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Bioware Developing an MMOG
Gamasutra reports that Canadian developer Bioware has opened a studio in Austin, Texas. The new studio will be the base of operations for development of an as yet unnamed MMORPG. From the article: "Joining the Austin team as lead designer is James Ohlen, BioWare's creative director, whose previous credits include lead or co-lead design roles on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II. Also leading the BioWare Austin team are MMO veterans Richard Vogel and Gordon Walton." That's some serious firepower. Can't wait to hear what that's about.
Supposedly, although Bethesda Softworks licensed Fallout almost 2 years ago, it was not exclusive license, with Bioware still retaining MMO rights.
As much as I'd love to see it come out, I just know that if it does, it's going to suck days or weeks of my time that could be spent more productively.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
..I play WoW for the incredible story li--wait a minute...
Lot of people don't notice the stories of the WoW universe. There WoW universe has a great background story that is rich and interesting. And infact, it's not just WoW. Earth and Beyond had an awesome story and many expansions (and original) EQ too. One of the coolest things cropping up from EQ was a weird designation of mobs from the zone Vex Thal (well some where in Akheva too). Mobs had some weird name that at first sight one would think some coder collapsed on the keyboard and that resulted in the name, but upon further research some players found the patterns. And Diabo Xi Va Temariel was no longer some weird name, but "Weapon Master" or "Master of Weapons". The name of the zone itself means "Heart of Shadow". Of course there is a rich backstory about this zone, as there is about many other things in EQ. There was a whole political like intrigue about the Planes of Power expansion, which God likes the mortals, which is incompetent, which is trying to backstab another and grab more power, and so on.
Even seamingly disconnected dungeon areas in WoW like Stratholme and Anquirajsdflsfsfsomething (AQ) have common things: Kel'Thuzad seems to be working with the big boss of the insects, C'htun. There are also some very interesting single quest lines like the one you are required to kill Baron Rivendare, you discover along the quest line that one of his minions is infact controlling this anti-horde faction, The Scarlet Crusade, that his big priest is nothing more than a demon in disguise (Grand Crusader ForgotTheName, Balnazzar (sp?)). Another quest line related to this cult starts with a touching story about a father losing his son to some idealistic cult (The Scarlet Crusade). The horde side of the Onyxia key quest has also an interesting story. There is also the demon quest line in Blasted Land which is interesting.
I agree, on surface these games don't seem to have any major stories other than go there kill that and come back with his head and you get phat lootz.
But there are great stories in these games and most of them have a very rich backstory.
Bioware just likes good eats. They have maple syrup, beer, and putin (sp?) in Vancouver, now they'll have Barbeque Ribs, Barbeque shrimp, Barbeque Steaks, Barbeque Pork Loin....etc
Now they just need to start a development house in Wisconsin for some cheese, brats, and uh... cheese.... and they'll be all set!
Hopefully BioWare will take a page from Second Life and avoid the mistakes made by WoW. In a recent speech at the Game Developers Conference, a designer noted that the players of Second Life contribute over 20,000 design hours per day to the content of the game, which would otherwise cost Linden Labs $400 million per year to produce in-house. To be the "next big MMO", BioWare's game needs to empower players to create their own content and produce player-driven conflict. Otherwise, it'll just be another linear "RPG on rails" a la WoW.
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On the one hand, Bioware have made some of my favorite RPGs ever: The Baldur's Gate games, the first Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire.
On the other hand, they've always specialised in story-intensive stuff. A MMORPG is a pretty big departure.
But then again... Square-Enix came from the same place when they made FFXI, and that went on to be a major success by the standards of most MMORPGs (leaving aside WoW). Plus Bioware are arguably one step ahead already, as Neverwinter Nights was online focussed, even if it was a long way from being a MMORPG.
But then... bigger development houses than Bioware have struggled and buckled under the insane workload required to produce and maintain a MMORPG.
It'll be interesting to see what license, if any, they're using. I was kinda surprised they didn't get drawn into doing D&D Online, given they've basically made the only D&D games in recent memory that don't suck. If they had, maybe that game wouldn't be getting such dire launch publicity.
It'll also be interesting to see if they follow up on the work they did with NWN by trying to make a MMORPG that allows for at least some player storytelling capacity (perhaps via a limited player Dungeon Master facility). That would certainly be a new direction for a mainstream MMORPG.