The Rise of Originality In MMOs

Karen Hertzberg writes "Over the last half decade, gamers have been forced to wander through familiar worlds and universes. Studios have been licensing IPs left and right, grabbing everything from the Wheel of Time to Star Trek. Originality seemed to be a lost art, and although these worlds were fun to adventure in, many didn't hold the same sort of magical spell that original titles like EverQuest or Dark Age of Camelot once enjoyed. But change is coming. Blizzard Entertainment revealed that their next MMO would be an original IP, and this year's E3 lineup featured more brand new games than titles derived from existing worlds. So, why the sudden shift? To answer that question, Ten Ton Hammer's Cody 'Micajah' Bye sent a number of questions to original IP development teams across the world."

Comments

Is this some kind of viral advertising or what?

[Aceticon]

Announcing "The Rise of Originality" because Blizzard basically said they're going to do an MMO which is not based on an existing story is like announcing the rise of a new city because you saw a building shaped cloud in the sky.

For one thing, it's all talk at this stage - I do believe that Duke Nukem Forever stands as a shinning example of what exactly "just talk" is worth.

For another thing, just because it's not a downright copy of an existing story, doesn't mean it's not something similar to an existing MMO or a merging of existing models (like a WoW-clone but in space).

Is the OP trying to "create some buzz" as part of a viral marketing campaign, drive potential clicks to the adverts on a website's pages or just being a Blizzard fanboy?

Re:Well, there has been original IP

[Lonewolf666]

If you define "originality" as having original IP in an established genre (and possibly with the same game mechanics 20 other MMORPGs had before) then there is no shortage of it. Any MMO developer who puts together some generic fantasy background story instead of buying the license for an existing one qualifies.

Personally, I think a MMORPG needs at least one major feature that is not already established in similar form to be called original. That feature can either be the setting or a major part of the game mechanics. With that premise, the list of original MMORPGS becomes much shorter. Those I can list offhand, partly based on Wikipedia because I did not play them myself:
-Ultima Online: The founder of the genre. You can't be more original than that :-)
-Everquest: Brought 3D to MMORPGs. I guess that counts as "major part of the game mechanics". But most fantasy MMORPGS that came after that are just Everquest clones.
-DAOC: Realm versus Realm as major focus.
-Star Wars Galaxies: SciFi as setting, also may be the first MMORPG that had a deep and complex player economy (going from reports here, never played it myself).
-Jumpgate: The first MMORPG that actually had players flying spaceships, and player skill based on top of that.
-Eve Online: Space MMO with huge game world and strong strategic elements. Allows players to gain sovereignty of unpoliced space ("0.0 space"), with room for many factions.
-Neocron, for the post-apocalyptic, somewhat Mad Max-like setting.
-Auto Assault, again for the setting (and defunct by now).
-Pirates of the Burning Sea: At least, the setting is new. Plus some of the game mechanics seem original too.

So that is nine original ones I can come up with on short notice. Compared to the huge number of existing MMORPGs, a rather poor yield :-(

Re:Original IP: Don't care.

[Vohar]

You use Asian MMOs as an example of originality.

Seriously?

I've tried almost a dozen different Asian MMOs. They're all Lineage. They all have elves/dark elves, and they all run the same anime leaning forward crouch run thing. Gameplay feels the same for almost all of them. In the West it's the WoW-clones, in the East it's the Lineage clones.

Re:I don't want original IP

[jtev]

Actually, it's more of us and them. And the blood elves are on the Horde side. Also, it's a lot more lived in of a world, and it has a healty dose of steampunk from the goblins and gnomes. Even an Orc can be the hero of his own story in WoW.