What do you think?

no and no.

No and kinda.

No because if it were truly massive, it would have to support over 32 players at once, probably up to over 100. The interactions and raw data required to maintain and distribute the gamestate are too great for any system yet conceivable.

Kinda because it would be quite something to pick a kingdom and participate in truly global conquest. Imagine the depth and breadth of such a game. Done well it would be nothing short of marvelous. But do we really want to play a game that focuses so heavily on diplomacy and interactions with people, or isn''t that what we play games to get away from to some extent?

Just my 2 drachma.

Peace,
ZE.

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I think that only the opinions of people who have finished regular RTS games count. Only they can fully understand the possibilities and limitations.

look at shattered galaxy... it manages to do mmorts, depending on your definitions...

(I don''t particularly like the game, but that''s a different story)

In theory the idea sounds pretty good. However there is one problem that you would ultimatly face. A key point in all MMO games is that even when you are not logged in, the world you are "living" in still goes on.

Consider an RTS in which everyone on the server owned and ruled thier own country. France decides they want to take over Japan (ok so I didn''t use the best example with France but you get the point). Now what would happen if Japan happened to have finals that week. When he came back his country would be in shambles and the yen would be worth less than the peso.

If you could find a way to get around this problem then I don''t see why it wouldn''t work.



- Matt

quote: Original post by ShortyNC
Consider an RTS in which everyone on the server owned and ruled thier own country. France decides they want to take over Japan (ok so I didn''t use the best example with France but you get the point). Now what would happen if Japan happened to have finals that week. When he came back his country would be in shambles and the yen would be worth less than the peso.

Verant is working on an MMORTS called Sovereign that has a persistant universe. This can be a problem, but if everything is in some kind of faction system, then it''s not as bad. So, if the guy with finals is just a general for Japan, and Japan has 1000s of other generals to fight battles for them, it''s not that big of a deal. This would make things interesting because you have stuff going on the micro level (individual battles between groups of players) and the macro level (politcal stuff, aliances, economies, etc.) which would be affected by micro level battles, research and resource gathering. Anything can possibly work if designed correctly, so yes to both.

Actually I think it''s both, but you just have to come up with systems to get around the little problems.

First off, the MMO part of it would probably have to be how private games are organized. It''d probably be some sort of "world map" that''s like a player lobby, except the other person doesn''t have to accept your game, and people can join-in the action by attacking a territory that''s already in battle. Starting troops would be sent from your other nearby territories. Also, teams would probably end up being the unit of gameplay, not individual players. For example, you might make a "team" of 4 generals, each human players, and try to conquer territories or recruit more new players for that team. If any individual member of the team goes AWOL, the alliance wouldn''t nessisarily crumble due to lack of human leadership. The game would have a natural balancing factor.. as you gain more and more territories, it gets harder and harder to hang on to territories cause you have more places you can be attacked at once.

The generals would basically grant the ability to command armies manually, while the default would be computer controlled opponents.

The main problem in my opinion is not the feasibility of creating such a system, but the possibility of cheating. It''d be too hard for a server to keep track of many games against computers, which means a lot of the processing will have to happen on the home pcs connected to the network. Whenever the home computer is granted the right to determine data, it''s possible to hack the program and generation favorable false data.

ShortyNC: The yen is worth less than the peso - 120 yen per dollar vs 80 pesoes per dollar, more or less. The reason is you''re basically comparing Japanese pennies to Spanish dollars.

gamerdude: If by "RTS" you mean a game in which you command a lot of units, as opposed to each unit being played by a person (as in Battlefield 1942) then it would be very difficult both technically and in terms of good game design - there''s simply no reason to make a MMORTS with a shared battlefield, IMO.

One idea I have is to have each battle be a relatively small-scale thing (16 people playing, at most) but the battles can affect a persistent MM world. Similar to console games in which you travel on a map and select a location to play it (like Super Mario Bros. 3 and World and various RPGs) you can click on a location hotspot in the world map to set up a battle there. The outcome can decide who controls a village or mine or whatever.

~CGameProgrammer( );

For the offline part, that is a three part system. First, you will be able to build automated defenses to defend against such an attack. Second, any attack against an offline player counts for much less, giving you an incentive to wait. Third, alliances, alliances, alliances. Big deal in this game.

I was thinking of a sci-fi future in which each player has his own planet. The planets would be spread out in several galaxies. Eventually one alliance would probably come to power in each galaxy, resulting in the intergalaxy place being a massive battleground.

Yes, if done properly, it would redefine global combat. Just imagine two whole GALAXIES going up against each other. Thousands of planets, hundreds of civilizations, thousands of ships, fighters, infantry.

It does have its set of problems though...