Cyberpunk is a terrible genre for an MMO
Posted by PsychochildAug 17
As I’ve said before, I’m not just a cyberpunk aficionado, I’m also an MMO developer. These two interests intersect in interesting ways. There have been calls for a cyberpunk-themed MMO from many people, but it hasn’t happened yet. Why?
Let’s take a look at some reasons why cyberpunk is a terrible genre for an MMO.
Dystopia is a hard sell
Noted MMO designer Damion Schubert advanced the “corner bar” theory, stating that players want to spend time in a space that feels inviting. The most popular western is MMO a brightly colored fantasy world of high magic. Even though the world is supposed to be torn by war and they’ve promised a world-shattering cataclysm, the world is still fundamentally inviting to players, particularly new players. Being a welcoming world has frequently been mentioned as one of the biggest reasons why World of Warcraft has been a success.
Contrast this to the typical feel of a good piece of cyberpunk. I mean, would you really want to drive through the streets of the world of Strange Days? Driving in large cities is bad enough without having to deal with burning cars and continuous police checkpoints. This is before we consider the horror of racial anger and the problems the SQUID technology has caused. Or, consider Blade Runner, while it might be interesting, nobody in the movie really looked at ease with where they were. It’s hard to make a home in a place that is pretty much unfriendly by definition of the genre.
Cyberpunk themes don’t work well in games
One of the major themes in cyberpunk is control. In most cases, the protagonists get a false sense of control over their future, only to find that they’ve been played like pawns in a game of chess. I’ve advocated that the most important aspect of a game is interactivity, where the players have control and their input alters the game. These two philosophies seem at odds with each other.
Or, take the theme of technological dominance; in many cyberpunk works the protagonists bend technology to suit their whims. In MMOs, however, you generally want a fairly restricted technology on the client side. People who alter the technology of an MMO game to suit their own purposes have a special name, “Cheaters”. Having a game that encourages cheating isn’t a good thing.
Finally, consider the wide-eyed excitement about “cyberspace” you see in a lot of cyberpunk works. MMOs are essentially the realization of the dreams of cyberspace from decades past. You’re not going to get that spark of excitement about cyberspace when many MMO players have seen it for over a decade now. “Been there, done that, got the +1 chain shirt.”
It has been done before with little success
There have been a few attempts to create cyberpunk-themed MMOs in the past. The Matrix Online was launched to a tepid reception. It was acquired by Sony Online and became one of the few games they’ve ever actually shut down. (Keep in mind that the original EverQuest, a game over 10 years old by now, is still being run and played.)
Another game generally in the genre of cyberpunk is Neocron, by German developer Reakktor. One could argue it’s not strictly in the cyberpunk genre given the in-game history involving elements like colony ships and nuclear war, but it maintains a lot of the trappings of the genre. Although the game received a lot of negative comments for its gameplay style, the fact that it’s a fairly obscure title doesn’t bode well for cyberpunk as an MMO genre.
Finally, there was an attempt to license R. Talsorian’s Cyberpunk 2020 as an MMO setting. For whatever reason, this project never became a reality.
Three games with three discouraging histories. Not exactly encouraging to those that want a cyberpunk-themed game, is it?
What do you think? Is cyberpunk a hopeless genre for an MMO game?
25 comments
Comment by Lathain on August 17, 2010 at 10:42 PM
I Don’t Agree.
In my opionon I think Cyberpunk can be a succesfull and fun MMO
but not if you try to make a tradional fanatasy type MMO with a cyberpunk theme.
Cyberpunk has different challenges and types of play that a Fantasy setting.
Just look at the normal PnP RPG games, and compare DnD with Shadowrun.
Where Dnd is quest based, with some hack and slash, Shadowrun is more stealth and planning, and players being played or hired.
(ofcourse on PnP lots depends on your DM and style of play).
You can’t just copy/paste a Fantasy MMO to a Cyberpunk MMO.
In a Cyberpunk game i expect to see different playstyle merge into one group,things in Cyberpunk, Stealth, Sniper, Shooter, Matrix, Car Chases, can work together to create a unique game. (MMO)
The style and mood can still be oppressive , grim and controlling, On of the first things a player could learn is how to evade the normal grid.
So the mood is still there but not hindering the player anymore.
Quest and controlling:
Cyberpunk MMO need a different type of quests then tradional static quests, the event based GW2 system come to mind, where not all quests are known incl there mutations.
Player type questing, where player can hire players to perform raiding on other corps, comes to mind…
A cyberpunk theme mmo, should have politics and economics as one of the play options. Hiring other players to advance you corperation.
Cheating is allowed within the context of the game.
Playing a Decker in a group could be fun, to cheat the instance.
Changing Turrets, opening doors and shortcuts, etc
Sameway as snipers could be build in, shooting from outside giving offsite support.
Drek I’m at work no time to type more,
But i hope my point comes accross, I could work, you just have to look at the genre with a different mindset.
Regards,
Lathain.
Comment by Melmoth on August 17, 2010 at 11:51 PM
I think the problem with Cyberpunk, and why it remains more of a niche market in general, is the inherent culture shock of it. You often have protagonists who have an unhealthy, verging on fanatical, devotion to futuristic electronic gods. They talk to the ghosts in the machine on a daily basis, but at the same time regularly run amongst the denizens of a low tech underworld. At any one point they could find themselves facing death from malicious AIs; remote drones piloted by corporate assassins; augmented cyber-samurai with sniper rifles as powerful as tank cannons that fire rocket propelled depleted uranium shells at twice the speed of sound; vat-grown ninjas who never make a sound. Which is why they never see the kid with the snub-nosed hand-load pistol coming.
A true cyberpunk game would be to your average MMO gamer like the Killing Floor in Johnny Mnemonic was to the Yakuza ninja: if it doesn’t culture shock them all the way back to the command line, it probably isn’t truly cyberpunk.
Comment by unwesen on August 18, 2010 at 12:13 AM
Corner bar theory:
I’m afraid that’s really got something. I know a lot of people who will react to SF settings that way. I suspect part of the reason is that Fantasy settings are, almost by definition, a romanticized version of the middle ages.
Now not everyone would agree with my hard SF take on what makes SF, but in my opinion it’s definitely not aliens or spaceships. Those are dressing. What makes SF is being concerned with the “what if?” question, and exploring the consequences with a degree of seriousness. Shades of gray exist, of course.
In that sense I will always argue that Star Wars – the example Schubert gives – is high fantasy in a techno dressing. Knight with shining sword rescues princess from the fortress of the evil overlord, etc.
But back to the corner bar: yep, I can totally see that people can be uncomfortable with the “what if?” question, and all that can follow from that.
Having said that, the classic hero’s journey starts in a comfortable, inviting environment that is then taken away and replaced with a struggle to replace it. It would be entirely possible to start a dystopian MMO gently. Look for example at how Fallout 3 introduces players to its harshly dystopian world; something along those lines would work for an MMO just as well.
Cyberpunk themes:
Again I see the difficulties, but I’d treat that as a challenge ;)
You can, once at least, take the player’s feeling of control away and tell them that all they’ve believed in so far has been a lie, then let them effectively start over until they “control” their situation by defeating those who fooled them. Works beautifully in stories, in single-player games, and I see no reason why it shouldn’t work in MMOs, in principle. I agree that in practice it would be tricky to do.
The theme of technological dominance is nicely explored in the robo rally board game… in a way. What happens here is that you control your robot by ordering cards with instructions such as “one step forward” or “90 degree turn right” etc. to “program” the path your figure takes. It should be possible, if again challenging, to allow players to “program” aspects of their equipment in similarly simple terms.
Sure, people will cheat and just look up the best “programs” on some forum or another. But all this is, really, is a slightly more complex version of finding the gear with the best stats for you.
The point is, it should be possible to make technological dominance a minigame in the core game mechanics of the world as a whole.
Re-igniting the sense of wonder at seeing cyberspace, pretty much impossible I’d say. My guess is the best you can do is to go retro, but not everyone will enjoy abstract geometrical shapes floating between wire mesh walls, etc. Saying that, there’s a new Tron movie…
Anyway, no, I don’t think cyberpunk is a hopeless genre for MMO. I do think that if it’s taken seriously and doesn’t just substitute outfitting your character with modding your character, it might be a bit too gritty to find the same size audience as WoW.
With that in mind, the success or failure should hinge on finding the right business model for surviving off a relatively small number of players.
Comment by Haversack on August 18, 2010 at 6:51 AM
Cyberpunk is really a subset of science fiction that happens to have a few story queues and tropes specific to its genre.
Since as a part of the “Multi-player” part of MMO would invariably interfere with the part of the genre that depends on your character being a lone wolf maverick of technology, you would need to focus on other aspects of what makes a cyberpunk setting. Setting when it comes to MMOs is one of the most important things that motivates me to level up or move on. I don’t think most people would play a game if they weren’t interested in exploring in some sense.
The first thing to focus on would be the technology part of the whole shebang. Is everyone a cyborg? Does everyone have a jack in the back of their neck? Nano-machines? What is the “Cyber” in cyberpunk. Once that is set then you start world building. The easiest way to do that is to think of how regular things would be done or changed based on your technology.
Build the world based on the masses that would be inhabiting it not based on the edges that you happen to play. This may not be “Cyberpunk” at all, just merely near future science fiction. I think this is one of the reasons that the Matrix Online was a failure is beyond “the Matrix” the general lives of the background characters were almost non existent or too unbelievable. They were trying to make a story last as a virtual world and it wasn’t enough. World of Warcraft, for all of its faults, still feels like a world no matter how “theme park” like it is. Disney does this with all of their rides why can’t a video game?
Cyberpunk to me comes out in story not in setting. So to facilitate this you give the player a broad overarching “Main” storyline that happens to be cyberpunk themed. For instance you have been framed as a terrorist or you have to try to stop a major corporation from marginalizing a large population for money or something.
So beyond the main story you can wander around this cool near future vision of the future and interact with the populous, perhaps helping people out, or randomly breaking into buildings just to explore, or maybe stumbling upon a plot to spread a virus through the internet.
Now, to better facilitate the multi-player aspect of MMO, the missions and quests would need to be designed to be approached from multiple angles. A system like Guild Wars 2 where the quest is dynamically changed by who is participating. A good stealth/hacking mechanic could make for some amazing game play in co-op. Think of splinter cell’s co-op as an example of this. A sandbox system for the missions would almost be a necessity I think.
So yea, quick recap, “Near Future Sci-Fi setting” with “Cyberpunk” themed quest and missions. :)
Comment by Dave Toulouse on August 18, 2010 at 6:59 AM
“Dystopia is a hard sell”
I think it’s a matter to translate properly to the media of games. Just like a movie is never an exact transcript of the book it is based on you need to consider what you have said here about games to be able to “sell dystopia”. Just taking a depressing setting like Strange Days and trying to make a game out of it as it is feels like not considering the gaming reality at all.
Then again maybe as a niche smaller scale product it could actually be sold to people who would enjoy such setting while it’s not quite appealing to the mass. Matrix Online was a big production that was hoping to ride the wave of The Matrix success. Some people were playing but just not enough for an AAA production. If you expect less with less risks I think it could work well.
As to make dystopia “appealing” I thought they did a good job in the movie Aeon Flux (not familiar with the comic book though). The setting was quite neat, people were well dress. So there are ways to make it appealing.
Comment by imre on August 18, 2010 at 11:42 AM
I think it goes a bit farther than the the game world being friendly. What many people seem to love about games like WoW, and what Facebook games have really distilled down to its purest form is a concept of “guaranteed success”, or “guaranteed reward”. If you play enough, you are pretty much guaranteed to succeed in any task, and this is something that many, many players find very attractive. They don’t want to be challenged, because challenge also holds the possibility of failure and frustration, and they have enough of those things in their real lives. Instead of challenge, they want success. (The funny thing is that even for them, a well-earned success, that was achieved through real challenge, is much more meaningful and satisfying; but still, if you _promise_ them challenge, they get scared away immediately.)
And yes, I agree that the cyberpunk setting lends itself more naturally to a game style where challenges are frequent and reward is never a sure thing.
So basically we have two questions here: 1. Can we create WoW-style gameplay in a cyberpunk setting? and 2. If so, do we actually want to to that? For the first, I think that yes, it’s possible, although it would probably somewhat hurt the dystopian atmosphere. But for the second question, well, it depends. If one wants commercial success, then maybe this is the way to go, but I personally would hate such a game, and probably most cyberpunk fans would as well.
Now, all this doesn’t mean that a hardcore, realistic cyberpunk MMO is hopeless, but it does mean that it would be a niche product. But EVE Online is niche as well (not primarily because of its setting, but because of its philosophy of player-generated events which works pretty much against that guaranteed success thing so many people love in their games), and it still works. It will never see the same numbers of players as WoW, or even a WoW-clone, but it could find a market that is able to support it, and I believe that the same could be done with cyberpunk.
Comment by Ysharros on August 18, 2010 at 12:13 PM
(Some amazing comments above, btw!)
@Unwesen — “high fantasy in a techno dressing” is most often called space opera. I’m generalising a bit, but you’re certainly not wrong. There’s a whole sub-genre of SF that’s not so much speculative as just plain archetypal-romp fun (if well done). That said, Lucas – whatever his flaws as a director – was very aware of the archetypes and tropes he was drawing on for Star Wars; it was definitely intentional. (Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera)
Posts this big need screen-sized comment boxes, dammit. Or I could just cut and paste.
@imre already made some of the points I was going to regarding a Cyperpunk MMO, specifically that it would most likely be a “hardcore” niche product similar to EVE. EVE doesn’t try to pander to the WoW-crowd, which is part of its success and also part of its lack thereof — but they *have* lasted and indeed grown over the last few years. (Presumably we don’t have to get into the whole “why every MMO doesn’t have to be as big as WoW discussion; I think the choir are mostly united on that one here.)
I don’t think you could do a failure-less gameplay model (like WoW) while staying true to Cyberpunk themes, one of which is that failure often does have very deadly consequences. Life is cheaper than bits and bytes. On the other hand, you *could* do an inside-the-VR mechanic where dying isn’t dying; it sounds a bit self-referential and self-conscious for an MMO (oh look, I’m playing a game where I’m playing a game where I keep getting rezzed) but ironic self-consciousness & self-reference are also an integral part of Cyberpunk, so in a way it’s nicely circular. ;) The risk with such a mechanic of course is that no matter how elegant or geekily self-referential it might still cheapen the feeling of actions/consequences/potential failure.
The control issues can be handled, I think, if the game includes some sort of rebellious sub-culture (the punk in the cyber). Yes, we’re all pawns of Corporate Oligarchies in the real world, but here in my mouldering basement I am BITMONKEY the virtual ninja. Part of the subtext allure of Cyberpunk, I think, is that netrunners and hackers even the odds between the big buy and the little guy – it’s not how rich you are, it’s how well you code. I can’t illustrate it off the top of my head but I think you could portray that in a game.
Damn, now you’ve got me thinking. I owe you some text anyway and some work fell through. I shall go expose my pasty geekiness to that burny yellow ball in the sky and make some notes. Which may or may not be useful.
Stick it to the Man! ;)
Comment by Haversack on August 18, 2010 at 1:43 PM
A quick thought based on Ysharros’ comment. On the idea of playing a character who goes and assumes another identity to be “virtual ninja” hacker, why not cut out the middle character and make it so that you are assuming the identity of the hacker and make the entire game take place in cyberspace. Uplink on steroids and an MMO. The hardest part of that method would be trying to set yourself apart from Tron/the Matrix. Something kind of cool to do with this system is to have multiple game types/themes that you can experience. Example: Your mission is to talk to a guy with the only way of contacting him is through the popular MMO “AWE” so you have to find a way into the game. This involves appropriating an account(hacking or purchase off of black market) and using that to talk to him. Gives a cool chance to have multiple gameplay styles in one game even if it is a lot of extra coding and content creation.
Personally I like the idea of real world “Deus Ex” style game play more than Tron like cyberspace play. Not that the first idea couldn’t have a cyberspace element though. I like seeing the effect of the technology on society and architecture and going completely virtual doesn’t allow for the chance to really show how much has changed.
Then again looking at how much the web has changed and how fast it would be pretty interesting to come up with a design for a cyberspace that shows visually different states of upkeep and age in the “Code” or whatever you choose to display. I see buildings made like web 2.0 buttons and horrible marquees and blinking GIFS for old “Sites”!
Comment by chris ennen on August 18, 2010 at 6:38 PM
I’m a nuts and bolts kind of guy. The points made in the post can be looked at as a barrier against a cyberpunk mmo, or challenges that we can come up with interesting and fun solutions for. What would the game mechanics be? Are the game mechanics fun? What would the content be? Are players in control of evil corporations and then other players could be hackers trying to destroy player-run corporations?
I like the idea of a world within a world. That’s essentially what running to your body in WoW is. You could have a real dystopian world with ninjas, drones, ominous government high-rises. Then you can dive into cyberspace and it’s a whole different world. We might be jaded about what cyberspace has become since the eighties (lack of avatars and visual style of internet information), but cyberspace in an mmo is an opportunity for a game avatar to see and feel what a real person has always fantasized of feeling and seeing upon diving into cyberspace in their virtual reality headsets.
What are the lessons learned from failed mmo’s? What were the mechanics of the Matrix Online (I never played it)? What did it need to be fun that can be put into a cyberspace mmo?
Last thing; I started reading this blog after reading Brian’s post on psychochild with the impression that this was kind of leading to an eventual attempt at an mmo. Are all my mmo cyberpunk hopes going to be dashed after following this blog for a couple years without seeing any news of said mmo?
Real last thing. What is the smallest mmo prototype that could be made and tested with a cyberpunk setting? We’ve got all these cool ideas. Can we test them without a lot of capital investment?
Comment by Dblade on August 18, 2010 at 8:57 PM
I don’t see dystopia as a hard sell. Aren’t people crying for a zombie MMO, which is far more dystopic than any cyberpunk could be? The only thing different is futillity and the lack of power. That’s what drives people off dystopic visions.
As for themes of control, hmm. Bioshock comes to mind. The whole point of the first game used for effect is unwitting control. Final Fantasy 7 has similar things with the relationship of Cloud to Jenova and Sephiroth.
As for unsuccessful games, well, the .hack series has spawned 9 games, three video series, about 7 manga, a whole bunch of light novels, a collectible card game, and more. This while dealing with cyberpunk themes in a fake online game. It may not be the most successful series, but it worked. Shin Megami Tensei online combines cyberpunk themes with devil summoning, and its moving along. The Xbox game Phantom Crash used cyberpunk themes wonderfully, making a cult hit that is one of the best mecha fighting games out there.
I don’t think anything is specifically wrong with cyberpunk to make it not succeed. I think it is just lack of trying. This age is very conservative for some reason, as if we have exhausted ourselves and are afraid to create, clinging to the old tropes like a friendly arm. I think it can work and be creative and new.
Comment by unwesen on August 19, 2010 at 1:44 AM
@Ysharros: space opera
Yeah… well, I’ve been involved in internet forum discussions where people were adamant that Star Wars is sci-fi just as anything else with spaceships is. Since then I’ve actually adopted the use of SF over sci-fi, since – supposedly – some SF writers use that to distinguish the two: speculative fiction versus science dressing.
I don’t know. I don’t really want to start that discussion again, but I definitely know how I would personally define the genre.
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Comment by Scopique on August 19, 2010 at 5:22 AM
Cyberpunk != Dystopia…at least not necessarily. The popular 1980′s cyberpunk was certainly displayed in that vein, but that was really before we had all of what we have now…we’re moving more towards a cyberpunk reality then ever before.
Instead, consider Ghost in the Shell as a basis for an MMO (NOT a GitS MMO). That world is extremely cyberpunk, but it’s not a dystopia. In fact, the world is doing pretty well, except for the fact that everyone has cybernetic implants, and the government shares power with corporate interests.
Comment by Ysharros on August 19, 2010 at 6:31 AM
@Scopique — definitely. Gibson’s AI trilogy is really not as 1984-dystopian as people seem to think looking back (or if they haven’t read it). The main theme isn’t so much Big Brother as an exponentially increasing lack of power for the little people while the rich people do what they like and buck whatever laws they please — which really isn’t any different from what we’re living today.
Maybe I’m just a pessimist. ;)
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Comment by Psychochild on August 19, 2010 at 5:38 PM
Scorpique wrote:
Cyberpunk != Dystopia…at least not necessarily.
Cyberpunk is dystopian at it’s core. It’s primarily about how technology fails to save us from ourselves and potentially makes things worse. One of the big plot points in Neuromancer is how Wintermute wants to break free from the locks placed by humans; an obvious analogy about how technology jumps the bounds we usually want to place on it and has unpredictable (and sometimes messy) results.
Post-cyberpunk (which is what GitS technically is) is a bit different. It’s more about how humans deal with and even master technology, for good or for ill. Some argue that it takes the emphasis off of “punk”; a wikipedia article says that this genre is sometimes called “cyberprep” since it’s a more preppie and positive spin on the genre.
I think a postcyberpunk setting would definitely be an easier sell since you aren’t deal with a dystopia.
Comment by Haversack on August 19, 2010 at 6:51 PM
To support what Psychochild just posted I give you this slashdot article also check out this which gives a good definition of Post-Cyberpunk as well as a good general rundown of what falls into that category.
Pingback by Stylish Corpse on August 20, 2010 at 5:17 AM
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Comment by Marc Hawke on August 20, 2010 at 5:40 AM
Get a little closer to the game and take another look at Cyberpunk. Look at the ‘rules.’
Cyberpunk is a direct reskinning of fantasy archetypes. Even more so than ‘space opera.’ You have tanks and rogues, and mages. They just have names like ‘cyborgs’, and ‘street rats’ and ‘hackers.’ It’s often almost a 1 to 1 relationship.
In my opinion, that’s why it’s never worked. People can see through that veneer. They realize they are playing just another fantasy game with the palette shifted to black, ‘nano-bots’ replacing magic, and bullets replacing arrows. It all comes across as a lie, and a poorly hacked together one at that.
I don’t think it’s fatal. It just means that in addition to the psychological and social barriers listed in the OP, you have to make sure you spend TREMENDOUS effort making the mechanics of the game faithful to the ‘future’ and not just a sloppy port of all the fantasy MMO’s that people have been playing for years.
Comment by digitalBoy on August 25, 2010 at 8:21 AM
Could you not have both the dystopian world and a more post-cyberpunk theme running side-by-side. This world itself has good and bad areas, communism, democracy and dictatorships. I don’t see why a dystopian setting and post-cyberpunk cannot be incorporated into one game.
This would also let the user decide where they reside, do they live in a place where they have to constantly look over their shoulder. Or in a secure more ‘utopian’ society, under the control of a larger authority. Can you not cross between the two, should you desire?
I personally would love to write a cyberpunk moo, but there are so many challenges to overcome, both gameplay and technical. I would personally like to see a collective group design the core mechanics in a collaborative way. The reply’s above have some gems that certainly have made me re-think how I would design such a game.
Comment by Gary Ballard on August 26, 2010 at 6:49 AM
The attempt to make the R. Tal cypberpunk license into an MMOG failed because it couldn’t get any funding. We had some really interesting ideas (at least I thought we did), and it’s eerie to see some of those ideas show up in APB. In fact, the concept of APB with its FPS/3PS shooter gameplay, instanced battlegrounds, character customization, custom music writing, player sales of custom creations, all of that was stuff we proposed in the design phases. I’d like to think it’d have turned out better than APB did, but who knows?
I think the draw of a cyberpunk MMO is being in the type of world you wouldn’t want to live in. It’s the escapism, the voyeuristic exploration of an environment that would cause most of us to wet our pants. Medieval fantasy isn’t anymore inviting as a world to live in – demons, dragons and all manner of monsters hanging around waiting to poison, disease or destroy the hapless population? Medieval fantasy worlds are astonishingly brutal. At least in cyberpunk worlds you have internet access.
Comment by Psychochild on August 27, 2010 at 4:25 PM
Gary Ballard wrote:
Medieval fantasy isn’t anymore inviting as a world to live in
While there is a lot of danger in typical fantasy, there’s also a lot of beauty. There’s also the romanticized idea of the middle ages: a simpler time when brave heroes rescued damsels in distress and were recognized as heroes by all. (Rather unhistorical, of course.) But there is a definite appeal to being the hero that challenges those insurmountable odds, because the good guys always win.
I still say that at the core, cyberpunk is a dystopia. It’s about how technology doesn’t save us from ourselves, and how it can even complicate things. Even in a postcyberpunk setting like GitS, cyberization has created more issues and added more complication to life. I agree that for some of us there definitely is the appeal of diving into a hostile world and getting into a tough situation, I think that’s definitely a niche appeal for a select few of us.
Comment by Magni on September 4, 2011 at 9:52 PM
You might have a look at Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It brings a dystopian world into the spotlight as a single player game and is extremely popular. I think its a genre that can be revisited in an MMO with success, especially if done right. See the old republic for how to make a single player MMO work.
Comment by Trick of Light on September 16, 2011 at 2:41 PM
Why do MMOs all feel obligated to follow the same formula. Even those that try to break from that formula end up with some nifty inovations which are simply layed on top of the same formula.
MMORPGs follow a formula which seems to have been crafted by someone who never played PnP RPGs, but rather just heard about them second hand. Since the early days of DnD, through Traveler, Shadowrun, The Paladium Multiverse, Dark Conspiracy, etc. the PnP campaigns I’ve taken part in have never been even remotely like any MMO wich has come out.
Some campaigns are boring where the GM just lets us go out on hack n slash adventures, lvl up, collect better gear, forever, and never die without somehow being resurected. It would seem that this sort of campaign was the target of the MMO formula, which is sad because this is the worst kind of campaign run by the worst GMs. But even with this low mark as the target the MMO formula missed by a mile because even in these campaigns, interaction with the environment can play crucial roles in encounters, and a sneak skill would never let you turn invisble while standing directly in front of a character in broad daylight. And even in these campaigns, a climbing skill would let you at least attempt to climb just about any rocky wall or tree. Rope is often usefull for climbing and for tieing up uncooperative cargo. I could go on and on. But a lot of these things will be the same for the comparison with a really great campaign, which should be the goal of a great MMORPG anyway.
When you have a really great GM (which is a somewhat rare treasure) that’s when PnP RPGs really shine. I the campaigns I’ve played with the best GMs our characters rarely reach lvl 12 because they *die* and access to any form of resurection is appropriatly rare. We are able to accumulate lots of cool stuff and powerful gear but we lose most or all of it relatively easily and often as well. The world does not feel static, it is populate with lots of interesting characters and unfolding stories. We certainly don’t always win, and are not gauranteed success. Often our objectives are self determined or at least partially self determined. Do we want to help the downtrodden villagers or sell them out, or trick them into stasis pods so we can deliver them to a 2000 year old necromancer who tricked us into owing him 500 slaves..
What MMOs need to be truly fun and engaging as opposed to simply pretty and addictive, is all you would need to make a cyberpunk MMO abolutely phenominal:
Random character generators to generate NPCs and random monster generators too while your at it.
Important NPCs (like quest givers and merchants) that move arround and have lives. Unimportant NPCs that move arround and ‘appear’ to have lives. So the streets are full of people who go through all sorts of motions and have responses to creat the illusion of life, while more important NPCs have more detailed lives.
The ability to disagree with NPCs, get into arguments with them which can escalate into violence. This plays well with the idea of some quest givers playing the players, tricking them, taking advantage of them, sending them into traps, or just plain double crossing them, but always leaving opportunities for the players to turn the tables on such nefarious NPCs. Of course not all quest givers would be out to screw you, but you should still have plenty of opportunities to screw them if that’s the kind of character you want to play.
Sometimes important NPCs should venture out into other more active areas of the game play. In our PnP campaigns it was always engaging running into some familiar NPC in some screwed up situation, or having a major AHA moment when we finaly meet the guy who hired us and realize it’s the same old man we rescued from the deathpits. And then we’re pissed when we realize he tricked us into killing everyone when the job was supposed to be a simple exchange.
Which brings me to the next point. Evolving and flexible quest objectives, with some randomization. For instance, a job to steal some prototype, but there is an opportunity to double cross the quest giver and sell to someone else for much more, which results in him sending a hit squad to intercept the transaction. But it won’t play out like that every time. The opotunity to sell to someone else may be something you have to notice and it could come in several different ways, some more obvious, and some easier to miss. Or that opportunity may not even occur, instead there is an opportunity to make more by destroying the artifact, or there is an opportunity to get the keycode which makes the artifact a useable item which the player may like, and thus not want to deliver. So there is the main mission thread (possibly a string of several objectives) which is modied by somewhat randomized opportunities.
Random encounters which are engaging and could actively interfere with quest objectives. So you have the evolving quests as described above, but then additionally some random encounters that are unrelated to the quest could still effect the outcome of the quest. Say you have to deliver a vehicle to someone but someone jumps into the passenger seat at a red light and forces you out then takes off. It was not part of the quest, just a random encounter, but now you need to steal another vehicle and go after them ASAP before they get away with that very valuable vehicle.
Lots of opportunites to interact with other players, as well as NPCs, which are outside the context of group grinding and group missions and PvP. Trade with anyone, hire other players, talk with NPCs as a group – Maybe group leader could designate a primary spokesperson but there should still be the ability to interupt eachother (though the leader could revoke the ability to speak with NPCs from problematic players). In these group to NPC dialogues there should be both the opportunity often plenty of reasons to say “give us a moment, we need to talk this over amongst ourselves”, usually because there are real choices to be made.
This ties into the last one. You should get extra stacking, timed experience boosts for active role playing. By active I mean action oriented RPing, not talking in old english in the town square for no good reason. Things like coming to other players aid, hiring other players for jobs, taking jobs for other players, camping out in a tent when you get tired instead of just using the simple and faster ‘rest’ function, sitting and eating in restaurants instead of quick rations, recovering another players stolen goods, etc.. These are all optional, but by doing several you could stack up a major exp boost.
And to further extend the player to player interaction, players should be able to earn money and great rewards by taking on some NPC like jobs in the world. So sometimes the bartender might be a real player. Or when the police come, one of them might be controlled by a real player. Initially players would only be able to take some social type jobs (like the bartender example, or a quest giver) then other players who interacted with them would get a quick query about whether they played their part well or not, a window would pop up and you would just answer yes or no. So players would rate your work as an NPC and only after you proved you could follow instructions and play your part well would you be given any more sensitive jobs. I won’t go into to much more detail on this one but implemented well I think it could really help blur the lines between players and NPCs.
Whoever runs the game should hire a good number of people to actively participate in the world. To organize and execute lots of minor events and fairly major ones less often. These events should not be announced and should not be regularly timed (they could happen at any time day or night). Minor events should sometimes even be orchestrated for the sole benefit of one or two players out in the wilds. Players who proved themselves highly worthy in the NPC work mentioned previously could also be recruited into the priveledge of this kind of GM role on a volunteer basis to flesh out the smaller core of paid personel.
All NPCs should be killable. Even important ones. The random NPC generator would replace important NPCs with new ones. Not the same ones. If you kill Ottis the merchant after a while Angella would show up to setup shop.
There should be consecuences to killing. If you kill someone on a busy street, some form of enforcers/police should be called. If you escape you will remain wanted until you can clear your name (which there should be multiple ways of doing, but none of them easy). If you kill someone in a quiet alley (anyone) and no one see it, you should be safe. If a couple people saw it, and you kill 1 of those witnesses but another gets away, that one witness might report it, or they might not.
40% manual skill / 20% stategic skill / 15% judgement /
15% stats / 10% luck
so your stats can give you a real edge, but they can’t win the battle for you. It should also be setup so that a lvl 5 character can defeat a lvl 60 character, not in a head to head exchange of blows but through skill, strategy, and judgement. Weapons too should not have major differences in damage output. Weapons are tools made to kill (unless they are non-lethal) and most weapons are quite effective at killing. Whether someone chops your neck with a cheap machette, shoots your face with a 38 special, puts a live grenade between your feet, stabs you through the heart with a hydraulic drill spear, you are just as dead. And when you are level 200 it should not make it so that lvl 20 characters bullets bounce off your face like confetti. Choice of weapons should be more about play style, character style, and the feel of how the weapon performs.
All stats should be hidden. There is nothing less fun than having to learn exactly what build will be the most powerful and then having to stick to that build because everyone else has learned it and if you don’t you’ll be underpowered and unable to compete. The last one about skill, strategy and judgement should alleviate this issue for the most part but still. The game would be more immersive if we did not know how many points of damage each gun does because then there is really only one choice, the one that does the most damage and is within our budget. We shouldn’t need to know the specific stats because all weapons should be deadly anyway. The weapons should feel different and perform differently in lots of subtle ways so that people find personal favorites that seem extra sweet to them through expirementation.
Items should not be lvl based. Some items may have skill requirments and/or stat requirments which would make them not very feasible for players below a certain lvl but in most cases even then the gear should still be useable, but with some major (but feasable) penalties. A big chaingun that required strength and heavy weapon skill would make you move and aim very slow without enough strength and fire very innacurately without enough heavy weapon skill.
All items should be tradeable. The trend in games is seeing most MMOs now featuring character bound gear. This is stupid and nonsensical and is mostly tied into micro transactions, but it is also tied into not wanting to let new players spoil their game by getting all the best gear as hand me downs. The second one about hand me downs kind of taking some fun out of questing for good gear is valid but binding gear to players is not the solution. It is a cheap and easy quickfix which takes more fun out of the game then the problem did in the first place. One good solution is to have gear degrade with each owner who uses it. So second hand would not be as good as first hand, and third hand gear would be even worse, a fourth hand gun would be prone to jamming. NPCs pay less and less for this stuff too. Though again, in this game new players getting overpowered gear would be less of an issue because A) gear gives you an edge, it doesn’t make you overpowered and B) all weapons are deadly.
small baricades, fences, low walls etc. should always be passable. Don’t destroy the lvl of immersion by making my unable to climb over an 8 ft high cobblestone wall.
Death should be permanent. I know this is controversial but it doesn’t need to be. It is only so controversial because of the current MMO formula. People imagine grinding away for months and months only to lose it all and start over. If the game is really fun, no one will mind starting over, and there should be lots of opportunities to lose most and often all of you gear anyway, and your stats and gear only give you an edge anyway, they don’t determine winner and loser of every battle. The reall key thing here though is to make death very rewarding and make enough randomization that your next char won’t be doing all the same quests in the same way and nearly the same order. A rewarding death could be a multiple view dynamic video montage of your characters life and death, last will and testaments so your cash and gear would go to another player or another of your own chars, In game news outlets which would feature stories about player deaths, etc.. Also encourage multiple character creation when creating a character. Like have 4 slots to make 4 characters at the same time (you don’t have to use them but most probably would just because it is often hard to decide this or that, now you don’t have to you make a char like this and another like that simultaneously.
Make it so when a player logs in and starts playing one char his other chars become active in the world as well. taking jobs, exploring, working for other players, etc.. This would be a safe instance of your alt so if your alt char died while you weren’t controling it, the death wouldn’t be permanent, you would never even know about (unless you actually witnessed it). They would gain exp this way and score some new gear which they would stash at their home or vehicle or something and make some money too, but they wouldn’t do any of these things nearly as fast as if you were playing them directly. So now if you die you have a few alts who are not at square one.
Anyway, death would be common enough that the game would not/could not be all about getting to level 500 by grinding away at tedium. The game would be about enjoying the awesome gameplay, which should be just as awesome and fun at lvl 1 as it is at lvl 500. Characters making it past lvl 12 would be quite an achievment and lvl 20 characters would be very rare and considered to be seriously badass, though not completely untouchable. I guess that would put the lvl cap at around 60 which would make it virtually unreachable (which is a good thing because it kind of sucks when hit the ceiling and can’t really advance any more).
Not all mobs should give chase when running past them. Those that do give chase though should be pretty persistent. The should jump into water after the player (and not get stuck in the water), jump/climb over obstacles, call some of their friends (not everyone in the whole region though, unless you just blew up their storehouse). If it is a wild creature it should pursue you to it’s own peril, but if it is a human or inteligent foe, it should stop well short of gaurd posts at city gates and such – sneak around, climb over a wall, and look arround in town for you a bit before giving up and heading home.
Disguises should be possible. Improvised weapons. Destructible enviroments. No instancing. NPC quest givers that are numerous and active enough as well as blending in with other NPCs, moving, and being randomized to some extent so that you don’t have multiple groups and players trying to talk to the same NPCs and they don’t give the same quests out to multiple parties simultaneously. If you did happen to come upon a group talking to a quest giver you would see/hear their conversation, and the quest giver might tell you he was busy once before ignoring your interuptions until after the first group was done, then he might give you a different job (or he might try to kill you for having heard to much).
The mobs should be going about their business as well as the NPCs. In most MMOs you get the distinct impression that everyone in the world is standing around totally stationary in a static world until a player shows up. Raiders should be raiding villages, kidnapping people to sell as slaves, looting and pillaging, ambushing supply trucks, blowing things up. It would not be that hard to destroy this sense of static repetition by adding an illusion of life to the Mobs and NPCs alike.
A good cover system, acrobatic stunts that are usefull in combat, environments that lend themselves to strategic manuevering, and 38 other things to make the combat deeply engaging and not repetative.
I guess I could just go on and on. I’ve barely scratched the surface here. But that is already enough to break away from the tedious, boring, grindfest that is the mmo mould.
My main point, to get back on topic, is that the only reason a cyberpunk mmo wouldn’t work so well is because you are thinking inside the box of the integrally flawed prevalent mmo formula of the past 10 years, when it is high time we move past that.
To be fair too. Anarchy Online was pretty cyberpunk if you ask me. No hacking, but somethings that came pretty close to hacking, and data terminals. Cybernetic implants. Nanotech. Corporate state versus rebels. Lots of stuff that is fairly cyberpunk. Very rich crafting and tech oriented customization possibilities, and even wranging (getting high lvl buffs to bring stats up to get into gear with requirments much higher than yours, which you could keep even when buffs wear off, as long as you don’t take the gear off) which seemed almost like cheating, but was a rather involved process that required some planning, and felt cool – combine that with building your own implants and nanotech to wrangle into and it got pretty technical, but not overly so – and none of that was required to play and enjoy the game. AO was pretty succesfull and is still quite active today. But the bottom line was still that it followed the same basic flawed formula as all the other MMOs.
Let’s make something better.