One of the cool things about SciFi is guns - plasma, laser, phaser, lightning, BFG, etc. The crappy thing about every SciFi MMO is guns. The problem is that when I whip out a laser pistol and shoot a parrot, I expect to create instant fried chicken, a puff of feathers, or a puff of smoke. Instead, SciFi MMOs make you pewpew the frakkin bird from across the map until it's next to you poking your eyes out before you get it to corpse status. Planetside had a similar expectation problem. If I stick a chain gun into your bellybutton and pull the trigger I really don't think I'm going to miss over your shoulder, but that was how the Planetside chain gun worked. What moronic creatures would create such a useless weapon, much less actually try to use it in combat? A brick would be more effective. The gun problem just blows chunks and basically pushes me to skip SciFi MMOs.
This is exactly why I've never been able to get into a sci-fi MMO. Sci-fi single players (kotor) aren't usually so much of a problem with immersion. Giving someone the opportunity to single shot (counterstrike Awp) someone/something else in an MMO makes that class very overpowered.
Planetside is full of instakill moments. Mostly If you do something wrong. Say... tanks sells can kill infantry, wisp (air) too, light tanks can be killed by a single shot too. Other stuff can really damage most people. Snipers don't instakill, but the next shot will.
Man I would kill someone to get an updated/remake of AO. That game was incredible. Yeah the launch was horrible. But once it aged some and got stable it was awesome. Great game world, lots of non-combat things, a great skill/character progression system and cool classes. Man, I would really like to see that.
forget CoH & put Shadowbane in there. That's a game that worth redoing big time. How come none of these guys ever mention it?!
Because Shadowbane had serious problems: It's own community. A remake won't fix that. When one guild "owns" a server meant for thousands, there's a problem. This happened on many of the servers. Human nature sucks. It's hard to code around it.
It's the same with DAOC. People seem to forget that the PVP sucked unless you were on the side with the most people. 3 sides vs 2 sides doesn't mean anything. ONE side will always be more popular, and even when its 3 sided, that side will win most of the time. DAOC and Planetside both showed this in spades.
UO gets viewed through rose colored glasses so much these days, people forgot why the game folded like a house of cards once EQ1 came out. Sure, if you macro'd all the time, it was "fun", but who's playing the game? You or the macro? Then the PVP caused most people to flee (By Raph's own words was something like 200,000 of the 400,000 they had left because of PvP, even before EQ1 came out). Some people think PvP MAKES a great game. I see it in reverse: it BREAKS a great game. MMORPG's just are not suited for PvP and human nature.
Gameplay and the community doesn't even enter into it, in that case, for me. The Shadowbane setting needs to live on because its fabulous lore deserves to live to a much better fate. I don't care if it's a single-player linear RPG. Bring it.
Favorites: EQ, EVE | Playing: None. Mostly VR and strategy | Anticipating: CU, Pantheon
Originally posted by Dana Bottom line, the whole NGE debate is a subject for another article and trying to shoe horn it into this one is distracting from the core point, when you yourself admit that you want a reversion, not a remake. That's like going to Burger King and demanding a BigMac. I'm sure it would be nice, but it's not what that's about
I didn't admit I wanted a revision of SWG [which I don't]. I agreed that you correctly pointed out that someone else was asking for that. I would love to see another star wars game set in the timeline of the original trilogy and don't really care if it is modeled of SWG or not.
Personally I don't think TOR is a remake of swg, because the storylines are so different. It feels more like a multiplayer remake of KOTOR to me.
Also I think SOE/LA were very happy with the subscribers in SWG until another game broke the market wide open. Prior to that they sure seemed happy to talk about the success that SWG was.
Originally posted by eric_w66 UO gets viewed through rose colored glasses so much these days, people forgot why the game folded like a house of cards once EQ1 came out. Sure, if you macro'd all the time, it was "fun", but who's playing the game? You or the macro? Then the PVP caused most people to flee (By Raph's own words was something like 200,000 of the 400,000 they had left because of PvP, even before EQ1 came out). Some people think PvP MAKES a great game. I see it in reverse: it BREAKS a great game. MMORPG's just are not suited for PvP and human nature.
It is just as easy to look at the first real "massive" online game and point out the flaws it had. There simply was no model to follow and origins was flying blind into uncharted territory. It is hard to hold it to the same standards as current games for that reason.
I think a large assumption in any post here is that some of the major issues in the older games would get addressed and some of the better aspects of the older games would get enhanced.
Ultima had a lot of great aspects in it like open character templates, boats, housing, player run economy. It also had great structure for community building.
Originally posted by Dana Bottom line, the whole NGE debate is a subject for another article and trying to shoe horn it into this one is distracting from the core point, when you yourself admit that you want a reversion, not a remake. That's like going to Burger King and demanding a BigMac. I'm sure it would be nice, but it's not what that's about
I didn't admit I wanted a revision of SWG [which I don't]. I agreed that you correctly pointed out that someone else was asking for that. I would love to see another star wars game set in the timeline of the original trilogy and don't really care if it is modeled of SWG or not.
Personally I don't think TOR is a remake of swg, because the storylines are so different. It feels more like a multiplayer remake of KOTOR to me.
Also I think SOE/LA were very happy with the subscribers in SWG until another game broke the market wide open. Prior to that they sure seemed happy to talk about the success that SWG was.
I don't want to discuss the NGE either.
Yeah, sorry about that, I responded as if you were the original poster and continued the conversation. I see now that you were not
Dana Massey Formerly of MMORPG.com Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
OK, since it keeps coming up, you're getting my answer as to why I left SWG off. There were a few reasons: #1) SWTOR - No one is going to remake a game when someone else is making another game in that universe. Probably not even legally possible. #2) You're not talking about a remake, you're talking about a reversion. If this was the top 5 games that got worse over time, then you'd have a good argument. This wasn't what I was writing about. Although, that might be a future list, and I assure you, SWG would be in the top 2 (UO would have an argument too) #3) Generally people only remake successful games. By their own standards, every game on this list was successful. SWG, by its standards, was not. That's why they did the NGE. I realize it's not popular, but people often forget that the game was in such a state that the company felt compelled to totally redo it midstream. A bonehead decision? Sure, but they didn't do it just to piss you off, they did it because they felt that's what they had to do to ensure the future of the product. #4) Lastly, SWG only came out in 2003, which makes it newer in it's original state than 4 of the 5 games on the list. The only newer one, CoH is already getting me some flack for having it on there... and as I said, I have my reasons. SWG, as it exists today, has only existed since 2005. And visually - one of the main reasons to remake something - it is not really outdated.
1) Correct me if I am wrong, but Warhammer was in development after being a scrapped project from another company. Also there is a Warhammer 40k game being developed while Warhammer was also being developed? So it seems like it is somewhat possible to what you claim isn't.
2) True about revision, but it would be nice to see another decent sandbox game get a sequel. Not that I am complaining, because you covered most of what I would have voted for with UO on the list, which I think would make a better sequel than swg.
3) SWG was a very successful game. It was the second most popular and populated western mmo on the market for a good deal of time. Maybe swg wasn't successful enough when compared to wow, but I'm positive there are many many games post July 2003 that would kill to have subscriber numbers that SWG had.
4) 6 years old still makes SWG one of the oldest games on the market.
Yes, I completely agree!!! SWG was a very successful game at the time with a huge following. WoW has completely skewed our view of what is a success and what is a failure.
I agree with the UO and DAoC remakes most. Both have the potential to be unbelievably awesome I had a lot of fun with DAoC, even on the PvE side. Their character classes are just so fun. And the epic storyline for each class that goes along with the mythology of the realm (which may not have been in past the first few levels until Darkness Rising, I don't remember) was pretty amazing. I really liked the instanced wings of dungeons they added in as well. Added a great explorer element to things, and the fact that they scaled to party or solo was nice as well. I would also like to see a true EQ remake though. No, not WoW in Norrath, an actual EQ with updated graphics that hasn't been watered down by fifty thousand expansions. EQ's lore and group-oriented gameplay (especially in the earlier years) were great. The closest I've come to getting my EQ fix since PoP has been FFXI, which is still insanely different from the way EQ was; the biggest similarity though, and the biggest reason I want to see an EQ remake, is the group-dependent / group-supportive gameplay. I feel that the WoW-esque quest systems so prevalent today that make everything but instances soloable have really watered down community interaction. Sure, I can group for the occasional instance, but those get old quick. I can group for regular quests too, but then things just get ultra easy. I want the old, team up and take down the difficult baddies feeling that EQ gave you. And I want it to be un-instanced.
EDIT: Oh, and I also think it would be great to see a remake of Horizons: Empire of Istaria (Now Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted). It never really got big because of bugs at launch and the fact that it was passed around between different developers / companies like a hot potato. But a new Horizons with updated graphics from a stable company would be amazing. Horizon's class system, crafting system, player-built cities and dragon layers, monthly events from the devs, including cities being seiged by the Withered Aegis (at least, for awhile; the most recent devs seemed to have canned this) and dragons as a playable race/class were absolutely incredible ideas that need to pop up again.
"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[2]" (Wikipedia.org, 8-24-09)
I agree with the UO and DAoC remakes most. Both have the potential to be unbelievably awesome I had a lot of fun with DAoC, even on the PvE side. Their character classes are just so fun. And the epic storyline for each class that goes along with the mythology of the realm (which may not have been in past the first few levels until Darkness Rising, I don't remember) was pretty amazing. I really liked the instanced wings of dungeons they added in as well. Added a great explorer element to things, and the fact that they scaled to party or solo was nice as well. I would also like to see a true EQ remake though. No, not WoW in Norrath, an actual EQ with updated graphics that hasn't been watered down by fifty thousand expansions. EQ's lore and group-oriented gameplay (especially in the earlier years) were great. The closest I've come to getting my EQ fix since PoP has been FFXI, which is still insanely different from the way EQ was; the biggest similarity though, and the biggest reason I want to see an EQ remake, is the group-dependent / group-supportive gameplay. I feel that the WoW-esque quest systems so prevalent today that make everything but instances soloable have really watered down community interaction. Sure, I can group for the occasional instance, but those get old quick. I can group for regular quests too, but then things just get ultra easy. I want the old, team up and take down the difficult baddies feeling that EQ gave you. And I want it to be un-instanced.
EDIT: Oh, and I also think it would be great to see a remake of Horizons: Empire of Istaria (Now Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted). It never really got big because of bugs at launch and the fact that it was passed around between different developers / companies like a hot potato. But a new Horizons with updated graphics from a stable company would be amazing. Horizon's class system, crafting system, player-built cities and dragon layers, monthly events from the devs, including cities being seiged by the Withered Aegis (at least, for awhile; the most recent devs seemed to have canned this) and dragons as a playable race/class were absolutely incredible ideas that need to pop up again.
You are describing Vanguard during beta. Post Launch they added so much solo content to ruin the group dependancies.
Excellent article. UO, AC and AO would definitely be my top 3. I don't have any strong contenders for 4 and 5, and the arguments for remaking DaOC and CoH are good even if I wouldn't play them.
I'm fairly sure there will be a spiritual successor to UO eventually. The concept is so simple, and so many people want to play it, that when someone finally gets it right, it will be a success. There have already been a few attempts, and there are a few in the works. Unfortunately all by indie companies. I have nothing against games made by indie companies, but the chances of such games surviving long enough to build reputation, become profitable, and then become successful enough to get the polish an UO successor deserves, are slim. My current top contender for making it is Dawntide. Mortal Online borrows a lot of ideas from UO, but even if it becomes a successful niche game, I think the first person twitch based gameplay will alienate too many of those looking for a successor to UO.
As for AO and AC, I would love to see remakes, but I doubt it would happen. They are both, in my opinion, too complex to be big hits, and streamlined versions would take away from what made the originals so good. Many would point out EVE as an exception, but after all EVE launched in 2003. If it had come out today, in a similar state, I doubt it would have lasted. Both Funcom and Turbine are in positions in the market right now where they couldn't justify launching a game unless they thought it would draw several hundred thousand players, so both AO and AC using the original concepts would be high risk projects. Too high risk for other major developers to pick up the ideas too, so once again it comes down to hoping an indie developer gets lucky. I find that less likely than an UO inspired game getting a break, though, simply because more complex games need more polish for people to stick with them through a rough start.
Funny how WAR was a bit hyped up to serve as DAoC 2..... lol yea right.
Hopefully Mortal Online can serve as a successor to how great Asheron's Call was (hybrid skill, sandbox, full-loot, housing, etc.). AC2 was fun for a bit but it didn't last long because they cut out pretty much all the elements that made AC1 great.
@ Dana. None of those 5 games "redone" would make it in 2010.
Industry evolved too much. People were served better meals.
I like what you say about DAoC PvP and War and Wow though "... as War and Wow showed a 2 faction PvP doesn't work...".
More people play WOW PvP than any other MMO. And "it works" so well they are even on ESPN. You can log in at 04.00AM and you have your pvp within 1 minute. How is that "not working" ?
Typical mmorpg.com nostalgia and bombastic reasoning.
I bet there are thousands of people wanting the original Donkey Kong of 1982. But it will not sell in 2010.
Let me guess... you are playing Aion right now and think it's an mmorpg.
Right.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
people want and buy remakes if they are well done. Well they buy them even if they are not well done (i.e. movies especially). They pretty much did remake the old Donkey Kong with Mario vs Donkey Kong and it is a great game.... Virtual Console games aren't even remakes and people still buy them. Old games kick ass whether or not they are remade.... Fallout 1+2(hell even Tactics) are completely superior to 3.... So are the old Castlevania games.... Metroid is kind of a different story all of them are terrific but 3 and Prime I are the top.
@ Dana. None of those 5 games "redone" would make it in 2010. Industry evolved too much. People were served better meals. I like what you say about DAoC PvP and War and Wow though "... as War and Wow showed a 2 faction PvP doesn't work...". More people play WOW PvP than any other MMO. And "it works" so well they are even on ESPN. You can log in at 04.00AM and you have your pvp within 1 minute. How is that "not working" ? Typical mmorpg.com nostalgia and bombastic reasoning. I bet there are thousands of people wanting the original Donkey Kong of 1982. But it will not sell in 2010. Let me guess... you are playing Aion right now and think it's an mmorpg. Right.
Well, redone implies updated. Think of how movies are re-made, that's what I had in mind.
Take the elements that made those games fun and make 2010 quality games using those core ideals.
As to WoW, you're right, I may have over simplified it, but WoW has some holes in that area. Specifically the open world stuff in Wintergrasp. Two factions have been shown time and time again to not work in any kind of open PvP. In instances that control population, it's less of an issue, of course.
With Aion... I have no earthly clue what you're on about. Although if you want to bring it into the PvP debate, there's a good reason they add the NPC balancing faction.
Dana Massey Formerly of MMORPG.com Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Oh, and I also think it would be great to see a remake of Horizons: Empire of Istaria (Now Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted). It never really got big because of bugs at launch and the fact that it was passed around between different developers / companies like a hot potato. But a new Horizons with updated graphics from a stable company would be amazing. Horizon's class system, crafting system, player-built cities and dragon layers, monthly events from the devs, including cities being seiged by the Withered Aegis (at least, for awhile; the most recent devs seemed to have canned this) and dragons as a playable race/class were absolutely incredible ideas that need to pop up again.
I totally agree.. Horizons was a completely different concept and I loved playing a dragon.. the many problems, in particular poor performance, eventually made it unplayable for me. I would LOVE to see a new Horizons!
I disagree with a lot on your list because it is based on nostalgia, rather than practicality or even fun gameplay.
City of Heroes just got the remake you asked for, and even mentioned, in the article. It's called Champions Online. That is the closest thing you'll ever see to a City of Heroes remake. The secret identity idea sounds cool, if you're making a movie. But practically, in a game, secret identities would be very boring for players. "Hey look, I'm a regular Joe who has no powers right now!" Does that really require a game? Wouldn't it be easier to just turn off your computer and go to work? Ah, the game we fondly call Reality!
Asheron's Call and Anarchy Online MMOs could work with huge overhauls. So these first two on your list were the most practical targets for remakes. But these remakes couldn't compete in today's market if they were too true to form of the originals. It's not 2002 anymore. You have to make a game that can compete with WoW if you want a blockbuster, and even that's not a guarantee that your title will be popular or sustainable.
I know it's been years, but Dark Age of Camelot really doesn't need a remake yet. They need to let WAR burn off some more steam and crank through some more expansions before being truly capable of pushing out a worthy Dark Age of Camelot remake.
As for Ultima Online, a remake would simply require so many changes that it would fail to be an Ultima Online remake. You wouldn't be able to call it that. You would have to call it, "A game based on ideas from Ultima Online." If you really re-made Ultima Online like you're saying, it would fail faster than Tabula Rasa. This pick on your list was a pure nostalgia pick. There's a reason nobody has copied UO.
Well, to this day I still am a fan of UO (that is I still play MMORPG's looking for the next UO), it is the MMORPG that started it for me and many of my friends as well as our almost 12 year old Guild now, and we played it the longest from any other, too (5 years)...since then, only SWG was able to keep us playing form more than 6 months or a year, and that is of course Pre-NGE, which many of us called UO2.
Not sure about City of heroes, really In the list thought, the rest has merit.
With today's technology thought, a true UO2 could really be a blast, with a trully huge Britannia, vast wilderness, forests, plains, deserts, Silver Spine Mountain Ranges and Beautifully Crafted Thematic Cities, and Virtue Shrines, not to mention the Oceans and Islands.
With the ability to construct Houses and Towers and Castles, so player run organizations can create their own Cities, full of adventure seekers, warriors, and many and various artisans, from shepperds to carpenters cookers to alchemists, tailors and blacksmiths, bards and town cryers!
A Gate system connecting all Britannian cities just like the original would be great, that way people always have the option of quick or slow travel through the dangerous wilderness.
Player owned Vendors and Shops are a must just like the original.
Ships like the original, would be great only that this time it would be in 3D and the Oceans can really be vast with many various types of Ships that can be armed for some interesting Naval battles.
Chat bubbles all the way, no general chat or even a chat box (guilds could have guild voice) for a trully regional feeling of immersion, plenty of emotes, and public ereas where people can stage plays or form dancing or music bands, set up shop for player run Bazzars (just like we used to do in the original).
Great, dark mysterious and dangerous dungeons.
Added to that Dimensional Portals that can transport the player to different landscapes through the aetherial void could be a nice Addon Bonus.
I would just love to see places like Britain, and Vesper and Yew and Serpent's Hold, and many others.
Just a few ideas that are still fresh after 12 years
Oh yeah one more thing...Full Loot Death PvP has to be part of it (with the appropriate economy as the original..no 8 hour grinds to make a sword like some games today out there), however...NO Twitch First person Implementation (Darkfall proved to me it will just not work it is also why I am not looking forward to Mortal Online)...Twitch is good for Space games and Flight Simulators...for an MMORPG 3rd Person with Dice rolls is the only way in my opinion (actually I would go as far as say implement the core combat mechanics of WoW, it was the only good thing of that game for me).
- Duke Suraknar - Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
Comments
This is exactly why I've never been able to get into a sci-fi MMO. Sci-fi single players (kotor) aren't usually so much of a problem with immersion. Giving someone the opportunity to single shot (counterstrike Awp) someone/something else in an MMO makes that class very overpowered.
Planetside is full of instakill moments. Mostly If you do something wrong. Say... tanks sells can kill infantry, wisp (air) too, light tanks can be killed by a single shot too. Other stuff can really damage most people. Snipers don't instakill, but the next shot will.
UO and DAOC would be awesome remakes. Problem for me would be I don't have enough time to play them both, so I would have to choose!!!
Man I would kill someone to get an updated/remake of AO. That game was incredible. Yeah the launch was horrible. But once it aged some and got stable it was awesome. Great game world, lots of non-combat things, a great skill/character progression system and cool classes. Man, I would really like to see that.
DAoC 2 would be a good one.
I just wish someone would make a Shadowrun MMO. Or even Battle Tech would be something different.
remade daoc??!?!?!?!? count me in
Because Shadowbane had serious problems: It's own community. A remake won't fix that. When one guild "owns" a server meant for thousands, there's a problem. This happened on many of the servers. Human nature sucks. It's hard to code around it.
It's the same with DAOC. People seem to forget that the PVP sucked unless you were on the side with the most people. 3 sides vs 2 sides doesn't mean anything. ONE side will always be more popular, and even when its 3 sided, that side will win most of the time. DAOC and Planetside both showed this in spades.
UO gets viewed through rose colored glasses so much these days, people forgot why the game folded like a house of cards once EQ1 came out. Sure, if you macro'd all the time, it was "fun", but who's playing the game? You or the macro? Then the PVP caused most people to flee (By Raph's own words was something like 200,000 of the 400,000 they had left because of PvP, even before EQ1 came out). Some people think PvP MAKES a great game. I see it in reverse: it BREAKS a great game. MMORPG's just are not suited for PvP and human nature.
Gameplay and the community doesn't even enter into it, in that case, for me. The Shadowbane setting needs to live on because its fabulous lore deserves to live to a much better fate. I don't care if it's a single-player linear RPG. Bring it.
I didn't admit I wanted a revision of SWG [which I don't]. I agreed that you correctly pointed out that someone else was asking for that. I would love to see another star wars game set in the timeline of the original trilogy and don't really care if it is modeled of SWG or not.
Personally I don't think TOR is a remake of swg, because the storylines are so different. It feels more like a multiplayer remake of KOTOR to me.
Also I think SOE/LA were very happy with the subscribers in SWG until another game broke the market wide open. Prior to that they sure seemed happy to talk about the success that SWG was.
I don't want to discuss the NGE either.
It is just as easy to look at the first real "massive" online game and point out the flaws it had. There simply was no model to follow and origins was flying blind into uncharted territory. It is hard to hold it to the same standards as current games for that reason.
I think a large assumption in any post here is that some of the major issues in the older games would get addressed and some of the better aspects of the older games would get enhanced.
Ultima had a lot of great aspects in it like open character templates, boats, housing, player run economy. It also had great structure for community building.
I didn't admit I wanted a revision of SWG [which I don't]. I agreed that you correctly pointed out that someone else was asking for that. I would love to see another star wars game set in the timeline of the original trilogy and don't really care if it is modeled of SWG or not.
Personally I don't think TOR is a remake of swg, because the storylines are so different. It feels more like a multiplayer remake of KOTOR to me.
Also I think SOE/LA were very happy with the subscribers in SWG until another game broke the market wide open. Prior to that they sure seemed happy to talk about the success that SWG was.
I don't want to discuss the NGE either.
Yeah, sorry about that, I responded as if you were the original poster and continued the conversation. I see now that you were not
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
AO is currently getting a makeover. Visit its homepage to see some photos of the new engine.
Isnt UO 3d now since a couple of years back?
My top list of games I want to see remade is:
1. Anarchy Online
2. Everquest 1
3. Asherons Call
4. Ultima Online
5. SWG
EDIT: Ohh i forgot DAOC
1) Correct me if I am wrong, but Warhammer was in development after being a scrapped project from another company. Also there is a Warhammer 40k game being developed while Warhammer was also being developed? So it seems like it is somewhat possible to what you claim isn't.
2) True about revision, but it would be nice to see another decent sandbox game get a sequel. Not that I am complaining, because you covered most of what I would have voted for with UO on the list, which I think would make a better sequel than swg.
3) SWG was a very successful game. It was the second most popular and populated western mmo on the market for a good deal of time. Maybe swg wasn't successful enough when compared to wow, but I'm positive there are many many games post July 2003 that would kill to have subscriber numbers that SWG had.
4) 6 years old still makes SWG one of the oldest games on the market.
Yes, I completely agree!!! SWG was a very successful game at the time with a huge following. WoW has completely skewed our view of what is a success and what is a failure.
Aeryns, www.imorpg.com
I agree with the UO and DAoC remakes most. Both have the potential to be unbelievably awesome
I had a lot of fun with DAoC, even on the PvE side. Their character classes are just so fun. And the epic storyline for each class that goes along with the mythology of the realm (which may not have been in past the first few levels until Darkness Rising, I don't remember) was pretty amazing. I really liked the instanced wings of dungeons they added in as well. Added a great explorer element to things, and the fact that they scaled to party or solo was nice as well. I would also like to see a true EQ remake though. No, not WoW in Norrath, an actual EQ with updated graphics that hasn't been watered down by fifty thousand expansions. EQ's lore and group-oriented gameplay (especially in the earlier years) were great. The closest I've come to getting my EQ fix since PoP has been FFXI, which is still insanely different from the way EQ was; the biggest similarity though, and the biggest reason I want to see an EQ remake, is the group-dependent / group-supportive gameplay. I feel that the WoW-esque quest systems so prevalent today that make everything but instances soloable have really watered down community interaction. Sure, I can group for the occasional instance, but those get old quick. I can group for regular quests too, but then things just get ultra easy. I want the old, team up and take down the difficult baddies feeling that EQ gave you. And I want it to be un-instanced.
EDIT: Oh, and I also think it would be great to see a remake of Horizons: Empire of Istaria (Now Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted). It never really got big because of bugs at launch and the fact that it was passed around between different developers / companies like a hot potato. But a new Horizons with updated graphics from a stable company would be amazing. Horizon's class system, crafting system, player-built cities and dragon layers, monthly events from the devs, including cities being seiged by the Withered Aegis (at least, for awhile; the most recent devs seemed to have canned this) and dragons as a playable race/class were absolutely incredible ideas that need to pop up again.
"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[2]" (Wikipedia.org, 8-24-09)
The best way to deal with trolls:
http://www.angelfire.com/space/usenet/ [IGNORE THEM, THEY JUST WANT ATTENTION!]
You are describing Vanguard during beta. Post Launch they added so much solo content to ruin the group dependancies.
Excellent article. UO, AC and AO would definitely be my top 3. I don't have any strong contenders for 4 and 5, and the arguments for remaking DaOC and CoH are good even if I wouldn't play them.
I'm fairly sure there will be a spiritual successor to UO eventually. The concept is so simple, and so many people want to play it, that when someone finally gets it right, it will be a success. There have already been a few attempts, and there are a few in the works. Unfortunately all by indie companies. I have nothing against games made by indie companies, but the chances of such games surviving long enough to build reputation, become profitable, and then become successful enough to get the polish an UO successor deserves, are slim. My current top contender for making it is Dawntide. Mortal Online borrows a lot of ideas from UO, but even if it becomes a successful niche game, I think the first person twitch based gameplay will alienate too many of those looking for a successor to UO.
As for AO and AC, I would love to see remakes, but I doubt it would happen. They are both, in my opinion, too complex to be big hits, and streamlined versions would take away from what made the originals so good. Many would point out EVE as an exception, but after all EVE launched in 2003. If it had come out today, in a similar state, I doubt it would have lasted. Both Funcom and Turbine are in positions in the market right now where they couldn't justify launching a game unless they thought it would draw several hundred thousand players, so both AO and AC using the original concepts would be high risk projects. Too high risk for other major developers to pick up the ideas too, so once again it comes down to hoping an indie developer gets lucky. I find that less likely than an UO inspired game getting a break, though, simply because more complex games need more polish for people to stick with them through a rough start.
Nice one Dana, however I have to disagree with CoH though being in the top 5.
Ultima Online - Most Definitely (A lot of rumors in the past with a Ultima 2, just never got the push it needed)
Star Wars Galaxies - Short lived and deserves another chance (pipe dream though, since TOR is coming)
Anarchy Online - Most Definitely (However has AoC really put a damper on Funcom).
Dark Age of Camelot - The game that revolutionized RvR!
Asheron's Call - Its Short lived counterpart AC2 doesn't count, we need another AC.
No particular order here.
I can guarantee if any of these titles were remade, we would have a huge HYPE METER on every single one.
Of course this is just my personal opinion.
Funny how WAR was a bit hyped up to serve as DAoC 2..... lol yea right.
Hopefully Mortal Online can serve as a successor to how great Asheron's Call was (hybrid skill, sandbox, full-loot, housing, etc.). AC2 was fun for a bit but it didn't last long because they cut out pretty much all the elements that made AC1 great.
@ Dana. None of those 5 games "redone" would make it in 2010.
Industry evolved too much. People were served better meals.
I like what you say about DAoC PvP and War and Wow though "... as War and Wow showed a 2 faction PvP doesn't work...".
More people play WOW PvP than any other MMO. And "it works" so well they are even on ESPN. You can log in at 04.00AM and you have your pvp within 1 minute. How is that "not working" ?
Typical mmorpg.com nostalgia and bombastic reasoning.
I bet there are thousands of people wanting the original Donkey Kong of 1982. But it will not sell in 2010.
Let me guess... you are playing Aion right now and think it's an mmorpg.
Right.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
people want and buy remakes if they are well done. Well they buy them even if they are not well done (i.e. movies especially). They pretty much did remake the old Donkey Kong with Mario vs Donkey Kong and it is a great game.... Virtual Console games aren't even remakes and people still buy them. Old games kick ass whether or not they are remade.... Fallout 1+2(hell even Tactics) are completely superior to 3.... So are the old Castlevania games.... Metroid is kind of a different story all of them are terrific but 3 and Prime I are the top.
Well, redone implies updated. Think of how movies are re-made, that's what I had in mind.
Take the elements that made those games fun and make 2010 quality games using those core ideals.
As to WoW, you're right, I may have over simplified it, but WoW has some holes in that area. Specifically the open world stuff in Wintergrasp. Two factions have been shown time and time again to not work in any kind of open PvP. In instances that control population, it's less of an issue, of course.
With Aion... I have no earthly clue what you're on about. Although if you want to bring it into the PvP debate, there's a good reason they add the NPC balancing faction.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
I would love to lead a team to remake Ultima Online. Someday perhaps...
Director of Technology
Turbine
I wonder how many of the people that want a remade UO have taken a serious look at Mortal Online?
FPV and FPS aside.
Yeah.
UO.
Good article.
I disagree with a lot on your list because it is based on nostalgia, rather than practicality or even fun gameplay.
City of Heroes just got the remake you asked for, and even mentioned, in the article. It's called Champions Online. That is the closest thing you'll ever see to a City of Heroes remake. The secret identity idea sounds cool, if you're making a movie. But practically, in a game, secret identities would be very boring for players. "Hey look, I'm a regular Joe who has no powers right now!" Does that really require a game? Wouldn't it be easier to just turn off your computer and go to work? Ah, the game we fondly call Reality!
Asheron's Call and Anarchy Online MMOs could work with huge overhauls. So these first two on your list were the most practical targets for remakes. But these remakes couldn't compete in today's market if they were too true to form of the originals. It's not 2002 anymore. You have to make a game that can compete with WoW if you want a blockbuster, and even that's not a guarantee that your title will be popular or sustainable.
I know it's been years, but Dark Age of Camelot really doesn't need a remake yet. They need to let WAR burn off some more steam and crank through some more expansions before being truly capable of pushing out a worthy Dark Age of Camelot remake.
As for Ultima Online, a remake would simply require so many changes that it would fail to be an Ultima Online remake. You wouldn't be able to call it that. You would have to call it, "A game based on ideas from Ultima Online." If you really re-made Ultima Online like you're saying, it would fail faster than Tabula Rasa. This pick on your list was a pure nostalgia pick. There's a reason nobody has copied UO.
Well, to this day I still am a fan of UO (that is I still play MMORPG's looking for the next UO), it is the MMORPG that started it for me and many of my friends as well as our almost 12 year old Guild now, and we played it the longest from any other, too (5 years)...since then, only SWG was able to keep us playing form more than 6 months or a year, and that is of course Pre-NGE, which many of us called UO2.
I agree with UO being #1 on this list.
Not sure about City of heroes, really In the list thought, the rest has merit.
With today's technology thought, a true UO2 could really be a blast, with a trully huge Britannia, vast wilderness, forests, plains, deserts, Silver Spine Mountain Ranges and Beautifully Crafted Thematic Cities, and Virtue Shrines, not to mention the Oceans and Islands.
With the ability to construct Houses and Towers and Castles, so player run organizations can create their own Cities, full of adventure seekers, warriors, and many and various artisans, from shepperds to carpenters cookers to alchemists, tailors and blacksmiths, bards and town cryers!
A Gate system connecting all Britannian cities just like the original would be great, that way people always have the option of quick or slow travel through the dangerous wilderness.
Player owned Vendors and Shops are a must just like the original.
Ships like the original, would be great only that this time it would be in 3D and the Oceans can really be vast with many various types of Ships that can be armed for some interesting Naval battles.
Chat bubbles all the way, no general chat or even a chat box (guilds could have guild voice) for a trully regional feeling of immersion, plenty of emotes, and public ereas where people can stage plays or form dancing or music bands, set up shop for player run Bazzars (just like we used to do in the original).
Great, dark mysterious and dangerous dungeons.
Added to that Dimensional Portals that can transport the player to different landscapes through the aetherial void could be a nice Addon Bonus.
I would just love to see places like Britain, and Vesper and Yew and Serpent's Hold, and many others.
Just a few ideas that are still fresh after 12 years
Oh yeah one more thing...Full Loot Death PvP has to be part of it (with the appropriate economy as the original..no 8 hour grinds to make a sword like some games today out there), however...NO Twitch First person Implementation (Darkfall proved to me it will just not work it is also why I am not looking forward to Mortal Online)...Twitch is good for Space games and Flight Simulators...for an MMORPG 3rd Person with Dice rolls is the only way in my opinion (actually I would go as far as say implement the core combat mechanics of WoW, it was the only good thing of that game for me).
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard