quote:
nicba said:

Some player plays as Kings (civilization-style). Some plays as Mayors (simcity-style) and some player plays as Generals (RTS-style). The Generals may have some number of Officers under them, right down to the players playing as foot-soldiers (FPS-style).

Sure... let me just fire up my three Cray''s and hand all my friends some OC-96 fiber...


"Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be."
        --William Hazlitt

I think the only slow down connection wise would be with the player who is playing at the highest level recieving information. Apart from that i could operate on a normal connection.

As for timing, i think that it will all come down to game designing the elements of the FPS interaction. The player who''s playing on the FPS level doesn''t have to always be fighting othter players (DM). Most of the time it would be more than likely that they would be fighting computer AI. And AI is where the real problems will stem from i think (in a RTS/FPS).

But this is just one example, there''s so many different ways this could be done. I''m thinking various combinations of games like quake, sim city, incubation, starcraft, carma, diablo, fallout, elite, etc.

There''s also another big problem, what if one of these games flop. This too would have to be addressed.

I''m just dreaming of being able to call in an air strike in a FPS and maybe just maybe it''ll come in an online situation. What about a simcity/diablo type of game.

You''d have to sell them in the one package for starters which would push the price up considerably. Then you''ve got to handle building 2 games in the time frame of 1 or 1 and a half at best. The costs. And finding someone willing to support the idea. An incredibly cohesive game design doc and layout. Easy

I know there''s another way though!

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

like Allegiance, or whatever that game Wavinator was talking about, make this be a hint to LucasArts, that it''d be cool if one person can play Admiral Ackbar/Admiral Piett on a RTS level, while the FPS guys can play the Incom craft vs. the TIE fighters with the Xwing vs. TIE engine.

Paul, one way you could solve some of these problems would be to piggy-back the new game onto an existing title, preferably one w/ extensive scripting. If you''re working closely with the original team of the first game, it wouldn''t be *too* impossible, and it''d be alot safer bet for funding, ya?

I read an article a few years ago in "Computer Gaming World" where they interviewed a guy from EA''s company Janes. This guy was talking about a day when there would be "Wars" solved online What he was eluding to was that all of the Simulation games that people play now, such as Tank sims and Fighter sims and Heli sims etc... would be linked up and a virtual war would be fought! I don''t think this is exactly what your talking about your talking about some players building content and other playing the games... In the near future everyone will have a broadband connection and maybe these kinds of game can come to life. I can''t wait!

Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

Okay, here''s another comment on a game I never played

Didn''t the Battlemech games do the war thing, too? You''d fight in your battlemech with your friends and you victory or loss would contribute to the whole war between North and South...

One problem arises with the top to bottom order strategy that I''m not sure would be too fun. Have you ever played an RTS where you stuck a bunch of guys in front of the enemy just to be cannon fodder? Maybe it wouldn''t be so bad if you could respawn, but dying for the flag would SUCK big time if you lost a character investment to boot.

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by Paul Cunningham

What about a simcity/diablo type of game.

I''m waiting for a Dungeon Keeper meets Diablo type game. I want to be Lord of Hell!!!! This, by the way, is what I''m hinting at in the "plot to take over the world" thread. Imagine kidnapping townsfolk, laying curses, and generally creating quests for Diablo players to beat. Could work in with your idea of players making traps...

Did you know, by the way, that the original Dungeon Keeper was supposed to be you vs. 4 of your buddies who''d be playing Diablo type characters? They scrapped it for some reason, don''t know why...



--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

I had an idea for player-server run worlds that player characters could visit. At the top level, the server creator would set the rules of his world (taxes, laws, even physics if he was powerful enough). They''d spend money terraforming, raising a military, building cities, etc.

The catch would be that server worlds would gain their money only by player visits. So the more people who visited their world and traded goods and whatnot, the richer the world would be. Server ops who were buttheads would then always be poor.

Server ops (world leaders) could go head to head with each other. Every hour they could send as many forces against another server as they wanted. But the more forces they sent, the less they''d have for defense against player characters and other world leaders.

It was sort of a poor man''s MMORPG with lotsa strategy and building thrown in. No game house would touch it, I''m sure, because of the server costs and dev time. But it''d be a great freeware product, kinda like Allegro, with developers and designers contributing to the game rules and code as it went along.

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

Genral:
Isn''t the FPS + RTS what the original tribes was trying to be? I mean it wasn''t realy implemented perfectly but you could give other people objectives to complete on the map like "attack Enemy at way point" or "Deploy sensor Jammer" and then while playing in the FPS mode your compass would show you an arrow in the direction they wanted you to go. You could even specify which player you wanted them to attack. Of course you can probably tell i''m a tribes fan... but thats not the point.

Wavinator:
What if you had the servers run by the player who would control it, then the company would only have to maintain a look-up table of the active games, kinda like UT or Quake3.... just a thought

Hey the possibilities are endless once you start mixing genres. How bout a racing game in SimCity? You could build the city and then you could race in the streets sorta like San Fransico Rush. Or maybe a FPS breakaway kinda game. Or maybe a RTS racing game. Command hundreds of race cars as you run over your competition. Or maybe a RPG/Fighter, build up your fighters experience, have him learn new attacks, and have a real time battle scene. DBZ would be a good game for that.

Or maybe a educational fighting game. Have Big Bird beat the crap out of Elmo and then have the players spell pizza.

Weirdness...

BTW, I know I''m slightly off topic, but I''m just throwing out ideas for the kinda games that would be possible with a massive multiplayer mixed genre game. Hmmm, MMMGG, I herby coin that phrase!

-Blackstream

"See you later, I'm going to go grab a few Bytes. I'm so thirsty, I could drink a whole data stream."