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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."
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.
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
My beef with EVE is the leveling system.
.. and so on.
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,
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.
"His name was James Damore."