If you are planning to spend a few years and many thousands of dollars making a MMORPG, you have the odds stacked up against you. Most MMORPG's lose money. It is only the few that manage to retain a large player-base, many months after the initial launch. But if your game is a hit, the pay off can be huge.
One new MMORPG that is coming up is called Fallen Earth. It seems to have a few things going for it: instead of the tired fantasy world YAMFRIES design (Yet Another MMORPG Featuring Rogues, Imps, Elves or Sorcerers), Fallen Earth takes place in a 22nd century post-nuclear world inhabited by the remnants of new societies, in a region around the Hoover Dam. The game is a FPS-MMORPG cross, but the combat has more 'twitch' elements than, say, Tabula Rasa did -- but it isn't a full-fledged MMO FPS like Huxley is, Fallen Earth is defintely a MMORPG.
The game is currently in alpha testing, with no firm release date set. Recently a guy named 'Baka' has been posting about his experiences with the game, on a forum. Overall, he reports a positive experience with the game, and is looking forward to its release. Here is a couple of key highlights:
1- There are no classes in the game. You don't pick skills or powers at the start of the game. Basically every character begins the same (beside appearance), and you develop the character by choosing allegiances and working on your skills. You enhance your stats (dexterity, strength etc.) by gaining levels, and dispersing your stat points.
2- Crafting plays a big role in the game, through 11 different trade skills, including Cooking and Medicine.
3- There is an incredible 22 different armor slots for your characters. That's a lot of armor ! The slots include such areas as gloves and earrings and belts.
4- You can sneak and crawl in the game.
Judging from what Baka was saying, the game does have a strong FPS feel to it: "FINALLY, I enter FPS mode. Oh My God!! It feels like a true FPS game, everything is so natural at this point, both as far as animations and controls go. As you can see, your weapons actually move/hover, instead of being stiff and frozen, it gives it that very natural feeling."
Here are two videos from the game: the first one shows the character creation options, the second shows some standard gameplay.
