Is Activision considering the MMO genre as a new avenue of exploration for Call of Duty?
Well, that's the question being asked after the publisher went and mentioned CoD and MMO in the same sentence at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference yesterday.
"...when you think about other properties that we own and control, like Call of Duty, and what would be the natural evolution of a property like Call of Duty into a massively multiplayer environment, and how do you monetise that...", is the important bit from Activision boss Bobby Kotick.
He was speaking on the impact Blizzard's experience in the videogame market could potentially have on Activision's intellectual properties following the Vivendi merger.
Call of Duty the MMO - what do you reckon? Could it work as a spin-off from the main FPS event? Would it just be one big game of team deathmatch? Would it last as long as a real World War? Fire off in the comments below.
If it could work it would be great, with a similar ranking up system as in CoD4 but it would need the action elements of CoD4 to keep it playable! Could be a winner though with skimishes over a world map!
All I know is that we could use an MMO willing to redefine the genre a little. We've been stuck in the same type of control as WoW for quite a while now, with very little deviation in the method employed. Maybe this could be just the kick up the bottom the genre needs, or it could just fall on its face.
Remember MMOFPS has been tried before and it doesn't usually work. If they can counter lag and remove the grinding skill-based "how could I miss at point blank range" dice rolls it might be alright.
An ongoing fight where you pick a side and battle for control over territories would be cool. Maps are spread out across the world and you can drop in and out of each as you see fit.
Not sure how that would work though. You could set it up like domination with unlimited respawns on massive maps, but games could get stupidly long and frustrating that you'd never really feel like you were progressing.
As long as it's not WW2 I'll be interested in seeing how this plays out.
Map the whole of europe, and set it in WWII. Players can pick a general class (airbourne, infantry, armour), then evolve into a subclass (infantry - sniper, aibourne - pilot...etc) and have classic axis VS allies.
If someone 'wins'...well actually I dont know what could happen in that situation.
Remember MMOFPS has been tried before and it doesn't usually work. If they can counter lag and remove the grinding skill-based "how could I miss at point blank range" dice rolls it might be alright.
An ongoing fight where you pick a side and battle for control over territories would be cool. Maps are spread out across the world and you can drop in and out of each as you see fit.
Hellgate London tried it, and imo fails.
On your second point, this is actually a common community thing, where you might have a bunch of players being axis and others being allies, and then they have a week of playing one map, and the side who wins the most has now conquered that part of the world map...seen it in CoD, Battlefield etc. run by communities like Tactical Gamer (i played in Iron Crescendo, same idea but for Red Orchestra)...however it would be interesting to see this in an actual game, it's been talked about before.
MMOs like Warhammer Online are trying the constant big battle idea too.
There's plenty of games where a group of friends or a clan has decided to choose sides. But it never really works because as soon as they stop or log out it goes back to FFA.
IMO Frontlines has the right idea, even if they didn't pull it off all that well. Imagine that kind of system but where the map was unavailable to one side once the other had pushed them off of it. Dark Messiah's Crusade mode has a much smaller variation of this idea.
Add to that a live updated web page showing who controls what areas, lists of who captured what most recently and you've got the start of something big. But it would need an absolute assload of maps so that if one side was getting trashed there were still multiple maps to choose from.
It would be nice to see action, skill and adrenaline to be brought to the MMO world. Most of them are just grinds of clicking once on a weaker enemy then you and watching as your auto attacks slowly kill it. I prefer the skill of getting headshots, fast reflexes, getting behind cover, fighting 10 enemies at once even though any one of them could kill you on it's own etc . Mixing that with the social, economic, competitive and exploration of an MMO would be an amazing game, if it can be done.
But most MMOs focus on fighting AI and grinding, with an option of PvP. Would a COD MMO be like that, or would it mainly focus on PvP in the form of deathmatches, and why would people want to pay a monthly fee to play a deathmatch?
They haven't announced anything, not even if they are seriously considering the game so we're all just speculating at the moment. It might well be a subscription based game, and if it is then it would have to be damn good to persuade people to ditch all the other free deathmatch shooters to pay for their deathmatch shooter.
why would people want to pay a monthly fee to play a deathmatch?
Why have you decided there would be a monthly fee?
I think he's thinking about the MMO element in terms of WoW - which is pretty narrow minded really.
Yeh true. I mean they're talking about an MMO and all the big MMO's at the moment and soon to come out are completely free to play: EVE, WOW, Hellgate, Tabula Rasa, Everquest, Vanguard, Guild Wars, LoTRO, Planetside, Lineage, D&D online, City of Heroes, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Football Manager online.
Tell me that WOW is the exception to the rule and that the vast majority of modern MMOs have no costs at all, then tell me I'm being narrow minded.
"...when you think about other properties that we own and control, like Call of Duty, and what would be the natural evolution of a property like Call of Duty into a massively multiplayer environment, and how do you monetise that."
Sounds like they would want to charge a subscription to me.
Could be a good idea. Anyone know whether it worked for Planetside? (the only MMOFPS, I can think of.) I'm surprised that a persistent war in an FPS form has been done more, which may suggest that it doesn't work or that the technology hasn't been there before.
Unless they want to be paid in handshakes or cookies there always going to be a fee and anyone who thinks there wouldn't be is being naive.
Now as far as game play goes. I'd love to see (not necessarily promise to enjoy) Call of Duty as an MMO. I question how they would get around free roaming and exploration given the army scenario unless everyone was black ops or something.
The solution would probably be social interaction between friendlies in barracks and numerous large maps or cities to be deployed to for combat. They could easily make territory domination and holding a key focus for the game play. Seems like all the biggest battles in CoD universe revolved around this.
For those who've played Killjoy's 'Evolution' custom map in Armed Assault, it gets pretty close to how I imagine an MMOFPS should work. Some of the best coop gaming available in my opinion.
why would people want to pay a monthly fee to play a deathmatch?
Why have you decided there would be a monthly fee?
I think he's thinking about the MMO element in terms of WoW - which is pretty narrow minded really.
Yeh true. I mean they're talking about an MMO and all the big MMO's at the moment and soon to come out are completely free to play: EVE, WOW, Hellgate, Tabula Rasa, Everquest, Vanguard, Guild Wars, LoTRO, Planetside, Lineage, D&D online, City of Heroes, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Football Manager online.
Tell me that WOW is the exception to the rule and that the vast majority of modern MMOs have no costs at all, then tell me I'm being narrow minded.
I didn't post clear enough.
What I meant was, that if this was to happen, it'd be an FPS MMO, not an RPG MMO - therefore it'd be an entirely different format, different to the usual RPG MMO's.
OK ladies, put the handbags away. Let's get a few things sorted first:
1. None of you are narrow minded 2. We are all friends here 3. Pie IS good
Now that's out of the way, we can get on with the topic. An MMO CoD game in my opinion would suck, badly. The deathmatch is good, but it doesn't compare to say the Battlefield series. Now THAT would be good as an MMO. At least you get vehicles and in Battlefield: Bad Company, a completely destructable environment. That's the future, like garlic bread. CoD just looks good and is fast paced, but so is UT3. There are other games out there that would be more suitable as MMOFPS's. The CoD series shouldn't branch off into the MMO world. In fact, its at its peak now, maybe Infinity Ward should try a whole new series of games.
Skirmishes in the present day on a global scale would be silly as sooner or later you'd have to introduce nukes to make it realistic wouldn't you?
No. Why would you have to introduce nukes? To make it realistic as you say. Most games aren't supposed to be realistic, and since nobody has dropped a nuke in a global conflict in what most people would deem "present day", it would be unrealistic to introduce nukes anyway.
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