking up your playerbase into small groups why not have a system similar to Guildwars where you have your designated meeting areas, and maybe small solo areas around those meeting areas, and a "sign-up board" that acts like a LFG tool which brings you to your desingnated location, or allows you to bypass a zone boarder once you have a group where all the mobs will be "elite" level.

Speaking of elite level mobs, I hate that you can solo your way through these games now. I really miss the days of NEEDING a group to progress ... most people will cringe at the throught of Needing a group, but it worked back in EQ1, and would work even better with todays technology. If you need a group of people from the beginning people will be more willing to group throughout the game, as it will be expected, and necessary.

Everquest added a lot to the genre, but Ultima Online is still called the grand daddy of mmo's not because it was the first. Which it wasn't but because it is considered the first "main stream" mmo.
Which even in its day was a niche in pc gaming market, Which EQ expanded on and made even more popular.
But even then EQ was more or less a niche game, not until WoW rolled around did the mmo market sky rocket.

Also all the things the OP talks about have been done in multiple MMO's as people have pointed out. And are continuing to come out in future mmo's "cough" GW2 "cough". Reading the OP at first, I thought it was a pitch for GW2.

*Bangs head on desk*

IT WAS NOT THE FIRST!!!!
Jesus I wished people actually did a google search before posting this nonsense!

1991 -1997
1) Neverwinter Nights on AOL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwi...ghts_(AOL_game)

2) Imagination Network game I forget name of

3) The Realms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Realm_Online

4) Dark Sun Online
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Sun_Online

5) Meridian 59
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_59

6) Twilight Lands
(no wiki, went bankrupt soon after launching before UO hit the sceen)

7) Ultima Online
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Online

HAVE I MADE MY POINT YET????

And if you actually do some research and read these pages, EVEN UO doesnt claim to be the first or most influencial. So why do you fanbois insist on trying to rewrite history to your own liking?????

PS: EQ is the BIGGUN and anyone that played back then knows the current genre is based off EQ, not UO. EQ is the template for themepark MMORPGs and was copied in a assortment of games, not to mention WOW who basically copied EQ and then just dumbed everything down to the lowest common denominator.

UO is not the first
UO is not the template for modern MMORPGs
UOs biggest claim to fame is houseing (they updated the concept introduced FIRST in The Realms) and having 1000 players on a server at one time (previous high was 750 by NWN on AOL (thats right, there was only a 250 player difference between NWN and UO for supporting online. It wasnt this amazing break through and new standard and if you played UO at launch you know the 1000 players number was just a selling point, the lag was idiotic and was unplayable for many people. In reality UO should have released with 500 player caps on servers) just before it shut down in 97)

And cosmic is correct that EQ borrowed heavily from those games that came BEFORE UO. EQ did not borrow from UO and actually sold their product on the fact they were the opposite of UO (which was hugely appealing to the masses that left UO shortly after buying the game)

So can you and yours PLEASE stop trying to rewrite history to your own desires.
Just because you didnt play those games before UO doesnt mean they didnt exist and didnt heavily influence EQ (which again has become the staple to build off of in the MMORPG genre).

No. The Secret World is beautiful, but all it does is essentially hide the levels and trinity. I don't want a game where I can be a tank/healer/DPS. I want a game where I can be whatever I want. But the insistence on making these heavily scripted fights that rely on [X] amount of aggro control, DPS and healing strangle creativity.

Very well written and some great points, but it sounds like you are talking about Counter Strike. All players are the same levels with the same skills and lots of maps.

4. This is the one I disagree most with, and of course this is opinion. Leveling is the heart and soul of RPGs, whether single player or MMO. It represents the growth and learning through the experiences you encounter through your adventure. Take that away, and it it not an RPG IMO.

I've been playing MMOs since UO, and have tried or played many since. 5 years on UO, 6 years on WOW, and much less on many others. I'm not sure yet how long SWTOR will last, but I am having a blast (at level 35 right now). If there was no leveling, I would not be playing. I've always loved leveling more than end game, to me that is where the meat of the game is. I had 8 lvl 85's in WOW before I quit, each a different class. I stopped playing them at 85. I would not have played it that long if there were not so many class/race/faction choices to make it interesting.

An MMO without these choices will not succeed financially, because faction conflicts, class/race choices, and different leveling experiences are what keep people paying for the long haul.