World Of Warcraft: What is WRONG with current MMORPG's?

by Utok
Joined: 07 Dec 2002
Posts: 2

What is wrong with ORPG's?

With all of the recent talk about current and future games I decided to make a quick list of some of the current
ORPG design problems. I will not go into greater detail at this time, since readers that are familiar with my opinions
on game design know that I can write very long posts. However, feel free to ask for clarifications or make
additions.

1. Adventures in real time:

In paper RPG's days can seem like minutes and minutes can seem like days. Unfortunately, in an ORPG
everyone must be on the same timescale.

2. Groundhog Day:

The world never changes. Everyday features the same monsters in the same places that are most likely
camped by the same players as the day before.

3. But Mom, I don't want to be an adventurer!:

If your fantasies do not involve swinging swords or slinging spells, you have few options.

4. Room to room combat:

RPG's evolved from tabletop games where physical location mattered. Then, most MUD's crammed
everyone into rooms. Graphic interfaces have brought back the illusion of depth, but the game mechanics
clearly have not.

5. What if Superman was a jerk?:

Thanks to ORPG's that allow characters to reach god-like levels of power, we now know the answer to
this question.

6. The inmates are running the asylum:

With only a handful of GM's to manage thousands of players the world is largely in the players' hands.
Alas, few developers have made positive use of this situation.

7. Here be Dragons:

Digital words are finite by nature. I doubt that even an army of overworked, outsourced, foreign
programmers could create new content faster than players can explore it.

Source: Shadowclan Forums @ Shadowclan.com