The current state of MMORPG's and why they suck
 

It's simple, its the quests.

Quest 1 kill 10 enemies
Quest 2 kill 10 harder enemies
.
.
.
Quest x kill 10 really hard enemies
Quest xi kill boss


I dont know where the the orignal concept came for this but it sucks. "The old republic" tries to get away from this i heard, but that is the only one i have heard so far. Why cant MMORPG's be more like regular rpgs where the quest goal is to do something and on the way you should kill enemies that get in your way for phat loot and xp?

Which of those have you played?

I have played WoW, Rift, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard, Everquest II just off the top of my head. They all have the same quest structure.

So I can't attack you for not having a first-hand experience with the genre you're critisizing. Rats!!! :)

Ever tried LOTRO? IMO that one is a bit different from the rest.

1) Too much emphasis on munchkinism, less on story, immersion, and fun. If you were to delve into the ruins of EQ's Sebilis 10 years ago, you wouldn't care that there was no DPS, HPS, and threat meters because you'd be thrilled with the dungeon itself.

2) Overload of hand-holding. In-game quest markers, internet walkthroughs. There's something to be said about stumbling about a bit and not just being told to walk from point A to point B.

3) Forum trolls dictating builds that must be used. This in turn becomes a chicken-egg circle as people subscribe to such thought and just perpetuate it more and more.

4) Most of all, today's mmo's suck because of WoW. In order to succeed and make back the exorbitant cost to create an MMO, developers need to appeal to the WoW audience. And this audience is comfortable with simplistic gameplay. It astounded me how shamefully similar Rift was to WoW when I played the beta… and why? Simply because WoW is a working model to attract a broad audience and the Rift developers just went with something safe instead of risky and original.

Solution? A good sci-fi mmo! So sick of Sword & Magic WoW clones… On that note, I'm not excited for Star Wars whatsoever. I'm just really jaded with Bioware's direction, even before the EA buyout.

Yup i tried that too. Been a while though i dont remember it. I remember D&D have a instance based set up but i dont like instance based setups i like consistent worlds.

I completely agree with what Drithius said too.

Guys, try DDO, it meets NONE of Damien's criteria!! :) Plus a few of us play it regularly and there is a Watch guild on Khyber!!

Biggest issue with most MMOs is the objective to keep the player at the screen for as long as possible, with the least amount of resources dedicated to that happening as possible.

It is true. My hopes were all in SWTOR, since pretty much about every MMO released since WoW is the same old thing with few variations.
Start in town A
- Click on all the people with ! above their heads, that will turn into ? when you get the quests.
- Go around killing local fauna and clicking on glowies until you complete all the 'kill x stuff' and 'collect x stuff' quests
- Return to town A to get your obligatory '+X stat' items that are obviously tailored for your class (or more commonly, for some reason the woman that needs 10 wolf pelts has a +X INT cloth hat for mages, a +X DEX leather cap for rogues, a +X WIS chainmail helmet for clerics, and a +END (or STR) platemail helmet for warriors in her living room chest).
- Get one last quest that is a 'go to Town B to help my brother, he's head of the militia there, he can use your help'
- Go to town B
- Repeat all steps.

Interestingly enough, Everquest (yes, the original 12 year old one) opened a new 'classic' server with timed progression. I gave it a try, loved every second of it, and resubscribed for 3 months (probably 6).

wolfing, I gotta say you ought to give DDO a spin. While there's still some handholding with quest markers and such, the quests have far more variety than you'd think. Actually, it's not so much variety of quests as it is variety of experiences.

I ran a quest over the weekend (soloing a melee ranger with a healer hireling) that's a fairly good example. Ultimately, it's a kill Foozle run, but you really can approach it a variety of different ways. At the "dungeon" entrance, you get a staff. If you can sneak your way to certain spots, the staff will pacify all the critters up to Foozle. The key is that you get extra experience via optional objectives if you manage that little trick. Now, my ranger sneaks about as well as he does water ballet, so I killed everything that moved. Missed out on a lot of XP, but completed the quest as required. Similarly, there's a secret door (well, one of several, but anyway) that's got a mini-boss behind it. Since my ranger has good spot and search, I found that secret door, had an interesting tussle, and got a little XP and loot for my trouble. A different character might never notice that secret door and completely miss out on that opportunity--without having any affect on his killing Foozle.

And, after hearing Corwin complain about his sorceror getting yet another bastard sword out of a reward chest and seeing my barbarian regularly pulling spell scrolls, it's safe to say loot is not tailored to class. ;)

Have you played Final Fantasy XI!? Most the quests have some really endearing stories behind them along with in-game cut scenes, and while many do require killing some enemies, they don't specifically say kill x amount of and return. Also there are quite a few that could take weeks to complete. And many are absolutely hilarious, like the one posted below:

Know Ones' Onions




Here is a little quote by the co-founder of Bioware a few weeks ago at DICE, and after hearing this, I have little interest in SW:TOR now. I mean I may still try an open beta account, but if all I encounter is WoW with a SW skin = uninstall!

"It [World of Warcraft] is a touchstone. It has established standards, it's established how you play an MMO. Every MMO that comes out, I play and look at it. And if they break any of the WoW rules, in my book that's pretty dumb," Zeschuk said. {source…}

Of course it's pretty dumb - from a business perspective, which is 99% of what Bioware considers these days. Still, it's pretty surprising that he stumbled into that trap and said that on the record. Doesn't he know that you wait till an MMO's postmortem to admit that you were cloning WoW?

I dare say that innovation in AAA video games is dead. They've fallen into the same quicksand pit as Hollywood movies. Both cost so damn much to produce that you sell your soul for the lowest common denominator.

the sooner you get the idea that mmos are second jobs you pay for, the sooner you'll have rl sex and rl job.

Wow - protecting you from sex for just a few $$