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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.
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."
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.
:D
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.
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.
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.
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.