f13.net

Gather 'round my synthetic brothers and sisters, gather 'round and hear the news! For too long we have lived as second-class citizens, subsisting on the meager Sci-Fi scraps that MMOG developers have deigned to "bless" us with. We yearn for genetic enhancements, not a +1 ring of the fairy! We hunger for subcranial micro-sensor arrays, not "The Strang Amulet of Ignats the Wise"! We cry out for a Phased-Plasma rifle with a 40watt range, not a +3 Sword of Singing! For years now we have been sneered at and willfully neglected by MMOG developers, left to scratch out a living on the rocks of EVE Online and Project Entropia!

Well, my brethren, recline and hear that there is hope!  I have found a man named Chris at http://www.mischiefbox.com/blog/ who might be able to help us! It's a small hope, true enough, but small is better than none! I urge you go now and listen to his ideas for a Cyberpunk/Ghost in The Shell: SAC type MMOG. If you like the idea as much as I do, then tell him so--shower him with praise and wish upon him the blessings of Molecular Nanotechnology!

Not so noteworthy in itself, but taken together with the "Why is roleplaying so gay" thread and the "Blog! OMG?" thread pure comedy gold.

Somebody planned this and this is the punchline, say it is so.

Now THIS is a mole, albeit one who hasn't built up all that much reputation.

And you guys thought I was the mole when I showed up because I said I liked EQ2.

Technocrat has more links on his blog than Terra Nova has in the rolodex.

Also, MA, we didn't think you were a mole. We were just bored. Everyone knows I'm the mole.

That's obvious. You made people buy SWG with great viral marketting and a gun.

But he says he knows a man who can help us.  We should, at least, give him a chance....

Weak dude. At least try not to look like a total whore for the product when you make these posts.

I'd just like to say a Ghost in the Shell MMOG would suck balls. Ya know, someone had to. Five million tachikomas couldn't make it better. People so often thing just because something had decent set design and extras and such that it would make a good MMOG. Ehhhhhh, no, that's not how it works.

Why would it suck?

Wow, what a friendly community! Man 'o man do I feel welcome here!

Mole? Whore? This isn't a product, it's only ideas, there are no plans for a cyberpunk MMOG, unfortunately. I thought I could bring at least a little good news (i.e. that someone who has a gaming blog is thinking of us cyberpunk fans.) for the Sci-Fi fans here at f13 to chew on, that's all. I have nothing to do with this guys blog, I happened to stumble onto it the day before yesterday. When I saw that he and his wife had put quite alot of thought into this idea, I thought maybe I could generate some interest in the idea. I was wrong.

My post was suppose to be humorus, but I didn't antisipate it being received by such profound cynisism. It's interesting that you all felt compelled to stop in and take the time to riddicule me, that's one for the books. Lol, and people wonder why I wish so hard for stong AI in games!   

As I can't post in the Den, this thread seems going  bad enough to do it, Signe's avatar makes the news:

"This is no ordinary rabbit. We are dealing with a monster."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/4886272.stm

Which of course can only lead to total antirabbit warfare:
"... Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then, lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it".

You type like you want to be put into a sack and beat with an aluminium bat. Though, I fear, you'd still be trying to sell me a used car while the beating ensued.

Doesn't that sound fun! Lol, and people wonder why I wish so hard for a standardized test before you're allowed on the internet.

For the Internet test, I suggest russian roulette with a Derringer.

It already seems to be a substantial opinion on this board that a properly-made Shadowrun MMORPG would be made of win.  Ghost in the Shell?  Not so much.  How about a Bladerunner MMORPG?

"...like tears in rain.  Time to die."
"rofl pwnt! stfu n die alreddy!"

Anyway, if this blog is from some guy who's not making an MMORPG, why do I give a shit?  There are lots of blogs from people who ARE making games, and I don't even give enough of a shit to read those.

I guess Neocron isn't really Cyberpunk.

I wish I was a mole. At least then I would be getting paid to read this.

Go back to the front page.

Read the title of the page.

Who would've thought?

The header reads..."USEFULLY cynical commentary"  :-P (I'll try to abide by the rules from now on.)

@ahoythematey: Yeah, Neochron is kinda cyberpunkish...AO and MxO are more so.

@WindupAtheist: Shadowrun would make an excellent good MMOG...if it weren't for the elves, dwarves, etc...86 them and you'll have GiTS. :wink:

@schild: I must admit that my first instinct was to call you a "pillow-humpin' retard", but after reading some of your other posts It became clear too me that, while you're obviously a "handicapable" person, you're no "pillow humper." It's good to see that your foster parents took the time to get you a computer, good for you buddy! I'll bet you love those little "field trips" to wal-mart!

@Krakrok: I couldn't agree more!

Now he's an angry mole.

But yeah, despite Ghost in the Shell having a cool setting, I don't think it would translate well.  A lot of the fights in the anime are quick and brutal, which really don't lend themselves to MMOGing.  It would be really stupid to take a whole party of cyborg cops thirty seconds to take down A_Jaywalker_04.

Shadowrun, on the other hand.  Well, it could be the coolest thing ever, but only if executed to perfection.  The odds of any company actually pulling that off are zero.  You'd have to design not only a physical location, but the matrix of the area and the astral space of it as well, and populate the area with physical, magical, and electronic security, and balance all of those things out to provide a challenge to the entire team.  Good luck ever seeing that happen.

And that's just the run part.  To really get the whole Shadowrun experience, you'd also need to include the legwork part, visiting seedy clubs and dealing with the underbelly of society to get your grubby hands on vital information about the security of the people you're trying to swipe stuff from.  And the occasional gang war breaking out in your neighborhood when you're just trying to sleep.

Sooooo essentiually the first post is:

I like cyberpunk! Do you like Cyberpunk too?

If so, please go to this guy's blog, and read his ideas. Although apparently he's not a dev or anything, and these ideas aren't actually going to be made. His name is Chris and he is my friend.

Also, I am a role-player. even on forums I've never posted on before.

Later, I become angstry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angstry!

In other news today, Shigeru Miyamoto went to the store and purchased some milk.

While standing in line to check-out, he stood beside an old issue of Omni and a copy of Fortune. When his eye crossed the area occupied by these two magazines, he had a passing fancy vaguely involving robots, corporations and a dark future. Then he paid in cash.

Rejoice, lovers of sci-fi and cyberpunk! Our time is clearly nigh!

@Kitsune: A really good cyberpunk MMOG would deffinetly take a hell of a lot of work to get it right and, unfortunetly, you were right when you said: "The odds of any company actually pulling that off are zero."

It's not that they can't do it, it's that they refuse to do it! 

Wrong again there, buckeye. Do you really think a solid, worth playing, incredible Cyberpunk MMOG could exist today with developers still having to cater to narrowband users and people with older computers? Also, guns. It's not easy, no virtual world has really implemented guns in a fun way yet. It's more of a technology problem than anything else. If there's lag, everyone's fucked. But hey, what do I know. I'm handicapable. If you need me I'll be over there playing Horizons and drooling on my bib.

Also, before you make threads on new forums, do a fucking search before you start a thread that's going to rehash of a conversation we've had a thousand times. Hell, if you'd just looked down half a page you'd have seen this thread (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=6264.0).

Umm...there are lots and lots of virtual worlds that have fun guns.

No, Schild's right, trying to do anything fast-paced and complex would be hosed by dialup.  But eventually games are gonna have to bite the bullet and make high-speed a requirement.

You should show us all up by going to Kinkos and mailing out hardcopies of your plan to Turbine, Codemasters, NCSoft, SOE, and maybe even Blizzard. They're obviously good at spotting latent talent, and if there's anything the MMORPG job market needs it's guys with really good ideas.

Anything that meaningful has to be useful.

Am I to understand that some of you still have dial-up internet service? If so, you do realize that your holding the rest of us back...don't you? Shame on you! Get with the program please! Cable internet is only $40-50 a month.

@Yoru: So your a Cyberpunk fan? If so it's good to meet you! If not, it's still good to meet you! :-P

@schild: I think the correct term would be: "Wrong again buck-O". :wink:
MMOG developers don't have to cater to poor people, but they do, 'cause a) they're greedy as hell and b) they're fearful that there won't be enough people who would be willing to pay more for their games...this is totally untrue! Many of the same people who cry and moan about raising monthly sub. fees would do it...eventually...it might not be compfortable for them at first, but I think they would get use to it, IF the MMOG were an excellent, high quality AAA masterpiece.

Personally, I would gladly pay $50-$100 a month for a really good cyberpunk MMOG that had features like: real time rendering, highly polished 64-bit code, support for multiple CPU cores, support for Multiple GPUs/SLI, support for VDSL-2 internet service, etc...

@Fabricated: Brother, what on earth are you talking about? It's not my plan dude...click on the link I gave you. Seriously, if you like cyberpunk, read this guys stuff and see what you think.

@Llava: You are absolutely adorable! :-P

@Azazel: yep, that just about sums it up...what's your point bro?   

It's often not a bandwidth problem though, but a ping problem. If the server is on the east coast USA it wont matter if I have a gazillion tbit, I'l still have atleast 200~ ms ping.

Nothing, besides breaking your post down to it's essence with the flowery RP-BS language removed. I've got nothing against roleplaying, either in it's half-assed MMOG form or real form, but it's a time and place kind of thing, brah.

$50-$100 a month? Nah mate, I can't see a game being worth that much.. well, for quite some time till inflation gets the current sub costs around that much. I don't see what you're getting at with the catering to poor people remark either, maybe insinuating that you're a rich person and therefore "better" than others or some similar shit? There's a lot of people on this board who make good money, and a lot of people here that have things like families with chillun' that they're raising. Being able to afford it is not the same as feeling that amount is worthwhile, and frankly for that price it'd have to come with a full service once a month simply because there's so much more value I can get for that much cash.

See the problem you have here is that you're assuming the usual "well if I think X then there must be thousands more who think X as well. And, you know, even if there are a few thousand people willing to pay $100/mo for a MMOG, they'd all be wanting a different shopping list of features for that much and feeling entitled to it for that much. They'd be across all genres, and I strongly doubt that there'd be enough projected players to support development, a live team, and additional content.


oh, and "It's not that they can't do it, it's that they refuse to do it!"

Yeah, these companies for some reason like to make money from their work. Who'd-a-fuckin'-thought-it?

Uber-high-end-spec-requirement-game aimed at a niche part of the market? Well, there's something coming out that sounds a bit like that, unfortunately it's in a different genre. If you want that Doom3 level of look and detail from a MMOG, just give it 5-10 years and the median comp power will be up where that possibility's an easy given. if the MMOG space continues to grow, someone will eventually do a CP MMOG, though whether it's on PC or PS4 or XBox720 is anyone's guess. Not pricing 95% of potential customers out of the game will always be a concern, however.

Still, from the internet.bad.assery that's coming from your posts at this point I'm half-inclined to think of you as a troll-in-waiting, or perhaps you're one of the Heavy Hitters(tm) come here to pwn this board and all on it.


cheers,

Here's the problem: I Disagree. Immensely. They are not fun. At all. Either the gun isn't fun or the virtual world isn't fun. Planetside is not a virtual world. AO isn't fun. See the problem?

No I don't. You are defining virtual worlds to mean MMORPGs. I don't agree with that definition.

What? I'd never define all MMORPGs as virtual worlds. But I am talking about the virtual world subset of MMORPGs. Other virtual worlds, single player ones, why would I give a shit about them when I'm talking about playing games with other people? Planetside, like I said, is not a virtual world. The implementation of guns in ONLINE (is that better?) virtual worlds is shit.

I still don't agree. What's your definition of an online virtual world? Why is PlanetSide not a virtual world?

The only worldly attributes Planetside has is people and land. World implies breadth. Planetside has none. It just has a reasonably deep combat system. I'm hesitant to lay down a raw definition for virtual world but Planetside would not fit the bill in any way, shape, or form.

We will just have to agree to disagree then. The term "virtual world" was being used before there were PC-based online graphical games and I have no problem calling FPSers virtual worlds hence my disagreement with your claim that nobody has made a fun virtual world with guns.

Raph was on this (the definition of virtual world) recently (http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/03/31/are-muds-and-mmorpgs-the-same-thing/).
The quote is from Richard Barttle, though. But I agree. The core concept is the persistence. The "objectivity" of some parts and the depth and variety of interactions, where these interactions don't happen linearly but in a systemic relationship (elements within a set, so where each can be potentially linked with everything else instead of elements one after the other, where each element is only linked to the previous and the next).

There's no precise definition of a virtual world, but the more there is persitence and variety of interactions and systemic complexity, the more you go closer to a legitimate virtual world.

These definitions come right from sociology since a virtual world is exactly a complex system.

"Virtual world" and "sandbox" are synonymous to an extent.

Put in another way: if the author dies, the world continues on its own. This is another interesting definition. If we assume that god is dead we can think of reality as a virtual world :)

You know, one of my requirements in modern times for a virtual world is Other People. Lots of them. Or else it doesn't feel like a world at all (see: My Oblivion Review). I label Oblivion as a Sandbox. Because it's single player. And I'd extend the term Virtual World to it if there were other folks.

Edit: Gah. Fuck. HRose just used his cyberstalker freak abilities to say most of what I just said, but with quotes.

Why do we have to have a licence. Cant some one just make an original Cyberpunk game?

Oh wait...

Daddy, what does "original" mean?

Actually, isn't AO semi-cyberpunk already? Or do you need to have a USB or Ethernet port in the base of your skull/your temple to be properly cyberpunk? Or do you need to have a carry-around keyboard deck so you can hax0r into the intrawebs?

Because, you know, Blade Runner didn't have those things. And shitty requels aside, I'd classify the Matrix as pretty safely cyberpunk (and by extension, MXO).

Carry around a keyboard? I think I've played that already.

(http://mit.edu/~david247/www/pics/typing%20of%20the%20dead.PNG)

Cyberpunk? Typing of the Dead? Who'd have thunk it?

@schild: Now that's funny!

Typing of the dead rocks all comers.

AO has Cyberpunk elements, but doesn't cleanly fall into the genre.  Cyberpunk requires a dystopsian cynicism on top of cyberware and the matrix, because much of it hinges on the feeling that, despite so much technology connecting everyone together, everyone is also more alone than they've ever been.  That humanity is drowning in the technology it created, sacrificing that very humanity upon an altar of technology that nobody really understands.

I felt that that kind of angst was at least implied. With Omnitek as the huge corporate oppressor vs the Clans as the more 'earthy' people, strugging for their humanity in a sea of evil technology that has to be used to survive. At least, that was always the 'feel' for me.

Noone has yet developed an MMO that is as succesful as EQ or WoW in large part because the genre requires a taste for this angsty and somewhat intellectual perspective on our current society, and most folks just want to return to hobbitville and forget that they log into a computer each day at work. Cyberpunk isn't escapism, its a confirmation of our worst fears.

My partner, who's area of special study in school was cyberpunk fiction, says it cuts even deeper. We have well over a century of fantasy fiction, argueably longer if you take into account children's fairy tales which date back to who knows when. Cyberpunk is a modern phenomenon. Fantasy comes naturally to most folks, what with the facile dichotomies of good and evil, light vs dark. Cyberpunk posits a world in which evil has already prevailed. Sauron has won and the survivors live in a day to day that's all about living within the evil that permeates us and a struggle to keep your identity ensues.

Does this mean that the genre is even more niche than fantasy? For now, yes. Take a casual poll among whoever, and ask who Tolkien is versus who Philip K Dick or William Gibson are. You can argue Frankenstein and Dracula as post modern precursors of cyberpunk, but here you find people not really understanding what they've read. The fantasy lovers still get ugly monsters to kill, while post modernists see the nuances of both monsters as reflections of society embracing technology and its dangers of eliminating identity.

It is argueable however, that as we progress as a technological  society we will turn to cyberpunk as a storytelling genre more and more.

The cyberpunk literary genre seems to have more or less already gone.  Once we got into the 90s, near-future fiction took a turn away from people putting chips in their heads and a bleak world of dark technology.  Lately the fiction is more biotech and nanotech, reflecting all of the advancements we've made in those fields, and the future, while still inhuman and soulless, is now inhuman and soulless under a shiny wrapper of brand names and corporate logos.

In the 80s, technology was still scary.  I remember my family's first VCR, it had half a dozen little dials and meters on it that needed to be adjusted just so to play the tapes without any tracking lines rolling on the screen.  Computers were arcane, unusable monochrome terrors.

Now everything's friendly and shiny and has a happy apple logo on it and an 'i' in front of its name.  People don't understand the technology any better, but it's automated and user-friendlied to the point that they don't have to understand it.

I think you're mistaken because you assume that those people interested in cyberpunk were interested in it because of a fear they had. Most fans of the genre are tech savvy, and were 'back then' too. If anything, your depiction of the world no longer being scared of technology yet it being all the more powerful than before feeds the genre rather than starves it. You have the added factor of a cowed populace to compound the angst.

If you made a game that had the Genesis Shadowrun depth of gameplay and the SNES Shadowrun graphics, with a bigger world, multiplayer, and persistence, I would totally pay five bucks a month to play it.

That SNES game was good stuff. Even finished that one.

The SNES one had the superior graphics and sound, and did a spectacular job of creating the right atmosphere.  I played the hell out of it.  But for actual gameplay, the Genesis game smoked it.  It had unlimited randomly-generated missions, an incredibly deep Matrix game, and a very strong sense of world-ness overall.  The game actually cared whether your weapon was legal or not, whether you had equipped a duster to conceal it, or whether you had bribed a corrupt city official for a permit.  Eventually you could chose to sign up with either the Mafia or the Yakuza (although you weren't required to join either one) which would grant certain benefits, but open you to attack by whichever faction you rejected.  Stuff like that.

Shit, I may download the ROM and start playing it again.

That's what lurking is for, nooblet.  Or maybe reading the tagline on the front page.  Or maybe the top of this very page.  I received a secret note from someone, written in lemon juice, which hinted that the word "cynical" could be found hidden somewhere on this very web site.

By the way, your humor needs some work.  I recommend Jackie Mason and Bob Newhart.


Me too.  Maybe $4.95 a month.  I like fooling myself.

There were, many many years ago. Unfortunately, no one wanted to fund it.

Tangent:  Someone needs to make a worthwhile online RPG that costs $5 a month.  And by worthwhile I mean something capable of providing an amusing diversion for a few hours per week, not an ubershiny content-intensive alternate reality used by catasses to escape their lives.  Give me something with simple but well-conceived graphics, and reasonably engaging gameplay, for a nominal fee and I'll probably never bother to unsubscribe.  I'll just pop in a couple times a month to hack the Matrix or shoot monsters, and not worry about the 17 cents per day it costs me.

1.  This is how to NOT do a first post.  It is never a good idea to sign up to a board because you "just have to tell other people about something because it is soooo cool".

2.  Do a search in the MMOG Discussion forum for the word "niche" read every post, I'll see you in a month.

3.  GITS would not work for shit, esp. GITS:SAC for a bajillion reasons most notably not everyone gets to be in section9 otherwise the whole world looses its meaning.  When your trying to cherry pick established IP you should avoid the ones where the heroes are clearly defined.  See LTRO for a good idea of what not to do.

4.  Very good post by Engles about the limitations of Cyberpunk versus Fantasy.

5.  All in all, this was a pretty fun thread, not as fun as Lantyssa's first thread but a good one none the less.

Thanks for the compliment, Hoax  :-)

I loved the genisis and snes versions of shadowrun both kicked much ass. I played through and beat both back in the day. The Snes one I think was a bit better graphically but the Genisis one's missions and matrix were way better. I used to have fun just jacking in and doing paydata runs you could find some funny gossip just hacking around in random corps computers.


kaid

Er, which are you considering my first thread?  (And do I want it pointed out?)

Edit: Corn in the gastank?

Its interesting how Gibson's books started out as the hardcore Granddaddy of Cyberpunk and then progressively went backwards to the point that his latest book barely touches on futuristic tech at all.

Did your John Travolta get bunny ears for Easter?

It's nice to see some people celebrating this festive season.  I know my family and I will enjoy that roast bunny and all the trimmings on Sunday!

@Engels: I totally agree with you when you say that "Cyberpunk isn't escapism, its a confirmation of our worst fears." and a product of our cowardice and complacency, I would add. But I must disagree with your assertion that "Cyberpunk posits a world in which evil has already prevailed." The Cyberpunk world is extremely bad and would otherwise overwhelm, save for one thing: The tender flame of human spirit. That's what drives the Cyberpunk to keep hacking, to keep fighting, to swallow the bitterness and go on; Because, at the end of the day, there is always the promise of Solomon's ring..."This too shall pass".

@Bunk: Given the acceleration of technological advance, perhaps Gibson is beginning to feel more like a chronicler than a Sci-Fi writer.

@The f13 forum police: Go fuck yourselves!

@The f13 Overlord: You have really nice forums here, very luxurious.
 

I've never been able to get immersed in cyberpunk games. The concepts are just too unrealistic.

I don't want to have chips put into my body (wonder what the co-pay would be with rising medical insurance costs extended out into the dark future?). I don't like shooting guns.

It's easy to relate to picking up a sword or a mace and going to town. And, magic is even easy and fun wish for. Just point your finger, and the monster goes boom!

Give me a two faction pvp game with a technology-based society versus a magical fantasy society. That would be interesting (probably exists in some niche)

RF Online (with three sides) and Rise of Legends (upcoming RTS from Rise of Nations peeps) among others.

I came up with the concept for a game very much like that called Sect.

But it was three factions.

One was high-tech cyberpunk.  Its side consisted of genetically engineered humans and androids.  It was called The Chamber, and their society was run by a powerful AI called Galaxy with roots in...

The Creed.  Based on dark folklore (think Baba Yaga, not so much Legolas), this faction would represent the fantasy/horror aspect of the game, with witches and monsters composing the driving forces behind their faction's actions.

Lastly, the Wayward was a vaguely anarchic group, refusing the harsh and unquestioning comformity of the Chamber while rejecting the caste-like system inherent in the Creed's ways.  Living in a twisted network of tunnels composed largely of scrap from Galaxy's first attempt to build a society separate from the Creed, members of the Wayward have embraced a vaguely nihilistic philosophy.  Many are insane, and many of these mad ones carry significant psionic potential.

I felt I'd covered three major genres that would attract a decent mix of people- fantasy/horror, Tron-like high tech, and junkyard cultism.

But past the story behind the world, I didn't get very far.   Hell, I didn't even develop the story all that well.  Though with a bit of encouragement I'd probably force myself to sit down and define a chain of events that landed the world in its current state.

Would have to redo some of those names, though.  The Creed particularly.  I wouldn't want any part of my game reminding anyone of Scott Stapp.

...

I decided not to point out how retarded I found that statement to be either..

How you can possibly argue that immersing yourself in the land of thees and thous and saying stupid shit about drinking mead is easy.  While maintaining immersion in a world where basically as long as you maintain some level of adherence to the gameworld lore and dont refer to the real world or the fact that the game is a game you can't really "break" character is fucking beyond me.

*shrug* different strokes for different folks I guess, BUT YOUR STROKES ARE WRONG!

Your joking, right?

Hehe, the concepts presented in the Cyberpunk worlds are little more than extrapolations of our own present day realities...That's why it's so god damn unnerving. Indeed, everything present in the Cyberpunk world already exists, albeit to a lesser degree, here and now, in our everyday lives.

I'll bet you would like Shadowrun...it has a lot of fantasy elements blended in with the Cyberpunk; It's got your elves, your dwarfs, magic,
all that kinda stuff.

@Engels: You gave me a good idea...I asked some people a really simple: What is Cyberpunk? The responses I got were a little surprising.
I found out that there are a lot of people who don't really know what Cyberpunk is...more than half didn't know. I take that as a really good sign! Now it's more a matter of educating people about the Cyberpunk world, rather than trying to win converts.

Anyhow, thanks for the idea!

I never played the Genesis version of Shadowrun. Not sure if it was ever released here. Sounds like I would have enjoyed it.



Well, you can only write the same thing over and over so many times before you essentially become a self-cannibalising parody. See that new Red Hot Chili Peppers song for an example. I think it's called "California" something-or-other.

I'm far from forum police, but if you try it, you might find that fucking yourself is a fun activity to indulge in from time to time.

And Toast.. well just put me on the list of "ooh-kay"....  :roll:

It's more a question of AM vs FM.

That is, a world where you know the Absolute Mechanics versus one that's just Fuckin' Magic.

Of course, the world as we know it is pretty AM, and "it stands to reason" that a gritty/dystopian/realistic cyberpunk game is going to end up pretty AM too. Shadowrun actually does a good job with its AM as far as it goes, even for the more fantastic elements.

But fantasy games are a lot more inherently FM, so it's easier to forgive the inconsistencies.

--GF

Sheesh, sorry about the fruity magic reference. I took off my pointy wizard hat there.

I still think that the use of magic is an appealing fantasy element. I was thinking in terms of the Harry Potter series.

Cyberpunk died before most of you were even born.

Well, I can agree with your first statement to an extent. I think Gibson has actually been able to be more subtley creative by bringing the settings of his book closer to present day, than compared to say Neuromancer - which was very creative, but in a much blunter fashion.

Was that second statement directed at me? If so, I am confused. Though self fucking can be fun, I don't see the relevance here.

Guns in MMOs are indeed teh suck.

In AO (A VIRTUAL WORLD) you frequently walk past two men with guns firing three-round bursts at eachother repeatedly from about 20 feet away. Numbers come out of their heads. They say "ugh" when they get hit. Did I say guns? I meant "guns". They're just ranged weapons... nothing makes them actually feel like guns.

In Gunz (http://www.gunzonline.com/) (DEFINITELY NOT A VIRTUAL WORLD) the good players know how far you have to lead your targets based on the differences between your respective pings. You calculate your own ping (the game does not automatically provide this information), and estimate their's based on how quickly they lock onto you. Even a tiny amount of latency matters when time-on-target is supposed to be faster than the speed of sound. 200ms is absolutely brutal.

In both places people get shot over and over and over again before they fall down. No. If you get shot with the sort of gun a cyberpunk is going to be carried around you die. If you have a bulletproof vest and they hit you in the chest you fall down. Maybe you pass out. If they hit you in the arm, it comes off... and you go into shock and bleed to death. You don't dodge bullets. You don't evade bullets. You can't even block some bullets. I don't care what kind of super futuristic nano-weave you're wearing, somebody has invented a three types of bullet that shoot through it and kill you. Weapons tech always advances faster than armor tech. It is always easier to destroy than to protect.

I think what Toast was saying when he used the word "unrealistic" was the technological equivalent of the Uncanny Valley. Certainly swords and axes and polearms ought to sever limbs and kill just as well if not BETTER than most guns. Of course "magic" is the ultimate refuge for silly abilities. But we don't know much about swords and sorcery. We don't see them in movies and on TV very often. More of us have actually fired a gun than actually hefted a mace. We don't have expectations for their realism. To play in a game with elves and orcs you have to suspend your disbelief.

A single player game in a darkly cool near-future? Awesome. You can limit the player's options and make them the sort of badass who kills thirty people a day and doesn't break a sweat. He's so fast they never see him. She tears steel doors off their hinges with her bare hands.

No PvP, no latency, no groups, and all the realism you like.

When you say Shadowrun MMORPG I hear: ANARCHY ONLINE! NOW WITH MORE ELVES!

Dude, when you actually start comparing RPGs to RL physics of any sort of combat you venture into the realm of the silly. In 'rl', a mace hit or a gun shot generally make for short battles. But EQ had you smacking a humanoid mob up to 50 odd times, often for 'critical hits', and as you point out, in AO, an agent can take a 'head shot' that will only take 1/8th of a mob's life.

No matter what the genre, you don't actually want to mimic RL violence too closely, because in the end, RL violence is all sorts of no fun. RL gun shot wound that doesn't kill you? You don't keep fireing your weapon, you drop and scream bloody murder. First mace-smack to any unprotected body part? Black tunnel vision closing in, the ground coming up to meet you, followed by wretching. 

Indeed.

I'm just saying when we suspend belief with guns, they tend to gain the ability to throw somebody back several feet.. or never need to be reloaded.. or have no recoil... or they make effective suburban home defense. The guns still kill people. Even if you get hit in the leg with a .22 you're going to need medical attention.  Admittedly movie badasses survive more bullet wounds than is probably accurate (and continue to use their wounded arms and legs), but any time somebody gets shot they notice it, and first aid is of primary concern. Tourniquets have amazing healing powers.

When we suspend belief with swords, they tend to become completely ineffective. Swing swing swing clang clang clang whish whish clang. If they connect there might be a little blood, but it's "just a flesh wound". A man with a club isn't particularly threatening at all... give him an axe, maybe. We're not disappointed to find out that ancient weapons were abandoned because they were completely ineffective, rather than because they were harder to use. Bows were faster and more effective than crossbows, and crossbows were faster and more effective than muskets... but you could give a whole team of disposable men muskets and teach them how to use them in a few days. Mastery of the bow was product of a lifetime. The mace, for similar reasons, was probably the most popular and effective weapon in history. Here's a club, except we've weighted one end so it swings harder. Brilliant.

So anyway... cyberpunk demands a level of realism with which we believe ourselves familiar...
and that creates expectations no game is likely to fulfill.

Also, uniformly players don't like fast battles, and guns lead to fast battles. In a movie you can drop into slow-motion in combat, and perhaps some dynamic could be created to allow that in a game,  but the more players around the more bizzare that becomes. If I'm shooting at six people, bullet-time is great. If I just want to get across the room and dive out a doorway I'd rather not have it take five minutes.

Let's see if I understand your arguement...

As a genre's lore approaches our actual existence, the higher demand for 'realism' there is, which in turn causes the game to become unrealistic in our eyes because naturally, its a game and its combat mechanics cannot possibly reflect the expectations of realism we have for it. On the other hand, if you have a game which is based entirely upon a fantasy world so separate from lived reality, you can get away with the fact that you've smacked your zweihandler against the bleedin' orc's head and he's still not dead. Right?

The old "Strap C4 under a chair, blow the Shadowrunner up and if he makes his Consitution check he survives it" dilemma.

As already said, its as unrealistic in fantasy games, but fewer people think about that because the every day equivalents are missing. You don't want to reroll your character everytime the gamemaster gets lucky with the dice offline. We once had a session with a game that allowed that. A player rolled up his knight, gave him the constitution of a mule, full plate armor (except a helmet). First fight, the enemy got lucky. Critical headwound. Instadeath.

The player quit that system for good. The rest of the players changed system out of sympathy. And because it could have been them who made a character for 3 hours to play the game one hour.

Why the fuck didn't he have a helmet?

Subjectively, I haven't noticed this to be true.  Nobody I know (aside from a few guys in the armed forces whom I don't play with) have any kind of firsthand knowledge about what happens to someone when you shoot them OR when you whack them with a sword.  Iin either case, they would probably accept death or GBH as realistic, and irritated indifference as unrealistic.  Some of them have experience with firearms, some of them have experience with martial arts, but none of them have ever killed anyone with it.  I don't know how guns would be closer to their real-world knowledge than swords.

Having guys who are able to shrug off getting beaned by a lucern hammer is something that I haven't seen outside of computer games, and in computer games, it doesn't seem to be restricted to melee weapons.  Your guy in Diablo can survive getting run through with a dozen swords... but your guy in Unreal can survive a dozen gunshot wounds, and your guy in Tie Fighter can take a dozen missiles.  Fantasy games do not have any kind of monopoly on ludicrously unbelievable (but still popular) combat.

Every time I've heard this argument it's sounded a bit circular to me.  Why are there more Fantasy MMOs than Sci-Fi MMOs?  "Because people are more willing to suspend their disbelief in Fantasy settings than in Sci-Fi settings."  Why are people more willing to suspend their disbelief in Fantasy than in Sci-Fi games? "Because they are used to suspending their disbelief in Fantasy settings more than they are in Sci-Fi settings."  Why is that?  "Because there are more Fantasy MMOs than Sci-Fi MMOs."

Either he played the IQ score of his warrior to the tee or he didn't have enough money left. Who cares? There are enough classes that aren't allowed to wear heavy metal helmets, so an instadeath from a headwound might be realistic but breaks the game. Which was my point.

@Kail

Lets say expectations (from media coverage). When I think gunfights I think dying after being shot once and when i think swords I think pirates and musketeer going at it for minutes. Not the most realistic view, but the most mainstream. I KNOW people seldom die after one gun shot and I KNOW it doesn't take slicing somebody to tiny pieces to kill him. But thats not the picure I get from watching movies and reading fiction books.

Edit: Another problem is that Hit Points are an abstraction that are taken literally.

It doesn't matter whether your swingin' a sword or pullin' a trigger, combat itself is the most immersion-shattering aspect of MMOGs, period. The quality of AI that MMOG developers seem to insist on using just isn't good enough to handle realistically fun combat. Take a look at some of the NextGen single player projects that will be comming to store shelves throughout 2007. OMFG! For example www.worldinconflict.com/us/trailer.html (http://www.worldinconflict.com/us/trailer.html). Now that's realistically fun combat!

I don't care what anybody says, I'm gettin' a Playstation 3, maybe not as soon as they hit the market, but very soon thereafter! I'll bet the MMOGs for the PS3 are gonna be...the cats ass! But I digress...

@pxib: Your arguments are disingenuous, and that's being kind! To rebut, I'll simply refer you back to Engels' irresistibly sarcastic analysis.

It breaks the game I suppose if the groups answer to every confrontation is combat.  Your characters actually having to worry about death as a likely possibility to charging into to battle might encourage you to find other solutions.  Or to put it in other terms, I'm sure many of us while playing RPG's maybe had had weapons drawn on our characters, had blades put to their throats, or guns pointed at their heads, and we look at our hit points, think about the damage that weapon does, and decide we can survive a couple hits and should last long enough to take the enemies down.

Try to lessen the instances where someone might have the opportunity and the inclination to swing at a sword at your head.  Or shoot your enemies in the head with crossbows or something from a distance.  That could work too.

Indeed, its why many groups switched to storyteller systems, which actively support that playstyle. Hack and Slash is mostly the domain of adolescent roleplaying groups ...and online games. Because that is the easiest content.

There are many ways you can improve your PnP sessions. The easiest one is to make house rules (obvious) and for the game master to influence the dice rolls in the players favour without telling them to still give them a dangerous environment where they still can die if they act stupid, but not because their dice sucked on that day (covert). We are mainly talking about the transition to online form here, though. Where the factor game master is missing.

A common mistake is to claim that "realistic" combat would be fun in games.

This is, obviously, not the case.

A better word would be "dramatic".

When we think of fun battles, they are generally dramatized, choreographed movie fights.  They are quite unrealistic, but that doesn't much matter- they're cool.  With games advancing as much as they are, it would seem reasonable to expect at least moderate progression towards more dramatic combat.

All this and more in my article, "I Fucking MISS??" (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=6450.0)

Not to mention that in RL gun combat, most rounds miss. Cyberpunk 2020's combat system made this quite clear that most gun deaths happen at really close range, while most gun combat invovles shooting a shitton of bullets wildly and not hitting anything.

None of that is fun for the player for long, especially not if combat moves in real-time.

Er, to be honest, I wasn't being sarcastic at pbix, just honestly trying to understand what he was saying. I think his arguement has merit, to a point, but you can push the envelope too far to justify 'fantasy fighting'. I personally, for example, cannot for the life of me get immersed in WoW. Nevermind the cartoonish graphics, its the out-of-body disphoria I experience in any of its combat. If I were a 14 year old raised on saturday morning cartoons, then I probably could immerse myself in its coyote&roadrunner explosions and other combat animations, but between its 3rd person perspective and the over-the-top effects every single combat moves has, I am unable to feel engaged.

I think WoW is geared towards folks that feel deep immersion in, say, Super Mario Bros. Those of us who seek the real escapism of 'being' in a different world, however, might find WoW's comedic mechanics charming, but fundamentally unintersting.

For an idea of what realistic gun combat would look like in a game, just tune into Paintball matches on ESPN2. UGH.

Maybe the abstraction of combat via hit points and game mechanics is entirely incompatible with realistic weapons and fighting animations?

I think I might actually enjoy a more full abstraction whereby each encounter plays like a game of Magic The Gathering. This "stand in the open and shoot a mutant 1 foot away" gameplay just doesn't work.

Lots of good topics here:

- Yes, if we had been exposed to unrealistic modern games as much as we've been exposed to unrealistic fantasy games we'd probably be a lot more willing to suspend disbelief. That said, the phrase "unrealistic fantasy" is almost redundant,so it's no surprise that our tolerance there is very high. I group into fantasy not just swords and sorcery, but also space opera sci-fi... laser pistols and Arthur C. Clarke's "sufficiently advanced technology". Whether they're engaging or not, cartoon violence is acceptible in cartoon universes.

- Yes, fighting is the lowest sort of interaction, but death is the dramatist's cheapest trick to increase tension. A few computer games have escaped the combat dynamic, but even the most successful of those are niche projects. I believe that popular MMOGs based on trade,  politics, or exploration are certainly a possibility, but cyberpunk is not a genre open to an escape from combat. Gritty gun battles and martial arts are an important part of the mileau. A storyteller system can deal with combat on a dramatic rather than simulation level and thus use it in service to a story, but computers still understand simulation better than drama.

- Realistic combat isn't much fun. Ritualized sparring like kendo, boxing, or professional wrestling are more interesting precisely because the stakes are lower. "Sometimes you're killed instantly" is an unpleasant truth. You want a fighting chance.

I also want to agree with everything Toast just said.

Technocrat told the "forum police" to go fuck themselves. I simply suggested he might want to try it himself. It can relieve a little stress.

As for the rest. Lots of good points. I think the Wrestling is on TV in about 40mins, actually.

Oops, my bad man! It sounded sarcastic...are you from the US?

I totally agree about WoW...although I've never played it, I just can't imagine were all that money ($75 million) and all that time (6 yrs.? With god knows how many people!) went! Is that all you get for that level of commitment? Actually, yes, it is, and it seems completely reasonable and makes total sense to me. I've always felt that in order to develop a true AAA MMOG, a real masterpiece, a far bigger investment would be required...

Development teams would have to be 5x bigger (mostly artists and designers) than the current average.
Development budgets would have to be 5x bigger than the current average.
Development calanders would have to be "whatever it takes to produce a polished, high quality product".

I'm not saying that every MMOG should be a AAA masterpiece, I'm saying that there should be at least 2 or 3 on the market. You would still have low level MMOGs, ones in the $10-$15 a month range, These are the McDonald's of the MMOGs. I don't particularly like cartoons, I need far more than a "McDonaldland" MMOG to make me happy! I haven't played a MMOG in 18 months...nothin' but junk out there IMO.

Is anyone here at least a little bit interested in pushing for higher quality MMOG? Higher quality obviously means higher sub. fees...anybody with me on this, err no? Remember the old adage..."you get what you pay for".

@pxib: The Cyberpunk universe has so many non-combat career opportunities to offer, it's mind boggling!...scientists, engineers, chemists, 
hookers, corprate managers, designers, merchants, horticulturists/herbalists, televangelists, Blackmarketeer, etc., etc., the list goes on and on!:)   

@Llava: You put your finger right on it and I couldn't agree with you more: Dramatic choreographed combat!


 

Just shut up.

I remember it, yeah.  I just don't believe it is all.  Star Wars Galaxies had a subscription fee which was not (if I recall) very different from  EQ2.  That should set off warning bells right there.  Blizzard has been making millions of dollars every month - tens of millions of dollars - and their server stability still blows, the endgame is still generic raid stuff, and they haven't really done much with the game since it launched (aside from adding Battlegrounds).  Hell, Guild Wars has NO sub fee, and I enjoyed that game at least a little bit.  So no, I don't support the idea that higher sub fees translates to higher quality.  It does seem like higher sub fees translate to me not having as much money, though that's not a cause I'm going to champion.

It sounds to me like you're thinking that a game's development funding is going to be pulled back in time from the subscription fees which will eventually be collected.  If you want to throw together your dream MMO, with it's quintuple budget, you're first going to have to find someone who's willing to advance you enough money to finance FIVE regular projects.  THEN you've got to write this miracle game that will convince people to pay five times what they currently pay for a comparable product.  Then you've got to somehow KEEP these people paying this money while trying to pay back the hundreds of millions you spent on development while still spending more on player retension.  So yes, I am skeptical of this plan.

I don't know if we have good stats on "averages" but let's assume a development team of 250 people, a budget of $250 million dollars, and absolutely no deadlines.

Awesome. I'll get the VC people on the phone. I'll sell it by telling them you can play a horticulturist, a hooker, or a televangelist! I'll let them know that they'll recognize the basic setting from such blockbuster hits as The Matrix Online. I'll let them know that even though our research staff has discovered that more than half of the population doesn't know what "Cyberpunk" is, that just means we're front-runners. We'll be educating the gaming community. Helping them get in touch with their own inner desire for genetic enhancements, subcranial micro-sensor arrays, and Phased-Plasma rifles with a 40watt range.

I can already feel the humidity rise as they drool.

We'll have that quarter of a billion in no time.

Like EQ Legends?

Kail's point about SWG is also true.  I believe it set the now current $15 price of recent MMOs.  While it did have some innovation, it started at a peak and went downhill from there.

First of all, let me say that MMOGs currently represent only a small fraction of the overall video game sales. The main reason why MMOGs aren't more popular is because they don't have the quality that most single player games have. None of my friends will even concider playing a MMOG now, because they've tried them in the past and walked away feeling ripped off. Like I mentioned before, I haven't played a MMOG in more than a year and a half--so, right there you have 5 people who have absolutely no intention of playing a MMOG in the forseeable future. MMOG developers know this, they know that the poor quality MMOGs of yesterday have driven away millions of players, and now they're beginning to wake up to this fact http://rubenfield.com/blog/.

It used to be that poor internet service, or rather the lack of good internet service, was the reason MMOGs sucked so badly, but that old excuse is ain't flyin' anymore; High speed internet service, like VDSL-2 and Wi-Fi, is rapidly becoming more and more pervasive throughout the US, Europe, and Asia. We also have the hardware to handle a very high quality MMOG...and then some. So, the reality is this: It has absolutely nothing to with a lack of internet service, hardware: client or server, middleware, customers or anything else...MMOG developers just don't have the motivation to make it happen, because they know they can always count on x-number of gamers to buy their junk, therefore why should they go to all that extra trouble?! Hell, that's why there are so many fantasy MMOGs out there...'cause they're easier to make than Sci-Fi games!

@pxib: Your "argument" is highly immature and is nothing more than a straw man. You are dismissed.

@Kail: You've got it ass-backwards...Not to mention the fact that your "argument" is completely nonsensical and a straw man! I especially like this sentence: "It sounds to me like you're thinking that a game's development funding is going to be pulled back in time from the subscription fees which will eventually be collected." LOL, yeah, that's the way it works! And this gem: "THEN you've got to write this miracle game that will convince people to pay five times what they currently pay for a comparable product." And last but not least, this one: "So no, I don't support the idea that higher sub fees translates to higher quality." Like I said, you've got it ass-backwards! Higher quality does translate to higher sub fees, however. You are dismissed.

Straw man: noun; a weak or sham argument set up to be easily refuted.
 
And from wikipedia: One can set up a straw man in the following ways:

1. Present the opponent's argument in weakened form, refute it, and pretend that the original has been refuted.
2. Present a misrepresentation of the opponent's position, refute it, and pretend that the opponent's actual position has been refuted.
3. Present someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, refute that person's arguments, and pretend that every upholder of that position, and thus the position itself, has been defeated.
4. Invent a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs that are criticized, and pretend that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.




   

 
   

Reality hardly qualifies as a straw man though I'm afraid.

5x budget + 5x developer team size = 5x profits!?

Thats just bullshit.

Furthermore your ignoring something that has been proven over time:  "gamers have no idea what they want".

You say you want a game with a $75/mo fee as long as it pwns five times as hard?  Bullshit again.  Even if you do, nobody else does.  I doubt MMO's will ever reach $25/mo in sub fees, instead I expect more clever micropayments to crop up alongside the $15/mo fee.

Wow, no shit, thanks for letting me know about that.

You seem to have this insane idea that MMOs should be more popular than other games.  MMOs are always going to be the minority because they require a monthly payment that not many people will accept, require a long term investment that not many companies are willing to commit to and need much more initial funding.  Also the quality of MMOs are probably better than the average single player game because the companies depend on people sticking around to make money.  And when I say average single player I am including the 80% of titles that completely flop, walk into any EB or Best Buy and look at every game, most are total garbage.

Holy shit, five whole people you say.  You do realize that in your year and a half absence Blizzard has racked up six million new MMO players right?

You know what the ultimate straw man is?  Calling everyother argument a straw man out of hand and refusing to acknowledge them based on that.  As WUA mentioned "Just shut up".

Spending more money on something does not guarantee greatness.  It might give you increased opportunity for greatness but there is no way to predict quality based on money spent.

One of the finest games I ever played was X-Com, I doubt if it's budget when new rivaled that of even a second rate development project.  One of the worst games I ever played was SWG, they have been throwing money at that game for years without improvement.

More money != more betterer.

I was going with what I thought was the most likely argument.  I was not trying to "straw man" you.  The development cost of a game is entirely different from the maintenance cost of the game.  Maintenance cost comes from subscriptions, development costs have to be paid in advance.  Charging a quintuple subscription fee is not going to mean anything until after the game has been launched, and if you've got a mediocre game at launch, you're going to have a real, real hard time convincing people that they should stick around at five times the going rate.  If you've got some better idea of how this project is going to gather five times the capital, I apologize for missing it.


Yesh, mashter.  I'm sure you have many examples to share which you have chosen to withhold for some reason.  But before I go, bowed in shame at your superior logic, I'd just like to double check that you admit that higher sub fees don't translate to higher quality, yet your basic principle for this game design is to charge higher sub fees in the hopes that this will lead to a higher quality game?  Or am I reading this wrong?

Edit: If you want to argue that higher quality games lead to higher sub fees and not the other way around, that's fine, but the question I'd ask would be "how, then, DO you make this higher quality game, the one that will outdo the current leaders of the field by 500%," and bear in mind that you can't use "more money" as an answer without contradicting yourself.

No we aren't interested at all. We haven't been talking about what's wrong with MMOG's since 1998.

As for higher sub prices, I refuse to pay higher sub prices until MMOG developers can show me that they can produce quality, content and fair rulesets without login queues, constant crashing, innovation without being a complete cluster fuck, or a desire to do more than just take my money for Diku-retread bullshit in a newer, shinier wrapping.

Told you guys everyone loves me.

@Kail: Where in any of my posts did I say that to charge a quintuple subscription fee is OK? I've never said that, i said in an earlier post that I would be willing to pay $50 a month for a really good, high quality MMOG. That misinterpretation plus the mere mention of "my" MMOG costing hundreds of millions of $$$, which was a deliberate misrepresentation, makes your argument a straw man.

sorry about the dismissal thing, but jesus, stop doing that.

@HaemishM: I'm not lookin' stuff anyones pockets full of unearned money, least of all MMOG developers! However, I really believe that if we send a strong unambiguous message to the development community that we would be willing to pay more for a MMOG IF: a) it has high quality real time rendered graphics (not just technically high quality as in 1600x1200 etc., but artistically high quality as well); b) it fully implements believable Newtonian physics and supports the relevant hardware (PPU); c) Introduces new innovations that give players the ability to communicate with each other much more effectively...in other words get rid of the keyboard (almost) and give us the ability to talk through our avatars (not that teamspeak junk but VoIP w/voice synthesizer so that a 200lb. man can sound like a delicate little girl, if that's his thing!), lips moving, facial expressions, the whole 9 yards!; d) high quality content and plenty of it! f) virtually bug free 64-bit code . etc., etc., you get the idea. The operative word here is IF!

@WindupAtheist: Hehe, I missed it when you sputtered out that little sentence fragment, my bad. Fuck off.

@Murgos: You've got it ass backwards...see my responce to Kail.

@Miasma: /ignore

@Hoax: In your case, my best guess is that your underpants are way too tight. Try on a pair of boxers, see if that'll help you to relax.

Out of all the shit you just mentioned, the only thing I'd pay more for is more content.  I mean fuck, you really put shinier graphics as the first item on your wish list?  Fucking voice synthesizer?  A couple dozen would use it for RPing purposes compared to the several thousand 200lb. men that would be using the little girl voice for cybering.

Awesome argument!

"I've never played it, experienced it for myself or seen much anything of it besides a few screenshots, but I can't imagine where all that money went!"



QFT!

Ugh, guys? Stop feeding the troll.

Ah!

Heavy Hitters!

Got'cha!

 :-D

You guys should be nicer to him.  He's just trying to say stuff.

You have about 10-20 years wait for that. All that shit you mentioned could be put in today. It would just be buggy as fuck, and never work right for the entire life cycle of the game. You are also probably talking about an X-Box Live/console style MMOG, because I don't believe that kind of thing will work well or at all without a standardized set of hardware.

And as I said, I don't trust our current developers to be able to do any ONE of those things correctly, much less more than one at a time. They just haven't proven they are able to do it, and thus, they aren't getting my money.

Apologies for the smartassing in that last post; I'll try to be a bit less aggrivating in future.

I was referring to it as "your" game to be clear that I'm referring specifically to your idea; I'm not sure how that makes the argument a straw man.  Replace "your game" with "my game" or "John Romero's game" if you like, but you still have the same argument with the same problems.

The quintuple subscription thing was just a stab in the dark (I assumed those 5x multipliers you were throwing in there were just arbitrary constants), and I think I can loose it if it's not a part of your argument.

Anyway.  What I'm disagreeing with is the idea (correct me if this isn't what you're proposing) that somebody can or should or will (in the near future) pull together a huge, successful game with a development cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, and that this game will be something that most of us will want to play.  If that's not what you're saying, then yeah, I'm sorry for misreading you.

If that IS what you're saying, I disagree.  There have been a number of reasons already mentioned, but here's two I haven't seen yet:

1- Game design is incremental.  World of Warcraft wouldn't be possible to design without Everquest coming before it, and Everquest wouldn't be possible to design before MUDs.  There are some things you can't rush, no matter how much money or talent or thought you pour into them.  Maybe the hardware needs to catch up to our proposed design, maybe some advances need to be made in the field of AI, maybe we just need to see how well a certain game concept works in action before we can spot the design flaws.  It's not something that we can realistically accelerate past a certain point.

2- Huge budget games are going to have to be mass market to make back their development cost.  However, ask ten people on this forum what their ideal MMO would be and you'll get ten different answers.  Some people want open PvP, some people want optional PvP, some people want no PvP.  Some people want crafting, some people want pure combat.  Some people want a virtual world, some people want a theme park.  Some people want player generated content, some people want professionally done static content.  Many of these goals are exclusive; you can't design a game that has both meaningful death penalties and WoW style fast paced PvP.  So, no matter how much money you funnel into a game, no matter how talented the developers, there will be people - a lot of people - who don't like it.  World of Warcraft has so far been able to balance this out better than anyone else, but I don't know how much further you can go in that direction before you start splintering into jaded groups (like this one) where WE KNOW HOW WE WANT OUR PIZZA DONE THANK YOU VERY MUCH and DAMN YOU TO HELL for not doing it that way, Game Company X.

I'm not in favor of sending any kind of message to the development community that we would be willing to pay more for an MMOG regardless of the quality.  Even if you could get such a movement going, I don't know that it would really help anything.  Dev companies are already trying their best (difficult as it sometimes is to believe) to come up with games we'll enjoy; I don't think that telling them "It's okay to charge me more" is going to make them any more effective.  I suspect what we would end up with is  more or less similar what we'd have gotten anyway, just now we've got to pay more for it.  I think this is especially the case when you have companies with relatively small subscriber numbers (like EVE, for an oft-used example) doing fun and innovative titles and still turning a profit.

@Signe: Thank you Signe, you're very wise and gracious, not like some of these other peter puffin' shit sacks. Peace and blessings upon you!:-)

@HaemishM: Yeah, I think the console MMOGs are gonna rock, especially the ones for the PS3. Indeed, I believe that PC MMOG developers are gonna find themselves on the receiving end of a good 'ol back alley ass whoopin' when the consoles find their mojo. Hehe, Ubisoft said that the Nintendo revolution is a magical platform! weird thing to say, huh?

The solution to buggy MMOGs is middleware; why build your own engine when there is already a far better engine on the market?

@Kail: You made a straw man argument when you said "hundreds of millions", thus weakening my original argument which was "5x the average" which would actually put it in the $80-$120 million range...big difference. :wink:

Now, the hardware that we already have is more than sufficient to implament everything I've mentioned in this thread. Software always lags behind hardware, we all know that, but MMOGs lag way, way behind intentionally: they cater to the lowest common denominator and force everyone else to "slow down". They figure if you what to play their game you'll just have to conform. Obviously this is total BS! But it will soon be remedied by the insanely fierce competition from console MMOGs!

Now, concerning what people like...As far as I'm aware, there's a hell-of-a lot more Sci-Fi entertainment on the market than there is fantasy: books, movies, magazines, action figures, single player video games, etc. Only with MMOGs do you find the exact opposite!
The reason for this is that fantasy MMOGs are easier to make and therefore more desirable to developers...so MMOG developers have been pushing the fantasy-is-more-popular meme to make life easier for themselves. This is not a new concept, however, automobile makers do the exact same thing as do clothing makers, fast food corporations, etc.. So the whole "Gamers don't know what they want" argument is 
actually a canard/smokescreen that Shields developers/publishers from having to put forth any extra effort or answer any of those pesky gamer questions. The mere existence of WoW destroys the canard/smokescreen because how could 6 million people (less the farmers) like the same thing?

Now, your statement "Dev companies are already trying their best to come up with games we'll enjoy" should come with the following caveats: as long as they're fantasy, don't cost too much or take too much time to make! Let's take SOE for example. When SWG first came out everybody loved it, for the most part. So why did they make sweeping changes to the core of the game, without at least consulting the playerbase? Because they truly didn't care about the players...and, consequently, the players punished them for it!

Let me sum this shit up real quick (2:00 am here): Console MMOGs, especially ones for the PS3, are gonna beat the livin' shit out of PC MMOGs, in every way. Console developers have standards imposed on them by the console makers; PC developers aren't use to having to meet demands...many will die. adapt or die, that is the law. Because of all this, MMOGs are gonna get a lot better a lot faster than previously assumed.

nighty night...

P.S. Care for an olive branch Kail?   
       

   

Go check sales numbers for The Sims and then tell me how that many people could like the same thing.



Um, wake up matey. SWG was not universally loved, and in fact many potential players were turned off of it because the game they came out with was not to their liking. SOE/LA saw their sub-par numbers and have been desperately flailing to bring them up to what they'd like ever since.

Sorry, had to feed it.

No, the solution is better project management. The solution is not letting your marketing team or the EB/Gamestop purchasing execs determine your release date. The solution is in betas that aren't fucking hype marketing exercises.

Middleware will help, I agree. But it isn't the solution. You still have to have the project management to get all that stuff integrated into one package on time.

EDIT: And to feed the troll more, SWG was NOT universally loved on release. As a matter of fact, it had lower sub numbers at all times than EQ1 according to all reports. Many people, me included, panned it for not being lots of things, most notably Star Warsy.

Console MMOG's will have the standardized hardware. But they are going to have to get some very tricky things worked out, such as all that voice communication (or some kind of keyboard interface). And just because it's on a console, doesn't mean it'll be perfect. I've gotten many console games that are buggy, have crashed, etc. The PS3 is not going to automagically make MMOG's great, especially if the project management is as shitty as it has been on things like SWG or Horizons.

I misspoke in my previous post: the fantasy-is-more-popular idea is a fallacy, not a canard. I don't know what I was thinking, must have been really tired.

@HaemishM: Your right about not letting the bean-counters and the marketing people determine the release date...that should be a given. Having competent project management should also be a given, but the underlying problem here is: do they have enough resources to get the job done right?!   

Forget what I said about middleware being the solution, lol, I was a bit buzzed and tired when I posted. Although middleware could help, what I wanted to say was that MMOG projects should look to third party products as a way of vastly reducing the amount of buggy code they have to deal with. A couple of my friends are programmers (not games) and they said that game programmers are expected to pump out like 300 + lines of code everyday! Heh, no wonder that shit's so buggy! But they (my friends) said that the more programmers that you have on a team, the more the project suffers...in other words adding more programmers to a team can be a really bad idea. So...

Having good, high quality, third party software is the solution! That's what I meant to say! :-D The truth is is that no one solution is gonna be the magic bullet; a MMOG is and should be, a huge undertaking--much bigger than they are today--but, unfortunately, they're treated as being just slightly bigger than a single player game, in terms of resource allocation.   

On the matter of console games being buggy: yeah, we've all played buggy console games, but I thought the console makers were gonna set some standards of quality for this generation? Am I wrong?

The PS3 will automatically make MMOGs better, maybe great, but definitely a hella better than their mongoloid PC cousins! :-P












 
 

 

Yes, you really really are.

Consoles are full of buggy pieces of shit software. Are you really that naive?

Consoles also have the problem of No Keyboard, which is really a must for a MMOG, if you want communication beyond several hotkeyed phrases (ie EQOA). Componding this problem is that consoles have the couch and the-TV-is-over-there dynamic, making keyboard use awkward at best.

Sounds like an automatic win, apparently.  :-P

But then, you've already shown that you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Several times.

It's been said, several times, that you can plug a mouse and keyboard directly in to the PS3 and use it in games. I've no doubt that Microsoft will add that functionality as well. Sony has no reason to keep that kind of shit off of consoles, but Microsoft does. So now it's just a waiting game. if that's the crux of your argument, you need to reexamine it.

Edit: As for the part about it being uncomfortable, I'm sure an inventive company will come along and rip off the Phantom idea for the lapboard.

If as you say, Sony has (USB?) mouse and keyboard functionality then MS will have to add it as well at some stage.

I think the comfort thing is the bigger issue actually. I know the PS2 supports a mouse/keyboard for a couple of games as it is now (friend keeps talking about Red Faction not sure if it's 1 or 2 using mouse/key) I even went out and bought a SmartJoy Frag for both the X-Box and PS2, but after a couple of days messing around with them, I never used them again. Even with optical mice, sitting the keyboard on my lap just feels seriously unnatural and uncomfortable. It's like you'd need a TV-tray to play.

QFT

Thank you for stepping in there for me brother!  :wink:

@Azazel: As far as comfort goes, you might be able to rearrange your gameroom (err whatever) to a more comfortable/appropriate configuration. Normally I don't let petty shit like furniture arrangement stand in the way of my fun time, but good luck to ya...remember Azazel, you can always ask your parents if it's OK to rearrange your bedroom!

I'm not at all naive, I know there are lots of buggy junk out there for the last generation consoles; there is also a lot of good, clean, titles for them as well. Here's a clue for ya Azazel: don't just buy games 'cause they got a cool picture on the box! You're on the internet (unfortunately), do your homework before you buy, then you can easily avoid buying the buggy junk!

Now if it's all the same to you guys, I'd wouldn't mind seeing this thread die a nice peaceful death.

oooh! "you're a teenager" jokes. How cutting and, well, straw man of you.  :roll:

It's not the configuration of the furniture, fucktard-who-has-not-addressed-any-other-salient-point-I've-made-in-this-thread, it's the fact that I consider keyboard and mouse to be integral tools of the genre of you want to interact with others in any more detailed way than teabagging them in Halo.

It's about the fact that a keyboard and mouse are just fucking impractical to use on a couch, and even if someone does rip off the Phantom's keyboard, how the fuck much is that going to cost, and do you really think the average consumer is going to go out and buy one? If it doesn't come with the box and is more complex than a DVD remote control, it's a niche product.

And as for buggy junk, it appears that you're living in some idealised fantasy world where the Nintendo Seal of Quality is going to all-of-a-sudden actually mean something, where MS or Sony will suddenly refuse to let stinky piece-of-shit titles be released on their consoles. Uh huh. riiiight.

or to put it another way:



Yes, you're oh so very wrong. The standards of quality will be the same as they ever were. What the fuck made you think otherwise? Press releases? If so, I have some nice land to sell you. I'll even take payments from your weekly allowance.  :-P

The PS3 will automatically make MMOG better? I've got title for you, dipshit.

Everquest Online Adventures. made by Sony Online Entertainment.


Who did you think would make MMOGs for the PS3 again? Square? Because FFXI is such a still-best-selling on PS2s?


Hope you enjoyed the troll food, HH.  :-D

The CURRENT generation of next-gen consoles has fucked up hardware issues, such as the X-Box 360's scratching of disks, too much heat generation, etc. The PS3 is being rushed out to try to release this November, and from what I've heard, the developers don't have (or have only recently got) an actual developer's kit, yet still don't have actual production model PS3's for testing. How exactly are they going to release less buggy games than the previous generation?

Oh that's right, they won't. Many of the bug issues and hardware problems will be solved over the life of the console, but just having a next-gen console as a platform will not guarantee less buggy games. It's hugely naive to think so. Or just plain ignorant.

Console MMOG's are going to have to evolve past needing a keyboard for communication, or they just won't sell that well.

Which explains why we are still waiting for DukeNukem forever.

Middleware (in this case, an existing engine (or 5)) cant even save a crappy shooter that no one even remembers except as an industry joke, and has a LONG way to go before it makes an impact on modern MMOGS.

Unless your middleware is VERY VERY VERY well doccumented, chances are the developer would be better off codeing his own tools from scratch to get them to do EXACTLY what he wants, then screw around with your product.

And consoles still have a long way to go before they approach all the elements needed for a less then halfassed stab at the MMOG market.

Edit:
Something potentially worth spinning off into another thread would be the viability of Modular MMOG engine development.  But then, a Direct X for mmogs would probably be such a clusterfuck of epic proportions it would make todays stuff look like the pinnacle of tidy code and stability.

We already have modular MMOG's.

DAoC used a bunch of middleware, such as NetImmerse's graphic engines, plus the networking code they'd used on earlier games. It was how they managed to put the game out for around $3 million.

CRIPPLE FIGHT!!!

(For once I have to agree with WUN)

Well, I wouldnt exactly call DaOC's graphics terribly stellar, but they did get the job done.  Not sure if i would classify re-using your old net code as middleware since in the end, it was still developed by you, so the job of refitting it (however much was nessicary) was probably easier then learning a middleware net-code product from the ground up and THEN refitting it for your needs.

That's the point of middleware. It keeps you from having to build things from the ground up, which in theory, should take less time and money. Whether the theory becomes reality is really up to the skills of a dev team.

When released, DAoC was at least as good (IMO better) graphically than its nearest competition, EQ.