Perry's Secret MMOG - A Beast Riding Game

The strange tale of the Massive game built by committee gets a little less odd, as a Q&A session with Jamil Moledina at GDC Austin unveiled some details about the MMOG former Shiny director David Perry has been working on. The 'Top Secret' Acclaim MMOG has been said for months now to be a 'racing' title, and Perry unveiled this week that it will not involve vehicles of any kind. Instead, the game will involve racing beasts of many kinds. The beasts can be bred and traded, used to engage in Player vs. Player battles, and will help the player explore the game world. For the first time since the project was announced, the idea of players using tools provided by IGN to make the game doesn't sounds quite so out there.

Interesting

[Turn-X Alphonse]

If they get this right it could be extremely interesting, but I get the feeling they will screw it up by making more and more high range beasts so what you took 12 weeks to earn before will become totally worthless in the next patch when they release and upgraded version which requires 3 12 week beasts to make.

Good idea, doubt it will go well though.

Re:Interesting

[Blakey Rat]

Uh, how is that different than any other MMO game on the market?

When the WOW expansion was released, it was easy to find Outlands *green* items in the first hour of questing there that were much better than the blues or purples you'd been repeatedly entering boring-ass dungeons for over the last year.

Re:

[pbaer]

That's the gp's point. If it is done like a typical MMO it will be like every other MMO, aka a grindfest.

more ads and micrtransactions

[weirdcrashingnoises]

and i don't really think it's a bad thing. not in this case anyways... when you think about how this game is going to come together and just the way they are doing it sounds totally different from a regular game development plan... it makes sense to ship it free and just let it build revenue in other ways.

also, i really like the idea of a racing mmo, not that it's an original idea or anything, but hopefully something that is based more on skill and not strictly the # of hours spent in game doing grinds.

I feel there will be protests

[Daimanta]

From the virtual brigade of PETA

Re:I feel there will be protests

[tepples]

From the virtual brigade of PETA

Has PETA complained about Nintendo's popular cockfighting simulator known as Pokémon?

Re:

[scot4875]

No reason for them to -- all Pokemon are treated ethically, and none are harmed during combat.

--Jeremy

Re:I feel there will be protests

[Minwee]

And when they aren't fighting they are ethically and humanely forced into tiny windowless cages not much bigger than your hand and left suffocating in the dark until their next fight.

I don't see what they're whining about either.

Re:

[the grace of R'hllor]

It looks [youtube.com] pretty cool to me.

Re:

[tbannist]

Don't tell me you missed PETA's Pokemon Freedom Day where they encourage kids to empty their Pokedex's and let the digital animals roam free?

"Breast riding game"

[Brad1138]

It sounded more interesting when I misread it at first.

Re:

[vrmlguy]

Thanks a lot, fellow; now I'm seeing "breasts" in everyone replies. Hmmm, on second thought, maybe that's not so bad after all.

Females?

[UbuntuDupe]

Appealing to the female demographic, maybe?

10 year old girls, maybe!

[temojen]

OMG Ponies!

Awseom tag

[spocksbrain]

"gottacatchemall" is a perfect tag, props!

Re:Awesome tag

[_damnit_]

I would argue "mailordermonsters" is the better tag. Reminds me of when I had a lot of extra time to work on vitual monsters to take over to my friends house for deathmatches. [Remember to make a copy of your disk in case your monster gets killed.]

So basically....

[Sasquatch6]

...it's going to be pokemon racing?
Seriously, let's look at the similarities: Breeding, trading, 'battling', and a world to explore with your 'beast' helping you. About the only thing they're adding to the formula is a persistant online presense, and even the latest pokemon games have online capabilities.

Re:

[bbcisdabomb]

Actually, sounds more like a Monster Rancher game. Same premise, almost, but more emphasis on the breeding and less on the fighting.

Another crappy MMO from Perry

[Vacuous]

I'm willing to bet that this game will be as horrible as Dance Online and all the other abominations he has released with Acclaim. Free is too much for this garbage.

horse racing

[brjndr]

A friend of mine is really into this arcade horse racing game, Derby Owners Club. I went with him to check it out, it was pretty fun.

If you don't have horses already, you select from a group of random mares and a group of random fillies and produce the horse you're going to race. Each horse has it's own attributes (speed, stamina), which help determine how it best races (try to get early lead or wait until last leg and make your move). You race horses in races of varying stakes, and train and feed them i