Friday, July 20, 2007

My Dream MMORPG Setting: Doctor Who / Torchwood

Voyages in Eternity just completed a five-part series of articles detailing his dream settings for an MMORPG. Its a great read. His dream settings included some of my favorite RPGs: Star Frontiers, Gamma World, and Call of Cthulhu. There is a lot of potential for gaming in those settings; hopefully now that the MMO industry has grown it will start to move beyond the rut of Tolkien-esque fantasy clones.

Now, if I had been asked what my dream setting for an MMO (or just a single player RPG or adventure game) would be, it would definitely be one based on the Doctor Who (and Torchwood) universe. It would be fun to play a Time Agent (like Captain Jack Harkness) and battle iconic Doctor Who villains like the Daleks and Cybermen, and occasionally meeting the Doctor and his Companions in your travels. The beauty of this setting is that it spans all of space and time, so you can tell any kind of story: a macabre horror in Victorian gaslight London, a sci fi space opera, a historical romance, a whodunnit mystery, exploring the unknown on an alien planet, avoiding dinosaurs in the ancient past -- or the modern streets of London!, anything.

I guess the closest thing to that type of openness would be Stargate, because each planet is different from one to another in terms of population, level of technology, and culture. So while I never really got into Stargate as much, I do hope they manage to do that element of the series justice when (and if) the MMO Stargate Worlds comes out.

8 comments:

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

As for Doctor Who/Torchwood, I don't really know much about them (I plan on watching a few episodes of Dr. Who soon if I can just to check it out) but the time travel aspect is a cool idea. Someone else had a blog entry about this as well, but I can't remember who :( There is a lot that can go wrong with time travel, however, so its a difficult thing to incorporate and make it seem authentic. As for character progression, depending on exactly how it worked, they would need to find some way to advance your character other than simply strength, agility, etc. if you are doing exploring and discovering new civilizations etc. Stargate Worlds is going to have a scientist/archaeologist (I forget which) class so it will be interesting to see how they work that.

Also, send me an e-mail sometime(I couldn't find yours,) I wanna talk to you about some stuff.

heather (errantdreams) said...

I agree that DW would make an awesome MMO universe---like Stargate, IF done right. And that's the hard part...

Lars said...

I agree, it would be hard to do a DW MMO right. A kill- and loot-centric Everquest-style play would definitely not be appropriate. But I'm a dreamer. :)

Anonymous said...

Most are too young to remember those..

Anonymous said...

For the past few nights while rewatching Doctor Who 2005 episodes, I've gotten the thought of a Doctor Who MMO in my head as well. Only one massive problem I can see with it being made. Traveling from world to world wouldn't be an issue...but you can't really have a game with millions of players in it and include a time traveling aspect. If they took that out, it would pretty much take away the whole concept of Doctor Who :-\ Very unfortunate.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps a Torchwood based MMO would work, with you playing a person who can join any Torchwood( as in a clan system with Torchwood groups all over the game). Then you can hunt down alien tech and try to benefit your group.

Anonymous said...

i think a DW MMO would be awesome i would like to see hot they would fit regeneration into it though it you were a time lord because it would be amazingly difficult.