90 replies to this topic

[Rhyshaelkan]

Interesting is the Role Play aspect. Whether you want to role play or not. You are role playing, by playing MWO. We do not have stompy robots yet in the real world. Few if any of us are part of real military or paramilitary units that can effect the world. In MWO we can and do.

Whether you trash talk your opponent. Respectfully coexist. Or other interaction. That is your role.

In MWO Community Warfare, through mechanisims the Devs have put into place, players will effect the game at large.

[Kai Lae]

Trooper60709, on 23 September 2012 - 03:10 PM, said:

You also forget to add some way of joining or ranking up. I don't want some nooby founder already a commander and us grunts staying poor, underpayed grunts who get pushed around. We need a fair system of getting leaders who have good tactics. Also, if you want this system, you need to have a planetary map, a sector map, and different maps for the same planet to have any real tactical command. Also, pirahna games need to make a salery system. some people get in slums and don't have the cash to upgrade and repair their mechs.

Cash, depending on implementation, may not be an issue. Going back to the way eve online works again, alliances in that game have resources that are used to achieve their aims. This is either material and/or isk (eve online c-bills). What this means is that the way things usually work, is that your typical alliance soldier buys a ship and outfits it. If it is taken into combat to further the goals of the alliance and lost the cost is then typically reimbursed to the pilot who lost the ship. The actual pilot therefore loses no money and only a slight amount of time that it takes to buy a new one and fit it. Reimbursement policies vary between alliances depending on their economic power - there are rich alliances that reimburse pretty much everything, and poor ones that have fairly restrictive policies.

This is what I mean by having things that matter in the strategic game. Instead of having something that generates c-bills as it were, you could instead have planets that produce mechs. Say X mechs of Y types per week. Lose a mech? House replaces it, depending on the policies of that house. Of course it's going to be fitted in whatever way the house is fitting their mechs at that production facility, but you did get it for nothing, didn't you? IMO this is one of the best ways to differentiate mercs from house units - mercs have fully owned boats that they fit in whatever fashion they want, where houses have mechs produced for them in fairly standard variants. It also allows houses to offer merc contracts - say X mechs per week employed of Y type, or Y resources. It would be a good idea IMO to not only have mechs work under this policy but anything related - say XL engine production plants, pulse laser factories, etc. And of course, if the enemy takes them away, they're now getting the output instead of you.

Bet that motivates you to defend what you have and/or take it away from them, doesn't it? It's a simple, effective, and very powerful concept. If it works like eve does you'll rapidly find that what occurs out of game can be more important than in game - spies gathering information, grand strategic planning, psi-ops to defeat enemy morale (find a goon in this game and ask them about the eye of god), thefts of strategic and tactical resources - if you can concieve of it someone will try it. While constantly wondering if new recruits are actually spais gets kinda old, overall this is a lot of fun and adds layers to the game that are hard to even predict.

It's good stuff, and I highly recommend it for MWO.

[Kyrie]

So I finally got around to listening to the NGNG podcast featuring an interview with Bryan Ekman. Very good stuff. First I'd like to thank NGNG for selecting my question on CW, and Bryan Ekman for answering :-).

Unfortunately for my House-related CW dreams, he has confirmed that Factions will be "passive" and mercs will be "active". This leads me to suspect that the development focus will definitely be merc-oriented for CW.

[Kyrie]

Bumping this thread to raise the visibility of CW, get people to review and comment in the post-closed beta environment.

[Vila deVere]

Morashtak, on 16 August 2012 - 06:58 PM, said:

Bryan Ekman did post; http://mwomercs.com/...555#entry227555

"It's under consideration yes. Our long term goal is to slowly introduction a way for players to run the NPC factions as well (hugely ambitious and highly risky)."

... so it's not too far-fetched to think that there will be at least some small way to influence a House's decisions once the player has fulfilled all the prerequisites. But I would hope that it is more influence than running the House. Or with much more diplomacy and realpolitiks involved.

For those that do not wish to play the political game they are free to continue jumping in the Mechs and smashing face.

The devs have to be careful here... we want the Houses to retain their appropriate flavor, and if PCs are in charge, there's a significant risk of shenanigans. I do hope we have a deep CW experience, though.

[Naelbis]

Kyrie, on 30 September 2012 - 02:24 PM, said:

So I finally got around to listening to the NGNG podcast featuring an interview with Bryan Ekman. Very good stuff. First I'd like to thank NGNG for selecting my question on CW, and Bryan Ekman for answering :-).

Unfortunately for my House-related CW dreams, he has confirmed that Factions will be "passive" and mercs will be "active". This leads me to suspect that the development focus will definitely be merc-oriented for CW.

Soooo we won't be able to fight for the house of our choice to expand our nation? Just a bunch of merc corps duking it out? I hope that was in error or I am going to be rather annoyed since the prospect of fighting for my House is a part of why I choose to play this game.

[MahKraah]

Kyrie, on 16 August 2012 - 07:05 PM, said:

Never really played EVE, but I have sort of followed the game over time. Not sure they have a structured chain of command system in place though?

belive me every possible command and organisational structure is used there, its a its a highly competive enviroment without any restrictions or framework about how a organisation organice it selfe so everything is tryed from mild guidlined anachy to military like commandstructure .
only due to the ease of movement(evey single unit has unlimited space traveling abilitys) it tend to have not so deep structure as all military might can easy assemble at any location, aka single battles over single objectives with more than 2000 players involved

[Sandpit]

The devs have stated that their will be planets that remain under their control that cannot be contested but this is simply so they can advance the timeline and have key actions in the Btech history play out according to lore. They have also stated that there will be planets open to the player community that we can fight over and contest as House factions or merc corps.

[MahKraah]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 20 August 2012 - 01:47 PM, said:

I can't see a player cap on merc Corps working - we have a number of groups with 50+ members, several with 100+ members. Many of these will be spread over different time zones but I'm sure that they could field multiple companies for a special push.
I would love to see the planetary "hex" idea used rather than a single battle as the devs have said.

the robinson rangers, a house davion unit consisting of 2 regiments devoted to the defense of the draconis march, already exists as a MWO player run unit and has already 350+ members!!!

i know that a equal or even bigger siced unit also exists for raselhague.

with timezones and activitypatterns both of them can field a full regiment at once for a set, preplaned and anounced battle.



this leads to fundamental balancing problems:
the FRR has a hugh and well organiced playerbase to project power. if, lets say steiner is missing such realy big and well run playerorganisations the actual balance of power would be dramaticly different to the balance of power described in the canon.
a purly player ran war could easily see the FRR steamroll the comonwealth while keeping the kuritas in there back at bay.
you cant force the players to form such units , witch is a hugh undertaking and alot of respect to those who already pulled that off in the already existing large player units around.
some players might decide to play the eridani light horse , a hugh and powerfull unit but they lack the ability or dedication to live up to it and they end in having only 2 active lances instead of a brigade of 400 mechs?
how do you orchestarte this in a way that results in a meaninfull war cenario and on top staying even remotly close to the canon.?

[MahKraah]

discussion stoped here?

[Kyrie]

MahKraah, on 23 November 2012 - 02:05 PM, said:

the robinson rangers, a house davion unit consisting of 2 regiments devoted to the defense of the draconis march, already exists as a MWO player run unit and has already 350+ members!!!

i know that a equal or even bigger siced unit also exists for raselhague.

with timezones and activitypatterns both of them can field a full regiment at once for a set, preplaned and anounced battle.



this leads to fundamental balancing problems:
the FRR has a hugh and well organiced playerbase to project power. if, lets say steiner is missing such realy big and well run playerorganisations the actual balance of power would be dramaticly different to the balance of power described in the canon.
a purly player ran war could easily see the FRR steamroll the comonwealth while keeping the kuritas in there back at bay.
you cant force the players to form such units , witch is a hugh undertaking and alot of respect to those who already pulled that off in the already existing large player units around.
some players might decide to play the eridani light horse , a hugh and powerfull unit but they lack the ability or dedication to live up to it and they end in having only 2 active lances instead of a brigade of 400 mechs?
how do you orchestarte this in a way that results in a meaninfull war cenario and on top staying even remotly close to the canon.?

I'm not totally clear on whether you are referring to house canonical units or player created merc corps. In the original design dev blog for CW, they hint at separating mercs and faction players into distinct classes of planets in the galactic map. So on the one hand, you would have merc corps fighting each other based on their allegiance at that particular moment while faction players would be fighting in a different zone.

So if the issue is size of a player run merc corp, there are several ways we can go about limiting it, possibly along the lines of diminishing returns / higher costs for larger corps.

EDIT: Player created units will not be able to use canon names, per PGI. The unit I am in, 1st Ghosts, will have to change its name due to this.

Edited by Kyrie, 26 November 2012 - 04:11 PM.