“Do you feel that the opportunities that exist in the MMO market have resulted in overcrowding?

If you mean genre overcrowding, then yes. Look at the saturated fantasy genre; there is clear overcrowding there. Players can typically only have active one, or at most two active MMO game subscriptions. There just isn’t time for additional subscriptions. According to MMOGchart.com, in June of 2006 the fantasy genre accounted for 93.5% of all major MMOs.

If you are referring to player overcrowding, then no. The market is expanding as more and more players are becoming familiarized to MMOs, and who are gaining access to play the games – such as gaining broadband access when they previously lacked it. The upside of potential players is huge and is only limited by our ability in the development community to make appealing games for them to want to play.”

So there could be hope out there for a multi genre game

As for building player towns this would be something that would be a riot to do, no holds barred pocket realities where the laws of physics / time dont exisit. Each one could be very unique and I’m sure with the right tools would lead to some amazing designs.

In terms of the kind of dimensional aspect of crossing worlds / timelines etc. Clive Barker’s novel “Imajica” is a an example that comes to mind, I’d suggest you give that a read if you haven’t as that has a really nice concept of parrallel yet inter-dependant worlds seperated only by perception. It’s a theme that has cropped up in Barker’s stuff a few times. I won’t say more in case you decide to read it

What I would question though is the potential appeal of such a game. For me a big part of MMOs is the sense of a second world in which I can spend time with an alternative community. My most fulfilling MMO moments have been in Star Wars Galaxies where players are allowed and encouraged to build their own towns and cities and set up their own supply chains and trade etc. It all got killed with the NGE update though really.

Personally unless there was a good knot to hold the reasoning of multiple times/genres/etc together in the meta-world, some form of interdependence, I wouldn’t be able to regard it as a second home really. But it depends on whether your thinking about MMORPGs or MMOs like Planetfall.

Perhaps you could provide a better sense of continuity and character development by giving each player item and skill a counterpart in each realm. It wouldn’t be easy, but I think it’s doable. For example, mounts:

Fantasy Realm — Horse
WWII Realm — Combat Vehicle
Sci-Fi Realm — Spaceship
Victorian Gothic Realm — Carriage
Modern Horror Realm — Car

So… If you buy a horse while in the Fantasy Realm, you’ll own a carriage next time you enter the Gothic Realm and a car next time you enter the Horror Realm. These are just general categories, of course, so it would actually be more specific than that. A clydesdale warhorse in the Fantasy realm might translate into a medium M4 Sherman tank for WWII and a Mack truck for the Horror Realm. A Fantasy Realm pack mule, on the other hand, might translate into an APC (Armored Personel Carrier) for WWII and a van for Horror.

Of course, it’s a hell of a lot harder to apply that sort of system to skills. But the difficulty there may actually help, because it might be more interesting if the skills were only loosely related between realms. For example, all of the following would loosely fall under a “Stun” skill category:

Fantasy Realm — Tangling Roots spell
WWII Realm — Flash Grenade
Sci-Fi Realm — Hologram Double (distraction)
Victorian Gothic Realm — Holy Flare (a light that wards off evil)
Modern Horror Realm — Molotov Spread (a spill of burning alcohol forms a barrier)

What do you think?

The sandman is essentailly the type if realm i was thinking off, as you can have any type of environment with odd twists to that realm with out really breaking any genres. This is the dream realm so anything goes …. and to be honest was the only environement i could think off that would be able to pull it off.

Now as brackishwater mentioned getting there believably is something I was a little stuck on.

I think this is probably one of the most important key points to any game, how and why are you there ? and how does this pertain to the overall story line, if there is to be one …

I cant help but think of Gumby when I started reading this until I got to the part about coma patients. I would find it easier to grasp as a player in a MMO if all of the other players got to this world in a more feasible way. Thats a ton of coma patients if you get my drift. Maybe something along the same macabre line such as global apathy due to pollution/corruption/war and a dream of a better time leads to a underground technological advancement that allows the people to share dreams and past experiences.
You could rationalize quests as people wanting help reliving choices they made or events they lived through. This is kind of getting into a realm that reminds me of American McGee’s Alice.
I love this discussion though.

The thing that stands out for me at present is that the setting potentially lacks places for people to congregate. There is no obvious potential “lobby”, if you will, where players who are looking for groups, looking to trade “equipment” (would there be equipment of that kind?), can get together.

Not that there couldn’t be such places defined, obviously… an Escher-esque city scape, with people walking up and down walls, even upside down in various places, could be an option, for example. Just something to consider, I guess.

Time travel that includes alternate realities could easily include a wide array of genres. Also, there would be no reason that the mechanics of the time travel couldn’t be mystical in origin, as opposed to technological or mechanical. Many time travel RPGs, for example, incorporate a variety of “styles” of travel into a single game, from magical items and mental/psionic abilities to weird science/Jules Verne contraptions and far-future high-tech vehicles/equipment.

Another possible mechanism/overall rationale is that suggested by the old series “Sliders”. Could be an interesting setting…