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Reader Comments (7)

Posted: Jan 30th 2006 10:10AM (Unverified) said

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I disagree with the idea that Harry Potter fans are mainly interested in "Harry's story." A lot of the draw from that series comes from the idea that within our boring everyday world there exists an entire magical society with their own history, creatures and powers.

A Hogwarts based Harvest Moon style MMOG would do very well, I think, with people making characters in the different houses and going to the different classes, etc. There could be other schools besides Hogwarts as well, with interscholastic competitions.

Posted: Jan 30th 2006 10:21AM epobirs said

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The Stargate SG-1 universe would make a great setting for a MMOG exercise.

Posted: Jan 30th 2006 10:33AM (Unverified) said

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Same goes for A Star Trek MMO, I feel that done in the right way, this franchise could very well make one of the best MMOs ever. It just has to have the right developers and the right Advertisation, and with the already huge fan-base and lack of any current Star Trek Serializaton available for the fans of the series, this could be a great boon for all loyal Star Trek fans to jump on.


The Harry Potter one.. Hmm im not too keen on Harry Potter, I'll watch the movies, but not read the books, but I can see that being a decent game, to atleast try.

These kind of Franchise-to-MMO deals have to be done right, or they could end up bieng another Star wars online.

Posted: Jan 30th 2006 11:16AM (Unverified) said

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From a business and gamer's perspective, I think it can always work as long as you have a good grasp of what that franchise's fan base wants and you set up a good game design, clearly communicate it to fans, and follow through on it.

I was with SWG since beta. It was the first MMORPG I've ever played and it drew me in because of the franchise. However, I also really liked the proposed depth the developers were shooting for. Jedi were meant to be vary rare and once you became a Jedi the penalties for dying were steep so you had to make a choice if you wanted to truly live a life of solitude. However, that's not what the vast majority of the base wanted so the game quickly became nothing more than an online KOTOR.

The problem to me seems to be that MMORPG's have a fixed structure and they try to fit the franchise into that mold instead of understanding what fans of the franchise truly want and designing a game around that.

Posted: Jan 30th 2006 2:35PM (Unverified) said

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Give up people. You can never compete with World of Warcraft. Just throw in the towel already.

Posted: Jan 31st 2006 1:24AM (Unverified) said

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They once said that about Everquest, #5.

Posted: Feb 1st 2006 9:47PM (Unverified) said

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To #4:

But the nature of a franchise doesn't always make a good game. With Star Wars Galaxies, the complete lack of Jedi when the game launched made it feel like more of a generic sci-fi game than Star Wars. Plus, the gameplay was made to be so realistic and true to the franchise that it wasn't fun for anyone but the most hardcore players. Even though it isn't realistic for anyone to be able to be a Jedi, it makes the game a heck of a lot better.

It's sort of a Catch-22. It's extremely difficult to make a game that is both fun to play and also accurately portrays the franchise. For this reason, I think that franchise-based MMOG's are for the most part a bad idea. Better to create a world that fits with the gameplay than to use an existing one that makes it suck.

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