this would probably make a great sand box mmo

land rush claim land  make a house or a mine or  a town

hire players to be shieriff's and  deputies   to control town 

railway   player constructed

bank robberies

and if you made all races the same its very difficult to do a lawsuit against that

becasuse if they took you to court they are acctualy the one making a problem with the race and trying to say one race is different from another  where as you  are saying everyone is the same

Perhaps because there aren't that many weapons and fighting styles for a mmorpg?

I can only really see two classes.

Gunslinger with a rifle, revolver and dynamite.

Indian with tomahawk, dagger and bow.

Fallout New Vegas had a very wild west feeling (to much in my opinion); a scifi wild west mmorpg would be a better idea. (capt. Bravestar)

Originally posted by jusomdude
I'm not sure at which I would be more pissed at if I were a Native American. Being portrayed as an enemy in the video game... or not being included in a game taking place in my native homeland.

by now their probably resigned to it, its been happening for hundreds of years after all.

Yeah it would have to be a sandbox MMO thats for sure..

I would love to see a wild west MMORPG.. and im from europe.. we love a good wild west film :)

Just about everyone wants to make another WoW. WoW has elves and magic. There's no magic or elves in Wild West. Besides, Westerns aren't as popular as they used to be. Maybe if somehow you could fit zombies into western setting, since that seems the rage now.

I just don't see a AAA (or anything with decent funding) Wild West MMO coming any time soon. Maybe something low budget like Darkfall or Mortal, or one of those F2P type games.

The Wild West would be a dream set for any mmo studio, actually, when you think about it :

- huge, huge terrains, without the need to populate them with cities, etc (= budget redirected to more important game features)

- the "small town" philosophy (local news, local plots, local problems etc) would be perfect for the "quest hub" classical design type

- lots of faction/social archetype possibilites (bankers, robbers, cowboys, tribe-type people *yes indians*, lawmen, outlaws, entertainers, doctors, etc)

- lots of class possibilities (shooter, brawler, alchemist, specialist, mercenary, hunter, etc)

- infinite extension possibilities (xPac 1 : region 1, xPac 2 : region 2, etc... or time based : xPac 1 : wild era, xPac 2 : industralization era, etc)

- lower need on art resources : there are fewer materials (wood, rock, sand, burnt vegetation) than in other "old times" ambiences

- lots of mini games possibilities (poker, drink, wild hunt, etc) for casual audience satisfaction

- openness to mystical stuff (indian magic, voodoo, ghosts, monsters in places where nobody goes, etc)

- can be very group oriented / dungeons / raids (outlaw den, ghost town cleaning, undermine worker rescue, etc)

- super open to sandbox (special desert region reserved for player created towns, houses, etc, à la SWG)

- the scenario could fairly avoid sensible subjects such as the indians problem, slavery etc., and even turn it to good use by proposing to rewrite history (help slaves to escape a farm, fight besides indians against invading army, etc)

- pvp could be easily implement every latest inovation in the genre (invasions by outlaws, factions growing their territory dominance across towns, politics, duels, opposite faction town infiltration missions, etc)

- etc, etc ........... And you don't need to be realistic on combat (a brawler can take out a shooter, just like in any other mmo, just give him the proper tools)

Clearly this is a perfect set for a successful mmo, targetted at several audiences. If I was leading a mmo studio with a budget, I'll definitely jump on that opportunity.

I've been yearning for a good historic or pre historic MMO for years. We've had a couple Roman era MMOs but they were pretty aweful (Roma Victor and later Gods and Heroes).

I think the reason we're not getting any is the same reason we're not getting any AAA sandbox MMOs: studios are broke and nobody wants to take any chances by deviating too far from the WoW format.

Originally posted by hockeyplayr
Just curious what everyone thinks.  I personally think that era has all the elements to make a good game for all types of players.

The answer is painfully obvious.  It's because no one has made a very popular and very profitable "wild west" MMO for them to copy.

I do think it could be sort of limiting because of the limits of the time of the wild west.  While I can think of a few possible classes/whatever, I'm hard pressed to be able to flesh anything but a cowboy, bandit, or lawman/bounty hunter out.  How would you handle things like instances, raiding, or battlegrounds?  I would guess it would have to be more open world sandbox to work and have a setting that makes some sense. 

I do think it's possible to make a decent game from.   Horses/horse and buggy for personal travel.  Train for fast world travel.  Trains, to me, would seem the best suited for load screen/transitions for world travel.  Although, that would negate train robbing.  Which, to me, would be a must.  In the spirit of the time, it would lend itself to land purchase or getting jobs in little towns that pop up.  It could have dynamic world controlled towns that spring up and die out after time or meeting of conditions.  Conditions could be gang take over, financial depletion by robbery, environmental issues like climate change or a resource being exhausted, or just a random time cycle.  Crafting would be easy enough to brain storm out.  Community/guilds would be a little harder to me.  Only thing I could think of would be a ranch of like minded people, a group of town/area law enforcement, or a gang of bandits.  You could do towns for guilds, but that opens up designing your own layouts/building placement.  It's been done before with castles, but not sure who would be up to the task.  I think there are a few ways to make a game like this work, but it wouldn't be your conventional MMO.  But, that's not really a bad thing either.

Originally posted by zimboy69

this would probably make a great sand box mmo

 

land rush claim land  make a house or a mine or  a town

hire players to be shieriff's and  deputies   to control town 

railway   player constructed

 

bank robberies

and if you made all races the same its very difficult to do a lawsuit against that

 

becasuse if they took you to court they are acctualy the one making a problem with the race and trying to say one race is different from another  where as you  are saying everyone is the same

I think you nailed it right there. It would be so much fun plus instead of guilds we would have gangs and posses.

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Originally posted by Robokapp
well...I imagine some are a bit hesitant to make a whites vs indians faction mmo...

for the same reason there is no real race based MMO. when are all the games who have playable real races set? either in deep sci-fi world war scenarios or in antiquity. or the races are dwarves, elves, humans, goblins and orcs.

make an mmo with ever-so-slight hint at stereotype and start thinking of ways to make each race unique and my, how the lawsuits will flow.

example:

indian racial is +1 culinary skill. -100mil in courts.

whites jump height 2% less than the other races. -100mil in courts.

That's why. too close to social sensitive topics. Indians are still around...and wouldn't be very tolerant and understanding about this.

 

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What is WRONG with you people? Why you thinking so small?

If you want a wild west themed MMO, I say that's more reason for a Firefly-based MMO. Get the best of many worlds.

Originally posted by hockeyplayr
Just curious what everyone thinks.  I personally think that era has all the elements to make a good game for all types of players.

Basically because you can´t just steal the same game mechanics as everyone else already is using, and because publishers want devs to make them a new Wow.

You can´t have healers and tanks in the wild west, so unless you want a MMOFPS you would need to make some new group mechanics. Well, you could but it would suck.

So you need a company that thinks outside the box and at the same time are competent. That leaves CCP and Undead labs, and both are busy at the time. Unless of course Rockstar would make a MMO, any western MMO would be really indie and cheap.

the thought of listening to country music while gaming for hours is making me want to vomit.

theres a clue.

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Originally posted by Loke666

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Originally posted by hockeyplayr Just curious what everyone thinks.  I personally think that era has all the elements to make a good game for all types of players.

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Basically because you can´t just steal the same game mechanics as everyone else already is using, and because publishers want devs to make them a new Wow.

You can´t have healers and tanks in the wild west, so unless you want a MMOFPS you would need to make some new group mechanics. Well, you could but it would suck.

So you need a company that thinks outside the box and at the same time are competent. That leaves CCP and Undead labs, and both are busy at the time. Unless of course Rockstar would make a MMO, any western MMO would be really indie and cheap.

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It's fully doable to make a Western MMO.

There are actually some interesting settings that could be used like the Deadlands RPG setting (look it up).

But I think it would fit a sandbox free-skill system best with an FPS style combat.