Local Multiplayer? AI vs AI?

I agree on local multiplayer and ai vs. ai. I'd imagine both of those should be pretty easy to implement, since Super Melee always has had only one camera view.

I don't really know about 2v2 though. That could really mess up the balance of the ships, and I'd rather they just focus on 1v1 balance.

They plan on having 1v1 and 3v3 multiplayer. If they can balance 3v3, they can probably balance 2v2. (Though, it doesn't necessarily need to be balanced when co-op is concerned.)

I would really love local multiplayer - it's basically a requirement for my loving the game. It was the only fun part of melee to me, personally. otherwise melee was just a practice mode for the campaign to me. 

a co op campaign would be killer in addition to the single player, but i feel it would have to be separate since it seems the gameplay would be so different.

I would love to be able to play in a cooperative fashion.

If that could be in... I'd buy another licence for my fiancee and I to play together.

Upvote for co-op campaign.

As I have mentioned in another thread, there are several well-established scenarios that are particularly popular within this genre.  I don't see 1v1 and 3v3 dueling being enough to retain a significant online audience.  I really think that as a bare minimum they also need a base defense mode, a capture the flag mode, and space hockey.  Space Hockey is probably the "most star control" of these, you could create a Star Control universe sport, you might even have it mentioned in adventure game or even have there be a quest related to it to introduce players to the "sport".  They could do a lot with space hockey, and of course would want to give it a star controly name like FrumpleBall or something.

It's also kind of odd to be considering 1v1 and 3v3 dueling... 1v1 and 2v2 ("wingman duels") dueling have been popular in similar games, 3v3 has never really been a thing in these types of games.  If the game is going to be successful as an online game just dueling isn't going to do it all by itself.  Base Defense, Capture the Flag, and Space Hockey at a minimum really are needed to retain an online audience.

I would also do 3-sided 1v1 and 2v2 dueling because the three player dynamic works so well in this genre, and the Circle of Death scenario I mentioned in the other thread because it would work so well with Star Control, but these would be "extras".  They aren't real;ly necessary.

You guy's should try out "Continuum" at www.getcontinuum.com.  Death Star Battle is an excellent base defense zone, and they call hockey "powerball".  In Subspace dueling was a niche type of thing that a minority of players took part in, generally only the very best players are into dueling.  Trench Wars (base defense), Death Star Battle (a better base defense zone), and hockey are by far the most popular zones in Subspace and similar scenarios are the most popular in other similar games.

I really think that 1v1 and 3v3 dueling alone will only attract the hardcore Star Control fans to the online game and pretty much nobody else.  With a full lineup of the favorites of this genre, this could wind up being very successful online.

Definitely think broadening ability for setting up teams is a good idea.

I've been thinking and if there is a co-op campaign, I feel like it would have to play differently than the main one. It's hard to figure it - but I do remember playing SC2 through several times shoulder to shoulder with a friend. With my spouse, I'd love to be able to play together on both our laptops, but it feels like it would be very very hard to implement. I can see it working best if it was a matter of us both having our main game "universe" and going both into a multiverse scenario (modded?) designed for two players at once. That would be cool. Sounds complicated though.

Nice. I know of another couple who play online co-op games. It's how they deal with their long-distance relationship.

If the trade-off between these extra modes and more single-player (or co-op) content, I would rather omit these modes and save them for an expansion.

Plus, I don't think that Star Control lends itself very well to these modes. In order for CTF to not be a runaway game, for example, enemy ships would need to have some major CC or stopping power. How would you stop a Arilou Skiff from running in, capturing the flag, and then hyper-spacing out?

I would definitely rather have the replayability that a "full featured" multiplayer would provide than an extra expansion to the single player game.  Most players will play the single player game for a week, then never touch the game again... unless there is a good multiplayer side to keep them playing.

Star Control lends itself perfectly to these modes, these are the established favorites of this genre.  The Arilou problem you mentioned isn't really a problem.  That's his ability, that's what makes him a good CTF ship.  And it depends on what type of capture the flag game you create.  For example, in Subspace all the flag was for was making your ship awesome.  The flag was like a super power-up and when you carried it you were faster, had more thrust, a higher rate of fire... just a super ship while carrying the flag.

There are certainly some ships that won't be used in certain zones, but that is normal a not a balance issue.  For example, big slow ships are useless in hockey.  Nobody will ever use big slow ships in hockey.  But that isn't a balance issue, big slow ships just aren't good at hockey.  That's one of their traits, not being good at hockey.

Ha! I would love to see that in the ship specification list, a la:

Ur-Quan Dreadnought

• High defence
• Extreme damage potential
• Slow speed
• Very slow turning rate
• Not very good at hockey

I understand that, and I enjoyed SuperMelee more than I did the single player game. That being said, the success of the game hinges on the single player RPG campaign and not multiplayer. As long as SP features aren't being cut in order to fit these extra play modes in, I'm okay with having them.

Yes, honestly, I'm much much much much more excited about single player. 

Actually, the long term success of the game depends more on the multiplayer than the single player, although the single player game does need to be good to attract players to the multiplayer to begin with with this particular game.  Since it is something of a lost genre the single player game will have to draw attention to the game for the multiplayer to take off, but any long term staying power the game has will come from the multiplayer side.  It would be a good thing to retain a multiplayer audience if more games in the series are planned.

I just think 1v1 and 3v3 dueling is just something people into the single player game might do while they are playing the single player game, and a few hard core SC players might be into it long term, but it really has no chance of attracting any kind of real multiplayer audience.  With the basic popular scenarios of the genre, it could actually retain a significant online audience for years.  An organized hockey league would go an extra long way in helping to make that happen, for example.  Just the single player game will be played for a week, then put on a shelf and forgotten forever.

Dueling gets boring fast.  Things like base defense, capture the flag, and hockey can retain a players interest for years.  Having an objective and teams of players working against each other makes it an interesting game instead of just a dual that becomes repetitive pretty quickly.

I'm not entirely convinced that long term staying power will come from multiplayer competitive instead of the modding / multiverse / multiplayer co-op aspects. This seems like if it's made as a robust toolset, that might end up having a lot more of a community. These days there are endless options for multiplayer games and I honestly think this will always be a niche thing - when it first came out for our generation we may have put in a huge amount of time into playing each other, but people today just have so many options.

The modding possibilities greatly expand the ongoing life of the game vs. "on a shelf".

Don't get me wrong, I'm very very excited to ship v ship dueling and if you're right I'll be very in support of a real competitive community springing up in the support of this game. I hope they take your suggestions about multiplayer modes seriously. They're going to have to make some choices about what to ship, but if their modding tool set is good enough (and the community is excited enough) then I don't think we'll have issues with running out of good multiplayer variations. So I'm hoping more that they approach it from that angle (while shipping with enough options to get people excited enough to run with the tool set.)

It's just my opinion, of course, but I have long believed that this genre has the potential to be very popular online if it were done well.  The best it's ever been done is Subspace, and Subspace is very primitive.  It wasn't even meant to ever be released, it was actually an experiment in networking games in the early days on online games.  Testing that theory would mean doing the scenarios that have proven to be the most fun and popular within the genre.  It would not be a tremendous amount of work to do simple versions of all 3 (Base Defense, Capture the Flag, and Hockey) in a simple form.  Doing a really nice "comedy pinball machine hockey" would be a little more work, but still not a lot.  What it took to do SuperMelee gives them 80% of what they need to do all 3 of these zones already in simple forms.  It's a lot less work than I think you are imagining with so much potential upside.

...and space hockey (FrumpleBall???) is just so perfect for the Star Control universe:-)

My worries aren't as much about setting up the game modes as they are about balancing the ships. It seems like designing a ship for competitive multiplayer is very different than figuring out the right balance for a campaign.

If the past holds true, though, it makes sense to balance for the campaign here and then let the multiplayer community trial and error it until there are obvious favorites and ones that need nerfing or boosting - then perhaps making those options for multiplayer somehow. I hope the ship designs are really really unique in their play styles, so I'm sure something interesting will work out. 

Oh, that isn't really an issue at all.  If the ships work in 1v1 dueling, they will work in these scenarios.  It just works.  Part of the reason why is that many ships will not be useful in these zones as it is.  For example, big slow ships aren't good at hockey, nobody will use them there.  In hockey there will probably only be 2 or 3 ships that get used in serious games, and those ships are used because they are good at hockey.  Same for base defense and capture the flag.  There is no separate balance needed for these zones.

I'd also point out that the ships in the original star control games are extremely unbalanced.  It is the structure of supermelee that gives an illusion of balance, but the ships 1v1 against each other are wildly unbalanced.  The nemesis balance and using a lineup of ships to choose from when you die just creates an illusion of balance.

For my part I hope the tools available will be sufficient to build a robust MOBA (DotA-like). Super Melee, Base Defense, Capture the Flag, and Hockey are all fun and relatively easy to implement playmodes; but "the next level" in that train of thought (to me at least) is a DotA interpretation of the game.

Quoting Kavik_Kang, reply 15

...and space hockey (FrumpleBall???) is just so perfect for the Star Control universe

The word you're looking for is "Frungy".