Licenses And MMO Games - A Good Pairing?

Posted by simoniker on Friday October 31, 2003 @09:32PM from the like-vim-and-vigor dept.

Thanks to GameSpy for their article discussing the realities of building MMOG world based on existing licenses. They point out: "The rush is on. Star Wars Galaxies, released this past summer, was only the beginning. Middle-Earth Online is gearing up to bring The Lord of the Rings to life... The Matrix Online, still secretive, is a real noodle bender: A virtual reality based on living life inside a virtual reality?" But, as Will Wright points out: "Books and movies are by definition very linear properties, as seen from a single protagonist's point of view. That's very hard to put into an online world." The article concludes: "Most agree that great licensed games have to be based on a sense of place, as opposed to character."

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Wheres our Immersion? by Naffer · 2003-11-01 05:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

I think that immersion is the largest problem in MMORPGs today. You wouldn't belive how large the percent "churn" (people who cancel accounts early on) is. The problem lies in the fact that it's difficult to really get into a lisenced game world when you feel like the actions that you're allowed to take are all superficial.

I played SWG for exactly one month after launch, just long enough to get out without having to large a time or monatary investment. Everything I was allowed to do in the game was superficial. I could kill randomly spawning rocks (burrows) or randomly spawning rats. I could craft using randomly spawning resources, or go on randomly spawning missions to destroy randomly spawning burrows for a random amount of gold. I don't remember the Star Wars Universe as portrayed in the movies to be anything like that. Heck, they STILL don't have landspeeders!