Beelzebud wrote on May 7, 2012, 21:14:
I just want to see an MMO that does not use the Wow Formula. Design your own combat systems. Design your own skill systems. Stop making every MMO exactly the same game with a different skin on it.
Say what you will about Asheron's Call and Everquest, but at least in that era there was a clear distinction between the games.
Yep. Everyone is trying to make a million+ subscriber blockbuster instead of trying to make something cool and unique. You can't make an MMO with a large (by today's standards) subscriber base without watering your shit down to appeal to the casual and the incompetent. If companies were to create more specialized MMO experiences I think they'd find they could get 300-400k extremely loyal subscribers without spending $200 million to develop the thing.
SWTOR is the shining example of how even with 6 years of development, fucktons of money, and an IP a thousand times more popular than Azeroth, making a WoW clone isn't going to be that successful. People who are tired of WoW don't want to play it again, and people who aren't tired of WoW are content to keep playing it. There is no huge market for "WoW, but slightly different."
Do you have a single fact to back that up?