Once you move away from the fantasy that exists only in Tolkien’s shadow you get some truly amazing stuff (”A Wizard of Earthsea” by Ursula LeGuin is probably my favorite fantasy book of all time, and Mieville’s work comes a close second).

In that sense, I couldn’t agree more with elves being boring, and “hero’s quest” story lines being overdone, and McGuffins being pointless… but I’d say that “traditional” gritty cyberpunk, re-tellings of Frankenstein in the guise of AI stories and space opera that focuses more on the technology than it does on the humans all suffer from the same flaws.

To compare something as dull and repetetive as Tabula Rasa to the likes of Ultima Online,Everquest and even World of Warcraft, is laughable. Tabula Rasa is pretty boring and stade once youve hit 1th lvl due to skill system. Shooting everything with a shotgun for 50 levels is boring. Give me variety any day.

Not a big WoW fan but at least there ,you will find some variety and colour.Hell even Hellgates more fun.Ah now theres a quandry, fantasy AND scifi!

ANyway im a big scifi fan and the only mmo to come close to my idea of scifi is Anarchy Online. When playing an MMO i do NOT want to connect with reality in anyway lol. I dont want things that are based on real life or plausible ideas, i want Arthur C. Clarke ‘oh my head hurts” thinking.

It’s very easy to piss all over bad fantasy – and indeed, there’s every reason that you should. But I would remind you of one thing: Sturgeon’s Law. And no, I ain’t gonna reiterate it. If you don’t know it already, then you really don’t have the kind of moral authority in this field to justify any serious consideration of your criticism. And if you do know Sturgeon’s Law already, then you have obviously forgotten the circumstances in which it was coined – because, of course, it was science fiction that was coming under fire at the moment Sturgeon spoke up.

Admittedly, I’m not a hardcore vidgamer. But I’ve enjoyed old-school dice gaming in a wide array of settings, and it always comes down to the same things: interesting characters, good storylines, and imagination. I see precious little of that last in most game-titles on either side of the genre divide these days.

I’ll take this up in more detail in my own space. In the meantime… shooting at fish in a barrel gets kind of dull, doesn’t it? Go read China Mieville, Neil Gaiman and Phillip Pullman. Who knows? Your happy reading place might be up for a bit of redecoration.

IF game developers really a killer Sci-Fi MMO that appeals to a broad audience, they should consider more cross platform options.