What about, when the player disconnects an AI infrastructure would take over, this would be based on what the player has done in his/her time online.

See Savage and Allegiance, both are MMOFPRTS's.

Personally, i'd leave the Minions as NPC's and simply allow the RTS player to build up his own army/infastructure to attack living players, this way the Human's have the endless fodder their so fond of, and RTS players have a living thinking unit they have to outwit and kill with their armies.

With Human Minions, there's always the problem they don't follow your orders, or that you get some "Good" skilled units or some "Bad" skilled units of the same type, or those who intentionally try to mess you and everyone else up.

Please forgive my absence, but I've been pretty busy IRL.
I've got a basic system design up and going in my head now how the "MobMaster" builds his army, levels up and aquire money and equipment.

I think this game would be awesome to play in 2D (due to hardware restrictions) and to override a small city with my army of 60-70 skeletons...

So I was planning to wrap a very simple 2D engine around my 3D Engine Project to demonstrate the basic concept of RTS vs RPG concept.

Hopefully, I can post a link to the "WIP Design Document" within a couple of days...

Reminds me of a Question my Girlfriend asked when I explained her what an MMORPG was by playing a quick demonstration game of WoW. I was slaying some Wild Boars, when she asked: "...and those boars are also controlled by players?"

Boy, that'd totally SUCK to play Random Boar #4295 on Realm XYZXYZ ... :) And Paying 13 Euros a Month for that. But yes, consider the role play possibilities... epic!



... on another notion, I think human owned mobs would be a good idea, but moreso, lootable players would be more important (just a random drop chance that your player loses one of their unbound items in case of PvP death, for example). Mobs would then be there to gather ressources, and you'd slay heavily armed players to get a hold of their stuff.

Batteries and balance sold separately.

Whomever decides to play the game as a MobMaster has the same kind of experience-system as the "regular" - when your level increases to, let's say, 10, you will gain more MobPoints for which you can buy new Mobs to a level up to 10. wheter it is 10 level 1 boars or 1 level 10 skeleton.

Hmm I like this idea :) But wouldn't it be very unbalanced? Take your 60-70 skeletons to a town that at this time of the day doesn't have many players online. This sucks. You'd need some limits: Figure out the combined power of all online players, and the combined power of all attacking mobs, and don't let the mobs exceed a power threshold.

One more thing: base building? I mean, they ARE playing an RTS :)
And it would be cool to gather a party to destroy that new spider lair. Hmm...but then the RTS players would lose their armies very quickly. What about if they had "classes" to chose from, like races, and stick to that? Even when you lose your base, you have many more races to chose from. Like, keeping it more light-weight so the player doesn't quit the game when his base is over-run.

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Original post by Jotaf Hmm I like this idea :) But wouldn't it be very unbalanced? Take your 60-70 skeletons to a town that at this time of the day doesn't have many players online. This sucks. You'd need some limits: Figure out the combined power of all online players, and the combined power of all attacking mobs, and don't let the mobs exceed a power threshold. One more thing: base building? I mean, they ARE playing an RTS :) And it would be cool to gather a party to destroy that new spider lair. Hmm...but then the RTS players would lose their armies very quickly. What about if they had "classes" to chose from, like races, and stick to that? Even when you lose your base, you have many more races to chose from. Like, keeping it more light-weight so the player doesn't quit the game when his base is over-run.

Well.. I can only take my 60-70 skeletons if i'm a lvl40+ MobMaster and that results low-level skeletons. Either 10 strong skeletons, 20 not-weak skeletons or 60 weak skeletons...

I've had some thoughts about "base-building" for the Mob side, but my primary idea is to figure out this MobMaster system.

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Original post by Wixner Quote: Original post by Jotaf Hmm I like this idea :) But wouldn't it be very unbalanced? Take your 60-70 skeletons to a town that at this time of the day doesn't have many players online. This sucks. You'd need some limits: Figure out the combined power of all online players, and the combined power of all attacking mobs, and don't let the mobs exceed a power threshold. One more thing: base building? I mean, they ARE playing an RTS :) And it would be cool to gather a party to destroy that new spider lair. Hmm...but then the RTS players would lose their armies very quickly. What about if they had "classes" to chose from, like races, and stick to that? Even when you lose your base, you have many more races to chose from. Like, keeping it more light-weight so the player doesn't quit the game when his base is over-run. Well.. I can only take my 60-70 skeletons if i'm a lvl40+ MobMaster and that results low-level skeletons. Either 10 strong skeletons, 20 not-weak skeletons or 60 weak skeletons... I've had some thoughts about "base-building" for the Mob side, but my primary idea is to figure out this MobMaster system.

Please don't call them MobMasters in-game :P

I agree, but I was talking about the case when a town is deserted or has only 2 or 3 players that are not able to defend it. It wouldn't be fun for the other players to find out that their city was conquered over-night.

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Original post by Jotaf Please don't call them MobMasters in-game :P I agree, but I was talking about the case when a town is deserted or has only 2 or 3 players that are not able to defend it. It wouldn't be fun for the other players to find out that their city was conquered over-night.

Yeah, there are some problems like that :)
And no need to worry, they're just called MobMasters in the design document until i've got another name ;)