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The MMOFPS Recipe |
| Written by Administrator | |||||
| Thursday, 21 June 2007 | |||||
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MMOFPS (massive multiplayer online first person shooter) games display distinct traits that categorize them under this genre. Although many companies claim their games belong to the MMOFPS genre, they have yet to take a second to think what actually defines them. For ease of understanding, we’ll take a look at the FPS game “Halo 2”, with a confirmed MMOFPS “Planetside”, and compare the two as an example for each trait that makes up an MMOFPS. The word of the day is “persistence”.
This involves persistence in the games geography and surroundings. Planetside is a game where the same continents are accessible by all players. Territorial control is always shifting between each empire but it will always be in the same universe, resulting in a variety of game play. Where as Halo 2 is consisted of solid, template like matches. When entering a match in Halo 2 the blue team will always start by the blue flag, the red team to their respective flag, etc… Although Halo 2 is much more massive in customers it only allows a maximum of 16 players in a non-persistent environment, while Planetside offers up to 1000’s to be connected to the same environment they logged into a day ago. Making the MMO factor for Halo seem pretty much nonexistent in comparison.
Let’s say that you create a character named Private Wanker, and log into Planetside. You lead a squad to a specific continent and capture 5 bases. You log off and go to bed with such a sense of life accomplishment that you could die happy. The next day you log back in and discover your empire is utilizing your bases, the very same bases you conquered the day prior. Had you etched in the name Private Wanker on the bathroom walls, it would still be there. Now let’s say Private Wanker logged into Halo 2. He defeated all of his opponents ruthlessly and received the most kills in his latest slayer match. Will he be remembered as the glorious Private Wanker that conquered the blue team in Blood Gulch, or just the Private Wanker that won match #7,897,902 on map #6 in the MySQL database titled jos_squat? Good work, hero of the minute.
What are you talking about!? The Halo 2 storyline is very persistant! Master Chief kills thousands of Covenant across the galaxy so that he can have a conversation with a talking plant! It ends the same way every time! Sure, this seems persistant, but in actuality it’s you that beat the game by your lonesome self. It wasn’t massive, it wasn’t multiplayer, and it wasn’t online. With Planetside the storyline is embedded with each empire you represent. It is also embedded in such a way that the empire your represent desires the destruction of every other empire. Resulting in an endless clusterfluck war. It’s massive, it’s online, and it’s multiplayer. Happy hunting.
This almost needs no explanation. FPS = first person shooter. When you log in to play, ask yourself, are you a person? A monster, a being of some sort? Can you run around and shoot at things with your reticule? When you push your fire button once, does it shoot or do you just commence in a stale and motionless fight waiting for someone’s health meter to run out? Now, although Halo 2 has a better twitch factor than Planetside (it has headshots!) they can still both carry the FPS title.
When looking at the breakdown of the acronym MMOFPS, Halo 2 seems to be a justifiable candidate. It’s massive, it’s multiplayer, it’s online, and it’s a first person shooter. It’s just too bad that when you combine all of these traits it adds too many variables and turns the game Halo 2 into just that. A game. So... why not just call a game, a game? Does there really require that much thinking to define a game? Well, if I weren’t cool I would say no. Since I am, I know that adding all of these rules and definitions to define a genre get me one step closer to getting laid. So with that said, the next time you see me be sure to give me a high-five.              |
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