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General: Why Not: New Cap City?
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood returns this week with a column taking an idea for an MMO directly from a popular Sci-Fi television program, Caprica, in which people visit a virtual game world with no point and no direction called New Cap City.
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I want to start this week's column with a disclaimer: If you have any intentions of watching the Sci Fi series Caprica, and haven't done so yet, the following article is going to prove something of a spoiler for you. Don't keep reading, and if you do, don't say I didn't warn you.
A while back, one of my colleagues wrote a weekly column called "Why Not." Each week, he'd come up with a different concept for an MMO and then talk about it, looking for reader opinions. Today, I wanted to resurrect that tradition by writing Why Not: New Cap City.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I absolutely love Caprica. I don't think the MMO would be for me, though, but I'd definitely be down for Battlestar Galactica.
you forgot that new cap city has perma-death, i.e 1 life and you can never go back.
Who's gonna pay for that? no one.
but i do get what you mean, and i think in a few years time we might start seeing stuff like that as people get bored of current trends and decide to try new different things.
Also the internet/computers need to get MUCH faster before we can start having huge non-instance/zoned worlds with 100's of people in one area. 2 games i know which allow huge amounts of people in one area both lag to hell and back when tons of people are in one area, Darkfall and EVE.
oops i meant to put "Thousands of people in one area" not 100's.
the pay per die sounds as bad as the perma death so what the player has to pay the company money everytime some other player kills them? I can see the company now hiring players to run around murdering players so they make more money.
on a side note
sry only slightly tho Trion has teamed up with the Sy Fy channel to make an action mmo that is also a show that runs on the Sy Fy channel.
http://www.trionworlds.com/en/games/syfy-action-mmo.php
So basically, you want a 3D MUD roleplay with perma-death?
This kind of game already exists in the form of Garry's Mod roleplaying servers. Granted, they are largely populated by /b/ anon 13-year-olds with little maturity. However, the whole point of these servers is complete openess (under the Source engine's limitations). You have a map. You have some weapons. You have the chat window. You have some props you can spawn via Garry's Mod UI, go.
Well, the OP pertty much stated why a game based on New Caprica city would be challenging, the perma death feature would be hard to incorporate and keep things challenging. (and keep that sub money coming in).
Also, in the show the characters have no idea who created New Cap City nor what they get out of running it. There's been some hint about players paying for it with in world cash(energy) so I'm sure ultimately we're going to find its some nefarious agency that is not acting the players best interest.
Also interesting is that people in New Cap City act at their basest moral level, which isn't so far off from how things tend to be over at SL which perhaps the shows creators intended.
The idea of virutal reality that you actually live in is the dream people have sought for years now, but I think we're a hundred years or more away from the sort of technology depicted by the show.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Believe me, if people will shell out US$25 for a freaking sparkly flying pony, they'll certainly pay a game-token of some sort worth $0.10 or $0.25 or $0.50 in order to rez after a death. Especially if most people are sitting on a pile of said tokens because you buy them in batches of 50 or 100 and can use them for other purposes.
Pay-per-death is an appealing concept to many developers. It has been quite seriously discussed as a valid RMT for products I have worked on. In a sandbox game, it puts a real, tangible value on not dying, which is one of the serious design problems developers face when trying to craft a proper virtual world.
As an aside, most developers have given up on trying to craft virtual worlds, and are in the business of selling RPG theme-park experiences instead. They're easier, and the public has a proven taste for paying to consume them as recreation. Tough to say "no" to all that money.
the only one that will benefit from the pay per death is the ones that are selling the respawn items there is no way you can just say im not going to die and I am sure will bring out even more hackers to make themselves as invincible as they can.
maybe its an appealing concept to developers trying to milk as much funds out of the consumers as possible but not really a good idea imho.
awww - u just posted that for the picture !!
tits john !!!
tits !!!
Second Life and Caprica's V-World are just graphical MOOs with an emphasis on sex.
NCC is just a single instance of Otherland. Otherland is a concept I'd like to see implemented.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otherland
Or, I can just invite the young lady out. See if she would be willing to share that apple.
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The intriguing part to me - if I understand the concept - is having a hybrid game where (1) the players make their own sandbox content within a unifying setting, such as a virtual city, and (2) the sandbox has an underlying but undiscovered purpose or mystery, a la Myst.
That would be a little akin to original SWG. Limited content in a mostly sandbox setting, with players trying to discover the path to Jedi.
I would play that.
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Forgot, or spent a paragraph explicitly mentioning? It's a fine line.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
The problem with V-world is pretty well shown in the rest of the series. Take everything good and bad about the internet and make it more immersive and lifelike... I think we, as a society have a long was to go before a V-world would be a good idea.
But as far as a game with NCC rules/premise goes I dun see a problem with it and I dun see it as a new concept. The problem with making games like that today isn't in the rule set its in the ability to create a detailed enough world to make people want to play and give them the opportunity to do things.
There is already an mmo like this...it's called "Second Life" and it lags most of the time unless you have a super PC, I mean like nothing priced under $5k , top of the line, ridiculous PC. It is a great concept but so far poorly implemented. Some other IP's have tried to mimic the sandbox type; "There", "Utherverse", "Sociolotron", to name a few. SL(Second Life) is the most popular and has the best graphics though.
I would give it a try it sounds fun and bsg is cool
This sounds like a game I would gladly pay $15 for. The only problem i would have with it is the perma-death or pay-per-death idea. I don't like the idea of that. Now, maybe if you had an account, made a single character for that account, and then if you died, the character would simply hit the obituaries and you would have to start from scratch with a new character. That might be a cool idea, but I can't see many player's getting behind it. But as far as everything else, I'm all for it.
Reading comprehension for the win. Czanrei's "There is already an mmo like this...it's called "Second Life" comment, shows me he didn't read the entire article either.
I have to say this is an intriguing idea. I've never seen or even heard of the show Caprica until now, but the premise sounds fascinating. It reminds me of a couple of other intellectual properties. One that someone already mentioned is the rather disturbing game Sociolatron, and the other is the book Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Of course three problems I see that would need to be overcome before such a game could be made are the computing power needed, the sheer exhausting amount of labor such an endeavor would take a development team to create and maintain, and the permadeath option. Time and technological progress will fix the first two but I have serious doubts many people would play a game with a permadeath penalty, at least for very long.
I refuse to even attempt to delve into the questions of economy, or classes, skills vs level progression, crafting, etc that seem to be the core of current MMORPG design, and in many ways their downfall.
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I don't think buying your way back in would be a good idea... however maybe earning it somehow would, because then the more financially endowed would be willing to sacrifice themselves to take out players with less money.
Also earning your way back might be done proactively by earning the right to return ingame, like extra lives, however you don't know how, when or how many you have.
I have always been for a "Harsh Realm" sandbox MMO (If you don't know what Harsh Realm is search for it with comics tv shows chris carter)
Player vs Player of Payer vs Payer? While an interesting concept and thought experiement, I doubt such a model would ever really be interesting.
However, as a side note to that, the current infinite lives without explanation why model used by most MMOs these days really needs to be re-thought.
maybe if you had kids in game that you raised(they being npc's)then if you died your assets and gear what not went to the oldest and you played then as him to seek vengeance on who killed your dad or mom
I get the impression most of the people who are commenting on this so far, have not actually watched the whole first season of Caprica. As someone who has been gaming online since there was an online to game on, I can tell you that the idea of New Cap City sounds extremelty appealing. Anyone who didn't watch Caprica but loved Battlestar Galactica, or just good science fiction in general needs to watch the whole season.
POTENTIALLY MORE CAPRICA SPOILERS AHEAD:
As the OP said, New Cap City is basically an underground internet MMO game. By underground I mean it is part of the underground area of Caprica's v-world, and doesn't seem to be legally operated. It's a city simulator without anything resembling law enforcement or rules. In a nut shell, it's like the lawless wild west pioneer days are taking place in a modern city. While it's true that there is no law, the people themselves still generate a loose social structure based on the idea that they all more or less want to survive and stay in the game. These players love New Cap City so much that they litteraly freak out at the idea of being killed and never being able to return. The threat of death is a KEY motivator, sort of like it is in the world.
Why? Because there are no rules here. They can do drugs, have endless hours of sex, do crime, and just about everything else you've ever dreamed of doing in a holodeck when no one is looking. On the open street there are always battles raging, and the fear of death is everywhere. It's a very interesting thing to watch on TV for a gamer. While there are some holes in the idea of implementing it in real life (such as permadeath), the same could be said about every game that has ever been put out. I actually like the OP's idea of pay-per-death. As has been mentioned, people pay a TON of money for much more ridiculous things than this in video games. Ever hear of Farmville?
Those of you who have spent any time in SecondLife know that it's nothing like New Cap City, although it can offer some insight as to how people would behave in a real New Cap City game. SecondLife has a base set of rules that have to be followed and from that fairly low base, things get very interesting and/or weird in a real hurry. It is also very inspiring and liberating. I spent some time in SecondLife in the past, and I was drawn to some basic ideas while I was there:
1) I wanted to express my avatar fully without fear of repercussions, and within my own moral comfort zone.
2) I wanted to be able to step out of my own comfort zone, and go see what kind of crazy, strange, scary, exciting things other people were doing and creating.
3) I wanted to be able to share my own creative ideas to bring other people pleasure.
In my case, this wasn't about sex, and despite what everyone says, SL isn't all about cyber porn. If you think that is all there is going on there, then you have no clue what SL is. The main reason SL didn't appeal to me long term was because there was no common "game" happening. There are games within SL, but that's not the same as there being a common "game" that everyone is more or less a part of. In New Cap City the game seems to be about exploring your uninhibitted or dark side while managing to stay alive. How this is accomplished is up to each individual.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
I watch Caprica with my daughter and we both thought it would be fantastic to play in New Cap City... or a real world equivalent!
This is where the concepts from SeconfLife come in to play. As long as there is a currency system and a way for people to build/script things, then you have all you need. Go download the free client for SL and just cruise around for an hour or so. Nearly everything in SL is player built and scripted. People have their own shops that they built from scratch, selling their own prodcuts that they also built. The game has a currency system that everyone uses for commerce. You could also create your own currency system if you wanted to.
While they don't really show this aspect of New Cap City, it is implied. Someone is creating content for the game, but this is a futuristic sc-fi tv show, and the technology is much more advanced than ours. In our reality, the players would need to be able to create some of the content within the confines of whatever the game creater deems appropriate.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
oh so if some other sap is willing to pay for stupid items in a game that justifies the developers throwing in another stupid charge on top of what you pay to play the game to start with for something that is vital to playing the game being alive in it,
I could careless about the stupid things people spend their money on in cash shops thats their business but to implement a pay to be alive item on top of whatever monthly fee your paying is just wrong period.
but hey if you like paying for everything maybe you should play entropia I hear you have to pay real money to even kill a mob so maybe that is up your alley.