Game Idea... Comments Please.
by Ian Smithers · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 02/11/2005 (4:06 am) · 16 replies
So after working for some time on my RPG design, I am begining to see the monumental amount of work I have carved out for myself and others. So I have been thinking on alternatives that could either take its place as the primary project, or perhaps be worked on afterwards.
Here is one such idea.
Genre:
RTS
Focus Point:
Cooperative Multiplayer Campaign
Strong Team Focus in Online Games.
Built for Clans.
Execution: So first and foremost I thought it would be fun to have an RTS with a real cooperative campaign. Red Alert 2 had one, but it was badly done. Ground Control 2 had it too, but it was even worse than RA2. I know many generic missions from RTS games could be reworked for a fun cooperative experience. An example being a missions where you have to destroy the enemy forces but make sure your ally survives. The ally starts off under attack, lots of money, no units and a damaged base. He has to hold of the waves of enemies until you can reinforce him, then you can both attack the main enemy. Anyhow, thats just a diversion for the real focus on the multiplayer side.
In multiplayer there would be some really strong elements to team play. For example, you could give control of your units to your ally if he needs them, you can transfer resources and even give entire buildings to them. Plus you can repair each others buildings. No thats all pretty basic still, some games have this, but many don't surprisingly, I always recall the 'Age of' games and Total Annihilation as having the strongest diplomacy ingame which is a good begining.
The real fun is with the actual races for multiplayer and special abilities. Since its a RTS, you can fully expect to play with just 2 generic sides who are quite capable of attacking and defending for themselves. However in the 2vs2, 4vs4 and so forth games, players can choose specialist sides and form alliances. Ok, so still not a new idea I guess, BUT what if some of the specialist sides have focussed strategies. For example, one side could have an amazing economy, they could use multiple methods to generate large amounts of resources (in game currency/cash) to produce units. However, they are an economy based race, so they have no attack units, and only some standard defence units. Therefore in order for them to be successful, they would need to share their income with their allys, who could use it to produce attack units and in turn defend their economicly strong ally. Some races could even have extremely weak or no economy abilities, therefore would rely soley on their allies for this, but in turn they have the best offensive capabilities.
To further expand on this, there would be some special abilities that you could either purchase, or you earned via doing damage to enemies. These would be cross race abilities. So for example one of them would be an extremely high tech bunker, that your side can build, but only the opposing side can power and man. Therefore players need to cooperate. In addition, you could earn the ability to build addons, on to other players buildings, that allowed the units produced there to incorporate additional weaponary from your race. Or abilities, or whatever. Anyhow, the point is, you could play solo sure, but if you combine forces and really work as a team, you have a huge advantage.
This requires good cooperation, but I think clans will use voice comms obviously, and public players can use in game signals to mark areas like you can in many RTS games, and attach notes to them or mark the terrain with arrows etc. I only mentioned a strong economic race and a seperate strong offence race as examples, there could be many such races, or even allow players to customise their race like in the Master of Orion games, obviously the game would play out as a normal RTS for example like Warcraft or Command and Conquer.
What do you think?
Ian
Here is one such idea.
Genre:
RTS
Focus Point:
Cooperative Multiplayer Campaign
Strong Team Focus in Online Games.
Built for Clans.
Execution: So first and foremost I thought it would be fun to have an RTS with a real cooperative campaign. Red Alert 2 had one, but it was badly done. Ground Control 2 had it too, but it was even worse than RA2. I know many generic missions from RTS games could be reworked for a fun cooperative experience. An example being a missions where you have to destroy the enemy forces but make sure your ally survives. The ally starts off under attack, lots of money, no units and a damaged base. He has to hold of the waves of enemies until you can reinforce him, then you can both attack the main enemy. Anyhow, thats just a diversion for the real focus on the multiplayer side.
In multiplayer there would be some really strong elements to team play. For example, you could give control of your units to your ally if he needs them, you can transfer resources and even give entire buildings to them. Plus you can repair each others buildings. No thats all pretty basic still, some games have this, but many don't surprisingly, I always recall the 'Age of' games and Total Annihilation as having the strongest diplomacy ingame which is a good begining.
The real fun is with the actual races for multiplayer and special abilities. Since its a RTS, you can fully expect to play with just 2 generic sides who are quite capable of attacking and defending for themselves. However in the 2vs2, 4vs4 and so forth games, players can choose specialist sides and form alliances. Ok, so still not a new idea I guess, BUT what if some of the specialist sides have focussed strategies. For example, one side could have an amazing economy, they could use multiple methods to generate large amounts of resources (in game currency/cash) to produce units. However, they are an economy based race, so they have no attack units, and only some standard defence units. Therefore in order for them to be successful, they would need to share their income with their allys, who could use it to produce attack units and in turn defend their economicly strong ally. Some races could even have extremely weak or no economy abilities, therefore would rely soley on their allies for this, but in turn they have the best offensive capabilities.
To further expand on this, there would be some special abilities that you could either purchase, or you earned via doing damage to enemies. These would be cross race abilities. So for example one of them would be an extremely high tech bunker, that your side can build, but only the opposing side can power and man. Therefore players need to cooperate. In addition, you could earn the ability to build addons, on to other players buildings, that allowed the units produced there to incorporate additional weaponary from your race. Or abilities, or whatever. Anyhow, the point is, you could play solo sure, but if you combine forces and really work as a team, you have a huge advantage.
This requires good cooperation, but I think clans will use voice comms obviously, and public players can use in game signals to mark areas like you can in many RTS games, and attach notes to them or mark the terrain with arrows etc. I only mentioned a strong economic race and a seperate strong offence race as examples, there could be many such races, or even allow players to customise their race like in the Master of Orion games, obviously the game would play out as a normal RTS for example like Warcraft or Command and Conquer.
What do you think?
Ian
#2
Ian
02/11/2005 (2:50 pm)
Yeah I kinda figured that went without saying. I was just wondering if people _thought_ it sounded like a fun idea or not.Ian
#3
BTW, if you aren't yet aware of it, GG has an RTS Starter Kit all packaged up and ready to go for you. It should provide a very large head start for you on prototyping your game idea. There is also a very good RTS-SK private community forum area here on the GG website.
02/11/2005 (3:14 pm)
Well, it's one of the fundamental design visions of my team's project, so I would say "Yes, we think it sounds like a fun idea!"BTW, if you aren't yet aware of it, GG has an RTS Starter Kit all packaged up and ready to go for you. It should provide a very large head start for you on prototyping your game idea. There is also a very good RTS-SK private community forum area here on the GG website.
#5
02/12/2005 (9:11 pm)
Click on his name and read his plans.
#6
02/13/2005 (4:07 pm)
I think it sounds like it would be fun.I say try it out first,then if you don't like some of it or if it's not as fun as you would like it to be take the parts out you don't like. But I think it's a cool idea.
#7
02/13/2005 (4:51 pm)
It does sound like fun, until you mentioned the part about some sides not being able to make money and the such... It makes no sense that a rich 'team' could not get their hands on offensive weapons... And as such the team that had little economy but offensive weapons is the only team that would have any chance of winning, and therefore the player would refuse to ally.
#8
Also these are just two race examples, perhaps the offensive race could build upgrades on the economic race's buildings to protect them whilst they generate cash for him and so forth. Not to mention the specials that come in to play when the fighting starts.
I was also thinking it could be fun to have a lone player, who is simply there to progress the game. So we have 3 players, no one is allied, and 1 player is a non aggressive race. He is a technology researcher. So what he does is begin setting up his economy and base. In order to research technology, he puts up "contracts" like a "Level 1 Laser Contract". Then this gets made available to the other players, and they bid on the contract, the winner of the bid pays the resulting money to the 3rd player who then starts researching. There is a suggested cost, like $2000 or something, and if they bid more, then it gets researched quicker. Once done, the player who won the bid has laser weapons. Lots of contracts can be made available at once, and the 3rd non aggressive player can assign missions to the other players. Each player gets the same reward and mission to make it fair, but the 3rd player chooses the type, like sabotage, attack, steal or whatever.
Dammit, this is begining to sound better than my RPG idea... and there is an RTS starter pack too, making life even easier. Curse you GG! :p
Ian
02/14/2005 (2:46 am)
Sure I understand but the whole idea is of a team based game. Therefore tha alliances are made pre game, so you and your friend can decide what you want to do. For example if he is a good player, and good rusher, he can choose the race with low/no economy. I mean, realistically speaking, this race would have only the basic units, with the really big guns being far out of its reach, unless it had a financial contributor. Likewise, the economically strong race would need to be protected, thus teamplay would be very a strong necessity. I sort of had in mind that it would be developed primarily for clans.Also these are just two race examples, perhaps the offensive race could build upgrades on the economic race's buildings to protect them whilst they generate cash for him and so forth. Not to mention the specials that come in to play when the fighting starts.
I was also thinking it could be fun to have a lone player, who is simply there to progress the game. So we have 3 players, no one is allied, and 1 player is a non aggressive race. He is a technology researcher. So what he does is begin setting up his economy and base. In order to research technology, he puts up "contracts" like a "Level 1 Laser Contract". Then this gets made available to the other players, and they bid on the contract, the winner of the bid pays the resulting money to the 3rd player who then starts researching. There is a suggested cost, like $2000 or something, and if they bid more, then it gets researched quicker. Once done, the player who won the bid has laser weapons. Lots of contracts can be made available at once, and the 3rd non aggressive player can assign missions to the other players. Each player gets the same reward and mission to make it fair, but the 3rd player chooses the type, like sabotage, attack, steal or whatever.
Dammit, this is begining to sound better than my RPG idea... and there is an RTS starter pack too, making life even easier. Curse you GG! :p
Ian
#9
Anyway it sounds good but make a Design Doc to express you ideas, if you don't know what a design Doc looks like Click Here. This is for our new game called Faler: Project One.
Make a .Plan, post it, make a website, make a PDF file of you doc and have people download it to look at it.
02/14/2005 (8:35 pm)
I just came in here to tell your title shows that you a begginer. The title gives a sysnopis of what your doing in a few words, or the person will not know what your telling us and if it is something they know of can help you on.Anyway it sounds good but make a Design Doc to express you ideas, if you don't know what a design Doc looks like Click Here. This is for our new game called Faler: Project One.
Make a .Plan, post it, make a website, make a PDF file of you doc and have people download it to look at it.
#10
You are correct though, I am new to this, and my other design, which is an RPG, has a DD. I have been working on it for a couple of months now, and have a good documented idea of all of the components. Recently we just finalised the combat system (I think, waiting for feedback) and whilst I was waiting to hear back from several others, I was just thinking and came up with this idea and was wondering what people thought about it. Its not very realised yet, I was just curious of initial feedback.
Cheers!
Ian
02/15/2005 (5:20 am)
Hi Kenneth, thanks for the info. Are you talking about the title of the thread or what? I didn't understand that. I can't get your DD to download or open in my browser, I will try it when I am at home. You are correct though, I am new to this, and my other design, which is an RPG, has a DD. I have been working on it for a couple of months now, and have a good documented idea of all of the components. Recently we just finalised the combat system (I think, waiting for feedback) and whilst I was waiting to hear back from several others, I was just thinking and came up with this idea and was wondering what people thought about it. Its not very realised yet, I was just curious of initial feedback.
Cheers!
Ian
#11
Ya I was directly going for the title, I got nailed on that a whole bunch of times when I first started.
If your still having a problem, you could right-click and go to Save Target As, that should work, but the link is working fine for me.
02/15/2005 (8:13 am)
I'll see if I can get that link to work, if not I'll give you our websites name to download it.Ya I was directly going for the title, I got nailed on that a whole bunch of times when I first started.
If your still having a problem, you could right-click and go to Save Target As, that should work, but the link is working fine for me.
#12
Basically stick a little RPG in there so units don't always perform the same. For example instead of having the soldier do 20 damage per hit, and then upgrades to make him do 30 etc. Have him do 5-20 damage randomized, and then upgrades if you plan to have them simply make it 5-20, 7-25, 9-30, etc.
That way on occasion one unit may take out a couple of equal units, and thus add a little realism to the combat. I mean there would still be ways to be tatical of course but it would prevent the I'm gonna do X, Y, Z and if my opponent stops to build a farm or is a couple of clock tic's behind me I win type of strategy. Which is oh so common in games like Starcraft, Command & Coquer generals, etc.
I mean a person can still rush etc but there is a chance his 40 guys might get whipped by the opponents 30 guys.
Anywy just some food for thought.
03/04/2005 (8:54 pm)
One thing I've always thought would be cool in a RTS is randomized ( to a degree) damage, and life for units. Like Warcraft II where if the soldier hits the orc first the orc will lose, and vice versa. It's too mathematical and then you have people who choose to exploit the mathematical basis of the game which to me sucks.Basically stick a little RPG in there so units don't always perform the same. For example instead of having the soldier do 20 damage per hit, and then upgrades to make him do 30 etc. Have him do 5-20 damage randomized, and then upgrades if you plan to have them simply make it 5-20, 7-25, 9-30, etc.
That way on occasion one unit may take out a couple of equal units, and thus add a little realism to the combat. I mean there would still be ways to be tatical of course but it would prevent the I'm gonna do X, Y, Z and if my opponent stops to build a farm or is a couple of clock tic's behind me I win type of strategy. Which is oh so common in games like Starcraft, Command & Coquer generals, etc.
I mean a person can still rush etc but there is a chance his 40 guys might get whipped by the opponents 30 guys.
Anywy just some food for thought.
#13
03/05/2005 (1:56 am)
I like that idea of randomization, too, Zen.......but you have to consider two things when approaching extreme randomization. First, will the random feature ever lead to an undesireable result. Like if there's a chance to miss, it would suck if once every 10 games a unit would miss 5 times in a row and die....players would say the AI sucked when, in fact, it was functioning as intended or correctly from a programmatic standpoint. Second, QA'ing something that random is a NIGHTMARE!!!!! There is the potential for one set of circumstances asserting the game and without a dedicated and organized team of QA testers, you'd never be able to reproduce it.....but I guarantee that people in the public would find it within the first day or two of hardcore playing. It's a concept I'd like to implement, but at this point, I think it would require a level of expertise and foresight (not to mention a kick ass programmer; I'm a designer/artist, myself) to pull off.
#14
It would also add a really nice twist on the team games, if you have a race that was a traditional 'heavy hitter' race, but not much in terms of accuracy, and another player allied with you had the ability to train your units to increase their accuracy. It would add some nice depth and reward from cooperation.
Ian
03/05/2005 (8:23 am)
I like that idea about randomisation, or at least sticking an RPG bend on things. If I adopted that idea, I would add research that improved the chances of hitting/damaging an enemy, it would still have a chance to hit/miss but it would be higher up the scale. Or it would effect damage more. Different skill trees etc for different attributes.It would also add a really nice twist on the team games, if you have a race that was a traditional 'heavy hitter' race, but not much in terms of accuracy, and another player allied with you had the ability to train your units to increase their accuracy. It would add some nice depth and reward from cooperation.
Ian
#15
03/05/2005 (9:25 pm)
Sweet idea man, me and my friends always play coop because we dont like kicking the crap out of each other :) I skimed through everything but the first paragraph so sorry if this has been mentioned. The one thing you would have to work on would be making the support races (all economy one comes to mind) fun to play. I know that in the basic sense I wouldent have fun chasing down res to let my friends attack bases. There would have to be something involved about getting the res such as defending an oil drilling site, or designing mining gear, or something.
#16
Ian
03/06/2005 (6:01 am)
Hey nice idea. Yeah you are right, there needs to be a sort of sub game for the support races. :)Ian
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