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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?"
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.
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?
...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.
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.
My work here is dung.
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.
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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.
Argh.
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.
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.
I can't wait for the Trump MMO! Massively multiplayer online Apprentice will be great!
This guy's the limit!
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.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
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.
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.
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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.
Where were you when the voynix came?
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.
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.
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?
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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
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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...
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!
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 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.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
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.
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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).
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)
Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon. --Woody Allen
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.
"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
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.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
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.
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?
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.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
"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."
RTFM; please, I beg you.
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.
...disagree all you want but I think I'll stick with PKD on this one.
'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...
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...
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
"Don't Forget to Salt the Fries"
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
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
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?
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.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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."
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
In Space, no one can see your midriff baring padded leather bustier armor.
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
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
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$$.
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...
----- I refuse to have an argument with an unarmed person