The Daily Grind: Why can't Earth have a fantasy MMO?

Dark Age of Camelot.

Thanks for playing.

Egads. Now you are making me want an MMO based on the stories of Charles deLint.

I would guess it's the same reason that there are essentially no fantasy pen and paper games set in Earth's past. I would further guess that it's because everyone knows that Earth isn't a fantastical place. Setting things on Earth places a lot of limits on a game world as well - you can't design your own landscape, at the very least. You have to pick a location, too. That's going to make a lot of people upset in a global (or even national) game. Then, depending on how accurate you want it to be, the cities might already be placed, you might have to work in historical events or personalities, then try to reconcile them with the fantastical setting. All this seems like a whole lot of effort (vs creating a world from scratch) for little, if any, reward.

The only real-Earth setting I can think of that wouldn't be a giant PITA to adapt to the fantastical would be an Arthurian setting. Never having played it, I don't know if Dark Age of Camelot does this.

You're just asking White Wolf to launch a MMO, aren't you?

Hyborea is earth, after the sinking of Atlantis and before the rising of the seas. Even some of the country names are nearly the same. Hyborea has an Iranistan and a Zimbabawei for instance.

Sounds like you're looking for something like an urban fantasy setting.

Perhaps the Burning Legion should open a portal to Earth and we will fight back with F-16s, aircraft carriers and nukes.

Hyboria -is- Earth.

one word ....


SHADOWRUN

Earth Eternal, by Sparkplay Media. Set in the distant future when man has gone extinct, but some of man's legacy remains.

No I'm hoping to god they make a decent MMO out of it ...

What more could you want? Elfs/orcs/trolls/magic + cars/guns + cyber hacking

Such a wealth of material out there as well, Between this and a battletech/mechwarrior MMO my life would be complete :P

Talking of BT/MW ... why did microsoft ever cancel Battletech 3025 (which I played the original alpha ... and it rocked).

Tabula Rasa has an earth connection, thats where the players come from to join in the war on the Bane

Yeah, Dark Age of Camelot says hi. It was the realms of Albion (Great Britain), Hibernia (Ireland) and Midgard (Scandinavia) warring for control of the known world following the death of King Arthur.

The world featured in Warhammer is analogous to Earth. Same basic geography and the human civilizations are loosely based on those from history. For example the Empire is analogous to the Holy Roman Empire, and the Bretonnians and Norse are rather obvious. The Elven island nation of Ulthuan is analogous to Atlantis, and even much of it sunk during the civil war between the High and Dark Elves. There's an entire army of ancient pharaohs, undead, scarabs, and animated statues in the Egypt-equivalent region (hoping they make an expansion pack for the MMO).