I can see what you're saying - game designers have a clean canvas to work with, but they limit themselves to the archetypical gameplay mechanics set up way back when. Understandable, because it is *hard* to pluck something completely new from the ether that will be:
a. Entertaining and engaging.
b. Profitable and worth the risk to those investing in the project.
c. Replayable and hospitable to a variety of player types, player group sizes.
And so on.
In addition to that, it's really very hard to convince both publishers and gamers to move to something new and innovative - especially when a company like Electronic Arts can pump out the same sports games with updated rosters every year and make billions. That and people tend to go with "what they know" and what they are familiar with anyways, because that's what they are comfortable and happy with.
Hence why we see the population imbalances in WoW - pretty, "human-like" characters are easier for average people to relate to versus "monsters".
This isn't to say that this excuses the lack of gameplay innovation in MMOs - not at all. Those of us who can (who are in or involved with the game industry) need to chip away and keep trying to encourage change - moving away from the "holy trinity" of DPS, healer, tank, moving away from crafting being unrewarding for the effort involved, moving away from all these tired "formal systems" that folks are very familiar with.
What might help, if you or any other folks are inclined to do so, would be to provide examples or metaphors for what you'd like to see in a MMO or particular MMO systems, but leverage the examples using the familiar (old) game mechanics used now. Yes, it's frustrating to have to keep explicitly explaining this stuff in excruciating detail, but sometimes it works.
I can see what you're saying
I can see what you're saying - game designers have a clean canvas to work with, but they limit themselves to the archetypical gameplay mechanics set up way back when. Understandable, because it is *hard* to pluck something completely new from the ether that will be:
a. Entertaining and engaging.
b. Profitable and worth the risk to those investing in the project.
c. Replayable and hospitable to a variety of player types, player group sizes.
And so on.
In addition to that, it's really very hard to convince both publishers and gamers to move to something new and innovative - especially when a company like Electronic Arts can pump out the same sports games with updated rosters every year and make billions. That and people tend to go with "what they know" and what they are familiar with anyways, because that's what they are comfortable and happy with.
Hence why we see the population imbalances in WoW - pretty, "human-like" characters are easier for average people to relate to versus "monsters".
This isn't to say that this excuses the lack of gameplay innovation in MMOs - not at all. Those of us who can (who are in or involved with the game industry) need to chip away and keep trying to encourage change - moving away from the "holy trinity" of DPS, healer, tank, moving away from crafting being unrewarding for the effort involved, moving away from all these tired "formal systems" that folks are very familiar with.
What might help, if you or any other folks are inclined to do so, would be to provide examples or metaphors for what you'd like to see in a MMO or particular MMO systems, but leverage the examples using the familiar (old) game mechanics used now. Yes, it's frustrating to have to keep explicitly explaining this stuff in excruciating detail, but sometimes it works.
Keep up the good work and rants Abalieno.