What is it about MMOs and their orcs, mythical/space locations and swords of uberness? Why must successful games in this genre adhere to such traditional notions of gaming? If you look at the battery of MMO-related products which have seen the long-term, you'll find there's little room on the list for games that don't feature dwarves or large space battleships. How so?
It's not for wont of trying. NCSoft did attempt to break free from its history of epic storytelling by releasing Auto Assault, an MMO based on a mega destruction derby. Unfortunately, it went belly up before its first MOT. The Sims Online, another mainstream attempt to go massively game, has been in steady decline since its release. It never even reached these shores.
GameTribe is a new MMO hub making its beta debut in the UK with three easy-to-grip MMO concepts: one traditional (for the die-hards) and two alternative MMO titles: Kick, a massively multiplayer footy offering, and KongKong Online, a "jumping race".
I have a hard time seeing how these are going to be "massively" multiplayer. Instead, I see GameTribe and others like it as a multiplayer hub for minigames that, like the Dreamcast's ChuChu Rocket puzzle game and Xbox's Live's enormous library, offer a handful of people to play together.
So is it possible for games to be massively multiplayer without the orcs or space platoons? Is there a MMO EastEnders in our futures?
