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Hmmm why not a modern-era styled mmorpg?
ladyattis
Member Posts: 1,273
I don't think I'm the first nor will be the last to wonder if they actually took some modern day events that could be actually used to form the basis of a mmorpg. There's WW2Online, sure but I'm more talking about maybe a crime styled MMO with a similar feel to GTA but with more historical grounding to actual events[like the US Mafia or the Yakuza in Japan]. I think it would work from the novel idea factor of the mmo-angle.
I wonder how it would be done in execution and if even any company would want to touch such a 'questionable' subject. I think it's time to actually have such a MMO in my opinion because I think the Fantasy genre has ran it's course and SCIFI MMOs are not taking the lead as of yet, with exceptions like EVE and AO. I just wonder if such an idea would give the mmorpg market a serious kick in the rear and maybe even attract new programmers, designers and actual real customers[and not the nutter multi-account players].
What's your take on this?
-- Bridget
Comments
***edit***
Sorry that probably sounds a little harsh in retrospect. I am simply stating my own preference here. I think there's enough gang crap in the real world and it's a real problem in many areas. Thus, I can see no logical reason to bring it into games I play also. Just my 2cp, but you're entitled to your own also. 8)
Tacklebury --}>>>
I think that one reason for not creating modern-style mmos is that it is hard to make it from "real" history except taking a political or sensitive view. And also making something "fun" from something that people have experienced as great tradegies. Thats why we see no game from the palestinian -Israelian (sovjet-american) conflict in middle-east for example. Its hard to re-create certain events without making a lot of ppl upset and hurt. After ww2 the world had one bitter enemy in the nazis...but the world isnt so black and white.
If the game wasnt from any "real" event it should be "sim-like" kitchen-sink-reality and I think many ppl want to escape that part. One coming game that partly seems to use the close history is "Stalker" with using the enviroment from Tjernobyl. Look forward to see how they solved that. I think that at least some of the "older" user here remember the big tradegy when the former-sovjet nuclear-plant blew up. Stll many ppl suffer from that effect.
If all else in life fails you, buy a vowel.
If all else in life fails you, buy a vowel.
Still fantasy can be only cut so many ways and not many companies are willing to do scifi. I think modern-gtaish games wouldn't really offend anyone other than those that are willing to be offended. The reality of the matter is that such games would draw on cultural inferences whereas high fantasy and scifi do not. Unless you wanna try to take something like a Robert Heinlein or Issac Asimov book and turn that into a MMO.
Also a game doesn't necessarily be 100% accurate to be considered accurate enough to pass review. In fact, games like Medal of Honor and etc are being pumped out by the dozen, and are considered by experts in the history of WW2[and the tactics and technology used at that time] to be very accurate since they either use such experts or shift through the public information[diaries and accounts] of the war itself. To make a game about crime isn't needed to be nearly as accurate, but since many cases on crime are public, it wouldn't be too hard to do it either. Also, many game engines can be made to be very accurate on physics, it's just that MMOs don't have the demand for it. If MMOs had a demand for realistic physics then there would be realistic physics, but there isn't thus this argument isn't even valid. :P
So still a Modern MMO would kick start the mmo-community probably way more than another scfi/fantasy clone. Your resistence has really only showed me that the effect of such a game would only get people thinking.
-- Bridget
If they do I hope they don't have skills such as Laundry Washing and quests involving Christmas shopping. Imagine waiting for the Cable Man to spawn!
Semi reality based games include There and SecondLife although they don't really include any current events. I'm not even sure they are actually MMOG, more like VR/IM clients.
aboveGame, the Gamer's Blog
The Sims Online
I would try 'The Matrix Online'. Remember, the Matrix was designed to simulate the world as it was in 1999, so thats about the closest you will get as far as time setting is concerned. Ive taled to someone who is beta testing, and he said the gameplay is pretty good.
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Currently Playing:
DarkWind: War on Wheels
Games Played/Beta Tested
Matrix Online
Auto Assault
Anarchy Online
Everquest 1 & 2
EVE
DarkWind: War on Wheels
If all else in life fails you, buy a vowel.
If all else in life fails you, buy a vowel.
You can go outside your front door to get a modern-day experience. More than half the appeal of RPG (notwithstanding the huge lack of RP in most MMOGs) is the idea of playing an alter-ego in a different setting.
Lets see modern day perhaps they should use my life. Okay i woke up this morning level 10 (my iq btw) i masturbated for 300 xp! then i watched a movie a rather good one, 300 hp's gained. i played Elingard my level 48 wood elf ranger went too the plane of justice where i would meet up with my favorite guildy the lovely Druidess Shimmer Tenderbush then after killing the same mob repeadly for 3 hour straight i went too the plane of tranquility found a nice little area where me and the beautyful
Shimmer sat and giggled and related to one another, and told each other how we where each others soul mates. masturbated again DING! and fell asleep, then did it all over again the next day.
-- Bridget
Well, there's always The Matrix Online. I mean, when you enter the Matrix, it looks like a modern urban city.
It would be interesting, but how do you gain XP? Fantasy and SciFi MMORPGs always have thousands of creatures roaming around for your disposal to kill and gain XP from. A modern time MMORPG would kinda be weird. If you're in a city, what is there to kill? NPC human beings? lol. That would be funny... imagine an urban city, like in City of Heroes, where you walk around the streets except instead of mutants, undead and weird looking NPCs, you're killing humans, for experience, to become better. Or you have to go to Central Park (or any kind of forest) and start killing bears, wolves, chipmunks, pigeons, and other North American aminals you see.
The game would be rated 18+ for sure just cause you're killing humans. I think that's why no one has bothered to make a game of the genre.
___________ ___ __ _ _ _
Stealth - Ambush - Hemorrhage - Sinister Strike x2 - Cold Blood - Eviscerate - Vanish - Preparation - Cold Blood - Ambush - ... you're dead! :P
Ok, maybe I missunderstood before. (I blame on my english, as my second laguage...)
With reality-based mmos I thought you meant using real enviroments AND real cases. GTA is not so real to me, even if its based in a modern enviroment. Well, I should see modern based Mmorpgs as a pretty cool thing if they was placed in "real" enviroment but not used real ppls organisations, history and so on. Imagine a mmorpg based on the White House affairs when you played George W Bushs meeting with Rumsfelt......uuuhuuuuuu
Well, pretty cool but scary as 
If all else in life fails you, buy a vowel.
Well, nowadays there arent much MMORPG's that really even have "barely good" gameplay.
But I think MXO is gonna be pretty crappy IMHO from what I heard.
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Face of Mankind
www.fomportal.com
Best game EVER.
Even though its not out and I havent played it
Nuffsaid
I agree that GTA isn't absolutely real but it has a sense of realism with a bit of escapism but not to the point that your actions don't mean anything. Although I find it weird in GTA that you can go on a murderous rampage and then get let out... Just me...
But I think the question of a player would do in a modern-setting MMO to continue the gameplay. Well I think exp would be gone. I personally think in a way, only training, like that in EVE Online, would be the best approach. But that you still need to aim like in an FPS but that statistically your shots[if you're using a gun and etc] would hit more often but not harder like in Fantasy/Melee type MMOs. In a way, what I really want to see is a downplay on magic in most MMOs, even a low fantasy or something. Hell even go the way of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time book series, where it would be more complicated than what most people would imagine it to be. I think the over-play of 'flat' combat styles and gameplay advancement is what is making most MMOs, especially the fantasy genre, look weaker with each new incarnation of one. With game engines by the dozen anymore, the debate of how to present the gameplay is a nonissue. The issue is where are the good writers and gameplay developers?
-- Bridget
One of the richest players in The Sims Online got that way by running a string of bordellos in the game. Is that real enough for you? The person was banned of course.
One of the reasons Lineage is so powerful a game in Korea is that it mirrors the historic clans of Korea's people. Gang (clan) violence has spilled out into the street from the "gaming halls" and people have gotten injured, maimed and killed...over a game. Is that real enough for you?
There are certain things that don't need to be touched. Even GTA gets its share of knockdowns. It's bad enough that kids sit alone in their rooms (or with a couple friends) playing the single-player version of a game where it's ok to kill prostitutes and "get the haitians," etc. Can you imagine if they turned that kind of violence-infested fodder into an online MMO?
Even when WWII Online was released, there were storms of controversy about a certain type of player who chose to play the Nazis. Let's see...can you guess why? I've never played the game so I have no idea if it has improved, but certain players who played the Third Reich thought it meant it was ok to spew racial epithets and the like with impunity.
Military strategy games are a different genre from most other types of MMOs. However, I doubt we'll see an MMO based on the invasion of Iraq while our soldiers are still dying there.
I think an earlier poster hit it on the head.
Can experience real world any time, just unlpug and look around. Gamers like to play games to get away. After working all day, schooling for a couple hours, shifting through bills, I want to get away! I want to go talk to Glimmer Tenderbush at the Plane of Tranquility, not wait in a virtual queue at the post office! I got turned off by Eve Online because I had to work (mine) so often. If I wanted to work, I'd still be at the office, not at home trying to forget how I hate the bossman, but lust after his secretary! Maybe some people would like a modern-day setting MMO, but isn't that what Sims Online is??
An intriguing MMO off the beaten path is Frontier 1859. Western, and the devs have some interesting gameplay twists. It won't be released anytime soon, but some cool ideas in game.