3 replies to this topic

[Dr Duke]

i was gonna post this as response to a comment on the new devblog but then i figured i would just start a new topic in general discussion so more people could see it, but then i saw there was already a pretty hot commander related thread going and that this didnt necesarily belong in it, so I am here to tell you all to go download a game called Allegiance.



it was this game released for free in 2000 i think designed to accomodate up to 100 players, totally free to play, totally innovative as a sim. its a space combat sim where each team has a commander who plays a more rts like game and commands his team to do everything he needs while the 10 or 20 or 50 pilots on his team play a space-combat sim. So on neach team you nneed scouts flying around dropping probes(maps are HUGE) you need mining ships to collect resources, fighters and interceptors to protect ones own installations and miners/destroy the other teams. And every role is important and fun. The best team in the world will always lose without any scouts, and if the fighters on on team are just way better pilots than the fighters on the other, that too will make/break the game for you right there. Each role is valuable and necesary, despite being reliant on the commander. It is a truly awesome game, and i think anyone with doubts about reliance on a command role should try it out before they worry aboiut how the mechanic can break a game that we havent even played yet.

In allegiance the commander plays an entirely different game than the rest of the players, he has complete control of what ships are available to his team, what tech tree and research trees the team will follow, and while any player could just fly around ignoring orders, thats not how you win the game, and it just isnt fun. The point of the game is not to get kills and blow stuf up, it is to act as a unit and implement a grand strategy over the course of the game on every level from scouting to resource collection to map control to combat that takes up to 50 players acting cohesively to execute and players who are incapable of devising such a plan and leading their teams to victory are rarely chosen as commanders over players who can. Is MWO gonna be like this? I really dont think so. I doubt commanders in MWO will have even close to this amount of control over their teams from what weve read so far, but i definitely look forward to whatever mechanics are being implemented to reward teams for acting realistically as a military unit, such as following orders, protecting each other, protecting mission objectives, cooperating or flanking or focusing fire or whatever, rather than encouraging solo players who wanna chase and score kills and dont care if they die because they will just quit and join a new game, because for me, in the end, the incentive for players to act as a unit just makes the game more fun.

So in summary, ya a bad commander in Allegiance totally handicaps your whole team, sure, but without the role the advanced gameplay and mechanics involving huge numbers of players performing a very wide variety of activities and roles would not be possible, and it would just be like any other space combat sim. I hope that is what they are gonna go for in MWO because it makes for a more in depth strategic gameplay experience. One could make a great game where team members are free to act autonomously, or one could make a great game where cooperation and coordination on a large scale is the whole entire point. It is not bad game design, it just may not be your style, some of us love it, and i encourage you to try out allegiance before you decide you dont.

[Mason Grimm]

Move to OFF TOPIC.

This is not MWO-centric.

[Ghost]

Man you really know how to tug at my heartstrings. I loved playing Allegiance! (I was even around for the beta!)

[DFDelta]

Oh my gosh. Allegiance was the best game I have ever played.
It was perfect in everything.
Scouting was a perfectly fine and valuable role (something rarely seen), fighter crafts were the jack-of-all-trades and still the most common units (not like 90% of all other games where jack-of-all-trades = sucks), the command structure worked perfectly fine, the research trees were balanced and you could win with everything if you and your team do it right.

The balancing and game mechanics were perfect and far better then anything I've ever played since then.


I need turret gunners. NOW!