Wither the MMOFPS?

[GordonFawx]

Now, before we get too far in I'd like to point something out. The only large scale MMOFPS' to date (World War 2 Online and Planetside) are out of date and have miniscule and shrinking playerbases. These games were, in their time, revolutionary and their slow, agonizing deaths due to poor management and a lack of proper updates have only served to really discourage people looking into the genre.

This leaves me with a question; why did the MMOFPS get abandoned so fast while other genres have blossomed?

Certainly I argue it isn't technical limitations; as the makers of Global Agenda claim. The internet is much faster and more reliable than ever, even here in Canada *glares at Rogers and Bell* and processing power has become ridiculously cheap.

Subject matter isn't hard to come by; massive conflicts have raged for most of organized humanity, we have two world wars, and even Sony has proven that you can make a reasonable MMO based on Science Fiction principles, even if they did later horribly botch it with a wave of successive design teams.

I suppose one could argue that the MMOFPS, brought to a strategic level, essentially divorces the creators from creating a plot. People take events into their own hands, players rise as generals and the game becomes both very predictable and very chaotic; something a lot of players seem to hate as well; especially the "professionals".

Your thoughts? And thoughts on what might make a good MMOFPS; one that truly operates on the strategic level.

 

[SinisterDeath]

The Agency.

 

[GordonFawx]

Don't think it's an inherent problem with the genre, I guess companies are just too lazy to forge their own paths.

MMOFPS sounds kind of annoying though... Walking along, doing a quest, and then boom, headshot by a sniper standing a mile away. Snipers work in FPS games because there's other snipers to kill them but in an MMOFPS that's probably not going to be the case the majority of the time.

Actually you do bring up something, and I'm going to respond immediately to it.

Why do you need PvE in an MMO? I mean yes, most MMO's have had it, but both of my examples of "Dead" fps' didn't, and were quite successful for a long time.

Laziness, though, strikes me as not a bad explanation.

 

[Valiance]

MMOFPS is not dead.

Just wait for Huxley.

http://www.huxleygame.com/

It uses the UT3 engine, should be out soon.

 

[mattttherman3]

Immagine an MMOFPS where you could re-enact all of world war 1 and 2, or even a new war.

 

[GordonFawx]

edit:

Oh, you're probably refering to my mention of "quests". Still, unless you're travelling around in big bands of soldiers, you're probably not going to have a sniper on hand to deal with the hostile sniper. Unless that's the standard mode of transportation... I don't know, I've never played an MMOFPS before.

Yeah, yeah that was pretty much it. Questing was never a part of either Planetside or World War 2 Online (which has officially gone on longer than the actual second world war).

As for transport, Planetside had some good solutions; Aircraft (most people had certification to at least fly scouts, and every outfit had plenty of members that could fly Galaxy's or Lodestars, personelle and vehicle transports respectively.) and sub-orbital dropships made up the bulk of fast transport; with foot-races and what effectively passed for armed mini-cabs taking up the bulk of siege to siege transport on given continents; usually in packs large enough to make any attempt at lone-wolf sniping suicidal.

Regardless the game itself featured tones of varied gameplay, from tightly knit assault groups to the cathartic rush of the zerg; nipping into enemy continents; draining facilities so they went neutral and then trying to pull in enough people to spread out and take and hold gates was a major challenge; especially if you tried to do it with few enough people to alert the other team's command staff (or even an observant rookie looking for some place to make a few BEP refueling a facility that was running low on juice). Overall with enough challenge and variety that you could easily assign yourself your own quests without waiting for some Lazy NPC to tell you to go out and shoot people.

Edit: Yes, I know -of- Huxley, but it's been in development so long it's starting to wander down the Duke's garden path.

 

[Crystal Cuckoo]

I wouldn't mind a FPS version of World of Warcraft...
I'd play it. Although they'd have to balance the power of sniper's to those who don't...

 

[karpiel]

MMOFPS is not dead.

Just wait for Huxley.

http://www.huxleygame.com/

It uses the UT3 engine, should be out soon.

Huxley isn't really a big sandbox like Planetside was, though. No game is really an MMOFPS if it can't put out environments as big as any other game in the MMO genre.

 

[zirnitra]

The Agency.

Yep, wasn't that meant to be out before Christmas though? I remember looking forward to it and I haven't heard anything new about it in ages

 

[xDarc]

It's sad to say, but PlanetSide will be 6 years old in a few more months and it's been the only real definition of an MMOFPS to date.

Almost 6 years later and all we've got to show for is a Chinese PlanetSide knock-off (literally) and a couple of other wanna-be's, pseudo-MMOFPS games like Huxley and The Agency, on the way.

If you've ever had the chance to fly over one of PlanetSide's truely massive battles at the height of the game, unmolested with the chance to linger a bit and take in the view, you'd have known that this would be the next big thing in gaming.

You could see the how the battle lines formed around the natural terrain, foot soldiers hanging around the crests of hills and hiding behind obstacles. Dozens of them hustling along their positions. The broad open field in front of their line was a no-man's land as opposing soldiers were dug in across the way. Each side had it's own color of tracers and those red and blue trails would dance and zip from up and down the lines, back and forth across the field.

They might try to cross to the other side in a mad run through the fire, but the grassy plane would just as soon fill with their corpses and packs. Ground vehicles would arrive and their would be skirmishes in the field. The vehicluar fights would push the lines as most foot soldiers were easy pickings and would fall back or take cover and give up their ground. This was a scene that played out in battles from base to base across a respectably sized "continent" non-stop.

It wasn't FMV and it wasn't a gimmicky engine-trick. Everything you saw wasn't only there to interact with, but controlled by another player just like yourself. Why people are still intensely passionate by something a throw-back game like Halo 3 or Gears of War, pretty run of the mill shooters, is beyond me. So it comes as no surprise to me that I see others also frustrated or confused by the complete lack of progress in the past several years.

It's a damn good question. What the hell is gaming industry's problem?

Maybe they're too comfortable milking the copy and paste linear shooter for all it's worth as the end of the era. Maybe it's a combination of the PlanetSide's track record and SoE's stature in the industry. I mean to anyone with their head up their ass, seeing what was at the time the #1 MMO producer launch a game losing 90% of everyone to come through those "PlanetSide revolving-doors", in less than the first year, it may have caused them to think there was something wrong with MMOFPS.

There was nothing wrong with MMOFPS though, the problem was SoE's blatant neglect of the game. They didn't target a proper audience for it. They assumed their EQ bread-and-butter would keep it going or at least help justfiy the price of their all-access-pass without any marketing at all. Turns out MMORPG people dont much care for FPS games- go figure. They mismanaged it, released a shoddy expansion for it, made poor design decisions after release and gerally treated it like a red headeded step child.

If SoE expended as much effort on PlanetSide as they did reeling in millions on EverQuest, making it a house-hold name in MMO infancy, we would not be in the situation we are in today... Getting all excited at the next 64-man slow-paced Battlefield game. I hate Battlefield games because their "tactical" aspect comes off as dumbed-down FPS when you are a classically educated quake enthusiast- but god damn it that's all I've had to play for the past 3 years after fights in PlanetSide became no bigger.

 

[Avatar Roku]

The Agency.

I was gonna bring that up. The only MMO I'm even remotely interested in.

 

[MercurySteam]

I've always wanted a game kinda like Rappelz but with guns instead. I could play Tabula Rasa, but i dont wanna pay. Maybe i should suggest it to Gpotato............

 

[Jack and Calumon]

I agree. Why did the MMOFPS get abandoned so early? People are still trying to make MMORTS work, and I don't think it is.

The Agency.

I heard that was third person.

 

[Valiance]

MMOFPS is not dead.

Just wait for Huxley.

http://www.huxleygame.com/

It uses the UT3 engine, should be out soon.

Huxley isn't really a big sandbox like Planetside was, though. No game is really an MMOFPS if it can't put out environments as big as any other game in the MMO genre.

But Planetside isn't what a fast paced want in an FPS.

It's F/TPS that has a cone-of-fire system, a very painful class-based certification system that makes it impossible for new players to combat certain opponents, and with the "We ping the server every 2 seconds" way they have of keeping up with so many players, it gets relatively laggy which is bad for a FPS.

That doesn't make it a bad game, but it's a FPS that should have been marketed to RTS players.

Huxley will, yes, "only" have 100v100 battles. Maybe that will let them actually have low latency games. The powerups I've seen let you see through walls, see enemies on your radar, jump higher, get a slightly better version of the same gun, run a little faster on demand...Nothing that would stop a skilled player with less abilities beat a bad player with more abilities.

Huxley is a 'MMO' FPS game for Quake 3 fans, UT fans, etc.

I've always wanted a game kinda like Rappelz but with guns instead. I could play Tabula Rasa, but i dont wanna pay. Maybe i should suggest it to Gpotato............

Tabula Rasa is third person. Tabula Rasa is WoW in space with guns. If you don't believe me, go get it. It is FREE now. You can get it from their website for free, there is no monthly fee because it's shutting down at the end of February (not making enough money)...

 

[SinisterDeath]

I agree. Why did the MMOFPS get abandoned so early? People are still trying to make MMORTS work, and I don't think it is.

The Agency.

I heard that was third person.

No its first, if you watch the trailers, you can see actual gameplay...

 

[Trivun]

You have all broken rules 1 and 2.

[/thread]
[/sarcasm]

I haven't actually played any MMOFPS, mainly because I'm a cheapskate so don't play many MMO games. Can anyone here reccomend any decent free ones?

 

[Valiance]

You have all broken rules 1 and 2.

[/thread]
[/sarcasm]

I haven't actually played any MMOFPS, mainly because I'm a cheapskate so don't play many MMO games. Can anyone here reccomend any decent free ones?

I think the point is that no one can find -any- MMOFPS, let alone free ones.

(unless you mean free MMOs in which case you have plenty to choose from.)

 

[karpiel]

But Planetside isn't what a fast paced want in an FPS.

It's F/TPS that has a cone-of-fire system, a very painful class-based certification system that makes it impossible for new players to combat certain opponents, and with the "We ping the server every 2 seconds" way they have of keeping up with so many players, it gets relatively laggy which is bad for a FPS.

That doesn't make it a bad game, but it's a FPS that should have been marketed to RTS players.

Huxley will, yes, "only" have 100v100 battles. Maybe that will let them actually have low latency games. The powerups I've seen let you see through walls, see enemies on your radar, jump higher, get a slightly better version of the same gun, run a little faster on demand...Nothing that would stop a skilled player with less abilities beat a bad player with more abilities.

Huxley is a 'MMO' FPS game for Quake 3 fans, UT fans, etc.

I can empathize with that; Planetside, for all the things I liked about it, did not satisfy my inner Quake fan. Huxley may or may not deliver in that regard, but the fact that it isn't a non-instanced sandbox compromises its ability to be a real MMO in the modern sense. Regardless, it may be a neat large scale shooter with stats tracking or whatever, but then again it is a Korean game so I'm highly skeptical.

 

[Valiance]

My PC gamer magazine came today, and in it was an article about Global Agenda...

http://www.globalagendagame.com/

It looks sorta promising. How's anyone else feel about it?

It looks like a combination of, say, what Planetside II would have been, and what Tribes was. (And that's a good thing in my book)

 

[peduncle]

The Agency.

oh yea, i heard about that. is it good?