It seems that when it comes to MMORPGs most of us prefer the fantasy genre. This is evident by not only by looking at the top MMORPGs (Wow, GuildWars, LoTRO, Runescape, EQ, Lineage, DAoC, FFXI), but also by the fact that most of the MMORPGs that are created are fantasy based. Is this a case of developers giving us what we want or is the fantasy genre being shoved down our throats?
I believe this is a case of supply and demand. For most of us, including myself, it is much much easier to go from one fantasy MMO to another fantasy MMO. In the most recent case for me, jumping from Age of Conan to Warhammer Online. There’s already a built in system that I don’t have to relearn. Warriors carry melee weapons, mages have mana and spells, orcs and goblins are evil. I already know who my friends and enemys are before I create my first character. Not so with the sci-fi genre. Jumping from Starwars to Eve Online to Tabula Rasa to City of Heros is a learning experience each time. Sure we all know the Starwars story and that superheros fight super villains, but not so with most other sci-fi games. We must learn a new story line, new weapons, new races, new powers, which makes the learning curve much steeper. There’s something to be said about knowing where you’re headed. Same goes in real life, most of us have a favorite bar or restaurant we always go to and while we don’t mind trying something new, it’s always nice to be somewhere you’re familiar with.
Apart from the comfort factor with fantasy MMORPGs, there also seems to be many more big fantasy properties out there that already have a following and lore. Lord of the Rings, Warcraft, Conan, Warhammer, Camelot, D&D, Final Fantasy, Ultima Online to name a few. Most of us, being a bit on the nerdy side (or could just be me), already have at least some knowledge of almost all of these story lines. Which again makes it easier for us to join that universe. While sci-fi does have some big properties that have been made into MMOs, it doesn’t seem any of them have reached a level of success that the big fantasy MMOs have.
Does this mean that a sci-fi or other non fantasy MMORPGs can never become the top MMORPG? Absolutely not. In fact the next MMORPG I’m looking forward to is a sci-fi one which I wrote about a little while back, JumpGate. Even though I do prefer fantasy, it does get a bit stale after a while so I need to switch it up from time to time. How about you? Fantasy, Sci-fi or other?
I’d say I’m similar. I prefer Fantasy, but its starting to get stale.
I also think that there has been no really good AAA mass market Sci-fi MMO yet. Star Wars was the closest thing, but it had too many problems, then they just made it worse.
Eve is an absolutely awesome game. But it is and will always be a niche game. Its far too complicated for what is now the average MMO player. The combat, and PvP, is also a love-hate concept. Although I’ve only played about 10 minutes of JumpGate, I can already see JumpGate’s appeal. Especially the combat.
The only non-fantasy mmo I enjoyed was Hellgate. And its not a ‘true’ mmo. Its all instanced like guild wars. I think 90% of the reason I liked it, was that it was something different. For that reason I was able to get past its problems and enjoy the game.
Another thing, in my opinion, is that fantasy worlds seem to be the type of worlds where everyone wants to live in. Magic, dragons, elves, orcs are all things that none of us have ever seen, and a lot of us wish we could see.
The sci-fi genre varies in that we hold the hope that those events can actually come to pass. It is possible that we may meet alien races, develop laser guns, and perhaps even tap into the full potential of our minds and use them to manipulate objects, etc.
Sadly, shooting fire from our fingertips or lightning from our eyes, or even meeting orcs and elves is something that probably will never happen, and so it seems more logical that people will want to play in worlds where things exist that have never been.
It’s probably part of the reason why modern-day setting MMOs and historical MMOs are not popular, either.
The major reason I can see that fantasy MMOs are so popular is simply the combat system suits them more. Sure, the original games in the MMORPG genre developed from D&D and fantasy inspiration like LotR, but now there’s not really any excuse to be bound by those constrictions.
But then think about any proper sci-fi universe that has any degree of realism in it – it’d probably have combat similar to that which we see today. Which means guns and vehicles (well, it’d probably mean robots and missiles being controlled from miles away, but lets not quibble). Problem with guns is that the best way to make a combat system using them is actually an FPS, because the only thing that really affects how useful a gun is in combat is how good at aiming it you are. It doesn’t matter how strong or dextrous you are, it’s just where you’re pointing it.
Thus, stats are of no use at all in any system based entirely on guns, and there’s not really any sensible way of including melee weapons in any sci-fi RPG that’s even remotely realistic. So there’d really be no character progression beyond the kind you might get in BF2, or perhaps in EVE. Thus, sci-fi isn’t really a great avenue to go down – unless you take the completely unrealistic approach with aliens and lightsabres and stuff, and that’s just dressed up fantasy anyway.
Lets see what happens when Stargate comes out…
It has potential thanks to “Fantasy” underpinnings.
If it does well or even ok, then I think other “franchise” sci-fi could work.
What about that Halo MMO idea? Bet it would have sold tons.
Great site and great stargate universe information too, do you use twitter? fancy doing a link swap?