MMOFPS Games The Next Big Thing?

GameOgre writes "Despite a few lackluster attempts at a major MMOFPS like PlanetSide and now (in some ways) Star Wars Galaxies, could the MMOFPS genre one day rival MMORPGs in popularity and become the next big thing in MMO gaming?" From the article: "Imagine the possibilities of the MMOFPS genre for a second. Instead of going through the tired old tread mill of generic missions and level grinding, blast through a combination of other players and intelligent bots on a massive scale. There would be no rooms or lobbies that you have to scan through to find a vacancy, but one persistent world. The game would be as simple as an FPS but would have enough depth to keep you coming back. You would also not be able to camp a certain monster for treasure, because their would be no monster or treasure." The big issue I see here is pricing. The monthly fee for Planetside is just too high for what they offer.

Comments

Private Servers

[bigwang]

I would definitely love a MMOFPS.
RPGs bore me to tears.

I think instead of having a big server where everyone connects to, it would be nice to have individual private servers like FPS use now.

However, they would be overseen by a master server (sort of like how they implement anti-cheating and anti-piracy now). So that your "profile" would carry with you. So each individual server could be like a country. With set dimensions, and rules, maybe even textures. And once you reach the limits of the server you are on, you would connect to another server. And the servers would be arranged on the master server by latency. So that if you live on the east coast, you would get the best pings on east coast servers. But you could still travel to the west coast servers, and that would add a different dimention to the game.

That I imagine would defray the cost, so that no monthly fees would be needed. And yes, you would depend on the kindness (and uptime) of strangers, but that community (strangers hosting CS, TFC, CoD, BF, Q3 servers) sprung up out of nowhere and it's very robust.

Essentials

[Idealius]

Being someone who has played plenty of FPS's and MMO's here are the essentials to a great MMOFPS:

1. No Guns! (or the option to play without vs those who choose the same option)
- guns mean aimbots, you need some swordplay like the Jedi Knight series, Rune, etc. to prevent cheating.
- gameplay > all. sometimes complicating a game by allowing you to have super leet grenades only makes it less fun. Think of a chessboard double it's regular size with twice as many pieces. Anyone can aim a gun, it's not fun anymore and it's not competitive unless you decide to stick to one gun game for the next two years to avoid having to relearn aim in other games -- an absolute nightmare if you own multiple gun games.

2. Clans!
- FPS's main method of keeping a steady population years after their release is by allowing anyone to make a clan, screw MMO's and their factions, I want to choose from factions real people create.

3. Make organized clan matches result in territory wars a la risk, but make them scheduled like real FPS clans schedule matches.
- That means whenever they want as long as all parties agree, but no set period where they must protect their territory because even though all those stories about some kindergartner being god at Quake sound appealing, most of the really good FPS'ers are young adults with lives, too. The clan matches should revolve around my clan's schedule, not the game's schedule. You can make the control a clan has over a certain area gradually disappear with time so clans can't sit forever on a piece of land and refuse to fight for it.

4. Balancing an MMO's duels between different classes is easy. A FPS is much harder, in fact I would say nearly impossible unless they're restricted to the same weapons vs each other in a symmetrical world or something ridiculous @_@. Either, spend a lot of time ensuring this is balanced, or force players to use the same weapons vs each other to make it fun -- or even make the stats/experience system allow for a higher gain if duplicate weapons are used.

5. Fair fights are fun because the other person can't claim a handicap if you win!

6. Tie "virtual material possessions" to the land a clan fights other ACTUAL PEOPLE to retain. Basically, make it more like life.

Some other ideas:

-Use the Instancing model to support low ping duels.
-Crafting has a place in a FPSMMO, think about clothing, it shouldn't hook into your gear, though, because that just leads to unfair fights which, as said, I believe to be the cornerstone of a FPS.
-So what's there to do? Kill people to earn stats, higher stats go to new areas opening up and allowing you certain privileges in your clan such as the ability to arrange a clan match, or the ability to induct a new member.

To be honest, I would be satisified with current FPS's having some kind of "teleport to another server" portal, but if you're going to go all the way please do it right.

Re:Essentials

[Lord_Dweomer]

Ok....I gotta say I see quite a few holes in your logic, feel free though to discuss as I'm more interested in debate than mod points.

1. The no guns thing - People like guns in FPS. Thats why they're called first person SHOOTERS. Now, don't get me wrong, there are a few great examples of melee combat done fairly well, the Jedi Knight series being at the top. And I know there are a few new Fantasy FPS in the works right now that look promising. But people want guns. And they want variety of guns. And they want bigger and badder guns. And of course, vehicles. That was the reason the Battlefield series became such a success, the vehicles. Is it any surprise that vehicles are some of the most desired things in MMORPGS as well (can you say mounts)?

2. Clans - Agree with ya there

3. Not a bad idea either, definitely important to make the scheduling flexible.

4. Ah, see, here is the thing. The vast majority of players don't necessarily want balance in a FPS. They want to find the right weapon/vehicle, and use it to blast the shit out of the other helpless players. Yeah, they want some challenge, but they sure don't want everything to always be evened out. And NOBODY likes to be forced into using certain weapons. And as BF2 showed, the experience system to unlock weapons works, but people get frustrated when there is no clear elevation in power in the weapons you unlock when you level up. Its like lvl 1, unlock gun, lvl 2, unlock gun with same power as lvl 1 unlocked gun, etc. In addition, when you have such RIDICULOUS experience requirements as BF2 does, casual gamers get VERY frustrated VERY quickly that they are at such a disadvantage to other players who have no lives outside of the game. You'll find that a lot of the casual gamer crowd flocks to FPS because of the "pick-up" nature of it. Skill levels the playing field, not equipment. And thats the way the majority of players like it, and thats why the good players are able to get knife kills.

5. Fair fights are NOT always fun, see above. Fairness is a concept that people like in RPGs because they don't want to be at a disadvantage when squaring off against someone at their level. But keep in mind RPGs are a numbers based game whereas FPS are a skill based one. People want to have a huge advantage if their skill warrants it. They don't want to run into Planetside situations where just because a player has played forever and has a certain vehicle, they are helpless against them.

6. Virtual material possessions are good. But I think in order to strike a good balance between FPS and RPGs, the majority of game altering equipment/weapons should be stuff that you mostly have access to at the beginning with a few high end things reserved for people with the experience. But it is proven time and time again that people LOVE to customize their character's appearance, and in an MMOFPS, it is absolutely essential to be able to distinguish teams and individuals, and an excellent way to do that is via cosmetic upgrades. For example, in Guild Wars, you have your regular set of armor, and then you have your 15k set which costs an insane amount of money, and has exactly the same stats. Only difference is appearance, and it gives the more dedicated/experienced players a chance to show off. Another thing I'd love to see is vehicle customization. If you get in a vehicle, you might have upgrades to it based on your experience. Are you a good pilot? Then get the Ace paintjob that lets people know not to fuck with you.

7. I like the instanced idea, I think it is essential, however the number of people in the instance should be around 64 or so, like normal FPS today. There should also be uninstanced areas where you can have absolutely MASSIVE battles on the scale of Planetside.

8. Crafting rocks, people should be able to harvest resources and craft things, and also farm them, but it shouldn't be the grind that it currently is in MMORPGs. MMOFPS are all about action, NOT grind.

9. I've already dis

Free gaming has a problem

[SmallFurryCreature]

No paid account to ban.

MMO's like everquest while having a share of kiddies (or mental retards, it is sometimes hard to tell the difference) are still havens of silent intellect compared to much of the net.

Certainly compared to one MMOFPS Joint Operations by Novalogic. I was an early beta tester and it was fun. Then they opened the beta more and more and wow. The designers had made a mistake. They had spotted the obvious kiddie dream of just gunning down their own team and disabled that. However satchel bomb could be dropped anywhere (including vehicles) and then remotely detonated. So cue endless hours of fun of not so good players running into a helicopter (the slightly better ones waiting to pick up some other players) then take off and blow up. If the explosion did not kill you you died in the fall or had a long long swim ahead of you.

Free gaming lowers the barrier and doing that invites people that will be in the game for no other reasing then to upset other people.

Frankly I sony does it pretty well. Just charge a month and allow people to cancel right away so they are not billed again unless they decide to resubscribe and they can just game for 1 month.

It is how I play now. I usually get tired off a game then cancel it only to come back 2-3 months later to play some more.

As for advertising paying for an MMO, Anarchy Online has shifted to that model. It is not exactly a shining example of success.

Oh and I not some snobbish people hater. I am old enough to remember that ALL fps online games were without password for the server. Then clans added them for their own servers. Then it became common to see more password only servers as a game got older. Now it is rare to see open servers at a games launch.

Re:Battletech

[Quarters]

Had it done 3 years ago. It was called Multiplayer BattleTech:3025. It was finished, ready to go, then EA and Microsoft got into a head-butting match over the future of the license. So EA never published the product. It was, and still is, one of the best products I've worked on.

It will take a while

[Phae]

There are a lot of problems when thinking about making an MMOFPS.

First, you're appealing to very different demographics. I know when I play MMORPGs, I consistently come across (relatively) older (and mature) people, including married couples. Additionally, pretty much anyone is capable of doing well, regardless of reflexes and hand-eye coordination.

The appeal of an FPS is to a much younger crowd. If any of you have played FPS games online, you know that it's not uncommon to have many pre-pubescent kids playing on the same server. This is a double knock for an MMOFPS - it lowers the overall maturity of the game world, and these people also don't have their own income or a credit card.

Additionally, people either have 'twitch' skills, or you don't, and I've had enough experience with my non-twitch friends to know that people don't enjoy losing at a game every time they play it. This necessitates adding 'support' roles that don't require quick reflexes for shooting, thus pushing the game closer to the RPG genre.

The main problem I see with an MMOFPS is this: is it a unique game experience? My answer would be no. There are already tons of FPS games you can play online (and for free after you buy the initial game). These can allow anywhere up to 64 people to be playing simultaneously. Granted, it wouldn't be quite the same scale, but it is free, and you get the same adrenaline rush that most people are looking for when they want to play an FPS.

In short, I don't see MMOFPS games becoming a large market any time in the near future.