[MUD-Dev2] Fallen Earth

[Jeffrey Kesselman]

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 2:14 PM, Sean Howard <squidi at squidi.net> wrote:

>
> "Damion Schubert" <dschubert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > How different does an MMO have to be before it's *different enough*?  Are
> > MMOs the only game genre where the existence of one market leader means
> > that no one else should ever do any features that are at all similar?
>
> MMOs used to be a varied and exciting genre, filled to the brim with risky
> opportunity and educationally fascinating discourse. WoW killed that, more
> or less.


 I don't think thats fair (or maybe ti gives WoW too much credit).  EQ was
probably the last time anyone did anything really revolutionary rather then
evolutionary in the MMO space.

You *might* give a nod to City of heroes thought for two things:
(1) Physics based motion
(2) really customizable (warpable) avatars


> > Not to say that every game should be a WoW clone, but I've seen way too
> > many MMOs come on the market with way too much half-formed wild-assed
> > experimentation that turned out to be broken, unbalanced, not well
> > thought out or just plain not fun.
>
>
> You learn more through your own failures than by getting a passing grade
> by copying off the kid next to you (who in this case, is a wiz at copying
> himself). People failing at something new is always more exciting than
> someone barely passing at the tried and true. So the question becomes, do
> you want to improve or do you want to get a good grade? I'm not convinced
> it is impossible to do both - just more difficult.
>

I agree with your sentiments and am desperate for someone to break the
mold.  And when they do successfully they will probably be "the next WoW."
But MMO dev today is very expensive and its hard to convince people to take
big risks with that kind of money.  (Yes I know, creating a "me too" game in
this business is a risk unto itself, But try to explain that to money
people...)

>
> --
> Sean Howard
>
> _______________________________________________
> MUD-Dev2 mailing list
> MUD-Dev2 at mud-dev.com
> http://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/mud-dev2
>



-- 
~~ Microsoft help desk says: reply hazy, ask again later. ~~