I really like your God idea. That could really be a cool role to play in a game and also benificial to gameplay.

I've given a fair amount of skull-time to a similar idea - the actual idea has been kicking around out there for 5-10 years at least, and I've been pondering it (independently) for most of that time.

The major elements I've come up with to make it semi-feasible are an automatic persistent ranking for FPS players and a hiring system for RTS players whereby they can offer a certain amount of resources per FPS player for FPS players of a given minimum rank (you can have multiple such recruitment drives going simultaneously - so high rank FPS players could get a large bonus, medium a small bonus, and low none) - in addition to the basic cost of outfitting. FPS players can then spend this bonus on additional loadout (like purchasing gear in Counter Strike).

So the FPS player loads up his persistent character profile, and goes to a lobby, where he can see a multisortable list of assignments suitable for his rank (or below) each with a commander rank, size of bonus, and (if implemented) what sort of equipment is available as basic loadout or available for purchase, also possibly some idea of the current state of the battle - winning easily, losing heavily, or about even. There is also an option to "buy into" a game - in which case, the player spends some of his accumulated funds to pay for his own start-up gear and in-game purchasing power, chooses a game and gets auto-assigned to a side - the auto-assign seeking to balance the buy-ins between the sides. It's also possible for a player in the lobby to get invited to a game by the RTS player, or start an un-ranked game of his own.

Once in game, the FPS player has a fairly standard interface, including radar and colour-coded waypoints - green for move-to/follow, red for attack and blue for defend/escort and indicators for operational stance (hold-fire, return-fire, fire-at-will, stand-ground, evade contact, explore, kamikaze, use-own-judgement), all of which potentially affect ranking, as well as standard chat options - up to 10 user-definable canned messages which can be sent to a range of possible recipients with 3 keystrokes, and the ability to enter other messages manually (at the usual cost of being less able to interact with the world). Vehicles are as in Halo - you can replace any AI or take any empty seat in a stationary vehicle. If you die, you can buy a respawn, get re-recruited onto the same side (for a small penalty, but keeping all resources), or return to the lobby (for a larger penalty). Dead units - AI or player - drop equipment.

Ranking change based on which side won (and how far the battle was skewed in your side's favour when you joined), individual effectiveness (territory explored, damage inflicted, damage sustained), and compliance with orders (a player who stormed the enemy base solo when told to kamikaze would get lots of points; one told to hold-fire and evade contact would lose lots of points; one told to use his own judgement would never be penalised, but would only get very small bonuses for following suggestions). Possibly the compliance score should be tracked separately. Premature disconnection means you only get scored on the situation up to the point you left, and miss out on a small bonus for being present to the end.

FPS players also keep a portion of any unspent resources - more if they were on the winning side which can be spent between games on avatar customisations, permanent equipment or special abilities. Permanent equipment costs significantly (10-100 times?) more than the equivalent equipment during a game, but can be taken into any game (for a price - probaly half that of buying the equipment in game) and if it's part of the initial load-out, you get the cost of the item in addition to any bonuses - plus, permanent equipment can be permanently upgraded over the standard issue gear. Special abilities would be very expensive, equivalent to the Ghost abilities from StarCraft or Hero abilities from WC3 - importing them into a game should cost resources (either from the offered bonus, or your personal reserve) and may be situational anyway (the ability to call a nuke requires a nuke to be available...). RTS player requests for the use of special abilities would show up as an appropriate icon appearing onscreen. FPS players can also import their personal resources into games - either for free when they join, or (possibly) for a fee when they want to spend them.


The RTS player plays a fairly standard RTS game (I'm thinking more of a *Craft-style, but you could probably do something more Total War-like with some work) complete with AI units, but can also recruit "mercenaries" - FPS players. To recruit, you effectively build them as you would any other unit, selecting the recruitment centre, then selecting the unit with the desired equipment, but, in addition to the set cost (slightly cheaper than equivalent AI units) you can add a bonus, and specify a minimum rank. You also have an "invite" option, which lets you select a specific FPS player from the lobby and make a direct offer, and an option to restrict the total number of buy-ins possible - whichever RTS player sets the lowest ceiling determines the maximum number of buy-ins the game will accept (without kicking any existing buy-ins). Once a recruitment offer is made, the relevant resources are "spent" immediately, and a new unit appears as soon as an FPS player joins up - if you cancel the recruitment before one arrives, you get the usual refund of resources, as you would for cancelling any other incomplete build order.

FPS players can be selected, given orders, and have operational stance set as any other AI unit (think Total Annihilation), supplemented by direct written messages (or voice chat if implemented) which can explain strategy in more detail.

RTS players also have rankings, which change primarily based on the outcome of the game (crushing victory through to crushing defeat) modified by opponent's rank and how well your troops followed your orders - if all your players had a large compliance bonus, you get a larger change in rank, while if they had large compliance penalties, you get a reduced change in rank - overall compliance would be calculated from individual compliance weighted by individual effectiveness.

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My idea for a third layer above the RTS player is a slow-paced, turn-based strategy game, along the lines of Civilization or the board game Diplomacy, where the player takes his turn, assigns resources, optionally writes sealed orders, and specifies a minimum commander rank (or specific commander) for any battles that come up. He then gets on with the rest of his life while the battle goes on a queue at the server. RTS players then show up and are provided with a (sortable) list of battles for which they qualify, with preference given firstly to those that specify them as commander, secondly to those where only one more commander is needed, thirdly to those for which enough uncommitted commanders of sufficient rank are available to fill, then to any other official battles, then to unofficial friendlies.

If players choose a battle, and not enough opponents show up, then, after an initial waiting time (maybe 1 minute), they have the option to start it with AI players in the empty seats. If qualified players show up later, they can join a game in progress, replacing any AI players.

When the battle starts, or when a player takes over an AI position, they see any sealed orders and have a brief spectator period before they take control.

At the end of a battle, RTS players' ranking change is also modified by the approximate difficulty of the battle - if they perform better than the automatic resolution would have, they get a bonus; worse, a penalty. Any spare resources at the end of the battle are split between the commander (30%?) and the player whose forces he commanded. Commanders can invest personal resources in battles or in expensive personal upgrades.

If players leave the game, their troops are taken over by AI and their rankings adjust immediately. If all players leave, then the battle is automatically resolved.

Any battles more than a certain age (a day? a week? depends on (anticipated) turnover) are also automatically resolved.

Once all battles have been resolved, the TBS player is notified (by email) and can take his next turn. There may be a time limit on turns, or not, and there may be a central server for the TBS, or it may be pure play-by-email, just spawning battles to the server and getting e-mail notification of the outcome.

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An unstated assumption of all this is that FPS players are available in slight excess - that, generally, the RTS players can always get as many FPS players as they can afford, and still have some buying in. If there's a significant shortage of FPS players, then the bonuses required to attract them will climb, and it will become uneconomic to use them rather than AI units, potentially reducing the game to a standard RTS - on the other hand, the fact that the AI units existence puts a cap on the value of FPS players should keep demand in line with supply. Also, the abiltiy to invite specific players will ensure friends can still team up together, whatever the economics.

I was logged in when I started that post...

I think it would be interesting to have one player be in a RTS view, and have alot of less powerful units to start with, and like heroes. Like in starcraft. With easy to buy lesser grunt units and lesser heroes. And they are merely supposed to eliminate the other players, who are in FPS view.

Say have like 8 people play against the one person in rts view. They have to work together to dstroy the base. and the one RTS person gets one heroe unit to start off. Like a boss unit. The Fps people are allowed to buy any guns they want like in Counter Strike. And the RTs has to get money by harvesting like minerals and stuff.

Or you could have it where the 8 Fps players have specialized characters.