“Simply put, Trion decided to scale back their original vision so that they could keep the standard MMO trappings that we have all known since WoW reared its head back in 2004. In short, they took the Half Measure.
Guild Wars 2 is also selling itself through its dynamic events. The same ideas that made Heroes of Telara so compelling are present throughout Guild Wars 2 but, where Trion scaled them back, ArenaNet looks to have embraced them. They went the Full Measure.”
Bio Break
I wonder what kind of game Rift would have been if it didn’t wuss out with the Rift system. If they stayed true to the idea of a dynamic and possibly dangerous world.
Instead they went all care bear friendly theme park mode. Wouldn’t want those mean old water rifts to mess with your daily quests afterall. =/
Lets hope GW2 doesn’t repeat the mistakes.
I sort of feel that Trion did a bait and switch thing there. I remember loving beta because it truly was a dynamic world. And then sometime between then and release they abandoned that idea. When they introduced the appearance slot system as a watered-down version of the LotRO one, I knew that the game would never be something I’d want to play again.
I would ask not what they did but why. Too many developers have stubbornly stuck to a project scope they were incapable of delivering. By narrowing their focus, Trion was actually able to deliver a game worth playing. Given that they were building this project with $100 million of other peoples’ money, there are limits to how much we can fault them for that decision.
Re: the Why? Armadillo asks about… I think there’s a serious disconnect between what gamers SAY we want, and what we SHOW we want.
A lot of people complain about the lack of consequence in SWTOR’s stories. Bioware started with it – you could have everything from reset quests to lost companions. Gamers don’t want consequence. Devs continuously try to add more, and players routinely reject it. We’ll see how much of the changing world players are willing to endure once GW2′s beta gets rolling.