Been kinda tried before, but never got off the ground... XXX MMP

#1 I'm pretty sure this is only me but I don't find such games to pick my interest at all. Sex is so over-estimated and sometimes in games; morally wrong.

Of course with good design & implementation, this is not always the case. But _porn_ and all that often get's mixed up in the process.

Not saying your idea will suck, or that sex sucks - not at all.. I'm saying it makes me turn my head away rather than look that extra time.

My few cents.

#2 Well I for one think it's a cool idea.
I would check it out and it if was done right. it could be fun.

I was gonna make a ctf mod for quake
where you dont capture the flag you capture the girl
you have to take her back to a room in your area.
and Everyone on your team has to bang her before the enemy takes her back, if everyone bangs her then any other players banging her after everyone else has scores you extra points.

#3 One problem I could forsee right off the bat would be ensuring that your clients were not underage... Potential for trouble there is high.

OTOH, it's true that "sex sells", and if done right, would probably work. To give some semi-related examples:

- It's not for no reason that MMO marriages are so popular, and were predated by MUD marriages; most MUDs also had a "free emote" room set up for the "night after" the wedding.

- Recent surveys of US citizens regarding their interest level and reasons for wanting to take a vacation in space at a resort type space station showed two things of especial interest: first, that there was a very high level of interest, and second that the main activity American potential-tourists wanted to do in space was have sex there...

- The US Army went and created a universal web-based email system for all soldiers to aid in communication home from deployed locations. They added an IRC-style chatroom hosting ability as well. The chatrooms were promptly dominated by...you guessed it...cybersex rooms.

Yeah, the market is there.

#4 It's kinda interesting that such polarity came in those first 2 responses.

Stefan, it sounds like it's the sort of thing that just wouldn't be your bag. The game is ultimately about sex, with the in game mechanisms for it being as graphic or soft as you like. If that's not your thing it doesn't really matter how well done it is. For instance I will nver buy a golf game, even if there IS sex thrown in (or zombies for that matter), I just don't like golf games :)

Badguy, even though this game is ultimately about sex, it's about the pursuit and relationships even more so. NPC's are interesting for only so long. It's the real people behind the characters that pose the challenge.

Thanks for the comments.

#5 The market is most definitely there... I run adult web sites and have been making a living on that basic market for years. The verification of age thing for the most part will prohibit physical retail location sales (with the exception of adult book stores), and basically an extra hoop to jump through at online purchase time.

#6 I've thought that sex and romance are important ingredients that have been missing from mmo games, and I would even play a 'porn' game if the writing and music was higher quality than porn movies, but... no magic, no weapons, no item, no fighting?!? What's left to play with? I mean, I would at least want items like sexy clothes you could dress the avatars in.


At any rate, if you want someone to work on the design with, I'd be interested to take a look at what you have so far - I have experience with ren'ai/hentai game design, I write erotica, and I draw lingerie, so I could probably be helpful,in addition to critiquing the design from a female pov. ^_~

#7 Jeb Lee

You didn't get my point at all. Keeping it morally correct is what I was referring to. I'm not a "no-sex" guy, in fact.. it's something that I love.

I don't think verification of age will be a very hard thing to do, Lula did this kinda well and didn't get sawed the way like other games do (anyone heard of Postal?).

Don't understand what you mean with Polarity, but either way.

Badguy

I don't think that's a nice concept. The girl cannot chose who she wants to bang herself? I don't know what it's called in English but where I live they would call that wrong in a very strong sense. Younger adults or even pre-18 WILL play it and some will get a wrong view of women. Maybe you already have that yourself, I don't know.

Again, these are my few cents.

Edit: ROMANCE on the other hand, is a great thing. But that's not HEY LET'S BANG THIS GIRL BECAUSE SHE CAN'T DECIDE HERSELF

#8 I think I did understand your post Stefan, it's simple not really something you'd be interested in. And "morals" are a tricky thing. One can't exactly say what's moral and not. Just portraying a navel is immoral to some. What I can say that in this game, there is no violence. Period. However, the sex will hopefully be whatever you want to make it out to be.

And I'd hope that everyone loves sex LOL

Mare, By "no items" I meant nothing like in current MMO games where you fight and fight and fight just to get that super duper piece of armor. Or click the same pattern over and over again for hours and days on end making your Silverleaf meals to sell. It's more about developing relationships with real people (and from the male POV to have cybersex) and pursuing sexual relations with the NPC's, based on personality type. Items are actually a large part of the fun, but it's not like you go out and fight monsters to get gold to buy your sword. It's more like you go out and buy that jacuzzi or grill or thong or whathaveyou.

Whenever someone says "avatar" I think those tiny little things. Nuh-uh. The graphics and look are my top priorities. Followed by physical interactions, which is proving to be the trickiest part. This one part I can not visualize in my head how it will work precisely. I want the actual act of the sex to not be easy, it will be an intricate process. Beyond the touch n feel interfaces using your mouse to stroke that have been thought up before. Plus, it's not necessarily a computer controlled entity you're makin tha love to, it may be a real person, so to make the sex smooth with both parties participating is turning out very difficult to design. I want it to feel like you're performing a dance, not repetitive.

Thanks for taking the time to read and respond everyone.

#9 I don't know if it released world wide, but there is a game called 'Singles: Flirt up your life' where that is the idea.. to 'lay' as many girls/boys as you can for points.

as for no magic, items, whatever I agree with Mare, that would get boring kinda fast.. I mean would you really want to play a game based on sex for 8 hrs (rough game completion time) .. at least if you are gonna make me play a game about sex, I wanna real good story and something to build up my stats .. The sims did it without the sex based bit ..

Just my 2 pence .. (we have pence over here not cents :P)

#10 Again Jeb, please read what I actually said.
I said it's something that I love, sex. I think that says pretty clearly that it's something I'm interested in, and as you put it yourself; who isn't? :P

If it's no violence, eg. no "porn violence" then I guess I'm all for it. Just don't mix into all that "man is the sexmachine and the women just has to obey" style most porn movies have, I don't think it will do any well.

#11 Interesting, this isn't something that's come up at all in our design discussions. I suppose you may want to think of it more as an interactive chat room, with the ability to "physically" interact with objects and people and move around. There are quite a few other things that I can't really talk about in detail, but there are no stats. But it's something we may have to reconsider.

#12 Hi again Stefan, I maybe did misunderstand your initial post "I'm pretty sure this is only me but I don't find such games to pick my interest at all. Sex is so over-estimated and sometimes in games; morally wrong."

I took that to mean that you would not find a sex game interesting at all. I understood that you were not against sex, like it says in your last sentence, it's very clear you are not against sex, and I've never said I thought you were. Simply that a game based on sex (which this is) is something that you would not look twice at.

As for "porn violence", I don't really want to open up that can of worms. There's some things out there that really do offend me, and I'm not particularly easy to offend. However, one person in control of other during sex is a common relationship, be it the male or female in control. It's not an issue of equal footing or superiority, but simply that of sexplay and that different things turn different people on. And we accomodate for that. Basically for the most part, you will be able to simulate any type of sexual relationship you could have in real life with another person. From "gentle warm summer breeze by the lake with gazelles leaping in slow motion over your bodies" kinda sex to the "wake up on the other side of the house with your clothes torn and drenched in sweat wondering wtf happened oh yeah I had amazing circus sex last night" kinda sex.

Perhaps it hasn't been clear that the sex is primarily between real people, which interactions between them both. The nature of that sexual relationship is entirely up to the 2 players.

Sex with NPC's is similar. The nature of your relationship with him or her will strongly be based on the NPC's personality. You won't be able to force anything on a person or NPC.

I hate to put it this way because I see it as so much more than this... but think of it as a very sophisticated chat room... there is no game completion time. It's a MMORPG.

#13 This is one of those threads! *Crosses fingers* =)

Unfortunatley I don't see the market for an all sex MMORPG. Right off the bat I get a feeling like something would be missing. It feels very hollow. Maybe if people played it very casual for an hour or so, on and off. The focus should IMHO be on the textual and not the visual as the visuals of real-time CG is still somewhat lacking. This sounds like a game intended for a mature audience though and I wouldn't be caught dead playing sex in a virtual environment. I'd say you'd risk the pathetic loser stamp from both your girlfriend/wife and friends. Maybe you'd like to share a little more as far as what the focus would be and so on? Maybe you're just thinking IRC with visuals and with a sexual theme?
I'm not against the idea. I'm sure there's a lot of people who would enjoy it (in secrecy?). I can just imagine sitting at the pub with your friends: "Yeah, so I was playing City of Sin and this hot 5000 poly, you know not the standard 3400 poly model you see everywhere now, girl comes up to me. I swear at least 4000 of those polys was in her boobs and brown, what looked like hair, deep blue eyes with like 20 times 20 texels detail. It was totally sweet! She was all over me. Standing there with her idle social action, looking at what might be me. So I started talking dirty to her. You know typing all kinds of crazy shit and she just stood there taking it all in. Turns out she was just a little slow on the keyboard and was meeting her 15000 poly boyfriend! I'm not talking about the fat 15000 poly dude either. Yeah, got some sweeeet experience from that encounter.".

Badguy,
Lmao! That's somewhat sick but definitely funny sick. What were you gong to call it? I can think of a couple of catchy titles ;P

Stefan,
It's virtual pretend people. Let people bang the girl, or in Mare's case, the guy. Sounds like fun ;P

PS.
Polycounts may be exaggerated and/or for NV40 or X800.

#14 Peter:
It's about keeping it etical. You know what I mean, I'm sure.

Jeb Lee:
The tricky part then, get's to make girls play the game.
Might be fun if that succeeds though :)

#15 LOL Peter, nice post, I think you're right, it's going to be one of those threads that gets people riled up one wya or another.

The market is of course something we're very concerned about. However, the online porn industry alone (ignoring physical sales and rentals, I'm talking just online) brings in staggering amounts of money. I know as a porn consumer before a porn producer I've never bragged about watching some particularly choice footage to my friends at a bar... yet I've spent money purchasing porn. The same kinda goes for games, I risk the loser stamp with my wife and friends everytime I bring up Everquest or Star Wars Galaxies or City of Heroes or Dark Age of Camelot. I'm not going around the block bragging that my Fire/Fire Science Blaster hit level 13 yesterday haha. This is targetted at the porn consumer (and remember "porn" doesn't mean hardcore gonzo videos necessarily, porn is many things) more than the gamer.

Funny you should bring up City of Sin, that was the first name we thought of since we were all excited about City of Heroes, but we really don't want to get sued by either Cryptic Studios or the City of Las Vegas :D

#16 Here's to hoping it succeeds Stefan. The other games similar to this never got a chance to even find an audience considering they never really existed. They never even really got a code base started. This might very well end up in the same situation, not a line of code has been written yet. We're still assessing timelines and deciding if those of us involved have the resources to commit to it.

#17 Jeb, woa.
You never talk to friends about porn and play video games in secrecy. Does the misses run a tight ship? ;P You're probably right about City of Sin being a bad name though. Now you got me thinking about what a power gamer in a porn game would be like. That's a scary image right there! I'll stop bloating this thread now.

#18 You could call it Karma Whore, lol. That could be how your economy worked - every player gets X karma a day but they can't spend that, they can only give it to others - they can only spend karma that is given to them by other players and npcs.

#19 Badguy, I loved your CTF idea. And Stefan, it could be like a game in a party, like a sports game. The girl would be there exactly to be "captured", hired to bang everybody.

If you do this game I'll re-baptise you Bang-guy.

#20 I dont understand what the motivation would be in this game... to get virtually laid? What would the challenge be? NPCs that are hard to get? Also, sounds like a TON of art/animation work to get all the variations, and what about the control system?? Potentially low ROI, and I think that you would just end up getting a ton of 15 year old boys, horny old men and thats it; would make for some nasty law suits me thinks.

I think if you wanna go the sex route, make a 3D sim type game where you play a pimp and the goal is to get girls, get underlings and make some of that sweet sweet green stuff. Hell, you could even put GTA stuff in there; buy gangsters to do hits on your competition. THAT I would play... .

Doesnt burgerwars have "Capture the clown" or something for their CTF?

-s