207 replies to this topic

[AmnesiaLab]

RG Notch, on 20 August 2012 - 01:39 PM, said:

It's simple how you stop a Risk style game, you don't have a risk style map. Wow that took a lot of thought.
So being marginalized by being a dunsul in a huge clan is acceptable? I guess people have different definitions of what being marginalized is. Me I feel being either part of a smaller clan that has to play in the lil clan area is being marginalized. To me being one of thousands in a huge clan where I don't actually get to do anything unless the top tier guys aren't available is being marginalized. And if I feel marginalized I will stop playing as well. It's not only the huge clans and the casuals you seem so falsely concerned with who will stop playing and paying.

I have no idea what a dunsul is. What you seem to being saying, repeatedly, is that there should be no place for the casual gamer, and that you don't care what happens to this (very large) player demographic. Allowing large guilds doesn't force you to choose a smaller one. And who says you won't be able to do anything in a large guild? If a large guild can only make use of their top X number of players, there will be no large guilds regardless of what the guild size cap is because forming a large guild would waste your entire player base. Any major organization would then form as many guilds as needed to fit all of their active player base and allow them maximum advantage.

And please, keep telling me what I'm "falsely" concerned with. You clearly know the inside of my head better than I do. I'm a casual player who wants to be involved in CW. Naturally, I'm concerned with the structure of CW and how it relates to casual players. I would be a hardcore player if I had the time, but I don't. Regardless, games that cater to hardcore players have small, fanatical player bases. Games that cater to casual players have sprawling, inclusive player bases, and the hardcore types still always manage to carve out their niche.

[Kyrie]

I'll wade into the deep waters here again to clarify my own misgivings with this general proposal. My objection to the general system starts with the premise that the planetary capture model should be based on direct, head to head, match-ups of merc corp vs. merc corp (as its done in World of Tanks).

Instead, I want a planetary capture system based on the long-dead MPBT: 3025 game (see here.) In a nutshell, the system is based on strategically deploying units across the interplanetary map, and then moving across a particular planetary map to conquer or defend it. Captures would be resolved in real-time. Capture points would be generated by winning matches, instead of through a tournament to "fight the owner" system. While the 3025 thread doesn't account for mercs, we can easily adapt it depending on how exactly PGI envisions the battle space zones working.

According to what is announced in the dev blog, mercs and factions will operate in separate zones. I dislike this idea intensely, as to me it suggests the possibility of treating factions as less important and less interesting than mercs. According to a post by Bryan back in May located here it summarized the dilemma for me quite succinctly, and depressingly: faction player participation as being "passive", and mercs being "active". Which brought me to realize that the choice of url for the website may indeed be prophetic. mwomercs.com.

If factions and mercs are to operate in different zones, without influencing each other, then I would not be surprised at all if for a very long time the interesting meta-game will be had by mercs, with factions relegated to potential oblivion; making factions an intermediate zone for casual player participation one step up from lone wolves but a far cry from being in a merc corp.

Which sort of forces me to throw in a few ideas in this thread. My hope is that there will be a unified battle space between factions and mercs. This will allow for a relevant real-time capture system. Instead of mercs "owning" a planet, Houses own planets; but mercs get a revenue bonus based on their participation in the capture or defense of a planet. Faction players will assist in defending Merc HQs, mercs will assist with defenses and captures of planets across the House they are aligned with.

Under a unified system we can obviate the need for direct merc vs merc match-ups, instead we can have a system that operates in real time based on the people logged in. Smaller merc corps need not fear being irrelevant or being crushed; they are part of a larger effort. No one "has" to be online at a given moment. Wining a match earns capture points; your unit's contribution earns revenue for as long as the House you are aligned with controls the planet.

[Bait and Swatch]

Gwaihir, on 20 August 2012 - 01:55 PM, said:

I would actually guess that the developers envision house warfare as more of a domain for true casual players and lone wolves, where you can just align with a house, and hit "launch," either solo or with a small group of buddies to be thrown in to random missions that will provide a global buff or bonus to house X in some minor way. You don't have to worry about the outside infrastructure of a merc company, or focusing on certain contracts or plantary objectives, you should just be able to hop in and go shoot stuff. The houses with their much larger populations just seem like the better environment to support that type of not necessarily focused play, although we know that houses will be in the business of taking planets as well.

With a setup like that, I would think that more hardcore types would naturally be drawn to potentially more regimented merc companies, but that's just speculation at this point. Neither does that get around the need for healthy company sizes to mitigate issues like attendance and burnout.

I am also hoping/expecting to see this method of play instituted for houses. While I'm in a merc unit, allowing others to simply join a metagame battle through something akin to an "instant action" queue would be quite a selling point for the game. It allows casual gamers to still have a noticeable impact on the game world. They may not be as coordinated as pre-made groups, but if PGI is able to integrate an in-game VoIP system, it could make for an amazing metagame.

As for those freaking out over unit size, stay calm. There is going to be large units in this game. I know this because they are in every game. It is on PGI to make both large and small units have a place. That being said, small units will by their very nature have a smaller role. It may not be entirely fair, but it echoes reality. IE: Don't expect Latvian soldiers to be marching through the streets of Moscow any time soon.

[Xyberviri]

Right now this is just a mechwarrior MOBA...

With out any type of land control or resources or anything im not going to be paying to be a premium subscriber or buy anything because this is going to be a some of the time game. I am not going to think about MWO at work or when i dream, if the servers are down to another game im going to play this game, im going to play this like 2-3 matches to get my mw fix and then be off playing something else.

if the devs want a cash cow that gives clans reason to want to play this game day and night then they need to add other carrots, Im not going to pay for skins on my mech because some one else designed them, if they had put in the ability to design skins like in APB i would pay a premium for the ability to customize my clan, if i can make a clan/corps whatever.

Granted there are some people that will play this game day and night simply because they love battletech so much, it could be the worst game in the world and they would still play it simply because of the ip, im just saying that if the devs want it to be something more then they are going to have to add allot of MM features to the MWO, just dont call it MMOMWO, but hell open world would be kick ***.

guess thats mwo2

Edited by Xyberviri, 20 August 2012 - 02:57 PM.

[StormFist]

Kyrie, on 20 August 2012 - 02:14 PM, said:

<Discussion>

This is an interesting counter-point, but I don't think a difference between merc/faction warfare is necessarily a bad thing. If merc warfare winds up being more "interesting", there are still hordes of casual players who would want a pickup-and-play style of warfare and might not have the time or interest in playing community warfare. A factional warfare system could let them join any faction and still let them rank up and gain points.

There's also no reason that factional warfare can't use an interesting system like the MPBT one you linked too and co-exist with a merc warfare system, they'd just be more structured vs. unstructured styles of community warfare. Mercs could still influence factional warfare via contracts, and there might be ways for factional warfare to influence Merc warfare too.

PringlesPCant does have some suggestions to avoid smaller merc corps being irrelvant re: Lesson #2 Part #1

I do think it's important that the two systems are linked at least in some way or another and that one system isn't clearly more fun than the other, but people have different styles of play and different ways of having fun too.

[PringlesPCant]

It seems like the legitimate topic added to the conversation is it good or not for the game to have large groups?

The concern is that that large groups will have a bigger impact than smaller groups and edge them out of importance.

I would like to propose that everyone consider the ideal situation that each player should have about the same power to influence the game no matter the size of the group he is in. Small groups shouldn't have the same ability to affect the game as larger groups, or it isn't fair to all of the players in the large group. However an alliance of small groups should have the same options and power more or less as as a larger singular corp equal to them in size. I can't think of a fairer way to balance the influence of groups than by doing it in such a manner.

I would like to also rephrase some points brought up in this thread in a new way. My belief is that group caps impede community growth. This hurts everyone, but it hurts smaller groups trying to become big the most, rather than groups already grown. Consider that WOL is formed outside of the game, and that it's growth and social bonds are in large part occurring outside of the game so we would be hurt the least by any membership limits.

Consider a smaller group trying to grow to meet our size, they would do fine until they hit the membership limit and then they would be in a great deal of trouble for reasons I've already gone into extensively. Strong communities aid the game by giving the people in them social reasons to stay, and the more people staying the more money PGI gets and the more money they get the more programmers they can hire to make the game even better.

It was asked why as a large group we would act counter to our own interests and endorse an idea that would hurt us. There are two parts to this answer. First, we would rather be member of a healthy game than be kings of a deserted wasteland. Second, our goal isn't to completely dominate at the expense of everything else.

Our goal is to have fun in a video game.

[PringlesPCant]

miSs, on 20 August 2012 - 03:09 PM, said:

Thanks guys for going back on topic
All off-topic posts in this thread we be removed without advice.
Cheers.

Hopefully thanking the moderators for a job well done isn't off-topic.

[Nekki Basara]

PringlesPCant, on 20 August 2012 - 03:03 PM, said:

It was asked why as a large group we would act counter to our own interests and endorse an idea that would hurt us. There are two parts to this answer. First, we would rather be member of a healthy game than be kings of a deserted wasteland. Second, our goal isn't to completely dominate at the expense of everything else.

Our goal is to have fun in a video game.

To expand on this a bit, and to re-iterate things mentioned elsewhere on the internet...

MWO as a "free to play" game will attract the following three types of players: literal freeloaders, "market price" players and the hardcore spender. Individually, in reverse order:

1: The hardcore spender will always have premium enabled, have mech-cash to burn on every new mech, weapon, skin, decal, hula girl or any other option available to them. Many of them will have already bought the top-level founders pack and intend to spend a significant amount of money as they are given things to spend it on. These are going to be the big-earner clients for the game, but there won't be many of them.

2: The "market price" player will spend somewhere in the region of 60USD or whatever a "triple A" title costs in their area on the game in it's entire lifetime. This includes people who bought the mid- and low-level founders pack, and those who intend to just buy some MC here and there to grease the wheels as necessary down the line. These are going to be relatively common and they amount to a bankable income for PGI.

3: The freeloader will download the client, play the game, and spend exactly nothing on it. They may buy a new PC to play, or upgrade their internet connection or any other number of expenses related to the game but contributing exactly 0.00USD to PGI directly. This will be the vast majority of the game's userbase and this is absolutely fine. Why? Because these gamers are the content of the game. They are your constant stream of OpFor players who exist only for groups 1 and 2 to have a guarantee of people to play against at all times the servers are up.

Now, guess which type of player is most likely to logoff never to return if they feel like they can't contribute to the overall meta-game.






Trick question! It's all three. Nobody likes to feel useless, but an arguement can be made that this especially applies when the person is paying for the privilege. This means that a metagame situation where all players at all levels of skill and commitment can feel like they are contributing actively raises the commitment level of those players and forms a feedback loop where the existance of content generates more content.

ETA: ugh, typos.

Edited by Nekki Basara, 20 August 2012 - 03:32 PM.

[StormFist]

PringlesPCant, on 20 August 2012 - 03:03 PM, said:

<Stuff about corp caps>

I'll add a simplified example to this:

Lets say community X has 75 members, but the in-game corp member cap is 50 members. That means community X has to be split among two different in-game corps. It also means people are have to focus on their corp rather than on their community, each corp has to have its own set of leadership, and they either have to have one full-power corp with one half power corp or have two evenly split corps with less than full strength. There are probably more downsides, but I think we can safely say that community X would be hurt by the cap.

Community Y has 50 members, which works out perfectly for them initially. When more people want to join community Y, they either have to go into a split situation like community X or they have to remove less active players, which no one likes. Community Y would also not benefit from a cap past their initial stages, after which they'd be really hurt by the cap.

Community Z has 25 members. They're not as strong as a 50 member corp, but they're also not as bad off as if X had 75 members. However, if the game were set up so Z wasn't competing with X or Y for the same resources, it wouldn't matter how many members X or Y had in their corps. If Z could team up with Y against X, that'd work too.

The whole thing depends on different tiers of play for different sizes/skills of corps, but if there are there is no good reason for corps to have membership caps.

Edited by StormFist, 20 August 2012 - 03:54 PM.

[prima]

There will be a workaround to any member size cap, why even waste time implementing one?

[Kyrie]

My problem with separating merc and faction into completely isolated environments is that it creates, in my mind, a drastic impediment to the "immersion" factor of community warfare. By immersion, I mean the chance to participate in a common narrative; the opportunity to rewrite the history of the I.S. To create a history, to create a new shared story. The more you split the community, the harder this is to achieve.

In this, I will gladly abandon the canon. As someone commented in my rapidly-growing thread located here, what I want is mwosuccessionwars.com; not mwomercs.com :-) That it is, in my mind, not important at all to follow the canonical history of how battles in the I.S. were played out; I want to play out and write a completely new history.

The advantage of a unified space of combat, a single zone if you will, is that to an extent we can all role-play together. It will force greater efforts of dipomacy, convincing mercs to work with Houses for instance. When everyone is contributing on the same map, in the same space, the story gets that much more interesting to me. When mercs are off doing their own thing completely cut-off from the faction, the game makes less sense to me even if I am not a merc.

It is when considering all of this that I come to the conclusion that separating mercs and faction players is not to my liking. In this spirit I want a common battleground for all; and a system of planetary capture that is not based on tournaments (WoT-Clanwars style).

Edited by Kyrie, 20 August 2012 - 05:22 PM.

[WardenWolf]

I don't think we should be changing history myself - I think that throwing away what so many of us have read about is a waste, and will turn off many people. It is the reason that I, as a big Star Trek fan, can appreciate the look of the new movies... but hate that they are rewritting history and throwing away all of the beloved characters I know about from the 'future' of the franchise.

Further, I don't think that the separation between house and mercenary groups is as bad as you seem to suspect. At least if it goes the way I hope / envision, merc companies (and lone wolves) will be able to fight for Inner Sphere houses - either on one-off battles, as available, or under contracts for a period of time. That will allow mixed combat with both house and merc units. However, merc companies would not be able to try and take planets from a major house on their own: that would have been suicide in BT lore, as few merc companies would have had the manpower needed to wrestle a planet from a house military... and those which could, will not be playable companies (Wolf's Dragoons, for example). They should be fighting over periphery planets, which none of the houses have a stake in, and there the house players would not be involved (because why should they be?).

By the way, this also provides both the WoT style stuff, for merc companies who want that, as well as a warfare system that anyone and everyone gets to influence. The best of both worlds, so that hopefully as many players as possible get to play the game 'their way'

[Anders]

WardenWolf, on 21 August 2012 - 08:59 AM, said:

I don't think we should be changing history myself - I think that throwing away what so many of us have read about is a waste, and will turn off many people. It is the reason that I, as a big Star Trek fan, can appreciate the look of the new movies... but hate that they are rewritting history and throwing away all of the beloved characters I know about from the 'future' of the franchise.

Further, I don't think that the separation between house and mercenary groups is as bad as you seem to suspect. At least if it goes the way I hope / envision, merc companies (and lone wolves) will be able to fight for Inner Sphere houses - either on one-off battles, as available, or under contracts for a period of time. That will allow mixed combat with both house and merc units. However, merc companies would not be able to try and take planets from a major house on their own: that would have been suicide in BT lore, as few merc companies would have had the manpower needed to wrestle a planet from a house military... and those which could, will not be playable companies (Wolf's Dragoons, for example). They should be fighting over periphery planets, which none of the houses have a stake in, and there the house players would not be involved (because why should they be?).

By the way, this also provides both the WoT style stuff, for merc companies who want that, as well as a warfare system that anyone and everyone gets to influence. The best of both worlds, so that hopefully as many players as possible get to play the game 'their way'

Mr. W^2:

I would suggest to you that the potential for this game to deviate from the canon gives players (who care about this sort of thing) a huge incentive to play. Like Legend of the Five Rings CCG, if you have the ability to influence the storyline, that is a powerful hook to engage players.

To the Liao, everyone who wanted to boot the boots to Davion and actually win, you can attempt to do so. Davion, you can wipe the scheming CapCon off the face of the map. Etc. It would be very engaging.

Robotically Yours,
Anders
Public Relations Officer, Director of Man/Bird Relations
Bropocalypse Now Battalion - "The Fist of Lowtax"

[Max Rebar]

Can it be all things to all people?? Maybe, maybe not - I could envision a 'fringe worlds' type campaign where you run around, blow stuff up and have a big old time! (that would certainly be entertaining enough for the casual gamer - PROBABLY). Maybe even make that as a sort of novice area and once you graduate (I'm thinking along the lines of Rift here) then you get into the better areas..areas where you need to have a higher skill level. The casual player still gets his but NOW the Community aspect really begins to shine. Consider having new pilots getting to prove their stuff and maybe even some kind of opportunity based system to join a house or company... House = big fancy schmancy campaigns - possibly even scripted out by the MWO cadre (I.E. a war between Kurita-Steiner while Rassalhague dukes it out with Kurita on the side, etc etc). Different house units participate in the fight and then the outcome of several conflict yields results based on actual gameplay! The mercenary companies COULD participate in the fights by opting (or not) to fight for different sides yielding a lance of Davion pilots trading punches with a mercenary company with results to both merc strongholds and house results according to some prescripted scenarios that are determined as always but the results on the battlefield.. it could work I suspect..

Max

[George Ledoux]

RG Notch, on 20 August 2012 - 01:39 PM, said:

So being marginalized by being a dunsul in a huge clan is acceptable?

Nekki Basara, on 20 August 2012 - 01:40 PM, said:

I don't know what a "dunsul" is and neither does google, please explain.

AmnesiaLab, on 20 August 2012 - 02:11 PM, said:

I have no idea what a dunsul is.

I got this...

In an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, Spock explains the term (Capt. Dunsel) is used by midshipmen at Starfleet Academy to describe a part serving no useful purpose.

You're welcome.

Back to the topic.

[Nekki Basara]

Well thank you, I feel less nerdy now.

Also the point makes sense, which is good. It's still wrong for all the reasons mentioned above, but it makes sense as a hyperbolic concern.

[Kyrie]

WardenWolf, on 21 August 2012 - 08:59 AM, said:

I don't think we should be changing history myself - I think that throwing away what so many of us have read about is a waste, and will turn off many people. It is the reason that I, as a big Star Trek fan, can appreciate the look of the new movies... but hate that they are rewritting history and throwing away all of the beloved characters I know about from the 'future' of the franchise.

Further, I don't think that the separation between house and mercenary groups is as bad as you seem to suspect. At least if it goes the way I hope / envision, merc companies (and lone wolves) will be able to fight for Inner Sphere houses - either on one-off battles, as available, or under contracts for a period of time. That will allow mixed combat with both house and merc units. However, merc companies would not be able to try and take planets from a major house on their own: that would have been suicide in BT lore, as few merc companies would have had the manpower needed to wrestle a planet from a house military... and those which could, will not be playable companies (Wolf's Dragoons, for example). They should be fighting over periphery planets, which none of the houses have a stake in, and there the house players would not be involved (because why should they be?).

By the way, this also provides both the WoT style stuff, for merc companies who want that, as well as a warfare system that anyone and everyone gets to influence. The best of both worlds, so that hopefully as many players as possible get to play the game 'their way'

If we cannot change the history and make our own in terms of faction wars, diplomacy and so on, there is little incentive to play a faction IMHO. If we are following the battles religiously based on the canon, there is no possibility of interesting strategic game play at the House level. If we limit conflict at the House level to a tiny set of planets along the border along a one-dimensional line, there is little incentive in my mind to being part of the faction military.

According to what is announced in the devblog, the plan is to isolate mercs and faction members on completely different classes of planets. And reading between the lines from Bryan's post back in May stating that faction is "passive" and mercs are "active", this makes a lot of sense. Mercs will get some kind of meaningful conquest system where as faction players will probably not. One of the main arguments that has been put forth to focus on mercs with a separate game field is in fact to stay clear of problems with the canon; something I disagree with entirely as noted in my previous post.

[WardenWolf]

Kyrie, on 21 August 2012 - 01:29 PM, said:

If we cannot change the history and make our own in terms of faction wars, diplomacy and so on, there is little incentive to play a faction IMHO. If we are following the battles religiously based on the canon, there is no possibility of interesting strategic game play at the House level. If we limit conflict at the House level to a tiny set of planets along the border along a one-dimensional line, there is little incentive in my mind to being part of the faction military.

According to what is announced in the devblog, the plan is to isolate mercs and faction members on completely different classes of planets. And reading between the lines from Bryan's post back in May stating that faction is "passive" and mercs are "active", this makes a lot of sense. Mercs will get some kind of meaningful conquest system where as faction players will probably not. One of the main arguments that has been put forth to focus on mercs with a separate game field is in fact to stay clear of problems with the canon; something I disagree with entirely as noted in my previous post.

I think that even if only a few dozen planets along the borders between major houses are 'up for grabs' in faction play we can still have a lot of incentive and meaningful efforts by house players. For example:

1) Who doesn't like seeing their faction 'winning', or regaining previously lost ground? Or having a chance to go and take back a planet they you fought on and lost previously? No matter how inconsequential the planets may be in lore (and they would need to be, in order to be capturable, in my opinion) they can still be a point of pride for faction players.

2) There can be various boosts provided to the house that controls each planet. These need to be meaningful, but not game-breaking. Things like discounts to certain weapon costs, ammo reload costs, repair costs, etc - or boosts to XP, etc.

Just because players couldn't affect major canon / lore doesn't mean they won't still want to have their faction be the biggest, strongest, etc. There can even be rankings displayed about what faction has taken the most planets, or what the latest planet to change hands was, etc.

In a related vein, I would like to see many new mission / game modes introduced - and then used in progression during the battle to take a planet. For example, if House Davion was assaulting a Kuritan world:

- Early games in the campaign would largely focus on dropship landings, scouting, and some early attempts to capture advanced bases (by the Davions)
- If that went well, the map modes would switch to fighting over resource points and the Davions hunting down supply depots, convoys, etc.
- If things continue to go well, it would transition more to attack / defend missions with the Davions trying to capture major control points and bases, along with Davions trying to take out planetary leaders (escort missions).

If at some point the Davions started to lose heavily, things would slide back and the Kuritans would have missions to destroy or capture Davion footholds, and eventually to taking our Davion dropships as the Davions would be trying to retreat or escape.

With things like that in place, even a single campaign to take a given planet would have a neat incentive system built-in, encouraging players to fight for their factions (or whoever will pay them the most C-bills!). There could be in-game ISN updates as the progress in capturing a world proceeds, and maybe even mention there of players who make monumental contributions during the campaign. These things will all provide great non-tangible rewards and incentives

[Kyrie]

WardenWolf, on 21 August 2012 - 02:12 PM, said:

I think that even if only a few dozen planets along the borders between major houses are 'up for grabs' in faction play we can still have a lot of incentive and meaningful efforts by house players. For example:

1) Who doesn't like seeing their faction 'winning', or regaining previously lost ground? Or having a chance to go and take back a planet they you fought on and lost previously? No matter how inconsequential the planets may be in lore (and they would need to be, in order to be capturable, in my opinion) they can still be a point of pride for faction players.

2) There can be various boosts provided to the house that controls each planet. These need to be meaningful, but not game-breaking. Things like discounts to certain weapon costs, ammo reload costs, repair costs, etc - or boosts to XP, etc.

Just because players couldn't affect major canon / lore doesn't mean they won't still want to have their faction be the biggest, strongest, etc. There can even be rankings displayed about what faction has taken the most planets, or what the latest planet to change hands was, etc.

In a related vein, I would like to see many new mission / game modes introduced - and then used in progression during the battle to take a planet. For example, if House Davion was assaulting a Kuritan world:

- Early games in the campaign would largely focus on dropship landings, scouting, and some early attempts to capture advanced bases (by the Davions)
- If that went well, the map modes would switch to fighting over resource points and the Davions hunting down supply depots, convoys, etc.
- If things continue to go well, it would transition more to attack / defend missions with the Davions trying to capture major control points and bases, along with Davions trying to take out planetary leaders (escort missions).

If at some point the Davions started to lose heavily, things would slide back and the Kuritans would have missions to destroy or capture Davion footholds, and eventually to taking our Davion dropships as the Davions would be trying to retreat or escape.

With things like that in place, even a single campaign to take a given planet would have a neat incentive system built-in, encouraging players to fight for their factions (or whoever will pay them the most C-bills!). There could be in-game ISN updates as the progress in capturing a world proceeds, and maybe even mention there of players who make monumental contributions during the campaign. These things will all provide great non-tangible rewards and incentives

I agree in principle that this can be done. However, my preference would be to have open warfare not just along a narrow border, but allowing for in-depth conflict. If we are limited to say only a depth of about 2-3 planets, the possibilities for strategy on the interplanetary-map level are quite limited. If we allow for a depth of at least 7+ planets, then things get more interesting. Issues regarding supply-lines become a serious concern -- getting cut-off in a deep-strike campaign becomes more of an issue.

Rewards and incentives aside, my concern is for having a system that is strategically challenging with multiple levels: planetary combat system and interplanetary supply lines for example.

[Supremacist]

Kyrie, on 21 August 2012 - 02:44 PM, said:

I agree in principle that this can be done. However, my preference would be to have open warfare not just along a narrow border, but allowing for in-depth conflict. If we are limited to say only a depth of about 2-3 planets, the possibilities for strategy on the interplanetary-map level are quite limited. If we allow for a depth of at least 7+ planets, then things get more interesting. Issues regarding supply-lines become a serious concern -- getting cut-off in a deep-strike campaign becomes more of an issue.

Rewards and incentives aside, my concern is for having a system that is strategically challenging with multiple levels: planetary combat system and interplanetary supply lines for example.

Agreed, that is far too few a number of planets for thousands of players to fight over.

With just a dozen planets to fight over on the borders of each house, and thousands of players involved, it nullifies the effect of small units entirely.

Even units such as mine would have a small but slightly significant part to play in the capture or defense of a few planets and we number over 200 easily. This is not a plan that is going to work to keep small and medium size units interest in the game, it will not make them feel a part of the universe, it will not make them invest time and money in a game where their contributions are not felt to any significant degree.

You can use WOT ideas as pringlescat has laid out so that even small and medium sized clans will have a place to call their own, while at the same time giving them an ability to defend it; and if they want or can, to attack other lands/planets.

Finally, Im hoping PGI sticks to an earlier mention they made regarding certain high ranking members of factions having some say on what planets are to be attacked by the entire faction, this will set it apart from WOT where each clan only cares about its own land.

By having certain people from each house have an ability to "call the shots", similar to a commander in a theatre of war, it gives people in that theatre an overall goal they would want to work towards, it gives them something to work for in addition to their own goals and gives them a purpose that either complements their own units desires or replaces them.

Now the person who is able to get this ability should have to earn it, just as the post suggested, the person would have to be of sufficiently high rank in the house, earned through playing the game. We havent heard much of this in months, and I hope it wont be months before we hear more.

Edited by Supremacist, 21 August 2012 - 10:59 PM.