The Mass Effect series has been hailed as the Star Wars of our generation, and for good reason. Over just three games, Bioware has built a believable universe full of lore, characters and technology, a world we want to live in. Although some fan reaction to the latest in series, Mass Effect 3, was negative, Bioware went ahead and announced a new game anyway yesterday. The founders of Bioware, who have since retired, expressed interest in developing an MMO set in the universe. This article is here to demonstrate why this is not a wise course of action. MMO’s, particularly Bioware MMO’s have failed in the past, and, because of these reasons, it would fail again. Epically.
1. Mass Effect is a Shooter
Mass Effect games have been, and will hopefully always be, third person shooters. MMO’s involve a whole lot clicking and auto combat, so this style of gameplay wouldn’t really fit the series. Aside from that, Mass Effect gameplay revolves around the idea of being part of a squad, and the combat is something was worked on significantly between each new entry in the series. Take an MMO like Star Wars: The Old Republic, my MMO of choice. The gameplay is just a whole bunch of clicking on abilities and moving around awkwardly. This would never and could never suit a Mass Effect game, a series based on squad combat. Not having a direct control over movement, aiming and shooting would go directly against everything the series has worked for so long to achieve: Third person perfection. There is simply no way MMO gameplay would work unless the gameplay was like classic Mass Effect.
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12 Comments
My friend point out to me that EVE Online is not beta, and came out in 2004. I don’t play it, so I wouldn’t know. Thanks Tom for the correction.
Christ man, do some research next time. LOTRO has been out for 5 years, GW2 is not a “point and click MMO”, Diablo 3 isn’t even an MMO to begin with…
And there is such thing as a MMOFPS, you know.
Ah, my mistake, I missed the “or” between point&click and MMO. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’ve over-generalised here.
I remember when ME wasn’t just a shooter game.
Man those where the days.
Although there were some more RPG elements in ME and ME2, the main difference was that ME3 gave lame people the option to pick to play it in an action style to garner additional sales. To be blunt, ME3 almost as much RPG as ME2.
If you’re looking for something with more RPG elements, I’d suggest an actual RPG.
One of the more important themes you bring up is that it will fail. Star Wars has, undeniably, as big as or a bigger fanbase in comparison to ME. That didn’t stop TOR from failing hard. The MMO genre is dominated by hardcore MMOs, like EVE Online, or WoW. That’s it. There can be no successful forays into that market at this point. Even Zenimax Studios essentially came a while ago and said that while the game would start out subscription-based, they’d go F2P later. That’s basically as big an admission of losing the MMO arms race as you can get.
Your title should be “5 Reasons Why I Don’t Need or Want a Mass Effect MMO”. There already is a huge demand and following for a Mass Effect Online.
they should definitely make a Mass Effect mmo available on consoles as well as PC.
I can absolutely understand peoples stereotypes over most MMOs, however Mass Effect is in a peculiar position, and one that could possibly be a changing concept of gaming for the rest of the genres. What i mean is that Mass Effect can become many different things…or it could become all those things and more. I would want a Mass Effect MMO that would allow you to choose from any race in the game. Period. and have full customization capabilities. We would also need to keep the 3rd person shooter basis. Thats critical, and best of all… Possible! and make everything not randomly dropped or have these items with random stats. I absolutely love the concept of EVE Online’s ship customization concepts, and though thats more or less the basis of the entire game something similar would be awsome. We would need to incorporate all of the interesting and grabbing themes Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3 all brought to the table. Essentially this would need to be a game like The Sims, EVE, and a 3rd person RPG all-in-one, for me to be completely sure to buy it. Its possible, its not that hard of a concept to understand and with CUSTOMIZATION, OPTIONS, and RECOGNIZANCE Bioware or which ever company were to do this, would become legends… However this is all strictly my opinion.
This article is tripe. No research was done at all, or so it seems. Getting release dates wrong for established, old games and screaming in caps that mmo’s are ALWAYS PC EXCLUSIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DCUO would like to talk to you.
With so many glaring omissions of fact, the author can’t be taken seriously.
1. Why wouldn’t Mass Effect Online (MEO) have the signature Mass Effect combat? Why do you imply that every MMO must have the traditional point and click gameplay? Games like DCUO, Planetside 2 and TERA prove you wrong. You can have a MMORPG with fun and different gameplay.
2. The genre is oversaturated with crap. The MMO market is just begging for something new to give it some freshness. It’s true, we don’t want another WoW clone – but we do want more MMO’s; specifically, more diversified MMOs. It seems obvious to me that a Mass Effect MMO would be a winner in such a market.
3. Many companies have multiple MMO’s of their own. NCsoft, Perfect World, etc.
4. “MMO’s are ALWAYS PC exclusive”. DCUO for the PS3 disagrees. Also Phantasy Star Online 2 for the PSVita and the original Phantasy Star Online. There is no reason to assume that an MMO is excluded from consoles, you’re just implying it because you want to. BioWare has every right to make MEO happen in both consoles and PC.
5. Football coexists with basketball; an MMO can coexist with other games of its franchise. Again, you are for no reason assuming that it is impossible. SWTOR coexists with The Force Unleashed. WoW coexists with the Warcraft series.
Oh but I do want a Mass Effect MMO, i do want it very very much, like 90% of the ME fans out there bub :)