I've been thinking of what a good MMO would have in it. Yes MMO's, but forget about all that leveling and whatnot, I'm looking at say something like Unreal Tournament or Half-life except on a large scale, which characters that last a while. The focus will be on doing what other non-MMO games do for fun. I guess Battlefield 1942 would be a good example. First off, this is what there is in the game: 1. Permadeath, while quite rare that this would happen it's still a possibility. 2. there's PvP. To keep things civilized, the more powerful of the groups are the militaries (pirates and goons can never get a ship as powerful as those in the military, infact the military use pirates as target practice). The military must follow the rules inorder to stay in it. Like protecting people. They can however engage in fights with rival militaries. It's focus is teamwork as one ship can't just take on the whole armada. Griefers shouldn't be able to exist well in this type of setup. 3. The detail is much higher. Players may actually walk around the ship they are in (if it's allowed, small fighters have no room for this.) Like multiple players can be inside a battleship. They can walk around and do whatever. Only the pilot actually gets a view to see where they are going. 4. The level/skill system is almost non-existant. but there are ranks for certain groups. and licenses for flying ships and that. Now with these things in mind, I'd like to have the following available for tactics. (I'll keep it just to space for now) 1. There is space combat. Similar to Descent Freespace, Tie Fighter series, X-wing.... Your typical space combat sim. 2. You can board large enemy vessels ie. battleships. In this you are now fighting like your typical first person shooter / third person. For these battles, there might be 50-300 people involved. I don't think once you're out you're out would be a good route. the battles wuld be too quick. I thought of a few ways to have a battle and yet keep it going for a while. I thought of having a Last Man Standing type of system. To keep consistent with the permadeath / no clones / no magic resurection / etc, I thought of having a squad based battle. Each group has a number of squad units. So for a ground based group, the player has 8 units under their control. They actually play as first person of one of these units. When it dies, it goes to the next one. Until all of them die, then there's no squad left, except for him. If he dies, he loses his character and has to start over. (one of the cost's of war) For spcae battles, they usually go on longer anyway, so maybe they only get 2 "lives". They replenish after time. like 1 an hour or you get them all back after 12 hours so don't worry about that. I was playing the game Star Wars Battlefront, and that's where I got this idea from. A little anyway. Or maybe it's more like battlefront and that your entire party has a pool of 200 units and after all of them are used up, that's when permadeath could happen. Another idea is this. back to everyone has 8 "lives", people can still play after this but after the 8 lives are used up, there's a higher and higher chance that permadeath could happen on this turn. How does this idea sound?

hmmm.... it sound like a really large bite that cant be chewed or swallowed easilly.... dont forget that games like GTA vice city already take years and millions of cash to be created. what u propose is even more intense(and fun, cant deny iy :D) but it will be 2 hard 2 make i guess.... :(_

Never sya nver and don't doubt the undoubtful about designing or programming a game or two. Forget about the cash and how much it cost.writing or as it were programming an idea like this is original would be interesting to consider. Just my two cents.

You could simply make battles have objectives. If you are being attacked, you have to hold off the attackers for X amount of time. The attacks have to capture 5 stations in that time to win. You could then have infinite respawns. However, have respawns be in timed waves, not automatic.

To prevent kamikaze players, however, at the end of the battle give them "points" based on their participation. if they went 0 and 50 (0 kills, 50 deaths), subtract from their "rank". Player "rank" could affect what they can buy, etc. So everyone starts as a Lt. or something, and can work their way up to "field general" or all the way down to "peon". This would force people to play as a team and with tactics, because their scores depend on it.

Just some ideas.

Sounds interesting, but a few questions.

1) If you only have so many lives and then you suffer perma-death, how is this implemented? Assuming this plays out in a similar way to a large fps battle game i.e. 1942, joint operations, etc. Then is the player booted from the server when he reaches perma-death or does he just wait for the next match (assuming up to 300 ppl the match could take a long time, a player who died in the beginning might get bored and leave).

2) What stops the player from logging out and right back in?

3) If "sides" share lives then what stops a player from suiciding over and over to make his "side" lose?

4) 300 ppl is a tall order. Joint operations, for example, is promoted for being one of few games that have up to 150 players on a server. How do you plan to overcome those technological hurdles? If your thinking to yourself, EQ or SWG has 1000+ players, then you should also take into consideration that those battles are statistics based battles with no true tracking of projectiles, aiming, etc.

5) who is hosting these 300 ppl games? Your average PC with an average connection won't be able too unfortunately. Will your company be hosting servers? Will they cost money to play on?

6) Other than forcing a player out of a current battle what other effects does perma-death have? Do I gain skill or exp that I lose when I lose my character? Is my player stats (i.e. kills, games won) perhaps tracked via a central server and thus I lose those stats when my player dies? Or is the perma-death local to the current battle?

I think it's a great idea and several games are built on the ideas you have presented. A good thing, as it shows you have your finger on the pulse of the industry. I recommend you check out Joint Operations (a mmo fps similar to what you describe) or try out Star Wars Galaxies (a mmorpg, which will be releasing a space based expansion that also has some of the elements you describe)

A battle with numbers in the order of 500 people, even if its only something like bf1942, would allow for some pretty interesting stuff.

People would be fighting in large enough groups that individual skill would come into it less - if you suck then you'd probably survive anyway from sheer numbers.

Overall team skill would matter, but the actions of individuals wouldnt - the game would come down more to team coordination, yet still leaving players skill at the actual mechanics of fighting a part of the game.

Additionally, there'd be enough players doing the actual fighting that it would actually be worthwhile for some players to do tasks not directly related to combat, such as hiding at an outpost and reporting passing enemy vehicles, a dedicated mine laying mission, or transporting ammo and supplies to the front line.

Quote: Original post by KrizzleToTheZizzle
People would be fighting in large enough groups that individual skill would come into it less - if you suck then you'd probably survive anyway from sheer numbers.

Overall team skill would matter, but the actions of individuals wouldnt - the game would come down more to team coordination, yet still leaving players skill at the actual mechanics of fighting a part of the game.

I know what this looks like. In Americas Army or whatever the game is called now, it was like this a lot. There were only a few players would be so good that their team would win all the time. But for the most part it was a team effort and the skill of the individual was blurred.

Quote: Additionally, there'd be enough players doing the actual fighting that it would actually be worthwhile for some players to do tasks not directly related to combat, such as hiding at an outpost and reporting passing enemy vehicles, a dedicated mine laying mission, or transporting ammo and supplies to the front line.

I like that idea.

First off, let me just say that this MMO, if it ever gets beyond the design stage, will be around when there's much better technology for designing games. I'd say if I really worked at it, i'd probably start developing a team in 3-5 years. I have a few other things I need to do to before i start this game. I'd really like for a set of things to start off before a team works on this.

I'm also looking to base this game on a series of novels I'm writing. So they also need ot be finished before the game starts. That way I can build a community first.

Quote: Original post by Deadpenguin
Sounds interesting, but a few questions.

1) If you only have so many lives and then you suffer perma-death, how is this implemented? Assuming this plays out in a similar way to a large fps battle game i.e. 1942, joint operations, etc. Then is the player booted from the server when he reaches perma-death or does he just wait for the next match (assuming up to 300 ppl the match could take a long time, a player who died in the beginning might get bored and leave).

If it was permadeath, then they will have to recreate a character (not all is lost, they can inherit money. Since there are little to no skills, building their character won't take long...). Anyway, the lives thing is my attempt at letting the players have a few chances to complete a task. Just so a random shot or whatever doesn't take them out of the game in the first seconds of the battle. The way i'd explain how this is possible is that each player gets a squad of troops to command, more for higher ranked people. When they get shot, it's actually one of their troops, not the actual character. It's only until after the last of their troops is killed that they are now playing with their actual character and the chance of permadeath is now in action. If they get shot to the point that they don't die but are incapacitated (see *** below), they are out of the battle. This is only needed though if the battles seem too quick. If they are not then the "lives" thing is not needed. I'm trying to aim for a 2 hour or so battle for someone trying to capture a battleship. There's fighting out in space around the ship and also a battle inside the ship with the crew vs the boarding party.


And being an MMO, the battle is only happening on one part of the server, their new character will probably appear in a safe zone of some kind. It would probably take too long to get back to fighting, that and they'd have to join the group again and whatnot. Basically I'm trying to balance out having "death" in a game mean something yet not have it too punishing to drive people away. The no skills/levels is almost a necessity with permadeath as someone who has grinded for the last 6 months getting the l33t character only to have to start over cause of permadeath, they'd probably quit and never play again.
I guess when someone dies, think of an already existing MMO and what they'd do there.
*** Also another note on dying, When someone "dies", they might just be incapacitated and have to be returned to a medical facility. While some will actually die and have to start over, there are still many who can continue cause their player was injured beyond playability. There might be a penalty of 24 hours before their player is fully mobile. They might have to go around on crutches before then ;).

Quote: 2) What stops the player from logging out and right back in?

Another point. You're character goes into offline mode when you're not using them. I think Dark and Light has this. Youre character is still in the game but they act like an NPC.
I think i'll have the chances that they'd permadie as fairly low but it can still happen. It's their fault (probably) for logging out. For those circumstances where it wasn't the player's fault (bad ISP, M$oft screwing with the net ;) ) that's why the chances of permadeath are lowered (which are already low). But for someone who hasn't been on in a while like a few hours, there are only special things that would cause them to lose their character. Like assassinaitons (not everyone can do this and not TO anyone either, only to key leaders and such).

Quote: 3) If "sides" share lives then what stops a player from suiciding over and over to make his "side" lose?

Good point. I wasn't keen on the side sharing lives anyway.

Quote: 4) 300 ppl is a tall order. Joint operations, for example, is promoted for being one of few games that have up to 150 players on a server. How do you plan to overcome those technological hurdles? If your thinking to yourself, EQ or SWG has 1000+ players, then you should also take into consideration that those battles are statistics based battles with no true tracking of projectiles, aiming, etc.

1. I'm hoping that technology will advance a bit more by the time i make this game.
2. Not everyone will be playing the FPS style fighting. So space combat could be dumbed down a bit. Assuming the in-game tech has allowed for everyone to have swiveling turrets, using projectile tracing might not be as big of an issue. especially if they all have lasers like with star trek.
But yeah, this is going to be one of the big hurdles.

Quote: 5) who is hosting these 300 ppl games? Your average PC with an average connection won't be able too unfortunately. Will your company be hosting servers? Will they cost money to play on?

Yeah it's a subscription service game. So it won't be on the average PC or have an average connection.

Quote: 6) Other than forcing a player out of a current battle what other effects does perma-death have? Do I gain skill or exp that I lose when I lose my character? Is my player stats (i.e. kills, games won) perhaps tracked via a central server and thus I lose those stats when my player dies? Or is the perma-death local to the current battle?

Well my idea on characters themselves is this:
First there are no skills. Or at least like what we see in games right now. If I'm in a military, i need to train (basically just take a test) to be able to pilot a star fighter, be a medic or become an officer. You don't have to spend days working at training a skill before you can use it. There are licenses similar to driving license in the realworld. You take a test and now your character can do that. Skills such as martial arts, i thought of actually having a class that people have to attend where the mentor shows you a few moves and you have to duplicate before you can use them outside the class. But every time you permadie, you have to do this training all over (there might be some exceptions if you choose to try and resume where you left off like rejoin the military or corp, you'd get half of these skills back.) Since the tests shouldn't take long, it shouldn't be a big problem getting back into the game.

Second. I'll probably allow for each account to have several characters attached to them. But each character which is made, the last name will always stick unless you choose to disown it (which takes 24 hours before a character replaces the spot). It is also unique in the game. No-one can have the last name smith if it's already taken. This in mind, Mr. Smith dies, the next character made will have the same last name. You can also view the stats of that last character and such. But your new character will have a clear stats. This also allows for inheritance. The new character can inherit the possessions (maybe for a percentage deduction). Also dependant on how legal they were. If they comitted crimes against humanity like being a murderer, they may lose much more than someone who wasn't. Note: being a smuggler, or part of a mafia doesn't count as a humanity crime. Just those people who player kill for fun really.

One requirement is that the new character must be different than the previous one. The name must be different and can't be just a variation of the previous names.

Status / Rank in the game is lost. Some corporations this may not happen. Like the owner who has set the corp to be inherited by their "child" or "sibling". But orgainizations like militaries, the general who died, is replaced by the next highest ranking official. The ex-general's new character must climb the ranks again. They may get to jump to a higher status right away than a freshly made character from a different "family". But this is only for if you join the same group as the last character. If I joined another military, I have to start from scratch. This is explained as if your brother / sister has already started training while your last character was still in service.

Some of these things just won't have any affect on solo players. They have no rank or status.

A bonus is that if someone WAS a griefer, their new character has a clean slate. It's only after multiple characters that have a griefer like status that the game devs might intervene.

I'm trying to model permadeath from a real life perspective. If i die, i won't get reincarnated with magic or have a clone ready. I die for real. Sometimes it just means a visit to the hospital. I'm usually put out for a while. If i do die, then my family gets insurance for my death and they get my stuff. If I'm a criminal, my stuff gets possessed. My children shouldn't really have much to do with how i lived. If i was a bad person, they can be bad or good, some people might be suspicious at first but they have to give the benefit of the doubt for now. I lose all my rank and status when i die.

I too have been dying to play a game like this. I want to see a space sim & a ground shootem-up or MMO blended together so they take place in one seamless game environment. I don't think something like this is too far off. If companies stop pushing the graphics ahead of basic game mechanics this could easily be done within a few years

I think once the graphics have started to plateau, then we'll start seeing this. That and maybe solving a few network issues. Or it just might take a garage team to sit down and do it.

[Edited by - trapdoor on October 11, 2004 11:57:00 PM]