I realize this is in the Tabula Rasa section of our forums and it's not 100% dedicated to TR. But since we don't have a general MMO section, I couldn't think of anywhere better to put it.
I could have thrown it into the General forum, but I'm looking for a more focused audience. (no pun or disrespect intended.)
Alright, I've been thinking this over for the past week or so and after having some conversations with Bomm, I was going to put up some sort of
Official Announcement about the state of MMO's here and what our plans are in that regard.
However, everything I was coming up with really depended on one thing, and that's interest.
Let's face it, as we stand right now, we're basically an FPS community. It's where we've been drawing most of our membership from and where most of our playing backgrounds lie.
Which is just fine with me, but it does make me wonder if it's even possible to build an MMO following or a community presence here based on our history.
L10N had a post about RPG's up in the general forum that sparked some good discussion, but it really wasn't centered on anything in specific. Which is what I want to do here.
So the question is, if we went ahead with an MMO/RPG aspect to Focused Gaming, how many people would be interested in being a part of that? Now I'm not asking for Admins or looking for people to be guild leaders....yet. All I'm wondering is if there is a legit interest in trying to make something happen at -F-.
I realize that MMO crowds usually draw from a much different demographic than your typical FPS games do. Sure, both types have wide ranges of players, from the casual to the super hard core, know everything about the game, min/max type. But there's just a fundamental difference in pacing and style. Yes, combat in MMO's can be very dynamic, especially with the latest batch of games, TR included. However, 99% of them will never be confused with an FPS, nor do they even try to be. Combat is still almost always based on chance and behind the scenes dice rolls and not a player's l33t twitch skills.
Another difference with MMO's from your basic FPS is that the dedication to a single game is usually a notch or two higher. Mostly that's do to the sheer amount of time and energy needed to level your character/characters in game. Yes, FPS players dedicate themselves to one game, but it's not as huge of a deal to play numerous games and suffer no loss of skill or standing within a game.
Take time off from an MMO however, or don't put yourself fully into one game and you will quickly find yourself way behind your friends in both levels and loot. Not to mention that your class may have changed 3 times in the last month due to balance patches.
So you usually don't catch MMO players jumping around from game to game very often. Unless of course, the game they've chosen sucks. Then all bets are off. But once they do find one they really love, they can stay with that game for years at a time.
All of that is a long way of saying that I don't expect to carry a large crossover audience between our base of FPS gamers to MMO gamers.
So is it worth the effort to try and build an MMO based sub-community within -F- almost from scratch?
I know I'm more than willing to put in the time if people really want to make a go of it. The question however, is really two fold.
One; Do we have enough people, or can we get enough people, interested in a currently released or near future MMO? And Two; if there's interest do we have people that would be dedicated to making it work as more than just a tiny niche?
What I'm talking about is a Guild section within Focused Gaming that will have its own forums, TS channel, information area, officers section and much more. But to do that, we need people that can and will be active recruiters and will want to build a guild, that eventually, will be able to have chapters in different games depending on interest.
My initial thought is/was to do this with Tabula Rasa, as it's one of the new MMO's that really does have an FPS aspect to it. Hell, ask Bommando about that. He HATES MMO's, yet he's had a blast in TR. The game is very polished, has smallish yet dedicated community, great DEV support and offers a very unique twist on the typical fantasy based MMO that dominates the genre. There are times in game when you really do feel like you're in the middle of a war zone and I've yet to really notice a level grind.
Yes, there is always a grind, but at least TR doesn't make it feel like it's a second job just to level your character.
For those reasons and more, I think it would be the easiest game to start with as it really could draw some pure FPS gamers into the fold. However, if the interest just isn't there, (which to be honest, it really hasn't been) I'm also open to building up towards either Age of Conan or Warhammer. (Or both or whatever else we can think of, if you want the bottom line truth.)
Conan looks to be releasing first however with MMO's, you never really know until the day before it ships.
But before we do any of that, let's see who's interested, REALLY interested in making a go of it. Let me have your thoughts, interest level, opinions and why you think it will or won't work.
Maybe the best thing would be to try and lure an existing guild into the fold and then build our brand from there, but to do that we would have to offer them something that they don't already have. Which may be problematic.
So have at it.
(I know our usual response is to throw in a smart ass comment or 10, but can we at least be constructive and stay on topic with them this time?
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