It absolutely was due to lack of choice/not knowing any better. Even Smedley himself has essentially admitted as such.
You realize there were other MMO's right? What's your explination for them having 1/10th the population of EQ? (There were at least 5 other MMO's in direct competition with EQ. 4 with 3d graphical views.) EQ grew the market the largest, had the most robust life span and EQ's mechanics were copied and refined by WoW. People might have stuck with EQ due to lack of options, but it certainly wasn't lack of options that
grewthe market in that direction; it might have been the lack of options that kept it stable until WoW grew it again though. (Still, correlation does not equal causation; I could just as easily say the only 3 times in history this market grew in population a sizable mount? Have come from far more "hardcore" games, EQ, WoW (Vanilla/TBC) and Lineage 2.)
Had WoW occurred before EQ, I strongly believe very few people would have played it(EQ that is). The same way that nobody would've used a horse, had the Model T happened first. I think EQ was very influential(I don't think there was much that made it "special". If they hadn't done it first, somebody else would have)to the start of the MMO space, but I don't think that it was vital, as some would claim. I also question where MMOs might be, had it not been the "first".
And nothing here effects anything else said. WoW used most of EQ's systems, refined in a very specific way to enhance accessibility in the medium. Early WoW was essentially EQ with better under the hood functions for it's systems, instancing to reduce competition, a Quest based leveling format to make leveling more aproachable and fungible (Pick it up and drop it easier), a superior engine with better controls (Made from scratch) and less initial character options with more growth in characters (To increase the accessibility of the learning curve.)....But as you can see? All those innovations had *one* goal; make this game more approachable to people without MUD or DIKU experience, but what they made approachable? Was still the EQ formula. It wasn't Ashron's call more Merdian 59--it was purely "how do we make EQ easier for the uninitiated to pick up and play and experience EQ's systems".
But now the market is older, it's fans are experienced. Maybe we should be curious about what a group of developers with Blizzard's skill could create if instead of the design goal of "accessibility"--they went back, looked at WoW Vanilla and said "okay, lets design for freedom, or consequence or...(Ect)"...I think you'd get a game that was still pretty accessible, but with a
vastlydifferent feel and play style; and I really think there is not only room for that kind of "hardcore" game, but the market just might be waiting for it. (No, sadly, I don't think Pantheon will be that game.)
EVE, despite its tumultuous beginnings, pretty much fits your mold. It's slowly gained "subs"(mostly people PLEXing their way to multiple accounts), but I really question its actual expansion of the market.
Eve is not a PvE game; I can't say for certain because I haven't read any real reports which include them, but I think if you were to do research? You'd find the people that play Eve only have some cross over into the DIKU games, and instead that market was grown more out of the exploding LoL/WoT, discreet PvP markets that have been huge. Or maybe from Anarchy Online/UO. But I can't say for certain, it would be just a guess. It's not really a DIKU competitor. But you are right, it is an example of how a different focus, and different mechanics, can be successful because it doesn't need to compete with WoW.
I completely agree with you that certain mechanics that were present in EQ, have the ability to be expanded upon. The problem is, most people here don't seem to be arguing/asking for that(certainly not when the KS was first announced). Some have even stated that they want EQ, but with better graphics. They are literally and figuratively asking for a reskin. Toyota wouldn't have been successful in kicking our asses, if they hadn't included all of the quality of life improvements that happened to automobiles years prior.
I think some people just need to hop on P99 and see what a shit game EQ actually was. However, having gotten to high end on P99 recently; I can tell you, some mechanics, especially some of the "hardcore" stuff that has been pruned out of every MMO? I had forgotten how addictive they are. Exploring dungeons, for example, was damn exciting because the risk was so high. And the whole time I had the bad points of the game on my mind, and how inferior it was to WoW; but yet certain mechanics which got left behind in the first "market refinement" of the genre? For me? Obviously still work. And deserve to be explored.
Yeah, Toyota wouldn't have kicked our ass if they ignored quality of life stuff that was already iterated upon. But they also wouldn't have kicked our ass if they were afraid to toss some of them in order to offer some more niche automobiles. (Like high MPG by throwing out power--more power, bigger seats, these are all "quality of life" ergonomics and aesthetics in a car, yet people gladly took a reduction in them for something else.)
Which is what I'm essentially saying. I look at WoW's accessibility changes? And I really think they can be scaled back somewhat, in order to explore other avenues. That doesn't mean everything WoW did was bad--I think a lot of it is great. But I think there are places where you could only keep the core of WoW's changes, and then iterate on systems that got left behind (Like using the scope of the land to create higher risk ect.)
In the end, the market might just never support another growth; but I still think the future is niche games. I don't think in 20 years the landscape will be one big MMO, but instead a bunch of fragments. Some of them hardcore, some of them more like WoW, some of them in between. As tools get easier and cheaper to use, someone outside the triple A space is going to make a DIKU that plucks out a different set of mechanics from EQ and refines them, and then sprinkles in WoW's access---and you're going to see a shift in the market again. (Heck you might just see that from EQN/L even though I think that's less of an iterative shift and instead will be a growth--like EVE, since Landmark is not direct competition)
I've already acknowledged Dark Souls(theoneexample everybody clings so desperately to)as proof that a market for "difficulty" exists. The problem is, that doesn't necessarily directly translate to the MMO genre.
Sorry, I know this wasn't towards me...but just on "Dark Souls"...I think Dark Souls is a great example of people who understand the difference between difficulty, and frustration, or tedium. If Dark Souls showed one thing? It's that there are tons of unexplored territories in the "MMO--
RPG" (Emphasis on the RPG) space still. No, Dark Souls wouldn't transfer over to an MMO; but I think Dark Souls has captured some of those elements of abstract "freedom" that existed in EQ better than current MMO's have. Like the ability to attack anything, anywhere--that alone, for me, creates an extreme sense agency in the general aesthetic of the world--it just "feels" far more immersive to climb up on a tower and shoot down at a boss and not have an invisible wall say "uh oh, that's not how it's supposed to be done! Bad, bad!". Little things like that were sacrificed on the alter of accessibility , and I'm
notso sure those changes were best for everyone. (Or maybe they were when the market was younger...but you have to account for gamers becoming more refined as the market matures; just like the advent of muscle cars for car guys. Hardcore gamers are now an untapped market.)
I feel like Dark Souls is what the MMO space would get if Blizzard sat down, looked at WoW vanilla and said "your design goal should be player freedom and consequence." And I think that would be awesome, personally--no it wouldn't become "Dark Souls Online", but I think you'd get the spiritual successor to EQ out of that.
