Draginol

Join Date 03/2001

+137

I want to make a MMORTS

The time has come..

As I look at Stardock's massive IT infrastructure I realize something - we are well suited to make a massively multiplayer online real time strategy game.

The problem with RTS's done as massively multiplayer has always been the persistent world. That is, what happens to your empire when you're not playing? There is also quite a bit more involved in keeping the world compelling and interesting over time.

Most game developers would have to build an awful lot of tools to make a persistent RTS world. A lot of non-game tools to solve some of the issues that come into play when you sit down and try to seriously think out how an RTS would be done if it were persistent and massively multplayer. That's something Stardock has in abundance. After all, Stardock.net's infrastructure, already today handles roughly 100,000 unique users per day.

And with some of the talent we now have, we can do this. The time has come for us to make a MMORTS. Details will follow once we have more code in place. We have a really cool design and we have the infrastructure..

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Let me be the first to say: WOOT!

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The problem with a MMORTS is that the central play mechanic, a PvP battle, has yet to be done successfully. Not as in the implementation side, but that the genre has yet to 'prove' itself.
For MMORPGs the central mechanic (stat building) has been 'proven' to be successful.
One the most pressing problems I would think is that the RTS genre itself is running out of steam, basing an MMOG on it would prolly be a bad idea.

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Every RTS out there is PvP, thats the core to the genre itself. I guess the 15 RTS games I played with PvP battles last week alone, aren't done successfully according to you?

If anything the RTS genre will continue to GROW.. If I had to predict, i'd say the FPS genre will begin to falter, while the RTS will continue to rise. Theres several prominant RTS's coming out in 2005, and on a per-sale basis, RTS's continue to be a stable entity in the product line of publishers. One of the best selling games in 2004 was Rise of Nations, a RTS, lets not forget Rome Total War, and the others though.

I think we'll see RTS popularity continue to increase, FPS's start to falter, and RPGs and 4X making a comback in 2005-2006.. Watch and see.

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cactoblasta

Join Date 04/2004

+48

I think Factory was talking about massively multiplayer rts games - although I've never heard of any of them that were worth playing, or any that were real-time in anything but name. I'd like to see what Stardock can do with the concept though.

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http://www.ballerium.com/

I've no idea how it plays but there's a beta going on at the moment.

http://www.shatteredgalaxy.com/ this one actually looks pretty neat.

http://www.mankind.net/ on the go since 1998.

Nobody else was posting the names of these failed previous attempts at MMORTS games...

Personally , while I enjoy RTS well enough (Total Annihilation remains one of my favourite and most played games) I've always found the PvP aspect to be pretty dull because of the inevitable refinement of play that leads to every battle on a particular map being virtually identical. Warcraft 3 gets around this by having continual development of new game types and new maps coming out. Those Blizzard guys really do know their stuff so I'd wait and see how their Battlegrounds turns out for WOW before I went announcing anything MMO. Don't go shouting hey that's an RPG! It's going to be 2 armies clashing for control of territory, how strategic or tactical it turns out will be down to the players. Also look at what was done with Planetside - if you've never played that you really have to at least try it for a month.

A couple of months ago I trawled around looking at a lot of those small web-based strategy games out there and there's a real sense that a successful persistent world treats you like a monkey that learns to press a button to get a handful of peanuts. They're also balanced in such a way that although the ultimate aim of the game is to totally conquer the other side, in actuality this is next to impossible. If you can imagine red and blue liquids (that don't mix) in a petrie dish. As one displaces the other it in turn has to give up space somewhere else. This is how you keep people paying.

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Zoomba

Join Date 11/2002

+114

Damnit, now I want to ditch my job here and move to MI to work for you guys! Strategy have always been my favorite genre, and I've been waiting for someone to do them right in an MMO setting. Time of Defiance kinda did it, but the pacing was way off, making it very boring to play.

Ultimately I'd like to see a MoO or GalCiv style MMO where I slowly expand my empire planet by planet across the galaxy!

*Puts on sandwich-board sign that says "Will Test For Food"*

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thats something interesting and wild imagination but worth thinking that big ................... sujju

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Political Machine wasn't even close to being one of the best games of 2004. Even in context for (US OF A!!) it got surpassed by probably dozens of better games. Even the concept was a conceit, assuming that the rest of the world cares who's US President. If not then why make a US election game? I know, I'm only kidding. It's because you require huge amounts of self-re-inforcement. Do you want to see where the world will be in 10 years time? Look to Australia.

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Interesting...

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2420

Frightlever - I am not sure what The Political Machine has to do with an RTS given that The Political Machine wasn't even real-time. It did, however, win an Editor's Choice award from Computer Gaming World. And for $20, that's pretty good I think.

I think we have one advantage over other attempts too. I want us to give away the actual game for free. There are other methods to generate revenue from the game. We have some ideas that I don't think have ever been done.

With regards to maps - I'm a big believer in randomly generated maps.

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yes, Pirates was better, in my opinion. Political machine is a good original game, but I find Pirates more fun. Thats just my opinion though, so what are you trying to say about people who like Pirates!?

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I dunno, considering I beat pirates in about 25 minutes. I guess i'd say its simplistic, rediculously paced crap designed for people with bad attention spans? But thats me.. Political Machine was much more cerebral. Last year was trendy for mindlessly simple games.. Lets hope 2006 brings some stimulating games that are difficult and cerebreal.

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"Every RTS out there is PvP, thats the core to the genre itself. I guess the 15 RTS games I played with PvP battles last week alone, aren't done successfully according to you?"
I was referring to PvP in a persistant world, not such games as Dune 2, Command and Conquer, et al.

"If anything the RTS genre will continue to GROW.. If I had to predict, i'd say the FPS genre will begin to falter, while the RTS will continue to rise. Theres several prominant RTS's coming out in 2005, and on a per-sale basis, RTS's continue to be a stable entity in the product line of publishers. One of the best selling games in 2004 was Rise of Nations, a RTS, lets not forget Rome Total War, and the others though."
I was referring to RTS in terms of being in the same stable as Dune 2, so I do not consider RTW, Hearts of Iron, etc to be one of those.

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how about a MMOTBS?!? i'd like to see that!

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Okay I don't say much but I have to comment on this one!

I stumbled upon joeuser via galciv of which I am a huge fan. And that is due to the fact that galciv is a STRATEGY game. I love strategy and that's why I hate most of the RTS games out there. I think the concept of realtimeSTRATEGY is great, but most of the games are just REALTIMEstrategy. They are just about who can click faster and optimize his build-up phase. Worst example is WarCraft, others are better, but still... with very few exceptions, real strategic depth can only be found in turn based games (think of classics like Civ, BattleIsle, GalCiv etc.) The RTS games I liked (HeartsOfIron for example) all have a pause function which wouldn't work for an MMO-game.

However, after GalCiv being one of my favourite games ever, I have a lot of trust in you guys.

So please don't screw it up! Please don't make it about who clicks faster, make it about who comes up with a better strategy. Make it slow paced.
(Hm, wait a second, what about having different server running the game with different speeds so guys like me who like to think about every move and consult several tables and statistics before actually doing anything can be happy as well as the people who like insane fast clicking action?)
Oh and how will you deal with the "I can't be online 24/7-syndrome" which is far more critical for a MMORTS than for a MMORPG?
I am very excited about this and hope to read more about it soon. Best luck to you!

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The future is in combining play types.

A game like Battlefield 2 which combines FPS games with 1 person on each teaming being the "general" who views it like an RTS.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2420

Yellow - my problem with most RTS's is tha tthey're not RTSses but should be called RTT (real time tactical).

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The future is in combining play types. A game like Battlefield 2 which combines FPS games with 1 person on each teaming being the "general" who views it like an RTS.

Yup, and one of my favorite games of all time, even now, is Savage, which is a RTS-FPS combo game, and it does it perfectly..

Link

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Shattered Galaxy was alright... and there was a feature, where the longer you played, the higher up you went.
World War II Online is a FPS shooter, which is somewhat tactical, since you must get troops in location.

How do you deal with the world when you are not online in a RTS, well, that is where AI and what you setup the environment to do for you. Of course, the AI will never, or at least not soon, be good enough to defeat a human. This has been tried to some degree with Heat.net's game: 10Six

Of course, the comment about RTS out there are more RT Tactical is true!

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This is something that I've been thinking about since I first played Mircoprose's Lightspeed, there was an awesome game, and it could be played on my 8086. Swirve.com has two sort of MMORTS's, Earth 2020 and Utopia, both allow you to build defenses against attacks when you were offline, and if the universe were big enough, say 100 million, or more, stars, it should be possible to prevent bigger empires from crushing littler ones, or some kind of "defense" for little empires could be put in to place that would prevent large empires from annihilating little ones.

Just some ideas I've been kicking around for about 12 years.

Cheers

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Helix the II:
"Over-come that and you're in business."

Except that you don't have to overcome this to be in business nor do you have to go beyond it to make a profit, else you wouldn't see so many MMO games out there. Now go beyond this and just maybe, given the right circumstance and a bit of marketing and luck, perhaps you can surpase EQ, EQII, SW:galixies and The SIMS, but don't bet on it. You can make a profit though, which sustains a business.

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So, what you need, is a system that lets you take all your resources "offline" with you. That is actually doable. Pretty easy to make PvP or just P killing time and collecting more resources, as well.

How about a system where each player puts up X amount of resources, and then they duke it out on a randomly generated battlefields? Winner takes the purse. You could have have team and clan events then...

Humm... Players could earn (and trade) special unit designs. Or you could tag in RPG elements, so that improved or uber units would become available to the players after they've won X amount of resources or won certain X SP scenarios. However, to keep SOME balance between the Super Vets and newer players, players would have to put up a certain level purse to have those units enabled. This way, you cannot use your Uber Drakanian Marines against a newbie that has just mastered the basics. You play for peanuts, you use peanut units. Notice: In a major event, you'd pony up peanuts, and as you got further advanced, your pot at risk would slowly raise so that you could start breaking out the mid and high level units.

I could see a Science Fantasy realm, allowing that. Sort of a, "The Realm of Aries" ('Halls of Valhalla"?), where players are effectively bored gods, who gain and lose material resource reserves, which they can use to create units to battle each other.

That, I think I could get into, occasionally.

Provided the RTS itself is well done. Of course, to keep it fresh for the old players, SD would have to occasionally shake up the scenarios, host/sponsor (online of course) tourneys that only allow certain type units, etc etc etc.

Players would never be stuck at zero... if they were to lose everything, they'd just have to beat on the AI in SP versus AI. No funds to risk, then it's an idiot. But you keep the yeild low, to keep players from "farming" the give me. Or, you just just have them automatically accumulate X number of points a day. Or both. But again, neither should be significant source... you should make your big lump of resources playing others.

What do you think? It allows for the essence of RTS (playing out a whole game in short time, finding "pickup games" online), while preserving the MMO aspects (carrying forward what you've won) and avoiding some of the worse aspects of MMO (getting everything stolen while you were away sleeping or worse yet, dealing with RL).

The big trouble with any MMO is the exploits. They tend to ruin the honest player's fun, at least from my experience.

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i would have liked to see sort of a mix between warcraft 3 and shattered galaxy, where you chose your team, say elf, and you fought over different areas on a world map, each game would be decentralized, so one of the players involved in the battle would be the server, resulting in very low stress on the central server, when the battle finishes, the remote player server would upload the stats of the game to the central server which would update the world map accordingly, eg, say the night elves win, then they will control that area. each area could have different resources and those resources benefit your nation... anyway, you get the idea......

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After reading this, I can think of plenty of things that could be blended into a persistant world, be at its core one thing, yet blend a few things from other sources....For Instance..

You want a RTS...You want 2 or more sides, preferably more than 2 Id say.
You have Savage and a few other games of the same type where you have RTS blended with RPG
Now Stick in the MMOG and Muds, and heres what I think you could get...

(for lack of name, ill use style of game as its name) Start with a persistant Savage world. In each world, your character, when created, gets a patch of land somewhere on the perimeter of wherever. You get standard buildings that are your own. You are ruler of your own patch of land, have a Major Domo to see over your 1 acre while your away (or you just start out as a mercenary, then build up enough resources to purchase your 1 acre) Now for sake of Growth, this world is ever growing, the world itself Expands to fit its occupants. As you gain in power, your landsize grows, you buy/build more buildings, gain more 'abilities/resources' to draw upon. Bring in the Mechwarrior Mercenaries/Freelancer type of game, where you can become a gun for hire against the other side, or become the boss who hires (probly you start out a merc, then you hire as you get more powerful etc.) You buy weapons, you outfit a company of 'hired goons (live or monsters) and run your scenerio into the other sides areas.

Now theres a few ways it can split from here, your lands generate income/resources, and also have debts to pay, so theres one limiting factor of certain things. You can go on quests for items/resources/heros or hire someone to do management, gain benefits/disadvantages to fit within your own kingdom. You buy Defenses, bodyguards, town guards, police, boarder patrols, outposts, etc as you get bigger and need it. Your town in essence will become a 'zone' like in any MMOG for the other side to come raid and pillage.

There are a few problems with this of course, but they could be worked out, lets just think of the framework.

Now, magically, your area may switch places as you become more powerful/large area or some other system, perhaps they all become islands that move, who knows.

Now for the RTS part when people are away. Your town is already a defensive keep, with the ability to hire people for missions or maintain a standing army. the other aspect is buying buildings that spawn units that rush at the other sides boarder (collective boarder, however you do a PvP boarder) which has defenses built up with money from the side as a whole, from conquests from the one side, from beating back the enemy and having monsters loot the treasure from the attackers. I can envision a maelstrom constantly in play in the center if sides are even in strength, and one side getting stronger due to players being crafty or helping out, or just making a better strategy of units, and packs of spawns.

So, you have the center battle, you have ways to get around that battle and infiltrate the other side, and sabatage stuff (either permanently, or temporarily depending on whatever it is they sabatage) the posibilities are endless, people have to pay to repair, or can get other players to help repair, and players could be the repair people in game, charging for services, etc...Bang, in game economy, with shops that build the upgrades, the buildings, the repairs etc...

The limiting factor for making one side have more people than another could be one of the larger one side is, magically its harder to plant a plot of land there because of crowding, but if theres symetry in the magical planes, getting into one side or the other is simple, but if one side has 1000 players, and the other 500, you hit a brick wall of force that wont let you go to the 1000, but will easly allow you entry into the magical world of 500...

I can envision defense systems that limit magical power on items entry into thier domain, I can imagine magical or mechanical ways to subvert those protections, I can imagine alot of stuff in this persistant world...It could also have a 'goes till one side wins', but is geared for a game that lasts for at least a year due to the population limiter stuff etc...or with the ole 'cornered cat kicks 2x arse' play...

So, it is definitely dooable I think in the terms that would make it successfull....

Oh, and I copyright, and trademark, and whatever else my ideas may catch on in a game as a whole, so if you want to work with it, be cool and get me involved *grin*

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www.projectvisitor.com

enough said

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