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.)
Consider yourself ADDED!
+_+
Wel,l I signed up as a Faction Member tonight. I may be able to help create maps, though I'll have to check out Galaxy Forge and get it working properly first (I'm working on it right now, but as it currently stands the thing crashes everytime I try to open it. Checking to make sure I have the correct .net framework and such).
I have some experience with something like this group in an old AOL game called MPBT (Multiplayer Battletech) where they had set up different units inside the various Houses of the Battletech universe.
I've only very recently downloaded and started playing Sins (and Entrenchment), so I'm sure I'm not all that talented a player yet.
Ok so now that makes what 12 people. If we divide that by 3 of course that is 4 per side. We could play I pilot game in the next few weeks to test a few things.
I am not sure what stage of development we are in. I think the thing to do is maybe build up a map with say 3 factions only to been with. Then as the campaign starts to take off people will join up more readily. We can just add extra sectors to the edges of the existing campaign map. Similar to what happened(s) in the battletech universe.
Is anyone working on faction histories, yet? I say again, for now, we should do 3 factions only. One TEC, one Vasari, and one Advent. Keep it at that. We could also, splinter factions later if we need more map space. Would be easy to do. For example, Advent team has 10 players. The team could splinter 5/5 by having a revolt in a sector , if the revolting team wins a series of battles then they gain a foothold in the universe. Granted the orginal Advent team members would not attack the newly formed Advent Faction for a grace period to allow them to build up being new team and such. Your thoughts?
Would there be a way for someone to make a third-party forum for this? It would make organizing much easier then trying to do everything on this one thread...
I can if need be!
I can easily set up a forum!
As for Map...Thats my department (if memory serves me right), i'll just have to get Ue Carbons confirmation of his map and will begin work!
JOIN THE SORROWSWORN!!!
Oh yeah..quick note!
I'll w8 until I get a green light before I start...so hurry up guys +_+
I hope this will be quite a bit RP'ed. RPing has always been a fun hobby of mine, and I even do so occasionally with my buddies on Sins.
As to Pryde's thoughts on revolting, that sounds like a fun way to run it. Definitely need to have the battles to see if they're "allowed to", though.
Hey Binjured,
I know your still waiting on the magic number to sign up before you add anymore work into it. But just curious on if you have a forum or site up for the league yet? A tentive number of factions leaders? Or some basic league rules?
Feel free to email me anytime with any info! Just trying to increase my numbers with friends and such but require some more info for some of them. Look forward to hearing from you!
Sorrow Sworn will rule the space graveyards!!!!!
HA HA HA!!!
PS: I'd like info too so I can start cooking maps
Yeah, cuz you be dead.....Blah Merchs
Turns to face Ue. Carbon then turns back around quickly blushing like a fraking moron after realising his fist will do nothing vs's Ue. Carbon's cybernetic shell! DAMN IT!!!!
Timee to do what we do best..... Sleep lightly Ue. for when we will strike, you will be taken down!
LOL!!! this made me laugh out loud. See thats why I wear this. To prevent that kind of stuff.
Been playing Sins since launch. haven't played multiplayer that much. maybe a game or two. Mainly play against normal and hard opponents. Thought I would get into the multiplayer part. Saw this post, liked what I read, and signed up as a faction member. I have Galaxy map but still getting use to it.
I don't pretend to have much Sins of a Solar Empire experience. Hell, I don't even own the game, I just play it at my friends when I get the chance. I've only actually played one game against the Normal CPU.I do however, plan on buying the game as soon as I get some funding freed up.
But what I do have experience in is forum management. I am the founder, and admin of www.sporemods.org, the most active Spore forum(aside from the offical forums), and the only Spore Modding forum.
What else do I have at my disposal? Web hosting, money for a domain, and a Vbulletin liscence. Vbulletin is the absolute best forum script on the market, but it's not free.
Edit: I've set up a forum. Right now it's pretty out of the box as far as addons go, and the logo is some 5 minute thing I did in photoshop(the text, the planets are part of the forum style).
I'm not buying a domain quite yet, but I'll use my host's provided subdomain: http://eusa.flatlinevision.com/forums/index.php
Status Update: We're up to 13 people now, including a forum admin, which is great news! I'll setup forums this weekend so everyone can start talking some more. I think right now we only have one committed faction leader, but someone else also expressed interest, so getting the factions started in terms of lore and recruiting would be a good start.
Jody, I appreciate the initiative on setting up the temporary boards, but I have reason to avoid vBulletin and am looking to setup a different system which will better integrate with the actual site. Everyone who has signed up will be given the URL via the email they provided when signing up.
Carbon: Once the boards are up, I'll start making proper announcements about numbers and we can begin discussing the little stuff such as initial rules, league name, etc. Obviously a single thread isn't very good for that stuff... this is more about just getting people excited and talking
Understandable.
I didn't realize you had a website in the works already.
Yeah I figured such, I already have my lore and first recruits up and ready. Just wonder if you had a basic idea on some of those topics like league ruels etc etc. So I could help tie those into my factions rules and also help promote more. I was waiting for either the site or forums to post my info on the faction. Or at least waiting till you said this is offically Green for Go!!! I will assume once there is another faction we will start. So I will go ahead and start posting and setting up my faction for recruitment!
My faction (The SorrowSworn) is ready to roll!
We are currently 2 players...have NO HISTORY, NO RULES but we play Vasari! More to come as I get time to write some (In full house renovations still) so I'm struggling for time! But this evening should prove ok!!
So hit it Ue Carbon!!!
Lets get this show on the roll!
I OFFICIALLY GIVE A GREEN LIGHT FOR FACTIONS TO START APPEARING!
Woohoo! Glad to see the ball rolling!!
Yeah! We got 2 factions now! Need more factions and it'll be all set to rock & roll!
OK this is my first post on here, even though i already signed up for this quite a while ago. im excited to finially see that this might happen. been quite up till now waiting to see if this would actually get off the ground.
But as you can tell by my name im already apart of a faction, as i signed up as a faction member. me and Carbon go way back so im pretty oblogated to be on his faction.
Can't wait till we start this.
Can't wait to start killing the SorrowSworn!!!!
DAMN YOU CARBON!!!!!
Teaming up on me with your associates.....GRRRRRRR....!
I just need memebers though! We're only 2 +_+ Not much to kill
Its a shame you pick Vasari. I also have another member who yet make his apperance on this post. I also will assume more will follow with offical annoucement of -Ue_ faction.
Yeah, we go back as far as 2 people can go back.
LOOOOL! I'M ....ed seriously makes this oh so funnier
Need more sorrowsworns!!
I am please to announce the second faction -Ue_ is now active!
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