Oh please please please don’t ruin Farscape with a badly done MMO.
I don’t think there’s any danger of this, I hasten to point out. The old IPs currently being mined for online games – like DUNE and Lord of the Rings and Star Wars – are far more popular, far more lucrative, and far more old than an Aussie sci-fi show that peaked and winked out less than 20 years ago. And anyone trying to appeal to that specific nostalgia period and theme would probably be more likely to rummage around in Firefly (which has also kinda been done, though not so directly).
Besides, Farscape did a fine job ruining itself with season 4 and Peacekeeper Wars. It doesn’t need help from B-tier MMO studios!
Which IP should never, ever be turned into an MMO?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
Many people say: “Game of Thrones”.
I agree; but not for the reason most gamers would think. One thing about MMOs is a lot of players like to get “married” in game.
^^^
However anyone who knows “Game of Thrones” would never do that as they know what happens with any wedding in “Game of Thrones”. (And why wouldn’t the game based on “Game of Thrones’ be true to George R.R. Martin’s vision?) ;)
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You know, my spouse and I tried to get into Farscape two different times and that first season just felt slow and un-engrossing. I’ve always felt bad that I couldn’t get into and it didn’t sync with me like Firefly did right from the start. I’ll have to force myself to get through that first season and see if it gets better.
On topic, I honestly am not against any specific IP being turned into an mmorpg. I’ll simply agree with some of the great points made below about things to beware of and not allow to happen.
Once they start focusing on Crichton and Aeryn’s relationship, that is when Farscape gets golden. everything else is just side dishes, Ben Browder and Claudia Black’s performances together are electric, they play off each other really well.
The early episodes in Season one it was still finding its feet and working out what it was. Later on once the relationship mentioned above is more obvious, and a central story starts becoming more apparent then it really becomes something quite special.
Sounds like I really need to get through season one then! :)
Westworld: Main characters are women, and apparently female character models are just too hard for a western-themed MMO to implement.
I don’t think there is one.
Indeed imo the only serious issue with using I.P’s is not the I.P itself but the ridiculous costs and limitations involved in using one at all along with fans unrealistic expectations for anything relating to I.P’s they love reinforced by a long history of poorly made I.P based games.
Sadly we have too often seen the lazy corner-cutting game design around most I.P games that hope to sail through to easy success by half ar*ing game design because they think the I.P popularity alone will do the work for them.
BUT, if you stick a QUALITY designed game with a popular I.P you can and could have something truly phenomenal. It just doesn’t happen often (but has happened numerous times) for the reasons I previously mentioned.
Any that are heavily focused on the story with fairly generic backgrounds.
So, Game of Thrones would be a prime example. Great story, lots of drama and intrigue, but those do not translate well into game mechanics. So, all you’re left with is the world….and Westeros is pretty bland.
G.I. Joe…
MST3K.
The Apprentice… >.<
Ugh- just had four years of that with a mandatory subscription… sooo tired of “winning”.
We all lost
Malazan Book of the Fallen.
I disagree, there are a lot of nameless grunts that wind up becoming important after while, lots of different unique schools of magic, a large developed world, multiple races the rich histories.
I’d argue MBOTF would be perfect for an RPG or an MMO, hell it started as a table top campaign/TV Script I think.
It did indeed start as a narrative of a campaign, D&D I think.
My point is that I never want to see it as an MMO for two reasons: first, because they’d simply never do it justice; second, while the books do an amazing job of spanning existence from the mundane and trivial to the quasi-godlike, that is obviously easier in a book- no characters expect “progression”. It would be a heck of a high bar to figure out how to implement in gameplay, keeping it interesting for the characters at both ends?