Mar

18

Musings: MMORPG variations we haven’t seen yet

March 18, 2007 | 1 Comment

World of Slasher FlicksWhen it comes to MMORPGS, the choices for what type of game environment you play in seem somewhat small, considering that the nature of any video game space is theoretically limited only by the imagination of the developers.

Without doing exhaustive research, I would say that most MMORPGs seem to fall into just a few different over-arching genres:

  1. Fantasy world
  2. Science fiction universe
  3. Post-apocalyptic anarchy
  4. Non-specific alternate life reality
  5. Pirates
  6. Superheroes

The vast majority of the games seem to be all loosely based on the same fantasy setting reminiscent of Lord of the Rings or Dungeons and Dragons. The fantasy realms of Atlantis, for example, or John Carter from Mars are not typical in the MMORPG marketplace.

The genres developed include both previously created IPs, such as Star Wars or Conan, and mixes of standard elements of the genre chosen, like Horizons, or Eve.

But, I’ve been thinking a bit about how MMORPGs could be designed to fit other genres which haven’t manifested themselves yet, though successful example IPs exist for many other genres.

To begin the exercise, I was thinking how something like the movie “Office Space” could be brought to an MMORPG. Where you would play an Accountant, or a Project Manager or Marketing Rep. and form up a team to complete corporate initiatives or organizes luncheons. I can’t say that a game like that would have much appeal to me though, so aside from just being an idea to be different, it was kind of silly.

So I came up with a couple other somewhat unusual concepts, but I think any of them could be made into a decent game with some thoughtful consideration. Here are just a few:

The G-Man MMORPG
Dark glasses, check. Dark suit, check. Ear piece, check. Foil plots against the President, you betcha.

Stop the Alien Invasion
It’s X-com meets Men in Black meets V, but it’s an MMORPG. Find the aliens living among us, kill them and take their stuff.

Mercenary Soldiers MMORPG
Honduras jungles one day and raiding an Antarctic scientific station the next.

World of Slasher Flicks
Be a teen-ager in a realm of hockey masked, dream-state, chainsaw killers.

Barbarian Hordes
Grab your fur armor and axe, then plunder Rome, Western Europe, or Asia.

Revolutionaries
Overthrow the government by any means necessary.

Mini-people
Be a tiny person in the big big world. No, that’s not a huge brown edifice rising above a rocky plain, you’re just in the cat-box.

Battle for the Body
Fight infections, viruses, cancer and other maladies inside a human host.


 

 

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1 Comment so far

  1. Gravatar noob on March 21, 2007 5:08 pm

    First!

    These were just some silly off the cuff ideas. Naturally, only the genres which have already been tried can possibly be successful.

    No sane developer would ever touch one of these crazy ideas any more than they would put Tolkien-esque player characters in other times or places a la Bill and Ted meets Dungeons and Dragons.
    And it’s a good thing too, because what would my Warrior do in San Dimas, anyway?

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