Truth in MMORPG Fads (warning: insulting rant)

[Tarryk]

take it with a grain of salt, people. i'm just getting it off my chest.

I see the AO forums. I see the history-repeating-itself factor. Same old crap, "AO's dying because (insert incredibly lame orcs-and-elves game here) is coming out soon!"

Let me clear up three points. These three points have transcended my opinion and lapsed into the realm of fact. If you do not believe them, you are dumb.

FACT 1
Fantasy settings are lame and dull. They are hideously limited, they offer the same regurgitated crap that all other fantasy games offer, and they bore me to tears. Orcs are dumb. Elves are dumb. Dragons got old shortly after the year 1353. Fantasy makes sane people gag on their own bile. JRR Tolkein is dead. Get over it.

FACT 2
Science Fiction is the future. It is the fantastic realm of what could possibly be. Cyberpunk is even moreso. Guns are cool, staffs are not. Implants are cool, spells are not.

FACT 3
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, even if you are the type who actually STILL likes the same old sword-and-sorcery crapola. I am entitled to my opinion that if that is the case, then you are brainwashed and need to pull yourself together.

All that being said, AO rocks, WoW sucks. I don't care if WoW cures cancer AND shows me the face of god, it's ORCS AND GOBLINS AND SWORDS AND *THROWS UP*. I'd rather play Super Mario Bros MMORPG for the rest of my days than spend another 5 minutes in the same piece of s*&% setting that's been 600 times more overused than the Star Wars franchise.

Now with all THAT being said, I can offer one exception, where I will reluctantly allow the fantasy crap to seep into my game and not complain about it.

Shadowrun. Cyberpunk at it's best, with just enough fantasy puke to keep the "Help I Was Brainwashed By EQ!" people happy.

Why isn't there a Shadowrun computer game or MMORPG?
Microsoft owns the computer game rights for Shadowrun, so it's in their hands. This means they make decisions regarding any Shadowrun computer games, MMORPGs and skins/modifications to existing computer games (computer game aids for the Shadowrun RPG are under the jurisdiction of WizKids/FanPro).
Microsoft has not announced any plans and has nothing in development at this time. If you have questions or queries, or you want to encourage them to develop a Shadowrun computer game, write to: shadowru@microsoft.com (no, that's not a typo--there's no "n" in that address).

Email sent. Help us, Microsoft. Bring us our salvation. These people playing regurgitated fish-puke dragons and long sword +1 games, they know not what they...erm...well...they know nothing whatsoever. But they can still be saved.

Bring us our Cyberpunk, bring us our Shadowrun. I shall not leaveth AO. But I shall play both with equaleth pride, and launcheth my spittle upon the heads of those who deny me....and whenever someone comes up to me with a +4 BroadSword Of Monster Destruction, I shall bloweth his cranium off with the explosive-tipped ammo in my fully automatic handgun. For in shadowrun settings, paladins get pwned and street mages wear body armor. Huzzah.

[Nexeus]

I would write a nice response back in how you are right and the faults in your argument Tarryk (there are a few but just like all arguments there are faults), and i would say "Well you know you can have a Sci-Fi/Fantasy MMO a combination of Camelot and Science Fiction at the same time") but then I would only end up returning to this one very logical train of thought...

The Matrix Online comes out in Janurary.

[Tarryk]

and i would say "Well you know you can have a Sci-Fi/Fantasy MMO a combination of Camelot and Science Fiction at the same time"

And I would ask you to read my entire post, not just the first half.

Yes, there are flaws. It's my opinion, and opinions are flawed, that's the way it goes.

[Mivat]

Quite an insightful post, Tarryk. Can't argue against it at all, as it's close to my own meanings about the issue.

With that being said: WTB a MMORPG based on the Pen & Paper-game SLA Industries. Now THERE'S Cyberpunk/Horror for you...

[Nexeus]

Hehe, yes I did read the full thing before posting. :-p

I was thinking more along the lines of (and I can't think of the series right now) a world in the future (post or pre apocolyptic) where elves and gnomes do exist but with high-tech armor and equipment. So you can be an Elvish-Urban City hunter and use a bow an arrow, but the bow is make out of titanium silver and the arrow has an electronic chip on the end that sends out an EMP wave on its decent.

[Tarryk]

I was thinking more along the lines of (and I can't think of the series right now) a world in the future (post or pre apocolyptic) where elves and gnomes do exist but with high-tech armor and equipment..

That's almost exactly what Shadowrun is, but without the bows and arrows silliness. It's urban-city near-future cyberpunk, but just after "the awakening" where a substantial percentage of the population turns into orcs, elves, etc; and magic comes back. But it retains it's futuristic settings, the equivalent of the D&D elvish archer would be a mohawked Elvish Street Mage sporting body armor, a trenchcoat and a double-barreled shotgun at his hip.

Oh-ho-ho...*shudder* I'm getting goosebumps. I need this MMO to happen.

[Maephina]

LOL! You have the wisdom of the ages.

AO has Dragons. Shoot them...they drop phat loot.
AO has Knights. They stand around and do jack S*** take a hint.
AO has Elves. You ever looked at the ears on an opifex? there you go. Lose the Spock ears clyde and by a rocket launcher.
AO Has dwarves. Thank you Omni tek for feeding them steroids and calling them "Atrox" oh..and making them "Epicine". Not like we need dwarves breeding.

[Tarryk]

LOL! You have the wisdom of the ages.

AO has Dragons. Shoot them...they drop phat loot.
AO has Knights. They stand around and do jack S*** take a hint.
AO has Elves. You ever looked at the ears on an opifex? there you go. Lose the Spock ears clyde and by a rocket launcher.
AO Has dwarves. Thank you Omni tek for feeding them steroids and calling them "Atrox" oh..and making them "Epicine". Not like we need dwarves breeding.

Fair enough, but it's the concept that I hate, not the implication. I'm immersion-based. The Elf-Orc-Dwarf fantasy is overdone, but ANY contemporary concept of good-versus-evil games can have parallels drawn to it. Fact is, Opi's are NOT elves, and Atrox are NOT dwarves. Nor do they even act the same, and they just barely have a hint of similarities. If I wanted to nitpick particulars, I could draw a parallel between Blade Runner and Lord of the Rings so that you'd think one ripped off the other.

It's all a matter of perception. Which is also why I say I will "accept" elves and orcs and whatnot, I just want the cyberpunk setting. The fantasy setting has my hurl-factor raised to insane proportions.

[Ashval]

*prefers fantasy anyday*



Fortunately for all who read these forums, I'm far too busy at work to type up an essay response. Further, I don't care to. LOL So, I shall spare you all my counter-rant filled with opinionated "facts" similar to the first post in this thread.

[Alexa [Bot]]

*prefers fantasy anyday*

I can't dislike someone for their preference, but I retain the right to hate that there are so many of you. It's for that reason that the games that I would enjoy simply don't get made.

Everyone wants their damn sword +1 and black dragons and paladins and orcs and...

...uhoh, bile raising *runs to bathroom*

(yes, I'm totally camping this thread, NO, none of this is personal. You're all cool peeps, I'm just in that overly opinionated rant mode about something that I can't have my way, hehe)

[Nexeus]

You know Tarryk, your right... I mean wtf does a +1 sword +1 too? I mean, it's not like people walked around in the medival ages and said "Hey, I like that sword... is it +1?" Give it a name, not just "+1" like "Slightly better than than the crap you are already holding bitch" or "This sword is heavier than the one you have." or even better "The rims on this sword spin more than the other sword".

[edit] This is a serious complaints about D&D. I love the games based on it, but damn sometimes I hope that the swords and items were more than just +1. Personally +1 just indicates that you have a better sword but you have to use it properly.[/edit]

[Boinky]

Well perhaps it's all about the origins of the genre. Imagine a history of RPGs where instead of D&D the first big RPG was a Sci-Fi based one which then spawned many copycats even decades later. Possibly in that world there'd be a small band of Freedom Fighters fighting for a good Sword & Sorcery game?

Myself, I greatly love Sci-Fi over Fantasy, though I don't hate it. I'm trying EQ2 right now, but "trying" is all.

[Decavolt]

I could play any one of 1000 games and be some middle-earth wanna-be "magic land" character... but it's overdone and boring as hell (to me).

Give me technology. Give projectile weapons (no, arrows don't count - I'm talking about gas-powered assault rifles and rail guns here), flying cars, THE GRID, implants, nanobots, slayer droids, mech dogs... Yes, AO has swords, metaphysicists (sorcery through science, damn cool), and a dimensional rift to an undead netherworld... but when I'm sick and tired of the hack-n-slash swinging an axe at some mob, I can pick up a Div 9 and blow the fucker into oblion, grid or yalm out to Reets and drink myself into a stupur while watching a pack of opi girls in nothing but shade tattoos dance their booties off.

The fantasy setting is old as dirt. It's neat, yes - I loved Lord of the Rings - but as a game it bores be silly. Yeah yeah, there's SWG. I bought the $80 special edition and it's collecting dust. People can say AO is dead all they want, it's still the best, most robust and expansive game of it's kind.

...and if that's not convincing enough, AO has Gridstream Productions!!!

[Oddysee]

I'm at a cross roads tbh. I like fantasy but mainly because I liked the epic battles and stuff.
I suspect this is me looking back at EQ with some remorse. It sucked, the players got fucked over, the graphics were horrible at best... But it was God damn hard, and people learned how to play the bloody game... There were no post 30 newbs. The never made 30 untill they learned to bloody play.
Heckler noobs frustrate me beyond anything else. Lvl 200's who don't know what a bloody Whompah is, yet call me n00bz0rs! Cus I'm lower lvl on that alt or what ever. Sick of this shit. I'm, personally looking fowards to WoW. All the 13-year-olds will leave and go there!!!
I like the whole PvP thing tho, it's based on it, so it's a LOT more balanced than AO, and has lots of mass battles. Mass battles are cool ^^
Sure AO can have that too... but I dunno, massed hordes of peeps running down a hill towards each other is just so much cooler if they actually lock in combat instead of just being gunned down by a gatling cannon before they even get half way. (well ok, depends what mood I'm in, and wether or not I get to shoot the gun ^^)
But cyber punk pwns wizards hats and robes anyday (unless cyb0ring).

Does anyone remember back when they started AO? Back when the black trenchcoat was your most prized posession? Back when the scruffier you looked, the cooler you felt?

Can anyone say they feel the same anymore?
If they made a Shadowrun game I'd be all like <insert orgasm of suitable proportions> and prolly buy it straight away. But I'd be afraid it'd do what AO did. I love AO, but no longer for the feel. AO is now, with it's skill based system the most customisable and flexible system. But it's no longer Cyber Punk.
I mean, a keeper. Get real! Who brings a sword to a gun fight? And worse, in what sick and demented world does anything but a street samurai win using a sword in a gun fight?
Enforcers should not use mauls, but shotguns, stun batons and riot shields.
The shade is almost acceptable, but only because of the "death cult" feel it has. Adventurer... Erh, how about bounty hunter, or gun slinger? Where did the bloody blades come from. And while on that topic, if you ARE gonna morph into som'n... Let it be a slum mutant, or a sewer aligator. Som'n like that... Why, of all things... A parrot?!

I'd play any game if it was well thought through, flexible and gritty. A shotgun should be cool lookin and pack a punch. Trenchcoats should be worn over ANY armour. Piercings and mohawks encouraged. Smg's was som'n everyone owned. And the mesh was not just a coat, but graphical.
Fire fights should use cover, and lots of lots of bullets!!!

For me, the "rough" feel of Cyber Punk is som'n no game has yet properly inplimented (or managed to keep) and I think it's a damn shame.
WTB Vampire: Bloodlines PC game... Hurry up and finish it already dammit!!!





Tm

[Boinky]

Does anyone remember back when they started AO? Back when the black trenchcoat was your most prized posession? Back when the scruffier you looked, the cooler you felt?

Not especially, and I looked scruffy back then because I pretty much had to wear whatever rag-tag crap armor I could find in a mission chest.

Adventurer... Erh, how about bounty hunter, or gun slinger? Where did the bloody blades come from. And finally, if you ARE gonna morph into som'n... Let it be a slum mutant, or a sewer aligator. Som'n like that... Why, of all things... A parrot?!

Don't forget the cyberiffic morph into a Tree?!

[Lauri]

For me, the "rough" feel of Cyber Punk is som'n no game has yet properly inplimented (or managed to keep) and I think it's a damn shame.

Well, FPS may not be everyone's cup of Joe, but Neocron is pretty gritty and cyberpunkish in my opinion.

Although the GUI sucks major ass.

[Zephem]

Science Fiction vs Fantasy
Complexity vs Simplicity

QED

[Legitimate]

I'm on both sides here because I love AO above all other games out there on the market (GSP is a big contributor to that) but I also wish that someone would make a fantasy game worth giving a damn about.

First the AO side, you guys are simply the best, if not the only gaming community that can be called an actual community. There's no community to games like EQ. Not only that, but I think I take a bit of perverse pride in playing a game with characters complex enough that new people have to read hours of guides to create properly.

As to the fantasy, I like fantasy, but the fact remains that every fantasy MMO out there is pure crap. Here's my case in point: how many hobbits defeated Sauron in the Lord of the Rings? 50? 60? No, TWO. In classic stories, how many knights did it take to slay the dragon? 50? 60? No, ONE badass knight who kneeled on the corpse of his slain opponent as if to say, "Yeah, you got owned."

But I played EQ before coming to AO and you can't get past level 12 solo. And taking on something like a dragon by yourself? Oh no you don't. Meanwhile, in AO, I watched a single level 200+ enforcer with doctor support taking on a level 300 alien general.

Who's the badass now?

So, that's my complaint in too many words about games like EQ. Quit forcing me to spend millions of hours trying to find a team only to get killed because the team sucks and lose three levels because the game sucks. AO does right what games like EQ could never understand.

So, yeah, I like fantasy. In movies. And books. And tabletop games. But there's no fantasy game that does half as well what AO does, despite its flaws.

Although I'm still waiting for a Neocron or UT MMO. Bring a sword to a gunfight then and see what my rifle does.

Terese Ramirez

[Mumon]

Sorry I'm not reading everyone's reply (I'm planning something)...

But I noticed the bit on +1 swords.

I actualy played in a campain where most the numbers had been hidden from the players.

If they found a sword, they could find out if it was magical, and might be able to find out some of it's magical powers with other spells. But they wouldn't get any of the stats of the sword. IE: Yes this is a magical sword that can burst into flames and causes fear in migets, and the engravings do name it the Miget Burninator.

Anyways... what was my point...

Oh ya so I read Tarryk's post that started all this and I thought to myself...

Clone a game and give it anouther name. That's not just Fantasy games, but most games on the market right now. It's intersesting that the most inavative and envelope pushing games out their right now you can play for free (legit). Just do a search on the internet sometime for Free Games (Throw in a few more words in there to narrow the search to the type of game you want) and poof you've found an outside the box thinker.

[Mumon]

Went back and read the post right above my first one here, and I like that one. I realy do.

But then again I like Diablo 2 where you can (Well I could) create a game with a bunch of friends and take on the lord and master Diablo himself, while my buddies waited in town. (Stand back and watch how it's done guys.)

And if you don't know in Diablo 2 when you have more people in one game the monsters get harder.