My Fourth of July was spent taking it easy (this is a chic phrase for slacking). I've been on a horror kick lately, and I haven't seen a Nightmare on Elm Street film for at least 5 years, so I borrowed a few from a friend and settled down for some bloody camp and bad dreams. Maybe they were scary in the eighties and nineties, but as a hardcore horror fan, I was only enjoying them because I was remembering them as I watched. I found them most non-frightening when Freddy Kreuger was onscreen, or even worse, when he had actual dialogue. (When were catchphrases EVER cool for evil demons?)
As usual, after watching a horror film that I thought could have been more than it was, my inner mental gibbering immediately started on how horror isn't what it used to be -- it isn't scary, why can't someone do something decent, and thank God there's a Silent Hill series at my disposal when I want to remember what it's like to be afraid. As I headed into the kitchen, the topic of horror flourishing in games blended into another idea before I even realized what I was thinking of. Would I play a horror MMO?
Hit the jump for the diatribe.
You know, I would. HOLY COCKS YES I would. Immediately, all the secondary ideas came to mind. How would it work? Would people want to log in to a consistently frightening world? Why would it be frightening? Could an idea like Event Horizon's haunted ship be translated into an entire dimension? Bioshock has definitely got the idea -- The Rapture should unnerve many an explorer. However, that's an FPS adventure...and would greatly differ from the logistics of a dynamic world.
One major point of difference is that a horror is rarely a social experience, whereas MMOs thrive on the interactive aspect. Some gamers would say that one difference kills it off before the idea even gets started, but somehow this clash makes me more interested. Could it be possible to play with other people, but only through a complex system (you must rescue a friend or undo a curse before you can play with them)? Would an MMO that made you work to gain interactivity push players to work for it, or simply shut off their PCs in frustration?
Another common complaint of MMO players is that all they do is grind and that the games lack an emotionally engaging story. Perhaps an MMO in a post-apocalyptic setting could kill two birds with one stone -- creating a backdrop of consistent unease and fear while telling a story that all human beings can relate to the terror of. Add in zombies and you could be playing 28 Days Later Online. Imagine the pressure of having to avoid being infected every time you logged in to play, or permanently losing your character if he or she was.
I would like to see the MMO genre electrified, as even consistent WoW players admit to boredom or quitting the game because they just aren't having fun anymore. Bioware claims to be making an online title focused on "story, character and emotion", which gives us something to look forward to. When I think about playing a game that would keep me on the edge when I played, unsure of what could happen each time I logged in, I think that just might be the thing to make me interested in MMOs again. The question is, How do you execute it to strike the ideal balance between fear and playability?
I don't have answers for my questions yet, but I do know I'd be off to the game store like a shot to get a title like this. Hell, if I still went to Gamestop I might even reserve the damn thing out of excitement. Would you do the same, or would it still be just another excuse to spend 60 hours a week not having a life?
Contest:
9:55 PM on 07.04.2007
| 
Something more along the lines of Left 4 Dead, would be better, in my opinion.
A horror MMO game could alieviate that problem, but only if it were awesome.
I was playing Resident Evil 4 on the Wii today, Mercinaries mode, and it never stopped being frightening. To hear that chainsaw rev up, not knowing how close it was, to then see your character's head suddenly severed from his body, that never stopped being that fun sort of scary that you get from good horror movies.
I would go for that in a MMO game, but I'd just as likely go for in off line.
You know, the world is lacking zombie games in general. Dead Rising remains the only one that's even made a blip on the radar since...what...the cancelled Land of the Dead tie-in game?
But on the whole I think horror-genre games are better when you're playing it either alone or in small groups. The problem with MMO's I think is that it will dilute the horror experience since you have a lot of people in your party a la WoW. What makes horror games good is that you know you're alone, and no one is there to cover your back, and you don't know where the monster or whatever will pop up.
[list]
[*]Opening scene.
[*]EULA Agreement
[*]Login Screen
[*]Realm select
[*]Character select
[*]Character create
[*]CHOOSE YOUR SIDE: ZOMBIE OR HUMAN
[/list]
Huh? It wasn't canceled. I even played it.
http://www.exanimusthegame.com/
I guess my question is, how come nothing else (vampires, werewolves) come close to how fun zombies are?
I work for the company that made that game
My mistake, it was the Dawn of the Dead game that got canned ("City of the Dead"). You're right, the Land of the Dead game, Road to Fiddler's Green, did in fact come out.
@BlueWolf72:
You've intrigued and mildly aroused me.
We are built this way by design. It is better not to question the grand scheme of things, but just to fall in line.
idk, but there's just something about seeing a huge population of zombies shuffling towards a small group of survivors quickly running out of ammo as they discover one of their friends is bitten and turns that is pretty awesome.
i remember resident evil did a big coop thing online where if you were bitten and not killed, you could turn into a zombie without the antidote in time.
I'd love a victorian set gothic horror themed MMO. Hell, *ANY* MMO theme that dosn't involve fantasy creatures grinding out hours in the desert of despair looking for the widget of woe that only spawns off of the rare kancho oni which 72 other players are camping in order to sell online. Give me a different setting, any setting at all.
Fuck the elves.
frendly fire.
of course. then everyone would be constantly killing one another. and if its permament death then its like one giant elemination game. although it would easily replicate people going crazy and indescriminatly killing if there was a real zombie attack.
*gasp*
As long as there are no instance areas.
Humans can't talk to zombies or monsters and vice versa.
There are areas that only humans or zombies can access.
Large city like environments that have buildings people can actually enter.
Zombie ambush for the win.
And other cool stuff.
Now - a merely online game that WASN'T massive-multiplayer? Or MAYBE making a game that's free to play if you're a monster, but you have to pay to be an actual "good guy" so that maybe there's a disparity in favour of the monsters that the "good guys" have to fight? That might work. Sort of like that Vampire/Werewolf browser-based game. It wasn't what I'd call scary, though.
There's also the constant search for weapons and food. I think this is all the makings of a good MMO.
Though after the 10,000th time of being chased, hiding, bashing/shooting zombies, it might get boring. The game or story would need some type of increasing challenge built in. Not sure how though...
Waiting for MurderMotel.com to come out of Beta. That should be cool.
Anyone tried The Ship? It's a Steam game based on the HL2 engine.
But, alas, I dream...since nobody has even made a damn classic vampire game of any sort, yet. Just a bunch of cheap knockoffs that don't even begin to touch on vampires, as traditionally thought by most people.
On top of that you could have combat-heavy battle areas where there were a lot more people and zombies, explorable land space, and that are there for specific objectives. Imagine being the lone nerd in a group of 10 military guys that are trying to hack a communications center that's overrun. "LFM for Zombie Mall, have lockpicker and doctor, gonna go get chainsaws..."
For example: 8 players, hospital setting, survival mode. The objective is to survive. Someone posing as a scout reports that a massive number of zombies are headed in the direction of the hospital, one of the last few safe havens within the city. There are some medical supplies, but ammunition is low. Within an hour, the zombies are in sight. Set up barricades, traps, and other such obstacles, then wait till they're in range and let loose. The players must work together in order to keep the zombies at bay, for if they manage to break in, all is lost, since there is no longer a barricade holding them back, and several bites could mean the end of your existence as a human, and the beginning for a zombie.
I really think something like that would work pretty well. What do you guys think?
It's pretty scary that we both like scary games and that I am going to rape you in about 40 minutes and then make you watch me eat delicious cake... BWHAHHAHA!
damn bbcode
copy n paste ftw
I do think you should put the apostrophe where it does belong.
Also I think that horror might be composed of more than guns and walking dead. Please refer to Ravenloft, Call of Cthulhu, and GURPS Horror. I think market saturation might be met by present high budget walking dead flicks -- but horror movies remain a constant sale.
The hospital of course has power problems which would reason why some areas go out of power and cause your reality to shift but not always.
Some features would be: character customization, branching storyline that changes depending on how you react when in the light (lights on) that change how you see tings in the dark (when power goes out) as well as a story that can only be understood after multiple people play through the story line.
The feel if you want to imagine would be something like an Asian horror. dark lights, stuff that creeps up on you. things like that.