Where's the Massive in MMOGs?
Grimwell writes "Like MMOG's? Concerned about their future? You should read Darniaq's article questioning the general approach to these games. From the article: 'I expect invention from Blizzard as I much as I would from the local Top 40 radio station. I'd hate to think that the entire breadth of MMOs is measured by the playing of a few of the hot selling titles. It's great what WoW has done for the genre, but man I hope people don't give up on the genre just because they hit 60 and realized they didn't want to spend 3 hours a night in Molten Core.'"
It seems to me that the author of this article is less knowledgeable of the subject at hand than one should be before climbing to the top of the mountain and shouting your opinion to the unwashed masses below.
Game evolution comes incrimentally. Not only that, it is shaped by the interest of the public.
What the author seems to want is a many thousand player MOO or MUSH. I'm sorry to be the one to break it to him, but most people just have no interest in such an open-ended environment. MOOs and MUSHes were always more niche and less popular than their MUD brethren (though there were big ones out there, don't get me wrong.) But whereas anyone is capable of typing in a few lines of text and thus creating an object in a MOO, a modern game requires the ability to create 3D Models. And not only that to animate them. And not only that to do so well enough that it warrants repetitious viewing.
The bottom line being, what we got is what we got, and it's going to evolve from there. If he is really dedicated to his "revolutionary" idea (which is as much a rehash of the past as anything on the market today), then he should put his time and effort into creating it.
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...