What Can We Expect From New MMOs?

"With a plethora of MMOs constantly being released, there are a few elements that seem to be missing in all of them. Commercials focus on the genre of the game when they talk about plot, rather than the actual plot details, and will always emphasize customization even if it’s a low level of customization compared to other MMOs. Sometimes they won’t even go that far–they’ll just show a vague run-down of the classes available and leave it at that. "

[Bimkoblerutso]

What confuses me is that the term "MMO" has become ubiquitous with MMORPG's. When someone says "MMO" there's only one thing people think of: RPG's, usually in the styling of....yup, WoW.

As much as games like Guild Wars 2 and TERA have done for the genre, it doesn't really change what they are at heart. You still gather stat-boosting loot, conquer dungeons and compete in PvP...all in order to get more loot. I'll admit it's still fun and addictive at times, especially in the case of games like Guild Wars 2 that play with the conventions a bit, but it's also become so dang redundant at this point.

MMO's have SO FRIGGIN MUCH unexplored potential, so many other genres that could be implemented into the structure, that it continues to confuse me as to why, after so many failures, developers are STILL using WoW as a template to make their games.

[ECM0NEY]

Because in their mind "make a game like WoW, you will get WoW numbers"

Which will never happen again, MMO market is flooded with choices.

SWTOR is learning this lesson as we speak

[Swiftfox]

World of Warcraft is 7 years (or so) old and still has 10 million or so subscribers. It has generated billions of dollars of income for it's company and continues to do so. Calling WoW a success would be damning with feint praise.

Massive-multiplayer-online games are an incredible task to produce. The average MMORPG costs around 60 Million dollars to fund and 4+ years to develop. You don't throw down that much money over that long a time unless you know there is a reward for taking such a risk. So for the past 6 years we've had every MMORPG pitched to potential publishers start with “It's like World of Warcraft, but...” I think game makers really do have great ideas for MMORPG's but are unable to convince the ones with the money that it's worth investing in.

Then you have to ask how many people genuinely want a different MMORPG experience. People tend to pass on a new thing when they can have something closer to their personal safe zone. Even if you do have the most brilliant ideas in the world, people might not buy simply because it's too different. It sounds self-defeating but it does happen.

If you're looking for a non-MMORPG experience I suggest investigating the MMOFPS Planetside 2 if you haven't already. An up coming free-to-play game from SOE.

[Bimkoblerutso]

"You don't throw down that much money over that long a time unless you know there is a reward for taking such a risk."

I know, I'm totally with you, but therein lies my confusion. The market is littered with seven years worth of failed attempts at capturing that crowd. Millions and millions of dollars have gone down the drain - and yet we still can't get past loot-based MMORPG's.

[MasterD919]

That's the problem I'm seeing...the more MMO games we see, the more fans will be split up and these developers will never have the chance to sell the numbers they set out to.

Simply put, much like the other genre's of gaming, certain games have come out that just aren't necessary. How many MMO's start at pay-to-pay and go free? Quite a few and that's pretty telling of how many people are actually still playing them...

Star Trek, D.C. Universe, etc...all probably set out to be WOW killers but couldn't come close.

[Angainor7]

Hopefully not just better graphics and recycled features