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Draginol
Draginol
Join Date 03/2001
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Massively Multiplayer Gaming Challenges

Making a strategy game massively multiplayer

May 15, 2005 5:55:50 PM from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums

So you want to create a massively multiplayer strategy game.  How do you go about designing something that will keep players coming back.

In a MMORPG, players are building up their characters. And those character die but they come back.  In an MMORTS like this where city creation and its customization are what the player is worried about, then losing a city becomes a serious problem.

 

Therefore, the first challenge is to narrow down what exactly the player will become attached to and make sure that that attachment is not imperiled (at least not in the premium version of the game).  Players will need to have tangible things to care about for the persistent world to draw players back month after month.
 
In the MMORPG, the character is the only thing the player really cares about. Gameplay is to make the character more powerful by acquiring new skills and items which directly impact future gameplay.

 

You don't want players just battling it out forever. There has to be something specific for them to care about.  So what do you make them care about? A ficticious ruler? Their lands? Their people? Whatever it is, it can't be too abstract.  There's nothing abstract about your Paladin in World of Wacraft getting an epic dual handed hammer of doom. 

 

Many role playing games are already well suited for a massively multiplayer setting.  Diablo practically was an MMO.  But you can't just take Warcraft or Rise of Nations or whatever your favorite RTS is and make it much bigger with people fighting it out all the time.  There have to be opportunities for players to savor what they're building up. And that means deciding precisely what the player is building up in that persistent world.

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Draginol
4D
Join Date 03/2003
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Reply #1 May 16, 2005 12:00:26 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
So what have you decided to make the focus in societygame Brad? What is the player going to attach enough value to that they will keep coming back in Stardocks new MMORTS?

Personally, I think growth, increase - gain, is central to the value people will place on there MMO play... There must be progress, there must be reward in the progress. So more territory claimed under your control, equals better production abilities or increased population limits... Or perhaps access to new abilities, features. Progress for progress sake, or gain for the sake of more gain only takes the player so far, having peripheral goals, and restrictions and requirements encourages the player to come back time and again so they can beat those restrictions and finally get what they wanted..

Progress has to be persistent.. penalties for failure, yes, but everything lost that was gained? No. There has to be a way to safeguard your progress to a degree... Perhaps in safeguarding there are lesser benefits to the position you have gained, the more risk in exposure is taken, the more you can gain, and the more you can lose.

Progress, Gain, Reward, Persistant World, and possibly most important, creating a sense of ownership and identity. With ownership comes responsibility, responsibility means paying attention and devoting time, and then when your nurturing pays off with rewards, progress and even more responsibility, the sense of identity and ownership, the bond, is increased even more...

What does the player want to bond with? Own? Develop, Nurture? A person? A city? A Nation? A People? I think all these things, but the responsibility and control, the focus and attention should be built upon delicately with achievement... Beginning with a person, gaining rank, which increases responsibility to more people, more territory, in both military and social aspects... A city becomes yours when you value it because you have sacrificed to defend it... The people within that City become yours when they recognise that sacrifice and your continued sacrifice in building the city into a greater one. And on it goes. Starting small, getting bigger, larger focus, larger responsibility, larger ownership and identity... Greater need to come back and guide, build.
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Draginol
stutefish
Join Date 02/2005
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Reply #2 May 16, 2005 4:14:19 PM
from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums
It seems to me that one major problem is that most MMOs are competitive in nature.

Thus, the things players tend to care about are things that increase their chances of "winning".

If other players can't take away my core assets, they can't compete with me. If I can't take away their core assets, why should I bother competing with them?

On the other hand, if my character is imperiled, I'm not going to play much.

And that is, in fact, why I religiously do not play MMOs. I don't really have any interest in seeing the things I cherish in a game imperiled by griefers, cheaters, and people who have nothing but free time to throw at the game. And I don't see how you could make an MMO that let me keep my "king" safe so to speak, but still allowed me to use my other pieces to "check" my opponent.
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Draginol
Peace Phoenix
Join Date 01/2004
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Reply #3 May 17, 2005 7:49:33 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
Well, this article http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/society/614757p1.html gives some insights about what Stardock is planning
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Draginol
aphrochine
Join Date 08/2004
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Reply #4 May 18, 2005 2:31:21 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
Playing Mankind, one of the biggest issues that game had was "persistent absence." No matter how much allot of us like to play the game; we were usually on for just a fraction of the day. This created a world full of game assets, but virtually devoid of any human presence.

Having physical gain and assets in reward for successful play is a definite must, but a large part of MMO experience is constant presence of other players, the interactions and the 'human ai' element bringing both good and bad to the game. In the strategy world, I can’t think of anyone who would rather play a computer ai than another player. In Mankind, the ratio to in game assets versus online players made the game feel very very lonely.

Imagine login in to Warcraft and Ironforge is full of 5000+ heros standing around idle with no players occupying those toons. The game would feel much more lonelier than it does now.

For this reason, I've always felt that any future successful persistent strategy game would need to resolve that fundamental flaw in Mankind to allow 'persistent strategy' instead of 'persistent absence.'

-aph
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Draginol
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Join Date 03/2005
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Reply #5 May 18, 2005 2:56:04 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
Honestly I have been waiting for a game like this to come along for years. As I said in another post I read about some games like this 8 years or so ago in a PC Gamer article. At any rate I went to the PC for games for RTSs alone and an MMORTS with a persistent world is the next best thing. There are numerous games that have created world like this from a Turn Based standpoint (u-planet.tourma.com was the best I ever played but unfortunatley it shutdown with the dot com bust) and hopefully Stardock will continue developement of Society for their proposed goal of just gaining self-promotion.

Cheers to Stardock for taking a leap of faith into dark water and pushing the envelope once again.

Goodluck
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Draginol
FuzzyMatrix
Join Date 07/2002
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Reply #6 May 19, 2005 6:58:34 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
As iTZKooPA said, cheers to Stardock. But let's not put dark waters in front and faith, eh? But I know a minimum of RTS adventure of the industry... Many tries, many flops.

I was especially saddened to learn that Dune would NOT become a massive online world. Direct your planet: awesome. Imagine the potential power-politics, considering that Frank Herbert knew more than enough about Niccolo Machiavelli's Prince, or the Illiad, or all the rest which permeated Dune. All the mega-influential factions to get on one's side, etc. Anyway...

But from what I see and my little "experience", it's different here

The SD difference
But Stardock is doing it differently. First, get on for free. It worked in the past with less material (amateur with no serius graphic place), it could work in the future. Second, Stardock makes it all for good gameplay instead of a simili-Starcraft-world-reproduction (strategy, simple things doing lots of good).

The past
What is to cherish in such game is not simply a matter of territory and money. Information is worth LOTS. LOTS I said, not lots. Alliances, etc etc. So there's a challenge here: integrate non-hardcore gamers. One way is to give bonuses for defending allies (kudos here). Another is to not permit huge player vs tiny player (tricky, but can be). So while this is the kind of games where alliance are making the game's core interest, it's also what can kill all newbies on sight (figuratively... or not).

THESE GAMES TAKE MASSIVE AMOUNT OF TIME! Those are worst than MMORPG (I know my share about this, as I *intensely* played both web-based). Please... oh mighty please... make so that it is possible to play it and let with less attendance (NOT none with vacancy) for the exams' time It's important... both for newbies and others. WoW showed the way by making the game potentially well-adapted to non-hardcore gamers.

A last aspect that I remember of is what you always carried with you, even if your planets/vessels/clowns were seriously hit. Technologies, allies, INFORMATION (contracts, contacts...), buddies, certain special capacities (special characters, leaders, etc.), capacity to start-up again... These are important, especially when they function as a force-start-up for the beginnings. It stays, and becomes, your all-important ethos (important especially to your heart, as what stays as the game's "non-material you"). And of course the inherent strategic fun to the game.

So to Stardock... all sails open! (is this the correct wording? anyway...)
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Draginol
Supreme Shogun
Join Date 11/2005
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Reply #7 August 11, 2006 3:50:23 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums


Well MMO speaking, the first one I found that captivated me longer was Guild Wars. Where ArenaNet understood grind = bad. grind is where you kill a million bad guys level up and do it all over again. They made it about doing stuff not grind.

That's what advice I'd give you, make it about doing stuff an lessen grind.
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