Fallen earth has swords.

Posable reason to have bladed weapons...

1. Its a traditional wepon i.e. Honour knife.

2. Defensive armour is very advanced and a gun is not garanteed to take an oponent down and when he gets close to you a gun is less effective as it can be grabbed so a close combat wepon is key.

3. There is the argument that advanced ammo will be self guided so cant miss solving the cant shoot in a spaceship argument but what about ECM?

4. It could be that advanced tech is declining making bladed wepons a prefered and reliable choice as things can go wrong with advanced guns such as ammo running out as its hard to get or maybe your plasma pistol loses magnetic containment because its hard to find anyone with the needed expertise to fix it.

Also bladed wepons mean more than knives and swords. Especially if you have throwing stars, remote controll swords [as in a hover drone with a blade attached controlled from a safe location.

Originally posted by Mr.Happy

Just wondering, but do you think there should be sword in sci fi mmos? The only one i think is Star-Wars, and thats because it is based off the movies. But I just want to know what others think about it. Sometimes it seems like there are sci fi mmos that are masked as fantasy genres.

a sword is a tool period ...you cant  stereotype it into a genre

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Originally posted by Mrbloodworth
Fallen earth has swords.

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And, of course, so does Phantasy Star. Oh, so many swords.

Depends on the setting.....

Basicaly, through-out the history of armed conflict...there has been a arms race between defensive and offensive technologies.... whenever some-one builds a weapon...some-one else is sure to eventualy try to build a device to protect people from that weapon.... causing some-one else to build a technology/weapon to get around that defensive technology. This goes around in a never ending cycle of who-can-build-a-better-mouse-trap.

Swords and other melee weapons CAN make sense IF where they fall in that cycle is a place the bypasses the current defensive technologies that are CURRENTLY employed.

The Dune reference is perfect...... In that scenerio, personal shields had been developed and deployed in mass volume to effectively counter the previously prefered offensive technology of deadly long range missle/energy weapons. Close in melee weapons then started being employed as a means to defeat/circumvent that technology. Undoubtedly, at some point, some-one would come up with a defensive technology to render that means of circumventing shield defenses (i.e. melee weapons) obsolete. However, AT THAT POINT IN TIME..... the makers of defensive technologies hadn't come up with a counter-measure yet...hence Melee weapons made sense (I believe personal shields at that point we're RIGID ....meaning they didn't follow the wearers contours....and weren't smart enough to distinguish between hostile and freindly objects they might interact with).

The other context in which swords or other melee weapons make sense.... are when you are dealing with scenerio's where there is a SOCIAL pretext to use them.....either because of some tradition...or because the context in which the scenerio is being played out is NOT a situation of Total War.

Examples.....

In the 20th Century....the sword would definately be categorized  as "obsolete".... what with Planes, Tanks, Long Range Artillery, MachineGuns and even AutoMatic and Semi-Automatic Rifles. However Japanese Officers still routienely wore swords in battle.... and found opportunities (albiet limited) to use them. They did so not because the sword was a hugely effective weapon... but because wearing and using one was a social tradition..... and because there were times when they found themselves at close quarters with thier enemies... and they used whatever was availble to hand.... which happaned to be swords. Now thier enemies could EASLY have provided thier soldiers with defensive technology (personal body armor)  that would have rendered those swords useless.... but it was NOT economicaly practical to do so. The sword was such a limited weapon when compared to Tanks. Aircraft, Artillery, etc..... that it made little sense in investing much money in protecting soldiers against it..... the money was much better spent investing in technologies used to counter more devastating weapons (like Aircraft, Tanks and Artillery).... thus the sword COULD be used to do damage....simply because it WAS of such a limited threat.

Today.... in many places in the World.... more violent deaths occur from knives and other hand-weapons then from Fire-Arms. Despite the fact that Fire-Arms are far more effective weapons. The reason is simple...knives are cheap, easly concealed, easy to obtain, common in Household settings and not heavly regulated. Fire-Arms (in those settings) by contrast are much more expensive, not as concealable, not as easy to obtain and are much more heavly regulated.

In the 17th, 18th, 19th Century..... Gunpowder weapons had replaced "cold-steel" as the favored weapon of war (although cold-steel still saw some use). However, swords were still one of the most commonly used weapons in Duels of Honor. Why, because that was the socialy accepted standard. There is no assumption that a futuristic setting need, DeFacto, be one of Total War. There is no reason why, for example, a setting where War was waged against Aliens using powered armor and energy weapons..... but when individuals of different human factions offended one another, they would strip off thier advanced technology.... and pull out a set of dueling rapiers to settle thier differences.

Heck wasn't the explanation that Obi-Won gave in Star Wars about why he used a Light-Sabre NOT .... "It P-Owns a Blaster".... but rather ...."It is a more Elagent weapon from a more Civilized Time" ?

I wrote few arguments against melee weapons in SCI-FI setting. So its right to put few arguments for them aswell.

Its safe to assume that if ranged weapons have evolved, melee weapons did too.

We are not talking steel daggers or swords anymore

Good example wold be monomolecular wire from William Gibsons: Johnie Mnemonic.
Molecule thin cable concealed in fake nail. Weapon that cuts so perfectly that its victims dont even realize their body is cut in half until they try to move.

Now thats a melle weapon i would carry around instead of dagger ;)

When I was watching the SWTOR walk through video last week I noticed the Republic Trooper NPC had big swords. My immediate reaction was 'wtf, thats not right' then I read a thread on the forums where someone asked if the troppers had the "Big ass Vibro-blades like they had in KOTOR"... which obviously explains there existence.

In games like Fallen Earth which focuses on rebuilding civilization after an apocalypse, yes, swords are acceptable as they are rebuilding technology. In games like Star Wars where technology is far more advance, I think the sword is out of place.

  Guns and swords can work very well together.  Look at The Matrix, or look at the character Deadpool, or how about FF7.  Tagging something "sci-fi" doesn't necessarily mean laser-anythings.  No need to analyze it or break it down, it works and there's no reason to really look much further than that.

Originally posted by mbd1968

 

In games like Fallen Earth which focuses on rebuilding civilization after an apocalypse, yes, swords are acceptable as they are rebuilding technology. In games like Star Wars where technology is far more advance, I think the sword is out of place.

Technology is more advanced in Star Wars, hence any melee weapon used is also more advanced. Two examples of which are the Jedi and Sith's weapon of choice, the Lightsaber, and its various forms, and the Vibro blade. Two melee weapons. Jedi still seem to be a prominent force even after the near extinction of them, the only reason Vibroblades aren't seen in the movies is because the Jedi aren't as numerous. The biggest advantage of the latter was that it was one of the few ways you could counter the lightsaber, putting you on equal terms with the jedi (Force excluded).

The Lightsaber is still prominent because its design allows them to block and redirect blaster fire, and in the games and other sources, there are styles designed to compensate for the limitation of the weapon's range.

As long as the sword or other melee weapons have a place in society, can be used effectively against others and have ways to circumvent their flaws, they can exist.

Besides, RPGs, and MMO's in general, circumvent the obvious rules of combat, and automatically allow the usage of melee weaponry in most cases, so it doesn't much matter. Hell, one of the strongest weapons in Deus Ex is a sword, no real explanation why, but it is.

I like going BZZZ and CLASH with the sound of two lightsabers smashing together, it's fun and they look awesome.

It keeps diversity and in some situations they are better, for either intimidating a foe or general close combat and in MMOs it opens up another obvious class that the devolpers don't even need to think to put in. I'm not sure when the swords in sci-fi actually started but I think that its pretty much because of Star Wars that we expect to see them. Though W40K's melee weapons are so evil that it's cool to see an orc being pounded in the face by a powerfist.

Ask a Klingon why he has a knife. Go on, I dare you.

Better yet, you could try laugh at a Klingon with a bat'leth ;-)

I think it comes down to practicality.  If you're doing close quarter combat in winding corridors with blind turns it might be rather difficult to carry around a plasma rifle 4 feet long only to get rushed by your opponent and stabbed in the spleen by a knife/dagger.  Besides, what's to say that just because technology advanced to the point where they can use energy weapons that no advancement has been made with melee weapons that could be made of the same material or have those same energy sources harvested in some sort of melee form.

Not all combat takes place in a desert or across a field where you have time to aim and fire while hiding behind cover.  I would imagine that it was entirely possible to rush an opponent and cut his projectile weapon in 2 with my similarly advanced melee weapon before I gut him like a pig.