76 replies to this topic

[CocoaJin]

instead of isolated "battles in a bottle"? How great would it be if we had faction based warfare over numerous planets, each beging its own massive persistent map.

Each map would have faction forward bases to enter the theater from, a faction's forward base(s) would have to be activated(minimum number of faction players selecting it as a spawn) to initiate operations on that planet.

STRATEGIC LAYER:
Each planet would have several high value targets to occupy, to destroy or blockade in order to provide resources for one's faction operations on that planet, to provide a small addition to resources points for the overall faction in the Sector and/or block/reduce resources for opposing factions.

Each map would have large expanses, creating a truly benefical enviornment for scouts. in addition to PvP content, there would be PvE content such as AI patrols, AI supply and resource convoys, etc. Supply and Resource convoys would be periodic events spawned into map that is linked to faction resource points. Defending your faction's or destroying opposing faction convoys would improve or hinder the applicable faction's resource point accumilations locally and Sector wide by small amounts(you couldnt stop a factions resource point accumaltion completly, even if you destroyed all of a faction's AI convoys for the period...you can only reduce it).

High value facilities would have light defenses. Initially all facilities would be Neutal/AI owned. Player's would need to break through the defenses, eliminate all AI threats and occupy the facility for a period of time to gain control for their faction. Defenses would begin to regnerate after the facility is owned. once owned, the facility begins producing resources points.

LOGISTICS:
Because of the expanse of the maps and slow speeds of many mechs, there would have to be a means of rapid travel. Drop ships would be mobile player spawns. So lets say a scout finds a group of romaing enemy mechs, or finds a high value resource facility lightly guarded, the scout could alert friends waiting at base. The drop ship would be called in by the scout himself or by other players on the map to "travel" to the general location. The only limitation is that it cant be called in within a specified minimum range of a non-faction owned facility(lets assume even neutrally/AI owned facilities on a planet would be defended, making drop ships sitting ducks.).

The drawback to a drop ship is that it couldnt be instant on scene, so calling in the drop ship would require waiting several minutes for it to "arrive". Its big and could bee seen as it drops. It would have limited resource points for spawning mechs( so you cant just keep spilling mechs out of it), and to prevent spamming spawns everywhere, there coul donly only be so many of the active per faction at any given time, once units begin spawning from a drop ship, there is a cool down timer before it can be called and sent to another location.

MISSION TASKINGS/ROLES:
Supply Interdiction - Hunt down and destroy enemy convoys to reduce opposing faction resource point accumilation/re-supply. A great way to prep for a push on the planet. Small incursion groups of light mechs can easily move about destroying enemy supply under the nose of a complacent or neglegent owning faction.

Convoy Escort - either through direct escort of by roaming security patrols, keep your convoys in one piece is essential to maintaining faction strength on a planet. Even enemy AI patrols can destroy your AI convoys. Look out for tell-tale signs of combat on the horizon, listen out for AI stress calls when under attack, patrol the map engaging enemy units(AI and Player a like) before the become threats to your AI convoys.

Recon/Patrol - search for enemy presence and vector reinforcements into the area.

Defend - high value facilities, forward bases and even drop ship mobile spawn locations

Attack/Raid - capture high value facilities

SUMMARY:
The goal is to create a dynamic, rich, diverse and living theater of war. To provide both PvP and PvP promoting PvE content to provide purpose and a magntitude of goals at all times. To provide open access to all players in a large scale war where success and failure makes a difference not just locally, but also regionally. It would provide a means for all players to feel ownership in their faction and in their contribution to the war. A player can play as a member of a team or independently, yet still operating in the overall greater interest of the faction..."get in where you fit in". Mercs welcomed!

[Stickjock]

Great ideas... but since we don't know HOW they're going to implement the Community Warfare, we'll just have to wait and see what they give us...

[CocoaJin]

Yeah, but some how I cant help but feel its going to be staged "play dates". Problems with play dates is that they have no imgaination and become exclusive to the player population...not inclusive.

Persistent worlds provide a multitude of tactical and strategic methods, multiple engagements or "fronts" on the same map. The strategic aspects provides more roles and taskings to include many more play styles and types. There is no alpha-build for a unit or a team if you dont know what or even where the next engagement.


If I saw this type of game model, I'd cry a little each time I logged in.

[Rex Starborne]

What StickJock said.

[Adridos]

Everything comes at a price... and the one for a big persistent world is far too big for someone like PGI and IGP.

[CocoaJin]

One concern I have is that the current play date "battle in a bottle" removes/restricts warfare strategies for holding territory. The current skirmishes will basically make it big fish eat little fish because each fight requires the two forces to square up and bang it out head on.

A more open universe, one that is more sandbox, would allow for smaller forces to use lightening strikes or probing attacks to harass larger forces. There would not be the necessity to have Civil War like square offs, instead, even large clans can have their territories harassed by the likes of small guerilla style clans. ideally, large groups will have to decide which territories are worth the effort and resources to hold considering the need to stretch thier member numbers across all territories they hold. Small clans could at least make short term land grabs, soak up as much resources/points as possible while they own it and then abandon the territory once the heat gets to hot from the opposing larger clan or even another clan attempting to take/re-take the territory.

[Xeen]

We need this.

[CocoaJin]

With this type of world(s), even when player numbers are low during off-peak hours, there will still be stuff to do. The fear that there maybe an enemy threat out there that you have yet to detect. The possibilty that complacency will lull one into a false sense of security. Even when your part of a mega-clan, you can still find yourself vulnerable, light on friendly forces and open to guerilla attacks by even the mist under-dog clan or group of un-affliated maruaders.

[Fate Aki]

If it were possible to have the persistent worlds, I'd really enjoy that. Were there are issues with implementing it and operating within the Mechwarrior Universe, it does lend itself to realism and increases the depth of the over all experience. Those not wanting more than a few rounds of PVP FPS style matches could contract out with some merc squads and not care who they fought for today, or tomorrow. The rest of the community might want more than this. Making a difference in the virtual worlds adds purpose to why you're here, beyond for simple entertainment that is.

[Super Monkey Ninja]

This is NEEDED!!

[Xeen]

Yeah, if they did this for mechwarrior... Id quit Eve immediatly and would guarantee a premium account active.

[Morashtak]

As soon as I win the next Mega Lotto worth $100million I'll be knocking on PGIs door and dropping off some cash so that they can hire... let's see they currently have 50 employees that in several months have gotten us to where we are now, so... make it 450 more employees with a budget of $75mill so that we can everything everyone wants.

Let's face it, folks. It takes man-hours and money to make this all happen. 50 people is not enough to give us everything we want in in the next couple of years. While it would cool to dream there is going to be very few ideas implemented in the next couple of years unless a white knight shows up on their door.

Have some patience and let's see where this leads us into 2013 with launch, Community Warfare, and the Clan invasion. 2014 will be the earliest we'd be looking at for any major additions.

I'm not knocking any idea. I'm just trying to keep things in perspective.

Fifty. Employees.

Fifty.

[CocoaJin]

Morashtak, on 06 August 2012 - 10:03 AM, said:

As soon as I win the next Mega Lotto worth $100million I'll be knocking on PGIs door and dropping off some cash so that they can hire... let's see they currently have 50 employees that in several months have gotten us to where we are now, so... make it 450 more employees with a budget of $75mill so that we can everything everyone wants.

Let's face it, folks. It takes man-hours and money to make this all happen. 50 people is not enough to give us everything we want in in the next couple of years. While it would cool to dream there is going to be very few ideas implemented in the next couple of years unless a white knight shows up on their door.

Have some patience and let's see where this leads us into 2013 with launch, Community Warfare, and the Clan invasion. 2014 will be the earliest we'd be looking at for any major additions.

I'm not knocking any idea. I'm just trying to keep things in perspective.

Fifty. Employees.

Fifty.

Bah, take the mechs they already have to build, develop a territory capture system(its not re-inventing the wheel...its been done), create AI with simple pathing as convoys and patrols, incorporaste basic AI behavior to attack or defend, take the current maps and expand them out to be much larger, create spawn mechanics with a "baked" drop ship animation...rinse and repeat over and over until eternity to make more and more planets to fight over.

50 people are more than enough to pull it off, they just needed to have thought to take this approach from the beginning.

With a 10 people, we could likely build this concept out using an ARMA mod. Its not like they are building the game from the ground up, they have a game engine already in place...the biggest issue would be wither this engine is flexible enough and could support the persistent world concept.

Trust me, 50 is a large dev team, they arent being asked to crank EVE or WoW sized updates every 6 months.

Edited by CocoaJin, 06 August 2012 - 02:51 PM.

[Edgaro Gilardeno]

this is the best idea ive seen.
but it would require a purpose built server hosting pc, (or several)
to cope the the scale of the world.
if this was implemented, i would spend the money and quit all my other games.

[CocoaJin]

Edgaro Gilardeno, on 06 August 2012 - 03:10 PM, said:

this is the best idea ive seen.
but it would require a purpose built server hosting pc, (or several)
to cope the the scale of the world.
if this was implemented, i would spend the money and quit all my other games.

You and a bunch others, the BattleTech/MechWarrior fan base, die hard and casual would flock here and set-up virtual nests. The servers and resources for such a game isnt anything new and have supported by smaller dev groups. Each planet would be an instance, you could easily go with an ARMA sized map per planet. Each instance could handle likely 100, 200 or more players per planet/map, with current limitations on players within viewable range, so what is that, 24 to 64 players within view of each other at any given time?

AI units wouldnt have to be especially challenging or complex. Combatant AI and defense just attack on site, non-combatant AI would just follow their pre-set paths and maybe scatter when under attack, only to re-join again on a cool down timer after hostilities cease.

The maps, though bigger, would actually be easier to conceptualize since you dont have to try and build a "fair", but diverse arena. Instead, you get to create attarctive and natural landscapes, with some detail to strategic elements near high value targets.

Not just each map, but each engagement will different. You'll never know the where, the when and who will be engaging in the next fight...unless you intel. Scouts will actually be able to sneak around searching for targets, making especially good use of ECM suites, performing a role without being forced to have to exist within the tight, trapped confines of an areana trying to survive amoungst giants.

[Exilyth]

Deep down, we all dream about the impossible: a game that combines all aspects of warfare in the battletech universe at all scales but still is fun and easy to learn.

Morashtak, on 06 August 2012 - 10:03 AM, said:

As soon as I win the next Mega Lotto worth $100million I'll be knocking on PGIs door and dropping off some cash so that they can hire... let's see they currently have 50 employees that in several months have gotten us to where we are now, so... make it 450 more employees with a budget of $75mill so that we can everything everyone wants.

Unfortunably, throwing more people at a problem doesn't solve it faster.

[Seraphax]

Yeah this would be pretty awesome. I'd pay monthly for that if it made it possible.

[Lightfoot]

It's my understanding, though specifics are still fuzzy, that faction warfare for control of disputed planets will be part of MWO although the known territories of factions won't change. In otherwords, Davion won't be able to defeat Draconis Combine, but they might compete for planets.

Some of the MW4 player leagues were able to do this, so I am pretty certain MWO can.

Edited by Lightfoot, 06 August 2012 - 08:00 PM.

[CocoaJin]

If its not an open theater for warfare, we'll likely just see "big fish eat little fish" as the smaller player clans are forced to square off against stronger, better resourced juggernauts at a 1000 paces, at a pre-defined time and space...and even worse, crammed inside the confines of an areana still map.

History shows over and over again how the underdog is able to captilize against a stronger foe because the nature of war provides opportunities where they have the freedom to dictate when and where they engage the stronger foe. It is classic Art of War, it was used by the Germans in the Blitz even though they used inferior tanks, the Britsh Hurricanes in the Battle of Britian against the superior Luftwaffe, Hannibal against the Romans, the VietCong against the French and the US, the Spartan 300 (not the movie) against the Persians, etc, etc. These guys never had to just square off Civil War style against the stronger force, or be forced to have to stay engaged when the tides change against them.

Smaller forces need the flexibility to strike stronger enemies where they enemy is weak or not present. To do probing and mis-direction attacks.


Believe me when i say this can be done, because I played that game for 10yrs. it could be done for MechWarrior/BattleTech...and it wouldnt need more than 5o devs to pull off...i saw it done with a dev team of less than a dozen.

Edited by CocoaJin, 06 August 2012 - 08:55 PM.

[D3AD1TE]

Hmm a massive persisent world would be amazing, like Planetside 2 or EVE online. The problem is it would take a lot of work from the games current state to implement this.

But just looking at what the Day Z devs did... I'm thinking of it like this. Let's say it's still instanced, but the maps are absolutely gigantic(Arma sized). Have the battle be 5 sided. Rotate faction/house start spawns each battle. Could even include neutral backwoods planets than anyone can join. Player cap depending on mapsize or whats possible within cryengine 3.


EDIT: Fifty employees is pretty damn good. Just look at what unknown worlds was able to do with 8... they even built their own engine. MWO runs off Cryengine 3... This **** is possible(Massive maps, maybe not persistent)

Edited by D3AD1TE, 06 August 2012 - 09:17 PM.