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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."
Can you say they are that original when they basically have AD&D/Lord of the Rings races in them?
As an old EverQuest player, I found that - aside from the endless grinding, sitting to regen mana, 28 minute spawn timers.... - there were strategies to many areas of the game, and part of the fun was figuring out those strategies, mastering them, and doing it with a team. Often a big team. Yes, there were lots of flaws, but I think it far surpassed Yahtzee with pretty pictures.
That said, I'm actually curious if some of these titles wouldn't do better with regular wipes and refreshes. I have had a very hard time getting into any MMO after the original EQ in large part because I always feel like I'm diving into something that isn't new, it's all already been discovered, guides posted, etc. I think it would be nice to have some MMOs that have fixed time-lines or a clever way to regularly make everyone restart, etc.
> I think it would be nice to have some MMOs that have fixed time-lines or a clever way to regularly make everyone restart, etc.
Currently what many do is go bankrupt and hold a final event.
I've played Archmage (a web and turn based online game) before, and ending was part of the game. You had people trying to get the game to end early (cast "armageddon") and people trying to stop them... Armageddon was inevitable though even if nobody casted it - the server would go into it eventually. Then the top 10 players end up on some "top ranking list".
http://wiki.the-reincarnation.org/index.php/Armageddon
The big problem with "final events" (e.g. say a "final" huge war in WoW) is naturally very many players would want to play during them. Then the servers might fall over and everyone gets pissed off.
That's fine if you're intending to close down the game, but not fine if you're not :).