General Discussion

The question is a simple one;

Why do we give our chosen genre such a hard time with regards to 'revolutionary' development?

I mean... racer after racer gets developed, which to be honest dosent really amount to more then a skin job plus a gimmick or two, and released, but racer fans don't bellow and cry like MMORPG fans do do they? Noone says "Arggh! Yet another racer set in the modern day!! With Cars!!"

FPS after FPS gets developed, which to be honest dosent really amount to more then a skin job plus a gimmick or two, and released, but FPS fans don't bellow and cry like MMORPG fans do do they? Noone seems to complain about another FPS game that is 85% identical to the all others under it's hood.

Why is it essential for every MMORPG to be 'revolutionary' or be declared a 'epic fail' again and again? Why isnt an evolutionary build up in the genre enough?

It can't be boredom can it? After all, people have been playing identikit racers, shooters etc for far longer then we have had 'true' MMORPGs..?

Is it the games or the gamers that have the issues here? Are we just so burnt out and jaded that all we know is that we want something 'different', even if we don't know what that 'different' is? Or is the very MMORPG model the problem to most? Is it just not very good once you take out the social heart (as most modern games seem to be driven towards doing)?

Why are we so intolerant of the very gaming model that, after all, created this industry?

You expect a can opener to open cans, You expect a swiss army knife to do damn near anything. MMOs are traditionally the  swiss army knives of gainng. . People expect so much more than just standing there wacking mobs, or each other, over the hread and they're disappointed when they don't get it. People want more features, Developers are giving more of a focused linear experience. There's a difference between adding more content and adding more of the same content.

It's sort of their own fault too.

A lot of MMO promise you this and that but never deliver.

(hi darkfail)

With games such as Forza2, racing simulators tend to please most cyber-gearheads.  Just copy what is in the real world and put it into a game.  There are only so many cars/manufactuers you can duplicate in a game.  Get the physics correct, have nice graphics, and your game is a winner.

With mmo's and the fantasy genre there is much more room for creativity and innovation.  I think that is a reason why mmo fans tend to scrutinize the games harder.  People get disapointed when games become of clones of each other.  They want somthing new, somthing fresh.

A lot of mmorpg gamers invest a great deal of time into mmorpg's as opposed to other pc/console games, and so their expectations of what they should get out of the experience rise exponentially.
What's the point pouring hours and hours into a game if you're not enjoying the experience as much as you feel you should, or perhaps even feel like you're making some kind of progress (whether that should be in terms of lvls and gear/skills/building a strong community and circle of friends)?

Here's my take on why we are hard on MMO's.

I look at it like the technology jumps we have. We expect more and better with each new "generation" of games. Comapnies promises this that and the other with the games. Ppl look forward to certain game only to have it be not as expected. (look at AOC for example).

PPl want this and that, Companies within thier budget attempt to accomodate and cant. They also hype up something that isnt all that. In general ppl end up disappointed....therefore more harsh on games instead of taking them at face value.

The game companies cant do everything. They can think of new innovations and try to incorporate them. They arent perfect nor can they be.

On top of that you have parent companies that dont run things as expected (SOE for example). Coupled with also you have a Companies that Completly changes the game itself (SWG) into something bad.

WOW set a wierd standard and unf that what ppl use to judge a game.

All of this Sad but true...............

There is a very good reason why we are so tough on MMO's.

I truly believe that this gaming genre is going to be ground-breaking.  With advancing technology, (think Google Earth in ten years time), and virtual headsets (where you view the world as you turn your head, and the ambient sounds are played into your ears), coupled with speech commands (there is an awesome next gen game in developement that is played soley by voice orders).  The future MMO's will be could be set in actual cities, that are photo, as well as geographically accurate.  The genre will bring in people who are not even gamers.

However, all that is yet to pass.  At the moment the genre is still in its infancy.  There are so many possibilties for devs to create truly revoloutionary games.  Titles that will set the benchmark for the future.  But at the moment, we do not get anything new or original, and it very frustrating.  There could be so many great games out there, instead of devs playing it safe and following a set formula.

I play WoW, and I enjoy it.  However, I don't want every MMO to be so swayed by it.  WoW changed the genre, made it more mainstream, and now developers are keen to try and take a slice of the pie.  If WoW is such a success ( as it obviously is), then why would any production company try to change what is already succesful.  They see it as being a 'don't fix what is not broken' scenario.  Whilst we the players realise the potential the genre has, and are crying out for a dev to have the balls to make something different.  So that is why we are so tough on the genre.  We want the devs to take note, and bring something fresh to the table.

Darkfall promised all these things, but that turned out to be a joke.  I hope it does someday get released but I doubt it, at least, not with all the feature they promised.

Stargate seems to be bringing something new to the genre.  I disliked the tv show, but I still am eager to see how it turns out.  I like the mini-game idea.  Finally, a game that has something else to do other than just being combat orientated, with a bit of crafting thrown in.

To OP:
 

Basically because the genre as such hasn't evolved to its full potential yet.

What we're seeing right now is a bunch of wannabe games that are clueless what this new paradigm in gaming - MMO - really entails.

I'd even venture to say that there has been no true MMORPG yet. They're all either holding onto old pointless single-player RPG paradigms like EQ or WOW, or are experimenting with the new environment but with a pretty high fail rate (UO and EVE have the least of those so far).

You mention racing games there. Well the racing game genre has pretty much evolved to its final stage -at least regarding its core game mechanics. We all know what works the best in racers and there is no need to deviate too much from the norm. However, when you don't have to worry about your core game mechanics THEN you can really concentrate on all the nice imaginative fluff that give them so much nice polish.

The situation we got here is very simple. Imagine if this weren't MMORPG.com but RACER.com. All the racing games so far are weird... In one you're driving bicycles in a meat-packing plant, trying to collect as much frozen beef while kicking others with kung-fu combos. Another one uses controls with keys 1-10 denoting speed while the other requires you to rapidly tap two keys in order to move. Some of them don't feature a road but a vast plain. In one your car flies around and drops on other cars for points.... No one knows what a racing game should look like but they all have something missing and the players are pissed off because they feel that this genre can be so much better and fun.

And oh, there is one super-hit racing game where you jump on others with your car like in Mario Bros but at least it's got its controls right. Now all the developers are doing racing games with cars jumping on each other because for some reason they believe this is the reason for its success.

You have to admit that it is an infuriating situation.

/edit

Oh and I don't buy it that this is due to technological limitations. No, the tech for this paradigm shift has been here for a longish time - it is the conceptual evolution that is excruciatingly slow due to unusually high costs of developing a functioning MMO. Some textual MUDS from a few decades ago have much much better core game design concepts than almost any of the AAA titles out there. We've all got broadband, the home servers today are more powerful than super computers from geeks wet dreams a few decades ago... and all this tech is used for recycling the same old sh....

I think a lot of it comes from the fact that we, the consumers, are asked to pay a premium price for sub par products so very often.  Apart from a couple notable exceptions, every release is half-baked, riddled with bugs that would never be accepted from a traditional video game, and when all is said a