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The MMOGs of Tomorrow
SirBruce, of MMOGChart, took a good hard look at what the massive games of tomorrow will look like at E3. He has impressions of every game due to be released in the next year or so, with commentary on most. From the article, about Vanguard: "This title is highly anticipated by some of the MMOG hardcore, as it comes from ex-EverQuest developers Brad McQuaid and Jeff Butler, but aside from the graphics and the promise of in-game voice chat it does not seem to be very innovative over the original EQ1 design. The game is designed to be group-focused and highly challenging, which may mean it's too much of a time investment for the more casual MMOG player. If the game were coming out this year, I would have higher hopes for it, but I feel it may get lost behind the mass of other fantasy-themed MMORPG titles."
There were aspects of EQ's original design that, however nifty they seemed in theory, just didn't work out in practice (melees not binding themselves, for example). McQuaid was the major block to those aspects of the game being fixed and stood in the way of important gameplay improvements for years, until he left (or was forced to leave) Verant. Given the total failure on his part to acknowledge the failures and limitations of EQ's original design and his vocal committment to making Vanguard in the same spirit, I can only imagine the degree to which Vanguard will blow screaming past the border of user-unfriendly and make a beeline for user-malevolent.
It was funny that the only game developer to interview me and fly me to E3 in the late 90s was also the company that Verant split to make Everquest. I didn't know this at the time, and when they asked me about the future... I said,"MMOGS are the future!" Basically I shot myself in the foot. I was right, but they didn't want to hire me because they just lost half their development team to Verant.
God spoke to me.
Well, I dont know if this post is actually joking (hell, it was moderated as Funny) but I dont agree with most of what you say (except the buttscratching part :).
It comes down to the Usual Ganker vs Carebear approach (PvP vs PvE approach if you prefer).
I'm a hardcore player (as in, I invest a shitload of time leveling my char and aquiring gear). Still, I'm not interested in:
1. Having to camp a spawn of a rare mob I need. Its retarded to have someone waste hours on end waiting for a spawn. I'm not interested in racing, and much less making a rotation to see who kill the mobs first and who doesn't.
2. Being killed by a higher level that's running around farming noobies (mandatory PvP, worse if he could loot my very-hard-earned gear).
3. Timesinks (as in running during 25 minutes seeing the same tree pass by 500 times). I agree that autoteleport everywhere kills immersion, but 15 minutes/20 minutes of load screens is no good either (Going to make myself some coffe also kills immersion).
I think that WoW made the right approach making 2 rulesets on different servers: Mandatory PvP and Voluntary PvP. What they did do wrong, is adding EQ-style non-instanced raid bosses to please the old EQers, and some flight paths, even if they help the perception of a "big" world, sometimes is a bit excesive.