I really recommend you watch the video first and then read my diatribe but whatever works for you!
 
  

It turns out that my original assumption of this game is like every MMO ever was spot on. To elaborate RIFT is totally solid, it doesn’t have any glaring issues and it plays fine. The problem is me. I’m absolutely done with this style of MMO. I simply can’t hack it anymore. RIFT does nothing to try and do something different. The genre has become so stagnated that any minor changes made to the formula are seen as huge changes by players that regularly play MMOs. Once you take a step back and look at the bigger picture you’re really just playing the same game as the one that came before but with different art style. To talk about RIFT specifically the quests are as standard as they come. Kill 6 of these dudes, pick up 3 of these, go over there and right click on something. Voice acting and cut scenes are standard in any other genre but MMOs are stuck in the past and refuse to give in. RIFT does have more cut scenes and voice acting than most MMOs and can help do break up the grind but it’s not nearly enough. With the quests being so generic and combat being so familiar I simply don’t want to play “that game” again.

Let’s cut straight to the point here. The problem is World of Warcraft or to be more specific it’s WoWs success. To say WoW dropped a bomb on the MMO genre would be an understatement. WoW dropped several fucking nukes and shit on everything else would be more accurate. WoW was released in 2004 and since then there has been very little change in the way MMOs are made. Those that dared to be different have failed. This is depressing for me as someone who absolutely loves MMOs. When they are done right, they have the most potential of any game genre and in my opinion offer the greatest satisfaction. To be fair to RIFT this is a bigger problem that faces every MMO but since Trion seems happy to make another WoW they are part of the problem.

I can feel myself starting to rant so I’ll stop myself for now and maybe continue this subject in another post. This year is looking better for fans of MMOs. Star Wars: The Old Republic is doing something that no MMO has even attempted before and hearing the guys at Areananet talking about Guild Wars 2 is inspiring stuff (Yes I’m aware Guild Wars 2 is not a “real” MMO). I just hope people are willing to give them a shot.... Oh and RIFT is like WoW. If you like WoW and want something slightly different you will love it.

... fuck all this I’m gonna play pokemon!

I like MMOs a lot (and I don't feel like going out of my way to explain the seemingly lack of innovation with them), but I didn't care for Rift. Let me warn you though that comparing Rift to WoW (which I agree with by the way) is like punching a Rift fan in the face.

I didn't watch the video because I beta'd Rift myself and have my own opinions of how it compares to WoW. 
 
Ultimately, he's right though.  Yes, Rift has some great differences, like the class/soul system.  But when you cut down to the nitty gritty, most MMOs since EQ, or even UO, have been the same thing, and those that are innovative haven't done well.  When I think of innovative MMOs, I think of Tabula Rasa, that got completely shut down (and honestly wasn't ready for release when it was released), or Horizons (now called Istaria), which has some great elements to it that I have yet to see implemented in a major MMO.  But Istaria is down to a few servers with just a small, dedicated population.   If SWTOR is like the Bioware RPGs of today, but in an MMO setting, it might be different enough.  We'll see though. 
 
Yet at the same time, the things being complained about are those things that made the genre what it is today.  These same elements are what have been part of the genre since before graphics were involved, when it was just MUDs and MUSHes.  It's a catch 22 situation.

Whenever I see one of these "All MMOs are the same! and if they arent the same they fail!"I feel like no one knows what EVE online is. Its the best MMO on the market, and nothing like WoW at all. 
 
It has also never stopped growing since it was launched, which is something that even WoW can't say. One of the top exports of Iceland too =P

"Whenever I see one of these "All MMOs are the same! and if they arent the same they fail!"I feel like no one knows what EVE online is. Its the best MMO on the market, and nothing like WoW at all.  It has also never stopped growing since it was launched, which is something that even WoW can't say. One of the top exports of Iceland too =P "

Guild Wars 1 wasn't a "Real MMO" but Guild Wars 2 definitely is. It's fully open-world, it's not keeping the instanced areas and towns anymore except for what I assume will be dungeons. Full 3D movement unlike it's predecessor which didn't allow you to jump and you were pretty much "stuck" to the ground. There's nothing really in GW2 that would not make it a "real" mmo except for the fact you won't need to pay monthly. 
 
@jking47: Not sure what you mean by "stopped growing" but if you mean by player base then WoW has definitely never stopped growing. It's player base is consistently getting larger and larger every year. EVE is a great game though and what keeps it successful is the fact that it's absolutely nothing like every mmo out there. I'd definitely still be playing it if I wasn't already paying for other MMOs at the moment.

Making an MMO is a terrible business decision in my opinion

" Whenever I see one of these "All MMOs are the same! and if they arent the same they fail!"I feel like no one knows what EVE online is. Its the best MMO on the market, and nothing like WoW at all.  It has also never stopped growing since it was launched, which is something that even WoW can't say. One of the top exports of Iceland too =P "

" Whenever I see one of these "All MMOs are the same! and if they arent the same they fail!"I feel like no one knows what EVE online is. Its the best MMO on the market, and nothing like WoW at all.  It has also never stopped growing since it was launched, which is something that even WoW can't say. One of the top exports of Iceland too =P "

Even though I'm not a fan of EVE I truly admire CCP. They get it, they made the game they wanted to make and are happy being small and profitable.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. 
 
I'll be more specific.   
 
"It's the best MMO on the market."  Subjective.  Just because YOU think it's the best MMO doesn't mean it is.  
 
"It has also never stopped growing since it was launched."  What kind of growth are you talking about?  And do you even know what kind of numbers you're talking about?  How about I help you out.  After some research on their press releases, EVE had 70,000 active subscriptions as of Sept. 22, 2005.  In January of this year (2011), EVE was up to 340,000 subscriptions.  Sure, they've grown 5x over 6 years.  That does sound pretty good.  But they still have never hit over half a million as far as we know.  Even the first Everquest did better than that.   Because of the low subscription numbers, it could be argued that EVE is another "failed" MMO.
 
"Which is something that even WoW can't say."   Really?  Really?   Have you missed how WoW has grown by something like 2 million active subscriptions every year or so?   In October of 2010, the active subscriptions reached 12 MILLION. "

"It's the best MMO on the market."  Subjective.

I wouldn't like to design an MMO at this point. You make something completely different and no one plays it because they'll be turned off. You make something like WoW but with improvements and no one plays that because everyone's playing WoW and the lore and story is always more interesting than anything else that comes out. 
 
I don't see a path of what MMOs have to do to change the face of the genre like WoW did 7 years ago.

Did you make that video?

" @jking47 said:

"Whenever I see one of these "All MMOs are the same! and if they arent the same they fail!"I feel like no one knows what EVE online is. Its the best MMO on the market, and nothing like WoW at all.  It has also never stopped growing since it was launched, which is something that even WoW can't say. One of the top exports of Iceland too =P "

To be fair, EVE is also growing very slowly.  They aren't even at 500K players I think.  I'm not knocking EVE, but it's still a fairly small fish next to WoW. "

@Branthog said:

" @YoungFrey said:

" @jking47 said:

"Whenever I see one of these "All MMOs are the same! and if they arent the same they fail!"I feel like no one knows what EVE online is. Its the best MMO on the market, and nothing like WoW at all.  It has also never stopped growing since it was launched, which is something that even WoW can't say. One of the top exports of Iceland too =P "

To be fair, EVE is also growing very slowly.  They aren't even at 500K players I think.  I'm not knocking EVE, but it's still a fairly small fish next to WoW. "

How is the total number of people playing an MMO relevant? At best, RIFT might have a million players. Spread across 100 servers. If a fifth of all players are on at any given time, that's about 2,000 players on any "world" at any moment. In EVE, it's all one world. Of 300k or more. And around 50-60k at any one moment. Total subscribers is irrelevant. Especially considering that CCP continues to bring the most impressive game mechanics and actual technical advancements in the gaming industry to their MMO, while others just put on new pretty skins to what's already been done. "

" Did you make that video? "

I'll be the cliche old man talking about walking uphill in the snow both ways. But nothing will ever top original EQ for me. I came to terms with this many years ago. Nothing can ever recapture that magic. MMO's today are way too hand-holdy with their glowing trails telling you where to go next, super easy exp/leveling rate, icons immediately popping up on your map telling you where a quest NPC is, and complete lack of mystery to the game. The biggest problem to me though is that no one is ever afraid to die in MMO's now. You should be scared when going into a new area. There should be a penalty for death; a harsh penalty. It adds validity to the world you're playing in. Anyway, I could go on for hours about everything I despise about current MMOs, but I won't. 
 
Not to sound super depressing, but I'm pretty sure I'll never have as much fun in any game, not just an MMO, ever again. It's been over 10 years now and nothing's come close to matching that sense of wonder, mystery, adventure, and community.

"@Matt: It seems that MMOs with live events nearly always get positive feedback on that.  You would think someone would take a clue from it.  But it hasn't really taken off.  I have wondered over the years if it's just too much of a cost issue or what. 
  
 
I know that Blizzard has said before that events are high cost for low return.  Especially 1-time events.They could spend X Amount of time developing a new dungeon or raid or leveling quest series that everyone could experience and all future players could too.  But that same effort put into an event is seen briefly by only current players.  And if it's an actualy played event, only max level characters tend to be able to participate too.  Admittedly, since saying that, Blizzard has done a number of really well recieved events (like the undead invasion) so clearly they see some value in iit.  And they have addded or fleshed out their holiday events.   
 

" @S0ndor said:

" Did you make that video? "

Yes I did.   

I agree, an MMO without a rigid structure and more fluid player-world interactions is where the genre needs to go.  Player driven conflict and story telling is generally more interesting than a crummy, slow combat system that leads to on generic, boring quests, until you're high enough a level to do the same thing with a group of people.
 
The most fun part of MMOs, it seems, is that they are glorified chat rooms that let you be someone else in another world.

Yeah, I can't play any fantasy MMO games because honestly I've done it all before in WoW.  The only way I'll ever play another MMO is if a great FPS or 3rd person shooter comes out.  I got high hopes for Warhammer 40k.... its coming out like this decade right?  Please?
 
Ok, I will admit that if I could get at least two other people to play a new MMO with me, I would give it a serious shot.  But people have too much invested in WoW to drop it.

"I totally killed six people. They are now in Hell, where they belong." This made me laugh. Thanks.

Yo dudes, best MMO ever: 
 
http://www.atitd.com/index.shtml    

"Making an MMO is a terrible business decision in my opinion "

I understand where your complaints are coming from, but if you think TOR and future MMOs are going to be terribly different than WoW, then I'd rethink that. With TOR you will get a great story most likely. That's all fine and well, but if the gameplay and mechanics aren't changing the MMO formula much, then what's the end of the road looking like? Same old click square, watch numbers fly up, enter instance, kill boss, etc.  
  
This is why the developer and polish matter so much in MMOs these days, and why Rift is having so much positive feedback. You're essentially looking at the same interface, using the same mechanics, and encountering the same situations over and over and over. If it's done well, players can build around that. You can make a game only so spectacular or innovating; the players have to be willing to embrace the developers' outlook as well. It all comes back to the community, the game will feed off that 99.9% of the time. 
 
edit* Appreciate the video, anything to help spread the common word about MMOs is a potential friend or foe for me.

The only MMO I've found entertaining was Matrix Online, and that was mostly because of you. I've tried to get into others because my friends were playing them, but never could. I don't get the appeal of the structure, and without that hook they just become really boring RPGs. If you have a good group I guess it could be fun, but that could be said about anything.

have you given puzzle pirates a try? its the most wildly different mmo experience i've had and still play, years later

" @Matt:   The problem with almost every MMO in existence can be summarized fairly easily: They are nothing more than single player RPGs that take place in a multi-player environment. Everyone is doing their own thing and nothing impacts the world (or if it does, it's in a very toggled on/off sort of territorial control sort of way). There are guilds, but they are meaningless . . . again, because nothing truly impacts the world. You are playing an RPG with maybe a couple other people, running across other people who also happen to be playing their own single player RPG, along side you.  For an MMO to evolve, it has to become a sandbox. It has to allow the players to define how the gameplay is implemented. To control things. To generate conflict. Instead, we just get the same game repeatedly for the past decade. "

One of the main things WoW has done is really up the bar in terms of polish. They made WoW play so well and intuitively that now people expect it from new games. I mean, before WoW, I used to play AO and Planetside and loved them both but the level of polish was nowhere near WoW's and I don't think any mmo has come close since. I tried Fallen Earth, which is similar to AO, the other day and would have loved it if it weren't for WoW spoiling what I expect. RIFT is the closest to being on the same level of polish to WoW from what I've seen of the beta but I really don't care for the Warhammer style graphics and it's not different enough from WoW for me.  
 
I'm super looking forward to SW:TOR since what I played in the beta was everything I wanted: A persistent online SW game set in the KOTOR time-line. I hope they announce a release date soon.