Next Generation (and several other online outlets) reported today that publisher NCSoft will be shutting down their MMO Auto Assault at the end of August. Citing low subscriber numbers-- "down to only one server"-- the game will close less than a year after its release in April 2006.
I've never played the game, and apparently none of you have either. I ask: if you did play, why do you think it failed to achieve decent subscriber numbers? And whether you did or did not, do you think that fantasy and sci-fi will continue to dominate the MMO market, at least for the foreseeable future?
Sci-fi is barely a blip on the radar actually. Penguins are more popular than sci-fi. ;)
The only two "genres" that have shown any traction at all in the market across a range of products are fantasy and contemporary (think Habbo, Club Penguin (aside from your avatar), the MTV worlds, and so on).
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Jul 03, 2007 at 19:55
Auto Assault was sci-fi: futuristic weapons; mutants, robots and humans battling in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Your wording seems to imply it was in some other genre. But that's neither here nor there.
I played in the Auto Assault beta for about 20 minutes. I got enough info in that short time to know that AA was not a game for me. It was in the very core gameplay. Automobile combat has been done right many times: Quarantine, Carmageddon, and Interstate 76 stand out as shining examples off the top of my head. I was expecting similar gameplay in Auto Assault. Instead one drives around shooting soft targets with an auto-aiming roof gun. It just didn't feel right.
Posted by: Timbojones | Jul 03, 2007 at 22:20
Agreed, Timbojones. I spent about 20 minutes with the game as well and I was not really impressed. Twisted Metal and the other games you mentioned did car combat right, so players were probably expecting something similar with AA. I think the premise of the game could be successful but it was just not executed well.
Posted by: Rory Starks | Jul 03, 2007 at 22:51
Timbo: mea culpa on the sci-fi thing. To me, sci-fi = spaceships and MMOs like Eve Online. Auto Assault struck me more as Dune/Mad Max-ish, which is futuristic but a little too off the mark for my tastes. Of course, that's also why the television show Firefly failed-- fans of sci-fi thought the Western elements were goofy and vice versa, with the end result that the show had no 'natural' audience left. Except for the 5 of us who did watch it, of course.
Posted by: Mia | Jul 03, 2007 at 23:30
Well, I didnt watch Firefly, but I agree: Sci-fi is waning down as we speak. Take it the latest books from gibson himself: john clute thinks them as 12th century scifi, but it occurs to me that probably this is a kind of eufemism.
As a matter of fact, i was thinkin that perhaps the success of fantasy MMOs was due to their strict parentage to tabletop RPGs. it has something to do, but that answer just doesnt fit, when a lot of the players have never even played ordinary RPGs.
Thing is that there's an aversion to predicting futures - even the alien media stuff is poor, these days. Perhaps we should wait for Starcraft II and see how the market reacts. And if blizzard will launch a 'worlds of starcraft'.
Posted by: Thiago Falcao | Jul 03, 2007 at 23:46
my mistake: 21th cent. sci-fi, in there. :)
Posted by: Thiago Falcao | Jul 04, 2007 at 00:03
Played it for a couple weeks with a group of friends from work. Formed a little guild. Really wanted to see a different-genre game succeed. Regardless of how it turned out, my hat's still off to their team for an enjoyable launch experience. (This was a while ago, so apologies for any faulty memories.)
Random thoughts, positive and negative:
+ Really dug the periodic automated PvP tournaments. There was a cool idea hiding in there.
+ "Harvesting" tradeskill materials by running into and blowing up buildings was novel.
+ Instance Bosses with their own theme music (from their radios?) was a touch that really made me laugh.
(neutral) From the quests and quest camps to the way you built up your abilities, the WoW influence in terms of content and advancement felt really obvious, but not a turn off. The familiarity made it easy to use, but on the other hand, I've already played the talent tree game.
- There was never any time to talk. It felt like every moment outside of a quest camp required two hands. Talking with my friends/guildmates was almost always an annoyance/distraction/risk. That was an odd feeling.
- Seen plenty of other people mention this, but: I am so not a car. Didn't feel like there was any sense of "me" in there at all.
- What sense there was (running around in towns) definitely felt tacked on, as if they realized the need for avatar attachment just a little too late. Games that can't manage to implement "Jump" or "Walk near corner and not get stuck" reasonably well just Don't Feel Right. If I'm fighting to navigate your world, I'm defintely not immersed in it.
- Felt like I had seen how The Game was going to play by the time I made it out of the newbie area. It didn't leave me wondering "Wow, what other coolness is out there later on?" Played through a couple more areas to see if the gameplay was going to broaden any and didn't see any evidence of it.
- The more isolated player factions, the bigger the gamble. If you don't get enough population to where all three play like their own satisfyingly full "world" of PCs, people end up feeling like the world's empty and walk away disproportionately faster.
Fantasy does have the built-in-from-childhood fairy tale familiarity that we're culturally wired with on some level (Elf? Dragon? Any 5 year old can tell you what that is). SciFi definitely has the what-lots-of-people-grew-up-with-a-little-later familiarity. (Where do 'cars with guns' fit in? Some much, much smaller subset in the teens, most likely.)
...but I'd still like to believe that purely entertaining gameplay that correctly takes advantage of the social nature of the medium, set in some other genre, is going to be able be #1 eventually, without relying on the crutches of pre-existing familiarity to the extent that they do with Fantasy and SciFi.
If so, it'll probably be around the time that the people who choose to head into different genres are able to do so with the vision, talent and budgetary/timeline allowance (trifecta!) to create compelling content and a highly polished product.
Although, come to think of it, if today's popularity is influenced that strongly by the things people were most attached to when they were young, I should really get started on Runes of the Penguin Quest...
- Scott
Posted by: Scott Hartsman | Jul 04, 2007 at 00:09
I played the Auto Assault beta and I have to agree with the above posters in the assessment that it failed because the core combat mechanics were lacking.
I don't think Sci-Fi as a genre is hurting but it is woefully underrepresented in the MMO market. To me it boils down to the fact that sci-fi encourages ranged combat and ranged combat tends to be uninspiring, to say the least, in Diku based VWs. EVE is always brought up as an exception to the rule but really it's combat in and of itself is not that great. Rather it's the meta that surround it's core combat mechanics, the complex economy, the politics, the large scale PvP, that makes the game work. Auto Assault didn't really have any of that and so with a blah combat system it didn't really have anything to hold subscribers with.
Posted by: Makaze | Jul 04, 2007 at 00:13
The producer from EvE was right when he said that fantasy was "done", as WoW has pretty much sealed up the theme.
Sci-fi is up for grabs, maybe Star Trek Online will take it. Piracy has both Burning Sea and Pirates of the Caribbean on the way.
I want to see a Western game, quick draw some newbies outside the saloon.
The problem, however, isn't that genres aren't being tried, but that these games simply aren't as good as WoW. From what I've heard about LOTRO, people aren't playing so they can be "Leggolaz lol" but simply because it's a good game. You could transpose WoW or LOTRO onto any number of settings and you'd still have good games.
Posted by: Syntheticist | Jul 04, 2007 at 00:49
Man. I was about to start scouring the library for 12th century sci fi. What DID dudes back then imagine in the future? Oh well.
Regarding sci-fi. I dunno about it not having traction. Im not sure what SWG's numbers are, but EVE is still pumping along nicely and will continue to assuming CCP wakes the heck up about the fun-ruining supercaps (I think they are with the latest titan nerf). The chart linked suggests that sci fi still seems quite happy to hold 16% of the market.
More interesting academically is that the social muds such as "Second life" and whatnot still only scrape 3% of the market.
So if we go on the numbers, we would do well to ask "Why has second life and kin failed to capture peoples interest (Outside perhaps the ever bumbling academic interest in it) ?". My guess is the whole 'serious business' RMT thing turns people off. Im yet to ever meet someone whos played second life without getting irritated badly by the advertising and admitedly the lousy usability.
This has implications. I'll be blunt. Second lifes going to crash badly. Theres alot of people putting money into the thing, without asking "So... how does this e-world turn a profit". Considering the 'land' of second life cant export to RL, its only real 'trade' is low rent tourism, and frankly if linden lab doesnt seriously rethink, investors are going to soon notice the people online vs people signed up disparity pretty glaringly. When the money flees, you'll see a crash, and we know how dot com crashes turn out. See ya in WOW.
Now as to other genres, perhaps its worth suggesting that WOW is a bit of a freak phenomenon. Its had brilliant marketing, and despite its reputation as being roleplay-lite compared to the likes of EQ and what not, its that lite aspect thats kind of won folks over.
Combined with a fairy tale aspect that seems to of been able to capture some of the (treading on careful ground here with gender stereotypes , yikes) grrl gamer market, and its a winning formula.
I dont think eve will ever really gain the sort of crowd eve does. The spaceship only (I know CCP are talking about embodying avatars in spacestations, but Im not holding my breath here) thing combined with its super complex math-head aproach to combat, its fairly unforgiving pvp system and its pro-grief mindset means its bit of an angry young nerd sort of game.
And car combat? Great fun, but thats a beer, pizza and buddies sort of game, not a MMO. Ask any 20 something.
Posted by: dmx | Jul 04, 2007 at 07:26
Oh yeah, Im putting my money on Pirates of the burning sea being a bit of a winner. That game sounds *Fun*
Shame about the instancing , but oh well. Eventually the MMO makers will realise what EVE + SL did right here. Make world interation meaningful. Instancing sucks.
Posted by: dmx | Jul 04, 2007 at 07:31
I dont think eve will ever really gain the sort of crowd eve does.
read that as
I dont think eve will ever really gain the sort of crowd WOW does.
Man Im posting like a car outa control....
Posted by: dmx | Jul 04, 2007 at 07:32
Syntheticist, 'Trek is science fantasy. I think that making sort of distinction is important in market discussion - it has a different fanbase to space opera or hard scifi...
Posted by: Andrew Crystall | Jul 04, 2007 at 08:13
Basically my understanding is that AA is a car game with DIKU mechanics. DIKU-gunkies don't need to play with cars and people who want to play with cars don't want DIKU mechanics. Simple.
Posted by: Daztur | Jul 04, 2007 at 09:40
I was sorely disappointed by this game, it had so much potential but they crippled it to accommodate players without hand-eye coordination. People that can aim enjoy the challenge that is derived from this, people that can't don't want to play an action game! This same fundamental misunderstanding of your audience is set to doom Tabula Rasa.
You can't please everyone and all of the carebears are already playing WoW, so stop trying to cater to them and start catering to the under-served FPS audience. Tabula Rasa could have been a good 2nd generation PlanetSide, instead it is a 3rd generation also-ran behind CoH, and AA.
Posted by: Detritus | Jul 04, 2007 at 10:05
Some very good points above, Scott Hartsman's in particular.
Matt's right above of course: penguins are more popular than the SF MMOs that have come out. But OTOH, who would have predicted that? Is "penguins" a genre that inherently has more hold on people's imaginations than science fiction, or is it that no science fiction MMOGs have been made that have the appeal of existing fantasy games? It's not like elves-and-wizards fantasy is any less of a deep niche than science fiction if you're older than about 12. And both have been declared dead before - people thought both Star Wars and Lord of the Rings were risky at best as movie projects, since "everyone knows" that science fiction and fantasy have only small niche appeal.
Just goes to show what the right property presented well can do, whether it's penguins or Jedi or hobbits. Or for that matter Taurens and gnomes.
That said, overtly dystopian science fiction is easy to view (examples abound including the Mad Max franchise, Blade Runner, and even James Cameron's next projects), but not so much fun to inhabit as a continuing game world. There's still a lot of science fiction terrain left though. EVE has taken the "navies in space" angle, which is working well for them. SWG was a huge hit until WoW came along and changed the definition of "huge hit." I suspect there are other areas of science fiction where an MMOG could do very well - if they're designed and presented well. Most of us won't know until we see it, and then it will be obvious.
Posted by: Mike Sellers | Jul 04, 2007 at 12:37
DMZ wrote:
Shame about the instancing , but oh well. Eventually the MMO makers will realise what EVE + SL did right here. Make world interation meaningful. Instancing sucks.
So right that they've both failed to come within a magnitude of the number of users that worlds that use instancing have. Is that the kind of "right" you mean? ;)
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Jul 04, 2007 at 13:44
Syntheticist wrote:
The producer from EvE was right when he said that fantasy was "done", as WoW has pretty much sealed up the theme.
That's a chuckle-worthy statement when Runescape has about the same # of players as WoW (if less revenue) and multiple other fantasy games have playerbases that exceed Eve's by a huge margin.
Fantasy isn't done and WoW didn't kill the market for it. WoW made it harder to be #1 in the market but that's pretty irrelevant. 300,000 subscribers is just as valuable now as it was in 2002, and whether there's a larger game out there taking the "#1" title makes no difference. It's the absolute numbers that matter (ie have you managed to turn a profit?), not the relative numbers.
For instance, our text MUDs have, overall, continued to grow year in, year out. Before WoW came out they were much bigger in comparison to the #1 game. Now they're smaller in comparison to the #1 game. Who cares? They do better than they did before, so what does it matter that someone else is doing even better?
Fantasy MMORPGs aren't going anywhere.
From what I've heard about LOTRO, people aren't playing so they can be "Leggolaz lol" but simply because it's a good game. You could transpose WoW or LOTRO onto any number of settings and you'd still have good games.
A good game is a big part of a successful MMORPG, but the setting is absolutely equally as important. Possibly more important. Put a game with the exact same game mechanics as WoW in setting that is uninteresting to most likely players (say, set it in Jane Austen/Pride and Prejudice setting) and watch how few players you'll get.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Jul 04, 2007 at 13:54
I don't know if there has been a sci-fi MMO to date that has captured any of the essence of Hyperion, Ender's Game, Dune, or any other classic sci-fi text.
When that happens I expect Elves to lose a few battles here and there.
Posted by: thoreau | Jul 04, 2007 at 15:26
I'll certainly buy that sci-fi could do better in MMORPGs, yep. Could be a sea-change in the markets preferences (or an unveiling of a preference that was previously hidden or ignored by developers) too.
Just opining that right now there doesn't seem to be much evidence pointing at that outcome.
Damion Schubert calls the preference for fantasy over sci-fi the "Corner Bar" theory. (http://www.zenofdesign.com/?p=228) It rings pretty true for me.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Jul 04, 2007 at 15:47
about elves losing battles, definitely agreed.
thing is that dune's too serious to be compared to general medieval fantasy, like LOTR or the Dragonlance Saga. i'm not sure it would be easy to grasp its atmosphere - what to say of rebuilding it in a MMO.
Posted by: thiago falcao | Jul 04, 2007 at 16:11
There's a lot to be said for the "Corner Bar" theory that Damion talks about. OTOH if you factor out those of us who have played tabletop fantasy RPGs for most of our lives, this idea applies equally to fantasy and science fiction.
The core of it is, as Damion says, that "it’s very easy, if you’re not careful, to make a sci-fi world that is so harsh and sterile that it’s both uninviting and forgettable." That can be done with fantasy too of course, but most of us have enough experience with (off-line) fantasy world construction to go too far off the beam. And of course dystopia is at most a sub-theme of most fantasy worlds; I'm not sure how a fully "dark" fantasy MMO would work for most people (well, Shadowbane might apply here, and it never did very well in the market).
With science fiction, the world construction is trickier, and most of us have less past experience to draw on. Most science fiction stories are either so character-driven and world-agnostic, or so huge and worlds-spanning that we have at best a vague (and often forgettable) sense of what the worlds themselves are about. Star Wars is in many ways a clear exception to this; I'm afraid Star Trek probably exemplifies it.
Making the world attractive, engaging, exciting, explorable, and memorable ought to be part of any MMO, whether fantasy, science fiction, or anything else. Do that and genre becomes secondary.
Posted by: Mike Sellers | Jul 04, 2007 at 16:55
The producer from EvE was right when he said that fantasy was "done", as WoW has pretty much sealed up the theme.
And then they acquired White Wolf and started preproduction on World of Darkness.
If by fantasy you mean Tolken-esque Elves, Dwarves, dungeons, dragons and all the trappings, then yes, I'd say that's been well and truly "done" from MUD to Everquest to WoW to DnD and LOTR themselves and most games in between. But I'm sure there's plenty of unexplored terretory in the genre.
Posted by: Elle Pollack | Jul 05, 2007 at 03:36
Pirates of the Caribbean is fantasy. I don't recall undead, kraken and squid faced demi-gods running around in the early part of last century...
Posted by: Artheos | Jul 05, 2007 at 06:42
I think what CCP mean when they argue that fantasy is 'done' is that traditional Tolkien/D&D type fantasy MMOs in the Everquest vein are 'perfected' and ultimately redundant if we want any kind of progress within MMOs.
We can rehash WoW in different ways - see LOTRO - but that's not taking gaming anywhere. Don't dismiss World Of Darkness until we see whether the game takes its gameplay themes from WoW, or from Eve Online.
Eve is all kinds of broken, and radically inaccessible, but it at least evolves and develops the actual technology and concept of MMOs, rather than trying to do more quest-based fantasy nonsense.
I refuse to believe that MMOs live or die based on genre. They live or die based on game design. The fact is that Earth & Beyond, Galaxies, Planetside, Auto Assault were all massively flawed and most players detected that immediately. Those games simply didn't provide the kinds of goals or gameplay processes that players wanted. Galaxies had some awesome ideas, but it was all mangled up in its post-Everquest hangover. PlanetSide was a fine concept utterly hamstrung by a lack of "win" scenarios and a failure to analyse what gamers were getting from playing it. Both were patched into obliteration.
Auto Assault too was particularly poorly conceived. It had some unique ideas, as people in this thread pointed out, but general combat mechanics were unsatisfying, the art direction was terrible and the overall execution of a 'post-apocalyptic' world made no use of the strengths of that genre.
I'll eat my hat if a decent post-apocalypse or sci-fi game doesn't make itself known in the next decade. Someone has to be up to the task, because it's not genre that's defeating people right now.
Of course if someone wants to give me $10m to make a post Apocalyptic MMO properly I'm ready to go ;)
Posted by: Rossignol | Jul 05, 2007 at 08:13
I think what CCP mean when they argue that fantasy is 'done' is that traditional Tolkien/D&D type fantasy MMOs in the Everquest vein are 'perfected' and ultimately redundant if we want any kind of progress within MMOs.
Which is more or less what I said And I'm not dismissing World of Darkness as it's an example of a fantasy niche that's not Toldien...close enough to dark fantasy in a creature of the night sense. And slightly pre-apocolypse if you follow the whole cannon...
Posted by: Elle Pollack | Jul 05, 2007 at 09:00
I'll eat my hat if a decent post-apocalypse or sci-fi game doesn't make itself known in the next decade. Someone has to be up to the task, because it's not genre that's defeating people right now.
It sounds like you're saying that Interplay are actually going to make a good Fallout MMO!
But I largely agree with all the comments here (although mine was not particularly well-communicated). Good game + setting that isn't utterly depressing = $$$.
Posted by: Syntheticist | Jul 05, 2007 at 15:56
If I had to classify AA I would have to class it as a part of the "Car Wars" (after the Steven Jackson Game) genre which is of course a sub genre of the Post apocalyptic/Mad Max Sci-Fi genre.:)
Todd
Posted by: toddwbucy | Jul 05, 2007 at 22:54
Did Motor-City Online ever count?
If it did, does that up the elves score to 2, or lower the cars score?
Posted by: Aeco | Jul 05, 2007 at 23:31
Two things.
1. I think "Firefly" was great, but that it wasn't the sci-fi/western dichotomy that killed it. I believe it was partly the name itself -- without knowing anything else, what would you think "Firefly" would be about? Could be Oprah-style much-clutch drama-drama or a story about faeries -- and partly that it didn't know what kind of narrative it wanted to be. It was part small-group dynamic gig (Cheers in space), part crime/adventure (Magnum PI in space), and part Screw-the-Man (Dukes of Hazard in space). There was no coherent plot arc that tied all that together.
2. We've talked before about the difference between sci-fi- and fantasy in MMOs. I think part of the basic appeal of fantasy over sci-fi is that it allows the *character* to be "the stuff," whereas in sci-fi, usually the stuff is the stuff. People are still people in the 25th century, they just have cooler ships, weapons, etc. Also, really good sci-fi tends to want to explain the reasons behind the differences between now and then (the "sci" part), whereas fantasy can just say, "In this land, manna rises out of the sink holes because the God Phurblatagat visited here on his mana hippo."
The appeal of playing a regular guy who levels up only with skills that apply to weapons, etc. isn't as visceral as getting stronger, wiser, more juju-rific, etc.
You could do the same thing with cyborg stuff, sure. But, again, it's not *you* that's getting better; it's your snap-on-tools. It's somehow less satisfying to say, "I have 18th level night-vision goggles," compared to "I am an 18th level night-elf."
The appeal of much sci-fi lit is that it allows the reader to explore new concepts and think about the present as extendable. If a sci-fi MMO got to the point where players could really explore something and make upgrades and changes to the universe they're in, that might work. Colonization, exploration, technology improvements, etc. But those goals are largely group-based. So maybe that's a pointer; a sci-fi mmo where real levels happen at the guild level, whatever that means.
Posted by: Andy Havens | Jul 06, 2007 at 08:20
Like Timbo, I played AA in beta for about 20 (OK, maybe 120) minutes. And it wasn't the genre that turned me off, it was the game itself. I think that a game like that could have a pretty good draw of fans, but it just wasn't designed really well, imho. There are great fantasy MMOs and there are/have been mediocre (and lame) ones.
But I also agree with those who've said that fantasy has a broader appeal than sci-fi. And I disagree with the idea that fantasy appeals more because the player is "the stuff" and sci-fi has gadgets that are "the stuff" - in fantasy MMOs, getting good gear is crucial to most players' enjoyment of the game (even if the notion of what's "good gear" is subjective).
Posted by: Tripp | Jul 06, 2007 at 15:14
Andy: Actually in regards to Firefly, the Fox Network tried to tie it pretty strongly to Joss Whedon and hope that Buffy and Angel fans would be drawn to it, rather than go w/a transparent name. And then of course they stuck it on Friday nights (kiss of death #1), hardly promoted it (kiss of death #2) and then yanked it mid-season (death!). I have the series on DVD, if you'd like to watch it- I think you'll find that it's pretty coherent overall. :p
Trip: Yes- we seem to readily accept wanting to get the 'next bestest sword +1' but we haven't made that leap with tricorders, phasers, etc, outside of EVE, it seems. But I'm still waiting for Star Trek Online. My great dream is to one day play the Borg. Resistance is futile!
Posted by: Mia | Jul 06, 2007 at 17:25
Fox screwed Firefly. They dind't like it and didn't market it. They also showed the episodes in the wrong order. They showed the first episode last! They even put the epsiodes in the wrong order when they put the show up on iTunes. But I heard someone is making a Firefly MMOG.
Posted by: YoSaffBridg | Jul 06, 2007 at 17:36
City of Heroes has science fiction elements (the Rikti Invasion is coming very soon). It's a lot of fun. It also (by Andy Havens terminology, see comment above) lets the hero be the "stuff" more than most MMOs.
Posted by: DLacey | Jul 06, 2007 at 18:35
For me, AA basically boiled down to one, very simple thing: it wasn't an interesting, fun place to be. It was dreary. Dull. Not colorful. Empty. Deserted.
There are so many facets to making a good MMO succeed, but ultimately -- and maybe this is because I come from a personal background rich in literary, musical, aesthetic context -- for me, what it's all about is whether or not I want to be spending time in the virtual places that are this MMO, rather than elsewhere, doing other things.
Is the situation compelling; are there enough clues in the gameworld to spark my imagination; are there hints of great, mysterious things to come, events long past. Does the place give me a sense of foreboding, anticipation, nostalgia, inspiration, awe.
All of the above, WoW and EQ2 for me, still, do in spades. Where each game falls apart, where they lose me, is where I start to feel like the masquerade of where I am, who I am, whom I'm with, tears easily.
In AA, it tears almost instantly, and is nigh impossible to sew back together.
In any game, it tears, but there are sufficient distractions or starting points for some new fantasy moment, some new thread to lead me inward, for it not to matter, in the long run.
I think in sci-fi, this is a much more difficult thing to construct, as the tendency -- as it has been in sci-fi movies -- is always to get too caught up with the guy-stuff, big guns, big ships, big explosions, and to lose the girl-stuff (for the guy and girl in all of us, that is, regardless of primary actual daily gender), the emotional and magisterial and magical experience of person and place. In AA I was a car getting stuck in pools of green goo, with bugs attacking me. Yay. That was my moment of inspiration, oh and look, there are other cars with guns, hmmm. End of story. No respite even in the square, dull, gun-metal gray blocky interface, to retreat to in the face of this dreary world.
So. There's great sci-fi out there. Am in the midst of reading Iain Banks' "The Algebraist," for instance, highly recommended, highly evocative of all the things mentioned above.
I wish more people making sci-fi, in any medium, were soulful about it, really.
Posted by: realtrance | Jul 06, 2007 at 19:21
@Mia. Yup on all counts. And thanks for the offer, but I own the DVDs, too. ;-)
Posted by: Andy Havens | Jul 06, 2007 at 23:27
Mike: That said, overtly dystopian science fiction is easy to view (examples abound including the Mad Max franchise, Blade Runner, and even James Cameron's next projects), but not so much fun to inhabit as a continuing game world.
I wouldn't bet on that. Goth-culture is very popular. Cross Blade Runner and Goth, release a branded, finished, and easy-to use game tied to a movie relase... Could become a big hit.
Posted by: Ola Fosheim Grøstad | Jul 06, 2007 at 23:53
Ola, I think what you describe would be "Underworld." It could work, but I'm dubious -- the fan base is small and insular, and the genre involves a lot of, well, posing.
Maybe someone else wants to take that up though; just not my particular windmill. :)
Posted by: Mike Sellers | Jul 07, 2007 at 00:23
Ugh... "Underworld" isn't my cup of tea either. I do think that comics like Dirge's "Lenore" prove that you can combine stark and cute in ways that appeal to even younger girls. I also believe that themes that attract both women and men stand a better chance as a foundation for a virtual world.
If that is true, it could explain why sci-fi is more troubled than romantic fantasy. Well, we'll see how male-dominated fantasy fares when Conan hits the shelves.
(Btw, the sci-fi under-performers AO and SW captured significant interest pre-relase, but got bad press for being released too early, so there is still hope for sci-fi in my book.)
Posted by: Ola Fosheim Grøstad | Jul 07, 2007 at 00:55
We could look to Anime for settings and possible worlds. In the US we could look to past and future batches of cartoons for concepts that work for all ages.
Anyone remember Robotech? The US version was very character driven, but the had the toys and exotic world to match.
For the Fantasy genre there is a cognitive look-back at what could have been (easier), while for Sci-Fi genre there is a congnitivt look-forward (harder).
Now back to AA, the question was "just cars and stuff?". And luckily for Eve Online, it's not just the spaceships!
Frank
Posted by: magicback (Frank) | Jul 07, 2007 at 08:26
I haven't played the particular game in question, but as far as the second question, I do believe that fantasy and sci-fi will continue to dominate the MMO genre for the foreseeable future for two reasons: 1) just look at the popularity of shows like Star Trek, and 2) the popularity and intriguing quality of fantasy/medievalism. The argument I would make here is nicely alluded to in this article
but would take up to much space to elaborate here.
Posted by: Krista-Lee Malone | Jul 07, 2007 at 13:14
Science fiction certainly isn't the problem. This is widely considered the "new golden age" of space opera and science fiction, with dozens of new and established writers producing amazing and profitable books. The top movie right now is Transformers, and science fiction movies consistently do quite well.
In existing MMOs, Eve Online and SWG are nothing to sneeze at.
Uru Live is science fiction (archeology is a science)/magical realism. Unfortunately, it has very few players, a very small world, is slowly updated, has little to do, and the players are very withdrawn, almost autistic.
The Serenity MMO is coming soon. Maybe there's enough of us browncoats to keep it going. Even if not, fighting hopeless battles to the last man is very, very Firefly.
Tabula Rasa is very likely going to be big. Maybe not a WoW-killer, but a big world, and the setting and linguistics seem really interesting. How often do I get to say "the linguistics of this world look really interesting!"? Well, both TR and Uru Live, really. For a science fiction geek, that's more important than you'd initially think.
Many of the most popular roleplaying areas in Second Life are science fiction themed. One of the first sims was Gibson, where Nexus, the City of the Future was built. It's an amazing place, hundreds of meters deep full of dense, detailed cyberpunk city, and people are almost always there doing freeform roleplay; bring an RCS-compatible gun. Wastelands is a great Mad Max-themed scavenger hunt/combat game. And ultimately, all of Second Life could be seen as a Snow Crash-themed MMO.
Auto Assault failed because the people who love cars to death, like NASCAR fans, don't make good MMO players. They don't tend to play a lot of videogames, and especially not something as time-consuming as an MMO. A few hours with Gran Turismo is very different from 6 hours every day to keep up, and it's easier to watch TV while drunk than play an MMO. Putting science fiction elements into the racing game just confused them. It was a bad combination, and someone should have done some market research first.
Posted by: Kami Harbinger | Jul 09, 2007 at 13:15
@Kami: "The Serenity MMO is coming soon."
Is it? Don't hold your breath.
Posted by: Cassandra | Jul 09, 2007 at 15:18
I think the biggest issue is no one is willing to invent a new type of system. Sci-Fi MMOs are Fantasy MMOs in fancier Sci-Fi Settings. But under it all, it is still the same, you kill x mobs to gain Y experience, once you have Z amount of Experience you can level up and become more powerful.
SWG (Pre-CU [Combat Upgrade] and NGE [New Game Experience]) was by far the most diverse and successful Sci-Fi MMO. They had a diverse profession (39) as opposed to most fantasy games (7-9), SWG had pure crafting professions, and pure combat, and you could interchange them.
SWG suffered from lack of support, and a company determined to take the game in a "New" Direction. New patches that updated content broke older more stable content. The company did nothing to repair the problems, instead they wiped the slate clean and repackaged the game simplified to fantasy standards, 9 professions instead of 39.
In SWG no one seemed to notice the leveling system, because it was integrated in such a way that it was unique and interesting.
Planetside was unique in the fact it integrated a First Person Shooter game into the MMO world. A person who just bought the game could instantly get into the game. They could log on and fight a person who has been playing anywhere from 1 month to 2 years, and still have a good chance to "kill" or defeat the veteran player. It was straight forward and allowed people to play on a relatively level playing field.
This game too suffered from a company (the same as SWG in fact) that had poor customer service and also did patches in a horrible fashion, adding new content and ignoring well established problems that needed to be fixed.
What the genre needs is a fresh innovative way to separate itself from the fantasy market. A game that can "re-invent" MMOs will have huge following. Several Games on the horizon to keep an eye on are: Tabula Rasa (RPG, currently in Beta). Huxley (Sci-Fi RPG/FPS), Star Trek Online, and Stargate: Gateworlds (not sure of the title, but there is a Stargate MMO coming). An MMO that can eliminate the "grind" of levels will be greatly heralded and appreciated by yours truly.
Posted by: Jeffrey | Jul 09, 2007 at 16:03
"""So right that they've both failed to come within a magnitude of the number of users that worlds that use instancing have. Is that the kind of "right" you mean? ;)
--matt"""
Nooooo........
Eve's a niche game. You'll take months and months of play before your even slightly competent at PVP, and you REALLY need your thinking hat on for all the maths and stuff.
Case in point;-
http://www.eve-online.com/guide/en/g25.asp
Just flick a few pages forward with all the charts and stuff.
Eve is a hard, unforgiving ,maths intensive game that rewards griefing and hardcore gaming.
I wouldnt have it any other way. :)
But if one was to combine the sheer persistance of eves universe with the user friendlyness of Wow, you'd have a killer game.
The lack of instancing has some amazing effects. For instance eves version of dungeons are the 'complexes' (Basically space installations with lots of NPCs and whatnot). They only spawn a few times a day. One of the beautys of them, is that territorial powers will have regular set-piece mass battles to control them so they can run them for control of the loot. I used to run the 10/10 UTKS complex in syndicate with ten others. Against us, we had 2 other teams vying for control. On the clock at the same time everyday the place would turn into a meatgrinder as both sides tried to assert dominance, our numbers vs their high skillpoints. It was wild fun. And it *mattered*. The strategic control of UTKS would ensure a financial input to our war machine for the broader PVP struggle, whilst denying the enemy it.
That said, I suspect eve is moving towards instancing with its 'exploration' complexes. They are phasing out static complexes and putting in ones found via deep space probing. Presumably to spread the resources around. Im not sure I like it, but I suppose it might be about CPU resources.
Posted by: dmx | Jul 10, 2007 at 07:33
I think the problem is not that sci-fi is a bad setting for an MMO, but that we expect different things from the genre.
Fantasy is all about the hero's journey, the rise in skill and power as he or she undertakes a series of ever-harder feats. This is represented very well in fantasy MMOG's by the traditional level grind and quest reward system. You do things, get stronger, find cooler stuff, lather, rinse, repeat. The focus is character progression.
Sci-fi is different. While personal journeys have always has their place, they've never been the main focus, and they shouldn't be the main focus of sci-fi MMOG's, either. We expect more than that. We want the mysteries of the universe, the clash of empires, upheavals of technological progress. You can't do that with WoW-style game mechanics, which is why Auto Assault failed and EVE lives on.
What Auto Assault needed, and what I heard people repeatedly asking for on my fansite, was a skill-based "twitch" combat engine. No dice, no character stats, just you and a car. We wanted to be road warriors in rolling death machines, not clerics desperately praying to Our Lady of the Random Seed.
Posted by: Shual | Jul 15, 2007 at 16:20
I like Damion's "Corner Bar" theory for why some people prefer fantasy over SF milieus in their MMORPGs so much that I just can't resist extending it.
In addition to preferring the familiar over the possible, many (most?) people also seem to prefer the simple over the complex. More people appear to prefer a Gamist collection of well-defined rules over a Simulationist environment where small events produce unexpected effects.
Fantasy-themed MMORPGs win on both those counts because they're typically medievalist and historical, where most SF games are technological and futuristic. If you're the kind of person who likes knowing what's expected of you and how to do it, then a medievalist setting (even one with elves and dragons) is likely to feel more comfortable because it's one where your place is defined for you by your "class." It's simple: you belong to the tank class, so you stand there and wave your arms at the bad guys; you belong to the healer class, so you run around and maintain buffs; and so on. Know your place and your place will be assured.
A more technological and complex future implies having to do more conscious thinking. For example, you may have the freedom to choose individual skills from a large catalog of possibilities, rather than simply leveling up one class from among a handful. Higher technology also implies complex devices with multiple functions that you'll have to learn how to use.
The constraints on action of a class-based, medievalist fantasy game thus offer a feeling of security. When there are only a few things you can do, you know what's expected of you and how to do it.
So if "fun" for a lot of people means taking a break from the relentless stream of complex decision-making opportunities of modern life, it's little wonder that class-based medievalist fantasy games are so popular.
(Note that I'm not describing things this way because I personally favor simple class-based games. I actually prefer my games to be complex, skill-based, sandboxy, and more than just PvP, to the point that I'm not actively playing any MMORPG right now because no developer offers any such game. But that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the entertainment value that a retreat into a simpler past offers another kind of gamer.)
I wonder if Auto Assault failed to thrive in part because it didn't offer enough of a distinct medievalist or techno gameworld. Being neither fish nor fowl might make it hard for gamers to know whether it suited their tastes.
Which raises the question of how non-fantasy, non-SF games might do. If there's anything to the above theorizing, a game based on the genre of Westerns, with its generally distinct archetypes, might do well to implement simple class-based gameplay. SOE's recently-announced spy genre game The Agency might do better, if it's more of a complex technological game, to go with a skill-based, crafting-plus-action model -- ditto for Perpetual Entertainment's Star Trek Online.
Ultimately, though, I agree with Jeffrey above. I'd like to see online game designers get away from thinking that reusing some well-known literary genre (fantasy/SF/Western/detective/spy/pulp/etc.) is being innovative.
What might a massively multiplayer online adventure game look like? Can no one think of a way to combine Zork with Ultima Online? (Is something like this what Ragnar Tørnquist, the creator of The Longest Journey, is up to currently with The Secret World?) Or what about a massively multiplayer strategy game -- would anyone want to play an entire starfaring civilization (rather than a single avatar) existing in a galaxy composed of billions of star systems to explore, colonize, and defend?
It would be interesting to see some projects like these that play with existing genre definitions. They might tell us more about why different individuals prefer certain kinds of game worlds over others.
--Bart
Posted by: Bart Stewart | Jul 16, 2007 at 18:52
Bart: More people appear to prefer a Gamist collection of well-defined rules over a Simulationist environment where small events produce unexpected effects.
Common wisdom, but I'm not so sure it's just that we're not very good at making the simulationist side enjoyable. It may be a harder sort of fun, to borrow liberally from Nicole Lazzaro. Otherwise, how do you explain the broad-based success of games like Animal Crossing, The Incredible Machine, or the kingpin, The Sims?
If you're the kind of person who likes knowing what's expected of you and how to do it, then a medievalist setting (even one with elves and dragons) is likely to feel more comfortable because it's one where your place is defined for you by your "class." It's simple: you belong to the tank class, so you stand there and wave your arms at the bad guys; you belong to the healer class, so you run around and maintain buffs; and so on. Know your place and your place will be assured.
Simple and obviosu from a die-hard gamer POV, but I guarantee you that the majority of people playing games today would not make heads or tails of that. My class? You mean whether I'm a noble or a peasant? And what's this about being a medieval tank? What?
The "corner bar" security-in-the-familiar effect you're describing exists in high-fantasy games only for those who have already played fantasy MMOGs, or for those who grew up playing paper RPGs. Each of the arguments you make against science fiction games go equally against fantasy games with their complex magic systems, hierarchy of loot, manifold attributes and characteristics, complex roles, etc.
As for the rest, I pretty much agree with you. We are, as EA's CEO so concisely put it, boring people to death (we in MMOs exemplify this as much as anyone else). We have to figure out ways to not bore people. That's going to mean some smart failures -- like Auto Assault. And it's going to mean some out-of-left-field successes like... well, that'd be telling. ;-)
Posted by: Mike Sellers | Jul 16, 2007 at 20:13
Mike> I'm not so sure it's just that we're not very good at making the simulationist side enjoyable. It may be a harder sort of fun, to borrow liberally from Nicole Lazzaro.
I actually equate the Gamist design/play perspective with Lazzaro's "hard fun," which seems to be about overcoming challenges through persistence. Similarly, I see a strong connection between the exploratory Simulationist perspective and Lazzaro's "easy fun," which appears to be about satisfying curiosity.
That said, I'd agree with your larger point that MMO designers seem to have a lot of trouble with the idea of Simulationist content in MMOs. The opinion (as near as I can figure it) seems to be that the cost of coding even a semi-coherent simulation of anything exceeds the likely return.
My class? You mean whether I'm a noble or a peasant? And what's this about being a medieval tank? What?
I assume you're just making your point a little more strongly here, but just in case.... I definitely was deliberately using the word "class" in both its sociopolitical and MMORPG senses. Both these senses have the same positive: knowing the role your class is expected to play in society gives you a sense of security. And they have the same negative: being unable to change your class limits your freedom to discover your complete self.
I can't help but think that this may explain in some small part why class-based MMORPGs and medievalist settings are so often found together.
Or maybe it's just a coincidence.
Each of the arguments you make against science fiction games go equally against fantasy games with their complex magic systems, hierarchy of loot, manifold attributes and characteristics, complex roles, etc.
I grant you that even the medievalist fantasy MMORPGs today are relatively complex. But isn't it interesting that the most popular such game is the one that's lauded (by many, though not all) for its simplicity, while one of the most popular SF games (EVE) is noted for its depth?
We have to figure out ways to not bore people.
Define "people." :D
I've been permitted to post here on TN for several years now, so anyone who's waded through my stuff knows I come at game design from a psychological starting point. That means I don't see gamers as a homogenous mass, but rather consisting of several kinds of people.
I've personally found it useful to distinguish four general kinds of people, and thus four kinds of gamer, but the main thing is just to recognize that there are different kinds of gamer. If there's anything to this notion, why not design the specific content of games to appeal not just to some faceless ur-gamer, but to the three or four (or whatever) main types of gamer? Wouldn't that help insure that "people" are less likely to be bored by content they don't care about because there's at least some content in the game that's deliberately designed to suit their personality style?
Just for giggles (and I beg the indulgence of the 400-Word Police), here's a slightly edited version of my current Master Chart of Gamer Styles showing the correspondences I see between various ways of looking at personality in general and gamers specifically:
(Note: "GNS+" is just my name for my slightly enhanced version of the GNS model that adds the Experientialist style.)
I've written a good chunk of a design doc of my own for a game that incorporates these ideas. As the odds of that game ever being realized are, um, somewhat slim, I'm hoping that some Real Developer will someday independently discover this concept and make a game out of it. I think that game would stand a decent chance of doing well by taking a less scattershot and more targeted approach to design.
Naturally I'd be happy to consult on that. ;-)
--Bart
Posted by: Bart Stewart | Jul 17, 2007 at 01:29
Put a game with the exact same game mechanics as WoW in setting that is uninteresting to most likely players (say, set it in Jane Austen/Pride and Prejudice setting) and watch how few players you'll get.
Jane Austen with WoW mechanics? If someone can make that sane, I'll play. :)
Posted by: Zubon | Jul 17, 2007 at 01:50