Many years ago I played a game called "Archmage" as a web browser game which was very similar to Master of magic in theme. I like the idea that you could play a game with a web browser since flash games were not very common at that time.
The problem with this kind of game design is the fact that players can attack each other but they are not all playing at the same time. So you could get in a situation where you log in in the morning and you are dead. Players target people randomly for not good reason.
I know that another game I don't know the name grouped people together as kingdoms. So you were not fighting player vs player, but kingdom vs kingdoms.
The best onweb game designs are those where the players does not directly interact with each other. For example, a stock ticker onweb game is awesome because all players interact with the stock market but never with each other.
The idea I had last night was to have an on web game where each player play his own game at the pace he wants. There is no interaction between players, so the rival kingdoms in a player's game are all controled by NPC which makes it easier to manage battles between kingdoms.
The world would be arranged a bit like Magic the gathering, every player is on a realm of his own. But there would be indirect interaction between the worlds via magic. What players do in their game might trigger events that affect all players. Or some events might ask player to make a choice and their choice will influence the game of everybody.
I just want to ask some comments about the idea
Do you like the idea?
For those who played "archmage" and other onweb games, what else you don't like about these games?
What I didn't like about archmage was that a lot of strategy revolved around positioning your units in the right order (the first unit in a stack always fought against the first unit in the enemy's stack). It just felt so extremely FAKE. I'd much rather give units order to follow, ie flank, attack head on, fire and retreat, focus on archers/mages/giants/whatever.
Plenty of modern webgames have worked around the issue of direct attacks by delaying them up to X hours, and sometimes introducing sieges that can last for days.
What I don't like about your idea is the lack of interaction between players. I don't really see the point in having a massive MMO webgame if it isn't competitive. Webgames become boring extremely quickly if all you can do is grow and explore content.
AM protected you from extreme damage anyway, though you could sort of game that as well. The case where you wake up 'dead' is mostly left to situations where you left too many counters available on you, or you were in a faction (guild? I forget) which was at war.
The solution was to play on the solo server. Maybe still is the solution. I dunno.
I kinda agree with Heavenfall about the way combat is handled, but not 100%. The issue was more that you had to really understand how the stack mechanics worked to be successful, and still, some stacks just got eaten by counter stacks, so you had to be careful (and lucky) in your targeting. I do really like what AM tries to do, I just find I don't have the patience to play through a full reset without getting bored/crazy and screwing myself over
Though AM was tons better years ago when the player base was much bigger. That's also a problem for many of these kinds of games, once the player base drops past a certain level there is not enough variety left, and only a few strats are effective, which makes for dull game play. Like where everyone decides to play Nether and spams liches (or whatever) and you happened to pick the color which sucks at dealing with liches (cough phantasm cough) [well not totally true, but it forced you to build a non-optimal stack for anything else].
Hmmm....
Maybe I should reincarnate one more time
Anyone else up for a tiny little EWoM guild
I played Tribalwars a LOT. And it would not be nearly as fun if you could not fight other players directly.
I mean I would appreciate a web based 4x game that I can play whereever I am and without installing anything but a browser (and java and flash) on that computer. But the payment system for developers would need to work differently if the game wasn't about killing other players as the player base would not be nearly as big.
Another idea that I have un-dusted, that could work well as a web game since there is no player to player direct interaction, is that you play a wizard controlling a covenant that lives within a kingdom which tolerates more or less your presence. So in return, you must serve the kingdom and follow more or less their demands.
Players would not be able to attack each others, but the kingdoms (controlled by NPC) can wage war against other kingdoms. Players will be able to influence the outcome of the kingdom's action according to how much they support their kingdoms. Some players could be more loyalist while other players could be more rebels. If the player's territory get's invaded, he will be asked to either support is kingdom or either support the invader.
There would be indirect player interaction, For example: I could sell stuff to a caravan that travels from a player to another. The stuff I sell will be available to other players. So yes, I can decide what to sell and could voluntarily create a resource shortage but I cannot sell directly to another player. So players can influence the game, but they cannot easily target someone or take advantage of another player.
Finally, I like games that requires a low amount of time to spend. So if I ever design that kind of game, I will make sure it will be possible to play by logging in at least once a week.
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