[Saerain]

Originally Posted by Treesong

Wow, so we get to bash mobs again, but this time in an Indian setting/Lore. I can't wait.

I have *completely* lost my faith in the genre. I think pretty much every IP there is in the world is now being turned into a MMO, and they are all the same ****ing thing: bashing mobs in a streamlined combat arena that has the "color of the day" (read Lore/IP/Setting) painted on it.

/yawn.

I bet we will see: Icons flashing, popup dialogue and pull down menus everywhere, streamlined interfaces, trimmed down UI's, unattackable and lifeless NPC's aka Pez-dispensers, zero fluff, 100% focus on Combat, ultra balanced classes with minimal utility, entirely focussed on Combat and "roles" in combat, Dungeons that are designed aroound a min/max gain of XP and Loot in mind instead of something actually cool, 3D-design of cities and dungeons that limits itself to a few stairs here and there, fake front buildings with textured doors, zero mystery, no secret walls, rooms of hidden caves and sewers, no racial political landscape, no KoS mobs exept the ones that are obviously meant for XP, dumbed down factions system (if any) that are only there as a grind to unlock content, instead as being a World quality that paints the racal landscape and your standing towards NPC's and so forth.

This will especially be true after what has happened to Vanguard, the one which was trying to champion the end to all this -- at least until Beta 3.

However, I do not think it can last. I will be very surprised if we are still going through this phase in seven years.

Keeping in mind CCP's World of Darkness Online slated for 2011, and Funcom's The Secret World slated for 2012 -- both titles which I have difficulty imagining in the format you describe -- I think some developers are still on our side, or at least trying to experiment with it. If one of them is lucrative enough, who knows what progressive trend it will begin?

[Aidon]

Originally Posted by Saerain

This will especially be true after what has happened to Vanguard, the one which was trying to champion the end to all this -- at least until Beta 3.

However, I do not think it can last. I will be very surprised if we are still going through this phase in seven years.

Keeping in mind CCP's World of Darkness Online slated for 2011, and Funcom's The Secret World slated for 2012 -- both titles which I have difficulty imagining in the format you describe -- I think some developers are still on our side, or at least trying to experiment with it. If one of them is lucrative enough, who knows what progressive trend it will begin?

Except the market has clearly dictates otherwise.

Also, don't hold up much hope for WoD Online...in general PnP RPGs translate poorly to computers and WoD is one of those with the most difficulty. The more reliant a system is on judgement calls by a DM or GM or ST, the more difficult it is to translate it to a CRPG. Further, nothing about the WoD is balanced well, at least not in the old v2.5-v3 stuff (I don't know about the new Requiem stuff). The average werewolf character could utterly decimate the average vamp character, for instance. And how the hell can you possibly implement a Mage who, in the books, can literally do anything he wants if its within his power range and he's not too worried about paradox? How can you implment cross-clan disciplines in an MMO which, eventually, will have people with enough XP to get any discipline they wish? How do you convince people to take a Toreador or a Ventrue on a combat mission over another Gangrel or Brujah?

Sadly, I fear any WoD MMO will essentially be online VtM: Bloodlines with shiny new graphics (not that Bloodlines wasn't a good game, aside from the bugginess, but it had major departures from the tabletop version).