A Western MMO
It’s frustrated me that the Massively Multiplayer Online genre is so fixated around the Fantasy genre - gaining levels, amassing gear, fighting dragons. Even MMOs that aren’t superficially fantasy still follow the same general pattern - aliens instead of dragons, etc. And, on top of that, I think this “nobody can break the mold” thing is preventing anyone from effectively competing with Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, which still dominates the market (even though I’ve long since stopped playing - didn’t Blizzard get my memo that the game isn’t interesting anymore?).
I think that if the MMO world is to survive, someone’s going to have to come up with a way of doing it that’s sufficiently different from the normal fantasy level-building, treasure-gathering same-old same-old.
I have an idea.
I’ve been thinking that there’s never really been an epic, awesome game set in the Old West - fantasy, pirates, science fiction, gothic horror, etc. have all gotten their games, but not westerns, and I feel like the West is a perfect setting for some sort of MMO, even if not the traditional type. The west offers a number of thematic advantages:
1) Absolute freedom
Consider that the main feature of any successful video game is a sense of control - that your actions have an impact. Otherwise, you have no game. An MMO appeals as a place for people to sort of make a world their own - whether by establishing an identity and gaining fame by beating people in combat, amassing treasure, or simply having a space that is theirs. As untamed wilderness, the Wild West thematically matches what an MMO really is - a largely empty expanse that can be made into whatever you want.
2) Rich history and film tradition
Depending on how much the game makers want to do with it, there are numerous possibilities for ideas to be mined from actual American history and the mythic American films. A sense of depth and authenticity to the world is readily achievable - but:
3) A mythic quality
While obviously not as extravagantly bizarre as, say, the wacky-purple Outland from World of Warcraft, there’s just enough of a mythology to the Wild West (and even a sense of magic) to enable the game makers to make allowances for gaming realities. World of Warcraft makes absolutely no sense as a functioning fantasy world, populated as it is entirely by superpowerful lone wolf adventurers jumping around with the same facial expression. Blizzard had to “fix” reality to make the game actually fun, even if the result is goofy. With a few references to a made up Native American tribe heavily into mysticism, and some simple “close your eyes and get lost in the Western-ness of it,” I think the game makers could do what’s necessary to make the game fun without making the world nonsensical and bizarre.
4) Trains are cool
The most exciting thing about the possibility, though, is what the game would have to be. A Western simply can’t be about gaining levels, amassing weapons and armor, and banding together to take out monsters. The Dungeons and Dragons model just doesn’t work. So a new model must be invented, or, better yet, borrowed. From, say, Second Life.
People in World of Warcraft whined constantly about the need for “guild housing” - that is, a place that you could call your own, that you could decorate and show off as you fill it with trophies of your conquest. Some people have a need to build or create in a permanent fantasy world. The Wild West works perfectly for this, because that’s what the West was all about - making something out of nothing!
Consider a game where each “realm” is called, say, a “frontier,” and it starts out barren, with only a railroad and a few isolated, tiny towns with only a few amenities apiece. Perhaps you can choose to be a black hat or a white hat as you set out on a train to make your living in an exciting frontier - find gold, rob someone else of their gold, or start a legitimate business to build the community and make a little (or a lot) of that gold for yourself? Heck, maybe you could even start a church. Maybe you could:
- Design your own storefront for your main street establishment - saloon, bank, mercenaries-for-hire, general store, casino, hotel, printing press, drug store, mystical Native American apothecary - or maybe roll your own?
- Duel other players in the street
- Burn other players’ establishments? (Maybe not to the ground?)
- Raid trains
- Pan for gold
- Be deputized by the sheriff
- Acquire horses, six-shooters, coaches, cabins, houses - designed by you (tasteful, thematic limits enforced)
- Participate in some narrative and exploratory content by agreeing to retrieve stolen treasure from NPC bandits, negotating with local tribespeople, and other general “quests” (a concept that might travel well from fantasy to western)
- Explore an assortment of American West landscapes - there is quite an assortment
- Form guilds, er, posses? You gotta have them, or something like them, but what would you call them?
There would be, of course, a huge assortment of issues to be resolved. How can the violence that would necessarily play a role in such a game be reconciled with the stability required to pursue financial or building-type goals? (Of course, this was also the problem with the actual Wild West) Arbitrary safe areas? Like a fort or two? Safe servers for PvE “care bears” like me? Rely on “good guy” lovers of violence to win over the bad guys (that’s what they’re there for, right)? Make death more costly than the traditional fantasy MMO would have it? Maybe black hats are more vulnerable in that they have no NPC guarded vault in which to stash their ill-gotten gains?
At any rate, I doubt it will ever happen, as MMOs are huge, expensive, and impossible to get right. But it’s fun to fantasize about.
“4) Trains are cool”
And we come to the real reason why you’d like this.
Keep in mind that this model is heavily represented in other mmo’s that haven’t been as successful. Really, this seems to me like a mix of SWG (a terrible game) and Eve Online (another terrible game).
In SWG, you make you can only purchase goods from other players, who set up shops in their homes of player houses spread around the various worlds. You didn’t used to gain levels, but improved upon various skills, from dancing to crafting etc. There was no ultimate bad guy to destroy — the purpose was simply to live in the Star Wars universe however you wanted. The distinct lack of combat destroyed the game of enjoyment for most people, as most people like to develop and become more powerful, a desire left wanting unless you are sufficiently greedy to really care about fantasy gold.
Eve appealed more to the frontier desires of people. You did long boring trade routes for gold, built expensive ships and colonies to protect your collective, and could be bad or good. Most of the game involved surviving griefing, as people without a reason to be good resort to being bad most of the time. There were probably 10 pirates for every person trying to make a trade. The only end objective was to have the most money so you could buy the best stuff.
The challenge in breaking any model, regardless of the world you use, is sustainability. There must be goals you can achieve which feel like advancement, either personally or the story itself. In the west, it’s unlikely you’ll have a compelling in-game story, although I suppose it’s possible. Instead, you’d have to find a way to satisfy personal goals through improving your character and community. But most people who would buy an MMO do not want to be in it purely for fake commerce. There must be an action based part of the game with room for growth. You figure out how to incorporate both and you’ll be a very rich man, that is if you already are a very rich man and can fund your innovative ideas.
I’m well aware that the game would be a tough sell to the traditional MMO community without being an action-oriented game in some sense. The West theme appeals to me, but not necessarily to the Second Lifers and Sims Onliners and others that would appreciate a high level of design control over their businesses, homes, or whatever.
I think a PvE world could be perfectly reasonable though - the world could be populated by gangs of bandits, various Native American tribes at varying degrees of hostility, or maybe even wild animals or legendary creatures (jackalopes?) (although I would hope to not have more than 10 bears around at any given time - it’s getting a little too fantasy-esque in that case).
You could have narrative threads about negotiating with tribes and railroad companies, rescuing other towns that have been taken over by hoodlums, bringing down corrupt land-grabbing companies, convincing the old gunslinger to come out of hiding, etc etc. Heck, it might be even more compelling than the bilge that was passing for story during WoW: The Burning Crusade.
How to make the combat system really work concerns me more. The West theme suggests FPS. But there’s no real obvious way to make FPS and MMO work together to my knowledge.
Oh well. Fun to think about.