Space Based MMO (Revised and Expanded)

robert4818 · 2005-05-13T15:07:26

I've sat down and re-organized this to read and flow alot better than previous versions. It's quite long and I do apolozie for that. Iron Chef, you commented on this a while back when it was condensed, I would appreciate it if you would take a look at the full version i'm posting here. The following is a concept for a space based MMO. The game is a combination of Wing Commander type dog fighting for the common player and real time strategy for the higher-level guild members. Guilds are the movers and shakers in the game, which for them revolves around collecting resources and spreading influence. Oh, and of course lots of space battles. Guilds mine resources, and use them to build ships, defenses, bases, etc. These are here to add depth to the game, and give players a reason to fight. Table of Contents 1. Guilds and alignment 2. Resources and Building 3. Builds/technology trees 4. Travel 5. Maps 6. Communications 7. Prestige System --------------------------------------------------- 1. Guilds/Alignment Guilds are the primary driving force behind the game. Guilds, and more specifically the guild leader(s) will be in charge of resource management, build orders, resource and build availability, and of course promotion within the guilds. Guild leaders and their appointed proxy’s (i.e. whoever they grant powers to) have the following abilities: Choose number/name of ranks Choose Method of promotion --Votes --Appointment --Achievements (Kill count, Specific kills, supply runs etc) Guild crest/symbology (guild creation) Crafting Engine (Who can create blueprints) Build restrictions (Who can access what blueprints) Resource availability (Who has access to certain resources) Combat direction capabilities --Kick Members --Demote Members ---------------------------------------------------- 2. Resources and Building The game revolves around resources, however, instead of using multiple types of unrelated resources as typical RTS games (gold, food, wood, stone, magic, etc) This game only uses two categories of resources, as of right now they are named A and B. These two resources are then broken into multiple levels. The multiple levels are named A, A+1, A+2, A+3; and B, B+1, B+2, B+3. Resource A is used in areas that reflect physical characteristics. Armor, Cargo space, Hard points, Damage from missiles/bullets, etc. Resource B is used in areas that affect capabilities. Speed, laser weapons, power, acceleration, maneuverability etc. Resource B is also used as a fuel source for Bases and Defenses. Most, but not all builds will require some of both resources. Resource levels Each Resource has multiple levels. Rarely except in high end products are resources above level one required. However, getting your hands on higher-level resources is very advantageous of you. Every resource above base has 2 options you can use it as multiple units of a lower tier resource. I.e. A+1 is equal to 2A’s. A+3 is equal to 2 A+2, 4 A+1, or 8A’s. The other option is it can be used as a single unit with a large stat bonus. When building an item; whether it will be a ship, base, or anything else; it will list the different parts of it, and what type of resource it requires (A or B). By default each part is built with the basic resource. The player may choose to place higher-level resources onto the item, and where it will place them. After choosing his layout the player may save his build as a “Blueprint” that he or other players (with proper permissions) may then build. ---------------------------------------------------- 3. Build/Technology Trees The following is a list of items that can be built in the game. Attack Ships --Light Fighter – Light Armor, Weak Weapons, High Speed, High Maneuverability --Heavy Fighter – Heavy Armor, Strong Weapons, Low Speed, Low Maneuverability --Torpedo Boat – Very Heavy Armor, Slow Torpedoes only, Low Speed, Very Low Maneuverability Supply Ships --Intra-sector Supply Ship – Small cargo capacity, Able to dock/transfer material to any station, incapable of using jump gates, one for each resource category. **Unmanned Drones, under control of guild leader for pre-planned routes. --Inter-sector Supply Ship – Large cargo capacity, Able to dock only with supply depot, Capable of using jump gates, separate compartments for each resource category. Capitol Ships – Capitol ships are capable of self-initiated inter-zone warps, and are the only ships capable of having individual target spots on them. --Battleship – Large ships with three massive guns, numerous defensive guns for attacking incoming fighters, each defensive gun is manned by a player, the three main guns by a another player, and one player to pilot the ship. --Carrier – Large ship with few defensive guns, each gun manned by a player, Capable of carrying many (# as of yet undefined) light fighters, heavy fighters, and torpedo boats. Bases --Deployment Bases – New ships and other deployable are generated from here. Capable of generating small basic light fighters without resources. --Repair Bases – Capable of repairing damage to all ships except capitol ships. Also provides repair packs for other deployable, which are carried in ship’s cargo holds. --Sensor Outpost – Outpost that detects and provides information on ships transiting through its area of influence. --Ship yard – Capable of producing Capitol Ships --Research Station – This must be built in order to utilize single units of higher-level resources. A large amount of the higher-level resource must be fed into the station in order for a guild to utilize higher-level resources in their designs. These resources can, however, still be used as large numbers of lower resources. Miscellaneous --Gun Platforms – Placed around routes and other vital areas to protect transit routes. --Mine Layers – Unmanned drone that will populate an area with explosive mines. --Wormhole Stabilizer – placed at an entrance to a wormhole to stabilize that end of the tunnel. When building an item; whether it will be a ship, base, or anything else; it will list the different parts of it, and what type of resource it requires for each part. By default each part is built with the basic resource. The player may choose to place higher-level resources onto the item part, and this will then affect the stats of the base model. After choosing his layout the player may save his build as a “Blueprint” that he or other players (with proper permissions) may then build. When dealing with ships the player also chooses the layout of guns, shields, etc. ---------------------------------------------------- 4. Travel There are 3 ways of travel in the game, short range, long range and inter-sector travel. Short Range is used for combat, and other situations where precise movement is required. Docking, Minefields, etc. Long Range is used for long distance intra-sector travel. This is the express lane for moving from point a to point b. There is no real room here to maneuver its practically a straight line shot or a very long curve. Inter-sector travel is most commonly done via jump gates. Entry into one of them causes the player to zone into the next sector. There are however other means of inter-sector travel. --Jump Engines – Only available on Capitol ships. Allows them to jump into a sector without using a jump gate. --Worm Holes – Sporadic gates that open up passage between various sectors. The computer generates entry and exit points for the wormhole at random. Very few signs of one exist unless a player gets close. The server generates new entry and exits every 96 hours. However, if a guild finds a wormhole stabilizer, they may place it on one end of the wormhole to stabilize that entry point. Two stabilizers are required to stop both ends of a wormhole. ---------------------------------------------------- 5. Maps Maps are shared by a guild..what one guild member can see (location/resource wise) all Members can see. When a guild is created, or when it enters a new zone, most of its map is blank. As players expand throughout the zone, the map updates with the information that is scanned by the players. Most things (i.e. planets, asteroid belts, stations etc) are scanned automatically as they come in range. More specific details such as ore deposits and such, must be surveyed and manually (i.e. time taken) to be revealed. All of this shows up on the map. The map needs to be updated. Information changes, ore gets depleted, or shifts, worm-holes appear and/or dissapear, stations are built or destroyed etc. Unfortunately, unless a guild re-charts the area, this information will not update on the map. This makes exploration very important. Its the only way to keep your guild up-to-date on a zone. This is where sensor-probes and stations come in. A probe can be set to go chart an area, but only lasts for a short time before de-activating (i.e. it can only chart so much area) And Sensor-stations continuously monitor the area around them to a far distance, keeping everything in its sensor range up to date.) --------------------------------------------- 5. Communications Consists of multiple channels. Ideally this would be a voice chat system handled by a sub-server, but most likely would be text based. Available channels /local – basic say in other games /squad – party/group chat /guild – guild chat /tell – targeted speech to one or more players. (/tell player 1, player 2, player 3 text) /sector – open chat across the entire zone. ---------------------------------------------------- 6. Prestige System As players kill members of other guilds they get prestige points. Prestige points are used to add flair to your ship. Special Paint jobs, Emblems, logos, Particle effects etc. Prestige points are given based on a number of different things. First is kills in a row. The second, third, fourth, fifth, etc kilss continuously give you more points than the one before it. Second is you're overall Ace Ratio. Ace ratio is your total kills to you're total deaths. Third is Prestige Ratio and kill rank of the person you killed. All of these add up. [Edited by - robert4818 on September 10, 2005 3:15:01 AM]

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by robert4818 May 01, 2005 04:26 AM

32 comments, last by Iron Chef Carnage 19 years, 8 months ago

Anonymous

May 13, 2005 02:37 AM

Ok, I realized what you want.

Anonymous

May 13, 2005 02:54 AM

About multiple characters a suggestion would be to allow them but not playing at the same time(I mean not effective playing, just being "freezed" on the duration and only one left to actively get involved in the game at a given time.

yapposai

410

May 13, 2005 04:04 AM

just a thought.

How about adding an emperor/ruler like shogun? Guilds are mostly independent
and can fight one another but they all bow to the emperor (system admins). the emperor can protect a guild, attack a guild, tax each guild differently, etc.

In a too poweful guild, the emperor may "ask the donation" of the 50% of the guilds funds for the empire. The guild can refuse and get attacked by the imperial army. The imperial army serves as a refuge for newbies and independent people who do not want to join in a guild. The emperor can also ask all guilds to stop mining a place or attacking a specific guild.

Basically the emperor is a system owned Guild with unlimited men (bots if needed) and resources. The emperor will not participate in guild fights unless needed. Guilds can defy the emperor if they want but they might be penalized by random attacks on their bases, economic penalties.

---------------Magic is real, unless declared integer.- the collected sayings of Wiz Zumwalt

Iron Chef Carnage

1,845

May 13, 2005 03:07 PM

I like the idea of giving the mods an actual presence in-game. You might just make them a mysterious alien race or something, but working them into the power structure like this will be a good justification for a lot of the newbie-aid and other gameplay features that yapposai described.

You've been very clear on not making this an RPG-type game experience. The great benefit of RPG-type play is the endless supply of tweaks and changes you can make to your gameplay experience. Ship design can replace some of what you lose by avoiding RPG play, but I think there should be "tiers" to the system. Yapposai's post got me to thinking about this.

Why not have a sort of academic career for each player? In Diablo II, you have months and months of play that's primarily concerned with getting through the missions and levellingyour character. Eventualy, though, you hit the wall of "maxxed out". Your character will no longer grow and develop. So, you get involved in the community, or start playing PvP, or if you liked the grind, you start another character. The point is that at the apex of the gaming community, there is a class of gamers that have exhausted the levelling aspect of the game and use the fruits of that labor in the game itself.

In your game, new players could start out at the Galactic Academy, where they can take (or skip) tutorial missions, single-player exercises, and other little learning experiences. They can decide what sort of ship appeals most to them, what role they want to play in battles (fighter, torpedo-boat, repair ship, what-have-you) and earn certifications for different jobs and classes of ship. When they've reached a decent level of comfort, they can petition for admission into a guild, or take part in a "draft" process, or whatever. Players who have already been through this, and are just starting a new character, can skip the training phase and get right into the guilds using their old certs.

This would give each character a slightly different background, and allow players to compare more than just kill ratios and hours of play. Another feature that could help this would be a formal battle system. After a battle (not a skirmish or firefight, but a battle with guilds bringing their resources to bear against one another) the characters that participated could get little commemorative ribbons, to go with their stats from the fight. "I shot down twenty drone fighters from the Burdrin Guild in the battle of Petulon Moon," players could boast, "and took out three human-controlled fighters, as well!" The leaders of the guild who wins get to name the battle, like Henry V got to name the Battle of Agincourt.

So you've be more than just a player character, you'd be a fighter-specializing, B-rated soldier with 50 confirmed kills and 5000 units of resources brought in. You'd also be a certified fighter pilot, torpedo boat bombardier, and light frigate captain, who flew in six campaigns against the other guilds. The more scorecards you keep, the more worthwhile your character seems.

Space Based MMO (Revised and Expanded)

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