In an online MMO experience I think having slow built assets and factions may end up forcing players into groups for survival, at least in a game where assets remain persistant when the player logs out, since you'll end up with small groups of raiders picking on solo players who don't have the assets to defend themselves, or conversely large uber-clans that will stomp on anything that even looks at them funny. This happens quite abit in Planetarion (a game i remember a friend of mine played) being an Online Strategy game that seems to share some similarities with your idea, and tends to be a rather cutthroat experience.

sounds neat :) ill check it out after this post

Also a cooperative shared asset modeSounds neat :) ill check it out after this post

Also a cooperative shared asset mode would allow a clan to bring its full strength against other clans even if only a few of the players are logged on, making clan matches for easier to organize assuming I continue with the match arena plans. Or just in general a clan could always be working at full force capacity, earning money for everybody involved.

Keep in mind the setting of my game though, Task Force Pacific is a World War 2 game, half the players will be your ally’s.

Of course a free for all clan war would also be an exciting mode. And a mode I should definitely keep in mind.






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Square Dance Studios

I think cooperative play is a good addition to nearly every game, RTS included.

Not being much of a multiplayer person myself (due to lack of a decent internet connection), my experience with RTS multiplayer was limited to playing against my brother several years ago when we were still living under the same roof. He wasn't quite as good as me at RTS games, so would only play with me as an ally against the AI. Although we were different coloured teams, we'd help each other out by defending each other when required.

So playing as two players on the same team would be pretty good, in my opinion. I wouldn't limit it to just two people on the same team though. Having lots of people on the same team would be a good way to increase the strategy and teamwork, as well as make it an easier way to get huge numbers of players simultaneously in one game.

Co-operative play was available in the Age of Empires series from the beginning through "The Conquerors". Yes it's true that it was not widely used (at least not on "The Zone). However, my friend and I who would go online for literally whole days at a time and just play that darn game would often co-op in order to increase our tactical advantage over the other player. By having someone who can harvest resources continuously while not having to focus on military is a huge benefit, but you also have a secondary general available at your side when you need extra control over the battle.

If you consider that the entire genre is called "real-time strategy" it should only make sense that a co-operative mode would be involved, heck maybe a whole game should be made with nothing but co-operative modes... Counter Strike could count along these lines, but not very strategic and still highly individual accomplishment based.

Anyway, in a real war, you may have only one grand general, but he's going to have lots of subordinates to delegate authority to. Why shouldn't that be the way that it's done in a RTS? By adding more PC's or for that matter even NPC's into the players arsenal of tools at his disposal, you make these highly micromanaged games even more intricate and involving.

I think the most important thing to note however, is that you really need to trust who you're working with in co-operative mode because they have control of your resources and there is no seperation, so for someone less trusted an ally sistuation is probably preferable.

Anyway, I thought that feature rocked, because like I said, one player can devote all of his energy to one thing and doesn't have to go back and make sure his "plebs" are harvesting berries when he's in the middle of an apocolyptic battle with the enemy, not to mention, the resource "officer" player can just sit back and continue spawning new units as others fall in battle, leaving your general free to control the melee on the field.

I like the idea a lot and think it should be expanded on. But that's just my two cents, something to chew on.

Vopisk

I still play Age of Empires 1 cooperatively with my brothers from time to time... Usually one person is assigned with the responsibility of growing and defending the home city, whilst two others attack the enemy and build resource gathering outposts. The 200 population limit command helps for this since the default 50 is too low to be interesting.

Anyhow, this kind of cooperation allowed us to win versus 5 computers on hardest setting, on non-island maps.

I love the AoE co-op mode. My bro and I have bashed many NPCs with this. In the beginning one would usually focus on exploration/hunting/stone collecting while the other built up the base camp. Then one would focus on static defense and take over all resource management, while the other one would focus on the offense. Shouting instructions to eachother through the house was also great fun ;)

This is indeed a nifty feature that isn't seen very often in games. What comes closest seems to be the concept of AI generals in Earth 2140 (IIRC) and AI Ministers in Space Empires (3, 4).

How would an RTS sound, where players performance was recorded and ranked, so that pecking order could be established. So the game setting would be a couple civilizations and whoever the highest ranking player logged onto a civilization would be charge and would control the command structure. Any higher ranking player could freely take control of a lower ranking players personnel and likewise grant command of personnel to any player. But to make sure everyone got a chunk of the action, each player would have a personal population limit of say 50, but the civilization's limit could be many thousands. This of course would keep client upload requirements low and force players to share command.


This type of game play would obviously be geared to clan operations, where an organized group of players would respect the command structure.

Players would also need to be able to issue a broad range of commands to other players, such as “Move your units to this location” or “Defend this location”. The players would need a powerful map interface with filtering instructions, so that relevant information could be viewed graphically and quickly.

But let’s face it; unless one of us implements a system like this, it is very unlikely that we will ever play a game like this. Publishers are unwilling to take on such a bold project because so much money is riding on it.

I am capable of tackling a project of this magnitude except for in one respect; I wouldn’t know where to start to keep a peer to peer RTS secure.




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Square Dance Studios

For the sake of correctness, the co-op mode in starcraft was called "Team Free-For-All".

kevin

Quote:

Original post by SquareDanceSteve How would an RTS sound, where players performance was recorded and ranked, so that pecking order could be established. So the game setting would be a couple civilizations and whoever the highest ranking player logged onto a civilization would be charge and would control the command structure. Any higher ranking player could freely take control of a lower ranking players personnel and likewise grant command of personnel to any player. But to make sure everyone got a chunk of the action, each player would have a personal population limit of say 50, but the civilization's limit could be many thousands. This of course would keep client upload requirements low and force players to share command. This type of game play would obviously be geared to clan operations, where an organized group of players would respect the command structure.

While good intentions are there, here's a few hardships you'll need to prepare to handle if you do want to take on this project. I have experience in trying things like this out in StarCraft when I was younger.

This first one will be minimal since you apparently have thought out how to make people share command... You'll need settings to turn this chain of command on or off. Most people don't want to be bossed around. Finding a random group that will take your orders will be difficult. Finding a competent leader that's not rude will be harder. You'll need the commander to -request- taking a player's units... not just grabbing them.

I play BF2 and it has a rank system. If you're not playing with a clan or a group of friends on TS, the chances that you'll get a good, obedient squad(or set of squads if you're commander) are like 1 out of 8. Also when I was playing around with friends online in StarCraft and other RTS's, I tried hammering out a rank structure but everyone hated it. People just wanted to have fun and enjoy the game, no one really wanted to get serious about it... and they were right. Trying to take a game like StarCraft too seriously just wasn't fun.

As for the Clan vs Clan structure(because I know that's what you're intending), your player base will need to be quite large. As it stands, this kind of gaming structure is calling for a more mature audience(note I'm not referring to age, I'm saying maturity), and that's gonna be a marginally slimmer portion of the gaming community... as we all know. ;) Getting people to clan together isn't too difficult, but being able to organize clan vs clan matches -can- be rough. You often need to schedule. Timezones are a pain if it's an international affair. I have a lot of difficulty arranging team vs team games in smaller communities.

These are just some thoughts on what you'll need to consider. Co-op play is by and far the most underused feature in modern games. I don't know why, a lot of people -love- it.

Doom II Coop was incredible... ditto Duke Nukem 3D co-op.

Good luck, bro.

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Original post by kman12 For the sake of correctness, the co-op mode in starcraft was called "Team Free-For-All". kevin

While that may be one of the settings, that isn't the only one (Team Melee is there for sure).