Been a long time since I've posted here. The wisdom is still floating around, so let's see if I can catch some of it. I'm trying to design a game with roleplaying and strategy elements. I'm not making it at the moment; this is solely for design purposes, to develop a sound concept before considering the possibility of programming it. In all likelihood, if it were programmed, it would start as a text adventure and evolve into something graphical. But I digress. I'm a real big fan of certain MMORPG concepts, although I hate how MMORPG's have been executed to this date. (Not one of them has held my attention longer than two months. Asheron's Call holds that record. I gave up Shadowbane after a week, UO after 30 minutes, Everquest after 20, and I didn't even bother with FFXI. But again, I digress.) The part we all like is being able to team up with or fight against other players. I much prefer the notion of building a world together. Ultima Online came closer than any other, with its player-driven economy, but that's not quite what I have in mind. Then I played Spellforce, the RTS/RPG hybrid. I'll be the first to admit that the game has a great many flaws, none of which are pertinent to this discussion, and it can hardly be declared an original concept (if you mix Dungeon Siege and Warcraft, you end up with Spellforce). What struck me about the game is that it attempts something I've never seen in a single title. I didn't play the game more than two days because of its flaws, but the heart is there. Still, it does not have the world-building quality that I'm looking for. I want to see a game where you create a personality (as in most RPG's), venture into the world in the name of excitement, gain power and prestige, and ultimately create cities, castles, and strongholds. I want it to support multiple players so that I can do this with my friends. I want to be able to fight against them or work with them. I want to affect the game world with the choices I make. Well, the concept is already in place. That's not really the problem. The problem is, how do you let players interact with the game world? That's where the turn-based vs. real-time argument comes in. On the one hand, you want to give players enough time to make choices, and you want the CPU to have enough time to calculate the effects of those choices. You can do this with turns. Technically, it doesn't matter how much time you spend processing player decisions between turns (although you obviously want it to be reasonably short). During their turns, players may assign orders to any number of subordinate units. The following turn, they can see the progress of these orders as they are carried out. On the other hand, you want to allow players to interact with the world in real-time, so that they can make decisions based on the moment. Turn-based games generally end up playing like chess: you're always looking X number of turns in the future, without any real focus on the moment. Real-time games can also be played like this, but inevitably you will have to turn your focus to the moment. This variety is what makes them interesting. Besides, it is a niche market that has the attention span to play turn-based games. I have one idea to conquer the problem of mixing turns with real-time: after a given period of real-time play, force players to enter a 'hibernation' state of down-time, in which background mechanics are processed. Ideally, this would be when the main characters go to sleep. Realistically, there is no need to sleep every single night, for eight hours. However, in the interest of game mechanics, I would give each player a certain amount of time to do whatever they want to do. At the end of this time, your character goes home to sleep. (There's a game called 'Harvest Moon' that uses a mechanic identical to this, and it works extremely well in that case.) Of course, players don't have to spend the entire time doing things. You can go home and rest up, work out, study, whatever, sit back with a sandwich and a Sprite and wait for the other players to finish their turns. If at any moment you decide you want to play again, you can always interrupt your character's rest/work/study and get back in the action. There might also be a separate political/economic decision phase (with an optional time limit). This way, you don't have to waste your 'action' time governing your empire. (It may be realistic to force politician characters to spend their waking hours in the office, but in the interest of fun, we're not going to do this. Politicians in this fantasy setting can just as well be full-time adventurers -- although I will admit, there should be 'political' quests that must be addressed during the 'action' phase to simulate the need for offical intervention, lest the player's empire decline.) Does this sound reasonable to anyone? Do you have better ideas on how to manage a multiplayer RPG/RTS/simulation of this magnitude? Remember, I'm just looking for theories at the moment, but if you have examples of games in which this has been successfully executed, please let me know. Thanks. [edited by - Tom on May 13, 2004 2:10:11 PM]

Well, look at worms.
It''s a turn-based+real-time hybrid that works pretty successfully.

Another good one is HOGS of War. It''s a lot like Worms but has a
few differences here and there. You can get it for the PS1.
Pretty fun game, actually.

-Hyatus
"da da da"

You''ve really picked a tough nut to crack. The two major problems as you note are the personal/empire focus and the multiplayer aspect, both of which have their own attention and timing concerns. It''s my experience that whenever you mix strategy directly into roleplaying (say, by using a movement grid) players end up concentrating on the strategy and leaving the roleplaying aside, perhaps because the strategy has a more apparent and direct role in their fate.

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Original post by Tom
Well, the concept is already in place. That''s not really the problem. The problem is, how do you let players interact with the game world? That''s where the turn-based vs. real-time argument comes in.

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Would it help at all to consider making the empire portion episodic, and tying in a bunch of quests as victory conditions to move the map politics one way or another? IOW, if you''ve got a war going on, maybe you have players logging on and off over the course of a week or two per objective and you''re updating stats at the end of the week?

This would make the empire portion much slower, but players would feel that they''re a part of a larger world much more directly as towns were raised, captured and destroyed. Rather than only leveling up, they''d be "leveling up" their portion of the world as well. If you broke players into clans that had to cooperate in order to get anywhere, and tied RPG resources to land (metal for swords affects prices, for example, so protect the mines) you might achieve some of what you''re looking for in a MMO context.

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I have one idea to conquer the problem of mixing turns with real-time: after a given period of real-time play, force players to enter a ''hibernation'' state of down-time, in which background mechanics are processed. Ideally, this would be when the main characters go to sleep. Realistically, there is no need to sleep every single night, for eight hours. However, in the interest of game mechanics, I would give each player a certain amount of time to do whatever they want to do. At the end of this time, your character goes home to sleep. (There''s a game called ''Harvest Moon'' that uses a mechanic identical to this, and it works extremely well in that case.)

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I haven''t played Harvest Moon, so I don''t know whether sleep is a good fit. It could work, but I''d be hesitant to have a constant interrupt (I''m dealing with this myself, btw, and it feels like a deal breaker to make players do anything non-action related with any regularity).

Another way you could do this is to have seasons, magical or otherwise. You need an excuse for why armies aren''t moving about en masse at certain times. Maybe you''ve got masses of hungry wyverns that go dormant periodically each year, and when they do the armies strike, but before that happens the realm is won or lost by individual adventurers scouting, scheming and leveling.

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Of course, players don''t have to spend the entire time doing things. You can go home and rest up, work out, study, whatever, sit back with a sandwich and a Sprite and wait for the other players to finish their turns. If at any moment you decide you want to play again, you can always interrupt your character''s rest/work/study and get back in the action.

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Ooops, maybe I''m misunderstanding you. If players can do this at will, is the only reason for them to stop to plan for the empire stuff? In that case, you could have them return to some secure fortess or hideout where their loyal faction awaits their next order.

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Does this sound reasonable to anyone?

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My major question is where do you want the bulk of the focus? If you''re a starting newbie, do you immediately get access to some portion of empire building? Or is there to be a major paradigm shift at a certain level?


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Just waiting for the mothership...

That''s a fair question. My understanding (of my own vision) is that you''d start as an adventurer and work your way up to empire builder. Of course, this brings about a plethora of new problems. Maybe some players don''t want to build an empire; or maybe some players just want to build without adventuring. Obviously a game can''t appeal to 100 percent of the masses, but it would be nice to capture as many fans as possible.

So, it needs some revision. Another thing I should have mentioned is that I''m looking at a LAN game, not an MMORPG. I understand this was not obvious on account of my MMORPG rant, and for that I apologize. So what we''re really looking at is a game that can be played in a matter of hours or days. Let''s assume a max of 16 players.

Okay, so now we have the problem of adventure -vs- empire building. While I believe both could be handled well in real-time, there is the problem of the simulation aspect, which I believe would be best dealt with in turns, if not for the players'' sakes, than for the sake of the CPU.

Rather than divide real-time sessions into weeks as you suggested, since we''re looking at a much smaller time frame, we could divide it into ''phases,'' wherein each phase represents some major task that will affect all empires involved after it''s been completed (or failed). Such phases could have time limits, though I don''t see a particular need in all cases other than to keep the game moving (and there''s always the Pause button anyway).

I suppose you could compare it to games like Enclave and Painkiller, where you have a reprieve between missions to select what you''re going to do next. Once the action begins, it''s real-time until you finish the mission. Then you go back to the map screen and make your next choice. I think we''re looking at something like that, but with a much more involved ''map screen'' as it were.

The problem now is to determine how much influence one can have on his/her empire during the course of an action phase. What I mean is, how much action should the ''action'' phase contain? My initial vision was of Diablo II, where you run around and kill things in the name of whatever supreme goal you''re trying to achieve, but this is exactly the type of game play I wanted to avoid. I believe that every action a character takes should have some purpose and consequence so the players feel like they''re really making an impact on the game world.

So instead I propose treating the ''action'' phase like a traditional RPG, a la Gothic II. You can walk around, talk to people, deal with shopkeepers, do absolutely anything you want to do until the mission is completed --- either by objective or because time ran out --- after which point you deal with the political-economic aspects of your empire.

Forcing players into this down-time after each ''action'' phase does, of course, make the game at least as much of a strategy-simulation as it is a roleplaying game. Perhaps that''s the direction I should be taking with this concept. It never occurred to me until now that the methods we choose to draw player input can have such a drastic impact on the theme itself.

I doubt any RPG fans would be turned off by the strategy aspect if you connected them in a such a way that both benefited from the other. For instance, if you can gain an economic advantage during the ''action'' phase by building farms and markets during the ''empire'' phase, who wouldn''t want to do it? In this way, the ''empire'' phase is a blessing in disguise for those who call themselves hardcore RPGers, as it expands their means of character advancement.

Anyway, I''m still trying to determine how you cater to those who only want adventure, and those who only want simulation. I suppose it''s not reasonable to try. Truth be told, if you want pure adventure or strategy, you''ll have to turn elsewhere. It''s the blend of both that I think will draw a large crowd, provided it can be properly executed (which is the point of this thread).

War between nations --- that one''s gonna be tough. I like to see battles with thousands upon thousands of soldiers duking it out over an enormous battlefield. Not all battles have to be like this, but the engine should be able to handle them reasonably well. How much control should be given to a player to command his troops? Should he be given the opportunity to fight alongside them on the field? And should this take place during the ''action'' or ''empire'' phase?

First, it should definitely happen during the ''action'' phase because there is no better example of an empire-shaping event than a battle between armies. I do think the player-character should be allowed to join in the fun. However, I also think that in this particular case, the game should be turn-based. Real-time combat among such a tremendous quantity of units cannot be reasonably handled by a desktop computer. The real problem is deciding what other non-involved players get to do while the battle wages. Realistically, they should be able to adventure like they normally would. If they come across the battle, perhaps they should be given a chance to join it.

Difficult to say precisely until the idea has been implemented.

Should it be possible to deploy buildings during a battle? Obviously not such things as farms and castles, but perhaps bridges and outposts? How much time does a single turn represent? This is especially important to consider if other players are still acting in real-time. Perhaps there is no need to grant total control over unit behavior during battle. Perhaps it''s enough to allow general commands, and then force the battle to carry out in real-time. ''Spartan'' comes to mind.