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Tron MMO Thoughts?
Royalkin
Member UncommonPosts: 267
Being a fan of the original Tron from a very small age, and after seeing Tron Legacy which seems to be doing well at the box office, I am wondering what the conscensus is for an MMO in the Tron universe?
I do think the IP is deep and engaging enough to produce an MMO, and given the right development studio and gestation time, I think it could do well. Personally, being a sandbox type, I would love to see CCP take a crack at this. It seems right up their alley.
These are my thoughts, but what are yours? Do you think a Tron MMO could be successful? Are there enough fans? What Studio would you suggest?
The thoughts of one writter at Massively: http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/05/30/movies-that-could-be-mmos-tron/
Comments
I personally don't see what made you think it would be a great MMO.
Not sure if it's my lack of imagination or I'm just over mmos but watching that movie tonight didn't really spark your idea in me. I guess it wouldn't be bad to get into a game like that but I just don't see what they could do that would be very different then the current crop of games. All you would get nowadays is a skin of Tron thrown like a throw rug over some current game to hide the undesirable monotony.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
Only if it played like Tron 2.0
But just like the poster above me, I don't really know what you would do with the game outside of what's already being done. Unless the players were really rezzed hackers and the game was more of a Tron themed version of Uplink.
I would play a Tron MMO, I think they can really make it great. I think there is enough fans for it to be successful, is there enough fans to make it a superhit, no, but it can do well in my opinion.
-I want a Platformer MMO
Watched Tron and the new Tron
I played the orginal Tron in the Arcade and it was one of my favorite games. The disk throwing was far different in the game and first movie than the second. It was on platforms in the earlier stuff and in the new movie it was just in a big room with break out tyles and a different rulesets like gravity change.
To answer your question there is a possible MMORPG to be had but the timing is not all that great. There is a Tron video game that got released recently that has most of the elements of Tron and maybe the fast paced non-mmo is where this belongs. The Tron universe does lend itself to 2 faction pvp and player housing and hub centers and most elements an MMO needs.
It's just that Tron is an idea. The idea of a user and programs, of order vs chaos, not even a good vs bad but of an evolution of ideals. It's kind of heavy for an MMO to tackle and I am not sure there is a big enuff fan-base for it. A niche market?....sure. But what developer will throw the kind of cash needed to put together something like that for a small sum of subscribers. If it ended up being epic in scale going from reality to the GRID and beyond and expanding the story exponentially then sure...it would get tons of subs and be a hit......time will tell. Can Disney pull it off? Are they even interested? Is another company interested in buying the rights or working with them on this? These are the burning questions inquiring minds want to know.
Tron wouldn't make a good MMO as it's too centered around a single 'savior' type character. The rest are pretty much just mindless programs doing their single task they were programmed to do. To have thousands of 'saviors' running around would totally destroy the elements that make Tron a great story. This is much better as a single player experience.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
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Every time someone starts one of these threads about what would be a good IP for a game, I find myself scratching my head. What value does adding the word "Tron" to an engine bring to a game? As far as I can tell, all it would do is add a liscencing cost, a layer of brand-management bureaucracy and encourage a marketting campaign that will have nothing to do with the actual gameplay. A branded MMO is all negatives from a player point of view.
I'd play a game based on the Tron universe lol
but thats just me..
Currently Playing:
Rift + Starcraft II + Gears Of War 3 Beta
This is what SWTOR is going to be doing...
Remember Old School Ultima Online
Replying to maplestone:
What value did adding the Warcraft name to a game engine give? A branded mmo/game's success depends on the original IP's success. There are always going to be some brands that will do better than others.
But you're right. There should never be reiterations of the same brand or IP ever. Continuations of storyline, updated gameplay mechanics and graphics in a fictional universe you enjoy are stupid things to like.
I say no to this idea because too many MMOs based on movies bomb.
For it not to the developers would have to be able to work on it until it's done but we all know the Customer/Shareholders are going to rush the game out the door ending in disaster...
Every time a new movie comes out that falls into the "Nerd" genre, this question comes up.
The short answer to it? Nah, leave it alone.
From the point of view of a game *publisher*, a brand name is very important - because out of the wide array of options, people are only going to give a second look to a couple of games - and a brand name makes all the difference in attracting eyeballs.
From the point of view of a game *player*, a brand name only adds hype - it does not make a game better. Warhammer is a prime example of a game that was hideously overhyped then floundered because the excitement and expectation were based on the IP rather than the actual MMO being built.
Now, if brand loyalty is more important that quality, then so be it. Just remember that was the choice you deliberately made as a consumer before opening your mouth to complain next time your hopes are dashed.
Seeing as TRON is about self-aware avatars on the gamegrid, every MMO is a type of "TRON."
Also, when you get right down to it, there's very little difference between TRON and The Matrix and we all know how well a game based on that worked out.
Even though SWTOR is doing that, Star Wars itself lends itself to be more of a world where any person can be anything they want to be but in the world of Tron it seem like it will only lend itself to minigames and story exposition...
This is not a game.
I am kinda critical. I rather see a game based on William Gibsons cyberpunk books instead, the IP would work better.
Tron is a classic movie but it is hard to make a full MMO just from a movie.
Agreed!
Hey Hey
I would much rather see it as an open world single player mmo w/ a good set of modding tools , similar to the ES. There are just way to many constrants when dealing with an IP that is not yours. What is nice about TRON is that there is a lot of room for lore to fill but as a previous poster commented on having 100k saviors just does not fit in.
However i would like to see an MMO try to tackle the digitial world.
Welcome Home
Rev
Who said that the Savior type of character is the end all be all of MMO design? It is perfectly feasable to have character progression inside an MMO without being a damned hero. Honestly, this is the bane of current MMO design. This is due in part I think to the marriage of console single player experiences with MMOs. The majority of gamers these days want fast gameplay, near instant gratification, and loot.
My vision of a Tron MMO is nothing like this (although I have to admit given current design methodologies, chances are this is what we would get, and if that is the case, I would not touch it). I imagine the grid being a world, with multiple cities, and the plethora of that existence mirroring the real world in digitized form. The denizens of the grid would lead a similar existence to any other NPCs you would find in any other MMO. The fact that they are programmed is irrelevant since all NPCs are programmed. The characters need not be heroic, perhaps they are system monitors designed for combat and to eliminate threats to the system, or perhaps they could be system engineers repariing and designing new programs and structures (crafters?). In my mind the players encounter heroic individuals inside Tron, such as Clu, perhaps the MCP, or even Tron himself, and help then on their heroic journey, but why do the players themselves have to be heroic? Also I would add, if everyone is heroic, then no one is heroic. Heroes are special, unique, and rare, and not everyone can or will embody that. It works in film and single player experiences because the heroes are singular, however in a world with thousands of others, it is nonsensical.
Although I have gotten a bit off track here, the point of this is that MMOs used to be about creating and being part of a virtual world, player and character interdependencies, communities, and having fun with other people. I think most people have lost sight of this, and it is being forgotten, but if a Tron MMO is designed in this way, it has excellent potential. However, if the easier path of heroic and shallow MMO design is taken with pointless leveling, raiding, and where loot is the most important factor, then no, a Tron MMO would not be any different than the majority of MMOs that currently exist. Just another wrapper built upon the false idea of the Casual Utopia,which most people would play for five minutes, and somehow strangely, find themselves feeling Deja Vu.
I could see a tron mmo. There are three factions, melee,ranged,caster,and vehicle combat, social hubs, cities,the grid could allow for player housing, crafting could include architect, musician, weapons,ships,tanks,vehicles,bartender. Rogue programs and viruses could be pve content. And of course all the actual games could have tournament play and leagues. Id play it if they approached it like a sandbox which the grid naturally leans towards anyway.
You seemed to miss the whole point of my post. There is no other characters in Tron besides the 'Savior' character unless you think it would be exciting to be a test simulation program, finacial analysis program or a word processor. Hell even Tron himself was locked into his singular objective... to take out the MCP which he never would have acomplished without the free thinking help of a user... Flynn. In Tron there would be one race and one class... 'User' as it's the only one that would be even remotely interesting to play. If you give the rest of the programs free thought then the world of Tron ceases to be Tron. It just wouldn't work and still be true to the source material. What you suggest is wholesale butchery of the IP. The MMO market has already butchered enough great IPs. Leave Tron alone please.
Bren
Edited because I spelled Flynn wrong and forgot a 'the'. I was tired when I wrote this and why don't you ever notice typos until after someone has already quoted you?... LOL
while(horse==dead)
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I get what both of you are saying. Bren is taking good care of the Tron experience because we all know that Tron is about a great movie experience that tells a story about there being a world inside the computer and it tells it by following a savior character type of thing. Just like the story in Back to the Future is told by following Marty. Marty isn't really a savior though he's a time traveller. Anyways, you get what I mean. Royalkin is simply recognizing that Tron has already done the work of thinking what a world inside the computer could be like. It has a great styled theme already. It has vehicles, games, music, lighting, already there for game designers for the taking. Flawed as the world of Tron is (there aren't really programs walking around like people inside our computers, but you can believe that if you want to lol), lots of people don't care and still love it. MMO Game Engineers can still take this world and turn a game into it. It would not be the same Tron experience that we get in the movies. Instead it would be the very generic Tron universe in an MMO form. Just as World of Warcraft is generic Warcraft. It's very tough to say, but I would think it would hurt the Tron image if it went MMO. Even though all that game content is already ready to be taken and put in the game, there would still be a lot of hard design work needed to make the game make sense. The best solution is to not mess with it. Let Tron be remembered as an awesome movie that had awesome video game ideas. But don't turn the actual thing into an MMO unless you know precisely what you're doing. In the words of Flynn's dad, "You're messing with my Zen, man!"
I think it would be like matrix with less visually appealing everything. I can't remember the original plot clearly, it seemed kinda cheesy, though I was probably stoned when I saw it in the theater.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
I think the environments, while ok for a movie, might become rather monotonous in an mmo. Maybe not though. Guess it would depend on the artists.
They do have the two different facitons so you could have a long standing conflict, maybe some pvp. And there would be the dueling and team matches like the disc throwing game and light cycles.
Tron is a cool license. I hope they make more movies. Gem looked amazing in 3d !
I agree with these statements, and I also think with anything that one might pursue, if your not willing to spend a large amount of time, sweat, tears, and maybe a little blood, why do it? As I was told from a very young age, Anything worth doing, is worth doing right.
In my original post, I stated that for this to ever become reality, it would have to be given to a studio that could give it the justice it deserves and not simply spew out something for sake of making a profit. However, I will admit that the fanbase of Tron (specifically those who would be interested in a MMO, but even moreso the type of MMO it would have to be) is incredibly small. Based on that, and regardless of how bad I would like to see it come to fruition, we are very unlikey to ever see a Tron MMO.
But... even with all that said, I still think there is potential, but it would have to be taken very seriously (from a fan perspective and not a profit perspective) and given the love and care it would need in order to be something we could all stand behind. Given the right people who have an understanding of what Tron is, its signifiance, and mechanics, I think they could make it work. Although I do not wish for the IP to be mutilated into a MMO either. If it will not work without ruining it, then I will back away also.