Hello Everyone! Right now, my team and I are bouncing around a few ideas for different types of mmo games, and we always end up with the same problem. How can we keep up a persistent world, while utilizing an rts type game play? How can we have people logging on and off all the time, while somehow maintaining continuity? It would be a real hassle to have to start all over every time that you log on, so we’re facing a dead end here. I’d really appreciate anyone’s take on this. Thanks, rdaneel

Have the world really huge. I''ve never played it, but I''ve seen it with my own eyes, "Mankind" is a particularly massive persistant game. From what I understand, they designed a couple hundred thousand worlds and filled a galaxy with them. New players got to pick an unused planet to start on.

What I meant was that how could I have players log off, and have their resources and bases be preserved, without having ghost towns everywhere.

Thanks,
rdaneel

[edited by - rdaneel on May 5, 2003 6:33:50 PM]

Well, I''m fresh out of ideas for now... but you could try the Jennifer Government Nation States ( http://www.nationstates.net ) to give you a few ideas.

Atriarch is a persistant MMORPG. You might be able to get some ideas from how they implimented it.

Basicly from what I gather you have customizeable scripts handle your actions while you are logged off. Also PCs are very hard to kill in this game.


     Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment

[edited by - tstrimp on May 4, 2003 11:06:11 PM]

What I would probably do if I were designing the game is have it so that every player has a main area were their main base exists. They can, however build more bases and whatnot outside this area, which would be vital for progression.

When they're offline everything bar their main base is able to be destroyed, but they can of course have defences at these bases to protect them.
When they're online everything they have (main base included) can be destroyed.

However you may not want the main base to ever be able to be destroyed so... meh.

Maybe having it so that most buildings can only be constructed outside their main base area would be a way to encourage the construction of new bases.

Maybe when you destroy another player's main base you can now build there and have another indestructable base. So yeah... basically forcing them to play hard when they're online and hope they're heavily defended when offline.

[edited by - The_Titan on May 4, 2003 11:15:23 PM]

You could put in some time of "off-line police" that will come and help defend the base of an off-line player. As this is a MMO, some players may feel cheated that they have to wait for the other person to be "ready" before they can attack. There is also the problem of logging-off mid battle (do the cops come to help, or are your troop left to fight it out on their own).

One other idea that is might work is to make the players "agree" on a battle. (i.e., both players say it is ok to fight on this planet/region until one of them is destroyed or surrenders) The players could set out the terms in advance. You could have timed battles, CTF battles, ect. There could be an option to continue that battle later if one of the players goes off-line. This, of course, ruins the whole suprise attack idea, and would make the game feel more like RISK.

This would also be a great time to implement alliance or guild systems to help protect your area while logged off (Friendly kingdoms/areas/whatever could send units to defend your area). Or even hire people to help protect you while offline.


     Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment

[edited by - tstrimp on May 4, 2003 11:38:59 PM]

Having a system where the player can use one of the game''s resources (eg. Gold) to have their base unable to be attacked when they''re offline might be the way to go. This way if the player stays offline for a long time then their gold (or whatever the resource is) will run out and they''ll be able to be destroyed.

Then players might go the possible cheaper route of getting another player to defend them instead, but this would have a ton of risks involved so it would balance out.

Well, Mr. Olivaw,

I think the best idea so far would be to have "NPCs" run the player''s empire when he logs off. This is like the president taking a vacation and letting the vice president run things for awhile. You have to make the AI mature enough for this.

Regards,
Jeff