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The MMOFPS
Ihmotepp
Member Posts: 14,495
What if the technology issues are solved.
We take WoW, and replace all combat with First Person Shooter combat mechanics, straight out of Call of Duty or Battlefield. NOt similar, not something that LOOKS like FPS from those games, but the exact same kind of first person shooter mechanics.
I guess you can go up in stats, like get more hit points. What else would matter? No stats can affect aiming, that's all done by the players. Gear would affect damage, whether you have a gun, laser beam, hand grenade, bow and arrow, etc.
What is this game? Is this still ian MMORPG? Is it just like WoW or LotRO just with different combat mechanics like Age of Conan had different combat mechanics? Or is this no longer an mmoRPG? SHould this sort of game get it's one classification and be called an MMOFPS?
Comments
It's an MMOFPS, because it's an MMO whose gameplay is far closer to a FPS than an RPG (even though it has RPG elements.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Crossfire, Combat Arms, Planetside, Savage 2 and Exteel are some examples of what you describe. I'd just call them MMOs, but MMOFPS seems to work as well.
EDIT: Downloading Exteel again. This thread reminded me of it.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
To make a good mmofps they need to dump the idea of levels, stats, classes.
They need to focus on the world, and getting as many people fighting at the same time as possible. Then they should focus on endgame stuff(without levels endgame would start immedietly). Like world domination, a robust meaningful economy, clan owned bases, or even politics. If they get the main stuff sorted out, they then could add some fluff like crafting, hacking, player designed bases/cities, achievements, and vehicles.
Now im not saying levels,stats,or classes will kill a mmofps, but real fps people just want a more epic fps. Money and power are stuff worth fighting for.
Own, Mine, Defend, Attack, 24/7
The agency is a shooter (with real aiming) that is also an RPG.
It's under wikipedia as MMOFPS
Although Mass Effect has real aiming and is still considered an RPG, not a shooter. Fallout 3 has real aiming and auto target and is considered an RPG.
TCoS, Darkfall and some of the upcoming MMOs have manual targeting, as well, and they are all still considered RPGs.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Planetside is TEH true mmofps. Go try it for a while.
Darkfall have all those features. It's great game focused on manual targeting and getting as much people as possibile in one place (that's why some people complains about graphics or animations).
Personally after playing couple of MMOFPS lately I will never return to point and click mmorpgs. I bet many people think same.
btw. upcoming mmofps (mmorpgs) are Mortal Online and Earthrise (and probably many more since everyone is just sick of WoW clones)
Global Agenda, is gonna be the best MMOFPS when it launches in my opinion.
http://www.facebook.com/DEATHREAT
Planetside is a good example of why a mmofps needs to make sure it has good endgame stuff. Trading bases back and forth get boring afterawhile, specially when its 15 a month to do so.
Global agenda looks neat but we shall see how much of a real fps it is, or if its more like tabula rasa.
Own, Mine, Defend, Attack, 24/7
I think the concept of character progression is probably more important than the game mechanics when considering whether a game should be defined as an FPS or RPG.
DDO and Mass Effect are examples of games that already use a fair amount of FPS mechanics but still play more like RPGs.
For the most part i agree with this except that i think it would have to include a skill system to make weapon accuracy better or crafting higher quality items ect. I do not think that a skill system should be left out but getting everyone in and fighting is a good idea IMO. I just dont think that any future based MMO or MMOFPS has delivered on depth although i see where development of depth in a MMOFPS could be tricky holding peoples attention for longer than a few rounds of <insert favorite FPS here> and turning it into something with depth and lasting playability.
WWIIoL / Battleground Europe Is almost exactly this.
It is definately a MMOFPS.
But is it an MMORPG?
Well, it depends on how you play. It can be.
WWIIoL includes a High Command structure and also includes squads (guilds) which often also have their own internal rank structures.
Within that certain players will often take specific roles when they play and often remain true to those roles.
There are specialist units of fighter squadrons, naval squadrons, armored units and paratroop units.
So, is this roleplay?
In a way, yes it is. So WWIIoL can be a MMORPG. But whether it is or not depends on the players themselves - not the game mechanics.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Planetside is a good example of why a mmofps needs to make sure it has good endgame stuff. Trading bases back and forth get boring afterawhile, specially when its 15 a month to do so.
Global agenda looks neat but we shall see how much of a real fps it is, or if its more like tabula rasa.
We don't know, since Global Agenda is a game that is always growing. But to this date GA is more counter-strike than tabula-rasa... And more Quake3 than Counter-strike. Is much more Quake3 than Team Fortress. Think a pseudo-classed Quake3.
Earthrise will not have FPS-combat. Earthrise will have a softlock system with the usual RPG-calculation in the mix. Even if your aim is good, the target can dodge the damage.
considering that an mmofps that i used to play (endless ages, it's gone out of business) was similar to that with stats but based the stats more on how an mmorpg would do it then this would be an mmofps.
to the people who want this sort of game: it would be complete chaos to have an mmo fps that actually functioned like call of duty or something. the whole game would be like an online round of just about any online shooter. you'd revive and then get shot in the head by the next guy. It just wouldnt work WITHOUT stats, & i don't just mean health. Again, as pretty much all my other posts have said, I'll post my big idea in probably the enxt month and see what you guys think
Without a persistent full featured world, its no MMO. A bunch of small maps with controlled player counts, connected together by a centeral hub with instant travel, is just a golrified online shooter with some stat tracking and a graphical chatroom...hardly worth a monthly fee. Might as well play TF or COD4. However, if its just the box price with small quarterly expansions that offer new weapons, classes, skills or what have you, it could be worth it. If the fees are like GW, it can work. Trying to sucker monthly fees out of people for a bunch of battlegrounds isn't going to fly. It hardly worked with DDO or TR and it won't work with any new MMO. Bedies, if the only progression is trading some bases back and forth in an endless loop, that'll be boring in about a month. If its all skills like a real FPS, there is no character progression. You can only get as good as you are and you'll be as good as you're ever going to be the first day playing;)
Why are people making a destinction between FPS and RPG, saying a game can never be both? Those can work just fine together. I actually believe that a FPS style is more immersive than the third person / isometric view and can still have everything that defines a classic RPG.
RPG = Role playing game: You are playing a certain type of character. Nothing more, nothing less. Lets say you choose a priest. When you heal a friend in isometric view its an RPG. How can you suddenly say its not an RPG anymore if you heal him in a first person view? A FPS can have char progression as well. You can go through quests/stories/crafting and virtually everything else in first person view without noticing a difference in game mechanics.
The problem lies somewhere else: Somehow people have come to believe that success in a MMORPG should only depend on your play time whereas success in a MMOFPS depends on actual player skill. This is nonsense. You can have a dumbed down, stat/item/level heavy 'MMOFPS' where your items + level dictate combat outcome. You can also have a classic yet complex 'MMORPG' with tons of combat options and no dependency on items or levels. Here the better player would win no matter the /played times.
I think that all of those MMORPG-Players are scared of player skill dependent FPS games because they simply do not have the skill themselves (which they would automatically acquire after playing the game for a while). Thus they fight with all their might trying to stop FPS style combat from entering their world of classic skillless MMOs.
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Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
The thing is, that RPG and FPS are terms we have a picture of. We tie gamemechanics to them aswell.
RPG gamemechanics = dicerolls
FPS gamemechanics = twitch
Sure we can mix them up, but the usual FPS-player hates dicerolls and the usual RPG-player hates twitching, so they don't go very well together actually for most gamers.
There are some issues with FPS system while being MMORPG.
1. You take away accuracy as a stat, which also take away part of the inner workings of a stat based combat system. Which can be worked around I suppose, but being FPS is not a good enough selling point these days just to throw that out there. If the focus is put entirely on FPS then its gonna just become either a FPS or a neither category, which usually result in a bad mmorpg.
2. Some people rather see their avatar than looking out a window (FPS), which a window beats FPS screen since looking out a window is in actual 3D and not 3D representation. If you can complete virtual reality technology then I can see FPS can fit perfectly fine in MMORPG. As long as it is a 3D representation rendered on a 2D monitor, FPS will run into issues integrating into MMORPG, I am not saying it's impossible, just saying not practical at this point in gaming technology.
Actually just these 2 are enough for now, going too far into this will become a page long reply.
If a successful MMOFPS can be achieved in current technological capacities, it'll take alot of thoughts, planning, and works to make it possible. It would also have to retain what makes MMORPG fun in the first place.
All I am saying is, FPS alone is not good enough a focus for a MMOFPS. It needs to be a good game that happens to be MMOFPS.
That is all my honest opinions in the subject matter, peace.
RPG typically infers Character Progression more than dice rolls. Some pen and paper RPGs don't even use dice rolls.
You're right that mixing die rolls and twitch aiming is a bit awkward. I haven't seen too many games try it, and those which have have felt terrible (because you can succeed the real-life skill check of "put your crosshair over the guy and fire" and still miss, so it feels terrible to players.) I forget the name of the MMO I tried which was like that (not Tabula), and Hellgate.
Personally, when people say MMOFPS it never even enters my mind to consider an "accuracy" stat.
People should play Oblivion or Planetside to set their expectations for mixing RPG and FPS mechanics, and go from there.
Inf66's 3rd paragraph in post #18 outlines two varieties of MMOFPS which could both be fun. (Assuming his first example doesn't involve an Accuracy stat, which would clash against the playerskill check of physical aiming.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
RPG typically infers Character Progression more than dice rolls. Some pen and paper RPGs don't even use dice rolls.
You're right that mixing die rolls and twitch aiming is a bit awkward. I haven't seen too many games try it, and those which have have felt terrible (because you can succeed the real-life skill check of "put your crosshair over the guy and fire" and still miss, so it feels terrible to players.) I forget the name of the MMO I tried which was like that (not Tabula), and Hellgate.
Personally, when people say MMOFPS it never even enters my mind to consider an "accuracy" stat.
People should play Oblivion or Planetside to set their expectations for mixing RPG and FPS mechanics, and go from there.
Inf66's 3rd paragraph in post #18 outlines two varieties of MMOFPS which could both be fun. (Assuming his first example doesn't involve an Accuracy stat, which would clash against the playerskill check of physical aiming.)
Role Playing Games are about the Character. My CHARACTER can shoot lightning bolts, or use a laser rifle, not ME the real person.
The accuracy stat is in line with Role Playing, in that the CHARACTER determines the chances of success.
Once you get rid of that, and the PLAYER is the main determiner of the combat outcome by at least 51%, IMO you've left the RPG genre and entered into the FPS realm.
There are two types of ROLE PLAYING games.
Paper and Pencil and Computer.
IN Paper and Pencil games, you play a character. you play act. You can be goood, bad, funny, stupid, friendly, mean. That is ROLEPLAYING, meaning pretending to be a character.
The standard definition of role playing in COMPUTER games is character progression. All games that are COMPUTER games and are thrown in the ROLE PLaYING genre, have character progression.
WoW, for example is a COMPUTER role playing game, meaning character progression. You can also pretend to be someone else in the game, and play a role, but that's not really what hte game is designed for, unlike a Paper and Pencil game.
There are two types of ROLE PLAYING games.
Paper and Pencil and Computer.
IN Paper and Pencil games, you play a character. you play act. You can be goood, bad, funny, stupid, friendly, mean. That is ROLEPLAYING, meaning pretending to be a character.
The standard definition of role playing in COMPUTER games is character progression. All games that are COMPUTER games and are thrown in the ROLE PLaYING genre, have character progression.
WoW, for example is a COMPUTER role playing game, meaning character progression. You can also pretend to be someone else in the game, and play a role, but that's not really what hte game is designed for, unlike a Paper and Pencil game.
Role Playing just gets a little bit fuzzy, but a key characteristic is definitely character progression. Alot depends on the actual impact of that progression, if it's just for show or if it really matters.
I do think many people are too quick to dismiss an FPS as an RPG. The game can easily be a combination of both, and we would probably all be better servered by being more specific, perhaps referring to a game as FPS with RPG elements, or vice versa.
Acronyms and buzz words are used too often, and when you're trying to have a real discussion, things just get confused. If you want to call a game an MMORPG, thats fine by me, just take the next step and tell me why it should be in that categeory if, in the case of many of the MMOFPS's out there, it's not immediately obvious.
An awful lot of Oblivion players would laugh at you if you called that game a First Person Shooter, yet Oblivion doesn't have Accuracy as a stat.
Even getting rid of the accuracy stat, stats matter in Oblivion. Barring pathfinding exploits you're not going to take out mid- or high-level creatures with a level 1 character in Oblivion (assuming the game didn't have a screwy difficulty-scaling system.) Stats matter.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver