[MUD-Dev] MMORPG Cancellations: The sky is falling?

[Sean Howard]

"Damion Schubert" <ubiq at zenofdesign.com> wrote:

> City of Heroes is the opening salvo of the next wave of games,
> which is going to be heavy on the gaming side: I'd expect WoW,
> EQ2, Tabula Rasa and Guild Wars to all follow suit.

Actually, all the MMORPGs on the horizon are pretty much like
that. I didn't notice it until you mentioned it. There goes the
neighborhood...

> 'Game'-oriented MMPs have many things going for them:

I'm not thrilled with the use of "game" there. I've already been
arguing that CoH is pretty shallow at the "game" aspect, and I
believe those other ones will be equally so. I don't like it when
the word "game" has the connotation of childish and shallow.

All MMORPGs are game orientated (no matter how much they pretend
they aren't). Those games you listed are all specifically dungeon
crawls.

> However, expect that pendulum to swing back to the world side
> afterwards, especially as smaller developers try to find unique
> selling propositions to stand against the big boys on the block
> (EQ2 and WoW).

I doubt the pendulum will swing back. Gone are the days when
interesting minds from the MUD world are hired for the sake of a new
field. MMORPGs are an old field with lots of books written on them -
so all the designers are going to come from traditional game
industry sources.

I'm not saying that there aren't people out their with brilliant
ideas...  it's just that the barrier or entry, high risk, and long
development time mean that people won't be willing to take as many
chances. How many MMORPGs have been cancelled this week?

- Sean Howard
www.squidi.net
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev