GameZig

Jordan Weisman, the founder of FASA Corporation and creator of the MechWarrior franchise has reacquired the license for MechWarrior back from Microsoft along with a few other properties previously in the FASA catalog.  He has taken his newly reacquired franchises back and launched a new game company to boot, Smith and Tinker.  While he hasn’t made official any news as for what he’s planning to do with MechWarrior and any of the other franchises, his new company is geared toward developing internet based games tied to offline products.  Does that mean an MMO?  Who knows, but it’s fun to imagine what it would be like.

Obviously a MechWarrior based MMO would be ultra cool but what would it really be like?  I guess the first question would be what would the combat be like?  Most traditional MMO’s are skill based games like World of Warcraft or Age of Conan, but there are good examples of games that are twitch based which have worked well like World War II Online or Planetside.  After playing the MechWarrior single player FPS style games I can’t imagine it being anything other than twitch combat.  But does that mean no skills to level?

Not necessarily.  There are always room to give players that oh so familiar feel of other MMOG’s.  The Mech’s you pilot for example, it’s possible to unlock other classes of Mech as you advance, being a good example of putting skills into the game.  Or perhaps abilities or addons like jumpjets or more advanced components. 

That could definitely lead to potential problems with higher level characters out classing lower level character just based on equipment, but in a twitch based system the lower level guys still have a chance to win in a fight, especially if several team up to take down a more advanced player.  In a system like a FPS - how long you’ve been playing or how high your level is has no impact on whether or not a newbie can land a hit on a high level target.  It would just effect what that newbie is hitting with - and you can bet even the lower level weapons will hurt.

But you can’t just have nothing but massive scale combat in an MMO, there has to be more.  Otherwise there is no point in making it an MMO is there?  Then it’s just another FPS.  If you include non-combat roles it adds even further to the skill based system that so many fans of MMO’s are used to.  You could have merchants or traders, scavengers or salvagers to go over the wreckage of fallen mechs to see if there is anything of value (like the MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries feature), engineers and mechanics to fix the mechs and other equipment.  Then the crafter roles which will be the ones building replacement mechs and weapons - along with any other items that will be available in the game.

To have a nice flowing economy and to keep things fresh and mix things up in the game - mechs should be permanently destroyable.  Mechs that are damaged bad enough to be inoperable on the battlefield but aren’t permanently destroyed should be able to be salvaged by the victor team or whoever happens along the wreckage.  Players who do nothing but fight in the game and have no means of income would obviously need a way to make money.  There are ways to do that.  If you wanted to do it right, you could institute an actual mercenary system where players could rent out their services for a paycheck.  If you wanted to go the easier route, you could just award a certain amount of money for every enemy the player kills.  Or obviously they could make money running missions (quests). 

What if a player runs out of money and loses their ride?  Well - we could be really mean and make them go learn another trade.  Or we could have a starter mech that is always repairable for them to start over with.  Maybe just a light scout class mech like the Raven or something in that class.  Single small laser and a light chassis - now go run missions!  Heh, there are lots of ways to do it.  But my point of this whole article is that if there ever was a MechWarrior MMO - it should revolve around two key things.  Combat and money.

With the atom bomb that Mythic Entertainment dropped yesterday about the massive cuts for Warhammer Online it’s leaving many WAR fans in an emotional fog and just as many WAR haters saying, “I told you so”. It is a lot to take in for sure, I still can’t quite wrap my mind around whether or not this is going to be a good or bad thing. With only two cities instead of six, will the RVR aspects of the game, the stuff that the game was totally designed around work at all the same? Will players that aren’t a member of Chaos or the Empire feel the same connection to the game without a home of their own to defend? Will there be unbalance to the game with the loss of four key classes? So many questions left unanswered.

With the feeling of disappointment setting in so hard, I’m left to wonder if hyping a game as much as WAR or AoC was hyped and then let all the fans down close to game day is a good idea for MMO developers.  It’s the same story as has happened so many times before.  Then you look at other companies, the way they seem to be tight lipped about what they have on the burner, leaving fans to ponder what game they are even making.  Is that the way to go?  Will fans be disappointed more by loss of content like AoC or WAR or will they be more disappointed with finding out that Blizzard’s new next-gen MMO isn’t what they were hoping for?

Or how about Bioware?  There is a ton of speculation and so many directions they could go in with their Austin, Texas based MMO development.  The most popular, long standing theory is a Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic MMORPG.  That theory had some fuel added to it recently when Lucasarts acquired some newly registered trademark names like Star Wars: The Old Republic, Star Wars Legends, The Old Republic and Star Wars Sagas.  While those alone are not concrete proof, the names combined with the secrecy at BioWare and the description of the trademarks are adding some serious fuel to the fire. 

The patents reads: “Entertainment services provided on-line by means of global and local area networks, namely, providing interactive computer game software, interactive video game software and interactive computer games and interactive video games, all on-line by means of global and local area networks … “.  That could mean a bunch of different things, but it definitely lends to the MMO theory in a big way.

Which way is better?  Who’s to say?  Either way you go you’re going to leave someone bitter that it didn’t go their way, but I’m leaning toward the latter of the two options.  I think it’s better not to say what you are working on until it’s nearing completion for several reasons.

First, you don’t have to worry about telling fans what you are planning on including in the game until you are damn sure it’s going to make it in.  That’s not even an issue if you keep it secret.  Second, letting fans guess and fuel their own theories you get a good guage on possible future projects.  When people start screaming for a KOTOR MMORPG, you can be pretty sure you’re going to have a good subscriber base if you ever decide to make one, if that’s not what you are already working on.

Next, if you listen to all said theories, you can get ideas for features that your fans want to see and test to see if they would work before giving fans a clue whether or not that the feature was even considered.  In short, you basically get a lot more creative freedom without facing pressures and risking as much disappointment to your hardcore fan base.  There probably is no perfect formula and there certainly isn’t a perfect MMO out there yet or in development that will launch problem free.  But I think it makes a lot more business sense to not make promises you aren’t sure you can keep.  Then you won’t be in the position Mark Jacobs was yesterday, doing damage control for a big announcement when you could instead be announcing open beta for a game no one knew was coming.  For games like Warhammer or Star Wars, you don’t need to spend years building up a fan base community, those game titles inherently come with a huge fan base - better to keep it under wraps until your are ready for beta - my 2 cents.

Electronic Arts announced they are releasing the MySims franchise to PC this October. Previously, the game was only available on consoles but they’ve gone and built a PC version and beefed it up with some new features. Ohhh the humanity! Why did they have to go and do this to me? I’ll admit I got a little addicted to the original Sims games thanks to my lovely wife but this doesn’t look a thing to me like the originals.

The list of features in the game from fully customizable characters and the ability to design and build homes, restuarants and other buildings and items in the game sounds familiar when thinking of the original Sims but this one takes on a very, very cartoony feel.  Cartoony is okay in some games to a degree but I think this is playing off the Lego’s franchise style computer characters just a little to much, check out the screenshot from the game below:

I just know, judging my how childish the game looks, that my wife is going to love it and make me play!  Arrrgh!  They do have some features I think were missing in the first title though like the ability to play online with up to seven other people.  That would have been nice before when the Sims looked, well…human-ish.  I’m going to give this one a negative vote just based on the above screenshot and try desperately to keep my wife from ever discovering it’s existance.  Don’t tell on me!