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."

Comments

MMOFPS

[Asgard]

If you are looking for a MMOFPS, try out Planetside. There is also another one called Huxley supposedly coming out late next year.

Re:MMOFPS

[fistfullast33l]

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.

Re:Online crime?

[superpulpsicle]

In other news online crime rate in Japan has increased 10 fold in one year. Offline crime rate remains the lowest in the world.

Re:Actually, Planetside has none of those problems

[Moraelin]

Well, ok, I'll give WoW that. It does have farming, though you probably realize that you don't really have to compete with that. The only way you'd end up in direct competition with those is if you too planned to sell gold on eBay, but I'm thinking you didn't.

What you accused it of, however is rampant cheating, cracking, and scamming. I can tell you firsthand that it's not the case.

The quip about having access to lots of CD keys, I'm not even sure what to make of it. They have access to the keys they bought, and that's that. Even if you told someone your CD key (but not many people are stupid enough to do that), once you've already used it to open an account, it's not usable again. So it would be of exactly zero use to anyone.

Look, I'm not saying you should play WoW or whatever. If it's not your favourite genre, fair enough, you're better off playing something else.

Noone's forcing you to play it, so you don't have to invent completely bogus problems to talk your way out. Just don't play it if you don't want to, and that's that.

Or to put it otherwise, no offense, but please stick to stuff you've actually played and problems you've actually experienced when you want to complain about something. You're so far off the mark, that it's like reading someone complaining about sniper-camping in Leisuresuit Larry, or about the selection of racing cars in Quake 3.

Re:Article? More like an advertisement.

[DingerX]

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?

Re:Actually, Planetside has none of those problems

[Moraelin]

Actually, I'm not even playing WoW any more, but I find it surrealistic to basically extrapolate "WoW is a MMO, some other MMOs have been ruined by cheats and hacks, therefore WoW is ruined by cheats and hacks too." It's a textbook fallacy. It's as bogus as saying "Need For Soeed is a computer game, some computer games are FPS, therefore NFS is a FPS."

The thing about keyloggers again, you're extrapolating things you know from other games (e.g., FPS games where that CD key is your only identification) to something where that doesn't even work at all. It doesn't matter if you get my WoW key by trojans, keyloggers or I gave it to you, you just can't start another account with that key. Ever. Period.

As I've said, please complain about things you've actually experienced. This talking out the rear end based on assumptions and blanket extrapolations is getting tiresome.

Blah blah MMOG crime blah

[Red Flayer]

FTA: "Theft of online 'virtual' goods is on the rise in Japan, as the popularity of MMOGs increases."

Then the article goes on to describe a single incident as anecdotal evidence of this trend. Poor reporting, headline and teaser have nothing to do with article.

That said, the instance cited involves one player using another player's password. How did he get it?

If she gave him the password, then it does not excuse his behavior, but she messed up.

If he cracked her password, then that's a different story.

But really, online goods, if they have real-world value, need to be protected. Secure passwords, etc. Do you let your kids leave their YuGiOh cards unattended at the mall?

The answer, to me, is to not let your kids play games that you can't trust to protect your property.