I agree - in a perfect world I would envision an MMO where a combat focus is one endgame path among many and they’re all equally engaging, but realistically they would want it combat-focused since that’s the main way most players engage with Mass Effect. So your character would have to be in the military, a merc company, corporate security, C-Sec etc.
Speaking personally I would be fine with a ME game where I’m a scientist or accountant or something because I just love that universe, but I totally get that a combat focus would allow the designers to focus on refining one path.
I kind of want an actual Diablo MMO to explore the lore. But honestly, not sure how fleshed out the lore actually IS. And maybe it’s interesting solely because of the gaps?
I don’t know that I want a WoW-style anything honestly. It’d just feel like playing a reskinned WoW. I really wish SWTOR had had better group finder tools, as that was one of the worst things I hated when I played that at launch. Sitting in town trying to find groups just lead to me not…grouping.
I would rather see a City of Heroes version 2.0 with updated graphics. With some more thought to end-game, as it didn’t really seem to exist at the time I was playing.
And most of them are built using the WoW model. Why play the clone when you can play the original?
As for ESO and FF14, complete absence of friends. If I stay here long enough maybe my gaming buddies might finish the 360. Otherwise I’m stuck chasing other people.
Did you know? WoW itself is a “clone” of Everquest with “fixes” the original dev team didn’t want in EQ? WoW also stole ideas from other MMOs which you think came from WoW but didn’t.
Make new friends. Almost everyone is friendly on FFXIV and always willing to be friends. I went in knowing 2 people in it and made a whole lot of new friends so…
Can’t speak to EQ. Never played it when it was new. Not sure how it plays now.
I am quite aware of WoW’s “borrowing” of ideas from EQ, Ultima Online etc. The devs at WoW’s launch did a good job borrowing and refining the ideas. They had talent. The current dev’s not so much. That said jumping to the older MMO’s would me a gigantic step down in interface and graphics. The graphics I could probably live with. The interface? Probably not.
As for meeting knew people. I am terrible at meeting people, finding commonality with them etc. I’m quite clumsy with social interactions outside the workplace.
Brad didn’t want them. But most of his dev team left SoE and moved to Blizz then worked on BC and WOTLK.
Brad wanted a more engrossing D&D style MMORPG. One where raids and grinding weren’t the highlight of the game for most players. Too bad he got addicted to drugs. I think he recovered but he died last year. Dude had vision on what MMORPGs should be but he could never get the funding or the tech wasn’t there.
John Smedley when giving and interview when EQ Next was a thing had a really thought provoking thing to say about the genre, which is that if you think competitive Raiding/Grouping is the natural evolution of the genre, then your genre will die eventually. He said the players have to be the ones who are going to define the worlds and define what is and isn’t law and the devs have to just constantly expand the map so players can explore. Really ahead of his time considering he said this in 2015 iirc.
I think my dream mmo launched and died, miserably.
It’s not so much a franchise, but a theme. Modern day set mmo where every myth, conspiracy, and piece of folklore is actually true. I’m a sucker for old campfire stories, and games that let me explore those themes just tug at me.
RIP to The Secret World, you could have been really great.
Hearthstone and World of Warcraft co-exist. I don’t know why people think an MMO has to “delete” content.
Anyways, as far as Mass Effect is concerned, they already have established the premise of two different time periods and galaxies - the Milky Way / 22nd century era, and the Andromeda / 28th century era. The MMO could happen in Andromeda and have galaxy spanning stakes and the main series of RPGs could continue to happen in the Milky Way. Or vice versa. Even in that format you could tease events forwards and backwards by implying history at the point of separation.
gimme the dragons