Would I get a hover pad with SF babes like the alien in the picture? If so count me in.
Rifts was a mish mash of settings, an excuse for Palladium to stick any idea they wanted in the mix. Some of the products were very good some quite pedestrian. Sticking to one of the more detailed world concepts would be the key to success.
...dangit, someone beat me to it. I never really liked Shadowrun and was a die hard RTAL CP2013/2020 player for years. They even had authors of genre writing rulebooks for them (George Alec Effinger comes to mind). Still have the books around here somewhere.
As an avid rifts player and GM for rifts, I have to say I've been wanting a MMO for a long time. If you look at a rifts mmo it HAS to be done like EvE Online is. There many characters in eve (though usually alts) can't do much combat, they sit in stations trading/building/researching or mining with very little combat skills. If you run rifts the same way in terms of what characters can do like that, you'll have a better base for classes *in the beginning* If you look at Rifts in a pvp perspective then you'll have massive balance issues, as a rogue scholar vs a phaeton juicer in just about any vehicle is lots one sided. In order to make it right, the some of the rules might have to go out the window. The whole SDC MDC would be very hard to mitigate, and most armor doesn't regenerate so when your plastic man armor falls off from too much damage and you lose a limb to a md particle beam blast. There are tons of ways a mmo could go, there, and limitless possibilites for races/classes and combinations. It's probably one of the hardest to plan around. As a GM in order to part out a campaign you know what power level you want to set, and where to start characters in. I'd love to play a triax robot pilot in one of the walking monstrosities of sheer power they have. I would love to find that ccp and palladium are talking about it, but chances are it's some other company if there even is one. Heck just a RPG for the PC and consoles with that kind of scope would be great, multiple starts, such as triax, lazlo, chitown, few other hotspots with a few character classes/races per section would be good too.
Ok now I'm jonesing to run or play RIfts now thanks... lol anyway, this is a great idea and a good enough thread might give some solid ideas and who knows one little forum discussion could change the face of the MMO as we know it if rifts MMO becomes reality!
Hopefully some small company will build something unique and interesting from such a great IP. I'd like to see a game that really throws balance out the window on some levels.
A huge orc should be able to deal huge crushing and physical blows, ones that send a mage flying, breaking their backs against a wall.
A mage, given enough time, should be able to pull giant balls of fire from the sky to crush said orc.
I am playing EVE and it's alright... level V skills are a bit much.
And don't get me started on balance issues. If you want balance, play checkers. The world all around us is full of imbalance, which is one of the things that makes it interesting. There's no reason this needn't hold true for an online world as well.
Incredibly well said, Unlight. I don't think you could have put it any better than that.
No godless person can comprehend those minute distinctions in doctrine that provide true believers excuse for mayhem. -Glen Cook
"Chaos Earth™ puts the player in the center of the Great Cataclysm – the apocalyptic upheaval that, in the end, creates what we know as Rifts Earth.
Player Characters live through the death throes of human civilization, the reshaping of the very planet, and the birth of Rifts Earth. You bear angry witness to the Earth's fiery rebirth as it goes screaming to become a cauldron of mystic energy, a multi-dimensional doorway to infinite alien worlds and the catalyst for endless possibilities.
One's greatest challenge is not only survival and battling monsters, but keeping one's sanity, goodness and soul.
You – the player – exist in the eye of the hurricane. A maelstrom that, even as you play, is reshaping the entire planet.
You – the hero – are the last bastion of goodness, idealism and life.
You – the protector of the innocent – are all that stands between the helpless masses and the devouring hordes.
You – as one of the last people standing, unwilling to give up, unwilling to die, unwilling to let chaos win – fight with ruthless conviction against every face of evil, from the openly inhuman and monstrous to your fellow man.
You – as gamers – have never experienced anything like it. Absolute chaos, ruthlessness and savagery in a no-holds-barred free-for-all for survival . . . and more. "
Start from their work outward an advace the time line with expansions that would mirror the world books.Like..
i think they might have problems working in some of the deminson books but would love to see
in their .
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." Robert E. Howard, The Tower of the Elephant (1933)
O my gods this would rock! Sure the pnp has power imbalances, but so does every game out there. The point of it is to give more freedom to the gm to create house rules, like any Gm worth their salt will do... otherwise that thing they call 4th ed dnd is a munchinfest mmo-wannabe.
I think it would rock to have the chance to play one of my amazon chars. The only problem I forsee with the creation of this type of mmo is that there are to many rccs and occs to choose from. Plus the facrtions, NGR, Coalition, Atlantis, Naruni.... yeah i think ya get the point. Unless we were to go Coaltion vs DBees vs Splugorth?
Would be cool to start when it all started, all as humans during the thick of it all. That pnp game went well for my group.
and i hear that this year's palladium open house was a HUGE success, even talked to Kevin himself via my little bro on the phone. They were just getting ready to sit down for a game, but he was saying they may not have an open house next year but want to throw a huge one in 2012, and i bet we can all guess why
There is enough action and source material in just the US/Canada areas of Rifts that an mmo would really never even have to get into most of the world books, let alone the dimension books.
Keep the bulk of the gameplay in one region of the world and make small adventures to other parts of the world. That way the playerbase doesn't migrate to new areas of the world as each new worldbook is added to the game. Sort of like how there are so many dead areas in Everquest, because they continually add new landmasses to the game that forces players to migrate and abandon the previous area.
For example, as much as I think Rifts: Mexico is interesting, I don't think I would want to be stuck there for 12-18 months between expansions.
Guess I'm just too old. Never heard of Rifts before this post, and I'm actually a fan of Sci-FI literature. Guess you had to be part of the pen and paper RPG gaming scene which I most definitely missed.
But that said, I've never been a fan of mixing genre's, i.e. I'm a purist and prefer my science games are all science and my fantasy games stay with magic.
I recall playing the early single player RPG's and thinking that Wizardry and later MIght and Magic were jumping the shark a bit with the addition of alien races, robots, guns and spaceships to their traditional fantasy roots.
But what the heck, I'd like to see just one popular IP be made into a good MMORPG so what the heck, maybe this could be the one.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
In 2002 my BSc Games Design dissertation was a design doc for a Rifts MMO.
Palladium Books wanted nothing to do with me or the idea when I approached them for their permission, as an academic work my professor told me to just do it anyway. After graduating I never really looked back on Rifts feeling it was an IP doomed to obscurity by an over protective parent who couldn't create balanced content.
While I still love the lore and setting that Rifts has (had), I don't think any developer out there really needs to go trying to recreate everything Rifts has to recreate what's good about it and to capture it's selling points without being dragged down by it's failings.
I'd love to see a post apocalyptic sci-fi fantasy mix set right here on earth, but I doubt it'll be Rifts. I just don't see Palladium Books letting anyone loose with their precious little baby.
Not sure if this was mentioned, but one of the HUGE problems I see with the game would be the S.D.C. and M.D.C. armors/weapons coinsiding peacefully in the game.
To anyone who hasn't played Rifts before, this boils down to anyone NOT wearing MDC armor and was shot by an MDC weapon, one of the strongest being a Glitter Boy's Boom Gun, would be nothing more than a blood smear on the ground, no matter how much damage the gun caused. And trying to shoot something/someone with MDC armor on with an SDC gun wouldn't do much if at all for damage.
If this was figured out in a very cool way, it would be fantastic. With a Rifts MMO, there's SOO much variety in the game, that I personally wouldn't need another MMO if it were to turn out right. It would be just an awsome game. And the Coalition being one of the best "Bad Guy" playable factions...... would be great.
Not sure if this was mentioned, but one of the HUGE problems I see with the game would be the S.D.C. and M.D.C. armors/weapons coinsiding peacefully in the game.
To anyone who hasn't played Rifts before, this boils down to anyone NOT wearing MDC armor and was shot by an MDC weapon, one of the strongest being a Glitter Boy's Boom Gun, would be nothing more than a blood smear on the ground, no matter how much damage the gun caused. And trying to shoot something/someone with MDC armor on with an SDC gun wouldn't do much if at all for damage.
If this was figured out in a very cool way, it would be fantastic. With a Rifts MMO, there's SOO much variety in the game, that I personally wouldn't need another MMO if it were to turn out right. It would be just an awsome game. And the Coalition being one of the best "Bad Guy" playable factions...... would be great.
As a further example of SDC vs MDC, think of it this way (i might be a little off... haven't played in about 8 years)
SDC = standard armor points (for example, a human pilot might have a pilot suit that offers 50 SDC)
MDC = "mega-damage" points
1 point of MDC = 100 SDC points.
So the human mech pilot might have 50 SDC when not in his mech. But if he encounters a Glitterboy (power armor) while he's not in his own mech, he's in serious trouble. The Gliterboy power armor shoots for 3d6x10 MDC. So even if the guy shooting at him rolls 3 (1 on all 3 dice) for damage, he's being hit for 30 MDC, which is equal to 3,000 SDC, which means one hit annihilates the pilot when he's not in his power armor.
My math might be a bit off since it's been so long since I played. It might be 1 MDC = 10 SDC. Still a serious problem for people playing any character that's not inherently an MDC creature or armor (cyborg / dragon / demon, etc). But you can still get the gist of what I'm saying even if you drop a zero.
No godless person can comprehend those minute distinctions in doctrine that provide true believers excuse for mayhem. -Glen Cook
Obviously your not the only Rifts player in the world. This is a pic I grabbed of my copy of Rifts. Then again, its been so long I've played and all my pnp gaming stuff sits in storage gathering dust. I would give up any night during the week to get together with some old friends to play rifts again. Nostalgia.
If this was figured out in a very cool way, it would be fantastic. With a Rifts MMO, there's SOO much variety in the game, that I personally wouldn't need another MMO if it were to turn out right. It would be just an awsome game. And the Coalition being one of the best "Bad Guy" playable factions...... would be great.
I dont think this would be much of a problem. Just imagine yourself shooting with an AK47 to M1 tank. Nothing will happen to it. Looking the other way around, youll get split to pieces.
Same thing in the SDC vs MDC, try shooting with an M1 tank a Kitani Serpent armor, you might get it dented/scratch and you might survive a blow or two from the Kitani.
Is just a matter of using the right tools for the right situations. I wouldnt even think about facing a dragonling with an ak47!
Why worry about setting classes in stone when you could simply make it skill based, and allow players to pick and choose to create their own "classes"?
I remember that old game, I feel it'd be an awesome premise as well, if this guy you all are talking about wouldn't be such a control monger over it. Then again, is it his love child? Lucas is the millionaire he is today cause he insisted on having licensing and creative rights over the Star Wars franchise. The fandom is generally happy in the direction things have gone... at least from what I've seen.
But know what I'd like to see made into a MMO? Long ago, like in the late 80's, early 90's, one company actually made a brave stab at turning the 'Aliens' franchise into a pen and paper RPG. Multiple worlds were created, the alien lifecycle was fleshed out (and made a hell of alot more sense than the random crap seen in movies), and new alien races and threats were found. "I'd sure like to get me some more of that Arcturan *******, if you know what I mean" "Yeah, except your's was a MALE!" "Hey, with Arcturans, it don't matter" THIS GAME EXPLAINED THAT!
They even had a miniatures game in the works, but creative control and hassle from FOX killed it. If they went and actually USED the system this company made, I think it'd be an interesting MMO But again, it deviates from the mass crapfest recently seen in the AvP franchise. Hell, toss in the Predator species and make it a AvP style MMO with players able to make Aliens, Predator or Human races. Maybe even toss in a few more. The introduction of the Predator race to the franchise storyline indicates the possibility of more than one intelligent lifeform out there.
What about gameplay, Licki? Glad you asked. The race with the most versatility at this point would be the Humans, naturally. They'd level up via a military based system, depending on the role they took but the system would be fairly open ended. All of this versatility could encourage people to make Humans and give us the numbers normally seen in the human race. Predators would level up within a tribal hierarchy, like in the novels. Hunt for trophies and honor and maybe even be able to decorate a home or trophy chamber with your trophies! I feel an interesting take would fall under the aliens tho. Make it a bit strategic in a 'hive' type of level up system. Leveling up in this system will allow you to eventually break away and start your own hive. At this time, we turn it into a strategy based play. As a Queen, you expand your hive's territories by sending forces out. To give an extra degree of control, allow the player to take control of 'unit/pack leaders' and allow this control/AI swap to happen on the fly. Guilds could create a Multi-Hive planet or even a single hive. Think of the sheer awesome that could happen with guild raids. Your team of humans/predators trying to clear a guild controlled hive, swarming with aliens.
Anywho, sorry for the attempted hijack. Mention of 'sandbox' MMO's sends my mind soaring and I like to share ideas. And mention of Rifts brought me the nostalgia of something that really help me become a fan of the Aliens franchise
Comments
Mechwarrior MMO is my pick, don't know how many remember the Mechwarrior ruleset, one could add Battle Tech rules for the mech use on top of that.
Rolemaster would be nice too, played a MUD with RM ruleset once and it worked surprisingly well too.
Would I get a hover pad with SF babes like the alien in the picture? If so count me in.
Rifts was a mish mash of settings, an excuse for Palladium to stick any idea they wanted in the mix. Some of the products were very good some quite pedestrian. Sticking to one of the more detailed world concepts would be the key to success.
I'd rather see...
...dangit, someone beat me to it. I never really liked Shadowrun and was a die hard RTAL CP2013/2020 player for years. They even had authors of genre writing rulebooks for them (George Alec Effinger comes to mind). Still have the books around here somewhere.
Not just another pretty color.
As an avid rifts player and GM for rifts, I have to say I've been wanting a MMO for a long time. If you look at a rifts mmo it HAS to be done like EvE Online is. There many characters in eve (though usually alts) can't do much combat, they sit in stations trading/building/researching or mining with very little combat skills. If you run rifts the same way in terms of what characters can do like that, you'll have a better base for classes *in the beginning* If you look at Rifts in a pvp perspective then you'll have massive balance issues, as a rogue scholar vs a phaeton juicer in just about any vehicle is lots one sided. In order to make it right, the some of the rules might have to go out the window. The whole SDC MDC would be very hard to mitigate, and most armor doesn't regenerate so when your plastic man armor falls off from too much damage and you lose a limb to a md particle beam blast. There are tons of ways a mmo could go, there, and limitless possibilites for races/classes and combinations. It's probably one of the hardest to plan around. As a GM in order to part out a campaign you know what power level you want to set, and where to start characters in. I'd love to play a triax robot pilot in one of the walking monstrosities of sheer power they have. I would love to find that ccp and palladium are talking about it, but chances are it's some other company if there even is one. Heck just a RPG for the PC and consoles with that kind of scope would be great, multiple starts, such as triax, lazlo, chitown, few other hotspots with a few character classes/races per section would be good too.
Ok now I'm jonesing to run or play RIfts now thanks... lol anyway, this is a great idea and a good enough thread might give some solid ideas and who knows one little forum discussion could change the face of the MMO as we know it if rifts MMO becomes reality!
Interesting story-thanks! Makes me think I may pass on this one if it ever makes it to retail
Hopefully some small company will build something unique and interesting from such a great IP. I'd like to see a game that really throws balance out the window on some levels.
A huge orc should be able to deal huge crushing and physical blows, ones that send a mage flying, breaking their backs against a wall.
A mage, given enough time, should be able to pull giant balls of fire from the sky to crush said orc.
I am playing EVE and it's alright... level V skills are a bit much.
You all need to learn to spell.
I persoanlly wanna see a CareBear MMO, to teach these people that keep using the term carebear around here a lesson.
(I'd play it. 
)
Oh yes, another IP with huge muscular men/monsters and scantly cled sexy women. Just what the industry needs.
My gaming blog
Wow - a Paranoia MMO! That would be fantastic!
Pure gold for old style MMO'ers, not so great for the power gamers...
Incredibly well said, Unlight. I don't think you could have put it any better than that.
No godless person can comprehend those minute distinctions
in doctrine that provide true believers excuse for mayhem.
-Glen Cook
Go TORG or go home, lol.
i think a rifts mmo should start here http://www.palladiumbooks.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=660&Category_Code=C660
"Chaos Earth™ puts the player in the center of the Great Cataclysm – the apocalyptic upheaval that, in the end, creates what we know as Rifts Earth.
Player Characters live through the death throes of human civilization, the reshaping of the very planet, and the birth of Rifts Earth. You bear angry witness to the Earth's fiery rebirth as it goes screaming to become a cauldron of mystic energy, a multi-dimensional doorway to infinite alien worlds and the catalyst for endless possibilities.
One's greatest challenge is not only survival and battling monsters, but keeping one's sanity, goodness and soul.
You – the player – exist in the eye of the hurricane. A maelstrom that, even as you play, is reshaping the entire planet.
You – the hero – are the last bastion of goodness, idealism and life.
You – the protector of the innocent – are all that stands between the helpless masses and the devouring hordes.
You – as one of the last people standing, unwilling to give up, unwilling to die, unwilling to let chaos win – fight with ruthless conviction against every face of evil, from the openly inhuman and monstrous to your fellow man.
You – as gamers – have never experienced anything like it. Absolute chaos, ruthlessness and savagery in a no-holds-barred free-for-all for survival . . . and more. "
Start from their work outward an advace the time line with expansions that would mirror the world books.Like..
i think they might have problems working in some of the deminson books but would love to see
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." Robert E. Howard, The Tower of the Elephant (1933)
O my gods this would rock! Sure the pnp has power imbalances, but so does every game out there. The point of it is to give more freedom to the gm to create house rules, like any Gm worth their salt will do... otherwise that thing they call 4th ed dnd is a munchinfest mmo-wannabe.
I think it would rock to have the chance to play one of my amazon chars. The only problem I forsee with the creation of this type of mmo is that there are to many rccs and occs to choose from. Plus the facrtions, NGR, Coalition, Atlantis, Naruni.... yeah i think ya get the point. Unless we were to go Coaltion vs DBees vs Splugorth?
Would be cool to start when it all started, all as humans during the thick of it all. That pnp game went well for my group.
and i hear that this year's palladium open house was a HUGE success, even talked to Kevin himself via my little bro on the phone. They were just getting ready to sit down for a game, but he was saying they may not have an open house next year but want to throw a huge one in 2012, and i bet we can all guess why
There is enough action and source material in just the US/Canada areas of Rifts that an mmo would really never even have to get into most of the world books, let alone the dimension books.
Keep the bulk of the gameplay in one region of the world and make small adventures to other parts of the world. That way the playerbase doesn't migrate to new areas of the world as each new worldbook is added to the game. Sort of like how there are so many dead areas in Everquest, because they continually add new landmasses to the game that forces players to migrate and abandon the previous area.
For example, as much as I think Rifts: Mexico is interesting, I don't think I would want to be stuck there for 12-18 months between expansions.
'Listen up, you primitive screwheads!. This is my BOOM GUN!" - Ash from Army of Darkness, if he ever got his hands on a Glitter Boy.
Also, I would love to see a Rifts MMO. Not much more to say.
-Wrayeth
"Look, pa! I just contributed absolutely nothing to this thread!"
Guess I'm just too old. Never heard of Rifts before this post, and I'm actually a fan of Sci-FI literature. Guess you had to be part of the pen and paper RPG gaming scene which I most definitely missed.
But that said, I've never been a fan of mixing genre's, i.e. I'm a purist and prefer my science games are all science and my fantasy games stay with magic.
I recall playing the early single player RPG's and thinking that Wizardry and later MIght and Magic were jumping the shark a bit with the addition of alien races, robots, guns and spaceships to their traditional fantasy roots.
But what the heck, I'd like to see just one popular IP be made into a good MMORPG so what the heck, maybe this could be the one.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
In 2002 my BSc Games Design dissertation was a design doc for a Rifts MMO.
Palladium Books wanted nothing to do with me or the idea when I approached them for their permission, as an academic work my professor told me to just do it anyway. After graduating I never really looked back on Rifts feeling it was an IP doomed to obscurity by an over protective parent who couldn't create balanced content.
While I still love the lore and setting that Rifts has (had), I don't think any developer out there really needs to go trying to recreate everything Rifts has to recreate what's good about it and to capture it's selling points without being dragged down by it's failings.
I'd love to see a post apocalyptic sci-fi fantasy mix set right here on earth, but I doubt it'll be Rifts. I just don't see Palladium Books letting anyone loose with their precious little baby.
Not sure if this was mentioned, but one of the HUGE problems I see with the game would be the S.D.C. and M.D.C. armors/weapons coinsiding peacefully in the game.
To anyone who hasn't played Rifts before, this boils down to anyone NOT wearing MDC armor and was shot by an MDC weapon, one of the strongest being a Glitter Boy's Boom Gun, would be nothing more than a blood smear on the ground, no matter how much damage the gun caused. And trying to shoot something/someone with MDC armor on with an SDC gun wouldn't do much if at all for damage.
If this was figured out in a very cool way, it would be fantastic. With a Rifts MMO, there's SOO much variety in the game, that I personally wouldn't need another MMO if it were to turn out right. It would be just an awsome game. And the Coalition being one of the best "Bad Guy" playable factions...... would be great.
I've enjoyed reading this and gotta say that I'd like to see a Rifts mmo too.
As a further example of SDC vs MDC, think of it this way (i might be a little off... haven't played in about 8 years)
SDC = standard armor points (for example, a human pilot might have a pilot suit that offers 50 SDC)
MDC = "mega-damage" points
1 point of MDC = 100 SDC points.
So the human mech pilot might have 50 SDC when not in his mech. But if he encounters a Glitterboy (power armor) while he's not in his own mech, he's in serious trouble. The Gliterboy power armor shoots for 3d6x10 MDC. So even if the guy shooting at him rolls 3 (1 on all 3 dice) for damage, he's being hit for 30 MDC, which is equal to 3,000 SDC, which means one hit annihilates the pilot when he's not in his power armor.
My math might be a bit off since it's been so long since I played. It might be 1 MDC = 10 SDC. Still a serious problem for people playing any character that's not inherently an MDC creature or armor (cyborg / dragon / demon, etc). But you can still get the gist of what I'm saying even if you drop a zero.
No godless person can comprehend those minute distinctions
in doctrine that provide true believers excuse for mayhem.
-Glen Cook
Obviously your not the only Rifts player in the world. This is a pic I grabbed of my copy of Rifts. Then again, its been so long I've played and all my pnp gaming stuff sits in storage gathering dust. I would give up any night during the week to get together with some old friends to play rifts again. Nostalgia.
Great idea Jon.
IM IN BLINDFOLDED AND WITH MY HANDS TIED TO THE BACK!! I stil read those books, have many expansions, Altantis, England, Wormwood.
I would play 36 hours a day!! I would love to be a Conservator riping out CS soldiers arms like daisies!!
Or a full conversion borg
I dont think this would be much of a problem. Just imagine yourself shooting with an AK47 to M1 tank. Nothing will happen to it. Looking the other way around, youll get split to pieces.
Same thing in the SDC vs MDC, try shooting with an M1 tank a Kitani Serpent armor, you might get it dented/scratch and you might survive a blow or two from the Kitani.
Is just a matter of using the right tools for the right situations. I wouldnt even think about facing a dragonling with an ak47!
Why worry about setting classes in stone when you could simply make it skill based, and allow players to pick and choose to create their own "classes"?
I remember that old game, I feel it'd be an awesome premise as well, if this guy you all are talking about wouldn't be such a control monger over it. Then again, is it his love child? Lucas is the millionaire he is today cause he insisted on having licensing and creative rights over the Star Wars franchise. The fandom is generally happy in the direction things have gone... at least from what I've seen.
But know what I'd like to see made into a MMO? Long ago, like in the late 80's, early 90's, one company actually made a brave stab at turning the 'Aliens' franchise into a pen and paper RPG. Multiple worlds were created, the alien lifecycle was fleshed out (and made a hell of alot more sense than the random crap seen in movies), and new alien races and threats were found. "I'd sure like to get me some more of that Arcturan *******, if you know what I mean" "Yeah, except your's was a MALE!" "Hey, with Arcturans, it don't matter" THIS GAME EXPLAINED THAT!
They even had a miniatures game in the works, but creative control and hassle from FOX killed it. If they went and actually USED the system this company made, I think it'd be an interesting MMO
But again, it deviates from the mass crapfest recently seen in the AvP franchise. Hell, toss in the Predator species and make it a AvP style MMO with players able to make Aliens, Predator or Human races. Maybe even toss in a few more. The introduction of the Predator race to the franchise storyline indicates the possibility of more than one intelligent lifeform out there.
What about gameplay, Licki? Glad you asked. The race with the most versatility at this point would be the Humans, naturally. They'd level up via a military based system, depending on the role they took but the system would be fairly open ended. All of this versatility could encourage people to make Humans and give us the numbers normally seen in the human race. Predators would level up within a tribal hierarchy, like in the novels. Hunt for trophies and honor and maybe even be able to decorate a home or trophy chamber with your trophies! I feel an interesting take would fall under the aliens tho. Make it a bit strategic in a 'hive' type of level up system. Leveling up in this system will allow you to eventually break away and start your own hive. At this time, we turn it into a strategy based play. As a Queen, you expand your hive's territories by sending forces out. To give an extra degree of control, allow the player to take control of 'unit/pack leaders' and allow this control/AI swap to happen on the fly. Guilds could create a Multi-Hive planet or even a single hive. Think of the sheer awesome that could happen with guild raids. Your team of humans/predators trying to clear a guild controlled hive, swarming with aliens.
Anywho, sorry for the attempted hijack. Mention of 'sandbox' MMO's sends my mind soaring and I like to share ideas. And mention of Rifts brought me the nostalgia of something that really help me become a fan of the Aliens franchise