Long term skirmishes - player immersion

[Olrox]

  I was thinking about campaign games and multiplayer games, when I came to an idea.
  Single player campaigns are currently Players versus AI, and the player generally plays it once or twice then go multiplayer gaming. Multiplayer games are skirmishes (no storylines, no deep briefs and one objective: destroy enemies), aren't they? Well, I was thinking about something more toward epic. Endurance battles.

  I mean endurance by creating long term PvP online campaigns. A set number of "missions" is attributed to the endurance players. Like, In the beginning, the player builds his HQ, in a map without enemies, 2~3 oil rigs and small sized. he has, let's say, 30 minutes to build the best base he could. Technologies are, in the beggining, not already  fully developed and locked. This would not count a mission. When the timer reaches 0, a new timer appears. A transport mission begins. Both players should assign forces to attack (predeterminated sized) enemy bases. The player who assigned their assault forces to the transport and set it off sirst starts the assault. The other player have its force creating mission freezed at this state and then gain control of the outpost that is being attacked. The attacking player have to succesfully destroy target buildings (the starting enemy's factories, power facility, research facility, control center and defense towers) in a set period of time, or the mission is failed. Wether the attacker or defender wins, when this mission is finished, the player who was defending have 5 minute to assembly assault forces (from the point the game was freezed before) and attack the enemy outpost in a transport mission. This goes on untill the set mission number is reached (like, if it was 3, there are 3 transport missions for each player, to a total of 6). When it happens, the player who had best performance have to set an outpost near the enemy's HQ and destroy it*. At this point, the defender HQ map is expanded to large size, research is unlocked and both players can build factories, research facilities, power facilities and the like freely. There are additional oil rigs for the attacking player and he can call for reinforcement from his HQ at a preset delay time. If he succeed into destroying the enemy HQ, he wins the game. If he is destroyed, the enemy have 10 minutes to assign assaulting forces to transport and then he attacks the enemy HQ. This goes on until a player destroys the other or someone give up.
(*- if a draw happens, the players would either use the same type of system as in the first mission or play other missions until someone have advantage. This would be set before the start of the games.)
  This is what I would call endurace. Most players would go crazy, alright. But it would be great, at least for me.

  I know this would take several developing days and the developers are not paid to do that, but it would be great, wouldn't it? What do you think?

[warcorer]

Your ides definitely a good one I would hope that the devs could do this because the game really only has one way to play. They could make different game types endurance (your idea) , deathmatch (regular skirmish), king of the hill (certain areas that need to be held), and if its is possible to allow player to join online games during the battle, like in Ground Control II.

Warcorer

[GiGaBaNE]

Skirmish mode campaigns!

Those of you who are intimate with starcraft will understand this and love it i think.

this idea comes in several parts in order to suceed.

1) a simple to use wysiwyg map editor.
2) the ability to pre determine teams.
3) skirmish maps that can trigger further maps

i will refer to Starcraft to explain whats needed but non-startcraft players should get the idea too

essentially it was possible in starcraft to create your own campaigns, by creating maps, editing briefings to give you the plot and creating forces ( e.g enemy of player - neutral - enemy of everyone e.t.c)
it was also possible to drag select areas on the map your creating to tell AI how to behave in that area (e.g patrol - secure resources - build base - kamikaze kill e.t.c). Once the criteria for that map were completed, then it would trigger the next map to load up. im sure it wouldnt be all that difficult to allow the game to remember things like State: current tech tree and State: accrued power e.t.c

now if it was possible for for an average player to create maps in this way, especially if those maps would allow multiple players to cooperate in the plot, then it would add years to the playability of the game because we could all start making campaigns in our spare time. we could have a hosted location to share them and a hall of fame for the best 100 campaigns.

LOL, it may actually give us a use for the 'campaign mode' button in skirmish (loads its own map database, seperate from standard skirmish maps)
Feedback appreciated!

[DFStormbringer]

a persistant map would be nice too.. on epic scales.. similiat to SupComs map sizes if not even bigger...
these  "persistant" maps would have a VERY strict limit on your units and structures... and even have a resource cap...

the point of all this?  a war that doesent take hours but DAYS.. or even WEEKS to play out...
players join in at any time.. get their lil plot of land.. and start to build thier base.. with limits of 1 research.. 1 factory of each type and so forth.. and you go out and try to not only make a name for yourself but conquer the map.

being your units and other thigns are so limited.. recyceling to hkeep the unit ranks would be VERY key...  and being your limitations.. taking control of the "entire" map would be impossible as your resources would be spread out too thin... thus to  gain control of the map.. youll have to team up.. and chose your alliances wisely..

resources are gained not just by oil derics.. but you also get bonuses to your exp and your resources.. as well as technology tree bonuses by holding so many critical locations per day..

defense structures would also have to be vastly limited.. cant have 500 ripple rockets and hellstorms all over the map.. it would give NO chance what so ever to a new person that joins with tech 1 stuff and has to build his base under bombardment..

ALOT of things would have to be tinkered with for it to all work.. but the idea has a great deal of potential..
another variation of this same concept would be to have you be a cyborg.. that you control ala fps and overhead mode.....  and through the cyborgs sys you then scope the terrain.. build your bases from ground level... and even get the ability to hop into your tanks and hardpoints.. take control of them from a sfirst person shooter perspective.. and control th em directly to help defend your base.  this would also make "keeping an eye" on things ALOT mroe difficult as you cant magically zoom your camera to a far off base to build more defences if its getting attacked.. and thus gives attacking forces a greater chance of taking spots over.

anyone thats played the old battlezone game for the pc knows what im talking about.

[lav_coyote25]

finally!!  people asking for more than a flatmap/rush/nonstrategy/ game.  and it can be all scripted.  not sure how or who will do this - but if your in need of some non traditional maps... im in. ;D

[Olrox]

  About you taking control of a cyborg... well, I think it would be very difficult to make that functioning properly. And what happens if you meet with a Plasma cannon Dragon Tracks? Well, I only think that warzone is a Strategy game, and I really think that anything towards single player would end with the game's essence. My main point was that Endurance games would make the player to be involved by the game better, and have more than a single chance to crush their enemies. And, let's say that it would recover some features from the sigle player campaign that are not into regular multiplayer: Transport missions, timer, assaulting / defending missions. That would give you more time to learn your enemy's strategy and fight back in better ways, too.

[Olrox]

  And long battles would mean more unique battles. I particularly like that, the campaign offers that and that's why campaigns are cool!

[DFStormbringer]

as i said to understand the basics.. yould have to play the old game battlezone and BZ2.. it PROVED that a First person shooter AND an RTS CAN be merged sucuessfuly AND be fun.

when your main guy dies.. he would after a set time and resources respawn back at the main HQ.. your commanders exp and matching bonuses would be lost of course..  and with you in your clowning respawn phase.. your base would be on its own till you got back making it more easier for other people to attack you without you able to micromanage your defence.. thus making you keeping your guy alive all the more important.. thus the further added element of strategy.

terrain and line of sight become even more important.. able to hide behind some cover and shoot at enemy units from afar.

[Olrox]

  Yeah, first person shooter with RTS merged together is really cool. But WZ2100 is already the way it is, along with its particularities.

  P.S.: what about Endurance matches?

[DFStormbringer]

endurance matches already exsist....
you vs 7 allied computers on hard difficulty setting.. 5 minutes in theres 100+ units at your front door wanting in.. see how long you can endure! because lord knows you cant get the resources and the research fast enough to hold them off!

its basically gaurenteed death.. just a matter of WHEN..

[Olrox]

  No quotes for you

  I mean the long term skirmishes I've spoke of in my first post: the motive I've started this topic. If you play that match you've spoke me of, it would be a single battle, with no secondary missions or conseqüences on your later games.

[J.Vaughan]

Well, a long time ago a friend and I were talking about writing to Edios to include ideas for another warzone. little did we know that they had been bought out but at any rate we had a similar idea.

How about this, since it would be impossible to always have us all on the same map ect. all the time. integrate transport missions with online play. Being that you each have your own plot of land. The attacker can pull up an in game menu to see if there are any other players online at the time. (who would be hosting their own plot of land... [the plot could essentially be the same map for everyone to avoid recoding the whole damn engine]) Moving on, if your kind of on an in game server lobby you can load up a transport and go attack. the game would only have to carry over your unit stats ect ect like it does in an acual campaign transport mission but your enemy would instead be another player that you connected to. The attacker would be the transport and the defender would be in his territory. It's a rough concept, as of right now I can only see one on one and when the attacker connects to the players hosted game he logs off the network... at least with our current set up using what I know about from just playing over warzone. It would be much easier to "talk" out with somone rather than type it all out. I could type pages upon pages how it would work in theory but anyone see where i'm going on this?

Just think, you could host your multi player game online (consequently loading your saved base on the map) with no one else on the map (like current campaign mode if no one connects with you.) and while your building your defenses someone else hosts their campaign game and sees you in their in game lobby. So they quickly load up a transport with some units and click the send transport button which brings up a menu asking what server they want to connect to. Once they choose yours their game saves... and the game basically connects into their game as if you were playing a single player campaign transport mission. Once connected your client will sync their structures, units and what not while the client (connected to the defending player) reads off the saved file to recognize what facilites an what units they have back at their "home" base that they can load into the transport (however the single player game reads what you have back at your home base.) So you come into the map, unexplored with a transport of 10 units... imagine being that defending player and hearing that "incomming enemy transport" or even worse... no notice at all... It could be a surprise attack!

Shall I continue with this epic story of player on player action: client invades host's plot of land?

P.S. we could simply just develop a rudimentary online stats tracker that measures victories and defeats, kills and losses and rank accordingly. If you loose, the game deletes your saved file, as easy as that... you can start a new one and possibly go kick their A$$ for a change. Even 1 on 1 it still sounds fun am I right?

[DevUrandom]

Sounds interesting, even though I wouldn't implement it like this. The chance for cheating is just too high.

[J.Vaughan]

Well of course, it would be a very lengthy undertaking but, and I think I'm going to put this in my signature, I don't work with the code however I believe much of what I'm talking about already exist in the warzone code in different places. I'm simply talking about taking the pieces needed and joining them to create something somewhat new. I'm sure some code would have to be written here and some here to make it all fit together, not to mention a lot of tweaking but for the most part it should be connecting the dots.

Back to the cheating which is what I originally was going to mention. It would be a very big problem, but not so big that it couldn't be over come. Simply disable it for online multi player if possible. If not then would creating a separate version with all cheating disabled, and that being the only version for the campaign online style to work? I don't know, but if theres a will, theres a way and in my mind that's a minor obstacle to overcome.

[DevUrandom]

I didn't mean cheating as in pressing SHFT+BKSP...
I mean cheating like in creating unfair forces, replacing files and the like.

And remember: This is a FOSS game, so everyone (incl. cheaters can "fix" the sourcecode in any way they want). So preventing cheating has to be done differently from a Close Source game's approach. You can't rely on the game client to do anything.