Empires: The MMOFPSRTS

Let's say hypothetically someone gave me a million dollars to make Empires the MMOFPSRTS, and I made it. It would have a seamless worldmap (players could move/fly around the globe without a loading screen), aircraft, a navy, vehicles, bots, commanders, etc. How would it play? Would it just be Empires 2.21 with 1024 vs 1024 in each sector? Would it be more like a traditional MMO where you go out and perform tasks or missions to get money/XP?

 

FIRST!!!

It should be like endwar online campaign thingy

[User received an infraction for this post.]

 

A traditional MMO would be strange, especially since there is no single player basis for it currently.

I'd rather have the latter: A large, persistent battlefield with battles I can join in on. You could have stats tracking and maybe even persistent characters - maybe instead of classes you unlock skills and weapons down a Diablo-style skill tree.

Interesting to ponder. It wouldn't have to be super complex or different, just building on what's already there.

 

your ranks would give you infantry levels then vehical levels then commander levels. as commander you would choose an attck point on the globe. players would join your campagin and if there is no one to fight you gain 1 point to your notoriety. but if an enemy commander moved against you you would take your merry band of volenteers into battle and here it would play like current empires.

 

I can't see the game being very entertaining with a bunch of units running around and every single one is a person. People like to have a substantial role in the game. If you have a 1000 people playing, what's there to entertain each individual?

 

I think you would have to switch to a system of personal and group resources. The balance/grief issues there are huge especially for commanders/groups of commanders.

For res I would let commanders divert a percentage of the group resources out to players or do so in chunks and it would be distributed via a ranking system (ie more experienced/better players would receive more) up to some sort of personal limit. Players could kick the money they receive back into the group pile for bonuses(?) or gaining priority later on to receive additional resources.

Rewards in the form of resources could be set by one of the commanders. I would set up a system where they could offer a variable amount of resources per job 10 res per infantry killed 50 res per barracks(maybe 10 for helping build), 5 res per turrets blah blah blah or something like that so players have incentives to go out and fight not sit around going afk in a vf waiting for their res to tick up so they can buy a tank.

Realistically there would need to be multiple commanders the res structure that first comes to mind for me is this.

Local commanders would command a force of around 50-100 players and wouldn't deal with research just building placement, attack orders, and you would need a solid set of comm abilities like arty strikes to keep it fun for them. 50%(random number) resources earned in these areas could be spent by these commanders and 50% would get kicked up to to super commanders who would work on research and be able to redistribute resources and players to different regions and focus on big picture issues.

Research would be hard to do too unless you just allow for slow incremental improvements in stuff. IE you can research absorbent level 1-infinity.

It could be good but you would need a insanely solid and well thought out design doc. Coding aside creating it as a fun balanced game for all players is a huge undertaking.

 

Whatever you do just add necromancers

And might as well throw something constructive in here
Have you ever played Shattered Galaxies? It was a mmorts and people would attack territory and start battles if there was any enemies in the territory they were trying to attack. Once a battle had started you would pull up a map of the world and join in. It was up to about 70 player battles

 

The focus would need to be on the FPS portion, as the majority of players would be playing that part.

Make it fun to be a grunt, and the rest, I believe, will fall into place


EDIT: Also, very little progression. Make it kinda like Planetside, with only 25 ranks, and all they give is a point to pilot certain vehicles

 

I think you should expand the number of factions beyond NF and BE.

 

Some people would lost their voice cause of constant screaming.

No joke thats the first thing that comes to my mind, by the term
"Empires the MMOFPSRTS"

 

I think the MMO form would be a shell that looked something like the DEFCON game from Introversion, but with much more granularity. For true coolness, rather than 'territories' = maps, players are attached to armies that the supreme commander moves about the map, until opposing armies meet and a territory map is procedurally generated based on the supreme command map.

Traditional MMO = pure crap based on psychological conditioning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning

Possibly there are models in business already----"World War 2 online" (http://www.battlegroundeurope.com/) and also the Sony game "Planetside" (http://planetside.station.sony.com/).

 

Krenzo, give Richard Garriot a call. I hear he's available for a new project

 

I would say it would have to be based upon holding cap points and enemy reinforcements. I guess you would have to design it like risk, where holding certain areas would provide advantages, and holding all of a key land mass would give significant advantages.

My brother used to play a game called puzzle pirates. It was based upon people grouping up into crews, and crews grouping up into guild type things. The admiral of the fleet controlled the officers of the fleet, the officers of the fleet controlled their corresponding crews. Also, the islands in the game could be claimed by a guild, and they would lay a claim, then the next day they would need to defend it from anyone attacking. When in control of the island, any one could set up a shop there, but would have to pay the guild rent.

at any rate, i think something along those lines would be most appropriate for any type of conquest MMO.

 

A persistant battle between two AI teams would be great, and players could take part in different roles within that metagame. For instance you could have a quest from your general to be a commander in a battle and so you command a whole battle to its completion to earn XP. Another quest would be to fight a big tank battle and destroy x amount of tanks to level up.

 

I wouldn't mind an unlock system similar to battlefield as long as it wasn't too overpowered.

But I think huge empires would kind of suck anyway, you'd have to make it a different game if you make it huge.

The only additions I'd like is some sort of stat tracker, maybe unlocks, and perhaps something to help skill stacking and comm voting based on the stat tracker.

Oh and a bespoke engine, but otherwise the standard round based gameplay is fine, some games just don't scale well and are most fun in rounds.

Empires could simply be a solid FPS like battlefield but with more varied gameplay because of the bases mechanic. With its own engine to smooth out the vehicle kinks, a proper modelling, animation, and sound department to make the guns more fun, and the capacity to have more detailed maps, I can't really see what else you could do with it, or why you'd want to do anything else with it.

 

I think it would be good if there was a sort of Squad control system, and each of the roles of the current system made into a more defined role - scouts actually go right behind lines and screw with things, riflemen squads duking it out, while grenadiers hold out against tank attacks. It would be cool to see Kursk style tank combat as well :D

 

i would like to see a mobile front push gameplay on epic scale, and players fight in said battles to gain xp and climb up the military rank ladder by fulfilling orders and killing people of higher rank, and open up options and choices, but basically every soldier should stay relatively balanced to another... a human still stays a human, and a newb should be able to kill a general for example if said general isnt paying attention and has no escort

(even the highest rank has to strap on boots and pick a class (maybe some more classes) when spawning to keep it fun, he can however choose to take a command vehicle and actively order all the other commanders on the battlefield, or just make an extremely high priority squad of scouts to infiltrate an enemy base :p)

there should be some kind of system that makes it beneficial to hold a lot of land though, like... generate global resources for every % land that is dominated to "unlock" new possible researches for the battalion commanders (or how you are going to call the current commander, since i see it as a certain server holding dozens of commanders actively supporting each other on a common front) to research, and possibly the option to airdrop vehicles and infantry in or some other way of "supporting" the commanders that operate in that area

highest ranking player in BE is the ruler of the BE military, and decides what fronts to push first, what new research fields to buy and how many initial resources/additional supplies they get what battles to fight where, and same with NF, basically these guys decide the flow of battle, divide the resources to all fronts and unlock with resources what normal commanders have at there disposal to research for there base (i suggest a huge expansion of researches)

so generally: a large hierarchical ladder of ranks in the military, higher ranks get to decide more important decisions and get more hardware to there disposal on the battlefield,
ranks have however no effect on infantry/armor stats and there are no super enchanted +1567 rifles or armor only standard outfits or globally deployed researches

all planned vehicles including boats and planes get added, and perhaps some super units in the form of 1 class heavier then heavy (like that tank that was rumored to be air dropable in the battlefield)

some kind of match making system that makes players form squads before on the battlefield, and a communication system that facilitates the orders from "king" to commanders to officers to soldiers

 

I'd say it would be more like a war.

You'd have to join either the two Factions, or the 3rd unaffiliated band of Mercs and freelancers. Most Clans would operate inside this 3rd group, and the other two factions would have squadrons, legions, divisions etc instead of calling them "clans".

I would base gameplay firstly around the squad and rank idea. As a grunt, you'd start off as only being able to have 1 guy under you (but can join a group that is being led by a higher ranked person - e.g. you can still join a sergeants squad of 5).

As you go up ranks you would be granted the ability to command a larger and larger following, until at the higher ranks, you would get a say in overall strategy (captain and up), and as a General you would have to coordinate your forces across the globe with other Generals. I can't really think how cool that would be to have that much of a responsibility to win the war.

Promotions can be turned down of course, and to prevent abuse, generals would be voted in by a majority or at least a section. Old generals would vouch for newcomers and the Dev team, or Selected Representatives would act as a High Command overseeing everything and maintaining order (each faction would also have a main forums where they can co-ordinate overall strategies while not in-game).

From the get-go, I would say you're going to need deep (player-safe) Jek and Bren strongholds. I would guess random Battles would be pitched in a completely pvp area that would be the rest of the map (apart from strongholds). Stronghold area's would only be able to taken in a large Empires-style game (like what we play now), where both teams have a commander and infantry, and able to build buildings. I guess the defending Commander would have a Fort or some kind of command center bunker, and the attacker would have to have an equivalent CV - mobile but easier to get at than a defended bunker.

I would say the only time players would really lose their lives, would be in these Stronghold Battles - where if you die and also lose the territory, you will be unable to be revived and lose your life. I would say, the way to compensate someone who's lost their character like that, and not turn them off completely would be to have the next character they play have a commission - and say it's someone from their family (e.g. son/daughter, brother/sister etc) and have them start off only a few ranks (3?) behind what their old character had.

In general ranging around the map, when people would die, I'd say it's a standard "lose all your stuff and un-banked money". As someone increases ranks they would have access to more weapons and armour etc, but they could also acquire special weapons from the blackmarket for earned money. I would say, if someone of a high rank gets killed and everyone under his command dies with him - providing he has a full complement (like a lieutenant with 10 people in his group), he would lose a rank (I mean, someone would escape right? Unless you led them into somewhere/something terrible).

Roving battles would make up a fair amount of gameplay and strategy, and as such, I think they'd be completely open, because the whole area is pvp. I would expect everyone to have a chance of being able to kill another soldier - no matter the rank or armour, it should depend on skill, and how you corner them. Of course, a single sniper shot isn't going to kill everyone, but if you chase someone down who has upgraded armour and health increased and get 10 headshots in them, you should kill them. No one should be reliant on armour and all that kind of crap that goes on in a lot of mmo's. It's a FPS base, so you should be risking your life.

Better guns would make you more dangerous though, but there's going to be a limit on how good a rifle is. A general's (what he'd be doing on the field is anyone's guess :p) weapon isn't going to be a one-shot on everyone who isn't the same rank as him, even if he's running around waving his hands in the air and somersaulting. It's gonna be a one shot for a practiced steadied sharpshooter against a rookie and maybe a sergeant, but a lieutenant would probably take a few before he goes down, and even a corporal could take out that general if he doesn't see him.

If you wanted to make it really complicated:

You could make it that people entering a stronghold area while a battle was going on, would take part in that battle. That way, if you hadn't sent your men to engage them outside the sector beforehand, once they realise, any old Joe can just wander in and help out. If you went this way, Death in a Stronghold Battle could be permanent until revived...that way you'd have to have a large standing complement in the area, or get people to get to the area quickly. You could have a 10 minute warning where a message is broadcast worldwide that "this place is going to be attacked momentarily", but what would be better, is if the whole attacking army would have to move to the Area before staging the battle - that way, enemy troops could see them coming and warn their team... Although, the attacking army wouldn't necessarily have to come a long way - just from their nearest spawn to the sector...not walk all the way from Jekotia.

An added strategy would be in normal play (non-stronghold battle), you could capture the enemy's mini-bases as a squad or division and use it as a forward spawn. That way, you'd be able to attack the sector quicker. Also, if you could sneak 10 people into deep enemy territory, you could appear way into enemy lines and attack an undefended stronghold.

It can get complicated...but only if you make it like a realistic war, and allow them to do many things you could ordinarily do. I would love to see it, because it's much more satisfying having a game where you fight against humans in strategy, rather than mining NPC's all the time, and battling monsters and levelling up your armour and weapons all the time. If you core it in FPS for casual gameplay, and then RTS for strategy, and then MMO for "what you're capable of doing, or who you can fight"...and make it so that everyone can be defeated....it would be...great!


Didn't mention Res at all

Edit: Yeah it took me a long time to post...and it's probably a bit too epic. It works well in conjunction with alot of Blizzerds suggestions though.

 

i'd absolutely hate this, its the same as with most mmorpg's, and in my eyes the biggest flaw

1: it makes newbies meat for the grinder without them having any fun leaving a bad inpression

in order to have any multiplayer fun in this game at the start (and how long this "start" period takes increases more and more with the difference in rank of the average player against a totally new player) you would NEED a huge player influx to compensate for all these badasses dwarfing your abilities to make any positive addition to your army besides being cannon fodder

2: it does not fit the empiresmod world, mmorpgs do not need to equal billions of armor and weapons to end up at max level with portable nuke launchers and mechwarrior armor vs pebble to trow as weapon and adam/eve leaf as armor, just the fact that you should be able to boss around other players in theory, get to have more say into the fact of what the general army is going to do, what the local units are going to do and decide there strategies and become a higher priority target for the enemy should create the desire to grow ranks without pesky übermenshen dominating the battlefield as if they could win the war alone

3: it would make people feel obsolete if they do not have X amount of badass stuff, and make them feel like they dont fit in unless they gain level Y that "one player without a life" has

mmorpgs do not equal "oh lets be world of warcraft"

a perfect example of how NOT to do a successful fun MMORPG and especially not one concerning the empiresworld