+12hr games

how does one to this 40 person 12 hr game. Is this an all day event or is it smaller matches that collide and the victor moves to a new set of players. or is it team based like 8 teams of 5 or 5 teams of 8.

Massive battles will be massive but how does one plan to take a break in these events. will there be intermission like in the theater?

What is planned into the game that will ease the burden of "life" on a player for these extra-long games?

also what new options may there be out there for handling long games?

12 hour games?

dafuq you kidding oO

From what I heard, there's a drop-in option so that if you get tired, you can control armies with multiple players. Then you can just drop out for an hour to get some rest, and log back in while your buddy managed the game for a while, and you can rotate.

Or something like that.

as far as I understand this will be drop in drop out games, so you can leave at any time without actually ending the game.
so control will be shared between players and player count may very.

Neutrino has said that he plans on supporting [new] players connecting mid-game, at least from a technological point of view. Whether this turns out to be a good game-play feature or not (I certainly hope it will) is yet to be determined.

The plan is that PA doesn't have arbitrary limitations on size. So, if your computer (and the server) can handle it; you can play with any number of players at the same time.

Naturally, when you can cram lots of people into a game, and allow replacements of fallen team-mates... there's going to be some people who will try it. This is where the idea of 12 hour games come from.

Disappointment. I would have expected both of you to have known about this. I think this first came about during the KS campaign.

[EDIT:] My point is; when there's no set way how to play, and nothing stopping you from pushing the envelope... you can play big games or small games. Or short games, or long games.

I think the interesting question in this context is, whether a game will actually run that long or if it will be decided long before you even reach that time frame.
Or to put in another way, what factors will end up deciding how long a game will run until a winning side is determined? Will be interesting to test the influence of solar system size, player count, game mode, server size etc on game length.

I like the idea of drop in and drop out. maybe it would start them on an asteroid belt and then they can move to a planet from there? or start on a moon? when they drop in.

There was also talk of multiple players being able to control one commander and its units, which works really well for players dropping in and dropping out after certain intervals.

I hope they do manage to put in the drop in drop out tech because that would allow for some very cool cooperative mods

Still 12+hrs are ALOT.
It would also depend on the game mode....if there would be a galactic war multiplayer with shared control, it maybe ok... still i think 12 hours are a little bit over the top.

If you do not think it'd be fun, don't do it. There's plenty of people (like me) who'd enjoy those kinds of long games.

I'd rather an AI take over for me if I were to drop out for a break. While players can play better than the AI (usually), players that you don't actually know are likely to just use what you have to improve their own position, or worse yet just sell/destroy all your stuff so they can build a base in place of yours. Though if you are all controlling different aspects of one "player" then it's probably going to be much less of an issue.

Either way I'm looking forward to the occasional 12+ hour games, I had a few go nearly that long in TA and SupCom and it was awesome . Though there's nothing quite as uncomfortable as getting the call of nature right in the middle of a massive 40 minute battle, though there's also nothing quite as relieving as finally getting a break to safely make the trip to the bathroom after being in such a situation

I don't see why a 40 Player FFA should not be able to come to an end after a few hours. Which is doable.

I certainly won't be joining a server to cover someone while they have a toilet break, or when their Mum says it's dinner time.

If I join mid-game, it'll be with the intention of seeing out the battle for a few hours.


Further, if I leave mid-game; I won't be coming back. I won't care if my replacement decides the decor of my base isn't right. He/she can rearrange the furniture all they like.

Once you get past the slightly selfish concept of your game and your base, I think you'll find that you won't mind people replacing you.

See, a team is greater than the sum of its parts. There's no room for individuals to put themselves ahead of the group, especially when that can mean loss for the entire team.

What about having the AI take over while I go for a pee/dinner break? Sure it'll not do things that I'd like but then there's no social issues with handover & back (have not thought though the tech issues on that)

The only game issue I can see is if everyone's made aware & then thinks "ah now's the time to do x"

What happens if the game crashes?

Is it going to take 2+ hours to get the replay back up to speed?

The problem with a 12 hour game is that if you're there at the beginning, you probably won't get to see the end of it! (Unless, of course, you come back after a while and miss most of the action)

What replay?

[EDIT:] If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, then you need to lurk more.

eSports can't watch 12h games.

A match (at least a 1v1 match) must last 5min-40min