MMORTS

To be honest i think i am abusing this forum now a bit.
Because this is not a suggestion for PA. Maybe PA2 .

One of the problem with RTS like PA is the need of hardware ressources. But i think it is nevertheless possible.

And you have to allways keep in Mind, that there will be constraints. For instance a command cooldown. And there has to be a constraint that limits the count of units in a certain area.

I wont go into much more detail because thats not necessary for the poll.

what would you say would be the biggest difference between PA and a possible MMO PA version? I mean PA aims already for 40 players on a server, that is pretty much for a real RTS (not comparable to End of Nations for example, where no base building is involved)

Thousanda of players. Millions of units. Social play. Continious worlds....

I'm voting yes, because I would love something like this.

However... (word of warning: this is just my observations as a gamer, not claiming I've ever made a game, so I'll defer to a higher authority if one says things work differently)

MMO's oft require persistent leveling/grinding/achievements to keep players motivated and interested (name a MMO that doesn't do this). They always need a new goal to accomplish. A new level to aspire to.

Those aren't things you typically want in an RTS. You want a level playing field so that players compete based on their skills as an individual. Having +2 damage on your troops detracts from that greatly. If I can find some advantage to use in battle, by God I'll bloody use it. And use it to bastardly levels too!


So how do you make a good MMORTS? If you remove the persistence, you have a good RTS, but a shitty MMO. If you have the persistence, you have a good MMO, but a shitty RTS.



How do you do base-building? Is that a persistent thing, or do you set up a new shop every time you go somewhere?

Hell... how do you go somewhere? In regular MMO's, you're a discrete, easily identifiable, object represented in-game that can move from Point-A to Point-B. In an RTS you're a nebulous eye-in-the-sky that directs the actions of dozens, if not hundreds of little units.


I actually think some of this can be resolved by having an avatar that represents you (ala. TA/SupCom/PA commander, or hero in MOBA games). But there's still great great problems to look at.

Actually you'd have to rethink the 'strategy' part of the RTS entirely. This 'equal balance' stuff is nonsense - any good general would tell you that the goal of battle is to meet the enemy with overwhelming force and crush him without giving him a chance.

So a game where commander 1 meets commander 2 on an equal playing field and they play until one of them is destroyed is not one which can in any shape fit into a MMORTS.

A much more interesting MMORTS would be one where your troops take literally days to move around, and a 'win' for you could be a raid on a supply line in one sector that disrupts the enemy effectiveness in another sector, allowing you to push forward there and claim some more territory. A MMORTS would incorporate the SimBase concept in its entirety, so that players can spend time developing the perfect stronghold to hold the area.

And so on. The strategy part of the name would become much more prominent since you WANT players to spend hours thinking about & playing the game. Imagine a game where everything is realistic - unit speeds, map sizes, resource extraction, infrastructure, logistics..

Which doesn't make for fun PVP.

Where would this base be built? Who gets the prime choice of real-estate?

Is there a finite number of bases that can fit into the world?

Would conflict/danger be equally present at all bases? If there's some concept of a front, then 50% of the bases are going to literally be SimBase - and won't see any of the fun stuff... ie. the fighting. A perfect stronghold that isn't used is a pretty superfluous stronghold.

Logistics and resource distribution would be a good conflict driver.

I think then the best way of realizing a MMORTS is what is already planned with PA: Galactic War. everything else wouldnt be quite possible or fun to play imo.

A true RTS is something i've always wanted but how would you make it fair without next gen AI to take over your base when you log out.

I'm not saying the AI should expand but it should defend your base effectively, make repairs maybe even rebuild lost units at a reduced construction speed.

The only other solution I can think of is a siege mode like in EvE Online for Battlestations, maybe it drains 5% of your power per hour and at 0% the shield goes down and the base can be attacked, while this shield is up nothing can be done, I.E building units, buildings etc.

But then how do you balance it for the attacker, they aren't going to be wanting to 20 hours for an attack?

A true MMORTS with bases sounds amazing but I think it would be too difficult with today's AI.

Btw, where did End of Nations go? That game, at least the beta, was pretty good, but more in the vein of c&c than TA. And truth be told, it wasn't that massive either. There could be like 50 players on one battlefield at once, but only with 8-14 units max. So i was like Command & Conquer 4 Mp on steroids. Would like to see something similar with supcom/annihilation type of game though.

People, this is not about a discussion how such a game could work. Its just to find out if there even is a market for it. And it should be in ta pa style.

To create this would be a truly ambitious venture

But I would love to see it nonetheless.

How do you envision to play this?
something like Ogame?
or
really "just" an everlasting massive multiplayer rts match?

Both of these have a lot of design problems to overcome, let alone actually building the thing.
Good luck, you will need it.

But the problem is that there hasn't been any good MMORTS games to date, so it´s more interesting to talk about how could something like that work.

The persistent battles in End of Nations were a pretty good attempt. The idea was that one battle could last hours on end and players could leave and join as they pleased. There was but one big problem with this, the balance. When many players left from one side the other side would become much stronger and start to conquer more points. But then the other side would get more players and start conquering those points back. So it was like playing tennis. The ball would go from side to side and the whole damn thing wouldn't ever end (though the game would automatically end after 4-5 hours).

So End of Nations would be the "everlasting massive multiplayer rts match" option.

Isn't this what Wildman tries to achieve?

Not that I'm aware of, but I'd be interested if it did.


Another problem with building a base: what happens when you log-off?

......naaaaah
I think not.

The persistent battles in End of Nations were a pretty good attempt. The idea was that one battle could last hours on end and players could leave and join as they pleased. There was but one big problem with this, the balance. When many players left from one side the other side would become much stronger and start to conquer more points. But then the other side would get more players and start conquering those points back. So it was like playing tennis. The ball would go from side to side and the whole damn thing wouldn't ever end (though the game would automatically end after 4-5 hours).

So End of Nations would be the "everlasting massive multiplayer rts match" option.[/quote]

the reason why this would work in EoN is, that there is no "real" eco system and base building. Any player can join anytime, get his units in, and play with the others. He has no disadvantage at all.

In PA this would not be possible without a real disadvantage for the player who joined in last. He has no eco, no income, no map control.

Here's the MMORTS I'd like to see : Cluster Wars.

Basically, you have the varied Galactic War games happening around, but each galaxy is one galaxy in a (vast) galactic cluster map. So at the end of each game, the concerned galaxy is now conquered by one side/devastated beyond use/something else depending on how the game ended.
Basically, you have a second layer of metagame above the Galactic War level, which would be of a scale big enough so one game would be enough for the world and for the next decades.

Though an End of Nation-like RTS with TA-inspired mechanics (and smart units) could be interesting. I'd be curious to see what could be done with a planet-sized procedural map with that.

Persistence could mean different things. There could be more than one ways to handle that depending on the situation.
Also persistence could mean something like spawnplaceholders per faction etc.

There are a lot of huge problems with MMORTS game concepts, which you can probably see occuring in the attempts there have been to create them. Mostly in simple browser based games.

The primary thing that always seems to arise is a very simple and well-known concept that totally ruins them for me: If A fights B, C wins. That's not a problem in a 1v1 where there is no C, but in a big MMORTS, the winner will close to always be the guy who doesn't attack and instead just turtles until all the others have killed one another.

You already see this happening in my Free for All maps, and it only gets worse with scale, where even if you decide to gang up on a turtle with 3 other people, that just means 5 players just lost the game. (You, your target, and the three guys you dragged in with you)

Until we can solve that problem, I don't think we'll see any good MMORTS games. But I'm looking forward to whichever game first cracks the problem.

Not for me, I don't even like playing against my friends, let alone a massive amount of strangers.