One thing you always see on MMO (and probably other game types) forums, blogs, etc, is "I want something new and different!" or "This is the same old, same old, nothing new here!", and the more negative, but expressing the same desire/sentiment "This is just a copy of <insert past/popular game here>!"

Why do so many games seem to follow a formula, a cookie-cutter if you will? There's a couple of potential reasons. I'll mainly be talking MMOs here, as that's the main thing I play and study.

The first, and likely primary reason for following design formulas is simple business. "'Game W' has millions of subscribers, so if we follow a lot of what 'Game W' did, we'll have a lot of subscribers, too." In general, that works. No one's matched 'Game W''s numbers yet (and it may be that no one ever does, until Developer B's next game), but most of the other fairly successful MMOs follow a similar design formula. MMOs cost millions (tens of millions, actually) of dollars to create, so, from a business standpoint, you either follow a proven formula, or you gamble with a boatload of money. It's hard to convince the bean counters to go for the gamble.

There is also the past history that a lot of games that went and did something different either failed, changed directions to be more formulaic, or actually shut down. You've got SWG, which when it opened, was a very sandboxy, open, unique game. It had a level-less advancement system with no classes, where you could really create the kind of character you wanted. It also had a very deep crafting system that I can't even begin to explain here. And... it ended up being changed into a standard level-based system with rigid classes. Then there's Vanguard, which sought to return to a more hardcore playstyle, with harsh death penalty and forced grouping. It was plagued by a truly disastrous release (and absurdly high computer system requirements), but I think ultimately the harder gameplay, in a post-WoW world helped kill it. Sure, it's still running, but do you know anyone that plays it as their primary MMO? I sure don't. The list of "different but failed/obscure" MMOs goes on: AC2, Shadowbane, WISH, Horizons; I could go on and on. Yes, all of these had OTHER problems, but, I maintain that if the gameplay were more familiar for more people, the games probably would have survived.

So you get bean counters looking at this history and saying "no way, all these games did things different and failed, we're not gambling with $50,000,000. You will follow a proven formula."

Then there's always the dual-nature of gamers working against doing things differently. Let's take an example from WoW. Dungeons in WoW generally follow a standard pattern. You go in, you clear "trash" mobs to get to a boss, then you fight the boss. The boss might be a simple "tank and spank" encounter, or sometimes there's more of an "event" to it. Then you clear to the next boss, and repeat until the last one. It's fun, but, basically, formulaic. People screamed for something different, so Blizzard came up with The Oculus, easily the most hated dungeon in the game. It's different though! For the record, I like Oculus. ;) Anyway, in this dungeon, you clear a small amount of trash, then port up to a boss and kill him, which frees 3 NPCs. Each of these NPCs represents a different color of drake, which you choose to ride on for parts of the rest of the dungeon. While riding on the drake, your character has a completely different set of abilities from your normal ones. You basically are not your character while you are on the drake. One of them is a damage dealer, one is a healer, and one is a tank. Yeah, it's the trinity. Anyway, for the rest of the dungeon, you use the drake to fly to different encounters. 2 of them, you get off the drake and play your regular character for, and then you get to the last boss. This last boss is a dragon, and you have to defeat him while on your drake. Defeating him requires a little bit of coordination of the drake's abilities, and I find the encounter pretty cool. But most players hate this dungeon! "I don't want to play a drake, I want to play myself." is the main complaint you hear. Well, Blizzard tried to give people something different - and they didn't like it! At least they tried, eh?

And this, I think, ends up being the biggest non-business related reason you don't see anything new: What is there!?

MMOs are at their core a lot like single player RPGs. You make a character, you advance that character, usually through gaining Experience Points by completing quests and killing monsters, so that you can become powerful enough to defeat the main enemy of the story. In single player RPGs, then you're done. In MMOs, a new main enemy always rises, and you repeat the level up/advance phase. That's just how this game genre works.

So, how do you come up with a way to have this mechanic of advancing a character, in order to take on new challenges, in a new and different way? I've been thinking about that problem for over 10 years now, and I've got nothing! It seems other players also have nothing, and ditto the developers. I see the cries for "new and different!" but I never see any actual suggestions as to what to actually do, down at a mechanics/content level. I honestly think it's like the movies: every story has been told already, and all we can do is tell it a little differently, with different people, in different settings. :)

Thing is... I still love these games. I still play them, I invest thousands of dollars per year to keep my hardware current, and hundreds per year on the games and subscriptions for same, and I don't see that ever stopping. :)

Have you got the solution to the "give me new and different!!!one" cries? Have you come up with something really revolutionary? I'd love to hear about it. Comment here, email me, or send a Tweet to @ModemMisuser.