MMO Adaptation Will Ruin What You Love About Your Favorite Franchise

[Fdzzaigl]

Agreed.

I'm not against MMO's like Yahzee usually is, in fact I've spent most of my gaming hours in MMO's the last few years (and way too much at that). However, trying to cram an existing franchise into an MMO just doesn't work. They're completely different beasts that rely far more on player interaction to tell a storyline than on dialogue and pre-determined content.

MMO's should rise to be games of their own, with settings that are developed to suit their playstyle. That way they'll actually be able to innovate as well, instead of just cramming existing settings into a format that doesn't fit it.

The big exception would be WoW I guess. But I'd argue that WoW was actually fit to be turned into an MMO. Blizzard used the WC3 engine to build that game, the same items & heroes systems were already in place before in WC3 as well. So WoW did actually end up being "a world full of warcraft" (with a good deal of copying EQ1).

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

i disagree, some things can NEVER be interesting, like that dead island MOBA

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Having only a 360 for gaming and a need to experiment with an MMO for the first time...lead me to Defiance. Only managed 2 episodes and 3 on-off weeks of play. At least it was subscription free i guess, that could've been interesting.

Is guild wars coming to xbox? I have heard mixed things.

 

[Product Placement]

MMO Adaptation Will Ruin What You Love About Your Favorite Franchise

This is so true. After playing through the entire Legacy of Kain series, I wanted to see how the story would conclude. Seeing how they kinda left you in a bitter-sweet/cliffhanger position, I didn't expect that they would completely halt further production on the franchise and gave up on the idea of sequels, several years later.

Now, more then 10 years later, I find out it's getting the MMO treatment. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosgoth]

 

[fix-the-spade]

Honestly, why does everything need to be an MMO? Isn't like, every MMO but WoW a failure these days?

It's fair to say that every one that tried to beat WoW by being just like it has died an abysmal whimpering death, unloved and unmourned.

However, both Planetside and Planetside 2 are alive and kicking, both Guild wars and now two Final Fantasy MMOs are ticking away (hell, FFXI is the most profitable Final Fantasy game Square has ever made!). There's plenty of space for MMOs.

I have to admit I love Planetside 2 and it's giant game of Battlefield. That's where SOE really nailed it, minimal fannying about with fetch quests or 'epic' plot lines, it's just a massive game of conquest where the control points are everything and the teams are everyone. That's how you make an MMO, build a game for everyone to play together at once, anything else (including Elder Scrolls) seem to miss the point.

 

[RandV80]

Why always an MMO? Using a term from the mobile games industry, I get the impression that MMO's essentially rely on whale-lites. Case in point consider the FF series. FFX sold 8 million copies on the PS2, and FFXI... hard to get a concrete number down, but it's below a million and long term wise less than 500,000 subscribers. Selling 500,000 units is a far cry from 8,000,000, but when those 500k are spending $15 a month for potentially multiple years, plus buying the numerous expansions that get released, and you end up making far more money off the much smaller MMO group. And for someone who likes the single player games, it really really sucks. Just look at Square-Enix now, how much effort they're putting into FFXIV to please less than a million fans while setting aside the next single player release that would please 10 million.

In terms of pro sports they're kind of like season ticket holders, where single player gamers are like single ticket purchasers. There's probably only about 10-15 million MMO players on the market, but they're willing to spend so much more money on a single game that everyone in the financial side of gaming wants a piece of them.

 

[Flammablezeus]

"But in that case, why was DC Universe Online so crap?"

Well, comics characters are often differentiated by their personalities and power sets. In MMOs, character personality tends to go out the window immediately, so that wasn't really the issue. It was the powers. Each power set is the same thing, re-skinned. The only difference is the colour of the powers. On top of that, EVERYBODY gets a power specifically for travel, which doesn't improve at all apart from a single upgrade you can unlock early on. Plus, there are only three of these travel powers to choose from. Basically, in a game genre and established universe both renowned for the sheer variety of characters, SOE decided to make every character the same thing.

Edit: Have to add the lack of Australian servers. For a game based around real-time action gameplay, not having local servers was a horrendous idea. It's impossible to fight a player who lives in the US, because you don't get to attempt to dodge their attack until a second after they've hit you with it.

 

[Norithics]

If you can't change the actual story that over-arcs, then you have to let the players make their own. The original incarnation of Star Wars Galaxies tried this, and by many accounts did surprisingly well before the powers that be decided to gut it to try and get that WoW dollar.

 

[Something Amyss]

So an MMO where everyone dies? I'd pay 15 bucks a month for that.

Also, I'm inclined to think DCU was a bad game because it was a bad game in itself, not so much because comics and MMOs can't mix.

 

[deathmothon]

I felt like last weeks EP was based on a weak premise/phoned in, and I said as much. This week was a much stronger premise and you can tell he actually believes in it. Don't let the grind drag you down Yahtzee.

 

[AtheistConservative]

I think the biggest issue most MMO's have is that they try to make the player feel unique and special in a world populated with other players. The second issue is that in most MMO's, there is no possible endgame other than 100% completion. I don't think either of these are necessary and combined with a good setting, a great MMO can be made.

For example: TES Skyrim. In addition to all the caves and ruins, you have naturally occurring boss monsters to kill. If instead of telling the player they are the DRAGON BORN, make them just be some shmoe. They can run about independently, or join with the Imperials or the Stormcloaks. Occasionally roving bands of Stormcloaks would come across imperial detachments.You could have a fluid war situation. And if you allowed one side to win on a server, there would actually be an end game in mind.

 

[StriderShinryu]

The concept of an open space for roleplaying within a moderated and designed space is actually something that would fit perfectly with a pretty large number of properties, including Game of Thrones. The problem with most MMOs, however, is that they almost always try to use the same formula and that formula is almost completely against what would and should work. In other words, it's not an MMO that wouldn't work, it's the typical WoW style MMO formula that doesn't work.

An MMO like Eve creates more of an open playground for players themselves to make their own stories. An MMO like the unfortunately mishandled Matrix Online also worked very well because, while the story itself was fairly linear in it's main structure, the regular interaction with live action storyline characters and constant progress in the story itself allowed for player character stories to move forward and for the world itself to develop. Either of these formats could fit very well with a Game of Thrones MMO.

 

[Ferisar]

I was going to bring up Warcraft Pre-WoW as an example while reading the article, but you already nailed that one. I remember visibly wrenching when I learned that Illidan, who used to be the closest thing to a protagonist in Warcraft 3, became a raid boss that hundreds of people would line up to shit on each and every day.

As an avid fanboy of Illidan, he wasn't ever a protagonist. We got to play him for one mission in RoChaos and for half the elven campaign in the expansion. Illidan never existed to serve in expressing player agency, since he was more often driven by his own goals (most of which aren't relatable). His descent into cray-land in WoW wasn't too weird and it made sense given his character progression, but executed rather poorly. I do agree, though, that him becoming a raid boss and just dying to Maiev Crazysong could have been done better, but really, familiarizing the players with who Illidan actually was would have probably gone the longest way. WoW has gone the way of retcons now-a-days where people like Cenarius have come back without more than a shrug, which is really annoying. It makes the world all fluffy and weightless.

Ha, I had almost the exact opposite reaction when I learnt that Arthas Menthir was a killable boss in WoW. Honestly the only reason I could ever think to start playing WoW myself would be for the pleasure of killing that unbearably obnoxious little douchebag. Argh, the memories I have of him in Warcraft 3...

You'll be happy to know that he remains a huge dicknurp throughout Wrath of the Lich King and his raid/boss fight is/are very excellent. What a fantastic expansion.

OT:
MMO's of established properties are arguably the best way to make an MMO, so I don't know if I can share the sentiment here. WoW would not have been as big and prominent at its release if the Warcraft universe wasn't steadily moving toward a bigger and bigger scale with many notable characters. It was getting weird sticking them into small figurines on an isometric plane that shouted exposition while bobbing up and down (despite it being awesome). Regardless of whatever stigmas "MMOifying" stuff brings, I don't think it's anywhere near that bad, assuming it's done right.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Well, I maintain that MMOs is where fun goes to die.
The needs of the genre just suck all the fun out of it for me...the grind, the largely fake social aspect, the not-so-impressive feat of cramming 10000 people into one world we we all do the same thing til the end of time.

I gave a slew of MMORGPs a go a few years back; but instead of this awe-inspiring experience everyone kept banging on about (depth, scale, exploration), I found gobs of digital sweatshops where people are trained to mine for fake resources forever just at the merest hint of feeling a sense of accomplishment (but don't you DARE automate the process like any sane human being! That's cheating!)

It's to the point where I'd be so bold as to write off the entire genre as an elaborate count-to-infinity.

Even the "emergent gameplay wunderkin" that is EVE Online turned out to just be a big prolonged microcosm of economics, politics and backstabbing (the kind of shit I play games to get AWAY from).

 

[duchaked]

I'd take an RPG (throw in some optional co-op if need be, I'm down) over an MMO :/ hence why I was rather disappointed when they were like STAR WARS THE OLD REPUBLIC...but an MMO gahh

 

[faefrost]

Everquest Next is about the only MMO I have any hope for, and that only because it looks like they're trying to move away from the whole static theme-park approach. I have some friends who keep trying to convince me to get on ESO because "It's not like any other MMO," but everything I've seen on it points to it just being another same-old grind with slightly different combat and art design.

See, the only way you could make a good Game of Thrones MMO would be for all characters to have PERMADEATH. Good luck trying to get that past the suits.

While I agree with you to a degree, this would be hard to implement, since one of the primary reasons people get offed in GoT is to keep them from spilling your secrets and plots.

So let's say you're some high lord in King's Landing, and you're planning to assassinate some prick you don't like. But then this other guy finds out about your plan and threatens to squeal, so now you have to kill him. Once that character is dead, you can scheme in peace... for five minutes as the player rolls a new character and PM's the guy you were gonna assassinate.

See, exchange of information is key for player-driven games. In Westeros, information can only ever travel as fast as a raven can fly or a messenger can ride. But in an mmo, information moves at the speed of instant messages and Skype calls. What people know or don't know about the actions of other characters is integral to the intrigue of GoT, so having players who are able to communicate instantly from across the map, or retain knowledge from previous characters, would make it nearly impossible to simulate.

There would be no "PMs." You would only be able to speak to people in sight. But maybe someone is hiding in a hallway nearby, listening....

Of course, this doesn't prevent out of band communication, but that only ramps up the paranoia even more. Are they talking behind our backs? That IS just a bot in our vent channel, right?

And who are you going to trust with your contact information.....?

One MMO actually managed to accomplish this feet of only nearby or LOS communications. Albeit unintentionally. Asherons Call 2, shortly after its release when its crapy experimental Microsoft Chat Server system imploded and remained broken for months. You could only chat with people in your immediate area. It killed the game. It never recovered.

 

[Ferisar]

One MMO actually managed to accomplish this feet of only nearby or LOS communications. Albeit unintentionally. Asherons Call 2, shortly after its release when its crapy experimental Microsoft Chat Server system imploded and remained broken for months. You could only chat with people in your immediate area. It killed the game. It never recovered.

The game has to revolve around mechanics like that. If WoW came without a more global way of communication, it would also be crippled. From the sound of it, that MMO had more problems than just its broken chat system.

captcha: ear candy

 

[Fasckira]

I'd like to take this opportunity to state that if you have not yet tried tabletop roleplaying, you should seriously consider this as an alternative to MMOs. Get yourself a good GM, a like-minded group of players and a system you all enjoy and say goodbye to fall-short MMOs!