Fable 2, Fallout 3 and others?

[eKo]

I liked Planetside, but after a while it got kinda boring since you were basically doing the same thing over and over. Ended up in a nice outfit, but as we could only get 1 group together we were kinda forced to join the zerg as we'd get zerged when trying to open new continents. We did try to fight behind enemy lines though and when it worked it was great fun.

Got a lot further in Fallout 3 and can confirm that enemies don't scale (or at least not as badly as they did in Oblivion). The main story so far is kinda uninteresting (chase your dad all over the place), but the side quests and exploring is fun. Though VATS makes combat a bit too easy I still find the combat system fun, especially trying out new weapons and turning enemies in well ... a bloody mess (got the Bloody Mess perk .

[Shi]

sadly I think WoW came to define the genre and in doing so killed it.

amen to that, i remember when we played DDO the forum was full of feature requests for stuff wow had or 'your game sucks cos its not like wow', Turbine immediately starting changing the game in many respects and by the time they got LOTRO out it was basically wow in the LOTR universe. Since then it seems everyone just tried to make MMO's friendly to wow players so they wouldn't feel lost n stuff

About the old republic, I'm less bothered about it being in the Star Wars universe or anything, what excites me is the developer is Bioware (who can do no wrong in my eyes anyway). Look at the CV of games they've done:

# Baldur's Gate (1998)

    * Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast (1999)

# MDK2 (2000)
# Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000)

    * Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal (2001)

# Neverwinter Nights (2002)

    * Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide (2003)
    * Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark (2003)
    * Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker (2005)

# Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic ("KotOR") (2003)
# Jade Empire (2005)
# Mass Effect (2007)

I've played almost all of these and they were brilliant games, really excited to see them enter the MMO space, maybe theyll actually do something different....

most indeed great games (got Mass Effect on my xbox 360 and its breathtaking)
but tbh i start doubting anything will ever dethrone WoW.... what ya think?
what do you need? a good franchise, and sth that will make ppl say 'wow, thats rly good, forget wow'
so dunno, franchise?
Diablo franchise, hmm, Starcraft, 2 that come to my mind which i rly enjoyed - but w8, Blizzard games
so what others actually can do? LoTR dint make a dent, neither did SW - maybe Bioware made great single player/coop games, but whats the catch this time? what will make it different.
ps. this SW by Bioware doenst even have an estimate release date... ugh, i mean, another few years of w8? cmon, even elephants breed faster, thats rly depressive, my morale wont survive another wow lvl raise cap crap /stomp

[Cernos]

but tbh i start doubting anything will ever dethrone WoW.... what ya think?
what do you need? a good franchise, and sth that will make ppl say 'wow, thats rly good, forget wow'
so dunno, franchise?

How about ... drum roll ... no franchise

Some of the best games didn't have a specific franchise (eg Daoc, City Of Heroes) though of course they pulled heavily on mythology, comics, history or whatever.

Perhaps it's time for someone to be brave and invent something from scratch rather than relying on a franchise for ideas. Get back to the roots of gaming, to a time when developing a game title wasn't about playing it safe by cashing in on a film or a book or a tabletop game, but coming up with fresh original ideas. The whole games industry is currently far too narcissistic and obsessed with recycling for its own good.

But all that said, I'd love to see a good cyberpunk MMO so if there's ever a World Of Starcraft (and I hear rumour this will eventually happen) or something set in the sci-fi worlds of William Gibson, Iain Banks or Philip K Dick then I'm first in the queue

[Lasiien]

yeah shi, it's just been announced so years and years away sorry

Agree with Cern, to some extent a franchise doesn't help really. For example, the decision to only have 2 factions in WAR rather than the 3 that worked well in DAOC was purely because the franchise didn't really have room for it. Saw a post from Mark Jacobs on this where he said they just wouldnt have been able to create a 3rd faction to play with the lore that much. I'd argue that this has held the game back really, as the 3rd faction really helped even things out (including under population issues, whilst they still existed how many times did the middies side with us against the albs ? )

[Cernos]

All the talk of "lore" in games like WoW and WAR etc always makes me chuckle. Really the lore behind these games is largely a right load of 3rd rate derivative tosh compared to proper fantasy fiction so dunno why games developers (and the fanboys) get so protective of it. If the 'lore' doesn't suit a certain format, well bend it or write some new lore.

I can understand how if you decide to do a franchise based on a novel as well known as LOTR you're rather stuck up a creative cul-de-sac, but the whole point of game worlds like Warcraft and WAR etc is that there's no ultimate 'bible' that has to be adhered to. It's not like Games Workshop don't wheel out a new Warhammer spinoff whenever they feel like it that goes off in whatever direction their marketing department decide will make them the most money. So if Mythic told GW they needed to find a way to have 3 factions in WAR, then I'm sure GW could have invented one.

[Maleg]

Careful Cern, you'll end up with a lot of rabid fanbois hacking your site and trying to hunt you down for those nasty comments!