Why haven't they fired you as a writer yet? You're by far the worst addition to MMORPG.com and even though I will probably be banned for that statement, I stand by it. A vampire MMO? Really!? REALLY!? A mage? Really!? REALLY!? A sorcerer!? A SORCERER!? A cyclops!? A CYCLOPS!? (This is pretty fun, and I'm starting to build momentum so hold on, ride's almost over) A troll!? A TROLL!? Yep. It's a troll. No, really. Uh oh! ZOMG!!! The TROLL is transforming... into a... TOOL!!! Wow, much like a butterfly, but without the charm or a set of wings. Perhaps you'll level up before your FLAME burns out... I'm trying different puns to seem humorous but it's just not working.
It's bad enough that I have to deal with my 12-14 year old students convinced that vampires are real because of garbage like Twilight, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, etc. It's ok to have fantasies but to feed this continual delusion of vampiric beings just to profit off the insanity of youth is another thing. This industry does not crave a new audience, it craves a unique world that does not promise everything and fail to deliver on anything. The MMO community has burned itself out on investing time, fandom, money, and patience into developers that only seek to get World of Warcraft-like returns off something with minimal work on their part.
There is an audience for vampires but the MMO community is not that audience. If we were, a developer would have already made such a game. Perhaps I will eat some crow when the new Whitewolf MMO comes out but until then, I think it will be an abysmal failure. I know MMO players good sir, and MMO players are not teenage girls getting goofy romantic over the idea of someone biting their neck in the dead of night."
Wow... you teach 12-14 year olds and yet you act like an infant? I guess this is your idea of role playing. Hmph... I'll bite.
While I agree - as even Dana has - that he needs some new material, his previous topics haven't been so transparent, especially considering tools like you are throwing your disgust into the mix. As a writer, one looks forward to such jolts; it allows one to know that he/she is being heard. And Dana isn't, by any means, a bad writer. Do people come to your teaching grounds and berate you for your method? OK, but do they do so in front of thousands upon thousands of people in a completely invasive manner? They do? Anyways, I find Dana's topics to be refreshing and comprehensive, unlike the praddling nature of your post enclosed in a box above mine.
Take this topic as an example: vampires, while probably not being YOUR thing, provide a very provocative lore for people - both younger and older (some people being over 3,000 years old!) - to "sink their teeth into". Sure, you feel some hate towards Stephanie Meiers (or whatever her name is; the T-word writer) and the copycats that have followed in her footsteps. I know I do. But you should also realize that the vampire culture or counter-culture or subculture - whatever you prefer - is larger than the MMO industry as a whole. The other day, I saw on the news that there are MILLIONS of vampires throughout the entire world! According to their spokesperson, a female who's name escapes me, they enjoy living amongst humans because... and my mind just trailed off.
Back to the topic: you rant on the fantasy of vampires belonging to adolescent females, but you lack depth or any sense of rhetoric in your dictation. Also, the INDUSTRY doesn't crave "a unique world that does not promise everything", the community does. The industry (those who develop and/or produce the games) are the people holding this genre back while looking for newer audiences (ahem WoW) to control. Call them noobs. Call them what you will. They're coming. New generations will continue to rise and fall within the MMO community, your students included.
I'm jumping around here, but I'm half asleep so where was I? Oh, you said, "but to feed this continual delusion of vampiric beings just to profit off the insanity of youth is another thing", and my reply to that is, "Uh, you could've just said MMO?" Still not getting the picture?
What's your MMO of choice? Sci-fi? Fantasy? Sci-fi Fantasy? Mine are more realistic, like Second Life and Boner Child (not yet out, I'm still trying to shop that title around to developers) Don't be an idiot. Save that for people like myself who have nothing better to do than to sound completely ridiculous at the risk of losing any credibility as a writer.
And in closing, either you stand in the back of class, anxiously awaiting the release of the 3-D remake of UO; or you hop on this fancy bangwagon we have here and enjoy the ride into the future. Also, some of what I said makes sense, so take that and write it down, copy it, stick the copy in a time capsule, bury it in your backyard (or, if you're too lazy/busy, don't bury it at all) so that someone else can achieve a higher knowledge.
The World of Darkness is just an amazing IP. I really hope CCP does it justice. But then, EVE is a pretty amazing game for what it tries to be, so I feel confident that WOD will be equally well-conceived. At least I think it will be if they include mages and faeries and werewolves and vampires all together.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Ah vampires... I like where Dana was going with the two different dimensions of time, but one could be saved as an expansion to the first to add future intrigue into the game. Personally, I'd like to see a vampire MMO where the ancient Asian stylization is mixed in with it. They were more beastly in every sense, so they could play a good opposition to the other vampires; could make for a stellar boss fight too.
And playable classes or professions... whatever:
Vampire (could be broken down into different tiers)
Vampire Hunter (D? That's me!)
Werewolf
Warlock (could fit easily into the genre)
Oooh, who remembers Monster Squad??? Hmmm... a Monster Squad MMORPG...
BTW, the Twilight reference was gay. I know of several females who HATE the books and haven't even bothered to watch the movies, yet love the vampire lore. Of course, they're not under 21, so that could be reason enough.
Originally posted by MMO_Doubter Originally posted by Kalefen and the developers, in all their brilliance, as the game ticks its dying breath would ignore the please of a shrinking fan base, state something like "LET THEM EAT CAKE" as the Bastille crumbled...and would instead create a patch that gave silly masks to their suck...er subscribers.
Make games for gamers by gamers - death to the burgoise mmorpg industry!
Monster Squad? o_O? Sadly I've never heard of it. Wiki Time!
Asian stylization? Good idea. Werewolves and Warlocks? Why? We want Vampires lol not a games loosly revolving around all the monster myths. If we add Werewolves and such, others woud ask for witches (you know, the female warlocks ), Zombies, Demons, and anything else that they can think of. Instead the game could have:
Old Vampires - Vampires made a long time ago
New Vampires - Vampires made withing the past 50 or so years
Half Vampires - Vamires like Blade I guess, second hand vampiness?
Minions - Humans given Vampire powers without being Vampires themselves as long as they serve that Vampire loyally no matter what. (I've seen these before in a couple old movies)
Humans - Of course what is a good Vamp story w/o humans? They can choose to become Vamp hunters or Vamp allies.
As for Twilight, I have noticed it's entire fan base is mostly girls between the ages of 12-14. As such, those poor deprived children did not grow up with Buffy, Angel, Blade, and Interview WaV, and other vamp badass-ness that we had. Those poor unfortunate children have had to choose between Underworld and Twilight (And I think some parents may forbid Underworld lol) I'm very upset with how Dana blamed Vlad the Impaler for Twilight. While Vlad may have inspired Dracula, He was a real person who made his way into history by being a merciless warlord who tortured the poeple he conqured inhumanly:
"His method of torture was a horse attached to each of the victim's legs as a sharpened stake was gradually forced into the body. The end of the stake was usually oiled, and care was taken that the stake not be too sharp; else the victim might die too rapidly from shock. Normally the stake was inserted into the body through the anus and was often forced through the body until it emerged from the mouth. However, there were many instances where victims were impaled through other bodily orifices or through the abdomen or chest. Infants were sometimes impaled on the stake forced through their mother's chests. The records indicate that victims were sometimes impaled so that they hung upside down on the stake."
Yeah, I don't think Stephanie Meyers had that in mind when she thought of Edward. . . . . . .
In accordance with the prophecy, you will finish reading this sentence right now!
In reply to RoosterNash: Monster Squad? o_O? Sadly I've never heard of it. Wiki Time! Asian stylization? Good idea. Werewolves and Warlocks? Why? We want Vampires lol not a games loosly revolving around all the monster myths. If we add Werewolves and such, others woud ask for witches (you know, the female warlocks ), Zombies, Demons, and anything else that they can think of. Instead the game could have:
Old Vampires - Vampires made a long time ago New Vampires - Vampires made withing the past 50 or so years Half Vampires - Vamires like Blade I guess, second hand vampiness? Minions - Humans given Vampire powers without being Vampires themselves as long as they serve that Vampire loyally no matter what. (I've seen these before in a couple old movies) Humans - Of course what is a good Vamp story w/o humans? They can choose to become Vamp hunters or Vamp allies.
As for Twilight, I have noticed it's entire fan base is mostly girls between the ages of 12-14. As such, those poor deprived children did not grow up with Buffy, Angel, Blade, and Interview WaV, and other vamp badass-ness that we had. Those poor unfortunate children have had to choose between Underworld and Twilight (And I think some parents may forbid Underworld lol) I'm very upset with how Dana blamed Vlad the Impaler for Twilight. While Vlad may have inspired Dracula, He was a real person who made his way into history by being a merciless warlord who tortured the poeple he conqured inhumanly: "His method of torture was a horse attached to each of the victim's legs as a sharpened stake was gradually forced into the body. The end of the stake was usually oiled, and care was taken that the stake not be too sharp; else the victim might die too rapidly from shock. Normally the stake was inserted into the body through the anus and was often forced through the body until it emerged from the mouth. However, there were many instances where victims were impaled through other bodily orifices or through the abdomen or chest. Infants were sometimes impaled on the stake forced through their mother's chests. The records indicate that victims were sometimes impaled so that they hung upside down on the stake." Yeah, I don't think Stephanie Meyers had that in mind when she thought of Edward. . . . . . .
Actually I like the idea of adding werewolves. Could just be because of Underworld but it does break things up a bit.
However, unless something drastic (meaning "different") is done, these mmo's just don't really work as far as capturing tension and mood. Heck, even in LOTRO, where they had a session play where you relived Durin's bane (I think that's it), it didn't work.
The clunkiness of the avatars and the animations just got in the way.
Because what will end up happening is that you will have some sort of inn or city area and everyone, werewolves, vampires, humans, etc, just jumping up and down on things, dancing in the square and shouting LFG caves of innsmouth, must be lvl 17+.
Or each faction/group will be separated and it will just be one group or another "pwnign" the other group or, er "other" and then doing emotes on their bodies.
Part of what makes the horror genre work is mood, ambience, tension, storytelling, etc.
It's part of what made Vampire: Masquerade so good. I believe anyone who played that game and who experienced the haunted hotel chapter would know what I mean.
Now imagine that same hotel and players running around, zerging mobs and dueling in the hall ways.
Not cool. not cool.
The dev's would have to do something that was a bit more storybased and that mitigated a lot of the mmo nonsense that mmo's seem to suffer from. And I can't wait to hear those complaints. "its' not an mmo because I'm not on the screen with hundreds of other players."
Well, they either want bone chilling horror drenched in atmosphere or hundreds of players jumping up and over renfield as an e-sport.
now THAT'S horror!
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
In reply to RoosterNash: Monster Squad? o_O? Sadly I've never heard of it. Wiki Time! Asian stylization? Good idea. Werewolves and Warlocks? Why? We want Vampires lol not a games loosly revolving around all the monster myths. If we add Werewolves and such, others woud ask for witches (you know, the female warlocks ), Zombies, Demons, and anything else that they can think of. Instead the game could have:
Old Vampires - Vampires made a long time ago New Vampires - Vampires made withing the past 50 or so years Half Vampires - Vamires like Blade I guess, second hand vampiness? Minions - Humans given Vampire powers without being Vampires themselves as long as they serve that Vampire loyally no matter what. (I've seen these before in a couple old movies) Humans - Of course what is a good Vamp story w/o humans? They can choose to become Vamp hunters or Vamp allies.
As for Twilight, I have noticed it's entire fan base is mostly girls between the ages of 12-14. As such, those poor deprived children did not grow up with Buffy, Angel, Blade, and Interview WaV, and other vamp badass-ness that we had. Those poor unfortunate children have had to choose between Underworld and Twilight (And I think some parents may forbid Underworld lol) I'm very upset with how Dana blamed Vlad the Impaler for Twilight. While Vlad may have inspired Dracula, He was a real person who made his way into history by being a merciless warlord who tortured the poeple he conqured inhumanly: "His method of torture was a horse attached to each of the victim's legs as a sharpened stake was gradually forced into the body. The end of the stake was usually oiled, and care was taken that the stake not be too sharp; else the victim might die too rapidly from shock. Normally the stake was inserted into the body through the anus and was often forced through the body until it emerged from the mouth. However, there were many instances where victims were impaled through other bodily orifices or through the abdomen or chest. Infants were sometimes impaled on the stake forced through their mother's chests. The records indicate that victims were sometimes impaled so that they hung upside down on the stake." Yeah, I don't think Stephanie Meyers had that in mind when she thought of Edward. . . . . . .
*sigh* I can handle this one for Stephanie Meyers:
Although vampiric lore has existed in all forms around the world for thousands of years, the role of Vlad led to the creation of the vampire Dracula, widely considered to be the basis for modern vampire fiction. So we have a lil progression like this:
Vlad - Dracula - modern vampire fiction - Tada! Twilight! - Robert Pattinson's Fame
So, like any old chain that is usually in existence, we can remove Vlad and this happens:
Vlad - Null - Null - Null -Null - Hey! Robert is getting laid a lot less!
Hm....points to ponder!
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
There's no way of telling whether a vampire MMO would be successful or not. I mean, I had high hopes for Matrix Online and look how that turned out. I liked VtM: Bloodlines as a single player game, so if there was even a little bit of what made that good, I'd probably go for it. What would probably make it bomb would be the community. Most of the people that are into vampires are... well... I've seen Vampire LARPs in action so maybe I'm just assuming the worst.
Anyway, vampires alone is probably too general. A supernatural MMO with vampires, werewolves, and... whatever else there is as the races or factions might actually work a little better.
First, despite what some folks have been saying, I like these Why Not discussions. Are they all awesome? No. But all it takes is for one reply to one idea to creep into the mind of a developer and it could change the way we MMO forever.
To answer the Why Not:
Because this is EATING PEOPLE. Not whacking on them with swords. Or shooting at them with guns. EATING.
As soon as word of this got out, the crazies would turn off their GTA-IV, pick up their religious book of choice, and get all kinds of angry over the devil worshipping cannibals. They already get all sorts of mad when its just in books, but you're actually going to let people "become" soul twisted vampires and raging werewolves and not expect the conservatives to show up en masse?
OR, the game gets censored so much that you end up with a fighter/wizard/cleric game and "Vampire" thrown into the title somewhere, ala World of Vampirecraft.
It''s called World of Darkness. Purchased by CCP. Thank god a company that has some balls that will actually do something innovative purchased the IP.
Werewolves(the cool badass kind), Vampires, Changlings, Mages... lots of fun to be had. Add into it all the source material with the different clans and factions and its ripe for an outstanding PvP game.
I agree. It would nice to have a good PvP faction-based MMORPG with more than 2-3 factions. WoD would be perfect for that.
If it would have good faction based PvP it HAS to be 3 factions. 2 doesn't work.
pretty tired of reading these "Why nots" got anything else to write about? i got more why nots than you.
I know you're trying to troll, but honestly, I agree. This was pretty close to the bottom of my "why not" barrel for now
...I'm likely going to adopt a new premise in the coming weeks.
Anyone got any suggestions?
I have one. "Why haven't they..." First topic?
Why haven't they fired you as a writer yet? You're by far the worst addition to MMORPG.com and even though I will probably be banned for that statement, I stand by it. A vampire MMO? Really!? REALLY!?
It's bad enough that I have to deal with my 12-14 year old students convinced that vampires are real because of garbage like Twilight, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, etc. It's ok to have fantasies but to feed this continual delusion of vampiric beings just to profit off the insanity of youth is another thing. This industry does not crave a new audience, it craves a unique world that does not promise everything and fail to deliver on anything. The MMO community has burned itself out on investing time, fandom, money, and patience into developers that only seek to get World of Warcraft-like returns off something with minimal work on their part.
There is an audience for vampires but the MMO community is not that audience. If we were, a developer would have already made such a game. Perhaps I will eat some crow when the new Whitewolf MMO comes out but until then, I think it will be an abysmal failure. I know MMO players good sir, and MMO players are not teenage girls getting goofy romantic over the idea of someone biting their neck in the dead of night.
SUCK ROCKS AND BITE ME !
Have played: Asheron's Call, Champions Online, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Dark Age of Camelot, EVE Online, Guild Wars, Lineage, Lord of the Rings Online, RF Online, Rohan: Blood Feud, Shaiya, Ultima Online, Warhammer, WoW and SC, BW, D1, Diablo 1 expantion, D2, D2x, Warcraft 2, & 3 !
Oh no, now you want a game that men and women equally enjoy? When will people learn that you can’t cater to all tastes in one MMO? Nobody expects us to all play one solo game on our PC’s do they or watch only one genre of film? But for the world of MMO’s they all must suit the taste of every demographic, which is why they are so bland and conformist.
But if you wanted to try this here is what I would do. The guy part of the MMO is an FPS slasher, think DAoC on blood steroids, vampire clans at war sort of thing. The girl part is the MMO questing, emotion loving section. Oh…would that not be better as two separate games? Yes, so let’s stop trying to fuse all tastes into one horrible MMO ice cream.
Dana has hit on a real issue though, women do buy more things than men, and I will add that teenagers will buy more in their hobby areas than adults. This is distorting our society, both culturally and to the world of MMO’s. As the world becomes marketed only for women and youngsters.
Need a new premise Dana? Write an article called ‘a handful of new titles, which is the one for you”, follow that up with ‘a handful of old titles, what’s new and which one is for you’. Or get some inside beef from some MMO companies, they must be falling over themselves to tell staff writers their dreams and vision.
Zomg. I can't belive all this Twilight pro/con! It's a chick flick movie f kring out loud! And wow it had vampires in it. Deal with it! Want another movie that had vampires? Lesbian Vampires Killers! Are you gonna suggest making a mmo after that too? (yes i watch shaite movies as a hobby)
Back on the topic
I Would LOVE a vampire mmo. But it will never be truly a vampire mmo, more like a mmo that gives u the possiblity to play a vampire.
We allready have a precedent in a very successful game that was sucessful - Vampires The Masquerade but not bloodlies that was kinda crap ... try Redemption!
You have the vampire clans (factions), you have conflict (between clans and between vamps and other monsters) and ofcourse you can have romance. I seen romance happening in WoW so i belive it will deffinetly happen in a Vampire game
You could play as a human (with embracing options) a werewolf (shapeshifting options) or a vampire (with no options ), i mean who needs options as a vampire :P)
You could go for a multi timeline game with the possibility to advance through time by sleeping(vamps) hibernating (werewolfies) or offsprings (humans ) like first play in the medieval age then go for the 1700s - 1800s victorian kinda era and then go hardcore in the present day
You could visit and play in the same places in different eras and the best thing is the game developers don't have to invent a world! They allready have it for the taking. History! It gives you whatever you need! They can add countries and wars and whateer they want. And the whole ideea would be to make the perfect sand-box mmo.
I'm just saying .. it could happen. It takes a lot of vision and a lot of understanding from the fanbase in order to work but i could happen.
Crunch on that.
PS : I think the what ifs are excellent Dana. If it wasn't for what ifs humanity would still be living in caves.
*sigh* I can handle this one for Stephanie Meyers:
Although vampiric lore has existed in all forms around the world for thousands of years, the role of Vlad led to the creation of the vampire Dracula, widely considered to be the basis for modern vampire fiction. So we have a lil progression like this:
Vlad - Dracula - modern vampire fiction - Tada! Twilight! - Robert Pattinson's Fame
So, like any old chain that is usually in existence, we can remove Vlad and this happens:
Vlad - Null - Null - Null -Null - Hey! Robert is getting laid a lot less!
Hm....points to ponder!
You missed the point. Saying Vlad is responsible for Twilight is like saying Anchient Rome is responsible for Harry Potter.
Rome invades England - Legends of Arthur and Merlin pop up - Tada! Random person spontaniously decides to make a book about wizards and it MUST be Rome's fault since it mentions Merlin's name and wizards CAN'T exist otherwise! *Le Gasp!* Hmm point to ponder!
Vampire Legends existed long before Stoker showed up and none of them had to do with Vlad the Impaler. He is actually Vlad III named after his father Vlad II aka Vlad the Dragon (Dracul). Vlad III was named Dracula *Draculea* Literaly: Son of Dragon. He was later called Vlad Trepes because of the impalments, Trepes = Impaler.
"Recent research suggests that Stoker actually knew little about the Prince of Wallachia. Some have claimed that the novel owes more to the legends about Elizabeth Báthory, a 16th century Hungarian countess who allegedly murdered hundreds of her servants." - Miller, Elizabeth Dracula: Sense & Nonsense
The only reason Bram Stoker used his name was because he needed someone famous (or infamous) with a bloody past, from Europe to set his book. If he had chosen to use Alexander the Great for his character name, would you blame him for Twilight too?
The REAL man responsible for Twilight.
In accordance with the prophecy, you will finish reading this sentence right now!
Actually I like the idea of adding werewolves. Could just be because of Underworld but it does break things up a bit.
However, unless something drastic (meaning "different") is done, these mmo's just don't really work as far as capturing tension and mood. Heck, even in LOTRO, where they had a session play where you relived Durin's bane (I think that's it), it didn't work.
The clunkiness of the avatars and the animations just got in the way.
Because what will end up happening is that you will have some sort of inn or city area and everyone, werewolves, vampires, humans, etc, just jumping up and down on things, dancing in the square and shouting LFG caves of innsmouth, must be lvl 17+.
Or each faction/group will be separated and it will just be one group or another "pwnign" the other group or, er "other" and then doing emotes on their bodies.
Part of what makes the horror genre work is mood, ambience, tension, storytelling, etc.
It's part of what made Vampire: Masquerade so good. I believe anyone who played that game and who experienced the haunted hotel chapter would know what I mean.
Now imagine that same hotel and players running around, zerging mobs and dueling in the hall ways.
Not cool. not cool.
The dev's would have to do something that was a bit more storybased and that mitigated a lot of the mmo nonsense that mmo's seem to suffer from. And I can't wait to hear those complaints. "its' not an mmo because I'm not on the screen with hundreds of other players."
Well, they either want bone chilling horror drenched in atmosphere or hundreds of players jumping up and over renfield as an e-sport.
now THAT'S horror!
I get what you're saying but when I think of a Vamp MMO I think of the anime/manga Hellsing. It has a war-ish atmosphere and it has two opposing sides. It could be like the Modern Vampire version of WoW! And it would be so cool to explor 3-D European cities and such!
In accordance with the prophecy, you will finish reading this sentence right now!
I would love a vampire/werewolf MMO. I don't think Vampires or Werewolves are in a decline, They have been around far to long to be considered fads.
The awesome dude in the picture is no other than Bram Stoker of course. Pour soul would probably turn in his grave if he knew of E. Cullens lol.
I used to like Vamp vs Wolf too but it's getting kinda old and lame. It seems like nothing these days can be pure Vampire or pure Werewolf without interference from the other.
Like the Power Rangers, it had it's shining moment in the spotlight of fame but now it has gotten old. If they make an MMO about Vamps, I want it to be Vamp only with some humans (Vamps gotta eat lol) Because there just isn't enough Vamp awesomeness in this world. If it's not Werewolves they get put with some other magical monster or demon.
Why can't we just have Good Vampires vs Bad Vampires? Angel vs Spike? lol
In accordance with the prophecy, you will finish reading this sentence right now!
Like the Power Rangers, it had it's shining moment in the spotlight of fame
Uh - what?
When Power Rangers first came out everyone was all: "Ooh!" "Ah!" "Greatest kid show EVERY!" and every kid wanted to be a ranger for Halloween. but now when you mention Power Rangers people are like: "That show sux!" "Lame!" "Stupid plot and crappy special effects!" I think it came out in '92 or '93.
In accordance with the prophecy, you will finish reading this sentence right now!
No offense but this post is pretty laughable to me because from what I know and have haerd across the internet, White Wolf, creators of World of Darkness, the pen and paper vamps vs werewolves game (with humans as well), are intending to make that perticular game into an MMORPG. No offense to you guys but since ya clearly get ya stuff on MMORPG.com's front page ya should learn to do ya homework first before blabbering about something :-P
From what info is publicly available, Funcom seems to make more progress with their "The secret world" than CCP is doing with "World of Darkness". I very much doubt that the World of Darkness is anywhere near an alpha phase, more likely to have some concept art produced at this point and that's it.
Comments
Originally posted by LtJohnnyRico:
"I have one. "Why haven't they..." First topic?
Why haven't they fired you as a writer yet? You're by far the worst addition to MMORPG.com and even though I will probably be banned for that statement, I stand by it. A vampire MMO? Really!? REALLY!? A mage? Really!? REALLY!? A sorcerer!? A SORCERER!? A cyclops!? A CYCLOPS!? (This is pretty fun, and I'm starting to build momentum so hold on, ride's almost over) A troll!? A TROLL!? Yep. It's a troll. No, really. Uh oh! ZOMG!!! The TROLL is transforming... into a... TOOL!!! Wow, much like a butterfly, but without the charm or a set of wings. Perhaps you'll level up before your FLAME burns out... I'm trying different puns to seem humorous but it's just not working.
It's bad enough that I have to deal with my 12-14 year old students convinced that vampires are real because of garbage like Twilight, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, etc. It's ok to have fantasies but to feed this continual delusion of vampiric beings just to profit off the insanity of youth is another thing. This industry does not crave a new audience, it craves a unique world that does not promise everything and fail to deliver on anything. The MMO community has burned itself out on investing time, fandom, money, and patience into developers that only seek to get World of Warcraft-like returns off something with minimal work on their part.
There is an audience for vampires but the MMO community is not that audience. If we were, a developer would have already made such a game. Perhaps I will eat some crow when the new Whitewolf MMO comes out but until then, I think it will be an abysmal failure. I know MMO players good sir, and MMO players are not teenage girls getting goofy romantic over the idea of someone biting their neck in the dead of night."
Wow... you teach 12-14 year olds and yet you act like an infant? I guess this is your idea of role playing. Hmph... I'll bite.
While I agree - as even Dana has - that he needs some new material, his previous topics haven't been so transparent, especially considering tools like you are throwing your disgust into the mix. As a writer, one looks forward to such jolts; it allows one to know that he/she is being heard. And Dana isn't, by any means, a bad writer. Do people come to your teaching grounds and berate you for your method? OK, but do they do so in front of thousands upon thousands of people in a completely invasive manner? They do? Anyways, I find Dana's topics to be refreshing and comprehensive, unlike the praddling nature of your post enclosed in a box above mine.
Take this topic as an example: vampires, while probably not being YOUR thing, provide a very provocative lore for people - both younger and older (some people being over 3,000 years old!) - to "sink their teeth into". Sure, you feel some hate towards Stephanie Meiers (or whatever her name is; the T-word writer) and the copycats that have followed in her footsteps. I know I do. But you should also realize that the vampire culture or counter-culture or subculture - whatever you prefer - is larger than the MMO industry as a whole. The other day, I saw on the news that there are MILLIONS of vampires throughout the entire world! According to their spokesperson, a female who's name escapes me, they enjoy living amongst humans because... and my mind just trailed off.
Back to the topic: you rant on the fantasy of vampires belonging to adolescent females, but you lack depth or any sense of rhetoric in your dictation. Also, the INDUSTRY doesn't crave "a unique world that does not promise everything", the community does. The industry (those who develop and/or produce the games) are the people holding this genre back while looking for newer audiences (ahem WoW) to control. Call them noobs. Call them what you will. They're coming. New generations will continue to rise and fall within the MMO community, your students included.
I'm jumping around here, but I'm half asleep so where was I? Oh, you said, "but to feed this continual delusion of vampiric beings just to profit off the insanity of youth is another thing", and my reply to that is, "Uh, you could've just said MMO?" Still not getting the picture?
What's your MMO of choice? Sci-fi? Fantasy? Sci-fi Fantasy? Mine are more realistic, like Second Life and Boner Child (not yet out, I'm still trying to shop that title around to developers) Don't be an idiot. Save that for people like myself who have nothing better to do than to sound completely ridiculous at the risk of losing any credibility as a writer.
And in closing, either you stand in the back of class, anxiously awaiting the release of the 3-D remake of UO; or you hop on this fancy bangwagon we have here and enjoy the ride into the future. Also, some of what I said makes sense, so take that and write it down, copy it, stick the copy in a time capsule, bury it in your backyard (or, if you're too lazy/busy, don't bury it at all) so that someone else can achieve a higher knowledge.
THE Rooster Nash
The World of Darkness is just an amazing IP. I really hope CCP does it justice. But then, EVE is a pretty amazing game for what it tries to be, so I feel confident that WOD will be equally well-conceived. At least I think it will be if they include mages and faeries and werewolves and vampires all together.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
Ah vampires... I like where Dana was going with the two different dimensions of time, but one could be saved as an expansion to the first to add future intrigue into the game. Personally, I'd like to see a vampire MMO where the ancient Asian stylization is mixed in with it. They were more beastly in every sense, so they could play a good opposition to the other vampires; could make for a stellar boss fight too.
And playable classes or professions... whatever:
Oooh, who remembers Monster Squad??? Hmmm... a Monster Squad MMORPG...
BTW, the Twilight reference was gay. I know of several females who HATE the books and haven't even bothered to watch the movies, yet love the vampire lore. Of course, they're not under 21, so that could be reason enough.
THE Rooster Nash
Long live the peoples proletariat!
Am very hopeful about the World of Darkness! It could be absolutely brilliant!
In reply to RoosterNash:
Monster Squad? o_O? Sadly I've never heard of it. Wiki Time!
Asian stylization? Good idea. Werewolves and Warlocks? Why? We want Vampires lol not a games loosly revolving around all the monster myths. If we add Werewolves and such, others woud ask for witches (you know, the female warlocks
), Zombies, Demons, and anything else that they can think of. Instead the game could have:
As for Twilight, I have noticed it's entire fan base is mostly girls between the ages of 12-14. As such, those poor deprived children did not grow up with Buffy, Angel, Blade, and Interview WaV, and other vamp badass-ness that we had. Those poor unfortunate children have had to choose between Underworld and Twilight (And I think some parents may forbid Underworld lol) I'm very upset with how Dana blamed Vlad the Impaler for Twilight. While Vlad may have inspired Dracula, He was a real person who made his way into history by being a merciless warlord who tortured the poeple he conqured inhumanly:
"His method of torture was a horse attached to each of the victim's legs as a sharpened stake was gradually forced into the body. The end of the stake was usually oiled, and care was taken that the stake not be too sharp; else the victim might die too rapidly from shock. Normally the stake was inserted into the body through the anus and was often forced through the body until it emerged from the mouth. However, there were many instances where victims were impaled through other bodily orifices or through the abdomen or chest. Infants were sometimes impaled on the stake forced through their mother's chests. The records indicate that victims were sometimes impaled so that they hung upside down on the stake."
Yeah, I don't think Stephanie Meyers had that in mind when she thought of Edward. . . . . . .
In accordance with the prophecy, you will finish reading this sentence right now!
Actually I like the idea of adding werewolves. Could just be because of Underworld but it does break things up a bit.
However, unless something drastic (meaning "different") is done, these mmo's just don't really work as far as capturing tension and mood. Heck, even in LOTRO, where they had a session play where you relived Durin's bane (I think that's it), it didn't work.
The clunkiness of the avatars and the animations just got in the way.
Because what will end up happening is that you will have some sort of inn or city area and everyone, werewolves, vampires, humans, etc, just jumping up and down on things, dancing in the square and shouting LFG caves of innsmouth, must be lvl 17+.
Or each faction/group will be separated and it will just be one group or another "pwnign" the other group or, er "other" and then doing emotes on their bodies.
Part of what makes the horror genre work is mood, ambience, tension, storytelling, etc.
It's part of what made Vampire: Masquerade so good. I believe anyone who played that game and who experienced the haunted hotel chapter would know what I mean.
Now imagine that same hotel and players running around, zerging mobs and dueling in the hall ways.
Not cool. not cool.
The dev's would have to do something that was a bit more storybased and that mitigated a lot of the mmo nonsense that mmo's seem to suffer from. And I can't wait to hear those complaints. "its' not an mmo because I'm not on the screen with hundreds of other players."
Well, they either want bone chilling horror drenched in atmosphere or hundreds of players jumping up and over renfield as an e-sport.
now THAT'S horror!
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
*sigh* I can handle this one for Stephanie Meyers:
Although vampiric lore has existed in all forms around the world for thousands of years, the role of Vlad led to the creation of the vampire Dracula, widely considered to be the basis for modern vampire fiction. So we have a lil progression like this:
Vlad - Dracula - modern vampire fiction - Tada! Twilight! - Robert Pattinson's Fame
So, like any old chain that is usually in existence, we can remove Vlad and this happens:
Vlad - Null - Null - Null -Null - Hey! Robert is getting laid a lot less!
Hm....points to ponder!
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
There's no way of telling whether a vampire MMO would be successful or not. I mean, I had high hopes for Matrix Online and look how that turned out. I liked VtM: Bloodlines as a single player game, so if there was even a little bit of what made that good, I'd probably go for it. What would probably make it bomb would be the community. Most of the people that are into vampires are... well... I've seen Vampire LARPs in action so maybe I'm just assuming the worst.
Anyway, vampires alone is probably too general. A supernatural MMO with vampires, werewolves, and... whatever else there is as the races or factions might actually work a little better.
Actually there's already a vampire mmo, it's called Dark Eden. It was released way back in 1997 in Korea. The game was actually pretty good too.
First, despite what some folks have been saying, I like these Why Not discussions. Are they all awesome? No. But all it takes is for one reply to one idea to creep into the mind of a developer and it could change the way we MMO forever.
To answer the Why Not:
Because this is EATING PEOPLE. Not whacking on them with swords. Or shooting at them with guns. EATING.
As soon as word of this got out, the crazies would turn off their GTA-IV, pick up their religious book of choice, and get all kinds of angry over the devil worshipping cannibals. They already get all sorts of mad when its just in books, but you're actually going to let people "become" soul twisted vampires and raging werewolves and not expect the conservatives to show up en masse?
OR, the game gets censored so much that you end up with a fighter/wizard/cleric game and "Vampire" thrown into the title somewhere, ala World of Vampirecraft.
I agree. It would nice to have a good PvP faction-based MMORPG with more than 2-3 factions. WoD would be perfect for that.
If it would have good faction based PvP it HAS to be 3 factions. 2 doesn't work.
I know you're trying to troll, but honestly, I agree. This was pretty close to the bottom of my "why not" barrel for now
...I'm likely going to adopt a new premise in the coming weeks.
Anyone got any suggestions?
I have one. "Why haven't they..." First topic?
Why haven't they fired you as a writer yet? You're by far the worst addition to MMORPG.com and even though I will probably be banned for that statement, I stand by it. A vampire MMO? Really!? REALLY!?
It's bad enough that I have to deal with my 12-14 year old students convinced that vampires are real because of garbage like Twilight, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, etc. It's ok to have fantasies but to feed this continual delusion of vampiric beings just to profit off the insanity of youth is another thing. This industry does not crave a new audience, it craves a unique world that does not promise everything and fail to deliver on anything. The MMO community has burned itself out on investing time, fandom, money, and patience into developers that only seek to get World of Warcraft-like returns off something with minimal work on their part.
There is an audience for vampires but the MMO community is not that audience. If we were, a developer would have already made such a game. Perhaps I will eat some crow when the new Whitewolf MMO comes out but until then, I think it will be an abysmal failure. I know MMO players good sir, and MMO players are not teenage girls getting goofy romantic over the idea of someone biting their neck in the dead of night.
SUCK ROCKS AND BITE ME !
Have played: Asheron's Call, Champions Online, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Dark Age of Camelot, EVE Online, Guild Wars, Lineage, Lord of the Rings Online, RF Online, Rohan: Blood Feud, Shaiya, Ultima Online, Warhammer, WoW and SC, BW, D1, Diablo 1 expantion, D2, D2x, Warcraft 2, & 3 !
Meh. I'm not at all convinced that you need 3 or more factions. You just need the right systems in place in the game.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Oh no, now you want a game that men and women equally enjoy? When will people learn that you can’t cater to all tastes in one MMO? Nobody expects us to all play one solo game on our PC’s do they or watch only one genre of film? But for the world of MMO’s they all must suit the taste of every demographic, which is why they are so bland and conformist.
But if you wanted to try this here is what I would do. The guy part of the MMO is an FPS slasher, think DAoC on blood steroids, vampire clans at war sort of thing. The girl part is the MMO questing, emotion loving section. Oh…would that not be better as two separate games? Yes, so let’s stop trying to fuse all tastes into one horrible MMO ice cream.
Dana has hit on a real issue though, women do buy more things than men, and I will add that teenagers will buy more in their hobby areas than adults. This is distorting our society, both culturally and to the world of MMO’s. As the world becomes marketed only for women and youngsters.
Need a new premise Dana? Write an article called ‘a handful of new titles, which is the one for you”, follow that up with ‘a handful of old titles, what’s new and which one is for you’. Or get some inside beef from some MMO companies, they must be falling over themselves to tell staff writers their dreams and vision.
Directed towards posters
Zomg. I can't belive all this Twilight pro/con! It's a chick flick movie f kring out loud! And wow it had vampires in it. Deal with it! Want another movie that had vampires? Lesbian Vampires Killers! Are you gonna suggest making a mmo after that too? (yes i watch shaite movies as a hobby)
Back on the topic
I Would LOVE a vampire mmo. But it will never be truly a vampire mmo, more like a mmo that gives u the possiblity to play a vampire.
We allready have a precedent in a very successful game that was sucessful - Vampires The Masquerade but not bloodlies that was kinda crap ... try Redemption!
You have the vampire clans (factions), you have conflict (between clans and between vamps and other monsters) and ofcourse you can have romance. I seen romance happening in WoW so i belive it will deffinetly happen in a Vampire game
You could play as a human (with embracing options) a werewolf (shapeshifting options) or a vampire (with no options
), i mean who needs options as a vampire :P)
You could go for a multi timeline game with the possibility to advance through time by sleeping(vamps) hibernating (werewolfies) or offsprings (humans ) like first play in the medieval age then go for the 1700s - 1800s victorian kinda era and then go hardcore in the present day
You could visit and play in the same places in different eras and the best thing is the game developers don't have to invent a world! They allready have it for the taking. History! It gives you whatever you need! They can add countries and wars and whateer they want. And the whole ideea would be to make the perfect sand-box mmo.
I'm just saying .. it could happen. It takes a lot of vision and a lot of understanding from the fanbase in order to work but i could happen.
Crunch on that.
PS : I think the what ifs are excellent Dana. If it wasn't for what ifs humanity would still be living in caves.
Chani's Rants - http://chanichtau.wordpress.com
*sigh* I can handle this one for Stephanie Meyers:
Although vampiric lore has existed in all forms around the world for thousands of years, the role of Vlad led to the creation of the vampire Dracula, widely considered to be the basis for modern vampire fiction. So we have a lil progression like this:
Vlad - Dracula - modern vampire fiction - Tada! Twilight! - Robert Pattinson's Fame
So, like any old chain that is usually in existence, we can remove Vlad and this happens:
Vlad - Null - Null - Null -Null - Hey! Robert is getting laid a lot less!
Hm....points to ponder!
You missed the point. Saying Vlad is responsible for Twilight is like saying Anchient Rome is responsible for Harry Potter.
Rome invades England - Legends of Arthur and Merlin pop up - Tada! Random person spontaniously decides to make a book about wizards and it MUST be Rome's fault since it mentions Merlin's name and wizards CAN'T exist otherwise! *Le Gasp!* Hmm point to ponder!
Vampire Legends existed long before Stoker showed up and none of them had to do with Vlad the Impaler. He is actually Vlad III named after his father Vlad II aka Vlad the Dragon (Dracul). Vlad III was named Dracula *Draculea* Literaly: Son of Dragon. He was later called Vlad Trepes because of the impalments, Trepes = Impaler.
"Recent research suggests that Stoker actually knew little about the Prince of Wallachia. Some have claimed that the novel owes more to the legends about Elizabeth Báthory, a 16th century Hungarian countess who allegedly murdered hundreds of her servants." - Miller, Elizabeth Dracula: Sense & Nonsense
The only reason Bram Stoker used his name was because he needed someone famous (or infamous) with a bloody past, from Europe to set his book. If he had chosen to use Alexander the Great for his character name, would you blame him for Twilight too?
The REAL man responsible for Twilight.
In accordance with the prophecy, you will finish reading this sentence right now!
I get what you're saying but when I think of a Vamp MMO I think of the anime/manga Hellsing. It has a war-ish atmosphere and it has two opposing sides. It could be like the Modern Vampire version of WoW!
And it would be so cool to explor 3-D European cities and such!
In accordance with the prophecy, you will finish reading this sentence right now!
Who's in the picture being blamed for Twilight?
I would love a vampire/werewolf MMO. I don't think Vampires or Werewolves are in a decline, They have been around far to long to be considered fads.
The awesome dude in the picture is no other than Bram Stoker of course. Pour soul would probably turn in his grave if he knew of E. Cullens lol.
I used to like Vamp vs Wolf too but it's getting kinda old and lame. It seems like nothing these days can be pure Vampire or pure Werewolf without interference from the other.
Like the Power Rangers, it had it's shining moment in the spotlight of fame but now it has gotten old. If they make an MMO about Vamps, I want it to be Vamp only with some humans (Vamps gotta eat lol) Because there just isn't enough Vamp awesomeness in this world. If it's not Werewolves they get put with some other magical monster or demon.
Why can't we just have Good Vampires vs Bad Vampires? Angel vs Spike? lol
In accordance with the prophecy, you will finish reading this sentence right now!
Uh - what?
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Hmmm, wolves ...
www.apple.com/trailers/universal/thewolfman/
Uh - what?
When Power Rangers first came out everyone was all: "Ooh!" "Ah!" "Greatest kid show EVERY!" and every kid wanted to be a ranger for Halloween. but now when you mention Power Rangers people are like: "That show sux!" "Lame!" "Stupid plot and crappy special effects!" I think it came out in '92 or '93.
In accordance with the prophecy, you will finish reading this sentence right now!
There is a free one with really old looking graphics, reminds me of Diablo, its called Dark Eden
From what info is publicly available, Funcom seems to make more progress with their "The secret world" than CCP is doing with "World of Darkness". I very much doubt that the World of Darkness is anywhere near an alpha phase, more likely to have some concept art produced at this point and that's it.