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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."
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.
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.
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.