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The Frontier of the MMO Genre

Posted by Soulskill on from the they-don't-even-have-regular-socks dept.

Eurogamer is running a feature about what they call "frontier" MMOs, games that are on the fringe of a market flooded with attempts to replicate the success of Everquest and World of Warcraft. Many publishers already have more MMO projects than they know what to do with, and often leave the more unusual and unique games out in the cold, preferring to stick with familiar IP or a tried-and-true approach. "Like any gold-rush, the MMO market also attracts a different kind of adventurer: the fearless, inexperienced, determined and solitary dreamer, making a go of it on nothing but their own resources and pluck. The online distribution and direct revenue streams — be they subscriptions or micro-transactions — make it theoretically possible to make a mint in MMOs without any help from the gaming establishment at all." They take a brief look at several such games currently in development, including Earthrise, Gatheryn, and Global Agenda.

2 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Time sink by GordonCopestake · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Given how much of a time sink these games are the more that are on the market the more diluted the user base becomes. What we could REALLY do with is something like a generic engine where users can interact with subgames, something like second life but more... fun? That way people can go off and fight goblins in one subgame or go off and fly space craft in another sub game. The benefit being everyone is interacting in the same online "world". Although who controls this one "master" MMO i have no idea. It needs to be opensource and distributed somehow.

    1. Re:Time sink by Gnaythan1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Mission Architect is fun... really fun.

      In about three hours I built a mission called "Dorothy is Dangerous", fleshed it out with a Wizard of Oz theme, had the wicked witch as a contact and had a team of supers taking on munchkins, flying monkeys, the Tin Man, Scarecrow, Lion, and a massive boss battle to take down Dorothy. I've been tweaking it since to make it better. Other people send me input on my mission saying if they like it or not.

      Since then I've played one story arc after another... most of them seem to be focussed on leveling the toon as fast as possible, but that's just one aspect. A LOT of them are simply fun little adventures to run people through.

      Right now, I'm working on a Fairies vs Goblins battle where I expect to have a dozen flying fairies helping me defeat the goblin king at the end.(as you can tell, I have an eight year old daughter assisting me in my design choices).

      I'm having a blast.