Once again, I dont think that the different categories used to support pen & paper RPGs suit the video game universe.
To a degree, this is true- some of the constraints placed on tabletop RPGs either don't exist or are less severe within video games, when it comes to particular techniques. (e.g, you can implement quite complex calculations and have them run invisibly behind the scenes within a video game without the player having to learn the exact details beforehand.) Also, many video games are single-player, so that inter-player conflicts of interest aren't as likely to occur.
However, a lot of the same constraints DO apply. For example, levels, classes, XP and HP are useful in the context of Gamism but nonsensical from a Sim perspective. Conversely, wound mechanics and practice-based skill progression complement Simulationism, but just get in the way for Gamists. (And there's a number of other frictions between those and Narrativism.)
More generally, though, it's a question of size vs. commitment with respect to the audience you want to attract and the economic constraints on development. If you try to create a game that will please everyone at once, you'll probably have created a uniformly mediocre experience. If you pick a particular audience and stick to it, you'll attract a smaller but more loyal following.
PR talks. They have to sell their new franchise. The Medieval times were many things. They cherry picked (or made up) to support the flavour their game is supposed to taste.
Oh, I'm well aware that a faithful depiction of the
real middle ages would have a very different flavour to it, but I'm perfectly happy with the medieval-revisionist, 'lite' fantasy version they're presenting here. I'll cheerfully take fireballs and amulets of recall over the gong pit and the oubliette, thankyouverymuch, as long as the world is
internally consistent.
What worries me more about the announcement is that they *do* seem to trying to go after all 3 demographics at once. If they are not very, very, careful, they're going to drift their design straight into the muddy waters of incoherence. ...It's been argued that's happening already. Gamism, in particular, has a marked tendency to 'take over'- They might find total abstinence was easier than perfect moderation.
This version will have to deal with competition between players with all the behaviours associated with it. Or it might keep competition out of the bowl but I wonder if people are going to taste a MMO game with no competition in it.
The sense I'm getting is that the game itself isn't an MMO- it simply describes itself as borrowing MMO elements, in the sense of crafting skills, quest mechanics, and having a slew of invested characters. Not that the
players represent those characters.
EA already tried going with a Sims MMO, in the Sims Online- it didn't pan out particularly well, partly because it
did emphasise competition and grinding, but also- ironically- because having real people play (almost) every sim introduced out-of-character agendas that made it feel
less Sim-like.
I've gradually come to the conclusion that it would be almost impossible to create a genuinely Simulationist MMO, (unless you had the NPCs outnumber the PCs by a factor of something like 10 to 1, and came up with a plausible explanation for why the PCs can never permanently
die. Possibly make them demonic possessors from another plane of reality. ...Heck, that'd be mostly accurate.)
