.bbpBox14290030752 {background:url(http://a1.twimg.com/profile_background_images/14251900/twitter_bkgd.jpg) #8493cb;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block} Only got an hour or so into Red Dead Redemption last night, but so far I’m liking it. Now I want @tipadaknife’s Gunsmoke MMO, though via Seesmic Web
Peter Smith
pasmith
I couldn’t agree more, Pete.
A couple of weeks back, I wondered if the world was ready for a MMO based on a fairly realistic version of the Old West, specifically Gunsmoke, an old TV series that ran for twenty years from the fifties through the seventies.
People wondered how such a game – such a brown, drab game – could possibly interest modern players who demand flashy, cartoony graphics and bright, vibrant colors in their games. I thought that the pull of the setting, especially if the pioneer lifestyle were heavily emphasized, could bring people in.
Now Rockstar Games has published Red Dead Redemption, a game about a gunfighter in the Old West. It’s not an MMO as such, but check out their multiplayer game types:
Free Roam brings the open-world experience to multiplayer for up-to-16 players, with the opportunity to form posses of up-to-8 to take on the world’s gang hideouts, ambient challenges - and each other. Free Roam also gives players a living, breathing world instead of a generic game lobby - with the freedom to roam the open expanse, hunting or creating shootouts before heading into competitive game modes - and leveling up with every major action. With each level come new avatars, outfits, mounts, playlists and challenges.
Sometimes it takes a posse to take on a gang. Form posses with friends to take on gang hideouts and ambient challenges within Free Roam, or have your posse leader bring you into competitive matches at any time. Posses can hear each other talk via voice chat, no matter how far apart they may be.
Just like in the single-player experience, some areas of the multiplayer world are overrun by bandits. Gather up your posse or any other players in Free Roam, ride out to find the hideouts and take those scurrilous bandits down.
Are you a hunter, a survivalist, or a shootist? The entire multiplayer world is filled with ambient challenges. Whether alone, with other Free Roam players or with your posse, discover unmarked hunting areas to take down waves of deadly predators, track down rare fauna in Survivalist Challenges, or earn yourself the title of Public Enemy by marauding towns and taking on Law Enforcement.
It’s absolutely no problem at all to adapt this sort of thing to an MMO setting. Make those towns persistent, and you’re halfway there. Allow players to play the sheriffs and deputies and cattle ranchers and dance hall girls and – did I mention this has all been DONE already with the original Star Wars Galaxies?
DO want. Someone take a page from Red Dead Redemption and make a Gunsmoke MMO. PLEASE!