The framework stays the same, the experience is different

From he-who-must-not-post anymore but still does on WoW Vs LotRo:

Turbine instead took a successful game and shamefully ripped it off in every aspect, hoping that the powerful license they purchased will compensate the complete lack of ideas, competence and ambition. The difference is that LOTRO doesn’t bring any kind of worthwhile contribute to this genre, it just hopes to leech it.

Innovation isn’t easy, (duh) it’s also subjective to what a player is familiarized with and most of all innovation is fucking overrated. Lord of the Rings online isn’t supposed to be innovative; it’s not supposed to be revolutionary to players who have played other fantasy based mmogs. The most innovative mmogs in the past five years have been canned or flopped: (ao, horizons, mythica, wish, mxo, swg, etc). Did you know back in 2003 one features touted in eMiddle Earth™ was a quest driven gaming experience where a lot of quests could be accomplished in smaller time chunks and it was supposed to launch in 2004. Sometimes you don’t win the race and you can’t cheat the competition, EQII tried it and look where that landed them in their first year.

A lot of innovation that already exists in console/single player games can’t be replicated in the massive online genre because of technical limitations. The mmog genre is going see a lot more game innovation on the business side because the market is there, RMT will influence the game design as the suits play puppets with designers and have them do their bidding by innovating schemes into the game design. I don’t think developers should not strive for non-RMT innovation in their game design, but every mmog has their bits and pieces of innovation (some call them “gimmicks”) that are overlooked by most players and aren’t lauded because overall the foundation is a derivative. In some cases above where the developers strayed from the diku formula, the fruits of their labor were punished because innovation takes budget from other things like content implementation, which takes time and attention, which ends in refinement, and that is the most important part of success.

Alright, think of the bad ass mmog you would make or play, that would be completely innovative – got some ideas in your head? Maybe you’ve already written your design opus and use it as your resume. I hate to break it to you, but your superb ideas have already been implemented in some fashion, they aren’t that innovative, they’ve been done - maybe not in a mmog, but somewhere else the gist of that same harebrained idea has been done. But Krones, wait a minute… It came from my high powered IQ and I read all these books and played all these games, surely no one else has heard it or planned on putting it in their game. Well friend, someone before you did too and is more brilliant than you. In fact, some paid designer, who does that shit for a living, thought of that very same concept or discussed that same idea with at their daily design meeting or at lunch with their coworkers – unfortunately, it’s not a new idea, it’s only new for you because you haven’t heard it before or thought about it or even played a game that had it.

You want to be vocal and discuss “your” innovative ideas sitting atop your ivory armchair at other laymen who listen, go for it. I like theory-crafting, but it’s all mental masturbation. I’m a realist - scrawled into the back of my own thoughts I know my ideas aren’t original and ideas are a dime a dozen, I hate the cliche, but it’s true. If you’re really good and lucky to make it in the design biz (which is really more about content implementation so get crackin’ on mods or become a programmer) – you might win the design lottery – you get creative control and your bright ideas will see the light of day and you can go make the next second life or insert web 2.0 based shared online space experience – but they won’t be that innovative! I don’t believe there is some revolutionary Plato insight into game design that nobody knows about, only on the technology side when it comes to peeling the limitations – because that’s where the real innovation needs to happen.