Browsing the Empires wiki and looking at the Empires world map got me thinking of how another game, PlanetSide, uses their own web-based maps to represent the current state of "war". Here's what I was thinking... The Empires global map would be divided into many "parts", where each part represents an official map. The stats plugin (like the one on BSID 1.07 servers) would be installed on the official server. Every so often (hourly?) a web page would poll the database of the above-stated plugin to retrieve the winners of the previous map cycle and "color-in" the corresponding parts of the global map with the map's winner. It would also place some kind of a marker (perhaps a flashing star with an "explosive" overlay) on the part of the map that corresponds to the currently playing map on the server. The map would reset to the "neutral" state when the map cycle starts over. For example: Map cycle starts and the first map, let's say emp_glycencity, is won by the BE team. The next time the web page pulls the data off the stats plugin, the corresponding part of the map (north area) gets a blue overlay, and the currently playing map would place a marker on its corresponding part on the map. Now this would require absolutely no coding from Krenzo, but rather some time of a web programmer and a graphic artist to pull off. Also, the map rotation will need to be set up in a way to represent some kind of a linear progression through the maps. Not sure if that's at all possible, but the next step would be changing the map rotation based on the previous map's winner to symbolize one side's conquest over the other. Not only will this be a first step towards the (still planned, I hope) persistent ranks, but it will also act as a great PR tool to get new players interested. Thoughts?
if you need ideas, look at MechAssault 2's Conquest Mode. that was fucking Epic. 4 factions warring over the galaxy.
The more I think about it, the more doable this sounds. I'm a back-end SQL Server programmer by trade and am willing to help out in that area. Now if someone with some web development skills and someone with half-decent photoshopping skills would also lend a hand, I'm sure we'd make it happen sooner rather than later. Eth0, I know you are familiar with the stats plugin since you're the owner and admin of BSID servers. Would you be willing to provide some assistance in terms of the structure of the logs it creates?
This could also form a good backbone of friendly clan competition, where each clan joins a side (Either BE or NF) and instead of just keeping "Wins" and "Losses" each clan battle over a map would reprisent which faction it holds; a sort of twist on the league... The first step in doing this would be to map the location of each map within empires world... So I think the mappers themselves or Megel/Krenzo would have to put this into persective for us :p
I think this would be much more effective if there were many more maps, hence more areas to control. If it were implemented as a league game, I'd see it like this: Each map has its own area on the world map, which neighbours other maps' areas. Each team entered (read: clan) chooses a starting territory (a certain number of areas, according to how many teams enter). In this manner, every area of the map has an owner at the start of the game. From there, teams can capture surrounding territory by challenging the current owner for it. The attackers first fight the defenders on the map that the area represents. If the attackers win, they win the area. If the defenders win, they get the chance to retaliate. To do this, they choose an area that is owned by the attackers, which neighbours the area that was attacked. If the defenders win the retaliation, they win the area. If they lose, then the match is over and everything stays the same. To stop teams from challenging constantly, they are given a limited number at the beginning of the game (5?). Then, at set intervals (72hrs?) any surviving teams are issued with another. If a team is knocked out (loses all territory) and has more than 5 challenges remaining, then they have the opportunity to trade 5 of their challenges for a "buy-in". This allows them to challenge any team for any area of the map. If they lose, they stay out. If they win, they get that area. Teams only have one opportunity for a buy-in during the whole game, so if they lose it, they're out permanently. The same rules as standard league matches would apply (if a team fails to turn up for a scheduled match, they forfeit the area). The game is over once one team owns the whole world. I realise this may take a long time to complete (months, perhaps) which is why it should be run as a companion game to the regular league, rather than an alternative. As you can see, this could be very complicated (see above) or very simple (as per Chahk's original suggestion). Either way, I think it would make a nice little project for somebody out there.
Why not a conquest mode instead? Damn, this would be a kickass gamemode. Empires Campaign. the team would vote on which territory their team should attack next.
I think the league could endorse this idea. It would be a fun twist on the usual W/L ratio stats. If all the commander maps corresponded to a section of land, we could update the League World Map when a new winner takes beat the old "king of the hill" for a specific map. Say BSID wins on duststorm, JPL would have to beat them to take that landmass. CW would then have to attack JPL to take it from them. ETC What do you think? Would you have to attack an adjacent territory? My xfire is "cwevan", chahk Obviously it would be ideal for a normal server plugin to be linked to mysql, but for league matches we could just run a PSD file with layers for each clan.
If the League grows out to more then 4 or so major clans, then something would have to be done, as there would be more clans then landmasses... Or it would be really hard for a single clan to dominate a huge chunk of landmass, because the more they own, the more they get attacked... Hmm... Sounds alot more interesting then other mod's "Clan Wars"
Agreed, this only works with <10 clans. But luckily that's what we have now :-) Perhaps in the future there could be multiple divisions of ~6 clans so the idea would still work. How many "classic" maps are there? The league season would probably begin like a RISK match with a shuffle and each clan starting out with one or two territories. They then have to defend those and attack others to expand. EDIT: For example, BSID might start with duststorm and cyclopean, JPL with isle and canyon, CW with slaughtered and streets of fire, Brucker Division with mvalley and money, etc. Which "classic" custom maps are done enough to be included in league play?
Does anybody have the original image file that the wiki map was created with? I could load it into ArcGIS and make it look super cool.
Thanks Killx. I meant the source map so I could remove all the clouds by just clicking [X] on a layer :D Thanks though EDIT: Looks like emp_oasis, emp_lastcity, and emp_railroad could work as custom "classic" maps for league play on the map Which brings the territories to 12 (plenty!) emp_oasis = desert (30 degrees N or S of equator) emp_lastcity emp_railroad = arctic (55+ degrees from equator) emp_badlands emp_canyon emp_crossroads emp_cyclopean emp_duststorm = desert (30 degrees N or S of equator) emp_isle emp_mvalley = desert (30 degrees N or S of equator) emp_slaughtered emp_streetsoffire
Chahk, sorry we stole your idea. I think we are gonna use the map for league play. EDIT: I'll post a prelim map here when ready.
I've always loved Planetside-style gameplay, but I never thought it was doable in Empires until now. Once 1.08 gets released, this won't just be totally viable, but it will be plenty fun for clan matches and the average fights. Soon we'll have "Oh yeah? Well, I captured THIS MANY territories! In one day!" flying around everywhere. Maybe clans could keep track of square miles of land they've conquered for the fun of it :D Edit: It would be even better if we could get 2 or 3 official servers running in conjunction, each running a different map. They would have to make sure that when one round was one they didn't switch to a map the other server(s) was/were using at the same time, but if that could be done, there could be some great daylong campaigns. Sounds like the making of a fantastic PUG.
first we need to know where on the big map each of the levels are, so that we can plot which ones are 'adjacent' to which other levels.
By all means. That is exactly the level of immersion I am hoping a dynamic web-based map will help bring to this game. Btw, I think emp_streetsoffire takes place in one of the capitals. Bren?
There will be no Brenodi or Jekotian marked lands on the league world map. Clans will control and fight over the territories. However, I am trying to put the gamemaps at the right latitudes.
