Fantasy Trumps Sci-Fi For MMOs

simoniker writes "Mythic's Mark Jacobs, whose MMO company is being acquired by EA, has commented in detail on why fantasy MMOs sell better as part of an extended interview. He suggests of MMOs: 'Fantasy is easier than sci-fi. Want to know why? It's simple. A gun. What's a gun? A gun is impersonal. A gun can shoot somebody from across the room... Part of the challenge we found with Imperator is how do you make a combat system based on lasers and energy weapons, compelling to an RPG audience. The other challenge with a sci-fi game is that fantasy is very well defined in our minds ... I also think there's something I can't explain, which is that people are more willing to play a fantasy game that's not as good online, than they are willing to play a sci-fi game that's not as good online. And I'm not sure why that is.' Suggestions?"

Comments

Other weapons

[suso]

So then use Klingon pain sticks or something. Sci-Fi doesn't have to be with a gun. Or limit the range of the gun.

Re:Other weapons

[theStorminMormon]

That's exactly why sci-fi isn't doing very well as an RPG. Most efforts to make sci-fi based on hand-to-hand combat come across as very contrived. It works sometimes for movies and books (see Dune for a classic) but in takes a great deal of originality to explain how people can travel from star-to-star but still have to wack eachother with sticks in combat.

And in any case, by the time you've reduced it to hand-to-hand combat you practically have fantasy anyway.

I think one reason that fantasy does better is that it's easier. The constraints on believability are much, much more lax for fantasy. Magic isn't supposed to really make sense. You don't really tend to say "fireball? in this humidity? yeah right!" On the other hand with sci-fi you allways have crowds of people asking "how does artifiial gravity really work?" and "You're saying I have a fighter ship than can travel hundreds or thousands of miles an hour, spin on a time, and I'm not reduced to mush inside the cockpit, how?"

Sci-fi involves some level of scientific rigor. If you don't have to explain anything (or if you don't bother to even try) than sci-fi itself becomes fantasy (that's why Star Wars is considered fantasy by most people that care about fantasy). Sci-fi demands some exercise in explanation. Fantasy does not. This means fantasy is easier.

-stormin

Re:Other weapons

[prichardson]

"that's why Star Wars is considered fantasy by most people that care about fantasy"

I really think it's considered fantasy by most people who care about _Sci-Fi_.

Re:Other weapons

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow!
What a startling revelation...and only 15 minutes after he corrected himself.
I hope you get the 'Insightful' moderation you deserve.

Re:Other weapons

[drsquare]

Fantasy's a more romantic setting. It's a simpler, nicer looking world, no electricity, no power stations, no concrete jungles, no stock markets, no traffic.

We're surrounded by so much technology nowadays that immersing yourself for eight hours in even more technology in a sci-fi Mmorp seems completely overbearing, whereas a technology-free world is like an escape.

Re:Other weapons

[KDR_11k]

Perhaps they should have hired a japanese writer then, when an anime is SciFi you can be damn sure that the majority of the combat is either with swords or devices that rely on the power of their owner, guns are rarely used and never "the great equalizer" people call them in real life. Come on, in a scifi environment you could replace people's arms with plasma cannons and there you have your fireballs. Or you could have them genetically modified to be able to shoot poison from their mouth. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", remember?

We don't even expect much different gameplay, all we want is a game that doesn't put us into a quasi-medieval scenario. Star Wars is fantasy but it's a refreshing change from the usual swords, magic, dragons and orcs you get in 97% of all fantasy settings. Same with WW2 shooters vs. Prey, it's not about gameplay as much as it is about us being sick and tired of shooting Nazis in different implementations of the same few battles.

Re:Other weapons

[Gabrill]

There is one more great big difference between the two type of stories. Fantasy plots generally are limited in their geography. Even if you did know about the far away land, getting there is prohibitive, and the stars are simply unthinkable. Sci-Fi plots almost universally have expanded to multiple planet scenarios up to the point of having so much to explore that no one could possibly hope to even see it all on film, much less in person. If I were a game developer, I'd feel much more comfortable producing, and even coding a world that has reasonable and well defined borders and limits.

Re:Other weapons

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that whole statement is bunk.

The main reason you see sci-fi mmo games not doing well is because they pretty much all suck, not as many have been made, they have not
gone through as many iterations as fantasy mmos. look how long it took to finally make a decent fantasy mmo game. (by decent i mean on a large scale to a very large audience).

Re:Other weapons

[C0rinthian]

Star Wars is fantasy but it's a refreshing change from the usual swords, magic, dragons and orcs you get in 97% of all fantasy settings

Instead you get Lightsabers, The Force, Rancors, and Stormtroopers. ;)

Re:Other weapons

[Yvan256]

Don't forget the Ewoks!

Re:Other weapons

[SpecTheIntro]

Sci-fi demands some exercise in explanation. Fantasy does not. This means fantasy is easier.

Perhaps, but I would say advanced particle physics and quantum mechanics are difficult enough sciences that most people will accept any explanation given at face value, which essentially makes the distinction somewhat meaningless.

I would say the real reason why sci-fi is more difficult to pull off than fantasy is because science fiction removes the human element altogether. The driving force behind any MMO is to make your avatar more powerful. But in a true sci-fi world, individual people become powerful through the tools they use and the things they own, and not through personal growth. A laser shot from a ship piloted by a level 1 captain shouldn't do any more damage than one shot from the same ship piloted by a level 20 captain--so clearly the traditional method of "leveling" would need significant tweaking. This is akin to the same "explanation" you quoted earlier, but I'd rather label it as "internal consistency." A sci-fi world could not be internally consistent while operating under the same basic system as, say, WoW. This doesn't make it more difficult than a fantasy MMO, it just requires a different take on it--and we all know how successful video game companies are at breaking free of traditional formulae.

Re:Other weapons

[boron boy]

It's called sci-fi. Short for science fiction. I abhor the modern trend of basing sci-fi on reality. The current crop of sci-fi authors all have degrees in physics and get too bogged down in the details. I don't care what kind of engine the ship uses to go faster than light, the fact that it does is good enough for me.

Give me the old-school Jules Vern or H.G. Wells any day.

Re:Other weapons

[Kouroth]

Not all sci-fi has to be done on different planets. There are plenty of great stories or ideas that don't even involve faster than light travel that would be fantastically interesting to explore. In fact you can even incorporate other elements into sci-fi that are traditionally considered fantasy. I've always loved the idea of the old west (US) done sci-fi. There are plenty of great ways to make a game feel sci-fi but still carry elements of fantasy or even real life. Heck, guns could be outlawed or some social reason they aren't around. Just look at AO (Anarchy Online). That game was quite successful for some time. Heck I played it for years. Granted it wasn't completely sci-fi but it was still fun. I think there is an untapped opportunity for sci-fi in MMORPGs. Mark Jacobs is right to some degree; fantasy will most likely always be a better seller just because of its familiarity. Sci-fi does have its place though. While some people would criticize sci-fi games that were scientifically inaccurate that doesn't make them pointless or even unpopular. AO was never huge but it is still around. Neocron pushed the PvP aspect too much to appeal to me but others seem to have enjoyed it a lot. I think with some tweaking and more innovation Neocron could have been outstanding. In the end sci-fi has its place, it just needs to have the right feel and enough believability for those science critics sigh and roll their eyes but still play.

Re:Other weapons

[ak3ldama]

The main reason you see sci-fi mmo games not doing well is because they pretty much all suck...
Mod parent up. He's pretty much right on.

Re:Other weapons

[theStorminMormon]

most people will accept any explanation given at face value

Most people are not the people that like sci-fi though. A much higher proportion of sci-fi aficionados are also going to have at least passing familiarity with these issues AND be more demanding of the realism. That sci-fi crowd is the early-adopting crowd.

I'd argue that WoW was adopted first by people who like Warcraft already, and who are into fantasy. You need that kernel of fantasy lovers to get the ball rolling and tell their non-fantasy buddies to try it out. You need the same phenomena with sci-fi people. The difference is the sci-fi people are going to be much more demanding. If you don't impress them (and I mean get them really excited) then the word-of-mouth machine never gets started.

-stormin

Re:Other weapons

[theStorminMormon]

That's just retarded. It's also called science fiction. If we're going to judge it stricly based on the name of the genre, the ONLY identifying characteristic of the genre would be science.

The battle over defining sci-fi is long running and never ending, but the consensus is growing that the type of fiction you like (science fiction minus the science) is better termed as "speculative fiction". If the story you are telling can be told without any of the sci-fi trappings (e.g. if you're writing a mystery story with lasers) then it's arguably not really sci-fi.

-stormin

Re:Other weapons

[KDR_11k]

Which are much cooler, don't you think?

Hell, I'd be satisfied had they just given the Orks some heavy bolters.

Re:Other weapons

[sabernet]

Have you even read H.G. Wells?

Granted his science is old, but he goes very deeply into it. Skin grafting in the Island of Dr Morrow. How the aliens landed in War of the Worlds, the development of the eyeless people in the Valley of the Blind, the multi-page description about how time travel works, human evolution, the origin or the Morlocks, etc... in The Time Machine. HG Wells was a scientific futurist as well. He was actually invited to consult the president on a few occasions.

Re:Other weapons

[SpecTheIntro]

Most people are not the people that like sci-fi though. A much higher proportion of sci-fi aficionados are also going to have at least passing familiarity with these issues AND be more demanding of the realism. That sci-fi crowd is the early-adopting crowd.

But by necessity, at some point, they'll have to make a concession. After all, in faster-than-light travel were perfectly explainable, and we had the schematics for all the necessary machinery and could present it in such a way as to be understood by the average intellectual, my guess is we'd be well on our way to Alpha Centauri by now. We can try to make sci-fi realistic, but eventually we just have to take it on faith that "yes, this works, we figured it out, and no I can't really explain it in great detail." At some level the distinction blurs between sci-fi and fantasy--because if everything in sci-fi were possible and explicable, then it wouldn't really be sci-fi, it would just be fiction.

You need the same phenomena with sci-fi people. The difference is the sci-fi people are going to be much more demanding. If you don't impress them (and I mean get them really excited) then the word-of-mouth machine never gets started.

But is the dearth of sci-fi games a function of the genre, or just an unfortunate circumstance of the MMO market? I would argue that it's not because fantasy games are harder, it's because MMO makers are retarded. Most fantasy MMOs suck too. It's just that a few companies have managed to make good games, which happened to be in a fantasy setting. Sooner or later someone will make a good game that happens to be in a sci-fi setting. It's not a question of difficulty per genre, but one of simple economics. WoW has now provided an excellent formula for a fantasy MMO. No one has done so for a sci-fi MMO. Which genre has the better risk/return ratio?

Re:Other weapons

[smackt4rd]

I agree. I also think "guns" are more suited towards types of games that are based on actual skill, and not a random dice roll/modifiers. One of the things that would have made earth and beyond alot more interesting to play would be that you would actually have to aim your ship at something in order to hit it instead of point, click, blast till it's dead. I think if you could introduce some FPS components to a RPG, then gun combat would be alot more interesting.

Re:Other weapons

[zentinal]

Wow.

Where to start?

First of all, the works of Verne and Wells were deeply rooted in science and tech of their respective times. If their works seem fantastic or quant or swashbuckling to our modern eyes, to their contemporaries they were as hard as Benford or Forward or Steel are to us.

Speaking of which, I'd say that Benford, Forward and the like are the exception among modern s.f. writers, in that they are (or were) working scientists or scientific academics. Nowadays you're more likely to find s.f. authors who are English / Literature / Language Arts / Liberal Arts majors than engineers / scientists, an notion which seems to better describe s.f. in the 1930's through the 1950's. The New Wave of the '60's seems to be responsible for this.

In any case, you seem to be a perfect candidate for reading works from the space opera renaissance. Galaxy spanning tales of heroism where empires rise and fall (sound familiar)? Oh, and get to a science fiction convention like L.A.Con or Readercon and talk to an author.

Re:Other weapons

[HikingStick]

I do think you're on to something here, in the need to define limits to the technology, but nothing would limit us from implementing a different set of expectations based on real science. In other words, we would just need to create a game that agrees with itself, and leave the real world out of it.

In my early RPG days, beam weapons were a real drag. I imposed limits--cycle times, maximum charges, etc.--to help keep the game balanced. Hey, just because ray guns exist doesn't mean that everyone can even afford one!

I still think that designing and implementing a good sci-fi MMORPG is possible. It just needs to be developed from the ground up, so it can be made balanced and playable at all levels.

One other aspect I've not seen addressed thus far is time. If interstellar travel will be involved, how do you synch up with other events in the game world. Sure, you can hop on a transport, spend six days (or six years!) in a cryo-sleep chamber, but then your character is potentially ahead of all of the other players (or they are all behind). The time paradox of such a game would be interesting to study in and of itself.

Re:Other weapons

[KDR_11k]

I'd say the fighter issue is just as plausible as a sword hardly leaving a scratch on a higher level player even when it penetrates the armor. RPGs use unrealistic power levels in first place, why not at least try to explain them with e.g. the number of nanobots in your blood (that can improve your organism) and instead of fixed weapons use some morph blueprints that get formed by your nanobots (so the same "weapon" in the hands of a different user wouldn't do the same damage).

Re:Other weapons

[PriceIke]

> I abhor the modern trend of basing sci-fi on reality.

Much of science fiction storytelling is the art of cautionary tales: here's what might happen if .... Star Trek had this down to a formula for their episodes. Michael Crichton is a master at this as well. Crichton, as an example, has to base his stories heavily on reality, taking as few "dramatic license" shortcuts as possible, to make the story believable and also to sell the point he is trying to make: hey, this might happen and it would be bad.

Star Wars isn't really science fiction at all, it's just a story that happens to take place in space. You could tell pretty much the exact same story in almost any setting and timeframe without too many adjustments.

Re:Other weapons

[boron boy]

Admittedly I have only read "The Time Machine". It does go into detail about the science, but it does so in the character's voice. My post was a bit reactionary, I was mainly addressing the bulk of modern sci-fi authors whom I feel lack character development. They focus on science to the detriment of the story.

I suppose the same could be said of many of Wells' contemporaries, but unlike him their stories have faded from view. So I look back on the past with rose coloured glasses while modern authors invoke my criticism. Ultimately all the science in science fiction becomes obselete, and only the stories and imagination remain.

Re:Other weapons

[theStorminMormon]

We can try to make sci-fi realistic, but eventually we just have to take it on faith that "yes, this works, we figured it out, and no I can't really explain it in great detail."

My point has nothing to do with how realistic sci-fi has to be. It's simply that sci-fi requires plausability. Fantasy explicitly rejects that requirement. That makes the two fundamentally different, not just different degrees of the same thing.

-stormin

Re:Other weapons

[theStorminMormon]

I'd say the fighter issue is just as plausible as a sword hardly leaving a scratch on a higher level player even when it penetrates the armor

You're right, but you're also completely missing the point. The whole point is that in fantasy the tendency is not to ask those types of questions in the first place. Giants, for example, could never live on earth based purely on physiology. But that's OK in fantasy, we have them anyway. And dragons (as conceived in most fantasy, with large bodies and relatively small wings) couldn't fly. But in fantasy: you don't question the rules of the universe. The rules are out-of-bounds. In sci-fi, the science that changes the rule of the game is explicitly part of the narrative.

The different genres ask different types of questions. So even though something is equally unlikely in both genres (e.g. the sword vs. space fighter physics) the whole point is that fantasy won't question it, sci-fi will.

-stormin

Re:Other weapons

[SpecTheIntro]

Yes, they're fundamentally different, but the end result ends up looking the same. Do you really think there's a huge chasm, to the gamer, between: "Oh, this staff lets me shoot fireballs? Cool." and "Oh, this engine lets me break event horizon? Cool." Maybe there's a plausible (to a certain extent) explanation behind the second, but both are essentially transparent to the user. I think this is just a scenario where the philosophical gulf may be tremendous, but the practical result is roughly the same.

Re:Other weapons

[boron boy]

Yes, Wells', and to a lesser extent Verne's stories were rooted in science, but in a way that accentuated the story rather than detracted from it. To avoid repeating myself please read this post

.

I probably stated my original point too harshly, I do appreciate the scientific details when they are intergrated well. Science fiction, like any other genre, has its share of stinkers, and a sure sign of a stinker is over-reliance on technology.

I live in Australia so I don't think I can make it to any of those conventions, although it would be nice. I live with two authors anyway, so I get enough of that at home :)

Re:Other weapons

[technococcus]

If the story you are telling can be told without any of the sci-fi trappings (e.g. if you're writing a mystery story with lasers) then it's arguably not really sci-fi.

But all stories can be told without any of the sci-fi trappings. Every story that has ever been told has been told over and over again in various genres. That's why in writing courses in college, they tell you not to write genre fiction because it's just an obfuscation of the actual story and often leads to too much focus on things like other races and technologies and not enough focus on storytelling. These professors recognise that you can tell every story in any genre. The trappings are certainly interesting and can have effects on the story, but the broad sweep of the story is the same, that essence is still there. It's like how The Oddessy and O, Brother Where Art Thou? are the same story. That one's a bit of a violently direct and unsubtle example, but then, the best examples always are. I agree that throwing lasers at a random story does not a sci-fi novel make (the technology should at least to some extent have a role in the plot unique to its capabilities or else stimulate the imagination to some degree), but every sci-fi story, at it's most elemental level, is just a story.

All the stories have been told before; their various presentations appeal to different audiences and allow different people to relate to them.

Re:Other weapons

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I happen to enjoy killing nazis a majority of the time. Great stress relief, if you really hate nazis.

Re:Other weapons

[Anonymous Coward]

We can try to make sci-fi realistic, but eventually we just have to take it on faith that "yes, this works, we figured it out, and no I can't really explain it in great detail." At some level the distinction blurs between sci-fi and fantasy--because if everything in sci-fi were possible and explicable, then it wouldn't really be sci-fi, it would just be fiction.

I've always thought that in science fiction, the author is allowed one or two "freebies", such as hyperdrives and laser weapons, and the rest has to be realistic given that premise. You'll often see fans nitpicking over the science of something, while blatantly ignoring, for example, the unexplained faster-than-light travel. They're working off this principle. The author is allowed a few concessions to get the story moving, but if the author keeps introducing new magic technologies that "just work", then they're cheating.

Re:Other weapons

[blahplusplus]

Sci-fi demands some exercise in explanation. Fantasy does not. This means fantasy is easier.

Oh come on! Take a look at star-trek for example, why use phasers when you could just tag and beam the invaders to outer space? Or take guys being shot by phasers, why is it some of them get blown back 6 feet being impacted by a weapon who's discharge is energy and not matter? Watch any sci-fi, there is tonnes of it that makes no sense at all even if there were explanations for them, it would just make the thing seem even more ridiculous. Let's face it entertainment is about a symphony of audio/visual motion of action, character, emotion and storytelling we find interesting. It doesn't have to make sense, all it does is have to capture our minds attention and perhaps our hearts and once in a while cause us to think. Most entertainment is simply mind candy, it tastes sweet but has little value.

Almost all science fiction is just as silly as any fantasy novel. There are completely 'magical' (i.e. supernatural/unexplained) elements in all sci-fi. Personally Sci-fi can be done well, it's just that most people are simply not interested in stories based around modern or futuristic science and technology, unless there is some sort of element the can relate to (i.e. starwars for example).

Re:Other weapons

[sabernet]

If your original point was the bulk of modern sci-fi literature is licensed, unoriginal, awful, clichéd crap, then I agree.

But then again, the bulk of fantasy is the same(elves, dwarves, humans, gnomes, magic wizards....how many frikkin permutations does it take to rehash someone else's creativity?)

Re:Other weapons

[theStorminMormon]

Yeah, I disagree on this one. I really think the sci-fi audience is a different crowd. I don't know about your example in particular, but in genearal I really do believe the sci-fi audience will question those types of things far, far more often. That's what makes them the sci-fi crowd. They don't just care about what could happen (e.g. magic could be real, star ships could be real) they also care about why things could happen. This is a fundamental difference between the genres, and a fundamental difference between the genre-fans.

-stormin

Re:Other weapons

[theStorminMormon]

Almost all science fiction is just as silly as any fantasy novel.

You've not read much sci-fi. Starting with the earliest writers (Wells, Verne) and continuing through the grandmasters (Asimov, Heinlein, Clark) the backbone of sci-fi has been "hard" sci-fi (frequently written by scientists).

Even Star Trek takes great pains to come up with at least some plausible explanation of their science. Any trekkie can explain the basic theory between warp-based FTL and "beaming". The fact that you've never bother to ask the questions is the very reason you're not really a fan of sci-fi. If you care about those types of questions, you'll end up interested in sci-fi (and realize that sci-fi usually provides at least some answers). If you don't care about kind of thing, then you'll never ask and you'll never realize the answers that are readily availble.

-stormin

Re:Other weapons

[llefler]

Not all sci-fi has to be done on different planets. There are plenty of great stories or ideas that don't even involve faster than light travel that would be fantastically interesting to explore.

I've always wanted to see one base on Larry Niven's Ringworld. There is room for all different levels of tech. FTL can safely be ignored. There are plenty of races to choose from (native or ball world). And a good back story to jumpstart the lore.

Re:Other weapons

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if that level 20 captain knows just where to point that laser to deal the most damage because of his advanced knowledge of ship hulls and weaknesses, or the way his technology operates. On top of which, there is the human (player, not character) skill fudge factor that must be in any game, or it becomes boring very fast.

EON operates on a two tiered model, ships for options, but characters (pods) for skill advancement. A character with very crummy skills and a good ship will no doubt lose to a character with a less than average ship and very good skills in combat.

The ships require some sort of grind (or getting lucky pirating) to acquire, but skills are relatively free to learn. (Barring a few notable exceptions.) Not only which, skills are based on character longevity so it gives longtime players an advantage over short-timers (griefers, and noobs.) Blah, more rants. Eve did it pretty well, so did vendetta, both I play in linux. (Eve with cedega, vendetta has a native client.)

There are good Sci-fi MMO's they only cater to those who want them tho, and it seems there isn't as big a draw as to Fantasy MMO's (can you say girrrlz?) Blame it on the lack of targetted engineering education to women, but if you can only hope to target half the population (mainly men, 4-8% women) with your ads, how can you expect to expand much?

Yeah argue all you want, these games are sausage fests way more than even WoW, and that's saying something.

Re:Other weapons

[theStorminMormon]

Every story that has ever been told has been told over and over again in various genres.

If by "story" you mean "boy meets girl" or something similarly abstract, then sure. Do regular fiction if you like. Turning that into sci-fi is purely for the fun of people that like the feel of sci-fi. But arguably the feel (you said "trappings") is as important as the abstract story itself. That's why you have Romeo and Juliet and also West Side Story. We retell old stories in new contexts all the time. By your logic West Side Story shouldn't have been made.

There are other reasons for writing stories. Look at aristotle's story about the cave-dwellers (synopsis: people lived underground and could only look at a wall on which shadows were cast, so they had really weird ideas of what objects were. then one day they are unchcained and can actually see the objects that cast the shadows. Bascially the Matrix 4,000 years ago). For another example, look at Camus' The Plague. Both of these philosophers weren't interested just in stories, but also in ideas. Sci-fi is uniquely suited to exploring concepts like this. Just check out "The Mote in Gods Eye". You simply CAN NOT tell that story without science.

So you assertion that "every story has been told" is true (by your definition of 'story') but also remarably uninteresting.

-stormin

Re:Other weapons

[asapien]

Something like John Carter on Mars might work, maybe a space fantasy hybrid. That's why Star Wars did well, it was more Space Opera than SciFi. 2001 was a deep film, but would make a boring game.

Re:Other weapons

[Firehed]

Or take guys being shot by phasers, why is it some of them get blown back 6 feet being impacted by a weapon who's discharge is energy and not matter?

Unless electricity became matter recently, this happens in real life too. A strong electrical shock could, and often does, do just that. For all I know it's because of some electrically-triggered muscle spasm, but there's no reason that a phaser wouldn't cause that same spasm, if that's how it actually works. If we're talking projectile weapons, you probably won't move unless you're hit with something at least the size of a cannonball, since handheld/shoulder-mounted weapons won't do it unless they knock over the person firing them as well (provided the projectile itself isn't explosive as well, anyways). I find it a lot more plausible to be blown back from an energy-based weapon, since I can throw a charged capacitor at someone, and have them get knocked over from the discharge if it's holding enough juice (I'm talking something like what you'd find in a TV, but it's a lot easier to toss around than a cinderblock or cannonball, and certainly easier than throwing a bullet at someone with enough force to even do damage, let alone cause movement).

Re:Other weapons

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say the fighter issue is just as plausible as a sword hardly leaving a scratch on a higher level player even when it penetrates the armor. RPGs use unrealistic power levels in first place

That was explained in D&D by saying that only a small portion of HP actually reflected physical capacity to take damage, the rest was luck, karma, the will of the gods.

The vast majority of fantasy RPGs seem to implicitly accepted this explanation, I don't think it maps to SF in any useful way.

Re:Other weapons

[colmore]

Guns are already very deadly, and the history of real warfare has always had offensive technology outpacing defensive technology (the times where that has not been the case have been grotesquely terrible for soldiers -- mideval seiges and the trenches of the first world war) modern weaponry is SO effective in fact that warfare has become more deadly for civilians than for soldiers (a nightmare result of airplane bombs and missiles that hasn't been much commented on)

It's hard to believe that in the future weapons won't be more effective than they are now. A $1000 rifle can kill a person wearing the worlds best body armor at 500 yards. In the future, will computer-guided laser weaponry or whatnot be LESS effective?

Sci fi presents a "realistic" setting in which the magic comes from technology, and the best sci fi changes only a fixed number of elements about the real world and then carefully analyzes the effects in order to comment on our society. Sci fi hasn't had a heroic tone since shortly after the atom bomb fell (another problem, once my character has tons of power and money, why doesn't he just nuke the enemy city?)

It's also hard to come up with a non-BS way for a character to get 30% more powerful every "level." Magic lets you get away with a lot of narratively confusing game mechanics. Technology invites more skepticism.

This is a subset of the greater video games as art question. Sci fi is puts a harsh mirror up to the real world, but video games aren't about realism or moral ambiguity, they're about fun interactive worlds.

Re:Other weapons

[paterthorn]

http://www.dawnofwargame.com/

Re:Other weapons

[drinkypoo]

Er, sorry, I meant a new one. Everyone I know who loves 40k panned that game. I should have specified :/

Re:Other weapons

[hotdiggitydawg]

Sci-fi involves some level of scientific rigor. If you don't have to explain anything (or if you don't bother to even try) than sci-fi itself becomes fantasy

Well technically, "sci-fi" without the science is just "-fi"... and fiction is just one step short of fantasy.

Sci-fi demands some exercise in explanation. Fantasy does not.

Not quite. Science demands some exercise in explanation, fiction does not. Ergo, sci-fi is a somewhat convoluted and contradictory genre, whereas fantasy is easier to swallow once you recognise it as such and are able to suspend disbelief.

Re:Other weapons

[theStorminMormon]

90% of everything is crap.

Sturgeon's Revelation (Ironically, Sturgeon is a science fiction author).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_Law

Re:Other weapons

[Maserati]

Try the demo. I can only conclude that everyone you know who loves 40K either hates RTS games, don't have their favorite army available, or are idiots. Dawn of War is a very nice RTS and is done by people who obviously have large painted 40K armies. They might not, but the animators for DoW really captured the feel of the setting nicely.

Re:Other weapons

[Diag]

I've always loved the idea of the old west (US) done sci-fi

You would probably enjoy Firefly.

Re:Other weapons

[Dexx]

The time could be worked into a method to move your character from server to server.
Want to transit between solar systems? That'll take a while.
So your character goes into cryo-sleep (or whatever) some some amount of real time where they aren't available.
In-system travel could be quicker, and part of the game world.

Re:Other weapons

[sabernet]

I like that:)

Re:Other weapons

[lightning_queen]

Not really. Think about real swordsmen with real armor. If the person is weaker, even if they can penetrate the other's armor, it doesn't mean he'll get to skin (especially if said armor is mail or plate). The same would go with spells; a less experienced caster will have weaker spells than a more experienced one. A character of lower level is considered "weaker" in all regards (strength, spellpower, etc), and therefore is less likely to do much damage to a higher level, even if armor can be broken through (or, in the case of spells, ignored altogether, since spells are generally deflected by resistances).

Re:Other weapons

[Socks of Doom]

I'd have to disagree on some of that. Yes, fantasy can be very romantic and quaint... But you can also stuff it into present-day, where it gets a huge slug in the gut. As an example, I'd have to use White Wolf's Mage (and World of Darkness in general) universe. Though, arguably, it crosses the border into sci-fi (in game, many mages are scientists and geeks) but you still have mages that like dressing akin to Gandalf and hurling fireballs. They're just rarer, because the general populace doesn't believe in people being able to cast "THUNDERBOLT!" on something. It's a much more grimy world, where science and magic blend to produce both dragons and robots. Oh, and then there's Shadowrun. But that's a whole 'nother cup of tea.

Re:Other weapons

[dbIII]

Perhaps, but I would say advanced particle physics and quantum mechanics are difficult enough sciences that most people will accept any explanation given at face value

But when mistakes are made with very simple examples of newtonian physics it annnoys anyone that has had a decent high school education. People cope with it in a movie if there are enough distractions but you spend more time with a game and the shortcuts (or occassional obvious ignorance) that make simple stuff behave differently to the real world can be frustrating (eg. why can't I open the door?).

Re:Other weapons

[zentinal]

Australia hunh? Aussie fans are great fans!

Consider looking into DUFF, the Down Under Fan Fund - http://sffanz.sf.org.nz/duff/Welcome.shtml . Kind of late for L.A. but next year is Yokohama, and after that, Chicago or Denver.

Re:Other weapons

[Wolfger]

That's exactly why sci-fi isn't doing very well as an RPG. Most efforts to make sci-fi based on hand-to-hand combat come across as very contrived. It works sometimes for movies and books (see Dune for a classic) but in takes a great deal of originality to explain how people can travel from star-to-star but still have to wack eachother with sticks in combat.

Actually, it's very, very simple... Spaceships dislike holes. So, when you are on a spaceship, do you want a projectile weapon that could kill you if you miss? No. You want a weapon that is much less likely to damage sensitive equipment and/or cause a hull breech, and a sword ought to go through a space suit rather easily.

Re:Other weapons

[Anonymous Coward]

>If I were a game developer, I'd feel much more comfortable producing,
>and even coding a world that has reasonable and well defined borders and limits.
One word: Fallout
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(computer_gam e)

Re:Other weapons

[nelsonal]

I enjoy both 40k and DOW. Much quicker and a different (but good) experience relative to busting out all the minis with friends. It's about the only RTS that I enjoyed.

Re:Other weapons

[matmis]

So, maybe "fantasy vs sci-fi" is not the right question? What do you think about a MMORPG based on pirates theme, like the old Sid Meier's Pirates, which was an open-ended swash-buckling simulation masterpiece.

Re:Other weapons

[KDR_11k]

Interesting, from what I've heard most people saw DoW as the closest thing an RTS will ever come to 40k. Games Workshop has already made clear that they don't want a videogame to be too close to the original so people won't just grab the videogame and ignore the tabletop that brings GW much more money. I think that's the same reason we haven't seen e.g. a videogame version of Battletech (instead of FPSes, RTSes, RPGs, etc).

Re:Other weapons

[KDR_11k]

Final Fantasy regularly makes me question their logic but then again that's hardly an RPG...

If you replace giants with robots in SciFi noone's going to ask either. Who's going to ask "why do laser shots glow and travel that slowly?", "Why can my armor withstand a plasma hit?" or "Why is there sound in space?" except for the total übernerds? There are established conventions and as long as you obey those noone asks a question. People simply expect certain clichees these days and when they don't get them they'll wonder why they aren't there.

Re:Other weapons

[KDR_11k]

The higher level player could take his armor off and wouldn't take much damage. Also a Lv. 1 troll can hit a Lv. 90 human over the head with a huge club and the human won't even flinch. A Lv. 50 dragon could bathe a Lv. 90 human in flames and the human won't be more than mildly irritated. No difference in training can explain the difference in power we're seeing there.

Re:Other weapons

[ravenshrike]

Given that the most popular rpg like you're talking about in the rpg genre is D&D, the only way he would get a hit is if he got a critical. Think of the amount of damage relative to your hp as a description of the wound. if you have 6 hp and the dmg is 5, then it is a major wound, say a deep gash in the chest or a wound to the neck. But if you have 50 hp then it is a relatively shallow gash or just a wound to a non-vital part.

Re:Other weapons

[ravenshrike]

erm, plato's forms actually.

Re:Other weapons

[ravenshrike]

Glaser rounds.

Re:Other weapons

[Wolfger]

I'm not familiar with "glaser" rounds, but I think the physics of it is pretty cut and dried. Any projectile incapable of harming critical ship systems is likewise incapable of harming an armored person. Any projectile capable of harming an armored person is similarly capable of harming ships systems. The same applies to non-projectile weapons, of course, but the thing is: non-projectile weapns that miss their target don't continue travelling in an uncontrolled manner until they impact something.

Re:Other weapons

[theStorminMormon]

You're wrong. All the cliche's you referenced would never show up in a genuine sci-fi flick. Or, if they did, it would get talked about. These issues (especially sound in space) have been discussed at length regarding both Firefly and Battlestar Galactica, just to name two examples.

These "establish conventions" apply more to Star Wars (which is fantasy with lasers) and its ilk not sci-fi.

-stormin

Re:Other weapons

[KDR_11k]

There's damn few genuine SciFi flicks then because all Hollywood-esque futuristic stuff loves doing such stuff. And the average user doesn't care about that, only the hardcore nerds. Since MMOs aim more for the average user than the hardcore nerd I'd wager they don't give a flying fuck about scientific realism. Throw a few techy-sounding words around and the average user will be happy.

Re:Other weapons

[MilenCent]

A laser shot from a ship piloted by a level 1 captain shouldn't do any more damage than one shot from the same ship piloted by a level 20 captain--so clearly the traditional method of "leveling" would need significant tweaking.

In fact, I think this standard assumption of the RPG genre is faulty. I don't think a level 60 Superguy should always be able to trounce a level 1 N00bling. It should happen more times than not, sure, but in real life it's generally not skills so much that determine your ability to, say, win fights, as possessions. A person with a gun will just about always be able to take out a karate master, decades of movies and anime notwithstanding. Spaceship weaponry should work the same way.

Re:Other weapons

[AP31R0N]

Planestside is an MMO, but not an RPG, that handles this wonderfully. Level 1 and 20 guys have access to the same equipment, but the level 20 guy also has access to this, that and the other thing. Levels give you the ability to play multiple roles, whereas a noob can take only one role at a time. You have motivation to advance, but the scale is more limited. Plus it is a damn fun game. It puts CS to shame in terms of squad tactics. My team can field almost 100 guys, divided into divisions and teams. Battles can involve more than 300 players. And unlike Battlefield, the struggle is persistent. /does not work for sony, just loves the game

Re:Other weapons

[Chmcginn]

I might actually consider playing a Fallout-based MMORPG... if the crew from the original game, or the sequel, were involved. But did you ever see Fallout : Brotherhood of Steel? Ick.

Re:Other weapons

[theStorminMormon]

I've already covered this. The most important marketing is word of mouth. Nothing matters as much for the success of a movie/game/album as what the opinion is of the people that see it first. This means that when you are releasing a genre-game the first thing you need to do is appeal to the people that are fans of the genre. If you don't win them over right away and completely, there is little chance that anyone else will ever play the game. The second task, once you've appeald to the fans of the genre (the hardcore nerd), is to have a game that also has appeal to the mass market.

That is why WoW was so successful. Do you think a game about elves and dwarves was "cool" right off the bat for mainstream? No. It was a combination of Blizzard fans and the broader fantasy fans that adopted the game first. They tried it out, they loved it, and they became the "fan base". The magic of WoW is that a game so well-loved by fantasy geeks turned out to have great gameplay and was therefore equally enjoyed by non-fantasy geeks who might easily have passed the game by if it hadn't been for the vocal fans who'd given it a try.

So the idea that you can just make a genre-game and ignore the genre-fans is ludicrous. If WoW had been a great game by, say, Madden 2006 standards but had sucked on fantasy it woudl have either tanked or, at the very best, limped along until some handful of Madden 2006 fans randomly played it. You simply have to appeal to the core market first, and then have something that translates to the masses. This is the story of WoW, of LoTR (especially the movies) and of almost all genre mega-hits. They have to score big in the genre FIRST, and then the public adopts them and they transend the genre.

I think one reason that sci-fi flicks from Hollywood suck is they have the same ignorant atitude that you do. They think only hardcore nerds care about things like the fact that there's no sound in space. So they put "passive sonar" in Wing Commander and you get the worst movie ever made (other factors contributed). They think that you can exploit the sci-fi motif without actually paying even passing regard to the rules of the game. The result: a long history of sci-fi failures or sci-fi successes that are, in fact, not sci-fi (e.g. Star Wars).

The idea that you can just "throw a few techy-sounding words around" and make the average user happy is stupid. The fact is, if you make a sci-fi game with "a few techy words" the only people that are going to play it are going to be "hardcore nerds". They're going to hate it and that's where it will die.

-stormin

Re:Other weapons

[KDR_11k]

Futuristic settings appeal to more than the "I want my tech explainations!" nerds. Who'd have complained had UT just told you "Shoots Green Explosive Shit" instead of some explaination about the exact composition of said GES? I'd say many people even within the core market won't really care if you don't do much with in-depth explainations. After all, the hardcore are still gamers and they are used to gamisms like a plasma shot taking 4% off your health. Physics rules may say plasma burns directly through you but game rules say plasma does 40 damage and you have 1000 hitpoints. Physics say energy weapons are inefficient but games say energy weapons pwn.

Re:Other weapons

[reanjr]

I personally think a pirates MMORPG could be fantastic. Then again, making it pirate-themed won't make it good. It still has to be well executed.

Re:Other weapons

[Gnostic Ronin]

I've read a good deal of Sci-Fi. But really, I don't get much into the background of why these things work. I don't care HOW the Dune ships can fold space. It's a cool idea, and it fits the story. I don't even think Herbert bothered to explain why Holtzman Shields only admit slow moving objects, frankly, I think it was just so there cold be sword fights. I don't care why transporters work, nor why replicators work, nor even the warp drive. I've never contemplated the "Kessel Run in X parsecs" thing. That's the background. It isn't the phase modulation on some laser analog that makes sci-fi fun.

Most often good sci-fi presents a modern problem in a different contexy, to give a different angle. Dune dealt with resources controlled by religious fanatics, a substance that could let a person see the future. The early ST dealt with racism, overpopulation, etc. Babylon 5 dealt in politics, especially the rise of the Fascist Clarke presidency.

I think that's part of the problem, most Sci-Fis are at least partially morality plays, and it's hard to do that in your typical MMORPGs. Most of the quests tend toward "mine this ore for Maliki the Metalworker for exp" or "kill 500 Gorgons and bring back the teeth" variety. No heroism. No save the colony. Nothing "moral" really.

Re:Other weapons

[drinkypoo]

Well, they're missing out. I want something very true to the minis game. I simply don't have time or opportunity to go play the minis game. I need something I can pick up for a while and play, then maybe even save in the middle of a mission. I do like interacting with people, and playing for real (I do have a modest space marine army) but I live in the sticks, where we don't even have a video game store, so I will have a horribly hard time even finding people to play a game I don't have time for. I will probably never buy another new piece of GW equipment, but I would be inclined to buy their software. If it were what I wanted.

Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with it

[Yvan256]

Maybe people don't want to play in sci-fi games because they're tired of all the technology in their real life? Computer problems, phones, pagers, emails, IMs, ads on TV and radio... it all adds up without realizing it. People play games to take a break from real life. Do you think they'll play in a game with even more technology, or a game with stuff they'll never have, such as magic, monsters, etc?

Re:Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with it

[ggKimmieGal]

I absolutely agree with you. There's just something about imagining yourself in a world that could never be. The thing with sci-fi is, there's the potential that the world will one day be similar to the game. Maybe not as violent or dramatic, but it might be just like that. Where as with fantasy, that's a place that is totally imaginary. People like to imagine. That's why we do so when we're children.

Re:Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with it

[ItMustBeEsoteric]

I would have thought that if people wanted to escape technology, they would perhaps go to a park, read a book, pen-and-paper RP, do one of those sport things, or the like. Not play a video game using technology.

However, this is Slashdot, after all.

Re:Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with it

[discord5]

I would have thought that if people wanted to escape technology, they would perhaps go to a park, read a book, pen-and-paper RP, do one of those sport things, or the like. Not play a video game using technology.

What is this park you mention?

Re:Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with it

[ItMustBeEsoteric]

Honestly, I've only read about it. Apparently there is incredible detailed grass textures on the ground, and trees that are each rendered differently and uniquely over a period of years. Also, there are sometimes swings. ;)

Re:Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with it

[masterhibb]

Well, I've always found the best games, those that leave the most lasting impacts on me, tend to be the ones whose merits are divorced from their underlying technology. Great characterization, engaging storyline, and vibrant worlds are going to feed the escapist hunger just as well whether they come from a book, television, video game, or GM. Plus, the more interactivity, the more personal investement on the part of the viewer/reader/player. Video games (and pen-and-paper RPs) shine in this aspect.

Re:Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with it

[amillard64]

Fantasy generally bores me to death, for the precise reason that it isn't/can't be real. Having said that, a number of people have pointed out that a lot of SF tends into the unreal/superfantastic as well. True, though I appreciate some attempt to tie the advanced technologies to what we know or speculate of how the universe actually operates. But I have a friend who firmly believes that "magic" is real. Spells work in her world. I'm not joking. I've had conversations discussing the fact that the things people attempted to do with spells and potions and whatnot, eventually moving into alchemy and subsequently into a genuine scientific investigation that progressed by finding out what really works, were just early attempts to manipulate the world in the same way we now do with technologies based on science. In other words, magic is just science and technology that never really worked. Science and tech are "magic" that actually works. So, what? Fantasy games may have "real" "magic" in them, but they need to have some internal consistency, some explanation for how the spells, incantations, potions, etc., all work. What's the difference? It's just another kind of technology. Look at Harry Potter. There are techniques the little wizards have to learn in order to make a spell work. There are magical technologies with specific applications. Sure, anything can happen in this context because the "rules" can always be violated or expanded by some superior magic. But that's essentially true with advanced scientific technologies in an SF story as well. Dan Simmons' recent pair of books, Ilium and Olympos, described advanced technologies that were essentially magical in use by post-human "Gods" straight out of Kurzweil. Clarke said it best. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." So what's the difference?

Re:Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with it

[HikingStick]

Well, if they do come out with a MMO sci-fi game, I want to develop a character who can troubleshoot and repair other players' devices (guns, computers, ships...you name it). Then, I can charge the players uber-amounts of in game credits or currency for my services. After about six months of marathon gaming, I'll sell the character and all of his cash on eBay, pay off my house, and sit around playing fantasy games for the rest of my life...

Wait...

...is this the fantasy?

Re:Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with it

[MajinBlayze]

Honestly, I've only read about it. Apparently there is incredible detailed grass textures on the ground, and trees that are each rendered differently and uniquely over a period of years. Also, there are sometimes swings. ;)

ugh, it all sounded good untill you mentioned the java GUI library. I'll stay as far away from that as I can.

Re:Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with it

[Bo'Bob'O]

It doesn't have to be that way, if you ever happened to catch, say, the anime Tenchi Muyo, the technology was anything but.

But then, good luck selling anything like that to your average male gamer.

Perhaps that is the crux of the problem, what people expect of sci-fi is very limited. There are more firearms in StarGate then any cop show. Even the Utopian vision of StarTrek is based around a military complex, it just happens to be a military that holds science and pure science in high regard.

In essence, any sci-fi games have become modern combat games that use technology simply as a way to take more liberties. Planeside isn't much different then what you'd expect from a WWII FPS in game play.. and EVE isn't' much different then what you might expect from a naval battle simulation.

So, if these genres are effectively modern combat simulations, it's going to look silly if you can shoot people with a rifle and they are somehow unharmed... how are people going to accept things like ever increasing hit points, ever increasing powers (technology use)? The answer is simple, they won't because at that point, they will just call it Fantasy again. The cookie cutter structure of what we consider MMORPGS, the very idea of "levels", is simply not compatible with what people expect from "sci-fi".

StarWars only barely manages to straddle that line with its glowing swords and Jedi powers. At that point, why not just give them real swords and magic powers? Well, I suppose then you have Final Fantasy, and I doubt people are really calling that sci-fi.

Realism just doesn't lend itself to the level treadmill, which is it seems how MMORPGs are defined. Much less, how would you incorporate a sniper or a fighter pilot into a top down style group? Seems that would only fit an FPS style game, and how would it be any different then any other combat FPS, except, with character levels? Go the other direction, or perhaps something like mech combat, and it's basically a Massively Multiplayer RTS.

So, either change how the average person thinks of sci-fi, or just be content that its going to be another modern combat simulator of one sort or another.

hey now...

[smaerd]

...don't be so harsh. Anarchy Online did...
...really...
...poorly. Ok. Bad example.

Star Wars: Galaxies....

Earth and Beyond....

Eve is awesome! Hell, I'm learning a new skill in that game right now.

Re:hey now...

[Steepe]

I like anarchy online. Play it quite a bit. not a buttload of cash outlay like some of the others, and not the glut of sit and wait for 3 days camping this mob before you can go anywhere else or do any thing else.

I Fvcking hated that about EQ and WOW.

Re:hey now...

[smaerd]

I've played AO and enjoyed it. I didn't say it was a bad game. I simply said it didn't do well financially. Of course I ended my post with "Eve is awesome!" so I can see where I crossed my signals.

Re:hey now...

[__aadxzo5882]

I'm playing Eve as well, but if it weren't for my old SG mates moving to Eve from City of Heros, don't know if I'd have stuck with it for very long. The learning curve is steep, and it takes alot of time and money before you can do much more than mine or run those mind-numbing courier missions. Until then, you're gank fodder.

Re:hey now...

[Sqweegee]

Actually Anarchy Online still turns a profit, even if a good chunk of that is through in-game advertising to those on free accounts (AKA: Froobs)

I still play it a lot, and even though it thoroughly mixes fantasy and sci-fi it pulls it off pretty well IMO.

Re:hey now...

[Steepe]

LOL NP. I hope they do well enough financially to keep the game going.

It does have a mix of guns and swords, which is pretty cool. and cool high techy bows and of course alien equipment.

Re:hey now...

[Jorack]

Star Wars Galaxies was pretty awful. I played it for a while and then realized it was retarded. Then I played WoW and I loved it. Even got to 60. In hindsight, they were both pretty retarded. The amount of time I've spent sitting in front of a screen and doing a premeditated sequence of attacks is simply mind numbing. Grinding for hours is boring. However, the PvP aspect of WoW is great, not to mention it's more socially acceptable. Take for example the success of Lord of the Rings in recent times. Following this trend, where's the Pirate MMORPG? That'd be a cash cow.

Re:hey now...

[Data Link Layer]

Pirates of the Burning sea looks like a very promising pirate themed MMORPG. Now all we need is a ninja themed MMORPG and see which beats which in sales to determine which would win.

Re:hey now...

[Tony Hoyle]

I'm learning a new skill in that game right now.

In other words you've logged off for a week.

That really annoyed me about that - nothing wrong with learning skills taking effort, but when that 'effort' is basically
log off and go and do something else... kinds spoils the immersiveness a bit.

And the missions on that game were *so* mind numbing. Just 'take package from A to B, then to C, and speak to D'. I kept it up for nearly a month.. just can't see the attraction.

Re:hey now...

[eddy]

>where's the Pirate MMORPG?

Everyone can't play Guybrush Threepwood :-)

Actually a Piratee MMORPG sounds like a much better idea than another generic fantasy/scifi game. You could have both land and water combat. Experienced players signing up to captain ships, the level-1's signing up for cannonfodder-duty in one of the great nations, and at the top, experienced and wealthy buccaneers, owning several ships, but splitting the time between commanding their small armada with working politics... gotta stay on the good side of as many factions and nations as possible...

Re:hey now...

[Jorack]

Now all we need is a ninja themed MMORPG and see which beats which in sales to determine which would win.

You read my mind. Fans of ninjas and pirates have been at odds for years. Personally, I like the idea of a Vampire MMORPG. It could be broken up into two factions like WoW but have them be daytime races and nighttime races. Bonusses given outdoors depending on faction, no bonus indoors. Would be lots of fun.

Re:hey now...

[Anonymous Coward]

The missions suck. The appeal of eve is life in 0.0: the consant combat, the claiming of territory, the politics. I wouldn't be playing past a month if empire was it. As for the time based training, that's the best feature. It allows me to successfully play the game for a couple hours per week (as opposed to a couple of hours per day with other mmogs).

Re:hey now...

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

SWG was huge.... There were pieces that sucked, but piecces that didn't. There were, in fact, pieces that were superior to virtually any game I have ever played.

I know, trust me.

And, just for reference, Puzzle Pirates is an MMORPG :)

Re:hey now...

[despisethesun]

Actually, a medieval Japan or China based MMORPG would be a nice change of pace if we have to keep MMOs in the past. Far eastern mythology is at least as interesting as European mythology.

Re:hey now...

[Pinkoir]

It's understandable that you gave up on EVE. Unlike most massives the content is heavily loaded towards the more advanced characters. I've never played WoW but I've heard from many people how it's lots of fun until they hit 50 and then it sucks. EVE is exactly the opposite in that the more time you have in the more options and opportunities open up before you. I've been playing EVE for 3 years now and I still haven't tapped out all the content because every 8 months or so they add a new level of complexity to the game (for free of course). When Kali launches there will be a whole new range of PvP interactions and PvE complexity. That being said for the new player with no friends in-game it can be quite daunting and there are no manuals to tell you how flipping awesome it gets once you've put in some time. If you want to know more PM me, I try not to boost EVE too much on /. because the more people who play the more the economy risks getting foobed by RL money makers.

-Pinkoir

Re:hey now...

[Jorack]

You're right, I should give credit where credit is due. SWG was certainly a gigantic game. This was one of the most exciting parts about it. It was virtually impossible to explore it all. The problem I had with the size of SWG was that it was not very rich. In order to accomodate the huge size, things were spaced out. To make it easy for the player to navigate, transportation was made very easy. Vehicles were cheap and mass transit was just a loading screen. Sure, watching your character ride a bus (or a gryphon or a wind rider or whatever game your playing) is realistic in terms of the game, but it's boring as shit. At the same time, this can be seen to be a motivator for players to break every now and then to stave off fatigue, hunger, having to go to the bathroom, or in some extreme cases death. This element of the game remains in question.

Back to the point. SWG was big, but it was sparse. There WERE things to explore, but they were few and far between. The cities were incredible. The different environments provided for ways to keep it fresh. However, the size was too ambitious in my opinion. I didn't like having to travel in the neighborhood of dozens of virtual kilometers (or in the example of the different planets, virtual parsecs).

User created cities were very cool though. Purchasable structures? Wow, that's a sweet feature.

But the problem was that at it's heart was the combat system. SWG combat system just wasn't that fun for me. While it may have been practical, the ability to queue up your attacks is pretty retarded. Other than that the HAM system was terrible. I passed out because I'm out of "mind"? Nuts to that.

Re:hey now...

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

Heh. Purchasable structures? I made them. And starships. And weapons. And some armor, and clothes, and and and. Want to talk depth? Talk bio-engineering as a skill. You BUILD custom creatures. The content was there, just not that effective, because the skill system was a little gimpy. If SWG had EVE-online's time-based skill training system and solid ground / space combat and missions, it would be one of the most cool games in existence. The economy in SWG was probably one of the most interesting things I have ever witnessed.

Re:hey now...

[Knara]

Well, missions are only _really_ necessary in some cases (and really, the most profitable ones are combat missions anyway). The real game is with Corporate interactions.

In any case, logging off while training skills? Yeah, if that's all you're doing, the game isn't worth it to you. That's why you play the other parts :P

Re:hey now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course you're missing the real question... if it's a ninja based MMORPG is it wrong to complain about ninja looting?

Re:hey now...

[hitmark]

in many ways anarchy online as a fantasy game that pretends to be a sci-fi game.
its just a question of taking the tech far enough into the future (nano tech in the sci-fi sense is often very magical).

Re:hey now...

[arth1]

What about those of us who don't want to engage in player-vs-player and team-vs-team? Those of us who would like to mine asteroids, esplore star systems and do transportation, while honing our piloting skills, without being killed every five minutes or bullied to join a faction?
Those of us who would see a challenge in things like plotting the most efficient course from A to B, without running out of fuel or taking excessive time, or do difficult docking and low-g landing maneuvers? To enjoy the loneliness of space when you want to?
Who would like to become a good pilot with a good vessel before launching into areas where there's risk of people shooting at you.

Why does killing and us vs. them have to be mandatory? I'm not against it being available, but why mandatory? And why isn't it permanent? IMHO, that's the biggest hinder to credibility -- you resurrect with minor if any penalties, instead of avoiding death like, erm, death, because you'll lose everything.

The same holds true for fantasy games too, and lately, the trend has been to force people into groups with the sole purpose of killing other groups, after which you pop back to life again. Why? Because that's what the 15 year olds want, and it's them who constitute the majority of the players, despite the M18+ age limits on the boxes?

Sorry, I just have questions, it seems, and no answers.

Regards,
--
*Art

Re:hey now...

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Eve has also a lot of major flaws. I understand that for some poeple some flaws are more annoying then others, while some things they simply ignore, but I just could not stand some of the Eve's elements. To be honest, the game has probably the most tactically innovative combat system out there, with the rock-paper-scissors type of customization of ship loads available to even most newbish players, etc. But at the same time it suffers from major compromises which were clearly made in favour of the "advanced" players. I found it simply not worthwile to suffer through hours upon hours of chores, boredom and outright abuse to achieve some mythical "good times", 5 months into the game. Games are supposed to be fun for all participants, not just the most tenacious.

Case in point: small, cheap vessels are pretty much incapable of inflicting any meaningful damage on the larger ones, even when operated in a large, coordinated group, thus denying the "newbs" an opportunity to counter-act the power of a single well-off player. Add to this an abysmal (or more precisely, complete lack of any practical one) command/squad control system, lag and jerkiness in major engagements, the inability to engage oponents in any useful way at the gates without a massive expenditure in area warp disabling hardware, etc and so on.

The very long list of these flaws, aggravations, annoyances and outright stupidity has driven me away from Eve, and was in fact a final nail in the coffin of my participation in any more pay-per-play MMORPGs.

Real life provides enough of annoyances for me to pay somene for delivering more.

Re:hey now...

[PriceIke]

I'm no seasoned MMO player, but I think Matrix Online is too often overlooked. It splits genres in a way because while it is inarguably sci-fi, it is more real-world than most other MMOs, as it takes place in a present day metropolis environment. The environment is so richly detailed and well put together that it's half the reason I play the game. Plus the characters are very personalizable and there is almost no end to the clothing combinations available in the game. The game does lack player and faction housing, which is a real weakness: SOE could make a lot of people happy and keep a lot more players in the game if they added that. But SOE's focus in MxO has been on combat and storyline, and the storyline has been pretty weak as of late.

I'm not interested in the fantasy genre, and the sci-fi genre would only appeal to me if it were a recognizable place, such as SWG or the upcoming Star Trek Online, and I've heard too many bad things about SWG to want to start paying money for it. But the world of the Matrix is cool, fascinating, very social, and the game itself is an analog to the fictional Matrix in the movies, and there's just something fun about jacking yourself into the "real" Matrix.

Now if they were to someday come up with an MMO based on Battlestar Galactica ... I'd be there in a second. Not sure how that would work, though.

Re:hey now...

[SatanicPuppy]

Earth and Beyond had potential, but it was limited in a lot ways. Instead of a game where you had a ship, and a life, and could go around doing different things, you pretty much were the ship. You could never get a different ship without creating a new character. You could upgrade your ship as you leveled, la dee da, but it never really changed much.

Once you did the ship thing a few times, that was pretty much it. It was like half a game. If they'd added the other half (and a hell of a lot more content) it would have been pretty cool.

Re:hey now...

[KDR_11k]

Like this?

Re:hey now...

[WilliamSChips]

You're thinking of Arthur C. Clarke. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Re:hey now...

[hitmark]

maybe so, but i do not think he is the only one to have said it (if in a less elegant/direct way)

Re:hey now...

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Silk road online.

It's a Korean MMORPG free to all (charges for special items to give double exp and stuff). All the monsters are based on Chinese mythology, in the future they're releasing a Western add on (again free).

It's got some intresting things but it's too much of a grind for my tastes and the main aspect for PvP is basicly "level 70 characters patrol the newbie areas, act like assholes and piss you off". So check it out, but learn how to do PvP safely before you touch it.

Re:hey now...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never played WoW but I've heard from many people how it's lots of fun until they hit 50 and then it sucks.

Maybe I'm overthinking this, but I think the basic game systems of WoW-like games is unsatisfactory to people once they understand it.

I played EQ for a while, and once I really understood how tank-nuke-heal worked I had a lot of fun with it, but eventually that basic mechanic got stale. Then WoW came along, with super slicked up tank-nuke-heal and other activities. The other activities are nice, but at it's heart WoW is just another tank-nuke-heal. There is a point at which that just isn't fun anymore, the player understands the system - can play all the roles and just isn't interested in getting the gear and developing a slightly new strategy for yet another billion hp raid mob.

I'm probably not a normal player, but I really believe that once the player has "won" the tank-nuke-healer game there has to be something for them to do. Wow-PvP doesn't cut it (for a lot of reasons), WoW-crafting is far too shallow, WoW-economy is a pretty basic game that feels pretty pointless once you make 5k gp, etc. There must be something more for players to do, and I don't anyone has figured out yet what that needs to be.

Re:hey now...

[llefler]

It's understandable that you gave up on EVE. Unlike most massives the content is heavily loaded towards the more advanced characters. I've never played WoW but I've heard from many people how it's lots of fun until they hit 50 and then it sucks.

I think I'd rather have a game overloaded with low end content than high end content. You can alway create a new character if you get bored. Short of eBay, it's kind of hard to start at level 50. FWIW, I've been playing WoW since the stress test and my highest level character is 42. But I think I explore more than most. I've been to most of the regions in WoW and have worked with every profession. I haven't quite tried all the classes yet (no shaman or priest), and have one or two more Horde races to try.

OTOH, Eve bored me. I never got past all the mining and I'm not a PVP player.

Re:hey now...

[unclei]

I heard that. This is precisely why I just killed my eve account. I'd have loved to go find a corner of nowhere in that universe, set up a remote mining/manufacturing op, and make trade runs into empire space. WITHOUT having to join some enormous PvP oriented alliance to do so. Joining that sort of alliance (to which I would no doubt have to pay "protection money" for the privilege) completely destroys the feeling I wanted to get out of eve - being my own master out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but a few of my friends to hold off the (NPC) pirates and looters.

I know someone is going to respond saying "You can do that," but be realistic. A small corporation, not affiliated with one of the larger alliances has zero chance of surviving in 0.0 (the lawless part of space, where most of the high value minerals are to be found). There is *no* unexplored/unclaimed space in eve. Somebody claims to "own" every part of the universe. And for every group claiming to "own" a piece of the universe, there are other groups that contest it. If you want to just go visit systems that you personally haven't seen, you have to dodge overzealous gangs of alliance gank squads constantly hunting you for being in "their" space. Even if you're in a tiny, lame little frigate that obviously poses no threat to anyone.

I know Eve was designed to be a game all about corporate warfare and such. And I find the social aspects there kind of interesting. If my preferred form of PvP wasn't *economic* PvP, I'd probably love it. I just see what Eve is, and that it *could* be so much more, and have to walk away disappointed.

I could go on about how the attitude of corporate warfare for the sake of warfare in Eve destroys the sense of immersion, but I'll save that rant for another day. I'll watch the updates and see how the game changes. I'm not hopeful though - I think the devs and a large amount of the player base is generally happy with the way the game works. Maybe the fraction of non-PvP fans will grow large enough that they'll do something. Time (and the market) will tell.

Re:hey now...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been playing EVE for 3 years now and I still haven't tapped out all the content because every 8 months or so they add a new level of complexity to the game (for free of course).

One content upgrade every 8 months at 14.95 per month = $120 received in subscription fees per major update. This seems even more lucrative than throwing out a $30 ~ $40 "expansion pack" 6 months after release.

Re:hey now...

[DennyK]

I enjoy EVE personally, but I was lucky enough to have joined the game as part of a large group already well-established deep in hostile space, areas that most newbies don't see for quite a while. I was helping to kill fleets of expensive battleships in huge battles before my two week trial was up. If not for that, I would never have joined in the first place.

I do have to disagree with your assertation that small ships are powerless against larger ones, though. The corporation I belong to is infamous for swarming and destroying fleets of large and powerful enemy ships with groups composed largely of first-tier frigates. I've been in battles where a group of frigates took down multiple battleships. Hell, I was even in one where about sixty of us went out in the nearly useless default ships you get at the beginning of the game and destroyed a hapless battlecruiser in about ten seconds. With good fleet commanders, a well-coordinated force of weaker ships can take on quite a bit. We often tend to take huge losses numbers-wise in such engagements, but when all of our lost ships combined cost less than just the guns on the enemy's ship, we still come out way ahead in the end.

You are correct about the lag, though. That's easily the most frustrating part of the game. It doesn't bother me one bit to lose a ship in fair combat, but getting blown up before your client even loads the enemy fleet really sucks.

Re:hey now...

[Das Modell]

I'm playing WoW as I write this, and I honestly don't know why. What's the point? Hmm.

Re:hey now...

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I've been in battles where a group of frigates took down multiple battleships. Hell, I was even in one where about sixty of us went out in the nearly useless default ships you get at the beginning of the game and destroyed a hapless battlecruiser in about ten seconds.With good fleet commanders, a well-coordinated force of weaker ships can take on quite a bit.

Me and a number of other newbs at the time tried this many times only to find that there was no effective way to coordinate our actions and thus we kept ending up being blown up one at a time when we arrived in small 2-3 ship "chunks", either too far or too close, the enemy simply escaped at gates as at that time there was no way to hold him, or our "ambush" was too uncoordinated to proceed correctly. Note that use of Teamspeak or other real-time chat systems is not an option for many and thus we were forced to use the clumsy and wholly useless game chat interface for all the squad command functions, which put as at a severe disadvantage. That is one of my greatest beefs with Eve, the fact that the game looks beautiful and yet sports one of the clumsiest, most useless user interfaces I ever had displeasure of using. I heard that they made significant changes to it many months later, but that was far too late for me.

Re:hey now...

[Bongo Bill]

Try EV Nova. It's basically one-player EVE Online.

Re:hey now...

[Das Modell]

No, this was not a flamebait you fucked up, infantile retards. I'm just wondering why I'm playing it. If you fanboys get all bent out of shape because somebody is wondering why he's bothering with WoW, you need to seek professional help at once.

Re:hey now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, hopefully they will get theirs in M2 - but I doubt it, slashdot has been broken for a long time now that way.

Re:hey now...

[arth1]

Try EV Nova. It's basically one-player EVE Online.

The problems are (a) it's one-player, and (b) it's still basically a Wing Commander style combat game. To quote the second sentence of the link you gave: "Nova thrusts you into a sprawling universe dominated by a myriad of warring factions". Considering that warring factions was what I wanted to avoid in the first place, that doesn't sound promising.

As for single-player games, no AI ever puts up a fair challenge; they cheat by modifying the rules or resources, and operate in three modes: Perfect, Random or Stupid.
This is why it's so much more fun to play against humans -- humans, while unpredictable, are not random, nor stupid, nor perfect. You know that when you're racing a human, losing speed for a second won't necessarily mean you can't ever overtake the other again, nor will the opponent slow down to wait for you on purpose. It's a challenge.

What I don't see as a challenge is combat where you resurrect and resurrect and resurrect -- that diminishes the whole challenge, and you throw caution to the wind, because there's not a lot to lose. Almost all multiplayer games these days are based on this model, and I think they miss a large potential player group by doing so: those who want more realism and rewards for honing their own skills (as opposed to "skills" you acquire as a reward). If I eventually get killed, it should be because I wasn't cautious, and the other guy was plain better at what he was doing -- not because he had better loot, nor because the point of the game is killing each other over and over again, and eventually the odds stacked up against me.

Skills, not trigger-happy slaughter. Teamwork because you like spending time with others, teaching and getting taught, not because there's safety in numbers. Death as the ultimate punishment to be avoided, not as a minor inconvenience to be expected.

Re:hey now...

[theghost]

f SWG had EVE-online's time-based skill training system and solid ground / space combat and missions, it would be one of the most cool games in existence.

So..if SWG didn't suck it would be cool? I must say that's quite a compelling argument.

Re:hey now...

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

There's a fine distinction between, "If SWG didn't suck it would be cool" and "If pieces of SWG didn't suck it would be the coolest thing since sliced bread."

Re:hey now...

[Bongo Bill]

I first looked into EV Nova because people said it was basically EVE, only offline. The warring factions can be pretty much avoided - if you want to ignore them, they have the same basic function as random griefers.

The combat is real-time, yes, and there's fewer ships, but I actually find the AI to be rather fair.

Also, unless you have it set to easy mode or the equivalent, death is indeed permanent, and you start off at the bottom of the rung. So, uh, it's not what you think.

Factor of Copyright Restrictions?

[eldavojohn]

I don't buy this argument. In fact, I think that copyright restrictions and forced creative direction are what destroys an MMO. Look at Star Wars Galaxies, too many copyright restrictions and attempts at intervention from LucasArts as to how the game experience should feel. Look at Middle Earth Online. Actually, it doesn't exist and is some pretty famous vapor ware.

Now look at games that are completely original to the developing companies like World of Warcraft, lineage I & II, Runescape (fantasy games), Eve Online (a sci-fi game). You might point out that there are more successful fantasy games but I think it's just the fact that sci-fi is often spurred from novels or movies. Rarely do you hear of an original sci-fi game. Therefore, your players have this pre-conceived notion of what the game should be like and if it misses the mark, they are disappointed. I'd like to think the correlation of success comes with creative and artistic control as well as originality. I don't really buy the argument that projectile weapons make a game difficult to design.

Re:Factor of Copyright Restrictions?

[LiquidCoooled]

THe best sci-fi I know of is only available in the game world.

No problems with particle weapons and odd tools, just give your man a crowbar.

(for those totally in the dark, I'm talking about half life)

Re:Factor of Copyright Restrictions?

[radarjd]

I don't buy this argument. In fact, I think that copyright restrictions and forced creative direction are what destroys an MMO. Look at Star Wars Galaxies, too many copyright restrictions and attempts at intervention from LucasArts as to how the game experience should feel.

Perhaps I'm being overly technical, but it doesn't seem like "copyright restrictions" are really the issue so much as creative control, or perhaps "continuity restrictions". SWG (I'm was in from Beta 2 until a year and a half after launch) suffered from a muddied vision of what the game should be, and from an overly ambitious release schedule. Further, there have always been anecdotal reports that LucasArts exerted a great deal of oversight over SOE. The designers originally had Jedi as an ultra-rare mystical thing, and then people discovered it was simply a profession grind for a class which wasn't necessarily well thought out. I maintain to this day that Jedi should have been chosen by special GM's hired just to find Jedi, but that's a topic for another day.

Saying "copyright restrictions" cause problems is misleading I think. Many parts of the Warcraft universe are protected by copyright, whether the embodiments may be as a game, a novel, or even a manual (IAAL, a copyright lawyer, in fact). Again, I think you really mean "continuity restrictions" or even "creative control from an outside agency". Copyright has little to do with it, other than copyright gives the outside agency some of its control (though trademark is as powerful a protection in this context IMO).

Indeed, without continuity, what makes "Star Wars" Star Wars? Noise in outer space? Fantastic alien creatures? Existence of the Force? Without some of those elements, the name alone is useless. I would say that LucasArts' insistence on keeping Star Wars "Star Wars" maintains the integrity of that universe. They may not know anything about MMO design, and perhaps their mistake was trying to exert too much creative control over something they knew nothing about.

Or maybe the article writer is right, and guns are really hard to implement in an MMO...

Re:Factor of Copyright Restrictions?

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

Well, personally I wouldn't be as bold to say that Lucas Arts made SWG as horrible as it was, considering that SOE was the sole reason for the huge drops in player base after the "new game enhancements."
I can't agree with your argument that sci-fi games do poorly because they are based on novels or movies. As far as I know the only one based on novels/movies has been SWG. I think they just do poorly because for every one of them there is atleast 5 fantasy games, that goes to say that you are 5 times more likely to see a successful fantasy game than you are sci fi.
I can agree with your argument that projectile weapons make a game difficult to design. I think it's more apt to say that the current design makes the projectile weapons more difficult to implement. It seems that for the first "domain" of MMO's was just copying the game mechanics from EverQuest, now the current "domain" is just everyone copying World of Warcraft. I think it is the developer's unwillingness to make a gamble on a new/different game engine that makes it difficult to implement the projectiles. It is also possible that the reason why EQ and WoW have been widely recognized as the trend setters because they took the gamble. It is fortunate for them that their gambles paid off in spades. disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.

Re:Factor of Copyright Restrictions?

[Kadoo]

I like this argument and can't wait till WORLDS OF STARCRAFT comes out!!

Re:Factor of Copyright Restrictions?

[RsG]

Perhaps I'm being overly technical, but it doesn't seem like "copyright restrictions" are really the issue so much as creative control, or perhaps "continuity restrictions". SWG (I'm was in from Beta 2 until a year and a half after launch) suffered from a muddied vision of what the game should be, and from an overly ambitious release schedule. Further, there have always been anecdotal reports that LucasArts exerted a great deal of oversight over SOE. The designers originally had Jedi as an ultra-rare mystical thing, and then people discovered it was simply a profession grind for a class which wasn't necessarily well thought out. I maintain to this day that Jedi should have been chosen by special GM's hired just to find Jedi, but that's a topic for another day.

The way I see it, they tried to pursue two mutually exclusive goals here. They wanted the game to tie into the movies, and they wanted it to include PC-controlled jedi. Now, given that jedi are supposed to be almost completely extinct in the movies, the developers and/or lucasarts wound up with an unworkable situation.

They should have either dropped the jedi angle altogether, and stuck with the rest of star wars as their setting, or they should have set the game in another era. I'd have gone with the latter - the KotOR games did that remarkably well. Plus, as an added bonus, if they'd done the game in an earlier era they could have included player-controlled sith as well, which would have been a huge selling point...

Re:Factor of Copyright Restrictions?

[ClamIAm]

It's interesting that you say you're a lawyer, yet the OP was mostly complaining about licensed properties. Problems here would most likely be contract problems. Sure, call it "creative control" or whatever you like, but that doesn't change the underlying legal mechanism being used. Unless of course, there's some secret "creative control" law I've never heard about.

Best Sci-Fi MMORPG EVER!!

[steveo777]

Buck Rogers

Not much more to say. Monoblades, short-range lasers, granades up the wazoo, and some ship battles. I'd cancel WoW in a heartbeat if they did Buck right. ...now where did I put that Commador 128?

Suspecnsion of disbelief

[arb]

It is much easier to suspend disbelief in a fantasy setting than it is in a sci-fi setting. One problem with sci-fi is the "sci" in "sci-fi". You have to justify the scientific reasoning when doing sci-fi. Fantasy is easier because you can explain things as "it's just magic" and that fits the theme...

Re:Suspecnsion of disbelief

[digitrev]

So rely entirely on the "A wizard did it" mentality, and don't even try to explain anything? That's pure laziness. It would be entirely possible to fabricate decent explanations for a sci-fi MMO, but they're either too lazy to do it, or fear the repercussions of doing it wrong. I've read some damn good sci-fi that properly explained why the engine works the way it does. Of course it requires suspension of disbelief, but you're playing a video game. You're already suspending your disbelief just by pretending that you're someone that you aren't.

I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[nathan s]

I don't know offhand what IS, but I don't think it's the "impersonal" factor of guns being able to shoot across a room - witness the Counterstrike and Quake and countless other multiplayer FPS games that have been massively successful. I'd say there is some other factor at work here.

I'm thinking offhand, but most of the time your classic fantasy stories have been about parties of heroes (witness Tolkien) whereas classic scifi has tended to be much more individualist (even with the Matrix, the main character so strongly overshadowed the others that it didn't really feel very much like a group effort). (Maybe Star Wars is an exception to this, and the Star Wars games have tended to be fairly successful, although some people call it space-based fantasy instead of science fiction anyway.)

I can't really think of any compelling party-leaning science fiction stories at the moment. And this translates out to the scifi games I've tried, from single player stuff to MUDs. They've all felt very "lonely." In fantasy, you have clearly defined classes with separate roles and you tend to need a group of them to get anywhere, which is begging for a multiplayer setting.

Keep in mind that I'm only on my first cup of coffee, though.

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[montyzooooma]

"I can't really think of any compelling party-leaning science fiction stories at the moment. "

There's loads (think Star Wars fiction, Warhammer 40K fiction etc.) just like there are loads of fantasy books with lone protagonists (Kane, Elric, Conan - none of them exclusively solo but often).

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[EggyToast]

Not to mention that "fantasy" already has long distance -- magic. Magic is cast from across the room, and often the caster needs to maintain line-of-sight, similar to firearms or other projectile weaponry.

I think the big reason is that the setting for fantasy is often simpler -- kingdoms and big bad monsters from "hell" or whatever. Sci-fi is usually burdened with politics and trade routes and other exceedingly deep backstory (not necessarily interesting, mind). That appeals to some gamers, but certainly not all.

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[voice_of_all_reason]

Rats, you got my idea first :)

Just to elaborate, if I'm playing a fantasy MMO, groups are all smaller. And even if the plot does have rigidly segmented races, they do not carry over into the game and races are instead chosen based on their base stats/abilities.

Fantasy allows much more fame and renown on an individual level. Sure, there's guilds, but you can still be known as "THE elf assassin" on the server. Science fiction just brings up an image of "Stormtrooper 1138 ready, sir..."

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[prichardson]

Startrek has always been about the group overcoming a challenge. This is why I prefer it to most other science fiction.

I really think you distinction is artificial. There are plenty of fantasy settings with only a single hero.

I'd argue that a single hero is more conducive to a game anyway, unless it features co-op multiplayer (drool).

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[Alexandra Erenhart]

I agree with you. And to add something to your comment, with fantasy games, you pretty much know who are the "good guys" and the "bad guys", and in general, people like to know in which side they are (any of them), because that gives them a clear background (independant of if you're a griefer or not, that's gamer related). With sci-fi, that separation isn't clear, and you're on your own (generally speaking). Some gamers don't feel comfortable with it.

And as a personal opinion and taste, I prefer being surrounded by forests or castles than by the cold giant space.

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[Hoi Polloi]

Very interesting point about the idea of classes. One problem with the sci-fi model is the egalitarian nature of technology. If you have some sort of "super-duper body analyzer/healer" that just requires a scan and a few clicks to use then what is the point of having, say, a "medic" class? Anyone could use it with with a few skill points. Same goes for weapons, even a child can pull a trigger on a machine gun (with ugly proof of this in Africa today). Since RPGs generally revolve around personal combat and interaction the skills that required years of training in swords & sorcery rpgs, like archery, are gone in a world where anyone can learn to shoot reasonably well in a few weeks. That is why we can have armies of conscripts today.

Pretty much anyone can be a jack-of-all-trades in sci-fi. The only place classes would show up is in advanced professions but then how interesting would it be to play the "chemical plant manager"?

As Arthur C Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[idontgno]

A "compelling party-leaning science fiction story"?

One word: Battletech

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[Number6.2]

(*weeps uncontrollably*)

I would play BT Online. In a heartbeat. I played all of the Mechwarrior series until Microsoft turned the experience into Quake in a steel suit :(

An Atlas is SUPPOSED to take a long time to turn, it's 100 tons of metal, for crying out loud. A shadowcat is SUPPOSED to be able to turn on a dime (so to speak).

(*sigh*)

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[Anonymous Coward]

"They've all felt very "lonely." In fantasy, you have clearly defined classes with separate roles and you tend to need a group of them to get anywhere, which is begging for a multiplayer setting.

EVE Online has already been mentioned in this thread, but what you're talking about has already been accomplished there. The most effective PvP groups have at least:

- Offensive damage dealers
- Electronic warfare ships (doing anything from target jamming enemy ships to disrupting enemy turret tracking, making them hit less often)
- Fast, small 'tacklers' (fitted for speed, agility and propulsion jamming equipment to keep enemy ships from escaping)
- One or two covert ops frigates (which scout ahead, cloaked, for enemy targets as well as utilize scan probes to find enemy ships sitting in space)

There are a myriad of other 'classes' that are not as necessary for a successful pvp expedition, but certainly do help. A nicely mixed group of players will do infinitely better than a single player by himself, and no major advances into enemy territory are made by anything short of a fleet of players (usually 50+). Capital ships are usually not introduced into the battlefield until there are at least 50-100 friendly pilots grouped together, and due to defenses on player owned starbases you need capital ships to destroy them. Everything about the game is team oriented, it's very difficult to be effective on your own (though it is possible).

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[GundamFan]

I assume you are refering to Mechassult. I don't consider that a Mechwarrior... and I regret that the days of the "competitive Sim" style of gameplay are ending becaus of the general lack of maturity in the modern gamer and there relentless cries for "balance".

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[l3prador]

I can't really think of any compelling party-leaning science fiction stories at the moment. And this translates out to the scifi games I've tried, from single player stuff to MUDs. They've all felt very "lonely." In fantasy, you have clearly defined classes with separate roles and you tend to need a group of them to get anywhere, which is begging for a multiplayer setting.

What about Firefly? It's a pretty party-focused story. I've always thought it would make a great setting for an MMO.

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[WilliamSChips]

Stargate SG-1. Heck, the name of the team is in the name of the show! And also, there is a Stargate SG-1 MMO in development!

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[sootman]

I'm not so sure the guns are the issue... I don't know offhand what IS, but I don't think it's the "impersonal" factor of guns being able to shoot across a room...

Hell, good guns are the only reason I'll play an online game. I don't have hours to spend honing my 7337 combat skills. If I can't hide in a corner and pick off competitors as they appear at the respawn point, I'm not playing. :-)

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[Jaysyn]

Microsoft: Slowly Ruining Everything Good from FASA(tm).

Jaysyn

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know offhand what IS, but I don't think it's the "impersonal" factor of guns being able to shoot across a room - witness the Counterstrike and Quake and countless other multiplayer FPS games that have been massively successful. I'd say there is some other factor at work here.

You will not achieve CS-quality or Quake-quality gameplay with current MMO infrastructures.

The problem is that guns require fast-paced gameplay and RPGs are more focused on ecomomic growth of character after a sluggish pseudo-action, pseudo-strategy repetition which does not require very low latency (under say 200ms).

However what the sci-fi MMORPGs do is to just switch swords with guns and then the lagged shoot-outs just become dumb-looking and artificial. Since you can't really support a MMO Quake or MMO CS in a centralized way.

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[Turn-X Alphonse]

40k I'd argue with, it's very rarely good sci fi and I'm not even getting into how little it matters if a squad lives or dies, so it doesn't matter how over shadowed someone is or isn't.

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[typidemon]

40k I'd argue with, it's very rarely good sci fi and I'm not even getting into how little it matters if a squad lives or dies, so it doesn't matter how over shadowed someone is or isn't.

Have you read the novels?

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[typidemon]

I think the big reason is that the setting for fantasy is often simpler -- kingdoms and big bad monsters from "hell" or whatever.

Empires fighting aliens from unknown space?

Sci-fi is usually burdened with politics and trade routes and other exceedingly deep backstory (not necessarily interesting, mind). That appeals to some gamers, but certainly not all.

But it doesn't have to be.

Re:I'm not so sure the guns are the issue.

[EggyToast]

Empires fighting aliens from unknown space?

Yeah. Witness Halo 1 vs 2 for example. Halo 1 everyone claimed to love the story, because it was a truly evil race. Halo 2 gives them more motivation and backstory and shows how tragic the race is. Subsequently, many disliked the extra politics involved.

It can work in sci-fi; it's just not what sci-fi is always known for. For every "Alien" there's a "Star Trek." And having the borg in every episode gets boring.

But it doesn't have to be.

Yeah, nothing is set in stone. It's just that historically, when you think of a genre, fantasy involves dragons and monsters that are obviously "bad guys," and you upgrade swords and armor. Sci-fi historically focuses on the "ambiguous future," where bad guys may not be bad guys and reality may not be reality, etc. You can have Xenomorphs and other bio-weapon style enemies, but typically you don't.

Most fantasy takes the easy way out, as people are familiar with kingdoms, villages, gold coins, etc. With sci-fi, they need to start from scratch and introduce how people travel, how they fight, who they fight, what the situations are. Often they're entirely novel and interesting, but that doesn't draw a large crowd.

I'm a sucker for a good sci-fi story and I tend to enjoy RPGs that have a techno-noir tinge to them, vs. the pure fantasy style RPGs. But I'm also not drawn to MMOs, since there's typically little story. With fantasy, you don't really need story. For sci-fi? To me, that's almost the whole point.

Roles

[HugePedlar]

I wonder if it's the races and roles that people find easier to identify with in a fantasy MMO. Typical RPG characters like Human, Elf, Dwarf, Wizard and so on are pretty well defined. Give someone Human, Alien, Other Alien etc. and they don't know how to associate with the role.

Just a thought.

I long for a good sci fi mmo

[tont0r]

Im getting tired of the same old fashion nerds and dwarves MMO's. I was extremely excited when i heard that there is a warhammer mmo coming out, then i wanted to cry when i found out that its not warhammer 40k :(.

Hmmm...

[Skynet]

What's so much different between a laser-gun wielding trooper and a lightning-spell chanting wizard?

They are both focusing energy on the enemy, no?

Methinks the problem is that there hasn't been a really good Sci-Fi MMO yet. Yes I know, Anarchy Online was decent as was Planetside. But nothing on the order of WoW has ever come out.

It's a quality thing, not a fundamental human nature thing.

Re:Hmmm...

[FooAtWFU]

I disagree - there is something different, but it's not in the effect itself. Rather, consider: the fantasy premise of "You have awesome destructive powers" is different from the scifi premise of "You have equipment with awesome destructive powers". Or, take some sort of fantasy healer: "You heal your wounded comrade with the energies of Nature and the purity of your own soul" versus the scifi: "You heal your wounded comrade with the medpack, the tricorder, and the powers of Science".

These are two different mindsets, and they really do make all the difference for a role-playing game. The sci in scifi, the idea that it's Scienc and technology and such, is really different from the more spiritually-mystically-oriented realms of fantasy.

Re:Hmmm...

[Skynet]

That's a very great argument.

Although I wonder if all the Star Trek role-players of the world would agree. :)

Re:Hmmm...

[mashtb4]

There is a big difference between a lazer gun and casting a spell. It's all in the timing and feel of the game. When you're playing fantasy, there's a part of the game that tells you that pulling out a wand and physically casting a spell is much more developed and realistic (inside the game) than shooting from the hip with a lazer gun that fires almost automatically. This feel of being inside a game is why people play fantasy more than sci-fi. Sci-fi seems a little too much like today, and people are trying to escape that. Not using guns is a big part of maintaining that escape from reality.

Re:Hmmm...

[andphi]

From my experience with Star Trek roleplay (admittedly a chat-based roleplay in a Star Trek metaverse, rather than a strictly canon universe), they might. They might also ask: Who made the tricorder? Who made the medpak? What models are they exactly? What tech manual is the role-player referencing? A Federation triage kit and a Cardassian triage kit may be far from equivalent.
A certain fraction of the time anything involving combat quickly devolved into technical bickering. It made starship combat a real pain in the ass at times.

Re:Hmmm...

[0racle]

What's so much different between a laser-gun wielding trooper and a lightning-spell chanting wizard?

I can cast, (ok I can tell my character to cast) Thunder on a Thunder based mob and there will be at least some, if not a lot of resistance to the spell. It just won't do as much damage as it would against a Water based mob because of the magical elemental relationships. Explain resistance to a gun or laser weapon.

On top of that, Sci-Fi often pretty much has the requirement that those characters that are engaged in the story have a level of knowledge that fits the world around them. You will never find players that fit that, the world would be as much a fantasy as a real fantasy game.

Re:Hmmm...

[C0rinthian]

Lets be honest, fireballs are a lot more visually appealing than bullets.

Although that can be overcome in sci-fi to a point. Take Eve for example. Energy Weapons and Missiles look really slick in action, while the projectile weapons are barely noticable.

Re:Hmmm...

[tbannist]

In a science fiction setting, everyone has a blaster. Wizards =/= Stormtroopers.

Re:Hmmm...

[Gogogoch]

Well another thought is that sci-fi doesnt provide enough differentiation between architypes. You have to come up with pretty contrived reasons why everyone cant have the best laser gun and battle armour. Fantasy has contrived reasons too, but they are more plausible and acceptable because the genre is open to these differentitors.

Also, there is no sci-fi equivalent to magic.

Re:Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Explain resistance to a gun or laser weapon

A bullet-proof vest? Clothing manufactured with the right refractive index to mitigate some of the effects of a direct by breaking up the focus of the laser beam? A "laser shield" consisting of a big lens that scatters the laser beam apart again?

Just be creative. You don't even have to have a good explanation: make one that sounds even vaguely plausible, and people will buy into it, and treat it like gospel. It worked for Star Trek. :-)

On top of that, Sci-Fi often pretty much has the requirement that those characters that are engaged in the story have a level of knowledge that fits the world around them. You will never find players that fit that, the world would be as much a fantasy as a real fantasy game.

Fantasy games drop a level of realism for playability. For example, Why do "evil" races keep doing evil things the same stupid way? Why don't they learn better? Why don't some of them reform, or at least, pretend to in order to throw the good guys off? Answer: it makes the game world simpler if there are "good guys"(TM) and "bad guys"(TM). Do the same thing with sci-fi, and you'll have a success.

Remember, the more complicated and realistic the game, the smarter people will have to be to appreciate it. The market consisting of really smart people who can appreciate a complex and nuanced ame is really small compared to people who just want some simple, light hearted fun with a sci-fi feel. Stop trying to do the impossible, and instead just give the masses what they want... cute alien girls, and an otherworldly setting.

Re:Hmmm...

[Nyph2]

I think this post is on the money. I took a writers workshop a few years back with Patricia C. Wrede who's the author of the Dealing with Dragons among other books(including some sci-fi like a # of star wars novels). She stressed that you're allowed to have 1 suspension of disbeleif, generally which the premise your world is based around. After that, everything's got to be beleivable. For this reason iirc she said writing fantasy's easier than sci-fi, because sci-fi's based off tech we extrapolate will be possible, and so needs to be based to a degree in how we beleive science works atm. Whereas fantasy's world layout is generally easier to incorporate into this suspension of disbeleif & so it's much easier to basically do what you want without making the person aware again of that suspension, and while we're willing to suspend our disbeleif, we really dont like to be dragged out of the world by being reminded of it.

Re:Hmmm...

[KDR_11k]

They might also ask: Who made the tricorder? Who made the medpak? What models are they exactly?

Answer: You cannot identify the type of the tricorder but from the badly labelled buttons you conclude that it's a cheap chinese knockoff.

Re:Hmmm...

[KDR_11k]

Explain resistance to a gun or laser weapon.

Earth 2160 differentiates between reflective armor, chemical-resistent armor and conventional armor, each effective against a certain type of weapon. It also includes shields which stop energy weapons.

OTOH, a gun or laser weapon usually falls under physical damage in most RPGs. They've got lightning resistence, fire resistence, etc just like fantasy RPGs. Who says you can't have (pseudo-scientifically explained) magic and mechs in one game? Warhammer 40k has both the warp with its daemons, gods and psi spells and high tech weapons.

Re:Hmmm...

[KDR_11k]

What reason is there that an archer cannot just put on heavy armor and pick up a sword? Training. What reason is there a sniper can't put on a power armor and pick up a chaingun? Training. Guns take training just like swords do and while you can let everyone use hanguns not every class can use more specialized weapons. You just need to know where to draw the line between weapon classes. An engineer that can handle high tech support devices should no be able to use a rocket launcher while an anti-tank trooper can't use the high-tech stuff.

Re:Hmmm...

[andphi]

You enter a maze of twisting passages, all the same?

Re:Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. I've heard this whole /. argument before. Where was it? Oh yeah!

".. THANK YOU for saving me from the boogeyman."

"I saved your life from halfway around the GLOBE!"

"Look, Kreskin, I have twenty devices in this lab that can do that. I'm a super-scientist. My FATHER was a super-scientist, HIS father was a super-scientist, and HIS father was -- no, wait, no, I think he was a milliner. Either way, I'm just not impressed with your tricks!"

"TRICKS?! How dare you! With just a thought I could RISE into the AIR!"

"Or you could put on these anti-gravity boots."

"I could incinerate this ENTIRE LAB! Make you believe that you were a very special episode of Blossom! AND SHOOT LIGHTNING FROM MY HANDS!"

  "OOH. Laser ray, mind-control helmet, Tesla coil. Anything else?"

  _The Venture Brothers_ is teh awesome.

  Me, I'd prefer a good sci-fi game, as it would force the makers into finally dumpingthe rickety old D&D mechanics that turn MMORPGs into boring level-grinds.

Re:Hmmm...

[nelsonal]

The amount of training required to use a semi-automatic rifle is far lower than that required to use a rapier, for example. While I'm pretty sure an olympic fencer would toast me 999 times out of 1000 (or more often). An olympic sharpshooter has a much lower chance of success against a minimally trained shooter (even 80% is a substantial reduction in odds).

Sci-Fi vs Fantasy

[mknewman]

You don't think it could be that Sci-Fi gamers are more intelligent and discerning than Fantasy dreamers, uh, I mean gamers, do you? Sci-Fi is highly analytical and scientific, so if the premise falls apart then nobody will play the game. Fantasy ALWAYS works because the premise is nonsense, based on a made up reality with no basis. You can do literally ANYTHING in a Fantasy game since you can just write it off to being an alternate reality or something.

" I also think there's something I can't explain, which is that people are more willing to play a fantasy game that's not as good online, than they are willing to play a sci-fi game that's not as good online. And I'm not sure why that is.' Suggestions?"

Re:Sci-Fi vs Fantasy

[teflaime]

You can't do "anything" in a good fantasy game. Good fantasy still has to have internally consistent rules. And I doubt sci-fi fans are more discerning than fantasy fans. There is just as much crappy sci-fi published as crappy fantasy. More actually, because fantasy editors are picker now as there is far more fantasy available. There is a dearth of Science Fiction for publication, so they are taking lesser quality work in the science fiction markets.

Re:Sci-Fi vs Fantasy

[Pale-Horse-Rider]

Right. Because Sci-Fi is so very limited in the possibilities it allows. No one ever heard of an alternate reality in Sci-Fi. And there's never been any wildly popular Science Fiction that's done something ridiculously out-of-line in comparison to known laws of physics.

Fantasy worlds have to make just as much sense as Sci-Fi universes; conversely, Sci-Fi universes often make just as little sense as Fantasy worlds.

Re:Sci-Fi vs Fantasy

[krell]

The other person who responded amply addressed the point that good fantasy has to be well thought out too.

I'm pointing out that it is just not true that you are more limited in science fiction than in fantasy. In science-fiction, you can still use alternate realities and you can also make up any kind of alien you want, have holodecks, etc. In fact, you are probably more limited in the fantasy genre at this time because the "premise" of fantasy tends to stick with wand magic, elves, spells, dragons, the medieval setting, and related elements. Not so with science fiction.

WoS

[preppypoof]

fantasy is more popular than sci-fi for all rpg's (not just mmo's) because of what the summary says: guns. think of final fantasy 8 and final fantasy x-2. both featured guns, both were not the most popular games in the series. if gamers wanted to play with guns, they would play a fps. would World of Starcraft have been as popular as World of Warcraft is?

Re:WoS

[rob1980]

Final Fantasy 7 had characters with guns in it, and that one went just fine. The reasons Final Fantasy 8 (schmaltzy love stories, Squall being an emo fuckhead) and X-2 (Charlie's Angels anyone?) aren't the most popular in the series have nothing - or at least very little - to do with guns.

Re:WoS

[Anonymous Coward]

if gamers wanted to play with guns

...Jack Thompson would shit his pants in glee.

Re:WoS

[tukkayoot]

fantasy is more popular than sci-fi for all rpg's (not just mmo's) because of what the summary says: guns. think of final fantasy 8 and final fantasy x-2. both featured guns, both were not the most popular games in the series. if gamers wanted to play with guns, they would play a fps. would World of Starcraft have been as popular as World of Warcraft is?

Final Fantasy VII is probably the most popular game of the series and it features guns almost as prominently as Final Fantasy VIII.

I don't know about Final Fantasy X-2, but isn't it set in the same "world" as the immensely popular Final Fantasy X? I would think they'd sport similar levels of technological development and use of guns, but I haven't played either. I've heard a lot of complaints and criticism as to the quality of X-2 compared to its predecessors though, enough to account for it's unpopularity without blaming guns.

I'm not saying that guns aren't a factor at all, but I don't really see how the Final Fantasy series corroborates that theory.

Re:WoS

[Jedi Alec]

whatever...

Set and setting and slicing

[spyrochaete]

I think it's largely an issue of art style. Sci-Fi MMOs are either immaculte buiness sims (like EVE) or ugly dystopian battlegrounds (like Auto Assault) while fantasy MMOs are lush forests and towns nestled in mountains and meadows. My guess is that people would rather frolic "outside" than in claustrophobic corridors which they see enough at work.

Another issue is the familiarity with the weapons, as mention in TFA. A 3-foot sword has a 3-foot range, but a 2-foot gun has an arbitrary range that takes practise and familiarity to recognize by sight. It's quicker and easier to cut a guy with a kitchen utensil then to hone a masterwork of alien engineering.

Re:Set and setting and slicing

[srmalloy]

Another issue is the familiarity with the weapons, as mention in TFA. A 3-foot sword has a 3-foot range, but a 2-foot gun has an arbitrary range that takes practise and familiarity to recognize by sight. It's quicker and easier to cut a guy with a kitchen utensil then to hone a masterwork of alien engineering.

And that two-foot gun will do much the same damage at 10 feet as it will at a thousand feet, and should readily kill someone with a single hit. The only difference is in how hard it is to hit that little dot out there -- so when you get into a firefight, a "realistic" combat resolution results, effectively, in your charcter having a completely-random chance to die every time their opponent shoots -- and that is going to rapidly prove to be no fun for players.

Magic = No Explanation Necessary

[BartulaPrime]

I believe that it's mainly due to the inherent need of science to justify how something works. I always find it interesting how a Sci-Fi MMORPG is going to explain healing, buffing, shape-changing, etc. While no one seems bothered by the limited range of spells, I'm sure you'll hear people complain that said gun should be able to shoot for hundreds of meters. Personally, I understand the need for gameplay to overshadow realism, but maybe the sci-fi crowd needs the scientific justifications to enjoy the game. Before this article, I've always believed that sci-fi MMORPGs were going to suffer due to this situation.

Game Design All

[realisticradical]

World of Warcraft has guns. But more than that I think all fantasy MMOs have some sort of ranged characters, just look at spellcasters.

The reason some online games do well and others don't is because of a game design. A design that creates community and has fun and engaging play will do better than one that doesn't. I also think advertising and general appeal helps to pull in those people who wouldn't otherwise jump over the fence that seperates MMOs from other games.

Trump?

[gEvil (beta)]

I can't wait for the Trump MMO! Massively multiplayer online Apprentice will be great!

One is just more popular

[FadedTimes]

Look at TV ratings NFL vs NHL
Sales of Coke vs 7up

Re:One is just more popular

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey now, the new 100% natural 7Up rocks!

Guns are an issue in RPGs, as I see it.

[iainl]

The problem is not Guns in Multiplayer - as you say, look at all those FPS games. The problem, as I see it, is that Gunfights don't map as well to a series of prebuilt animations in turn-based combat.

Everyone wants their MMO to basically be Everquest with a different tileset, and the camera doesn't suit the kind of long-range fighting that gun battles suggest. If I point at an enemy and click to shoot at it, I want to shoot at it, not have a bunch of stat monkeys decide whether my character is good enough to do so.

So the setup practically demands an FPS control instead of an RPG one, and then your nearest city descends into Lag Hell. Oops.

Re:Guns are an issue in RPGs, as I see it.

[rtb61]

It really goes a bit further than that, in a sci fi enviroment the empasis is on star ships interacting rather than individuals interacting (so strategy rather than role playing). Women also tend to prefer the fantasy enviroment (daddies little princess) to the sci fi enviroment, this in turns means any attached males will have to follow their partners into that enviroment or they will soon become unattached for spending to much time paying attention to their game and not to she who must be obeyed.

Also the sci fi ones to date have been pretty luck lustre and/or have been mishandled, developing undesirable reputations. The fantansy ones have also tended to have pretty much a zero learning curve allowing the more unskilled game players easy access (in fact they can just buy in and all they have to do is learn how to spell their name and password).

Re:Guns are an issue in RPGs, as I see it.

[KDR_11k]

Not all SciFi is space based. Even among those that are, how many actually have the combat between ships as their focus? Often you see more combat on the suface of a planet or in the hallways of the ships than actual ship-to-ship warfare.

Re:Guns are an issue in RPGs, as I see it.

[llefler]

It really goes a bit further than that, in a sci fi enviroment the empasis is on star ships interacting rather than individuals interacting (so strategy rather than role playing).

From my bookshelf I could find a number of Sci-Fi/Space Fantasy stories that would have the depth for a MMORPG. And in most, space itself would not be a requirement. It's about story line, not looking at the stars. I mentioned Ringworld in another post. Earth and Beyond had the space, but not the story (content). It would have been a whole lot better if getting out of your ship on various worlds was more than just run in, talk to NPC, and get a new quest. It could have linked into worlds of any type or allowable tech.

BTW, precentage wise, few players in MMORPGs do any roleplaying.

Why I chose EQ2 over EVE

[Anonymous Coward]

I like having both feet on the ground. It's that simple.
 
I know it sounds like an odd reason and I don't know if it applies to others but I can relate better to my Inkie toon than being a ship that flies around. And don't get me wrong, I love flight sims but that's because they're sims with real dynamics and not just the random chance of one stat beating another stat. Actually, I feel that way about some FPSs too. I very much dislike having to ride in a jeep in medal of honor. I'd rather be on my feet.
 
I know it sounds like a weak reason but since it's my consumer dollars that they are trying to win over they have to understand that's simply how I feel. Besides, dark elves kick ass. There ain't not dark elves out in space. Hmmm... I have an idea for a new MMORPG... EVE-Quest.

Books and movies?

[krell]

Look at books: In recent years, the Narnia, Harry Potter LOTR, Robert Jordan, D&D adaptation novels (Dragonlance, etc) have ripped up and down the bestseller lists. I'm having trouble even thinking of recent science-fiction bestsellers. Look at movies: A lot of those names repeat, don't they? Add in the fantasy-heavy pirate blockbuster movies. I'm having trouble thinking of outright huge science fiction movies. Yes, we can count the last "Star Wars" movies. There are other genres where fantasy is trumping science-fiction.

Fantasy trumps science because...

[rob1980]

All the sci-fi based MMOs have been utter shit so far. Star Wars Galaxies? Utter shit. Anarchy Online? Utter shit. The Matrix Online? Utter shit. Everquest was the first real big MMO out there, and World Of Warcraft cashes in on a decade of building up a rabid fanbase. Those two just happen to be fantasy games. If Blizzard had decided to make an MMO out of Starcraft instead, it would have done just as well.

Magic = More eyecandy

[smbarbour]

Part of it, is that magic looks cooler than tech. It is not about guns being a long-range attack (most spells are long-range, as are arrows and throwing stars). A real issue with sci-fi RPGs is that there really isn't a fighter-type class since there are very few melee weapons in a sci-fi universe. They just to be more creative (perhaps even a hybrid).

What I would really like to see, though, is a game that completely eliminates the classes/jobs and provides every skill a la carte (and preferably using the Korean MMO model... free to play with premium real money items). Perhaps one already exists but I just don't know about it yet.

Re:Magic = More eyecandy

[Alexandra Erenhart]

It already exist my friend, and it was one of the first graphics MMOGs: Ultima Online.

But I guess isn not sci-fi, but yet another fantasy game.

Re:Magic = More eyecandy

[RhunDraco]

Project Entropia aka Entropian Universe: http://www.entropiauniverse.com/en/rich/5000.html Classless, skill-based system with a tie-in to real world economy.

Re:Magic = More eyecandy

[Scorpion265]

"What I would really like to see, though, is a game that completely eliminates the classes/jobs and provides every skill a la carte" They do, this game is called EVE-online!

Re:Magic = More eyecandy

[onkelonkel]

Valerian Marines with Space Axes!

The original sci fi melee fighter was from EE Smith's Lensman books. The premise was that the energy shields on space armour could stop smaller handheld energy weapons and fast moving projectiles, but were unable to stop slow moving objects. So the way to beat a pirate in space armour was to hack him to bits with a neutronium space ax, preferably wielded by 300 lb dutch space marines from the heavy gravity planet of Valeria.

Frank Herbert stole (borrowed?) the idea for his knife fights with shields in Dune.

Re:Magic = More eyecandy

[AndreiK]

As another one to add to the list already given, http://www.runescape.com/ is a browser-based MMO that doesn't have classes.

Re:Magic = More eyecandy

[Knara]

What I would really like to see, though, is a game that completely eliminates the classes/jobs and provides every skill a la carte

Eve does this, incidentally.

Re:Magic = More eyecandy

[Peredur]

Yes, but to give SciFi it's proper dues, even science can appear to be magic if taken in the right context. To a person from the Middle Ages, seeing a car, plane, bombs, lasers, etc. would be "magic" to them. All the effects that they do for the "magic" abilities are just there to let the player know that they did something. The same thing can be done for science fiction, just takes a good design.

Re:Magic = More eyecandy

[smbarbour]

I tried it. Unfortunately, without putting money into it, you won't get very far very fast. You start with no weapons and no money. You cannot fight unarmed, and it's nearly impossible to "gather sweat" without being killed. Even when you do, you have to then find someone who wants to buy it from you as it has no NPC value. After doing this an insane number of times, you'll be able to buy a gun and maybe some bullets. If you get really lucky, you'll be able to kill a creature (before it kills you) that hopefully will net more credits than it cost for the bullets. It never happened for me, so I was back to trying to gather sweat to buy some more bullets.

You can't even cash in on creatively killing creatures (such as leading them to drown) as it won't let you loot a body that you didn't kill.

Re:Magic = More eyecandy

[aafiske]

Eve-online. No class, no job. You pick a race that affects a few traits that affect how fast you learn skills. Any character can learn any skill. You can learn every skill. You can fly any ship, if you've trained the skill for it. Use any weapon, if you've trained the skill for it.

Not free to play though.

Bye World of Warcraft

[PatJensen]

I quit WoW for EVE. After leveling 5 characters to 60 and decking out my Mage in Tier 1 epics. EVE is so much better, gangs are cool. Awesome graphics, cool soundtrack. The strategy in skill planning and ship building is awesome, and running a corporation is so much more fun. Next build gets built in voice chat too. You can level in EVE without even being logged in. Plus, it made my wife happy. She gets to see more then the back of my head.

Re:Bye World of Warcraft

[amelith]

Interesting. I'm a fairly heavy WoW player and I'm just reaching the end of a 2 week trial of Eve, prompted by the recent publicity around the PvP tournament.

I'm a fan of space games and in need of a fix (after being disappointed by X3:The Single Figure Frame Rate) but I don't think I'll be subscribing to Eve. I agree with your points on the graphics etc. but for some reason the fun seems to be lacking. I'm not saying its a bad game and maybe two weeks isn't long enough to really get into it but I just found it draw me into the story and universe. I know the developers seem to enjoy their niche/cult status but I don't see how making it more accessible to new players would necessarily be a bad thing.

Each to their own in the end I guess.

Ame

Re:Bye World of Warcraft

[allaryin]

Yeah, this seems to be a common sentiment about EVE. Most people come to a space sim expecting something more like an fps and less like monopoly. Personally, I really enjoyed the game for what it was, a gorgeously rendered economics game. But it wasn't worth enough to induce me into paying 180$ a year to play. And as the best SciFi MMO out there so far, thats kind of sad.

Scifi as an RPG

[Rob T Firefly]

As someone who runs pen-and-paper RPGs in fantasy and scifi environments, I've learned that for Scifi to work on the same playability and fun levels as a fantasy RPG, many tweaks need to be made.

There is the gun issue from TFA, but if done right it's not anywhere near as big an issue. For something immersive like an RPG, the game must be crafted with things like this in mind. In the "Dr Who," "Star Trek," "Star Wars," and general scifi RPGs I've done, the story has to be crafted in such a way as to make things interesting for the players without just being a shoot-em-up. There are scifi concepts galore, but they have to do far more than just "shoot bad guy X to get item Y." In these particular Universes, the "tank" type of character tends to be the absolute least interesting to play. Storyline, brain-requiring quests, and interesting puzzles make all the difference in something immersive.

In any case, I really think the best stories can't be cold computer-generated grind quests, they need to be crafted around the players talents and shortcomings.

To be fair, my love of truly immersive interactive RPGs is part of why the whole MMO deal never did it for me. A game world full of people going "lol" and "a/s/l" and "omg nd heal pls" really kicks the crap out of suspension of disbelief.

I digress, but I do believe that immersion and feeling like part of an imaginary world is doubly important to scifi fans in such an environment. Hardcore scifi nuts, the types who read Gibson or Heinlein or Asimov or Douglas Adams or whoever else, tend to want to use a brain more than they want to just shoot everyone. It just takes a lot more effort on the part of the game creators to get it right. Think of the best scifi games you ever played. What was interesting about them which you don't see in modern MMOs?

Take the Hitchhiker's game from Infocom, for instance.. I've played very few games that I've ever felt more immersed in. I was totally Arthur Dent for most of my time in front of that monochrome screen. (Except for the parts where I wasn't..) And how many times in that game does the player shoot or kill anyone?

Re:Scifi as an RPG

[HikingStick]

I do think you're on to something here...

Thinking back on my earliest fantasy game experiences (heck, even my earliest RPG experiences, for that matter), they were basically hack and slash. AD&D and its kin developed to a level where real campaigns could be organized--some central theme or idea that would pull all of the diverse adventures or componnents together. I've DMed both fantasy and sci-fi systems (I really loved Traveller in the sci-fi arena), and it can be much more difficult to pull together a sci-fi campaign (in my case, perhaps because I read more fantasy as a kid). The other thing that comes to mind in this regard is that most fantasy worlds (and by this I mean no disrespect--I'm sure there are tremendously unique realms out there that defy my characterization) are just an attempt to reimagine a fabled past--they play out on the stories and fairy tales that were told around the world. For sci-fi, it requires the development of something completely different to stand out, otherwise the worlds look much like our own present-day one, but with better technologies and some different (alien) races. The plots and stories I've encountered in much sci-fi RPGing are reflections of our modern age--mega corporations, organized crime--or references to those fairy tale roots (e.g., rescue the damsel in distress).

I believe that any of the "canned" sci-fi environments (e.g. Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate) could be made into a MMO experience, but it would take some real conceptual work to develop a highly playable system that does not become a giant shootout in every corridor.

One game I did enjoy in the past, though not MMO, was the old play-by-email game VGA Planets. It certainly was only a strategy game, but when you were playing your turn files as a result of the actions of the other players, the experience was always fascinating. Perhaps one avenue to approach making sci-fi more MMO-friendly would be to create a defacto adversarial condition--where some conflicts are deliberately staged between parties to get the universe going. Then, once immersed in the world, the dynamics should be able to maintain the mythos and the virtual worlds. In most canned sci-fienvironments, the adversarial roles are already defined (e.g., Romulans vs. Federation, Rebels vs. Empire, Goa'uld vs. Tok'ra/SG-teams). You may end up with a majority of people playing on one side, ensuring an unbalanced game. You could use AI for the agitant, but that would become old quickly.

Imagine a MMO sci-fi game that starts on a single world/planet (server). In time, as others are added to the mix, new worlds (servers) are discovered. Interactions begin to take place. Conflict arise. Players could interact with their own world, or choose to travel to other worlds. What if there were a search for some sort of ancient artifact (e.g., a 14.4 fax-modem!), or for some amazing power supply? An SG-1 game world would support this kind of environment, with new worlds beyond every gate address. Take a more traditional VGA Planets approach, and you have a need to expand to other worlds to gather resources or establish colonies (sorry, no stinking Prime Directive here).

Ah! I've caught myself rambling again. Anyway, I think it's possible. You just need to get the right creative minds together to make it happen.

HikingStick

Re:Scifi as an RPG

[GundamFan]

I think you are absolutely correct here.

Maybe Fantasy (having much more "prior work") doesn't have to work as hard to immerse the player in the game world (a wizard is a wizard a goblin is a goblin), Sci-Fi on the other hand is a collection of vastly diffrent worlds and themes (even in the space of one autor's work) and each world needs it's own complete story to function on an immersive level, to put it another way good Sci-Fi requires more homework than good fantasy.

I also think that part of the issue is that there arn't many Sci-Fi role players (a benifit of playing CoH is meeting people who prefer all diffrent MMO styles) or at least that Sci-Fi MMOs attract more powergames to the point of alienating casual and role players. Many of my friends regard Sci-Fi as "less serious" than fantasy (I'm the opposite) I personaly don't understand that, and they seem unwilling to try to explain but I know many others feel this way.

A big part of this has to be the kind of player a game attracts, Sci-Fi (at least pop Sci-Fi) by it's nature includes cool technology spaceships and explosions these things attract a very diffrent person than the "traditonal" fantasy MMORPG.This effect can be seen with WoW in that many people not normaly intrested in an MMO where attracted by the developer (I won't get into the fact that Blizzard never really inovated more than they blended other good ideas).

The only truely great Sci-Fi MMO I have played Was Eve... but I think what makes it great is equal parts story, design and the way players are treated by the developers (as adults for the most part).

Another point I think involves the fact that Americans and Koreans (the bulk of MMO players if I had to guess) for the most part seem to prefer fantasy over Sci-Fi in there games. Other parts of the world (parts of Europe and England... again guessing) seem to have diffrent tastes.

Re:Scifi as an RPG

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hardcore scifi nuts, the types who read Gibson or Heinlein or Asimov or Douglas Adams or whoever else, tend to want to use a brain more than they want to just shoot everyone."

I object to that generalisation. I love all those authors, and even harder stuff like Greg Egan. I also love playing FPS games which have exactly zero deep or interesting concepts in, but are exciting as a contest of skill. I'm not compelled to use my brain 100% of the time.

Re:Scifi as an RPG

[orielbean]

Or Rendevous with Rama, the similar sci-fi text adventure (infocom I think) on my dusty C64. Full of brain work. Good times, based on the excellent Rama series.

Re:Scifi as an RPG

[Rob T Firefly]

"Hardcore scifi nuts, the types who read Gibson or Heinlein or Asimov or Douglas Adams or whoever else, tend to want to use a brain more than they want to just shoot everyone." I object to that generalisation. I love all those authors, and even harder stuff like Greg Egan. I also love playing FPS games which have exactly zero deep or interesting concepts in, but are exciting as a contest of skill. I'm not compelled to use my brain 100% of the time.

Good point, I should have appended "in RPGs" to that sentence. There are definitely times when I do just want to blow stuff up.

Re:Scifi as an RPG

[dnoyeb]

EVe is overwhelmingly UK. Majority of my corps have had most members from UK. Right now we are fighting against a large alliance of mostly Russian players. last year this time i was fighting against an alliance of mostly German players. Its hard finding many US players.

In general everyone gets along and interacts. Its not like corps and alliances are firmly aligned along world geography. We have some from all over in our corp. But overall the largest groups seem to be.

Re:Scifi as an RPG

[GundamFan]

Yeah I didn't mean gamers didn't get along... just that people in diffrent countries genaraly have diffrent taste. There are always strange peopel like my who buck the trend (I am an American with a deep love of Sci-Fi, that goes past the summer action movie).

Almost certainly familiarity and nostalgia

[AnotherGuyHeardFrom]

Fantasy is always going to be more popular than sci-fi because of the implied sense of things past and the past is always a golden age in the human psyche. Sci-fi tends to imply the future which is just too difficult for most people to even visualize. Successful fantasy settings are all pretty much the same medieval time frame and everyone knows all about that. Sci-fi settings can be anything and good luck getting a group of people to agree on anything.

Re:Almost certainly familiarity and nostalgia

[Alexandra Erenhart]

And somehow it's almost always a very f*cked up or messy future.

It's not just computer games...

[Aeonite]

Role-playing games have the same issue; while there have been science-fiction themed games over the years (Cyberpunk, Traveler, Star Frontiers, etc), none of them has come close to approaching the widespread appeal of the fantasy games (D&D, White Wolf's stuff, etc.). The ones that seemed to achieve the broadest appeal were those with crossover potential, like Rifts and TORG.

The one place sci-fi does better seems to be television. There have been fantasy TV series, but they don't come close to the number of sci-fi series that have a relatively large following.

correction:

[theStorminMormon]

or if you don't bother to even try) than sci-fi itself becomes fantasy (that's why Star Wars is considered fantasy by most people that care about fantasy

should be

or if you don't bother to even try) than sci-fi itself becomes fantasy (that's why Star Wars is considered fantasy by most people that care about sci-fi

Re:correction:

[GundamFan]

Thank you, that was bugging me.

Re:correction:

[sabernet]

amen

Re:correction:

[gauol]

I always thought sci-fi needed a sub (or split) genre "Science-Fantasy"

Re:correction:

[Creepy]

Star Wars is a Space Opera, not Sci-Fi, yes.

There are a lot of things that are feasible but not explainable in sci-fi, though - for instance, warp is feasible by manipulating space-time or possibly using an aspect of quantum mechanics (physics is way too far back, but I recall there was an unexplained phenomenon where quanta moves faster than the speed of light - I thought it was quantum tunneling, but that doesn't appear to be it). We don't have any idea how we would manipulate space-time, but one theory is you surround a ship with a bubble of fast time and float it on a bubble of slow (or normal) time (some say you need to also maintain a small conduit between them to avoid dimension hopping). I had heard this theorized before by a sci-fi buff and gamer (of all people) about 15 years ago, but just a few months ago another person had essentially the same theory in Popular Science.

There's a huge difference between "black box" technology and stuff that's impossible - like engine noises in space. God forbid anybody ever has "passive sonar" in space, like in Wing Commander. I wanted to shoot Chris in the head for that one (figuratively speaking - I'm not a psycho stalker yet ;) ).

Three Words:

[Yusaku Godai]

World. Of. Starcraft.

May just be wishful thinking on my part, but if Blizzard ever decides to do it, it would probably invalidate this article. I'm not a WoW fan at all, and ever since I quit RO I've placed a moratorium on MMOs for myself. But I don't think I could resist something like this, assuming it's done well.

Not that other sci-fi themed MMOs can't be great. I'm just going off of Blizzard's track record here...

Re:Three Words:

[Anthracks]

I wouldn't look for it any time soon, seeing as they have extreme difficulty keeping their current MMORPG running at all. I still love and play the game though, which is a testament to how fun it is when it works. Any other pay service that went down for "emergency/extended maintenance" 2 or 3 days each month would have subscribers canceling and/or suing in droves.

Re:Three Words:

[idontgno]

World. Of. Starcraft.

You have to admit, hearing "Nuclear launch detected" will be a much more personally significant experience in an MMO setting. In Starcraft, there's the flurry of high-level detector activity to find and kill the Ghost, but if you're IN the target zone priority #1 becomes getting the hell outta there (or covering up, or shielding, or maybe picking the right emote for your final act of defiance).

Re:Three Words:

[Jedi Alec]

Hmm, it just might, if only for the fact that it'd be based on what is in my opinion still the best RTS ever made. Then again, the Zerg would fit in a fantasy setting as neatly as they do in space. Many Protoss units use hand to hand attacks as well. Even though Starcraft is Sci-Fi, it does have many fantasy aspects in it. Still, whether the game would be as good is highly debatable. Warcraft has a simple world, 1 single planet, something that can be easily envisioned by a human being. What kind of world would one place WoS in? 3 planets, 16 planets, 1 per server? It's the sense of a living environment that creates the atmosphere for a game to make it feel enjoyable in the long run.

Re:Three Words:

[WormholeFiend]

You have to admit, hearing "Nuclear launch detected" will be a much more personally significant experience in an MMO setting

I would nuke from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

Re:Three Words:

[jandrese]

I've been thinking about World of Starcraft for a bit, and the problem can be summed up in a single word: Zerg. How do you make a PC Zerg character that isn't Kerrigan or the Hive Mind? Forcing everyone to be either a Human or a Protoss fighting the Zerg just doesn't make it Starcraft.

Who would want to play as a Zergling? Although it could be really cool if you started out as a Zergling and then mutated up to the more advanced forms. :)

Ultimately though it will also be really hard to make a MMO of Starcraft without making the individual tasks seem like a contrivance. Blizzard would really have to break the MMO mold (which IMHO would not be a bad thing at all) if they wanted to do it right.

Re:Three Words:

[Deviant Q]

Yeah, mutation would be an awesome solution. Another might be having everyone be a cerebrate (prolly need some plot device to explain why there are so many now---cloning experiments or some such?), and have weak Zerg armies under his/her control. Like maybe you control a Zergling at level 1, up to a nicely customizable mixed force on the level of 12 Zerglings, 4 hydralisks, 1 ultralisk at level 50 (many other combos possible). It'd take some work to get a nice interface for managing all those, but it'd be cool. Doesn't City of Villians have some kind of mastermind thing?

Re:Three Words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuckin A!

Re:Three Words:

[jandrese]

Unfortunatly, the CoV Masterminds have lots of issues, mostly with pets not being any smarter than regular mobs.

On the other hand, a game designed from the ground up to have a small squad of soldiers under your command could be really cool. As you level up you could either upgrade their equipment, have more out at a time, or upgrade their class completely (get a Siege tank or something). Performance will be an issue though, especially in high level PvP if everyone has a dozen squadmembers and you have battles with 75 people on each side. Masterminds already have performance issues in CoV, and they max out at 6-8 pets.

Re:Three Words:

[Deviant Q]

Yeah, I don't know what to do about performance, but I think part of the whole Zerg appeal would be that only they get to have squad members. Maybe make them all simple in some way that makes network transmission easy... I dunno, talk to the Guild Wars developers, they seem to have a good handle on network performance. *Shrug*.

Re:Three Words:

[Anonymous Coward]

The player character for the Zerg could be a fragment of the Zerg Overmind. By itself, disembodied and ephemeral. In fact it would be invisible to your typical non-psi human. What the Zerg PC can do however is create and command Zerg. For example, a first level character would command one or two zerglings, and if they were killed could summon more to replace them. Perhaps by mutating local organic material. Different classes of PC Zerg would be differentiated by the mutations they can apply to their Zerglings. 'Fighters' would make them beefier, 'Healer/Mages' would focus on psi talents and 'Rogues' would focus on stealth and speed.

Re:Three Words:

[MMaestro]

Sadly, not going to happen without butchering the lore. The ending to Brood Wars (the expansion pack) was pretty cut and dry as to what was going to happen next. Earth is basicly ignorant of the zerg threat (the last transmission they recieve is the terran video of the overmind under their control) and its more or less stated that all humans in the area are wiped out over time. Unless they pull something out of their ass, the Terrans would always lose in the long run. (Not on military footing, not preparing for Zerg invasion, main battle fleet/army is wiped out, etc)

The Protoss aren't much better off. They're fragmented all over the place (the first mission for the Protoss campaign is basicly a 'we gotta get the hell outta here!' mission), a number of their leaders are dead or missing (Zeratul runs into a Xel'naga conspiracy in a secret mission and then disappears from the game) and its hinted that theres a great deal of dis-satisfaction within the ranks. (Re-uniting with the Dark Templars? Fleeing their homeworld? Cooperating with the Zerg?) This is not a race thats going to stop the Zerg without some outside help.

The Zerg, for obvious lore reasons, cannot be playable. The only 'units' in the game that have slightly independent thought are the cerebrates and those are still controlled by the overmind/Kerrigan. Having an independently thinking Zergling/Hydralisk/whatever would simply be silly even if it was allowed. (The Zerg are supposed to use their large numbers, not have soloing Zerglings running around single-handedly wiping out enemy outposts.)

Re:Three Words:

[YomikoReadman]

While World of Starcraft isn't really workable due to lore issues, there is another option to that.

Warhammer 40k Online. It would allow for plenty of race choice, options for hand to hand combat, ranged combat, plenty of vehicles and whatnot, and more PvP than you could shake a stick at. Overall, I think that if done well, it would be outstanding. I suppose, however, that it largely depends on how the Warhammer Fantasy MMO comes out. If that's at all decent, then adapting it to 40k should be a breeze.

My .02c

We noticed already ...

[KDR_11k]

when they cancelled their SciFi MMO with a fairly rare topic (romans in space) and replaced it with a Warhammer MMO. Most likely because they noticed Warhammer's imitators made big money with an MMO and now they wanted to cash in on the same niche. Well, if you really believe you have the skills to beat Blizzard in terms of game design...

What about EVE Online?

[Tranvisor]

"Sci-fi, could be anything. And that's tougher. You're now creating very original IP. I think that some day someone's going to get it right. Nobody has yet - nobody's even come close to getting it right."

While the part about the challenge of creating original IP in Sci-Fi is true, it is harder to come up something from total scratch, I think EVE is pretty damn close to "getting it right". Its a Sci-Fi MMO that is big, diverse , pretty to look at and lots of fun.

Oh, and the part about guns, total hogwash! In fantasy, bows/magic spells take the place of guns and work just fine. They are both just kinds of ranged weapons, the only thing that is really different is the on-screen graphics.

Re:What about EVE Online?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ive tried the game after reading the recent PVP video streaming post on slashdot but Im sorry that I will not be subscribing after my two week trial. To each his own, for me I see a few drawbacks of Eve Online.

1. There is no ground game in Eve like in SWG.

2. Spaceships looks great on video and all but your alignment and pitch has nothing to do with how your weapons fire as in proper naval ship based combat where they play a large part in tactics. There isnt any sci fi tactics related in Eve at all. Its all about who can bring the most ships to a battle of the same variety. Your weapons can fire at all directions no matter where you face.

3. Where is the backstory? I played for about a week and I still dont do anything in game related to the story I read about Eve. I know most of the game is run by players who's been there since Beta and pretty much runs everything that you should care about as a player, but I wanted to immerse in a sci fi backstory that I saw none of.

4. Ship positions are updated every 3 seconds or so, hardly real time. The day before I decided to quit I looked up the map and found a solarsystem with a lot of ships destroyed to see how the game is with battles. As soon as I get there my game froze for a minute and when it continued I found myself back in a station obviously got killed and podded by another player. Looks to be a delayed lag issue or I just got extremely unlucky and had a bad loading.

Sorry to say this but this is just another 3d sci fi simulation minus your usual pitch and align naval battle.

Re:What about EVE Online?

[I Like Pudding]

1. There is no ground game in Eve like in SWG.

There is no space game in SWG like Eve (yes, it has space ships and such but plays nothing like Eve)

2. Spaceships looks great on video and all but your alignment and pitch has nothing to do with how your weapons fire as in proper naval ship based combat where they play a large part in tactics. There isnt any sci fi tactics related in Eve at all. Its all about who can bring the most ships to a battle of the same variety. Your weapons can fire at all directions no matter where you face.

This is 100% wrong. The combat has tons of depth. Turrets will miss if your target is transversing past you faster than the turret can track. Group tactics are huge unless you are in a large fleet battle where it generally turns into a slugfest. Ship configuration is a huge deal because you are always trading something away to get more offense or defense or agility or EW or range or etc. Running around with a bunch of identical loadouts is stupid - at the very least you should have a dedicated tackler to warp scramble your opponent so he can't get away.

3. Where is the backstory?

On the website. In the game news on the login screen. In missions. Eve is more about ignoring the backstory and doing your own thing, anyhow.

4. Ship positions are updated every 3 seconds or so, hardly real time. The day before I decided to quit I looked up the map and found a solarsystem with a lot of ships destroyed to see how the game is with battles. As soon as I get there my game froze for a minute and when it continued I found myself back in a station obviously got killed and podded by another player. Looks to be a delayed lag issue or I just got extremely unlucky and had a bad loading.

There were performance problems for awhile, but these tapered off after a slew of massive server upgrades

Sorry to say this but this is just another 3d sci fi simulation minus your usual pitch and align naval battle.

No, it's an MMO Elite. So many of these games have been made over the years that "Elite clone" became the name of the genre. I don't know of any other MMO that would fall under this subgenre.

Re:What about EVE Online?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no space game in SWG like Eve (yes, it has space ships and such but plays nothing like Eve)

I prefer being able to land and step out of my spaceship run around exotic planets and watch my toon riding vehicles whiling shooting at imperial goons on the side;) I had a different impression when I picked up Eve being touted as the successor to pre-CU SWG so I was mildly disappointed in that regard.

This is 100% wrong. The combat has tons of depth. Turrets will miss if your target is transversing past you faster than the turret can track. Group tactics are huge unless you are in a large fleet battle where it generally turns into a slugfest. Ship configuration is a huge deal because you are always trading something away to get more offense or defense or agility or EW or range or etc. Running around with a bunch of identical loadouts is stupid - at the very least you should have a dedicated tackler to warp scramble your opponent so he can't get away.

How am I wrong? My ship alignment had no barring on how your weapon operates. You may have numerous turrets but you dont choose how to mount them on your ship. They all magically go in a hard point of their own and presumably can fire at 360 degrees. It only depends on how fast the target ship is orbiting you and what size. I guess I'm more used to naval tactical games with more depth to battle. It may be asking too much from an mmorpg, albeit a sci fi one.

I understand there are different roles each ship can perform such as tackling, jamming, turret tracking, missiles, etc. but it all matters who has the biggest armada or blob wins it rather than tactics, which has a role in it but not as big as numerical advantage.

On the website. In the game news on the login screen. In missions. Eve is more about ignoring the backstory and doing your own thing, anyhow.

I understand what you're getting at. In many ways I feel the same. Star Wars had a great back story but SWG did not do justice. In many ways, SWG failed because they were unable to deliver the Star Warsy experience, atleast for me.

There were performance problems for awhile, but these tapered off after a slew of massive server upgrades
Sounds like theyre making efforts in that regard. Suppose then the problems still exist a week or so ago when I tried it.

Thanks for your inputs. I still dont think I'm convinced enough to stick around but it is good to hear your perspective.

All the same

[Anonymous Coward]

What does it matter if the majority of MMO RPGs are dorks-and-dragons-based? Virtually every MMO RPG is the same, just running with different skins and irrelevant backstories. You have some sort of market, you have an endless collection of weapons and armour, you have a dozen varieties of character types, and a vast world full of resources and monsters. Sure in this game you might have a space ship, or in that game you might get to ride a giant panther, but these differences are superficial. You still trudge through level after level, learning skill after skill -- does it matter if you're a level 20 Druid learning Smelting, or a level 20 Space Smuggler learning Counterfeiting?

The gun argument is nonsense. FPS MMOs are huge, and sci-fi doesn't require guns to be sci-fi. Look at Dune: guns are obviated by personal shields, and laser weapons become fatal to the user. Then look at Star Wars: katanas upgraded to lightsabres. Maybe it has to do with modelling them on the fantasy MMOs? I know I'd much rather play as the ship than as the captain, a hyper-advanced android than as human, and I'd rather not zip around space looking for asteroids full of goldonium to sell at the space market.

Same is true for PnP

[Anonymous Coward]

The same is largely true for PnP. I think there are a couple reasons.

A great deal of the challenge in RPGs (online and PnP) is logistics -- travel distances and hardships, scarcity of information and equipment, etc. In a pre-industrial fantasy setting, that's more plausible, even with magic. People are more willing to accept that travelling across the continent is hard, even with a horse. They accept limitations on magical substitutes like teleporatation circles. The have no problem with it being hard to find a magic item because they are handcrafted and thus rare.

Those things are a lot harder to buy into in a sci-fi setting. I always thought it absurd in Anarchy Online that a pair of sunglasses was more expensive than a decent piece of armor (because the sunglasses were *arbitrarily* rare). It was stupid that in at a tech level where we could re-create humans from clones that there was any scarcity at all. Travel distance either becomes a non-issue, or again, limitations break the mood.

Combat does also enter into it. In a low tech setting, the slower pace of combat feels right. We're used to seeing movies with long swordfights, etc. In a high-tech game, combat seems absurdly non-lethal.

Maybe it reflects demographics

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe more people like phantasy than sci-fi.

Magic vs. Technology

[HTH NE1]

Any insufficiently developed magic is indistinguishable from technology.

Re:Magic vs. Technology

[CthulhuDreamer]

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently developed.

Because Sci-Fi MMOs have all sucked so far

[keath_milligan]

This has nothing to do with fantasy. It has everything to do with the fact that, so far, every science-fiction themed MMO has outright sucked or, at best, been mediocre. So far, there has not been a stand-out sci-fi equivilent to World of Warcraft. SWG should have been that game, but LucasArts chose the wrong company to develop it.

A science-fiction themed MMO can be successful if:

* It isn't just a failed fantasy MMO with updated graphics.
* It is accessible and playable by non-hardcore MMO addicts (single biggest factor in WoW's success).
* It is essentially fun to play and not a grind (a concept that appears to be completely alien to most MMO designers until WoW).
* It uses the primary elements that make science fiction in general appealing as its main focus and theme (space, aliens, blasters, etc.) in the same way that successful fantasy use traditional fantasy themes as their main focus (magic, monsters, dugneons, treasure, etc.). See SWG at release for an example of what not to do.

The difference : cycle time.

[oneiros27]

What's so much different between a laser-gun wielding trooper and a lightning-spell chanting wizard?

Real simple : cycle time.

How many games have wizards who can fire 60 rounds per second?

It's difficult to balance out the classes when someone can fire that fast -- you have to either nerf all of the damage, or make sure they're really inacurate (and well, then you've got your basic storm trooper).

Not to mention all of the extra overhead needed in showing all of the combat going on when there's a whole lot of shots being fired. (anyone remember that level in Quake 1 w/ the fire pit in the middle, and balconies around the sides? If were playing against a bunch of people on dialup, all you had to do was whip out the nailgun, and spray wildly)

Of course, MUDs had this problem to a lesser degree, and the common situation for that was to just treat everything as semi-automatic, and when you got your attack, you'd fire a burst, rather than a single shot, and resolve all of the damage at once.

Sci-Fi games are not epics.

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason that Fantasy does so much better than sci-fi is not so much that it is magic or that the science in sci-fi is so bad, or anything like that. It really boils down to the fact that fantasy games, movies, and books are almost always on the scale of an epic. There are clearly defined lines of good and evil, and there is almost always a violent struggle against a great evil involved. This is the reason (imho) why Star Wars has done so well - it is an epic. How else would one explain that in spite of all the cheesy dialog, acting, and special effects (not to mention blatant violation of scientific laws) it has managed to capture such a large portion of the culture?

Two necessary parts for an epic are: a hero, and (of course) a villain or monster. Fantasy has this (it is an integral part), but sci-fi typically does not.

Why?

[phorm]

Don't a lot of the fantasy genre still have thing like projectile-casting spells (fireballs, etc) or various types of bows, spears, or other manual projectile launchers. How is this different from guns or laser beams in terms of implementation? In the end, many of the projected sci-fi technology (time distortion fields, transmogrifiers, etc) is still just a fantastic as things in fantasy worlds having hobbits and orcs.

Re:Why?

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

In a Fantasy environment it's easy to say "You don't have the required years of training and spellcasting experience to be able to whip out a fireball capable of 24d6 damage".

In a realistic Sci-fi environment it's difficult to say "You don't have the required years of training and marksmanship to be able to wield a high damage laser pistol, you get a different kind of pistol capable of only doing 2d4 damage."

Re:Why?

[Angostura]

Choose whichever McGuffin fits.

"You don't have the security implant chip required to activate a high damage laser pistol", "You don't have sufficient energy packs", "your trigger finger isn't sufficiently muscled..."

Re:Why?

[ravenshrike]

Except then one could go get the security disabled. For that matter, in any space faring society weapons manufacturing control is going to be sparse at best and most weapons wouldn't have such security.

Far easier to put yourself in the heros shoes

[Shivetya]

with fantasy as it tends to be world/region specific.

Sci-Fi for the most part is locked into this idea of being multisystem with starships, though a good sci fi never has to leave the world its based on.

Motivation behind the genre

[nuggz]

Fantasy is personal, generally hand to hand, missle weapons tend to be weak.

Sci fi is impersonal, big boms and guns from a long range, unless they switch to fantasy weapons, light sabers, vibroswords.

I prefer Sci fi books that focus on psychology and characters. Fantasy tends to focus on larger scale things, or skills and adventures, not psychological character development.

LOTR was about an adventure and the reluctant hero, Enders game was all about Enders mind.

Re:Game Design All

[Alexandra Erenhart]

I was thinking the same about guns of WoW, but I guess the difference is that you're not shooting lasers or high-tech ammo, just small rocks and basic bullets. It fits with the world. And only one class uses them as main weapon (and sometimes). The rest uses them to pull, and they still have to do melee. About spellcasters, I think that was very well explained some post ago.

Shadowrun please!

[Sesticulus]

Please someone make a Shadowrun MMO. I loved that universe in the pen and paper days. It was the best of both worlds, wizards with railguns!

Re:Shadowrun please!

[IAstudent]

I've heard of a Shadowrun FPS in development, which unfortunately looks like another wannabe-Quake fragfest. Why do I have a feeling that going the FPS route instead of MMO is gonna make Daikatana look like a masterpiece?

This chummer is not pleased.

Re:Shadowrun please!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://shadowrun.com/default.htm

Re:Shadowrun please!

[Firefly1]

Oh, that would be interesting; I vaguely remember the old SNES iteration.
See also in this vein a comic known as The Red Star, set in a paralell present where tech and magecraft coexist quite well, thank you very much. There's a campaign setting available for the d20 Modern system if you're curious, and Akklaim had even had an action game (think a mix of Contra and Final Fight) pretty much ready to go when they folded; that got picked up by XS Games and is slated for PS2 release next month.
Now, to address some points raised in various other comments:

• I was disappointed to see Imperator development frozen if not cancelled outright; the premise is certainly promising.
• theStorminMormon notes that "most efforts to make sci-fi based on hand-to-hand combat come across as very contrived." Two big offenders in this department: Battletech and various Mobile Suit Gundam incarnations. Without the 'crutch' of something like 'Minovskiy physics', there's no way a mobile suit can survive any present or near-future battlefield - it's simply too big a target.
• BartulaPrime wonders how a sci-fi setting explains healing, (de)buffs, etc. Well, I think Deus Ex and System Shock 2 do a decent job of it (the latter even has magic... well, psionics, actually).
• it was opined by an AC that fantasy settings are more likely to have clear delineations between 'good' and 'evil' and possess epic scale. On the other hand, the murkiness of, for instance, the Cyberpunk 2020 or Shadowrun universes can be argued to provide excellent fodder for roleplaying more focused on intrigue and intercharacter reactions than straight-up action. Not to mention ample room for, in Rob T Firefly's words, "storyline, brain-requiring quests, and interesting puzzles".
• It's the classes, according to MuNansen. Well, role diffrentiation exists in the sci-fi world too, even if it's not so dramatic as the difference between a paladin and a mage; a pilot is obviously going to have a different skill set from a storm commando (those units were stood up post-Yavin because the Empire recognized that they needed troops who could fight the Alliance on its own terms; the man who originated that program (Crix Madine) shortly thereafter had a crisis of conscience and defected); medics and heavy-weapons troopers might have the same basic training, but things diverge quickly thereafter. In Deus Ex, and a few other games, it's relatively easy to build out your character to suit your playing style.
• MuNansen also notes the difficulty in balancing ranged and melee weapons. Well, barring special abilities (cloaking, for instance) and surprise, he's right: it can't be done. But the only thing this is bad news for is the combat portion of an RPG... and RPGs are about more than just combat, right?
• someone categorized vibroswords as 'fantasy weapons' along with lightsabers. Wrong: they're simply an evolution of certain kitchen knives, hedge trimmers, and power tools we're familiar with today.

Re:Shadowrun please!

[despisethesun]

that got picked up by XS Games and is slated for PS2 release next month.

Did it? I downloaded the XBox version a while back but haven't had the chance to play it yet since my XBox isn't yet modded. I didn't think it was actually going to see the light of day.

Re:Shadowrun please!

[Firefly1]

Hello again.
Yes it did, according to this article. What is interesting to note is the fact of neither GameSpy nor IGN having any mention of a release date. Further, scouring XS Games' official site turns up no mention whatsoever of this game.

What is SciFi?

[bahwi]

What is Fantasy? Magic, dragons, elves, enchanted items, dungeons, etc....
Sure, it's always tweaked to hell, but it's the same familiar elements each time.

What is SciFi?
Spaceships? No, not always, look at Fallen Earth.
Lasers? Not necessairily.
Space Travel? Could be.

There's no common elements, there can be, and normally are, but not many. And people are more defined in the Star Trek/Star Wars/Stargate worlds, "generic" scifi could be anything, and by generic I mean common elements, it'll be a custom, new world.

It has to be familiar, or you've lost a good portion of players already, and scifi just doesn't have much of that. Star Wars? I'll pass, it's mildly interesting(am I the only slashdotter who doesn't care much at all for the whole star wars story, even the first 3 were bleh). I like Star Trek, and look forward to the game, but I doubt it'll hold my interest, it's always been about the story, and the game looks more about the consoles/technology. Stargate? Well, it's getting an MMO too, but, um, er, I'll pass. I really enjoy Atlantis(not the second season, third is good so far) but as a game? maybe, as an MMO? How about not?

I can tell you what I like, Fading Suns, but it's an RPG, not a comp game(although I think they had a few). Broken down, "wow-you-can-travel-through-space-even-if-just-bar ely-wowza" kinda stuff, everything is run down, low-tech trying to keep hi-tech going. That's my kind of SciFi.

But fantasy is accessible to all, easy to understand, and pretty well defined. Just try releasing a fantasy game without magic, enchanted items, sure, but no magic. It won't work either.

Humanoid

[phorm]

For the mostpart the "other races" are still humanoid though, but fantasy has plenty of things beyond that such as dragons, beholders, and various other tentacle monsters. There are plenty of identifiable aliens as well, those from the Alien movie (bipedal/quadripedal), predators, klingons, kilrathi (sp?), Kzinti, Posleen, etc etc

Yeah, somebody might not immediately identify with a Posleen (basically centaur-structured lizards), but the badasses from the Alien series are pretty identifiable (ever played AvP), and the Kzinti/Kilrathi are pretty much fuzzy people.

Thinking about it, one of the previous comments definately hits near the mark. People will identify with being an orc, hill-giant, or hobbit because they're common fantasy characaters. People could also identify with being a Klingon, Geiger-Alien, Predator, Kzinti, etc.... but that's not going to happen because when you include them all you're probably going to have your ass sued into the next starsystem by the copyright owners of Star Trek, Aliens, Predator, and the Larry Niven books. I suppose you could make similar characters and/or use parody (a-la SpaceQuest), but look at what happen with City of Heroes and the lawsuits wherein players could make characters similar to movie entities.

Anothe reason why current Intellectual Property laws suck ass, while using a Klingon named "Worf" in your game might be dubious, you shouldn't be attacked for having something klingon-like, hell it's a compliment to the creators.

Suggestion...

[afaik_ianal]

'I also think there's something I can't explain, which is that people are more willing to play a fantasy game that's not as good online, than they are willing to play a sci-fi game that's not as good online. And I'm not sure why that is.'

You don't don't know why that is? Well I have no idea what the sentence even means! I've tried reading it 3 times, and still don't get it. Anyone?

Re:Suggestion...

[painQuin]

I've tried reading it 3 times, and still don't get it. Anyone?

allow me to translate:
float willingness_to_play(char *genre, int percent_quality);
...
return willingness_to_play("Fantasy", 0) > willingness_to_play("Sci-Fi", 0);

Sci Fi vs. Fantasy

[sanjacguy]

I run a table top rpg based on a mostly hard science fiction game called Traveller. I had to drag my players in kicking and screaming to play traveller. Part of the problem seemed to be related to how much science is in the game. These are players that usually play D&D. When many of them were exposed to science fiction rpgs, they could accept the arbitary rules of magic. However, I think the reason for some of that is the nature of, well, nature. Science is actually kinda messy, which is why we tend to learn about physics in the so called 'thought experiments'. The best example is what happens when you drop a feather and a hammer here on earth vs on the moon. On the moon, both fall at the same speed; on the earth they fall at different speeds. Why? Air provides resistance and force on the feather (force in the form of wind, resistance in the form of air resistance). So a game designer builds a magic system so that it is 1) internally consistent and 2) useable. Nature has no such constraints.

Bingo! Crunchy Bits.

[Valdrax]

I agree. There's a big difference between, "I blast things with my tool," and "*I* blast things."

In addition, I'd like to note that having the powers be personal means that it's easier to distinguish between character types without BS restrictions. In a world of magic, you can have necromancers, elementalists, healers, summoners, etc. each with wildly different abilities that makes them more differentiated and gives a greater feeling of being somehow special.

In a world of technology, anyone can use a gun, a laser, a medpack, cybernetics, nanotechnology, etc. You can be more skilled at it than someone else, but there's no reason for strong differentiation between ability types. Your character isn't necessarily Special. Any artificial restrictions on access to tools and powers become more blatantly arbitrary than in a fantasy setting.

SF for writing, Fantasy for games

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

That's my rule anyway. In a game you want freedom to do stuff - that's the whole point of escapism. Science fiction is simply too straitjacketed and fantasy is so much more colorful.

But in fiction you need structure. Fantasy (at least of the sword and sorcery variety) is one of the worst genres of writing simply because people just make stuff up for hundreds of pages at a time. This kind of arbitrariness can kill dramatic tension because any kind of deus ex machina can appear at any time.

Two words:

[jdcool88]

Phantasy. Star.

While the 'MMO' feature of PSO pretty much failed, the game itself was amazingly addictive. I have very high hopes for PSU.

Though I suppose if you really looked at it, these games probably lean more towards fantasy than sci-fi anyway. At least it has guns, which invalidates that claim.

Maybe fantasy roles are more clearly defined

[jhsiao]

Looking at the various fantasy-related MMORPG breaks down party roles into clearly defined responsibilities: tank, healer, DPS. Some variation between different games is inevitable (pets, hybrids), but they appear to rarely break away from these primary roles because they're well established. Does easy = mass market? When you get some SciFi MMORPGs, they tend to have more open-ended class roles resulting in alot of hybrid classes or their roles are defined but not as clear as a D&D meme that's been around for 30 years. Here's a pop quiz: Guess the best tank in Guild Wars--warrior, necromancer, monk, or mesmer? Which one is the best healer? Guess the best tank in City of Heroes--Blaster, Brute, Defender, or Tanker? Which one is the best healer? Guess the best tank in Anarchy Online--enforcer, soldier, doctor, or agent? Which one is the best healer? Guess the best tank in Matrix Online--soldier, patcher, code shaper, or programmer? Which one is the best healer? Now, folks will say "well this is a complicated answer" and "you can add modules slots to make any Eve ship a better healer". But a game's complexity is usually something to be overcome for mass market acceptance unless there's a built in audience that can understand the concepts (e.g. Star Wars or Tolkein fans).

Re:Maybe fantasy roles are more clearly defined

[Masami Eiri]

Actually, due to Guild Wars enforcing a secondary class, the best tanks tend to be W/Mos... if played right. Alas, W/Mo is the n00b profession (usually) and they tend to load up on healing spells thinking they can tank AND heal. A good W/Mo tank should be all about personal defense (and personal healing) and drawing (to himself), with offense (primarily though axe or hammer attacks) as a secondary concern. I know that was offtopic, but I just thought I should mention it.

What a non-answer!

[bobocopy]

His answer to, "Why is fantasy so hot?" is basically, "Because with fantasy, we don't have to be original." Listen, this is about a much larger "problem" that's been slowly cropping up recently within in geek fiction: readers (and gamers) believe they're willing to try something new, but they really aren't. So, when you pick up a hundred fantasy novels off the shelf in your local bookstore*, you'll find that most of them have similar themes ("We have to save the world!"), have the exact same types of settings (similar to medieval Europe), have the exact same types of action (swordfights with wizards) and have the exact same type of fantasy beasts (dragons, zombies, dragonzombies, zombodragonoids). Likewise for fantasy games. Why is fantasy so limited? It should really only be limited by the author's/ designer's imagination. But too often, designers and authors (rightfully) believe that their audiences just want more of the same. That they don't want a completely new type of world, a completely different definition of "magic," a completely different set of creatures unique to the world. We end up with more of the same becuase that's what sells. And since it sells, producers/ publishers are unwilling to take risks. The sad truth is, the self-important fantasy crowd lives in an adolescent power-fantasy. They know how they like their superheroes, and they know how they like their fantasy. Sci-fi is too challenging to them becuase from one universe to the next, the rules are completely different. (This could be the case for fantasy too, but too often we're just force-fed more of the same). What Mr. Jacobs' answer should have been was, "Because it's easier to force-feed our users more of the same." *(a pre-Amazon phenomenon)

Re:What a non-answer!

[digitrev]

While true, there are a few semi-original fantasy stores that have cropped up lately. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin was particularly well-written, and while there are some of the "same-old, same-old" fantasy elements, Martin creates his own world and does his own thing with it. No generic orcs & elves & trolls. In fact, the actual fantastic elements of the book boil down to one not-so original animal (I won't spoil it for any who intend to read it, but haven't), and some magic. But even the magic is highly doubted by the characters of the book. So not all fantasy series are cliched and overdone.

It's Classes

[MuNansen]

Fantasy has several established archetypes so there's enough variety in character choice. Warrior, Rogue, Ranger, Mage, Healer, and some variation in between. Sci-fi's got guns. That's it. If you're Star Wars you've got guns and lightsabers, but Jedi are supposed to be rare.

Balancing melee weapons with guns (a la SWG) is pretty much impossible because it breaks the laws of physics and along with the basics of latency, ruins the fun for either the melee classes because they can't get close enough (realistic) or the ranged classes are so gimped that the melee can trash them against all logic and reason.

Trying to create enough classes with guns just needlessly restricts the player. Why shouldn't a guy that's an expert with a rifle be able to shoot a carbine? That makes no sense.

At least that's the answer I can take from SWG. Star Wars really isn't a good universe for an MMORPG. An MMOFPS, though, now that would be a different story. Anarchy Online, I think, just wasn't all that attractive of a universe. Very odd. And had a very rough start. If there was a Sci Fi game with the polish and pazazz of WoW, I'm sure it'd do just fine, if they could solve the class problem.

Re:It's Classes

[Anon-Admin]

Fantasy has several established archetypes so there's enough variety in character choice. Warrior, Rogue, Ranger, Mage, Healer, and some variation in between. Sci-Fi's got guns. That's it. If you're Star Wars you've got guns and lightsabers, but Jedi are supposed to be rare

I would call the lack of character choice a lack of imagination!

With Sci-Fi you can have any number of races as well as archetypes, for example

Mercenary, Thief, Pirate, Techno-mage, Dr., Scientist, the list goes on. It is all up to the imagination. Tech can make up for magic and use some of the same names. For example, a cloak of invisibility could be as simple as a nanoscopic camera/projection system built into a cloak.

Personally I find most Sci-Fi MMO games lacking in game play. The best I have seen was elite on the Commodore 64, 10 galaxies with 200+ solar systems per galaxy.

Re:It's Classes

[Stonehand]

Melee types have their chance to get close enough in crowds, buildings, and densely covered areas such as jungle -- depending on the level of sensing equipment.

Re:It's Classes

[grouchyman]

I've always felt that the solution to SWG is to make it Jedi vs. Sith. That way everyone has a lightsaber and no need for guns. Your lightsaber can be endowed with special powers and such. Your class and skills will vary by the way you can interact with the Force. "The Force" is very broad and not fully detailed which leaves room for a lot of creativity and latitude in game design.

Re:It's Classes

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the answer is to throw out the concept of classes. Class is so ingrained in the RPG model, but why couldn't you just have sets of proficiencies or skills that any character can learn but where you hvae to specialize in some way?

Re:It's Classes

[Valdrax]

The problem is that none of those classes are really anything but a guy better at some skills than others.* When your powers are easily exchanged tools that are generally sensibly designed to be easily used by new users, nothing you do it really all that special, and there's no reason not to let you learn how to use the powers of other classes. Any attempt to restrict tools to one class or another becomes blatantly arbitrary and unsatisfying in play in a way the restricting magical abilities isn't.

Sci-fi classes are meaningless for most types of characters that you are likely to play (i.e. combat classes instead of professionals).

* I ignore "techno-mage" because it opens the world up to fantasy and all the benefits there in.

Re:It's Classes

[MuNansen]

And how would an MMORPG go about making those classes fun? Do please remember that these classes have to all work in the same game. Entire games have been built around being a Merc, Thief, or whatever, and not ended-up being fun. And you expect an MMORPG developer to make the gameplay mechanics needed for a fun experience for 1/8th the player base? Realism is a factor you guys forget about. You think "make thieving, mercing, hacking fun" is an actual game design answer. That's just opening up a whole new area of production. Look at WoW. Yes the classes are different (especially Rogue), but they still work on the same principles. For Sci Fi you'd have to create a fun hacking game, a fun thieving game, etc.

And please don't start the "you can get close in real life" argument, to the people below this post. That's absolutely, positively, stupid. My T'ai Chi master back in Beijing, who has over 1,000 students, taught Jet Li, and has people fly-in from around the world to study with him, has even said fighting with anything other than a gun is stupid. Hits farther, hits harder. The "you can get close if you're smart/quick" argument a stupid UFC fanboy argument that, if it actually had to be proven, would get a WHOLE lot of idiots killed.

Re:It's Classes

[ClamIAm]

Sci-fi's got guns. That's it.

Somebody's never read Dune.

Suggestion

[Kelz]

Anyone remember Anachronox? I remember playing that when it was released (well... playing being a relative term given the amount of bugs in the game), and thinking it was a near-perfect setting and combat system for an MMO.

Course, we can't ALL be El Puno.

Mark Jacobs, and his rein of utter destruction...

[nerfbot04]

"Mythic's Mark Jacobs, whose MMO company is being acquired by EA, has commented in detail on why fantasy MMOs sell better as part of an extended interview. I find this article to be rather amusing, in that they chose this moron to discuss MMORGS. The short of it for the slashdot audience is that this guy is is a tool. Not once has anyone in this thread mentioned the Mythic Entertainment flagship product. For those who are interested it "WAS" Dark Ages of Camelot. And if you've read this far along, please take a trip down memory lane, via the VNboards. I can't paraphrase what the thousands have done before me with any degree of justice, but here goes a try. 1. DAOC, the game 2. Lust for money via 2nd accounts 3. profit 4. Timesinks 5. Mackey (on the devteam@mythic) 6. Class imbalance 7. Trials of Atlantis fiasco 8. Cowardice, the lack of customer forum for feedback 9. Spazdic changes to the game, and promises un-kept 10. custering, and downtime 11. Denial and lies 12. Never in the office, on the road pimping vaporware 13. Stupid expansions that destabilize the game 14. Pumping up the gotta-have-items arms race 15. Ignoring game mechanics. "Warlocks, Banshees, Turrets, Casting thru walls" hours of fun with 15, enjoy. 16. Arrogance above all. Taking this guy's opinion at face value would be a mistake. (just so everyone knows, he bought the DAOC game from another company before it went live. Jacobs is a complete tool who just happened to pick up a product that was ready to go live.) Enjoy the link.. http://vnboards.ign.com/daoc_general_board/b5176/p 1

Traveller and Twilight 2000

[Hoi Polloi]

Ok, I'll probably get flamed for my ignorance but are there any RPGs based on the old pnp games Traveller and Twilight 2000? If not then why?

The Reason is Simple, no publisher...

[cnelzie]

...has done SciFi right.

  If they do it right, then it will sell and be happily played by many.

  Star Wars Galaxies was going great, before they poorly rewrote the interface. If they had rewritten the interface properly, then I would have stuck with the game. I still did good with the changed interface, but it just wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Galaxies sucked...

[Cyno01]

Galaxies sucked, but it could have been bigger than WoW if it had been any good. I dont want to play a fantasy MMO, i want to play a sci-fi one. I may start EVE online sometime soon, but what i'm really looking forward to is Tabula Rasa and Stargate Worlds. But i dont know when either of those are going to be released.

Re:Galaxies sucked...

[WilliamSChips]

If Stargate Worlds actually gets released and doesn't get canceled or DNF'd(the latter case is slightly unlikely because CME doesn't have any other games yet) then it will be awesome. If it does everything the devs say it will do, it will reign supreme. And Tabula Rasa also seems interesting from what I've just looked up on it.

Fantasy is "Older"

[CableModemSniper]

The concept of a RPG has more "practice" with fantasy. What PnP RPG dominated when RPGs were first created? D&D (Note I'm not making any comments on the *quality* of said RPGs, D&D was the most popular). This led a ton of CRPGs based on fantasy concepts (yes there exist sci-fi CRPGs, but not nearly as many as the fantasy oriented ones), and when MMORPGs (and MUDs) were created these were the settings that people were familiar with. The industry has more practice solving "setting problems" in fantasy settings. There are a lot more precedents and examples in fantasy on how to solve these issues that MMORPGs can build upon. That is why it's easier.

HG:L

[Anonymous Coward]

Hellgate: London is looking to be a pretty good Sci-fi MMO at the moment.

I'd post something useful

[glwtta]

But I think the Department is really onto something with that suggestion.

Guns don't kill Sci-Fi MMORPGs ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... Sony Online Entertainment does

A.C.C. Corrolary

[Ohreally_factor]

Who was it that said, "Any sufficiently high level magic is indistinguishable from magic."?

Re:Bingo! Crunchy Bits.

[Ohreally_factor]

Oh, I don't know. I'd think I was pretty special if I could blast things with my tool. =)

However, I don't think I'd be interested in a Bukakke MMPORG.

No No No

[rucs_hack]

The reason that MMO's with a fantasy element are 'better' is principally down to Tolkein. He spent years of his life creating a beleivable fantasy world which people enjoy, and will do for many years to come.

From him we get the rich depth that so many MMO's rely on. I love his work, it populated my imagination when I was a child.

There has been no equivilent story world in the conventional or sci-fi world. The Dune universe, which I enjoy more than Tolkeins work, almost gets there, but it's never been tried as an MMO. Even Dune uses an analogue to magic (melange and it's associated effects), so probably doesn't count.
Star wars doesn't count as sci-fi different from fantasy, because it *is* fantasy of a sort, and has magic, albeit by a different name.

everyone uses the crutch of magic these days. It speaks not of originality, but of unwillingness to venture beyond what is known to sell.

Where, I ask, are the risk takers, prepared to move in a new direction with an MMO?

The problem is it would take years of work to create a new rich 'motherlode' story. The potential for such stories exist, but the games industry is scared to venture into any field that might reduce their precious profit margin.

Uhm PSO?

[Maudib]

The problem isnt that Sci Fi is il suited to MMOs, its that the Sci Fi MMOs of late have been really crappy.

Star Wars Galaxies? First off, there is the light saber, which throws his whole gun problem out the window. Second, has is there a better example of an MMO concept that should have worked brilliantly but failed because the developers where just dumb?

Phantasy Star Online. One of the best MMOs ever. Sure its a little dated and it is lacking in many things which define current MMOs, but in this game you can see just how well a PROPERLY done Sci Fi MMO can do.

Finally has this idiot never played Q3A? No its not an MMO; but who the hell can play this game and say a gun is impersonal?

Re:Uhm PSO?

[Yosho]

While I like Phantasy Star Online, most people would not consider it "massively multiplayer", and "sci-fi" is stretching it (come on, you're fighting dragons with a laser sword). The actual action is limited to a maximum of 4 players; the lobbies that people gather in have higher player limits, but they're still relatively small (32? 64? I forget). A "normal" MMORPG can support at least a few hundred players in an area at a time, sometimes thousands. It also lacks a persistant world -- there's no day/night cycle, no NPC schedules, and any items left on the ground will be lost to the ether as soon as you exit the current game.

You can't really say that these things only define "current" MMOs and weren't expected back in PSO's day -- there were plenty of MMORPGs before it that fit the bill (Ultima Online, for example).

With that said, though, Phantasy Star Universe is going to rock, and I'd recommend looking into it for anybody who's interested in a sci-fi MMORPG, even though it fits the bill only slightly moreso than PSO did.

Re:Uhm PSO?

[Maudib]

The story for PSO was pretty decent sci fi (as far as video games go) and it certainly was more "massive" then the standard multiplayer options. Also the gear you aquired (while stored locally and eminently hackable) persisted beyond the instances in which you aquired them. Im not saying it has all of the elements of traditional MMOs, but it certainly had many. More then enough to demonstrate the viability of Sci Fi in MMORPGs.

Yes its limited to 64 players per a lobby, but one could communicate and set up groups between lobbies.

Re:Uhm PSO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, I tried PSO Blue Burst during the public beta, and I thought it sucked. Mostly you ran around blasting things on different variations of the exact same maps. Is that just Blue Burst or what?

And Lovecraft / Cthulhu Trumps All

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, there are very few Lovecraftian MMOs out there. I can only think of Cthulhu Nation.

Re:And Lovecraft / Cthulhu Trumps All

[Anonymous Coward]

Being a fan of the old gent myself I think the problem with bringing a very sincere Cthulhu mythos based MMORPG to life is that nearly everything Lovecraft wrote about is epic in comparison to the human factor. While it can be done it would be a bit cheesy. The whole of the worlds Cthulhu cults would be small, the end results would always be devestrating to the player and not many would last long. I think that's what make's Lovecraft's horror so grand is that in the face of the circumstances around them the main characters have little choice to do than to schreik in horror and beg for a fast death (and beg not to be brought back to life).
 
I know it almost sounds like a criticism of Lovecraft but it's really not: Lovecraft had a formula; an unwitting gimp stumbles on some ancient and terrible knowledge, the gimp puts the knowledge to dubious use, the gimp either goes insane, dies or spends the rest of his days running from the terror he has wrought. Not to say that MMORPGs don't have the same formula to a point but it's never as final nor as grand in scale as a typical Lovecraftian terror.

As for me, i want both !

[nicolas.b]

One of the best pseudo-RPG (well, that's from japan and it's for playstation) of all times, for me, is Xenogears. They mix fantasy and sci-fi fairly well. Why does we have to choose between Fantasy or Sci-Fi ? why not both in the same game ?

Is it a gender thing?

[Ultimatum]

Forgive me if this is a stereotype statement, but in my experience, women are much more likely to participate in a fantasy setting than a sci-fi setting. As a related example in entertainment, most women I know prefer Lord of the Rings over Star Wars. As soon as you lose that segment of the populace, you're going to have problems. I know I'm less likely to jump into a sausagefest.

Fight to the death

[Anonymous Coward]

This issue can only be settled by an MMORPG of a fantasy race against a sci-fi race!

Re:Fight to the death

[PriceIke]

Like maybe this one?

Only Sci-fi and fantasy?

[Don_dumb]

Why does it have to stop with those two genres? really I can't help thinking that if there is a 'problem' it is becuase no-one can think outside of this pair, which in the case of classic fantasy has been well and truely done.
For originality why not set something in the present or in the recent past, perhaps in a 'Buffy' style universe. If that is a bit too modern fantasy, how about Westerns, a bit of artistic license with the Indians and you can have a large array of skills. What about a 'cold war-esque' bond style setting, a couple of cities with many interestng skills, all manner of 007 gadgets and all of the ultra-camp, ultra-silly characters?
Come on lets think just a little outside of the current blinkered ideas.

Fantasy not imaginative

[beaverfever]

"fantasy is very well defined in our minds"

Isn't this phrase a bit contradictory? Shouldn't this be setting of warning alarms in what is supposed to be a creative industry? Maybe the problem isn't sci-fi vs fantasy, maybe it's stuck-in-a-safe-rut vs being-creative-and-coming-up-with-new-ideas?

Maybe we need a new name for what are now popular yet highly generic fictional "fantasy" worlds, such as "Olde Tyme Wizard's Worlde" so that "fantasy" can go on being imaginative. The whole fantasy genre as it stands is terribly predictable, after all. Sci-fi isn't doing much better.

"The creative imagination; unrestrained fancy."

Re:Fantasy not imaginative

[Kaiganeru]

Beaverfever quoted: "fantasy is very well defined in our minds"

And said the following:

Isn't this phrase a bit contradictory? Shouldn't this be setting of warning alarms in what is supposed to be a creative industry? Maybe the problem isn't sci-fi vs fantasy, maybe it's stuck-in-a-safe-rut vs being-creative-and-coming-up-with-new-ideas?

Maybe we need a new name for what are now popular yet highly generic fictional "fantasy" worlds, such as "Olde Tyme Wizard's Worlde" so that "fantasy" can go on being imaginative. The whole fantasy genre as it stands is terribly predictable, after all. Sci-fi isn't doing much better.

I disagree for several reasons; it isn't the safe vs. creative issue that is cited. For the large corporations creating the games, it comes down to market research and dollars. Don't think for a minute that they would hesitate to spend millions upon millions to craft new ideas if their research indicated that those ideas would be viable and make them money.

People raised on Tolkien and other venerable masters of Fantasy, go on to play fantasy based games, and to watch fantasy based anime, and read fantasy based Manga, comics and contemporary novels. This creates a *tremendous* well from which to draw.

Diablo isn't WoW isn't FFXI and so forth -- they aren't at all similar; your comment that fantasy constitutes nothing more than "Olde Tyme Wizard's Worlde" is incorrect at best, slightly flamish at worst.

In what way do you find the aforementioned dissimiliar games "terribly predictable"? These games are very different one from the other, and hardly fit the "Ye Olde Wizarde" paradigm. If you feel that you have an idea for a great scifi game that will *also* be attractive to tens of millions - or even several million - people, you'll get an eager reception by a gaming company; that is, if you can create the game and make it both workable and appealing.

Bear in mind also the audience for these games, and the changing nature thereof; more women, girls, teens of both genders, retired people, couples playing together of all ages, disabled people, people who have moved to a new area and don't anyone, and of course folks who are socially ill-at-ease who use the game as a means of social interaction/bolstering confidence -- the vast majority read fantasy, have a rich fantasy background, and immediately feel comfortable enough to try something very new to them.

First time MMO players with a fantasy background (through literature, manga, anime, contemporary novels, graphic novels, etc.) who would be hesitant to try something utterly alien, can jump into a fantasy based MMO and have enough things resonant with a degree of familiarity -- not predictability, the two are not the same -- such as to create enough confidence to give it a try.

Fantasy in all its forms permeates the society to a degree sci-fi doesn't. Increasing skill at flying in outer space (simplistic, conceded, but it was an example cited in a comment) isn't going to hold the interest of most MMO gamers. Fantasy games with all the rich interaction between people, guilds, races, groups -- in a storyline that is constantly changing is attractive to many. A sci-fi based game that could supply all of that would take a nice chunk of the market, given the number of sci-fi afficionados.

A final note with respect to myself - I had never played an MMO; I had mudded, but hadn't bothered with MMOs. The monthly charge was a turnoff, and they seemed to aimed at an audience that wasn't me. I did play the PS2 .hack games though -- for those unfamiliar, they simulate an MMO.. it's kind of trippy; you are a single player playing a game that thinks it's an MMO. I enjoyed it a great deal, although opinions on the game vary from "fantastic" to "Ugh" ;)

But it was the fantasy based .hack series that made me consider trying an MMO. One lead to the other; and when

Re:Fantasy not imaginative

[beaverfever]

"Diablo isn't WoW isn't FFXI and so forth -- they aren't at all similar; your comment that fantasy constitutes nothing more than "Olde Tyme Wizard's Worlde" is incorrect at best, slightly flamish at worst.

In what way do you find the aforementioned dissimiliar games "terribly predictable"? These games are very different one from the other, and hardly fit the "Ye Olde Wizarde" paradigm."

I have played Diablo, never Wow or FFXI. I have played Dungeon Seige. Admittedly, I got bored with both Diablo and Dungeon Seige and never completed them. I played DnD as a child and I'm familiar with Tolkien. A girlfriend years ago was enthralled by fantasy fiction and I read a bit of her collection. I'm sure I've been exposed to Fantasy work on other occasions.

To someone who is a fan with broad exposure, there is surely a huge difference between the different games, books, movies, etc. To someone who is a passive fan or less, the differences are not so apparent. The same goes for anything; hockey teams, NASCAR drivers, speaker cable, techno music: some kid's mom might not be able to tell the difference between Black Sabbath and Nirvana, while maybe the kid thinks they are polar opposites of each other - Kurt Cobain and Tony Iommi the same? That's crazy-talk mom! At the end of the day, both bands bash drums, smack a bass, turn up the fuzzy guitar and moan about their problems.

Yes, the Fantasy Worlde contains a lot of product I have never experienced, but the samples I have indulged in or just glanced at have been very similar. If my memory serves me well, Diablo has some sort of walking skeleton/zombie hordes. Guess what: so does Dungeon Seige. If I dug out my olde DnD book I suspect there might be something similar in there. Dragons, taverns with ale in steins, pointy armoured hats with horns, thatched roofed houses... yes there are dissimilar elements in every product, but there are broad similarities for the casual fan or casual observer.

Take the pointy hat guy for example. I would say that guy and Gimli from LoTR are the same and predictable. Gee, look: WoW has similar stuff. Maybe others would call me crazy and point out the scores of differences - ooo, one uses a hammer and the other uses an axe... but come on; they're all short, stocky, there's lots of facial hair with braids even... predictable. I'm not even trying: this stuff is falling in my lap.

"If you feel that you have an idea for a great scifi game that will *also* be attractive to tens of millions - or even several million - people, you'll get an eager reception by a gaming company; that is, if you can create the game and make it both workable and appealing."

This is the fallacy which those refuting criticism of something they favour sometimes fall back on, the "if you don't like it, then why don't you do better?" thing. I'm not a game designer. It's not my job to design games. I can't cook, but that doesn't mean I can't say a restaurant serves crappy food. I can't kick a ball, but I have opinions about how England played in the World Cup. Where is the sense in expecting me to start working out with the squad just so I can earn the right to say they stank? That's ludicrous.

It's no different when I say Fantasy genre product is uncreative and hardly based in fantasy at all.

"For the large corporations creating the games, it comes down to market research and dollars. Don't think for a minute that they would hesitate to spend millions upon millions to craft new ideas if their research indicated that those ideas would be viable and make them money."

First of all, are you agreeing with me or disagre

Re:Fantasy not imaginative

[Kaiganeru]

A girlfriend years ago was enthralled by fantasy fiction and I read a bit of her collection. I'm sure I've been exposed to Fantasy work on other occasions.

You know, you have a turn of phrase every so often that I know you know is intentional -- your use of "enthralled" has all the negative connotations associated with that word.

Your feelings about "Fantasy" in general can be summed up in how you expressed that sentence. I know that you know exactly what I mean. A disclaimer would be disingenuous. Having personal dislike -- or even contempt -- for a genre doesn't mean that one can fairly bash it at will; since we're here, the example I'll give is moderating or meta-moderating. You may not agree with something, but you can't condemn it on that basis.

Here's more: some kid's mom might not be able to tell the difference between Black Sabbath and Nirvana, while maybe the kid thinks they are polar opposites of each other - Kurt Cobain and Tony Iommi the same? That's crazy-talk mom! At the end of the day, both bands bash drums, smack a bass, turn up the fuzzy guitar and moan about their problems.

Nirvana and Black Sabbath aren't even the type of music -- yet because you (apparently) don't like them -- and I say that because of description -- they are "the same" because they both "bash drums", "smack" a bass, and "moan" about their problems.

Could you possibly use more pejorative and insulting terminology to describe the music? Any music using drums arguably has someone "bashing drums" -- using base can always be described, if one wants, as "smacking" a bass, and I challenge you to find a genre of music in which problems of some kind AREN'T sung about -- but you describe it as "moan" about their problems.

By your definition any music that doesn't use a classical symphony orchestra is indistinguishable one from the other. No accoustic guitar? Then it's the usual garbage.. but wait, even without "drum bashing" and "base smacking" the song may *still* be "moaning" about problems. Uh oh. I guess that means it's in the bin with the rest of the junk.

All music (with words) is about a writer's feelings; music IS about the human condition; the problems we face; whether it's love or money or sex or anything you think of -- no one would be MOVED to create music (or poetry or literature) without "problems" -- so in suppose that means ALL of that; poetry, literature, all art -- falls into the bin of "moaning about their problems." See, I can extrapolate also, and I do so more accurately since you have laid down your parameters. If it "moans" (your pejorative choice of descriptor) about "problems" -- then it is not distinguishable "at the end of the day" one from the other. You don't need to smash and bash drums and base, or is just musick that you don't feel, and as such dismiss?

It seems you enjoy sampling a bit of something, coming to a conclusion, and then using that to extrapolate out to EVERYTHING else even peripherally related.

All music using drums and base IS THE SAME -- (no matter how wildly different it really is, but hey, it's your view of things) and "at the end of the day" since it's "all the same" it can't be good. Your girlfriend was "enthralled" by something you viewed from a distance with distaste; and all games of a genre are the same because they have some similar imagery.

How the devil do you confuse "thatched roofs" with THE SAME PLOT? Yes, a magic user in a game will often have access to a hat with a point, although I can say that in WoW, for example, such hats are rarely seen and are more camp than anything else -- you might have looked a bit further. Did you perhaps check the "armor" sets for the different classes? Not a pointy hat in sight.

I'm not familiar with the "Warhammer" .jpg you linked -- but saying that because in a game somewhere (your WoW links, for example) there are dwarves, and that the dwarves in question might have hammers -- to say what you did, and I ha

Re:Fantasy not imaginative

[beaverfever]

"You know, you have a turn of phrase every so often that I know you know is intentional... I know that you know exactly what I mean... By your definition any music that doesn't use a classical symphony orchestra is indistinguishable one from the other... All music using drums and base IS THE SAME -- (no matter how wildly different it really is, but hey, it's your view of things) and "at the end of the day" since it's "all the same" it can't be good. Your girlfriend was "enthralled" by something you viewed from a distance with distaste"

It's unfortunate that you choose to make a discussion an attack on a person, especially when you have no idea who that person is or the contents of their music collection and bookshelf. I supposed I have been drawn in by a "flame". (and I don't mean a beau or heart-throb)

"to condemn entire genres, indeed, entire art forms"

I condemned the genre's name, a word which means "The creative imagination; unrestrained fancy", when that genre has become uncreative and choked with preconceived characters and scenarios. I suggested they start using a different word or phrase for this genre. The genre is not without merits, but it is not creative. Lots of staid, predictable things in life retain some merit.

You seem prone to making broad assumptions based on things which aren't said. What if you read my post this way: I said I played Diablo, Dungeon Seige, even DnD... if I hated the genre so much, why would I waste my money on the software/books, and why would I waste my leisure time on them? If you took the time to look at things from a different point of view, perhaps there were different assumptions you could have drawn from my words.

Speaking of the meaning of words, since when is "enthralled" a negative, contemptuous word?

"All music using drums and base IS THE SAME -- (no matter how wildly different it really is, but hey, it's your view of things)"

My view of things is that someone who is deeply immersed in something (such as a genre) can become so focused that they see broad differentiation where the average or casual observer sees only relatively minor variations. Sometimes people focused like that are unable to pull back to see the forest because they are paying such close attention to the differences in conifers. Producing minor variations is not being creative. Being aware of the big picture (and any flaws it exposes) does not mean being unable to appreciate the minor variations and sub-species, er, sub-genres. Yes, Black Sabbath and Nirvana produce very different songs, but in the big picture, they are the same: guitar, bass, drums, distortion pedal, and undeniably mediocre vocal performances. (btw, Geezer Butler certainly smacks his bass, and if you have ever seen Bill Ward or Dave Grohl drum, it is obvious they are bashers - jeez, Grohl beat the living daylights out of my friend's drum kit and completely wrecked a new set of skins in less than an hour, back around 1989-90).

"Your method of plucking out a bit of similarity here and there... I'm not familiar with the "Warhammer" .jpg you linked"

The jpg came from the article, for pete's sake. If you look at the photos I think it is indisputable that the similarities are remarkable. The WoW link was only two clicks deep. I mentioned before I didn't have to make any effort to find these similarities. This stuff is upfront, common genre content. I'm not plucking anything - a point I was trying to make was that the dwarf thing is just one example of the broad similarities within the genre; there are countless others, indeed including plots. Yes, minute similarities can be found between two of any piece of fiction, but that is not my point.

same thing

[contrapunctus]

Fantasy and sci-fi are like the same operating system with different graphics (worlds=star system, magic=technology, etc)
Just like western and samurai flicks (7 samurai = magnificent seven, etc)

A Wizard Did It!

[Anonymous Coward]

Outside of the occasional typo, there are no mistakes or plot holes. If you think you've found one and you can't figure out how to get around it, it's because a wizard did it.

http://www.nuklearpower.com/8bitfaq.php

Because bad Sci-Fi is *really* bad

[OrangeTide]

Most(all) scifi MMOs are extremely bad in terms of story/lore/world quality. I think it is harder to make a bad fantasy because people generally agree on some basic concepts that should be found in a fantasy world. Plus fantasy is usually so silly that people who might be turned off play it any ways because they think it is silly. (elves and orcs and magic. give me a break).

There are a lot of ways to do scifi and not everyone likes every sub-genre. near future cyberpunk/sf, far future space-faring (Dune), etc. Do you want something fairly logical and understandable in modern terms like Arthur C. Clark, do you want something way out there like Frank Herbert, or do you want something that focuses on the weirdness of people like William Gibson?

A Philip K. Dick MMO would be great, but probably would not be playable by the masses unless it was Hollywoodized like all these films "based on philip k. dick's novel".

Some might call it semantics....

[CFTM]

Star Wars is not science fiction it's fantasy. Just because you use swords does not make you fantasy and just because you have a gun does not make you science fiction; personally I'm partial to Phillip K. Dick's definition which I am only able to paraphrase at the moment so I doubt I'll be nearly as succient nor as accurate.

'The Shifting Reality of Phillip K. Dick' contain many different short stories and pieces of speeches he gave throughout his life; in one of those speeches Dick espouses his definition of science fiction which goes something like this: A science fiction story takes place in a world that is not our world, but could be. In other words, the story is grounded in some sort of reality that we know. Star Wars has no such grounding, unless someone knows where I can find me some Ewoks to enslave.

I have only played SWG, and the star wars franchise is the only one mentioned that I have knowledge of so I'll limit my critique to that but clearly it's just shitty fantasy. Star Wars has been shitty fantasy for a long time and has never been science fiction. It's childish and nonsensical... ...disagree all you want but I think I'll stick with PKD on this one.

PS: If you think I've just commited an act that merits hari kari, stand up from your desk walk outside and breath some fresh air...

Re:Some might call it semantics....

[hitmark]

isnt the usual defintion of star wars "space opera"?
ie, its at best sci-fi lite...

Re:Some might call it semantics....

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree with you about Star Wars, I am offended by your butchering of languages. The term you're looking for is "karikiri". You probably pronounce it like "hairy carry", too, which is another atrocity, but I'll let it slide for today.

Re:Some might call it semantics....

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Star Wars has no such grounding

I disagree. Without much difficulty, the StarWars universe can be seen as allegory for the real world. Planets can be interpreted as cities, the Death Star's super weapon as a nuclear bomb, starships as boats, interstellar travel as intercontinental sailing, capital ships as aircraft carriers and snubfighters as fighter jets... Not to mention the whole Empire/Axis Rebels/Allies thing. There may not be any Ewoks to enslave, but there are plenty of technologically disadvantaged civilizations which have been exploited.

Because Sci-Fi MMO has too many standards

[jftitan]

While I am not a fan of Fantasy MMOs, it is mainly because of the monthly dues. Plus my personality really isn't into Fantasy, its with Sci-Fi space sims.

Lately I have been playing Darkstar One, which to me is a re-incarnation of WC: Privateer, but with a better looking ship, and weapons. I have been into this game the moment I found the demo, and have been playing non-stop even though at this point all I am doing in the game is playing the randomly generated 'quickie cash' missions. (I'm improving my Saitek X45 flyin g skills)

I've gotten into EVE, and I really love the vast universe it brings to me. I could get lost into such a vast sci-fi mmo, but one things holds me back from getting into the 'monthly pay for' phase of game play. Its the interaction with my piloting of my space(craft)ship.

Sci-Fi MMOs have to abide by higher gameplay standards than that of Fantasy MMOs. Fantasy has to create scenic worlds, on a planet. While Sci-Fi, needs to create planets, within galaxies, to which even our own knowledge of the universe is incomplete so everything must be created theroy. While I will settle for EVE mixed with Freelance, and Privateer qualities, physics and game play are very hard to incorporate into a MMO. How about the alien races. I'm pretty sure, that a Sci-Fi MMO could just involve humans the way EVE has done. The storyline is impresive, create 6 human races with entirely different cultures. Attempt to create a universe with peace. Give the player a ship, and tell him to survive in space. DONE.

Just make the space physics, economy, social interaction (go ahead and create space stations with NPCs, hell make planets with NPCs too... Go as far as allowing people to goto 10 or more places on one planet) But as long as I can combat like a pilot against uneven odds of space pirates/bounty hunters/alien races, then fly home on the last leg of my spaceship to the nearest solar system to fix my ship, and fix my next job, then... and ONLY THEN will I be happy.

Here is what I would want in a Sci-Fi MMO;

1. Vast Universe... (EVE's universe is huge... I know it would take me years to goto each solar system, only to go back to one, and its been changed entirely. Thats how reality works too)

2. Human/Alien Races... (I have no problem dealing with some foreign alien, Rule #1 if it shoots at me, I shoot back. nuff said)

3. Economy... (EVE, excells, heck I could possibly find enough friends to help me manage a vast company in EVE, but hell, I need better friends to help me manage my OWN finances. Make the economy complex, but also allow for some form of automation, that will pay the ingame bills, every time you goto a planet/space station)

4. Gameplay Interaction... (This one is what EVE lacks. Put in some flight controls, and first person POV so I can duke it out with space pirates. If my ship exploids then... shits, I'm a bad pilot. Restart at the nearist planet/spacestation, and lose the mission.)

5. Gameplay cont... (As with Dying, respawning is not a bad idea for Sci-Fi.. heck we don't explain WHY when I die in Guild Wars, I end up alive at the nearest gateway, why not in a sci-fi sim as well) With Darkstar One, when I die at the lasers of a pirate, I just reload my most recently autosaved game, and retry.

6. graphics... (Things can't get worse from todays standards of MMO graphics, so at this point it can only get more detailed, or stay the same. EVE has done well with the online MMO for Sci-fi graphics)

7. Customizability of... (Characters, Ok, so Fantasy allows you to customize how your character looks, Sci-Fi can do the same thing with characters. You start off as a person/alien anyways, so let us customize five or more races of human or alien.)

8. Customizability of... (Spaceships, well for sci-fi why not customize your spaceship. Give users 10 or more types of spaceships they can start from, and then allow us to customize the wings, engines, shields, paint jobs, computers, etc. I know we'll upgrad

We can dream...

[flyweight_of_fury]

Fallout MMO 'nuff said.

Perhaps the character representation is flawed

[LS]

Why must a MMORPG be a single avatar per player? A player could control several characters, or a team, or a military, or a civiliation, or research lab, or a starship, or whatever. The players could be super-titanium robots, which would get rid of the gun problem. Or other alien races that developed different types of weapons. Or perhaps some real time strategy aspects could be pulled in, but on a larger scale. You'd then have a mechanism for balancing out extremely power technologies. I suppose you lose a bit of the immersion when you don't play at the single character level, but I could see a market for a more complex gaming mechanism that would suit a sci-fi universe.

LS

SciFi is in a decline.

[rectagonal]

Science Fiction as a whole is in a decline at the momment. Fantasy movies are all the rage right now, and I can't remember seeing a decent SciFi movie on the big screen, unless one counts comic book movies (Which I wouldnt). Fantasy books are occupying more and more space in the joint "Fantasy-SciFi" sections at bookstores. Star Trek is the ultimate borometer for the genre and it has plumited into non existence in recent years. It seems like SciFi fans need to sit tight with Battle Star Galactica and wait out the drought. Long range weapons are a scape goat. Fantasy RPGs have had long range magiks and cross bows for some time. The problem is the creative teams. Character driven science fiction which focuses on individuals and not space battles is possible but instead of looking to the galactic battles of star wars or star trek, one must recapture the flavor of mystery and personal struggles written by authors like Asimov. Technology is a poor excuse aswell. The best Fantasy stories are consistant and well thought out in the limits of the magic, and politics of the world. However Science Fiction has lost the rigor in this area it once had. The "science" component of science fiction lies largely forgotten. Still I am surprised no one has mentioned a few gems such as Vendetta Online. Nor has anyone mentioned Orson Scott Card's upcomming mmorpg, through eGenesis. (Nomatter how much I loathe the man personally, he is a great writer)

Final FANTASY

[MasaMuneCyrus]

Now why can't Fantasy trump Sci-Fi in Final FANTASY? The old ones were perhaps some of the greatest games ever created, but VII and on completely suck, have been ruined by the younger generation, and hell, they don't even used the word, "castle," in them.

At least there's still Dragon Quest.

Re:Final FANTASY

[Yosho]

First of all, what you mean to say is that you don't like futuristic technology. None of the FF games are even close to science fiction. "Fantasy" is not analogous to "medieval technology", nor is "sci-fi" the same as "futuristic technology." There are other threads here with a more detailed explanation.

Second, you're flat out wrong. FF9, 11, and 12 are all rooted in medieval fantasy. Outside of the main series, Tactics and Crystal Chronicles fit in, too. There are plenty of castles in all of those games. 11 is even an MMORPG, which happens to be the topic of discussion here! If you want to be pedantic, I can also distinctly recall the word "castle" being used in FF8, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was used somewhere in 7 or 10, although I can't recall off the top of my head.

Not done right

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that guns are more impersonal. Guns, swords, fireball spells, all are just ways your character has power over the environment, and the difference between a mage casting a fireball spell and a marine hucking a gernade is really minor.

The problem is that the sci-fi games need to be done right, make sense and be fun.

Imagine a game where it's the year 2075, and the middle east is surrounded by a massive wall, the new great wall, 150 feet tall with automatic turrets every 20 feet, and a 1/2 mile kill zone on the inside. Now imagine that the classes you can play are gang-member of gang (a, b, c, d), secret agent, red-cross worker. As you level up by gaining prestigue with your faction, you gain access to better special equipment (maybe gang b has control of an old soviet arms stockpile you can 'buy' weapons from)

Throw in gang wars, objectives, drug-induced psychic powers, secret research compounds, nanotechnology run wild, self-made kings, palaces surrounded by parks patroled by killer robots, bordering on bombed-out slums... Give people the ability to PvP, level, quest, explore and upgrade and you have a game.

The sci-fi games out there are crap, 'it's a bad genre, no one likes it' is just an excuse for failure.

Re:Not done right

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and it's also a great oppurtunity to make a skill-based MMORPG instead of the item-based crap that dominates the market. Let people shoot straight, and throw gernades and set traps.

Then let them earn night sight goggles, laser sights, complex trap kits, plasma gernades, motercycles, cars, web-guns, faction rewards to get better ammo, pets, cool-looking outfits, better medical care and clones.

Basicly, fight on pretty level ground and earn fun stuff. It's the only way to make skill > grinding time spent.

Re:Not done right

[Firefly1]

This, sir (ma'am?) is a very good idea; I think a basic implementation of it exists in SW: Battlefront 2 where each of the classes has an upgraded weapon unlocked after X number of kills. Deus Ex' multiplayer has an option which brought some of the character-building elements from the campaign, making it easy to tailor the character to your style of play. And yes, you earned XP from kills, so over the course of a given series of games, your character grew more capable. Some other games grant medals or other tokens for certain achievements (Ace Combat 5 and Zero, for instance, have among other things a trio of medals for air-to-air gun kills).
All of this, and the occasional invocation of Star Wars, brings me to something I'd like to see LucasArts get off their duffs and do:
X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter done right. And one of the first things they can do is get permission to use the Freespace 2 engine.
You'd have your massive dogfights. You'd have your exciting cooperative missions. Players would start with their choice of a Z-95 or basic TIE; all the other craft (X-wings, TIE interceptors, A-wings, assault gunboats, etc.) have to be unlocked for purchase through play (the Ace Combat games do this). Some might even have other craft as prerequisites - i.e. unlocking the missile boat requires possession of the gunboat; the TIE Advanced x1 (Vader's TIE) is earned by beating a certain challenge mission which pits you against the Dark Lord and his elite squadron. There'd be plenty of upgrades to earn (advanced concussion missiles, improved targeting systems, ECM, passive stealth). Aside from your hangar of fighters (and yes, you'd be able to import your own custom logo; thank you Descent 3) there'd be medals to earn, and those show up in your profile, so when folks are in the lobby setting up matches, you can see who's walked the walk.
Yeah, it's an MMO; no, it's not an MMORPG. But I figured this'd do for showcasing such a game interesting.

It's been done before!

[Anonymous Coward]

MMORPG games that are Sci-Fi based have worked out many times in the past! Examples to back that up are

Earth and Beyond (shut down when EA aquired the company leading that): Had an advanced crafting system that was ahead of it's time and was a primarily based space fighter! http://enb.rpgplanet.gamespy.com/ (Most of EnB sites are now down.)

Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided: Had several ranged profession (carbineer, pistoleer, rifleman, bounty hunter, smuggler) as well as melee professions, with a space based expansion that came later on and an interesting take on crafting classes. The game is now in ruins though, the development team that was put in place to develop the product was new to the MMORPG world and throughout the games life it has seemed to be in 'beta' because of that. www.starwarsgalaxies.com

PlanetSide: A complete FPS battlefield using ranged weapons for a majority of the combat (aka you can use a knife) www.planetside.com

Eve Online: I'll let the site speak for itself http://www.eve-online.com/

RF Online: http://www.codemasters.com/rfonline/news.php?theme =bellato

So, can you really say fantasy > Sci-Fi?

Re:It's been done before!

[Anonymous Coward]

Earth and Beyond was a great game till you started to get to around level 75 (25/25/25 in each of the areas). The problem was that there was little high end content and that getting experience in the explore and trade areas became very difficult past 25 in each area. But the way the mobs were written in combat, you had to keep your levels fairly balanced in order to stand up against them.

The game, for high levels, later became known as "Jobs and Beyond" because that was the only way you could get the much needed trade and explore experience. You pretty much had the whole universe explored by level 25, so you couldn't get more points. Trade routes were static and experience went down over time. On top of that, the only one that gave the most took 20 minutes one way to get to. You spent most of your time in warp reading a book. It just wasn't fun any more.

The sad part was that people bitched about that content month after month and it never got fixed. They'd add easy stuff, but the things that mattered would be done "later." They never were, so people left and the game died.

It was a game that had so much potential but EA pissed it away.

Sad thing was, this wasn't the first game EA killed by an acquistion of the developing studio.

Ultima X: Odyssey, to me, looked to be about the most well done MMO that would have come out to date. And as an Ultima fan, the game was set in the perfect world. The developers regularly interacted with the fans and took their input seriously.

Well, in 2004, EA bought the company. Over 90% of the original developers left the company. So EA put the same people who were in charge of EnB in charge of UXO. Many people, including me, saw the writing on the wall when David Yee was put in charge. They said the game would be developed as normal and that the original devs' vision would be maintained. Well, 3 months later, the game was canned so they could focus the resource on the old and tired, but still very profitable, UO.

I still haven't forgiven EA for that.

MMOs the Problem

[SSMI]

It seems to me that it is the MMO part that is hard to accomplish well. There are good Sci-Fi RPGs out there and some of them are really good. I know I really liked Fallout but that game doesn't lend it self very well to an MMO. The whole problem is they need to incorporate team elements into it successfully. Planetside put in the team elements but it was a FPS which may or may not appeal to RPG fans. You need someting in between the two.

What I wonder is why haven't we seen the equivalint of a Fantasy FPS?

Re:MMOs the Problem

[alexgieg]

Yes, we have! See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heretic_(computer_gam e).

One Possibility ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Chain Mail Bikinis and swords. And, of course, cartoonishly over proportioned females that cater to every deeply rooted adolescent fantasy. Breasts. Huge tracts of land. Say no more, say no more.

emptiness

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

any realistic game set in space consists of mostly this: space.

perhaps a sci-fi game doesn't have to be based on an interstellar sim? perhaps a sci-fi game could be more along the lines of deus ex, or, my personal favorite:

Fallout.

Ranged combat vs. close combat

[Nyenyec]

In a fantasy setting its easy to explain why you need to fight the enemy up-close (swords, battle-axes are a "natural" part of a fantasy environment).

In sci-fi environments you need to have a convoluted story about why I cant shoot someone from a mile away with my *laser* weapon instead of beating him on the head from a few feet.

Lack of imagination.

[ToryGA1]

So, apparently Sci-Fi vs. Fantasy boils down to whether or not a game can come up with a believable and convincing way to kill.

My first thought? Why do all games have to contain murder? How about coming up with an online RPG that doesn't include hacking, shooting, maiming, or some other form of relieving another being of life?

I guess no one has THAT much imagination.

Collaborative Sci Fi

[monopole]

One word:
Anime
As with most Anime the emphasis is on teams of individuals who depend upon each other. Consider Nadesico, Irresponsible Captain Tylor, Geneshaft, or even Neon Genesis Evangelion. Then of course there's Sakura Wars which derived from RPGs to begin with. A MMOG based on Sakura Wars would rock! Geki! Teikoku Kageki-dan!

Re:Collaborative Sci Fi

[monopole]

Oh and I forgot the killer Anime for MMOG, Stellvia. No guns, team operations are essential, woman friendly, and the stakes are enormous. Oh and there is a built in training path.

The W word

[identity0]

Yes, but what about the oft-overlooked demographic of female gamers? MMORPGS seem to have a much highger rate or female participation than tabletop RPGs, and perhaps higher than normal video games.

I think it's the immersion in a fantasy world that attracts them - I don't think sci-fi is as popular among women as mideval-style fantasy is.

And hey, who says "sci-fi" has to mean gunfights? I'd love to see a series where everyone uses a lightsaber-type weapon. Just wish they'd make a Halo MMORPG...

I think it is the guns, and it is the movies.

[SmallFurryCreature]

Think of the classic sword fights you see in the movies, now think of the classic gunfight eh fights you see in the movies. Notice a difference? The sword fights, last! They take time. The hero spots the opponent, closes, parries, thrusts, dodges and finally makes the kill.

The gunfight is far faster, spot, shoot, kill.

While in real life a hit with a broadsword is probably as much an instant kill as a bullet in the head, movies have made us believe that sword fights last minutes while gunfights are over in a matter of seconds.

Now take a look at the various MMORPG's games. Because of the general lack of AI or anything approaching tactics let alone strategy most fights are about wearing down the enemies hitpoints slowly in a prolonged duel. No instant kills allowed. It just doesn't fit in the gameplay.

SWG offcourse had guns and believe me that after years of movies and books and other star wars games it came as something of a shock to find that stormtroopers do not die instantly if you hit them with a blaster shot. Neither two, nor three, nor five. In fact during a period before the dreaded CU/NGE debacle you had roving bands of stormies that had some very big brothers that could whoop your ass. But apperently not spot you sniping their platoon down one by one. Well when I say sniping I mean firing away at their heads with concealed shot for about five to ten minutes a piece.

Not that the melee combat was any better but at least that seems acceptable. You can parry my sword blows but how exactly do you stop an energy bolt straight between the eyes? It gets Jagged Alliance kind of silly where you shoot somebody with a machine gun at point blank range, only somehow manage to hit them once, in the head and they still fight with 94% of their health gone in the next round. WTF? Any notion of suspense of disbelief is gone. You are in a spreadsheet with pretty picture mate. Not fighting the evil empire. Or rebel scum.

The same problems occurs ofcourse in KOTOR with the damn lightsabers. You get this cool weapon that can slice through anything except it seems clothes, swords and any piece of armour. That wasn't the deal!

Guns don't work in current MMORPG gameplay. For instant kills to work you need more enemies, they need to be more intelligent (how many MMORPG's are there were the enemy is even capable of seeking cover?) and you need far better code for instance collesion detection to avoid people targetting and shooting through walls. Already a pain with swordfights it could make gunfights with instant kill even more frustating.

Oh and if you add instant kill on the enemies, do you add it on the player? A modern war based MMORPG would suck for the point guy. Spend an hour getting ready to get to the quest area only to be ambushed and get a bullet in face and be forced to respawn.

Your argument of aloneness doesn't ring true to me. Star Trek is very much a group off people, especially the original series, while say the entire TES series of games (Oblivion) is very very lonely.

People accept a resistance to fire. They do not accept a resistance to hot lead. MMORPG structure at the moment just can't do gunfights. Hell, single games can barely do it. FEAR and that old Lucasarts cowboy game are about the only games I remember where there was movie style gunfights going on.

Re:I think it is the guns, and it is the movies.

[visgoth]

People accept a resistance to fire. They do not accept a resistance to hot lead

Subdermal combat armor, or personal energy shields, or powered combat armor, or, or, etc... Its sci fi, remember?

Re:I think it is the guns, and it is the movies.

[blahplusplus]

Guns don't work in current MMORPG gameplay.

One word: Planet side.

The fact is if you are going to have a sci-fi based MMO, it either has to be about the technology (vehicles, buildings, weapons, etc) and/or about the individuals (soldiers, etc), it seems to me the best way to do a technology based MMO is planet-side, eve seems to be doing ok over-time but it's boring as hell. Earth and beyond IMHO had a lot of potential, but not enough interest apparently. That was one of the sci-fi MMO's I actually liked to some extent, though it did suffer from the boredom factor.

I still think sci-fi MMO has not been done correctly yet, I see a real sci-fi MMO as mixing and merging different gameplay from RTS, FPS, and 3rd person i.e. Descent freespace, Eve-online. It'll probably take a while to materialize though given the constraints of technology currently.

Re:I think it is the guns, and it is the movies.

[Anonymous Coward]

While WoW isn't SciFi, I suppose you never got killed by a night elf hunter using aimed shot from shadowmeld before they nurfed that tactic. Seems like a WoW hunter can approach the hollywood gunslinger ideal... though it helps if the other player is Away From the Keyboard or Asking For a Kill.

Re:I think it is the guns, and it is the movies.

[DrFalkyn]

I agree with your point about KoToR. Everyone sane person should have been carrying ragned weapons with the sole exception of Jedi. When I first encountered the 'longsword' I was like WTF am I playing Star Wars or D&D. And the explation for this was really contrived 'we can't discharge weapons on the brigde, and um, guns don't work well at close range - and err, they've got energy shields and we only know how to build the special energy-shield bypassing technology into melee weapons'. Uhuh. Melee was way more powerful than any ranged weapons, and that to me is just wrong in a sci-fi setting (except for the really, really special cases like Jedi).

About the instant-kill thing - you can have energy shields, and stormtrooopers have armor. It would be cool if they had graphic effects of the armor pieces being blasted off or the energy shield being successively weakened. That would help with that 'suspension of disbelief' problem of creatures not being insta-killed with a powerful energy blast. But it should probably knock them on their asses.

Re:I think it is the guns, and it is the movies.

[DaFallus]

So what you're saying is that you are more inclined to believe in things like trolls, dwarves, elves, giant flesh eating spiders, teleportation, the ability to see the future, non-fatal giant fireballs, and fucking magic than someone surviving a gunshot wound or maybe having some kind of powerful armor?

Re:I think it is the guns, and it is the movies.

[Maserati]

A modern war based MMORPG would suck for the point guy. Spend an hour getting ready to get to the quest area only to be ambushed and get a bullet in face and be forced to respawn.

This is probably why World War 2 Online (Or Battleground:Europe or whatever it is these days) has as few players as it does. It's a fairly realistic experience in terms of weapon damage and survivability: BOOM, headshot, respawn. Ahh, I kinda miss that game. Unfortunately for them, I got a trial for EVE a week before they sent out a "Welcome Back" promo for WW2OL.

The specific instance I thought about when I read the line I quote above was pretty messed up for the guy I inflicted it on. Defending a town from an Allied counterattack I was in a defensive position out between the enemy forward base and our town. I was hiding in a treeline looking for scouts infiltrating. I spotted one a few hundred meters away, the poor SOB skylined himself. I watched him run up towards a hedgeline through binoculars, switched to my trusty rifle, and Juuuust as he flops down and pulls out his binocs to check out our defenses... headshot. Poor guy, 15 minute run to a vantage point on our defenses and he doesn't last long enough to wipe his lenses before his screen suddenly goes black.

Mmm, yeah. If EVE starts sucking I'm back to France. Good times.

Re:I think it is the guns, and it is the movies.

[regular_gonzalez]

movies have made us believe that sword fights last minutes while gunfights are over in a matter of seconds.

You've obviously never seen a John Woo film :)

Star Thugs has the best reason:

[Maggott]

"Melee weapons don't punch through the wall and fuck up your bathroom."

http://www.starthugs.com/

The gist is, in Star Thugs, most person-to-person combat is on a starship, which is very cramped quarters and full of equipment that, like most things, doesn't respond well to being shot at. Since people generally board to capture a ship and the defenders typically own the ship, both have a vested interest in not blowing away everything down to the hull plating.

(There's also richochet dangers from projectiles, concentrated explosions and heat blasts from energy weapons, and so forth)

So starship crews use melee weapons.

They also carry projectile weapons, since they're not always interested in taking the ship intact, and they're not always on a ship.

Re:Star Thugs has the best reason:

[theStorminMormon]

This kind of proves my point. Melee combat (which is better for MMOGs) is possible in a sci-fi context, but you have to do work to get there. That sounds like a good example. Dune also had a good reason.

But the whole point is that in fantasy you don't have to explain sword-wielding, in sci-fi you DO. This is a creative burden sci-fi has that fantasy does not.

-stormin

Re:Star Thugs has the best reason:

[s_p_oneil]

Why don't they just magnetically seal the walls/doors, like in the trash compactor in Star Wars? Then you'd also have the added benefit of being able to make shots around corners.

If all the walls were mirrors, you wouldn't even have to worry about not being able to see around the corner. Hey, that's not a bad idea for an FPS game (or perhaps even a RL game). Laser tag inside a fun-house. If all the mirrors were perfect and flat, in theory you should hit whatever you see in the mirror when you fire at it. You could increase the difficulty level by adding curved mirrors. ;-) Calculating all the reflections would probably melt your video card, though.

Re:Star Thugs has the best reason:

[Firefly1]

The gist is, in Star Thugs, most person-to-person combat is on a starship, which is very cramped quarters and full of equipment that, like most things, doesn't respond well to being shot at. Since people generally board to capture a ship and the defenders typically own the ship, both have a vested interest in not blowing away everything down to the hull plating.

"Be careful. Many things in there do not react well to bullets." -Marko Alexandrovich Ramius
Okay, now that we've gotten the gratuitous if fitting The Hunt for Red October quote out of the way... You, sir, bring up a very good point; indeed, I recall the exact same point mentioned in those CP2020 supplements dealing with the Big Black.
That said, I should also mention that these issues exist today, and are taken seriously by most police and military entities. For instance, I believe air marshals use Glaser or equivalent loads in their firearms, in addition to being proficient in melee combat.
And it's not like there aren't ways to degrade the effectiveness of DEWs in a sci-fi setting, either.
Final point: something I've not seen to my knowledge in any sci-fi RPG campaign is a combat scenario where an environmental factor renders DEWs (yes, including lightsabers) dangerous to use... maybe the area has been infused with flammable vapors or somesuch.

Cyber Punk anyone?

[Quasimotocar]

A setting like Gibson's Neuromancer detailed would seem ripe for MMO goodness. I suppose Matrix Online is in the same genre-space, but I got lost in WoW and haven't really managed much other than food and an occasional shower since then. Why did Matrix fail?

Re:Cyber Punk anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

A setting like Gibson's Neuromancer detailed would seem ripe for MMO goodness

The results are in. Using the word "goodness" like that is now officially gay.

Re:Cyber Punk anyone?

[PriceIke]

MxO has not failed, but is failing. SOE is concentrating its resources on SWG and EQ2, and the dev support team on MxO has probably dwindled to just a handful of overworked guys trying to deal with hotfixes and combat balancing patches. The key selling point of MxO was supposed to be storyline and although there was much emphasis on story in its first year, this has pretty much dwindled to token glances toward something resembling a story that is far too cryptic and disjointed for anyone but the hardcore gamers to appeal to (and many of the hardcore MxO players are disappointed, at best, in the story as it stands now). Sony spent a lot of time and effort modifying the combat engine, with much success. Now they need to put that same effort and care into game content.

For MxO to survive past 2006 it needs to be treated as something better than the red-headed stepchild it's become in SOE's MMO portfolio. It needs player/faction housing, it needs at least one new neighborhood and maybe a few new constructs, it needs more direct dev participation with the players in-game, and it needs Paul Chadwick to get out of his rut and come up with some really compelling storyline keyframes like we know he can do. Maybe he needs to get on the phone with the W. bros., because unless something major happens story-wise, more and more gamers are going to bail and Sony is going to just pull the plug.

Re:Cyber Punk anyone?

[salmon_austin]

who cares about player housing?

Every time I've seen it done it has sucked.

The WOW Bank system on the other hand rocks. A faction bank is really the only purpose for a faction house IMO. It's not like you're really going to hang out at the "house". That would be sooo boring.

Re:Cyber Punk anyone?

[PriceIke]

There are faction bank accounts in MxO. They're just not localized.

And the purpose of player/faction housing is more than just "hang out" space. Management of inventory is one. The fact of the sheer volume and variety of clothing, weapon and miscellanous items combined with the realities of limited inventory room has forced players to get creative, creating alts solely for the purpose of keeping extra items, emailing items to themselves and maintaining an email "closet" for overflow, etc etc. If my character had an apartment that was his and could keep all his items there, that would make it so much easier AND more fun. Plus it would give me a reason to continue earning money (grinding or farming) because I would expect to have to pay rent for the space on a regular basis, with larger and more luxurious apartment spaces demanding more money, and so forth. Frankly, this would be a feature I would pay actual money for, say, an additional $2/month, for the right to rent and control access to a particular apartment and keep inventory there, maybe even decorate and furnish. This would add IMMENSELY to the game experience and keep me personally invested in my characters there.

This also opens up possibilities for inter-faction conflict, if one faction wants the rights to control a particular club, for instance, and the surrounding properties. Another faction might challenge that claim in some in-game RP related way, and the challenging faction could either PVP the other into surrendering the property, or an in-game mechanism could be developed by which a hostile takeover could be accomplished.

Why Fantasy is better than Sci-Fi in 1 word

[Anonymous Coward]

cleavage

Re:Why Fantasy is better than Sci-Fi in 1 word

[Anonymous Coward]

whatever

superior numbers

[allaryin]

Ok, issues of Tolkien, guns, magic, copyright law, realism, etc... aside.

There are just plain MORE fantasy MMO's out there. From a quick count on MMORPG.com's list (including both live games and those announced as in production), I see a total of:
    Fantasy: 143
    Historical: 9
    Horror: 2
    Real Life: 4
    SciFi: 39
    Sports: 1
    Super Hero: 2 (CoH/CoV)

Now, these numbers are not horribly accurate in that I could be counting wrong, that standalone expansions to games are listed individually, and that some games are categorized strangely (Phantasy Star Universe is on the Fantasy List, as is Toontown, etc...). But even given these discrepancies, there are still well over 3x as many 'Fantasy' games as 'SciFi' out there.

Given that the first games to market in the genre were fantasy and that most derivative works are, in fact, well, derivative... shrug.

I still disagree.

[nathan s]

Your argument of aloneness doesn't ring true to me. Star Trek is very much a group off people, especially the original series, while say the entire TES series of games (Oblivion) is very very lonely.

You and a couple other respondents to my original post are missing what I'm saying. My point is that the existing attempts to make multiplayer SciFi have not been from the few franchises (Star Trek, Battletech, etc) that actually feature such party-based ideas while maintaining a fairly strong scifi focus. That excludes the Warhammer and Star Wars franchises which are arguably more space-fantasy than they are science fiction. Not that a good scifi game would need to be from a franchise, but it would need to have a compelling backstory and clear role differentiation.

For the rest of them, it's still not the guns, per se, but rather the fact that there is no clear role differentiation between characters that makes it uninteresting. You can cheat on things like instant kills by doing it movie-style; ever notice in most movies with long gunfights, the opponents trade shots that never actually hit anything, or only seem to hit non-vital points? The old Westerns with your protagonist hiding behind a rock or a barrel in a saloon or whatever are classic examples. And Dune and other scifi stories (some of Asimov's spring to mind, and even Warren Specter's Deus Ex) have ducked the gunfight issue by concepts like personal shields which could easily be implemented to drag out the duration of gunfights.

I still think the real problem is that most existing scifi games haven't divided up your science officers, medical personnel, security guys, etc., and left room for group play that makes sense. It's doable, it just hasn't been done well yet. In the meantime, we get lots of boring scenarios (I've seen it in MUDs as well) where there are no distinctions worth mentioning between character "types" and so no incentive to really team up with people other than the sheer "watch my back against PKers" factor. You go to play, and you end up feeling relatively alone, just Stormtrooper #1932 as someone else pointed out.

a good example

[Anonymous Coward]

Heavily IP-laden sci-fi game: The Matrix Online. It bombed.

Original sci-fi game: City of Heroes. Did pretty well. Sure it's no World of Warcraft, but then again, neither is any other fantasy game out there.

Mod parent up!

[jiawen]

The parent post is exactly right. The grandparent post seems to indicate that choice of class = choice of weapon. The thing that is probably your character's most defining characteristic, and it boils down to just a choice of weapon? No thanks. That's neither interesting nor realistic to me.

Hacker, Detective, Fighter Pilot, Translator, Zero-G Marine, Terrorist, Media Star... any decently fleshed-out SF background will allow for far more interesting character professions than a fantasy setting.

The trick is, as others have already pointed out, that fleshing out an SF background is way harder than slapping together a pseudo-Tolkien setting with a couple additions. "Elves are blue! You can be a centaur! Swords in this game are EVEN BIGGER!" It's lazy world-building, but it's what the masses prefer.

In fantasy...

[Anonymous Coward]

In fantasy, you can explain anything by saying "a wizard did it."

Re:Other weapons..

[patrixmyth]

In Space, no one can see your midriff baring padded leather bustier armor.

What about planetside

[ProfBooty]

Granted it was a game too early for its time, but you had no classes, you leveled up and got points which you could apply to any skill you wanted. Got sick of having your skill points invested in piloting skills, go to a terminal, wait 24 hours and you can reconfigure your skills to access sniper rifles, repair things etc.

You can actually play it for free now.

Pop Evolutionary Psychology

[bitspotter]

Science and technology are relatively new to humans; we've been evolving in essentially fantasy environments for thousands of years. This older environment is the only one that's had the chance to make a significant impact on our psychological genome. Aside from simple tribal affiliations, we're programmed a bit with feudalism. That's why struggles of national and global democracy, equality, etc are so difficult. Falling under authroity is something we're genetically conditioned to want.

It's a theory.

uncreative gameplay

[briancnorton]

Perhaps the problem lies not with the thematic genre, but with the functional one. Think beyond the First Person Shooter. You want Sci-fi? Fine, you want combat? Fine. How will combat be done in the year 2100 (or whenever) It won't be running up a beach and punching a nazi in the face, that's for damn sure.

another option is chris rock logic. "Yeah, we got guns, but bullets are so expensive that I only use them as a last resort..." Might work for post-apocalypic worlds.

Well, du-uh...!

[grikdog]

Fantasy lies within, subjective. Get it wrong and its your own fault. Lighten up!

Sci Fi lies without, objective. Get it wrong and its R&D's fault. The bastards!

main reason is speed of information

[Anonymous Coward]

The main barrier in implementing good scifi world (or today's, for that matter) is speed of spreading of information. This affects world dynamics, and if you cannot implement it, it just won't be believeable. That's why all good computer RPG games are either fantasy or post-apocalyptic scifi, because these are very static worlds.

Re:Magic = More eyecandy (clarification)

[smbarbour]

I was specifically referring to MMORPGs:

My desired requirements:
      1) Korean MMO model
      2) Non-browser based (I want a game client designed to utilize the hardware I have rather than catering to the lowest common denominator)
      3) Quests/missions
      4) Experience and levels
      5) Universally acquirable skills
      6) Spending real money has a marginal impact on gameplay

And while not necessarily "required", I would prefer the game to be focused on cooperative PvE rather than PvP.

These requirements eliminate all of the listed ones so far:
Entropia - does not meet requirements 1, 3, 4, and 6.
EVE - does not meet requirements 1, 4, and 6
Ultima Online - Never played, but assumed to not meet 1 and 6 (maybe more)
Runescape - Never played, does not meet 2 and 6 (additional areas are only available to subscribers)

An example of a single-player RPG that handles 3, 4, and 5 would be Fable (but I would prefer more skills to be available)

Not fantasy. Dungeons & Dragons.

[podperson]

Basically the argument isn't SF vs. Fantasy it's everything versus "Lowest Common Demoninator Concensus Fantasy", i.e. fantasy with trees, demons, orcs, elves, dwarves, magick spells, bows and arrows, warhorses, et al. It's not "Wizard of the Pigeons" fantasy, it's not "Winnie the Pooh" fantasy, it's not even "Byzantium with Vampires" magic (like "The Dragon Waiting"), or, say, "The Land" as in "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever".

Basically, it's Dungeons & Dragons.

If you stray too far from the implied "kitchen sink of stolen ideas and no real characyer" that is D&D, you fail. This is because every gamer is familiar and comfortable with it, probably likes some little corner of it (oooh bards...), and you don't need to explain anything. Sure, you may have an elaborate back story -- but no-one cares.

Indeed, you not only can't stray far from the D&D world, you can't stray far from D&D assumptions and concepts. E.g. "race = destiny" (orcs are evil, elves are good -- with occasional exceptions), "experienced people have lots of hit points", "being 90% dead has no impact on your ability to run, fight, or cast spells", and so on. Not only has nobody successfully challenged the D&D setting, any attempt to stray from these howlers has also failed.

Vibroswords - big bread cutter

[Dareth]

vibroknives are used to cut a loaf of fresh bread without crushing the loaf with virtually no pressure required.

Looks like a fine wire or long cheese cutter, but vibrates so fast that gravity alone can let it cut thru virtually anything.

Vibrosaws were used to cut stone for the great pyramids as well.

Sword version are logical offsprings.

Note: Jedi's are not allowed to use vibrosword/knives/saws because no "Force" is required in their use.

Slightly offtopic

[MMaestro]

I don't know offhand what IS, but I don't think it's the "impersonal" factor of guns being able to shoot across a room - witness the Counterstrike and Quake and countless other multiplayer FPS games that have been massively successful.

I don't think Counterstrike is a good counter-example of the "impersonal" factor seeing as the three most used words seem to be, 'gay' 'fag' and 'n00b'. The Quake games were too fast paced to have serious discussions (in game) either.

Skill

[phorm]

Indeed, I've seen the same done with "skill points" in both fantasy and sci-fi settings. Higher skill lets you used bigger, badder weapons. Personal skills also give you higher health, better healing rate, better ability to dodge, hack computers or whatever. Star Wars KOTR pulled this off fairly well, but I've seen many previous games that did it just as well.

Fantasy only by chance

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me we'd be reading this if Blizzard had made World of Starcraft, or Mythic was making their Warhammer game based on W40k. Sci-fi is fine for MMOs, we just get slammed with 'fantasy' because D&D was fantasy and copycats have stuck with the theme ever since.

The power of myth

[roberthead]

You're definitely on the right track here. Fantasy taps into the collective human psyche. Most of the fantasy "stereotypes" are actually mythical archetypes that are burned in to our subconscious lives. The whole premise of "Vogler's model" in filmmaking is that the closer a script matches the "hero's journey" as mapped by Joseph Campbell, the more responsive people will be. Star Wars is set in a high-tech world, but is more fundamentally a mythic journey with all the standard archetypes. I see no reason sci fi MMOs can't do well with the same formula.

Grrrr! Stop that!

[Om]

I was going to spend the time in this thread just using up moderation points since this is a very interesting topic for me. Instead, I see this post which is nothing but troll fodder because Anarchy Online needs to be defended, by God.

You see, I have always wondered why fantasy is so damn pervasive amongst the MMOs out there. I mean, I've been playing MUDs since 1992 (started on BatMUD). I can say, with all the certainty that is possible to muster on a message board, that I have killed my fair share of freaking Orcs. I have cast my share of magic missiles and fireballs. I have weilded my share of Vorpal swords, and +4 str clubs, and +2 Dex daggers. I have won every kind of God damned armor you can think of. Banded mail. Chain Mail. Plate Mail. Mithril Mail. Leather. Padded Leather. Cloth. Weave. Hemp. Whatever... If clothes can be made from a material, I will tell you that I've worn it in an online video game. I have see every kind of vista imaginable. I have delved into every kind of dungeon, or crypt, or hole in the ground. Walked through every sort of Elvin city, or Dwarven caverns, or...

I think you get my point...

I have done it all! There is absolutely nothing new you can bring to the table concerning a fantasy setting that I haven't seen before! I challenege you, in the name of all that is Holy to give me something new in this genre.

Then there is Anarchy Online. I am not going to defend their pathetic launch, or the state of the game back then. What I am going to defend is the ingenuity of it _now_. First of all, when it came out, it overestimated the intelligence of the average gamer. I'm not saying that to insult anyone, I'm saying that that's what it did. It attempted to explain, in scientific theory WHY things happened.

Let me give you a few examples. They would describe spell effects as "clouds of nanites.". For those unfamiliar, just picture millions of tiny robots working in unison that appear as a cloud to the naked eye. These nanites would be programed to do various things. Want to heal someone? The 'Doctor' would control these nanites to enter the bloodstream, and increase platelette generation which would help close wounds, etc. Paralyzation? Same deal. The nanites would enter the pores of the skin and arrest the nervous system until their charge expired (think: length of paralyzation). The list goes on and on. This was the problem with the game. It was hard for people to grasp! The "spells" were cryptic with this sort of language, and there were hundreds of them. This game was freaking hard. Top it off with a skill-based system with 200 levels, and you have yourself an unbelievably complicated game.

Tradeskills were the same way. You had to gather materials, and literally read tons of manuals (which you bought) which described creating weapons and armor in very scientific theoretical ways. It wasn't like, 'Get 3 copper and make bars and hit this button, and you'll get a copper vest.'. It was more like 'Get this plasma coil and connect it with this sort of metal, and this particular paste, and blah blah blah'.

Not to mention...

1) They were the first game to introduce instanced dungeons. 2) First game to have linkable items. 3) First game to have random quest generators. 4) First sci-fi MMO (already mentioned that) 5) First game to be truly skill based

So... next time you start slamming Anarchy Online, you have to understand that Funcom had balls. Too big of balls, in fact. That the game hard to figure out, didn't spoonfeed it's audience, and had a horrible launch, Anarchy Online (and Funcom) got the most unfair rap imaginable. Since that time, they have 'dumbed up' the game. The descriptions on the "spells" are now "This heals for +n points of damage" and stuff. They took out all the scientific dialogue and made the game easier to digest. Players who play it currently can probably help me out here. All I know is that it's much easier to get into now, and the bugs are fixed.

I look forward to their newest game Age of Conan with glee, because I know they will take chances, and bring something new to the table. Trust me on this!

++Om

Different MMORPG

[basotl]

I know it's in it's own catagory but...

I like playing City of Heroes.

And it includes Gunfire, Melee, Bows and all sorts of other combat.

There are ways to make the combat systems work. Sci-Fi MMORPG's haven't succeded due to crappy development and ugly player experience. If someone made a unique concept sci-fi game and created a nice player experience... then the players would arrive. In addition it seems to take a certain critical mass of players for a MMORG to self sustain it's customer base. Until a MMORPG does, it requires a large amount of advertising to reach out to potential players.

Actually as I look at the NCsoft site, they have three recent SciFi games that look good.
http://www.plaync.com/us/games/
Only time will tell if any of them take of as much as some of thier other titles.

Fantasy VS Sci-fi

[JRSchulke]

I tend to be more interested in fantasy games because they're so far removed from what I'm around every day. Open fields, castles, rivers as opposed to closed-in, maze-like cities, constant night-time settings, a bleak, post-apocolyptic world, a corrupt government. If someone would make a really original, fun sci-fi game, I'd play it, but for some reason I'm content with cliche fantasy settings.

Re:Mark Jacobs, and his rein of utter destruction.

[OptR1]

I have to agree with nerfbot04 100%. If Mark Jacobs knows anything about MMORPS it's how to get people to stop playing them. I played DAOC for 3+ years before I gave up. I endured every torcherous patch/release/etc and sent feedback, protested some changes, and offered better solutions to poorly thought out changes all efforts were pointless. DAoC early on 1st-2nd year peaked at 30+ thousand players at peak time...every patch, change, release, etc they shoved down our throats was one more step in forcing players out of the game...it now hovers around 10-13k players at peak time. At one time I had 10 people I worked with all playing DAoC and we all enjoyed it...I finally left when not only all my friends left but my entire guild and alliance eventually disolved. In contrast, Eve has been around for pretty much the same amount of time, I've played it for 3years probably also. They are very responsive on support issues and continually upgrade with no cost upgrade/releases. Not only that but when I started playing Eve they were a solid 7k peak time strong in a SINGLE persistent universe(unlike DAoC's divided server set up at the time). NOW Eve is creeping up on 30k concurrent peak users in a single persistent environment. Now you decide who business model would you rather have your money in. Jacobs who drove his business into the ground by rash short sighted often obviously bad decisions from the top down and eventually had to yard sale it to EA Games to squeeze the last few pennies out of it. Eve who has systematically and slowly made good decisions while keeping the cost and flash to a minimum is now after many years of operation GROWING bigger than it has ever been and is positioned to continue profiting for many years to come. I know which one I still send a check to every month, I have to say even to this day I like DAoC better but at some point you just give up hope that mythic/jacobs would ever get there head out of there a$$.

It's not "Guns" that are the issue

[Ka D'Argo]

Several people are citing how guns are the issue and compare them to melee combat and whatnot. Saying how most scifi MMORPGs haven't done guns "right" http://www.neocron.com/

A mix of cyberpunk and science fiction. Sure it's a low population game but it's the best gun combat there is. Collision objects work well, you don't shoot people through walls unless your weapon has splash damage. Your enemies generally know proper PVP (by enemies I mean players) so they know how to duck, get under cover, even move out of your firing range. There aren't a whole lot of kills from "long range" as theres only a handful of sniper type weapons and NO weapons in the game are instant one hitters, you always have a chance to notice you are taking damage and react.

Plus they included two "casting" classes one offensive and one defensive (think Shadowrun style). Toss in kick ass vehicles, even melee combat in the form of swords, knives, blunt objects etc And it works. Hell the game is actually cheaper to play than most others, I think it's like $11 a month whereas WoW is what, $15+ after tax? All the game needs is people to play it. It's even got longevity past "kill other players" since the world map has dozens if not hundred+ "outposts" that your clan/guild can take control of and defend/attack (kind of like in Planetside).

Just thought I'd point out one good scifi style MMORPG that did well, with guns and with a non fantasy setting.

Lots of Genres left to try

[Gnaythan1]

for instance

Pirates

Lilliput people in a world of giants

Steampunk

Film noir detectives

Roger rabbit toon land

Wonderland

Oz

Anthropomorhic animals in a low tech world

and that's what I thought up in about 3 minutes. Try other things, dammit.

Sci-fi needs a pardigm

[Avatar8]

Problem I see with sci-fi books, movies and games is the inconsistencies. There are sooo many sources for sci-fi, yet they do not have consistent terms, creatures, vehicles or settings.

If I say "orc," you may think of one of ten different-looking possibilities but you know what an orc is in general. If I showed you a picture of an orc, you'd immediately say "orc."

If I say "fractaloid," you're drawing a blank. If I show you a picture of a purple, tentacled, green-haired, three-eyed creature, you'd say "space monster" not "fractaloid."

Star Wars and Star Trek have made inroads towards this end, but they didn't have nearly enough impact. "Lord of the Rings," Dungeons & Dragons and all the general mythos that those pulled from are well known paradigms that most people recognize in fantasy. In fact if you see a variation of a winged demon carrying a sword and a whip, you're first response would be, "Oh, like a balrog."

Sci-fi lacks this immediate recognition and until some mind-bogglingly-successful science fiction story comes along and sets the standard, it will always play second fiddle to fantasy.

A big part of this may lie in the simplicity of time, too. We've known about mythical and fantasy creatures for centuries. The future has yet to be written. When you're dealing with sci-fi you're dealing with complete imagination from one or a few people, not the general consensus of millions. As others doubt that imagination and believe that they would have created it another way or that couldn't possibly ever exist, then the believability breaks down even further.

I agree with what Jacobs says in TFA. I think they did a fine job with Camelot. I beta tested and played it for a while, but when I recognized it was too much grinding, I left it. The world was beautiful and the story was straight out of British, Irish and Norse mythos, which I truly enjoy. I especially agree with his statements about realistic expectations for future game designs. I seriously doubt that EA is ready for a realist, though. We'll see how long Jacobs can last in the soul-engulfing machine that is EA.

Re:Sci-fi needs a pardigm

[ErikZ]

Uh, who cares? Going out and slaying monsters is Fantasy. Who needs aliens? Did we run out of hostile humans?

whats really wrong with scifi

[chaos4u]

Whats really wrong with scfi is that they try to imitate fantasy based combat systems .

Starwars galaxies is a great example of this

  Brawler ? pike man ? Sword man ? Fencer ? Teras Kasi Artist ?

They had an entire combat system based on a fantasy based rpg and tried to incorporate scifi into it
you had people running around with swords and hammers smashing and slashing just like a fantasy rpg

and those with guns were just hampered by this system espically those classes that should have been lethal i,e carbineer & commando

and i dont even want to get into the creature handler stuff except to say that seing 4 rancors 3 dinosaurs and bunch of other beast running through the streets of most cities in swg was major immersion kill for a scifi game

but then again swg is great game to use for all kind of examples good and bad .

But a scifi game should never try and make melee classes and ranged classes equal

instead of figuring in what makes a gun lethal i.e its ammo or powersource

designers make the melee class able to compensate with special bonuses that negate ranged weapons .

Instead they should hamper gun toters with the requirements that make a gun a gun

ammo and reload

sure you can have a all powerful laser weapon but if you encumber that gun with some sort of requirement to keep firing then the gun is balanced

but of course this leads to the other point on fantasy games

fantasy is easier to create than scifi

no need to program ammo and reload time for each individual weapon no need to program hit based location area for targets and separate damage modifiers and no need to program modifiers in that take into account for hit locations

just a mana bar a health bar and maybe a stamina bar
  base all action on these and you can have myraid of ways to accomplish stuff

where as the other way is a programmers nightmare

basically i believe that fantasy is so prevalent because it is a whole lot easier to create

and until some really creative people with really good programming skills come along and design a game engine that can truly encompass a physical world or universe environment and achieve believablity
with the combat systems scifi wil always be a second to fantasy based mmorpg's.

At least us scifi lovers have fps to look forward to battlefeild 2142 unreal tournament 2007

may have some of the system in place that will help feed our starvation for scifi based mmorpg

not perfect and not true mmorpg but bf2 has been a good alternative and im hoping that the mechs in 2142 and unreal 2007 will be even more satisfying

Re:Grrrr! Stop that!

[Effata]

I agree with you on pretty much all these points. Anarchy Online is, up to this point, pretty much the ONLY game that has ever kept me playing for a longer period of time. I played AO for little over 2 years, and still more than a year after i left, i find myself thinking back and comparing all other games with it.
The skill system was extremely complex with implants and IPs, but those that really took their time and did the math behind it all, they were Gods! Effort and skill really mattered, not farming gear in the same instance over and over again.
The most fun i ever had in AO was making lowbie twinks, with the enough work you could be untouchable. Unbalanced, yes. Unfair, not really.

I'm still holding on to the idea of Funcom making another Sci-Fi MMORPG, after all they did hint on something with their "The World Online" stuff... Til then i guess i'll check out Age of Conan, because Funcom thought big and won my heart.

Donald Trump Fantasy?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when did Donald Trump start a company involved in software development?

Natural Selection?

[SanityInAnarchy]

I know they weren't the first, but they are still one of the best at combining an FPS with an RTS. The same principle could apply -- you have various levels of commander, your "level" is all about military rank, so there would be a flurry of high-level activity -- and probably also a lot of ducking and covering. Sounds like fun!

If the Zerg are done at all like the Natural Selection aliens, well, just imagine... "The hive is under attack. The hive is dying..."

You don't follow Warcraft, do you?

[lightning_queen]

I think it's common knowledge now that Blizzard's coming out with an expansion to World of Warcraft. With it comes two new races, the Draenai (or, as many fans like to call "Space Paladins") and Blood Elves (the Horde's new "pretty race"), along with a skew of other things that butcher the Warcraft lore.

Just the fact that Blizzard's screwing with the lore of Warcraft has already pissed off most of the games player base. On top of that, Blizzard's also taking each faction's unique classes (Alliance Paladins and Horde Shamans) and giving them to the other faction. So, not only are fans pissed off because the lore got thrown out the window, but many of them are discussing the reprecussions of having these new factors implemented, including the balance of damage/tank/healing classes in raids and the logic issues that come from having Paladins on the "evil" or "tribal" side (this also raises the question of why the "good" side has Warlocks, which are described as anything and everything but good, and why the "bad" side has priests, for obvious reasons) and having Shamans on the "good" or "religious" side.

Chances are, unless Blizzard does something to make just about every one of their 4 or 5 million fans really happy, they're going to lose 95% of their userbase. Why? Because people pay attention to details. Troll the forums for the game (especially the Shaman forums, as they have had the most problems regarding balance) and you'll find breakdowns of things that usually only appear in the design phase of games. Such things include include damage mitigation of armor (i.e. - how much damage can the armor absorb before the wearer takes damage), diminishing returns of non-physical attacks (the more you cast a particular spell at something the more they become resistent and eventually become immune), how stats factor in to things like mana and health regen for various classes and races, and how abilities scale with the character's level.

Granted, not every sci-fi buff is an expert in quantum mechanics, but they generally know enough to be able to question things that would affect gameplay. You'll still have that group of people that will try to find answers to the questions of "how" ("how do dragons fly/breathe fire?" "how does this tiny spaceship carry 20 people?" etc), most of which don't really affect the game. Depending on what it is, many people are rather forgiving on the minor details, but if something's badly overlooked, say, the passage of time between starting and ending a warp jump, then it can take away from the game because it may affect timed missions.

StarCraft was a good sci-fi RTS. Unfortunately, it probably wouldn't make a good MMO. Why? The lore is simply too complex and would most likely require too much of a change in the lore to make it a feasible MMO (the Terrans and the Protoss are enemies, but some of the Terrans and Protoss broke off from the main, but didn't necessarily betray them, and everyone hates the Zerg; so what would be playable races? and what classes would there be?). On the other hand, if Blizzard (or even another company) managed to pull it off without destroying the lore, it could make a really good MMO, mainly because it's restricted to a handful of worlds for each race and the races are pretty balanced already, and without having the exact same thing for each race while still keeping the fundamental tech/unit tree (infantry, cavalry-like, cloak detection, seige, cloaked, anti-air, air-to-ground, and a big, expensive, kill-all; though many would argue the Terrans are gimp, but they've got Nukes).

Re:You don't follow Warcraft, do you?

[buffer-overflowed]

Blizzard threw lore and continuity out the window the moment they took the ability to speak common away from the undead. I mean, they spoke it, 3 years ago, they got their minds back, remember everything from when they were alive, could speak it as servants of the lich king and even in official stories to this date(like the Arathi basin teaser), but woah, can't speak or understand the language anymore. Because, uhh... they can't. Ok, they just can't.

Not that that matters, because:
A. Gameplay concerns trump lore/continuity concerns in a game.
B. It's not their lore anyway, it's Game Workshop's with a slight paint job. So is Starcraft(Zerg == Tyranids, Humans == Space Marines/Imperium, Protoss == Eldar). Most WoW lore is derived from Warhammer and was contrived around Warcraft 3 and pre-WoW launch. It absolutely baffles me why anyone would use LORE as a supporting reason for a Blizzard game. It's the gameplay.

WoW's problems have less to do with lore and more to do with fundamental design problems(Paladin/Shaman PvE/PvP disparity should've NEVER happened[yea, it evens out in PvP, since the PvE advantages translate into gear advantages which balance out the disparity in PvP for not quite long enough for the horde to catchup before the next dungeon is released, but when was the last battleground released?]. Allowing each faction to have *BOTH* is a fix that's been a long time coming and they'll probably fuck up) and a catering to large social groups(with no real rewards other than a sense of self-accomplishment to the people that hold said groups together) over the vast base of more casual and smaller-group gamers that made the game popular. The difference between the game from 1-60 and the game *at* 60 is what gets people to quit, not lore concerns. Hell, slow paced content releases, mindless faction grinds(or honor grinds) and sheer time commitment at set intervals to content we could've cleared daily if it weren't for artificial lockouts claimed more people than lore ever did. No one in any of my guilds really gave a fuck about lore as anything other than a possibly interesting back-story to why we were running a dungeon to get better gear so we could go kill alliance(or flex our e-peen on the forums), which got boring rather quickly. Players switched sides back and forth using multiple accounts. On a PVP server we had decent relations with some guilds(still kill them, but we'd BS on vent) on the other side of the aisle and would even occassionaly trade members as people got bored of a given perspective. We actually had a nigh-official priest and warrior exchange program with one of our chief cross-faction rivals during the gates of AQ quest series.

And about justification. The ringworld was unstable up until hecklers got Niven to "fix" it(and how was the ringworld constructed?). Melange is *never* really explained, nor is the method of ghoula reincarnation or the powers of a bene gesserit to anyones real satisfaction. Technomagic in Babylon 5. Psychics/psykers/psionics. All of the "ancient" stuff in Stargate SG-1. The shittons of stuff in Star Trek that's mainly only internally consistant(if that). The monolith and the method of "ascension" in Clarke's work. How did sliding *really* work? Did anyone ever have to recharge cybernetics in Gibson's work? How was that stuff powered anyway? Off neural activity? I don't really remember. Psychohistory(and tons of other stuff) in the Foundation series. *TONS* of stuff in Sci-fi is black-box. It works under some premise or some understanding of the realities of the physical universe that current science can't quite explain. It's magic based around a reality-based "what if."

Hell in classic Sci-Fi(like Jules Verne) they don't even *try* to give an explanation. And everyone is fine with that. The time machine just works. Details, what details? It's a *time machine* Hey look buddy, if you're going to get all nitpicky, anything sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. We might add some crazy theory i

Mech type MMOG

[bllius69]

Why is there no mechwarrior type MMOG in development? You could play for the various factions, or form a mercenary unit. Fight on the ground, or fight in space. Own land, own a ship, own a rank. You could have skills for repair, salvage, tech, computers, hacking, spying, etc.

Sci-fi vs. Fantasy based MMOs; Why Fantasy wins

[Kaiganeru]

A few people have commented on the "but it has to be scientifically feasable" aspect; I won't go into that, but clearly that is one very large factor.

Going beyond that, there is a HUGE backlog of anime from which the fantasy MMO can draw. Anime and literature.

Look at WoW -- whether you like the game or not is irrelevant, we are solely looking at numbers and revenue -- it is the most popular MMO ever, even with some serious problems in the game that have been explored in other discussions.

Why then? Well, it has a great deal of Tolkien in it; and those of us who enjoy fantasy have typically been weened on the "bible" of all fantasy; Tolkien's LOTR trilogy. (As an aside, it was originally meant as one book, a bit of trivia for those who are interested).

Drawing on old school fantasy literature, particularly material as venerated as Tolkien's, will lend an appeal that may not be strictly warranted by the game itself.

Going beyond Tolkien are the legions of fantasy writers and anime and manga that provide rich sources of inspiration for the fantasy based MMO.

While there are undoubtedly many excellent sci-fi novels; a more than sizeable percentage of them tend to focus on the "battleship/laserbeams/heroic men in space" theme.

That sort of material isn't as easily translated to MMOs successfully, neither is it as readily useable as source material; you have to stretch further to come up with appealing concepts. Moreover, even if a concept is good, the sci-fi base isn't as appealing to as wide an audience as fantasy based MMOs.

Consider the large influx of women into WoW -- College women, teen girls, and homemakers often with small children who can log on and enjoy the light fantasy aspect where a more serious sci-fi atmosphere wouldn't be nearly as appealing.

Too often girls and women are forgotten as consumers of these games; more and more they are becoming the consumers. In addition there is a new group playing; retirees, often in couples. These people also seem to prefer fantasy-based games.

When you consider all of these factors and who the gaming population is, and is becoming, sci-fi MMOs would have to come up with something extraordinary *and* accessible if it is to attract the aforementioned groups -- in addition to the regular target audience (teen to lower 20's males) who have grown up on fantasy, anime, and fantasy based console games.

Nerds/Geeks

[htnprm]

The following is simply my opinion, so don't flame me for it, cause I'm allowed to have it...

IMHP/experience is comes down to this. Nerds like magic. Geeks like tech. Nerds don't have social skills (And spend their time playing Everquest/Wow). Geeks have (In some cases) people skills and hang out with real people.

Levelling

[cjb110]

I think that some of the reasons that sci-fi mmo's/rpg's are harder is the leveling.

In fantasy based ones you can start the character with a quarterstaff or a short sword etc, and has they get better they can progress to decent stuff (larger, two-handed etc)

With sci-fi, you've start with some kinda of gun weapon, but realistically there is no reason why your weedy level 1 character can't fire the super weapons straight off...its not like pulling the trigger is harder to do. So to get the progression the devs have to unrealistically hamper the character.

Also in a similar vein, who cares if your stronger in a scifi enviro, the guns aren't going to do more damage are they?

and without this levelling, there is no real progression apart from the story...so you need a utterly excellent (planescape torment level excellent) story arcs.

just my pov...

Star Wars is Samurais in Space

[Cadallin]

Lets be honest here, that's EXACTLY what it is. The screenplay for "A New Hope" is ripped almost word for word from Akira Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress" right down to R2D2 and C3P0 (who are peasant lackeys in the original). Lucas took this movie, juxtaposed it onto the Space Opera genre of pulp fiction, and Star Wars Episode 4 came out fully formed. Star Wars really has VERY little to do with Sci-fi.

Re:Grrrr! Stop that!

[buffer-overflowed]

Meh. I quit AO waayy back when because they were seemingly changing the rules on me at least once a month. I'd level a character up because it had combinations of abilities/etc. I thought would give me an advantage, only to have the rules changed. Constantly. My (IIRC) fixer got nerfed(range fix I think... it's been a while). I rolled a (IIRC) nanomage, that got nerfed. The crashes, mission bugs, etc. never bothered me a terrible amount. The game stayed in a state of beta not from a stability standpoint but from a balance/finalization standpoint for as long as I played it. That's what killed funcom in my eyes, not any code problems. You'd go from munchkin to gimp on a constant basis.

I actually quite enjoyed the beta, the ending beta event, and the first several months of the game in spite of it's problems. Once they nerfed me, hard, with no real option to re-optimize except reroll, the THIRD time. I quit. By the time the option to redistribute points was added, it was too little too late. Not even a free month or year(now free with ads) could get me back. I had lost all faith that funcom could deliver any kind of consistant world, and it just wasn't worth the time investment.

Sucks too, I was mainly drawn to AO by the setting.

That's why people left AO in droves and it died, horrible management by Funcom.

Unfortunately...

[MilenCent]

No running water, no showers, no TOILETS. (I'm almost surprised fantasy games haven't made much of the supposed lack of toilets. Of course, Ultima 7 made it a point to install commodes in its inns....)

No phones, no lights, no motor cars. Not a single luxury! Like Robinson Crusoe, it's primitive as can be.

one freaking word...

[deadaluspark]

fallout. --- best sci-fi rpg ever. (best rpg ever imho.)

There just hasn't been a good Sci-Fi MMO yet

[Araxen]

Eve is about the closest we have gotten to a Sci-Fi MMO and it still lacks something for the "masses". The PVP system isn't for the masses and other than PVP in Eve it's a pretty slow game and doesn't translate well to the wowbies of the more popular mmo's. Star Trek On-line might be the last great hope for an excellent Sci-Fi MMO(unless Bio-ware decides to go Sci-Fi with the MMO they have in development). Star Trek has the planet based lore and the space based lore that appeal to two types of gamers. The ones that absolutely love flying around in space and the gamers that like to have their feet on the ground. There's soo much you could with a Star Trek MMO it's kind of scary.

Will Star Trek on-line be that? I doubt it from what I read they seem to be shorting the game already. You can only be Federation and you can't be one of the "evil" races in Star Trek(aka The Borg which everyone and their mother would be at launch). I hope I'm wrong and they hit one out of the park with Star Trek but I'm not holding my breath.

the bar is higher for good sci-fi

[Anonymous Coward]

In popular fantasy games such as World of Warcraft you have relatively simple characters fighting each other and solving rudimentary quests which involve a mindless repetition of killing and gathering tasks. Other then the occasional puzzle in trying to understand what the developers might have been thinking when the quest text is misleading, there is next to no intellectual challenge at all.

The same thing is generally true about fantasy stories - the characters just plod through all the artistic situations and eventually triumph (or not) and rarely do the characters actually encounter intellectually challenging situations.

But in a good science fiction story, much of the appeal is the intellectual challenge of mapping the actual events that take place to the reader's own understanding of the world in a scientific context.

One of my favorite sci-fi stories is the one Arthur Clarke wrote about the ship trapped in a pool of dust on the moon. To me the basic drama of the situation is made more interesting by the unique environment that challenges the characters and their rescuers, but someone without any appreciation of the environment Clarke proposed in his story would probably find the entire thing contrived and uninteresting. Consider also the works of Larry Niven. One of the defining characteristics of his stories are things the characters do in amazing yet plasuable settings.

Putting this in gaming terms, I think the defining characteristic of a good sci-fi game would be that as the player advanced, they would get more and more insight into the fundamental workings of the the world they were in and would have to put this knowledge to use in sophisticated and indirect ways. In particular, they should be rewarded for finding and leveraging exploits.

How many games are good without science content?

[Anonymous Coward]

From wikipedia:

The science fiction genre is essentially a literary device for creating a type of "alternate reality," wherein writers can explore human issues by way of metaphor, exaggeration, and abstraction thus maintaining both a removed distance and a broader perspective toward current human life and events[citation needed].

According to renowned science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, "a handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method." [1] Heinlein immediately adds that if you "strike out the word 'future' it can apply to all and not just almost all SF."

Science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon wrote "a good science fiction story is a story about human beings, with a human problem, and a human solution, that would not have happened at all without its science content." [2].

character identification

[Maglos]

I think the problem is the player will not identify themselves with avatar and the suroundings. sci-fi is simply too abstract, with fantasy we know good and evil, elves and dwarves, and what to expect from them. If we start introducing new concepts, such as alians and dreary appacalyptic worlds. players need to go through a whole culture shock. In my opinion a significan part of world of warcraft's success is that the charactors and the world they live in fit together nicely and it draws the players in the fantasy that is destinct depending on your choosen race. This is a fairly unique atribute of WoW, as most mmorpgs just toss you in the same nooby zone with no imediantly precived consiquences of your opening decisions. I think sci-fi can be done and well enough to attract the main-stream. Obviously only weapon cant be essentialy different lighting bolts(guns) which would extremely limit gameplay, and players must be able to imurse themselves. If your going to have a cyborpunk guy, make sure he lives in a cyberpunk city, with cyberpunk buddies, not a orc weilding an axe/shotgun.
btw i think warhammer is a rough world to do because to me(a somewhat outsider to the universe) seems extremely complicated, and just seems to lack sold foundation for a player new to the universe to relate to.
ps sorry for the poor writeing, its not like im getting paid