Another day, another CEO. This time it was Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot who stated “a major step in the development of Ubisoft” would be a Tom Clancy MMO (and why stop at just one?!):
- Rainbow Six the MMO
- Ghost Recon the MMO
- Splinter Cell the MMO
But why stop there?! What about Assassin’s Creed, Rayman Raving Rabbids, Might and Magic, Far Cry, Naruto…
Hey sure, why not. Activision is doing it with multiple franchises. It’s just a matter of time before EA takes a series or twelve in that direction.
Let’s just make every game a MMO! The only requirement to be a MMO is that you be a game! It’s not strange at all that the “next natural step in evolution” for every game is a mmo. It’s the industry standard now.
Hey you over there! Want to be a MMO? Sure you do! Why wouldn’t you want to be a MMO? Cross media potential, massive revenue – oh wait, it’s now supposedly the “only way” to generate revenue because simply selling the game itself isn’t enough anymore.
The wagon is rollin’ away. Hop on!
As tongue in cheek as you’re being, it’s going to happen. First all PC games were single player. Then games started adding multiplayer capabilities — to games you never imagined needing multiplayer.
MMO is the next step beyond multiplayer. It’s a persistent world. Doesn’t need the RPG. Just needs persistence.
That’s great logic, but where is the reasoning? Where is the explanation? How does a Tom Clancy game become a persistent world? – WHY does it need a persistent world? There needs to be more than “it’s the next evolutionary step”.
Games haven’t developed linearly from SP > MP > PMP. Games in each of these categories have been developed parallel to each other.
I’m not saying Ubisoft and Activision shouldn’t make MMOs. What I’m saying is that they should think twice before taking their franchises in that direction. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.
I’m seeing nothing but a bunch of CEO’s blinded by the big $’s in their eyes taking aim at the MMO industry as the next “big thing!” when it’s really not any bigger than the rest of the industry. We’re going to see a whole lot of crappy games coming from this and a lot of them are going to flop. Why should I care? Because it deters and bars others from starting down this path with legitimate GOOD ideas when they see the failures.
Mark my words.
I think an MMOFPS/Action game featuring all the great aspects from Ghost Recon, R6, and Splinter Cell would be pretty cool. Imagine trying to take down an enemy base by repelling down the side of the building while receiving cover from snipers positioned on the outside. Meanwhile you have you splinter cell players sneaking in, breaking necks, and sabotaging crap. It could work and be fun. I’d play it.
Tom Clancy’s Endwar, one of my favorite upcoming games, involves a persistent war between three factions that the RTS players will constantly battle over, much like Warhammer.
We like developers to at least consider innovation, right? Well, taking a tactical FPS game like Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon into a persistent environment seems like a pretty natural innovation idea to me. But, unlike Endwar, those games are less about conquering territory than completing story-based missions. So, unlike Endwar, a persistent world makes more sense than just a persistent battlefield.
Nice drawing, and I don’t think you’re completely off base. But this particular MMO suggestion makes sense to me, at least as a consideration.
The “next natural step in evolution for every game is a mmo” subject is an interesting one. And I do share some of Keen’s concern.
There’s a lot of potential benefits… and (as Keen hints) a lot of potential pitfalls connected with turning non-MMO IPs into MMOGs.
The benefits are obvious. If a MMOG is done right, it should offer higher player commitment > higher revenues > more content. A win-win situation.
But Keen’s question: “WHY does it need a persistent world?”, is quite important when trying to steer clear of the obvious pitfalls of turning IPs into MMOGs.
The gameplay Graev imagines doesn’t really implies a MMOG with a persistent world. It’s merely a multiplayer game with more tactical roles than usual.
What sets a MMO apart are all the social and non-gamey activities (e.g. grinding) in BETWEEN missions/quests/raids. Beating some gameplay challenge is not (alone) what makes us attach to a virtual world.
We’re already seeing persistent character progression in modern military themed games like COD4, RB6 Vegas 2, BF2142, Battlefield Heroes and so on.
So FPSs are already adopting elements of the MMO genre (and that’s all sweet and fine). But still no persistant worlds…
What would an anti-terrorist soldier do when not on some world saving mission? Sit at the office drinking coffee and eating donuts with his buddies? Take a spin at the local training facility to ‘grind’ better aim, run speed or weapon unlocks? Would he farm terrorist spawn points?
Yes I’m being a bit silly here, but these non-gamey activities must be considered for a MMO. They must somehow make sense. Otherwise, the out-of-mission social hubs of the persistant world degrades to nothing more 3D versions of a game lobby.
But as Graev puts it:
I’d play it (anyway) 🙂
I disagree. The non-game aspects of MMOs are normal for the genre, but not completely essential. In fact, I’d say the traditional MMO model is based more on grinding than social frameworks.
Now, if Activision, EA, Ubisoft, and the like tried to inject grinding and all that garbage into Call of Duty, Ghost Recon and the like, then I’d be angry. The sad thing is they might do just that. Let’s face it…
grind + subscription = boatloads of money
gear-based progression + microtransactions = boatloads of money
There’s definitely a possibility some great games will be butchered over greed. But maybe they’ll surprise us and introduce the “massively multiplayer” element to these games without using WoW and Lineage 2 as models.
I can’t see CoD/Clancy games working in a massively multiplayer environment ‘easily’ without playing similar to a modern day planetside. While that sounds fun, it faces several hurdles.
1. Gameplay – Objective based. Diverse enough in a mmo setting for these games?
2. Lag – Both CoD and Clancy games are very graphical. Lowering the graphics to a reasonable level for massively multiplayer play would be a step backwards and met with harsh criticism.
3. Which Model? – The planetside approach does not lend itself easily to microtransactions because it is essentially a PvP game. A subscription model would likely be used – but will that appeal to the fans of the franches? Likely not.
The other direction is a Tabula Rasa approach. I think TR proves why that’s not a good idea and turning these games anywhere near the ‘RPG’ would be a mistake.
Another option would be a system similar to Hellgate London. I won’t go into details on why that system blows. Play it for 10 minutes then get back to me.
So already the options are limited for mmoFPS games. Huxley is trying another approach – but Huxley is set in a more sci-fi setting where mechanics can be fudged with minimal repercussions. A modern setting would be far more difficult to justify why the player has to be teleported around from place to place.
You make a good point about the graphics being a step back. That probably would affect sales with veteran players of those series.
Then again, the graphics of MMOs three years from now might surprise us. Like I’ve said elsewhere, I think change in graphics is slowing down (2-D –> 3-D is greater than simple shadows to real shadows).
I’ve got to try Planetside sometime, because in my head the biggest obstacle to FPSMMOs wasn’t graphics but the server latency and bandwidth scaling in a massive environment. That Planetside works suggest my concerns in that area are overblown. 🙂
That said, I think a lobby system of some form (eg PotBSs) with instanced combat limiting the number of involved players is inevitable in an MMOFPS. The blob warfare that busy low-armour BF* maps turn into is fun, but hardly tactical. Infinite Man Karkand would not be particularly enjoyable…
Planetside was, at the very least, a nice proof of concept for the MMOFPS genre – which is quite negligible in the current MMO-scape.
But besides sporting a massively persistent battlefield and characther progression, it lacked most of the other MMORPG features that make players invest tons of time (= money) in the virtual world – like economy, crafting, resource grind, social display and so on.
As for current FPSs that could acually benefit from being turned into a MMOG, I think S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is the best candidate.
This survival-FPS-RPG title lends itself very well too a persistent online gameworld. It’s got a dangerous, anarchistic setting with scattered faction-based safe zones and town hubs.
Gameplay consist of exploration, resource hunting, raids on camps and military installations, trade, questing, rep grind, and more.
It had item wear mechanics, but gear grind was never as pronounced as in for example WoW. By adding a crafting system it’s easy to imagine how a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-MMO could boast a player-run economy.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. already, as is, includes a gameworld that in a MMO-setting would offer much more than just being a fancy 3D mission lobby. It’s a virtual world you’d want to take part in…
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/ubisoft-stock-jumps-10–on-clancy-deal 😉