posted
As I go form one game to the next looking for my fix, I came to a game known as Hearts of Iron 2 and thought my needs completed. But I digress, and I realise that I liked it a lot, but it still didn't quench my needs for a "true" and epic RTS. And so I walk down the cold lonely corridors of my mind searching for what has to be the perfect concept. After much introspective thinking, I have come about and came up with a general idea of what I want, but I need all of you in our darkest hour to complete the concept.
The concept is this: imagine a space empire game, say Galactic civilisations and other similar civ based space empire building games, and now sweep the 2D aspect away and imagine it as 3D. Where you have a massive galaxy of planets, stars, nebulae, neutron stars, asteroid belts, comets and all kinds of other cosmic phenomena. All 3D where you can zoom and adjust you view in any of 360 possible degrees, and zoom out so that the whole galaxy is viewed in the screen, also, you can zoom in so far that you can view a single planet and the surrounding shipyards.
The concept is not only a completely 3D and manipulate able universe, but I also want to combine the best of other games in the making of a moving and compelling game where everyone who plays will have a complete and moving experience.
I hope that if I ever get around to making it as my masterpiece, these would be the features I'd like to include into it:
- A domestic policy slider, which determines your "government". But not with only one slider, each one would determine different things, ranging from your governments leanings towards left/right to interventionism/ isolationism, so that you could have, in theory, a democratic government, a communist government, a totalitarian government, etc. The policy that determines this, and many other ones, should be implemented. i.e. Hearts of Iron.
-A detailed diplomatic aspect to allow the negotiation of almost anything. i.e. To allow middle grounds, concessions, etc.
Now a question: should resources be limited or unlimited? The difference is mostly how fast humans and AI spread out.
The greatest emphasis will be, in my humble opinion, ship combat. I really hope that such types of combat were done in the SAME VIEW as your galaxy view. It should contain: - The ability to zoom in or out of that fleet. - The ability to take either personal command of it or leave it to the AI to handle, with an emphasis on tactics and strategy where situations cant just be solved by group X with many more ships at point B to win. - The ability to affect training, discipline, ship designs, and to use your surroundings effetely should all have major impacts on how to win a battle. (Homeworld and Hegemonia are good example of this)
I would want to minimise micro management to as little as possible and have many different capable AI scripts to run the Empire as you want it as you focus on war. i.e. diplomacy, exploration etc. Too many times I've seen a certain reluctance to play certain games because of all the micro management involved. Reducing this while increasing the effectiveness of your Empire should be attempted, games would then live longer. A wide and diverse tech tree should be implemented that can allow thousands of possible combinations, each giving everyone who plays a unique feel to his or her own empire + ships. (From Eve online)
Now next comes a concept which I found enthralling in Spore; the ability to upload your own game content. Too many times I felt disappointed for being unable, in MOO3 (Master of Orion 3), to fiddle with the humans in order to create the United Federation of Planets. Also, to be able to create your own ship skins building skins, unit skins, etc. Skins should be a PRIORITY in this game and made into a simple modding tool to allow a unique experience for all, so that the fans of Babylon 5 and starcraft could, for instance, fight it out with Battlecruisers and Star Furies. However, the basic ship structures would probably be the same (Scout class, frigate class, destroyer class, light cruiser class, heavy cruiser class, dreadnought class, etc. Also, what these ships look like and what weapons they use should be different)
One thing I would like discussed is actually is how ship combat and evolution should be demonstrated? I would prefer to leave ANY kind of ship open and allow the universe of players to play and figure out which ones are ultimately more effective and the ones that grasp which ones are will be the ones who are victorious. Also, id this a good idea having it when you research a new class of ship and you customise it you should automatically get a prototype ship that you can set as your flag ship?
Also, the game will be random and unknown, each player will start out in a random point on the map and only the starts will be visible and only certain technology will allow him the ability to scan distant stars for planetary objects. Everyone starts out with "Warp drive" so exploration is a must, now what I would like is the ability to gain control of that ship. Explore uncharted space for the first time and BE THERE as you explore strange new worlds, and new civilisation and go where no one has gone before. You can your ship could skim nebula's and scan their properties manually and do everything that ship would've down automatically but YOU and YOUR ship this way is what's exploring this virtual universe charting what could one day become part of your Star Empire. (Star Trek bestowed onto me this idea)
PS: also would like to add some actual astrophysics to the game where actual space things happen like a start going nova. Also if one goes nova a certain amount of time passes by before you realise that that star went missing maybe you'll get a pop up saying so, good idea neh?
Now we come to the final question. Should the game when its developed be a MMORPG? (Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Game) or single player with the ability to have limited multiplayer ability? If single player we can have a universe that is completely random each time you play and that no two games would ever play twice.
If multiplayer the universe would be persistent but man imagine it! thousands of empires fighting with every tool at their disposal for control of the galaxy imagine the story and the drama that will occur, screw the needs for a background story the PLAYERS would create there own over time as each war has it's hero's, villains, demagogues, and of course left wing intellectuals . With the ability to control your own ships as if you were on the bridge (and rename the ships to your liking) we could have players who sign up only to control the ships themselves and becoming intimately involved with the battles and with how the game works on that level, "these are the voyages...".
As we see I find the possibilities for such a game, a combination of Spore, Galactic civilisations, Star trek Birth of the Federation, Civilisation, Star Trek Armada II, Star Trek Fleet Command and my own imagination and vision. Also the addition of feed back from all of you Hatrackers and sci-fi lovers as being Endless. This game I want to be more then just a game, I want it to be the experience of a lifetime. Also for a side note, I think it’s a good idea to have it to scale say... 1 out of 55,000 planets. Wait... that would leave millions still. blah. With thousands of players with minimal micro management it could be doable. Please post and give me feed back and also email me at blayne.bradley@gmail.com or my hot mail address sid_meier@hotmail.com if you wish to email me.
posted
Out of curiosity, ever played Hegemonia or Imperium Galactica?
IG is far from a new game, but had some of those elements before they were the norm in some games. Hegemonia (aka Haegemonia) had some flaws, but began to explore the concept of a 3D, real time, multiple solar system strategy game. I had a blast playing it. I'll add to the general wish list sometime as well I suppose...
posted
I played Hegemonia and I'm sure I mentioned it, Imperium Galactica I've only heard the name and never played but will as soon as I get the money for it and exams end for me.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
You should look at Nexus, too-- and Time of Defiance ToD, in particular, is an MMORTS that allows diplomacy and long games (each "game" is 28 days long in a large universe similar to what you describe).
posted
Ho teh hum. Not to be a downer, or anything, but in another thread you mentioned you were on your 'last assignment' for a C++ class, and were looking for tutorials. Can I suggest a simple Tetris clone before you try anything, um, ambitious?
At least you didn't suggest a MMORPG...
If you're serious about this, take a look at this site. Note in particular the 'For Beginners' forum. Also try not to come across like Timmy here, and especially not like comrade Vipejc, the man with 15000 ideas. Pay particular attention to the last page of that thread, it is a true classic of its kind.
To look a bit at your actual idea, have you considered how many stars there are in a galaxy? Say it's 10^10, as a nice round complete underestimate. Assume you need about 20 bytes to represent a star, that is its mass, position, velocity, and number of planets, say - in other words, the utter basics. Poof, you need 20GB RAM for your galaxy. Comets? Well, just forget about it, ok?
Now, certainly you can drop the large number of un-interesting stars. Let's say you decide to make a galaxy containing 1000 stars - picking out the ones with inhabitable planets - as a rather nicer number to work with. (Already, of course, you have completely abandoned realistic astrophysics. Don't feel bad; there's a reason astrophysicists compete with economists for computing resources.) So you're going to need 1000 planets, something like 10000 asteroids, however many comets you feel like, and of course nations / corporations / whatever to inhabit these. How are you going to be initialising all this? Text files, Paradox-style? Be prepared for a bit of work, writing up 1000 planets. Random generation? If your planets are at all detailed, look forward to a couple of months of coding - and then another two of checking that you aren't generating anything utterly ridiculous. That 'utterly ridiculous', you understand. If you want 'makes sense as a world to play in', well, be prepared for a full year of developing just this, with no graphics, networking code, or anything.
As for your idea of AI scripts to run the empire, you did play MOO3, right? If not, I suggest you buy it just to observe what horrors people with bright ideas about AI can commit to an excellent game genre. And then play MOO2 for a while, just because it's still the best 4X game out there. There's a reason AI is still an unsolved problem in general, you know?
*On rereading the post*
Oh, ye gods, I take it back. You did want a MMORPG. *Visibly gives up* I hereby abandon you to your fate. Well-deserved fate.
No, seriously. Tetris clone. Pong clone. Guess-the-number clone. Anything but this! Trust me, you cannot do this. I am prepared to lay some money you cannot even implement two-player Asteroids clone within a year of this writing. Massively multiplayer strategy / ship-combat / exploration? In a word, no. Not going to happen.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
It's been done before. The game's still around, actually. Mankind is probably as close to your desire as is available right now. I tried playing it a while back and got utterly confused by the interface and didn't have the time to invest in learning it. It's made by an overseas developer, and hasn't received much press in North America yet.
edit: I don't know the exact status of the game right now.
2nd edit after actually reading the majority of the first post...games don't have all of those capabilities because they take TIME and MONEY to implement. Each one of your specifications could take months (or even a year) to develop even with a 5 man team on each one. I have my own ideas for the "Perfect game," but most of the time, the more features and complexity you add to a game, the more likely it is to be bugged as heck. Which is part of what is occuring with Mankind right now.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
lol, you though I'ld do this on my own and now? I am not crazy enough to attempt this yet, when I start working in the industry and gain experiance and the money+support then I'll work on this. but for now its just the concept I want.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Also, I don't intend anything with regards go to it being a single player or MMORPG, I haven't decided yet, just that the idea of having thousands of player controlled empires is somewhat appealing.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
I'm not sure this idea would work as a MMORPG. The problem is since everybody will have to log off sometime there is no way to make sure your empire will be there when you log back on. I'd imagine a group of people who would only attack empires that were AI controlled. Think of the horror of building an empire for months, only to have it taken over while you were sleeping.
Posts: 796 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Good, good we have some feed back here of potentiial problems.
quote: I'm not sure this idea would work as a MMORPG. The problem is since everybody will have to log off sometime there is no way to make sure your empire will be there when you log back on. I'd imagine a group of people who would only attack empires that were AI controlled. Think of the horror of building an empire for months, only to have it taken over while you were sleeping.
This is a good question, my suggestion is to say have more then one person running an Empire as possibility number 1, poss no 2 would be I think would be for you to have "preplanned" defences that kick in when your attacked and not around and leave tasks that will continue even when your not logged in.
Theres an additional possibility of have an "inactive status" that leaves your empire doing only basic functions while your away and other players can't attack you. Anyone have any possible solutions? This should be a discussion on how to mold the concept.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote: poss no 2 would be I think would be for you to have "preplanned" defences that kick in when your attacked and not around and leave tasks that will continue even when your not logged in.
This solution goes back to the old TradeWars days, and even then it was inadequate. Real-life players will always be able to game the system.
Personally, I'd address this by making planetary shields remarkably cheap and indestructible as long as the planet doesn't fire. That way, someone attacking a system whose owner is on vacation or whatever could at worst blockade the system and destroy any ship traffic, but could not attack the planet until the owner returned and, say, started using his planetary batteries to repel the invaders.
On the downside, this means that active players would a) still dominate the game, regardless of skill, since 4X games depend a lot on expansion and b) wind up hanging around a lot, besieging planets with huge chunks of their navy until the owner got around to logging back on.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
EDITED I edited the original post for spelling + grammar
But yeah, of course active people will always dominate the game, its inevitable. However but yeah indestructable shields sounds like a good idea but also neutral trade traffic could possible be untouched since it might make you go on unhappy terms with a nearby empire.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Also, an inactive status where you can't be dowed excpet for the very basic diplomatic agreemnts (like trade which could be left to the AI controlled trade advisor if we decide to implement it) while trade could still possible be attack if its outside your border because of pirates, caught in the corss fire etc. Wars this way is possible to be left completely up active players and active players + AI buffer zones.
Would this be a good idea?
edit: Also the inactive status could be an automatic thing to prevent abuse, where you only go inactive when you log off and vice versa. Also aside from a special vacation mode empires that are inactive too long could be transfered to the computer and made "active" to prevent abuse.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
A notoriously jerky developer who likes to smart off in online forums and blame the rest of the world for his failures.
By the way, though the scope of this game idea is unmanageably huge, there are some small bits of it that I would like to see. A game that is heavily focused on designing your own ships and taking them into battle, for instance, would be really fascinating. Especially if it were made to be pseudo-realistic and fully 3D, in a Homeworld-type way ...
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Will there even be a Homeworld 3? Relic made the game but now THQ owns them. Sierra own the rights to the game. And nowthat Sega owns Creative Assembly I hope I'll somehow see more Total War games...
Posts: 796 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I'd love to just see a galactic civilizations like game with the RTS system from Homeworld. They'd be integrated with each other in the same way that the battle system in Total War games work. Fortunately, with the recent commercial success of RTS/Turn Based hybrids, I think that it is inevitable that someone will make a gmae like this. And then a few years after that, someone might actually make a good game like this.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
unmanageably huge... hmm... by the time I actually get the resources to begin work on this game (say tens years at the most) wouldn't computers have advanced ot the point that the gane wouldn't be so unmanageable?
However scaleing down the game due to "technical issues" would be no problem theotetically, would a sclaed down version with say only 12 players with ~100 star systems (to examine the exploration aspect) be manageable in either the online or one player format?
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
The two newest excitements in my life (with regards to computer entertainment) are Celestia and The Foundation Game.
If you could take the Celstia model, add ongoing time to it, put resources on each planet (you may need to make up a few planets), and have earth as the computer controlled main world, you could create quite a nice trading sim and action MMORPG combined.
When I read your post I envisioned a 3D foundation type game set in the celestia universe with more emphasis/detail on trading, government, and battles.
I like your idea. It sounds great!
You may want to check out the Foundation, as it has a lot of the ideas behind your dream. It is just a web browser game, but it incorporates some new ideas in gaming.
One word of caution, for your game to be what you u want it to be, it needs hundreds (if not thousands) of players online at the same time. I set up two accounts with Foundation. The game is designed to have more then 10,000 players play it. In one account, the sector has a lot of newbies and a few high level gamers. It is INTENSE and fun. On my other account, the sector is dead. I occasionally talk to someone, but I am taking my sweet time developing political skills because there is no one I am afraid of assassinating me.
Altho my character is much more powerful in the second sector, it is a little boring. Keep your game scaled small so it is filled up with players. As the demand warrants, you could always open up new sectors. Or maybe you could make sure new players are always created in clusters.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
I stand by my suggestion of a Tetris clone, with the graphics in OpenGL or DirectX. You'll learn a lot, in particular you'll learn about what can and cannot be done with computers. Put this project on the shelf for a while; it's a fine one, but you are not ready even for the design stage. Make a Tetris clone, then a Space Invaders clone, then a boardgame port - Settlers of Catan, say, or Junta if you feel ambitious. The latter two will teach you a lot about AI.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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So, saying Derek Smart is like saying Candyman? If I shut off all my lights and look deep in my monitor he'll appear behind me and give me a wedgie? What happens if I say John Romero, John Romero, John Romero? He'll give me a really wussy wedgie 5 years from now?
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Yes, I know as I said before I'm not making it NOW when I'm experianced and know what I'm doing I'll work on it.
But its more then a matter of opening up extra sectors for exploitation I want the whole galaxy alrdy opened up and the point would be to explore until you find someone else, and being able to go into the perspective of the ships you send out so that you can kick back in your plush leather chair and watch as you skim over a nebula.
And yes, the idea is that with a interface to what Spore uses I hope that players will be able to deseign their own unique ships and it adds to the fun as you run into a fleet of ships that could be in theory unless you study them veeeeeery closely any class of ship so adds to the spice of first contact.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:Will there even be a Homeworld 3? Relic made the game but now THQ owns them. Sierra own the rights to the game. And nowthat Sega owns Creative Assembly I hope I'll somehow see more Total War games...
posted
Part of the thing with ship customization isn't just colour, but also the ability to adjust where the hard points are located, and adjust according toy uor technology what the new ship class is equipped with in terms of weapons and equipment.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Sorry I'm late, I adding more detail to how you clean up the toilets on your Battlecruiser. I added rust rings to the mix. To get them out you have to kill a certain bug on a planet that I won't give away. The blood is acidic and very good at getting those stubborn rust rings out of porcelain.
Posts: 1 | Registered: May 2005
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Yes it is. Have you tried out the game yet? I am ready to make a major military move and advance in ranks to a Merchant. I love this game!
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
I talked with a friend he calls it a "combination of eve online and Galactic Emperialim II"
While AI scripts for planetary government if done well for civilian/military/research build qeues is a good idea according to a friend of mine, but what do y'all think about the possibility of a Paradox style empire economic screen? Where your entire empire's national economic/research policy/goals can be set from a single screen? This would essentially eliminate all micromanagement from the game and make it infinitly easier to play however the option to micromanage should I think (partially by request) should remain for those that like to twiddle with their planets.
posted
[edit] All of the below is just me rambling, so it's very disorganized, but I'm just throwing out ideas: [/edit]
Micromanagement can be fun, but one of my biggest complaints about the original Empire Earth was that there were often times too many units on the screen at the same time. EE2 fixes this by allowing you to divide up your armies and giving you a citizen manager, as well as an automatic diplomacy screen. In turn, it also gives you a lot of different options two work with, so every variable in the game can be changed. Sometimes, this can be daunting, especially to a new player. (In short, micromanagement can be fun, but too much of it usually turns players away.)
I've never seen Paradox's screen, so I'm not sure how it would look, but after playing HW and EE a little too much I had an idea for a system that have a chart for each planet, much like what you describe. The chart would tell how much water/metal/energy/food/money was produced and consumed by a planet and whether there's a surplus or a deficit. From there, trade contracts could be established within your empire (Export/Import <x> shipments of <resource> to/from <planet>) or to external planets, where trade might cost a certain amount of money, and the contract would be cancelled in times of war.
You could even include corporate empires with their own fleets and stations, which can buy resources and produce other things (like ships) for a lower price than you could. All of this could be done from one screen.
Somewhere, I typed all of this up and saved it on this computer...
posted
Corporate nations sounds like a pretty good idea, gives you a different option rather then to go the imperial route. What you said wasnt confusing but I'll explain it Paradox is a company that makes some encredible strategy games like Hearts of Iron 2 and Europa Universalis II, but I only played the former so far.
But this is the screen you have four tabs to click on and each gives you a different menu of option. the first one was technology where you could hire a tech team to begin reasearch of a particular technology from one of several fields and depending on which tech team it was and what its best at determines the daily speed of research.
The second screen was production where you could assign your nation to produce certain things in parallel or in series (series was 1 thing but done linearally where when one is doen the next is begins production but a bit faster otherwise known as "gearing"), your convoys could also be managed from this screen as well as the Industrial Capacity sliders.
You see your nation would have about X amount of IC to be divided among producing consumer goods to keep your people happy and make money (to pay your tech trees and commence diplomatic actions), to your production (since each thing you produce needs a set amount of IC to build and will take X amount of time), then you have the amount of IC to go into reinforcements and producing supplies and how much you determine goes into upgrading your army(s).
I'm thinking that an adapted version of this would be the recommended tool for determining the economic policy of your empire especially when you start to grow too big and become a little unwieldy with micromanagement alone.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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One of the best space strategy games I ever played is an old cult-classic called Stars! by Empire Interactive, which has to be at least a decade old now. It's a 4X game in nature, so similar to MOO in a bunch of ways, but I've always found it superior in every regard. It's very utilitarian in its graphics and interface, but the amount of options you have are staggering. It also supported a ridiculous size of galaxies from tiny to huge, with (I believe) thousands of stars at the biggest settings. It also supported PBEM, with either 16 or 32 people. Can't remember which. I got so many people hooked on it.
Of course, that's not an MMO, but it's still an awesome game. The guys who did it were working on a sequel for the longest time, but I don't think they could ever find a publisher.
Posts: 2 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Can you give me a link to a website that hosts it? A game that old is usually supplied for free usually and legally sasme thing with GTA.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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