And are they good? That's one genre I'd actually like to see some development in.

word of warcraft?

Originally posted by Gabby-air

word of warcraft?

I think he meant western as in "Cowboys and Indians".

Haven't seen any. I don't think it would be a particularly good setting for an MMO, to be honest. Very restrictive in terms of character customization and such.

A space-western in the vein of Firefly would have much more scope while retaining that wild frontier element.

There is one in the Game List, but it looks pretty bad and pretty dead.

Fallen Earth has a very western feel to it though.

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Originally posted by Gabby-air

word of warcraft?

I think he meant western as in "Cowboys and Indians".

Haven't seen any. I don't think it would be a particularly good setting for an MMO, to be honest. Very restrictive in terms of character customization and such.

A space-western in the vein of Firefly would have much more scope while retaining that wild frontier element.

Ah, sorry for the misunderstanding. There is one game on the list that is on your good old west but development on the game has been really slow and by the time it releases probably very dated.

The idea of a western MMO would be fantastic but the problem is how will you make it? Will the storyline and gameplay be better than other MMO's? It is a very unique idea and I want to support it. I wish there could be some games out there which are still under development be like this.

I think a good western MMO would include more sandbox elements, such as building a home, planting crops, making epic treks cross country while keeping an eye on resources, as to not starve during winter. and also include an outlaw system where players can choose to be on the opposite side of the law, which would in turn allow a bounty system. Not to mention saloon gambling and whore houses!

sounds fun!

Fallen Earth reminded me on a western MMO early on. :) People were long trenchcoats and cowboy hats, ride around on horses on the open plains and wield crude rifles or dual wield pistols. Ok you just got to replace indians with mutants... and ignore the cars and motorbikes. And probably the plains that crashed here and there and the computers and assault rifles and rocket launchers and mutation powers and so on...

But early on it's like a western MMO. :)

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Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

I don't think it would be a particularly good setting for an MMO, to be honest. Very restrictive in terms of character customization and such.

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I'm not so sure about it's restrictiveness. Sure it would suck if it tried to be the typical ham-fisted kill everything in sight MMO, but that is pretty limiting too.

If instead you think about a game that blends all the skills for "civilized" life (economics and social) with survival skills (gathering and scouting) you have a pretty open game before we consider combat at all.

Gear wouldn't be too limited, with everything from knives to Gatling guns being available for the 1870s (probably my decade of choice). Clothing would be important, both socially and perhaps environmentally (a huge map would include several challenges in this regard if you let it).

OTOH as a player it could be a bit restricting. Travel could be very restricting, possibly taking months or even years to fully explore the world. Worse might be the FPS level of power growth, because yes I would want a ten minute old character to be able to kill anyone (creating a challenge of how to reward players for their time).

I cannot think of a Spagetti Western MMO, closest my brain is drudging up is Sword of hte New World, but that's more of a weird alterverse colonial thing, I think? Women in petty coats and shit, wiht fantasy magic or something.

I do think an actual "Western" MMO would be interesting. I mean, there is plenty to consider... you could do an alternate universe type thing, or you could pluck groups from American history and place them on an alternate world. You know... like you could have the Yankees and Confederates, Buffalo Soldiers, Various Native American tribes, Mexican Banditos.

Hell, Fantasy Steam-punk Western! Rather like "Wild Wild West" or maybe Sci-fi Western like "Trigun". I think it would have the potential to be pretty damn cool.

I don't think travel would be too badly restricted. You could use a railway system to move from zone to zone... that also provides an excuse when launching new areas that, "-a new section of railway done got put in to Such-n-such Junction," hell, havign a railway line running through zones also gives options for quests like robbing trains.

Originally posted by Midare

I don't think travel would be too badly restricted. You could use a railway system to move from zone to zone... that also provides an excuse when launching new areas that, "-a new section of railway done got put in to Such-n-such Junction," hell, havign a railway line running through zones also gives options for quests like robbing trains.

This would only work if players of the "outlaw" faction could hold up the train, like u said 

LOL I'm sure it could be done. The whole attacking the train thing, maybe by having some sort of energy-using effect that the outlaws could use on their mounts to run at train speeds for a short time in order to try and jump on board. Once boarded, teh act of killing the ticket chap who minds the door automatically offers a quest to any white-hat characters on the train to try and fight off the robbers.

Alternatively, the transport trains are instanced like the monorails in CoH and are jsut for moving zones, but the robbery trains are ones that are more like a form of PvP instance. In some cases it is the robbers attacking, in some cases it is the robbers defending on a train they're already aboard. Rather like a King of the Hill match. Attackign group starts at teh back of the train, defending group is protecting the engine end of things.

Rather than pre-split factions i think an alignment-based system would make more sense. You start out neutral and depending on what quests/actions you take... you wind up either a white-hat (good guy) or a black-hat (bad guy).  Considering the focus on gun play, I would think FPS style combat makes the most sense. Not my personal preference... but I mean, it's shoot em ups!

I think the riskiest element of it would be how people get bent out of shape about stereotypes. It would probably raise some dust over that, even if people usually ignore it in Western movies (probably because the movies draw less attention anymore). You'd have to stay away from any sort of "racial abilities" or the like... but it would still make sense to have the ability to make characters of different races. Making it all white folks and Natives would be ignoring the roles that the others played int he setting... like all the Chinese immigrant workers that died making the railroads, or the African Americans that served in the civil war.

"Pilgrim, before ya think about making any .... western MMO's... you'd better take a look around.  'Cause if this crowd is all ya got; they don't look tough enough...to stomp a stringy jackrabbit." -- The Duke