FLEABttn said:
People are copying WoW because WoW is where the big money is at. But your complaint is still silly. Did EQ prevent DAoC from being made? Did EQ prevent EvE from being made? No. Is WoW preventing World of Darkness from being made? No. So...
DAoC is an EQ clone with fancier PvP, but that's not really the point. There are plenty of low-budget MMOs that aren't EQ clones, but no big-budget games on the level of FFXI, EQ (for its time), Vanguard, WoW, EQ2, etc. for the very reasons I have already stated. The people with that kind of money only make EQ clones. That's important because to achieve mainstream success, you need to be competitive in sterms of visual quality, stability, polish, content, etc. EVE could never have been made as anything other than a space game, because they didn't have the budget for lots of detailed environments like in other MMOs. And the space setting isn't mainstream. For the record, I don't even like EVE. Even though I like one fundamental aspect of the game, I don't like what's built on top of it.
Starcraft is still played by millions and its graphics are ugly and primitive compared to C&C3, but guess which one will have made more money, and guess which one will have more players in 5 years (not C&C3).
OK, go up to the average game buyer in North America, show them the two games, and see which one they are willing to spend $50 on. EQ's success came despite its gameplay design, not because of it, and equating the quality of Starcraft's design to EQ's is almost criminal.
How is "the underlying concept of a dynamic player-driven ecosystem is far more mainstream than the static, mechanical, number-centric shooting gallery" if no game that features a dynamic player driven economy has captured the market quite like the games featuring the static market you oh so hate?
Economy and ecosystem are 2 different things, but I assume you meant ecosystem. Games with dynamic ecosystems have captured the market: Sims, SimCity, and Animal Crossing are prime examples, and Spore will be another when it is released. The reason an MMO of that sort has not been as successful is for the reasons I have already brought up: there hasn't been one that was well-designed with a competitive budget.
To clarify my position, I frankly don't care what kind of MMO you like, because that's your call and I see more people playing any MMO period as furthering the genre, but when you try and tell me that a niche market MMO is objectively better than the market leader (which has 100x the players what the niche had at its height), and that the people who play the current market leader simply don't know any better, you're going to get called out.
I don't think I said anywhere that any MMO was a better game than WoW. The problem I have with WoW is that its success discourages improvement in the fundamental design approach of these games. Twenty years from now, it will be in the same category as games like Super Mario Bros. and King's Quest: successful in their day but with design that's been rendered obsolete by forward-thinking designers who were able to separate the wheat from the chaff. You don't see adventure games and side-scrolling platformers in the mainsteam nowadays, and 20 years from now, stat-nerd grindfests with tedious game mechanics that act as a substitute for genuine accomplishment will be a niche genre.
