I wont quote, it would lengthen unnecessarily my message. Hmm, maybe I do need.
''I mean, unless you can come up with a way for your combat system to function otherwise --'' ''-- you're stuck with action bar, why? Because RPG games is about spells and action through a combinations of different buttons and such, thus making action bar essential. (I hope you haven't mistaken action bar with core combat mechanics).''
I've played over 10 years all sort of Mmorpg's and most of them; Runescape (which isn't the main point). Yes most of Mmorpg's which I have played they've gotten action bars or have gotten them at least in the fall of 2012. Action bars are not essential, you can use Combat Triangle or Classless combat, which brings us more ways to delve into MMORPG's combat, than just having the one ''regular'' tab-target kill x-amount mobs etc, which current Mmorpg's have chosen.
There's also possibility to change games target, like: move some Mmorpg's to be supporting 'PVP only' -playing style, rather than ''sweeping the same roads'' with the current PvM-PvP mixtured games, which we have gotten from late 90's to until this day.
''As to whether combat in WoW gotten more casual due to the fact that they removed talent trees/reduced the amount of spells over the years etc etc is just a necessary steps in my opinion. ''
Removing talents seems to be fine (huh?), but they can be used like an regular scoreboard (which will be overwriting the talent tree), ''where xp is tracked/counted'' by each skill separately. However skill trees are shocking, sometimes, especially the ones, which got Offensive, Defensive, Avatar/Genie & Non-combat ''branches'' for me, I've used into scoreboards but I think I've met some in Pwi/Gw/Tera.
''Where it was "best MMORPG" kind of era, you have to hard earn your gear, get a huge group of people playing it with you, wipe like 2 hours or more on a boss in order of progress, they're all great and things but as I get older, this is not a formula I can follow, prime reason is because of the lack of time.''
Yeah, we seem to run into same subject, the lack of time. :) But it's not necessary to play for xp only (if you're completed the most of the game, it's good to chill sometimes?), you can always just login without bothering to repeat the daily quests, nobody forces you to wait 2hrs or play over 8hrs a day.
''So ask yourself this question: with probably only 1 or less hour a day, would you be able to "enjoy" the content being released? Well obvious answer to this question is yes, provided you play enough, get your friend to grind with you enough eventually you'll down the boss, but that brings another question: how easy is it to organise a massive 25 man raid as you get older, because of different work schedule and various other reasons, which directly related back to my question of if you only can spend 1 or less hour a day, would it be fun to probably wipe at a boss and achieve nothing during your meeting up with your friends?''
I will enjoy, if it's Pvp, if it's Pvm I probably wont be able to finish it in 1 hour + I'm so slow in gearing tbh. Only coincidence is that I do party events (I can't chose people in it so there's random possibility to invite favorite people) so picking up my fave friends to co-op with me is not yet possible, usually they hang in ''clan chat'', so they wont be missing anything or go in with their own ''mission''. It's not easy to be boss or organise a big/medium group, but it works when the people can be asked in the lobby or in the World Chat for instance/Raid, hopefully that ppl have gotten experience through various tries in that regular place or have a good touch with the overall playing. That schedule isn't the biggest 'worry-able' thing, since there's always 'able people' to be invited, but seems like Yours game got straighter deals when to run an instance & when not. Usually the bond between a mate will fade, since you keep looking/searching help for various things if your ''clan'' ain't able to run them for you or your mate has a college or a work to do in first place, if playing with friend is not too vital, in part of completing the Endgame, you will be more loose/lightheaded about the whole game itself, Mmorpg or not. (It's not going to die in a night.)
''So if the formula works, would you attempt to venture into the unknown where it can potential lose you a lot of money?''
Well if you're happy with the consumption, you maybe wont think it. There is always better things to buy...
''If you're the company's CEO and you're faced with 2 option: venture into unknown or use the formula that's proven to work, what would you do? Provided if you have a very very good idea but you don't know how the community would react to it, if in the end your very great idea was pretty short lived then you could potentially face the problem of no player base supporting your game, or very little, which potentially earn you less money, someone that every company needs to get a good R&D team. So yes, I don't think its not that the company don't want to venture into new ground, but unless you're willing single handedly financially support a company's team, then I doubt they would want to venture out into what potentially be a death trap. If, and that's a big if, that your idea actually work, then it'll very well be the next generation of "WoW" which completely redefined the MMORPG genre, but are you that confident that your game will be the next WoW of MMORPG?''
Venturing is always the risk, if no one tries, nobody will ever have anything better than ''average'', which was the whole point of my last comment. Money is the major backing thing, when people starts up creating a MMORPG, also it restricts the MMORPG itself in the first place. Proven formula is profiting only the people who is enough varying the basics, like rendering the graphics being little better & making it action combat, to stand out from others, like GW2 & Tera have done along many others.
It's fancy idea to deal with the community, usually Gm's are going with their own ideals. I'm sure asking community will make up something good in the end. Well actually some companies with smaller player-base are providing Q&A's and while doing these they tend to bring up possible updates, ''hand picked'' from community forums, which can be voted by the player. If a deal gets over 75% Yes votes, it would pass into the dev-zone. (too bad, usually people want just small things, which will provide only some tweaks into an major update, like: removing waiting timer from instanced lobby, faster trading screens, bank's search buttons etc.)
I'm really looking forwards to something, which could ''maybe'' redefine MMORPG genre, I will bet it might be a potential contender but their company isn't going to give extra points, they have been only teasing us for past 4 hard years.
Sorry went off-trails again, been doing herblore/farming run. I usually pickup normal threads but this was something which I arranged from youtube's comment section tbh.
Bouncing a question, to you. How long have you been playing a single Mmorpg? And would you try something else which isn't in your ''normal comfort zone''? Is there anything you wanted from an MMORPG which can't be found out, from the current ones?