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

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?

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: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.

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.

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.