Already established lore means nice things. It means that we, players, can explore a setting what we love personally, by playing. Pre-established lore feels like it has a meaning, pre-established countries, history and major events. It gives the devs time to do something else than sit on their asses, thinking "Loool, lets just add dragons and mummies and pandas fighting orcs."
Pre-established lore quickly becomes a straight-jacket because you can't let the world evolve naturally, can't let players actually affect the course of history because you have to stay within the established IP.
You also have to end up building very artifical dynamics fior your world since the lore is telling you the outcome of the world's ecology, economics and politics in advance, rather than letting it emerge from a set of simulations.
( that said, there exists a niche for themeparks that walk you through lore and yes, right now they dominate the landscape. They will probably always exist because they are pretty reliable, measurable investments - you can predict the costs of generating content and run metrics on how fast people consume each zone and become impatient. It makes for a very manageable business ... and in that context, you're basically just taking more-or-less the same game and slapping on new skins of IP, so sure, it becomes just another way to present iconic stories as interactive walkthroughs )
this is exactly my point.
secondly, as for magic, all i did was present my feelings on it, not a dogmatic statement. i wouldn't see the point. if you actually know what the middle ages were like for the average person ... might make an interesting crafting game, or farming game. we could all play: avoid starvation in winter and malnutrition that drives the player to an early death? or dodge the plague? if you mean intrigue or power struggles that will be in the hierarchy, not with the average person. do you really want 3000 people on a server who are lords and ladies of ... whatever?
kidding aside, i would be interested in what the medievalists would want to do in a realistic medieval setting where most of life for the average person centered around raising and gathering enough food to survive. yes there were merchants and tradesfolk. but you didn't need 5 blacksmiths in a village. i dont mean to imply that the people of that time had no joy, or feasts, or enjoyment in life. i just think what they gained from life doesn't translate well into entertainment in this medium.
Nothing wrong with just being knights, mercs, assasins, archers, soldiers etc. I would love a game with grizzly melee without magic and magical beings.
i appreciate what you're saying, what threw me off was that while this seems cool to me as well, its most certainly not a 'realistic' setting. the middle ages didnt have assassin's creed types running all over europe and the middle east; mercenaries were typically hired from another lord or other person of prestige with vassals, they weren't free wandering ronin really; knights were not typically counted in the thousands, except by a king perhaps, and even then they were typically more subject to their local lord and stayed put geographically speaking for the most part.
the setting you are describing could work and could be terrific fun, especially with a solid crafting and building sandbox element. it just wouldn't be realistic in the historical sense. so perhaps freeing it from fantasy would also include freeing it from historicity. an alternate history or alternate earth type of deal.
It doesn't have to be non-fiction. It's a game to have fun. Its more about not having magic then being historically accurate.
Warhammer 40k as an MMORTS with each player controlling a squad
An MMORPG set in the Age of Sail
A Shadowrun CORPG
Spaceship Sci-fi MMORPG where mankind has not yet left the solar system - no aliens
I'd really like to see a Warhammer 40k RTS if it followed the same rules of the table top miniature game. Buying even a single 2000-3000 point army costs an arm and a leg. After painting one of them, I wanted to stick a screwdriver in my eye.
Why do you need a MMO for that? I don't see 5000 armies fighting is more fun than 5. An online RTS WH40k is good enough.
Warhammer 40k as an MMORTS with each player controlling a squad
An MMORPG set in the Age of Sail
A Shadowrun CORPG
Spaceship Sci-fi MMORPG where mankind has not yet left the solar system - no aliens
I'd really like to see a Warhammer 40k RTS if it followed the same rules of the table top miniature game. Buying even a single 2000-3000 point army costs an arm and a leg. After painting one of them, I wanted to stick a screwdriver in my eye.
Why do you need a MMO for that? I don't see 5000 armies fighting is more fun than 5. An online RTS WH40k is good enough.
Notice I didn't say "MMO". In tabletop Warhammer, a 2000 point army is not 2000 units. It would probably be a few orders of magnitude less.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
Warhammer 40k as an MMORTS with each player controlling a squad
An MMORPG set in the Age of Sail
A Shadowrun CORPG
Spaceship Sci-fi MMORPG where mankind has not yet left the solar system - no aliens
I'd really like to see a Warhammer 40k RTS if it followed the same rules of the table top miniature game. Buying even a single 2000-3000 point army costs an arm and a leg. After painting one of them, I wanted to stick a screwdriver in my eye.
Why do you need a MMO for that? I don't see 5000 armies fighting is more fun than 5. An online RTS WH40k is good enough.
Notice I didn't say "MMO". In tabletop Warhammer, a 2000 point army is not 2000 units. It would probably be a few orders of magnitude less.
Warhammer 40k as an MMORTS with each player controlling a squad
An MMORPG set in the Age of Sail
A Shadowrun CORPG
Spaceship Sci-fi MMORPG where mankind has not yet left the solar system - no aliens
I'd really like to see a Warhammer 40k RTS if it followed the same rules of the table top miniature game. Buying even a single 2000-3000 point army costs an arm and a leg. After painting one of them, I wanted to stick a screwdriver in my eye.
Why do you need a MMO for that? I don't see 5000 armies fighting is more fun than 5. An online RTS WH40k is good enough.
Notice I didn't say "MMO". In tabletop Warhammer, a 2000 point army is not 2000 units. It would probably be a few orders of magnitude less.
Didn't they teach you what happens when you assume?
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
And what I mean by that is that functionally it would be a sci-fi with a core theme of fragmented realities that you can move between, with accompanying shifts in setting and history/lore while there is a greater overarching lore unifying these otherwise disparate realities.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Comments
Yeah, with Rodney Matthews-inspired art design and a soundtrack by Hawkwind
It doesn't have to be non-fiction. It's a game to have fun. Its more about not having magic then being historically accurate.
Why do you need a MMO for that? I don't see 5000 armies fighting is more fun than 5. An online RTS WH40k is good enough.
Notice I didn't say "MMO". In tabletop Warhammer, a 2000 point army is not 2000 units. It would probably be a few orders of magnitude less.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
The topic is "What Setting/Lore would you like to see in a MMORPG?" Hence i assume you mean a MMO.
-victorian
-modern day/real life ala TSW
-more sci-fi
Didn't they teach you what happens when you assume?
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Indefinite.
And what I mean by that is that functionally it would be a sci-fi with a core theme of fragmented realities that you can move between, with accompanying shifts in setting and history/lore while there is a greater overarching lore unifying these otherwise disparate realities.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin