Fallout MMORPG?

[schild]

"This alliance with Majorem represents an important first step in executing the Company's strategy announced earlier this year to migrate to the massively multiplayer online gaming market, not only with our own properties like Fallout but also with third party content."

Am I taking something out of context there? Or is there implication of them licensing Fallout to be an MMOG? Is there even a company in existance that can do justice to the brand?

[Lum]

When Interplay sold the Fallout 3 rights to Bethesda, they specified that they were keeping the rights to an online Fallout title.

I'd be somewhat leery of it coming out from Interplay, though. They're still in deep financial trouble.

[schild]

That's what I was thinking. So I put forth the question - who could actually make the title remotely interesting. I don't think there's a studio out there that could do it justice.

[Trippy]

That's what I was thinking. So I put forth the question - who could actually make the title remotely interesting. I don't think there's a studio out there that could do it justice.

It might work if you do it as a partnership. E.g. have Troika Games do the story and gameplay and have one of the NCSoft companies do the underlying MMORPG technology.

[MrHat]

That's what I was thinking. So I put forth the question - who could actually make the title remotely interesting. I don't think there's a studio out there that could do it justice.

It might work if you do it as a partnership. E.g. have Troika Games do the story and gameplay and have one of the NCSoft companies do the underlying MMORPG technology.

Nice.

[stray]

Yeah, Troika could do justice to the story. Perhaps the only ones who could. Just keep them away from the actual game itself.

[kaid]

I would guess that they would not do it all on their own. Like others suggested its likely a matter of they would have creative story line and some core coders but working with a bigger company to do the bulk of it and fund it.


kaid

[Morfiend]

That's what I was thinking. So I put forth the question - who could actually make the title remotely interesting. I don't think there's a studio out there that could do it justice.

It might work if you do it as a partnership. E.g. have Troika Games do the story and gameplay and have one of the NCSoft companies do the underlying MMORPG technology.

I know, I know.

They could license it to Turbine, so they could rape ALL our favorite franchises.

[Der Helm]

...working with a bigger company to do the bulk of it and fund it.

Right, you need a big company to back up a big franchise like this.

It is simply not possible for someone to fuck up with a  name as bis as "Fallout" !

Or, ...ist it?

Edit: ...because typing IS hard

[UD_Delt]

Hmmm... Found this on the Majorem site:

http://majorem.com/2l_page.php?ln=en&id=78&cat_id=32&main_id=12


I'm not sure it's a good sign when two companies both seeking funding are partnering up. Unfortunately I'm still holding on to a couple thousand shares of Interplay stock in hopes they pull some kind of rabbit out of the hat before the hat gets repo'd.

[Riggswolfe]

.

They could license it to Turbine, so they could rape ALL our favorite franchises.

Yeah cause they did such a bad job on Star Wars Galaxies....

Heh, couldn't resist my poke at SOE/SWG

[geldonyetich]

Laugh it up, but I look forward with dread at what Turbine's well established record of poor game design may do to the LOTR and D&D MMORPGs.

[stray]

D&D Online actually looks pretty damn good. And dare I say it, so does MEO (though I could give two shits about LoTR).

What's the big deal with Turbine around here anyway? At every other MMOG site I'll find numerous AC fans. Here, they're considered the worst company of all.

The truth is that they've had one success and one failure, and that failure was largely due to Microsoft.

[SurfD]

fuck, i am still of the opinion that if they would just spend the developement time needed to slap AC2s graphics engine onto AC1, they would have one of the best MMOGS out there today.

[SirBruce]

If they had put some more CONTENT in AC2, and made the world engine a bit more robust (you know, doors that actually opened, buildings, NPCs, objects you could interact with that weren't just background art, etc.), AC2 would have been one of the best MMOGs out there.

Bruce

[Riggswolfe]

I still sometimes tell stories about my adventures in AC1. AC2 was fun at first but the lack of content showed quickly. Also, making the most beautiful content the lowbie area and the most ugly the high level area was kind of an artistic mistake.

[HaemishM]

No, I think the very bland game mechanics of AC2 doomed it long before the wear and tear of there being no world to interact with sealed the coffin.

[Riggswolfe]

I knew it was in trouble when it became obvious that each race had basically one useful and fun class. Maybe two for humans and Lugians if you stretch it.

[Nazrat]

I still play AC1.  WOW devasted AC1's playerbase.  There are cottages for sale all of the time now and occassionally a villa will pop open.  

I have hopes that Turbine will draw more on AC1 than AC2 with its next 2 games.  Otherwise, I simply will avoid spending money.

[stray]

I linked this here before, but if you haven't seen it, it's worth a look. It looks more like City of Heroes than AC2 if you ask me:

DDO Video (26MB)

[Arnold]

Laugh it up, but I look forward with dread at what Turbine's well established record of poor game design may do to the LOTR and D&D MMORPGs.

Sorry, but Asheron's Call is among the BEST of the MMORPGs that have made it to market.

[Arnold]

I have hopes that Turbine will draw more on AC1 than AC2 with its next 2 games.  Otherwise, I simply will avoid spending money.

I thought AC2 was going to be the best game, ever.  AC1 was so good, but had dated graphics even when it launched.  I figured they would use a new graphics enginge, tweak some of the combat and character creation rules, tweak monarchies and other things that caused problems, and had a kickass game to challenege even EQ.

However, I was saddened by my AC2 beta experience.  EVERYTHING that I loved about AC1 was stripped from the game.  I never even bothered buying it once it hit the store shelves; I saw all I needed to in beta.

[geldonyetich]

Sorry, but Asheron's Call is among the BEST of the MMORPGs that have made it to market

So I've heard, but I have to say that it never impressed me all that much.   The melee system was too simplistic - angle of attack and speed of attack was all it offered.   The spell system was initially quite awkward and involved very few spell effects that were essentially recycled.    The world, while seamless, suffered from a lack of variety due to the hardware constaints this created.    Perhaps the PvP game was good, but I never played it.   There was little in the PvE game that a seasoned veteran gamer found particularly enthralling - I thought Everquest was just plain superior in all aspects except requiring zoning.

That Asheron's Call 2 fell flat on it's face (mostly due to far too simplistic gameplay expecting you to earn 40 levels until it caught up to Everquest's complexity at level 4) further demonstrated to me that Turbine isn't particularly good at making a good gameplay mechanic.

Turbine can make a good engine, I'll give them that.  However, it'll take more than a couple of big licenses to convince me that they can make a good game.

[stray]

There was little in the PvE game that a seasoned veteran gamer found particularly enthralling

Seasoned Veteran? Exactly what did you play before AC? There were only a few other options at the time.

[geldonyetich]

I've been playing MUDs for over a decade before I ever got involved in anything graphical.   Prior to the Internet, it was on dailup bulletin board systems.  For Asheron's Call in particular, I had played Everquest for about 8 months before the game was released.   (I pretty much pulled a pass on Ultima Online, though I've bought and played the game a few times.   By the time I got into UO it was already pretty much burnt, the majority of the playerbase havingt moved on to EQ.  UO's good days of not being a PK filled horror-fest long behind it (pre-world split), the veteran players largely ignoring the newbies, and there being a bothersome interface of a thousand long forgotten patches before me.)

However, I was talking about a bigger scope than just online games when I said "seasoned veteran gamer".   Those that maintain that online games are a special classification of games that don't require quality gameplay are quickly being brought down to earth.   I do not think it's a coincidence that Blizzard and Squaresoft (now Square-enix) have developed very successful MMORPGs after being long time developers of very successful offline games.

I don't mean to be so quick as to flame Asheron's Call.   Some people enjoyed the game: Fine, there's nothing wrong with that.    I just never understood what they saw in the game.

[stray]

I've been playing MUDs for over a decade before I ever got involved in anything graphical.   Prior to the Internet, it was on dailup bulletin board systems.  For Asheron's Call in particular, I had played Everquest for about 8 months before the game was released.

Maybe you prefer the Everquest model because it's closer to your experience with MUD's? AC is part of that legacy as well, but I also think it was the first mmog that made more steps in breaking away from that and take it's graphical medium more into account. The combat involves "player" skill more than it's peers did. Even most games made today don't do it as well. Even CoH to an extent....Although bodies are flying, so that makes it more tolerable.

[geldonyetich]

I wouldn't discount the idea that being too experienced with other kinds of games may have influenced me to not give Asheron's Call's unique style of gameplay a chance.   However, that seems unlikely to me.

The main thing that irritated me about Asheron's Call is I felt that the game lacked choices.   In Everquest, even your basic low level fighter would get the option to throw in a kick from time to time.   The attack angle/speed thing stuck me as largely cosmetic, only influencing things as far as remembering the best angle to attack a specific mob.   A level four Enchanter in Everquest would have a whole lot more combat interaction methods available to them than the caster with all the spells in Asheron's Call, owing to the "cut, change element, and paste" methodology behind a lot of AC's library.

I hear you can take on multiple mobs with sufficient maneuvering in Asheron's Call, but I never saw that.  Course', when I first started playing Asheron's Call was a rubber banding wreck most of the time.   I've been back once or twice (for a long time Everquest, Asheron's Call, and Ultima Online were the "big three" and I had ample opportunity to burn out from Everquest before that stopped being the case) but other than some cunning things I could do with archery and weapon swapping, I never managed to work in more interaction.

I'm more under the belief that AC's main points of popularity had to do with it simply being different from Everquest along with the seamless environment and clean interface being refreshing.    That wasn't enough for me: I wanted complex game mechanics.