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Stargate MMO Announced
Adding to the growing list of S/F Massive titles on the market, Gamecloud reports that a studio called Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment will be attempting to bring the Stargate franchise to the Massive gaming genre. From the article: "Stargate Worlds provides players with a form of ranged combat unique to MMORPG that will take full advantage of modern and science fiction weaponry, cover, and terrain. Players will be able to form squads with their friends or use bots for players who want to go solo. Squad leaders will control maneuvers and objectives through an innovative combat control interface. Players may choose to create characters that are members of either the SGC (the Good Guys) or the System Lords (the Bad Guys). Characters are equipped with varied and mixed skills, with the choice to form such classes as Research, Combat Marine, Medical, Scientific, Diplomatic, Engineering, Archeological, and Exploration. PVP will be possible between the two alliances on many contested worlds, actually swaying the balance of power on those planets, and unlocking hidden content." No release date, and an ambitious plan. Hope it works out for them.
Hot on the heels (okay, not too hot) of JoWood's cancellation of Stargate SG-1: The Alliance. Excuse me if my confidence falters.
Hopefully this game will take place in both the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Hopefully, there will be updates and expansion packs to address this, as there have been in similar games. On the whole, it looks like this could have a lot of potential....now it has the burden of living up to that potential.
And the developer should just admit defeat now, then. I'm willing to bet actual money on this failing as miserably as Star Wars Galaxies, in that it will never ever be able to live up to fan expectations. Add to that pile: Star Trek Online and The Lord of the Rings MMO.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
Personally, I love the idea of a Stargate MMO.. but am I the only one that thinks "Cheyenne Entertainment"'s website looks like a random collection of buzzwords targeting Venture Capitalists?
It could be argued that the Tok'ra are default members of the SGC. I mean, I can't recall an episode where the Tok'ra were the main feature and the members of the SGC were the sideline. Even the episodes that focused on Jacob Carter weren't solely Tok'ra.
The Unas are technologically underdeveloped. The Nox are too powerful. (They are one of the four races originally in the great treaty.) And the Re'tu... okay, not only can they be invisible _all the time_, which is very unbalancing, but they loathe the Goa'uld, and don't feel that friendly towards humans either. A faction within the Re'tu tried to destroy SGC once.
Frankly, I hope this lives up to all the potential hype, even though I would probably want to start as a Goa'uld.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Damn, you beat me to it. Mod parent up for having a very insightful opinion. The Stargate Universe is vast. Almost as vast as the Star Trek Universe. However, the limitations on the Stargate Universe (there is, after all, only on SGC) will require that a lot of imagination be put into making this a successful product.
Speaking of which, I've been playing the fan-made Stargate Adventure a lot lately. It reminds me of how much I miss the old adventure games. For the longest time, Star Trek could only be done well as an adventure game. The final farewell to the Genre was the TNG: A Final Unity. Now that Stargate has taken Star Trek's place, I find myself yearning for a professionally done adventure game again.
I know it's pretty much hopeless, but if any game publishers are listening: We want a Stargate Adventure game! I don't even care if you make it 2D or 3D. We want an adventure game! Kapeesh?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Tok'ra would probably be something you could become by starting from the SGC. If you achieve a certain level of respect from the NPC Tok'ra by completing quests for them, you could eventually gain a symbiote and beomce Tok'ra yourself. Unas wouldn't be all that interesting as a race themselves--they're too primitive. If you could play as a Goa'Uld, though, the ability to track down and infest an Unas for a different ability set would be cool. An expansion pack featuring the Ori would be cool if it added the ability to become a Prior (after a LOT of work serving the Ori). That'd require a lot of play balancing, though.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
As DAoC and WoW have shown (among others as well I'm sure, I just only played these two), three factions seems to be a good minimum. Two is not enough, as any population imbalances become huge hurdles. Three (or more) factions still have population issues, but at least two smaller factions have the option of ganging up on the big guy, and once the big guy runs to lick his wounds, the small guys can beat each other up.
So far this sounds a lot like the Star Wars NGE, but hopefully done correctly. Good luck to them.
Yeah, but WoW only has two playable factions. It's not like you can be a goblin and work for the Steamwheedle Cartel. Admittedly, that would be very cool....
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
At least you know they're leaving out everything from Stargate Infinity .
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Did the creators decide that stories about 4 or 5 elite SG-1 team members were boring, but stories about 40,000 or 50,000 random grunts would be exciting?
Or did they decide that games which can be run as a standalone application sell for $50, but games which require central servers can bring in $50 + $10 per month for a year?
Now that WoW is a big hit, it seems that every fantasy or sci-fi franchise is grist for the MMO mill. We'll soon have a Firefly MMO, a Lost MMO, etc. I wonder how this will impact single player games - will publishers only want MMOs?
I'd spend all my time offworld, I don't think I'd be able to maintain my sanity when every few minutes the warning klaxon would be going off and that tech guy belting "Unscheduled offworld activation!" out over the PA.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
An expansion pack featuring the Ori would be cool if it added the ability to become a Prior (after a LOT of work serving the Ori).
They'd have to make it so that the required 6 hours of daily Prostration didn't have to be experienced on-line.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I believe that was his point - on different WoW servers, for a variety of reasons, the balance of power is immensely one-sided. Which means that the PvP aspects of the game tend to be heavily unbalanced, for all manner of reasons. Multiple factions mean 'politics' is possible in a meaningful fashion.
Of course, whether that would work well in Stargate is questionable, thanks to the fact that everyone, in general, wants to wipe everyone else out.
I don't believe that stargate is that popular abroad. Also, I would much prefer having a stargate game that was solo and simply re-lived some of the better moments of SG-1 OR ... possibly fill in some extra plot leads such as Daniel's grandfather's exploration in the episode "CRYSTAL SKULL"
I seem to remember them stating that they'd be back in that episode and they've never returned... I always thought there might be a lot of story behind Daniel's grandfather.
There were several other leads for further story telling in past SG-1 episodes and I'm sure they could easily make a game that tied it all together.
This has the POTENTIAL to be a great game. The problem is, how well can Stargate as a franchise hold up to games like WoW, EQ2, Vanguard, etc.
Right after the cacellation of the Stargate Alliance game, this is announced. Apparetnly there is a big enough fan base for a Stargate game, however, I am doubtful about how well it will actually be done.
Also, with such a flaky website, that offers so little actual information (and the information that it does offer being so lack-luster), I am not going to be expecting much, if anything out of this.
As a Stargate fan, however, I hope to be proven wrong
This could be very interesting. I think there may be more "content" that can be exploited than in a lot of the current sci-fi settings. The Stargate "world" is a very rich tapestry and I am very interested in seeing where this goes.
Hey in the same spirit of Richard Dean Anderson Television Shows, how about a MaGyver MMORPG?
Selma: Richard Dean Anderson will be in my dreams tonight!
Any connection to the single player game that was supposed to be out in 2005? http://www.stargate-thealliance.com/index.php?flas h=1
In an already crowded field. I wish them a lot of luck, but that laundry list of features sounds like it'll take a whole lot of development time, and as an "also ran" MMO, they're going to have a tough time recouping it.
I wonder if it isn't time for someone to create a semi-generic "engine" for MMOs that developers could buy and modify instead of creating their own every time. Basically, a situation like the FPS market today. It would allow people to create niche games like this without breaking the bank on developing the engine/servers before they even get to the content. Then they could be released with only a small handful of servers and enjoy a modest success without needing 10,000 people a day signing up just to break even. In an environment like that, I'd be excited at the prospect of a SG1 MMO, but in the current environment I fear the game will either run out of money and not be released, or be released in some half finished state that does no justice to the series or the fans.
I read the internet for the articles.
The problem I've seen in most of the licenses franchises like this is that they tend to pick things that are too popular. For example the problem with SWG was everybody wanted to be a Jedi and everybody wanted to go whoop up on Darth Vader. The storyline is too well settled and the characters are too well ingrained in our culture. It makes it very hard to give developers some flexibility.
:)
With Stargate, yes there's a fan base, but Stargate isn't near the level of the Matrix, or Star Wars. But the universe of Stargate is quite huge and there's already an established notion that while there are many stargate teams, the show is about the SG-1 team. So you can have people play the game as SG-130494505 and still have fun and not feel like they are getting ripped off because they can't be Colonel O'neil with the +5 Vorpal Snark.
So they get name recognition, a fan base, and a good slate of material to work with, but not a lot of the overhead that comes with some of the bigger franchises. Plus I'm sure they got the rights for a lot cheaper
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Thanks for the link to this game. I've never heard of it before, but I'm downloading it now and I'm excited to give it a try. If you get the chance, check out Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy for PC/PS2/Xbox (I'd go with the Xbox version due to the controls being better on that platform). It's a modern take on the adventure genre, and it's a pretty good effort.
I hope they don't get stuck in the old conflicts of Earth vs. Goa'uld, that conflict has sort of fizzled off with main offender now being Baal. The SG Universe has moved on, Replicators and now the Ori
I'd love to see a MMO version of SG just i hope they don't make it crash and burn by limiting the gameplay to Good Vs. Bad, Earth Vs. Goa'uld. More involvement of other races (even if they're non playable) would be good. Asguard, Nox, even the odd descended Ancient/Altera
Hell, how are they going to play Atlantis? Or are they just going to skip over that.
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
You be the judge...
Their idea isn't quite the same in detail as mine... but it is roughly similar. But then again so would any MMO-Stargate. Honestly I think it would take longer than 8 days to bake this idea enough to be able to make an announcement...
On the other hand I've heard that the gaming industry is a cutthroat high speed race environment when it comes to new product development, so anything is possible...
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
Maybe those will simply be the factions, and then under each faction, you can choose to be one or the other race?
e.g.
Jaffa Warrior with the System Lords vs. a Free Jaffa with the SGC.
Goa'uld vs. a Tok'ra (both implanted humans).
etc.
Then, over time, they can add in more races to each side and possibly add the Ori as a Third faction in a later expanstion.
Heck, they could do a CoV-esque quasi stand-alone game and add the Pegasus Galaxy so the City of Atlantis humans and Wraith can be played. Then, if you own both games, you can use the gate to travel back and forth between the universes.
This has a lot of potential. Lets hope they pull it off.
And here is the obvious site for the game... ooo comming soon!
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
Just as you can be a gnome, elf or human on the Alliance side of WoW, you could be a human, nox or asgard member of the SGC side, or a jaffa or un'as member of the System Lords. Actually, most of the races have members on both sides of the conflict, so race might not even be the determining factor of which side your character is on.
I almost want to be a replicator (talk about an overpowered character!), but playing a lego brick just doesn't sound like the ultimate immersive game experience to me. Besides, we'd need a raid group of like a billion people to do much of anything. :-)
John
New content is simply added as new dialing sequences they dicovered to go to a different planet
The only drawback I see would be limiting is skills, basically everybody is military infantry with a mix of some secondary skills. I wonder if they'll have a Symbiote bearing warrior style class with a power staff... heh
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
If you get the chance, check out Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy for PC/PS2/Xbox (I'd go with the Xbox version due to the controls being better on that platform). It's a modern take on the adventure genre, and it's a pretty good effort.
:-(
;-)
Mmmm... way too "adult themed" for me. One of the best points about the classical adventures was their levity. As Stargate Adventure shows, the TV Humor can be translated pretty well to the adventure game humor. Creating a game that I would be afraid to show to my kids is not the way to bring the genre back.
Besides, it's got the Infotari kiss of death on it.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I don't think this will even get close to SWGO. Making successful MMORPGs is still a delicate and difficult project even for companies like Sony. I don't think we'll see cool games until someone at comes up with AI managers that can add/remove gameplay elements dynamically in an MMORPG universe. As long as these games rely on human developers they won't be dynamic/realistic enough, and won't allow players to truly alter the course of events in the game. Right now it's almost impossible for small numbers of people to alter a game universe, with developers using large groups to do this. In real life, people at the right place/time can dramatically alter things. AIs would also be good for looking for people exploiting cheats and extremely unbalancing the universe. Also, right now most cool main characters appearing in MMORPGS (like Vader etc) are actually developer/actors working off of some kind of script. While this is cool, it limits the number of these more interactive cool characters. By using smarter AIs for these, and making all your NPC AIs more intelligent it'll be easier to keep balance and keep the game fun.
The bottom line is MMOGS have had a lot of time to grow up. Yet most of the games coming out are fairly a like. Their are small differences in content but the gameplay is the same. This is just going to be another attempt to maximize a franchises' profits a la Star Wars Galaxies and Star Trek Online by creating a game modelled after a successful convention show/movie with an instant userbase.
While some mmogs have done more of the same "very well" (world of warcraft comes to mind) it's still not next generation. MMOGs have been around for almost 10 years now...I mean seriously, Ultima Online still holds the place as best MMOG to date IMO...
That rant aside, I'm still not sure how MMOGs could go about being radically different. I mean until I see something truely next generation I'm not going to be all that excited as I would be towards something like, say.. Fallout 3. I've heard a lot of crap about permadeath "not working" but the bottom line is until a developer with balls comes along and tries we won't know and taking the easy way out to do more of the same is lame.
I'll make you a deal. You pray to God for help and I'll stop the moment he shows up.
To keep the game interesting and the developers busy you should do it that way. I.e. Basic options to start then more as the game grows.
You could also tackle in this game some of the sticky issues not handled in SG1 or Atlantis.
I.e. Pay $1M, Sign an NDA and carry a Tocra around for a year. Get your Aids cure right here. And speaking of Aids. Remember those armbands that SG1 became immune to?
BTW: What's the gate address for earth ?
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
I just hope they pull it off right...and to do that I'll suggest a couple things.
First, the stars of the series need to be able to be interactive. Possibly even accompanying you on instanced quests. Second, offworld sites should not necessarily be instanced. Part of the fun will be when forces are trying to hold a gate position, and reinforcements come on through to turn the tide of battle.
Next....TELEPORTERS! Also, flying vehicles. The aircraft and spaceships are such an integral part of the game, they had better be player useable.
Also, the weapons and armor of the various races needs to be done as accurately as possible. The horus masks should retract, etc.
Lastly...LOTS of worlds. The magic of the Stargate universe is that there is potentially an unlimited number of worlds. Part of the fun might be trying to piece together gate codes on quests and such!
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Well, that's certainly true. I could only play this after my kids had gone to sleep. I too miss the old fun adventures -- I grew up with Infocom, Sierra and Lucasarts, and I think it's a shame none of them exist anymore (the Lucasarts that lives on today is so removed from the Lucasarts of old, it's a whole different company.
And yeah, that Atari logo is really stupid.
Add to that pile: Star Trek Online and The Lord of the Rings MMO.
Don't forget about The Matrix Online
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
If I could be a Go'auld.
But more importantly, if I could change my voice to SOUND like a Go'auld. I mean, you have to have your priorities when it comes to these things, right?I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
I'd strongly suspect that those will be playable in future versions, just as races have been added to other MMORPG's in the past.
I'd rather see the game come out sooner, and stable than gigantic and 6 years from now.
Yet another game that is going to try to copy the WoW properties. EVery new game out there has been close if not the same thing as WoW with a different interface. Im not looking forward to any MMO's at this point I have stopped when the community of n00bs migrated to WoW.
Why is it that the name of the company that is making the Stargate video game is also the same name of the complex in Stargate??? The whois is also a bit odd with their eimail adress.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
I believe that the website says the Ori are to be NPCs which will force the two opposing factions to temporarily ally themselves to defeat them. It also mentions that the game is based on SG-1 and Atlantis....so we'll see. This sounds like it has a lot of potential.....hope it succeeds.
I want to be the MacGyver guy. If I can't make my own Stargate with an electric fan and some PVC pipe, this game isn't for me.
Pfft, that will never work, you need duct tape!
Yes, I'm picking up your creative signals at this very moment.
I'm getting a mental picture...
It is sort of fuzzy...
Wait... I see it now. I'm picturing myself sitting in front of a computer, with a huge bong in my hand. I feel like everything I say is very profound.
Very cool.
"The unicode stuff in the latest version is working fabulously well. My russian mafia friends are ecstatic."
Hell, I'll just buy it as soon as I can, as being a year long player on the shining turd that is Matrix Online, I'll happily drop it to play Stargate, one of my favorite Sci-Fi shows :)
As long as SOE have nothing to do with it, I'll happily pay tomorrow for a copy.
J.
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
I would have that once was enough, and that it wouldn't take 6 hours... oh, hang on, you said prostration...
For some reason in WoW, even though the Horde generally has fewer players (sometimes the imbalance is as bad as 2:1), they typically do better than Alliance in Battlegrounds PvP (Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin especially). I've always wondered if it's because they're a closer knit community, or because their faction benefits are better (Shaman > Paladin, racial abilities), or just get more practice (smaller queue time for BG).
Then again, in world-raid style PvP, Horde tend to have problems since there's no player cap, and that's when the population imbalance really becomes apparent.
-- jchenx
And the real Tau'ri cried out in simultaneous orgasm, then were suddenly silenced when they saw no release date.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
I almost want to be a replicator (talk about an overpowered character!), but playing a lego brick just doesn't sound like the ultimate immersive game experience to me. Besides, we'd need a raid group of like a billion people to do much of anything. :-)
You wouldn't be a single Replicator but rather the hive mind of a swarm of them, like controlling a bunch of Zerg in Starcraft.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
that's Entropic Cascade Failure, n00b! [not to be confused with "Resonance Cascade", of course]
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Questron anyone? Hey, how about another Bard's Tale actually? I miss 4 letter spell codes . . .
GRRE, REST, SOSI, GRSU
Profound? That's a matter of perspective. Accurate?
Well, I've been ahead of the curve for a few years now. The funny thing is that people don't apologize for being condescending twits when they find themselves face to face with certain realities. Or as one friend put it, "People laugh until they suddenly need your help getting rid of a terrorizing spirit. Then they believe all right."
-FL
I don't think this would work, as the Goa'Uld and Tok'ra have genetic memory that spans ridiculous amounts of time...how would they incorporate all the skill and stat bonus's you would get?
Extra Strength, Ability to manipulate Goa'Uld and Tokra Tech, plus knowledge of all the Tech that they both know about...not only would that be hard because of the fact that they have never gone into the extent of their knowledge on the show, but in Game play it would be very unbalancing or if balanced unrealistic (in terms of the show)
Mr. T carries a postage stamp in his wallet at all times on the back is a list of all the fools he doesn't pity
In my experience in playing WoW on a PvP Server (Skullcrusher), it seems that while there are fewer members of the Horde, we seem to be older and more mature, with something of an understanding of strategy. The Alliance seems to attract those "OMG, kill t3h bad 0rcs" people, and anyone who can't stand the thought of not playing a pretty pretty elf.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"