Readers’ Choice: Untapped MMO Genre
“The untapped genre of MMO with the highest potential, what is it?” - Sarymbo. Can I cop out and say that all genres have been tapped to some degree? No? Then I’ll give two answers instead. The first is the open world fantasy/sci-fi MMO. UO and SWG are both dated, and there are no mainstream titles of the same lineage out right now (EverQuest has WoW, UO never got a rightful heir). The second would be the MMOFPS. I believe there’s significant potential for the genre, and many FPSes are very close to MMO as it is. PlanetSide is dated, so it doesn’t fill this slot for me anymore.
Want me to comment on something here at Nerfbat? Ask/provoke me in the Readers’ Choice post.
Actually, PlanetSide 2 has been announced, and CCP is working on Dust 514, so at least the MMOFPS genre should perk up a bit. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Valve, ID or Epic had something up in their sleeves. Maybe not an actual MMOFPS title, but at least an engine of one.
I think Facebook games like Mafia Wars and Farm Town are introducing a people to a lot of MMO concepts that many have not seen before. I can see this opening the market to more of these kind of games, but with even more depth to the scale of your standard MMO. I wouldn’t consider most of these games fantasy, fps, or sci-fi. Maybe a life-realism category?
Or maybe an offshoot of a now-dead form of multiplayer: play-by-mail. Instead of BBSes or email, the game uses a social network to facilitate asynchronous gameplay. While I don’t care much about Zynga’s games, I could see myself playing a Master of Orion-style 4X game, where you would regenerate a certain number of action points per day and manage your interstellar empire by logging in every few days.
MMO isn’t a genre anymore, it’s a feature. Like ’3D’.
I wouldn’t mind seeing an MMO in a wild west setting. Perhaps a hybrid MMO FPS/RPG.
I played Ultima Online for 8 years, and I now play Darkfall Online. The combat in Darkfall is most certainly FPS, and the game itself follows the path UO set so many years ago.
Another game coming into the MMOFPS space is Global Agenda by Hi-rez studios. I haven’t played it, and I don’t know a ton about the game, but it is an FPS, with a persistent world and a monthly subscription model I believe.
http://www.globalagendagame.com/
Is Global Agenda an MMO? ( http://hi-rez.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/108/session/L3NpZC9zYVQ5Q0VQag== )
I’m not trying to sound like a shill for the game or anything, just providing information.
Global Agenda is an MMFPS that’s coming out.
Looks like GA was mentioned. oops.
Akil Hooper pointed out that the correct answers are Steampunk and Cyberpunk. Without changing my original post, go ahead and select one of those two and replace one of my original two.
I’ve always wanted to play Snow Crash the MMO.
Of course, WoW and the upcoming Allods Online (with it’s clockwork undead) partially cover the steampunk genre. The Azeroth of WoW is right at the point where technology is about to take off, and whatever the gnomes and goblins make would not look out-of place in.. say.. Arcanum. Personally, I’d love a Shadowrun or a Girl Genius MMO. Of course, the latter would have to have a very robust crafting system to do justice to the source material.