New project from SOE will tap local talent to "think like the consumers there."

Sony Online Entertainment's head of business development, David Christensen, has pointed to some naiveté when it comes to the Western understanding of other cultures.

He was speaking following the unveiling of the publisher's new MMO, which takes inspiration from a holy Hindu poem, and aims to promote awareness of the religion to Western audiences.

"Unfortunately I think most people - not just those in the gaming industry - are a bit naïve when it comes to any culture but their own, which is precisely why SOE believes it is of the utmost importance to partner with local talent in every foreign market we enter," David Christensen told Eurogamer. "To be successful in a territory you have to think like the consumers there."

Virgin Comics will be joining SOE on the project, and will be using its Ramayan 3392 AD publication as the basis for the game. This retells the ancient story of the Ramayana in a futuristic science-fiction setting.

The game is being built predominantly for the Indian market, but Christensen believes it will find success around the world and might help teach us a thing or two in the process.

"The game is being developed in India for Indian gamers, but we expect it to be a success worldwide; to anyone that enjoys a rich and colourful storyline," continued Christensen.

"The comic Ramayan 3392 is meant to be entertaining, but at the same there are lessons in honour, duty and karma to be learned from it. I'm hopeful we can capture some of those lessons in our game."

It's all part of Sony Online Entertainment's plans to offer new gaming experiences to the MMOG audience. Christensen feels that although there is still space for high-fantasy games like EverQuest, in general the genre has moved on.

"I think it's more accurate to say we've moved on from the traditional model of MMOGs. There are many multiplayer games today that have a 'massive' number of players, all competing for the time of potential customers," he added.

"SOE firmly believes we need to create games in new genres, and also bring new types of gameplay experiences to them; The Agency and Free Realms are examples of these beliefs."

The MMO based on Ramayan 3392 AD is yet to enter development, and Christensen expects 2010 is a likely release date - although he insists it will be given as much time as it needs to ensure maximum quality.

I'd never be able to bring myself to play a game that actually makes it a point to promote a religion. I don't mind creating a new religion that might be based on existing ones but I don't want any religion thrown in my face whether it be christianity, judaism, hinduism, etc.

/summon the people who hate SOE.

I personally have never dealt with the company, so I don't really know if they are good or bad, but man are some of the people on here bitter at them. I have never personally met someone who played an SOE MMO and disliked the company.

In any case, this game does look interesting, but I am not really an MMO kind of guy. More games the better though.

A little off topic, but when I first saw the thread title I thought it said Rayman MMO and I was trying to decide if that was worst or most genius idea ever...

Sorry to be your first transgressor Akuma, but I doubt I'd ever pay for a Sony MMO again.

EQ was good, very good, I played it for almost 4 years (I think, hard to remember sometimes). I've also tried every other MMO they've released and unfortunately they have a habit of radically changing elements and pissing off customers. Also, their habit of releasing new expansions at an insane rate doesn't help much either. EQ eventually became too buggy for me to enjoy, and to stay ont he cutting edge you had to get the 3-4 expansions they released every year. EQ2 went from being a very good game (I chose it over WoW) to being a completely different game 3 months later. All the parts that were fun got changed and IMO for the worse. SWG was good at the beginning as well but turned into a total mess soon after (though I seem to remember they fixed many of the problems later on). Planetside was decent for an MMO FPS, but it was laggy as hell and hard to progress in unless you played constantly.

I think I might have missed one or two in there someplace, but the essential progression has been the same time and again. Start out with a good idea and then screw around with it until it becomes something totally different.

Now, ignoring gameplay, they also had constant technical problems. Every EQ patch meant weeks to months of unstable servers that made it hard to play, or had massive amounts of both network and graphical lag. Then they'd spend the next 3 months fixing all the bugs they introduced with the latest expansion...just in time to release the next one which started the process over again. Playing in the first few days of any expansion was next to impossible as you had massive disconnects and most servers were taken down repeatedly for emergency patches in those first days. On top of that, but SOE rarely if ever refunded subscription money for that downtime. I can remember only one time where I got anything from them in compensation and that was because the servers were down for like 48 hours strait.

Contacting technical support was often like pulling nails...assuming you got anyone at all. The easiest method was by email but that took days normally. In game game masters...you wish. If we had a GM actively answering questions on my EQ server, everyone knew because there would be amazed outcries in public chat channels.

My last problem with SOE and the MMO's they run is that you don't get much for your subscription fee's. New content updates were rare, dynamic content was restricted to a few events a year around major holidays and in general consisted of a specific zone being filled with high level mobs that ran around slaughtering everyone, until high level groups got together and dealt with it (aka, it was more a hassle for everyone but the top end players than a fun event).

Compared to WoW (I only choose WoW because it is the most popular MMO), your 15$ a month is practically wasted. WoW provides numerous interactive events throughout the year, involving new gameplay elements and lots of new activities and quests (though they do become repetitive if you've done them the previous year). On top of that, but they hold a reasonable number of global interactive events, normally situated around major patches. Speaking of the patches, WoW provides regular new content that you don't have to go out and purchase in a store. One expansion up to now with a second one announced in like 3-4 years. In the same period We had a good 9 expansions in EQ, all of which were 30$ to purchase (one side note, this expansion explosion really only happened after SOE took over development from the original team).

Another nice change in WoW is the ingame technical support. In general I get a response in less than half an hour, and unless it is something that needs authorization from someone higher up the chain I get the help I need.

Anyway, if people have other experiences with SOE MMO's, please feel free to share them. I know I'm not an isolated event, nor was I blacklisted in some way, because I've played through most fo the MMO's with about a dozen friends and spent years on one of the top guilds in EQ, they all had similar experiences.

edit: I just looked back and I guess it was only 2 expansions a year in EQ, though it felt like more.

Fear not, the Ramayana is folklore and myth, not an organized religion per se. It's a bunch of stories told in different ways, and lots of places in India have their own (wildly different) versions of the stories. Perfect background for an MMO, but we'll just have to see if the company delivers...

That's cool, but a point that you might want to consider is that hinduism unlike the abramic faiths-Christianity Islam Judaism, is more of a cultural-ethnic entity with philosophical elements than a religion proper.  Sure, there are many deities, but with having so many means that your society ends up being very loosely attached to one or any of them.  Nobody in India cares if you are an atheist.  There is no indian equivalent to christian conservatives. 

So, hinduism is more about being indian I think than about the religious aspects. btw, I'm a white boy that likes asian culture so i'm probably biased

"""""A little off topic, but when I first saw the thread title I thought it said Rayman MMO and I was trying to decide if that was worst or most genius idea ever..."""""""

==> I thought exactly the same thing lol

@twesterm and libellule

Thank goodness I am not alone. My real question was : Would I be allow to play as a Rabbid?

I do not like SOE.