MMO setting?Hmmm ,off the top id have to say Battletech.Dump the robotech mechs and just go with 3030 mechs and beyond.Mind you theres only me and 10 people in all of North America who would play it.The Mechwarrior /Battletech world is very in depth and complex.House armies,mercs,bandits,faction fighting,Solaris one on one matches, yet folks just keep dropping the ball with this IP.Or maybe our tech just isnt up to snuff for what we the players want.Thats ok were a patient bunch!:D
Shadowrun. Just need to get microsoft to give up the IP. They've gang raped it for long enough
Shadowrun's video game liscense is owned by Smith & Tinker, a company owned by Jordan Weisman, one of the original creators of Shadowrun. (Has been the case since 2008 I believe. After M$ 360 flop.) They've also made a sort of MMO already that you may have seen.
I know smith and tinker bought the BT license back. Didn't know they bought the Shadowrun license. There was a company that had a Shadowrun MMO half made. I no longer remember the companies name but it looked really good. Unfortunately microsuck had a tantrum and their lawyers made the company shelve the project.
S&T has them. I think that game got scrapped hard, like MW5.
But, I think with the right team now and with the updates to SR's rulebook it could translate into a video game really well.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
I would like to see a historical gamesetting. A mmo based on ancient Egypt or Dark Ages. People can pick a people and start from there. See which players can work together and manage to survive the struggle and maybe rewrite history.
What about a "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" MMO. Or where you play as a minaturized person or even an insect. Living in a a contemporary property setting. Survive against other insects, giant sized objects like vaccuums, brooms, pets, etc. raid for resourch rich areas, etc.
Another could be an undersea world -
Creative. I'd give it a go.
That's immediatly what popped in my head too, something small, but more along the lines of ants and insects or something.
Ant's have different roles in real life too lol, there are Warrior types, Workers, Drones, plenty of real world "class" choice to choose from, as well as different "Races" of them, not to mention other species of insect they fight with which could be another playable warring faction.
I think an Insect inspired mmo could make for a very interesting setting, and be completly unique at the same time.
Shadowrun. Just need to get microsoft to give up the IP. They've gang raped it for long enough
Shadowrun's video game liscense is owned by Smith & Tinker, a company owned by Jordan Weisman, one of the original creators of Shadowrun. (Has been the case since 2008 I believe. After M$ 360 flop.) They've also made a sort of MMO already that you may have seen.
So.. It's possible.
I like how Shadowrun and MechWarrior still get a ton of mentions WEEKLY.
It's insane nothing more comes out of it tho'.
I know smith and tinker bought the BT license back. Didn't know they bought the Shadowrun license. There was a company that had a Shadowrun MMO half made. I no longer remember the companies name but it looked really good. Unfortunately microsuck had a tantrum and their lawyers made the company shelve the project.
Yeah they did get the IP back.But since last year news has been pretty sparse on the MW front.A real Battletech MMO would be good.FPS shooter MW is relatively easy to make.There are quite a few indie MW FPSers out there.There just prolly isnt enough of a demand for a BT MMO.
What about a "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" MMO. Or where you play as a minaturized person or even an insect. Living in a a contemporary property setting. Survive against other insects, giant sized objects like vaccuums, brooms, pets, etc. raid for resourch rich areas, etc.
Another could be an undersea world -
Creative. I'd give it a go.
That'd be a nice change of pace. I used to love the miniature maps in Unreal Tournament 2k3 where you'd be fighting in a bathroom, bedroom, etc. Running under the bed, onto the bookshelf, meanwhile some ahole is sniping at you from atop a lamp Those are fun. Not sure of the long-term playability for an MMO though.
For the settings suggested by the article, I like the Pre-historic idea myself. You could be a dinosaur, and have evolutions for your skill increases. Harder claws, or better eyesight, tougher scales, poison spit, camoflage, etc.
As much as I hate Faction vs. Faction, Dino vs Caveman would be interesting. Maybe they could have 4 total species with 2 species of dino and 2 species of Human to keep things interesting. Allow guilds with 2 species only, but they could be from any 2 allowing a human/dino guild to exist.
Of course, you could always have a space-western, a la Firefly. That'd prove interesting.
My crew of serious developers is working on an open-source steampunk MMO; if you want to know what we're about then hit us up on http://www.tempestintheaether.com/ or on the #Tempest-in-the-Aether channel on Freenode. I can't say I'm really excited about steampunk itself, but this article made an interesting read. We were convinced that if we chose fantasy then we would have no chance of success.
Wild West does sound interesting, but I'm not too sure if it would be worth it since Western is a dead genre in movies. Since the John Wayne era, there hasn't been a very good classic Western movie other than Dances With Wolves. Film producers have been more interested in recycling plots from Western movies into other genres as well, such as what is called Urban Western. For example, The Searchers and Taxi Driver. I'm just not too convinced there's a lot that can be done with Western, especially if you want to avoid ethnic stereotypes that Western movies usually have.
Having an Alternate Reality world might also be interesting, but I can only see it really serving to give out a political message, and only being liked by people who support it.
Paranoia MMO ( "Geetings citizen. I see that you clicked 'request GM help'. Please report to nearest designated disintegration booth for problem resolution")
Originally posted by Drakonus Originally posted by dirtyjoe78
Steampunk/cyberpunk would be cool or a well done scifi MMO, wild west sounds interesting as well.
Well Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online is going to have that Steampunk/Cyberpunk type of feel, that's one reason I bookmarked it as a potential. http://www.darkmillenniumonline.com/
Warhammer 40k would be far more "Steampunk" than "Cyberpunk" (like in Dune universe, advanced technology, AIs & stuff, are either banned by law or too complex to realize)
Mutant Chronicles would be very nice as a setting for cyberpunk stuff (AIs, industrial espionage, hacking, cybernetic implants, are much more common) but as I see how they are slaughtering the WH40k lore in order to make a WoW-ish grindy game, i'm not really wanting to see a Mutant Chronicles MMO... at least until the next MMO revolution...
There could be a niche for a pre-Columbian civilizations MMO, or perhaps a more historical Reinassance and/or Colonization MMO (SotNW started from good premises but it has gone far into fantasy), also i'd like a "Great War" inspired MMO (we have thousands of games based on WWII but much less on WWI) with both frontlines and "life behind warzones"... there are many settings to be explored...
As a Pen & Paper roleplayer I've got to say a Shadowrun MMO (yes I know the PC game was crap) could, if executed correctly, be quite a hit...but that's just me.
Anarchy online was a really nice cyberpunk game at its time. It'd be happy with a refreshed version of it. Fallen earth comes to mind as well tho that one needs some time to grow
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. A. Einstein
The sad thing is, this exact list could have been made in 2000. Who would have thought this "genre" would go a whole decade and still be stuck in the same two settings?
Oh...wait...just about ever person who's ever played an mmo. That's who.
Zombies/Survival Horror is just screaming to be made into an MMO.
There's so many factors of the genre that would fit perfectly into an MMO world I'm surprised no one's done it yet.
MMO makers don't want to go anywhere near ANYTHING that would require permadeath as part of it's game play.
A zombie MMO would hardly be in it's SURVIVAL/HORROR niche if you took out the 'game over' screen that can't exist in a MMORPG.
There are ways to have meaningful character death in an mmo without it being traditional "permadeath".
If a zombie/survival mmo was "team" based (in other words, you lead a "team" of survivors, not just one character), you can lose members of the team in a meaningful way WITHOUT forcing someone to start over completely.
There's also the "zombie" mechanism, where you lose you continue to play as a zombie.
And so on. Yeah, true, "old school" permadeath probably won't fly in an mmo anymore, but variations on it could be made to work in the right setting.
I've been hoping for a prehistoric setting, as well. Stone Age 2 just didn't cut it for me. For some reason, Age of Conan has a bit of a prehistoric feel to it for me and it's been one of the draws that has me resubbing on and off.
hehe AoC IS prehistoric.
I do like the sandbox idea of a primordial earth though... maybe start off as dinosaurs and gain 'evolves' through the game according to your actions that bring you, eventually, up to human and beyond...
Once you had set a new evolutionary type maybe allow new and old players, if they wanted to, to adopt it to create entire new species?
Could be interesting to see what 10 years of this in a persistant world MMO would throw up in terms of survival of the fittest.
As a Pen & Paper roleplayer I've got to say a Shadowrun MMO (yes I know the PC game was crap) could, if executed correctly, be quite a hit...but that's just me.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. The way Shadowrun is designed is just screaming for MMO, I'm a little puzzled it hasn't been picked up with a major company. Deckers on voice chat with the rest of the team, opening the way for them...Hmm. Perhaps that's why it's not happening yet. Would almost require a 2nd set of instances, that are interesting, for the deckers to handle. Plus, mechanics waiting outside with the getaway car...
I'd still like to see it, in spite of some obstacles. I still think it's the most versatile, vibrant game world out there that's adaptable to an MMO. Rich backstory, for those who are into it, and xpacs could be different major cities? Eh. I'd preorder a collectors edition.
probably the biggest suprise to me is that noone has come out with a Gundam/Battletech/Mechwarrior MMO yet. I know there are a couple out there, but they're far from AAA. I can remember back when I got my SEGA Dreamcast and Gundam (forgot the name of it). I beat that game a million times, but always kept playing it over and over, it's a blast (no pun intended).
If not that, I wouldn't mind an MMO where players where the monsters and NPCs were the heros, but that would most likely fit into fantasy. Think Lotro monster play on a much larger scale, without player freeps hehe
Also that reminds me of the "What if..." comics, I loved those. I always thought they'd make a good idea for sequels in MMOs. Lord of the Rings: What If the Ring of Power wasn't Destroyed.
World of Warcraft: What if Arthas didn't become the Lich King.
I was never a Shadowrun fan, it was a mish mash of everything, like the just decided to throw every idea in the pot. But the books they produced and the system was class. I prefer a RPG theme to be more defined, SR was like “Lets have Elves, and guns, and lazers and undead and …”. Too much in the stew for me.
How about a story based DAOC? Using the Pendragon material it’s all there.
Or a Masquerade game that at its core is the same as the Masquerade Muds. All the graphical bells and whistles but use the Muds to show you how it can be done. DAOC was based on a three faction Mud, which was used in the core programming.
While I do like Shadowrun a lot (still have a 1st ed rulebook lying around) I do not think it would work well as an MMO. Reason for that, besides the huge expectations it would create, is the amount of parallel realities in the system. Good luck integrating the Matrix and the Astral Planes as well as a proper Rigger-system (which is the smallest of the problems) in a meaningful way so it works properly with other classes. A lot of the content would be for a limited number of characters only.
William Gibson's Neuromancer a dark view of the cyberworld in the near future.
To quote from Wikipedia
"Gibson's early works are bleak, noir near-future stories about the effect of cybernetics and computer networks on humans – a "combination of lowlife and high tech""
Vampire Bloodlines MMORPG - that could have been great.
I really dont like Action-FPS-RPGs but this one is outstanding and i play it over and over - the setting is fantastic.
Vampire is coming in the future in the form of the World of Darkness MMO in development by CCP. This should feature at least the Vampire and Werewolf RPGs if not some of the other titles as well.
That's good to hear. I could get into that. For me, a Shadowrun MMO would top the charts. I used to love playing that with just dice and paper. Or developers could skip Shadowrun and go straight to what inspired it: William Gibson's Neuromancer.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
Comments
MMO setting?Hmmm ,off the top id have to say Battletech.Dump the robotech mechs and just go with 3030 mechs and beyond.Mind you theres only me and 10 people in all of North America who would play it.The Mechwarrior /Battletech world is very in depth and complex.House armies,mercs,bandits,faction fighting,Solaris one on one matches, yet folks just keep dropping the ball with this IP.Or maybe our tech just isnt up to snuff for what we the players want.Thats ok were a patient bunch!:D
S&T has them. I think that game got scrapped hard, like MW5.
But, I think with the right team now and with the updates to SR's rulebook it could translate into a video game really well.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
I would like to see a historical gamesetting. A mmo based on ancient Egypt or Dark Ages. People can pick a people and start from there. See which players can work together and manage to survive the struggle and maybe rewrite history.
That's immediatly what popped in my head too, something small, but more along the lines of ants and insects or something.
Ant's have different roles in real life too lol, there are Warrior types, Workers, Drones, plenty of real world "class" choice to choose from, as well as different "Races" of them, not to mention other species of insect they fight with which could be another playable warring faction.
I think an Insect inspired mmo could make for a very interesting setting, and be completly unique at the same time.
How about a megaman MMO
That'd be a nice change of pace. I used to love the miniature maps in Unreal Tournament 2k3 where you'd be fighting in a bathroom, bedroom, etc. Running under the bed, onto the bookshelf, meanwhile some ahole is sniping at you from atop a lamp
Those are fun. Not sure of the long-term playability for an MMO though.
For the settings suggested by the article, I like the Pre-historic idea myself. You could be a dinosaur, and have evolutions for your skill increases. Harder claws, or better eyesight, tougher scales, poison spit, camoflage, etc.
As much as I hate Faction vs. Faction, Dino vs Caveman would be interesting. Maybe they could have 4 total species with 2 species of dino and 2 species of Human to keep things interesting. Allow guilds with 2 species only, but they could be from any 2 allowing a human/dino guild to exist.
Of course, you could always have a space-western, a la Firefly. That'd prove interesting.
My crew of serious developers is working on an open-source steampunk MMO; if you want to know what we're about then hit us up on http://www.tempestintheaether.com/ or on the #Tempest-in-the-Aether channel on Freenode. I can't say I'm really excited about steampunk itself, but this article made an interesting read. We were convinced that if we chose fantasy then we would have no chance of success.
Wild West does sound interesting, but I'm not too sure if it would be worth it since Western is a dead genre in movies. Since the John Wayne era, there hasn't been a very good classic Western movie other than Dances With Wolves. Film producers have been more interested in recycling plots from Western movies into other genres as well, such as what is called Urban Western. For example, The Searchers and Taxi Driver. I'm just not too convinced there's a lot that can be done with Western, especially if you want to avoid ethnic stereotypes that Western movies usually have.
Having an Alternate Reality world might also be interesting, but I can only see it really serving to give out a political message, and only being liked by people who support it.
Paranoia MMO ( "Geetings citizen. I see that you clicked 'request GM help'. Please report to nearest designated disintegration booth for problem resolution")
Um... Zombies!?
Zombies/Survival Horror is just screaming to be made into an MMO.
There's so many factors of the genre that would fit perfectly into an MMO world I'm surprised no one's done it yet.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
MMO makers don't want to go anywhere near ANYTHING that would require permadeath as part of it's game play.
A zombie MMO would hardly be in it's SURVIVAL/HORROR niche if you took out the 'game over' screen that can't exist in a MMORPG.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
http://www.darkmillenniumonline.com/
Warhammer 40k would be far more "Steampunk" than "Cyberpunk" (like in Dune universe, advanced technology, AIs & stuff, are either banned by law or too complex to realize)
Mutant Chronicles would be very nice as a setting for cyberpunk stuff (AIs, industrial espionage, hacking, cybernetic implants, are much more common) but as I see how they are slaughtering the WH40k lore in order to make a WoW-ish grindy game, i'm not really wanting to see a Mutant Chronicles MMO... at least until the next MMO revolution...
There could be a niche for a pre-Columbian civilizations MMO, or perhaps a more historical Reinassance and/or Colonization MMO (SotNW started from good premises but it has gone far into fantasy), also i'd like a "Great War" inspired MMO (we have thousands of games based on WWII but much less on WWI) with both frontlines and "life behind warzones"... there are many settings to be explored...
As a Pen & Paper roleplayer I've got to say a Shadowrun MMO (yes I know the PC game was crap) could, if executed correctly, be quite a hit...but that's just me.
Anarchy online was a really nice cyberpunk game at its time. It'd be happy with a refreshed version of it. Fallen earth comes to mind as well tho that one needs some time to grow
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. A. Einstein
The sad thing is, this exact list could have been made in 2000. Who would have thought this "genre" would go a whole decade and still be stuck in the same two settings?
Oh...wait...just about ever person who's ever played an mmo. That's who.
:P
There are ways to have meaningful character death in an mmo without it being traditional "permadeath".
If a zombie/survival mmo was "team" based (in other words, you lead a "team" of survivors, not just one character), you can lose members of the team in a meaningful way WITHOUT forcing someone to start over completely.
There's also the "zombie" mechanism, where you lose you continue to play as a zombie.
And so on. Yeah, true, "old school" permadeath probably won't fly in an mmo anymore, but variations on it could be made to work in the right setting.
hehe AoC IS prehistoric.
I do like the sandbox idea of a primordial earth though... maybe start off as dinosaurs and gain 'evolves' through the game according to your actions that bring you, eventually, up to human and beyond...
Once you had set a new evolutionary type maybe allow new and old players, if they wanted to, to adopt it to create entire new species?
Could be interesting to see what 10 years of this in a persistant world MMO would throw up in terms of survival of the fittest.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. The way Shadowrun is designed is just screaming for MMO, I'm a little puzzled it hasn't been picked up with a major company. Deckers on voice chat with the rest of the team, opening the way for them...Hmm. Perhaps that's why it's not happening yet. Would almost require a 2nd set of instances, that are interesting, for the deckers to handle. Plus, mechanics waiting outside with the getaway car...
I'd still like to see it, in spite of some obstacles. I still think it's the most versatile, vibrant game world out there that's adaptable to an MMO. Rich backstory, for those who are into it, and xpacs could be different major cities? Eh. I'd preorder a collectors edition.
A very nice New Crobuzon picture there under steampunk, one of my favourites. Hello, Yagharek!
Makes me wonder: Will we ever see the day MMO worlds have the wild creativity and intellectual meat of a world like Bas-Lag?
probably the biggest suprise to me is that noone has come out with a Gundam/Battletech/Mechwarrior MMO yet. I know there are a couple out there, but they're far from AAA. I can remember back when I got my SEGA Dreamcast and Gundam (forgot the name of it). I beat that game a million times, but always kept playing it over and over, it's a blast (no pun intended).
If not that, I wouldn't mind an MMO where players where the monsters and NPCs were the heros, but that would most likely fit into fantasy. Think Lotro monster play on a much larger scale, without player freeps hehe
Also that reminds me of the "What if..." comics, I loved those. I always thought they'd make a good idea for sequels in MMOs. Lord of the Rings: What If the Ring of Power wasn't Destroyed.
World of Warcraft: What if Arthas didn't become the Lich King.
The list can go on and on.
I was never a Shadowrun fan, it was a mish mash of everything, like the just decided to throw every idea in the pot. But the books they produced and the system was class. I prefer a RPG theme to be more defined, SR was like “Lets have Elves, and guns, and lazers and undead and …”. Too much in the stew for me.
How about a story based DAOC? Using the Pendragon material it’s all there.
Or a Masquerade game that at its core is the same as the Masquerade Muds. All the graphical bells and whistles but use the Muds to show you how it can be done. DAOC was based on a three faction Mud, which was used in the core programming.
While I do like Shadowrun a lot (still have a 1st ed rulebook lying around) I do not think it would work well as an MMO. Reason for that, besides the huge expectations it would create, is the amount of parallel realities in the system. Good luck integrating the Matrix and the Astral Planes as well as a proper Rigger-system (which is the smallest of the problems) in a meaningful way so it works properly with other classes. A lot of the content would be for a limited number of characters only.
My Signature
William Gibson's Neuromancer a dark view of the cyberworld in the near future.
To quote from Wikipedia
"Gibson's early works are bleak, noir near-future stories about the effect of cybernetics and computer networks on humans – a "combination of lowlife and high tech""
That's good to hear. I could get into that. For me, a Shadowrun MMO would top the charts. I used to love playing that with just dice and paper. Or developers could skip Shadowrun and go straight to what inspired it: William Gibson's Neuromancer.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein