MINIMUM LEVEL FOR MISSIONS:

One of the most obvious reasons I can imagine for that is PowerLeveling. If the warfare is (partially, at least) skill-baqsed and/or twitch-based, then, theoretically, at least, a higher level character will be able to undertake difficult missions on his own (spies). But what if he took the risk to drag a newbie with him in order to give the newcomer a headstart? There is no real reason that a newcomer could not go beyond enemy lines and destroy a siege weapon or anything. Apart from the fact that he hasn't learnt yet about the siege weapons, and that that kind of objectives is too highly classified for his eyes. There is no way an important mission will be open for anybody to see. There is such a thing as spying, you remember. (Spies should also have the possibility to go and see the mission panel of the opposite faction. Anyway.) Any able general will understand that this bridge is vitally important for the supply lines,a nd will understand without having to spy on the others that they will try to take it, or to destroy it. One way or another, everybody can see that the general wants this bridge covered at all costs. But no general can see that a spie has discovered that mine being exploited by his partisans, and that a pigeon has been sent back to the lines to tell the position. So if a spy discovers this info on the enemy mission panel, this is a giveway. Hence the logical conclusion, some missions hould have a secret degree higher than others, and should NOT be seen by any eye. And the minimum level. I thought we were trying to implement a realistic level of warfare?

MEDICS AND HEALERS:

I think I've got another idea. Since it will be pretty difficult technically to track down the position of the bodies on the turf for as long as needed, what about keeping simply a track of the flag? This way, the healers are much closer to magicians in any way, would use the same kind of magic that is used to bring back the old dead heroes, and raise the bodies from clay. A new body each time you are resurected. I know it kind of contradicts what has been stated before, but it has the merit to simplify the system. Moreover, the flags will simply remain where they have landed, almost as sprites. Little to no management of the polygons or anything. Only 2D objects that are ALWAYS oriented towards the comers, a little like in Might&Magic. It should be discussed, though, since it radically changes the perspectives of the healers.

Other thought: should there be a method to track down the LOCALIZATION OF THE DAMAGE? Like, if your character gets hit in the leg, you won't run as fast as previously, and you would have the possibility to decide to remain on the spot to wait for medical help, and not delay further your team? But that could also amount to sacrificing, if you were in enemy territory. Would that kind of things add to the gameplay? Without crippling the system?

MISSION BOARD:

I am a little skeptic about this mission board. I know that players SHOULD feel emotionally engaged in the battle, and everything in this holistic design is based upon that, but what if their personal instincts draws them where the gaming experience will be the more fun, rather than where soldiers are the most needed? Maybe, assignments should be issued by higher ranked players? Like in the army, you call on a group, and tell them what they are about to do, and don't leave any leeway for their "creativity"? I think THAT would cripple the gaming experience, but it would also give more responsibilities to the higher ranking characters. It could also create an incentive to gain rank, in order to assign the missions. And since the low levels are naturally fewer than the higher ranking, if a high ranking is lacking around a mission panel to dispatch them, then only lower ranking officers should dispatch them, thus lacking these vitally important missions that will be classified. I still find it buggy, but imagine it more efficient in terms of simulated warfare. It would look like Anarchy Online's team missions booths, but without the random element. you come to the booth and get issued a mission that you HAVE to undertake. Kind of takes out the fun of it. I don't know how thehierarchy and command line can be simulated without enforcing something on the players. And I am not sure they would like that either. What do you think?

Before answering the questions, I am going to show the campaign maps:






- Rank 2 and Rank 1 flags are filtered for the second campaign map

- In reality, there is the fog of war. For example, if you are the blue faction, some of the Flags should be marked with '?' instead of an actual number, and most of the flags deep within the enemy territory will not be shown, or only be shown by grey flags, indicating the information is from a past, outdated scout report.

- If you are a commander and you look at the map, the questions you should ask are, "Is there something urgent going on near me? Are there enough guys around me to attack?" You will communicate with the other commanders to see what they are trying to do. Strategies are spontaneous created. So a mission board may not be necessary.

- If you are a Flagless warrior and you look at the battle map, you will be asking similar questions, "What are there to do? which Flag should I join temporarily?" Note that if you follow the large flags, you will almost always guarantee to have battles, since actions concentrate around the large flags.

- Therefore, even though not all of the players under a rank 5 Flag are online at the same time, the logistic value of the Flag allows the affiliated to immediately reinforce the frontline when they log on.

[Edited by - Estok on April 22, 2005 4:43:53 AM]

Your maps leaves me a little dubious...

Is it possible, with this map, to draw a FRONTLINE that will NOT look like my telephone's cable? I mean, frontLINE is pretty self explanatory, it is a LINE. not circles. at worst, it will be curves.

Your distribution of the Flags left me to think it was random. But they should be progressing from a point towards another point, maybe in cruves, maybe in straight lines, but they should have an overall GOAL. As a general, you don't position your troops by playing darts on the maps. You plan. And this should be done because of the disposition of the map. Which leads me back to a previous question:

How do you position the mission objectives in order for it to be balanced? Do you give everyone the same possibilities? Do you make the bonus affiliated with said structures only available if your faction possesses BOTH identical structure? How can you provide a frontal assault situation without taking away the opportunity to explore the world? And how can you provide a need to explore around you without ending in a situation where the soldiers are just running around, chasing each others without knowing where the hell is the enemy?

I like the idea of the PVP system here alot. I think its pretty advanced and allows a fair fight to happen most of the time.

The only thing i dont like, overall, is that it seems the entirety of the game is based on going to war. You mentioned theres other stuff, but it sounds like all that other stuff is just stuff to prepare you for war.

While I like intelligent PVP, I dont like playing games entirely for PVP.

I think it would Be a cool option to join the Military once you get to a certain level. When youre in the military, you can freely go between Soldier-Mode, and Civilian-Mode. In Civilian Mode, whatever armor you have equipped has its own style and whatnot, but in Soldier Mode, all your armor is tinted a certain color, and you have some sort of insignia on you. When in Soldier mode, you can enter battle. Maybe on the battlefield, there could be special NPC vendors that sell you different stuff based on your rank in the military.

I like MMORPGs for more than just pvp, so i woudlnt want to play one where the ultimate goal is to engage in pvp. Planetside, for example, was boring as hell.

Frontline

Frontline with the Flags off
- I don't think the frontline is telling much, and it can be deceiving, because an enemy Flag might have already sneaked behind it, and the frontline will give a false sense of security

---

Shaping the BattleField

Quote:

Your distribution of the Flags left me to think it was random. But they should be progressing from a point towards another point, maybe in cruves, maybe in straight lines, but they should have an overall GOAL.

The initial distribution of the flag is more or less random. And it should be random for the following reasons:

1) Allow conflicts and strategies to begin as the game begins
2) Allow the players to have different perspectives on how the war should progress
3) Promote strategic cooperation (with risks and tradeoffs)
4) Allow the players to frontify the cities, and select a place for advanced structures.

Quote:

As a general, you don't position your troops by playing darts on the maps. You plan. And this should be done because of the disposition of the map.

There are no generals in the beginning. The players are free to debate how they should attack and defend. It is more democratic than actual modern warfare. You can think of the Flags as warlords, and each of them might have a different perspective and strategy. So there may be conflicts among Flags in the same faction. And they are supposed to resolve those conflicts, or the enemy might take advantage of them.

Although the distribution of the Initial Map was random, the Midgame map was not random. There will be sections where the Flags are cut off and isolated. And those are reasonable and interesting situations.



Questions

Quote:

How do you position the mission objectives in order for it to be balanced? Do you give everyone the same possibilities?

What do you mean by 'position mission objectives'? As in declaring a target for the flags to attack? What exactly are you trying to 'balance'?

Quote:

Do you make the bonus affiliated with said structures only available if your faction possesses BOTH identical structure?

what do you mean?

Quote:

How can you provide a frontal assault situation without taking away the opportunity to explore the world?

I don't think it would make much sense to be able to 'explore' enemy territory if the character is not stealth or scout type. Players might group in small groups near the frontlines, and create skirmishes. But in order to tell where the real Flags are you need spies, or a situation where a Flag runs into an enemy Flag.

Quote:

And how can you provide a need to explore around you without ending in a situation where the soldiers are just running around, chasing each others without knowing where the hell is the enemy?

Depends on what you mean by 'explore'. There are watch towers, that if an enemy Flag shows up within radius, it will automatically show up on the battle map. The locations of the cities are known. For commanders, they mostly think in terms of how to take out those cities. So most of the time they do know exactly where the hell the enemies are, but you don't know how many there are.

Peace within War

Quote:

Original post by Garmichael I like the idea of the PVP system here alot. I think its pretty advanced and allows a fair fight to happen most of the time. The only thing i dont like, overall, is that it seems the entirety of the game is based on going to war. You mentioned theres other stuff, but it sounds like all that other stuff is just stuff to prepare you for war. While I like intelligent PVP, I dont like playing games entirely for PVP.

You have touched many topics:

- If there is PvE warfare, would you play it?
- If the PvE warfare is integrated with the PvP warfare, would you play it?
- If you choose to have PvP but not be involved in the war, you can still steal civilian targets that have no impact on the war; you can freely attack other PvPers with no allegiance.
- It seems that you want to do something in a warring world that has nothing to do with warfare. To a degree you can still do this, for example, if you choose to have no allegiance, and no PvP, you can still explore, group with friends, level up and get items. While doing these, you will still see towns and cities getting destroyed and getting built. Things are changing around you and you are not part of it, while you could have been. If you choose to have an allegiance, but no PvP, then you can safely explore in the peaceful territories. But at the same time you know that the peace you have come from those fought for it. (Note that if you choose PvP you can still stay behind ally territory and have fun on your own. The game intrinsically needs this kind of players or the 'capitals' will just be ghost towns.

Quote:

I think it would Be a cool option to join the Military once you get to a certain level. When youre in the military, you can freely go between Soldier-Mode, and Civilian-Mode. In Civilian Mode, whatever armor you have equipped has its own style and whatnot, but in Soldier Mode, all your armor is tinted a certain color, and you have some sort of insignia on you. When in Soldier mode, you can enter battle. Maybe on the battlefield, there could be special NPC vendors that sell you different stuff based on your rank in the military.

I think these are a cool idea.

Quote:

I like MMORPGs for more than just pvp, so i woudlnt want to play one where the ultimate goal is to engage in pvp. Planetside, for example, was boring as hell.

There are PvE battles. The current design does not support characters to be involved in the war but choose Not to PvP. Would you be interested if there is integrated gameplay for those who want to be involved in the war but doesn't want to PvP?

The game should maintain a certain civilian population. So you can imagine this as the same as a 'normal' server of WoW, except the horde can actually come and destroy IronForge. This design has much more roleplay elements than normal strategy or PvP games. I am imagining that there are quite a lot of player-player interactions that do not involve fighting, and a lot of room for emergent stories.

And all of it comes from the fact that you are fighting under a flag, the that flag has a history as the game progreses. In most PvP games, that history is missing.

For example:

At the north east corner, the Sertin Flag had been isolated for a long time, the Red flags had been trying to take out those double flags but failed every time. Their arrows just doesn't seem to run out.

Meanwhile, near the center east, Um'dyna (Rank5) had been trying to take out the city across the bridge, but it was defend by the Red Flags Hinchao (Rank4), Honard (Rank4), and Eldrayril (Rank5).

So the higher Blue commander made a plan: the Sertin Flag passed around a rumor that they were able to survive for so long because they got hold of an artifact that greatly reduced the cost of making arrows. (In reality, they are always short of supplies, but Dynalenal's Flag (Rank4) had been sneaking across to bring supplies.)

Eldrayril (Rank5) bought the rumor and decided to go north to take out Sertin. While another Red Rank4 Flag moved down to take the place. Just as Eldrayril got far enough, Um'dyna crossed the bridge and sieged the city (2x Rank4). At the same time Neler (Blue Rank4) Intercepted the reinforcement Rank4 flag.

Dynalenal (Blue Rank4) was caught by two rank3 flags while bring supply back to Sertin through the marsh after forming an alliance with the local creeps. (It is pretty impossible to bring supplies through the marsh, but the creeps were helping.) Dynalenal Flag is a stealth Flag, his rank comes from smuggling, not fighting.

Hey Estok!! this kind of evolving storytelling and strategizing is incredibly interesting, but how are we going to make the players buy so much involvement? Most are merely interested in killing stuff in their own campment, camping out the same spot for as long as they are allowed to sit in their chair by their mommy (or loved one, depending...). Some others are more interested in being allowed to become über, which simply does NOT fit in the warfare MMORPG we are planning, because anyone should be able to take ANYONE down. A general should not have the possibility to shrug off the blows of privates. He is human like them (or Orcish, or trollish, or whatever have you) and is therefore subject to the same laws of "I hit, they die, they hit, I die" I am not even sure if there should be an increase of the HP along time. I think it would just be a good thing to give more skills, and to differentiate them. Giving more HP merely reduces the PvP and RvR to a previous tedious grind, which will enable über superiority and leave the experience meaningless, since the überest characters will just have to band to take down an infinitely numericaly superior group of lowbies. And this is not warfare. This is Conan singlehandedly assaulting the Tower of Thulsa Doom. Not fair, nor exactly exciting, in PvP system. As for the rest, most of them are merely interested in chain-slaying lowbies. These should be sent on suicide commandos...

But to resume what had already been said, and not understood, To the Static Artifact Structures.

What I wanted to tell is that the Static Artifacts have to be placed very thoughtfully, because it is likely that there will be many fights over them. I had imagined that in the beginning, the two warring factions would face each others across the map, and that they would advance as fast as possible to meet in the middle of the map, so as to push the opponents back towards the point they came from, on the big map as in the instanced maps, towards their original flags.
But it seems, from what I've read that you were in fact planning a more random approach for the placement of the groups, in the beginning. This can be made too, but it supposes that you give a backstory that will explain that the two warring factions are in fact supporters of two opposite princes, taking on each other for the throne, of whatever... This COULD explain why there is NO frontline and everybody can take on anybody in the back. Interesting. It would mean a more Guerilla-like approach to that war. And it would only become proper war, with supply lines and such when two or more groups would finally meet and band. I buy the concept!!

But to tell you what I meant with the structures, I had in mind that there would only be one artefact-like structure in the map. Therefore, the position of said artefact-structure was determinant as to which side it would favor, since only ONE side could control it at one time. And if it was set too deeply into enemy territory, then it was likely that the structure would remain on the same side until game reset, which I thought was pretty stupid.

The sonde proposition I had made was to put TWO identical artefact-like structures on the map, and to enable the bonus only when both were captured by the same side, thus giving reasons for assaults on the other side, and carefully planning what came next. But as you said, there is no reason for a general to exist in the beginning, and therefore NO reason for a precise objective to be established. I suppose that in the beginning, it would mainly amount to survive in a hostile territory, until you find some more people on your side.

But something is suddendly coming to my mind: How can you organize supplylines and defensive missions if there is no clear and definite sides? Why would a given city (given there ARE cities in this form of MMORPG) be on one side or the other, if everyone and his second-cousin can have diverging opinions about who the legitimate prince is? This means that Towns have to be defended from exterior attacks AND from interior riots?? In this case, it is likely that anything needed to supply exterior troops will have to be enforced on local population, hence MORE riots. The handling of pending riots is supposedly quite good for lowbies to get their hands on the game, and learn the ropes, sort of low-level of threat missions. But it will probably get tiring in the long run to have to fight outside AND inside the walls. And it is also likely that a given city will not provide supplies for BOTH armies, unless the citizens are hard-boot-lickers trying to get the best possible futures, no matter who wins. So this means that there should be MANY cities, and MANY structure-like artefacts, in order for everyone to have fun running from one point to another, fighting over structures that will be lost in hours. But on the meantime, they can have fun fending off the enemies. Ok. Let's try this.

So? Should there be non-structure-like artefacts? Should there be PORTABLE artefacts, which would grant bonuses to the bearer's group, and would remain on the spot when the bearer logged off? You mentionned a potential artefact that reduced the cost of arrows. let's imagine a magical fletching kit, which produced twice as many arrows as a good crafter with a good crafting kit, if fed with rough wood, rough ore and feathers. This kind of thing should be pretty big, about the size of a chest, right? maybe a small one. What if this kind of artefact could be found as random loot in instanced caves, and dungeons? Do you think it could give people not interested in PvP or RvR a reason to go hunting and sell them to any side? or maybe donate them? Could this be done while "not on duty"?

And Garmichael mentionned the possibility to change at will between Soldier mode and Civilian mode. I think this should NOT be the case, for this would so obviously be abused to lure the enemy on approaching forces. But maybe, if the change had to occur under a flag of one's own color, then this could be done, I suppose. this would limit the cases of sending a party of fake civilians to take down a flag. Which springs another question: should the Civilians be allowed to party in this game design? If Civilians only solo, it can explain what kind of players will play as civilians, and what kind will play soldiers, while keeping them both happy. If Civilians can band, what kind of content should they expect, as a group?

enough for now, i'm going to bathe my daughter...

Warfare in the background
The game needs an amount of civilian to make the world more alive. Civilians can do the normal leveling up, raiding dungeons, and participate in civilian pvp. There are still Instanced fights for civilian (mostly against mobs and high level monsters). Items you can get from dungeons include those designed for commanders. (What you said was correct.)


Level Curve
The level curve of a character can still be slightly exponential. However, the Rank of the commander is going to raise the stats of low level characters. For example, if you are a level 15 under a Rank5 Flag (suppose Rank5 usually correspond to a level 50 commander), your minimum hp and attack may be raised to that of a level 25, however you will lack the fighting abilities that a level 25 should have. This is a commander ability specialized in the use of reinforcement and recruits. Different commander will specialize in different task, for example if you are a cavalry commander, you will be pretty sure that your subordinates are at least rank 3 commanders (It takes a certain rank to be a knight), so you will specialize in something to make the high levels stronger instead of the lower levels.

It is not exactly true that any one should be able to take any one down. A Rank3 Knight (Lv30) should be able to take out 8 level 10s by himself. A Hero (Lv70, Rank7) specialized in fighting should be able to take out two rank3 flags: (two Lv30 Commanders, and 30 Lv15s to Lv20s). But note that battles still consume the same amount of stamina, So they can't keep on fighting (especially when many melee abilities like berserk uses additional stamina). So although a Rank7 Hero can boost all the way up and kill a full Rank4 Flag (32 ppl) single handed (e.g. 'Thundercap' from WoW can group stunt, but costs stamina), he will be disabled after the fight for like a few days. Note that the Hero is able to do this not because he is a Lv70, but because of his Rank7 specializations. Normal lv70 can't take out an FR4. Such melee specializations do not always make sense, but players may choose to do that near late game so that those Heros can be summoned (after they died) in the future.

Quote:

I am not even sure if there should be an increase of the HP along time. I think it would just be a good thing to give more skills, and to differentiate them. Giving more HP merely reduces the PvP and RvR to a previous tedious grind

The curve for HP will probably be more linear. The 'effective' HP comes from skills and abilities that the character chooses. For example you can get the ability to heal your HP using stamina. But by choosing that ability you also forgo some other abilities. If you think about what Attack Points and Defense Points really are, they are the numerial abstraction of attack and defense skills. They are the same as saying 'The AI will automatically counter and evade enemy attacks'. But the implementation should provide many manual skills, since that is where the gameplay is. There will also be many cooperative skills, (i.e. skillchains and magic bursts in FF). So victory favors those cooperate. Examples of skills and differentiations:

Infantry skills: (There are the individual version and the Flag version)
- Movement specialization (Movement across different terrains)
- Area effect weapon skills
- Ambush skills (Stealth) and Trap skills (Engineer)
- Defensive skills against different types of attacks
- Polearm specialization against mounted, including stunt, ensnare, and polearm weapon skill against cavalry
- Ranged specilization (Hybrid infantry/archer)
- Communication specialization
- First Aid specialization (Field medics)


Off Battle Skills:
- Reconnaissance or Tracking skills
- Engineering and contruction specialization
- Smithing specialization
- Cooking specialization
- Potions and Alchemy specialization
- Scavenging / looting skills

For some off battle skills, your mere presence (even if you are offline) will increase the productivity of the flag or the city. For example, if you have engineering skills, simply station in a city will speed up the constructions of things being built. When a commander try to turn city resources into arrows, the speed of the production will be related to both the count of civilian and military arrow crafters. These are limited by how many workshops there are. It is spies's jobs to tell how things are produced at each locations. They can also sneak in and assassinate the crafters. (Death by Assassination are not normal deaths, the rules are different, so even though there is a healer right next to you you can't just get revived as if nothing happened. If death is permanent, there is no complication. In this case you can imagine assassination as long stunts.)

Quote:

This is Conan singlehandedly assaulting the Tower of Thulsa Doom. Not fair, nor exactly exciting, in PvP system. As for the rest, most of them are merely interested in chain-slaying lowbies. These should be sent on suicide commandos...

This can potentially happen but not to that magnitude. An assassin should be able to systematically kill all the guards of a tower. But this only happens if the assassin is able to remain undiscovered (dressed as an NPC guard). Chain-slaying lowbies is still possible, but not likely if they are under a flag. So if a high level comes to harass the newbies, the newbies will need to wait for a flag (NPC or PC) and they can take revenge. A high level and pwn the newbies and vice versa, depending on where the flags are. (For example, 7 Lv15s under an R3 Flag (the flag is only half-filled) can take out a Lv50 non-flagged character even if you are a knight. Because at Rank3 the flag may get polearm specialization. You charge, they ensnare you, shoot you with a crossbow or musket and you are dead. You thought you could charge through them and kill the crossbowmem because Lv15 don't have polearm skills, but the Flag gave them the skill. (Note that for this to happen, the R3 commander probably knew that you were coming. And told the newbies that the flag has given them special abilities. The commander would have also told the crossbowmen when to start firing (polearm ensnare - crossbow shot is a timed weapon skillchain that normal Lv15s don't have), so if you see the newbie standing in formation it should be a clue that there is a commander hidden somewhere.)

KnightA: "I thought you said there is no flag here."
Spy: "there is no flag here."
KnightB: "why the hell are they in formation?"
Spy: "they are just bluffing"
KnightA: "are you sure?"
Spy: "don't be a sissy"


(If you are Rank4, you may have enough abilities to specializa into an ambush commander by specializing in stealth and burst attack abilities (abilities that allow your flag to deliver burst attacks for a short amount of time with a penalty of slower attacks afterwards. In order to use this ability, your men has to understand how it works, and concentrate on several different targets when you activate burst mode, so that they don't waste the bursts overkilling the same target.)



Involvement

Quote:

how are we going to make the players buy so much involvement?

If you take a few steps back and look at the overall design, this is the ancestorial model:

Suppose the world is a 6x6 square map, and there are 36 regions. In the beginning, each faction will be randomly assigned 8 regions each. The highest ranking commander of the region can decide which cell to advance to. When a Flag advances into enemy territory, a battle will initiate. For the new few days, players of the different factions can join that battle, and the results are tallied at the end of a predetermined time, i.e. if the attack was not successful, the Flag will automatically retreat. THe war contines in this fashion until a victory condition is met. Victory condition can be elimination, to achieve a territorial ratio, or to protect an artifact for a set among of time.

Stealing victory conditions from Age of Empires:
- Conquer
- Protecting Ruins (Ruins are like the stonehenge that the players must protect for a set amount of time.)
- Defending Relics (Relics are mobile artifacts that can be tranported by priests, when a faction seized all the artifacts, a count down timer for victory begins. In AOE one artifacts are chests that can move by themselves)
- Building a defending a wonder (A wonder is an immobile artifact constructed by a faction using a large amount of resources. When a faction begins to build a wonder, the other faction is notified of its location.)
- Time limited (Factions will score points, when the timer is up, the war ends and victory is decided. This doesn't seem to make any sense in our context. But this might make sense for the victory conditions of some instances. For example, the 3 day limit I mentioned above is an implementation of Time-limited battle, It allows players from different time zones to participate.)
- Resource and trading (This means that if a faction accumulates a certain level of resources it will win. This probably won't make much sense either, but this is probably how a faction can form an alliance with local creeps. Character that helps doing this may get rank points from diplomacy.)


So involvement comes from the fact that you are indeed playing a war game, a magnified RTS. This is for people with these thoughts:

"I wonder what it is like to role play an archer in Warcraft during a war"

"I don't want to conduct the whole strategy, but I want to be one of those knights charging the enemies."

"I want to be a commander, but I don't want to baby sit the troops, I wish they have better AI. It might be cool if they are controlled by actual human, so I can just tell them what I am trying to do."

"I want to be a commander, but I don't want to fight all fronts at the same time, I wish that my friend can take over one of my regiments. and we can fight together as the war becomes large."

"I want to be one of those panda heros going from inn too inn getting hired by generals. I will level up on creeps, and if I come across some rare commander items, I might decide to be a commander." (Note that if you level up on creeps, it is possible that they remember you and hate you personally. It might create situations where your fellow Flags can safely travel across a certain creep controlled area, you can't, even though your faction is in alliance with those creeps. The creeps will assassinate you, and deny the involvement.)

Involvement among players come from the flag system. Commanders are not seen as 'the nameless warrior that grouped with me for a quest last Sunday'. Although this might be the case if the commanders around you keep dying. But as commanders survive longer, the stories start to make sense, as they become the emergent main actors. This is an implementation of fame through gameplay, not through stats. So if you want to gain fame it has a lot to do with how you role-play your character, not by completing quests.



Artifacts
Static artifacts can exist. But it might not be fun fighting over the same thing. The whole idea of this design is to prevent warfare where the player just seesaw around certain areas. The idea is to allow the conflict to spread all over, so that at different time, different cities will be threatened, and that give rise to more situations. This is done by introducing multiple objectives, opportunities, and targets. If there are static artifacts, the effects should fade over time, and everytime it had faded, there should be equal opportunity for both side to gain the effect.

There are ways to do just one static artifact. For example, mages can open a protals where players can enter a shared dimension to duke it out. These will still be instanced battle, but the reward of victory will be the control of a static artifact or artifacts. This is fair because players from any where can enter the battle as long as there are summoned protals. So no matter how you do it, when the control of the artifact expires, the factions can compete in a fair fashion.

As is, there are 39 cities. Not including towns and villages and other strategic locations. On top of this there are creep towns and cities and dungeons. So there are many artifacts, many structure, many protable, and many personal. But in general structures will not be lost in hours. enemys will need to siege a city to seize control, so it will be days just for the siege. However, if the artifact is in transit, it can be intercepted and stolen.

Freelance adventurers will be able to loot artifacts and sell them or donate them. This usually means donate. Because spies are going to track you down, kill you, and get the artifact and get rank points. If you are a PvE character, the game probably won't drop such artifact for you, or you won't be able to pick it up. You can shout in the channels about you discovered an artifact, nonetheless.


Civilian mode
If civilian mode means PvE mode, then the characters shouldn't be able to change at will, because the enemy can't attack you. I am not sure under what condition a character can change to PvE mode. The character definitely can't do that under a flag, since if the flag is surrounded, changing into civilian mode will allow you to retreat. There are more issues about civilians, since they can potentially smuggle items across borders. The rules are that civilians can't move artifact and supplies type times. There are no complications when a civilian has PvP on.

Civilian can still group. It will be the same was the normal grouping in MMORPG. They can also enter instance dungeons. A player can configure the character in the following ways:

- Associated with a faction or not
- (RvR), PvP or PvE
- Be involved in the war or not

The default setting is: Factioned, RvR, Involved. There is not enough definition to tell what a civilian is. For example, if you RP an innkeeper and you are factioned, if you see some enemy arrive and you kill them. By most definitions you are still a civilian.

An earlier question involve: can a player choose to play the war, but only play the PvE parts? The trivial implementation of this is to have a PvE warfare server. The question is can this be integrated within the PvP server?


Spying and fog of war
The fog of war doesn't make sense in MMO context. There are going to be player spies. There might not be a lot of them, but the game will try to make spies useful. First, spies are still useful as assassins. Second, they are still useful as tech thieves and artifact thieves. What kind of information will be useful for a spy to gather, that a player cannot gather by cheating?

To what extend should a commander lie to his own flag in order to conceal higher level activities?
Should supply carts be invisible to even the people in the same faction?

Player spies really break the immersion of the design. In what ways can they be discovered and punished?





Backstory about the random beginning
We can simply say that the previous king separated the factions on purpose so that everyone will be watching everyone, none of them will be able to conspire, and so nothing will happen. It might also very well be an Endian war. So the princes might very well be twins. Should the game shoot for a more serious reason or will you dig this humor? You can also imagine that the initial flags are actually of all different colors, the players themselves would have to think up some RP reasons for why those flags will eventually belong to a particular faction.

The flag system intrinsically can be independent of the factions. So that we can implement the flag system just so that guilds can fight large scale wars. The problem is that often times guilds get cocky and possessive and small players don't get the fun. If you divide the land, then all players can take part in it. So implementation wise there are reasons to support the current design, but what about the story.

The story can get quite mythical involving in game religions and stuffs.



Flags and standard army
Being affiliated to a flag doesn't mean that you are in the standard army of a country. Think more like feudal age, where each warlord is on their own, but warlords also form alliance. The faction color is the color of the alliance. When the game begins, all of the towns that are not occupied will have NPC forces, that are also warlords. You can consider each town as a small country in the beginning, where there had never been a king that united the land. There will probably be no riot. A city can get sabotaged but no riot.

LEVELS AND HP:

I am still dubious about that. I don't know. Maybe the image of a strong leader of a weak group singlehandedly taking down a medium group with its medium leader, and helping up along the ranking theprivates of his group somehow makes me wonder about this.

Don't get me wrong. I love the idea of the specialization of the skills of the officers. I would love to see the specialization "immediate recruitment" and "back-up specialist", which would allow the officer to recruit any private and buff him to look like a lvl 15 or 25 guy, but without the related skills, and would lower the respawn time of his soldiers, in order to have as many of them as possible the moment the mission ends. But I don't see this as a "tactical choice". more like a "Power Gaming Option". Which are not the same.
Having specializations is a great feature, but it should be done so that the specializations favours the group, not the individuals.
Having a specialization "berzerker" goes just in the wrong way. It may help lower the received damages on yourself, but it shouldn't help your group, unless everyone has the same skill, in which case, you could have an additional bonus for group behavior.


RANDOM STARTING LOCATIONS:

It is all starting to make sense. Now, I think that this MAY be useful. Imagine having to choose from the beginning what kind of alignment you want for your character. Depending on your choices, you may be landed randomly on one of those locations your faction presently owns. This way, you won't have ALL your characters in one place. This should help creating a sense of belonging to a FACTION, not only to a town or a particular group. And I think I've got a background story brewing about that. And it should involve religions, heirloom and domination.


CHARACTERS AND DEVELOPMENT:

I still think that a player should have the choice of deleting one of his characters, if this character has been stuck dead for too long, in order to have the opportunity to start a new fresh character. If he should choose to do so, said character would be deprived from the opportunity to access hero status and be revived as a "undead hero".

And I was toying around with the idea of ranking and downranking. Since the up-ranking allows you to create bigger parties in order to PvP in the RvR war, what would Down-ranking do? Would it cast your character out of a militarized faction for a time, forcing you to regain your ranks later on? Would it allow you to create a Civilian Group which would have random access to previous officer's buff, thanks to you? What could happen?

As for the PvE, I am still unsure.
I think there should be a large fauna, in order to provide game, for the dinner of soldiers, but said game should be hunted. And usually, animals tend to FLEE before humans. therefore, it would be either specialized hunters, spies or archers which would go in order to sustain their group, on a long siege situation.
Question: If one can put a city to siege, should food be considered? then should there be Farming NPCs and Cattle farmers NPCs? Should they be protected and fought for in the same manner as natural resources?

Flag ability and Character ability
The Recruitment ability is a 'tactical choice' because the Rank5 Commander gave up other powerful abilities, such as a heavy infantry flag ability that lowers stamina cost for infantries in heavy armors. Maybe the Commander made that decision because there were only low levels left for him to command. It is somewhat a power gaming option, but there is still tradeoff for choosing it. Without this, however, new players will have to wait a long time before they can perform reasonably in sieges, and the losing side may not be able to recover from losses after a rank of higher level players got destroyed.

For the Rank7 Hero that can destroy a Rank4 flag singlehanded, the berserk ability mentioned was a character ability. You can imagine the Hero used the following abilities in order to destroy the enemy flag:

Quote:

Berserk: Req Lv30, increases attack damage, costs stamina Chakra: Req Lv40, heals hp using stamina Blade Fury: Req Lv50, increases attack speed, costs stamina Blade Dance: Req Lv60, deals AOE weapon damage, costs stamina Vengeance: Req Lv70, deals critical hit after receiving a critical hit, costs stamina Endurance: Req Rank 4, Increases base stamina and hp Melee Combat: Req Rank5, Increases the defensive and counter skills of the flag during melee combat Battle Valor: Req Rank6, Increases the melee attack damages based on the kills of the commander Blood Lust: Req Rank7, Allows the members of the flag to deal addition damage after a kill.

CHARACTERS AND DEVELOPMENT:

I think player can delete characters anytime at will. I don't think this can lead to any abused. his might be especially important in the beginning, since characters are going to die pretty often (too often). Maybe a character can be allowed to port home, but doing so will drop all the equipments of that character.

Deleted characters are gone from the server. So they certainly cannot be revived later on as Heros.

I don't think there is a need for downranking. In a strategy game, sometimes it is really hard to tell whether deliberate loss is part of a strategy. For example, if you are a Flag designated to bait the enemy by seemingly escorting a group of equipments, why should your Flag get penalized for being decimated? You can also argue that this strategy is only 'good' if the cost is lower than the gain (in rank points). And in this case you can have the flags share the rank point gains, so the baiting Flag and the ambushing Flag will share the same rank point loss and rank point gain, even though the baiting Flag is the one got destroyed (and the ambushing Flag will res the baiting Flag,but it won't make any sense if the ambushing Flag get rank points for that.)

It almost make sense that healers shouldn't get rank points raising fallen allies behind enemy lines. The only reason that a healer should raise them is because they can make the Flags stronger. And whether that is true can only be determined by the outcomes of future battles. There is a causual gap between the action and the justification of that action. The question is, is there a need to implemented an 'end justifies the mean' method for rewarding rank points. (In general, we can take the assumption that if a healer res'es a high rank commander, it would always be benefitial, and reward rank points right the way.)

A debt system (end justifying the mean):
When you res a commander, the commander is 'in debt' to you. For the near future, a certain fraction of rank point he gains will be rewarded to you. This is one way to introduce 'very-importantness'. For example, an ally Rank5 commander is travelling across a forest in enemy territory to get to a rally point. He was killed. Your Rank3 Flag arrived to res him, so he can continue. In the mean time two enemy Rank3 Flags caught up and annihilated your Flag. But because of the sacrifice of your Flag, the commander reached the rally point and lauched a siege. The siege was successful also partly because those two enemy Rank3 Flags got diverted. The commander got many rank points for the siege. You got rank points for the initial res, And also for the Rank5 siege. It turns out the commander was not done yet, he came back to the forest and intercepted those two Rank3 Flags that were moving toward the besieged city, but now fleeing. The Rank5 Flag took out those Flags and you are reward again, because your Flag had already dealt most damage to those two Flags, the Rank5 was just finishing them.

Quote:

Summary: When you res'ed the commander, the commander is in debt. Certain fraciton of his future rank points will be rewarded to you When you defened those two Rank3 Flags, the damage you dealt is not immediately rewarded, but the enemy Flags will carry the 'wounds' dealt by your Flag. When your Flag was destroyed, you lose rank points, while the two Rank3 gain points for destroying you. Because of your interception of the Rank3 Flags, the siege was successful. Therefore, this result justifies your action of getting killed in the forest. When the Rank5 destroyed the Rank3s, you are once again rewarded. This time it is because of the damage you dealt led to their destruction. (If those Rank3 Flags had rested and recovered instead of rushing back to the besieged city, you would not get rank points, and the rank5 probably won't be able to destroy them right after a siege.) After sieging the city, the Rank5 Flag took a lot of damages, while the Flag is still recovering, all of the defending Flags of the city had a mark on the Rank5. If the enemy destroy the Rank5 Flag the fallen enemies will still get some rank points.

Finding Food
Finding food is probably done automatic, although there are strategies involved in food supplies. If youa re besieged, the supply will rely on the stockpile, since farms are usually outside the city wall. I am thinking maybe we can forgo the complexity of food supply, and concentrate the ammo, since the two are almost equivalent. The strategies you would use on cutting ammo supplies are the same as those for cutting food supplies. While ammo only decreases if there is a fight, food decreases constantly, created constantly.

Most of the RPGs don't deal with food. There is a reason why food is excluded. So if you introduce the notion of food, you may make the gamers out out to eat instead of playing the game. The real reason is that most player would consider food supply as a nuisance. They don't want to play a game where they still have to do the mundane tasks. So food maybe implemented as a bonus instead of a requirement. City will not starve to death, because simply surrounding a city can be quite boring. It might be okay to implement for a strategy game, but the men under a flag are real players, and they would want to kill things rather than stand guarding and playing poker with other soldiers. Characters can go out and hunt strange beasts and gather wild plants to make special food and wine to boost 'morale'. (Hunting also provide materials for crafting weapons and special equipments)