Indeed, WoW is dumbed down compared to what UO was/is.
A bright future for MMOs...Is this the death of WoW?
- Thread starter chris_uk333
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Indeed, WoW is dumbed down compared to what UO was/is.
Warhammer online certainly offers a lot more in terms of graphics, open quests and gameplay for me anyway.
I won't be going back to WOW although I did get a character to level 48 once.
It's the main reason that I won't go near Aion. It looks Ainme like pokemon for adults.
I know some are into Anime in a heavy way but it doesn't float my boat and playing a game full of these type of characters would not be my cup of tea.
no matter what anyone says about WoW it will be the best mmo for along time, i also have not heard about them 2 games, and yeh even if 50% of players quit wow they have 5-6million to fall back on 
, WoW isnt gonna be beaten for years to come.
, WoW isnt gonna be beaten for years to come.
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I think some people are looking at it the wrong way. Think of it like TV. Because Eastenders has the most viewing figures does that mean every TV show has to be like that? Or what about movie charts..I probably wouldn't want to see maybe 1 or 2 in the most popular ones out atm.
I don't think Darkfall is trying to "beat" WoW, its simply a different MMO with different rules, different goals for the player etc. I don't really like games like WoW but I would love to play a game like UO done well with modern graphics and a decent size playerbase.
Re WoW, imo eventually something will come along that offers WoW players everything they get in WoW and more, and that might spell the end of it..WoW2? World of Starcraft? Or maybe from some other company..
I think there is a market for Darkfall though. There will be people who play/have played WoW who want to try something different, people who played UO originally and want something similar, and people who just want to try something a bit different to what they're used to.
Some videos here if anyone's wondering what Darkfall is. The Muffins "Darkfall Is Coming" Video will give you an overview (4.24 mins on the playlist), and the 17 min one is pretty good too. http://cosmixy.info/darkfall/
I don't think Darkfall is trying to "beat" WoW, its simply a different MMO with different rules, different goals for the player etc. I don't really like games like WoW but I would love to play a game like UO done well with modern graphics and a decent size playerbase.
Re WoW, imo eventually something will come along that offers WoW players everything they get in WoW and more, and that might spell the end of it..WoW2? World of Starcraft? Or maybe from some other company..
I think there is a market for Darkfall though. There will be people who play/have played WoW who want to try something different, people who played UO originally and want something similar, and people who just want to try something a bit different to what they're used to.
Some videos here if anyone's wondering what Darkfall is. The Muffins "Darkfall Is Coming" Video will give you an overview (4.24 mins on the playlist), and the 17 min one is pretty good too. http://cosmixy.info/darkfall/
Neither look overly innovative to me. Darkfall is UO with new graphics, Spellborn is "yet another MMO by numbers". I know UO is held as some sort of sacred cow by some, but in reality that type of MMO is going to be niche at best these days. UO style play lost out to the safe EQ style play.
Both niche at best. Spellborn getting less of a vote because of their delightful distribution issues...
Both niche at best. Spellborn getting less of a vote because of their delightful distribution issues...
You're certainly right that Darkfall and that Spellborn one wont get WoW numbers, though I am still puzzled as to why you think Darkfall isnt innovative. The features that it already has in beta alone are more innovative than anything in an MMO for a decade.
On the UO thing, absolutely yes...I would absolutely go straight for an updated UO. Its precisely the thing I have been looking for in an MMO for 7 years. a lot, and I mean a lot of the current MMO userbase wouldnt tolerate a UO style MMO of course, but as EvE, EQ2 and WW2 online have shown you dont need millions of subscribers to be a successful MMO, all you need to do is attract the correct niche of players and get a stable userbase.
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Pardon me if I wrong Tombstone, but you seem to regard UO in the same way modern MMO players regard WoW. It's one of the first times you have ever been fully immersed inside this amazing "virtual world", and that feeling dosen't go away easily anything that changes the fundamentals just dosen't feel the same.
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Thing is though, plenty of the people who were playing UO stopped playing it because it was not evolving / getting any more "modern". WoW started as NOT being modern (you can't say WoW graphics are the "best" in the gaming world). WoW also feels dumbed down, to make it appeal to the masses.
UO is a great benchmark for MMORPG, and so far very few have come close to it.
Pardon me if I wrong Tombstone, but you seem to regard UO in the same way modern MMO players regard WoW. It's one of the first times you have ever been fully immersed inside this amazing "virtual world", and that feeling dosen't go away easily anything that changes the fundamentals just dosen't feel the same.
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Thats entirely possible, if WoW was a persons first MMO they most likely will have a special place in their hearts for it. I guess its the same for everyones first MMO. UO was actually my 2nd MMO. My fondness for UO doesnt just come down to it being one of my first though, its much more to do with that term you use "virtual world". UO had such a level of freedom to it, the choices available to you the player were phenomenal, and truly made it feel like a "virtual world", whereas to me most modern MMOs dont feel like virtual worlds, they feel like virtual games.
For me, its a sad comment on how the MMO genre has progressed (or not) that you can do things in UO with your character that are impossible in most of the so-called "next gen" MMOs nearly 12 years later.
a lot of it entirely depends upon what you as a player want from an MMO though, if you want to do dungeons and collect the best piece of <item> +<insert number> to <skill> then many of the post-UO MMOs are perfect. If however you want a virtual world where the options available to you as a character within that world are as wide as possible, then the modern MMOs just dont fulfill it. I seek a living breathing virtual world, where actions have repercussions, where its my choice to be a good guy or a bad guy rather than having to be a good guy, where my character should fear death not treat it as a minor time inconvenience.
Its not an MMO choice thats for everyone, and I think that most modern MMOers really would find it far too harsh, but thats the beauty of the genre... there should be MMOs for everyones playstyles. I fear that too many dev teams have simply tried to jump on the cash cow after seeing the money made by WoW and try to replicate it, every now and then though a dev team comes along who says "no...no we arent going for the money, we will try and do what we want to do" , EvE online and WW2 online are 2 examples of successes that are trying to do something different, to present the gamer with choice. On paper at least, Darkfall seems to also be trying to do something a little different, as an ex UO-er and more importantly as a gamer that can only be a good thing in my eyes.
The only possible mmos to overtake WoW would be, Starcraft MMO, Diablo MMO....
Its a true fact blizzard make some of the best polished games in the business and its reflected by their huge fan base...
personally for me Planetside 2 would do it, but im not stupid enough to think it would even remotely affect WoW... Im also looking forward to Huxley (new MMOFPS coming out on Unreal 3 Engine)
Its a true fact blizzard make some of the best polished games in the business and its reflected by their huge fan base...
personally for me Planetside 2 would do it, but im not stupid enough to think it would even remotely affect WoW... Im also looking forward to Huxley (new MMOFPS coming out on Unreal 3 Engine)
MMO's have regressed, imo. We're heading backwards, not forwards. To me, an MMO should replicate a living breathing world, and part of that is to give the player as much freedom and choices as possible. Sandbox is a good term to use here I suppose.
The problem with this style of world is it allows other players to negatively affect other players, and designers don't like that. It also allows you to do stuff the designers never intended. For example, Monks in EQ1 had a skill called feign death which was intended to give the player a last ditch attempt to get out of trouble when things go bad. The players actually found by trial and error they could use the skill to split up bunches of difficult mobs into singles. This is called "emergent gameplay", and designers don't like that either (though they may CLAIM to support it, but only because it makes their game sound more involving than it actually is).
With each succesive MMO, choice gets removed from the player. It's not really a world you're adventuring in anymore, but a paint-by-numbers colouring book. Collect up the quests, kill 10 bats, then an NPC points you towards the next quest hub and you do it all over again. You're all slaves to your Quest Log, and if you dare try to go off the beaten track, you end up with gimp gear and gimp coin and fall behind your friends. You're on a fairground ride, part of a calculated spreadsheet and all the thinking has been done for you.
It's far too sterilised and fake for me. MMO's make me feel like a battery hen. This is not the direction they should be headed in.
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thing is, this viewpoint you have .... how much has that been influenced by playing UO before you played the everquest/wow generation?
I mean people who found wow to be their first immersion into an MMO, may well argue that UO is too complicated and has too many loose ends to be a cohesive polished experience like WOW is.
(please understand I'am playing devil's advocate here)
But complexity is a good thing, and I would not say UO was "overly" complex.
It's cool, I totally understand what you're saying.
My first MMO was actually EQ1, and I know the UO purists actually see that as the beginning of the slide. (I'm actually a bit jealous of them tbh, I've heard some amazing things about UO).
I have a friend at work who just recently got into MMO's (WoW to be precise). He was trying to explain how it made him feel. I suggested the word "overwhelmed" and he said yes, that's exactly how he felt. It's funny, because that's how I felt when I first played EQ1, and when I played WoW for the first time I found it as easy as falling off a log. I don't understand how on earth he could see WoW as being anything other than a walk in the park. But that's because of my background -- if I was in his shoes, I'm guessing I'd find WoW overwhelming too.
I'm pretty sure someone trying to play UO, or even EQ1 for the first time after playing WoW would find those games too archaic. I think in a perfect (real) world, the solution would be to have multiple styles of MMO. Unfortunately, I think WoW type games are just too influential and profittable. I worry developers will bow to popular opinion and offer up a WoW clone. I hope Darkfall doesn't go that route.
This is why I say each successive MMO gets weaker. I actually think EQ1 was an immersive hardcore world, but from what I understand, UO was even more EQ than.. EQ. My friend thinks that WoW is hardcore. God only knows what the next big MMO is going to be like. It's be sort of funny to see the old skool WoW players say how softcore the new MMO is.
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The real WoW killer will probably be Blizzards next IP, or well it won't kill it completely, just be a large blow.
Just to sort of echo what you were saying, I couldn't care less what numbers the game got. If anything I prefer the lesser numbers, if the games aims for a certain crowd and that's all they get it's great.
It weeds out the carebears and complainers. Everything just becomes a bit flooded with 11million people. Niche games I think I'd prefer. EVE doesn't have stonking numbers but it aims for a different crowd and is very stable and actually enjoyed.
Blizzard are apparently making a "next-gen" (my blood runs cold with that word next gen) MMO. As we speak.
It is prob. a candy coded carebear fest like WoW.
Here's hoping it is it's a tidal wave of bloody pvp and gore!
And amongst other mmo elements...