A MMOG space trade & empire design, input please!

Critical_Waste · 2004-05-22T19:49:35

I know everyone and their dog snickers at these MMOG threads but please bear with me and offer your personal input on this game design: Game Type: A space trading & warfare game. Trade, build, blow up thy neighbor. Think Escape Velocity on a MMO scale. Setting: A solar system kind of like ours, with about, say, 10 planets an asteroid belt, etc. Technology: No warp speed, no jump gates, just good old cold fusion. Gametype: Emphasis on PvP+ play. The major NPC's are actually the planets of the solar system which regulate trade prices, and major ship construction projects. Minor NPC's exist, just sparsely. The game will use 3d graphics. People like them. Gamestyle: A "realistic" approach. Ships have mass, and an appropriate amount of energy needs to be used to move that mass. Ships cannot do hairpin turns unless they are small enough to afford such maneuvers or have engines to match the required movement of mass. Travel between planets takes about 30 real time minutes on average. [Before you flip out and say WTF please read more.] The overall effect would be more akin to ships at sea than super fast star blazing ships nuking each other. Consequently the game play is more contemplative and less of a twitch game. Also there is planetary gravity and solar gravity, meaning players actually can orbit the sun or around planets. Things rotate around the Sun at about 10x realtime! :o Gameplay: A forced turn based game. After 30 seconds the next "round" is issued. Every PC ship is controlled by AI. Players feed objectives and play styles into the AI and watch as it is carried out in "real-time." The player turn is the window of opportunity in which a player can 1. update his ship's AI and 2. manually control ships by issuing overriding orders. When a turn cycles the sever updates the players AI routines and makes the necessary changes. Players commonly own more than one ship. Most players will have anywhere from 0-100 ships as their direct personal property. (You do not need a ship to play the game, more on this later. Also the number of ships is limited by server CPU power so that 100 number is just a guess.) The player can switch between any of his ships instantly. The player ships are however held accountable to player actions, in other words if one of your ships on the other side of the solar system makes some enemies all of your ships are treated as "you." Commonly a player will have many ships heading to many destinations at once and can "micro manage" where and when necessary. An example: Ship 1: on route to moon2 with cargo ETA: 20 min Ships 2-23: in an active war zone in conflict with playerX ETA: now Ship 24-25: parked in Marz4 orbit and in active trade with playerb, and Marz4's Zeno space station NextETA: 3 min etc etc. In the above example the players attention is needed wherever is most important, or exciting. In this case I would probably want to watch the battle in case my opponent is controlling his AI manually. (Humans will always be better at tactics that the AI literally cannot interpret) A human controlling a large attack fleet will always be better off than an unattended fleet. Or perhaps a major deal is being haggled about over ship 24&25's cargo that could be potentially more important than any silly war halfway across the solar system, the player should pay more attention to trade. Or maybe ship 1's cargo is the most important element to look after. Players can form up to a six-tier command hierarchy. Horizontal power structures can be infinite. command hierarchies are useful for 1. shared protection 2. Better trade agreements 3. More ship control 4. More resources. Players with certain command options turned on can agree to control allied ship AI (also direct control is possible.) The player controlling another player's ships becomes a temporary owner. So if you have the right alliances you could technically control 0-1,000+ ships at once. Depending on how the command hierarchy is built (yes its player defined but fear not presets are available) you could be the commander of 10 capital-class ships and be a part of a larger 200 ship army. Climbing the command hierarchy is one of the greatest challenges of the game because it is based on player trust and not some abstract value. If you blow up other people's ships irresponsibly chances our not many people will want to ally with you or place themselves under your control. If you deliver on your promises, and increase your alliances wealth then you will probably be promoted in the command hierarchy or be offered a good position within another alliance. Now for some things most modern MMOG's don't do: (section formerly called "shockers") 1. Players cannot "log out" their ships. When they log off the AI continues to do what it was told to do to the best of its ability. If you have allies they generally will look out for your ships (because it is within their best interest to do so!) Fear not, you can "park" your ships in a planetary orbit, effectively safe from all but the most desperate attacks. (planets do not like fighting in their "airspace" and do not pick sides in a conflict, bad for business all around.) 2. No levels. None. No requirements. None. If you log in as a newbie, and your friend wants to give you 20 Deathstar class heavy cruisers, that is his choice and is welcome to do so. You’re given command of your new property as soon as the trade is complete. 3. Ships take time to build, or at least the ones that are not sold "used" or already premade. Planets are the main ship producing elements in the solar system, however space stations can also produce ships, its just not very likely they will be as cheap. Also major ships are almost exponentially more expensive than a small fighter. Usually most players cannot buy a capitol ship outright (unless he is mr. money banks) and often has to finance his ship. If the ship gets blown up or stolen he still will have to make payments or face planitrary wraith. Players can pool their resources in their alliance to fund the bigger projects. 4. Major celestial bodies are known to all players. The map is revealed. 5. Permadeath. If a ship blows up, say bye bye to said ship. Sorry dude, hopefully your not the kind of player to put all his eggs in one basket? Or at least you have some good friends or can hire your services? Maybe watch after someone's ship for them while their offline until you get some credits maybe? 6. No skills. A ship can shoot its guns and fly to the best of its ability. 7. No undiscovered technology. No, none. You know what can be built if you have the necessary money, parts, connections etc. It's just entirely up to the player to meet those goals. Everyone knows about the Ion Cannon Earth Smashing weapon system, but regretfully your ship's chasis don't quite fit that capital ship type weaponry. Nor do you have the funds, or even the need to buy such hardware. Ok ok, you might be asking yourself what is the goal? How do you become l33t? Answer: Your value to other player's is the greatest measure of worth. If you play the straight and narrow conservative general chances are people will put their warships under your, (or one of your subordinates) control. If you’re the trader that always finds the best deals in the solar system; players will flock to you and offer their services to secure the best deals. IF your the dread pirate Roberts and have than nasty group of thugs who don't give a shit about what sort of alliances your enemy is protected by perhaps your services can be of some value, or maybe people just try to stay the heck away from you altogether. Also players can build space stations. Space stations basically become a smaller planet under player control. Trade can be managed by the space station’s players, or adapting to surrounding economical rates. Building a Space station is one sure fire way to become “l33t” but you need a lot of resources and protection to back up your operation lest some pirate wants it for his own. Space station level trade will almost be necessary to purchase or finance the really large capitol ships. Another important thing to note: There will be asteroids that are resource rich. Players will flock to them to secure valuable resources at a fraction of planetary cost. Essentially the player will prospect for mineral rich asteroids. Questions? Comments so far? Also note: more design elements are explored in the thread replies. [edited by - Critical_Waste on June 6, 2003 10:57:07 PM]

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Critical_Waste June 05, 2003 02:16 AM

66 comments, last by Critical_Waste 19 years, 11 months ago

Anonymous

May 18, 2004 07:46 AM

Two questions:
The first is a game play question, how do you get new players hooked? I''m sure the game will be fascinating when you control 30 ships, but how do you get to that point as a new player?

Secondly, how can I get involved? I assume you have some sort of website and/or group involved with this?

Agony

3,452

May 18, 2004 08:42 AM

quote:Posted - 5 June 2003 3:16:12 AM

Just so you guys know, this is a year old thread, and it is the last thread that Critical_Waste actually started, and Critical_Waste''s last post was January 20th, this year. Probably aren''t gonna get a response.

"We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves." - John Locke

The Frugal Gourmet

816

May 18, 2004 10:33 AM

quote:Original post by smitty1276
I don''t know what became of it, but I found a link claiming that a remake of the good old text-based BBS game Tradewars 2002 was being released as a MMO...

http://www.insidemacgames.com/news/story.php?ArticleID=2166#loop

That game, which was one of the best games I have every played, had many of the elements you mentioned. You may want to check up on it... you can probably get tons of cool ideas (Genesis torpedoes to create your own planets to bulid factories, etc)...

Sadly, this game project has died..

Co-creator of Star Bandits -- a graphical Science Fiction multiplayer online game, in the style of "Trade Wars'.

Anonymous

May 19, 2004 07:53 PM

Woah. Thats suprising. I never even looked at the time.

Unconnected

100

May 19, 2004 07:57 PM

/me snickers as well

http://www.industrybroadcast.com - Bringing the Colletive Insight of the Gaming industry to your ears

CoolWorld

122

May 21, 2004 05:51 PM

If some of you followed the year old posts between me and Critical in this thread, I''ve recently started a small website to get my own project on the road. My project is quite vulgar at the moment as I am currently reading game developpement books alot more than designing and programming. I am however hoping to put some serious effort in it eventually and get it on the road. Ideas for the game are most welcome.

For what it is worth at this time, here is the address : http://www.galacticworlds.net/.

dance

122

May 22, 2004 09:39 AM

yeah im the one that revived this dead thread wanted to see if Critical_Waste remembered it. Although the idea was a good one just didnt see it through