f13.net

Rumors?

Timeframe?

Well, it has "fantasy combat".  Ubiq is all about fantasy franchises.  It's using the HeroEngine, which looks Ok.  Other than that, and the fact Gordon Walton may charge for CS, I dunno.

SWG 2!!1!! omfg!!

Quite honestly, even we in the Edmonton office don't know what they're working on yet. They've been starting every company meeting with "Before you ask, we can't announce the MMO IP yet."

There is an internal rumor, of course. There always is.

If any company could do a Star Wars mmo right it'd be Bioware. OTOH, if there is any company which has more of a rep to lose in the MMO business it is Bioware. Right now, Bioware is the only company making games that I will buy the game before reading a review, on release day, simply because it is Bioware and I have faith that it'll be a fun RPG.

Whether or not that will translate to a good MMO I don't know. But still, SWG2 as done by Bioware, in the KOTOR time setting, would be amazing if done to their usual standards. And a cash cow if they made it very well known it had nothing to do with that other Star Wars mmo. And if Sony never even got to look at it.

The intarweb is going to have a huge giant sucking sound of SW MMO fans heads imploding (mine included) when BioWare announces it ISN'T a SW MMO.

I'm just hoping it isn't yet *another* EQEQ2WoWgoblinelfdragondungeongoldkeypaladinmonkbardspellswordmagicchasetheshinykeyandkgetalevel MMO.

Something new.
Space ships.
Lasers. With old style revolvers.  (I'm a purist, what can I say).
Atmospheric flight.
Interdependancy.
Skill sets, not level.
Not FPS.
Central conflict (i.e. - PvP heavy)
Crafting.
The choice to whack 2000000 space monsters -or- quest.  But not relegated to one or the other.
Exploration.
Settlement.
Power struggles between players.
Mob/mafia/strong arm tactics.
An active and working economy.

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

What he said.

You want space ships, but not FPS?

Eh....


I'll just say that if it's not even "good", let alone great, then there should be no hope for mmog's ever again. That'll tell me it's the genre itself that sucks.

Maybe I need to be clearer...

Space ships / atmospheric flight = flight sim / twitch.
Ground combat NOT to be FPS.  Twitch.  Whatever you want to call it. 

Basicially, I mean SW:G the day JTL released.

In less im forgetting some thing Bioware hasnt done a "OH MY GOD AWESOME" game since BG2. They are had lots of really good games, but as memory serves, BG2 was the high point. Kotor was pretty damn good, but not BG2 level. NWN had a pretty crappy singleplayer, and it was left to the community to make it better.

I do have hopes for a decent MMOG, but Im not getting my panties in a bunch about it yet.

*Yawn*

I must be getting old 'cause no matter how hard I try I just can't get excited about this...

Yes, NWN sucked....But even there, Bioware still does something better than others -- They can write good stories and characters (though NWN's main strength is giving the tools for players to do this themselves, I would suppose). Their rpg's are more immersive than anyone else's, even when the actual gameplay part isn't anything worth writing home about (That's my opinion anyways. I tend to hate role playing video games, but Bioware stands out for me).

I hope they bring that expertise to mmo's, instead of churning out the usual "pez dispenser" quests. I hope everything is scripted on the level of things you'd see in BG or KoToR. I never want to grind for the sake of it. I never want to enter a dungeon simply for the sake of rewards. I want a real rpg experience. I want NPC dialogue all over the place (with multiple outcomes to the conversations), party members (with personality), I want to feel like my actions matter, that I'm affecting the world.

Having all of those other nifty features that SnakeCharmer mentioned would be great too. I hope they travel the road less traveled as far as gameplay goes, but I could almost settle for a meaningful gameworld all on it's own.

My guess is Dune.

Wouldn't be so bad would it?

For some reason a Dune MMO seems to make more sense to me than a Star Wars one.  I can't really explain why.

It's My Little Pony.   Fear my Crystal Pony grooming skils, bitchcakes.

"We can't announce the MMO IP yet?"

So it's licensed?

It's not Dune. Dune wouldn't sell for SHIT. Fucking Dune sucks. Who's going to buy it if I wouldn't buy it? I might not be a barometer for cool, but I am a barometer for the wasting of money on games.

It's not Star Wars. Or are they that stupid?

My guess? Some D&D license. Or maybe not. Who gives a shit. It's another MMOG. Until they prove otherwise, it probably sucks. :) Bitches love smiley faces.

Edit: I don't say that because I keep getting burned, but for some reason I have a feeling that Gordon was all well, Gordon-like at AGC because they aren't creating something new, exciting, and different. And Vogel didn't exactly inspire warm fuzzies. I'd really really like it to be otherwise. But the team doesn't point to that - and I like these guys. But then, I don't really play MMOGs anymore. Well, TDU.

"IP" doesn't mean it has to be licensed.

There's a difference between "we can't announce it" and "we're not ready to." We can't means hands are tied. Yea, I just deconstructed one sentence. Yea, devs were bitching about shit like that at AGC. But it was like a barn door. Also, no Bioware license is big enough to compete with Blizzard. And make no mistake, they'll be competing with Blizzard.

Lets not forget that one of the most successful early MUSHes was Dune. I bet there are even a few fogies here who RP'd on it. I was too late, but at the time, it was a legend.

MUSH != Multi-Million (30M+) RPG. There aren't enough Dune fans to make a game like that successful.

Here we go again with teh 'successful'.

Not enough Dune fans? There are more sci-fi readers who have read Dune in the world than there are WoW players.

Crossover. Crossover. CROSSOVER.

Yea, lots of Dune fans. Great. How many of them want to play MMOGs? Why wouldn't they play WoW? David Bowie? Comeon. Who would be stupid enough to fund that shit? I want to know. I have a bridge to sell them.

This isn't about Dune by itself. It's about whether the IP strong enough that a company like Bioware would bank their initial MMO offering on them. It is not. Not for Bioware. Maybe for someone a lot smaller.

Dune is like Conan. Everyone knows there's books, but far less than that have read them, and far less than that are interested in persistent world games about them. Either it's the subscription fee, expansion model or microtransactions that turn them off. Books are more analogous to single player games: buy, complete, forget. MMORPGs are a different breed, talking to a different person. You can have some crossover of course, but Game IPs are easier to gain success from (Warcraft, what people expect from Warhammer, what NWN/BG has done for D&D) than just generic book/story IPs (Everything else).

Because it's not set in the same universe. I envision a Dune MMORPG to be a free-for-all sort of game like a ground-based version of EVE. In other words Dune is meant to be a PvP game. The PvP in WoW is totally contrived (everybody really should be fighting Arthas and the Undead Scourge) and totally pointless (winning a PvP BG doesn't gain anything for the winning side). In Dune everybody is fighting over the spice.

I agree in theory. Just one point on WoW though:

BGs are little more than Raiding where the enemy is the other player. The entire point is about leveling up rank to level up gear. Just like raiding, the motivation is to keep doing it to get better at doing it.

You never ever ever get what you envision. Ever.

By "side" I mean "faction" as in some sort of faction bonus/reward a la the relics and keeps in DAoC.

I would SO get addicted to spice if it made my eyes all blue tinted.

Fixed.

Please.
God.
No.

Dune is my 64 year old mother's sci fi.  Not mine.

Edit:

The more I think about it, the more it seems a BioWare / LA SWG2 (or whatever) MMO (published by SOE) is in the works, unfortunately.  This is what I see, right or wrong, and drawing conclusions (however uneducated it may be) from:
BioWare has rights to Hero Engine.
LucasArts has rights to Hero Engine.
BioWare and LucasArts have an established history of success, an established relationship (KOTOR1, KOTOR2, and I think SW:BF2?).
New SW television show coming out in mid(?) 2007, which has been reportedly signed up by Lucas for 100 episodes, making the MMO a great marketing tool for the show, and the show a great marketing tool for the MMO - if they can tie it together (what happens on the show, makes it into the game).
BioWare *not* flat out denying that it is Star Wars - unless they are milking it on their forums for publicity (which is ENTIRELY possible - hell, why not?).
One of BioWare's guys (something Priestly, I think?) letting it slip on their forums that they hadnt found a publisher for their MMO yet - makes me think of SOE and their recent publishing aquisitions.  Does BioWare not have the ability or capacity to publish their own MMO?
It will be cross platform (PC, XBox360, with PS3 to follow).

Gordon Walton has *never* struck me as a snuggly kind of guy.  But then again, I've only had interactions with him when he was at SOE working on SW:G, and a few brief nonpersonal interactions since. 

Working with LA will do that to a person, I imagine. 

I really, really, really, really, really don't want BioWare's MMO to be Star Wars, just as much as I really, really, really, really, really don't want BioWare's MMO to be EQ part 435,823,129.

People want to innovate?
Come up with a new fucking plot/setting/theme rather than goblins, orcs, and dragons.

Edit part deux: There is more in my head why I think its BioWare/LucasArts/SOE for the muthafukin lose, but it's all jumbled up with left over pizza.  Will come back to it...

Putting the MMO issue aside for a second, I think Dune is far more popular than you give it credit. It's about the only sci-fi my non sci-fi reading ass could get into at least. Same goes for Conan with fantasy.

I don't know though. Maybe I'm a special case. I definitely didn't come about reading Dune because of some general/previous/niche interest in sci-fi though. Rather, it was a book that had crossover appeal to me. Yet, you make it sound like it's the domain of uber geeks.

Hell, I'm the guy who scoffs at the bi-monthly Book Threads around here. The "domain of uber geeks" are endless circle jerks about Drizzt, Elminster, and Robert Jordan. Not Dune. I like Dune. "Other" people like Dune.

That being said, a Dune MMO doesn't interest me. Someone mentioned it being a better idea than SWG, but I disagree. Even the Star Wars timeline that SWG took place in is a more openended one than Dune's (unless you go all the way back to the Machine War -- But then that'd be really fucking niche, I'll admit). Dune Online is as bad an idea as LotRO.

Dune is a good series of books. The downtroden with abilitys unknown or misunderstood. The first time muad dib put hooks into a worm was electric. Not to be pro or con here (i am your grampaw) But It does read good.It could be fun as well as it could fall on its face. By the way, I want your water.

It reads good. But not well. That shit should not be a game.

I'm not a big fan of science fiction and even I enjoyed the Dune series.  I don't much like most fantasy novels, either.  I thought I'd add that so you can completely discount anything I might say.  I can't wrap my head around Dune being an MMO either but I couldn't see Star Wars being an MMO, so what do I know?

Nothing.  That's what.

I remember when Jade Empire came out those guys were really excited about having their own IP/gameworld. Seems like it'd be in their best interest to pursue that here too.

it could be anything.  But people should check Ubiq's preso at zenofdesign to see where he's at.  With all that conviction, I can't imagine there won't be classes etc.  And for clarity his title is "lead combat designer" and the ad included "fantasy combat".  It will be mainstream and it won't innovate out of the box -- it will innovate within the confines of the AAA MMO.

it probably is a license.  Sadly, its prolly not LOTR. 

If people are that curious they should start searching for any old news items of Pandemic/Bioware and their VC firm with other media companies, book/film/comic etc.

Too bad Jade Empire was kinda teh suq. If Fable and Jade Empire met at a halfway point, I'd bet we'd have a pretty fun game on our hands. My opinion? Both companies are completely too ambitious. More than that, I don't see why they bloat the PR on stupid shit like conversations. I hate to say it, but Indigo Prophecy did the Mass Effect conversation system already. Unless I'm missing something huge. Anyway, yea, meh. Bioware is making an MMOG. They should call it Black Isle Online and do some good in this terrible world... Or something. I'm like the emo gamer right now. Fuckers. Squaresoft did this to me.

I think.

Yeah, Ubiq and I pretty much agree: classes == skill systems, only more accessible to novices, if done right. Skill systems always end up as de facto class systems. I know, I was a charter monkey of the dex monkey class in UO (spec in poisons).

As for what they're working on? I got nothin'.

The conversation systems are close, except that the Mass Effect one is much smoother. They had a (prerecorded) demo at their Digital Acting panel, which I attended with Llava. My only notes from it are: "Cinematic Design - interactive narrative. Conversations, cutscenes."

However, the video they showed of a conversation was much more fluid than Indigo Prophecy; in IP, the character talks, then the gameworld freezes and you get to make choices. In Mass Effect, it appears as though the menu comes up either during the trailing bit of the previous character's dialog, or the gameworld continues to animate a bit to give the illusion of continuity. I believe it's the former, but I wasn't checking those particular points of reference particularly closely.

Further, the control system for choosing dialog points is different; in IP, the directions seemed semi-random. In ME, they're arranged as points on a circle, with the location on the circle indicating the mood and tone of the response.

As for what they're actually working on... I have no idea, and IMO it's pretty pointless to speculate. They'll tell us when they're ready; getting worked up over "zomg I don't want SWG2!!" at this point is pretty silly.

His Dark Materials (http://www.randomhouse.com/features/pullman/goldencompass/excerpt1.html) MMO! Use your subtle knife to seamlessly cross over into EQ or WoW.

I guess my point is that its all about the execution, and not the pre-popularity of any particular IP. EQ had no IP. Warcraft's IP was awsome for a smallish percentage of the population, but nothing to predict WoW's success by. StarWars, enormous, and well all know how sadly that story ended.

In otherwords, Bioware could make a Dune game that sucks even worse than SWG, or mystically create a stunning game out of the story's core concepts, but its all down to the execution. What would interest me in an attempt at a Dune MMO would be that the books do not lend themselves to the facile 'loot, ding, pwnzor' schema of most MMO rubrics out there. I agree with Trippy that it would probably have to asimilate some aspects of Eve's skill tree based advancement, but without the reliance on item upgrades, which are essentially non-existent in the books.

Lum's right that in the final analysis, levels/classes aren't that different than a skill tree, but the illusion is all. When someone asks me about my toon in Eve, I say "I'm working on missles and some signal analysis skills', not 'I'm a missle/ECM dude'. The difference is cosmetic, but immersive fantasy is based on perception. Sure, when you run into a certain type of spaceship in Eve, you soon learn to expect a particular variety of whoopass, say, Caracal means missles, an Amarr ship probably means lasers, etc, but the choice to diversify is so great that the player is not type-cast upon a first meeting, and hence the illusion of a free-willed person making individual choices is retained.

The lore of Dune lends itself more to the Eve/old SWG skill tree tree progression simply because there are no set expectations for classes. Furthermore, the lack of 'hallowed l3wt of doom' in Dune would create even further challenges for the creators. I'm not saying it would be easy, and I'm certainly not saying it would be very marketable; but I'm very tried of easy or marketable.

The subtle knife is overpowered.  Also, my toad daemon isn't well balanced with respect to lion daemons.   :x

JFYI, BioWare has a long-established policy of not commenting on rumors, whether true, partly true, false, or just plain crack-brained. That's why they never respond to the yearly "EA/MS/Atari is buying Bio!" rumor.

Fuck rumors. You all, and everyone else, shouldn't announce a game until it's 80% complete.

No games live up to their hype anyway.

Edit: That came off as ridiculous. What I mean to say was - You all better not be dicking around with a Star Wars License.

There's nothing left of the Star Wars license but the dicking around.

Pardon my ignance, but wouldn't Star Wars be locked down in some agreement with SOE?  I can't imagine they left the door open for LA to produce a second MMOG that would directly compete with theirs.

- Brian

Well Schild doesn't like Dune. That's proof enough of its popularity isn't it?

There is TONS left in the license.  Maybe one of the problems with the license is that they are always using material from such a narrow part of that universe.

Relevant to the subject here, it was the two KOTOR games that actually went way outside of the narrow confines of the movie canon for the first time.  This was a strong part of the appeal for the KOTOR games...with very few continuity rules to follow, they (first Bioware, then Pandemic) were more or less free to do what they wished.   With that freedom, they created two games that by most reasonable accounts were commercially successful and well received.  Bioware essentially created new canon, yet managed to remain true to the "feel" of the SW universe.

Needless to say, regardless of the general opinion around F13, if Bioware were to announce a KOTOR-esque MMO, or even a SW MMO set in another period outside of the movie canon, the masses would be frothing with excitement.  They'd probably be able to move millions of boxes based on nothing more than the perception that Bioware knows how to make a SW game.

That isn't to say that I think a KOTOR-like MMO is a good idea.  The best bits of those games are probably not things that can be easily reproduced in an MMO.

So... can I pre-order yet?  I'm sure the EB Games guys would let me put $5 down on "Unnamed Bioware MMO".

Apparently not: (http://www.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=24466266)

I can say to the Dune thing, that's not gonna happen as the rights to all Dune is locked by the network that made the Children of Dune mini-series... personally the Dune IP would make my day

Not to pimp EVE (I don't play it), but this already exists.  I daresay that even if Bioware's new game is innovative it won't hit 13/15 of your points.

A couple other points to add to my MMO wishlist...
Must be able to get OUT of the ship
Ground combat

Eve does read like a checklist of everything I'd want in an MMO.  Too bad it still manages to be slow, cold, and lifeless enough for me to not be able to get into it.

I think my point is: you won't be satisfied.  The example is that there is a game existing - right now - that matches your specifications almost to the letter, but it has a fatal flaw that prevents you from enjoying it.

I'm just doing a public service.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you people are never going to be satisfied.  Just accept it.

who are we kidding?  If whatever they produce in 3-4 years is close to their regular quality of title we'll all own it

My only concern with buying an IP is that they might handcuff themselves and have to make bad design decisions based on already established lore (like Star Wars set at the time of the movies), or even worse have to bend to existing mechanics (like a D&D license).  I think a BioWare Star Wars MMO would turn out fine if they set it in the KOTOR timeframe.  As long as they don't make the same mistakes as SWG and DDO I don't care too much about what the IP is because they will be able to make it their own.

I don't want Dune.

The fact that I never get to step out of my ship is a big turn off.  I don't want to spend ALL my time in space.  On a ship.  Mining.  
I want to socialize. On the ground. And space.
I want to explore. On the ground.  And space.
I want to fight. On the ground. And space.

That is the fatal flaw of Eve for me, as you said.  

I was satisfied with preCU SWG, as an example.  Put whatever skin/theme/whatever you want on that design, and I'll play it.  All it was missing was atmospheric flight.

And as far as BioWare making an SWG2 and making it fit with cannon....Wasnt KOTOR1/2 outside of cannon?  Actually, what BioWare did with KOTOR BECAME Star Wars cannon I believe.

But nevertheless.

I've said it once, twice, maybe even three times.

Firefly.

If I had to guess (and I do since I don't know anything) Bioware - renowned for publishing quality games using standard RPG elements - will publish a high quality MMOG with standard RPG elements. They will be the first to "copy" WoW in that sense.

I agree an existing franchise is likely.  Bioware seems to have had its greatest successes going that route, and as this is their first foray into MMOGs, I'd expect them to embrace, as much as possible, what has worked for them in the past.

That said, both D&D and Star Wars have existing games.  In spite of (or, perhaps, even because of) their lack of success, I'd expect Bioware to steer clear of those two and pursue a different IP.

There's a lot out there they could work with.  If we limit ourselves to a fantasy IP, up-and-coming contenders could include "Pirates of the Caribbean” (while not strictly Tolkeinesque, it includes enough familiar tropes to provide many of the same benefits), Naomi Novik’s “Temeraire” novels, recently optioned for movie treatment by Peter Jackson and company, Narnia (in my opinion a bad choice for a MMOG, but certainly not worse than Star Trek), Warhammer 40k (yes, I know it’s nominally sci-fi, but it has elves, orcs, and sorcerers in it, and unlike Star Wars, if you made a game that didn’t include starships as anything more than transport, nobody familiar with the IP would bat an eye), Harry Potter (which is a worse fit for MMOGdom than Star Trek), Eragon (the first movie of which is to be released this December), Robert Jordan’s “Wheel of Time” series, George R.R. Martin’s “Game of Thrones” series, and Michael Moorcock’s “Elric” series (possibly second only to Warhammer 40k in the ease with which it could be turned into a traditional MMORPG).

I list these in order of what I, in my completely unscientific opinion, consider most likely to least, based upon their current, or impending, place in the public consciousness.  (Yes, I know the last three are almost unknown to the general public, but they are nerd favorites, and Bioware knows their market.)  I’ve got this itch in the back of my head telling me I’m forgetting something big, but I’m probably completely wrong anyway, so what does it matter?  ;)

- Brian 

You're new, so you may not have heard that Warhammer already is getting an MMO.  Mythic (of Dark Age of Camelot fame) is producing that one.  For a 40k MMO to come out at any time near the WH would be.. foolish at best.

Pirates of the Carribean is also being MMO-ized already by whatever games company Disney uses (is it internal even? I don't know. )

I can't see a WoT MMO being made any time soon, as Jordan's dealing with his terminal health problems to the extent he's not even writing.  Overseeing/ contributing to such a product isn't gonna happen.


Honestly I don't think ANY IP that isn't games-based would make for a decent MMO.  To many people wanting to play the "hero" when instead they're peon #2842.  We saw this with SWG, and I expect we're going to see it with LOTR.  Bioware would be better off making a MMO based on one of their own IPs (the few that there are) or developing an entirely new one.  But of course, that doesn't make for good forum speculation.

You know, I never thought of Elric.  IMO it's the best idea of the bunch.  It's complete as a series(unlike Martin who I would call a close second if not for the fact that the game might influence future books and vice versa).  The culmination of the series did not preclude a game based in that world, at least at some time period.  And if all else fails and you have to retcon, the canon already includes a multiverse, so you could say that it's not the same plane as the one that took place in the book.

In fact you could view the series of books (Elric of Melnibone -> Stormbringer) as the literary equivalent of a tech demo.  You could almost distill the actual text of the books into a design document.

Less swords!!!

More guns!!!!
More rifles!!!!
More space!!!!
More aliens!!!!

I don't think Atari is buying anyone. They're in deep shit.

Less posting, more coding!

I agree.  I am getting tired of the same sort of fantasy games.  I'm definitely up for something different.  It doesn't necessarily have to be science fiction, just different.

Oh... and good!

True.  Still, Games Workshop pushes both games in the tabletop realm simultaniously, and I assume they're calling the shots.  There's a little cross-over between the two games, but not so much that it seems to harm either one.  And there's certainly less direct competition between WH and WH40k than there would be between SWG and KotORO or DDO and DDO: Dragonlance or some such.


That one passed entirely beneath my radar.  My bad.


I'm sorry to hear that.  Not that there won't be a WoT MMOG, but that he's ailing.  I stopped following the books nearly a decade ago, and only mentioned it because I know it's still a popular series.


I tend to agree, with the current design of MMOGs, but that's not going to stop people from pursuing IPs.  Beyond that expectation, however, the IP provides extra marketing oomph, a pre-existing backstory that doesn't need to be created, and a framework around which you can hang your design.  Fans of the IP will, as you say, be dissappointed, but they'll still move boxes at WalMart while fans of MMOGs will benefit from predifined and clear structure in the game setting.

- Brian

I always thought the Death Gate Cycle would be a good backdrop to base a MMO on.  There was a RPG made for it, but it just retold the story.  An MMO that used the universe and moved forward from where the books left off would be interesting. I think there were 5 worlds divided amongst elements.  The Labrinth is another I think.  2 magic weilding races, elves, dwarves, and normal humans I guess.

I'd rather they just centered around the two magic wielding races (human-like) and use the rest as backdrop for their conflict.  I've always been a proponent of less races and more flexibility amongst skills/talents/powers/etc.

I'm not going to lie - whatever comes out of this, I'm going to buy it. BioWare could put their name on an empty box, and I would probably buy it, if it was a very rpetty box.

I just hope they don't squander all the confidence I place in this particular dev house. BioWare is one of the only dev houses I really love nowadays. Don't fuck things up.


And for the record, I loved Jade Empire.

My guess? Dragon Age, yeah that fantasy IP they said they were building a game on and have never really talked much about since.

EDIT: Because Dragon Age is not Dragon Empires.

Dragon Age is their original IP NWN replacement.  Better mod tools, no D&D limitations, etc.

They've said plenty about it.  I really doubt they'd just decide to "MMO" it.

But they certainly could decide to release the single-player game, gauge its popularity and then MMOG it? I mean, DA has been in production for over 2 years now, and in that time, they've probably been able to measure what they think its popularity will be.

My guess is they got the Forgotten Realms Licence. (Dr1zz70wnz0r has killed you) or a KotOR MMO. I have ALWAYS said that SWG should have been set in the KotOR period. So much more freedom and conflict.

I'd still vote for an autoduel.

Amen. Wash the taste of Auto Assault from our mouths plskthx.

Bioware and Autoduel? Why? Am I missing something here?

The Jade Empire world could even be used for a MMO, IMO.  I rather enjoyed Jade Empire.  I really think there's potential for a martial arts MMO that makes weapons secondary to hand-to-hand.  Hell, there's a reason I eventually started working to TKM in SWG -- a bothan throwing punches and roundhouse kicks was just plain nifty to me.

An Autoduel MMO would be nice, especially if the "not in your car, avatar walking around" stuff could be done as part of the original design, not tacked on later.  I really liked Autoduel, that was one of the first games that I really spent WAY too much time playing on my Apple ][e...that and the Bard's Tale stuff.  I'd rather not see anything anywhere near a Bard's Tale MMO, largely because part of what made BT cool was the use of puzzles and whatnot.  With the way spoiler sites are today, and the way I am about spending my gaming time, the solutions would be online in a matter of months and I'd use them. 

I would really hold out for a KOTOR-themed MMO, but I think that the stigma of SWG would carry over to any other attempt to do a SW MMO.  Granted, it may just mean low initial box sales and then a bunch more sales once the initial reports of "better than SWG" come in.  Or not.

Meh, I just want to be excited about an upcoming MMO.  I want to drop some of this "last semester before I graduate" student loan dough on a new gaming rig, and I need a game to justify stepping up from my circa-SWG-launch PC with the Radeon 9000 video card.  The current stuff runs just fine for my tastes on the rig I have, but the urge to assemble a new machine on my own (or punk out and just get a Dell w/ student discount) makes me really want to see something out that's not WoW.  I've never played WoW and have no desire to play WoW.  I certainly don't need a better machine for DDO or CoX, so yeah.  Bioware should just make a game that can allow me to justify the cost of a new rig and monitor.

While we're playing speculation - I want a Mad Max/Fallout/Wasteland MMORPG - complete with mutants, guns, burned wastelands and roving biker gangs.  Extra bonus points if a brotherhood-of-steel-alike manages to make its way in there.

Oh, and an obligatory Thunderdome.

In the spirit of pointless conjecture, I'm gonna cross my fingers for a Shadowrun MMO.  I, for one, am so damned tired of the usual fantasy crap.  Hell, I'd even settle for a decent World of Darkness MMO, if only so I could make fun of some 3000 year old vampire living in his mom's basement.

Owned by FASA Microsoft.

Not likely.

Instead we get a FPS with three minute matches and little to do with the Shadowrun we know.  :cry:

No Lazers or magic please.

No Space.

And:I love Dune but it would make a shitty game. Not enough there to play with.

Syndicate
Planescape (seriously, the IP sounds made for an MMO)
Fallout
WH40k

Those are the 4 IPs I'd care to have MMOed that are not already being done. Alternatively they could create an IP around a game concept instead of squishing a game inside an IP but I dunno, sounds crazy.

I would like any of those four if done well.  Planescape is likely the only way I could get excited about another 'fantasy' game since it has so many ways to be different from all the rest.

Simon Green's Deathstalker universe. Space opera. Swords. Guns. Space ships. Aliens. Espers. Clones. Cyberrats. It's everything you want out of a game, and fucking more. Of course, everyone would be Investigators.....

God damn you Microsoft, why aren't you making this?!?!?!

They don't get MMOs -- their track record is as bad as EA's.

Ah humans and their demons are EZ mode. Particularly with the subtle knife. Me, I'm a big bear in armour i made. RAWR.

I can.  Dune rocks and Star Wars sucks.

As for SnakeCharmer's fantasy list, you'll see all that shit in EVE before anyone poops out a MMO with all that.  Either one is a long way away.

maybe we should be looking at what IP Pandemic owns as well? 

NCSoft and Spacetime Studios is also making a new MMO.  *shrugs* 
Hell, Spacetime Studios just NOW updated their website graphics, but no new information.
Somebody here go get an interview with those guys.  Or at least invite them to f13.

One of these IP owners needs to go ahead and make their MMO an alternate continuity.  Enough with this "omg no Jedi, continuity lol" or whatever.  Just pick a starting point in the story and then let things go off in their own direction as game design dictates.

I was, of course, just being a prick for the most part... however you are right about how an IP can constrain a game design.  When you say "Dune MOG" to people, you probably conjure up something like WoW with Sardukar instead of orcs, or maybe even the old RTS which might give you Shai-hulud-Bane.  That sort of thing can really limit the ideas tossed onto the table, which is bad even in a field with actual outside-the-box ideas being put into action.  You would need someone with BioWare's skill at story in order to successfully do something as ridiculous as set a game 4000 years before the Star Wars movies.

Hi!

omgwtfbbq

Good gawd almighty!  Talk about lurker of the year award. 

Good Grief!  He scared the bubbles out of me!

I think "He" actually is a "She"!

Sara Jensen?  Formally of Shadowbane fame?

I think I crapped my pants...

That's right!  Lead designer or something, no?  She obviously came here for the free dinner at Olive Garden coupon.  That's why I'm here.

That's Lietgardis who used to write for Lum, you newbs.

Doesn't matter, WUN... all that matter's is who's getting the Olive Garden coupon!

Quiet, Feet!  Olive Garden isn't that good anyway!

PS:  Newbs.

Derail: Why is WindupAtheist "WUN" all of a sudden? Seen that in a few posts...

...nutsack.

Schild (or whoever) changed my username to WindupNutsack once for larfs.

He stamped his little foot a bit, disappeared for a while and then returned in fine form.  I reckon next time he takes a rage break he'll come back wearing a pope hat.

Also, ss long asI'm talking about him as if he doesn't exist, he needs to do that moive round up thingy again.  That was nice.

Yes.  Hi!

WindupPopehat?

And I'm here for the veal.

Why not just call him evilfryingnut then?

I might do one tonight, since she mentioned it, and since Mojo should have the weekend estimates up later tonight.  I fell out of the habit during a period where I was working lots of weird hours and was too tired and/or just didn't feel like burning my limited intarweb time to do them.  There used to be a guy on my other forum who would do them on weeks where I didn't, but I think he's fallen out of it as well.

Also, two can play this 'talking as if they're not here' game.  That's what I would tell Signe, if she existed.  Which she does not.

I agree Cal, I ahve always said Planescape is perfict for a MMOG. Just cause of all the gates you could have so much vaired gameplay. There is no limit to the amount of cool stuff you could have. The only problem is, that baised on D&D, the combat rules dont really lend themselves well to full realtime.
Fallout would also be awesome, thats all that needs to be said about that.
WH40k would be done any time soon. What with DAoHammer comming out soon, it would be kind of a conflict of intrests. Not that we wouldnt all love it.

I personally am just so worn on fantasy MMOGs. And all the big ones comming out are just more fantasy. Blah. I could really go for Starcraft Universe right about now. Hell, just give me WoW reskinned for Starcraft and I would be happy.

The problem with Planescape is Wizards shelved the license.

That's the only problem that can't be solved without piles of money. Oh, and a Planescape MMOG (with a proper budget) wouldn't be profitable.

Edit: By the way, I'd love a Planescape MMOG.

lol HI!

...whatcha making? lol

Cookies?

From their press release, sounds like they're aiming at CCP's throat.

Definately. I've always felt that D&D licences are a bit of a double-edged sword due to being locked into D&D mechanics. I wonder if it would be possible to negotiate a licence for one of their IPs without having the mechanics come along for the ride.

Planescape's fun does not hinge on the D&D system.

It hinges on the environment. Any sort of gameplay could be shoehorned in, even minigames. Especially minigames!

The "other" Baldur's Gate titles were D&D in environment only. Not that much different from what Bioware themselves tried with Jade Empire actually.

If there are going to be swords and spells and whatnot (preferably not, but whatever), then I wish someone would try that kind of combat in an MMO. Just once. See if it works, y'know?

/sigh

Stop reinventing the same old tired shit. That's all I ask at this point. Start trying to attract someone besides ex-EQ players (and whatever you do, DO NOT hire ex-EQ players). Create something new. Give the game features that'll make those people cry. And when they come to your boards to complain, tell them to fuck off and die. Put that in all your press releases as well. 

Make it fantasy if you have to. Include elves if you must. Just make it a game, please. Or make it a world with little games in it. I don't care. Just something to do with games is all I ask.

[edit]

Bah. Everything has to be a rant from me lately. I meant to just comment on D&D combat, but got carried away. :-P

I want to stop ranting about MMO's. I really do. It's old, it sucks, and I don't enjoy it.

Somehow though, those aren't good enough excuses to stop.

Maybe they've decided to resurrect the Battletech MMO?

/batshitcrazyidea

Microsoft owns that too -- they bought FASA Interactive which is how they acquired the video game rights to Shadowrun and BattleTech -- so, no.

I don't know if I'm the only one but I really don't like D&D rules in CRPGs. I can tolerate them of course, but I'd rather not have to. I hate the whole getting a +X weapon before you can hit the monster (OH, my +4 weapon with 10% deathtouch isn't GOOD enough to hit the demon huh? So I'm fucked now? Good to know). I hate the whole 90% resistant to magic BS the higher enemies get and how you have to penetrate the resistances before you can even touch them. I hate that 90% of the magic is just useless shit once you get high enough and you're left with a handful of spells that do decent damage once you've removed their barriers and their immunities and lowered their resistances, in addition to a few spells that OWN but only the easy stuff or if you manage to score a 1/20 chance to beat their uber fucking saves. Magic is strip->strip->strip->spell->samespell->samespell->samespell->samespell->rest. I hate just randomly dying because oops the 5% chance you had to die to the death-touch-y spell just came up. Gratz on that. It's way too luck based on the whole. WAY too easy to exploit. Mindflayer targetted your low INT fighter? Better have a resurrect ready. Fucking sigh.

Incoming from left field....Firefly license.

Ok, no.  Really I'm just hoping Walton will be willing to try something new again...what after SWG and all.

Oh, I'm not disagreeing with that. If I wasn't clear, the "other" BG games I mentioned above were button mashing, action rpg console titles (in the spirit of Diablo but even more stripped down and geared for controllers) that had nothing to do with the PC Baldur's Gate. I was just using it as an example to show that the D&D setting can be applied quite easily to things that have nothing to do with D&D combat.

What game pitted you against a "demon" before you could realistically fight it?

Magic rant? Isn't that what melee is for? And even if you have to still penetrate magical defenses...So what? Do you expect a high-level caster to be Easy?

Percentage to die? Better than the Diku nonsense of being totally immune to anything and everyone a few "levels" below you.

Mindflayer on low INT fighter? Durr, keep him away from the mindflayer then.

I'd rather have D&D rules (done well) over the stupid DIKU crap we get shoved at us.

After SWG was The Sims Online.

The only thing I will say is that D&D rules as they stand now are totally, totally, totally innappropriate to Real Time Games.  Especially the magic system.

Turn based and tile based for teh win.

Smurfs Online.  it's got legs.  

I don't know how serious you were, but a cap of one hundred players per shard sounds like a great idea.

Only 1 girl per server! ack!

The demon one I think I came across in the BG2 or its expansion. I killed it with spells from memory while my fighters stood around useless. But there have been many times when I've come across something I couldn't hit or some in my party couldn't hit. Morrowind is also guilty of this, requiring magic weapons or silver and higher weapons to kill certain mobs, but at least those are easy to get.


My problem with magic isn't so much that you have to penetrate all the magical defences to get magic off (as well as dispell haste and mirror image and stoneskins and whatnot so your melee can fight it). I actually kinda like the mechanic somewhat as it gives you more to do than just blow shit up and breaks the fight into stages. What I don't like is that it's in a system where you have a limited set of spells you can have in memory and you have to sacrifice most of the more situational or fun spells with spells to break defences and spells that do direct damage. Then of course you have to rest. Ran into a few casters and used all your breach and pierce magic spells? Time to rest! Nevermind that you're all full health and otherwise fine, you can't go on without your breach and penetrate spells or you'll just get fucked if you come across the wrong thing.


No. 5% chance to die is retarded. You wanna death touch someone? Then go ahead and kill them and balance around the fact. The final fantasy games for one had balls enough to just flatout deathtouch a guy and force you to deal. A fight shouldn't rely solely on the roll of a dice (or reloading to equip "immunity from death" items).


That one was out of left field and was more about my frustrating experience with mindflayers in BG2. I hadn't played D&D before then (I have since) so I had no idea what a mindflayer did and it wasn't pretty as you can imagine. That's a big problem with D&D right there, previous knowledge is pretty huge, and you can be very frustrated unless you've played D&D before. Then a lot of the rules are rather convulted when used in a CRPG. Etc.


Diku isn't a ruleset, it's a game style. You could have a Diku game set to D&D rules if you wanted to. And nowhere did I say that what we have now kicks so much ass, just that D&D rules are generally retarded in CRPGs.


And in defence of the derail this thread has prettymuch ran its course already. Smurfs? Seriously. :P

it works doesn't it?  I was semi-serious.  There's a license to get.  PvP with the wild/dark smurfs?  or just  Toontown clone would work.

I'd be more inclined for purism and have it be PvE.  Once Gargamel or some other peril had killed the final Smurf, game reset.  Last Smurf standing wins.  Only one hundred Smurfs, no Smurfette; she was an artificial construct anyway, which is how there were 101.

The itemization was fairly high-powered in that game, so I don't know how you could possibly run into such a problem. And even if your Entire party cannot hit, so what? Thems the shakes. Unless you had a very odd party makeup, that shouldn't have been able to stop your party. Though, I will concede that I had a +5 Carsomyr-wielding Cavalier to squash all the evil in my path, so I'm sure you mileage varied somewhat.


 Whether it was my intent or not, I solved this problem by having 3 people in my party capable of casting high-level wizard spells.


So a low percentage to instantly die is somehow Worse than 100% to die? Um....Anyway, even if you do get deathtouched, you DO have fairly easy access to ressurection spells, and even spells that could rez your entire party.

And on the rules...I thought the D&D rules worked very well in CRPGs, when Done Well. I think I just like the series a Lot mroe than you.

I could make that sing. I have a "for own amusement" Serenity MMG design built around the series catchphrase, "Find a ship, find a crew, keep flying."

But Firefly isn't the best property in the world to make an MMG out of. It has cult recognition, not household recognition. Shelling out big bucks for a licence whose name only gets you a few thousand players is a bad decision. Frankly, I'm surprised Stargate was optioned. I bet on BSG being the most likely SF to get adapted (despite the unsuitability of the premise).

Drool.  Everywhere.


Counterpoint:  If done well, does it matter if the IP has household recognition? Seems to me, and my naive view, that if it's a quality product and word of mouth follows, the IP is almost secondary.  That is of course, provided it's a world that people would want to play in to begin with (a Smurf MMO, no matter if it was PERFECT, wouldn't garner much attention from me, if at all...).
I fully realize that the selling point of getting the funding to begin with is the initial "sellability" of the IP, but meh...Just seems if you're going to do a sci-fi based MMO, Firefly would be as good a place to start as any, rather than coming up with your "own" world.


And it's only getting worse every minute that Firefly/Serenity is out of the collective conscious (i.e. - off the air).  Ah well, one can dream, yes?

I want to play whatever Bioware is making. 

Now, please.

ZOMG, Agree++ * ∞

I am so bored right now.  I may go reinstall KOTOR2 and play that to get my Bioware fix.

This is different from the standard ratio? ;P

While that would seem to make sense, don't forget that being an absolutely amazing show didn't actually get Firefly what it needed - an audience.

Much of that, however, can be attributed to Fox's absolute mishandling of the show, wouldnt you think?

Much of that, however, can be attributed to Fox's absolute mishandling of the show, wouldnt you think?
[/quote]

Yes, Fox was really out to get that show it seemed. They even showed the second episode as the first to air. I don't even know what they were thinking.

I think what the MMO industry needs right now, however, is a game that is not based on any existing IP. Just create something new with unique setting, plot, character types, everything. Just to stir things up and to get rid of the stagnation we have right now with tons of generic fantasy ones.

For all those thinking Dune would make a great MMOG - which version? The first book that everyone knows, or the hundreds of bloated sequels that keep getting churned out off the back of Frank Herbert's corpse? Cause the IP that would most likely be available would be for the new stuff, not the old.

Bioware should use their own IP. And to stay away from medieval fantasy, since Blizzard pretty much owns that turf.

All of the Dune books are handled by his family, I believe. So if you managed to get the IP, it'd be all of it.

I have to ask though: What exactly do people have in mind when they think Dune (the original series) could make a good mmo? Some kind of "faction" based war between the Fremen, the Harkonnens, the Guild, Bene Gesserit, etc..? The timeline there is only a matter of 2 or 3 years and has definite end with Paul crushing everyone.

Secondly, right after the first Dune book, there is little struggle left between the "factions" at all. Everyone's been subjugated. Spiceflow and political intrigue do not matter anymore. The only enemy left is Paul himself (and his sister). Then after that, his son. The main hero and focus of the stories turns out to be Duncan Idaho -- and his tale spans somewhere around 50,000 years.

However, the prequels Herbert's son wrote (The "House" series and the Butlerian Jihad) could make good settings for games. If you wanted to make a faction war game, the House stuff would have all the attractive political parts of the first Dune book, but without a "messiah" screwing everything up.

Problem is, when people think of Dune, it isn't exactly what comes to mind.

[edit] Btw, those prequels are based off of Herbert's notes (and like I mentioned, his son is writing the books). The "sequels" were written by Herbert himself. It's not like some corporation has taken over the Herbert estate with a bunch of outside writers trying to reinvent the Dune world.

Since we're speculating/wishing, here's some other IP than Firefly for you moneyhats out there to fund:

Smurf's Online
Sherlock Holmes Online
Tarzan Online
Alice (in Wonderland) Online
Harry Potter Online (try try again)
Dr. Who Online (heh)
Santa Claus Online
and for the rest of us, CTHULHU ONLINE
.
...

It really is endless.  Anything that once sold to kids/yound-adults could be pitched.  Personally, I am pretty sure BW is building a fantasy clone of some kind.

My personal opinion (Yes, After SWG Came Out) - No license was centered around a hero or group of heroes should ever become an MMOG. They should stick as single player games. I want to be Gandalf, Han Solo, Conan, Batman, etc. There's another reason things like Eve, WoW, CoH (for a time), and other non-IP based titles continue to succeed. No one in those games are saying "Geez, I wish I was the third orc peon out of game #17 in xxx tournament in Brussels." They're saying "Oh, fantastic, I get to live in THAT world. That's better than our world!" Yea, sure, they say that about the Shire or Yavin IV, but they also say "This would be better than our world if I could be Bilbo or C3P0!" Ok, while no one picks those characters, the point still stands.

Let us be the hero in stories with heroes. Let us make heroes in worlds that need heroes. Azeroth needs heroes. Fucking <insert x here> does not need heroes.

Yup. I'm too lazy to google it up, but there was an excellent article a couple years back discussing MMOG's lack of "authorial or narrative voice". It's a great medium to give players if they have a concept of the place but no expectations. It's a LOUSY medium if they want to have an impact, develop a story, make a mark on the world.

I would absolutely play Santa Claus Online.

I'm sick of elves.

I would put up with elves for presents.

This is why I think KotOR would make the perfict setting for a MMOG. Its got the Starwars name and setting but with out all the restrictions of the Starwars films. You have no major established Heros, except maybe the guys from the 2 games. I would love to see this done.

Yes.  From a setting standpoint, placing a Star Wars MMOG where SWG is was a bad move.  Ep1-2 would've been a good time period as it was fresh in everyone's minds, still relevant to the film, and still had lots of Jedi.  Or KotOR-esque for more freedom, but everyone wants to be a Jedi.  They want to make their own lightsaber, pick their favorite fruity color, and play whack-a-mole with stormtroopers.  Or, play some sort of Fett wannabe and collect sabers like EVE players do killmails/corpses.

There's still the issue that even a great setting has to have fun game elements.  The setting can be either an asset or detriment, and in the case of SWG, was a detriment although I think SW as a whole can be lots of fun (even for a MMOG).  Firefly would be bad, because the world outside the heros is little understood even by fans (there's not much developed material), and the heros themselves didn't do very much that was heroic.  Walker Texas Ranger has more to work with from a MMOG setting standpoint.

Since someone mentioned Harry Potter...I remember a dev saying in the planning stages, someone said "Yeah, you'd kill rats and stuff." I think the only way a Harry Potter MMO would work is if it was MUSH-style. You could have combat in it, but that couldn't be the focus of the game.

Nobody should go to Aragog's lair and kill ten spiders so they can retrieve Dumbledore's lost socks. If stuff like that was in the game, it would likely be another SWG-style phenomenon: People would come for the IP, be disappointed, and leave. Others would come for the game, be disappointed, and leave. A core userbase -- a mere fraction of the expected numbers -- would stick around because they could look past the game system and/or the Harry Potter universe, and make it their own.

I would play Santa Claus Online if it had EVE/PotBS type economics.

I'd also pick Bilbo.

This would [unfortunately] be as radical as SWG in as much as it would probably be the first game where the player really needs to not get attached to their toon and also get used to rolling up new ones

Ok so it wouldnt be Jedi perma-death but it is perma-insanity. "go make a new toon, your last one is now an institutionalised dribbling idiot" (albeit one that might be quite good at casting the odd mythos spell if you can stop him trying to eat the furniture for long enough)

Bag fulls of RP potential but then we all know how popular RP is MMORPG's dont we  :cry:

Cthuhlu online would be different. And I think my entire circle of friends would probably play it. At least try it. It could also be a totally unique world. PvP would be the crazy characters versus the sane ones maybe?

Star Wars in the KOTOR time period would be an excellent mmo. Hell, use d20 for the game system (just like in KOTOR and DDO). Focus on expanding the world. Things that would be required:

Easy to be a jedi. (Easier than SWG at least.)
Cool ships and the ability for players to get them.
Cool droids and again the ability for players to get them.
Play as Sith for PvP fun.
Factions? Republic vs Fringe vs Sith

My main hope is that if Bioware doesn't do this, that they do a sci-fi mmo. Maybe set it in the universe of that new 360 game they're working on. (Mass Effect?) Please though, no more fantasy mmos.

Cthulu Online, using the Dark Corners of the Earth style of gameplay could be really good. As your character progresses up the grind, you get crazier and crazier until you turn batshit insane. At max level, you face off against an old one of some type, after which, win or lose, you lose all control of the character and he/she becomes an NPC, wandering through the world somewhere. Then you start over again. Suffer, bitches.

It would also have to be focused on very small, loose parties of people instead of big raid-esque fandangos.

It'll never happen, but it'd be cool.

Judging by comments (http://www.zenofdesign.com/?p=713) made (http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=858&bhcp=1) at the recent AGC, and BioWare’s history with single-player games (poor data points, admittedly, but the only ones we’ve got), I think it’s possible to make a few educated guesses about what BioWare’s up to. 

First, I think it very likely we’re looking at another fantasy game, and this acorn won’t be falling too far from the ol’ D&D/Tolkien tree.  This is what BioWare knows best, having garnered much of their success from iterations of D&D in the past.  They’ve also frequently relied on franchise settings, and I think they’ll do that here as well, especially considering that this is their first foray into MMOGs.  I think the chosen property will not be a “triple-A” current darling of the conventional wisdom, like Star Wars.  I think it will be a something immediately recognizable to every nerd worthy of his or her platinum edition “Buffy, Season 3” dvds.  Something that has cache in the fantasy community, but won’t be too expensive to purchase the license for.  Think along the lines of Shannara, Diskworld, Thieves’ World, or the once great but now sidelined settings of TSR, such as Dragonlance and Planescape.  Fans of the genre will immediately recognize it and have certain associations with it.  The general public probably won’t, and BioWare will probably make little effort beyond a few token acts to attracting their attention.

I think Star Wars a possibility, but extremely unlikely.  First, it would be expensive.  It would step on the toes of SOE.  It would also require a fairly different gameplay experience than BioWare usually creates for their PC RPGs.  After SOE’s experience, I’m not certain you could release a Star Wars MMOG without player-pilotable space ships.  This would bring the game closer to the twitchy sort of play that BioWare usually doesn’t have in their RPGs.  While games like Neverwinter Nights were not entirely twitch-less, requiring you to mash hot keys fairly regularly, I can’t remember any time when I had to both move and aim and shoot all at once while playing KotOR.  You could probably develop fun, twitch-free starship combat, but that would require additional innovations that I’m not certain BioWare would feel comfortable in risking. 

I think the big innovation will be found in their quest systems.  BioWare will be expected to integrate the exceptional writing and stories of their single player games into their MMOG.  I suspect we’ll see something that borrows a little bit from WoW, DDO, and CoH.  It will be heavily instanced, scaleable based on the number of people involved and their classes (yes, there will be classes).  If they are feeling extremely daring, it might include some sort of personal quest system that drops bits and pieces of a running quest into the standard ones, like finding one of the eight pieces of your father’s sword while attempting to kill the frost giant chieftain, or something like that, to personalize the leveling grind.

Other than that, it will be a fairly standard MMOG experience, complete with the now standard class types (tank, buffer, etc.), focus on combat, and finely-tuned advancement to induce the maximum in “one more level before bed” psychosis.  There may be some sort of PvP, probably reserved for high-level play, the graphics will probably be isometric rather than first-person, though you might also be able to switch between the two, and the game will probably run very well on today’s top-of-the-line computer, which will be a bit more standard in two or three years when the game is finally released.

Of course, as I’ve not been nearly as invested in the MMOG scene as many of the regulars around here, you might derive an equally accurate prognostication by studying tea leaves or reading entrails.  But it’s always fun to play “what if”.   :-D

- Brian

if someone can pull the combat stick out of their arses and design a new advancement metric that is not based on time-to-kill vs. level-of-enemy-killed, THEN we can a sleuthing/detection mechanic that could supplement or be on par with combat for experience.  Then you can  :cthulu: online and even Harry Potter online (which is all about discovery).  And yes, the more you learn the more danger you have at a discovery of having a bad reaction.

I bet the Spelljammer license is cheap.

That could be quite interesting. Let root for planescape though. Also, I really hope that they atleast try a little to get away from the Unholy Trinity of Tank, DPS, Healer. I want more people to go the way of CoX. Let us kill lots of mobs not just one at a time.

My wishlist for a Bioware MMO:

Other mechanics than combat for XP. Like how WoW has quest xp and exploration xp. Something like that but more of it. Hell, steal SWG's crafting XP but make it apply to the character in general.

for IPs: KOTOR or Forgotten Realms if they don't do their own world. I say Forgotten Realms because of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights.

I'd love it if Bioware could find a way to make a player feel like a true hero in the world.

No raids if possible. Smaller, more personal quests.
Pvp that is logical for the world. For instance, if it is Forgotten Realms let players play the evil races like orcs and drow in addition to normal races and have factional combat.

I'd imagine both are relatively cheap, as are most of the "abandoned" settings, like Dark Sun, Birthright, and Al-Qadim.  Forgotten Realms is still something of a hot property, I'd think, and Dragonlance may be as well, what with the upcoming movie and new novels. 

I'm not expecting many major twists in how combat and classes work.  The standard list has grown organically from how the games are played and I don't see BioWare shaking that up so much, not in this game, anyway.  If the license is not attached to a gaming property, I'd imagine that the classes used will be transparently based upon the typical roles of MMOG combat. 

As for me, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Krull (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krull_(film)) Online!   :-D

- Brian

That's one of the reasons that I think that Riverworld would be such a good license. That, and the fact that people seem drawn to picking the names of famous people current and past in MMORPGs because they lack imagination and think that its hysterically funny to be an Elf called Britney Spears. This would actually increase immersion in Riverworld Online.


As for Fox being out to get Firefly, you mean in the same way that all the concerned networks (WB, UPN, Fox) have had with Wheldon's series? The common factor seems to be Wheldon, don't you think?

Buffy had a 7 season run and Angel had a 5 season run (Angel may have ended prematurely, but the quality was waning.  Buffy NEEDED to end).  Whether or not those stations have had it "out" for Whedon, both series got an ample time to develop into their full potential. 

But, both Buffy and Angel were on stations that at the time and historically have been able to put up with a series that isn't garnering the same ratings as an "America's Next Top Hooker".  Fox doesn't just pull the trigger on shows it sees floundering, it lets them wiggle and squirm under unrealistic expectations in bad time slots with a myriad of other unhelpful circumstances adding to it ("hey, lets show it out of order!" "let's have the World Series interupt 3 episodes" "brilliant!".

UPN and WB are getting worse.  "Veronica Mars" despite being a critical darling and having a rabid fanbase has had to fight tooth and nail to stay on the air (it'll probably get the axe this year).  If it had the same fortune as "Arrested Development" to be on Fox, it'd be dead already.

/derail

Thanks for correcting him Rasix, saved me some typing. Righ, if you wish to hate on Whedon more power to you, but at least get your facts straight.

Mandatory cancelled Fox shows link. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=_O4wZ13KIqE)

Night of the living dead Online!

I thought Firefly was cool and all, but I still mourn the fate of the Tick. Warburton is a funny, funny man. One who's been relegated to voicework at that (granted, Brock Sampson is the shit).

Like most Fox shows that get canceled, the Tick was awesome. But really, most of their good shows that only get marginal ratings get absolutely jerked around. The Tick only had 6 episodes aired, and I think 3 of those were not in their original time slot. It's one thing if the show is just programmed in a bad spot like Firefly was, but when they can't even bother to keep it in the bad slot, that's just shitty. I remember the hype they put into that show about a 19-year old cop that was in the time slot before John Doe. The cop show was shitcanned after 1 episode, and Doe somehow made it through a whole season before being jettisoned.

FOX inexplicably showed the episodes out of order and they scheduled them during the Time Slot of Death (aka Friday nights on FOX) -- i.e. they stacked the deck against Firefly ever picking up a decent audience from the start.

It might be what BioWare knows best but they are working on Mass Effect right now.

I can nearly guarantee that the three stars of that MMOG project aren't touching Mass Effect.

I think the bigger Achilles heel in my reasoning is the seperation between Austin and Edmonton.  How much of this project is being done by old hands in BioWare, and how much is the work of the MMOG veteran hired guns?  Might it make more sense to look at the history of Walton and Vogel's work rather than BioWare's?  A game designed by BioWare and built in Austin would probably look a lot different from a game designed in Austin but funded by BioWare.

- Brian

Pretty sure it's being built all in Austin with approval shit from Edmonton.

If they're set on doing a fantasy MMO, I'd much rather see them do something like White Wolf's Exalted (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exalted) instead of yet another D&D/Tolkien inspired yawner.

I answered this for HRose a couple weeks ago. (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/1496)

Planescape: The MMO?

Why its based on the Michael Moorecock world of course....

Can't believe I missed something this obvious - Bioware's next MMOG will be based on Buffy.

It's got huge geek cred as an IP.

It's got a big fanbase.

There are plenty of bad guys for it.

And in order to be powerful, all you have to do is roll up a female character, which 90% of male players do for other reasons currently anyway.

Mystery solved.

Buffy has geek cred? I thought it was the same crowd that watched "Friends".

... and right there is your cross-over potential. Who wouldn't sign up to a MMOG to take a swing at Ross?

I might be way wrong, but I would have thought that Buffy had a fairly narrow audience that it appealed to, and almost zero international appeal whatsoever.  If so, those are pretty bad ingredients to mix into your MMO soup.

To contradict myself, however...someone mentioned a Diskworld based MMO.  Are we talking about Terry Pratchett's world?  If so, sign me the fuck up.

Buffy would be a wreck.

How many fucking times do I have to say it?

It doesn't matter HOW MANY GEEKS watch something or love something. You need to have crossover into the gaming world. Not all geeks are gamers. Not all gamers are geeks. And as shown by the top ten game sales every single year (Madden, Madden, NCAA, Madden, Madden, Some Disney Movie, Madden, Final Fantasy), Buffy would fail like a motherfucker.

You need something that has instant appeal to gamers at large and can REACH OUT. Like WoW. Not something that has to reach in - like Star Wars Galaxies.

To become popular by word of mouth, you need to have a man on the inside, not some fucker outside yelling about things he doesn't understand.

Edit: Granted, Buffy might work as an MMORPG. Only because nothing interesting happened in the series and nothing interesting happens in most MMOGs. And I mean work, not "Be Popular." And when I say nothing interesting happens in MMOGs, I don't mean it as a blanket statement. I mean it as - Developers don't do Neat Shit Often. Most of the Neat Shit comes from the players. Particularly Eve Players. I reckon it's more fun to read the blogs of Eve players than it is to play the game. Actually, I know, fo'sho. I also know it's more fun to talk about Buffy than it is to watch it. Go figure.

Oi! Quite sniping Buffy (you can snipe the last 2 seasons.. ok.. 3).  Uhh yah, that'd be a horrible IP for a MMO.  The manginas would love it though.. no real reason to be a dude. Unless you want to read books.

Anyone ever consider an Earthsea MMO?

But still, there are thousands upon thousands of decent fantasy/sci-fi book/novel series with IP that could be taken upon and adapted to games. If anyone's read The Magic of Recluse series, there's enough ideas in there to back up a huge world with unique societies, a large span of abilities and skills (or classes if you want to do that), huge portions of the book dedicated to how the economics of the world work (for crafting, trading, etc), politics, wars, even just simple exploration, all sorts of things.

Is it really a requirement that the IP have huge cred to begin with? Isn't it possible that a large company could pick up an almost unheard of (yet still of good quality) IP and make it big?

Consider the cost of getting the IP, making an MMOG and marketing it. You want to pick IP with huge gamer cred so the IP can break away from the gamer arena. Breaking into the gamer arena is nearly as hard as breaking into the actual industry and getting a job.

Or you could just be Nintendo, make a Pokemon MMOG, have Chunsoft do the dungeon crawling part, have Nintendo do the regular Pokemon PVP battle shit, and call it a day while the rest of the industry stands around with a thumb up its collective ass. Speaking of, another interview is going up Monday.

I mentioned Green's Deathstalker series as a joke, but in all honesty it might make a decent IP for a game. For one, it's small enough an IP that you wouldn't be building it for "Simon Green fans" -- you'd be just mining it for world-details, and the world there would be fairly compatable with Diku-style MMORPGS. Which is what purchased IP should be for -- providing some background, world, or concept that you can hang MMORPG mechanics on.

You don't want your lore/IP/history/whatever hemming in game design, and you don't want your IP/Lore/whatever to be so freakin' popular that you're going to turn off tons of potential players because you have to restrict access to concepts that are popular in the IP, but translate poorly to an MMORPG experience. (See: Jedi).

So I consider Deathstalker to be decent IP for a MUD. It's space opera, and space opera is often nothing but fantasy with a sci-fi wrapper. Which means your mechanics can be Diku-varient, but you've already got a decent background and world defined.

Ok, color me lost here.  How do you define "gamer cred"?  Are you saying that an IP must be a game, and nothing else, ever?  Are you seriously suggesting that after nearly two decades of x-wing and tie-fighter flight sims, Rebel Assaults, KotOR, and now Lego games that Star Wars doesn't have gamer cred? 

I’m probably misunderstanding you.  I mean, I know the shtick here at f13 is bitter cynicism, but this strikes me a bit much like saying fantasy novels  and comic books can never be translated into decent, popular movies. 

- Brian

a calm word before anything -- there are IP's that are worldly and IP's that lend themselves well and directly to games.  SW sure is a good game IP, if it's one aspect of SW that's taken (like the civil war combat).  Harry Potter would not.  Buffy might not if there was a lot of relationship and hugging required.  A gamer might looking at those IP's which has a lot of competitive drama and prefer those over ones that require more narration, back story or development what-not.

Different IPs work in different sorts of games.  Harry Potter would make a horrible MMORPG, but might be fun as a MUSH, or something more along the lines of Skotos' Castle Marach.  Highlander would make a horrible MMORPG, but it would make an awesome tag-like game.  You'd start with a handful hundred players per server, every week or so the terrain and available weapons would update to a new period in history, and you'd play until only one player was left alive, with rankings posted for how long each player was able to survive, and how many enemies they'd managed to kill.  New games would be starting every day, so you could jump right back in after you died.  Not a MMORPG as we know it, but it could be fun. 

Buffy would be an interesting challenge.  The key would be to play with the pull between the daylight world of classes and jobs, and the nighttime world of slaying.  To capture the feel of the show, it would probably look like the Sims with dungeons.  I'm not sure that's two great tastes that taste great together.  But I never tried the Sims online, so I'm speaking, as usual, from a position of ignorance.

I think Star Wars as an IP isn't a death sentence to a MMOG.  I agree that it did have some serious handicaps to overcome.  I think some of those handicaps are going to continue to bedevil the industry, especially when it comes to translating popular IPs.  One of the biggies is MMOG combat being about as swashbuckling as sumo.  But CoH seems to have done pretty well, mostly by keeping true to the look and feel of their theme, and avoiding MMOG tropes that didn't fit, such as looting money off the bodies of defeated mobs, and playing up those that reinforced the theme, like flashy powers and costumes, sidekicks, and cool opponents.

- Brian 

Grimwell had spotted signs of a potential Bioware-made Star Wars MMORPG awhile back, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was that.  The reason they've not yet announced it would probably have a lot to do with it being tentative at this time, in addition to securing the IP.  I imagine that SOE'd be pulling as much contractual strings as possible to hinder Lucasarts in this regard.   Thus, a Bioware-made SWG MMORPG is still not a sure thing.

If a developer learns only one thing from SWG, it should be this: "Intellectual Property places certain expectations of the type of game that will be developed."

The Star Wars movies set up an expectation of an action-packed exciting experience interspursed with brief periods of romance and wonder.  Star Wars Galaxies, a game focused on the day-to-day boring lives of less exciting Star Wars inhabitants, couldn't hope to meet those expectations.  Knights of the Old Republic, however, delivered exactly was was needed.

But, per usual, I'm probably not saying anything that surprises anyone here.

Facts? There are no facts here, just a bunch of wibbling from fanboys. None of us know if Wheldon's a shit to work with, or if he has unreasonable demands, or why Fox does what it does with shows. I was just putting a scenario out there, which is every bit as enlightened as your cough facts. Sci-Fi showed Dr Who out of sequence and at irregular slot. Perhaps they were trying to kill its audience. Fucking tin foil wearing loonies.

Buffy, Angel, Veronica Mars, Gilmore Girls, OC, Smallville, etc... even though they're different subjects all seem kind of similar-ish to me.  They all seem to be shows geared towards teens and I lose interest after a while.  Sometimes I'll put one on and wonder, "why don't I watch this show more often?"  Half way through the episode, however, I always remembery why....  These days I can almost always tell from the previews, too, which shows will fall into the "teen" catagory.

Don't really think they're geared for "teens", maybe OC out of that bunch is specifically geared for teens. It's this generation's "90210". It needs more 30 year olds pretending they're 16 or it'll never measure up. The others of course contain "teens".  Now.. I used to watch "Dawson's Creek".. that was a show with teens geared for teens.  But yah.. I was hooked so I kind of had to keep watching the car wreck.

Tag team posting isn't fair.  That last post could have been written by Righ. Maybe Signe and Righ are one person! /tinfoil_hat


(http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050531/spr7.jpg)

Of course we don't know if Whedon's himself is to blame for his latest show getting a quick pull.  Even though Angel and Buffy were longer runs, both seemed to always on the crux of cancellation.  His shows have rabid fan bases but that doesn't translate into good ratings.  And his shows cost money.  Firefly couldn't have been cheap to make.   His shows develop slowly and often take years to resolve story arcs or to the pull the trigger on a romantic angle. 

Another Joss Whedon show we'll likely not see on any form of network television for the above reasons.  They take a while to get going and when they're on a network like Fox, that shits itself unless ratings are immediate and huge, they don't have a prayer.  Only hope for another Whedon series would be on a network like Sci-Fi, TNT, USA or FX.  Battlestar's been in the timeslot of death for two whole seasons and seems not be going anyway soon. 

Hey, call it fanboi all you like Righ, but Firefly was not exactly given a fair shake by Fox. They showed 11 out of 14 episodes. The order was mixed up, including playing the like 4th episode first and playing the pilot last (which explained the whole dam setting and universe). It was on Friday nights, which I don't give a dam if X-Files did well in it, is a shitty ass timeslot for a show aimed at a 20 - 30 year old crowd.

It received almost zero hype or advertising, and they made no real effort to pull in the Buffy/Angel fanbase. Hell, I was a regular Buffy/Angel watcher at the time, and I didn't even know the series had made it to tv until a year after it was cancelled.

Oh, and on topic: KotoR would be the perfect setting for a Star Wars MMoG. Thing is though, what made Knights work was Bioware's outstanding writing and characters. Doesn't matter what ip they use, they need to capture that polished story feel.

The most likely explanation for Fox (which is pronounced faux) network behaving the way it does is gross incompetence, which is pandemic to life but seems to be accentuated by that network probably because they pay less or something. If you don't want your show bollocksed up by being shown out of sequence and whatnot, make every episode largely independent from the others, because sequencing messes have been made of just about every show on every network.

this thread was about uh...

biodome?

No offense Righ, but we were talking about an action/drama with an overarching storylie. That's the type of show Whedon writes, and is why he has a loyal fanbase.

Picture watching BSG out of order. Yea, that would have worked well, Shaon Valeri's story would have made perfect sense...  :roll:

All I can say is that I'm thankful for the growth of non-network channels that will actually give shows like BSG or Blade:the Series somewhere to thrive.

Planetary would probably be the perfect Fox show, since it's similar in tone to Firefly and yet all the issues/episodes are self-contained stories but with an overarching plot.

X-Files was on Sunday nights. It's the best timeslot there is.

Buffy mmo aside (wtf), Firefly did get a bad deal. Anyone who gets the Friday night slot is on it's way out before it really even begins (X-Files creator Chris Carter's show Harsh Realm got it, the Tick got it, etc). Friday night slots are virtually synonymous with "canceled".

I don't know.  Maybe "family" show is more appropriate instead of teen.  I suppose when I see a show where the lead is a teen and the lead teen is surrounded by a bunch of other teens, it strikes me as being a show that probably had a teen audience in mind.  I looked up the demographics and target audience for some of those shows and it said "18 - 34" in nearly every case.  They also mentioned shows that "everyone in the family can be in the same room" to watch.  I enjoyed the first season or so of Smallville, liked Angel a bit better than Buffy but both were okay, didn't like the others much.   I'm not dissing the shows or those who enjoy them at all.  I never lasted til the end of the season with any of them... they all seemed to deteriorate towards the end.  The ones I watched were slick looking and entertaining for the most part, but sophisticated?  Nah.  As an aside, Righ and I both really enjoyed Firefly.  We were rather disappointed that it was cancelled so soon.

I'm not sure why you made the "Maybe Signe and Righ are one person!" crack, Ras, but I'm taking it as a compliment.  Righ's the brain in the family by a longshot.  I'm mostly fluff.

In situations where you agree, maybe not in the same fashion, but agree; you occasionally post consecutively.  I was just trying for some levity, but I'd definately take it as a compliment.

As for the derail gripes.. common.. this a thread dedicated to making random guesses on Bioware's new MMO we're all going to buy. I think we've ran out of reasonable guesses to the IP, but if you want to keep guessing: I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 100. 

None taken. In that regard, he's like a comic author, and the networks to support his work don't exist yet. The closest that one could come is something like the somewhat arty HBO, which is very good a scheduling, though has failed a few shows itself for other reasons. Its possibly the case that a new type of marketing arrangement will need to exist in order to better support true episodic content, where the sell-through precedes the broadcast.

The Sci-Fi network, if you can get the greedy bastards to shell out, is pretty good for it. They don't dick with their premium shows. On the other hand, they make the bulk of their money on the cheap-ass crappy films they make and show on Saturdays. Their good Sci-Fi is just advertising and some credibility.

 Sometimes we talk about you.  Sometimes we say the most OUTRAGEOUS things about you!  Sometimes you lot make us LAUGH OUT LOUD!   :lol:

Righ pointed out to me that sometimes we read and chat and then post so I suppose it's not uncommon that we post close to each other.  One of the reasons, I think, that we've been married so long is that we agree on so much.  Believe it or not, we've never had a real argument.  I'm hoping we'll have one for our 12th anniversary in December. 

Talking about Sci Fi Channel... I've been watching Eureka based on reccomendations here, mostly Haemish... and I've been enjoying it.  I expect it'll be cancelled any minute, now.   :-(

All this talk of cancellations and messups, I don't think I've ever heard of this kind of stuff here in Aus. Of course, most of our shows have been running for a season or 2 somewhere else in the world first and when Aus studios make shows they tend to make ones they KNOW will work because they only make so many and the "stars" only stretch so far and should not be wasted. But still. :P

That would be the major reason I wouldn't care about a KotOR MMO.  Bioware writes interesting characters, but in KotOR Online, I'm going to have to share the world with guys named "xXx-LukeJr-xXx" and "Yodapenis", and I really, really doubt they can magically make the random jackasses I group with into compelling, identifiable characters.  And in terms of storyline, we're still stuck with the same problem we've had for years: stories in which nothing happens to the world are boring, and stories which change the world (like the old KotOR games, for example) can't be repeated (and therefore tend not to work in MMOs).

So what's left?  The setting?  There's almost nothing defined.  You've got some guys with laser guns and some guys with laser swords.  There are organizations called "The Republic" and "The Sith" about which virtually nothing is known (save that one is "good" and one is "eeeeeeevil").  The Jedi have been almost erased.  For the setting of KotOR, Bioware took the bare bones of the Star Wars license and ripped everything else out so they could write their own stories without having to work out why Luke wasn't jumping in to save the day every few minutes.  Without those stories, all you've got left is the bare bones again.  I'm not saying they can't turn it into an interesting setting, but why would it be inherently more interesting than any other?  It's just generic sci-fi with laser swords (and a stronger brand name, but why would we get excited about that?).

The mechanics in KotOR are, in my opinion, not the strong point of the game, but it would probably be easier to translate them into an MMO format than it would be to write some compelling MMO narrative or something.

I'm not saying that KotOR would be a BAD setting, I just don't see why it would be inherently better than anything else.  It would probably make more money than NoName Sci-Fi MMO #50, but aside from that, I don't see why it would be something I'd get excited about.  Bioware generally makes fun games, but I have trouble seeing how the stuff they're best known for (stories, characters, etc.) would be carried over into an MMO.

P.S. Your spell checker includes "Yodapenis" but not "Bioware"?

X-Files started on Friday nights. It didn't do particularly well ratings wise but it did well enough to survive and eventually get moved to Sunday's (starting the 4th season I believe) where it turned into a big hit. Also Thursday's is the best night for television at least in terms on how much advertising revenue they rake in. It's no coincidence that the most watched regular series shows in recent history have been on Thursday's (ER, CSI, etc.).

The thing about IPs is that they cost money. In some cases, a lot of money. If you aren't getting a whole lot of extra pull to your game based on the IP then you're just wasting your money. There's a lot of IPs where they would work in a MMO, and might even be advantageous in the fact that you don't have to write your own background lore and it might turn a few more heads than otherwise. But are they likely to be cost effective? A lot of them just aren't.

In this case with Bioware tho,wouldn't just the name Bioware be considered it's own IP?I've read all over the place how people will buy anything Bioware puts out,myself included,why spend a ton of cash on some outside IP when you can capitalise on the reputation the company itself already has amongst gamers?

You needed to read your earlier post and Rasix's before replying.

Here is the relevant section of that earlier post.


Rasix replied to this and correctly pointed out you had your facts wrong. WB and UPN showed their respective Whedon shows in order on a decent night. (IE pretty much anything besides Friday or Saturday for most shows.) Fox as has been pointed out to you before gave Firefly the timeslot of death. Showed a series with an overarching plot out of order and preempted what episodes they did show several times.

Noone has said Fox deliberately set out to shitcan Firefly. People have only said that they pretty much gave it the worst possible situation and then canceled it when it didn't rise above that. Not an unreasonable statement.  Your problem is that your dislike for Whedon colors your views of any discussion of his programs and makes you prone to being irrational about it.

I don't even have a dislike for him (in fact I'm a Firefly fan myself), and I think that your recollection of UPN and WB's treatment of his series is rose tinted, but whatever. Do carry on.

Ah yes, that's right. Forgot about NBC "Must See Thursdays!!"  :-D

Is the percentage of Nielsen families with TiVo representative of the national average? How do you account for shows that have a higher incidence of DVR viewing due to the demographics of its market segment? It seems to me that with technology differentiators that are income, age and/or lifestyle dependent, you'd need to run multiple polls to generate meaningful viewing statistics. I bet they have to think about that sort of thrilling stuff for hours every day down at the Nielsen empire.

You'd think with digital distro becoming commonplace we could do away with the shitty Nielson system and just get the real raw data from everyone subscribed to cable. The cablecos would love it because it would generate $$$.

There's still a place for Nielson though. Having access to all the answers doesn't mean you know the right questions to ask.

That would be nice.  It would explain why D&DO had to go with that shitty Eberron vomit of an IP, if Bioware held some rights re Forgotten Realms, for instance.

But hey, I admit that building backstory behind speculation and playing "if this is true and if that is true then it must be the other" is just the sort of thing Eco called moronic logic.  I'll soon have linked Bioware to the templars and the holy grail.

WB's treatment of Whedon was not so nice. Wasn't it after the 5th season that it switched to UPN (or was it vice versa) because whichever network it was on didn't want to pay as much for the show, despite it being a big hit? Whedon's shows have not been treated well, despite the ratings.

As for why DDO went with Eberron, I don't think it had anything to do with Bioware's rights to Forgotten Realms as much as WotC's desire to promote the Eberron campaign setting as the main D&D setting over the legacy settings like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk.

Iuz > robot pcs.

Yep that's my thought, but also because you can't have Forgotten Realms without mentioning Elminster, Drizzt and several other iconic characters, right?  But each time you do, WOTC has to pay royalties to Greenwood, Salvatore and the other folks who retained the rights to their characters. Big Business today doesn't make those 'mistakes' on the bottom line.. so you have to go with the more contemporary setting or make less cash.  (Tho one shoudl question how MUCH less they could make.)

Eberron, while cool conceptually is just not nearly as rich as a Forgotten Realms or a Greyhawk.

And actually, give me Greyhawk over FR any day too as FR has been done to death. I'd still like to mount an expedition to the Sea of Dust and points beyond though...

Hasselhoff online....

Baywatch and Nighrider...

*holds a small, lonely torch for Spelljammer...*

A Spelljammer MMORPG would be cool...

Not sure if it'd be as cool as, say, Shadowrun - but it'd be cool.

Now that would be something. You can't go wrong with elves, space AND pirates.

Oh yes.  Amen and pass the Giant Space Hamsters. 


I like to think that all blue-sky scientific research - genetic engineering, point energy sources, paired particle communications, organic computing and the rest - are aimed at achieving that ultimate goal: a good Shadowrun MMO.  Not an actual realisation of such a cybernetic dystopia, you understand.  Just a decent MMO.

Give the project to Irrational, Bioware, or Cryptic and we'd have a decent Shadowrun MMO.

Give the project to Blizzard and we'd have a Shadowrun MMO that everybody loves but is really just a slick implementation of old ideas.

Give the project to EA and it'd be developed for one year and then canceled.

Give the project to SOE and we'd have a MMO ruined by too much attention to customer feedback.

Give the project to Microsoft and we'd have a counterstrike clone (http://shadowrun.com/).

You're cute when you just say things.

With no filter.

All the time.

Like your silly WoW doom shit.

I am not sure why anyone thinks Shadowrun would actually make a good MMOG. To do it right would require a WoW-Sized budget and that's just not in the cards for something that could fail horribly - no matter who makes it.

Your envy at my psychic hotline inspired writing style is palpable.  :wink:

When it comes to big development budgets being needed to make game properly, I tend to balk a bit.  I've seen some text-based telnet MU*s that have dynamite gameplay potential and probably cost the development team no more than time, a server box rental, and bandwidth fees. Multimillion dollar production values do not make a good game, but they do make for a overly complicated development process.  They up the ante.  If I see a fabulous light refraction off of the breasts of an elven street samerai, I'm thinking that time would have been better spent on developing a good game.  Robot Jesus (http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19991207/chey_01.htm) had a small budget.  Remember that.

So there's where the belief on development team = all originates.  But, of course, my last message was really more tongue in cheek than meant to be taken literally.

Your psychic hotline never worked, Ms. Cleo.

If I have failed to see the future, it is only because I fell off the shoulders of giants.

You failed to see the future because you're drowning in a bowl of fruit loops.

Right Questions > Lots of Data : can be overcome
Lots of Questions > No Data : just speculation, and educated guesses: harder to overcome

Right Questions + Data = Phat Lewt :)
 

Right Questions + Too Much Data = Godawful hours spent preprocessing the stuff in order to get it small enough, yet representative enough, to mine it for useful information. I've got 2+ years of financial data (in five minute chunks, for God's sake) that I'm still trying to work out how to dice it up for training and test sets.

If I was really concerned with people's assessment of my sanity, I wouldn't pretend I could see the future at all.

I like to think that, whether or not my WoW prediction turned out to be true, I at least base it on some relatively good premises.  That's all anyone can do.

The problem is when the questions being asked are used to spin the datum politically. Rare is it that those who collect and siphon the data are also those executing against the findings. I hate how often research is abused for ones political (whether sociopolitical or just corporate middle-management) ambitions, but there it is.

I am data neutral. My persoanl mantra: Dont ask me a question your really dont want an (possibly unpleasant) answer to.

M-

How many discreet data points in that data set of yours? if its less than say 15 you can aggregate it globally to generalized trends (in english: Stratify it)

So
data point (x) in quartiles
data point (y) in quartiles
data point (z) in quartiles

This way you can find the trending in the top quartiles across all data points when you compare them.

Just some thoughts, this is commonly done with large data sets for consumers and healthcare.

Are Geldon and Schild flirting?  Awww....   (http://www.terranuts.com/forums/images/smilies/inlove.gif)

It was a narrowly avoided romantic entanglement, but it was enough to inspire gossip in the neighbors.

So, uh, what did you predict for WoW again ?

How about a Midkemia MMORPG ?
Popular, has been proven to work as game before ( Betrayal at Krondor). Its a well defined world. In the book its common for normal people to become heroes over time. Lots of wars going on.

First off, it's another medieval fantasy game, even if they allow for that pseudo-Japanese realm to be included.

Secondly, everyone would want to be descended from Pug or Tomas or whatever characters currently inhabit the world.

Thirdly, I loved "Magician" and the first few follow-ups, but the later books I read failed to keep the flame burning.

Finally, I don't think there are really enough fans to make it a valuable IP. Better to go with a Robert Jordan property.

No, wait... a Piers Anthony property. Hehehehe....

Discworld the MMOG.

SWGotOR.

They were terrible premises.  You assumed there was no endgame because you never got there, if I recall.

Bioware MMO: KOTOR or Forgetten Realms!  For entirely selfish reasons.  The only flaw with say, BGII in my mind, is that the massive journey had an end.  Gonna probably be sorely sorely tempted by whatever the hell comes out. Brand loyalty, I suspect. :/

Meh.

Fantasy diku hack and slash level based MMO number 120198374098179382471324 here we come.

Pedophilia Online? It'd have to be Japanese, maybe Squeenix can plop one out.

I think Mark Foley needs a job. He could be a creative consultant on the PvP portion.

He's already written the quests and chat component.

Harry Potter MMO.

Got a screenshot from the pre-alpha...

(http://media1.break.com/dnet/media/2006/10/octel13.jpg)

Necroz!

I hate that image by the way. But this tiny unsubstantiated rumor wasn't worth a new thread:

According to some ex-Lucasarts folks, the Bioware MMO is KOTOR3 (http://www.totalvideogames.com/news/LucasArts_Leak_Shows_KOTOR_3_As_MMO_13317_5665_0.htm).


That's all there is so far.

Knowing who those people are, that's not an image I ever needed to see.

YES.

(http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e121/GrimDysart/sig4.jpg)

I could be tempted to break my rule about playing new MMOs in the first 3 months and about buying lifetime subscriptions for this one.

So, which do you want, broken or unfinished?

How about both?

Ditto, lol.

I know nobody cares, but the guy with his back to the camera is former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, and facing the camera is Peter Costello, the Treasurer (Treasury Secretary/Chancellor of the Exchequer) in the Howard government. Costello was Howard's anointed successor ... except Howard kept delaying his exit, and Costello got more and more frustrated - they hated each other but had to keep working together - until eventually their government was voted out.

The only bad thing about KOTOR3 would be that we'd keep seeing WUA's chart.  Everytime I see it, I die a little inside. 

I've heard they have an amazing new concept, they call it the HAM system.

No, HAM's been done. This is the BACON system.

Man, and you know Blizzard would do something like that too. Not sure Bioware has enough of a sense of humor for that  :grin:

I still have hope's that even though Bioware has been bought out by EA their MMOG - whatever it may be will still come out and be decent.  Gordon Walton is still working there right?  If he bails before it's released that'll tell me everything I need to know.

I don't see why people are looking forward to this.

IP - (story + characters) = "IP the MMO"

Really, you guys want a d20 MMO that badly?  Not saying that KotOR is bad or anything, but I don't see how it could possibly translate in to a good MMO.  The combat was honestly not that great, and aside from the story, that's all there was to do.  I suppose you could chuck the KotOR mechanics and come up with something original, but why would Bioware somehow be more likely to do that better than anyone else?  Every game they've ever done has either been based heavily off of D&D or has been mediocre (at best) from a gameplay perspective.  I don't get it.

Star Wars in a time period were they arent constrained by the IP (zomg jedis!).

It'll be very balanced, I could see Jedi Masters struggling against bounty hunters and legions of republic commandos leading a bunch of clone troopers as pets since Quality vs Quantity can be enforced in a class design  

They could/would/should use something similar to Mass Effects combat system. It pretty much already has everything but Lightsabers already.

I consider Mass Effects combat system what Tabula Rasa's should have been. Not that TRs was bad per se, it just didn't feel action-y enough to hide the numbers, not compared to ME on the PC (no idea about the X360 version).

Otherwise, I'm with Threash: SW has a long enough timeline they can pick any other period not constrained by the movies and have a lot of fun with it.

That doesn't make it uber unto itself. The game still has to be, like, fun. And having a rolling storyline atop a persistent state world hasn't been tried at the level Bioware is famous for doing in RPGs. Even AC1 was more an ongoing storyline with punctuated events rather than an ever-present narrative everyone was engaged in all the time.

Basically, still as many questions as there ever have been  :-)

On the whole, I've been largely immune to MMO hype.  I've played UO forever, Asheron's Call for like a week many years ago, and lately I've come to appreciate WoW a bit.  I've never been one to play the flavor of the week MMO.  I even ignored SWG after it became clear that it was all dancing wookie hairdressers and shit.  And despite my fanboy status, LucasFilm can cram all those shitty "Expanded Universe" novels and comics and cartoons right up their ass.  But once upon a time BioWare gave me the sweetest Star Wars crack I've ever enjoyed outside of a movie theater, and I remember the taste well indeed.

"But WUA, the combat in KOTOR sucked, and anyway you're not gonna have that sort of in-depth storytelling in an MMO!"

Your feeble logic and reason are no match for the power of my fanboner.  This shall be the most awesome thing since Revenge of the Sith, which was THE BEST MOVIE EVAR!  /foam

Well, not only did the combat suck, but it was only slightly redeemable because you were a World Crushing Jedi from Hell -- and that class will never be available in mmo's.

Bioware didn't make X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter.

EDIT:  misunderstood your point.  I suppose they can make it so players can ONLY be Jedi (or, I should say, force-capable).   Can use any weapon you want, and pick whatever profession you want on the side, but you get full access to more and more powers as you level up, etc.  Not WCJFH, but still something.

How about 4th ed. DnD DDO? Does Turbine's agreement prevent that? 4th ed, is definitely more MMO friendly than 3.5.

There was a quote by Scott Rouse (http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3842231&postcount=16), the D&D brand manager for WotC:

4e is actually the pen & paper port of a_random_mmg_0023.

Regardless of what the Austin game might or might not be, we don't do d20 conversion game systems anymore. Snoogins.

A denial is better than silence!

Maybe the could fix The Temple of Elemental Evil?  That was a great game, had great squad based ability, neat story, but died because of the bugs.  And did the game ever die a horible death due to bugs...

Pools of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor was even more broken if you can believe that.

I have absolutely no memory of this conversation or what prompted me to post that picture. I laughed at it and scrolled up to see who posted it...oh- I did. Old age is a bitch, I tell ya.

If BioWare just puts in a bunch of fairly standard MMO quests but with a choice at the end of "Dudley Do-Right" or "puppy kicking" resolutions, and tracks the aggregate results on a dark/light side meter, that alone makes it pretty different than most of what goes around.

EQ had a more sophisticated version of that.

Which brings us right the hell back to.... Ultima freakin' IV!  :dead_horse:

Dammit I want some choice again in these games, something that matters, something that makes me care.

I'm sure they can have a faction of Light and Dark Jedi that is actually tied to the Rebel / Empire which would lead to some sort of blockade from entering certain planets since guards kill on sight. You can reset the faction back to neutral by grinding on certain missions or mobs tho...oh...wait a minute.  :grin: