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Some rambling reflections off of a discussion about DCUO, but leading to a more general point:-
People have been complaining about the absence of secret identity stuff in superhero MMOs since CoX (and in fact it was part of the plan for CoX originally, IIRC) A true superhero game would need to combine a Second Life minigame, plus also some sort of Adventure-game-like detective mechanic, with the usually decent combat mechanics of the superhero MMOs we've had so far.
CoX, CO and DCUO all definitely all have their plus points as games, and some are better at some things than others; but all of them lack the CONTRAST between the normal person's life and the superhero's life that's so central to the mythos (not for absolutely every superhero, but for most). It's the contrast between being an ordinary person with ordinary problems one day, and then having to visit a convention of alien overlords on Sirus, or face off Galactus the next day, that gives the superhero genre what depth it has, at its best.
But actually I think the superhero genre faces the same problem as the s-f genre - it seems to be too "big" to fully capture with the resources devs have at their disposal at the moment. A true s-f game, of the kind that we all (I think! ) want, would have to combine spaceflight with avatar on avatar interaction, avatar combat, ground combat, even aerial combat, along with trade, crafting, etc., etc.
Even a great dev team like CCP can barely get the spaceships part of this ideal s-f game working properly (blob lag, I'm looking at you), far less the other parts we would like to see.
I have also been looking at the situation with Mortal Online - great idea, true spiritual successor to UO and all that, and one wishes SV well, but it just looks like they are lacking expertise in certain areas, and have bitten off more than they can chew. What they want to make, a working huge,comprehensive virtual world, just requires more resources than they've got (it seems).
At the moment, it seems, there's just not enough time and resources to truly make what we the players want in terms of vastness and comprehensiveness of the virtual worlds we want to spend our leisure time in (not to mention the amount of content we hunger for); the job seems to be really too big for any single team of devs to do - but hopefully in the future these things will come.
Or maybe dev teams could collaborate? Here's an idea, what about an "all star" MMO with several proven dev teams - e.g., CCP, Blizzard, Arenanet, Cryptic, etc., all working on one game together, each working on a subsystem they're particularly good at - but all together making the ultimate s-f game, for example?
That would be something to see!
Comments
The developers won't work together, if they tried it'd just end in fights anyways.
Every company has it's own methodology, culture, and bussiness practices.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
Wouldn't they just need to agree on common standards, both tech-wise and business-wise?
Wouldn't you and someone you "don't like" need to do the same(though devs don't dislike each other), to work on a project that will take 5 years and has a 10% of having anything happening when you're done.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
For the most part the gaming industry isn't a bunch of snarling corporations baring teeth at one another.
The real issues are (a) everyone's already busy doing their own thing, (b) there's not enough profit in such a game to motivate them away from doing their own thing, and (c) if they decided to collaborate it would be a less efficient game dev process than normal (when efficiency is already hard to come by) so the end product wouldn't be all that spectacular.
I don't suppose I feel collaboration could never work. But due to the above factors it's going to be rare, difficult, and potentially not result in greater fun.
Honestly collaboration between companies happens all the time now that I think about it. Just not often between multiple game development studios (usually it's between a game dev, and/or some combination of publisher, hardware, and software developers.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yeah, you are right, it happens all the time, it would just be a novel thing for actual developing houses to collaborate on some gigantic project.
But it would oh-so-cool if they could pull it off, and the MMO that resulted from it would finally be the one that was big enough for us all to lose ourselves in ...
IOW, it's always been about content. Basically, all the professional dev companies who have provenly produced MMOs are pretty much as good as each other - mostly they have great ideas, novel twists on the genre, great design, etc., etc., etc. The people working for those companies are all highly intelligent, professional, creative folks.
It just looks like there's not enough of them in any one of those development teams to make an MMO that would be big enough to really satisfy the hardcore. It's all about content, content, content - even in a sandbox.
So why don't they just get together?
I agree with the practical points you make, but they're overcomable if everyone's got the spirit for the project (and if you've been in business you know that spirit, and inspiriing trust, is really what leads to investment too).
The real problem I see is them all settling on an IP - on a theme, a lore - that would inspire them all equally, and at the same time stand a good chance of appealing to a broad swathe of the gaming public.
I mean, such a game might have to combine elements of s-f, fantasy. Actually the superhero mythos does that already, but there's a substantial minority of people who are simply allergic to superheros, so it would have to be either s-f or fantasy or somehow both, i.e. an IP that includes both coherently. In a way D&D did that (especially in Gary Gygax's original implementation as inspired by the s-f/fantasy writer Jack Vance), but it's such a tired IP now.