Why a Halo MMO is a bad idea.

[Coldfreeze]

Okay, I understand and I think that a MMO halo game would be awesome!  I think that it would be a big step for the halo universe and there would be a lot of expectations.  Look at Halo Wars for instance.  It's not your FPS but, it has it's own merits. So perhaps I wouldn't mind seeing a MMO game with the Halo twist. Also, I see a whole lot of problems arising but hasn't the creative minds of the gaming community overcome such challenges?

 

It would not work because of the game being a war shooter. It's universe could easily sustain a strategy game.

 

But an mmo? Where would it take place, what time span, how would hundreds of players fit in, what classes does it have, how are they different from other classes. What quests should the game have and how do you keep them interesting and varied.

 

Now these are just a few questions. But an mmo is a big game, which takes years to perfect.

 

Now a war game mmo does not work well, most war based games work under the cover of just a shooter or a moba.

 

Making it an mmo should turn Halo into an rpg, gameplay would be more focused on stats not skill, gear not movement, level not experience.

 

There would be nothing left of the Halo gameplay we know and only the lore would be involved to make it look like Halo.

 

Now the RTS let spartans highjack, ODST drop in and marines ride on tank threads and a lot more stuff that would make it Halo.

 

An mmo would just not work.

[AnimeAddict]

Coldfreeze you gotta admit tho it could turn out like your "ESO"  if the right company was able to do it

[Buns]

Honestly a Halo MMO would work perfectly.

 

 

If it was Planetside 2 esque. No quests or raids just straight up war and shoot other players in a constant PvP environment

 

Of course a lot of changes would need to be done to make it as Halo as possible but theoretically it could work just fine. Planetside 2 is a great MMOFPS.

[Composite Armour]

When people say Halo MMO, they usually mean MMORPG.

 

Planetside 2 style would just be regular Halo, but on a bigger scale.

That's probably not what the OP was referring to, but a Halo MMO more akin to WoW.

 

Which unless it's radical and revolutionary in design and focus, it's not going to work.

The only thing it'll have in common is the Halo name.

 

Honestly, I wouldn't trust any franchise's MMO in this day and age, they end up copying so much from each other and becoming afraid to do something different, that the only reason to chose one over the other is the setting.

[Coldfreeze]

Planet side is an incredibly good example why it would not work.

 

Planet side has the gimmick of big scale battles sure.

 

It lacks solid gameplay, has a pay to win freemium system, unbalanced classes and an instable territory system.

 

The game lacks a good economy.

 

Most weapons are bought either with real money or hours on hours of grinding.

[Buns]

Planet side is an incredibly good example why it would not work.

 

Planet side has the gimmick of big scale battles sure.

 

It lacks solid gameplay, has a pay to win freemium system, unbalanced classes and an instable territory system.

 

The game lacks a good economy.

 

Most weapons are bought either with real money or hours on hours of grinding.

Ehhh can't really disagree most of that is true.

 

Sucks because large scale battles in a Halo game would have been lovely but there is always a catch

[THE GRuBiS]

 

 

 

It would not work because of the game being a war shooter. It's universe could easily sustain a strategy game.

 

But an mmo? Where would it take place, what time span, how would hundreds of players fit in, what classes does it have, how are they different from other classes. What quests should the game have and how do you keep them interesting and varied.

 

Now these are just a few questions. But an mmo is a big game, which takes years to perfect.

 

Now a war game mmo does not work well, most war based games work under the cover of just a shooter or a moba.

 

Making it an mmo should turn Halo into an rpg, gameplay would be more focused on stats not skill, gear not movement, level not experience.

 

There would be nothing left of the Halo gameplay we know and only the lore would be involved to make it look like Halo.

 

Now the RTS let spartans highjack, ODST drop in and marines ride on tank threads and a lot more stuff that would make it Halo.

 

An mmo would just not work.

 

 

 

   To be honest with you I personally wouldn't know where to start.  That is a really good view of the problem with a MMO.  It would be a very complicated process. 

 

  I mean I have my opinions of the questions you asked but,  it would take a collective group like you said years to come up with such a thing.  When I said MMO I really meant MMORPG. 

 

I know it can happen, it's just a matter of who and when because the Halo community has many expectations.  And for it to be a complete worthy game it has to come to meet those expectations and be a step above all.  

 

Is it possible?  Yes it is.  

 

 

 

 

 

[The Director]

Unless you're WoW.

 

In which case it's where you introduce pandamen.

No, WoW started off as an MMO. It wasn't an RPG or an FPS first.

 

What I meant was that when a game saga releases an MMO, it usually means it's the end of the saga. The only exception to this I have seen thus far is Final Fantasy, and even then the reason was because their games have a different storyline and characters per release, and they don't all take part in the same universe.

 

Now let's look at a few game sagas gone MMO.

 

Star Wars: The Old Republic

This game is made directly from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and it's sequel. With the popularity of the MMO in this series dwindling fast, and the fact that it has gone FTP, it's very unlikely that we will see a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 3 or Star Wars: The Old Republic 2. Which means that when the servers for SWTOR go offline, the series dies out for good.

 

Elder Scrolls Online

This game was just released, but it is based off of the long standing Elder Scrolls saga. There aren't very many gamers out there who have not heard about or played an ES game. Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim were their most "mainstream" releases, but the ES games have been successful from the start. ES is one of the most well known sandbox RPGs ever. That being said, since they have released ESO a good chunk of their dev time will now be devoted to maintenance and expansions. Which means they probably won't be getting around to making Elder Scrolls VI anytime soon, if at all. There is a rumor going around that the dev team for this game is completely seperate from the dev team for the single player game, which does give a bit of hope. If that's not the case though, that means that once the popularity of this game dies down, and the company shuts down the servers, it also dies out for good.

 

Legacy of Kain

Alright, so this one will probably be completely unfamiliar to those of you who are fairly new to gaming. The Legacy of Kain games are one of the largest game sagas ever to hit consoles. They have more spinoffs than most sit-coms and have been around since a good chunk of our members were in diapers. The newest Legacy of Kain game will be an MMO called Nosgoth. When it was leaked/announced, nearly every fan of the LoK saga lost it. In a bad way. The reason being that once a company releases a dedicated MMO, it's not very likely they will move back into single player.

 

 

Now you may be asking yourself, "Well why does an MMO have to be the end of it?"

 

Well it doesn't. 

 

That being said though, creating an MMO and maintaining it is pretty costly. You make money based off of subscribers or people purchasing in game items. You can also make money off of expansions to your MMO, but that's even costlier and has risk to it. So the primary way you make money off of an MMO is by keeping players interested in your game or getting them to subscribe to it.

 

If you create another game (either MMO or SP), then you are going to take players away from your MMO, making the profit margin for the MMO shrink. Especially if your MMO is based off of a long standing game saga.

 

Here's a for instance:

Let's say your company has released three single player games and over the years have gathered 1 million fans. You decide to release an MMO for your game saga, and you lost 250k fans because they prefer single player games and have no interest in MMO games. That leaves you with 750k gamers paying for subscriptions and buying in game items. As time goes by, let's say about 100k have beat your MMO in every way possible and cancel their subscriptions to move onto other games. You then gain 50k gamers back by advertising your game. That leaves you with 700k, 650k of which are your "die hard" fans and 50k of which are new to your games. 

 

Now for simplicity, let's say that your profit margin at this point is 10/1, 10 being profit and 1 being cost.

 

You decide to go back into single player games. This means that you have to hire additional staff to develop the new single player game while maintaining the MMO. This shrinks the profit margin down to 8/1. You then have develop a new engine because the engine you used for the MMO is now outdated. This shrinks it down to 6/1. You then have to pay for licensing across consoles and advertising. That brings it down to 3/1. Then comes the manufacturing of your new game and developing pre-order bonuses/etc. This drops it down to 2/1 (probably 1/1 but we'll give your company a bit of leeway). Then comes the release of your new single player game. Let's say that out of the 650k fans you currently have, about 300k of them purchase the new SP game on release. This brings you back up to 5/1. However, they cancel their subscriptions to the MMO, which drops you back down to 4/1.

 

Within the first year of your SP game, you get an additional 100k fans. Total fans now at 800k. However, the majority of your fans have played and beat the MMO and have canceled their subscriptions and have bought the SP game. Which leaves you at 450k owners of the SP game and 350k MMO players. Which increases your profit margin to 6/1, but only for this year. The next year comes out and no one buys your game new, which means your only source of income is the MMO, which has degraded because there are only 350k players and no new content. This brings you down to 3/1. If you fire a couple of the MMO staffers, you might make it back to 5/1, but it's unlikely.

 

So you've gone from a very popular SP gaming franchise and a profit margin that was 10/1 at the release of your MMO to a maximum profit margin of half that. Now, all of the things above are weighed in the benefit of your company. Most MMO's never see a profit margin of more than 3/1, and even fewer than that see more than 800k subscribers. I also didn't include any additional or accidental costs along the way (such as members of your dev team quitting, causing you to hire and train new ones, or hitting a snag in dev, or a thousand of other things that can sink a game). So by releasing your MMO and then a single player game, in the best of conditions, your profit margin went down by half.

 

It's very realistic to assume that unless your company has one heck of a safety net that it would probably be in it's best interest not to try to develop another game, and simply stick to the MMO. Which is why MMO's are where game sagas go to die.

[Buns]

 There is a rumor going around that the dev team for this game is completely seperate from the dev team for the single player game, which does give a bit of hope.

It isn't a rumor this has always been the case.

 

ESO is developed by ZeniMax Online Studio

Skyrim was developed by Bethesda Game Studios

 

Although with ESO being released you're 100% right that there won't be a new single player ES game for quite some time. I mean Bethesda Game Studios does have Fallout 4 and they can always create a new IP which I am hoping would be a SciFi RPG in their iconic RPG Design style. I think it is time they took a break from releasing ES anyways.

 

With that being said I will eventually get into ESO. Mainly because the world building looks so wonderful. 

[Coldfreeze]

It isn't a rumor this has always been the case.

 

ESO is developed by ZeniMax Online Studio

Skyrim was developed by Bethesda Game Studios

 

Although with ESO being released you're 100% right that there won't be a new single player ES game for quite some time. I mean Bethesda Game Studios does have Fallout 4 and they can always create a new IP which I am hoping would be a SciFi RPG in their iconic RPG Design style. I think it is time they took a break from releasing ES anyways.

 

With that being said I will eventually get into ESO. Mainly because the world building looks so wonderful.

 

Bethesda said from the beginning that ESO isn't the end of the series. Zenimax Online developed this. The game takes place a 1000 years before skyrim and 800 years before oblivion.

 

Todd Howard himself recently said in an interview that if a new Elder Scrolls would be announced it would take place after Skyrim. Most of Bethesda and Zenimax treat ESO as a prequel. Most of the lore in the SP games, you experience in ESO. Tiber septim (Talos) is not born yet, he is known for uniting Tamriel after an inredibly long war, which is the PVP in ESO.

 

The alliances are also mentioned in lore with the most recent being the Aldmeri dominion which has been reastablished years before Skyrim takes place.

 

The Ebonheart pact defeats the akaviri invasion, which in Oblivion involves an entire quest line to find an abandoned fort.

 

Todd Howard also mentioned that if a new Elder Scrolls will be made it would probably be on of the biggest SP adventure games they have ever made.

 

Bethesda would never drop the Elder Scrolls, since it's the first series they ever developed and released.

[I_Make_Big_Boom]

I haven't played any MMOs at all, but I do see potential in a Halo MMO. Maybe not a MMORPG, but maybe just a big freaking battle akin to Planetside 2.

 

Now here's my plan. There will be multiple gametypes. Here's one.

 

1. Strain - maybe 40 - 200 players?

 

Beginning 2 playable Factions - UNSC, Covenant.

 

Enemy AI - Forerunner Constructs (and maybe Forerunners themselves), Flood, and indigenous wildlife of The Ark or the Rings.

 

The setting is on The Ark (or any of the respective Halo Rings). The goal of the Covenant is to successfully activate The Ark/Ring, and fire the Ring(s), and the goal of the UNSC is to stop them and destroy The Ark/Ring, and flee the impending explosion via escape Frigates.

 

The Flood crash on the Ark, or Ring (via High Charity if it's The Ark, and released from containment if it's a Ring) about 25% into the match. If a player of either faction gets killed by Flood they turn infected, and attack the 2 Factions.

 

The 1st player turned into Flood gradually begins turning into a Gravemind (not the imoble Proto Gravemind, but a combat ready mobile Gravemind). If they leave the game the 2nd player turned takes their place and whatnot. The Gravemind is a unique form that allows the player controlling it to cross the battlefield in a Halo Wars esque control scheme to control AI Flood, and direct Flood players. The Gravemind, after reaching 50% of the Player population turned Flood, and then leave the Halo Wars thing and go into battle as a fully formed Gravemind. If the player decides to do this, the AI Flood go feral and lose composure and combat tactics. They can still attack you.

 

The Gravemind is a slow, but powerful combatant. It can destroy enemies instantly in a body slam. The Gravemind can also tunnel underground to move faster. Flood AI In the area will surround the Gravemind and act as protection for the player, and the player can command the local Flood to attack specific targets.

 

The Gravemind is not invincible. If it sustains enough damage, it will die. The role of Gravemind will then be given to another player: what specifics can be modified.

 

What loadouts a player can choose. You unlock a different loadout after a certain amount of kills:

 

The Flood players can choose from different Flood forms, like the Pure form (Tank, Ranged, and Chicken), Combat form, and faster Carrier form, and maybe a swarm of Infection forms. Possibly even infected wildlife if you manage to kill them as an infection form. The Gravemind is exclusive to either the first infected player, or the highest ranked player in the match that is turned initially.

 

The Covenant players can choose from the different Aliens of the Covenant. Bugger Captain accompanied by a miniature swarm, Hunter pair, Grunts, Jackals, Skirmishers, Elites (different ranks), Engineers, Brutes (different ranks) and such.

 

WHEW that's all I got right now.

I know I didn't include some information, but this just here for perspective on what an actual Halo MMO may look like. Sorry for the crappy grammar and spelling. I'm on mobile.

[The Director]

Bethesda would never drop the Elder Scrolls, since it's the first series they ever developed and released.

I never said they INTENDED to drop it. However, intentions aside, they may need to as I demonstrated above.

[Is not JL]

No, WoW started off as an MMO. It wasn't an RPG or an FPS first.

Fine. Warcraft Series.

 

Also, am I the only one who hopes Artix E. develops another game as well as working on giving us the next chaos lord?

Edited July 28, 2014 by Zwei Flare

[LegitMidget429]

I agree too, I haven't checked the elder scrolles online yet, but seeing how nobody has really talked about it sense it came out ( like IGN ) i would think it probably failed

[Buns]

blah blah blah Bnus is so great.

My comment never said ES is going away. I just said there won't be an ES for awhile tis all.

[Melody]

This reminds me how much I disliked Halo Wars.

[Silent Orbis]

This reminds me how much I disliked Halo Wars.

Agreed.

[Coldfreeze]

My comment never said ES is going away. I just said there won't be an ES for awhile tis all.

 

Give it 5 years. Bethesda started working on Skyrim right after Oblivion. Morrowind came out seven years after Daggerfall.

[Composite Armour]

Give it 5 years. Bethesda started working on Skyrim right after Oblivion. Morrowind came out seven years after Daggerfall.

Bethesda started working on Fallout 3 after Oblivion.

Right now they're most likely working on Fallout 4.

[Coldfreeze]

Bethesda started working on Fallout 3 after Oblivion.

Right now they're most likely working on Fallout 4.

 

Sorry let me rephrase that during the development of Fallout 3 they started planning for Skyrim, most noticably deciding the location and then behind the game.

[I_Make_Big_Boom]

I think we are getting off topic here...