[…] – since 2004 I have been waiting to see a single successful game to make a dent in the market without actually aping WoW. So far I have only seen one: Eve Online. Unfortunately Eve is one of these games that are awesome […]

I think I heard about this game and I’m not surprised it flopped. As you said the drive around and shoot all the time gameplay just doesn’t offer enough variety to keep people interested.

Still, I think GTA style game with the right amount of driving, on foot missions, varied combat (in and out of cars, shooting, close combat) , and some sort of crafting/upgrade system could be interesting.

“He has a sweet idea for a futuristic MMO that would combine GTA mechanics, with Mad Max/Carmagedon vehicle upgrades and road combat. I think this is a grand idea. I would definitely play a game like that. In fact, I’m quite amazed no one has implemented this idea yet.”

Well, they sort of did. It was called Auto Assault. It didn’t have much in the way of out-of-vehicle exploration, let alone combat — just walks inside the towns, really. Mostly, you drove around in your armed and armored car, and you shot things. You shot lots of things. Sometimes you would get a quest to go shoot things, and do so, and gain a little more experience. Other times, you would just shoot things. You could party (“convoy”) with other people to shoot things, if you wanted to, or you could shoot things on your own. I don’t remember a party ever being required.

It was a different sort of MMO, certainly. But different doesn’t automatically equal good.

I’d been anticipating it, before its release. Then I was invited to the beta. The first day, I had some fun, and found a few bugs. The second day, I played for maybe two hours. (This was during a vacation, so I had plenty of time.) The third day, I completely lost interest. There just wasn’t enough depth to the gameplay. I couldn’t imagine paying for something that was basically Twisted Metal.

I’m sure that a good game could be developed using similar themes, but I think the crash-and-burn of AA is likely to cause publishers to shrink away from those themes for a while.

Actually, one of Rubenfield’s points was making the game free to try, and free to play. If you want to have some in game property, like a garrage for your car, a guild house, etc… – then you pay a monthly fee.

If you cost about as much as WoW to play, then you are in direct competition with them, and several other established systems. If you are dirt cheap or free people will not feel the financial strain of keeping your account open. And if they get into the game, they will probably want to pay for the extra content anyway.

It makes sense.

I personally will be happy as long as they stop charging a pay per month fee to play the game. that just pisses me off.