Dude, I hope you''re writing these things down because they are excellent ideas. I''m not sure we want the players to wait hours but having an equation like 5 - 10 min = 1 hour or something might work. If this is going to to be multiplayer and online you might think about having crews made up of different players. Then even if they are waiting around to get somewhere there''s still interaction and friendships. Those that cant aford a ship can buy passage on other players ships or big NPC cruisers. With high tech like this you can have the equivalent of Global chat. That helps pass the time real well. Make the ships slightly expensive and you give newbies a goal and make the possibility of friends pooling money to buy a ship of their own more prevalent. Man typing about this makes me almost want to try to design one myself.

I agree fully with you that forceing the player to chat is a bad idea, that''s not what I meant to bring out. Evidently chatting wouldn''t be the only thing that COULD keep them occupied. But the main point was if they have friends who are playing the game they will have the option of talking with them if they so choose. If they go so far as to buy a ship together then they''ll evidently be good enough friends that they will want to interact with them. Do not discount the power of friends in hooking a person to a game. Onboard a ship you could have mini games sorta. Remember Star Wars(IV)? They waited to get someplace and had interaction while they were waiting. This could be a universal option(playing with someone on a planet or different ship) sorta like network play inside network play. Onboard if you wanted to hang around until you got there instead of just logging out you could have other things for the player to do. Perhaps, PERHAPS micromanagment of some sort.

The point is to give the player enough to do so that he/she doesn''t mind the wait to go long distances. The fact that it takes TIME to get somewhere adds to the importance of the players next move. Money and decisions are suddenly worth more to the player.

quote:
gavco98
Basically because you have spread things out over long time periods they have more time to work on the smaller points, making the game more detailed. If you allow updates to be recieved/sent over multiple mediums (email, http, wap, client program) etc they can stay informed at any moment.

I thought something like that would be cool but didn't know if there was anyone else out there who would be that interested in what I guess you'd call a "total" experience.

Make long meetings/family reunions a lot more fun.

quote:
Wavinator
I wonder if it wouldn't help to consider providing a richer solo experience to go with the multiplayer? Is the only purpose of the game to fight? If not, then maybe you could make even one single ship very rich in activities.
Don't think I haven't thought about that! I was just wondering if anyone else would think it's fun. Sounds like maybe I'm hearing a "yes"?

Now as far as passengers go. Sure, you could maybe do something like that and add an RPG spin to it. Maybe the spacedock has a bar or brothels or something. Players who choose a harder edge might start out in a mining colony somewhere. Now when a ship arrives...a ship really is arriving. Now your little guy could jump on and...who knows?...maybe steal some technology info if his hacking skills are high enough? It would depend upon what kind of security force you put on your ship, wouldn't it?

So now maybe you've got a mix of a large economic sim type game with the interaction of smaller actual people to where they say, "ha. psycocorp is at war with super,inc. i ain't gettin on that ship."

I think it's ripe with possibility but didn't know if the time factor would turn people off. Sounds like it might not.

I have so many ideas...so little experience.

Thanks to EVERYONE for sharing your ideas and opinions. Much appreciated.



Edited by - kerryl on August 13, 2001 4:44:52 PM

Now let''s pretend such an idea took off and you had a couple thousand subscribers or something...

Get ready...it gets heavy on "pretend", here...

Now you could schedule universe changing events like they do on Asheron''s Call. But since this is all space based, you make a live webcast that is truly live and covers unfolding events...

"Once again, if you''re just joining us, at 9:15 universal standard time, the merchant ship SS Imperion began transmitting an emergency high bandwidth communique along with a short feed of what appears to be a craft of extraterrestrial origin before, what we''re now seeing, continued radio silence. The United Corporations of Earth have been unable to hail the Imperion and all ships have been ordered to stay away from sector 210-510 pending further notice. Mandatory observation of this quarantined zone is required for all vessels as use of deadly force has been authorized. As it stands, we know very little but will obviously keep you updated as news arrives from our affiliates and sister stations."

So now you''ve got people on the edge of their seat. They go to login and you get this sort of War of the Worlds live broadcast. But then you add the reality to it like they do in any big story where they don''t have all the details...bring in "experts" and talk about past events.

"The SS Imperion is owned by SuperCorp,Inc and we''re working on contacting them now. Obviously, SuperCorp has its own engineers working on this trying to re-establish communication so in the mean time we''ll go to Dr. Susan Klasky. Dr. Klasky is a professor at the University of New San Francisco in France where Roman Smith, captain of the Imperion, was a student of hers. Dr. Klasky, thank you for joining us on such short notice."

Klasky: "My pleasure, Interviewer."

Interviewer: "What, right now, is Captain Smith doing?"

Klasky: "Well, Interviewer, I think Roman is probably weighing out all of his options. Obviously, he''s opposed to using military force in a situation such as this unless he''s presented with no other options. First and foremost, he''s going to be most interested in preventing a war with an unknown lifeform whose intentions are not yet known but, more importantly, whose technological capabilities are also unknown outside of the Black Out Zone you described earlier. I''d like to note that such an act may be just a preventative measure so that this vessel can simply observe the Imperion without threat. I''d be hardpressed to say that such an action should be interpreted as aggression. If he has power, I''m sure he''s putting as much as possible into reserve banks while rallying his first officers to calm and keep control over the civilian passengers..."

Now doesn''t that sound like fun? It does me...but then that''s what that was a question and not "that sounds like fun!"

The bitch is...someone''s going to do it. I just don''t have the resources to do it myself.

That does sound good. I would pay just for the experience of being a witness to the events. And considering you have a whole universe you could stage several events in opposite sides of the game universe. It would really depend on your resources of course. Another nice thing is the wide area of skills you could have. "Do you want to specialize in ships weapons or personal weaponry?" That sort of thing. Then youd have events in different systems like racing ships or UWC(Universal Wrestling Campionships) that sort of thing. Competitions between players in lots of different fields. Gets everyone involved. If you had the resources you could make a sort of daily or weekly news program detailing events that occured and highlighting winners or something. Then have News flashes for those big live events. The problem is that something like this would really require a lot of work to keep up. But it would definitly be fun. Hope someone tries it.