It seems like right now you guys are looking at past games and looking at which ones were succesful and taking the best elements of those and tossing them together to get the general MMORTS that I am talking about. And I never expected Oluseyi to say what he did about the MMORTS. I never thought that someone would think of it that way, but maybe thats what a lot of you are thinking about when I say MMORTS. And who in the hell ever got on the topic of an MMODM? Lord knows... But anyways here is more of what I am thinking.

There is a sprawling land that goes on for some distance. This landscape has some natural bounderies in some areas that will help seperate a starting race from another. Esentially so that one race can't "hop the fence" and destroy another. Now within these bounderies players will login and their character date (whatever it may be will be loaded). Now lets say they are logining in for the first time and they have no character data so they will start from scratch. These players are set in a predetermined location in the factions/races land that they align themselves with. And this location is determined by certain aspects of their city.

Now back to the new player logining in for the first time, they are placed someone on the sprawling landscape with a very small village and they are in control of it. There are several aspects of the village that they are incharge of. The military, the economy (to a degree), and its welfare (to a degree). I say to a degree for the economy and its welfare because I figured if players were to have to micro all of those aspects it would also turn into a city building game (like Ceasar and Pharaoh), which is what I don't want.

Now over time as the player mangages their city, it will start to grow. In growing it will allow for the support of a large military and the advancement of the military. Not only that, but it will start to link up with other cities for trade and what not.

Now still remaining semi-vague, these players will be joined in this sprawling land/world with many other players. The players ultimate goal will be to overwelm the other faction/races. They may go about doing this by themselves (which would be highly unlikely) or they may team up with other players and form larger armies (they would still only be in control of their own units) and try to take over other factions cities/villages/towns/etc.

Now in the mean time, there would be quests that players would be able to accept. They would range from small things such as maybe sending troups to protect a caravan, or get a certain amount of a resource, up to taking control of a rebel city. These tasks would have some sort of reward for completing them, but it would also give the players army experience. This experience would be distributed the soldiers that participated in the quest and would raise their stats, make them more proficent fighters, or what ever else seemed reasonable.

Does it sound more feasible now? I mean to me in my head I have it mapped out and think I am going to starting writing my ideas down here in the next day or two. I would start now but have some things I need to take care of. :( But it just seems like a possibilty that would definately work and redefine the RTS genre.

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Original post by IndigoDarkwolf Actually, there already is an MMO RTS with RPG elements. I first found it about a year and a half ago, but after about 4 months of off-and-on playing I grew impatient with the game's poor translation into English, a couple of rather annoying bugs that it had, and more-or-less complete lack of documentation of the stats which governed your units' capabilities. I don't remember the name of the game, unfortunately, else I'd give you a link (and the game did allow players to play for free--- paying got you more goodies, better weapons, etc, etc). Here's the basics of the game: You are a resident of a faction which you fight for in a futuristic science-fiction setting. You control an army of up to 36 units, but may only send waves of up to 12 into battle at any given time. You're supposed to go out and capture territory for your faction, and you do so by entering an enemy-controlled territory and sitting on the 1 to 5 control points in the territory until they are all turned to your side. If your side does not have at least one unit on the control point and the control point does not already belong to you then it resets to the defender's control. You have a finite time in which to capture all of the control points, too. Players from any factions may show up and join the battle for the territory, up to a maximum number of total players for each faction involved. At the end of the battle, experience is dolled out to your units, and with enough experience they level up: They become more powerful, more accurate, etc. You also get money from the battle, more if you win, less or none if you lose. Money can be spent at your faction's capital to outfit your units with better gear, making them more efficient machinations of death, chaos, destruction, and general-purpose harassment. Further, the units can "evolve" into more advanced (and specialized) unit types once they reach a sufficient level. The game was actually not too bad and, except for a few instances, was relatively lagless, which impressed me for an MMO that would have to deal with so many units in a single battle at a time. And I'd say it was pretty MMO... it was online, there could be a dozen territories being fought over on any given cont at any given time and there could be a good couple dozen of players fighting over any given territory. That definitely rivals the size of some other established MMO games, like Planetside. It was definitely RTS, and I'd say that units with levels, experience, and stats qualifies as RPG elements. Oh yeah, you seem to have some kind of personal avatar with their own non-combat-related stats, which go up as you win more battles. EDIT: As I recall, getting your units killed and losing the overall battle for the territory were both rather bad things. It was cheap and easy to repair the units, but they could actually lose experience if they got beaten too quickly or if the overall battle was lost.

I believe the above-mentioned game is Shattered Galaxy - a korean game localized for the US market (or should I say "the worldwide English-speaking" market?) the website is http://www.sgalaxy.com the download file is about 200+MB.

Its entire RTS gameplay focus on character building (which is the so-called RPG element), instead of construction and resource managing in typical RTS games, i.e: Starcraft, C&C, etc... nice game for starters but it is actually quite shallow - battles are fought for no purpose other than to rush levels for hero reincarnations that require players to start afresh but with permanent extra bonuses. The cycle goes on and it bores many people quite easily.

In a nutshell, I think it's possible - even feasible. But it isn't going to be a million subscriber game - it's gonna have to *aspire* to be a niche-market to keep the numbers down - only a few thousand online at any single time. Tens of thousands at best.

I would have players create an avatar, just like in any other MMO, and start as a 2nd lieutenant. Keep an ornate win/loss record, prestige, and an *independant* set of stats for faction politics.

The game needs to have a *huge* map, with varied combat areas, cities to siege, etc. Heck, it might need to be set in space. Space battles, planetary conquests, etc. Officers should be encouraged to "guild"-up into better-organized, *self-run* battalions.

Players should be given more and more resources, but some focus ought to be paid to economic objectives. Raw minerals, bases/factories, and supply routes. Limiting production by causing "shortages" can make for interesting stories. Players could be in charge of more than actual combat, and could run certain facilities/installations/bases.

Also, the classic "common alien foe" would come in handy as a AI-controlled balancing force among the factions. Guilds may express a desire to rebel, and officers will undoubtebly go AWOL, discoveries could be made on planets, and the universe could fall into danger time after time. Could be quite riveting, indeed.

Those who don't like the Guild structure could go solo/whatever. Bands of mercs, pirates, and adventurers. Heck, I bet there would be a market for spies, and even double-agents.

Exactly, Shattered Galaxy.

There is a game called Savage, which blended RTS, FPS, and RPG like elements.

http://www.s2games.com/savage/

It was fairly well done, although a bit unbalanced. Basically you played the game as any first person shooter would play out. There was 1 person who was a commander, who controlled the RTS aspect of the game, deciding in which order building should be built. These buildings allowed for better armor and weapons as well as different unit types. The peons would build these structures, and players could help. And for every player, as you killed enemies, you leveled up your character, gaining certain abilities and better statistics.

I'd say the only thing it lacked was a persistent world, as one side could acheive victory over another.

D

There actually was a game that did just this a number of years ago when MMOs were the brand new frontier (talking Everquest days). It was called 10six, supposedly because up to 10^6 players could participate in the world simultaneously. Basically it consisted of a single planet divided up into 10^6 little territories. When you started a new character you'd select a territory to call home and start building up your base's structures. If anybody can recall the game Battlezone, the gameplay mechanics of 10six went along similar lines. You'd play from the first person view of one of your units from which you could build structures, set up defenses, go on raids, etc... What was really unique about it was that your base would stay active even when you were logged off, and its automated defenses would, to a degree, defend it from other players attempting to raid it. I believe it shut down after a couple years of operation.

Do a google search on 10six and I'm sure you'll pull up some more info on it.

hmm.. It might be difficult to pull off making a MMORTS, since the servers would have to keep track of all the units possitions/stats/levels/types, but i don't think its impossible. The key would be to not access inactive units or put a cap on the maximum number of units a player can control at any given time and have them move with him. If each player online could only control 30 or so units, and put a cap on the max number of people that can enter a sector, with around 3-5000 people per server, then it could work.

A good way to do this would be something like a Homeworlds approach (not the 3D-ness but the capitol ship), to hold all your units and jump between sectors.

I considered this quite a bit and came up with a solution:

Note, mine was based upon sci-fi ship command (aka star trek)

1) You start with a small ship (frigate, escort, etc...) You win missions, you get more points, you lose them, you lose points.

2) You want a bigger ship, you spend points. Every time you login, you have to compare your current points to what is required to get a particular class of ship. Each ship has different types of missions, each mission is worth a different number of points.

3) To get command positions (commodore, admiral, fleet admiral, etc...) you have to have a wide variety of experience, from smaller ships to the bigger ones.

4) Once you hit command positions you can start deciding who goes on what missions, your decisions affect the empire (federation, concordium, whatever), their income, ship availability, research, etc... To grow in command positions, you have to maintain successes and have sufficient point totals.

5) The highest levels of command are strategic, developing trade lanes, negotiating with other empires, building bases, research expenditures, etc...

6) Even if you have enough points, if the position is filled, you still can't get it, though when the person logs out, the position will be offered to those with the most points first.

7) Failure gives others the option of taking your command and dropping you in 'rank'.

The real key here is to keep any other empires from completely destroying one side in a multi-sided battle. I think that the best way to handle this is by having a good number of sides, but not so many that the game becomes overburdened with factions. Too much of a good thing = bad in the long run. It's very much about balance.

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Original post by solinear I considered this quite a bit and came up with a solution: Note, mine was based upon sci-fi ship command (aka star trek) 1) You start with a small ship (frigate, escort, etc...) You win missions, you get more points, you lose them, you lose points. 2) You want a bigger ship, you spend points. Every time you login, you have to compare your current points to what is required to get a particular class of ship. Each ship has different types of missions, each mission is worth a different number of points. 3) To get command positions (commodore, admiral, fleet admiral, etc...) you have to have a wide variety of experience, from smaller ships to the bigger ones. 4) Once you hit command positions you can start deciding who goes on what missions, your decisions affect the empire (federation, concordium, whatever), their income, ship availability, research, etc... To grow in command positions, you have to maintain successes and have sufficient point totals. 5) The highest levels of command are strategic, developing trade lanes, negotiating with other empires, building bases, research expenditures, etc... 6) Even if you have enough points, if the position is filled, you still can't get it, though when the person logs out, the position will be offered to those with the most points first. 7) Failure gives others the option of taking your command and dropping you in 'rank'. The real key here is to keep any other empires from completely destroying one side in a multi-sided battle. I think that the best way to handle this is by having a good number of sides, but not so many that the game becomes overburdened with factions. Too much of a good thing = bad in the long run. It's very much about balance.

Thats a good start but to me that feels more like an MMORPG with an RTS element.