When I was a younger man, before I became the old and decrepit 24 year old before you, there was a little-known game not much unlike this one. It was fun, nerdy, made by a small yet very active company (before Microsoft got it, I guess), and had a small, dedicated community of players. Okay, not "Holy crap there are 200 people on ICO at the same time?!" small, but you get the idea. The game was Mechcommander and one of the leagues formed around it went by the name of Steel Command.
The SCL was a heavily role-played league which used Mechcommander as a vehicle to wage an enormous interstellar war between the various Battletech factions (faction websites still exist today, in all their 1998 glory). Factions would fight for territory and resources. They would commit Mechs and other resources to battles, then play out those battles in the game. There was diplomacy and even an enormous map which was manually updated to reflect faction ownership changes (this was back before the web was "dynamic"
I think a league like this would work well in Sins for a few reasons. First of all, it is asynchronous. That is, factions can schedule games or just issue orders ("Explore this planet", etc.) and won't need to randomly have a whole lot of players on at the same time (this is the main reason clans don't work right now). Secondly, Sins is very customizable, which is required for this sort of thing to work. The Map Designer is quick and dirty, but the real power lies in Galaxy Forge (assuming it gets fixed) which allows maps to be custom-tailored to battles. With this customization combined with the fact that different battles can have different supply caps, sizes and so forth, games can be long or short depending on the battle setup and include any number of other variables.
Sins games can be incredibly long, back and forth, intense experiences even though the action isn't necessarily constant -- that's what I love about it. You have to make big decisions -- do I build up and dig in or rush? Do I save that planet being attacked or do I counter? -- which can affect where you are an hour later. But what if the game didn't end in an hour, a day, or a month? What if there were an entire Universe to conquer and not just a star or two at a time?
If there's a game out now that could be used to resurrect the enormous scope and breadth of Steel Command, it is almost certainly Sins. However, this is no minor task and will require dedication and effort from many -- not to mention players! I'm not sure if we have enough people yet, but we'd have to start somewhere. This would be a considerable undertaking and I am already extremely low on free time, so I'm putting this out now to see what sort of interest there is, if any. Please provide feedback!
P.S. If you're wondering who would actually make the site for this, the answer is me. I do it for a living so we've at least got that part covered.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!
Like what you've read so far? Then check this out!
Okay folks, it seems like we have enough people interested to make an official inquiry here on the boards. The way I see it, we need a minimum of 25 people to start really getting the ball rolling in an official way on this thing. To that end, I have created a form that interested parties should fill out. It shouldn't take more than 30 seconds and will give me a way to keep track of people with serious interest.
One of the questions asks what you want your "role" to be; I have created the following roles with my recommendation of minimum numbers to fulfill in parenthesis (assumes 3 initial factions; one for each race):
Fill out the form here: http://binjured.wufoo.com/forms/sins-league-signup/
Thank you in advance!
(Entrenchment required for membership for the time being; with more players, hopefully we can have two leagues... but that's a dream for now.)
Ok, I mocked up some very very basic maps. To show basic territory.
Pre-Entrechement: http://api.photoshop.com/home_7847619f59f24b2cbf4161f11ea40eae/adobe-px-assets/a42239d373144c3898e7b5c4bd998c30
Entrechement-Era: http://api.photoshop.com/home_7847619f59f24b2cbf4161f11ea40eae/adobe-px-assets/9ef4c69d97104db38ff696293baaedcb
Like I said very basic and of course can and I hope modified!
Yeah! Now we just need to translate them too a Galaxy Forge map!
I could do it! but I need help on how many planets, star,layout...etc!
Very true, I was more curious than anything.
These are the sorts of things that I think will be fun to come up with, but we'll need to balance them with logistical nightmares they may create
I like the phases idea a lot because we can also do things like change rules / add features, etc. for new phases if those changes would seriously disrupt an existing phase. We wouldn't have so many jarring balance issues.
Yeah, this will be where the bulk of the work comes in I think.
Try to find a nice high res picture of a galaxy (should be plenty of Milky Way) and see if you can superimpose something like that on it I was going to try that this weekend but you beat me to it. Should be pretty simple with PS. Go layers!
Yeah I might do that. If I do i will try and redo the borders to match the galaxy.
Oh Im signing up right now!!! WOOT WOOT!!!!!
By the way, by faction I didn't mean race. I see there's only room for 3 faction leaders. I meant more the various factions in a race. So there's TEC, but there are different groups of them. Same way SCL was, Inner Sphere had a bunch of houses, Clan had.. well, clans
Though I suppose as a first run it can remain as an overall race.
Oh I just noticed that too. There should be at least 2 factions per race. That way you could have inner faction wars. Cuz sometimes you just need to kick your own races butt.
I subscribed as a galaxy forge addict
Binjured...anything you could give me to get this started..
With instructions on the layouts..I can make maps.
I could set up a forum,etc??!
Wanna help bad! This is by far the best idea in sins multiplayer community +_+
Annatar, I know you didn't mean race. I was saying we could start with one faction per race. Having more than that may not be possible. If we have the numbers for it though, awesome.
ShadowMastiff, I'll get some forums setup for us as soon as we have the minimum sign-ups. Until then, the best thing you can do is convince more people to join Thanks for the offer though, we'll be needing a lot more help later!
AEROHAWKS!!!!
ALIGN BEHIND MY BANNER! Together we shall wipe the universe of all living.....ADVENT!!!
Bloody space-age HIPPIES! LOOL
LOL, so are the Aerohawks green for go? or are you still hoping for their creation? LOL, they sound like a Cartoon ....*cough*THUNDERCATS*cough*
Oh, Annatar I know you were planning to make a map, and I said I was going to redo mine. I still am, just waiting on a PM back from someone. Untill then, I would like to see what you had cooking.
Sounds super! Id love to be involded in something like this, just comming back to SIns after a break and you caught my attention!
Then register at the link in the site and assign yourself a role so we can get this show on the road!
Yeah what Shadow said. We need members!!! Ive poste links in a couple of other topics about roleplaying and such. So maybe that will help get a few signed up!
Binjured, do we offically have a green light to start faction creation/recruitment yet? What about aggresively promoting this league via ICO/IRC/fourms?
Like Shadow said a couple of post back, Im am also willing to help as much as you need!
Yeah I know whats its like working mostly alone (DOME Mod he he he) and thus will commit as much time as you need to help (to the limit of my capabilities of course)!
Please give us green light!
AEROHAWKS will rise from the grave AGAIN!
I have been playing sins for a while. this seems to be an interesting concept. i have created similar things. Mostly battletech RPG to tabletop battles back in the day of FASA before wizards of the coast Nerfed BT to the point of silliness.
But that is a different topic.
I do not know what I can help with other than maybe histories of factions.
thanks
Pryde
Doesnt matter! We just need players right now! So PLEASE register on the link in OP!
Thank you! Many people are w8ing for enough contributions to start the creation process!
B U M P Y BUMP BUMPB U M P Y!!!
Yeah I was unable to check forums for like 2-3 days and this thing is NOT MOVING!
COME ON PEOPLE! YOU AFRAID OF COMMITMENT OR WHAT???
THIS WILL REVOLUTIONIZE SINS MULTIPLAYER COMMUNITY!!!!
Hello, this is my first post here in the forums. I have no experience in this type of league gameplay but I'm willing to learn. I'm signing up as a Faction Member. Hope we can make this work.
YOUPI! +1Karma to you!
We currently have 9 fine sinners committed to this. Tell your friends so we can get the rest!
Oh, this sounds like a capital idea! Really, this is like a dream come true to any serious strategy player, especially when you're gripped like this by Sins.
I've just filled out the form, wanting to join as a faction member, but I'm willing to join as a Faction Leader as well if those are needed. I don't have much experience with map-working or such, however, so I really can't offer much help in those respects.
If the people related to this thing could add me to MSN, that would be much appreciated! yjama@live.com
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