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Darker Settings
Lord.Bachus
Member RarePosts: 9,686
Whatever happened to AAA MMORPG´s with darkage settings...
I truely love the more dark age settings like we know from The elder scrolls for example, with primarilly humans and humankind, truely loved Daggerfall, but also Skyrim was great. Even Lotro, didn´t really give me that dark age feeling tough that world was created by tolkien with the dark ages in mind.
Yes i know there will be an Elder scrolls MMo in a few years, but why are all current fantasy MMo´s either high fantasy or trying to clost the gap to steampunk areas.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Comments
WOW made lots of money, WOW was cartoony, it's much easier to copy then create something new.....so, everything becomes cartoony.
Take a look at the TESO movies.....while the actual world looks Skyrimy, the characters certainly do not. They look like they were SWTORified. A bit too cartoony for a franchise whose claim to fame was realistic graphics in a free form RPG. Now you get cartoony charcters in a restriced world.
It will take an outsider with lots of money to ressurrect this genre and get it pointed back to the direction where it was initially headed. Creativity.
Heroic happy high fantasy is what is mass produced. Big publishers and most of smal ones flushed darker fantasy / medieval settings down the toilet.
IMHO TESO look far LESS dark agey than TES single players at least in graphic style it resemble high heoric fantasy more.
PS. You might want to reconsider your topic name. I think most people will understand this as technical term about making your graphic setting darker or about some kind of dark colors injector rather than mmorpg dark times world setting.
High fantasy seems to be in fashion. But these things come and go. I see quite a lot of freelancer-style sci-fi games coming up in the next 3-5 years time.
EDIT: Game of Thrones is sure to spark some inspiration to your direction though. You just need to wait until those titles launch.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Darkfall Unholy Wars is a AAA MMORPG with a darkage setting! Try it when it releases and you will agree (and fall in love with it).
The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
I think High Fantasy plays on the human phsyce more positively then a grimy gritty world, unless it is trying to scare you a little. For instance I am constantly using clear skies shout in skyrim...I hate it all muggy and dank. if I wanted that i'd go outside. A well lit clear sky world where you can see to the horizon over rolling green hills, walk 5 feet to the left and be in a tropical paradise is more visually appealing.
I think this is the same kind of mental device as casino use, they have bright lighting and now windows with a lot of flashyness, and no clocks. all designed to make you loose your sense of time so you spend a lot longer there then you realize you have.
If you want to see what happens to old dark gritty MMO's go download active worlds and navigate your way to the world AWRPG.
The MMO industry is just as much a follower of fashion as any other form of media entertainment.
The corporate mentality looks to be successful by copying success. The likes of GoT does point to that as a direction, but Lotr has been a success for years and high fantasy has had its MMO outings before.
The current concept of MMO design seems to be to find something differant, from grand IP's to conspiracy theory MMO's. So it may get a look in again. GW2 must have been half decent in that regard I would have thought?