Trying to Visualize Multiplayer

from Elemental Forums

I'll admit it, I'm a multiplayer guy. Whenever I see a turn based strategy I immediately look away. I love the Advance Wars series and that is about it. The only reason I'm giving this game a look is the fact its being developed by Stardock internally. Even when Frogboy says its single player centric, the quality of the single player aspect should transfer over to multiplayer just fine.

So the "persistant world". I hope its not going to be something like Demigod where its just measured in points. Do you think there's going to be a visual, tangible massive world with constantly moving borders like Civilization or Rise of Nations? Maybe at any point where you log on you see a province under attack and you join that game to participate in it? Say one person on one side picks an area to attack and it opens up a game for people on both sides to join. Is it something like that? Or it is just automatched to random sections?

The persistant world concept really interests me, I'm just not sure exactly how it works or if its even been discussed yet.

elemental
6,280 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't know, but I'm excited too.   Being able to expand the boarders of the map mid-multiplayer game would be interesting.  I wonder exactly what would the trigger for it be.    I mean an area of attack?  why would a single area of attack open up the map?   Unless it was like a mountain pass or something, but couldn't a good wizard just fly over it?

At base, we know the world is going to work a lot like Civilizations.  You may not have borders the way Civilization does, but we may have 'range of spell influence' like in Age of Wongers.

 

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting landisaurus, reply 1
I don't know, but I'm excited too.   Being able to expand the boarders of the map mid-multiplayer game would be interesting.  I wonder exactly what would the trigger for it be.    I mean an area of attack?  why would a single area of attack open up the map?   Unless it was like a mountain pass or something, but couldn't a good wizard just fly over it?

At base, we know the world is going to work a lot like Civilizations.  You may not have borders the way Civilization does, but we may have 'range of spell influence' like in Age of Wongers.
I hope we'll actually have a "sphere of influence" and a form of "national borders" where we can 'claim' land.

I'm not entirely sure of the inns and outs of it, but just being able to say that "This tile belongs to the Sovereign Nation of the Fey'ri" instead of some arbitrary "this area is controlled by your culture" like in Civilization 4.

Maybe even with the chance of two nations laying claim to the same tile. On my screen, the tile is mine. On his screen, the tile is his. I move within "my" territory, but he can go "Oi, get off my property!", sparking tense border disputes.

*_*

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

If we were asked, I'd say give both sphere of influence(s) and national borders.  Though national borders may require a tech to be unlocked or something?

 

what really me are the things we haven't seen yet, like inns.  (your typo reminded me).   We know we have dungeons, and national borders might cause trouble for that (because it would lock out certain dungeon access unless you had open borders... then players would get pissed when you walked onto 'their land' to get a dungeon)

Also with shardes and such.   I mean, as much as I want to be able to say "My node!   you can't have it" by putting a national border around it, I really don't want national borders to exist just so they are more contested.  (in Civ, your boarders quickly are presseg against each other.  No space of neutral zone where you are not sure who owns what)

If 2 nations can lay claim to the same tile, then there is no point in having boarders.   because when I look at my screen I own everything I see, reguardless of what color they are.  So if there exist nodes, inns, random pots of gold, fires (I'm not sure why you get so much random stuff from camp fires in HoMM) or whatever, and I can see them... I claim them.  (unless somebody else beats me to there).  Having a national border would change this...   and having a national boarder that doesn't sync with what everybody else sees is useless

 

Scenario:

Player A:  Hey, you grabbed that stuff.  That was in my land!

Player B:  Nah, my screen says my territory extends this far

Player A:  But those bear cav units had to walk right past my city

Player B:   Yeah, my map says its mine

(the city is player A's capital... and player B lies)

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Do it Civ4 style by default--borders don't overlap. Make players take explicit action to claim stuff beyond their own borders. Let everyone know when someone disputes a border.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Am I missing something, or have most of the replies so far mostly ducked the "persistent world" part of the OP's question? I'm also very curious about that idea, especially in terms of large/long games, but border questions are not the first thing that comes to mind when I wonder what that term might mean in a UI. And an expandable map seems almost the oppositie of a "persistent world;" it's a changing world by definition.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

well, the persistant world part as I understand it relates to how the world will expand (rather than getting new maps)  and because I didn't know much about it I did not specifically address it.   

However, as it has been readdressed, I do believe it is important to note that in classic Civ style boarders, opening up the sides of the map in a 'persistant world' fashion might totally bone somebody who is stuck in the middle.   They would be denied access to all the freash land, dungeons, and other goodies.   Even without persistant world, I vote against Civ style borders.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting landisaurus, reply 6
well, the persistant world part as I understand it relates to how the world will expand (rather than getting new maps)  and because I didn't know much about it I did not specifically address it.   ...

Well, given my lack of multiplayer experience, I probably have a weird first response to the phrase "persistent world," but what I *think* I know comes from Brad's very old journal on the subject and an even older one by Ilumino.

When I re-read those OPs, I notice more map-related stuff from Ilumino than from Brad, and both posts make me think that the major factors have to do with business of having "a game (map)" that users can enter, affect (play), leave, and then later return and possibly see evidence of what they did the last time they were "in the game."

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

A "persistent world" in a RTS or TBS every time I've seen it used typically means there is a world split into regions / areas that multiple players can join and battle for control. In essence I would assume it is just going to be the normal world map with dynamically shifting regions of control and players can join the ensuing battles.