The Stagnation of MMO industry/genre and why

SWG came out in a time where MMOs weren't even that popular. It was released over a year before WoW and during a time when cable/dsl modems were expensive and not very well in supply in some areas. I truly believe that is SWG had came out from BW/EA with the same concept but updated graphics and better design in today's terms, I would bet that SWG would have done just as well if not better than this game.

You really can't compare the two. I mean WoW is very similar to EQ but yet EQ never reached the status of WoW, or even close. But EQ was release back in what 98? A time where if you had a personal pc you were considered rich? Better if you had internet with your PC you were considered spoiled or at least fairly wealthy. But I guess back then in general us America were better off than we are today.

Edit: of course EQ was more hardcore and time consuming than WoW though.

Actually, until NGE it was still doing quite well. Well, CU hurt a lot of folks.

I would also say, good read to the OP.

The quoted post is short, sweet, and to te point. I also do not understand devs. They create a product to be mass marketed and seem to be totally out of touch with their customer base which is ignored for all intents and purposes.

I remember the hype and excitement pre launch. People were told that there would be a trinity but it was not essential and groups of different composition would be able to tackle almost all of the content. I remember being told that this was a story driven MMO and that solo and/or small group players would be able to experience most content and have a rewarding experience with much to do at cap. I remember a lot of things that swtor was supposed to be. Things that brought excitement and a desire to play to many people. The reality is as stated in the quoted post. The game is what it is. That is a trinity based, group oriented, raid or die at cap clone of that other game. So you have hit cap. Throw away your companion(s) because other than dailies and crafting missions, they are useless.

I think that the MMO industry is indeed stagnant. I also believe that there is a significant unsatisfied demand for MMOs. I believe that there are raiders, pvpers, etc. but most potential customers just simply want to be able to log on when they want, play how they want, and enjoy themselves and that the existing MMOs deliver that for a limited time (to cap) and then for such players the game is done because there is nothing to do. That other MMO is starting to pay lip service to the concept that the end game should be more than raid or die. It will be interesting to see what they come up with and if they can breath some life into what is an old and tired game.

1. Several newer MMOs have virtual or dynamic sharding (not sure if that's the official term, though). In this system, "shards" are created or removed in response to player load, but their only real function is to cut down on lag. Players can communicate across them and transit from one shard to another freely. I'm hoping this model catches on, but, so far, I've only seen it in games that I wouldn't really call successful. Though the failures of those games are readily attributable to reasons that have nothing to do with dynamic sharding, I'd hate to see a good idea dismissed due to bad context.

2. One game (that's already been mentioned) does this decently, by defining CC and buffing/debuffing as separate roles. The "thief" role has also been mentioned - it actually exists out there in an MMO based on a very popular tabletop RPG ruleset, and it's a lot of fun. I'd love to see more "utility" roles be emphasized, like tracking or scouting or smooth talking or whatever.

However, simply having new roles isn't sufficient to break the trinity - as has been said, developers need to stop designing encounters around the trinity specifically. I know it's been said, but it's worth repeating in the face of people who argue that the trinity is the best approach. It's only the best because developers make it the best. For example, devs load up tanks with far more hit points and damage resistance than anyone else, then give bosses the ability to one-shot anything but the tanks; healers are made necessary because the tanks can't withstand a second hit and aren't given any significant self-heals. If the boss doesn't have enough HP to keep the DPS busy, devs throw in waves of trash mobs to make them feel useful. There are exceptions, but that's the general template I've seen in hard trinity games, and it's the result of design decisions which force that particular tactic. I'd like to see devs free themselves of that straightjacket.

3. Factions - eh, I like 'em, to be honest, and if there's a storyline reason for them, it can feel unnatural to not have them. I can get behind the idea of a default neutral faction that everyone starts in, and letting people pick which faction they want or never pick a faction at all. And I'm surprised the option to switch sides doesn't appear more often.

4. Not sure it's possible. Progression is too important for too many people. However, I do think it's possible to de-emphasize the differences between levels (or gear tiers) and still retain the same sense of progression. Plus, I'm surprised that more MMOs don't make more use of level/gear normalization, at least so that friends with characters at different levels can play together.

I wouldn't fully blame the developers for the games' (in general) stagnation. I would also blame part of the players who:

• play a game simply because it is a well-known franchise. Most of the time, quality is not important for them
• buy games simply because they like the company developing it. Again, quality is not that important
• fanboism of any kind
• they have very little past experience with games OR they have limited knowledge of gaming in general (see facebook games)

It is the same case as with movies and 3D, who attract an unhealthy amount of viewers for god knows what reason. People are not "educated" enough. Of course, there are those who simply don't care, but they are an exception.

Gaming has become a huge thing, financially speaking, in the last 10 years. Studios that were made out of 10 people in the 90's are now industry giants, with budgets enough to support a small country (in other cases, buy one).
These companies are now led by people looking on tables, graphs, statistics. I am willing to bet that most of the CEO's and other high raking subordinates don't even play the games their companies are making. They look at the company's stocks and decide what's the next step or if a product is good or bad, based on the number of sales.
It is the sad truth of the world we live in nowadays.

The audience itself is new. Being born in 1990 I grew up with Thundercats, Eek the cat, Life with Louie, Jack the pirate and so on. I played games like Heretic, Hexen, Dark Forces, Unreal, Lost Vikings or Skynet. I watched movies like Terminator, Blade Runner, Commando, Alien, Dirty Harry and Lethal Weapon.
However, audiences like me and the others who were born at the same time or before me are no longer relevant in the grand scheme of things, in a world where everything is based around marketing.
Just like in the cartoon or movie industry, I just started to get used to the fact that games are never going to be as they used to.
Because there is a new audience who grew up with consoles like PS3 or XB360. Grew up with games like Crysis or COD: MW2, with CGI movies. They will never know how happy we were back in the days of good ol' dial-up modems when we downloaded something with 30kb/s.
And I don't blame them.

They grew up with WoW as their first "big game" so it is only natural that it is a standard for them. Look at these forums and count the number of people asking for WoW-like features and/or calling us crazy for asking for innovation by responding with "this must be your first mmo".
Again, can you really blame them for that?

I personally believe that the only reason devs are still using the WoW as their main inspiration source is because they are afraid of innovation and would rather use the things that made the competition flourish. Because it all comes down to profit. And that is also because companies are ran by people who have absolutely no idea what gaming is.
It all falls down on the development team, who no matter how dedicated, must do whatever the stockholders say or else...
Gaming companies is general have become like robots: there is very little emotional involvement in their products, they are very secretive and very strict, they take things very seriously (too seriously if you ask me), they have a single mindset - make more money, everything else is irrelevant.

The marketing department has become heavily involved in the development of a game, by pushing release dates, retail prices, ideal sale numbers but also the theme of the game, gameplay limits, story, graphics, sound. I am saying this because I know from a few close friends that working as a developer at a big budget gaming company is no walk in the park and that you are given very strict orders which you have to obey or you're thrown out.

This is why companies shamelessly "import" features from the competition, simply because it worked for them.
The "new-age" gamers are getting used to that and start to think that it is actually a good thing as they have no previous knowledge of "old-age" gaming.

So companies have no problems in any way to continue to launch bland, overused and repetitive gameplay features, because no matter how low they'll go, there will always be an audience (very young audience mostly) who will gladly pay 60$ for the same game with a different title every year and who will defend their beloved gaming companies from any usurper who dares to think that these games and companies are anything but perfect.

I have ever since the launch of SWTOR said that if this game aims only to be a clone with story, it will not be as successful as any Star Wars fan wanted. I have specifically said that it had potential. But what it needs is:

• action oriented combat, like in Jedi Academy
• not on-rails space combat
• larger planets with more replayability value
• less raid-driven content and more player-driven content
• minigames

Even during the beta I expressed my concerns regarding the "holy trinity" and the "themeparkisation", and I wasn't the only one. Now we're 6 months after launch and after 6 months of continuous feedback, Bioware has announced that we are going to be given more themepark and generally more of the same.

While I am not a fortuneteller and can't know for sure what surprises Bioware has in store for us in the future, I continue to feel that posting messages like this one is pointless, because I feel that they will continue to do what they think is right and not what the community asks.

Just look at how "many" devs respond to threads in the Suggestion section. Yeah, not that many, except the moderators who occasionally delete a reply or close a thread.
And this brings me back to the above statement that these companies feel more like robots than alive people.
There is very little communication between devs and the community (a thing which was common back in the day), a lot of secrecy and a lot of control over everything. Just like at the big gaming conventions where only the convenient questions are answered and we are treated with a trailer at best.

But there is good news: people seem to have woken up somewhat in the past few years and they seem to be pushing the devs away from the stagnation the OP has been talking about. Slowly, but surely we are moving away from the WoW-era and that is proven by at least one of the more recent mmorpgs, which even though are far, far from being any good, have implemented at least one interesting and innovative feature (like action-oriented combat in the detriment of hotkey combat). And that is a step forward.

However, we are still not there yet and as long as gaming companies continue to be ran by the marketing departments, gaming in general will continue to be considered the second Hollywood.

I don't know if anyone took the time to read this entire post or if they agree to it. I honestly don't care either. It is how I feel about the current state of gaming and mmos and I felt like expressing this in a thread where maybe 3 people at most will read more than the first 2 paragraphs. It is my opinion and I stand by it, until someone proves me wrong.

The only saving grace of MMOs is the influx of new virgin mmo players, players that are not burned out on grinding, leveling and all the stupid gear crap. Its a dead end with current players. If you make too many changes, they dismiss your game, if you are too conservative, they will not switch to your game.

I really dont know what can be done with this genre for ppl that are burned out on it. From business point of view i would be just looking for fresh new young 13 years old customers just as cigarettes manufactures look to bring new smokers to their market.

Grinding, gear and leveling is pure evil. But remove this and MMO just crumbles down being unable to maintain subscriptions. Its a conflict between us players that like to have finality, no endless grinding, and devs wanting to keep us paying them money for years.

Its a very sad day for every mmo player, that realizes that there is actually no happy end in an mmo.

SWTOR is no WoW clone. The production quality of the two is totally incomparable. As far as I'm concerned, nobody has been able to even match WoW's production quality, they are all cheap imitations that cut too many developmental corners. This is why even with WoW declining and cannibalizing itself with horrible design decisions, no MMO is rising to take it's place.

I applaud your efforts OP but they are of no use here. You're preaching to the choir. These games aren't made by MMO fans or even gamers, but business execs who hold the almighty dollar much higher than artistic integrity, innovation and fun. And as long as they continue down that path, they deserve to continue failing on a multi-million dollar scale.

Removing levels from an RPG seems very, very wrong to me. Gaining a level and getting access to new abilities and improving your stats are some of the greatest joys of an RPG. One of the things that separates the genre from action games/shooters (which, unfortunately, start to creep into RPGs more and more often; and those FPS players usually praise MMORPGs which want to introduce things like actively blocking or dodging... sigh).

NOT TRUE!!
SWG was failing hard. It had dropped off around the same rate as Warhammer Online did.

When a games own developers say it was doing bad you know it was doing bad

http://rubenfield.com/?p=86

not at all. SWG would have never survived todays market. It barely had any features. What it did get was a really commited RP community that helped the game stay alive.

The game itself was crap but the universe is what the people loved so they stayed and made it into their own game.