what would you like to see in the vegastrike multiplayer?

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TrashcanBoy
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what would you like to see in the vegastrike multiplayer?

Post by TrashcanBoy »

alrightty then, from what I heard, the first part of multiplayer will be a quake in space type.

But this is for the distant future, if vegastrike evolves into more of an open ended space trading game, what would you like to see?

yes, I know there are countless numbers of threads reguarding multiplayer but I wanted to keep this thread the main discussion about multiplayer in vegastrike and one day hopefully it will get stickied so no one will make another topic reguarding multiplayer.

I am asking because those two other games similar to this I played in the past were rather underappreciated. jumpgate on the first hand, I ended up wasting monthly subscription fees to just shoot pink ai with very low online numbers. yeah I understand theres one developer trying it's best to make that game better but really, hardley any players online to interact with and the majority of gamers are not interested ornot returning to the game for the horrors that happened in the past.

Freelancer on the other hand, it was nice while it lasted, there was some nice and cool interesting mods but too bad the majority of the players would rather fly big capships instead of small space crafts. Another big hit about multiplayer, there is no squad or guild system in freelancer. The rest of the players were forced to use clan tags and there was a high risk of people impersonating one of the clan members. One more thing about this game, I did not like the way where there was no log in and you had some key number and a list for your characters to be created. If there was a catastrophic hard drive failure or you had to travel elsewhere from home, then you could not get your character info back. Whats why user log in and password would be a nice thing. I'm surprised theres still people playing it. I am also ashamed that there hasn't been a single clien patch since release.

Anyways, thats all for me.

so again, on the non-technical side of the multiplayer of vegastrike, what would you like to see??
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

I've never been a big fan of the Arena concept. I like multiplayer in strategy games, more so than in first person's. One game I haven't played in multiplayer mode but I've heard good things about is Diablo, where you play mostly cooperative against the computer, if my information is correct; and people have permanent rankings, traits, skills and inventories on the server; and form teams to take on special missions. A friend of mine achieved some pretty high rank as a necromancer, and was a precious asset to most teams he'd join.
Vegastrike is not an RPG, but it does have factions and ship types, which might serve the same purpose, with a bit of extra effort: Assume, for example, that a large delivery of arms and fuel to a Confed fleet deep in Kat space is required. The mission parameters could be adjusted automatically to fit the number of players in a team, so, if there are 3 players flying draymans, the mission cargo should be big enough to fill two of them, allowing some extra space in the draymans for temporary docking by the smaller ships in the team.
A good team would include different fighter types: Demons being so fast they could play the role of interceptors (distractors), while Centurions would deliver some more damage. A capital ship would add to the firepower, as well as serve as a refueling and repairing docking station.

Other than that, and besides deathmatch, we could have "tractor the flag" of course... ;-)
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Post by pincushionman »

It's kinda on the technical side, but:

support for as many players on the same server as we possibly can.
Conquer space!
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Post by Guest »

Eventhough vegastrike may not be an mmorpg, I expect more player to player interaction as in meeting them face to face either in small ships or having more than 1 player manning large ships like capital ships and put npc wingmans aside. Just because thats what you have multiplayer for. Plus having the universe small enough in order to keep space alive with players. Yeah I know it's not realistic but that will make the game multiplayer friendly and the gameplay more fun. I would not like to travel the entire universe with realistic distances all alone in all day long and then see one player here and there every 30 minutes. Exactly what vendetta online was like.

But due to the very costly resources it takes up when it comes to players connecting to the server, I may not see between 50-100 players online on a single server at the same time unless someone finds a cheap way to get a lot of players online.

Sadly, the majority of space simmers would rather play the game using RTS style as in controlling and owning large amounts of structures and spending hours managing things rather than actually flying one small or mid size craft at a time(while the user can own multiple ships), exploring the entire universe, and trading commodites and doing small combat(as in kill 1 or 2 ships) missions to get more cash to get more access to ships and equipment.

Larger combat ships would require more than one players do deal with since you have to kill 4-8 ships. As in having players only on your side and to take out enemy AI ships would make up one fun factor here. So it would prevent soloness here.

As for flying capital ships lets keep it balanced like this. In multiplayer, it would require more than 1 person to operate efficently, a long time to build, requires a large number of people in a squad to obtain, and mabie get no insurance when destroyed but at least the capships should not have a high price tag.

There can be an RTS style mod(like seeing a presistant multiplayer version of homeworld) for vegastrike but I would not be in favor to see this in the main game itself.

And we are all just dreaming are we?
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Post by Silverain »

Odd,

Everyone seems to imagine MP as a small universe that is for players only - no NPC/AI. You interact only with players.

I imagined it differently. A vast universe, AI & NPC with which I interact. If another player happens to be playing the NPC (my POV) that I'm interacting with - so be it. Essentially, I'm playing single player, but others that I encounter in the universe could be real people, not computer generated. Not - everyone I meet is a player.
THOUGHT CRIME! [points finger] THOUGHT CRIME!
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people few and far between

Post by TyKeiL »

i would like to have prople only ever controll 1 ship directly.. and have to hire either ai or people to make there armada.

of course thinking about gameplay styles like deathmatch capture the flag, assault etc
rts style play etc are ok, i think a roleplay style is the main goal isnt it?

so everything i can think of i want to be available in the single player game aswell

i want the game economics detailed enough to start your own cooperate empire,,
start out as a trader buy a mining base advertise minerals in the local and distant trading post

either set up distribution route's yourself or have people come and do it for you

gain a few more business's build an army, take over a solar system send our army's to destroy other controlling factors int he universe

since i only want people to be in one place at one time, and only controll the ship they are in, any controll of your business would be done in correspondance to the rest of the fleet..

this correspondance need not even be ingame, you could run the whole thing via email or sms

check the star maps everynow and again for locations, send out a squad of ruffians to bully a local mining post to sell you there facility get emails back on progress...


and the people who are flying around in the 3d world exploring or such have a very dynamic universe to play in...

you could make it so that while "coorperations" have ai in there ranks there are jobs available for real players to earn cash

i think it would make for very interesting gameplay. esp since real people are dishing out missions..

patroll, search and destroy, search and capture, bully(attack but do not destroy),
explore the galaxy for new deposits of minerals, etc etc.

i guess it would sort of be like a cooperation(civilisation) game in space where you can be whatever you want to be
from the lowly fighter new to the ranks of a squad , the manager of a large system keeping the peace through management
a pirate plundering the trading vessels or a dictator ready to take over the galaxy with your army
a small time trader to a cooperate giant

or just for fun an adventurer goign throughout the galaxy charting new systems greeting new aliens,, discovering new plant life etc

ok i think im finished :O)
beans
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

This is a bit on the technical side, but of concern to anyone:
Whatever kind of multiplayer, the number one issue is security. And I'm not sure how security would work with open source, but I'm sure there's a way. (After all, RSA is open source; and so is DES pretty much.) Otherwise, it doesn't take long for hackers to roam around in god mods, and the whole thing becomes a joke.

Allright, a bit more technical: I'd say all packets first compressed, then digitally signed and finally encrypted. First using RSA to encrypt randomly generated session key seeds, which client and server send to each other simultaneously, like in Twofish, then the xor of the two decrypted seeds is the actual session key both use, with some fast block cypher. The only way the game itself could not be compromised is if the server periodically requests each client to answer what's the CRC computed from some random assortment of code addresses and server-shared data variables, so that both the code can be verified not to have been changed, and the data can be verified to agree with server version's (otherwise, a check of code segments could be substituted with a function that actually checks an image in memory of an unmodified running game). The reason to sign and encrypt packets should be obvious, but here it is, just in case: As long as hackers can read what's in the packets, they can use a second PC to generate aiming and firing signals for the first PC, or that modify your aiming.

Multiplayer is not easy to implement. Even in local LAN play you may have to deal with conflict resolution, but on the Internet you also have to deal with latency, bandwidth, packet loss, and then hackers...

If the plan is to have permanent state save server-side; a good start would be to make a hardcore version of the game, where there is no reload after you die. Of course the game has to be much easier, finely balanced, and bug-free, to do that; but it has to be all of those things, anyways, to have perma state mp.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

I think we posted at the same time, TyKeiL, I like your idea: So someone who likes management sims can play corporate administrator and never see the black of space; but have to deal with human competitors in their market of choice. And I can play being a privateer, and be getting missions that might actually be a mission that first guy posted. And then, someone else might prefer to join the Confeds, and never come across my ship. Multi level multiplayer. Cool concept!

EDIT: And of course, that guy that joined the Confeds is assigned to a batallion, which is part of a fleet, and so on up the command chain. Other players might run for office with local governments. Someone might get to be minister of finance and have to deal with how much to tax, how much to spend on the military, and so on.

I think I'll seek a radar and targeting engineering position with B&S Ltd. ;-)
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Post by Guest »

Well lets see here, what my idea has here is, AI can be in the multiplayer game to shoot at and have NPC missions with but again, hasn't there been any of those type of multiplayers where you are stuck flying 1 small ship when half of the ships are manned by players and half manned by AI?

AI can be in the game as long as players don't have them as wingman.

Yeah, some PvE can be nessicary but the point is, the main gameplay should focus on player to player interaction.

I don't like the idea of the significant amounts of players start out from a small trader to a cooperate giant in the long run. Then it will be a race to get a lot of money or to become a corperate giant or an empire controlling AI.

With being stuck with flying one ship at a time and flying solo in the long run? What can you actually do? Join a player squad!

Yeah I really have dreams of flying with players only in starfighters as a squad and going from one place to another seeking PvP.

It takes player skills(as in twitch based) to become a ledgendary pilot. Not time or money.

But since this game is customizable, you can create your own multiplayer gameplay with an x2 style concept with it as a mod.
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Post by Guest »

Just imagine, everquest.. IN SPACE!!!!

I guess I'm sort of alone when it comes to the main focus on player interaction centeric, and meeting them face to face in a small ship as such.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

You mean, like being able to go to the bar and have a chat with another player over beer? Sure. Why not? Would be nice to be able to put tables together and pull chairs to have a team meeting and discuss possible missions and strategies.. ;-)
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Post by TyKeiL »

chuck_starchaser wrote:You mean, like being able to go to the bar and have a chat with another player over beer? Sure. Why not? Would be nice to be able to put tables together and pull chairs to have a team meeting and discuss possible missions and strategies.. ;-)
ok ok... iahvea good one here....

you enter the bar ingame,, you are greeted with an irc style interface where the background picture is that of the whole bar..

the irc window gives you a quick description of the bar ala text adventure's and you can
1) /join #table1
2) /join #bar
3) /join #dancefloor (jokes) :O)
4) talk to anyone not assigned to any of the locations ie mingling

once joined a table or bar your background picture changes to that of the position of the table etc.
talking at a table would be a private affair where nobody can overhear you unless you shout sort of thing...

what would make things even cooler is that if people have a description of there character in a profile sort of thing you could make commands like
/examine player_name
and a description could pop up

that way you can chat to other players in the bar as well as the AI to get missions, i think it would make the bar a much more interesting place and people would travel to the most popular bar in space just to talk with people or something like that..


also if ti was a truly irc client you could make the server available to regular irc clients..
your room entrance would be restricted to your players last location (space station name) and only joinable for people with actual player accounts (no non VS players)

that way if you were thinking of joining a game you could log in via irc client, check out the bar get a mission, talk to friends then when your wanting to get into the game, load it up and play..

:O)
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Yes, I cast triple vote on that.
I keep thinking about the concept of multi-level multi-player. Would be nice if instead of random missions, there were actual players running planets and/or corporations and/or police, military, pirate, retro, kilrathi, and the missions would come out of their actual needs. Needs thinking, tho.

DOH! Forgot I wasn't in the WCU forum. Anyhow, substitute Aera for Kilrathi, etc. ;-)
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Like the ideas so far, comment on them.

Post by klauss »

First of all: I like the multilayer idea.

But, on the technical side, perhaps it will need more than a project to achieve that. That is, there could be a VegaStrike server and many VegaStrike clients, one for space sim (combat, trading, whatever), which would be the current VegaStrike engine, one for management and strategy (which would be a different engine, like the VegaStrike Strategic), and perhaps others for other layers.

Also, AI and NPC could play an important role in multilayer multiplayer (tong twister there). Since the game would need all layers to be fully functional, when noone is playing in a specific component of a specific layer, the AI could take over so that the game goes on. Example: Confed command could be run by a player/player group someday. But then he/them disconnect(s), and the game would be crippled unless an AI took over. Of course, it still needs work figuring out the details (I wouldn't like to find my empire ruined because when I disconnected a possibly low-intelligence AI took over).

Also, user-created missions are a very very very very nice idea. I second, triple and multiply that. That would really make the difference. Although it can be tough to specify mission objectives other than with custom text, which the engine would not understand. You would have to check completeness by your own, and either believe someone or not, which can be a nice twist. Imagine you post a "Kill mitchell, he's been bugging me like hell. I'll pay 20000". Some says "I did it.", and you have to decide whether to believe him or not, and pay him or not. Don't pay him, and you got an enemy. Pay him, and he may have crossed you (if you find Mitchell roaming around). But then, if he crosses you, you can post a bounty for his head too. That's interesting.

Also, and I've been thinking about this for a while, it would be an interesting thing to have the possiblity of a destructible universe. That is, a universe when, given the propper firepower, you could distroy whole bases or (who knows), cities. Since it would take a lot of time and resources (from the management layer) to rebuild them, users playing police would be encouraged to protect them. Otherwise, their universe would be ruined. That is, it adds the danger to the element. It's not that you don't loose anything if a base gets blown up: you loose part of your world. Then, you defend it. It would make playing much more emotional, much more exciting. Imagine seeing your preferred "Research Station", source of most of your income, getting blown to bits, and saying "Those MF, I'll have their head!".
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Let's coin a new acronym: MLMP = Multi-level Multi-player.

I think you're right about having different clients for the different levels.

At the top levels this could be like Masters of Orion in planet management mode, and the problem of AI taking over when the player is offline could be lessened by the fact that the player could queue up multiple tasks for each system or planet. So the AI would simply follow the queue, and if it runs out of tasks, just like in MOO2, it would choose a task from a default list.

Military support industry could be an expansion on MOO2's ship design idea; and military engagements could be controlled in Homeworld style by the fleet commander.

At each planet, we could have more than one city, eventually, and the game there could be SIM-City-like, perhaps.

Best thing would be if it's up to players to start corporations. There was a game called X - Beyond the Fronteer. I remember I was waiting for it for like 2 years, thinking it might be like Privateer, but then didn't like the demo, so I never got it. But you could start your own space based business there, I understand.

EDIT:

How do you get to manage a planet, or system, or....

There should be more than one way:

1) Politics: Run for mayor of a city. Do a good job. Then maybe you'll get votes... ;-)

2) Power: Advance your corporation's control, market by market, until it is so powerful it becomes de-facto government; or have influence in many planets, rather than sole power on any planet in particular.

3) Guts: Discover and colonize a planet. This should be much easier said than done, though. I'm talking about having to scan new systems (full of rocks and what not), inch by inch of cubic space, hitting J all the time in hopes of hitting a jackpot of a jump-point... And having the right (expensive) equipment, such as a computer that includes various unorthodox ways of tracking your ship's position: gyroscopes, accelerometers, doppler measurements, photographic comparison of known objects against stellar background, so that when you find a jump-point it can "mark" it. Also, you need to keep the location secret until you colonize it; otherwise the Confeds would say "thank you", give you a 100,000 credits reward, and declare it crown land... ;-)
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Post by CubOfJudahsLion »

To me, the best way of keeping everyone interested in VS multiplayer is to keep it open. Have a well documented, versatile mission development framework and an accessible script repository so different kinds of campaigns (and layers on them) can be developed.

This framework (most likely a Python API) would allow creation of campaigns in the range of "space Quake" to goal-oriented team/cooperative scenarios to more hardcore stuff that allows people to write their own campaigning model, if they will take the time to do so (VS would just provide the 'stubs' for them to use: an event model and very low-level interface library.)

Flash forward to the future. Suppose you feel like a little VS. Maybe you just feel like blasting your friends apart? So be it. Or do you rather feel like embarking on a great adventure? No problem, there's a coop campaign on a certain server, and there's also multiplayer treasure hunt across the coldest sea--someone in the dev team, the forums, or even people outside those would have probably written the scenario you feel like playing.

For non-coders: let's just pray a third party feels like developing a zero-programming mission development tool.

*slap* ok, ok, I'm waking up now.

I'm all for variety. It keeps players coming back.
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Post by MrMorden »

I would like ot add my voice to those calling for the ability to assign a "crew" consisting of real people to various jobs, like wingman or turret gunner. I'm imagining a system where the "captain" runs the server, and people wanting to crew as clients. This allows for massively cooperative missions and stuff, kinda like Wing Commander, except replace every good-guy NPC with a real player. <Imagines himself as Col. Halcyon> Yeah, that sounds like fun. Come to think of it, this is starting to sound a lot like Homeworld, except you get to send your buddies on merchant missions instead of sending drones on mining runs.

<Imagination mode>

Tony, take this plowshare and start running goods, we've gotta upgrade our fighter fleet. Mitch, you take this heavy fighter and make sure nothing happens to him. Linh, Kyle, take these light fighters and scout the area, especially the jump points. If you see anything bad, do not engage. Just get back and tell us what you found. Mike, you and I are on turret duty. We'll change turret duty to defensive fighter duty once we get enough cash to upgrade our fighter fleet. If all goes well, we'll be able take out the jump point's defenses, should there be any, and make a deeper incursion into Kilrah/Shadow/Cylon/Romulan space. Dismissed.

</Imagination mode>
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mroe from me

Post by TyKeiL »

ok. alot of people want different things,

i love the idea of a python scriptable campaigns i see this as a co-op story mode
it doesnt work with the open ended player modifyable universe and thats GOOD

i love the idea of an arena style dogfight where you dont have to go to the hassle of finding missions, or finding people.. its all there for the killing from the start

and i love the idea of the open ended multiplayer where players controll and change the universe at there will

as for the open ended player modifyable universe i really dont like people being able to be in more than one place at any one time ie controlling your army on the other side of the galaxy RTS style, instead i love the idea of a tactical starmap with icons of squads waypionts, mission statements etc..

i dotn like the idea of seperating management and "worker" into seperate clients as this stops seamless move's between "mode's"

ie, after controlling your current assets, trading with such and such you find your space station attacked, knowing that defeat is imminent without your fighting contribution you board the most powerfull fighter available and join in the fight to protect your home.

if you cant manage your empire and then fight to keep it when its in danger you will be thoroughly pissed. esp if you are an excellent pilot

also people need positions in space,, you want to be able to find out that the head of my_cooperation is taking a transport to planet_p and seek that reward from your_cooperation for my head :O)

i love hardcore ideals where if you die you die and a new character must be started. but i think alot of people would like some continuation,,, so some definate setbacks should be made for deaths....

as for becoming mayor or leader of planets and such, im not sure if that was a viable idea since i believe you would need to have the gameplay centred around the planet...in my mind that means seeing the planet its resources its people

while this is ideal, i think its way too far down the track..
a more simpler idea, while similar and still way down the track is to manage a space station and its decks and interior, but as i said way way way down the track...

got to try and keep it simple and viable for current gameplay
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Post by Duality »

Lets think of the multiplayer version of Vegastrike as in everquest in space. But with twitch and a skilled based combat system where you actually fly the ship with your own skills, not stat based.

My thought for a main focus for the multiplayer version of Vegastrike is to have it all on action orientated combat system where players meet face to face in PvP.

As if there was to have a large playerbase where players have formed their own squad or guild, play a different role. Be a factionalist, privateer, pirate, trouble maker, hauler and miners, and there is a huge political atmosphere relationship with different player squads or guilds to see if they are at war or do they have an NAP with them.

Like where one squad with players flying all together either using teamspeak or an in-game voice chat(which should be limited to flight groups only and not public) hunting down pirates and trouble makers, and blockaders who are also players. Now that would be cool.

The only AIs that should be in the multiplayer version of vegastrike are rogue drones. If you want to make things a little bit more realistic besides respawning, you can make the character get recloned when getting killed. But those are just my silly ideas..

Really, I don't want to see a huge battle with players and AIs fighting together would make the gameplay a bit dull where just me focusing on trying to kill this one AI and then another player sneaks up on my and blows me up with missiles or whatever. But NPCs in station or in space would be nice to talk to as long as theres not too much of it.

Now that would be my true dream multiplayer game which will beat both freelancer and vendetta out of the water.

Anyways, since this game is very opensource and customizable in anyways you can make different gameplay styles with it. For a seperate third party mod, you can change it from the defauly FPS style to another gameplay style what you call Time of Defiance or RTS like homeworld.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

got to try and keep it simple and viable for current gameplay
I agree we've all been going a bit off the deep end, in this thread; but no apollogies: Dreams are what got human civilization to where it is. I'm more of a WCU forum participant these days, but I joined the Vegastrike forum a long time ago, and some of my original posts were about extending the engine to have the ability to walk on planets, have entire cities, have Space Elevators, with HUGE orbiting space stations at the ends of the cables, and so on.

I guess there's a time for everything, and sometimes it's best to think within immediately reachable goals, but sometimes it's best to think idealistically and uninhibitedly. I would argue this is one of the latter such times. Why? Because Vegastrike ISN'T multi-player yet. And this presents the opportunity to explore the entire realm of possibilities before getting too far down on a technically limiting track.

I about 70% agree with most of your points:
i love the idea of a python scriptable campaigns i see this as a co-op story mode it doesnt work with the open ended player modifyable universe and thats GOOD
I think Python scripting has to be there in support of an in-game mechanism for designing missions... ;-) ... That is, there should be a way to create a mission by moving blocks, pushing buttons and dragging icons, mayby filling some text fields. And should the ability be found missing to do something in particular, one could use Python to add that capability. And mission design should be able to refer to ongoing missions and campaigns. So, a mission could be to try and disrupt someone else's mission. And so on.
i love the idea of an arena style dogfight where you dont have to go to the hassle of finding missions, or finding people.. its all there for the killing from the start
Frankly, all my friends were into Arena, but if this makes me the odd man out, so be it... I hate it. Not just the mindlessness of it, but also the incomprehensibility of background: When and where is the Arena taking place?, and more importantly Why? And if everybody dies every two minutes, where are the maternity wards?

How about just designate one system where, when you jump into it, you're given a random new faction and id? Then, depending on what faction you are and the factions of those around you, you might find friends and enemies, so you'd join whoever are your friends, and fight whoever are your enemies...
And in this system you can die and re-spawn without consequences...
And call it KooKoo Land... ;-) ... and jump-points to it appear occasionally, at random, anywhere...
i dotn like the idea of seperating management and "worker" into seperate clients as this stops seamless move's between "mode's"
ie, after controlling your current assets, trading with such and such you find your space station attacked, knowing that defeat is imminent without your fighting contribution you board the most powerfull fighter available and join in the fight to protect your home.
100% agreed here, I just chickened for a moment and thought "too much to add to the engine"; but yeah, there should only be one client.
as for becoming mayor or leader of planets and such, im not sure if that was a viable idea since i believe you would need to have the gameplay centred around the planet...in my mind that means seeing the planet its resources its people
while this is ideal, i think its way too far down the track..
a more simpler idea, while similar and still way down the track is to manage a space station and its decks and interior, but as i said way way way down the track...
I hope not too far. Well, I took a look at the engine a couple of weeks ago, and couldn't make heads or tails; but again, I don't know Python, so I was only looking at the C++ parts, and again again, sometimes I can't make heads or tails of my own code, but one of this days I want to get to know the vs engine well, and I intend to try and pull some other engine's code, maybe, (e.g.: Ogre3d) into it for planet-side life. But even then I'm not sure how I'd implement a strategy side to the game in 3D. Well, could be, if I'm a corporate or government type, in the 27th century (sorry, that's WCU, this is VS, not sure about the century; future, anyways), that I'd be surrounded by specialized flat-screens in my luxury, top floor office with a view overlooking the capital city; and I can switch between all these screens, check the news, check stock prices, inflation, interest rates, get reports about the missions I've contracted out, coded messages from my spies, monitor my manufacturing plants or retail outlets, send out instructions, new contract offers...
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

By the way, something nobody's mentioned yet: Sex.
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Post by klauss »

I just chickened for a moment and thought "too much to add to the engine"; but yeah, there should only be one client.
That's what I was thinking too when I wrote the multiclient idea. Anyway, if it can be done in a single client, better. But I still think that it would be too hard, since different layers require different interfaces to make them efficient.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

to make them efficient.
That's probably a no longer necessary way of thinking. Even back in the recent days of MOO2, perhaps an interface had to be 2D to allow time for all the AI and stuff; but with current hardware, we'd probably have the entire universe be a 3D continuum, and just be able to sit at a management screen in a virtual office and play something like MOO2 on that virtual screen, no problemo. And what a dev would probably say is, I'm sure, "let's worry about efficiency when we're profiling"... ;-)
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Post by reaper2 »

The thoughts that have been thrown out here have been really awesome. I am drooling :)

Could we have a balance of what's doable now and keep dreaming? I have some suggestions for people who can code (so take my ideas with the requisite grain of salt). If several tentative steps are taken that enhance single player _and_ lay the groundwork for MLMP, more dreams will become reality and we can see what works and what doesn't while still making significant progress.

Here are my quick thoughts, to spur real coders on:

1) choose your faction at the beginning--this would be necessary for a cool MLMP experience and even though you can hack config files, these dialogues and code would eventually need to be implemented anyways for MLMP and would make the current version more user-friendly

2) Instead of having My Fleet, you have My Assets, which could include ships and bases (mining, medical, research, etc.). In the commodities have different licenses from the faction which controls the system you want to build a base in, trantor planets could have do-it-yourself base builders, etc. If you clicked on a particular asset you could have a list of commands that would generate and subtract income, even to the point of designing simple cargo run/bounty missions for the ships you own, provided you buy a pilot's services.

EDIT: Removed "buying a pilot" to be a bit more sensitive--no offense meant!

3) There's an obvious drawback to these assets, which is protecting them from the dynamic universe (or eventually, other players). For this you could add a My News button. Underlings would send warning messages of approaching danger from enemy factions, and the efficiency of your information could depend on various things, such as the presence of patrol ships, or sensors, or spies. You could then send ships you own on missions for defense or ride in yourself in your personal ship to battle.

There are probably a myriad of things you could do as well, but implementing these in the style of the current cargo/savegame/upgrade screens might be easy, add a deeper level to the immersion of the single player game, and lay the foundation for implementing a lot of the cool ideas posted already.
Last edited by reaper2 on Tue Apr 19, 2005 7:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."

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Post by klauss »

I meant efficient from the user's perspective, not programmer's perspective. I mean, an interface designed to select missions and fly a ship would, at least, be hard to tweak into allowing efficient management of an entire corporation's resources.

PS: Please, people (like pilots) are contracted not bought. It sounds so bad that you can "buy pilots". Some games take it actually to their interface: "Buy whatever", where "whatever" could be a person, and that's utterly wrong. Have in mind that when coding, please: the button should change to "contract".
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