In the last few days I’ve read some discussions about the “MMOFPS”, on Slashdot for example, and I wanted to write down some quick comments.

To begin with, I don’t think there’s much to discover or to expect from this branch or hybrid and I’ve already covered the reasons here, sort of. Which is also the reason why I wanted to continue the discussion.

The basic premise is that a “mmofps” makes sense if it’s PvP. Or the idea would be just plain retarded and not even worth a discussion. So I’ll start from there.

My point of view is rather linear. Being a PvP game this means that the character progression will be awful, in particular because a “first person shooter” imitates the “skill” through gameplay that pivots around the movement, dodging and aiming. All these are direct elements, they aren’t filtered through a RPG. They aren’t abstracted or formalized. So there’s already here a division between what a RPG does (the transfert of the “skill” from the player to the character) and what the FPS does (the “skill” of the character is mirrored by the one of the player). From this perspective the FPS is more immediate and immersive. There is no roleplay because you are already involved as a player. There are less filters, so the potential impact of the game can be more effective.

This means that the primary traits of a FPS are already antithetic to a RPG, exactly as I wrote about the conflict that is coming up in WoW between the PvP and the PvE. A conflict that cannot be solved or mitigated simply because there’s a different nature at the origin. And all the problems are just consequence of that first “mistake” (or misunderstanding).

The point is: the qualities of a FPS are in a type of gameplay that is the exact opposite of a RPG. But when we think to a “mmofps” we still somewhat join some traits of an RPG to those of a FPS. Which simply doesn’t work. It’s a broken model that wouldn’t go anywhere.

If we remove the character progression, what is left? What would add the “MMO” part to those FPS that are already popular today? How it could contribute? On which (solid) premises this could be “The Next Big Thing”?

From my point of view we have two traits that differentiate a current online FPS from a MMO:
1- A greater depth, more roles, vehicles, bases to conquer in a world-like, bigger, more complex environment. Mixing together indoor and outdoor combat.
2- The persistence.

Now the first possibility is already being developed. That’s in fact where the whole genre is moving right now. Look at Battlefield, look at the last Unreal Tournament and the plans for the next one, look at the announce of QuakeWars at the last E3. The direction is set, we are moving past the skeletal experiences of the raw CTF and deatmatches and toward more complex and interactive environments, with more players involved, bigger arenas that make sense and reproduce realistic environments in all their parts more than just functional, abstract level design. Moving from simple, fast skirmishes to a type of broader and more articulated gameplay. The next Unreal Tournament will build on top of the previous chapter and bundle together the “assault” and “onslaught” modes again to do a step further toward this ideal of a world-like environment.

So we are left with the second possibility: the persistence. Even here we have two possibilities: The persistence of your character and the persistence of the environment.

For the persistence to have a meaning, we need different states. So, in the case the persistence is the one of the character, we need support to a “character progression”, while in the case the persistence is the one of the world we need it to transform and the players having an active role in the shaping of the environment (like owenership or conquest).

But there’s to consider another fundamental element. In these online FPS there are no “characters”. There is no roleplay anymore, not even a pretence of it beside some spice about the context. We have, instead, Alter Egos. The difference between a “character” and an “Alter Ego” is that the character can be different from ourselves, it can be roleplayed, it will have its own story and personality. Instead an Alter Ego is similar to a nickname in a chat. It’s a representation or a virtualization (the player can still decide to “lie”, it’s again what we like to be, and not who we really are) but it’s still the player that is transfered into the game. While in a RPG the player is supposed to be invisible within the game (the problem of the “fourth wall”).

If we think some more about this we’ll see how this meta-game of the communities that formed around these games (from the forums to the clans, the mods and all the networks supporting the scene) is already a mmorpg. It doesn’t miss anything. We have already all the persistence needed. The Alter Egos are already persistent. Most of these games track statistics online and I believe in “Battlefield” you can access different ranks and roles, simulating exactly a type of character development that would fit this genre. The fact that pretty much everyone is using voice comms is another confirmation that we do not play anymore characters, but just Alter Egos. And in this abstract world made of Alter Egos and different communities we have already an emergent “world”. A web of relationships. It isn’t “roleplayed”, but it already exists and mirrors exactly the nature of this genre. The players themselves are the characters playing this meta game.

This is also why I would suggest the developers to bring all this right in the game. Instead of fancy cinematics used as presentations, they should go to a LAN Party and film both the players and the games, bringing those players right within the game and without the need to simulate futuristic tournaments. Those tournaments already exist and do not need to be “acted” by the characters of the game. That level is now obsolete.

My belief is that all this is already happening. It’s already here. It’s already a “Big Thing” and I’m not sure how it could benefit from the few distinctive traits that the MMO genre has to offer. And I find rather funny how games like WoW go exactly in the opposite direction. While the FPS try to incorporate elements of a MMO to add complexity, in WoW the PvP is trivialized into simple, instanced BattleGrounds that mimic exactly that type of dull and repetitive gameplay from which the FPS are moving away.

While doubtful about this “mmofps” myth, I’m curious instead about what Valve is planning. “Beyond the FPS” sounds more interesting than all I read about fancy MMOFPS.

“cooperative building games”
Building something like a space ship or a machine with people online instead of shooting and killing each other.

P.S.
PlanetSide wasn’t successful as expected for a very simple reason: that type of game was already available for free and in a better quality. Which is also why the “free” mmorpg that SOE is planning for the next year will fail as well (I’ll have to comment even this myth of the “free” mmorpg, sometime).

EDIT- I posted the same thing on Q23 because I was interested in different opinions from my own. And it went well. Some good points were made.