Dana Massey Asks "Why Not?": Historical MMOs
Each Thursday, this column explores some element of MMOs that isn't being done and why it should be. Massey debuts the column with a look at the often neglected Historical MMO genre.
Why not? For every forum poster we have, there is a unique opinion on what games should be made, what features should be included and how they should be done. In this column, each Thursday, I’ll take on one of those ideas and lay out the basics of something that really should be done, but (to the best of my knowledge) has not.
Three out of four games on the MMORPG.com Game List are fantasy. And that’s a number that’s actually gone down in recent years, as companies have ventured into a bit more sci-fi and a lot more kids games. Still, three in four is a bit extreme.
Clearly, there’s a market for other genres. Hollywood rarely does fantasy, yet people still manage to watch movies. So why, for the love of God, can’t someone make a good game in any other genre?
For my first “Why Not?” column, I want to explore the most neglected – and in my opinion logical – genre that developers have ignored: the historical MMO.
;)
Fantasy, as it has come to exist these days, is just history with creativity. It’s easier to say, “No, that’s not the British burning French towns, that’s the Generians burning Cauchemar!” But, you know what, that’s a cop out.
Each year, colleges and universities around the world produce thousands of English students who dream of walking around in Middle-earth. Through the wonders of technology, we let them do it. After all, they need something to do after they graduate. So why the heck have we neglected the thousands of equally unemployable History grads (I was one, so I am allowed to mock).
We have the talent, we have the technology and it doesn’t take a PhD in Classics to want to know what it was like to walk around in Ancient Rome. Let’s give them a place to play too.
History is full of rich and vibrant worlds and stories that don’t require the presence of five headed dog men to be interesting.
It’s time that someone did an historical AAA quality MMO.
I mean, people play the hell out of historical games (Civilization or Age of Empires anyone?), and historical and biopic movies sell tickets more reliably than the adventures of some dude’s D&D character.
And guess what, while history may not always have been pretty, the argument that “it really happened” is an entirely fair defense if you want to sack Rome and someone from Italy objects.
Now some naysayers may argue that the true problem with an historical MMO is that we already know how it ends. To those narrow-minded pessimists I say, “We know how Lord of the Rings ends too and no one seems to mind.”
Let’s look at some of the eras that could be done and done well.
;)
Medieval Europe
People have the formula down. Fantasy games basically rip all of their classes from this period anyway, so can someone please reskin a good MMO and take out the Wizards?
Seriously, France and Britain liked to beat the crap out of each other. For some reason, Western culture seems to only be ok with killing digital Germans (WWII), but if anyone suggests killing digital anyone else, well that’s just too far, isn’t it?
It’s not! I want to go to War in France.
What’s more, a focus on this kind of game would force some bright designers somewhere to actually think about some of these assumptions they’ve made for years in Fantasy MMOs and might improve that 75% as well.
Take away Wizards and fireballs and suddenly, rogues and archers need to get a helluva lot more interesting for the game to have variety.
The improvements to melee combat and siege weaponry alone would be worth the cost of development.
Ancient Rome
With all due respect to the tenacious guys at RedBedlam who have done fantastic work with Roma Victor, this is an article about big budget treatments of historical MMOs. I respect the hell out of what they’re trying to do, but Rome could definitely use a game that makes its way to Wal-Mart.
;)
And don’t quote the death of Gods and Heroes at me either. A noble attempt, but that game was mythological, not historical, and its death was more to do with the collapse of the company making it than the product itself.
A Roman MMO would provide the ultimate “us vs. them” gameplay and is far enough back that even the Pope probably wouldn’t get too offended.
Hell, the Empire itself was organized like an MMO world.
For the carebears among us, they could be noble Roman Citizens, practicing their wrestling, building statues and assassinating Senators in a safe, cozy PvE environment.
For the moderately hardcore, there is always the life of a Roman Soldier to consider. March forth with six of your closest shield bearing buddies and civilize you some Gauls.
For the really hardcore? The life of a Visigoth is for you. Sharpen your teeth, practice your club swinging in the dense, cold forests of Eastern Europe, then pull a Leeroy Jenkins and run screaming into Northern Italy to kill you some Romans.
Seriously, what’s not to love?
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Each Thursday, he asks the question "Why Not?" about some element of MMOs.
The answer to that question can be summed up in two words:
Roma Victor
I'm pretty sure it's mathmatically impossible that you read this article before posting ;)
I have asked this question myself for several years. . Any of the suggestions you made would be awesome to see especially 12 century Japan.
Because this industry is ran by those who aren't table-top gaming nerds and geeks and who have no real creative spark driving them. They have a money-grubbing spark, for sure. That's why they have WoW goggles on (not berating WoW so put the flamethrowers down) and only want to repeat that success.
The only ones that have the creative spark are the small companies that just barely have the budget to make an MMO. The big companies that you illude to have gotten fat and lazy. Luckily, they have an apathetic hoard to sell their snake oil to.
Seriously, this industry needs to have a few of us guys out here in the trenches head up a design team. While I don't always agree with some of my peers on gameplay issues, at least some of these guys have a better perspective then the majority if not all major game companies.
Seriously, that should be a challenge. Have a guy/gal from the community come up with a sandbox/immersion/UO-AC era type game and one come up with what is commonly referred to as a themepark game. I'd wager the player led efforts, if given good team of coders, would be more popular that the current line of "professional" games.
For a genre that supposed to be about it's players, a deaf ear has never more been turned.
I'm pretty sure it's mathmatically impossible that you read this article before posting ;)
I promise you that I read it, Dana. It was only two pages long after all, and I read *fast*.
If I came across wrong by the quickness of my quote, please accept an honest "well done!" for the article, I'd love to play those type of games as a MMO.....
I was an old fan of the Avalon simulation games, I loved those hexes......but I understand that people with my type of interest make up only a tiny percentage of the gaming population.
I promise you that I read it, Dana. It was only two pages long after all, and I read *fast*.
If I came across wrong by the quickness of my quote, please accept an honest "well done!" for the article, I'd love to play those type of games as a MMO.....
I was an old fan of the Avalon simulation games, I loved those hexes......but I understand that people with my type of interest make up only a tiny percentage of the gaming population.
LOL, don't worry. I wasn't offended, just being snarky today apparently.
This!
It's sad really. I mean there is WWIIOL from 2001, and it's still alive - But many would say that it made an acade turn a year or so ago and now just uses historical units in rea-world locations, with gamey gameplay.
As the other posted hinted at. It's easier for developers to just make-up some random crap with half-assed lore, or leech some existing IP and then justify (with ass reasons) why they had to stray from it here and there.
I'd play a 1200BC MMORPG in a heartbeat. Shadowbane style city building, in depth crafting and economy with DDO/mount and blade style combat. Like the man said, what is not to love?
* When I say DDo/Mount and Blade combat that is what I mean. Not Darkfall circle running with spammy mouse clicks.
Actually, Dana- Vin Diesel's Tigon Studio is working on a AAA Roman era title, currently called Barca B.C. , as I reported to you guys weeks ago in a thread apparently long since buried. Just a heads up!
Neat, missed this one.
However, if you go to the Tigon website, they're promoting it as an Action RTS. Odd. Definitely worth digging into though.
No problem. I am actually suprised he hasn't been interviewed more often about it. Or NASA about their upcoming mmo (ala America's Army), either.
We will dispatch some minions and see what we find :)
My company doesn't qualify in the AAA description that this article is hoping for, but we are making an historical MMOG based on Ancient Rome. We're doing it with an entirely volunteer team. The game is called Visions.
We've just re-started world development in the new TGEA 1.8.1 engine by garage games which we hope will resolve some issues we were having with terrain and mapping features in the previous version of the engine we were using. Due to the volunteer nature of our team we had to revise our launch plans as well, as it became clear that our tiny little team is not going to be able to release a fulll scale MMOG with "out of the box trimmings" in anything short of 2 human lifetimes. But what we can do is release a small start and hope that this generates enough interest to provide funding or developers to increase our team size and create the game as imagined in the design documents.
If you are truly interested in helping a MMOG based on ancient Roman history (2nd century AD to be precise) come to life, come join us! We can use the help, especially from programmers, 3D artists and animators. Apply online at www.visionsgame.com If you don't have any of the development skills we need then just tell your friends. Buy a copy of Chariots, our ancient Roman racing game, to support our efforts in the mean time. But especially tell your friends. We would like more people to know about our efforts! We're trying to get the first phase of Visions released before the end of 2009. There is a lot of work to be done to get us to that point.
I already know that there is no funding for a project like ours. That's why we can't meet the AAA budget expectations that the author of this article is wanting. A volunteer team just can't produce the same volume of work that a fully funded full-time development team can produce. Whoever it was that said investors are only interested in making money is exactly right. A ground-breaking concept like the one we are working on is all but taboo in the game industry. No investor will touch us because no one has ever made a game like Visions before and they don't know if it will succeed. It might not. But that hasn't stopped us from trying, we're just doing it in unconventional ways. The main advantage we have is that we have passion for our project, and the developers put their heart, soul, and lifeblood into the work they are doing. We don't have many developers but the people we have are highly gifted and very dedicated. I couldn't ask for better people. I believe that we'll have a great game not because of big budget funding, but because of the great people who helped make it.
Thanks for the vote of confidence in making a game with historical background! Good to see it.
Blessings to you,
-Sparkling
Frontier 1859, the best MMO that never got off the drawing board. I've been visiting the site (and its previous site) for going on 6 years, and I still think it'd be unbelievable if the person behind it could find the money to make it. Given the scope of what he intends to do with it, though, it's like one of those shows you see on network television that you know will be canceled because it's just too darned intelligent for its audience. Even if it'll never get made (and I'd so love to be wrong about that), the FAQ is worth reading just to see what a clever software designer can come up with when he's focusing more on the art than the business.
I didn't have to read it and knew :D
I had really loved that game ..played it early on when it first was completely free and beta :)
didn't keep playing simply because I got married and it took me a while to convince her to play games ... by then. my brother got me LOTRO and i had to pick ... :(
unfortunately i'm more of a tolkien nerd that history buff .... but it was close :)
Combine this
Mount and Blade combat engine +
Crusader Kings for map and strategic part
than add voting for position and you got EPIC!
For me, historical MMOs won't work; MMOs aren't capable of reflecting reality, or even another's fantasy, without compromise. I point to LotRO and AoC as prime examples - these games may be great fun but they both heavily violate the world as created by their authors. For me, LotRO was virtually unplayable because it was not the Tolkien world and mostly just a WoW clone other than that (Yes, there are elements Wow doesn't have, but I'm an old-school sci fi/fantasy reader and the compromises are too deep for me to enjoy the game). AoC, well, not as bad, and the combat system is great fun, but it is no Hyboria and I don't feel like it is when I play.
MMOs like UO, EQ, AC, and even WoW work in large part because they can do pretty much any dang thing they want and not violate the basis of the fantasy. The same for Eve, and the defunct Tabula Rasa, and many others. No one comes in with pre-conceived ideas about how the game should be. In thiese examples WoW did have a pre-existing world, and if I'd played the Warcraft games I might not be so forgiving (just as those who never read Lord of the Rings or the original Robert E. Howard Conan stories were not as judgmental, I'm sure, as I), but I still think the example stands.
Even these MMOs go too far to suit me. Celebrations at real-world holiday times using simialr themes, references to real-world situations or literature or other fantasy works can be fun (I laughed out loud playing Wow when the goblin cook I'd just learned some recipes from listed them and shouted 'Bam!', mimicking Emeril Lagasse's famous cry at the end of the show as he presents his completed dishes), but to me they are mostly counter-immersive. They take mme out of the fantasy.
The mechanics of the MMO will do that too much, in my opinion, when it comes to trying to be historical. History will have nothing to do with such games, rather they will be just a collection of familiar names and items in a world that didn't and couldn't exist, literally diffusing real history and, in the weak-minded, replacing it with the fantasy.
;)
Sounds awesome.
I agree with the OP, hisorical MMOs are a much needed sub-genre within the genre...I wish that someone would make a bonafide Medieval game (the closest to that was DaoC, but that didn't work out for me). I've given up on hoping for a AAA company to come along and make a historical game because even if they did make one, they'd just mess it up anyway. That's why I've been writing down ideas for a Medieval MMO, just in case I get the "elevator" scenario where I have to persuade a game developer to adopt my game :) --until then I'll just be waiting.
It's a good question to ask, seeing as fantasy is just a reflection of history with magic thrown in. In the real world, "magic" is technology, and there's no reason why we have to be dominated by fantasy games which replace, or combine, magic with technology to create helicopters or motorcycles (damn you WoW).
Oh, wouldn't that be awesome. A historical MMO, slightly fictional, where Rome expands even farther east and really gets into a full-scale war with the other superpower of the ancient world, the Persians. Would probably be sometime just before the Pax Romana. Honestly, I think at this point even historical fiction would be better than more fantasy.
As tempting as some of these concepts seem to start, as a few other commenters have pointed out, a few kinks in the historical concept come to mind.
Timeline: All mmos flow on some sort of timeline. If there is a timeline then there is an end. This, Im sure is the fundamental reason most developers wont even touch historical IP for games that they intend to have no end(LotRO being the only IP with enough clout & guaranteed playerbase to expend the resources to come up with a not-so-perfect-but-workable timeline solution). Its a big hurdle to overcome & has to be given so much more thought and resources to develop a game that deals appropriately with what happens when 1776 comes around in your American Revolution MMO, or when 1240 comes around and gunpowder is showing up in medieval battles?
The developers choice is to expend lots of resources to develop a good, working, original timeline concept, or drop the timeline concept altogether and leave you in a sandbox with a vacuous feel of floating in perpetual limbo. This might appeal to some, but falls short of what most MMOers are looking for in their gaming choices.
Politics: Weither you choose to acknowledge it or not, all historical wars have been political. Would you allow players to make crucial political decisions that send countries to war? Would Henrys invasion of France even occur if JoePlummer happens to be the highest level advisor the king has & completes his Keep the King Home quest? And who wants to tackle the sensitive issues like racism, sex(you know homo or hetero sex outside of marriage made little difference to the average pre-Christian Roman or Greek?), slavery(need to stock up on slaves so I can leave my farm for a month & fight in the american revolution,...), religion, genocide, and mass slayings by tyrants & despots-all vital to determining a countries historic geopolitical power?
Would you allow players to ascertain a historical countries racial or religious inclinations? Would you penalize players who wouldnt conform to RPing them? Would you discount these major power builders? Would players have an active role in these, be victims of them, or would the developers choose to leave out these crucial, depth building, immersive elements that makes history what it is?
Most players dont want to have to deal with these issues when playing(or some do-but companies dont). These issues can also be "sugar-coated" and not-dealt with, but all of them are major challenges that would require time & resources to decide how to develop or omit.
In short, while it seems that there is a plethora of historical IP out there to be able to build a good MMO from, the development costs of producing MMOs these days is through the roof, making it impossible for an average independant to develop in a lifetime, and no big company wants to throw money(lotsa money) into a project for 2+years, without anything that sells.
Believe me, as a veteren industry worker, these ideas are shot down before anyone can even make the pitch.
It really does come down to big business thinking like big business, and with all the good smaller game companies being bought out by larger ones(EA), and the aggressive moves by those larger ones, toward console development, I cant see the MMO market developing as it could, or perhaps should, with abit more input from gamers rather than executives. This is the main arguement (resources expended vs. what they think/know works) for WoW=death knell of MMOs.
Probably keep on fighting for anouther 7 years since the revolution didn't end till 1783....
Only a very small handful of MMOs have any internal concept of time. LotRO being the notable exception to the rule.
Most MMOs are basically a "snapshot" in a moment where people play within the box. There is no reason any of these settings would need to advance in time and have external events "imposed upon them" unless they wanted to.
For example, expansion packs that introduced new content and "advanced the timeline" would be logical.
If you really think about it, Pirates V. Ninjas would be historically accurate in a way. There have been actual historical conflicts between the Japanese and so called Western Traders, who had a habit of stealing from their Japanese trading partners(Isn't a pirate just a murderous thief anyway?). So I think it is entirely concievable that while some slight changes from the traditional pirate idea would be needed, it could be historically accurate.
I said this for a long time, a few historical games would be great. There are all kinds of other historical games, FPS, RTS, turnbased games, sim games like Stronghold....
But the only thing close I seen are some poorly made pirate games.
Knights, Romans, Vikings, feudal Japan... The possibilities is endless. Of course you wont get a healer so you better not get too badly hurt.
Well, you are right but still wrong. Ninjas against Chinese Pirates would work well, it is a bit doubtful but have probably happened even if I havnt heard a story about it myself. Ninjas were never that numerous and didnt have so much historical impact as Anime and B-movies want us to believe.
But westerners did have very little influence on japan until the Japanese-Russian war of the 1890s. The exception was the Jesuit order that did operate a little in Japan.
But a Shogun MMO (where everyone isn't a westerner) would make a great MMO actually :)
Well in most cases historical mmo's won't work if its faction PvP based and historicly accurate. Lets see lets do a Civil War era MMO, it would' nt work because we all know that the confederates lost. SO if the game was PvP and you wanted to be historically accurate then the confeds would be gimped in the game and then nobody would want to play them.
But if you don't care about historical accuracy you can have any MMO set up in any time with faction based PvP. I think it would be cool if there were some other time periods. Ive been playing a bit of PotBS and its a nice change of pace. Ive always liked pirates and it has some good features, its just to bad it failed and everyone hates SOE.
Couldnt agree with Smokeysong more.
The biggest problem many of the failing/struggling MMO's have encountered is the fact that they try to hard to stick to the facts of the lore rather than allow constant creation of lore.
My other disagreement is, if you knock out the caster classes from MMO's(for historical relevance), you immediately lose half the customers. Creating MMO's isnt cheap, and most of the time, the more money you invest, the better product. How do you accumulate that money? Customers. You lose money when you lose customers. You lose customers when you cut certain aspects of gameplay out, especially choice of class.
All in all, this is another "great idea in a perfect world" that just never translates well in the real world...
Great article/explanation of things, I loved the article, just disagreed with it. Keep up the good work :)
Chris Clemency
Only a very small handful of MMOs have any internal concept of time. LotRO being the notable exception to the rule.
Most MMOs are basically a "snapshot" in a moment where people play within the box. There is no reason any of these settings would need to advance in time and have external events "imposed upon them" unless they wanted to.
For example, expansion packs that introduced new content and "advanced the timeline" would be logical.
True, but it wouldn't be very appealing to me to fight the Battle of Waterloo or the engagement at Trafalgar over and over and over. And I'm a veteran and a European History major.
Course, on the other side, it'd help some of the kids playing MMOs in history class. Well, maybe, maybe not.
True, but it wouldn't be very appealing to me to fight the Battle of Waterloo or the engagement at Trafalgar over and over and over. And I'm a veteran and a European History major.
Course, on the other side, it'd help some of the kids playing MMOs in history class. Well, maybe, maybe not.
Well again, I was thinking historical more in terms of settings then events. The players make the events and conduct the adventures. It's not like the Battle of Waterloo would be happening every night at nine ;)
In a true MMO those battle should be planned by players. What if Napoleon never went to egypt for one thing? Or if the French fleet capture a part of the British before Trafalgar?
Personally I think US during the revolution would work better, were a lot more smaller skirmishes there. The same reason Vietnam would work better than WW1 (except airbattles, they are actually possible to make a MMO about. You could outfit and paint your plane, put an extra Lewis gun on it and so on) or WW2. WW2 is also politicaly incorrect, its easy to get some real neo Nazis...
PvP battles with tens of thousands players just isn't possible yet, imagine the lagg. And Waterloo with 100 players would just suck. A platoon battle between some US marines and Vietnamese NVA (peoples army of Vietnam) in the djungle however could get intresting. There you could have citys and camps with infiltration missions. And it can be hard a first to see who is a peasant NPC and a viet cong...
You need one thing to make a MMO fun: Gear. In 'Nam soldiers had different kinds of uniform (even in the same platoon), different weapons, things like Starlight scopes, grenade launchers and so on. And you could make the citys intresting enough.
Western, please.
Rules systems for western "miniature" (like Warhammer) games already exist and could be adapted to the MMO.
Please look at the links:
www.wargamesfoundry.com/books/RWNN.asp
www.mts.net/~gisby/RWNN.htm
I havnt played that particular but another western minature game. Its rather fun actually.
Western works well as an MMO also, as long as you dont have levels. Duels where 2 lvl 80 shots eachother for hours would suck so bad :D
So realistic system for firearms and I would consider the game.
Gah, Westerns...movies are bad enough, now we must have MMOs? Hehe. Just kidding, I'm all for variety. Though that particular duel sounds like one of those Prot/Holy Pally vs. Prot/Holy Pally duels. Nice.
The MMORPG industry has pretty much followed the pen & paper RPG industry, not Hollywood. If you look at that, the king of RPGs is still D&D, followed by Vampire and I have no idea what else anymore.
Historical roleplaying games, ones with no fantasy elements, do exist, but aren't particularly popular.
It's always been my dream to make an MMO in the timeset of the American Revolution (the freedom would be amazing), or the Wild West (equally amazing freedom). Just so much you could do I LOVE YOU :D
Oh, but the Napoleonic wars culminating in the Battle of Waterloo (end game) would rock! Except... that we'd throw historical accuracy out the door and let the players battle it out for each battle ground... but we can't let the French have rifles and all Brit players would want to be a Green Jacket rather than Red Coat. :P
Well again, I was thinking historical more in terms of settings then events. The players make the events and conduct the adventures. It's not like the Battle of Waterloo would be happening every night at nine ;)
Now, if the Battle of Waterloo were end game and it got scheduled like the way PotBS schedules their port battles... that's a possibility... Not every night at nine, but every week at nine? ;)
I agree with the author on all counts.
I think it would be fascinating to play an ancient Rome MMO, I would love to see a faithful recreation of Rome, Jerusalem, or Londinium 1st to 3rd century AD. It would be amazing to throw my lot in with one of the many feudal powers in Medieval Europe.
Rome itself has patricians, senators, Praetorians, gladiators, navies, legions, siege machines, far flung provinces, plebeians, mighty historical figures, cults, religions, and so many other things to keep an MMO player busy for years and years.
Medieval Europe has monks, kings, wars, intricate alliances, castles, peasants, empires, trade routes, alchemists, and so forth. This would be such a rich tapestry that no one would ever run out of things to do.
I should also point out that there is one historical MMO I can think of: Pirates of the Burning Sea. It may be a more stylized version of history, but last I knew the developers were going for some form of historical accuracy.
I believe making a truly historical mmo has its biggest obstacle presented by the surviving population of the particular groups represented in the game.
By this I mean that the more historically accurate you make an mmo ( or any game ) the harder it is to get by the "revisionist" who go to great lengths to deny certain things happened, as well as those who believe they are being either misrepresented or even attacked culturally. You cannot have a truly "historical" game in an age of political correctness.
An example:
An "Old West" mmo would undoubtedly have to have cowboys and indians ( native americans ). Do you really want to be the PR guy having to dance around "historical" forms of warfare and culture such as skinning and scalping performed by tribes in warfare with each other as well as against the "white men"? Do you want to be the one being accused of discrimination by native americans because you neglect to show the mistreatment of the indian "savages" by the white men as they were historically committed? Better still, you'd need to decide which faction were the good guys and who were the bad? Truthfully, we can't even determine that after over 100 years as it is now. But players always want to know if they're playing "alliance" or "horde".
No, you'd make the game as sanitary and neutral as possible to avoid offending any particular group. Therefore, your game is no longer "historical" but just another fantasy. Because in the real world which has an over-abundance of trigger happy lawyers and easily offendable cultural organizations, saying "But it's accurate!" won't stop the precious development time and oney wasted in court every time someone takes exception.
The same goes for any game, mmo or not, which tries to call itself "historical". If you are not able to, or not willing to, make everything about that world authentic to the actual world at the time it is supposed to represent, regardless of how it is going to portray a particular faction or culture as long as the portrayal is accurate, then you are not making a historical game.
This is a great story. For any devolopers interested, i have a great outline for a Western MMO complete with outlaws gunslingers marshals preachers indians and more that you can have....seriously guys....i love fantasy as much as any other fan of Tolken or Forgoten Realms does. But for cry-in-out-loud people Dana has a great point. Thank you for a great story.
I think a western MMO would be awesome. It would have to be skilled base and not levels. It would need to have ALOT of sandbox. I see it being a crafters dream. buffalo hunting,mining, skinning, beaver trapping, farming, black smith just to name a few. It would be a pvp crowds dream, and I think a lot of potiential for role players. It is the perfect genre and set up to have something for everyone.
Frontier 1859 has a lot of great ideas. It's to bad there are no companies willing to do something completely different from your orc's and elves.
Regardless of perception, Im pretty sure all MMOs do, however, use a timeline. Weither or not the timeline gets developed, plays any significance, or time sensetive content implimented, is irrelevant,...unless you're in a historical genre.
The Fantasy genre(apart from LotRO), because of it's lack of historical documented timeline to follow, being the easiest IP to create endless content for(16 EQ expansions anyone?). Historical settings don't afford this luxury to the extent that fantasy genres do. At some point history runs into the wall and the developer has to deal with it(hopefully from conception).
In the most basic sense, a historical MMO would have to be set in a specific period, which would confine it to a "Snapshot"(what a segue,...).
Originally posted by Dana
Most MMOs are basically a "snapshot" in a moment where people play within the box. There is no reason any of these settings would need to advance in time and have external events "imposed upon them" unless they wanted to.
For example, expansion packs that introduced new content and "advanced the timeline" would be logical.
Perhaps this is where our opinions part ways. One of the essential elements, in my opinion, that defines an MMO, is a persistant world. It's what separates an MMO from all other online games, being able to log into a virtual, continual world of expanding, and hopefully, player-driven content.
To accommodate multiple battlefields in a historic era, outside of a time-line, would require heavy instancing, and probably eliminate any chance for a persistant world.
This may make a great Roman online war-sim, but wouldn't be a historical MMO persay.
One of the few ways around this, and to avoid having external events "imposed upon" players, is to allow for open player-driven history creation on a server-by-server basis, but this would be hindered if future "expansion packs that introduced new content and "advanced the timeline"" didn't concur with what the players already established on the exclusive server (what?! the mongols wiped out christianity 6 months ago on our server, why is the new Medieval expansion the Teutonic Knights and Knights of Antioch?).
Needless to say, as other posters have mentioned, the idea of historical MMOs does have appeal, and does have a market yet to be explored. It's a matter of how well it gets pulled off,...
I could definately see a 10000BC MMO with complete player-driven economy, crafting system and IP creation (you like the wheel? I created that! Three mamoth tusks for the blueprints please,...) could be a huge success, but largely because it exists outside of documented historical timelines.
Perhaps the biggest question I would ask of anyone wanting a historical MMO would be, What would you do for end-game content for a Historical MMO?
Thanks for the great article, and much needed discussion into new ideas for a new MMO market. Build it and they will come,...don't discuss it & it will never get built!
Great thread and I agree with most of what have been said.The Healer problem can be overcome as armies in the 11th century and beyond had Monks and Priests on the battlefield to bless the soldiers and weapons(yeah I know Warhammer has that)some even had faith in artefacts with some powers..rightfully or wrongfully.
i've been asking this question for years. Albeit the only real criticisim i've seen is that "well one side always loses, and you need to be historically accurate". Well you know what, no you dont. You dont need to be 100% historically accurate, let the players and their actions decide this new history. Seriously people, grow a creativity bone.
What would you do for end-game content for a Historical MMO?
you ever play a skill based game? SWG Pre-cu? Ultima online? Eve online? Play one of those games and you'll have your answer.
Then it is not historical. It would then be an alternate history. AKA fantasy.
Then it is not historical. It would then be an alternate history. AKA historical video GAME
fixed.
its a video game, a mmorpg at that. A game where PLAYERS choose what they do. Would you consider World war 2 online to be fantasy, because nazi's win fictional battles?
We have two game plans based on games from/with Historical perspective build. The decision NOT to make it the firts game is made form commercial perspective. Not that we dont see a market for it , but the investors need to be convinced. They see big genre as fantasy, they play safe these days etc. And we are working with low budget. Imagine the 40 mil+ productions...
Yes our first game will be Fantasy genre, but will have NEW elements in it not used in existing games(so far).
um... if you don't mind some fantasy elements, since this is a game, in this website's list there's already a Three Kingdom's game coming out soon localized for Anglophones, someone early on already mentioned Roma Victor, so there are a few, very few, "historical" MMORPGs.
as for ideas, have anyone read the Time's Odyssey series(Time's Eye and Sunstorm, i have yet to read Firstborn, as Sci-Fi books are hard to come by in Hong Kong) by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. This would be an excellent series(well, the first book anyways) to be made into a historical-type MMO, with a very alternate form of fantastical element added (not time travel, per se, but blocks of earth from various time frames within the last million years mixed together.) so the variety of wildlife and various stages of civilization can be incorporated into the same setting. the selling point can be the fight between Alexander the Great's army with the help of some 19th century Brits and pashtuns from fort Lahore versus the Mongol at the height of their empire in an empty Babylon, with the hanging gardens and the temple of Marduk setting the scene... add to the mix scattered protohumans, ice age giant mammals, and an unknown "settlement" around where Chicago is.... people can "rebuild" earth as they see fit. remember the DS9 episode with the alternate timeline planet Gaia with the crashed Defiant's offsprings? or Final Fantasy series's original idea, much earlier in their history, (post-apocalyptic fresh start).
the problem with a true historical game would be audience. there really aren't so many people who'd want a game without any glitz or glamour, no sparkly magic fireballs(even LotR is a low magic world), an a very small variety of things to do, which is why Roma Victor isn't doing enough business to warrant any attention on a global scale. a "low-fantasy" setting might do the trick, especially if it's more build-up, Sims like, with some pvp thrown in, but you can't get rid of the fantasy without enough people to still be interested in playing to make a profit.
A Roman history game would be great, one with a big budget and a big team behind it of course. I'd probably play both Roman and the Gauls, for sure.
As for Medieval, sure, why not? There's a big market, taking magic out of it seems fun and different, maybe a more stricter magic system? One that's not been explored before? Maybe you have to master the art of swords and such before you can explore into magic, rather than from day 1 being able to fling fireballs.
As for the rest, well, that's to be explored, I think with all the Anime and F2P games there is, there's plenty of 12th century, martial arts and so on games.
I've yet to try Roma Victor, but I don't think I will, I'm still looking for "the perfect game".
fixed.
its a video game, a mmorpg at that. A game where PLAYERS choose what they do. Would you consider World war 2 online to be fantasy, because nazi's win fictional battles?
You didn't "fix" anything. So if I make a game based on the Civil War, and the south stomps the north, that still historical? How about I decide Gen.Lee invented the AK47, do I still get to call it a historical game?
Edit: I bet you believe ancient Chinese battled demons with fireballs and swords while flying on magical mounts like all the asian grinders based in "historical China" propose.
You must not have attended that meeting between SOE and Pirates of the Burning Sea developer FLS. Let me recap part of it for you.......
SOE: "WOW has magic spells, you need magic spells."
FLS: "Ah....okay."
SOE: "WOW has avcom, you need avcom."
FLS: "Ah....okay."
SOE: "WOW has quests, you need quests."
FLS: "Ah......okay"
SOE: WOW has crafting, you need crafting."
FLS: "Ah.....okay."
SOE: WOW has elves, you need elves."
FLS: "Ah.....look guys, this is supposed to be a historical based game."
SOE: "No problem, we'll just add elves, orcs, and halflings in an expansion."
Others have sort of said it already, but you basically have a dilemma:
Only a AAA class studio could make a historical game worth playing (see Roma Victor and other basically failed indy projects for lack of resources)
+Even a AAA studio can make mistakes in development that wreck a game and cause it to fail (see PotBS)
+The market for any given "historical" setting is smaller than that for "generic fantasy" or Sci-Fi
= Most AAA Studios don't want to take the risks for the smaller market...so we are left with under capitalized and barely capable indy studios.
Because history has already happened. When you make history interactive, it ceases to be history, anyway.
I don't think recreating cultures that have existed on Earth and renaming them is a cop-out so much as a measure to ensure that it doesn't seem quite so absurd when the Greeks conquer the Americas and Japan has telephones in the 16th century. We know this shit didn't happen. Detaching it further from Earth makes suspension of disbelief easier, whether it is a perfect replica of that era or not.
This is true for me, anyway.
Well, let's assume that companies and investors will only support games that draw in a crowd. Then let's ask which answer we should assume belongs to "Why not?" It'd have to be, because companies and investors don't think there's any money in it. Now while I'm a huge history fan, I always wasn't, but growing up and seeing the world has made me a fan of history.
Now this is just a theory, and I haven't gotten to test it much, but from the few tests I have done have all pointed to the same answer, that most kids just aren't interested in history. Again, it's just a theory, so I could very well be wrong, but think about this. Also keep in mind that MMO's, since WoW, seem to be geared towards children. I vaguely recall various developers in the genre saying that they target children still living at home with their parents. That's a hard thing for me to say too, because that requires me to admit that I'm out of place in this genre.
Anyways, as for History MMO's, I'd greatly be interested. I once created a thread in the developer discussion thread a year ago, that suggested a historical game that took you to the first years of humans, and let the player progress throuh history on their own. Eventually, through expansion packs and by just playing the game and discovering things, players would venture into space. So you have a game that could very well last decades, because there's such a huge timeline that you're letting people play through and reinvent themselves in a way.
Now I realize that there are technical limitations, but that's where your ideas are interesting. If you broke up the game into many different games, which are sequels for each previous game, then you have a game that could very well span the length of a persons real life. You could start with our caveman days; imagine the dinosaurs and stuff. There's the ancient times, the bronze age, and so on. I thought my idea was a fantastic one (don't we usually) and couldn't believe no one was interested in it. But we'll see how much interest this thread generates.
i would love to see more historical MMOs! its a wonderful idea. and personaly, if someone invented a 12 century japan MMO that was historicaly correct i would be running cartwheels. i would even spend the hundreds of dollers needed to get my desktop working! :) but seriously, i think there is a huge oppourtunity here for the big companys. some of the games (caveman for instance) would take a while to catch on but a mideval game with seige equipent? a game centered historicaly arround ninjas and samurai? roman solders and gladiators? i beleve the term is "hellz yeah" :)
i mean, just look at how long i've been waitin to tatsumaki: land at war. :)
cheers, MacBurl.
One major problem with pursuing this type of game content is that it seems very limited in the field of character development. The reason why Sci fi and Fantasy are so easily adopted is that it allows for a 'more-than-human' growth of character. In such fantasy worlds/context we aren't limited by what would otherwise be extremely constricting: being mere humans within a very predictable and static world (as it is coming from a part of our history).
Historical MMOs have popped up, like WW2Online, Roma Victor,etc., but one of the big draw backs is that it doesn't fill the escapist void that MMORPGs are intended to fill. We don't want to be limited when we play MMOs, we're limited enough in our real lives -- obviously an unfortunate necessity in MMORPGs.
The only real way for a historical MMO to be successful is a shift in the psychological constitution of the average gamer which allows for finding enjoyment within the constraints of a human-based historical context, and that is not likely to happen. We have to remember, MMORPGs are meant to allow us to fill a role in our lives that we would otherwise not be in touch with (i.e. the 'uber l33t condition'). That is likely something that historical MMOs will never be able to fill since they are inherently highly limited if they are to be accurate.
Edit: I'd just like to add that for those people arguing for any form of combat based historical MMORPG that 1 arrow, 1 cut, 1 rusty dagger, one bad piece of pork, would likely kill you. Unless there are 'tweaks' that make people more than just mere humans within a hisotrical context, such games would have to be either economy based, political based, or a RTS system. Again, a huge problem with historical MMOs is that if they are to be remotely accurate, you're going to be dead faster than you know it, and if it's changed to allow for easier survival then it's not likely to be all that accurate. In what world were the majority of people running around gladiators who never seemed to die? Or what world where the majority of the population for samurai somehow living after being nailed with arrows? Accurate history and MMORPGs don't seeem to fit well together unfortunately.
Historical MMOs are something I'm sure will come into their own in the next 10 to 20 years or so..give or take a decade or so. The problem now is that theres such a disparity between what people imagine and want from a Historical MMO of lets say ancient Rome and what's deliverable both technologically and creatively. Maybe one day though.
Sorry, I just don't see historical MMO's working very well anytime soon in the MMo genre. This genre is already extremely oversaturated with a bazillion lackluster and crappy MMO games and I feel that historical MMO's would either be to rigid in design and gameplay to interest more than a very tiny portion of players or, would deviate too much from the intended historical period to really be called historical MMO's. A true historical MMO would pretty much hav to force players in certain directions to keep to the path of history based on whatever period is being played out, otherwise you end up having a "What If" MMO that is merely based on a period in history. I just don't see any historical MMO's ever being exciting or interesting enough to gather a good amount of players and still manage to stay true to any historical timeline. Even Lotro, which has a pretty well established timeline of events and such still deviaties from the whole continuity of that time in Middle Earth's history, but I still play it and enjoy the hell out of it.
That being said I don't want to come off like I am anti-historical MMO's, if it could be done and stay accurate to a historical timeline of events it would be a pretty cool accomplishment. Frankly (and I'm sorry for this) but most of the ideas presented sound like they would be kinda boring and nothing I could bring myself to pay a monthly fee for; in the end amounting to little more than large scale online historical simulations, not MMO's in a true sense (except for Pirates vs. Ninjas...ohhhh yeeeaaaah I'd buy that for a dollar!...or more) I find it odd that no one mentioned anything about having a historical MMO set in the time of the ancient Celtic civilization, a time period that is not so well documented, could allow for more freedome of development and showcases a time in history when there still was some "magic" in the world.
Who knows though, maybe historical (or historically based) MMO's will be the next big thing when the fantasy/sci-fi MMO genre plays itself out.
fixed.
its a video game, a mmorpg at that. A game where PLAYERS choose what they do. Would you consider World war 2 online to be fantasy, because nazi's win fictional battles?
You didn't "fix" anything. So if I make a game based on the Civil War, and the south stomps the north, that still historical? How about I decide Gen.Lee invented the AK47, do I still get to call it a historical game?
Edit: I bet you believe ancient Chinese battled demons with fireballs and swords while flying on magical mounts like all the asian grinders based in "historical China" propose.
Bah! Why can't you people take anything with a grain of salt?!?!?!
Wise, you're right, it would be an alternate timeline. And yes, it would be a historical video game.
newsflash: THEY'RE ALL GAMES! Ever heard of historical fiction?
I know they're not MMORPGS, but any of the Call Of Duty or Battlefield games have historically accurate settings without historically accurate outcomes. Sometimes the US soldiers win, sometimes they don't. We know the real outcome, but we're playing a game - we're allowed to bend the rules. It's just a matter of deciding when the rules have been bent too far.
Many players can't even accept adherence to the lore in The Lord of the Rings and have cited the lack of races and "big magic" as being boring.
I can see it now, a historical game set during the Roman empire:
I want to be a centaur
you can't be a centaur
Why not?
Because there were no Centaurs
But it's Roman and Greek Mythology
No, it's not Mythology it's historical
But it's a game and games are for entertainment so I don't see why they can't add Centaurs.
Centaurs didn't exist and this is a historical game
Then I want to be a Minotaur
Didn't exist
This game blows!
etc.
Again, when I wrote about "historical MMOs" I wasn't talking about historical reenactments. I was talking about games set in a historical period, but that are first and foremost entertainment.
No one is annoyed that Gladiator took history and turned it on its ear.
No one gets mad when Hibernia takes Albion castles in DAoC.
You can make a game with historical context that allows just as much freedom to players as any regular MMO.
Agreed. Besides when talking about fantasy or mythological elements.... once upon a time in history... the world was thought to be flat. St. George killed a dragon. Fact or Myth? Dinosaurs were considered a myth once upon a time.... and the Kraken (giant squid) thought a myth as well.
Oh yes... magic. Voodoo. Real or make believe? Ghosts? They are all aspects of life today as well as of our past - in the broadest sense. A game set in a historical period in any culture / land would be remiss if the people's believes of the time were not included.
This accounts for the Ghost ships in Pirates of the Burning Sea and Voodoo in Pirates of the Caribbean Online.
I'm sure it won't get read, but I will bite. "Why hasn't this been done?" (Using Rome as a generic example):
Normal life is boring for your average person. Lots of people play MMOs to escape reality and live a heroic fantasy vicariously. Anything even remotely related to real life would subconsciously lead back their (perceived) menial existence. You would have a game filled with soldiers, gladiators, and senators with nothing much to do. There would be daily raids of Gaul and hour long orations by Lxexgxoxlxaxs69 that go something like "hey daloran! yestrday my mom bauht me this gaem well its rly an xpanshun 2 a gam..." As a buddy of mine put it: "How would you make the life of an Aqueduct worker interesting?" Quite frankly, you can't, unless it's his job to fight off brigands, zombies and/or monster zombie brigands that are trying to pollute/poison/radiate the waterworks of Rome. If that is the case, would not the aqueduct worker just send a letter to the generals and ask them for military assistance?
I mean, yes there could be a Rome-centric game that is historically accurate on the outside, but to make it interesting and fun for people without being repetitive you'd have to break historical context or settle for a very small niche market. I'm sure a lot of people would find it fun, but there's only so much you can do to make that fun lasting. Rome ends. You don't make MMOs based of stories with an ending. That's one of WoW's biggest reasons for success. Open ended and internally owned intellectual property. You can't get that from Rome. You've finite limits both physically and chronologically.
You can raid the Gaulic tribes, the Huns and Norse so much. As for the internal operations of the city, and player control of that. Also repetitive. Coup d'etats can only be carried out so many times before it gets annoying. Large organizations of players (guilds/legions/clans/whatever) would control the entire game. You would basically make the success of the game reliant on the population that plays it. Player run everything. That's the only way I can see you getting longevity out of a game like this. That is a recipe for disaster.
Just my two cents.
Many here are putting support to a Wild West MMO but really don't see the limitations of that setting. Living on the open wild of America was boring and dangerous. It was the Yellow Dime Novels that made it seem exciting. An MMO based on this setting would need to evolve with much of the American West Lore of Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill and John Henry. The Table Top RPG of "Dead Lands" is something to consider but really just reskins the Fantasy genera. In most cases a Wild West MMO would be nich market without some historical twists. Wizards of the Coast/TSR hardest to sell RPG was "Boot Hill". If someone put a Wild West MMO out, I would buy it but I just don't see it going far.
What many here are desiring is the straight conflict depitcted in most Western stories but there has to be more substance.
You didn't "fix" anything. So if I make a game based on the Civil War, and the south stomps the north, that still historical? How about I decide Gen.Lee invented the AK47, do I still get to call it a historical game?
Edit: I bet you believe ancient Chinese battled demons with fireballs and swords while flying on magical mounts like all the asian grinders based in "historical China" propose.
Bah! Why can't you people take anything with a grain of salt?!?!?!
Wise, you're right, it would be an alternate timeline. And yes, it would be a historical video game.
newsflash: THEY'RE ALL GAMES! Ever heard of historical fiction?
I know they're not MMORPGS, but any of the Call Of Duty or Battlefield games have historically accurate settings without historically accurate outcomes. Sometimes the US soldiers win, sometimes they don't. We know the real outcome, but we're playing a game - we're allowed to bend the rules. It's just a matter of deciding when the rules have been bent too far.
Thing with Call of Duty, for example, is there were many small battles that took place during the war that never made a footnote in history, so the Germans winning some battles isn't historically innacurate. But you'll notice, no matter how you play, the Germans lose on D-Day. ( You'll note that I frowned upon the addition of zombies in World at War
).
I'm not against an "alternate Earth" type of game. I'd love one in fact. I'm just a stickler for accuracy in descriptions. There is a difference between "historical themed" and actually "historical".
Thing is I'm a stickler for the accurate description because i'm probably one of the few who would play a truly historical game if it could be done completely accurate. If Roma Victor had been made by someone with talent and drive, I'd probably be playing that today. Because they did manage to come close to what I'd call a "historical" game, compared to Pirates of the Burning Sea with "Here there be monsters" and "magic", just more fantasy fluff incorrectly labeled "historical".
Edit: @ Dana:
It's easy to overlook Hibernia defeating Albion in Dark Age of Camelot, as there is nothing even remotely "historical" about a game focused on King Arthur fairy tales. I don't think anyone with an I.Q. higher than 10 would claim King Arthur, Merlin, or Camelot were historically based, much less historically accurate.
Well I agree except that there will be players who would not understand and who would ask for things that just weren't in that time period. What I posted was a joke as it's similiar to what I have seen in LOTRO when players ask for things that just weren't there.
However, I will say this, I am a bit dissapointed that Gladiator took turned history on its ear. I love the movie but some of the gentle historical twisting does feel cheap. To that end I love Braveheart but I have to completely immerse myself in the world of the movie and accept that it is not a historical account of William Wallace's life.
There are people who can't do that and refuse to watch either Gladiator or Braveheart...
And "300" is way out (for them, I enjoyed it )
Well I agree except that there will be players who would not understand and who would ask for things that just weren't in that time period. What I posted was a joke as it's similiar to what I have seen in LOTRO when players ask for things that just weren't there.
However, I will say this, I am a bit dissapointed that Gladiator took turned history on its ear. I love the movie but some of the gentle historical twisting does feel cheap. To that end I love Braveheart but I have to completely immerse myself in the world of the movie and accept that it is not a historical account of William Wallace's life.
There are people who can't do that and refuse to watch either Gladiator or Braveheart...
And "300" is way out (for them, I enjoyed it )
This is true, some purists would rebel when a year had passed and Henry didn't disolve the Abbeys or whatever.
But they are the minority. The entire point was that someone should do a mass market MMO set in a historic period. It's still a game, and players still have the freedom to play. It's not like everyone sits around hoping not to get the plague.
Any MMO that tries to recreate history, will end up as an educational tool. But an MMO that builds a historical world and lets people play in it, that could do well.
Personally, I'd kill for a game set in a old western setting.
Allowing people to be indians, gunslingers, smiths, soldiers, bartenders and even farmers.
Many people only see limitations, just like they saw SWG's "canon" expansion values limited.... Despite that the Star Wars galaxy had millions of planets, millions of untold stories..most of wich included much of the "iconic" persona from this era in Star Wars. Like Imperials fighting pirates, rebels, criminal syndicates and whatnot. But people only saw limitations, and instead of using their imagination and knowledge of the Star Wars universe, they now instead cheer when SOE invents pink care-ewoks, or add KOTOR/Clone War content to the game.
In a western setting, there could be wars, exploration, colonization, rebuilding, cooperation, crafting, farming... Well, quite alot, and most of wich could be used by all sides in a "western setting" MMO. Indians can build, criminals can colonize and settlers can explore.
Whats even better for a western MMO setting, is that even things that combat wombat players despise, as in social stuff, like bartending, wenching, crafting... the setting alone makes great uses of it and opens for dependensies that would make a game built on it a "civilization" instead of a combat arcade only.
But, I guess I should limit myself to only seeing limitations, and go cheer for pink care-ewoks in SWG, since by seing only limitations, I can only be open for the redicolous additions to a game setting frozen in a small era of time.
I think next week I basically have to lay out a Wild Western MMO based on the feedback here :)
Insanity coming next Thursday :)
As long as it has the option for me as a player of such a MMO to be a cavalry man instead of a blackdressed drawhappy psycho gunslinger, that could go to the bar in the nearest town and get both a beer from a player bartender and a dance from a player wench... and both are happenings that enhance the gameplay and makes the bartender and wench feel just as needed as players as the psycho gunslinger who spends his days shootin bears and rabbits. :P
*cough* Deadlands *cough*
Hey, you did say insanity and, well, Deadlands has the Wild West AND insanity, lol!
fixed.
its a video game, a mmorpg at that. A game where PLAYERS choose what they do. Would you consider World war 2 online to be fantasy, because nazi's win fictional battles?
You didn't "fix" anything. So if I make a game based on the Civil War, and the south stomps the north, that still historical? How about I decide Gen.Lee invented the AK47, do I still get to call it a historical game?
Edit: I bet you believe ancient Chinese battled demons with fireballs and swords while flying on magical mounts like all the asian grinders based in "historical China" propose.
In what game has one side officially won in a MMORPG? Do you play MMORPGS?
Oh and ak47's? Where did this come from? You have more creativity in knocking down a historical game then thinking of one and its features.
The main issue with historical MMO's, no depth. Now before you start blasing me with responses let me lay out what I mean by depth.
Take any of the fantasy or sci-fi MMORPG's out there and place it next to a historical concept. What's the difference? One has the ability to create anything from creatures, zones, classes, monsters, weapons while the other must stay in history, which limits the 'DEPTH' of the concept. Let me take it a step further an add, persistency.
The two major factors for a successful MMORPG are depth and persistency. Graphics are not a major factor? No. What about coolness factor? Nope. What about originality? Not even close. With this in mind you can see where the limits of historical MMO's have trouble. Some of you might say, "You just have to be creative with historical data to give it depth, it can be done." Really? I propose a design doc I came up with for an MMORPG as an example (I don't mine it someone takes the idea because it wouldn't wok as you will see).
Death and Dust - A MMORPG set in the old Wild West. An online world set when times were tough and life was a challenge. Amidst the beauty of red rock cliffs, long drifting plains, canyon rims, pine tree forests, lush valley’s, running streams and rivers, there is a struggle, one of life and death. The beauty of the west can turn deadly in a harsh dry environment when law an order, nature, and the vast resources of a new land collide with the forces of greed and expansion.
Sounds cool! Sounds different! As I found out when I designed this concept, there was only so much depth to historical material. I had to go of the beaten path (no pun) and encompass the ancient Native American Indian lore. I had spirit animals and netherworld dimensions that you could go to that expanded on the 'animal life' of the old west. You can only battle so many wolves, mountain lions, coyotes, bison, deer or ravenous badgers before you won't more. Sure this wild west world world had great professions and classes but it was limited for quests/items/mobs/zones. It's not because I wasn't creative but rather limited in where I could go with the game with out making it out to be like that great Academy Award winning movie, Wild West with Will Smith.
I found myself limited by the historical elements and had to add a twist of fantasy to give it...here are the key words, more depth and persistency.
So do all games need to be like WOW, no but you better come prepared to make a game as deep and persistent or your submission base will drop off. An MMORPG starts with a concept and a genre. This is why fantasy and sci-fi make for the best MMORPG's out there, the skies are the limited when it comes to persistent and deep content. Content is king!
Take a look at French and Indian War/Last of the Mohicans arena, not as much technology difference between groups allows for more of a mix between firearms and melee combat. Your flintlock gets one shot, then it's close to tomahawk range.
Of course, then you can present your idea to SOE:
SOE: "WOW has magic, where's your games magic"?
SOE: "WOW has crafting, where's your games crafting"?
SOE: "WOW has elves, where is your games elves"?
You get the drift........no sense wasting your time creating a game unless it is like WOW.
One word "Prohibition".
Bootleggers, lawmen, gangsters............this era would be a great MMO.
*EDIT* Nuked own post to avoid derailing topic. =)
MOD EDIT: Removed my post (and your quoting of it) to avoid derailing the thread. :)
JYCowboy: You're right. While I believe what I wrote, I am going to take it down because no good will come of it ;)
After force of arms is in a somewhat finished/gold state that was next on my agenda.....deadlands was a pretty cool rpg to play back some years ago and it was that world that I wanted to bring to life next....although buying the rights would probably be out of reach i'm sure i could come up with something different enough to avoid anything legaleze w/ it to make it a fun and enjoyable mmorpg game....number 1 being a skill based vice a level based system...
sorry but ya'll gonna have to wait for a few years while i finish off the mech game 1st though... :D
great discussion though...loved all of the picks for the list...
Great article Dana, I would love to try out an MMO game in several of those eras. With a lot of thought on persistant worlds much could be done (persistant worlds arnt common in the MMO genre as is.) It would be refreshing, and honestly content wouldnt be hard to create. Forget those who say its not historically accurate etc. its more about being able to set down and play as a leggionare, or perhaps be a screaming goth in Rome, or being a knight or crusader, even a longbowman during the middle ages. I think best IMO would have to be pvp centric. Not much can be done other wise with pve, however there could be ranking/ladders/stat systems in place that dont speak of end game needs (honestly while at times end game stuff is fun, its not really something that is needed in any era of historical mmos).
Perhaps a combo of planetside persistance, mixed in with say rome era or medieval europe, would definately be something I would play til the cows come home.
Neat article. Myself being British, coupled with all those history lessons brings back active and animated talks with old teachers. Take that passion and stick it in a game set in era's you bring up, forgot the turn based army style and there is a good receipe there. Background is ripe and rich and these days with people playing from all over it is nice to play on the "other" side too.
History is definately not boring. I remember my Irish teacher who was trying to talk about Richard III but it always came out as Richard the Turd hehe. There is so much more rich diversification and background in many European countries, sure it doesn't have to be limited to that particular continent but there is so much there. And a good place to start.
That spike TV show about the warriors is pretty neat and explore depth of weapons and skill sets of groups from the past.
Exactly. I don't want to re-enact an accurate representation of Roman history, I just want to bum around in the same atmosphere, architecture and culture as ancient Rome.
Which is all fine and good. It just means you want a Roman themed game, not a historical Roman game.
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I would not mind playing a game set in an alternative Histroy .
The Years of Rice and Salt
The book is set between about A.D. 1405 (783 solar years since the Hegira, by the Islamic calendar used in the book), and A.D. 2002 (1423 after Hegira). In the eighth Islamic century, almost 99% of the population of Medieval Europe is wiped out by the Black Death (rather than the approximately 30-60% that died in reality). This sets the stage for a world without Christianity as a major influence.
Could be an Interesting way to go , Simial to the way the new Starwars MMO , is not set during the time line of the Movies , they can make up Cannon as they go , as long as it fits the restrictions of the historical universe. I know that the Author Harry Turtledove has a few books in this realm as well, Some dealing with e Civil War and other with the Revolutionary war.
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Rev
History is filled with vile and violent acts by one group of people on another group. Unless you want to rewrite history you are bound to tick off one group or another lol. Like the American Revolution themed game... how are you going to get a game developed and released where one ethnic group actually enslaves another group? And if you just don't include slavery then you are not playing a historically based game at all. The same thing with Rome and Japan. There was a great deal of raping, pillaging, plundering, and enslavement of people that went on. Again you are bound to offend someone, or make a game set in a psuedo time period that is a vanilla representation of the time period.
Caveman time frame sounds nifty, but really. You want a game where you run off to hunt with a few friends on one day, then sit around and pick fleas and ticks off each other for a week? I do realize that some revisionists have tried to say how harsh and brutal the hunter gatherer society was but generally speaking they worked about 1/10th of the time that we currently do and were, in many ways, a helluva lot healthier than we are. Sure they died young but its not really the quantity of life we get but the quality that should matter and watching my 78 year old father slowly waste away is pretty frickin pathetic.
There has been a wild west mmo in the works for several years now, but you do realize that historically speaking it wasn't nearly as cool as hollywood likes to make it sound right? Every day was not filled with gunfights at the OK Corral.
Basically an historical mmo would be the Sims Online with different costumes, and we all know how well that game faired.
Which is all fine and good. It just means you want a Roman themed game, not a historical Roman game.
After reading the thread I think that's what people around here want. Reliving history in game form is impossible - you can't make a real time-based game without constraining the rules so much you end up producing a non interactive movie. What people here want is a "what if" game, an alternate take, a fantasy similar to the one feebly portrayed in Age of Conan: more people, less monsters n' shit. We're no longer impressed by creatures, so we need to be impressed by ambience. I agree that people need to be clear on their concepts, though.
A fantasy game of that ilk that could be based upon a current model of MMO is the conquest of Mexico; based on DAoC's three-way open war for control of something, we could have Mexicas (Aztecs), Tlaxcaltecans (the people who would help Cortés carry out the conquest of the empire; it's basically thanks to them that the Spanish were able to defeat the Aztecs in military terms), and the Spanish themselves duking it out for control of something in the super varied terrains of 16th century central Mexico (you got swamps, plains, beaches, etc.). Each "faction" could have different objectives and so on. Since we're talking about fantasy here, the Spanish and Tlaxcaltecans don't necessarily ally and win; the game's designers and writers can come up with any "what if" scenarios they want and deploy new content that way: new cities, new locales, new classes, whatever. Also, that way time only needs to pass in the way the designers want, like in regular MMOs, and it's no longer real.
As for the guy saying that you need supernatural fantasy to make shit interesting, I strongly differ. You only need it if you're basing your game upon the old "kill things and level up" model, because yeah, there's only so many real creatures you can kill, but if you establish another type of character development, I think you can do away with supernatural fantasy altogether. I'm not advocating skill-based games or anything, and I don't have a solution either, but I'm just saying we gotta start thinking outside the box. Maybe games like Champions Online can shed a bit of light upon how other types of character development could work...
Regarding the political correctness of things, well, I believe the farther the theme is in history, the better. Westerns with indians could be problematic because, well, they're still there, and still indirectly suffering the consequences of those dark times, so any representation of them in game form must be really, really careful, or the result will be parodic and stereotypical.
In any case, I think this whole fantastic take on history is a really interesting idea. I'd play, and I believe lots of others would as well :)
Interesting...
The first question I would ask is are you speaking about historical settings MMO or historical MMO?
In the first one you use clothes, architechture, technology, customs and why not mythos.
In the second one not only you use all the above but you also make sure all things implemented reports to latests and accurate researches.
The second ones adds lots of constraints like very few people owning a weapon, even fewer able to have a horse. A few wounds that don't kill you on the field might surely kill you from infection. Skills would be very limited you would be either a skiller crafter or a fighter or a politician or an actor but not all at once. So... sandbox?
Also forget the classic questing concept. Most people would be doing daily boring things... like in real world.
It could work but more like for a learning ground for students and a fun environment for fans.
Now the first concept is interesting as it uses "well" known environments with polished game mechanics. Also it could help people see how it was like in ancient greece, egypt, babylonia.... etc. so in a way you are helping historians ;)
I think Stargate could be that kind of game as you are jumping from locations to others that are like rewind in the past.
So a game with all of them in one is possible but isn`t it better to focus on one historical setting at a time?
Mr. Dana you are God to me.. what you posted up there is what me and some of my gaming buddies have been wanting for years! I hope some developer reads this article and takes it to heart!
Thank you
Cowboys & Indians,
Historical stuff like that would be great if done in a sandbox style.
PvP would be cool with constant battling over land areas and such.
I would love to see some historical mmo's. I think some of the examples the OP uses are intriguing. But ultimately, these games take a lot of money to develop, and business people tend to want to see comparisons to gauge success. Right now the only comparisons are fanstasy mmo's.
So, how do you convince a group of businessmen and women to sink tens of millions of dollars into a new concept? I imagine it's pretty hard. The only way to do it initially may be to go with known licences, like Star Wars, like Star Trek, or even another gaming entity so long as it has a devoted fan base.
If Star Wars and Star Trek succeed in the mmo space, I expect the copycats will come out in full force just as they did with WOW.
I don't think it'll work. If you say, "I want a historical MMO that's not historically accurate" the obvious comeback is "Well, if you want a Civil War MMO where either side can win and there's no permadeath why not make it a civil war between mutant tribes with cybernetic enhancements? Sure, blue and grey uniforms and battleflags - that's cool - and period music. It's historical and it has giant mutants with implanted gatling guns!"
If I took a poll among the current crop of MMO gamers I think my mutant civil war game would win over a pseudo-historical games with boring old regular humans with boring old single shot rifles and them newfangled repeating carbines. Heck even a sexy devil like Mosby would pale in comparison to the literal devils in my fictional Mosby's Raiders complete with feathered hats, sabers and glowing eyes and bat-wings. Hell, let's make them female succubi! The kids love that. Mosby's Raiders with boobies and brimstone.
As fun as an MMO about 1930's Chicago mob wars might be remember making it about a 1930's Chicago that's populated by vampire mobsters is going to be even more fun in terms of pure mayhem and how players would respond. Look at tabletop RPGs for example. The only "big" historical settings have a supernatural edge to them. Purely historical RPGs, like many GURPs sourcebooks, tend to get used only as resources for other more fantastic settings. Robin Law once wrote that if you ever want to make an original setting take any three GURPs sourcebooks at random and create something from that. I don't think anyone actually uses them straight. The one historical series GURPs did was based on WWII and it ended up with Wierd War II - how to incorporate fantastic science and occult horror into the game.
History doesn't have a chance. At least not with the current market MMOs are fighting over.
If I were going to make a historical game I'd be aiming at a different, smaller, kind of market that would be crazy about historical period realism. I definitely wouldn't be focused on PvP. Therein madness lays. It's too much fun for some people so the setting would distort entirely around combat. Good for mutants, not so good for real people living in history. I'd look for popular eras in history with, maybe, senior citizens who have all kinds of free time. Make them easy to play, avoid scores and stats and the like in favor of a more holodeck kind of experience. Maybe have some staff that can create or oversee events for people to participate in.
You dont have to convince any of the big cats like mythic,blizzard etc. private investors would be good enough
I just wanted to throw in my support of this article. I've been conjuring up ideas in my head for a WWII MMO for years, wishing someone would make it. No offense to WWII Online, but it's high time for a successor. The Revolutionary War is another good subject, and the US Civil War would be interesting, too.
I think one problem is the lack of magic or technology to explain away gameplay necessities. Dying, for example -- in WoW, if I die a magical spirit from beyond resurrects my body at a graveyard. In EVE Online, my consciousness is transported into a clone body. So what's the explanation for being resurrected on the Civil War battlefield?
If that's the only challenge, I'm sure someone can get around it. Even if the explanation is a little hazy, players will look past it if the game is fun otherwise.
Well, i wonder when a 2D AA/+ title comes up. Seriously...Developers underestimate the strength of 2D.
I could write 200 pages about the game design...Maybe i should study game design instead of Fine Art. Atleast then i won't have to cut my ear of...
What i dont understand is how any of these people who say "a historical mmo just wont work" can say that when a true high production value historical mmo has never been made...
So after they release one and IF completely flops, then i will understand - but till then we wait
I hate to just flat out say it, but i will.
I completely disagree and I think the poll would be quite the opposite
I hate to just flat out say it, but i will.
I completely disagree and I think the poll would be quite the opposite
Just for fun, I put a new poll in our system to this effect.
I did ask for that didn't I?
Edit: Not exactly the poll I proposed but it works. I voted for historical, by the way.
First off, Great feature! Looking forward to more.
Why no historical MMORPG's? I'm sure that the answer is very complicated, but the first thing that pops into my head is "death".
Handling the death of the player is quite easy when there is magic involved (just run back to your corpse and your resurrected). If you base your game on a realistic level of factual history, it becomes more difficult to explain away such things.
the ideea i had it since 2003. but lack of personel and money made my ideea remain only on paper for now. but i hope everything will change in future. dunno how close is this future tho.
I think your article has some merit and that in time, more genres will be explored and developed. Right now, in this economic downturn, I'm thinking that most companies want to pander to an audience which sees "fantasy" as something that can take them away from their troubles and doesn't require much thinking.
Down the road, if a company hand several people who majored in history, studied world events, and could develop a sound storyline from any of the periods you mentioned, then there is a chance. There are several single player games on the market which work well but IMHO, for a historical MMO to succeed, it would have to be very accurate with historical facts and still provide a means for players to alter the course of history. If players and their guilds could change the very landscape by when and how the industrial revolution comes into play, if at all, then this would effect the environment I presume. Something which could take players from our early stages into a futuristic setting.
Be careful though because even when talking about a world wide event, the ability for any company to provide the required feature set, balance, combat, server capacity, and dynamic storyline is going to be huge and expensive.
dear mother of god! its a real life gnome! wtf
You people are making me wish that I had taken a Gaming Design diploma instead of a Biomedical Science Diploma. Worse of all, my school has both courses, and it's a bit too late to transfer at the moment. Not to mention that my parents would throw a fit...
When it comes to books, historical fiction is my favourite genre, and in gaming, it would definitely be my favourite genre as well. The particular time period I'm interested in is Chinese history, particularly during the dynasty period. In fact, the warring dynasties period, to be more precise. I would definitely play a game like that, as long as it remains true to the source. When I think of historical games, I want a game in which the settings, characters, quests, all come from that period. I won't even mind fighting monsters from time to time, as long as there is variety in the quests offered.
Until then, I'm just happy with fantasy games based on historical periods. Main reason why I was so much in love with Cantha when I first visited it.
hmm a historical MMO sounds like a good idea
"And don’t quote the death of Gods and Heroes at me either. A noble attempt, but that game was mythological, not historical, and its death was more to do with the collapse of the company making it than the product itself."
I take it you never beta tested god and heroes to say it wasnt the product,any player that tested GnH's will tell you it was in a real mess,on the beta forums around 80% of the testers were saying the only way to save the game would be to start at the begining again.....so I will indeed quote the death of GnH's,Yes it was more mythological than historic but I am sure history buffs like myself would not have cared in the least.
As you pointed to in your post the medieval times,though how much of that is indeed legend and myth and not fact?
I think for there to be a successful mmo based from history there would have to be a certain extent of myth or other added content to make it a mmo...I mean who wants to say fight the battle of Hastings over and over again.
Edit-If any dev is reading this then go down the "braveheart" mmo road,though maybe that would just attract us Scots wanting to kill the English :)
At first glance I thought this argument could be, in simple terms, lame. I decided that I would read wiht a bit more of an open mind since I'd been someone on this movement of expanding the idea of what an MMO is. Back to basics an MMO should include games of all types that are massively multi-player and not just those that fit some sort of WoW defined concept of what an MMO has to be. What really won me over, however, was the daydream that ran through my head of playing in an ancient roman world. The life of a roman patrician could be great fun to experience. The rich culture, the strong identity... the debuachery. I say lets give them a go.
Replying to the article, not anyone's posting.
Carebear is such a strange term for the people who hire armies and provide the support and infrastructure for those armies, isn't it?
I prefer non-combatants. There is a need for non-combatants in every society.
(yeah, yeah yeah - it's JUST a game - blah-blah-blah - get over it)
It's just really strange to me that the interests of those that want to game - in a different way - are rarely taken into account. I like simulations, but they fall flat because of the low to no player interaction, or stupid scripted crap you HAVE to do aka Sims Online.
I would love to play a supporting role in a game where I didn't have to fight - unless the whole city was attacked and then it's a free-for-all...without being called a carebear.
I DETEST that dumb doll. I don't like Barney. I don't think world problems can be solved with love-love-love.
That doesn't mean I want to run out and kill everyone I see to "pwn" anyone. Meh, anyone can fight. Nursery school children often do it very well.
It would be nice to see a game that encompassed all aspects of a civilization including the supportive, but conniving, back room deal players; the honest figure out how to beat the systems players' and then those who just want to chat as well as those who want to freelance merc, join an army, sneak around snipers, or duel in the streets.
The Wild, Wild, West would have been an epic fail without the shopkeepers, tavern owners, weapon makers, horse sellers, railroad developers, etc.
Most of these are run by NPCs in-game. But what if a player could log in and take the NPC place for the 2-3 hours they played? NPC gets logged out, players logs in and tries to build their little niche empire in the big world?
A Wild Wild West game could have poker tourneys too, someone could build game halls and run them - and should or lose any authentic flavor. Shooting contests, and horse racing too.
Ah well, just a dream of mine.
Just making a "go out and gank everyone all the time" and slapping a Wild West label on it doesn't make it so. It' would be just the same old, same old with a different look.
In my opinion Historical mmorpgs can be successful, but, but only if it is made during a certain time period.
I don't think a Wild West mmorpg would succeed. The wild west just does not seem the fit as a rpg type of game. I mean come on pretty much the only combat would be gun fighting. But a historical ancient Rome or 12 cent. Japan actually seem plausible as a mmorpg.
A medieval mmorpg would just be like a fantasy game but without wizards; medieval mmorpgs would probably be just ignored. Same with a cavemen mmorpg, would probably just be ignored.
And If the mmorpg was realistic then it would fail even a fantasy mmo would fail. And what I mean by realistic is that combat would be too short, and it would beat the purpose of one of the main qualities of a rpg, the level system.
But I would love to see a roman/greek mythologic mmorpg. I really wanted to see Heros and Gods to succeed. I probably would be playing that game if the developers discontinued it, for Star Trek Online, which also was discontinued. >:(
granado espada gets pretty close from historical MMO style
voyage century hits the spot...
well i would like to try a sangoku/sengoku style MMO (just like dynasty or samurai warriors if u wanna be hardcore... bud i'd rather take something like Kessen III... that's brilliant!)
almost no magic, but a lot of "power", just like Koei's games... gunpowder and bows could substitute "magic classes" in some way (a nuke with fireballs and a nuke with cannonballs can be similars... fire walls and gunpowder traps too)
AH! a single name: KINGDOM UNDER FIRE 2. this should be closer to reality and even so very cool and frenetic
give a look
I put together an article and posted it (on another site) a couple of months ago about a theoretical Western MMO. What we came up with was quite interesting. There's a lot more going on than cowboys versus indians, the discussion generated some very neaaaaaaaat-o ideas.
As for "historical" MMOs in general...man, some of you people in this thread need to take a deep breath and relax. it's just using a time period as a setting, it is not supposed to be a historical recreation. It will always be historical fiction when you revisit the past with modern people in a video game.
i'm not speaking 'bout "purely historical"
but change the setting would be good... "european medieval higly folcloric based" setting is gatting on my nerves
NINJA MMO!