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The State of Sci FI

bebopdrumsbebopdrums Member UncommonPosts: 168
in The Pub at MMORPG.COM
i have wondered this ever since i was a teenager playing games like baldurs gate and icewind dale and such; why are there no sci fi rpgs that offer a mature slow paced immersive sandbox roleplaying environment? the only mmo that i can honestly say provided that experience was SWG pre NGE. it seems like no developers now are trying to recapture that. every sci fi mmo i see tends to my fps oriented or more action oriented. im longing terribly for a sci fi mmo that i can roleplay some cyber punk or a grey alien in some really fantastic universe...but there has yet to be this option. ive played eve for awhile and its just not fantiastic enough for me. Its either anime influenced or fps influenced. i so long once again to craft laspistols and what not. i really hope with some very big sci fi mmos on the horizon that at least one of them will present a huge open sandbox type atmosphere that allows my to sip my tea while i explore the universe as blue and pink shlekblok doing whatever i want without feeling like i have to button mash. anybody desire this as well?

Comments

  • WARCRYtmWARCRYtm Member Posts: 875

    You have EVE online, sand box game, one server (34k players online at prime time), best pvp you can find, best market...

    Single player Fallout

  • GreenHellGreenHell Member UncommonPosts: 1,323
    The reason you dont see many Sci-fi games is that fantasy sells and devs dont want to take a chance. Everyone wants a piece of that WoW pie. Personally I just cant play fantasy games any more. I have seen enough elves, gnomes and dwarves to last a life time. Im holding out for Fallen Earth or Tabula Rasa. Hell maybe even STO though I shudder to imagine what that community will be like.
  • bebopdrumsbebopdrums Member UncommonPosts: 168
    Originally posted by WARCRYtm


    You have EVE online, sand box game, one server (34k players online at prime time), best pvp you can find, best market...
    Single player Fallout
    EVE is not for me. i did play it for a while but i grew tired of not being able to get out of my ship. Plus there are no aliens and such. i know it sounds really silly but its just not an exciting universe to me. im play swg now still because i like the star wars universe even IF the game is way different now. i guess EVE is just a bit TOO realistic in that sense...if only EVE and SWG pre NGE were together as one game. now thats what im talking about.

  • bebopdrumsbebopdrums Member UncommonPosts: 168
    Originally posted by GreenHell

    The reason you dont see many Sci-fi games is that fantasy sells and devs dont want to take a chance. Everyone wants a piece of that WoW pie. Personally I just cant play fantasy games any more. I have seen enough elves, gnomes and dwarves to last a life time. Im holding out for Fallen Earth or Tabula Rasa. Hell maybe even STO though I shudder to imagine what that community will be like.
    yup me too. i was so excited to play vanguard and after a while i just realised that i am SO sick of fantasy. if i fight another gnoll imma puke. or ride another horse...im looking for a truely great artistically inspired creative fantastic world to go nuts in. if i had my wish it would be the 40k mmo just announced. but something tells me its gonna go the road of tabula rasa...i hope not.
  • NFWolfDudeNFWolfDude Member Posts: 304

    I think Fallen Earth is what you are talking about/wanting. Unfortunately it is still in production. Fortunately, it is in active production and I still see stories about it from time to time and even get a news letter via email once in a while. All hope is not lost for us sci-fi fans.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    NFWolfDude

  • kpartonkparton Member Posts: 104

    Theres a major problem for Game developers when deciding to go Scifi or Fantasy and thats design.

    See, Fantasy design is allready there, Orcs, Elves, magic spells, etc. Game companies just need to build around those ideas, they know it sells.

    When developing a Sci-Fi game, you'll need to base design of an IP thats allready there, and there are not many around or design a game from the ground up.

    Thats becomes a major cost problem to companies and is very time consuming and because its completly new, developers have no idea whether the public will take it on.

    In a nutshell, thats why you see less Sci-Fi games than fantasy games.

  • StowawayStowaway Member Posts: 165
    Come join us at  FallenEarth.com



    The dev team is very active, they were just at the GDC, and we have a question from the community answered in detail every week in the Question Of The Week forum. (Every wednesday or earlier)



    We have a good, quite mature, community building up.



    Seems to be a lot of players like yourself, tired of the fantasy and looking for something different to the same old mould formula mmorpg being churned out with elves and orcs.



    Sci-fi / Post-apocalyptic fans



    Seems to me it's the only sci-fi game worth waiting for that is anywhere on the horizon
  • StrayStray Member Posts: 15

    I agree and very much would love to find a MMORPG that combines the likes of Eve for ship to ship and the likes of SWG for planetside/starbase interaction.

    There is a game coming that is for solo play, however, that I am very much looking forward to for the xbox 360. Perhaps, if it is successful, maybe more will come or maybe they will get the bug to do an online version of the game. I would love to see it online.

    It is called Mass Effect and here is a link:

    http://masseffect.bioware.com/

  • isurusisurus Member Posts: 396
    It's harder to make a sci-fi game believable.  Every time you take a chance on psuedo-science like faster-than-light travel or whatever you need some credible explanation.  Also what you might see as futuristic now might look stupid in the near future because technology changes so fast. 



    On the other hand, fireballs and teleportation can be explained as "magic" for the fantasy themed games.  And, retarded as that may be, people seem to like it. 



    I agree with whoever said that they have seen enough Elves Dwarfs Orcs ect to last a lifetime.  I am sick to death of high fantasy

    image

  • isurusisurus Member Posts: 396


    btw sci-fi has its problems, too



    Every time i see an alien head superimposed on a human body i cringe. 

    image

  • severiusseverius Member UncommonPosts: 1,516
    Men in tights rpgs have a bit of a bonus, in that melee combat, ranged combat, and magic all work very well together.  It allows players of different types to all play and work well together.  In SWG it always seemed odd to me that people would run around with swords, hammers, and pikes.  Sure, it worked well enough for the Star Wars IP but how well can it work in another?



    Sci-fi normally translates better into Sim, RTS and FPS but, how well can sci fi be carried out without feeling like a reskin of a fantasy game or a Star Wars knock off?

    http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012

    image
  • AelfinnAelfinn Member Posts: 3,857
    The game is old as hell, and starting to show it, but Anarchy Online provides exactly that kind of environment.

    No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
    Hemingway

  • bebopdrumsbebopdrums Member UncommonPosts: 168
    if what you all say is true than it seems to me that game designers are just not creative enough to create an interesting fantastic universe that appeals to us. i thought that is what art directors are for. i thought of it this way...i would have loved to see "world of Starcraft". but i can already imagine that even if they did make it, seeing as wow already exists the way it is, they would make starcraft a more action  oriented game. developers dont even try to make a sandbox mmo, they just immeadiatly go down the route of action oriented. to be honest, with xbox live, i see absolutely NO point in this at all. if i want to play a fps with real people, ive got ALOT of options. I can understand the reasons why we dont see more sci fi mmos, but i dont think they are good reasons.

             I was thinking about LOTRO...in all honesty, why the hell am i gonna buy this game? its just more of the same in a slightly different wrapper. more elves and orcs and goblins. fantasy mmos just need to stop now for a year or two to give us a freaking break. Ive been playing SWG and while things i dislike its truely refreshing to see my avatar holding a gun.  i hope fallen earth is the type of open - ended, vanguardesque mmo that i am craving.

       
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