posted
an mmorpg is a massivley multiplayer online role playing game...i had an idea you know there is gonna be a movie...someone is going to want to make a game of it..why not make a MMO about say...battleschool? have all launchies running around...join an army...have battles in the battleroom...have sweet graphics...whenever your not really doing anything just wander around battleschool see other people talk to them maybe battle them? something like that...i think it would be an interesting idea...what do you guys think? and once you "graduate" from battleschool go to command and pre command where there will be other people there who have done the same thing as you...maybe go back to earth maybe go fight the buggers...it would be very entertaining i think...
Posts: 35 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I'm all for it! Although I don't really dig any current MMORPG games, I think its mostly because I have a hard time really getting into them and don’t like the associated fees ($10 a month? Sheesh! It's just a game!) But I could get into a battle school based game. Is there any word on an Ender video game at all? It has sooo much potential but I would be really sad if they didn’t do the story justice.
Posts: 64 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I'm putting my money on a "go through the movie with the main character" Ender video game. However, a massively multiplayer game would be pretty cool. If said idea gets put in practice, here is some ideas that I think would be cool.
1. Three statistical areas: Intelligence, Reflexes, Stamina. Intelligence would improve your characters leadership abilities, enable them to make decisions quickly, and be able to analyze enemy tactics efficiently. Reflexes improve how fast, how accurate, and the reaction time of your student. Stamina would also factor into speed, but would have greater focus on exaustion.
2. It should take awhile before you actually get in an army. For the duration as a launchy, each player would spend most of their time developing their skills. To increase reflexes, the player should play the games in the game room, stamina increases from working out, and intellegence increasing by studying. The most important part of the skill development is that it has to be fun. Games would be easy enough...just make fun games. While working out and studying, having the player make complicated button combination to determine how much stamina/intellegence they gain each session would make them more exciting. Tediousness is one of the great downfalls of MMORPG's. After enough skill points have been accumulated (an overall total skill point cap), you will be put into an army.
3. Once you finally got accepted into the army, there should be a multi-tiered ranking system. Being moble should be as important as freezing enemies, and fullfilling orders should be the most important. In the battle room, giving and receieving orders should be simple at fast. As you get a toon leader status, or even commander status, there should be quick buttons or UI keys that will be able to signal all players (including enemies) within hearing. Commanders should also be able to give orders to each toon, and toon leaders to each player individually, quickly.
*The rest of this post will continue momentarily, I am tired of writing for the moment.*
Posts: 60 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
I don't see EG making a good lasting MMORPG. You are limited to a restricted game world (battleschool) so exploration is not really viable.
I also couldn't see playing a MMO woth combat WITHOUT so kind of magic system (true this is totally personal preference), if it was a straight hand-to-hand or blaster (in the battleroom) based combat system, that to me becomes nothing but a glorified First Person Shooter engine ... personally I got tired of FPS's with Doom and could not envision a subscription based game for that.
The whole "game follows the movie storyline" concept has never appealed to me personally either.
I also would not see myself really interested in the game unless they were to somehow bring in the giant game into it. If you were able to use your toon to play the game to develop some of his skills and the game had a good AI engine so that it stayed as entertaining as the books make it seem then I would love it.
The idea of hitting some "limit" before you are flagged to join an army I also don't like. Sure have some kind of "launchie" content available to them for training purposes follows along with the stories fairly accurately. I would almost say a system where you are assigned an army instead of being able to join any army would be the way to go. Say after you have accumulated a random amount of XP in a set range then you get orders to report to a certain army.
Posts: 14 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Macery: I don't see EG making a good lasting MMORPG. You are limited to a restricted game world (battleschool) so exploration is not really viable.
This is ultimately what kills the idea of an Ender's Game MMO, or even an Ender's Game...game. The entire setting is just too small, and the variety of activities impossibly limiting and one-note. What would you do besides have battle room fights?
Also, the heart of every MMORPG (as Ragnarok Online proved and City of Heroes learned very quickly) is the measurable superiority/advancement of your character. I can't think of a way that this would be possible in an Ender's Game universe - every student gets the exact same standard issue equipment, which eliminates anything resembling an in-game economy or character posessions.
Community is one of the hugest deciding factors in an MMORPG's success. In an EG MMO, there would be no community to speak of, because everyone would belong to a 40 man army. Would they be randomly assigned there? Not viable, for obvious reasons. Would they be allowed to form their own? Also not viable, for obvious reasons - a few select armies would quickly rise to the top of the heap and dominate the system. And then what fun is it for anyone?
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I dunno if they could incorporate the game that keeps adapting to the individual that would be interesting!
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
The Fantasy Game would be cool, but there are a couple of issues.
1. It can't work the way the game worked in the book, because that game was based on video game standards in the eighties — lots of death and frustration, repetition, etc. Modern games work very hard to get away from this stuff.
2. If it wasn't made to match the game in the book, then what would be the point of weighing it down with a book license, when the simple fact that you MADE a game that revolutionary should sell it for you all by itself (see SPORE), and the book license would only limit and pigeonhole you.
3. We're not ready yet to make a game that revolutionary. At this point, it would take one of the industry's more experimental studios (Lionhead, Maxis) upwards of five or six years of preproduction just to create a mockup of a game this huge. Will Wright's work with SPORE is a step in the right direction (with procedurally-generated animations, content that is downloaded behind the scenes from other users to make every universe unique), but there is still a long way to go.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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The game could be made simple with a one-shot-pay system so that players wont be turned off, character advancement could be simple like different kinds of armor, ranking system for say private, toon leader, kommander.
The essentially due to certain constraints would be a FPS, but small simple, and cheap. Also you could have various servers and even if you had a few armies climbing to the top remember that also happened in EG the book, its up to obscure armies to find a winning strategy.
Think of it as a minurature battlefield 2. We could have a really good squad combat system worked out either supplying a third party voice chat or supplys its own voice over IP.
As for exploration we COULD have a large battleschool with lots of corridors and rooms where you could play various minigames and arcade games especially older ones like say alien invaders but formiciz it. More latter.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
I agree that the online game of Ender's Game would be very cool, but there would be one major problem.
The Battle School students in the story devote every waking hour to Battle School. Since they live in the school, it is possible for them to attend a battle whenever they are called to do so. In real life, it would be hard to set up battles because the times could be very inconvenient for the actual players.
Posts: 18 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Well we could have it so that the teams are always balanced or add bots if need be, possibly have battles chedualed in advanced so that people can come on line when need be there's a solution to everything.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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