you really do take the cake for understatement of the month. or maybe you just don't understand the function of the scout class
Empires has a usp. As long as that isn't lost in translation and the initial release is of a reasonable standard then I think it could work if marketed correctly.
The function of the class is mobility, 'speed' is admittedly a bit of a bad way of putting it as it implies moving quickly, whereas the scout probably has just as many if not more skills devoted to moving consistently, through difficult areas, without opposition, it's a class for people who like to cheat, like to gain an unfair advantage due to positioning, information, better suited weaponry to the situation, that sort of thing. One of my favourite classes actually when it's useful to use. But, it doesn't strictly have any skills that couldn't be applied elsewhere. Its anti tank abilities could be given to the grenadier, its anti infantry abilities could be given to the rifleman, and its sensory abilities could be given to the engineer, and all classes could benefit from its mobility. Basically, I think you could quite easily fold the scout into the other three, if you want to use a scout to blow stuff up, tanks, buildings and the like, play a gren and pick the mobility skills and close range weapons. If you want to play a skirmisher, pick rifleman and choose long range weapons and mobility skills, if you want to be the information scout, pick engineer and mobility/sensory equipment/skills. And the benefit there is that when a scout isn't useful, you still have innate useful skills, like the gren has the innate ability to blow things up, whatever it does, the rifleman is innately good at fighting, whatever it does, and the engineer can support other players whatever it does. The scout class doesn't have that, it doesn't have an automatic competence, which is why it's superfluous, the gren, rifle, and engy all provide vital parts of an infantry force, the scout usually does bits of all their roles in a different way, providing support with senses, anti infantry with the scout rifle, anti building with sabotage, anti tank with stuns. It's an important playstyle, but it either needs a vital function or it should be folded into other classes I think.
Some people say "screw it, I'll write my own engine!" I've gone one step deeper and said "screw it, I'll design my own hardware!" Coming in 2012, the Empires Console. It only plays one game, but why would you need another? I'm glad people have brought up NS2. It's a good example of why not to write your own engine. It's a distraction when you should be working on the actual game.
in defence of the scout the scout class doesn't need an automatic competence. it's kind of like the squad leader class in many bf games that is good all around. there are never situations when everyone should go scout and that is because scouts are only good in the number necessary for the job which is usually 1 scout per 6 infantry. removing scout and making scout abilities and equipment available to all classes if this happened, the number of players required to do these things would go from multiple players to one player. ie. the beginning of less teamwork and an excessive amount of lone wolfing sab and seismic (building kill) sab and mortar (building kill) stun and turret (cv trap) stun and wall (cv trap) smoke and rifle (cover killer) smoke and mortar (cover killer) and of course the sniper engi and the one man army unlimited stun cv kill and without the aforementioned combos existing in the game at all, i doubt it would be worth playing.
minecraft started as free, fyi also you could theoreticly try it before you buy, from all those different youtube videos you could watch/easily pirating it
The idea was that you put the skills with the classes that use them, grens blow stuff up, so give them the anti building/anti tank abilities, riflemen shoot people, so give them the rifle, engineers provide support powers, so give them senses and smokes/concs, although rifles could get concs too. The other idea is that you still have a finite amount of equipment, if you want to take stuns and RPG, you have to give up your mines, or mortar, or some other important part of your kit, you still have your core function, your primary weapon which symbolises your class, but you lose some of your secondary features to gain the secondary features of the scout. The point is that this is possible because the scout is entirely composed of secondary features, it has no primary purpose other than to do small parts of the jobs of other classes.
Pool needs to have multiple choices. And you're asking how much we'd pay for a game we haven't seen yet and is just a concept. I wouldn't put down any money without concrete results such as a working alpha and I won't give you an amount without seeing said alpha. However, unless you fuck it up really bad, I and probably most of the community, even those who do not play right now will buy it.
I'd say UDK is probably your best bet. You already have vehicles. You have great artistic tools and you can get started right away without wasting time coding development tools or engines or anything aside from the game. And you also have a really big community that has released a lot of stuff and there's a lot of information the development kit. That being said, it's about as easy to use as the Source SDK (but if you're making a commercial game then this isn't a big deal.)
Don't worry about technical side. Hamster: ATM it's hand-wavy "how much would you pay if we somehow pulled it off?" rather than a very serious question (because there's little to show to have people judge it).
Assuming it's on a similar level to ND, but with much funner Empires gameplay. 20-25$. 30$ If it somehow goes farther.
Where's the option for "Would not buy"? I voted $5-10 when finished instead. Why? What makes Minecraft capable of having people pay 5, 10, 15, etc., is the fact that it's a sandbox game that introduces new items every patch. This does not work for FPS or RTS games. For these games it would be DLC, map packs, or expansions. If proprietary-Empires tried to increase the price with each addition of new content the mainstream would not catch on. No, no no no, just no, McGyver beat me to the explanation: I could understand Empires Unity, but not an Empires Engine; you would need an entire team for the engine and an entire team for the game. Or it becomes Empires 2D/2.5D side-scroller. As with FN, I highly disagree. Firstly, four is an ideal number for video games. Don't ask me why, Left 4 Dead/2 have four-player teams, Bad Company 2 has Assault-Medic-Engineer-Recon, etc. Secondly: (Main) Purposes of classes: -Riflemen: Kill infantry. -Engineer: Build/destroy buildings. -Grenadier: Kill vehicles. -Scout: Provide intelligence (reconnaissance) and support. A scout can show a commander exactly what he needs to know if the scout is playing his class. I remember a scout who told me of a light tank rush that would have killed us if I hadn't gotten walls up. Yes, the scout is a support class, but the purpose of a scout isn't to kill vehicles (but to stun them so that someone else kills them), the purpose of the scout isn't to kill buildings (but to weaken them for another class to kill it, unless no one on the other team notices), and the purpose of a scout isn't to solely kill infantry (but to kill the important infantry that will aid the enemy team in winning). You know what happens when you combine primary classes with support classes? One word: overpowered. ---- Also, no one in this thread asked the most important question: What happens to Empires Source when Empires X comes out?
