E3 2010: Will a Browser-Based Battlestar Galactica MMOG Work?
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
I'm not an MMO fan, but I do love me some BSG, and no subscription fees sound good to me. I'm hoping it turns out great and can't wait to try it out.
EDIT: 3000th post! I shall celebrate!
<img height=200>http://www.weeklyreader.com/readandwriting/content/binary/celebration6_2.jpg
EDIT: 3000th post! I shall celebrate!
<img height=200>http://www.weeklyreader.com/readandwriting/content/binary/celebration6_2.jpg
If it lacks a decent simulation of zero-G physics, I'm not even going to touch it.
The main reason why the BSG space combat scenes are my favourites are the pretty realistic (not perfect, but still) useage of zero-G physics, being able to turn on the spot and all that. So much better than just making aerial dogfights in space, that's just a waste of using space as a battlefield.
And to feel like you're a true Viper jocky, BSG Online neeeeeeds zero-G physics.
The main reason why the BSG space combat scenes are my favourites are the pretty realistic (not perfect, but still) useage of zero-G physics, being able to turn on the spot and all that. So much better than just making aerial dogfights in space, that's just a waste of using space as a battlefield.
While it counts for some parts (as Star Trek is, for quite a big part, about exploring the unknown regions of the universe) I must say that the ship combat felt absolutely brilliant. I was in a role-playing group for a while, and doing missions with them was just so incredibly awesome. The brilliant sound effects (notably the voice that updates your status, damage and all that) helped a lot too, I truly felt like I was in a Star Trek show.Greg Tito said:
And to feel like you're a true Viper jocky, BSG Online neeeeeeds zero-G physics.
Sounds like an epic fail waiting to happen.
I thought the "new" Battlestar Galactica was pretty good too, but one thing to understand is that the show is character driven. It's a drama more than anything. There was very little action in it overall, and what action you saw was gritty in a way that is kind of anti-thetical to most gameplay.
What's more there really isn't much of a world setting here. Sure there is a backstory, but a lot of the details are intentionally glossed over. What's more a lot of very stupid and nonsensical things are done by all sides of the BSG universe simply to provide drama. I'm not going to harp on it, but let's just say that like many things that made good books, movies, or TV shows, this is not something that I think can translate well into a PnP RPG (it was tried), computer game, or other media.
A point to consider is that part of the atmosphere is that there are so few people left. It's a bad climate for "untold stories" or heroes that were off doing other things, because anyone who was competant enough to be an RPG player character, or the protaganist of a video game or whatever, would logically have been a factor in key parts of the show where they were literally tapping every resource they had. You can't just start tossing out Ace pilots, and Rambo-like space marines left and right.
What's more the show designers didn't even have clear concepts of weaponry and relative capabilities of the factions. It varied entirely based on what they wanted to happen. For example you had Helo walking around on earth ambushing and killing Centurians with hand weapons. Later a handfull of Centurians get on board The Galactica itself and are basically ripping through the crew like they are nothing, with weapons suddenly becoming totally ineffective despite the fact that they were now conceptually dealing with Marines, as opposed to one downed pilot with a sidearm.
A weak explanation was mentioned off handedly about the types of ammo being used, but that made no sense that a pilot would be carrying some kind of hyper-HEAP rounds for a sidearm, yet responding squads of marines presumably with assault weapons would not have the same stuff, or better.
No TV show or ongoing science fiction concept is going to remain total consistincy (people pick on it all the time) but this was worse than most, especially given the planning that apparently went into it ahead of time, compared to shows which might have dozens of differant writers at times, and have their fate in more jeopardy season to season than something that was apparently planned out from day #1.
So basically, what is this game going to have you do? It looks like your supposed to be flying fighters and such, but really there wouldn't be enough pilots to make it an MMO since they wound up having to literally scrape up and tolerate drug addicts and such. The only reason why a couple of major characters weren't executed was the sheer lack of capable personell.
All this rambling aside, the bottom line is that I think it's a bad intellectual property to mine. It will lose everything that made it cool IMO. If they want to develop a space fighter combat game or whatever, they should develop their own property from scratch. Stamping "Battlestar Galactica" on it is not going to do the franchise any credit.
I thought the "new" Battlestar Galactica was pretty good too, but one thing to understand is that the show is character driven. It's a drama more than anything. There was very little action in it overall, and what action you saw was gritty in a way that is kind of anti-thetical to most gameplay.
What's more there really isn't much of a world setting here. Sure there is a backstory, but a lot of the details are intentionally glossed over. What's more a lot of very stupid and nonsensical things are done by all sides of the BSG universe simply to provide drama. I'm not going to harp on it, but let's just say that like many things that made good books, movies, or TV shows, this is not something that I think can translate well into a PnP RPG (it was tried), computer game, or other media.
A point to consider is that part of the atmosphere is that there are so few people left. It's a bad climate for "untold stories" or heroes that were off doing other things, because anyone who was competant enough to be an RPG player character, or the protaganist of a video game or whatever, would logically have been a factor in key parts of the show where they were literally tapping every resource they had. You can't just start tossing out Ace pilots, and Rambo-like space marines left and right.
What's more the show designers didn't even have clear concepts of weaponry and relative capabilities of the factions. It varied entirely based on what they wanted to happen. For example you had Helo walking around on earth ambushing and killing Centurians with hand weapons. Later a handfull of Centurians get on board The Galactica itself and are basically ripping through the crew like they are nothing, with weapons suddenly becoming totally ineffective despite the fact that they were now conceptually dealing with Marines, as opposed to one downed pilot with a sidearm.
A weak explanation was mentioned off handedly about the types of ammo being used, but that made no sense that a pilot would be carrying some kind of hyper-HEAP rounds for a sidearm, yet responding squads of marines presumably with assault weapons would not have the same stuff, or better.
No TV show or ongoing science fiction concept is going to remain total consistincy (people pick on it all the time) but this was worse than most, especially given the planning that apparently went into it ahead of time, compared to shows which might have dozens of differant writers at times, and have their fate in more jeopardy season to season than something that was apparently planned out from day #1.
So basically, what is this game going to have you do? It looks like your supposed to be flying fighters and such, but really there wouldn't be enough pilots to make it an MMO since they wound up having to literally scrape up and tolerate drug addicts and such. The only reason why a couple of major characters weren't executed was the sheer lack of capable personell.
All this rambling aside, the bottom line is that I think it's a bad intellectual property to mine. It will lose everything that made it cool IMO. If they want to develop a space fighter combat game or whatever, they should develop their own property from scratch. Stamping "Battlestar Galactica" on it is not going to do the franchise any credit.
still waiting for that perfect space mmo... taikodom almost delivered but asked for a monthly fee AND premium items.. greedy...
this might be it.
(just for the record i'm ok with f2p games that have premium items OR a sub based game with no premium shop... one or the other, NOT both)
this might be it.
(just for the record i'm ok with f2p games that have premium items OR a sub based game with no premium shop... one or the other, NOT both)
