The Digital Continuum: Five criminally unused MMO settings part 2
Transformers
It always amazes me that there's no known Transformers MMO in the works. And no, the Nicktropolis horror does not count. I'd rather play Hello Kitty Online, which at least let's me craft my own clothing and furniture! But seriously, imagine inside your mind canvas a medium-to-large scale production designed to pull in more than people aged five to eight. Such a game would certainly froth the mouths of countless gamers, myself included.
Let me paint a picture upon that mental canvas of yours: You've logged onto the world of Transformers, the music plays and your child-like geeky heart flutters. After picking your combat parameters, you choose a disguise form (vehicle or animal) and then enter Cybertron. Immediately, the Autobots and Decepticons begin fight over you, as your allegience has yet to be decided. Both Optimus Prime and Megatron make their case, and it's up to you to decide which cause matters most.
Combat could easily lean far towards action-RPG and the game would probably also benefit from a multiplatform release. Plus, with the flexibility of the Transformers lore (IE you can pretty much do whatever you'd like) there would be plenty freedom for creativity offered to developers.
When all is said and done, it seems like one big reason to print money and do nearly whatever you want mechanically. I mean really, how many MMOs could offer players an avatar that both flies through the air and turns into a laser-slinging robot?
Weird Western
I love myself some steampunk -- or steampulp if you like -- but there are many facets to the genre beyond the most touted examples.
One such setting can be called weird wild west, or weird west if you like. The implications of the name alone are immediately obvious, but it can be more than standardized steampunk in a wild west setting. History has as much to offer this setting as fantasy does, especially when you look into things like Asian or Native American culture in the west. Beyond even that, it never hurts to throw in a little occult just for good measure. Everyone loves occult, or so I'm convinced.
Personally, if a developer could go shoulder-deep into a Teen-rated MMO with the weird western curtains hung shamelessly around it, I'd be sold. All it would take to convince other people is a trailer showing off in-game footage of things like heavily modified steam-powered rifles, steam trains that can take off into the air and clockwork androids slinging six-shooters.Oh and don't forget some occult, maybe in the form of mystic Chinese magicians that use empty skulls for bombs.
And that's basically it for my five criminally unused MMO settings. While there certainly more than five overlooked settings and IPs, these were my top five at the moment. Who knows? Maybe this time next year we'll be talking about how steampunk MMOs are pretty much covered, and that we should cease begging developers and publishers to grant out most wishful of wishes. Although something tells me holding our breath on that could end badly.
So until then, I guess we're just going to keep pestering and obsessing about our victorian age clockpunk adventures-to-someday-be.
