So. What's BioWare's MMO?

[SnakeCharmer]

But Firefly isn't the best property in the world to make an MMG out of. It has cult recognition, not household recognition.

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. 

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?

[Rithrin]

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?
[/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.

[UnSub]

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.

[stray]

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.

[Soln]

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.

[schild]

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.

[squirrel]

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.

[Signe]

I would absolutely play Santa Claus Online.

[Arrrgh]

I would absolutely play Santa Claus Online.

I'm sick of elves.

[Signe]

I would put up with elves for presents.

[Morfiend]

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.

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.

[Roac]

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.

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.

[Slyfeind]

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.

[Yegolev]

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

I'd also pick Bilbo.

[5150]

CTHULHU ONLINE

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 

[Riggswolfe]

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.

[HaemishM]

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.

[brian]

Judging by comments made 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

[Soln]

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  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.

[Yegolev]

I bet the Spelljammer license is cheap.

[Morfiend]

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.

[Riggswolfe]

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.

[brian]

I bet the Spelljammer license is cheap.

That could be quite interesting. Let root for planescape though.

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 Online!   :-D

- Brian

[Righ]

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."

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.

Yes, Fox was really out to get that show it seemed.

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?

[Rasix]

Yes, Fox was really out to get that show it seemed.

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

[Riggswolfe]

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.

[Miasma]

Mandatory cancelled Fox shows link.

[Furiously]

Night of the living dead Online!

[stray]

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).

[HaemishM]

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.

[Trippy]

Yes, Fox was really out to get that show it seemed.

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?

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.

[Trippy]

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.

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

[schild]

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

[brian]

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

[schild]

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