MMORPG Warfare - an implementation

Estok · 2005-05-12T15:40:09

This is a split topic of Nytehauq's thread about the meaning of warfare. The discussion here is not about why we have it, but how to have it. The follow describes an implementation of such warfare. The current version of the design can be found here: BattleCry BattleCry This is an MMORPG in a medieval/fantasy setting (shadowbane, wow, etc...). While the player can still raid dungeons, play quests, and level up, make stuffs, and buy and sell stuffs, a major component of this game is warfare. In BattleCry, the game objective is to conquer the other fractions. This is a game where players will log on just to see the battle map, and to discuss strategies on how to cut off enemy supplies and decide what target to attack. Gameplay: Overall: - The world begins divided into two factions with neutral cities and locations; - Players enter the game choosing an allegiance and a location to begin - The game begins with the factions claiming territories and resources - Resources linked to the territories include: (Fournicolas) The great furnaces - allow metal crafting to be 50% faster. The hidden library of alexandrius - gives access to new spells for the spellcasters of faction. The cask of holy water - makes healing spells and auto-regen 25% more effective. The great Bronze Mirrors of Archimetrius - lower the attackant's powers by 25%, blinding and burning them slightly, or more severely, depending on its use. The Golden Trumpet and Brass drums - lowers the attackant's defense by 25%, but are too heavy to be moved... The statue of saint Jerome the Crucified - lowers the cost of all faction's preasts by 50%, because of increased faith. or maybe giving 50% more faith (mana) points, as you please. The minefield or Craskell - which produces meteoritic iron, which in turn produces weapons with 25% more durability and damage output... - High Ranking characters can decide what already to siege by council voting. - After the area of siege is decided, players in the vincinity can enter that area in different instances by sectors to conduct the battle. - For example, if there were 64 players in each instance and 500 players signed up for a battle, there will be 8 instances or 16 forces. - High bandwidth instances may exist that can support more players on each side - Special instances may also exist that includes different proportion of NPCs. - Among the instances, the hitpoints of the buildings are shared. The forces that are attacking the buildings can be seen on the battle map or be represented by invulnerable NPCs simulated on the client side. - High ranking characters can communicate across instances. - Characters except healers may switch instance as long as there is room to switch. - The outcome of a battle is determined by the accumulated outcomes of all of the instances. - The battles will progress throughout the whole map, until the last territory is captured or one side surrenders. - A new war may begin by dividing the united part of the land or by reseting the game world. It doesn't matter whether guilds are starting the war or the game divides itself into factions. - If the game resets, ranks are not retained by the level and items of the characters may. A chronicle is kept of the high ranking characters. Character: - It is expected that each player will have more than one non-mule characters because death is not handled normally in BattleCry. If your are in a faction and died during battle or in enemy territory, you cannot 'port to home'. Someone must raise you or until the territory is claimed by your ally and it is not under siege. - Stamina and hitpoint. Hitpoint is the usually quantity that can be improved by getting healed. Stamina on the other hand can only be recharged through time. Suppose there are more attackers then defenders, as the attackers keep sieging a town defended by the same characters, the stamina of the characters will go down (In general, stamina goes down every time you go into an instance). Stamina will scale the attributes and how healing spells will affect your HP. When your stamina drops to zero, you can still fight but you cann't not be healed nor regen. This prevents a group of high levels doing all of the fightings. - Healer type characters are responsible for resurrecting. In BattleCry, Healer may sneak into enemy territories to res allies. - Spy type characters can sneak into neutral towns or enemies to see what technology their towns have, and may potentially steal enemy technologies. If you are a spy and you die in enemy territory, the chance is that you won't get res'ed until the territory is claimed by your ally. - Defender type characters can select a few number of locations (2 or 3) to teleport to defend. The places where the defender has set a teleport point is represented by flags that only spy type characters can see. (So if you are just a warrior you may see that there are only a few guards near a tower, but a spy will be able to see the flag and tell how many addition defenders may teleport back to defend it. Of course if you do it fast enough the defenders don't have time to react anyway.) Defenders must physically travel to a location to set the teleport point. (based on zEROx) - Attacker characters may teleport to the Flag set by a higher rank commander. The Flag is mobile and can be set on any place, enemy or allied territory, open area or towns. As long as the commander is not dead, the attacker can teleport there. There is a teleport weakness that the attacker needs to wait until recovering full health. In order to associate with a commander the attacker must be physically next to the commander. (based on Fournicolas) - Commanders (or Flag bearers) are any type of characters that can set Flags. Depending on your rank, you will have different number of tokens that you can give up to let other players teleport to you. Everytime a commander himself is teleported, the tokens that have been given out will be lost. So before a commander decides to teleport to the high command flag, the flag needs to be passed on to someone else. There is also a maximum distance between the commander and the Flag where the Flag is still valid. A character can only teleport to a Flag if the Flag is of a higher rank. (based on Fournicolas) Thoughts: - How many characters will need to be on the battle scenes to satisfy you? - If you know what 'Defense of the Ancient' is in Warcraft III, the reason why a Player Character is able to last a reasonable amount of time is that there are NPC tanking. Since the NPCs form a wall in the front, it prevents the enemies from simply chasing you till you die. Do you think that the PCs will die too fast? How would you fix this? - Time limited battles: In this implementation, the fallen PC will respawn in the battle area, the point is not to simply kill the PC once, but to keep killing them like how it is done in FPS. This gives the players a little more time to learn about the enemies and to adapt to their strategies. At the end, which ever side killed the most enemies win that instance. Note that damges to buildings are still shared and accumulate across instances, so if the defendes won but the town was gone, it means that the attackers didn't succeed conquering the territory, but they succeeded in destroying the town (The attackers still need to sneak res the dead ally, since they didn't conquer it.) Other Thoughts? [Edited by - Estok on April 22, 2005 4:28:25 AM]