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General: The Sci-Fi MMO: The Past
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
In the first of a three part series, MMORPG.com's Bill Murphy explores the Sci-Fi subgenre of MMOs and looks into its past at games both that made and and those that haven't been so lucky.
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Fantasy has long since dominated the RPG and MMORPG markets, being the standard setting of role-playing games on paper, on consoles, and on PCs for decades now. But that doesn't mean Science Fiction has to be the second fiddle forever. With big name IPs such as Star Trek and Star Wars on the scene (the latter of which is working on MMO number two), and new games like Fallen Earth and Global Agenda making an impact, Science Fiction is becoming just as prominent as its medieval cousin in the gaming scene.
With that in mind, let's take a look back at the history of the Sci-Fi MMO, its current landscape, and the future that lies before it. For the purpose of this article, I'm only going to delve into the subscription based games and those that have left an indelible impression, unless special consideration is warranted. If I leave a game out, whether through ignorance or intention, feel free to call me out on it on the forums.
Read The Sci-Fi MMO: The Past.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I am Saddened that Planetside Gets only a passing mention. It has been alive for nearly as long as eve, albeit not with the same number of players, It also has done a better job at remaing in peoples minds, when you meet another gamer, you dont ask them about there eve character, the world is too big for that, players to seperated for it, but they will sympathize for that knife you put in a sniper's back. and the hour long Gen Holds at the bottom of tech plants. Every fps i play gets measured against planetside, and so far, i havent found any that equal the amount of fun it delivered.
I too hold very fond memories of PlanetSide, I've been searching for an FPS that could deliver as much as that game did for years, but I always end up back where I started. Nothing ever released has really compared to it. Here's hoping a sequel is made or an MMO FPS that can live up to it.
I find it interesting how many people equate a Sci-Fi MMO with "ground combat should be a FPS."
Me, I find space combat done best with a joystick in one hand, a thruster in another, and a keyboard in the last hand. Erm, yeah. ;-)
Where is the line between a Sci-Fi, Sci-Fantasy, Sci-shooter, and Sci-RPG MMO? Personally, I want a space game like Elite/Privateer/Wing Commander/etc., a ground arena like SWG in the Pre-CU (or, at worst, CU stage), a house or ship to show off trophies... and, honestly, a lightsaber in one hand, blaster in the other with a cool looking armor or robe. A hovering BFG remote over the shoulder is optional.
But, aye. I want to play Sci-Fi MMOs. Whole reason I tried the MMO scence occured when I was playing KOTOR I: standing on Dantoonie, I thought "hey, there are MMOs now. Wouldn't it be awesome to play something like this... only wider... and goes on for more than just a few hours? More epic? More meaningful?"
Oh, and fark the holy trinity of fantasy warfare. I like the skill systems.
I love Sci-Fi MMOs they are my favorite! I hope developers continue to give us some more options in the future!
SEED born may 2 2006
died sept 28 2006
ENTROPY PROJECT
the biggest mistake that developers make here is making these games too shallow and focusing way too much on hack and blast and not making a game players want to play (stop playing console games! it makes you make a crappy MMO!)
in a space game I want to be able to craft mine and transport,, I want to be able to fly and cooperate with my group I DO not want to die every 2 minutes! wounding ships is much more fun and exciting other players can repair them consumables like oxygen coolant fuel (like for afterburners) I want to be able to "red line" ships push them past what is "supost to be possible for dramatic effect not just push button spells
how about a universe similar to star ship troopers have semi safe areas where players can mine and craft and explore even teraform,,, and other areas like battle fronts where life is more risky haul missiles and ammo to the front lines,, orbital bombardment,, drop assaut troops on a desolate rock rescue wounded and shuttle them to hospital ships tow wrecked carriers back to dry docks or scrap yards,, lay mine fields, not to menton try to discover info about the alien enemy and their intentions.
With the failure of star trek online to make a good game and fallen earth to be missing too many core physics engines (like water) I am currently a nomad / refugee I am looking for my next MMO yo spend my money on,, I am alot more selective and wary now as developers time and time again have lied to me/us and made yet another hack and blast shallow environment that you quickly get bored of (I was bored of STO within hours)
oh and its usually a BAD sign when a developer anounces a release date before beta even gets going.
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.
planetside ruined itself by going off on some acid indused alternate dimenton tangent
what they SHOULD have been was star ship troopers and actually went into space and conquered... oh ummm,,, PLANETS!
I kind of enjoyed some parts of planetside but i wouldnt call it an MMO it was a persistant first person shooter but it didnt have much when it came to depth (yet again)
I actually might be interested in a REMAKE if they went in the direction of space marines the aircraft were prety fun liked the tanks and some of the weapon systems were really slick but they need MORE DEPTH like a better world system and missons resource gathering,, crafting,, and a much larger and intuitive univers full of planets to explore and conquer and defend some planets or moons you would want for their stratigic location others for resources and others could be for industry or troop generation planets and moons and astroids would have a fantastic yet believeable enviroments from total vacume to arctic to desert to jungle
a good remake of this title might actually get sony off my black list.
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.
I miss Earth and Beyond. I really enjoyed it. (I know there's an emulator but I can never get that stuff to work)
Planetside was fun for awhile, good FPS mmo but no spaceships.
One MMORTS that had a sci-fi feel was Shattered Galaxy, I enjoyed that one quite a bit. Still play it from time to time.
I didn't see any mention of Mankind(may have missed it). It was an empire building sci-fi MMO , I think it's still active.
Not going to mention SWG becuase that's just a can of worms I'd like to leave behind.
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I'm glad PSO got a mention. That game (and Diablo II) are what hooked me to online gaming. To this day, I still will pop out my old PSO game every now and then and have a co-op split-screen romp.
Another game that should have been mentioned in the flop pile, is Hellgate: London. That was the MORPG that tried the truly ambitious feet of bridging sci-fi with traditional fantasy. Its just too bad they were too ambitious. Their epic fail was heard around the world, and definitely left a mark on the MORPG industry. It also left a mark on many of the players--like me--when we bought into the ambition and purchased lifetime subs. Thats a huge dent that can never be buffed out of my wallet.
I have always been a great fan of sci-fi games, though it is only in recent years I have been able to put a finger on it. Perhaps because I like science.
I was with EVE when it launched. Not because I am a firm fanboy, as I left the game again after about three months, only to return after another three months. At that time the player base had grinded enough liquid currency for market mechanism to kick in, and making enough to go around became much easier.
I have had some odd experiences when browsing for alternate sci-fi MMOs. When I went to the Earth & Beyond homepage they had just announced the games closure, and later when I was looking at Star Wars Galaxies they had just released the NGE. I had wanted to play SWG earlier but had waited for the Jump to Lightspeed expansion, as what makes Star Wars tick for me are games like X-Wing and Tie Fighter. Jedi's are better people than me, and I lost all interest in KotOR then moment I was forced to be one. (Not saying it was a bad game, but I truly lost interest). Anyhow, I had apparently waited too long and the SWG train had passed (and gotten derailed further down the track).
I remember with fondness how those two events (closure of E&B and the NGE) brought certain batches of "emigrants" to EVE. Perhaps it is true that these population boosts plays a big role in why EVE succeeded. If Star Trek falls on its face we might see a third immigration soon.
If CCP manages to pull off Planetary Interaction, Incarna and Dust within a foreseeable future, I will be hard pressed to find an alternate sci-fi MMO.
EDIT: Well, a Warhammer 40k will get my interest.
I still remember tribes II... look that game up.... Tribes is what led me to planetside. However brief that experience was. (my computer was not up to the challenge at that time)
Currently j6 monthly subscription goes to Eve Online. The reason is nostalgia I suppose. I was in love with Tradewars 2002 when I was a kid. (Wtf is this eve inspired by elite crap all about?) A small BBS application that allowed you to move around a universe with other pilots.. The map was in your head for the most part.
I still telnet into lamdamoo and telnet servers that offer Tradewars from time to time on my iphone during my lunch break. I weep for these classic games. They never get any recognition.
IMHO, the issue is mainly the focus of so many companies on fantasy and games that completely resemble one another. Very little differentiates most of these fantasy MMOs from one another aside from graphics / art styles and maybe some minor ruleset change. Play one, you basically played them all with very little exception.
For every Sci-Fi title that launches something in the order of 10 or more fantasy grinders roll out.
In any other genre it is the opposite. Excellent titles like Mass Effect(s), Fallout, Call of Duties, Battlefields, DoW's, Half Lifes, Team Fortress, Borderlands ... dominate gaming.
The occasional fantasy RPG pops up now and then but they are far and few between and generally are far, far superior to their MMO relatives. fantasy can make almost no inroad into FPS and RTS is dominated by contemp/Historical and Sci-Fi these days.
IMHO, no one has really had the resources and put a real effort into making a full scale Sci-Fi MMO. We keep getting these bits and pieces games.
Tabula Rasa was nowhere near the scope it needed to be. Same with Anarchy which was little more then EQ with guns, Auto Assault, Star Trek...all of these games did not have enough scope of play. SWG was just plagued by bad management & design concepts since day ONE of development.
I'd agree with this statement if I felt that CCP was actually doing something other then blowing smoke. You'd think someone for CCP would leak something by now... I hate the wait.
I think aot of the issuer with some of these games come down to gameplay and player rigs. If u dont have a gaming platform and your internet lags a bit in wow its no big deal. But when your playin a fps where every1 is ranged and combat controls are twitch based you cant lag for more the .5 sec or bam your prob dead. Not too mention the problems that come with programming a shooter are tenfold compared to point-and-click dice roll with animations u get in so many mmos. lets face it, even beyond depth tabla rasa just wasnt a fun game to play, least not for me anyway. I do however have home for the future when technology and mmos shooters intersect to provide me with some kickass fun
A very innovative sci-fi title that was not mentioned is Neocron—launched in 2002 and still running, albeit on life-support.
Tribes was a good old game.
I played a couple of these MMOs, Nothing's really taken me into its world and sent me on a fun ride however.
I did play the beta of a little game called Neocron, but once it opened its gates upto the entire community it got overcrowded and a bit crazy. which i dont like to say, keeping it small is obviously counter productive of any MMO but that's how i felt.
I just long for a true to form Cyberpunk game as in the old Pen and paper game.
Now, if only i could win the lottery and fund the dream!.
Elite....now that was one heck of a game. Loved it, loved it!!
Sci-fi settings (books, games, etc) have an inherent problem of needing more setup than fantasy. Even before WOW you could easily start a fantasy game because most people were familiar with concepts like swords, knights, wizards, trolls, castles, etc. Knights wore armor, trolls were big strong and ugly, and so on. You could jump right into it. But in sci-fi there are questions like "Is there FTL travel?" "Are there aliens? If so what are they like?" "How closely are you going to follow the laws of science?" Without an IP like Star Trek you have to explain that the only FTL is through artificial wormholes or really big ships (the kind players will never own because they're too big), the only aliens are the Fri'd*3fg who look like 2 lobsters crossed with an elephant, and there's no artificial gravity so you'll "fly" around stations. Oh since there's no air in space there won't be any sound during starfighter dog fights (and we get to save money developing them).
Basically there's so much more a sci-fi setting has to address and that can turn away players. Meanwhile fantasy is easy to explain so it's simpler and easier to get started.
I agree with all of the above. It's not just scifi mmo's that have a short life span either. Think of all the scifi tv shows that got canceled really quickly hell they tried to cancel Star Trek after the first season. It was thanks to a letter writing campaign that it still exists. I think it's because of what is said by Alverent. It takes time to set down all the back story of a SciFi setting and so you have to be willing to learn about and investigate the world around you. I doubt most mmo players are willing to do that it would require way to much reading of quest text and actually listening to whats going on around you.
We need Cyberpunk already!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk
I think a good story teller sees those story loopholes you speak of and attempts to plug them before launch... Sure Fantasy has a foundation in historic periods, it's certainly believable, it might even seem that they have an unfair advantage because of that foundation.
I disagree. I think that these fantasy storytellers (developers) have just as difficult of a time reinventing the wheel (so to speak) as the Sci-fi developers do in creating a clean slate. Fantasy can be considered stale.
The Scientific models have yet to reach full potential. There are theories yet to be discovered. As a developer, your only limited by your thinktank.
Honestly....
You forgot Entropia Universe. Its been alive since 2003, has hosted the largest virtual sales of any online game in history, and has updated its original client to CryEngine 2. The community is still quite alive, and the developers have since spunoff subsidiary companies to continue independent planet development, while they themselves have become a licensed European bank!
All this while being distrubuted according to the free to play, digital download marketing tactic.
I guess this article wasnt about all MMO's though. Just about those you can buy on the shelf at Best Buy.
Laudanum - Romance. Revenge. Revolution.
Crappy, petty people breed and raise crappy, petty kids.
As long as it's not 3rd edition. Stick with 2020!
As long as it's not 3rd edition. Stick with 2020!
Hell yeah dude!
I have to disagree. We still see a lot of "cookie cutter" fantasy settings and games (remember I'm not just limiting this to MMORPGs). Someone can set up a fantasy RPG pretty easily even if it's a custom world. Working from a clean slate is much harder than putting a few "unique" twists on your standard fantasy setting.
Sci-fi has the other problem of becoming obsolete. With fantasy you know the laws of physics are being broken and don't care. SF is suppose to (by many people's expectations) follow it more closely. Remember some of the 50s SF films where chemically fueled rockets can go to another star system in a trail of smoke? Today it seems hokey. Fantasy books that are just as old don't have that problem.
I have to disagree. We still see a lot of "cookie cutter" fantasy settings and games (remember I'm not just limiting this to MMORPGs). Someone can set up a fantasy RPG pretty easily even if it's a custom world. Working from a clean slate is much harder than putting a few "unique" twists on your standard fantasy setting.
Sci-fi has the other problem of becoming obsolete. With fantasy you know the laws of physics are being broken and don't care. SF is suppose to (by many people's expectations) follow it more closely. Remember some of the 50s SF films where chemically fueled rockets can go to another star system in a trail of smoke? Today it seems hokey. Fantasy books that are just as old don't have that problem.
I guess its a matter of prospective then. I see Sci-Fi as being a potentially vast realm of unexplained and unproven science. As a Sci-fi developer, your only limited by your idea's.
I see fantasy as a dead horse that has been beaten many times over with the current models that are out there, The reason people continue to play the most popular MMO's is for A. Lack of a better story B. Some sense of Community.
If I was a fantasy developer, I'd scrap magic all together and develop a fantasy world based loosely around time periods with our own world. The magic of the period would be scientific discovery, thus combining fantasy and sci-fi. Wouldn't that be entertaining.