Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
A True Sci-Fi MMO.
lordwolfe
Member Posts: 6
With all of the current Sci-Fi MMO's that are out there right now, Star Wars The Old Republic, Star Trek Online, and Eve Online, to name a few of the top ones for right now. we have so many to play and yet none feel truly Sci-Fi.
One of those games has proven one thing it can be better. star trek online is a fun game, and like myself, many fans of Star Trek play it solely because it is set in the Iconic TV Show by the same name's universe. but if anything it does prove is that all games in that genera of the industry can learn allot from it.
one of the many things I look for in Sci-Fi is that it should have a varied experience. and that is what the one game i mentioned above offers, but I still would like a game that has everything it does, but gives us a fresh new universe to play in.
So, to point out a peak purpose for this thread, I thought it would be fun to analyze the genera, and find out how would others agree would be the best way to make one that does just that.
In order to do this, lets first ask some needed questions about the genera.
until Star Trek Online came along, Why do most of the ones in the genera we had, only let us play only either, in space on spaceships, or as a person on the ground?
Star Trek Online has both, and even in spite of the issues with that game itself, both now and at launch, that was a good thing for the genera. star trek online isn’t that revolutionary in technology.
So the argument of not being possible before it came out seems to be unsupported and untrue, by the evidence it presents, simply by existing at all. it could easily run on computers which were so old that they still had a dial up modem installed. (I know because I play it on one, even though I upgraded it to DSL still, if the hardware inside of the computer is still stock as the day i bought it. then you cant argue that the tech for the game, shouldn’t have worked both ways before) the fact that it can shows it could have been done at any time before. they simply chose not to try.
another question for the genera to ask is, Why do most of the games in the genera have to be themed after some TV Movie or other media industries setting?
in the list of games I have posted above only one, is outside of the conditions of that fact. the game called EVE Online does not exist in some movie, TV show, or other media's, setting. that is refreshing, but it also is limiting because the makes of it were so unoriginal, it stagnated the possibilities that it could have had. they decided that all the players in the game could only play humans. (Don’t fucking quote the website bullshit, that the factions are different breeds of humanoid. to me they are all boring fucking humans! the word is even the first part of the term used!) that is against what I look for in a Sci-Fi setting of any kind, as I said I like variety, one race choice is pretty damn closed minded for such an amazing diverse visual game that EVE is, and that is just plain sad. it would have been fun if only they had given us more.(trust me however that is not my only complaint about the game, we just don’t have all day so I'll move on!)
for the most part those are both good questions to ask and difficult to also even answer. the thing is, they are trick questions. There aren’t even good answers. but with those questions come the most important one of all,
Why can't someone already made a new MMO in the genera that has everything that those others have?
my requirements of such a game would have to be the following,
-
It must have the ability to play both as a person on the ground (or any solid platform available. It's SciFi, so be creative. Space Stations Anyone?), and on a spaceship in space.
-
It must have more than one playable race. and that means besides a human! not just a humanoid. it must also have several choices to play with. I like variety!!!!!!
-
it must also have the interesting enough setting.
those are high requirements I know, but to get me to play, they are key points. the last one is much more flexible, I'm not against a movie or TV setting, it just needs enough interest to make me want to play in it.
The first requirement is the most important, if star trek can do it then damn it so can someone else. i always want to try an idea of a space setting with starships that actually work like starships. having space battleships dueling out like ships at sea but with the ability to fight in 3D space sounds like allot of fun. Star trek does it well, but it so far is the only one that does it well, and lets you go down to a planet and kick ass just as good! this game isn’t perfect however, it's just the best example.
how I would make it work? good question. lets start with the two game modes in star trek online. its the game I find does it the best., (lets just call them ground mode, and space mode, for easy reference from now on.) both are really fun to play.
in ground mode, when the game first came out, it played much like another game of the fantasy genera, World of Warcraft. basically walk around and click targets and attack them hitting buttons with the cursor just like WOW as most call it. but, months after release, they went back and changed all that, they added a revolutionary feature called the "Shooter Mode" this allowed you to shoot anything anywhere if you simply pointed at it with the built on screen cursor, this turned it into a shooter type game, and this made something, unfun and grindy, into something entertainingly fun and exciting. if I could make my own game I would have it work the same way, I wouldn’t even change anything.
in Space Mode I would make it work similar to the way it does in Star Trek Online, this is the best way to do it, but not the only one. the way weapons work in it, I would have a more "Space Battleship Yamoto" style feel to them.( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Battleship_Yamato ) where basically the mouse cursor would control where the guns fire with the similar cursor the game uses in 'Shooter Moe" on the ground, but the keyboard controls the ships maneuverings and speed just like it does in Star Trek Online now, with few to no changes there.
The trouble with star trek online space weapons targeting is the fact that you cannot change targets quickly enough and that's its weak point. if you play the game for yourself you will likely agree. with the mouse cursor controlling the weapons by simply clicking on the target like WOW, this is the dumbed down way to do it. if we attach the camera to the mouse, and have a space based version of the games "shooter mode", it frees up the targeting to be like it does with the Ground modes controls. why the makers of the game haven’t done this is beyond me, as the fact that they changed it to do that on the ground months after the game came out. but still, they have in my honest opinion improved it as opposed to what it was. So, I still have hope they eventually will do it for space mode some day.
i also have an idea which isn’t possible yet, but its worth mentioning.
well, what if the space and the ground avatars could be able to affect one or the other? right now that is the only weakness of star trek online. the two don’t play together, and that one is the only way the tech argument would be plausible, as even Star Trek Online cant do it Yet. but, if you could, then it would open some good possibilities. I have heard that star wars galaxies did recently find a way to do it, but as its now going to close its hard to state it as a success.
so what do you guys think what else would you want in "A true Sci-Fi MMO"
Comments
An author capable of writing hard SF on the staff.
Space travel/combat (while a nice addition) is not a requirement of good science fiction. It's more of a "made for TV" SF-lite staple, really. But if that's what you're into, that's fine.
Gimme Ringworld and I'll be a happy camper.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
While I agree with you, but sadly most really good SciFi writers like that are either dead, or they are too busy writing sequels to do a vidio game. i seriously doubt it will happen.
Probably not the game you're looking for since its an FPS and it does not have more than one playable race due to the aliens being extinct...we believe. but it has infantry, tank and aircraft combat. this is the art video for the Vanu who base their technology from the ancient technology.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XEtQR929LY
find more info @ www.planetside-universe.com/
the story for PS2 is been written by Marv wolfman.
SKYeXile
TRF - GM - GW2, PS2, WAR, AION, Rift, WoW, WOT....etc...
Future Crew - High Council. Planetside 1 & 2.
You are very wrong about good sci fi writers being dead. A lot of the good ones are still alive:
1. William Gibson
2. Dan Simmons
3. Orson Scott Card
4. Neal Stephenson
5. Iain M. Banks
There's more but I'm listing the ones who have been pretty hot in the sci-fi genre for a while. No doubt if you threw enough money at these guy they could write you a fantasctic storyline for a video game.
Btw, here is a free idea of how to make something like Eve online with its "single" server world (it's a cluster of servers), could work with 10 million subscribers:
Imagine any sci-fi universe with alot of planets or star systems (maybe not that many IP's already), where gameplay is founded on limiting how many people play on any one particular location. Obviously, if all 10 mil players were to be logged on at the same time and try to stay at the same planet, you would probably get a game that is crashing or is not working properly. So it would be of great importance of herding players so that they do not randomly travel around.
Imagine if 10 mil Brazilians suddenly wanted to travel to and stay in Denmark for a week one day, they would probably not be allowed in I think, or perhaps such a proposition is logistically unsound. Would Denmark suddenly allow 10 mil more people on their soil, burdening their infrastructure, and maybe a localized on? I do not think so.
A game designer could invent a game mechanic that both controlled the movement of the players, insofar as population limits are an important concern regarding game stability. Other aspects would be; trade, communication and combat in space (anyone could in theory travel to the same star system, clogging it up by stressing the servers).
Residence, movement, grouping of players
Trade
Communication, messaging
File transfer of any kind
Ideas for managing these things, could be:
Imposed rules for having to aquire and get a travel permit, work permit or other permits.
Having freedom by priviliges, ones role in a game etc. (Less restriction or no restrictions at all on travel for example)
Being allowed to travel around etc, because they are a part of a work force (civilian or military).
Quest driven rotation cycle, controlling players by making sure movement is limited to location of quests.
Edit: As for the sci-fi theme or genre, I imagine new eh scenairoes could be invented being complementary to the actual game design.
{mod edit}
Stephenson and Banks and even Simmons veered into inferior fields of publicistics and action-movie writing (like Reamde for Stephenson). Still, there is a hope.
I'm gonna have to agree with this chap right here. It looks like it's gonna be a pretty great game. I mean you get some pretty varied experiences. I mean already looks great. Really cool lighting effects and is being made on a great engine.
Jagex (The people who make Runescape) Are creating a Sci-Fi Mmo, it was origanly called mechscape, but was scrapped as Jagex said that it was not good enough to relase (The lost Millions) They then started devolping Stellar dawn, which is nearing Beta by the sounds of it.
They've said this will be an Mmo with no grind at all, and it looks very promising, though Jagex thereself have not gone into much detail about the game, there has been posts on the runescape forums concerning it, and it doesn't look like to long till it's relased.
I stopped reading right there.
Add Vernor Vinge to the list, the setting from his novel A Fire Upon the Deep in particular would make a great MMO universe. Also it's one of the best books I've ever read.
But there is an MMO coming out based on Tad Williams's Otherland and that one looks promising, too, if they don't screw it up with the cash shop. I haven't read the series yet, though.
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
Yep, they can learn what NOT to do. They took a prime IP and ruined it. Awful starship combat (Eve does this 1,000% better), pathetically limited planetary missions on tiny patches of ground fighting against mobs with the worst AI I have ever seen... The game is laughably bad. Where is the Exploration side of the game? There is no "Seek new worlds" aspect whatsoever. The Diplomacy? Everything is land here - kill this. Fly here - kill this.
No wonder the game is going F2P in January, since the game self ecidently isn't worth paying a subscription for. A bunch of four of us bought the game on release, and we all gave up within a few months because the game was so limited and simplistic. STO bears virtually no relationship to the Star Trek Books, Films and TV series apart from the name. If you're pleased with STO you're VERY easily pleased.
Have to admit that I was kind of surprised by the original post given the title of the thread. Perhaps I give into some of the "snobbery" mentioned in this article and the comments I find to be kind of funny: http://www.filmcritic.com/features/2011/02/science-fiction-vs-science-fantasy/
Whatever "flavor" of science fiction one may enjoy though, we have few sci-fi MMOs in comparison to how many "fantasy" MMOs there are.
Personally, I would not need spaceships in my true Sci-Fi MMO.
I'd be leaning more toward a pseudo near future cyberpunk type game.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I did say most didnt I?
besides the latter still applies. lets face it i wouldnt stop riteing just to make a vidio game either.
im not by any means a cryptic fanboy, and as such i do agree with you that STO does have its issues. (hence why im looking for other games.)
but are you really delusional into bealieveing that EVE is perfect too? sory to sound a bit of a hating nerd, but the game has its share of bad ideas as well. and im not saying that as a means to bash the game, as posted in your very quote, I acrtually used to like EVE.
I just realized when playing STO I can have both in one game and why not. im not trying to say STO is perfect either, but at least they made it easier to play.
EVE is fine for people like you that enjoy hard to work with, Fly by Menue Window starships, but ill keep my click and go easy button star trek way thank you. if you could prepose a middle ground then ok, but EVE's interface is what slows it down so bad, its not by any means better, maybe more simulated, but I wouldn't call either of them Better. the both of them are about the same, so I dont know where you got that argument. if maybe the warp travel in STO was handled a little les cartoony then yeah it could have been way better as well. so both are eaqual in good and bad. otherwise i would still be playing both.
The reason I dont like EVE, is also because the makers of it are rude and have openly insulted their customers, and not by changing the game with something they dont like, no I would still play it if that were the case. they chose to out rite call thier customers "winey little [Censured]" on thier own web blog, and that made me leave it on principle. so maybe that may be something you can live with, but I just cant get into a company that dosen't have a pashion for the work they do. sory if that dosent sound right, but thats just how I feel about them.
LMAO, infer much? No, Eve is far from perfect. All I said was that Eve does starship combat 1,000% better than STO, which it does. STO starship combat is one step above Noughts and Crosses.
People like you always think a favouable comment about a particular game, in comparison to some other game, means that the person making the comment is some sort of fanboi. Protip: It doesn't.
Here's the proof of how rude they are.
Also, CCP are the only studio who KEEP working on its 8 years old game EVE rather than releasing sequels. They're as un-pasionate about EVE that they'll release a brand new FPS MMO game linked to EVE and finally we can see their "lack of passion" about EVE by looking at how up to date it is.
I'm reading it now and it is indeed fantastic. Other good authors for MMO worlds would include Peter F. Hamilton, Alastair Reynolds, John Scalzi, Scott Westerfeld. All feature a multitude of war torn planets that I would just love to explore in an MMO.