Videogame Art: Planetary Annihilation

What you're describing is something I've always wanted to see or experience, the best game that has anything of what you just said is probably ARMA 2, the military simulator. As well as Planetside 2. The commander of huge armies of players dictating what said players do, or the lolowly grunt following orders.

What fun that would be.

Oh yeah, by the way I think you might want to look at Star Citizen again- it isn't trying to be an 'mmo' beyond the fact that players all share the same universe. It doesn't have an 'xp' system for example, or other arbitrary systems to force you to grind to unlock stuff beyond credits (which can be used to buy new ships / weapons and so on). Also the single player campaign gives you a different way to progress your character by serving a navy career which should earn you money and give you chance to fly a whole host of ships without grinding to buy them.

The point of my comparison however was more the idea of combining different game types into a cohesive whole. I agree with you that PA and Star Citizen and many of these games would have been in the realms of fantasy if I were to show them to my much younger self. Then again so would mobile phones that can play the same (and considerably better) games as my then 'high performance' 486 machine.

I like your idea though, and I also see how PA could be a significant stepping stone in that direction. I wonder if there is an age at which I'm too old to play these games?! I hope not!

you keep misquoting....

I said that with a quote from @MrTBSC not you, it was directed at him not you. if only you did as much reading as you do writing.

The main problem with the game I am describing is not technical (it can already be done in a year or two by a company like SOE for example), it's social and psychological. People don't want to fire up a game so as to take orders from someone, they want to fire up a game in order to feel that they are in charge. It takes a special kind of person to want (and BE ABLE) to co-operate with others to the degree that I am suggesting. And nerds already have a huge problem communicating with other people; since nerds will be the primary players of these games, you have your work cut out for you if you want to turn them into some kind of decent army -- even in simulated form. Lord knows I am having huge problems trying to get 4 people to play as a team in Clan Wars -- the idea of having to do the same for 100 sounds utterly fantastical, even to me.

Nevertheless, the population of the planet is exploding, and though we have 7 billion people now, we'll have 20 or 30 billion soon, and therefore a lot more nerds, and hence a lot more nerds with decent communication and social skills. How will videogames look in 20 or 30 year's time? Will people still be playing rehashes of StarCraft from 1998 and thinking that they are doing strategy? Or will incredibly complex war simulations such as the one I am describing have achieved cult status (heh) and attract enough players to allow them to continue being funded?

I think PA is a step towards that brave new future, not because of its titular planet-smashing gimmick that I am deriding repeatedly in my review, but because of the unlimited players numbers and team compositions that it brings to the table, and I would be delighted if 20 years from now The Realm and Team Burning or Promethean or VoW are waging those huge 100v100 wars that last entire weekends (PAG will have to lower their membership requirements to be able to participate methinks).

As for Arma, I plan to check it out. PlanetSide 2 I've played, and it is this which gave me a lot of my ideas for the future of PA (just as PA gave me a lot of ideas about the future of PlanetSide). I am aware of Star Citizen's single-player campaign, and I will play it because I loved Wing Commander. But after that... I am not sure I will want to continue with the persistent part of the game. Chris Roberts says it's gonna be different or whatever, but I've been hearing this talk from MMO developers for 20 years now, and it's all been a joke. I don't believe anything can be done to make the persistent-MMO model work for anyone with decent taste in games. These sorts of games are for the lowest type of lifeform existing today. The ones who prefer simulation to reality.

ARMA is amazing but 2 has too small a playerbase by now, I haven't played 3, but a lot of people seem to have it.

Well, having played previous Chris Roberts 'open' universe games (not persistent due to the technology but a 'freelancer' type game rather than a campaign) I wouldn't write it off just yet.

Remember the MMO games were made to force monthly subscriptions out of people. Star Citizen is unique in that they don't *need* to do that. If they do turn it into another MMO type grind then that will purely be based on greed (can't say I can rule it out although I think Chris Roberts has standards so I'm hopeful). What I'm expecting (could be wrong of course) is something akin to Microsoft's Freelancer (I think the last big space game Roberts did before his hiatus).

Like yourself I love the Wing Commander games though, so I'm looking forward to the single player as much as anything. On that note, have you tried Wing Commander Saga? I'd highly recommend it. It's a community built remake (by a team of game devs, and the quality shows) that covers the events of Wing Commander 3 from the perspective of a new recruit. A very good game, so good in fact that it got Chris Roberts blessing (so long as it remained free).

And I believe that you do.

SOE.. I've lost all interest in their games because they ruined a game with an amount of potential that I have never seen before. Yes I talk about Planetside 2. The game was great and it had the potential to become amazing super effing awesomesause.. Then SOE got greedy, and the game went worse and worse every single update.

Nice article

Great review! Looking forward to reading part 2.

Should be any day now.

I disagree, planetside 2 never had potential at all, and the game was garbage from the start