Re: WoW - I wonder....

From: "Dreamer" <dreamer@??????.?????.??.uk>
Sent: Friday, August 25, 2006 9:31 PM


> In <URL:news:local.spelljam> on Fri 25 Aug, Ryltar Thamior wrote:
>> We need to appeal to the niche out there that likes SJ - everyone seems 
>> to
>> either hate it, think it's a quaint novelty like a world with a world on 
>> the
>> inside as well that should be disregarded as a relic from the 2E past, or
>> love it.
>>
>> How we appeal to them is a differant matter... advertising might be a 
>> good
>> idea - on the net. Get people from the 3e generation into our little
>> hobby...
>
> Does anyone know anything about the SJ computer game that I've
> just about heard existed?

It's called Pirates of Realmspace and you can find details about it on 
Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelljammer:_Pirates_of_Realmspace

> Any chance that someone might revive something from that, and
> maybe even make it the basis of a MMORPG like WoW?

>From the look of this old DOS game, it was more like Elite than World of 
Warcraft.

In WoW ships are there to transport players from one place to another. I'd 
rather like to see a MMORPG solar system with players able to play 
individual characters on a large variety of asteroids and planets and ships 
spelljamming regular and semi-regular routes between different ports.

> (Yes, yes, I know!  I'm mad! [grin] )

You must be a Tinker Gnome

> As for SJ, its got monsters, pirates, fantasy heroics, amazing
> visuals - I'm really suprised no one has not tried to make more
> of it!

The one thing that WoW currently doesn't have is mid voyage encounters on 
its ship voyages. A Spelljammer MMORPG could add something like that to each 
voyage. Ship routes could have a variety of difficulties. WoW's isolated 
"instances" seem a little artificial, but isolated encounters in the middle 
of a spelljamming voyage, would make more sense. WoW currently makes players 
queue up for things like the battleground, and that also seems a little 
artificial, but again waiting for an "irregular" spelljamming ship to arrive 
seems more logical.

I think the idea has a lot of potential, but I see two big problems with a 
SJ MMORPG:

1) Most people seem to misunderstand the Spelljammer game and think that it 
is a sci-fi setting. This false expectation means that people that don't 
like sci-fi are very reluctant to give Spelljammer a second look and people 
who do like sci-fi feel robbed when the realise that it is actually a 
fantasy game. So the game would attract (and disapoint) the wrong audience, 
while not attracting the correct audience.

2) Spelljammer didn't ever really have a "proper" campaign setting. Bral is 
probably one of the best SJ locations and TSR deliberatly made that a 
location that could be put anywhere. I like the Bralspace (Spiralspace) on 
BtM, but I'm not sure if everything there was ever actually fully documented 
by TSR. So while Spiralspace seems (to me) a logical place to put a SJ 
MMORPG, any potential game designers hired by WotC might not actually "know" 
it exists.

The 3e FRCS did make a nod to Spelljammer when it listed information about 
The Sea of Night. So Realmspace would probably be the best place for a SJ 
MMORPG and you could actually get your Pirates of Realmspace MMORPG.

A D&D MMORPG, called Dungeons & Dragons Online, is already out:

http://www.ddo.com/index.php

The tabletop D&D RPG has had lots of campaign settings that work with a 
single game engine and it would be great if Hasbro did the same with D&D 
Online and let the designers release several different campagn settings. 
Each could be isolated from each other, but for players that signed up to 
more than one Spelljammer or Planescape could be used to transport a player 
from one setting to another.

If the D&D MMORPG worked like that, it could make WoW look like a very small 
setting.

David "Big Mac" Shepheard
Virtual Eclipse Role Playing Club
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/virtualeclipselrp/links/d20_system_001071937434/Spelljammer_001071430476
http://virtualeclipse.aboho.com/