Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Today on “Games We’ve Barely Posted About And We Don’t Know Why”, Vogster’s Unreal 3-powered guns’n'gangs MMO Crimecraft. It’s like Warcraft, but with Crime instead of War. Teasing its name aside, it’s a fun idea – GTA’s on-foot element as persistent online world, in theory. In practice, well, we dunno. There’s a hint of sorts in that it doesn’t like to call itself an MMO, instead opting for “Persistent World Next-gen Shooter.” Seeing as it was released today, I’m rather hoping someone reading this has a pretty good sense of what it’s really like and if it’s any cop. (Cop! Ha! Sigh.) Care to share? Meantime, let’s have a look at some videos of the thing and have a nose at its odd subscription model.
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The other PC-based MMOFPS (or is it a PWNS?) at E3 was CrimeCraft. It’s operating along rather similar lines to APB: a gang-based theme, with guns, hip hop stylings, and ongoing RPG elements. Sadly there’s no open world combat, because the game is driven by story-led PvP and PvE in instanced missions. Despite being “massive” and being powered by the Unreal 3 engine, the footage here seems a little uninspiring, with sub-Gears of War combat and dreary environments. If it can’t offers ome of APB’s living world dynamism it seems unlikely to be the MMOFPS of the next couple of years. That’s not to say it won’t be a success, because I think gamers are more than ready for some hybrid games in the MMO vein. Anything with guns and persistent characters is going to get a fair shake. CrimeCraft is already offering beta signups, so that might be worth a look.
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A new, horrible acronym: “CrimeCraft is not an MMO, it’s a PWNS, a persistent world next-gen shooter.” Yeah, he was practicing saying that in the mirror. CrimeCraft is revealed in the most recent of the GDC videos that we expect to keep on rolling in all week. In it the developer explains how the game is a twitch shooter, rather than a standard MMO, only with all the trappings of a persistent world: guilds, shops, character customisation, kill-25-dudes missions, and so on. The shooter aspect of the game means that they’re some classic shooter combat, such as 8v8 domination matches, hitscan weapons, and skill-based play. Interesting stuff, and I’m certain this isn’t the only “PWNS” we’ll see revealed in the coming months.

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All sounds a bit dubious, eh? Well that’s what Americano-Ukrainian developers Vogster Entertainment have announced. They’re playing up the politics and commerce angle however, which is a very good sign. Not for Vogster the MMO press-release that basically gives the nod to more goblin-bashing.

“Players will take part in the political, economical and social life of a big city. They will run businesses, engage in commerce, and suffer the consequences of confrontations with criminal groups and shadowy law enforcement figures. Powerful AI will support the constantly changing atmosphere of the streets and enable players to feel the live pulse of the Megapolis.”

The game apparently features an “advanced social system” which will presumably run something like the standings system in Eve Online, allowing players to sort out their clan and personal relations independent of the game structure. We should have more details about this ambitious free-to-play project in a couple of weeks.