How about an online first-person 3d game. When you start up a game, it finds say 3 other random players, and assigns you a position on the ship. One person mans the thrusters, another the shields, a third the lasers, and a forth the artillery. Each system affects the others. For example, firing the lasers temporarily reduces the energy available to shields. Firing the heavy artillery causes some kickback that could mess up the steering. Any player that leaves midgame gets replaced by an AI "robot" just so the game doesn''t have to end. You then take on a bunch of monsters or something, or maybe even another 4 person ship. You then get rated based on how well the ships you''ve been on have fared. Well, just an idea.

lemme guess, your a big star trek fan?

Sounds pretty cool,
but not as a whole game, maybe as a part in a much broader fps type game.

quote: Original post by jakerrz
Sounds pretty cool,
but not as a whole game, maybe as a part in a much broader fps type game.

I definatly agree with this.

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In the immortal words of a MST3K ape: "MAYONAAAASE"

You haven't played I-War have you?

It was a single player space simulation. You had a ship with four "workstations" - command, weapons, engineering (repairs) and navigation (pilot). It was an interesting game, but made rather tricky by the fact that the automatic systems that handled the workstations you weren't at were pretty much non-existant. Although I enjoyed playing it, I found myself thinking "where's the cooperative mode".

I initially thought of a system like you suggested, with four players and AI to handle unmanned stations. Then I realised that some of the stations don't get used all the time - in I-War the only reason to go to engineering was when the ship got shot to bits. I think it might get dull playing just as the engineer, but it would be nice to have 2 players per ship - Navigator/Commander and Gunner/Engineer for instance. That way both players always have something to do. Obviously that depends on the nature of the game, and the particular roles you can play in it though.

(If you haven't guessed, I think this is a great idea )

[edited by - Krunk on February 1, 2003 11:28:50 AM]

quote: lemme guess, your a big star trek fan?

Nope, never watched any series besides "The next generation" and I can''t even name 3 crew members from that.

quote: You haven''t played I-War have you?

Sure haven''t. . Sounds kinda cool though.

"When you start up a game, it finds say 3 other random players, and assigns .."

with the game type and interface aside,
i like where this can go. i like the idea of being assigned something with other players when you log in.

image how fun it would be to be assigned a group as you logged into the game , you had to find them and accomplish a goal together, rely on eachother. and if you if feel they are more a hinderment than a contrabution(sp), you could get rid of them , as well as other creativity to make it work.

i am just an idiot.

*edit - tried to make sense of my ramble.

[edited by - killingpeople on February 1, 2003 8:06:21 PM]

Your ramble just gave me another idea. Combine two ideas of mine. An arc clone with upgradeable/customizable stuff instead of everyone being the same (arc.sierra.com), plus this random assignment scheme. Rather than finding a map and joining it, you could just log into the central server and it would pick a game for you, or something.

I don''t see how this would go anywhere. Manning the shields. Woo hoo, what fun. Literally. That would be like being stuck in right field in a 9-player cooperative baseball game. Nobody would want to play as a guy who just watches a bar go down as you got hit. Limit it to flight and weapons, and then it''d probably be played a lot more.

I suppose you could add a big capital ship with multiple turrets which had to be controlled by different players. It would be kind of interesting...