So. What's BioWare's MMO?

[SnakeCharmer]

Rumors?

Timeframe?

[Soln]

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.

[WindupAtheist]

SWG 2!!1!! omfg!!

[Stormwaltz]

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.

[Riggswolfe]

SWG 2!!1!! omfg!!

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.

[SnakeCharmer]

SWG 2!!1!! omfg!!

If any company could do a Star Wars mmo right it'd be Bioware.

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?

[WayAbvPar]

Skill sets, not level.

What he said.

[stray]

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.

[SnakeCharmer]

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.

[Morfiend]

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.

[Technocrat]

*Yawn*

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

[stray]

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.

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.

[Driakos]

My guess is Dune.

Wouldn't be so bad would it?

[WindupAtheist]

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

[Merusk]

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

[schild]

"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.

[Trippy]

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

So it's licensed?

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

[schild]

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

So it's licensed?

"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.

[Engels]

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.

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.

[schild]

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

[Engels]

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.

[schild]

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.

[Venkman]

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).

[Trippy]

Yea, lots of Dune fans. Great. How many of them want to play MMOGs? Why wouldn't they play WoW?

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.

[Venkman]

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

winning a PvP BG doesn't gain anything for the winning side

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.

[schild]

You never ever ever get what you envision. Ever.

[Trippy]

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

winning a PvP BG doesn't gain anything for the winning side

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.

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

[Signe]

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

[Mr. Right]

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? Sting  Comeon. Who would be stupid enough to fund that shit? I want to know. I have a bridge to sell them.

Fixed.

[SnakeCharmer]

My guess is Dune.

Wouldn't be so bad would it?

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...

[stray]

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.

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.

[hal]

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.

[schild]

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

[Signe]

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.

[stray]

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.