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Original post by Wavinator
Unfortunately, no. The interface is to be unified among the different planned modes: starship, vehicle and personal interaction. It's third person both to lower the bar on player expected art quality and for simplicity's sake in learning controls.
Reminds me of the concept for 3rd World. With more of the tactician's aspect of a Homeworld or Eve. Cool. I'm partial to the 1st person "pilot's pilot" type of games, but I *really* don't mind the 3rd person aspect. It's just not my favorite - but I well and truly understand that's just personal preference :D
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[smile] Well, it's nice to know whoever enters this space is going to have some grazing room. But unfortunately, it won't be me (yet anyway). The resources, time, long term development commitment and experience far outstrips my planned resources, which are already redlined for a PvE small scale multiplayer design.
Actually, you really are going to be competing against a game like EvE, for example. But, since you're primarily concentrating on story and environment, you'll be a leg up. EvE is your typical MMORPG... in spaceships. It does a LOT of cool things - but that's all they are - cool things. It's a cool game, though.
So, in another way... you won't. You most definitely will NOT be competing against the "I want to *fly* my own spaceship types - which, for your purposes, is NOT a bad thing. In addition, this gives you even less competition. Which is also good. Groundbreaking, if done correctly, is always, always good for the genre.
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Just out of curiousity, is this still an issue of lag versus size of the environment?
Eh, the issues of a ground-based MMORPG vs a space-based MMORPG are leagues apart, in my humble opinion.
On the ground, you have terrain, many, many objects, and such. That's the "hard" part. The easy part is that you only have a basically linear plane to deal with (with a bit of mountains, valleys, of course, but basically linear.)
In space, you (obviously) don't have terrain to map, or to worry about. So, your rendering times are going to be MUCH easier to manage. _However_ - on the opposite side of the coin, you're going to have asteroids, space stations, ships, gates/wormholes, and the like - in a HUGE *completely 3-dimensional environment*, which adds to the complexity a GREAT deal.
So, there's ups and downs, imo - but, I haven't had a lag problem in any of the space MMO's I've played lately. At all.
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I'm confused why you would think this. What about all the RPGs like Neverwinter Nights or Baldur's Gate that are PvE and single player, which do quite well. If you're looking for an enemy to outthink you, I agree that PvP is where it's at. But if you're looking to have an experience among friends where you support each other in an environment that caters exclusively to your tastes and timing (i.e., there when you want it, goes away when you don't, don't die or lose progress while offline, etc.) you have to go with PvE.
See, here's the PvE vs PvP argument, in a nutshell. It also encompasses some of the 1st vs 3rd person argument, too. I'm not talking 1st person view - Morrowind has a great first person view - but it's still 3rd person control. You don't control how hard he swings his sword, where he aims, how well he blocks, parries, or etc - those skills are assigned by your characters simulated "stats". It's not YOU doing it. In a FPS, YOUR aim matters, YOUR ability to dodge, run, take cover, etc, are the points that will win, or lose, your battle. Be it vs bots, people, or what have you - if you're good, you win. If you're not, you suck, and you lose. There's no skill points you can buff to change the fact that you suck, and there's nothing the person you beat into the ground can say that will change your mind that you just kicked his tail into next week. You're good, he's not. Granted, some people get a complex off of that, either way, but that's their deal.
If you don't want to compete, if you don't want to be really, truly challenged, you play PvE games. I'm sorry if I sound "elitist" (bad pun, I know...), but if you are using some interface to defeat some AI.. eventually, the mechanics become the all-encompassing goal. There is no "I did this" - it becomes all about your stats, your skills (not YOUR skills - the skills you purchased, were auto-magically rewarded, or were just handed, because you "beat the level"), and your "character's position". It isn't YOU doing anything, it isn't YOU swinging the sword, and it certainly isn't YOUR abilities and practice at mastering a certain skill that are at stake - it's you controlling, in a god-like way, an avatar you've imbued with certain characteristics.
If you want to be "the man", if you want YOUR skill (and, I DO mean skill - as in, you fly better, shoot better, trade better, politick better, etc, etc, amen...) at your chosen task to be evident, (or, the lack thereof), you're a PvPer. When you choose games, you're going to choose those where skill matters, where stats are insignificant, or non-existent, and where you have the opportunity to be GOOD. Not "have good stuff", but BE GOOD at something. That, in my humble opinion, is the difference.
In RTS games, there are still tactical matters you can be "better" at - so I can't say that 3rd person =/= PvP. I CAN say, however, that with 3rd person, no Plaver vs Player conflict, that the challenge, by design, is, and MUST be, limited to the advancement of the AI. Once you figure out how to beat it - you can do it every time, ad infinitum. If you add more players in, the AI has to be even better, and last even longer before they "figure out" how to beat it. PvE, by it's very nature, depends on the difficulty (not the STATS of the enemy.. that's a common mistake.. just because something has super-duper-uber hitpoints doesn't mean it's hard. Hard = how difficult is to beat, tactically.) of the AI, and the coordination required to defeat it.
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When you say "cooperation that matters" it sounds like you're talking about a tactical puzzle that can only be created by other thinking souls, and solved likewise. I'll definitely cede that that is probably a superior challenge to hordes of bots, but you can capture SOME of that intensity and tactical thought in PvE with positioning and exclusive abilities the players don't have but still must counter.
I mean more along these lines. Say we're playing Jumpgate. One faction is at war with another. Ok, they fight. And fight. And fight. Still fighting...
Is the goal just the fighting? Or is there a REASON they're fighting? A real, tangible, goal you're fighting FOR. Not some nebulous admission by the opposing force that you "won". Money, territory, technology - something REAL to fight for. Some REAL goals that must be accomplished to define a WIN.
FPS games, for the most part, are not "cooperation that matters". If you win a round.. who cares? There'll be 1,456 rounds to follow. In games like Shattered Galaxy (an RTS starcraft-type game), or Enemy Territory (the WW2 shooter), there are real prizes to reward your efforts. If you capture the forward bunker, you spawn closer to your objective. If you capture the machine guns nest, you now command that stretch of ground, if you play it right. In Shattered Galaxy, if you win a round, you capture that *territory* - you added another stretch of ground to your empire - keep winning, and capture the enemy HQ, your faction wins the war.
Things like that are what MMORPG's are missing, in the PvP sense.
If there's nothing to "win", tangibly, (and I don't mean just money, for the most part. Territory, and forward bases are more along the lines of what I'm thinking), what does it gain you to fight? In PvE games, it's all nice that you win a battle against the bad guys - but, THEY NEVER WIN. They are, by nature, designed to fight, and to lose. If they do happen to win, do they get anything for it? If you win, will they never come back, or be able to knock you out of that strongpoint they just captured? Or vice versa?
Combat that matters, yes. I want combat that matters. I've had it, and I want it better. The cry of every gamer :D
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And I can't say enough about an enemy that acts like the traditional military training OpFor: Happy to put up just enough of a fight to keep you interested, but willing to lose ad infinitum to appease your ego.
I HATE always winning. Especially when it's against bots that don't have a prayer in a straight one on one fight, with equal weapons, armor, what have you. Or when they have stuff twice as good as mine. or 5 times, or ten. Kicking a bot's butt doesn't give me a thrill. It's nice that they fight - but who CARES if the bot dies? Another one's going to take his place. Again, and again, and again...
If I kick a human's butt - it was usually a MUCH better fight (and no, I don't mean newbs (who may as well be bots, until they get good enough to compete)), and much, much more satisfying to win - or lose. I don't mind losing! If it's to someone who was BETTER than me. Nothing pisses me off more than losing agianst "bosses" who are dumb as rocks, but have 100 quadzillion times the hitpoints, and get a few lucky shots in. Well, I know what does piss me off more. WINNING against a bot with 100 quadzillion times the hitpoints - but is dumb as rocks. It's not a contest. It's mindless, once you realize you're 10, 100, 1,000 times better than the AI could ever hope to cope with. Once I can beat every single ship, find every good shipping lane, and can beat everything in every conceivable ship, including the newb ship you start with... in a PvE space sim - I put it down, and either play multiplayer, or find another game. I quit MP after it starts getting old, or I get good enough to get bored with the competition.
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An environment like this I think would be cool because it would be a kind of Quake in space. That I'd sign up for and play simply because I'd know from the outset what the game is about.
Yep. That's your basic, proto-typical space sim. Shoot, kill, die - rinse, repeat. That's space sims. We're talking about MMO*RPG's* though. You CAN have combat, and have story/reasoning behind it. It's a trillion times better. I know.
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But what if you're looking for more? What if you're looking to be part of a reactive cosmos that can be interacted with in meaningful ways that aren't just about combat? What if you're looking more for a Star Trek experience, where you and your friends can explore "strange new worlds, new life and new civilizations?"
The X series does a lot of this - but I agree, it could be done better. However.. does it have to EXCLUDE combat? This has to be, admit it - the second most combat focused genre - Science ficion. Only exceeded, (for obvious reasons), military-style FPS'.
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I have been disappointed to find that most games don't even go in this direction despite the constant posts and letters from gamers, op ed pieces in the gaming press and aspirations of developers. We know that combat works in this genre, so there's a ton of that; we're starting to spice more games with stealth; and very rarely we see a trade module that reaches beyond "buy low / sell high".
Oh yes, I'd love to see that. But, I ask you - how likely is a utopian paradise where no man may raise his hand to another? (Whilie kickign the crap out of every alien know to mankind....).
My answer? Not bloody likely :D
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But there is a more holistic experience that is the essence of science fiction in books and movies that I'm reaching for. I'd like to build a game that's more about people than about hardware-- which, save for the matchbook stories, most sci-fi space games are about. For this reason, I've put a massive amount of focus on the experience of being a single character, with the ship really being secondary to how you manipulate the environment. What has bugged me about these games is that in most space sims, you are a ship, not a character. Without a body, the experience of being in a strange new environment is remote, and as a result one's thinking tends to be come objectified: You think about gadgets and guns, goals and kill scores, not about roleplaying (however possible such is on a computer).
Yeah, well. You're right. I'd LOVE the ability to do more than JUST fly the ship. I want to walk around, do other things, etc, etc. However, I feel a very, very central role in the science fiction "plexiverse" is combat. I also feel our goal, as developers, is to find the happy medium where PvE and PvP can exist, in the same world, without either dominating the other.
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btw, I probably have as much mileage as you on the single-player spacesim genre (going back to burning up near suns trying to refuel in Elite and wishing I could REALLY play poker as old Blue Hair aboard the TCS Concordia ;>). I've forever wanted to get out of my ship and walk around, and it really ticks me off when I just blow up on the outer mesh of a planet model in most of these games.
Hehe. "You have burned up". Or something like that. Yes, that royally annoyed me, too.
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Nonetheless, I understand your ardent wish to see someone do the MMOG RPG space-sim genre right, and I encourage you to keep hammering away on this passion. Only when you analyze the genre, isolate its problems, and communicate the vision will it be done the way it's supposed to be.
Oh, I completely understand. I, however, disagree with the concept of "no PvP" in a multiplayer game :/ I'm sure some people like it. I just think they're strange people :D
So, umm. I guess that's about it. lol.