The State of Sci-Fi MMOs

Massively is running a story that looks into the status of the sci-fi MMO genre, and why such games have had a tendency to struggle over the years. Quoting: "Fantasy alone carries with it assumptions based in our own history, a romanticized version of the middle ages where knights were good guys and smart people with beards could cast spells. Preconceived notions in sci-fi are far less cast in our collective memory. While stories that predict the future are surely as ancient as the myths describing the past, sci-fi itself didn't really ingrain itself into our culture until the 1800s, with H.G. Wells' stories and other writers at the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. ... Compounding the lack of specificity in setting is the tendency of sci-fi games to overwhelm players with skills and rule sets they initially don't understand and eventually don't need."

Comments

I love Eve Online

[Majik Sheff]

Enough said.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Planetes]

Agree completely.. I've been a fan for over a year and have no intention of leaving the game anytime soon. It's one of those love or hate games in terms of interface and complexity. If you love it, you love it.

Re:I love Eve Online

[hidannik]

For me, it's not about the interface or complexity.

My problem with it is that I'm a tourist, and like every other MMO it caters to perfectionists. It's not well designed for completionists or tourists.

The NPC missions are few and far between, and most are not very interesting.

Oh sure, I've heard all about the player created PVP drama in the game, but that's all endgame content. And it takes months if not years of mining or 'rat-hunting for hours every day to earn the skills needed to enter 0.0 space without getting pod-killed every five minutes.

And getting pod-killed can set you back days (implants), weeks or months (underinsured with inadequate quality clone), or back to where you were when you first got your account.

So while the tourist content might be there, it's behind a giant wall of perfectionist grind. No thanks.

If the combat were actually fun, it might make up for the grind, but it really isn't. Lock on and auto-attack until the enemy blows up. Yawn. Even Starfleet Command's combat was better. What I want in a space MMO's combat is something like LucasArts' X-Wing, or Freelancer.

A Freelancer MMO... now that I'd play.

Hans

Re:I love Eve Online

[ilovegeorgebush]

Agree completely.. I've been a fan for over a year and have no intention of leaving the game anytime soon. It's one of those love or hate games in terms of interface and complexity.

I played Anarchy Online for years and said exactly the same thing. You're talking about MMO addiction not something special with Eve Online, millions have said what you have about the majority of MMOs out there.

If you love it, you love it.

No shit, Sherlock.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Rockoon]

My beef with EVE is the leveling system.

There is no way for anyone starting EVE today to ever catch up to those who started a year ago, and those that started a year ago will never catch up to those who started two years ago, .. and so on.

I played eve for nearly 6 months. When a big content patch came out that was essentialy ships I wouldn't be able to fly for at least another 6 months, yet I had to compete directly against one (freighters), I decided the system sucked more than I had already suspected.

I was a very successfull high security hauler and trader who had his market taken away by superships he could afford to buy, but could not fly... I had to train another 10 or so skills (one of which taking almost two months to train all by itself)

Basically, I had to pay them $15 x 6months = $90 in order to continue my trading career, and thats assuming that a new update wasn't going to again push the bar even further away from me.

EVE, mostly a great game, but the leveling/training system needs to go.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

A Freelancer MMO... now that I'd play.

Hans

Check out Vendetta Online, that's pretty much what it is. I haven't really played it more than a few minutes, though, so I don't know how good it is. They do have clients for Windows, Mac, AND Linux, though :-)

Re:I love Eve Online

[TOGSolid]

I hate to come in sounding like an Eve Online fanboy, but your post does sound a lot like someone who got the trial, went 'meh' and thinks they've seen all there is to see. Feel free to TL;DR to the end of this to check out some game recommendations instead.

You are absolutely wrong about 0.0 first off. First off, there is no "endgame" in Eve. This isn't WoW or WAR. Secondly 0.0 is open to new pilots even with low skills. A newbie in a properly fitted (and by that I mean the right setup not necessarily T2 gear) frigate can work as a low cost interceptor quite easily, for example. That barely takes any time at all to train for. Believe it or not, creative T1 fits can be quite effective and not break the bank.
Combat is far from that simplistic, with some ship builds requiring a good deal of hands on management in order to keep yourself from capping out and proper module activation timing. On the broader spectrum, fleet commanding is pretty intense stuff and great fun to learn to do.
Go get into an interceptor duel with someone who knows what they're doing and try saying combat is boring again. :D

Getting podkilled is a bitch, true, but jump clones exist for a reason. Clone insurance is also very cheap so really if you get popped without it that's your own damn fault.

NPC Missions are kinda wank depth wise, but CCP is constantly adding new ones with better laid out mission briefings and do eventually plan on actually adding NPC AI beyond just the recently added sleepers (which for anyone who's been out there knows that they're no slouches and will rape the first logistics ship to show up and say hi).

You are right on one thing though, Eve is not a tourist's game. It takes a fair amount of time at the beginning to get through the initial learning curve and general entry barrier, and this puts off a lot of people who don't have friends in game to help them out. It's entirely up to the player motivating him or herself to get out there and make something of the game. It doesn't hold your hand and gently point you at a few wolf cubs to go kill for cheap xp, which really, is what most gamers want in a game. It instead says "here's your rookie ship, have fun!" and leaves it up to you. Definitely a niche game, but a successful one.

You may want to check out Jumpgate: Evolution which features hands on ship control with classic space sim combat.
http://www.jumpgateevolution.com
On a non-mmo but still space shooty shooty level there's also Naumachia which is shaping up to be all sorts of awesome.
http://naumachia.aureasection.com/

Anyway, sorry for the fanboy rant, but posts such as yours drag that out of me. I don't like seeing people drag Eve through the mud and potentially put off people who may actually enjoy the game by posting pretty innacurate statements.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Skuld-Chan]

I had the same problems really - many pvp based corps want at least 6 million skillpoints just to join, and some as many at 20 million.

Unless you just want to tackle all day you need an insane amount of time just sitting there buying skill books and "learning" crap.

It seems to me there's an insane amount of unnecessary skills as well - many that sound similar, many that have crazy amounts of dependencies that you'll only figure out using a flow chart (get used to flow charts and spreadsheets if you want to take the game seriously btw).

I guess some people like that - and to be honest if my RL friends played it I'd be more into it, but as it stands I'll play something else.

Re:I love Eve Online

[ssh_agent]

Well yeah a lot of corps have randomly high standards. Corps have to be careful when dealing with new players get to many in and corp chat is lost to a chorus of "how do i ...." There are still plenty of corps out there who will take players early on. In particular FW corps. As for "tackle all day", i've just peaked over 72mil sp...and i still believe nothing beats the thrill of interceptors. Aim for your racial interceptor and lose crap t1 ships in the meantime.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Opportunist]

This is not entirely true.

While the leveling system of EvE, with no level cap meaning that playing longer == having more skill, certainly rewards players that have been playing since the beginning, starting later does not necessarily mean that you will not be able to compete sensibly.

Skills are leveled at a diminishing returns system. To explain to those that don't play, every skill comes in five "levels", each level offering you the same benefit (e.g. 5% more speed, so 25% at level 5), but leveling times increase with each level. I.e. to level from 4 to 5 you need more time than the previous four levels combined.

Most skills that require other skills to be learned first (but the most advanced) require the prerequisits at level 3-4, usually. Unless it can be assumed to be a given that someone "hardcore" enough to want the specialized skill has the underlying skill at 5 anyway. If you're a hardcore miner, you have mining at 5. So it's understandable to make Mining 5 a prerequisite to fly the more advanced mining ships.

Freighters are a bit of a special case, needing some skills you might not have seen as important as an industrial hauler. Yet still, they're not really out of reach. Besides, I doubt that you cannot make money trading anymore just because there are freighters. Freighters are big, but slow. Trading, especially margin trading, is often a matter of being there first, unless the amounts asked are so ridiculously high that you can't fulfill the conctract alone anyway. And then, the frighter pilot would first of all have to have the amount at hand.

Especially in empire, and especially in ore trade, you'd have to visit a LOT of places before you can use a freighter sensibly. Before you can fill the balloon, the trade's long done and over.

What I'd suggest for a industrial trader is to build a network with miners. Miners (e.g. me) love to sit in belts, gobble rocks, maybe split them open for ore and then... well, then we're sitting on a few million trit and other ore that we have to get off the planet somehow. And we (ok, I) don't really like the idea of having to carry the crap for 20ish systems just to get a good price for it.

In other words, I think we should talk. ;)

Re:I love Eve Online

[khallow]

The thing is, you could have flown those freighters in a lot less than 6 months. The only intensive skill is a single industrial hauler skill (there are four to chose from) which takes somewhere around 3-5 weeks depending. My take is that even, if you hadn't trained any hauler-specific skills, you could be in a freighter inside of two months. And no offense, but why didn't you research the new content expansion so that you would know what you needed to train before the expansion arrived?

Re:I love Eve Online

[TOGSolid]

The only difference in characters as they get older is not that they can do things better, but that they can do other things well too. Take for instance a one year old character and a 4 year old character. The one year old has spent their time tricking out their interceptor, the 4 year old has that already wrapped up. The big difference is that the four year old toon can also maybe fly HACs, HICs, and a few other toys, or maybe not. Who knows maybe they can fly a really tricked out inty and then went and trained for industrial skills? Anyway, both toons can fly an interceptor equally well skill wise. Technically the 1 year old has "caught up" in his chosen profession.
Case in point: My alt trained exclusively for mining as soon as I got her learning skills done. She's about a year and a half old, and I can't squeeze anything else out of her Hulk. However, besides that and indy piloting those are the only things she can do ridiculously well. She has however caught up to older industrial toons in her chosen profession.

People unfortunately have the classic leveling system burned into their skulls, so often they'll look at Eve as if it was WoW with infinite levels.
About freighters: Don't bother unless you're in a corp that needs the massive hauling space. Spend your time training for T2 indies instead. Blockade Runners are sexy, sexy boats.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Opportunist]

Erh... no. Sorry, but no.

First, going into 0.0 space alone is a good way to get podded. Whether you have a million or fifty million SP under your belt, you won't stand a chance. 0.0 is basically what constitutes as raid content in other MMOs. The twist is that you, as a low player, may actually participate. Sure, you won't fly that huge titan with its devastating, POS-killing firepower, but you can still be useful (and I don't mean just as a decoy and meatshield).

What you complain about is essentially that you can't play for 2 weeks and level the raid dungeon single handedly.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Opportunist]

Same here (say, were you that guy that hoovered away my belt last night?). I'm a miner. There's literally nothing (short of godawefully expensive implants) that I could add to my mining skills to squeeze another m/minute out of my mining lasers. And it won't get you anything "more" anyway, when you look at the way the rocks work. You sit there for three minutes even if the rock would pop earlier. Usually, the few additional m you could get are wasted anyway in that last cycle.

Essentially, what I can do after four years in mining can be reached in less than half a year (you'll need longer for that initial half billion you need to buy all the junk you "need" anyway). The only difference is that I can additionally fly a BS (in a way that keeps them alive), actually hit something with large turrets, command a fleet of miners or fighters, refine without waste and a few other tidbits that are, at best, "nice to have", but anything but a "make or break" part of my career.

What matters in EvE is that you find out fairly quickly what you want to do first, then go for it and stick to it 'til you can do it at a level that satisfies you. Yes, it can be quite a drag when a lv5 skill with heavy multipliers keeps you locked down for a few weeks, but push through it and you're rewarded by being as good as a 4 year old player in that particular field.

You put it quite well, and if allowed I'd want to quote you on that occasionally, playing longer in EvE doesn't mean someone gets further ahead in a certain field. It means he has more options.

Re:I love Eve Online

[GospelHead821]

You can capture that extra little bit of efficiency that you lose by letting your mining lasers full-cycle every time. If you're willing to watch your survey scanner closely and you know how much your lasers pull in with each cycle, you can shut off a laser mid-cycle and it will pull in a partial load. This is also useful when trying to drive off rival miners by mining their asteroids out from under them. (If you finish off the asteroid, they'll get nothing when their mining laser cycles.)

Re:I love Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

I downloaded the trial a few months ago and the first time I opened the map screen my jaw dropped. The world is huge! It's mostly empty space... but it's HUGE!

Re:I love Eve Online

[Opportunist]

If I could remember what I have in that med slot that the survey scanner would take, I could also tell you now why I don't do that... beats me, though.

Thinking about it, I guess I should review the setup of my ships once in a while...

Re:I love Eve Online

[tfmachad]

A Freelancer MMO... now that I'd play.

Try the Discovery Gaming Community for your Freelancer M(200 cap)MO needs.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Thumper_SVX]

I agree with just about everything you said. One other thing that bears mentioning though is that Eve is really NOT a single-player game. If you decide to go it "lone-wolf" style then yes, you're probably going to get bored unless you have the patience of a saint.

The point of Eve is community. Join corps, leverage them as a jump-off point for your own corp if you want, or work your way up the ranks. Just like real life. I've played on and off and been in a few corps. In most cases, I've left on really good terms and come out with loads of equipment, ISK and training (not to mention, friends that I made through Eve Online). Sure there have been times I've been raiding my ex corps thanks to a mission in my new corp... but that's half the fun.

For some, Eve is a bit TOO much like real life I think. I only stopped playing frequently about 8 months ago because I just didn't have time for it. But I still plan to return... my character is still sitting on a database somewhere and will one day be reactivated. Maybe I'll join another corp (currently independent), or maybe I'll use the equipment and money I have now to build myself a new corp... enlist some of my old friends if they're still around.

That's what Eve is all about.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys are all so right! How dare he act as though it would take him six months of paying CCP to be able to play the game and have fun, when it fact it would take him only two! Clearly he has unfairly maligned a wonderfully designed system.

Re:I love Eve Online

[kria]

I was enjoying EVE to start with, but I eventually realized I was playing a fundamentally wrong game for me. This realization came when a couple of dozen people blew up my battlecruiser and podded me when I was simply jumping into an area to do a mission. (Podding, for the uninitiated, is destroying your lifeboat; you lose all of your implants and potentially some "experience".)

And then I realized that I wasn't interested in a game where I spent a substantial amount of time reading a book while traveling and/or mining.

(shill)But hey, my husband at Dragonfire Lasercrafts has the images licensed, so he can make merchandise for the game, and continues to enjoy playing. (/shill) These days, I'm playing Pirates of the Burning Sea.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Opportunist]

Ok, Ok, I bite.

You needn't sink two months into the game before you can "really" start playing. That's like saying you have to sink two months into WoW to get to 80 and get some of the initial equipment so you can start playing (raids). There's plenty to do. Plenty that's also more sensible than "grind 'til your eyes bleed so you get to 80 soon".

The fun part about EvE is that even a player with half a week of experience can be a sensible addition to a group. A miner with years of experience hacking rocks in .6 space would certainly not mind a frigate pilot with 2 weeks of experience as a bodyguard. Yes, the year old player could probably kill the mobs more easily, but first, he'd have to use a different ship and second, he'd have to use a different module fitting, thus reducing his mining output, thus reducing his revenue. Hell, I'd happily pay a 2 week old player to be my ore hauler. All he needs is an industrial (be my hauler for 2 hours and I'll buy you one), the skill for it can be learned even in a day.

And you're teamed up with a player whose account (and character) started in 2004, without even a moment of feeling like he's "pulling" you.

You can actually pull your own weight from day one and be an asset to a seasoned veteran. In the right circumstances, of course. You will not fly a POS-leveling titan. You will not be a cunning 'ceptor pilot. You will not be the builder with all the ultra-rare and OMGwannahave blueprints. And you shouldn't even dream about being the person that a 100+ people corp entrusts that carrier to.

If your goals are reasonable, though, you will be rewarded. You can expect to be valuable to certain people, even from day one (as pointed out above), something you can't even dream of in most other MMOs. You shouldn't expect to be the top dog in 0.0 space though. If that's your expectation, then you're in for about the same disappointment you'd get out of expecting to be called to a heroic raid in WoW after 3 days of leveling.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is shallow, but Eve turned me off the minute i found out that my "person" was permanently sealed inside the ship in a matrix-like goo capsule.

For some reason it completely ruined the game for me. In eve online im not a person im a ship, which completely removed any chance i had of ever identifying with my in-game alter-ego.

I think i played for 3 days or something. Nobody would talk to me, i was completely lost. I'd see players come & go, but nobody ever responded to me. The one time i left orbit i was shot down by something for some reason.

Besides that, the mechanics and UI of the game reminded me a lot of trying to "play" Battlecruiser 3000... Lots of neat options that dont really make any difference thrown at you with little or no explanation.

I really would like to see a good space MMO, EVE online aint it.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Sobrique]

Nonsense. You talk about it as if having more skillpoints means someone automatically wins a fight - I assure you, this is FAR from the case. Sure, more skillpoints provide an advantage, but the primary advantage is range of options - more SPs mean you can fly more ships, and do more things. But that really is about it.
Also, freighters don't take 6 months to learn to fly - you need spaceship command 5 which takes about a week, and then you need industrial 5, which clocks in at about another week.
That's even assuming you suddenly stopped being competitive when the ships became available, which you didn't - freighters are good for bulk/low value cargo.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Odin_Tiger]

I don't understand why they called Eve's launch bad. It would have been a catastrophe if it had been as big as some of the fantasy ones listed, because of the way they run everything on one server. Can you imagine them trying to do 50k simultaneous users back before they had RamSans, with their 2003 budget? No way.

But they have steadily grown and improved, just as intended; running a profitable independent game company for over 5 years is no small feat.

Re:I love Eve Online

[socrplayr813]

Forgive me, but how is "I love Eve Online" insightful?

I have no problem with people saying it. I'm just confused by the mod...

Re:I love Eve Online

[Alzheimers]

The cure to the low level blues is to earn enough money to buy the combat character of your dreams. Rates used to be about 100m ISK per 1m Skill Points but the economy ain't what it used to be.

It's not impossible to pick up a 10-15m SP toon for about the cost of a cap ship. It's certainly not cheap, but for ambitious new players it is a legit option -- character transfers are fully supported and encouraged by CCP (for a $20 fee, usually paid by the seller).

Re:I love Eve Online

[kv9]

My problem with it is that I'm a tourist, and like every other MMO it caters to perfectionists. It's not well designed for completionists or tourists.

EVE is a sandbox. you can do whatever the hell you want in there, nobody will hold your hand. some people appreciate that.

Re:I love Eve Online

[kv9]

oh noes, a girl on da internets!

Re:I love Eve Online

[GMFTatsujin]

"Just like real life."

That's the problem.

I don't *want* to work my ass off in a game for another 20 years before I can get decent jobs, buy a house, start a business, etc. I invested that energy elsewhere: my actual life.

My life is fun and challenging, and I love it. But, I do sometimes want to escape into a fantasy where, right off the bat, I'm fraking awesome and I can go to town.

Re:I love Eve Online

[smbarbour]

It's a Cap Recharger (probably meta 4).

3x Modulated Strip Miner II
1x Gistii B-type Shield Booster, 1x Invulnerability Field II, rest cap rechargers (or leave one out for a rock scanner. You should have plenty of cap.)
2x Mining Laser Upgrade II

(Alternately, if you are Mr. Moneybags, you can opt for a Pithii B-type which is just as good as a Gistii A-type)

This setup can and will tank cruiser rats, though not necessarily while you are actively mining (yes, you may need to shut the lasers off while you take care of the rats). Build up your drone skills. A set of Hammerhead II's will easily chew through rats.

Re:I love Eve Online

[fractoid]

You must love WoW's achievements then. Personally I prefer to kill shit and take its stuff, but a lot of people I know absolutely love trying to get every last achievement.

To my mind, achievements are to MMO give-players-stuff-to-do as assembly lines are to Henry Ford's domination of the automotive industry. (Whoa, see what I did there? So far I've had a F1-to-CPUs analogy, a netbooks to cars analogy, and now this. Trifecta ftw! :D )

I've watched a friend of mine (incidentally the one who got me into WoW) playing EvE and it looks horribly batshit boring. Like WoW but with the actual combat replaced by ProgressQuest. :(

Re:I love Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

You're talking about MMO addiction not something special with Eve Online

Nothing the GP said implies that he's "addicted". Project any harder and we could use you to do PowerPoint shows.

Re:I love Eve Online

[crossmr]

NPC Missions are kinda wank depth wise, but CCP is constantly adding new ones

this is where you come off sounding like a fanboy.
If they are constantly adding them, which means they have an established pattern of consistently adding new content with such a frequency that it could be described as "constant". yet, you admit its still currently crap. What's that tell you about how good of a job they're doing keeping that up?

Re:I love Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

The NPC missions are few and far between, and most are not very interesting.

What? You get NPC missions as fast as you can click on the agents. The "not very interesting" part, I agree with, but the NPC missions are just ways to give you ISK for spending some time doing something boring rather than getting it for free.

Oh sure, I've heard all about the player created PVP drama in the game, but that's all endgame content. And it takes months if not years of mining or 'rat-hunting for hours every day to earn the skills needed to enter 0.0 space without getting pod-killed every five minutes.

Wrong again. Check out the Goons, for example. You get killed in 00 space because you aren't part of an alliance. Otherwise, you can join up and go there as soon as you can join an alliance that controls some part of 00. As far as the 'months if not years', you're still wrong. Ratting and such are just ways to get money. As long as you can put a point on someone (within minutes of creating a character if not already with character creation) you're useful in 00.

And getting pod-killed can set you back days (implants), weeks or months (underinsured with inadequate quality clone), or back to where you were when you first got your account

And wrong again. You don't understand how the med clone system works. You can never be reset back that far, not even close, even if you don't buy clones. You will lose *some* skill points, but not that far.

Re:I love Eve Online

[spacefiddle]

Yar, i hear you. Early on, pre-beta, it was explained that this was definitely not going to be a "twitch" game; this was for a different audience. Hopefully someone will fill the twitch niche for y'all :).

Er, hang on, maybe someone has.

As for the casual aspect of eve, that may have gotten a little easier with Faction Warfare. It seems like there are a lot of newer folks able to jump into combat and enjoying it. The push to maintain tech2 ships, capitals, etc., can take up a lot of time; but with even a casual income, you can infinitely support a frigate/cruiser stock.

Why are you bothering with expensive implants if you're a casual player, tho...? I've been in from the start and don't even bother with 'em tbh. If i run across one, i usually sell it.

None of this will matter if you hate the combat system, of course. I like the "you've won or lost when you close the fitting screen" aspect. Flying against other new players in FW will mitigate your need to perfect that and enable you to experiment more, and it's not really meant for soloing unless you are a high-SP master of something... but i like the tactical combat style.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Jaeph]

"I was a very successfull high security hauler and trader who had his market taken away by superships he could afford to buy, but could not fly."

So rather than adapt and find new markets, you quit. Your choice, but blaming the entire game design is highly extreme.

Note that after a long hiatus I am looking forward to re-joining eve just so I can start trading, as I see a market for industrial traders.

For those reading, industrial ships haul a lot, freighters haul a gigantic amount. Freighters are slow.

-Jeff

Re:I love Eve Online

[spacefiddle]

My first thought was "crap a GM... in before the lock!"

right off the bat, I'm fraking awesome

That doesn't bore you? I tried Fable and really came to hate it quickly. The vaunted alignment system thing maxed out in about 30 seconds, and as for combat, your spec seemed to make the only difference there... and even then, you quickly became a wtfpwner. Uninstalled and forgtten.

(i was going to just say "that's no fantasy, that IS my real life!" but i'd rather know more about the serious question.)

Re:I love Eve Online

[spacefiddle]

There is no way for anyone starting EVE today to ever catch up to those who started a year ago, and those that started a year ago will never catch up to those who started two years ago

Um, how is this different than any other MMO? With the exception of, there's no way to "powerlevel" in Eve? Which i view as a fantastically good thing?

So a toon who's been a pilot 2 years longer than you will always have more training. Um. Yes?

Now, this only works with *active* pilots. Accounts that go inactive no longer continue to train SPs. I was away for a while, and everyone who started after me caught up... and everyone ahead of me got further ahead. This is also how it should be; my toon was sitting on his butt in a station all that time.

It seems like your post is colored by "new stuff wants it NAO!" which i can understand - i would love to fly a dred one day - but i don't think my wanting New Shinies == bad system.

Re:I love Eve Online

[fractoid]

I had the same problems really - many pvp based corps want at least 6 million skillpoints just to join, and some as many at 20 million.

To be fair, many player run guilds in other MMOs have stupid standards. WoW guilds tend to be "must be available to raid 12 nights a week for 8 hours a night, and suck GM's cock on demand". Yeah.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Knara]

I loved EO, I really did. Still love the concept.

However, I don't have a ton of time to get involved with a corp, and, in spite of waiting about 3 years playing on-and-off, the PvE is still horrible.

Hoping that Jumpgate: Evolution or STO fixes that. I'm not really a "casual gamer" but I'm a gamer with many hobbies, and EVE requires it to be your only hobby to fully enjoy what it has to offer.

Re:I love Eve Online

[spacefiddle]

realized I was playing a fundamentally wrong game for me.

Hey! Aren't you supposed to conclude "realized i was playing a game that sucks"? ,-)

I hate mining. Tho travelling can be nerve-wracking depending on where you do it :D. In corp ops the only thing that kept me sane was all of us being goofballs on Teamspeak (this being before ingame voice client). Even then, it was just... boring. A chatroom where you have to drag and drop resources every minute or you lose some. Bleah.

However, i would consider mining for you if you convince your hubby to zap me a Naglfar model :D

Re:I love Eve Online

[fractoid]

*throws you a taco* I mean cmon I don't even play eve other than "it's a spaceship game but you can't even directly fly the spaceships like in elite I mean wtf at least my orc warrior gets a magic sword amirite". Even I can see that it's a poor under-bridge-dweller in SERIOUS need of tacos.

Re:I love Eve Online

[spacefiddle]

I know this is shallow, but Eve turned me off the minute i found out that my "person" was permanently sealed inside the ship in a matrix-like goo capsule.

Don't think you're being shallow at all. The appeal of MMOs to a lot of people is avatar-centric, whether customization, identification, immerision, or pure endless gratifying wankery like the CoX char creator.

However.. you may want to start here and check out the various Ambulation trailers and info. It might draw you back for another try. (Eventually.)

Re:I love Eve Online

[mounthood]

My problem with it is that I'm a tourist...

Tourism* is what EVE needs: people invited to roam through player owned territory. EVE is out to kill you; everything and everyone in the game might kill you just for sport, other then your own corp.

Corporations with territory need a reason to invite and protect tourists. Maybe a contracting system where only outsiders can provide some service. Newbies would find players welcoming them and helping them. Even the corporation drama could be increased simply by having lots of semi-trusted players in your territory.

*I know you meant you don't play much, but a tourist system would help you too.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an Eve Online account that I am about to cancel (no, you can't have my stuff) because the game is pretty boring.

I have to agree with hidannik. You say that a newbie can survive in 0.0 space with the right fittings, but learning how to achieve the right fittings takes weeks, so it's not newbie territory. 0.0 is the endgame.

The worst part is that until you get to the point where you can join in massive slideshows^h^h^h^h^h battles, you have to grind grind grind. Yes, you do.

For me, the game was reduced to turning little red plus signs in to little white triangles. YAWN.

Re:I love Eve Online

[j_edge]

not exactly true... while I wouldn't spend a *lot* of time in 0.0, I would do trade runs and missions out there. While I wasn't completely new, I was definitely still low/mid-level and only had craptastic t1 and skill pts spread everywhere. It's a fun game but like most MMO's is too much of a time sink for me to stick with for long.

I did see in their newsletter they're bringing skill queuing in, which should definitely help convince the more casual players to stick around. If I had any free time right now I'd probably go back for that.

Re:I love Eve Online

[hidannik]

I was in EVE for 17 months, playing between one and 10 hours a week (3 was typical), between fall '05 and winter '07.

I was in a corps, and the most exciting group activity we ever did was... mining in .4 space.

Perhaps this was a mistake, but I concentrated on leverage skills first (learning), then ship-handling and combat. I hunted rats rather than mining.

I never got powerful enough to spend time in .4 space, let alone 0.0, and it took forever to make enough ISK to buy a new skill (at 4.5M ISK per skill).

Eventually I realized that I was never going to get anywhere playing three hours a week, and cancelled. I don't like grinding; I get much more fun/second out of single player games, even grindy JRPGs, and session-based multiplayer games like Freelancer or Halo 3 or Unreal Tournament 1 than any MMO.

That's not to rag on MMOs; my player style is simply unsuited to them. I'm a tourist with a little completionist, and almost no perfectionist tendencies.

Hans

Re:I love Eve Online

[hidannik]

More like I couldn't play for seventeen months and go into 0.4 space alone.

Hans

Re:I love Eve Online

[hidannik]

Achievements are for completionists. I'm mostly a tourist. I play to "see the sights", not to get every last gold star or become the best player.

Hans

Re:I love Eve Online

[hidannik]

Actually, by tourist I meant that I play games to experience the content, whether that is new environments or the story or cool toys or new gameplay.

As Penny Arcade's Gabe wrote, "I don't play games to beat them, I play games to see them."

More on this topic here: A New Taxonomy of Gamers

Re:I love Eve Online

[Opportunist]

I've been playing for four years and wouldn't go out beyond 0.6 alone. Mostly because my implants cost more than my ships combined.

0.0 is essentially what raid content is for other MMO games. In other words, not meant to be solo'ed. PvP is in no MMO that I know something you should consider a solo project. And, like in every other game, you get eaten by the zerg of players waiting for lone wolves if you insist in going alone into such areas.

EvE is, if any game, a reflection of ruthless carnivore capitalism. There is nothing that is not owned, EvE just replaced the NPCs you usually have in raids with other players. They own 0.0 space. You can go there and 'steal' their asteroids, but expect to be hunted for trying something like that.

And like in every capitalist system, everything has a price. Even the right to go into "their" space and hunt, mine or fly a mission there. Fair? Not really. If you are the one who should cough up the dough, that is.

That is your cup of tea or it ain't, simple as that. Some people love it, some hate it. Some don't care for 0.0 politics (and trust me, the metagame and social engineering surrounding 0.0 politics is worse than anything happening in game) and are happy inside empire space. Some want the thrill of trying to run blockades or bust gate campers. Some don't like "unfair" games and stay away entirely.

What I like about EvE is that it's a game that doesn't only rest on game dynamics, the human element plays a very important role. Sure, when the guns are blazing, all that matters is your skill and your character's. Some learned to play the game in a way that wins battles without fighting them. ;)

Re:I love Eve Online

[EmperorKagato]

Then you're obviously playing the wrong game. You're better off playing Morrowind (Elder Scrolls III) or Exile II with the Character Editor. You can definitely go to town in those games.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

This.

And, you get the joy of putting up with the nerd's nerds - who actually enjoy the process and seem to have an inexhaustable supply of free time - going on and on about how fantastic the game, how deep and engaging the lore and PVP is and how there's no place for sliced bread in their lives any more.

I wanted to like EVE, but being a fairly casual player unwilling to put in the same hours, it just pushed me away too much. From what I've seen, to get anything decent out of EVE you've got to play it as a part-time alternate life. Treating it as a *game* just doesn't seem to work.

That said, I wish EVE a long and successful life and hope they don't fall into the trap of screwing with gameplay to make it more accessible.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

WTB Titan with devastating, POS-killing firepower. Paying good ISK!

(apart from the SUBCAPITAL-killing doomsdays, the titans are ships that only affect combat indirectly. Sure, you can fit dreadnough-sized guns on one, but it will do little more DPS than a battleship and you'll be laughed at by even the lowliest noobs)

Re:I love Eve Online

[fractoid]

In that case you'll probably come as close as anyone can to "winning" any MMO you play. :)

Re:I love Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like real life.

Why would I want to play a game just like real life?

Re:I love Eve Online

[kria]

I also realized that the missions were getting somewhat repetitive.

I am, however, really looking forward to the upcoming Star Trek and Star Wars games. Or, rather, I look forward to finding out whether they suck or not. :)

Re:I love Eve Online

[V for Vendetta]

There is no way for anyone starting EVE today to ever catch up to those who started a year ago, and those that started a year ago will never catch up to those who started two years ago, .. and so on.

Erhm ... not true. Each skill in EVE can be trained to level 5. And not any further, regardless of a player's age. Granted, an older player has much more skills than a new one. But he can't train Frigate further than level 5. And you can start a fresh character with having this skill to level 5.

OK, there are a couple of supporting skills, which also affect that frigate. But again, level 5 is the cap for any skill. After roughly 2 month, there's not one single skill point difference between a new player and a five year old veteran in regards to skills needed to perfectly fit a frigate. Yes, that old grunt can also fit Destroyers, HAC, HICs, Ceptors, Battleships and whatnot perfectly. But when it comes down to comparing frigate sized vessels, those two players are on par.

Re:I love Eve Online

[spacefiddle]

kotor mmo has a fair to good chance of being Win, i think. Hopefully they'll get to do it kotor style, and learned how NOT to release a game a la kotor 2 :P

I have a hard time with eve missions only cause i feel like i'm skipping profits by not going back and salvage-shlorping every single wreck, but that's just mining again and takes too damn long. So my target is called "wreck" not "rock," BFD.

I'm still trying to figure out my own strat for a casual income in eve. My economic situation is not toally dire yet, so i can afford to keep it active (and my skills training :D) while i screw around and figure it out.

Re:I love Eve Online

[Danse]

You pretty much described my experience with EVE as well. I don't have time for MMOs. Best I can manage in the multiplayer arena is to get in some TF2 or L4D a few times a week. I've trended more towards single-player games that I can play at my own pace, and more casual games like Puzzle Quest, etc.

Not just MMOs

[jimmyhat3939]

It's not just MMOs where sci fi has been somewhat less popular than other genres. It's also true for traditional roll playing games.

I think it's possible that what's going on here is that when people want to play games, they'd rather have it be about something totally out of the realm of possibility, rather than a possible future scenario, which is frequently the goal of sci fi.

Re:Not just MMOs

[guyminuslife]

Quite possible. I would submit that attitude also plays a role. Traditional fantasy settings have a romantic, epic scope. There's a much more clearly-defined line between Good and Evil, which simplifies the morality issues of killing and looting various denizens of said realm. Fantasy societies tend to be (although they don't have to be) more wild and unregulated than science fiction settings.

And of course, fantasy more often celebrates the "epic hero" who kicks ass and takes names (Beowulf, Ajax, Merlin) as opposed to science fiction's more mortal protagonists. There's less opportunity for character advancement, since so much of the escapism is based on technology. A level 20 wizard has access to crazy spells that the lowbies could only dream of and is decked out in arcane accessories presumably lifted from some dragon somewhere. A level 20 space ship pilot is just a better pilot, perhaps one with a better space ship, which any lowbie with cash could simply walk into a store and buy.

And fantasy makes running the game easier. You can just randomly make stuff up and fit it into the game with a mere explanation that, "It's magic." Sci-fi technologies more often need to be explained, since they can be mass-produced, etc.

Re:Not just MMOs

[Opportunist]

Whether or not any lowbie could buy that ship is as likely or unlikely as whether some wizard can march into a shop and dump a ton of gold on the counter for the superspecialawesome wand of leet.

If you think about it, that dragon the wizard stole his wand from had to get that wand from somewhere as well. So someone must have made it. This someone could just as well have sold it instead of trying to kill a dragon with it.

Because it requires those oh so special ingredients that no mundane would ever touch and no wizard would willingly part with? Who says that this isn't as true for starship components? That prototype engine with the extra bit of boost certainly wouldn't be for sale either, requiring some super-rare thingamajig ore only found on the lost planet of Sqiddrigon. Mass production? You're kidding, right, you gotta hand forge this stuff, no machine can predict when it's just right, you gotta 'feel' that, it's more art than science or you end up with a very expensive piece of scrap metal!

See? In no way any less sensible than the magic wand of awesome, and in no way more mass produced.

Re:Not just MMOs

[guyminuslife]

Sounds contrived. We need to do analyses on those Sqiddrigonian thingamajigs, to figure out their molecular structure and how to synthesize them. And machines are far more precise than humans; if mere human could do it, then a machine that takes sensory input and has a more accurate forging technique could do it much more easily. I'm not saying you couldn't do things that way, merely that I wouldn't really find it believable.

Now, alien artifacts could probably throw off the equation. And so could political restrictions on certain items. And so could economic decline/collapse. (Post-apocalyptics settings don't have the infrastructure to build, and must scavenge.) This thread actually gave me an idea for a campaign using all of those.

Re:Not just MMOs

[Opportunist]

No, because it has to be forged by a psi-enhanced Sqiddrigonian smith. He has to put his "soul" into the work, lacking a better term. Probably just religious mumbo-jumbo, but for some reason we just couldn't figure out how to replicate it with standard production means.

It's not like being high-tech and SciFi means we cannot resort to a little bit of esotheric bullcrap. From The Force to Spice.

Re:Not just MMOs

[fatboyslack]

It's not just MMOs where sci fi has been somewhat less popular than other genres. It's also true for traditional roll playing games.

What?

Knights of the Old Republic (and other Star Wars games)
Mass Effect
Sure they are all more space opera than scifi...
I'd call Fallout 3 and Bioshock sort of Scifi as well.

All pretty popular games.

It's much simpler than that

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The whole concept of Fantasy is to give power to the weak and nerdy and put them in a milieu that encourages and promotes the behaviors that they so desperately want to express in the real world. But the real world is a harsh critic, and those behaviors (being smart, mostly) are universally reviled.

So the lucky ones discover the Fantasy genre and are rewarded for their behavior with scantily-clad women and a sense of satisfaction from acting chivalrous. It's a self-feeding world. The only necessary thing is a bunch of disaffected nerds.

The problem with sci-fi (or SyFy, if you prefer the modern nomenclature) is that it is designed to tackle difficult moral issues. Unlike Fantasy which is designed to feed the spiritual needs of nerds, SyFy is designed to force them to think. In a sense, fantasy provides an outlet for basal needs, but SyFy provides an outlet for higher-order needs.

Also, since SyFy is based on reality and the possibilities of reality, it is seldom that women are included in the plot solely for the sake of being women. Unlike the damsel in distress role in Fantasy, women in SyFy are neutered and masculinized to appeal to a sense of liberal sexual freedom. Fantasy does not have this limitation and therefore provides ample space for sexual expression for the nerds who take part in it.

It's no wonder that Fantasy MOO games do so much better than SyFy games.

Re:It's much simpler than that

[Vectronic]

Sci-Fi... fuck!

I went Outdoor Life Network today, to do a little National Geographic Channeling, and stumbled across an Animal Channel, what a Discovery Channel, I was so Xtreme Sports Network about it, I blew my HBO, and had to buy another one from the Shopping Channel.

Was totally Comedy Central.

Re:It's much simpler than that

[NeutronCowboy]

SyFy.... Sorry, I stopped reading there, and forgot what I had read so far.

Re:It's much simpler than that

[Secret Rabbit]

I'm sorry, but you haven't a clue about what you're talking about.

1) Intelligence is only "universally reviled" in the US and is becoming more common in Canada as well. The rest of the world take *far* more kindly to the actually intelligent.

2) SyFy is NOT "the modern nomenclature" for Sci-fi. It is a marketing gimmick from the Sci-fi network as an attempt to widen its viewing audience.

3) Fantasy is more popular because it is more accessible. As in, everyone knows about wizards, knights, etc as that has pervaded society for a *long* time. But, not many people know about sci-fi and its trappings. So, it's "weird" to many.

Seriously, you're attempting to trivialise fantasy to horny teenaged "geeks". And that's just so wrong it isn't funny.

Re:It's much simpler than that

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I'm certainly not saying that only teenagers enjoy Fantasy.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3955486939380985268

Re:It's much simpler than that

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry. I didn't realize everyone who's ever played a fantasy computer game was a maladjusted nerd overcompensating for an unfulfilling life. Makes me wonder me what you would say about the people into the dystopian/post-apocalyptic obsessions of sci-fi.

I'm pretty sure most people just find games fun...

Re:It's much simpler than that

[khallow]

Your analogy is like a melon crushed by a steel mace. All I know is that if you haven't been dogpiled by a bunch of bald, angry, drunk Russians, then you haven't lived. Or died as the case may be.

Re:It's much simpler than that

[eiMichael]

If I had mod points I'd give this +1 Insightful.
SyFi is just an ad campaign to rebrand a cable television channel.

If ECW (or whatever other wrestling clubs they show) is SyFy. Then, perhaps a SyFy MMO has potential.

Re:It's much simpler than that

[james_orr]

SyFy is a brand name, not the title of the genre.

That's the whole reason the channel changed it. "Sci Fi" can't be trademarked while "SyFy" can.

Re:It's much simpler than that

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole concept of Fantasy is to give power to the weak and nerdy and put them in a milieu that encourages and promotes the behaviors that they so desperately want to express in the real world. But the real world is a harsh critic, and those behaviors (being smart, mostly) are universally reviled.

Hey, not all fantasy is Elfy-Welfy Power Quest Fantasy.

Re:It's much simpler than that

[tsstahl]

"Syfy" was military slang for a social disease in my day. Pronounced with a short i and long e. I guess nobody told them that. :\

Re:It's much simpler than that

[elrous0]

Actually, your thinly veiled bit of anti-American ranting only highlights your OWN parochialism. Obviously, by "rest of the world," you're ignoring the multitude of dictatorial countries where scholars and intellectuals are often the first to be targeted in brutal campaigns of repression (the REAL kind of repression, not the "They didn't give me enough grant money to fund my public art project" kind). A guy like you thinks he's being clever with a little smug U.S. bashing, but in actuality, you're just another arrogant dipshit who doesn't know "Khmer Rouge" from "Moulin Rouge."

Re:It's much simpler than that

[fatboyslack]

2) SyFy is NOT "the modern nomenclature" for Sci-fi. It is a marketing gimmick from the Sci-fi network as an attempt to widen its viewing audience.

I think the parent was being sarcastic / joking / comedy like.

Re:It's much simpler than that

[TeamGracie]

I disagree with your comment about science fiction games forcing you to think. I contend that both science fiction and fantasy games alike can be enjoyed without setting aside a score of mental faculties. In other words, both genres can be enjoyed while cooking dinner, watching TV, and facebooking all at the same time. While the scifi gaming genre may deal with rocket science, any 6th grader can excel at the helm of one of these mindless games.

Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[GodfatherofSoul]

In a game like WoW, you're basically walking or riding a horse around. That limits the distances you have to travel. Even the cities are excusably small when you rationalize for the smaller fantasy "village." With Sci-Fi, the ranges that the map worlds have to cover will become huge to be believable. That's a lot of space to design and populate.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I invite you to compare Master of Orion to Master of Magic.

You'll find that there is no problem with scope if handled correctly.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[Thanshin]

But that provides great lines for the marketing monkeys:

"The map's A MILLION TIMES BIGGER than Oblivion!".

P.S.: Lack of the first coffee has made me write "pam" instead of "map" twice and still, I nailed "Oblivion!". I won't be telling that one to my psichiatrist.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[Dutch Gun]

But that provides great lines for the marketing monkeys:

"The map's A MILLION TIMES BIGGER than Oblivion!".

P.S.: Lack of the first coffee has made me write "pam" instead of "map" twice and still, I nailed "Oblivion!". I won't be telling that one to my psichiatrist.

Dutch's law: Any post that mocks bad spelling or grammar will invariably contain original errors of its own.

Usually this occurs when mocking others' errors, but I'm gratified to see the law holds even when mocking your own. ;-)

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[Skuld-Chan]

Except they aren't - in Eve stations are a static screen, and you jump from place to place so the distance is minimized.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[Turiko]

so true. EVE doesn't have the biggest game space without reason :P.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[Opportunist]

Are you serously calling it a bad thing that they took the tedious boredom of traveling out of the game?

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[azgard]

Yes. But I would go even further in this. The main problem is the speed with which information travel.

In fantasy, information (and power) travels very slowly, so the parts of the world can be rather independent to be believable. That also means plots can be linear, because events in a new place doesn't depend on events from another place (usually, it's heroes who travel faster than information). So fantasy world is a lot easier to manage, because it's lot less dynamic.

However, in our world (or scifi), there is information society, so speed of information is very fast. This significantly alters the need to manage plot lines. Events on one side of the universe can greatly affect another side. This makes most scifis hard to do in computer.

I think it's no wonder that successful scifi worlds are post-apocalyptic, such as Fallout or System Shock. Post-acopalyptic sci-fi doesn't suffer from this problem. Or, another way to approach it is to change the scale - so now instead of more-or-less independent (information-wise) villages or towns you get independent planets or solar systems. But this is not a real scifi then - it's just a fantasy with futuristic weapons.

In particular, Cyberpunk is especially difficult for this reason.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[LS]

Space is much larger than a single planet, but it is also much more sparse, so the actual amount of interactive content could be about the same if desired. Also, distance is just an abstract concept in a virtual world, and can be traversed at any rate the programmers wish to allow, so it is also not an issue.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[Kierthos]

The problem is, those games are single-player. There's a lower threshold for satisfaction.

When you have a MMORPG, does it make sense for every PC to crowd into one city per planet? While there has to be some sort of defining limitation so your developers aren't cranking out dozens of game worlds every month, there has to be more then "Here on Planet X, you can go to the city, and the environs within immediate eyesight of the the city."

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[Anonymous Coward]

As any experienced MMO player will tell you, travel time is masturbation time. So yes, it's a bad thing to take it away.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[Opportunist]

Why should FTL travel automatically mean FTL information exchange exists? Or that either is readily accessible to anyone but the super rich and heros? I see the difficulty with Cyberpunk settings or any setting on a planetary scale with current or futuristic technology, since "instant" information exchange and overnight cargo delivery are already in place (so why I should entrust some nobody with my goods when there is certainly something like FedEx in place is beyond me), but in an interstellar setting with FTL space travel you can essentially create the same setting you would have in a medieval world, with local "lords" (planet lords) holding reign over planets, often also controlling what information goes into and out of his realm (who said anyone will have a right to off-world information in the future? Might well be a privilege).

Yes, you have to be more creative with SciFi if you want to create a credible setting. It's easier with medieval/fantasy themes, since you have a good role model to work from.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[Opportunist]

Think about this: "Traveling" in modern MMOs is mostly done by cutscenes anyway. In whatever form, from AOs Whom-Pahs to EQ2's harbor bells. Yes, you can "walk" that way often, too, but frankly, who'd want to? What would fit more than making different planets different zones, with transports flying between them? Would essentially be the same as the different areas of other MMOs.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[brizzadizza]

What you did there was paint a fantasy setting with a scifi brush. One of the differences between fantasy and scifi are the themes. To illustrate Star Wars is fantasy, Star Trek is SciFi. The differences are Star wars: Strongly moralistic themes (light side, dark side) inherently mystical force, whole planets have the same culture, technology is not derived from currently known or postulated tech. Star Trek: Humanistic themes, no clear cut moral stance, presumably more explanation of the technology. If you have FTL travel why don't you have FTL sneaker-net? Why would a planetary system agree to have a "lord" as the government. The more "imaginative" you have to be, the more implausible the story becomes and the faster it turns into fantasy with lasers as opposed to SciFi.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[Zerth]

You can have FTL travel without FTL information systems.

Just say that you can't transmit directly through your FTL method, you have to physically move something(either a courier ship or a beacon), making it more like uucp or fidonet.

You get as much bandwidth as you want but it only gets transmitted once a day/week/whenever the courier passes by. Anyone on a ship can outrun the network unless someone orders a special message run to your destination with a "faster" FTL ship.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[Anonymous Coward]

When you have a MMORPG, does it make sense for every PC to crowd into one city per planet?

Yes.

Let's say you're creating an Elite/Privateer-style MMORPG. There's absolutely no problem at all restricting your activities to a single port facility on a single planet, let alone a whole city.

Geography in game design is a flexible thing. Plenty of fantasy MMORPGs don't build out their worlds to the level of detail you would "reasonably" expect. I'm playing LOTRO at the moment, and there's no way that distances are anywhere near what they are in the books. Yet it still holds together just fine, and in fact, is a better game for not requiring real life days to travel from one town to the next.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been watching your bumbling around /. for some time BAG but now you made a great comment, for once.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[Anonymous Coward]

I invite you to compare Master of Orion to Master of Magic.

God, no. The two of them already ate February. Please don't let them eat April, too.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[linzeal]

Earth and Beyond did space MMORPG right in 2002. Eve Online feels like a full time job compared to E&B too bad they canceled it, it was my first and last mmorpg I paid for.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[Opportunist]

First, Star Trek does have its "esotheric" elements, from Vulcan Mindmelding to incorporal beings and other "alien abilities" that you'd generally put into the realm of magic. Not to mention that most of the scripts at the very least touched moralistic themes.

System lords (not in the Stargate sense) could actually make sense when you consider Planets being the interstellar equivalent of nations today. Some could be ruled democratic, some autocratic, some could be founded by people dreaming up a new social model. How that ends, who knows? That we currently have the systems we do is mostly due to instant information exchange. Think back a few hundred years when information could travel as quickly as the fastest ship or horseback rider, and we had different systems of rulership. Even more advanced nations ruled by proxy, with governors. The electoral college voting system of the US is a direct result of such a lack of instant information propagation.

Currently the theory concerning information propagation between stars tells us that a signal would have to be insanely strong to be received in the next system. And we have no way yet of transporting matter or information faster than light. From our perspective, it seems logical and likely that it should be easier to transmit information FTL than matter, but then again, if FTL transport is possible at all, there is no way of telling whether it would be easier. It could well be that it is only possible to transport matter FTL. Maybe the transport is independent of the actual mass transported, or it requires personnell to carry it out (for whatever reason) then it would be economically sensible to transport ships rather than information capsules.

That's the nice thing about scifi. You can rationalize pretty much everything when it comes to technology that simply does not (yet) exist. You may even bend the way humans act and react a little and rationalize it with a progress in our "civilisation" (else, Star Trek makes absolutely no sense at all). You needn't even be too imaginative, as you put it, since, well, whatever you dream up has to be imaginative when there is nothing set in stone.

Re:Sci-Fi scope is more difficult to manage

[Walkingshark]

I don't know, the only reason I don't play EVE is the tedious boredom of traveling.

Typo

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe you meant to comment on the state of super cool and hip SyFy MMO's

Sci-Fi "Too Hard"

[The_Myth]

The problem with the genre is that often times the Sci-Fi set is too smart for its own good. Take for example the original Star Wars: Galaxies. It had some brilliant character creation and development systems. The concept that you could mix and match from 24 professions to create your character made it very appealing. What happens to it? It didn't have the content it needed to guide a users experience hence it was too hard for people to understand. Then SOE starts a series of neuters that reduce it to a shadow of its former self and any of the redeeming features are removed.

Now this "too hard to play" syndrome is present in the Fantasy genre. UO/DAoC were too hard core for a lot of players who gravitated to Everquest then WoW.

With the exception of EVE I cant think of another Sci-Fi MMO that still has a presence in the MMO space.

Re:Sci-Fi "Too Hard"

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I thought the problem with Star Wars: Galaxies was that SOE hated their customers and when one guy discovered how to dupe credits (aka 'money') and paid people with the duped creds, the SOE admins permanently banned the people who (unwittingly) received the money- but not the guy who duped it all...

The playerbase rioted, but SOE admins teleported them into space. At least, that's what Penny Arcade told me...

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/08/25/

Re:Sci-Fi "Too Hard"

[Sasayaki]

[Edit: Accidently posted as AC...]

Actually, I thought the problem with Star Wars: Galaxies was that SOE hated their customers and when one guy discovered how to dupe credits (aka 'money') and paid people with the duped creds, the SOE admins permanently banned the people who (unwittingly) received the money- but not the guy who duped it all...

The playerbase rioted, but SOE admins teleported them into space. At least, that's what Penny Arcade told me...

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/08/25/

Re:Sci-Fi "Too Hard"

[DrMrLordX]

Your analysis of MMOs present and past seems a tad flawed.

Dark Age of Camelot never had the same total share of MMO users that UO or Everquest had during their respective primes. It's not like a bunch of people gravitated away from that game to EQ and WoW since their subscriber base was never all that large.

Your typical MMO migration went a bit like this:

UO -> EQ -> WoW

There were plenty of other games that distracted people from this basic progression (such as DAoC) but subscriber numbers will show that they were not long-term destinations for many. Lineage and Lineage 2 sort of throw a monkey-wrench into that progression but they are their own peculiar beasts.

Also, claiming that DAoC was too "hardcore" for some people is a bit silly. That game was a cakewalk compared to pre-Kunark EQ (or even post-Kunark and post-Velious EQ). Everquest was possibly the "hardest" mainstream MMO ever given how tedious it could be, how inflexible group dynamics could be, and how much time it took to accomplish anything in that silly game. It took them far too long to realize that punishing players with downtime, absurdly slow leveling, and ridiculous travel times did not necessarily bring the fun.

DAoC offered some boredome but overall it was a simpler game that had a lot more to offer to players that wanted to get away from that style of tedium. Too bad it had shortcomings in other departments. Nevertheless, DAoC had many features that were a direct response to people's complaints about old-school EQ (horses for quicker land travel, faster leveling, the ability to solo, more group flexibility, better PvP, etc). I'm sure it has become more complex since release, but I played it in beta and after release and boy howdy, playing any caster class in that game was so simplistic compared to the mess that old-school EQ casters were. My EQ Enchanter was like a Swiss army knife with dozens of different spells and spell-lines, some of which were bizarre or useless (Minor Illusion? Bind Sight? And do you think any MMO will ever get away with something as crazy as the original Gravity Flux? The damage that spell used to do to players . . . oy). My DAoC Enchanter had maybe six spell lines and that was it. Summon pet, buff pet, heal pet, single-target blast stuff (actually had two spell lines that did that), stun stuff, and I forget what else. I was Light spec so it was pretty limited in scope.

If anything, UO and EQ were much more "difficult/hardcore" than DAoC. DAoC and WoW are two titles that really stick out when it comes to being intellectual successors to EQ in that both built on the gameplay style of EQ and both went well out of their way to make the gameplay experience smoother and more rewarding. WoW just took it to a new level with a better interface, and look where that got them. The legacy of UO has been largely abandoned by developers, for good reason.

Re:Sci-Fi "Too Hard"

[thesandtiger]

Well, it depends on what you mean by "presence" but -

Anarchy Online is still around (and still getting expansions etc.) is free to play for the basic version but you have to pay for the expansions. I tried it out a few months ago; wasn't for me, but it wasn't a bad game.

For SWG fans, SWGEmu, which is an emulator of the SWG servers before SOE lobotomized the entire game (the 1.0 release aims to be 100% true to pre-Combat Upgrade live servers) is coming out "soon." I've been playing around with the test server and also set-up my own server to play around with building content etc. Right now, because they want to focus on getting people to test on their server, the SWGEmu devs are keeping some of the source closed (network stuff, with a 1-hour maximum uptime and 20 connection limit), to be changed once they hit v1.00.

Re:Sci-Fi "Too Hard"

[Rhys]

If you define presence as "large player base" then EVE itself may not qualify. On the other hand, if you don't, there's still Planetside and Galaxies kicking around. City of Heroes may qualify or not depending on your take (it is theoretically set 'today' but is more like an alternate future history ala Heinlein that we have caught up to).

Re:Sci-Fi "Too Hard"

[Whorhay]

I played until shortly after they released the Corvette raids or whatever.

The amount of credit duping that happened was apparently rediculous. I think they released a report that showed all the numbers. They had noticed that there was a lot more money being passed around than there should be. They showed in the report that almost twice as much money was being spent every day on building maintenance fees than was being brought into the game via mob drops and missions. And people still had millions of credits to swap around. So I don't know how the duping was being done but some people were doing it on a massive scale because I never talked to anyone that suggested it as a way to make money.

A single solo player could easily go out and earn 100k credits in an hour doing some missions, which would pay your fees for at least a week.

Anyways I had a lot of credits pass through my character and never knew anyone that got banned. I'd say it's unlikely they banned people for receiving duped credits.

The doom of the game really was a lack of content. The crafting was better than most games. The economy was entirely player driven. The skill system was fun though incredibly hard to balance from a developer's point of view. Their just wasn't enough content to play through in the normal sense. The only quest line I remember was for the rebels and you could do it all solo in a day or two. I think it was a sandbox game that could have used more sand.

Re:Sci-Fi "Too Hard"

[Anonymous Coward]

The Matrix Online (MxO) is still running. A niche game for RPers, but an interesting game. The combat is actually pretty cool - not just your typical push-and-wait EQ clone.

There's also Exteel, if that counts as an MMO (never played it personally).

Re:Sci-Fi "Too Hard"

[Knara]

While that is definitely true, the problem with both SWG and The Matrix Online was that SOE took what was a great player community and tried to morph the game into something that could compete with WoW. So you had great concepts like MXO with Radio Free Zion and the ability to move between servers, etc etc, and SOE basically drove it into the ground. SOE's really good at that. Pray they never get their mitts on your favorite MMO.

Re:Sci-Fi "Too Hard"

[DrugCheese]

Anarchy Online? Or is that dead? I have a lot more fun with it then Eve. I've been completely burnt out on fantasy RPG games for a long time.

It's simple

[Skadet]

It's simple -- everyone wants to be Cpt. Kirk, and nobody wants to be Ensign Ricky. How many starship captains can one MMO really have?

Alternately, everyone wants to be a Jedi and nobody wants to be a blaster-wielding doofus.

The success of MMOs is about enabling the player to wield ridiculous amounts of power and have obsessive-compulsive levels of control over their character. I do not believe this is an impossible task for a Sci-Fi MMO to achieve, it just hasn't been done really well yet. The Fantasy genre lends itself much more naturally to this type of thing.

Re:It's simple

[MichaelSmith]

I am a non-gamer and a science fiction reader. The biggest problem I have with games (MMO or otherwise) is having to play by somebody else's rules. A simple environment like second life would be okay for me but something where I have to kill a dwarf to get a sword to buy a boat to learn how to fight to... well you can see I don't do this stuff but it would keep me interested for about five seconds.

My main online interests are tech news and tech discussion so an MMO which would interest me would probably reduce to slashdot.

Re:It's simple

[Opportunist]

It does work in SciFi settings as well, as long as there is more than one "uber" class.

In a fantasy setting, you have many kinds of heroes. You have the knight in shiny armor, you have the powerful wizard with his spells, you even have the sneaky bastard that backstabs the evil guards. They all make formidable heros.

Star Wars the MMO was kinda doomed to fail, for the reason you said: Everyone wanted to be the one single super class, the Jedi. It's like making a superhero game and asking people to play either a hero or some peasant. Now, what would everyone pick?

It can work in a SciFi setting, though, if you avoid too much focus on one single hero type. Maybe we have more fantasy than scifi stories so we have more hero archetypes to draw from in that setting, but why shouldn't it work in SciFi as well? You just have to make sure that all heros have their shortcomings, and that all heros need others to aid them in their quest and you have, essentially, the story written for a SciFi MMO.

Re:It's simple

[dropzonetoe]

I generally agree to your points, but would argue that there is a nice sliver of people that enjoy playing the less useful class. I typically fall into that camp. I often times much prefer a support role in games rather than the "star". Playing the medic, the supply depot, or sitting back and just watching the map and directing the other players to victory is often times much more enjoyable for me than getting right into the combat. Often times it is playing the much weaker class/choice that is more fun as you know your going to lose but the game is to see how good you can do before that happens.

Re:It's simple

[socrplayr813]

Exactly. I've frequently chosen less powerful characters/builds in games because they're more fun.

If tank-like direct combat guys are common/overpowered in a game, I'll tend to go with a stealthy character. Or if everyone in a shooter gravitates to one or two specific weapons, I'll often pick one that has some sort of use or meaning beyond being the easiest or most powerful. I find the game is much more satisfying like that, especially if you get to be good at it. It's just not very interesting for me to join a game, learn the same skill set as everyone else, and then join the mob of thousands of identical character builds.

Re:It's simple

[aztektum]

SWG didn't fail because everyone wanted to be a Jedi. Even now when Jedi is a starting class, there are plenty of non-Jedi. SWG failed because it was 3D chat with a leveling system. There was nothing to the quests in place a launch, there was no content to play through.

I think sci-fi MMOs haven't gotten the attention simply because sci-fi tends to be more complex. Like you said, in fantasy you have the knight in armor, wizards with spells, you usually also have grumpy dwarves that like beer and fighting. Name 5 cookie cutter archetypes that you have all across nearly ALL sci-fi.

It's easier to design a game with content that is universal and customers will swallow up the familiar more easilly.

Re:It's simple

[Knara]

Another major, MAJOR problem with SWG at launch was that...

IT WAS STAR WARS BUT YOU HAD NO SPACE SHIPS TO PILOT

Classic example of "releasing the game before it was finished".

Re:It's simple

[DaveV1.0]

Your fallacy is demonstrated below

It's simple -- everyone wants to be Sir Kirk, and nobody wants to be serf Ricky. How many knights of the realm can one MMO really have?

Alternately, everyone wants to be a wizard and nobody wants to be a broom stick-wielding doofus.

All the fantasy MMOs rely there being a few NPCs to provide supplies and quests and many "adventurers", when in reality,fantasy stories, and fantasy novels there are a very few "adventurers", a handful of royalty, and many peon and serfs.

No one wants to be a peon and everyone wants to be the hero, it doesn't matter if it is fantasy or sci-fi. The hard part is getting world where there can be many "heroes". EVE Online, like other successful MMORPGs, does this fairly well.

And, I can think of several different sci-fi game worlds that could well for MMORPGs.

Re:It's simple

[Skadet]

The hard part is getting world where there can be many "heroes"

Right, that's the logical end of what I said above.

Why does Fantasy succeed where SciFi fails?

[Opportunist]

Well, first, fantasy MMOs are the "oldest" of the pack. Take a look at the history of MMO games and you'll see a lot of fantasy, but really few SciFi classics. This leads to a certain standard setting: People know what to expect. When you look up and down the fantasy MMO genre, you'll see basically the same games. You get your heavily armored tank, you get your stealthy damage dealer, you get your healer, you get your damage caster... and wherever you look, this distribution holds true.

Look at the SciFi genre and you won't get necessarily the same. You can be as close to the "fantasy trinity" of tank-dd-healer as AO, or as far away from it as EvE. You could stumble into something as alien to the whole MMO concept as Tabula Rasa. Or even a multiplayer FPS game gone MMO like Neocron.

And, as TFA points out, people don't really want to jump into uncharted waters with a game they want to stick with for years.

So my guess why fantasy succeeds where SciFi fails would be that people know what to expect from fantasy MMOs. And, sadly, the majority seems to want to play what they know already. Not good news for those of us that want something new, finally, but I guess that's how it is.

Different types of Sci-Fi work.

[pecosdave]

As Skadet points out above everyone wants to be the really cool character and not a minion. Where in outright fantasy everyone has potential to become something, regular Sci-Fi that doesn't really work.

So what happens? A different type of Sci-Fi.

"Retro Futuristic" sci-fi can work, such as things along the lines of Flash Gordon, or possibly post-apocalyptic sci-fi can work, think slightly more futuristic Mad Max. I could see an MMORPG based on Mad Max working out great, and if you move up event that causes society to collapse a couple of hundred years you've got yourself one heck of a game.

Last but not least, a favorite in retro Sci-Fi: Steampunk. Steampunk is sci-fi that has everything that makes fantasy games great.

Though not exactly fitting into any of the three but fitting squarely in the middle of all of them - I could see an MMORPG based on Skies of Arcadia taking off. Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Steampunk, and Pirate themes all in one game? WIN!

Re:Different types of Sci-Fi work.

[Rakshasa Taisab]

As Skadet points out above everyone wants to be the really cool character and not a minion. Where in outright fantasy everyone has potential to become something, regular Sci-Fi that doesn't really work.

Most people want to be part of something greater than themselves. You're only a 'minion' if you're not respected, if you're only doing it for the material gains.

Re:Different types of Sci-Fi work.

[grumpygrodyguy]

So what happens? A different type of Sci-Fi.

"Retro Futuristic" sci-fi can work, such as things along the lines of Flash Gordon, or possibly post-apocalyptic sci-fi can work, think slightly more futuristic Mad Max. I could see an MMORPG based on Mad Max working out great, and if you move up event that causes society to collapse a couple of hundred years you've got yourself one heck of a game.

They tried it, but sadly it didn't work:

Auto Assault

Re:Different types of Sci-Fi work.

[snuf23]

And they're trying again, maybe this time it will work:

Fallen Earth

Auto Assault honestly wasn't a very cohesive game. Some elements were pretty cool but things like the crafting system were horrible.

Sci-Fi vs Fantasy

[KneelBeforeZod]

Let's say a Sci-Fi game and a Fantasy game both have identical game mechanics. What would make the Fantasy outsell the other? Fantasy follows thematic template that involves very simplistic concepts that are easier to grasp. How so? Swords, shining armor, and horses aren't fictional but goblins, orcs, and dragons are. And magic is often elemental; fire, water, etc. So theres But with Sci-Fi everything seems to become inconsistent. One scifi game could be just giant robots, another may be cyberpunk, steampunk, and etc. So maybe Fantasy wins because its much more familiar. Or maybe it wins because Sci-Fi involves too many abstract concepts.

One answer to Sci-Fi MMOs

[jonwil]

I haven't played Eve or any of the other Sci-Fi MMOs mentioned so I don't know if this has been done before but one answer to Sci-Fi MMOs is to implement something more like Star Control where you don't have a player character, instead, your character is a ship that gets upgraded with better guns, better shields, better engines etc (and your ship would have a crew obviously). And the aim is to destroy the bad guys (i.e. those not friendly to your race), talk to and trade with the good guys (those friendly to your race) and try and form alliances with everyone else. Different areas of space would be declared as space controlled by different races and as the game progresses, the balance changes and control over different bits of space can change hands.
Make this in a Trek MMO where you get to pick a race e.g. Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, Borg, Ferengi, Human, Vulcan, Andorian or whatever else. Obviously you wouldnt start out in control of a Galaxy class starship but if you play the game and advance, you may be given command of a better ship than the one you started with. And eventually you might get to the Galaxy class.

Re:One answer to Sci-Fi MMOs

[Maserati]

Yeah, that's almost exactly EVE. Try it.

Re:One answer to Sci-Fi MMOs

[zigmeister]

Really, that actually sounds incredibly fun, (re: something I was bitching to my brother about, why the heck doesn't somebody make a game like that, it would be so cool...)
Couple quick questions:
-Does Eve work through WINE?
-What is the $/month rate

-Jeff

Re:One answer to Sci-Fi MMOs

[Quothz]

-Does Eve work through WINE?

Yeah. I think they have a Linux client, as well.

-What is the $/month rate

Fifteen, but no upfront charge for the software, which is nice.

That said, I tried Eve and gave it up. It's not really my thing; it's got a lot of tedious travel, a lot of grind, and is very PVP oriented. Griefing is actively encouraged.

The gameplay tends to encourage players to join into large, highly-structured, aggressively-run corporations (which are the equivalent of guilds or clans).

That said, it has a lot going for it, if you really like PVP and corporation administration. Corps, in particular, have a great deal of power and flexibility; they can claim sovereign rights over territory, for example, and build various structures and powerful warships there. Cool in concept, but the grind/PVP focus and long, slow travel turned me off to it. Your mileage may vary; try the trial and see for yourself.

Re:One answer to Sci-Fi MMOs

[skolima]

Yes. 39 Euro for 3 months.

Re:One answer to Sci-Fi MMOs

[khallow]

-Does Eve work through WINE?

Yes, but it's not offcially supported and will take some work. First, you need a better card than the 6000 series of GeForce video cards (apparently the 6000 series cards work with Windows but not Wine). Second, Eve needs a Wine patch (I use Wine 1.1.16) and fonts installed. You need a latest version of the NVIDIA drivers if you use an NVIDIA card. The Eve forum has a linux section which has worked out the install details. I personally am stalled because my computer, a Dimension 8200 doesn't support a more advanced NVIDIA card than the 6000 series.

-What is the $/month rate

Skolima has it right, though I believe the US Dollar is favored and slightly cheaper. It also is possible to trade subscriptions (called "30 day pilot licenses"), which when used extends your subscription by 30 days) in game. For example, I haven't paid for Eve since Fall of last year and I have a couple of accounts going (Eve is very "alt" heavy with multiple alt playing encouraged by CCP).

Re:One answer to Sci-Fi MMOs

[Opportunist]

Strip crew, add areas of space controlled entirely and only by player alliances and you just described EvE.

Re:One answer to Sci-Fi MMOs

[Opportunist]

I've been playing EvE for about four years now. I have ... dunno... 30 Million Skillpoints? I honestly don't have an idea. I could probably smoke a few of the self proclaimed 'leet' players (well, someone with some PvP skills using my char could), but I have never even been to a 0.0, i.e. PvP, system.

I also am not a member of any important corp. I'm mostly a solo miner, with a few contracts running to keep my ISK account high and ore thieves off my back.

EvE is what you make out of it. You can go the way you described. I went a different one. More or less successful, who is to tell? I probably make less money per hour than someone kicking rocks in 0.0, but I also don't lose ships for half a billion per week, so I guess my balance might end up higher than his.

Due to my trade (i.e. highsec miner) I also know a fair lot of people who make a "living" by hauling cargo through secure space, there are others that run missions for NPC corps to increase standing and earn rare goodies like implants, and of course there's people dedicated to research. Not to forget the ones that make all (yes, ALL) the crap we blow up, the builders (there's barly any NPC stuff to buy).

So I wouldn't say that you outright have to become part of a huge corp to play EvE. It's one way to play it. There's no 'best' way. And, personally, I'm not even sure if being part of a 0.0 corp is the most successful path to choose.

Re:One answer to Sci-Fi MMOs

[Rhys]

Or Earth and Beyond. Oh wait, it was almost stillborn. Lasted what, 1 year past release then canned? It was closer to what he describes, because it was a /lot/ less complex than EVE.

Re:One answer to Sci-Fi MMOs

[Anonymous Coward]

ask, and thou shalt receive:

http://www.startrekonline.com/

Re:One answer to Sci-Fi MMOs

[Anonymous Coward]

They actually just gave up on the Linux specific client, it was just the windows client pre-wrapped with cedega, but it runs better under wine anyway.

There's also a Mac client.

Fantasy isn't that old

[im_thatoneguy]

I think the article is overestimating the reach and historical significance of "fantasy".

While there have been stories of elves, trolls, goblins, wizards and the like for centuries it hasn't been "fantasy". Now I'm not an english/mythology major but from what I remember about western mythology there was very little of said storytelling OUTSIDE of the historical epics which were mostly written around the time they were set. The story of King Arthur, Dragons, swords etc... comes from a time when it wasn't abnormal for someone to run around with a sword. Dragons were still mildly plausible and Wizards and Witches were believed to walk the earth. So while it was at the time debateable whether or not there were witches etc... it wasn't 'fantasy'... it was dodgy news with a dramatic twist.

Furthermore. The assemblage of "Fantasy" as we know it today has pretty much one primary source and one derivative source: Tolkien -> DnD. The Fantasy world which DnD popularized was largely the creation and invention of JRR Tolkien. Before Tolkien the canonization of what a goblin/troll/elf was and how they interacted wasn't nearly so clearly identifiable as we would today describe a fantasy game.

Really "Fantasy" as we recognize it today is all just Fan Fic for JRR Tolkien written less than a century after the original and has very little mythological root in actual western literature and lore.

IANAEM (I Am Not An English Major).

- Gavin

Re:Fantasy isn't that old

[adavies42]

Furthermore. The assemblage of "Fantasy" as we know it today has pretty much one primary source and one derivative source: Tolkien -> DnD.

well, it's a bit much to say it's all down to tolkien. he certainly shaped the genre, but ignoring people like george macdonald or lord dunsany would be like saying science fiction started with asimov (thus forgetting wells and verne). and there's plenty of people out there writing reasonably well-researched fantasy based on actual western traditions--i read the first book of lawhead's song of albion recently, and it was derived directly from irish mythology.

Re:Fantasy isn't that old

[gnud]

Not to mention how much of Tolkien was derived from actual myths.

Re:Fantasy isn't that old

[david_thornley]

Fantasy has been around much longer than Tolkien, although its rise in popularity came from Tolkien and D&D. The people behind D&D (Dave Arneson, Gary Gygax, and their respective gaming groups) were fond of other fantasy, including Jack Vance (the D&D magic system was inspired by his "Dying Earth" stories), and Clark Ashton Smith, to name two.

One thing you may not have noticed is how much Tolkien took from older myths. A story with no Tolkien influence, but drawing on the older stories, may look strongly Tolkienian.

Fantasy as you know it today might well be D&D-based, and a lot of MMORGs are in vaguely Tolkienian worlds, but you're apparently missing out on a lot of good writing.

Re:Fantasy isn't that old

[sesshomaru]

Well, part of the problem there is the definition of Fantasy. The giant of American Fantasy is named Howard Philips Lovecraft, not only because of his own stories but because he was so influential on other important American Fantasy authors like Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith.

It's not like people don't reckognize the man's influence, the problem is that they just don't reckognize him as "Fantasy" partly because a large numbers of his fantasy stories are set in what were for him modern times, and partly because he was comfortable dabbling in science fiction and mixing up science fiction and fantasy. Oh, and also because nowadays people think that Fantasy has to have knights and elves in it.

Putting it all down to Tolkien is not saying he invented Fantasy, just that in the U.S. when the term Fantasy is used as a defining term people are often referring to Elves and Hobbits (or Halflings, Kithkin, what have you).

Re:Fantasy isn't that old

[brizzadizza]

I totally agree. My favorite type of fantasy has always been the Lovecraft/Howard swords and sorcery kind of stuff. I love the gritty human characters and the sex and the violence. Stories like Den and Elfquest are cool to. I like that seventies stoned-out-of-your-head-here's-some-wild-shit-fantasy, next to that I always felt the holy trilogy was sterile and dull. Give me sexy necromancer queens , yoked out amoral swordsman, bizarre animals and a huge heapin' hunk of WTF and I'm in heaven.

Re:Fantasy isn't that old

[im_thatoneguy]

Precisely.

I'm not trying to say that there isn't great fantasy out there that doesn't fit the DnD mold. Or that Tolkien wasn't widely borrowing from mythology. Just that what most any "Fantasy" MMO would define as fantasy doesn't really resemble anything except for the DnD/Tolkien canon.

Sci-Fi on the other hand sort of has the Star Wars/Star Trek genre pretty well defined. (Warriors in Space). Flying around on battleships of sorts. That would be the Eve Online MMO. But most science fiction isn't very gameable. For instance almost all of Arthur C Clarke's short stories aren't exactly ripe for gameplay. Now if someone made a Mass Effect or Fallout MMO I would never be seen again. So thankfully nobody has done that yet.

Re:Fantasy isn't that old

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true. Fantasy dates back through Tolkien and Beowulf and back to Odysseus, if not before that. The simple fact is that the idea of heroes slaying mythical creatures goes back thousands of years, and is infused into our cultural psyche. Whereas the idea of using technology to travel through space and discover new planets has only been prominent in our culture for at best 150 years. In that respect Joe Blancato brings up a very valid point. Sci-fi MMOs do lack a traditional point of reference.

That said, once one of them does reach that critical mass of cultural familiarity it's very likely to have the same impact as Star Trek and Star Wars have had on modern pop culture.

Re:Fantasy isn't that old

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree more with the parent and less with the responses on this one.

First of all, while it's true that Tolkien "borrowed" from traditional folklore, most modern Fantasy is taken from Tolkien's story, not traditional folklore or even other fantasy authors that pre-dated or were contemporaries.

For example, the beard-wearing, axe-wielding, but mostly human-acting Dwarf is taken directly from Tolkien. In folklore dwarves were a sub-human race that were usually up to no good, and possessed some 'magical' powers like most other sprites/fairies.
Elves in folklore were nasty little sprites/pixies who were not only tiny and mean, but not exactly human-like in terms of their habits. Tolkien introduced the tall race of elves who are like a majestic race more socially advanced than humans.
How about Orcs - these were invented outright by Tolkien himself but appear in almost every single fantasy MMO.

Take a look at the difference between how Tolkien and CS Lewis portrayed their fantasy settings. Lewis's vision was much closer to old folklore versions of fantasy critters than Tolkiens, and he certainly added a lot to the Fantasy genre.

When we look at science fiction, there just hasn't been any single author or story that melded so many traditions into such a grand tapestry as Tolkien's. And certainly no single story that had such a far-reaching impact.
So I feel safe in saying the Tolkien can be almost single-handedly attributed as the father of the modern Fantasy movement, especially in the gaming world.
Sci-Fi on the other hand, has a much wider variety of story types. There are few stereotypical sci-fi characters, and while you might be able to identify someone like Verne or Clark, etc. as being important to the sci-fi movement, it really doesn't have anyone that can be considered the "father" of sci-fi like Tolkien was the "father" of fantasy.

Re:Fantasy isn't that old

[sesshomaru]

I have this theory, it's that the next big MMO is going to have the word 'Starcraft' in it's title. I'm might be wrong about that, but I like my odds.

Re:Fantasy isn't that old

[sesshomaru]

Hooray for American Fantasy and Margaret Brundage!

Sci-Fi is more like reality than Fantasy

[PowerVegetable]

This isn't just about MMORPGs; written literature has a similar issue.

As some have pointed out above, it's far easier to invent a story-framework when you don't have to deal with plausibility.

In our technologically sophisticated world, and especially among gamers, we have a territorial claim on technology and scientific plausibility. We're much more critical of sci-fi, because we feel comfortable judging sci-fi settings. In contrast, fantasy is allowed and expected to exhibit arbitrary rules like magic, and to develop romantic stories involving heroes.

If, in a fantasy setting, I'm jumped by rabid fairies from the Underworld, I can buy it. If they cast eternal drowsiness on me and limit my mobility for 10 seconds... OK that's fine. If, in retaliation, I cast a spell to call down meteoric fire from the sky, that's totally believable (not to mention awesome). Fantasy doesn't invite us to call bullshit.

But if, in a sci-fi setting, I'm attacked by robots, well OK that's plausible. Maybe they're programmed to attack outsiders, I can buy that. They hit me with their laser guns... OK, I can buy that that's possible in the future with advances in battery technology. And I guess I didn't get cut in half because I was wearing special nano-armor that, ummm, absorbs laser light. But in retaliation I cast my hacker-spell and... wait... I smell bullshit.

It's easier as an author to just cut yourself loose from present-day reality. It's far more challenging to write in a future-of-now setting, and deal with the annoyances of the real world's rules and history.

Re:Sci-Fi is more like reality than Fantasy

[Anonymous Coward]

So if in some hack fantasy, I'm riding a dragon, it's totally believable.

If thousands of years in the future, I find myself on a parched desert world, and hitch a ride on a giant worm, it's not? :p

The problem with your sci-fi example is it isn't sci-fi: it's fantasy with lasers. Robots and lasers do not necessarily mean something is science fiction.

Re:Sci-Fi is more like reality than Fantasy

[Opportunist]

But in retaliation I cast my hacker-spell and... wait... I smell bullshit.

But in retaliation I release a cloud of nanobots that I remote control with an implant in my brain to hack the robots.

Technology, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguisable from magic. Use that.

Re:Sci-Fi is more like reality than Fantasy

[sesshomaru]

"Did you hack my eyes?" -- Batou, Stand Alone Complex

You would be correct except for one thing, most of what we call Science Fiction is just fantasy dressed in Science Fiction clothes. Here's a good example, I'm a science fiction character traveling in my FTL spaceship to Alpha Centuri. Trouble is, according to modern understandings of science, that's not possible! It's basically making the rather huge assumption that modern science is wrong. This happens often in "soft" science fiction.

Now, it's true that science fiction that doesn't actually include magic (which leaves out things like Star Wars, 40k, and Dune) has to keep things within a realm of possibility whereas Fantasy can play looser with the rules. However, that's just verisimilitude, it's like all Cthulhu Mythos stories referencing the same madmen and forbidden books.

Re:Sci-Fi is more like reality than Fantasy

[CrashPoint]

Here's a good example, I'm a science fiction character traveling in my FTL spaceship to Alpha Centuri. Trouble is, according to modern understandings of science, that's not possible!

"Impossible by modern understandings of science" is a poor standard for what does or doesn't qualify as SF. Taken seriously, damn near all SF is "just fantasy dressed in Science Fiction clothes" according to such a rule:

• Time travel - Out with The Time Machine and all its descendents.
• Big black rock slabs that provide an instant evolutionary level-up to any monkey that touches it - Out with the 2001 series.
• FTL travel, teleportation, psionics, etc - Out with...almost everything else

It's basically making the rather huge assumption that modern science is wrong.

It's supposed to. Modern science is always wrong about something (regardless of the value of "modern"), and almost all SF stories are, at some level, exercises in the question "What if we're wrong about X?".

Re:Sci-Fi is more like reality than Fantasy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Use the Force, Luke," vs. Midichlorians.

The Force, as an omnipresent, Zen-like energy, was an interesting plot device and excuse for the flights of fancy Star Wars wanted to make. Then, they went and tried to rationalize it. Suddenly, it's an infection, and it's open to logic. "Oh, seems like you've got quite a case of the Force, little Anakin. Better let master Yoda take a look at that. Oops, better not let you have my scanner, lest you use it on your daughter in a couple decades and derail the plot..."

Integrity be hanged; humans have a desire to connect to the transcendental, and if an author is incapable of vigorously challenging the intellect with their writing, magic/spiritualism/animism/cyber-mysticism is a pretty good way to achieve that. It's just like the warp drive; it's irrational given our current understanding of physics, but it makes for a better storyline.

To link back to the main topic, I think that magic, whatever it's called, is workable in a Sci-Fi MMO. Just give everyone access to different aspects of it. For example, create a setting where cybernetics, wireless connectivity, and coherent energy manipulation/construction are established technologies. Now, give characters specialties. The Catalyst class has the specialty of transferring massive amounts of energy to other characters for various purposes; one specialization could go to healing, another to mana regen (substitute appropriate sci-fi gobbledygook), etc. The Construct class focuses on using energy to create functional objects, such as energy shields, pets, etc. The Breaker class learns to disrupt energy patterns at close range -- they're the close-range heavies. The Hacker class focuses on buffs, debuffs, and crowd control/mesmerization. The Emission class simply gets a dozen ways to blow crap up. And so forth.

Assume enough technological advancement and any magic can be made to fit. The deciding factor is going to be implementation. Is it attractive (not synonymous with cutting-edge)? Is it stable (including provisions for stable item AND job economies)? Is it broad (and balanced across the board)? Is it deep (and not just monotonous)?

As an aside, I can NOT explain why MMOs don't have a remort system of some sort. Play through to the "end," then restart with boosted stats. Or, do what Diablo II did, and break off another, harder version of the same world that characters who have run through the first world or reached a certain level can access. Suddenly, the bats and bugs of the second world are as strong as the first world's raid-class enemies. Oh well.

Another view

[Mathness]

One of the good things about SciFi MMOs is that they come with no baggage, it is quite possible to create a whole setting that is original. As you game and read the missions you get a feel for the world and it settings. Fantasy often comes with a lot of baggage, mostly it must have magic, elves, dwarves etc. So it isn't always open to do new things.

I think one of the reasons SciFi MMOs suffer (besides its general lesser appeal to non-SciFi people) is that range combat is always rather poor. Despite all the progress, it still takes a large amount of bullet/lasers/... to kill anything and the range is very limited. Obviously it is so for game reasons, but one can't help but feel a sense of disappointment.

Tabula Rasa is (was) one of the games that got SciFi right, the long range class worked great at longe range (sniper) and they came up with some new weapons that both worked and made sense (polarity gun and injector). And there were a lot of background story and a plot to boot, it was more than just a mission/kill fest.

Then there are games like Ryzom (mostly fantasy, with some SciFi), which have completely new races and world/creatures which are able to break the fantasy mold of elves etc.

Re:Another view

[Kierthos]

The drawback to coming with no baggage is that the developers then have to create the backstory. Sometimes you get good backstory, sometimes you get bad backstory.

And you also have to create a non-conflicting framework for the setting. (I'm going to segue into pen-and-paper RPGs for a bit here.) In, say, ShadowRun, you had these things called skillwires. If you wanted to be Dan Danger, Master of Gun-fu (no, that's not a spelling error, it's what we called the guy with dual pistols), you slotted a Pistols 6 skillchip. The problem was that, given the time and money, you could have a skillchip for every combat skill, ever.

Imagine translating that to an MMORPG. I'm not saying ever sci-fi based MMORPG would have to have skillwires or something similar, but if they did, there would be no real limitation on why every character wouldn't have every skill.

Or, another standard of sci-fi... transporters. Penny Arcade did a strip on how that would affect questing.

Or, as you mentioned, ranged weapons. Yeah, in Star Trek, a phaser set on kill... well, it kills. Hrm. That would be real popular with the PvP crowd, and I suspect it would make leveling a breeze, but you know.... just don't see it happening.

It's easier, in fantasy games, to justify things, that in a sci-fi setting would leave even the greatest Rick Berman fanboy going "no fucking way!"

Re:Another view

[snuf23]

As long as you have a limited number of skillchips useable at one time it isn't a game breaker. Of course using a class based system is easier to design and test. Most skill systems (like SWG) had problems because players tended to come up with overpowered skill combinations which would need to be nerfed.

It will have it's day

[Sparx139]

Every game genre has sucked until there was a brilliant and revolutionary game which paved the way to work around the genre-specific problems, allowing for a flood of games emulating the first success to come out.

Look at the FPS genre on consoles. For years, developers struggled to get the controls correct. Bungie's 'Halo: Combat Evolved' title finally overcame this issue, and nowadays most console FPS games, regardless of which platform they're on, closely mirror the control layout that Bungie set out.

So, what issues does the industry have to overcome before a wave of Sci-Fi MMO's are released? Is it an intuitive 'I know what this is without having to read the manual' setting, a good choice of classes (sci-fi equivalent of healer/fighter/spellcaster), a detailed and fun universe to explore, or something else?

Re:It will have it's day

[Anonymous Coward]

What drug are you on, buddy?

Seriously. Halo invented nothing except mindlessness for idiotic consumers. The game was mediocre, at best.

And I hope for your sake you aren't suggesting that the current de facto standard control scheme was invented by Bungie when they made Halo. People were using WASD probably years before some moron at Bungie even thought about making Halo.

-XcepticZP

Re:It will have it's day

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah okay, I see you're talking about consoles only. My bad.

-XcepticZP

Re:It will have it's day

[im_thatoneguy]

By the time Halo came out on PC it was run of the mill. When it launched it was a number of things which weren't standard FPS fare at the time:

1) Vehicles. (Besides Tribes... which was incredibly hit and miss on the fun factor... there were very few to no games with vehicles that could be driven and flown.
2) Recharging shields. No health packs. This is now STANDARD FPS gameplay behavior. Give the player shields which recharge. Even 'realistic' games like COD 4 now use this sytem and Gears of War.
3) Instant Melee. Press a button while fighting and smack stab or impale an opponent. Many games had knives or other melee weapons. Very few if any had an instant melee button while a gun was armed.
4) Instant Grenades. Team Fortress Classic had this but most games again required you to arm a grenade, throw it and then switch back to your gun.

All of these things combined is what made Halo not just "mediocre" at best. It was a game changer and not just for the console.

Drive/Fly to the fight -> Throw Grenade to take out 'shields' -> Shoot to reduce health -> Finish with Melee. That's the modern FPS. That's largely the product of Halo.

No cook can please everyone.

[SmallFurryCreature]

What this guy seems to want is things to be simple. In an MMORPG. That is possible, just play any asian MMO.

Not all MMO's, typically the western ones, follow that design. Typically, western MMO's have fewer levels, but more happening in a level (skills) and are on the whole slower to play. One free MMO has me AoE a dozen of enemies and killing them with a single skill dropping piles of loot. Of course to pick it all up, you had to buy a piggy with real money or spend ages clicking loot after each 1 key press killing spree.

In for instance Lotro, such enemies are hard to find. For the new rune-keeper and warden classes, such enemies would be nightmare. They are classes that build up their attacks. One shot kills are boring.

The lore-master class has a lot of skills, but many depend on the situation. What enemy, how many, dictates how you play. Not nearly deep enough as far as I am concerned but I am sure way to complex for some.

SWG and the likes didn't fail because they were complex. WoW is complex. They failed because they were so bug ridden only the most devoted fan could tolerate it and then the developers screwed their fans. Funcom and SOE are companies that basically just don't get customer relations. They don't understand that a game is NOT their product. It belongs to the people who bought it and you can't just mess with it. Change it after the sale to attract more customers does NOT work. You upset the people who bought it for what it is and any new customers are going to be scared off even if they are now intrested by the way you treated your existing customers. After all, if they screwed their old customers, why wouldn't they screw their new ones just as hard?

SWG and Age of Conan have showed that you CANNOT just change the game and expect success. SWG has been talked about enough and AoC tried to lower its age rating by getting rid of nudity. Both failed. AoC and SWG are just waiting to die, if in fact AoC hasn't already.

The simple thing an MMO designer must do is this. Ask "WHAT IS MY MARKET".

Is it a simple, "chat with your mates in an internet cafe while clicking away barely paying attention to the action" korean MMO? Is it, "Anybody can play this for half an hour a day, but paying a full monthly fee"? "Hardcore raiders only, anything takes at least a weekend to accomplish an end-content requires a cathater?" "Real life is to earn the monthly fee, this isn't second life, this is your life" style world-sim?

Mix and matching don't work so far. If you satisfy one customer you are sure to upset an other. SWG pleased some, then they changed it. AO was to messy and Eve is doing fine because the developers picked their audience and don't upset them.

Re:No cook can please everyone.

[Hubbell]

How in the name of Jesus Allah Christ (tm) is WoW complex? There's 2 builds for each class, PvE and PvP, and all you do is left click / hit hotkeys over and over as everything is autohit. Complex is a game like Asheron's Call or Darkfall/a) or Ultima Online.

Re:No cook can please everyone.

[Yosho]

How in the name of Jesus Allah Christ (tm) is WoW complex? There's 2 builds for each class, PvE and PvP, and all you do is left click / hit hotkeys over and over as everything is autohit. Complex is a game like Asheron's Call or Darkfall/a) or Ultima Online.

Sounds to me like you played some pure DPS class to 30 and then quit. Am I right?

In general, the only classes that only have two viable builds are pure DPS classes, and the developers are working pretty hard to change that so that every class has at least three viable builds for PvP or PvE (although the degree of success so far varies by class). Hybrid classes usually have at least three builds. Druids have four, and Death Knights have seven (yes, seven).

Besides that, the complexity isn't in character design. That's something you do once over the course of a few minutes and then go play the game. The real complexity is in the raid encounters. Read up on the tactics required to beat Kael'thas Sunstrider or C'thun or Sartharion. If you run into those (or any other high-level boss fight) and just mash your hotkeys, you're going to die, and you're going to get the rest of your raid killed with you.

Re:No cook can please everyone.

[Opportunist]

I've been a healer for the longest time. I finally quit when my deftank decided he wants to move on to a game where he is still needed and more important, it's at least half a challenge to play one.

When you have an AoE taunt that you can spew every couple seconds that makes the aggro of a permanuking wiz look tame, the game lost any kind of challenging moment.

Re:No cook can please everyone.

[Hubbell]

How is using the same tactic over and over, with no legitimate variability due to it being mobs running on basic AI programming challenging in the least? I've yet to play a game where there is any challenge/complexity in the PVE, you use the same tactic over and over with x mob. The only complexity I've found has been in PVP due to it being truly dynamic in every fight, atleast in games likes UO, AC, and Darkfall. Having a fuckin BLAST in darkfall, get ganked all the time but have tons of fun in the process due to the all the variables and such that make me actually think on my feet.

Re:No cook can please everyone.

[Yosho]

Ok, so your complaint isn't "WoW isn't complex," it's "The first tier of WotLK dungeons are too easy." Well, the devs know, it was intentional, and the next content patch will be tougher.

Re:No cook can please everyone.

[Opportunist]

I've seen this development for a while now, it doesn't only affect the first WotLK dungeons. It also has little to do with dungeons being too simple when tanking is a matter of mashing a button (healing has been in that sorry state for a little while now). And DD being judged only by how much damage they can pump out in how little time, crowd control being a thing of the past.

Also, where should the well equipped def tanks come from when those oh so incredibly tough dungeons finally get to see the light when there is little if any need to bring one along now? Quite a few of the better DTs I know either quit or quitted playing their warriors, it's rather unlikely that you'll have a good DT at hand when you will need one.

Starcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

There is one obvious exception: Starcraft.

I hate to sound like a broken record here...

[LoganTeamX]

But EVE is THE best game I've played, MMO or otherwise, since Ultima: Online (and yes, I know that it's STILL around) in terms of a comprehensive and immersive user experience. My EVE main character is about 4 years old (but without 4 years of consecutive gameplay - took two breaks) and my IRL friends and I run a nice little Corp that invents t2 stuff and we're now into reverse-engineering for t3 stuff that came with Apocrypha. It is also singularly awesome in that you get all of your expansions rolled out as part of your subscription, unlike *cough*WoW*cough* some OTHER games.

They did not talk about Stargate Worlds.

[Joe The Dragon]

They did not talk about Stargate Worlds and that does sound like a cool game.

Re:They did not talk about Stargate Worlds.

[james_orr]

With Stargate Worlds troubles it will either never be released or forced to release early to raise cash. If it does release early all the WOW players will trash it for not being as polished as WOW is now after how many years and the game will fail.

How about the state of Sci Fi in general???

[Doghouse Riley]

It takes me about sixty seconds to flip through the monthly flyer from the laughably named "Science Fiction Book Club" and I don't think I've bought ten books from them in the last three years.

By the time I've crossed out all the sword and sorcery crap, all the vampire and zombie crap, all the TV and movie spinoffs, all the $30 comic books, oops, "graphic novels", and all the reprints of SF from decades ago, there are usually less than five new SF books a month to choose from.

I see exactly the same thing in my library and in bookstores. For the love of Pete, can't we separate out all the fantasy/gothic stuff so SF readers can more easily find what we want to find?

It seems like there is a fair number of SciFi MMOs

[bigbigbison]

I wonder if the article is a bit wrong. Sure there have been some high profile scifi failures but there have also been a lot of fantasy mmorpgs that failed.

There actually are a fair number of scifi-themed mmorpgs out there. They aren't as successful as WoW but they are still around. I've never played any of these (I've never played WoW either) but someone is still playing Anarchy Online, Eve Online, Star Wars:Galaxies, the Matrix Online, and Planetside. They are all still around so they must not be losing too much money.

Ugh...

[sesshomaru]

Fantasy alone carries with it assumptions based in our own history, a romanticized version of the middle ages where knights were good guys and smart people with beards could cast spells

Ugh... just ugh... let's see, I'll tweak that a bit:

Science fiction carries with it assumptions based in our own history, a romanticized version of the future where starship troopers are good guys and smart people with bald heads could build robots and death rays.

Actually, "What's New" did a good comic strip on this years ago, Differences between Medieval and Science Fiction RPGs.

Here's the truth, Fantasy is so dominated by one single author that it's easy to see how almost all commercial Fantasy follows one single vision, the vision of J. R. R. Tolkein. Fantasy series aren't based on the Middle Ages, they are based on Middle Earth.

If you'd like to see an RPG that is more based on the Middle Ages, try Ars Magica. Elves aren't tall, pointy eared, immortal people in that game, they are terrifying magical creatures.

It's not like we aren't aware of all the possibilities of Fantasy, here are some Fantasy series that have made great inroads into popular culture:

1. Conan the Barbarian: This is not set in medieval times, and there are no Elves, Orcs, or Dwarves in it.

2. The Indiana Jones Series: Well, excepting "Crystal Skull" (ugnnhh). Fantasy series set in the 1930's.

3. The Chronicles of Narnia: Ok, it's got the medieval period and the dwarves. It also has a ton of talking animals.

4. Harry Freakin' Potter: No Text

5. Anne Rices Vampire Series.... (Ok, I know, that's Horror... except it's Fantasy Horror... different than Science Fiction Horror like Alien)

That's not even taking into account Fantasy Science Fiction hybrids, like the Cthulhu Mythos, Star Wars, and Others.

I'm surprised in the total lack of steampunk

[edremy]

For people wanting a "SciFi" MMO, steampunk would seem to be ideal- most tech is still pretty slow, personal and limited (no super-AI, no ultra-fast robots, no insta-slaughter weapon systems.) One of the big problems with high-tech SF is the impersonality. Even in the modern day hand held, cheap, off the shelf weapons such as a decent sniper rifle offer one-shot kills from a kilometer away. Scale that up with "smart" high tech ammo and suddenly you can kill anything you can see with a telescope. Do a bit of work with portable grenade throwers/missile lanuchers and slaughter hundreds at a time without them even knowing the attack's coming. How boring is that?

Go a bit farther and you begin to wonder what the purpose of humans even is? I'm reminded of some of the fights between drones or epic space battles in Bank's Culture universe- they take place in millisconds. Human reaction times are simply too slow.

So why not go back to the steampunk era? Computers are big wheezing things, robots clank and hiss and a gatling gun is high tech. Something like the Thief universe would make a really nice MMO, or New Crobuzon from China Mieville's works. You get magic with both of those too so folks from both sides of the tracks could play. I'd love to play in either

Re:I'm surprised in the total lack of steampunk

[Knara]

From my point of view, steam punk is "interesting" but not "compelling". I think you have to be of a certain mindset to really enjoy it. It's like the folks that really get off on alternate WWII history fiction, and what not.

Meh

[DarthVain]

Seems to me doing a Fallout Online would be pretty easy to do.

Sci-Fi doesn't have to be all spaceships and aliens, those that would defiantly be fun also.

You could even model the same ideas out of WOW. Races? Pick and alien, make them have various abilities. Gear? Ship upgrades, dur. Dungeons? Preset wars or engagements. Guilds could function much the same... perhaps give ability to buy capital ships or support ships for engagements.

Anyway like most things Sci-fi all it takes is some imagination.

Oh and as to having to back stuff up with science, that's BS, it never stopped Star Trek. Just invent a crazy sounding names. "We need to adjust the warp flux with this here hydrospanner or the temporal gradient of the tachyon field will destabilize and lead to a thaten overload". nuff' said.

Re:Meh

[Psycardis]

You know it had never occured to me, but a Fallout MMO would be great, the storyline just seems to lend it self to an MMO. Now that I'm thinking about it, a Bioshock MMO (done properly) would probably work also, and I think that both of these would fall into the Sci-Fi genre.

The law of Magic vs Sci-Fi

[Mordstrom]

Clarke's laws (wiki) illustrate the problem with deploying a sufficiently meaty Sci-Fi MMO. Once you develop a combat system that has an interesting level of depth to it, it becomes indistinguishable from a fantasy system. The graphics and the names change. In the end, you still have DPS, Tanks, Healers/Repair and crafters (or a loot system) that support all of their efforts to establish domination as a player/guild/alliance.

Re:The law of Magic vs Sci-Fi

[TOGSolid]

The basic mechanics of gaming are incredibly hard to change and the core archtypes of "the tank," "the healer," and so forth can never really be gotten rid of no matter the mechanics or settings. Even if you created an amazingly innovative game with groundbreaking freeform class mechanics, chances are the characters created will still end up being easily pegged as one of the basic archtypes.

That's just the way of things and has absolutely nothing to do with it being a 'fantasy setting'. It's completely genre independent. Even outside of RPGs people's natural play styles can easily be set into one of the basic archtypes. You've got the Tony Montana style of players who run out there with a machine gun and just hope for the best (tank). The long range sniper (ranged DPS). The in your face shotgun fanatics/melee guys (melee DPS). The sneaky explosives guys (nuke), and in the games that allow for them, the guys who run around throwing medkits at everyone like some hyperactive pez dispenser (healer).

As far as the basic concept of player/guild/alliance, come on now seriously? That's just basic clan e-peening. That's been around since mankind first assembled into tribes and started throwing rocks at each other in order to establish dominance in an area. Even without an actual guild system, people in a game will end up forming their little cliques so they can run around as a group and go beat on the other cliques so that they can claim nerd supremecy (and have something to do on Friday night).

The choice of setting still matters though. Swinging swords at goblins gets old fast. We've been doing it for ages, and sci-fi or any other non-fantasy setting can present a great change of pace. City of Heroes anyone?

StarQuest Online

[Alari]

Check out StarQuest Online. The graphics aren't great and the UI is a "son of a bitch" until you get the hang of it. The game is pretty fun though and has a lot of potential. It also has the benefit of being *released* whereas most of the sci-fi MMOs that people are excited about are still in development. http://www.castlethornsoftware.com/indexsqo.html

Re:It seems like there is a fair number of SciFi M

[im_thatoneguy]

Yes but really the point of the article was that there were no Sci-Fi MMOs called World of Warcraft.

Really there is only one major player and that WOW. With some smaller successes still running like Guild Wars. And a few ancients still around. But the real money maker is World of Warcraft. And since it's fantasy the author jumped to the conclusion that since the only success currently seems to be WOW-- Therefore Fantasy MMOs are more successful.

The Secret World anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funcom's Secret World is looking to solve some of these exact problems with current MMO's

Looking forward to

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.jumpgateevolution.com/

And less since it will probably never come out just like Project Offset.

http://www.infinity-universe.com/Infinity/index.php

Fighting Suspension of Belief

[EXTomar]

I suspect one of the difficulties in Sci-Fi is that it has a different if not difficult set of rules to "suspend belief". Many can accept the guy in funny colored cloth robes and the pointy hat can shoot a fireball by pointing his had and babbling some stuff. Its a bit harder to explain why a purple alien "Sirsac VI" can shoot a fireball because because none of that is expected. There is no "folklore" level of understand and people will demand a bit more detail before they "suspend their belief". And for whatever reason, Sci-Fi settings seem to demand more "order" and nitty gritty details.

The real world technical side hasn't been a help either. A lot of the "quirks" we currently face in MMOs can be glossed over by a vainer of Fantasy magic but are a bit harder to explain away. In particular ranged attacks are still tricky although better than it used to be. A Wizard can throw a fireball at a running target and still hit it. The purple alien from Sirsac VI is going to have to explain why their lasers are curving towards their target because again, this isn't expected.

First and foremost, producers need to make a solid MMO. Forget the setting and such if it doesn't scale well or the interactions become tricky then it won't do well regardless if it is Fantasy or Sci-Fi themed. There have been a number of "failed" Sci-fi MMOs that failed to be good games first that just happen to have Sci-Fi backdrops.

Re:Fighting Suspension of Belief

[DaveV1.0]

Its a bit harder to explain why a purple alien "Sirsac VI" can shoot a fireball because because none of that is expected.

Why would "Sirsac VI" have a magical ability in a Sci-Fi MMORPG when he could just have a laser, phaser, maser, alien equivalent to an M-79 grenade launcher?

A Wizard can throw a fireball at a running target and still hit it. The purple alien from Sirsac VI is going to have to explain why their lasers are curving towards their target because again, this isn't expected.

Last I checked, lasers travel at the speed of light. They don't have to curve towards their target. They would be shown as a solid beam directly to the target. They also don't last a long time so it would be just a flash. As far as moving target go, I am guessing you have never heard of leading one's target, which would not even be necessary using a laser as one would not be able to see the target if said target was at a great enough range and/or moving at great enough velocity to require leading when using a laser.

Re:Fighting Suspension of Belief

[JSBiff]

Here's one place where 'futuristic Sci-Fi' games have often had epic fail for me, in this area of suspension of disbelief: most game designs enforce restrictions on the players and enemies that make no sense. What I mean is that, too often, you get this advanced deep space culture who has certain technological limits which we have, *already*, today, overcome.

Take for example, Mass Effect by Bioware. Fun game, but - why I am always stuck using a slow tank to move around planets? Don't we have helicopter gunships (at least) or other types of small, fast, maneuverable *flying* weapons platforms in the future?

This next one is becoming, somewhat, a thing of the past (for example, Eve Online is a great example of how a way to do this right), but - how about a space game where you are given a complex star chart, and you have to manually figure out all the different 'connections' you need to get from system A to system K (because different star systems are connected together via some sort of vertex-edge graph system where you usually don't have direct paths between here and there)? You mean my ship's computer can't figure out the path for me, in 1/10th of a second?

Granted, if the computer does *too much*, automatically, it can tend to make the game boring, but if it does too little, then I feel like the game technology does not represent the technology level of *today*, let alone the *future*. How many MMOs have you played with craptastic auction house/player economy systems, so that it is artificially hard for buyers and sellers to find each other and have transactions? Or artificially small inventories which make crafting a p.i.t.a. because you need, say, 30 different raw materials, and 10 intermediate components crafted from the raw materials, in order to make a single final product, so your whole inventory is taken up with the stuff to make just one or two items?

Define SciFi MMO

[PegamooseG]

I think the tricky thing is to nail down a definition of SciFi. Then, to design a SciFi game that will please the vast majority of players, and/or get them to migrate to a new MMO from one they may already be playing. First of all, SciFi can range from anything from futuristic space settings, like Star Trek or Star Wars, down to something that is remotely technological. Batman could loosely be defined as SciFi because of all his bat-gadgets. Let's assume a it's the former, that the MMO has a futuristic space setting. Okay. Now, is the game going to be featured around space battles? or, interplanetary trading? or, space exploration? or, technological advancement strategy? All of the above? If you have something that doesn't contain enough of these options, you are going to rule out some players who aren't getting what they want. If you have too many or all of these options, are players going to find the game too confusing or cumbersome? I think it might be difficult to find a good balance. Maybe they'll just settle for a good ol' fashioned killing and looting D&D style game (Is anyone out there going to create Munchkin Online?). Also, both RPGs and MMOs both have origins in the realms of fantasy. Comparing MMOs to the pencil-paper-dice RPGs, you will still find much more fantasy genre games and less sci-fi. You could do the same comparison to other genres. Why aren't there more western MMOs or gangster MMOs? Or, it could be that an MMO just isn't quite right for format for a SciFi game. Instead of Massive-Multiplayer, maybe it would work better in limited-parties. I think one person's comment was about too many Cap'n Kirks and not enough Ensign Smiths. But, if you had the small crew of the Firefly as opposed to the entire star fleet academy of the Enterprise, maybe it would work better.

The state of MMOs in General

[TeamGracie]

Regardless of either Genre, the state of MMOs is in turmoil due to one main factor. Somewhere along the road of this great invention we call online gaming, someone decided that it was En Vogue to be a complete jerkoff to total strangers. As soon as its not cool to be a dick to the neighbor you haven't even met yet, MMO's will become fun again, for this gamer at least.

Simple, compare WoW to an asian MMO

[SmallFurryCreature]

Complex is a relative term. There are simpler MMO's out there.

For that matter, while I never got into WoW enough, at later levels especially if you raid, there is a lot to consider. It ain't just "walk around spamming the same attack over and over while gaining dozens of levels in an evening".