I've been thinking about the different common MMORPG themes. I guess this isn't really a question, but here is what I've come up with so far: *** Fantasy (ie Lord of the Rings) / Mythology Advantages: No need to dwelve deep into storyline, since everyone is familiar enough with Lord of the Rings style settings. Also, there are a lot of creatures and themes to draw from that are already templated and seem to work fairly well. Also, it is wide in scope content that can be covered. Disadvantages: Used in many games, so may lack originality unless significant effort is put in. *** Sci-Fi Advantages: Has the greatest cool factor (this is tied greatly to visual style). Disadvantages: The game creator is obligated to set up some sort of story so that the player at least knows what year and what planets the events are taking place on. ***Biblical Mythology Advantages: Can have a fairly high cool factor (ie something like Diablo) and setting up a background story should be fairly easy. Disadvantages: Some people might be drawn away from the topic. Anyway, this is what I have thought of so far. I was wondering if anyone would give some feedback, comments, additions, etc... to this post. Thanks, Mike

Quote:Original post by Dinomike
*** Sci-Fi

Advantages: Has the greatest cool factor (this is tied greatly to visual style).

Disadvantages: The game creator is obligated to set up some sort of story so that the player at least knows what year and what planets the events are taking place on.


***Biblical Mythology

Advantages: Can have a fairly high cool factor (ie something like Diablo) and setting up a background story should be fairly easy.

Disadvantages: Some people might be drawn away from the topic.

I don't know what you mean by cool factor.
Also Sci-Fi should probably split into futuristic (SWG, planetside) and space exploration (EVE, etc).

I'm not convinced biblical mythology is a category, and Diablo certainly isn't an MMORPG.

Well, I think cool factor is hard to define. The best example I can think of at the moment is a movie: The Matrix, when it first came out.

Diablo isn't really an MMORPG because the gameplay is limited to teams of 8 at most, but I think it's possible to create an MMORPG with a similar theme to Diablo.

if you're talking about fast, slick fighting and "oh my god he just killed eight guys in three seconds using some chopsticks" stuff, that's far from futuristic-specific.

Also you might want to mention social-interaction with no combat MMOs like habbo hotel.