Here is the first installment of a game idea for everyone to toss around. I originally wrote this in the discussion form for a new game called PlanetSide, the first ever MMOFPS in development by Verant. Game Type: Grand Space Scale/ or large Multi-Continetal FPS/RTS, in which the objective is meant to be completed over several days using the Multiplayer save-game idea. Components: Highly configurable, programmable and real time commandable A.I. Bots ranging in 100''s or 1000''s per game, Functional Transporters ala Star Trek, Large/Massive Internally Rendered Vessels capable of carrying 100''s of bots or real-players. A VCR 3D Movie Editor to use as a game trialer to entice players to join, or to be used a Clan training tool (more on that). In long term multiplayer campaign, bots, as well as all resources are virtually limited, and are not renewable endless resources. In other words, if your bot dies in conflict, its body does not disappear after a time, but becomes a spoil of war, which can be repaired or recylced depending on how damaged it is. This also means that if the enemy is defeated, you can gather yours and their damaged bots and vehicles and bring them back for repair. However, if the enemy prevails in the battle, or simply gathers disabled enemy bots and runs, then they will get the spoils, provided they can either phyiscally grab the disabled bots off the field, or tag them for transport. My vision for pre-programming bots would be something like the Unreal Tourney interface for bots, except beefed up with alot more tabs like "Mapping".The mapping tab could tell your bots where to go and how to get there. You could select a "Leader Bot" interface which could have an "Orders" tab, which could be used to distribute a certain set of instructions to other bot/bot groups given that a certain set of sequences or objectives are met. A "Protcols" tab which would control how the Bots would respond if something interupted thier primary objective. This leader bot could then distribute simple orders to other bots. The idea would be to get the bots to get in position, and then have the leader hail you, so you can then Remote Access the bot. Which brings me to... Any bot can be entered and controlled by a real-player in 2 ways. In a large scale save-game scenario, new players can be added to either team, by giving them access to specific bots. For instance, a large scale game which had a previous save-game will start again at 7pm PST. Players from the game invite new players to join at that time, and provide them with a bot name and password. This bot is a real-bot which already existed in the previous save-game, and could very well be in the middle of some task/battle which he/they were pre-programmed to do. The other way of controlling a bot is to do so within the virtual controls of the game. In other words, during game play, bots are transported/fly to another ship/moon surface and are about to engage in thier objectives. You are in a Mother ship and wish to access a particular bot to control from a first peron perspective. Within your ship is phyiscally located a bot control interface center, which you must access. Once there, you access the bot and then are able to direct battle from the bots perspective. Once you disengage from the bot, it will resume back to its next function/objective. If it is destroyed/diabled in battle, you will be disengaged from you connection to that bot, and will need to access another bot in the field of battle. I think it would be cool if you guys thought about designing a specialized version of Planetside that conentrated on what I am describing here.. the vast use of highly programmable bots so that each player could control up to hundreds of different bots, much in the way of Batt***one1&2... and one tactical aspect this could add to a game variant like this would be the ability for a group to be able to plan in bettween save-games... as well as search for more human players to help control the vast number of bots. This could be done through community tools added to the game and accessible via a web-site community interface (including IRC/IM etc..). This could make the game scale-able. I think people would like this kind of save-game scenerio if it was done right, because it would be so compelling to come back. Groups like Quake clans, and Tribes already time-slot games with other clans and Tribes.. I think the return rate would be higher because of the anticaption of what will happen next. Right now, many FPS matches get cancelled because of no-shows. And the bots would give the ability to populate the universe and give the real players both ability to "die" numerouse times, but not actually dieing with thier "human'' character in the game, because they control bots to do the dirty work (of course, losing bots is still a big loss because you only have so many..and your objective would be to try to salvage the bot as described above. This could actually be the theme of the Role Play part of the game: To determine where the real players are and conquer/kill/capture them. This would actually be a solution the permadeath argument, by making it the whole idea. You could have one life, but you could control many bots to fight and "die" with, but not without risk because in order to control a bot, you would need to have some kind of transmission device which could be traced back to the location of the real-player controlling the bot and give the enemy your location. It would also be cool if cities on planets were populated with 100s of 1000s of non-player controlled bots which just stroll around or drive around.. some place the real-players can hide in. (Some of these ideas could also be implemented in a Persistent Uninverse scenerio as well.) more to come on large scale fully internally rendered battlecruisers! More to come. Tell me what you think. I would like to here from the Dev team as well if they have time, because I think Ive hit on something here.. I can feel it in my bones! EnderBean.

Pardon my rudeness, but just how does this solve the Save-game and Perma-death problems? This sounds wonderful for a Real Time Strategy game or other game that has a single player managing multiple units. It doesn''t, however, seem applicable to games where each player controls a single unit, which is where most of the Save-game and Perma-death arguments are held about.

What would a player do while they are incapacitated? Wait, I suspect, until somebody repairs their avatar? Few players have the patience to wait for that these days, and it can lead to interesting (and annoying) problems. In Diablo I a favaorite of the Player Killers was to have a bunch of Scrolls of Resurect handy so they could raise then slaughter another player''s character. Sadisctic fun for the PK''er, but a total headache for the player who''s character sucumbs to this Promethean fate.

On the opposite side of that coin, what happens when no one comes wandering along? The player just rots there for eternity (or until the scavenger creatures pick their bones clean.)

"Pardon my rudeness, but just how does this solve the Save-game and Perma-death problems? This sounds wonderful for a Real Time Strategy game or other game that has a single player managing multiple units"



Yes in essence that is what I''am proposing, an RTS in an FPS engine. But is much, much more than that. I have proposed pooling together elements that have been avoided in FPS multiplayer games like Tribes2 or Planetside, plus elements which NO-ONE has ever put in game as I have proposed it. In a way Im talking about the first mini-war simulator, with some real cool twists. Its gonna be Perma-Death, but you are gonna be getting your ass blown away while controlling bots.. and you will be able to keep you "human" character a far distance away, hidden from the enemy. And it will longer term based through the ability to pause the game and save it for the next time the game will resume. Here is the flow:

1. You and your clan buddies of say 10, challenge 2 other teams of 10 guys.. (or one other team.. whatever). The teams go through the pre-game setup, determine where their bases will be and how many bots, vehicles, shuttles, and battlescruisers there will be and of course, what shedule you will have for the game ie. They would decide to play every Friday at 7pm. You will not know where the other teams are on the massive continent, but you will obviously have your own continent or sectors of huge land, so there will be no accidental my-base-is-next-to-your-base problem. Now, lets say each team decides on having 5 massive battlecruisers which can carry 1000''s of bots and real players and shuttles which can carry dozens of people or bots (bots will actually be skinned as robots, and fleshy characters will be real-players.) The objective for real-players is to command the bots and stay alive, and do recon with them to find and locate the other bases and battlecruisers and wage MASSIVE BATTLES ..exuse me.. im creaming my pants.. as well, 3 ground bases (about a square mile..for just the bases.. im talking big). Then they decide that each human character will control 100units (sound like alot of work, but these are you 100 lives for you.. if they get stolen). Lets do the math: 30 real player controlling 90,000 bots over 15 battlecruisers, 40 shuttles and 3 or more miles of home combined hom turf = HUGE!. If the objective is to destroy/take over the other teams and or kill the real-players and there are only 30 real-players out 90,000 players... imagine how long it would take to find the real players and the bases!..thats how you solve perma-death.

2. They play for X number hours (lets say 3) and then no matter what, if a missle is flying at your battlecruiser, and you have 20% rear shields, and you''ve got a major ground war going on and need to beam up yours and a bunch of enemy destroyed bots before the enemy shuttle gets in position to beam them up first...the game freezes and saves. Tell me you arent going to make it to this game next Friday at 7pm! DAMN STRAIGHT!. And even if people dont make it, you have an AI backup, programmed to take your place in case you cant make it.. you can come in late as well. Thats how you solve save-game.

There is alot more to my idea, and Im still fleshing out some other ideas. Im confirmed on itelligence gathering. Basically, if they destroy and steal your bots, and vehicles, they can have thier engineers reconstruct them and use them, and as well get intelligence from about the shield frequencies of the ship they came from, and the locations of their bases, or secondary bases. You can also build new bases as you aquire materials from battles.

Hope that clear up any confusion.

quote:
SonicSilcion said:
What would a player do while they are incapacitated? Wait, I suspect, until somebody repairs their avatar?

I think he means that if the Bot you are currently controlling is incapacitated, you simply switch to control one of the remaining, functioning Bots.

I think he means that if the Bot you are currently controlling is incapacitated, you simply switch to control one of the remaining, functioning Bots.


Exactly Anon. But you would also work to get that disabled bot transported back to your ship to get it repaired! Other wise the other team will transport it (im working on good Transporter model that will keep the game balanced.. so everyone isnt just transporting stuff everywhere.. you know.. having transport inhibitors, making trasporting someone skill based from the transporter operator..and obviously you cant lock onto fucntioning bots of the opposite team until they have been destroyed and no longer have a tranport inhibitor shield).

Actually, I have played, or at least seen, some games like what you''re suggesting.

Perma-death with multiple units:
That was the way Linewars II worked. You could beam from spaceship to spaceship (more specifcally, the helm) on your side. If you were on a spaceship that went down, you were automatically beamed to a new one. You failed if you ran out of ships, or a specific ship went down. At this point the level would restart. There were no saves, however, just missions that were played seperately. (Kind of like the Unreal Tournament of First Person Space Shooters. Yes, it was multiplayer capable.)

Multiple units with one ''king.'':
Total Anihilation and Total Anihilation Kingdoms. Each player had a master piece which could create many (if not all) of the master builders for one side. If this master piece was killed, that player was out. Gameplay was RTS. Multiplayer had no saves, but the single player campaigns did.

Those sound cool. Im trying to combine those features and then go to another level. The transporter function in Linewars is different from what Im suggesting.. but does sound like the closest thing. Im talking a robust transport system that functions much like Star Trek(you cant transport through funky atmosphere, shields, or any kind of anti transport shielding). Miles O''Brian was a good transporter chief, because he had skill with the system. I would like to foster a system that would have people clambering to be the next Virtual O''Brian (of course they would not want to sit around a transporter room the whole time.. so there would be other duties on ship.. or off ship duties).

As to the Multiple unit of Total Anhilation series: They are not FPS.. are they? As well you cannot Remote access these units. Imagine if you could temporarily "be" one of you UT bots.. thats what Im talking about by Remote Accessing your units.. you walk up to a station (like a control panel in Tribes/Tribes2) and select a unit of yours, and then you become them in FPS and can now control them.


Now bring these elements together... And seriously.. you have not said what think about the scenario I wrote in my last post. What do you think? Would you try something like this? Alot of people I talk to says its sounds awsome, but maybey to complex. I like complexity.. somewhat.. but naturally it will sound more complex to anyone other than me because its my brainchild.. and I have a real clear vision of how it can work.

Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention in my last post was that there is a limit to how many real player can be. I would say the most would be 300 real players.. that would be probably something that people could pay to have.. but it would be free if they planned a smaller scale game on their own college server/network. I like lots of options.



"The time for honoring yourself will soon be at an end"

Oh, and as far as Linewars, Im sure you can walk around inside those ships right?. Im suggesting that these be 3D internally rendered. You can walk from engineering to a turbolift and up to the bridge, or to your quarters, or anywhere you want that you can fit.

EnderBean

Ok, the last post that say "Anonmys Poster" is actually mine. That is so wierd!

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Lets do the math: 30 real player controlling 90,000 bots over 15 battlecruisers, 40 shuttles and 3 or more miles of home combined hom turf = HUGE!. If the objective is to destroy/take over the other teams and or kill the real-players and there are only 30 real-players out 90,000 players...

OK, and what sort of a machine do you plan to run such a game on? Let''s take a quick look at current technology. Asheron''s Call (for the sake of argument) runs on server farms of around 5 server per world (I don''t know the exact number, but this seems likely) Each world supports some 3,000 players (though anything over 2,000 becomes quite laggy) If you''re worried about network traffic only, then 30 players is not too bad, as long as you''re not looking at your entire 10,000 ''bot army at the same time.

Also, the terrain in Asheron''s Call is (if I recall correctly) something like 15km x 15km. I guess this is about the size of the terrain you''re thinking of. How do you suggest representing all this terrain? Asheron''s Call has a dedicated server for serving terrain data and contents (trees, buildings, stuff on the ground, etc) You don''t want one of these per game per terrain, do you?

One Asheron''s Call server farm costs several thousand dollars a month to build and keep running. You''d need one per game in your scenerio...

Another point, what sort of AI would these bots need to be realistic? Certainly comparable to that of something like Unreal Tournament. The average UT game has maybe 8 bots. If you have more than 20-30, the game starts to run very slowly. Imaging having 90,000! OK, you''ll be running on a faster machine (the server), but even if the number of bots possible increased linearly with the speed of the server, you''d need a machine 10,000 times faster than the average PC!

OK, so dumb the bots down a little. In your averge RTS, you can have around 1000 units in the game at once, without major slowdowns. But then, you still need servers 90 times faster than the average PC. Not only that, but RTS AI is not very smart. Most RTSes involve a lot of micro-management, which you wouldn''t want for this sort of game.

I''m not saying your idea is bad - it''s not. I think it''d be awesome playing a game such as this. I can envision some of the master players challenging a hundred people at once and taking them all on single-handedly - imaging the bragging rights to that! It''s just a little unfeasable on today''s technology. And on tomorrow''s technology as well



War Worlds - A 3D Real-Time Strategy game in development.