The Next Big MMO?

[Huntn]

I've been so happy playing WoW for the last 5 months, I've not thought much about the future of MMOs. When I was taking a break from WoW, I regularly visited MMORPG.com.

Is there anything out there announced and in development that anyone is excited about?

For years I was interested in Hero's Journey which was purported to have some innovative concepts, but today I went to the HJ forum at MMORPG.com and the two top threads were "HJ is Not VaporWare" and "HJ is Officially Over." Does not look like much has changed there except recent reports of "massive layoffs" at Simutronics. You definitely would not want to be holding your breath for this title. I'm also wondering about Blizzard's next MMO, but started a separate thread for that subject.

[PurpleCliff]

I don't think I will play any MMO before BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic! I'm so excited!
It uses the Hero Engine - like Hero's Journey. It's looking great so far!

[Reaver]

I am kinda looking forward to the new starwars MMO myself

[Yaboze]

IMHO, it is Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Some key reasons (which some may see as bad things)

It's from Bioware. Bioware is a great company and has been wanting to make a MMO for years. This is their first, which could be a problem, but on another note, everyone said the same about Blizzard and they are doing fine.

It's Star Wars. SWG had it's moments but is considered a failure. It's still kicking but people have been clamoring for a good Star Wars MMO. This could be it.

It's not Fantasy. Most MMO's are fantasy based, this will be a nice change.

Friendly requirements. It's meant to run on average PC's, similar to WoW, where you don't need a SLI Cray based rig to run it.

For Mac users, the only bad thing will be that there will be no native version, at least, nothing was mentioned. Bioware does make Mac games, but usually another dev team makes it. We'll see.

[Huntn]

Originally Posted by Yaboze

For Mac users, the only bad thing will be that there will be no native version, at least, nothing was mentioned. Bioware does make Mac games, but usually another dev team makes it. We'll see.

When it comes to a MMO, I don't see a viable situation for two companies to be involved, one updating the native PC version and one updating the Mac version, but really I don't know. I'm so grateful that someone at Blizzard, (a company with Mac roots) made the commitment to stay Mac native over the many years of excellent titles. It would be really interesting to know how many Mac subscribers WoW has.

In a Star Wars MMO, I'd be curious to know if there is space combat to go along with planetary exploration and is it going to be innovative or will it feel like you've been there before with the standard kill and collect and escort quests.

Blizzard's latestest WoW expansion shows some outstanding innovation with instanced spaces that a number of non-partied players, but players who have reached the same progression point, can find themselves in. (I'm thinking of the Death Knight starter area for example).

[masterofbuckets]

Yeah unless the developer starts developing its game with Mac in mind from the start, it is very difficult for them to make it happen.

So, they port it or give it to someone else to do it. They don't normally have the time/money/resources/patience/drive to do it.

[Pressure]

Project Offset looks really nice.

[Huntn]

Originally Posted by masterofbuckets

Yeah unless the developer starts developing its game with Mac in mind from the start, it is very difficult for them to make it happen.

So, they port it or give it to someone else to do it. They don't normally have the time/money/resources/patience/drive to do it.

Exactly my point, I don't think porting a MMO works.

[Huntn]

Originally Posted by Pressure

Project Offset looks really nice.

Really nice concept art but based on the site content, it looks like this project is in the very early stages?

[motoxpress]

Blizzard's next MMO as long as it is scifi

There is Champions Online that is currently in beta. It is a super hero MMO that looks better visually than CoH. However, I am also thinking the new SW mmo has good potential. I think the world is ready for a new genre. Fantasy is played out.

-mx

[FRKT]

Blizzard and they are doing fine.

What, "fine"? It's pretty much the most successful game of all time! *

* Financially, that is.

[Fake Hipster]

Originally Posted by Huntn

When it comes to a MMO, I don't see a viable situation for two companies to be involved, one updating the native PC version and one updating the Mac version, but really I don't know. I'm so grateful that someone at Blizzard, (a company with Mac roots) made the commitment to stay Mac native over the many years of excellent titles. It would be really interesting to know how many Mac subscribers WoW has.

In a Star Wars MMO, I'd be curious to know if there is space combat to go along with planetary exploration and is it going to be innovative or will it feel like you've been there before with the standard kill and collect and escort quests.

Blizzard's latestest WoW expansion shows some outstanding innovation with instanced spaces that a number of non-partied players, but players who have reached the same progression point, can find themselves in. (I'm thinking of the Death Knight starter area for example).

Seriously, I would have given Warhammer a shot, but I didn't even have the option of giving them my money. Their loss.

[Signal-11]

It's gonna be a long while before any game displaces WoW on the MMO throne. CS 1.6 was only dethroned a few months ago as the king of the FPSs by CS:S and some trackers say that it's still more popular. That's for an action game with arguably much smaller social component than WoW.

[chrono1081]

I dont let myself play MMO's anymore....:'( I love them so much though!

[Signal-11]

Yeah, me neither. I discovered some time ago that I can't be a casual MMO gamer.

[Huntn]

My first MMO was Planetside (PC Sci-Fi PVP shooter). I loved the PVP in that game for a 18 months until I hit the wall. What struck me about WoW, (my first fantasy RPG), when I first started, many moons ago was how comfortable the environment was and how easy it was to get started. I've not gotten that feeling in any of the other WoW wannabees I've tried since.

[masterofbuckets]

Originally Posted by Huntn

Exactly my point, I don't think porting a MMO works.

City of Heroes was a good port actually, granted its an old one graphically but still, its nice to have a similar performing game on windows and mac.

Lets hope more MMOs come to Mac. Atleast with porting, we get a chance to play them without restarting into bootcamp.

At the end of the day, I don't give a crap whether its native or uses wine, if it performs well, thats all I care about.

[Huntn]

Originally Posted by masterofbuckets

City of Heroes was a good port actually, granted its an old one graphically but still, its nice to have a similar performing game on windows and mac.

Lets hope more MMOs come to Mac. Atleast with porting, we get a chance to play them without restarting into bootcamp.

At the end of the day, I don't give a crap whether its native or uses wine, if it performs well, thats all I care about.

Admittedly I don't know much about it. So they had one company running the PC side and handling updates, and handing the Mac updates off to a separate company? Interesting.

[rasmasyean]

Originally Posted by Yaboze

IMHO, it is Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic.

That's sound decent. But lets hope it's not like a LoTRO MMO. That was a pretty lame MMO. They tried too much "story-telling". Just nice graphics and you had to be a real fan to stand that game after a while, imho.

The problem is that everyone is gonna want to be a light-sider. They have to address that otherwise it will blow bubbles.

[itommyboy]

Come onnnnnn Top Gun Online! I'm Iceman!

[mim]

You guys hanging out for sci-fi should have a look at Eve Online.

http://www.eveonline.com/

It's great, and the Mac client works very well.

Edit: I should note that I have a few 'Buddy Passes' left - these give you a free 21 day trial. If you're interested give me an email at alex dot matovic at gmail dot com.

[Huntn]

Originally Posted by mim

You guys hanging out for sci-fi should have a look at Eve Online.

http://www.eveonline.com/

It's great, and the Mac client works very well.

Edit: I should note that I have a few 'Buddy Passes' left - these give you a free 21 day trial. If you're interested give me an email at alex dot matovic at gmail dot com.

I just don't think flying around in space full time will do it for me. I've always wanted planetary exploration. Maybe you could clarify a couple of Eve rumors:

1) Steep learning curve.

2) Brutal death sentence. (my understanding there are ways to mitigate death and not lose your stuff?).

[Huntn]

Originally Posted by rasmasyean

That's sound decent. But lets hope it's not like a LoTRO MMO. That was a pretty lame MMO. They tried too much "story-telling". Just nice graphics and you had to be a real fan to stand that game after a while, imho.

The problem is that everyone is gonna want to be a light-sider. They have to address that otherwise it will blow bubbles.

Keep in mind I'm a corrupted WoW player, but I really saw nothing really different/superior about LOTRO as compared to WoW and at the starter levels the quests were pretty much the same as in WoW. Might as well play the best MMO. The LOTRO story line seems less significant or special when a server has thousands doing the same quests. And I thought at least one of the classes (Minstrel) where you attack a mob by singing them to death was a bit silly. Maybe at the higher levels they would be impressive but not at the beginning.

[masterofbuckets]

Originally Posted by Huntn

Admittedly I don't know much about it. So they had one company running the PC side and handling updates, and handing the Mac updates off to a separate company? Interesting.

City of Heroes is developed by Paragon Studios ( NCSoft is the publisher ).

They hired TransGaming to do the Mac port. I guess they did everything Mac related and gave it to NCSoft for release.

[Mackilroy]

Originally Posted by Huntn

I just don't think flying around in space full time will do it for me. I've always wanted planetary exploration. Maybe you could clarify a couple of Eve rumors:

1) Steep learning curve.

2) Brutal death sentence. (my understanding there are ways to mitigate death and not lose your stuff?).

1. It's more of a learning cliff...

2. It's not brutal, but it isn't forgiving like WoW. Besides, if you're a part of a corp they'll usually have some sort of policy worked out to replace whatever you lose in battles, though that's only in 0.0 space, not in Empire.