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MMOGs Shift Gears, Online Crime Up
Next Generation has a pair of articles about the Massive scene today. One is an interview with NCSoft's Ryan Seabury about the company's shift away from the fantasy genre, and the other a short piece stating that in-game crime is on the rise in Japan as the popularity of MMOs continues to rise. From the NCSoft article: "There's a distinct lack of an online home for the wider action gaming crowd in the MMOG arena today. Although we've seen a general trend towards more action and more mainstream gaming in MMOs, still nothing is in the same league as your typical team based FPS style gameplay. We want to provide that home to the masses of action gamers out there, looking for over-the-top action. Our core gameplay mechanic and pace attracts the action gamer, but we subversively immerse them deeper into the world as they play, via the fiction, the item hunting, the crafting, the vehicle customization, the arenas, and so on."
Planetside is a game that is very team-based. If you're involved in a good Outfit that likes to play in an organized style, and their style is fun, then you're probably going to enjoy yourself.
If you just run around in a tank and blow stuff up without a care in the world, the game is definitely going to get boring after a while.
Fortunately, the game has enough of a dedicated following to sustain it for the time being. An obvious indication of this is the in-game advertising. SOE obviously has enough of an audience to entice advertisers and also has enough faith in the game's fan base to spend the money and effort to do so. Hopefully the added revenue will lengthen the life of the game long enough to hold me over till the next great MMOFPS comes along.
In other news online crime rate in Japan has increased 10 fold in one year. Offline crime rate remains the lowest in the world.
Well, for a produt that has been delayed, (and "praised" for delays...), they've got the unenviable position of having started the marketing machine. They've now got to sustain a buzz until the spring.
"Autoduel"-style games are great, and much needed, but the particular implementation will have to be seen.
MMP FPSs have been around for some time, contrary to popular belief. Heck, even that train-wreck of a release World War Two Online is still around with a devoted following (disclosure: I am not a follower, let alone a devoted one) after 4 years of being a MMORPG/FPS -- they're even getting ready for another release (or maybe they've released it already). What's missing is a wildly successful MMORPG/FPS.
Then again, Auto Assault is supposed to be third-person from behind the cars, so it's not an FPS either.
And, like most hype articles, the claim here is that you can have your cake and eat it too. Those big-ass games that people play, have something called "leveling" that stands in for talent and narrative -- spend enough time, you go up a level, get new abilities, and new access to narrative content. So: leveling = new narrative + new abilities. Take away either one of these things, and people complain. Narrative is one of your biggest costs in these MMP games -- come up with ridiculous stories and maintain interest over time. Making people do repetitive tasks is a way to stretch the narrative out.
The claim of making leveling "fun", as well as everything else, suggests 100% narrative. The subtext suggests 100% automotive fights. Now, these are going to be simple enough that your average moron can pull them off -- otherwise, some people won't level, and you'll lose your sub base (a la WW2OL). So how's it gonna work?