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UPDATE
It's been over a year since I have bothered to check on this topic, and I'm shocked that it has been active lately.
For anyone who stumbles across this thread and wonders what the heck I was thinking a year ago, I want to offer proof as to how this concept is actually doable....
www.guildwars2.com
Check out personal storylines, dynamic content, and active combat to see how ArenaNet is making a game that is soooo close to what I mentioned in the OP that it's just flat out silly.
All that would need to happen is that GW2 be changed to the ME universe, converted to a 3rd person action/shooter, and be exclusive to consoles...Then you would have the game I've always dreamed of.
Original Post
I was thinking about Mass Effect as a franchise, and what directions Bioware could head with this game once they finish ME3. I’m guessing that they will have to either expand into other genres or let the franchise die. With all the success that is about to head Bioware’s way due to the unbelievably fun ME2, I’m thinking Mass Effect fans will want more.
I have had a personal theory for approximately 10 years about what I call the “Perfect” game…but it has never seemed feasible to me because of hardware and programming limitations. Basically, the idea follows the concept of classes, such as found in Mass Effect 2. The catch is that instead of each class simply having different abilities, they would change the way the player approaches the game. In addition, you would have to be able to play through a fantastic story solo, with friends, or with a large group; and there would need to be a competitive side to the game as well. We’re talking about an MMO-RPG First/Third Person Shooter/Action game. On a console system.
For a game like this to be successful, I believe 7 major components must be included: Story, Combat, Customization, Economy, Competition, Balance, and Polish.
Hardware and programming barriers aside, Bioware seems poised to be the only developer I am aware of that could pull off a game of this magnitude. Here’s why I think they can do it, if they ever decided they want to:
Story – Bioware has proven time and again that they can write a story properly. The Knights of the Old Republic was a fabulous story, as was ME1. I am currently playing both Dragon Age, and ME2, and so far, those stories are amazing! This doesn’t even include all the Baldur’s Gate games they have produced, along with Jade Empire. Bioware has already emphasized their focus on story in their upcoming Star Wars MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic (TOR). I believe they will pull it off, but I don’t think that Star Wars is the proper IP for an MMO game…unless the masses prove me wrong, and we don’t see thousands of light-saber wielding players at all times.
Combat – The combat of KotOR was awesome, but not very interactive…more of a thinking man’s game. Then Jade Empire kicked it up a notch by making the combat Third Person Action. Mass Effect further upped the ante by moving into the shooter realm. ME2 has now nearly perfected the art of combining role playing and shooting into one game. Bioware is just a hop, skip, and jump away from stumbling upon the perfect balance between RPG and Shooter mechanics when it comes to combat systems. Squads could be formed by either grabbing your friends to play with you, or you can hire mercenaries to join your crew. Mercenaries would then be controlled in a similar way that squad-mates are controlled in ME2. Your squads would be what you used in most of the quest lines in the game. The hardware may still be too limited to handle more than 4-6 player characters at a time, but then again, the next-gen of hardware could be out in the next 3-5 years…who knows what will be possible then?
Customization – This game wouldn’t be the “Perfect” game without the ability to play the way you want. Think Mass Effect classes taken to the extremes… Due to the fact that Bioware has already shown they can do third person tactical, action, and shooter mechanics (KotOR, Jade Empire, and ME); they might just be able to pull off some RADICALLY different play-styles for each class type. I’m going to use examples based off of the concept of combat, biotic, and tech abilities as found in ME 1&2; but I’m not going to post them unless this topic actually takes off and generates some discussion. In the interest of summarizing, I will briefly list what I’m talking about…Combat classes could have combat that works like a 1st person shooter. Tech classes could work like a 3rd person shooter, and Biotic could work in a similar way, with perhaps a few more action game elements thrown in. Basically, make each class type play as differently as possible from all the other class types.
Economy – This is the one area that can totally destroy a game that gets everything else right. When I say economy, I’m talking about everything that is buyable in the game. This would include NPC merchants and same-faction player’s inventories and property. There are a lot of things that could be added or removed from the Economy portion of the game to allow for more processing power to be devoted to the combat, but ideally, I would like to someday see a game that actually has personalized housing for each player. In a space MMO, this is easy to do by providing ships for each player since ships would, more than likely, be necessary anyway. Then, upgrades to the ship can be obtained by the more advanced/experienced players through purchasing or researching them. These upgrades would provide things like combat support, or other bonuses that improve the abilities of the player.
Competition – How amazing would ME2 be if you could face off against several other players? Sickeningly amazing, that’s how. Obviously, this would require a lot of tweaks in the way the game works in ME2, but the overall concept would still remain the same. What I’m talking about here is a WoW competitive environment, but instead of your character doing all the aiming, you would do the aiming, cover would matter, and the intensity of combat would cause many more people to play the game. The basic concept here is that if you don’t put in a competitive game type, then thousands of potential players lose interest. I’m not going to sit around and play ME2 through more than about 6 times…but I’ve played Halo 3 more than any other game to date…even more than WoW (which I played for 4 months with no breaks…4+ hours per day). What kept me coming back to Halo 3? Competitive Multiplayer…which leads right into point 6.
Balance – A competitive game that is not balanced is not truly competitive. Nor is it fun. Bungie has mastered the art of balanced gameplay for FPS’s and Blizzard has done something very similar for MMO’s. Granted, WoW players will switch to another class when it becomes slightly OP’ed compared to the others, but it’s really just a short phase, and quickly gets corrected. The fact is, with more than 10 million people playing a game, no single strategy will defeat all possible enemies. Depending on how Bioware does with TOR’s balancing act, they could very well be poised to become the first developer to truly pull off an MMO that plays like a shooter.
Polish – If you haven’t played ME2, and you are a fan of either western RPG’s or shooting games, you need to at least rent it and play through it once. This game is unbelievably polished! Everything in the game (with a couple of exceptions) was very well thought out and handled beautifully. Want to play like one of the Gears from the Gears of War franchise? Go ahead! Pick the Soldier class and fire away! And, you won’t miss out on all the wonderful story elements! Bioware accomplishes this kind of diversity in one game by making sure every single element is polished to a sparkly shine.
In short, I believe that the next evolution in gaming (unlike what Microsoft seems to think…cough, Natal, cough) is to move the MMO market into the realm of consoles and shooters. At this point, we have seen 2 really good games attempt to combine the RPG elements of MMO’s into console shooting games and be successful. I’m talking about Borderlands and ME2 (I don’t want to hear a single thing about MW2…it’s not an RPG, and doesn’t even pretend to be one). Both games are unbelievably fun, have great role playing elements, and both have fantastic shooting mechanics. However, both are missing the competitive and balance parts that would be required for my “dream” game, and thus, I stopped playing Borderlands after about 2.5 play-throughs. I will probably play ME2 more than Borderlands, but eventually, after beating the game on Insanity, I will probably trade it in, and put my money toward Halo:Reach.
So, Mass Effect fans…what do you think about the future of this amazing franchise? Would you play a game that is similar to TOR (what we know so far, anyway) but uses the Mass Effect universe and combat system?
Modifié par Eledhan, 17 mars 2011 - 07:57 .
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