Will there ever be a good, fun Sci-FI MMO?

[Riggswolfe]

I know some of you like Eve but I lasted all of 45 minutes before I said to hell with it. SWG, we all know how that turned out in the end. AO is kind of fun but seems to be missing a certain...something. The Matrix, no good.

I'd love a sci-fi MMO that successfully mixed space action with a fun ground game of some kind. Does anyone know of anything on the horizon? Or something out now?

Also...cyberpunk. I'd love a good cyberpunk MMO. The closest I ever got to the feel was either AO or Neocron (which sucked).

[Mesozoic]

Is Tabula Rasa still Sci-FI?  Or did that become something else entirely in the rework?

[Riggswolfe]

My impression is it has become some sort of Sci-fi/Fantasy all-in-one kind of game though I may be wrong. I just found myself browsing the Neocron 2.1 website out of total desperation.

http://ng.neocron.com/index.php?id=1

[HaemishM]

Well, there's SG-1. And Star Trek Online. And that new NCSOft project by some ex-SWG guys that's kind of rumored to be Wing Commander Online-esque.

So, in answer to your question, NO.

[kaid]

A wing commander like universe could be good or it could be earth and beyond and I will cry in my rootbeer again.

kaid

[Fargull]

Firefly online please.

[Riggswolfe]

Well, there's SG-1. And Star Trek Online.

Neither of which I have much faith in. STO could be interesting if they can incorporate some kind of space battles in it but I doubt it. You'll be Red Shirt #7 on the USS Generic. SG-1...nah.

And that new NCSOft project by some ex-SWG guys that's kind of rumored to be Wing Commander Online-esque.

So, in answer to your question, NO.

Wing Commander Online-esque could rock. However, being done by Ex-SWG means they have a lot to prove before I give them a chance.

[Riggswolfe]

...

[SnakeCharmer]

Firefly online please.

One can dream, can't they?

THAT is a game I would LOVE to see.

[Riggswolfe]

Sorry for the bizarre quote of my own post. I'm not even sure how it happened.

[schild]

Yea, Firefly online would work.

....


Wait, no it wouldn't, at all.

[heck]

Firefly online please.

One can dream, can't they?

THAT is a game I would LOVE to see.

Yes, if there would be a way to get all Whedon fans into one spot, then I could avoid that spot.  Please make this game!  

I haven't given up on Star Trek online yet.  It could very well be crap like everyone likes to predict, but who knows.  It's still at least a year away, isn't it?

[Strazos]

Hey, how is Neocron? I had read some stuff about it years ago, before it was released.

Someone should do a sort of min-review on it. Is it crap, or Planetside with a radioactive aftertaste?

Inquiring minds demand to know!

[Hoax]

Neocron has a grind before you can actually aim your gun, even though it is fps.  I never got past the disgust of realizing that.  Oh and back at launch the ui+community+in-game help made for an even more painfull experience then figuring out how to play Face of Mankind.

I had always planned to do a brief write-up of the failed innovation attempt semi-indy MMO's but GunzOnline was so good I stopped switching from game to game and then I took a break and now EvE owns my soul so that idea is shelved for good.

[Fargull]

Yea, Firefly online would work.

....


Wait, no it wouldn't, at all.

I really need to find you a Josh doll.

[schild]

What, so I can pull a string on his back and he can tell me that it "wasn't a complete world, that there'd be no interesting classes, and that no one should make this into a game."? There's only about 500 other licenses that would make for a more cohesive and complete world. Firefly might make a decent SP game, but it'd be about as bad as Cowboy Bebop would be for an MMOG. Of course, it helps that Firefly is simply a poor man's Cowboy Bebop.

[Fargull]

Ha.   :-D

Actually, I just have a hard time looking at a larger SCI-FI universe in a MMOG sense.  Battletech would probably be the best universe; or maybe Dune might be interesting, but Star Trek just leaves a big ?  Firefly had a condensed universe and was at the point in time where not much had been pushed forward on the technical side.  I liked the political sphere of the recent domance of the Alliance and the fact that the outer rim basically was the slum of the inner core.  I just don't have a good alternative.  I have not played EVE, but I liked Privateer over Wing Commander.  The only hold up I really have with EVE is I don't want a ship as an avatar.

[schild]

Since when does sci-fi have to have anything to do with Space? Or do you want a space MMOG and you're just using Sci-Fi as a setting?

[Fargull]

Naw, does not have to do with space, but in general the genre does end up there.  Cyberpunk is classified as Sci-Fi in my mind.  What do you want to see?

[Stormwaltz]

Firefly would be better than, say, BSG - which I've also heard pitched as an MMG. Firefly has the virtures of multiple worlds, interesting culture, and multiple, interesting enemies. Reavers, Alliance, mafia... There's worlds of difference between Adlai Niska, Badger, and Patience. Plus there could be some interesting play with the concept of "find a ship, find a crew, keep flying." Move up from an indie operator hiring on for contracts (LFG) to owning your own ship, getting a bigger ship, eventually running your own crime syndicate / merc outfit / shipping company / what have you.

I'd hit it. Hell, if the BioAustin office decided to pick that up, I might even another shot at working on an MMG (the last two left me feeling a tad bit negative).

[Hoax]

Shit, I get called idealistic?

Multiple worlds are a LONG fucking way off from being a non-suck reality unless we're talking Blizzard levels of funding and competence (perhaps even extra competence) + a level of vision and commitment we've never really seen.

Lets apply the KISS rule and think of some settings that dont require you to have a viable ground game + a viable space-sim + a huge amount of real estate, gameplay freedom and environmental variety.

Battletech:
Could work, in the vein of Planetside, but when do you set it?  During the established timeline and let players re-write history?  Surely not in the bastardized bullshit Mechs with buzzsaws Wizkids timeline where all FTL communication has been severed.  As much as I want it I dont think this is an ideal MMO setting.  Your going to have a host of npc faction population imbalances (how many people will be playing House Marik compared to House Davion I mean really), it could be done but it really wouldn't even remotely resemble anything we call a MMO today.

ShadowRun:
This is an established IP I'd champion, and I hate this whole established IP trend a great deal.  The setting is familiar and nowhere near as grandiose as some of the ideas being tossed around.  But we've got several big steps away from the vanilla fantasy we're used to while still making elf boobies available to the legions of MMO gamers whose first lover within the medium was World of Warcraft.  I will be surprised if this license isn't used or at least attempted to be used in the next 5 years.

I'm looking forward to when more obscure novels are drawn for settings of games.  Or shit, here's a thought invent your own world you fuckers.  Instead of compromising elements of an existing world, not to mention taking on all its baggage while you try to shoehorn it into a game.

[Stormwaltz]

Multiple worlds are a LONG fucking way off from being a non-suck reality unless we're talking Blizzard levels of funding and competence (perhaps even extra competence) + a level of vision and commitment we've never really seen.

Dude. All I was doing was comparing it as a concept to BSG, where all you'd ever see is the monotonous insides of ships. Unless you set it on Caprica. Which is kind of like setting an LOTR game in the Easterling lands.

Being able to show some diversity of environment keeps the player interested. I get real tired of seeing cityscapes in CoX.

[Nebu]

I'd be elated with one good MMO.  Setting would matter little.

[WayAbvPar]

ShadowRun:
This is an established IP I'd champion, and I hate this whole established IP trend a great deal.

Amen. I cringe when I think about it though, since it would never come close to the awesome game I can see in my mind's eye.

Car Wars could be considered Sci-Fi in the post apocalyptic Fallout sense. Still really like to see that done right. Something like the BF1942/2 sort of combat mechanics, where you can enter and exit vehicles, fire weapons as a pedestrian, etc.

[Gutboy Barrelhouse]

"I am the Nightrider. I'm a fuel injected suicide machine. I am the rocker, I am the roller, I am the out-of-controller!"

"It was like slow motion. He leaves his seat and goes through the windshield, headfirst straight into the tree, right? And then bounces back through the windshield. And by the time we got to him, he was just sitting there, trying to scream with his face ripped off."


Come on it would be perfect to have a Mad Max MMO. If done right of course.

[Big Gulp]

Come on it would be perfect to have a Mad Max MMO. If done right of course.

Except that the entire game would be populated with giant muscle dudes in hockey masks, with a smattering of feral children here and there.

[Gutboy Barrelhouse]

But you have a good and evil side for PvP, crafters can try to find/repair stuff. Explorers can try to find petrol supplys. Modify cars and trucks into killing machines. And there were more than just "giant muscle dudes" for characters. Fun times if I do say so. 

[chinslim]

What we're waiting for is the Starcraft MMO.  Imagine: Terran and Protoss as playable races and potentially as cooperative and/or competing sides.  The Zerg will be the common enemy to both.  The dynamics could be interesting.

[schild]

What you're waiting for is a Starcraft MMOG. I don't want WoW in Space. I want Starcraft 2.

[Akkori]

Shadowrun and BattleTach would both be cool. I would probably pick Shadowrun though. BattleTech is pretty damn big, and the burden of mutiple planets/environments would be hard I bet. They could probably make a MechWarrior MMO though. There has been a couple single player games already. You basically just live in your mech... think EVE on the ground. But Shadowrun would be interesting. You got those who want to be Deckers, then Merc's, or Suits... cybernetics... Sorta like Matric Online meets GTA meets COH?

[WindupAtheist]

ShadowRun

Fucking yes.  This is the MMO my brother and I have been pining for, the concept that got some spontaneous  "Hell yeah!" from UO guildies when I brought it up in Ventrilo during a conversation about what games we'd like to see.

[Venkman]

I'd like a space MMO, not some other cyberpunk excuse for Massive Incorporated. I want space. Spaceships, space stations, asteroids, aliens, wierd politics and religious beliefs clashing with commerce and freelancers, all that thing. The ground would be something to visit occasionally, and optionally. I want to be born in space, and be able to walk around my ship.

SWG JTL meets Eve, with some story and purpose not entirely managed by the whim of other players.

I wouldn't want BSG though. Not yet. The new IP has not yet been nearly fleshed out enough. Any attempt to make a licensed BSG MMOG would be restricted to two seasons of limited tools: refugees in a few dozen space ships only once taking the fight to the enemy (twice if you consider the trap) and a few castaways waiting to be picked up on Caprica. 12 hours of patrols with 12 hours sleeping is not fun. When the series has a few years, maybe a movie, and a dozen or so paperbacks to flesh out backstory, multiple worlds, maybe a few other ragtag fugitive fleets on a lonely quest the Galactica doesn't know about, then maybe.

And no to Starcraft MMO. It couldn't be in space because the RTS wasn't. And unless I missed something from the summer I gave a shit, Starcraft was little more than a creatively remixed Warcraft II.

[gimpyone]

I believe Front Mission Online is coming to the States soonish.

[Megrim]

And no to Starcraft MMO. It couldn't be in space because the RTS wasn't. And unless I missed something from the summer I gave a shit, Starcraft was little more than a creatively remixed Warcraft II.

Wha, wha, whaaaaaa?!


Also, re Stormwaltz:

Evrything you have mentioned is already featured in EVE, with the exception being that you can not have multiple people crewing one ship. Other than that, they have a pretty darn broad set of gameplay posibilities.



* Edit:

Mind you, i would kill for a Cyberpunk 2020 game world. Of course, i see it as more of a Nevewinter Nights-esque multi module system, with groups linking up for the completion of various objectives, rather than the traditional "grind grind grind little piggy" crap. And also, there WAS a good BattleTech mmo that EA had in brief beta before they characteristically killed it. And yes, Marik was outnumbered 043968309863-79872-972960orjgq85jyw9 to 1.

[Lantyssa]

There actually was a BattleTech game being made, although EA shut it down during beta.  It was fun, not awesome but fun, and more true to the table-top game than the Microsoft adaptions.