Do you think?
October 12, 2009
Sorry guys, I haven’t been feeling very well for the past couple of weeks and my updates have been coming late.
Would we be as addicted to MMORPG’s if games like WoW and Aion and Darkfall were our first games? Do you think the market would be as saturated with MMORPG’s? Would we have the drive, want, and desire to play nonstop for hours a day and strive to make ourselves part of the world?
Ultima Online created a world for us to live in and be a small part of. We weren’t heroes, we weren’t saviors, we were just people living our day to day lives in a harsh world. Every part of it was different, and each region gave a different experience of gameplay, lifestyle, and groups of people. It was amazing because we worked hard ever day to succeed, build a life for ourselves, build a home, and acquire goods to become “richer.” People earned their notoriety, fame, and fear from people. It was hard work to be a well known person. It was an amazing world we were thrown in to and told to “live.”
I don’t think the market would be as large if games like WoW were dropped back in 1997. You could make an argument about Everquest being so successful, but it was a million times more hardcore than WoW is. The casual type of games would not have drawn us “nerds” in and I think that the market would not be near as large had WoW not been released at the “right time.” (I believe it was the right time because there was nothing coming, people were annoyed with DAoC ToA and it was WARCRAFT) We wouldn’t be playing WoW for multiple years, because it would’ve been the wrong type of game for us with the mentality back then. We were D&D nerds (I was) that wanted to live in a virtual world and be our characters. I don’t know about anyone else, but I never wanted to be this amazing hero, and destroy worlds. I wanted to be someone that started as nothing, built my character, and become a part of the world. Sure I was a PvPer and I wanted to be feared, but I loved a challenge and did not want to be a solo hero. I wanted to be an important part of a team.
I feel like the market would be even more stagnant than it is today had WoW been the first “big” MMORPG in 97. I do not think anyone would create a world like UO later on because people would see there’s no room for creativity in the market, and as today, I think even less risks would be taken. At least nowadays games like Darkfall and Fallen Earth have taken a chance to be a part of the market and provide something different. WoW creating the genre for us “basement D&D dwellers” would not have the hook or addiction due to the casualness of it, and the sheer lack of RPG. There is no RPG in Warcraft, only a small/solo game to log on for an hour and have a little fun. The RPG factor thrown into an MMO world was like a wet dream for someone like me. The possibilities were endless, and the limits were my own imagination.
I need to stop depressing myself.
