I am planning a RTS MO game and have been thinking about my MO game lobby. How do I make it better than the lobbys today? I want my players to stay there, not just use it for gaming. I want it to be a central place for the community around the game, Is this possible to do at all? All the lobbys I have seen really suck. Is it because you don''t want to be there, but just play the game, or is it cause the lobbys are badly designed? If the lobby is of no use more than getting you to start your game then it can suck, it wont matter. Is there anyone out there that have any idea or suggestion in this matter? Is it possible to make a lobby better and more fun? I would be glad to know if it''s just me who thinks a lobby that supports the game community is a good idea? =) - Captain_RB

A couple of thoughts...

* Stop people from advertising (make money fast schemes, pet peeve with Blizzard boards when I was playing Starcraft)

* Allow people to create really detailed avatars, but have some kind of content control. Allow them to be able to set VERY SPECIFIC requests wrt what type of game they want, so that half the conversation on the board isn't taken up by messages like "4v4 BGH no comps anyone?" that scroll half a dozen times.

* Provide for moderators. Moderators are the difference between an on-line community that has the social atmosphere of a back alley or a town hall.

* Create a mechanism for replays. Players then can socialize and brag about dazzling strategies they've pulled off. Being able to compress the game and index it would be great for this, and players could even link to "Greatest Hits" in their profile

* Virtual whiteboard with map - If players could load the game map in the lobby and draw on it, you could get characters collaborating or even teaching each other. Players would need to be able to restrict who could see this, of course.

* Game Highlights - If you can figure out a way of doing an info squirt back to the lobby, you could have something of a sports bar atmosphere. Players could "change channels" and check out latest highlights. This would be massively different from the your normal lobby, where players just disappear and, when they get back, only talk among themselves about what a great or terrible game it was

* Gambling - Not real, of course, but what if players could gamble for resources or special stuff based on the Game Highlights? Now you've turned gaming into a spectator sport where people will hang out not just to chat, but because there's a possibility of gain.

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Just waiting for the mothership...

Edited by - Wavinator on February 14, 2002 11:47:28 PM

Thanx for the thoughts Wavinator. Good ones.

I was hoping for people to take this chance to develop a feature of the game that is very underdeveloped today.

This is a project that is real. There is a Publisher in this project so it''s a "serious" game project. So all suggestions and ideas will lead to a better game for all of you to play.


Note: By posting ideas you accept that I might use them as I please without any permission or giving any formal credit.


- Captain_RB

I like the replay and whiteboard ideas! That would be slick!

Dave Mark
Intrinsic Algorithm Development
"Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

Yeah, the whiteboard, replay and highlights are a great idea. How about being able to make your own room, and then set the channel to watch that game.

Or partition the room (up to three partitions hopefully--team, other team, and nonparticipants), prior to a game so that each can talk strategy with your teammate(s) easily and still be able to talk to your opponents and check to see if they are still there.

Making a game available only to room residents would be nice, so that you can easily make a game and people wouldn''t have to say Name/pass all the time.

It would be nice if the game selection was a window, so that you could still see what was going on in the room when you are searching for the game in a global list.

If the lobby is 3D you can have a lot of fun with it...for instance, as the players rise in the rankings they get access to nifty new clothes, body types/parts, and other cool stuff to customize their lobby avatar with. And if you make the lobby code plugin based, you could (relatively) easily add new features to the lobby, such as a pool hall, or other mini-game type things. Oh, and you definitely want to give players all the stuff Wavinator thought of.

EDIT: Don't forget an in-game web browser so that players can surf fansites while they're waiting for players to join their "4 vs 4 BGH no comps anyone?" game.

If you guys (whoever is developing it) get the lobby thing together, so that it has a good community right from the start, I would buy the game the first day it came out. Provided, of course, that it wasn't like Starcraft, where the fastest clicker who's memorized all the unchanging, predefined strategies always wins.

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"It's groin-grabbingly transcendent!" - Mr. Gamble, my teacher, speaking of his C++ AP class

Edited by - OOProgrammer on February 28, 2002 12:55:11 AM

*bump*
oups...


- Captain_RB

Give the player a selection of music tracks to play so that a repeating theme doesn''t get tedious.

Also, the default theme for the various rooms could reflect what is happening.

I am thinking about making a military game that has an exciting build-up style theme while the player is searching for games, then a more serious recruiting style theme when a session is entered. It could really get them pumped up.

Two words: Lobby Babes.

J/k...how about a hall of fame for each of the game modes? Each hall of fame would display the top 100 (or however many) players for that game mode, complete with career statistics and, if they wish, a small photo of themselves. If the photos would be too bandwidth intensive, you could let players create a vector image to represent themselves, which could be downloaded quickly and then turned into a texture on the client side.

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"It''s groin-grabbingly transcendent!" - Mr. Gamble, my teacher, speaking of his C++ AP class

Check out the Tribes2 lobby area. You sure to get lots of good ideas in there.

-Mark