> "The video left me feeling like the game is a time sink without getting the reward of getting little achievements like gaining levels and discovering new gear. The very things that make such games addictive."
Those are the things that made DIKU MUDs addictive. And graphical MMOs have definitely been successful largely to the degree that they effectively incorporated such designs. [1] The largest MMO audience clearly prefers that experience. (And the popularity of F2P suggests the preference for that kind of design holds for more than just MMO games.)
But that was never the attraction of UO [1]. Nor was it even a minor part of what attracted people to the Ultima series overall. And despite almost certainly being a minority, there remains a non-trivial segment of the potential MMO audience that at least claims to want an exploration-based world, rather than a DIKU-style amusement park.
I can see where someone who prefers an 'amusement park' design wouldn't be interested in this. But I can't really see why anyone would expect that sort of thing from Garriott. The game described is pretty much exactly what I imagined when I read the headline. [2]
[1] At least UO wasn't anywhere close to that when Garriott was even remotely involved. Though I'll admit I have no idea where the game went after the first couple years.
[2] That said, I'm quite skeptical and bearish on its chances overall. The stated design reads like the same wish-list that a dozen games have started with. Each whittling down said list to a far more narrow scope, giving up on many hopes of 'another way' for tried-and-true DIKU-style elements, and ultimately still collapsing under the primary challenge of trying to balance the PvP experience to actually be meaningful without it being overwhelmingly defined by the griefing.
PvP alone is the key feature such devs refuse to push off the launch feature list but almost universally kills these games before they deliver an acceptable design.
Those are the things that made DIKU MUDs addictive. And graphical MMOs have definitely been successful largely to the degree that they effectively incorporated such designs. [1] The largest MMO audience clearly prefers that experience. (And the popularity of F2P suggests the preference for that kind of design holds for more than just MMO games.)
But that was never the attraction of UO [1]. Nor was it even a minor part of what attracted people to the Ultima series overall. And despite almost certainly being a minority, there remains a non-trivial segment of the potential MMO audience that at least claims to want an exploration-based world, rather than a DIKU-style amusement park.
I can see where someone who prefers an 'amusement park' design wouldn't be interested in this. But I can't really see why anyone would expect that sort of thing from Garriott. The game described is pretty much exactly what I imagined when I read the headline. [2]
[1] At least UO wasn't anywhere close to that when Garriott was even remotely involved. Though I'll admit I have no idea where the game went after the first couple years.
[2] That said, I'm quite skeptical and bearish on its chances overall. The stated design reads like the same wish-list that a dozen games have started with. Each whittling down said list to a far more narrow scope, giving up on many hopes of 'another way' for tried-and-true DIKU-style elements, and ultimately still collapsing under the primary challenge of trying to balance the PvP experience to actually be meaningful without it being overwhelmingly defined by the griefing.
PvP alone is the key feature such devs refuse to push off the launch feature list but almost universally kills these games before they deliver an acceptable design.