Dana Massey Asks Why Not?: The Elusive MMORTS
Like the Yetti and the Loch Ness Monster, a great MMORTS is hard to find. This week, Dana returns to look at an approach that might actually finally bring one into the mainstream.
Column By Dana Massey on September 10, 2009
;)
Dreamlords is one of the
few live MMORTS titles.
The MMORTS is the Sasquatch of the video game industry. It sounds like a great idea and many people would love to find one, but no matter how hard developers try, they’ve never been able to successfully pin it down.
That’s not to say it hasn’t been tried. There have been some noble attempts (Dreamlords), some false starts (Bellarium), and a few people still trying (Mytheon), but so far, no one has had even a modicum of the success of a more traditional MMORPG or even a single player RTS.
So what’s the problem? The RTS genre is as close to a sport as video games get. One need look no further than the two dedicated Starcraft channels in South Korea to get an idea of their global popularity. Starcraft is enjoyed near on religiously to this very day and dozens of other franchises, such as Age of Empires, have made this one of the most bankable PC gaming genres left. Despite all this, no one has been able to captivate the PC-centric MMO audience.
advertisement
It's definitely a very attractive market. PC games are notoriously easy to pirate, while MMOs are virtually impossible to steal. If RTS developers can make their games into MMOs, they not only secure new revenue steams, but also some defense against The Pirate Bay.
;)
Nice and orderly, just as I like it.
I like armies. I like the idea of my armies crushing enemies. And even though I’m horrible at them (I tended to play Age of Empires as a city builder, and would have pristine, symmetrical walls ready to be crushed by hordes of rapidly built enemies), I still would love to give it a whirl.
There are four main obstacles that stand in the way of the MMORTS genre:
The first problem is in the mindset of an RTS player. The whole genre is far more like a board game than a video game. MMOs are meant to be long, enduring, near-on endless marathons. RTS games are short and the table is cleared once a winner is crowned. The biggest hurdle for an MMORTS designer is translating a relatively short game into a long one.
The second issue an MMORTS faces is the spoiled nature of the MMORPG audience. You cannot “lose” in most MMOs. Sure you can die, sometimes you even get an XP penalty, but largely these games encourage everyone to win. That’s not necessarily wrong. RPGs wouldn’t be much fun if people couldn’t get to the end. Nonetheless, it’s a different mindset. The bulk of the MMO audience is not used to losing, while RTS games are far more competitive by design.
;)
Starcraft remains king.
The third is the simple fact that an RTS is “real-time.” The core conceit of the genre is that people build permanent structures and either defend them or destroy their enemies. Logging off mid-game ruins that, and being online 24/7 just isn’t practical.
The fourth, and perhaps largest issue, is how to make an online game offer enough added value to justify microtransactions or a monthly fee. Why would someone shell out $14 a month when Starcraft is free?
The solution to all of these problems lies in the first three letters of the acronym. To successfully make an MMORTS, designers must resist the urge to just make it a regular RTS with some persistent elements and call it an MMO. They need to truly make it massive and truly persistent.
And ironically, the key to a truly massive RTS is in my opinion to dial in the focus a bit. Stop letting people build cities and empires, and focus on the very core of what makes RTS players tick: fast-paced, isometric, strategic, group-based combat.
It is necessary to maintain the game’s suspension of disbelief. Sure, you cannot have a Kingdom disappear because Tom wanted to go get a beer, but you can have a roving band of warriors log out. It’s the first step to getting people into it.
My ideal MMORTS, and honestly, I believe the only kind that really can be truly online and justify its fees, would cast each character as the leader of a small war band (think Robin Hood, not Caesar). You’d play that one character for the more RPG like functions, such as going into cities, buying supplies, weapons, etc., but each person would have their own camp. That, likely instanced, would house their militia. I am thinking more like 12 to 50 soldiers.
Within their area, players would be able to farm resources, build structures and even conduct smaller, pure RTS matches. On that hand, players would have access to more traditional RTS style gameplay on demand, but it would only be a small part of the overall game.
Players would need to recruit, maintain and feed their group through their conquests in the shared, MMO world.
;)
Gods & Heroes took some
baby steps in this direction
but that didn't work out.
These militias could easily be taken on quests, band together with others to form larger armies and take on other PC or NPCs in a variety of combat encounters.
One thing the RTS genre doesn’t do terribly well is cooperation. Usually, it’s every army for themselves. In an MMORTS that dialed in the focus a bit, grouping together and linking militias into larger armies could become a huge part of the game. Strategic decisions and the ability for a group to work together would dictate success or failure on the field of battle.
This kind of system would also open up a good, solid way to let people try multiple styles of play in one game. I’d envision the camps as places where all a person’s soldiers lived, but they only take certain ones out into the world. Thus, in larger instanced, traditional fights they have all sorts of options. In the world, they could take a balanced group out for solo play, or specialize as part of larger armies. Imagine a huge RTS battle where one player controlled the archers, another the foot soldiers, and a third the cavalry. It would be intense.
This is just a vague sketch of an idea, to be honest, but with the amount of money made off the RTS genre and the developer need to insulate their sales against piracy through MMOs, it only makes sense for more and more companies to give it a try. The above, I believe, would be the basis for a solid and fun game that provides RTS style mechanics in a package that adds enough value and persistence to justify the tag MMO.
More Dana Massey Asks Why Not? Features:
More Columns:
More Features:
Each Thursday, he asks the question "Why Not?" about some element of MMOs.
Maybe this is what I need, an MMORTS. I use to like MMORPG until WoW came along and made everything super casual and everybody a winner. Now every game is following suit.
In my opinion Mankind nailed it pretty well...
Mankind Wikipedia entry
I have been thinking about MMORTSs lately, and yes, I think a good one IS possible and would be fairly popular.
Good article.
I think its due to lack of interest. Its never really been a popular genre, when compared to others. I know I have never been that interested in them. I have even tried a few times to get in to MMORTS' and offline RTS', but it was never the type of game play I was looking for. Plus its called Real-Time Strategy, but its anything but Real-Time. Its almost as bad as Turn-based games.
Uh, wrong.
Just because you have'nt been interested in them doesnt mean no one else is. RTS is a very popular genre. I am curious what MMORTS you tried seeing as how there is very very very limited selection of them.
Gotta love these kids who think since they dont like something that it is some unerversial law that no one else will like them.
Just because you have'nt been interested in them doesnt mean no one else is. RTS is a very popular genre. I am curious what MMORTS you tried seeing as how there is very very very limited selection of them.
Gotta love these kids who think since they dont like something that it is some unerversial law that no one else will like them.
Online BattleForge, Dreamlords, and Saga, offline Age of Empires, Civilizations, and Star Wars: Empire at War.
I've been gaming since I was 5 years old, back in 1983. That's when I got my first console, the Atari 2600. I also did some gaming on the Commodore 64 home PC. So watch who your calling kid. I just happen to prefer FPS, TPS, RPGs among other types of games. Maybe I should have worded my statement differently, but I know other people who aren't in to RTS. Plus you don't see too many people bring them up on the forums either. It was just my two cents and now I'm done.
Here is the only way I can envision an MMORTS working: (It would not work anyway, we don't have technology to permit this)
How about 5,000 on 5,000 battle servers, where there is pretty much a constant war going on. Lore would be developed through actual gameplay such as losing or winning key battles. As factions keep losing, their advantages should increase so that it evens out. The battles could last for weeks, easily. When the battles are won or lost, there could also be cities that serve as lobbies for individual events, such as 1v1 and guild tournaments. Also, there should be some money dropped during the big battles so that you can buy upgrades. There could be multiple factions with a faction leader, and a council in each faction. Factions should be able to go to war with each other or make alliances and agreements. Factions would have a certain amount of window time in between each massive battle in order to schedule in-faction guild tournaments.
There could also be interfactional guild tournaments, where the best groups of players square off for the title of the #1 guild in the world. Honestly, this is a pretty sweet idea.
This is not an RTS forum, of course you don't see much of it. Only thing you see much of here that is not an MMOrpg is maybe an MMOFPS and that is still very limited. Go to a forum dedicated to RTS and youll see much more conversation.
Yes you should have worded your statement different. I can agree there are a group of people who do not like RTS, theres a lot of people who dont like FPS or RPG's. All the major genre's have a strong following and are very popular.
It's a separate community that tends to stay out of the limelight. There is actually a few splits in the genre though. There is the build and conquer detailed type RTS and the more action oriented RTS. No MMORTS I've seen so far is very action oriented and most of what you've played doesn't seem to be. More action oriented would be Warcraft 3, Command and Conquer, and Starcraft. It's not as popular as the MMORPG or FPS games but there are quite a few followers. I've always wanted a Dungeon Keeper MMO myself.
i think we have a few hints here and there. Look at Guild Wars, or Atlantica Online. You have your main gang, some NPCs you recruit and basicly have a RPG "party" per person. RTS would jsut expand on that. Maybe make it easier by bying "generals" who control npc foootsoloders and you only give direct orders to your generals
Ad instanced personal teritories and you can even have seiges (you cant seige the camp of you enemy when he is offline and thus the instance is off)
But i think the key is starting small, let me have my own Fellowship of the Ring and slow build up my Army of Rohan
I think Shattered Galaxy got it perfectly.
It's a shame that it isn't updated or supported anymore, it's just hosted.
Yup I used to play the crap out of Shattered Galaxy and had a blast, but finally got bored of it since they hadn't added anything new to it for years.
It was also ahead of it's time, it had the free world where you could only get up to a certain level and since level was tied to what units you could get you couldn't use all the units. So you subscribed to get to the other worlds where you could max out, run the politics etc. It also gave you a bonus for maxing out a character and rerolling him to give a reason for people to keep getting involved in the low levels.
If someone made a modern day Shattered Galaxy with 3D graphics and more options it would probably do very very well.
Supreme Commander was really fun. I'm not a huge fan of the genre but occaisionally I'll buy one to check them out. I loved warcraft but more from the easter eggs and lore type stuff like clicking on the same ship a bunch of times and hearing my goblins puke.
Online BattleForge, Dreamlords, and Saga, offline Age of Empires, Civilizations, and Star Wars: Empire at War.
I've been gaming since I was 5 years old, back in 1983. That's when I got my first console, the Atari 2600. I also did some gaming on the Commodore 64 home PC. So watch who your calling kid. I just happen to prefer FPS, TPS, RPGs among other types of games. Maybe I should have worded my statement differently, but I know other people who aren't in to RTS. Plus you don't see too many people bring them up on the forums either. It was just my two cents and now I'm done.
Hey, calm down, kid. He was just making a valid point, with a bit of snark added onto the end of it. Once again, you're assuming just because your group doesn't like something, it's not popular. I don't much care for Yugioh cards or 4.0 D&D, but I accept that they have damned fine followings....except that Yugioh is still shit. You don't hear about them on the forums here much, because this site is mmorpg.com, and while there is an off topic board, this isn't exactly the first place gamers would flock to discuss RTS games.
Yup I used to play the crap out of Shattered Galaxy and had a blast, but finally got bored of it since they hadn't added anything new to it for years.
It was also ahead of it's time, it had the free world where you could only get up to a certain level and since level was tied to what units you could get you couldn't use all the units. So you subscribed to get to the other worlds where you could max out, run the politics etc. It also gave you a bonus for maxing out a character and rerolling him to give a reason for people to keep getting involved in the low levels.
If someone made a modern day Shattered Galaxy with 3D graphics and more options it would probably do very very well.
I used to play the hell out of it, too. I played the free part anyway, was pretty broke during that time period. I gotta agree with the need for an updated SG...hell, even just a spiritual successor.
I remember when i bought my 1st pc just so i can play dune...
I played that on the Genesis. Painful to play now, but it was so much fun.
I dont know how this happens so often but folks love to talk up a MMORTS but NEVER seem to google 'mmorts'. You would immed find two key genre sites - one very active(mine) and one much less so (think he found life somewhere out there..). On both is a simple list with many examples (ok many by my book as a mmorts player for 10 years) of actual MMORTS. A lot of this discussion is RTS - a different beast not just by name but almost exclusively PvE with PvP purely multiplayer. A new blend has arrived with online RTS - but these are basically simulating battlenet but better. We also have TCG blends like Saga n Battleforge etc as well as the more rounded trad MMORTS games like mankind and beyond protocol. We have quite a few short term semi persistent MMORTS titles and those that are player defined narratives and fully persistent.
Every time i see a thread like this im screaming GOOGLE within 2 posts - and I usually give up after that. Cmon folks - most of the discussion about what makes a mmorts etc is reinventing the wheel - tried that and got griefed offline etc. We have some serious debates going on but they occur in thegame forums by folks who actually play the damn games - not starcraft experts etc.
Come to www.mmortsgamers.com and check us out :)
[quote]
The third is the simple fact that an RTS is “real-time.” The core conceit of the genre is that people build permanent structures and either defend them or destroy their enemies. Logging off mid-game ruins that, and being online 24/7 just isn’t practical.
[/quote]
There are a couple things you could do.
1) AI while offline.
Yeah, everyone knows that AI isn't as good as a player...or is it? its really easy to pump out statistics at the end of an RTS game. How many structures built/destroyed, how many units created/lost and what type, etc etc. EVERY RTS does this. SO. Heres what you do with AI. The AI tracks your stats and then plays your style while offline...except only in defense mode.
While offline, your structures will rebuild slowly (using up your resources - perhaps you could set a limit on many resources your AI could use before conceding the territory).
You DO NOT want AI building up huge armies while you're offline. That just sucks. Remember Sim City? All you had to do to cheat was build a tiny city and let it run over night. Unless you screwed up royally, you would have millions by morning. You don't want AI that is gathering resources or building giant armies. Maintain a reasonable defense of your structures while offline? Sure. Leave the castle to go defend your watch post? OK. But NO army/resource building! K, dead horse is beat.
2) Coop
You are one of the many people of your kingdom. While you are offline, your guild mates or faction mates have permission sets to control your resources. Perhaps your wife or brother IRL can have FULL CONTROL of your units in game...even while you're logged in :D THen guild mates have limited control. They can request help and your home base(s) can send out a reasonable amount of aid...to be fair, this would need to drain your resources, even if you're offline. Again, permissions could solve this. How much aid will you give comrads while offline?
In coop style play, your territory would be protected, reasonably, by your friends and allies.
You could do both 1 and 2.
3) Offline/Browser interface.
While you are at work or on your ipod, get an email that says your allied faction is under attack! Send reinforcements? yes or no. If so, how much? Many people play games online that are completely browser based and have no graphics. Imagine if those games were an inerface to an actual RTS going on with full 3d graphics.
4) ARCHETYPAL progress trees.
This poses some issue because, in an RTS you start off with nothing researched...and neither does your opponent. Part of playing an RTS is balancing research vs building units vs building defense structures.
I don't see a good solution for the TECH trees issue. *shrug*
WARNING LONG SUMMARY
Anyway, if developers were willing to take a risk (I know, they do...and get bit for it all the time) then they could develop this. If its fun, people will play. I like RTS but I don't like the sid myers CIV games (turn based). I like age of empires and empire earth...but not AGE of EMPIRES 3...dunno why. Wasn't fun for me.
Trouble with developers is they see something like WoW and say, I gotta make one of THOSE! Except...its been done! I invested years and got my wife sucked into that one. I cannot convince myself to play another one...too much time invested in a character to 'level up' and such. too much grind, etc.
with MMORTS you can get RPG elements, storyline (GM's controlling events, big baddies or what not) even a hero character... plus you can start 4 years after game launch and join the guild your friend started 4 years ago...and already be on par because you're part of that faction...gt help/resources from them. You can immediately play with/against the guy who started 4 years ago. Expect to lose, but there is always a learning curve...not a giant level gap.
5) (last thing, i promise) World size would have to be pretty huge. If you can log off and expect your land to stay, and explore and establish kingdoms in new virgin territory, then the world has to be huge. Resources would have to respawn...or salvaged from fallen enemies. Can't build too far away, or you won't level your hero or your military's fighting skills. Anyway...this is easily solved too. Randomly generated world technology is already here. OR you can take satellite images of earth.
Actually dune 2, 1 wasn't RTS :p j/k
Anyway i think that beside those 4 factors there is the technical one. Its one thing for a server to handle 5k players at once its another one to process 5k ppl holding 1k units each...so just the expenses for the hardware might be quite a lot higher then for normal mmos. As for us "clients" there are enough RTS games the start moving slowly once everywhere you'd throw a rock you'd hit at least one unit. Multiply that by a "raid factor" or large scale pvp and you can imagine that you might need a very high end machine. To prevent that to a degree they could tone down the graphics, still there will be quite a wokload on the CPU but still, and the come the 10 year old kids screeming "boo this is so 90s graphics"...doesnt matter that they never played a game from back then:)
Well I would never site the pathetic trainwreck that is Beyond Protocol as a "successful MMORTS"...it is certainly out there, as are many others - as a previous poster said.
The biggest single hurdle, that none of them have really addressed successfully imo, is that whole online/offline debate. One of the key elements of an MMO has always been that more time played generally = more success/power. That causes enough forum wars and contention in the MMORPG community in what are basically cooperative games. In a competitive environment, how do you make it so that Joe (who can play 21 hrs a day/7 days a week) doesn't just get to crush Bob (who can only play 5 nights a week, for 3 hours after the kids go to bed)?
Offline AIs don't work for the same reason everyone bitches about AIs in PvE games, they suck and can be gamed/exploited. Start implementing "activity" limits and it quickly becomes like a turn-based game and not "RT" at all.
I think the author has a very good point and a new take on it is needed - I think an MMORTS based on warbands - like Necromunda or Mordheim could work very very well.
Surprised no one mentioned Savage/Savage2. In my opinion, a true MMORTS should try to do what they did, but on a grander scale. I for one would play in a heart beat as I love Savage 2.
Yes. There is more than one way to meld MMORPGS and RTS. One is where every player controls an army, and its basically a rts free for all. The other idea is that each player is a unit of the army that a RTS player might control.
I have been thinking along the latter lines myself. Though i've been thinking more along the tower defense line. Where each town is under attack and needs to be defended. The players can make a real change in the world.
besides the fact that kingdom under fire 2 will not be the rts as people usually refer to, yet its online mode could be, rumours-wise, a nice approach to the mmo side of an (action) rts
Another vouch for Shattered Galaxy. It was one the first MMOs I've ever played (in fact, it was probably one of the few MMOs around during its time since WoW hasn't come out yet, introducing the masses to MMOs). And boy was it a blast. In retrospect, as Scythy has said, it really did get a lot of things perfect. The game-play was fun, teamwork was absolutely vital, and its community was one of the best I have ever seen.
Christ, wish that the game was still alive (the state that it is currently in doesn't count).
EVE could this game be considered the closest succesfull mmo real time strategy?
I think a mmorts would be pretty interesting.
I think a good MMORTS will have to balance the action RTS and the strategy RTS. What if, for general questing, you had your "Gods and Heroes" setup, where you take your most trusted soldiers out into the world. Say you capped that at between 6 - 10 NPC "trusted soldiers" to take with you, that could be interchangeable. Through world questing, you collect certain upgrades for them, such as armor, weapons, and possibly a skill or two. Then, switch to "Battleforge" components for heavy story arc missions, where your trusted soldiers are the "lieutenants" that can be instantly summoned into battle, and is also completely co-op. The skills that they acquire in the general questing, persistent world can be applied here, but maybe balanced differently. Almost like a raid or something. You also have your home base that you can go to and fight RTS battles occasionally for something like money or rare crafting materials.
With something like that, you get the most important aspects of an MMO while also having RTS elements. You get character advancement, a rich, persistent world, good reasons to do the RTS battles and become good at them, while always being able to play with other people. Your characters learn new skills as they level up, and the fact that you can interchange which soldiers are your "trusted" soldiers means you can mix and match to fit different situations, and gives you a reason to level up different "lieuts". Obviously PvP would be built in as well.
Granted, that would be a monumental undertaking, but something like that could well appeal to not only the RTS crowd, but the traditional MMO crowd as well.
I've not seen one out there but I have not looked.
I imagine a MMORTS would have to be enlongated stretched so to speak. Slow down the speed of unit prodution make territories VAST and control of those territores key to continued prosperity of your force.
Defeat would have to be present for fans to come and play, but defeat does not have to be eliminaton.
A scifi option would be to have people eliminated playes required to reenter play via space drop to and under populted area and begin anew. A good deplomacy interface would be crucial and the need for a MASSIVE VAST TRACTS of territories for players to occupy and defend.
anyhow I would play a good MMORTS if one were made or exists.
Anyone who wants a mmoRTS needs to look no farther then evony. It's fun, brutal and free. If you havn't checked it out you really should. It's probably not for everyone, but once you get your city built and can defend yourself it's really fun.
I have to also voice my two cents for Shattered Galaxy. I can't believe an article could be written about this without mentioning it. Sure it's like 800X600 resolution but it was an MMO RTS. Blazed the trail in that arena in my opinion. :)
Still you could do something like that again and it'd sell, just not sure how well.
A massively multiplayer online rts. I would say we already have a pretty decent one. Eve online is, at it's 'end game' level, pretty much an elaborate RTS. The leaders of 0.0 Alliances and corps decide where to move their fleets, how to engage, what 'buildings' to build where to mine what resources are there. Granted, for each individual pilot, the game is an MMORPG. But for the leaders and logistics people, it's an RTS. A very long-term, relatively slow moving, incredibly complicated RTS.
It was called Ballerium, not Bellarium. And I'd strongly argue that G&H was even close to being a MMORTS as against a MMORPG with every class having pets available. Having a small number of pets to control doesn't make a game a MMORTS.
As for "why not a MMORTS?", let's look at it this way - name an RTS with an original IP (i.e. no franchises) that has been highly successful recently. It's a pretty short list of names, if you can even think of any (and, to be honest, I'm drawing a blank - maybe Sins of A Solar Empire? Demigod?). The RTS genre isn't attracting the big development dollars anymore. Certainly there are studios who do RTSs, but they have typically built a franchise so have an existing fanbase who will buy it.
So, why not an MMORTS? Because RTS isn't a big selling genre, which makes attracting the investment required for an MMORTS so much harder. And even the titles that have gotten up - Ballerium works as an example here - have fallen over.
I do think that there probably is room for some successful MMORTSs, but it would take a company like Blizzard to bring in enough players to make such a title viable.
There are ways to merge/meld this with an MMORPG. You could use something based upon a melding of a few games methodologies on how this works but SWG comes to mind pretty fast with the degrees of complexity it has.
You get a char. That char has 10 building lots they can build but need materials, etc... to build things. Not 1 player against the world to win -- you team up with others (MMO remember?) to play and win. The more people on your team, the more additional and advance buildings you can get.
Just use a similar method to what they have. If you want troops -- great! Where's their gear come from? There's work for your crafter folks. Ofline? They cover that with their resources moving and with harvesters that do that for you as well as schematics that have factories to make things while you're off doing other stuff. NPC army? change how their cloning facilities work to produce troops, etc... For tech advances, you'd have Research & Development as well as just flat out "Reverse Engineering" enemy stuff -- steal the technology and "re-invent" it for your own use.
A town elects a mayor. The town decides what group to join and who to fight against, etc... Towns pretty much being "separate entities" so they'd control access to their properties while individuals would decide upon how their personal buildings worked.
So the models on this could be put forth based upon RPG game tools just "depersonalize" them a bit more. If you're wiped out, you simply lose all your structures, etc... and start over with "10 buildings" you can build plus whatever savings you managed to pull out before you got thumped -- just find another planet and start up there. If it takes more to build larger and the like, then it probably won't be too hard to find a town that is looking for more people to move in and the like.
So you wouldn't be "king of the world" unless you were the elected leader of everyone but you could have satellite towns and even whole worlds under your control.
Add in other stuff too -- "enforced" diplomacy rules via diplomatic relations. If you lose a diplomatic discussion with opponents, whatever concessions are outlined are put in place -- "won't attack for 10 weeks", etc... where your forces *CANNOT* attack them for that long and the like. (this adds another dimension to the game in that diplomatic relations gain real value vs "I changed my mind... hehe, hehe..." -- but a complex rule-set on this would make life a bit more interesting with some backstab type tactics available, just not with every diplo chat someone held and the like.)
Planetary defenses, space exploration, etc...
In other words, the models to put something like this forward have somewhat been pioneered for MMO's. All that'd be needed is extending the rules and reducing the scope of a player from "I am *GOD* of my efforts!" to a participating member. Thus your "I play 900 hours a week" person is just as glad to find a "I play 10 hours a MONTH" joining their community as finding another 900 hour a week player might make them...
Yeah, it'd be possible but it wouldn't be along the same lines as what most consider an RTS to be right now -- Starcraft is fun but let's see someone join a game in play 2 hours late and see if they'd think it were fun. The mode of play and model would have to be adjusted for thousands of players instead of 2-8 on a map for a couple hours.
I had a good time with Savage: A Tortured Soul. It isn't exactly an MMO, but it had some really cool ideas that fit right alongside this discussion.
I strongly agree with everyone who has mentioned Shattered Galaxy so far and would love to see any developers try to make something similar.
It was perfect. Every player controlled 6-12 units that could be fully customized with equips and you could mix and match your army/specs however you wanted, though most people chose to specialize in a role--artillary, tanks, infantry, anti-air, air support, air superiority--much like the article mentions. There's no resource concerns in the battle and if all your units died you could bring in more, though usually a person only had 1-2 teams that were equipped enough to fight. The battle mechanics are pretty much the same as the recent Warhammer strategy games; that is, there are 4 or so points of interest on a territory that you must conquer and hold, usually while getting pounded by so much artillary that you can barely see the circle with pie slices that your units trying to take.
Each planet had territories split among 4 factions so there were always battles to join and if I remember correctly there could be around 20 people of each side on the map at the same time leading to some pretty epic battles and team work. Your main character had stats that influenced the equips/units you could buy, how powerful you could equip your units, how many units you could bring into a battle and something else i forgot.
Only pitfall was that there was no real overarching purpose. Fighting over the same territories over and over, and then progressing to another planet to do the same did eventually gets boring, no matter how epic the fights were.
Did anyone ever come across the game Playsaga? they claim to be the world's first persistent online real-time strategy game.
I am surprised that the OP did not mention this game.
Saga seems rather well done. Played it about a year or so ago and still have a few unwrapped decks on my desk for when i feel like typing in strings of numbers again.
Many of the browser-based MMOs take an RTS approach and although they often capture the related "4X" gameplay nicely, they really do fall short in the strategy end of things.
Maybe a mmoRTS like this.
You start the game and make a character ie like a Hunter...
At first level its only you...Learning how to play your class...
At 2nt level you gain a follower... a hunter "AI" that is first level. ect
When you are 10th level you would have... 9 - 9th level followers, 72 - 8th level followers, 504 - 7th level followers, 3024 - 6th level followers...ect
OPs...maybe not
OK that math dose not work, But maybe something like it. You chose a class at first level and all your Followers are of that class. This makes you a Commander of an Army of that type of class. In a large scale war ( a group of players get to gether and bring there followers) you command your hunters actions. So ppl looking for a Commander to group with that controls a large group of hunters ask you the help out.
Just a thought.
BTW good ID on a MMORTS
However that is a big fat lie, like their other claim of the mmorpg is dead
played saga for a while and have to say as a strategy fan it is the worst strategy game I've ever tried, much more of a tcg with an mmorts as a gimmic to sell cards
having played a few mmorts's the biggest thing rpg's have over them is the sense of community which may be what's keeping them in a smaller field at present
I think the Mount & Blade concept could serve as inspiration for a really good psedo-MMORTS / MMORPG.
I really like the idea of playing a central character that you can level up, train and equip like an RPG within a RTS. If that character can’t permanently die, or loose his gear (although he can be knocked out of action for a bit or captured for awhile). That gets rid of people feeling like loosing 1 battle will force them to start over.
Then at level 10 you add recruitable NPCs that you can also level up and equip. If you make it so that the number you can recruit (and their level) is tied to your character’s level (like a D&D fighter) or an advanceable skill – then even if you loose 1 – its not like starting over (maybe +1 per 10 levels and level cap at 50% of your level) . But you could also make them really hard to permanently kill, although if you make them capturable, then you create some cool side quests (rescues).
One tensions would be making them very distinct and giving them background stories, while also having enough diversity for 1,000 players to all have different brigades.
Then at level 30 you unlock foot soldiers (10-20 per NPC) that don’t level or have equipment in the traditional sense, but that can advance and improve over time to a certain degree (limited by your level - 1 rank per 10 levels). It will suck more to loose a rank 10 knight then a rank 1 peasant – but it won’t be something you can’t over come after a few days.
As for building – the players would mostly fight over existing towns and castles that can grow in peace time (or shrink during war) and be upgraded as well as destroyed. Maybe high level players could create a whole new castle and city. Populations would ultimately serve as the base for recruiting soldiers. Not sure if you should have to assign an NPC to oversee a town or castle above a certian size. I like this idea, but then you couldn't travel with them, so maybe you'd need more NPCs or a separate category of administrators you recruit.
I also really like the M&B idea of having combat be over the shoulder action oriented rather then top down point and click. Maybe add in some squad abilities to issue commands to your troops – or maybe just to the NPCs – which could each be assigned to lead a subsegment of foot soldiers (10-20 soldiers per NPC).
Finally – I’m not sure what to do about being attacked while you aren’t logged on. Maybe you can only loose x% of your territory between log ins – or per day.
Also, you have to work on the quests and background story of M&B. Its pretty weak IMO. PvP should only be part of the game. Their needs to be other stuff to do to keep people busy enough, long-enough to pay $15 a month for several years.
Mankind Online was spot on the scale and intense RTS action an MMO could provide. To this date, I haven't really played a game of this scale. EVE is the close follower in my opinion (of course, not an RTS )
I'd be interested in seeing an MMORTS, and I think it could be done. However, it would have to cater to both the action junkies and the build and conquer alike. Now, I'll just start brain storming and relay into a reply.
B&C (Build/conquer) could be done via main world while instanced, Fast-paced (FPRTS is my new acronym for that) could accomadate the action junky in us all.
I like what Dana was saying about the instancing your militia's home base, but what about the ability to destroy said home base? In order for the BC guys (I'm a mix of the two) to enjoy building up and tearing down, maybe there should be a level or resource limit before attacks are to be made on certain militias. Let me see... Say you have 100 resource points within your militia (the name doesn't sound fitting but I'm doing some rapid viz right now), you can't attack someone with less than that, but you CAN ALWAYS attack someone with more, or (as in MMORPGs), someone who's flagged.
To make the world completely immersive though, you'd have to incorporate some kind of storyline, and to do so you may need two or more primary factions. Maybe you only need one. That one faction is who everyone else is after. That could be done with some work. So one or more. You need one or more NP factions to give it added depth.
Also, I like what someone (forgive me for forgetting the actual name) was saying about NP-militias in game. That would be a great way to develop other resources. Maybe a certain NPM drops an attack bonus (I'd call it Momentum or Morale Boost or something to that effect, giving the idea that your guys just finished slaughtering an entire army yet they now yearn for more) for action-based play and some wood for whatever house or castle you may be building (BC).
I could do this all day and come up with a full game in my head haha... but I would only digress for my own personal amusement. I believe there is enough here for people to think on.
At the moment, the only mmorpg that play like an rts is darkfall online. What i mean is that we can build boats and buildings, but our self, the players are the units.
Imagine an MMORTS based on Battletech. Everyone would be the leader of their own mercenary clan. You would start out with only foot soldiers, but as you run missions you and your clan would gain exp and also acquire better equipment including Mechs. Like mech commander as your mercs level you could train them to use bigger and better mechs. You could also align yourself with one of the major houses which would give a reason for pvp. OR you could just hire your clan out to the highest bidder including other clans to run missions.
Once upon a time, many many moons ago, there was a game called Fallen Age, that was intended to be exactly this, a combination MMORPG/RTS, where your main character would adventure, and you'd have a base of sorts to maintain. Sadly, funding for the game fell apart and the game never made it past beta testing.
I think that game designers have found that the MMORPG is a successful business design, and are going to stick with what works.
It's a shame too, because "what works," is becoming increasingly boring.
wrong answer !
mm clOSEST actual game to mmorts is
EVE ONLINE
its the closest there is
Since when was EVE Online an MMORTS?
Tactical Commanders (Shattered Galaxy) FTW!!
MMORTS:
Instead of a leveling platform, you build up resources to determine your strength in the game, thus who you can/can't compete with in PVP. Your resources can also provide- based on specification- you with specific build types.
For instance, you have a limit on the amount of attackers you can have first and foremost. You have 150 food resources, 100 wood, and 50 metal.
You are required to have 1 metal resource per weapon made, 20 wood per building made, and 1 food per member summoned. These rates would vary depending on the class of weapon, building, and member; thus requiring you to build more resources as you go along. Food provides with Healing. Wood or Stone would provide with Defense. And metal obviously provides with Attack. A combination of some of these elements could benefit for an increase in attack or defense or maybe even healing (metal for alchemy?).
Possible resources:
That's all I have for now...
Rooster Nash
completely agree great game and ppl still play it today.
I think the most important piece is already well developed in many mmo's, the pet function. your armies would be nothing more than many pets. You could group you pets or control them individually. My idea would be a hybrid rpg/rts. where you do your resource gathering in the real world by having your workers attend to that, then enter a realm / virtual reality ( or whatever) where the war is happening. you could only draw on so many resources to start then as you gain ground you can draw on more powerful resources. it would function much like entering a bg in wow. you could also have buttons to manipulate what your workers are gathering to suppliment what your doing in the battle. the whole game would be persistant and strategic, the fighting would be the pvp aspect. also you could allow for players to attack resource settlements in the "real world" side of it. The ai would defend its self with whatever they can. maybe depending on resources you could hire more powerful protectors. level restrictions would have to apply, so that some one extremely powerful couldn't run around wiping out new settlements. I use the word level loosely here as there would be no level but maybe more of a power ranking.
This genre really opens itself up to sci fi as well so lets not assume a highfantasy midievil elf and dwarf fun fest.
Does somebody here have played the single player campaign of Dawn of War II ?
Why i ask? because in that game, you have a strategic map of a planet where you can choose a region to drop your forces and in some of those regions you can capture strategic assets that provide you benefits in battle. And of course, the game itself has leveling and loot, so the RPG aspect is included.
I think a good MMORTS could repeat that experience but with thousands of player dropping in several planets with several regions (ofc every region having a limit of troops deployed), the troops could be squads like in DoW II with a hero character as commander and the quality of weapons and special attacks (like artillery) should depend on the overall performance of your faction and the territories it controls.
I don't know but i think a game like that could be interesting...
(sorry for my english)
Well i think were a long way off from seeing a mmo-rts, we have yet to even see an rts with the complexity of a turn-based-strategy game
I've thought about this a lot and finally settled on one "working" concept.
It would have to be set in space.
To put it in terms of other games, imagine EVE Online mixed with Spore, Rise of Nations, Homeworld, Sins of a Solar Empire, Star Wars: Empire at War and the Total War series.
Thoughts?
The first game I ever played online was an MMORTS. It was called Artifact and was created by Samugames. It is relatively unknown as it had a few flaws it had to overcome. The principle idea was you would build a city and every so often there would be a "population tick" where your population grows. You can use your population to work farms, quarries and mills to gain raw materials. You then used these raw materials to expand your empire and even build mulitple cities with walls. Then you would build roads and military units. After 24 hours of gametime the "artifacts" would appear, all 8 of them representing a different element such as fire, bone, water, earth etc and gave different bonuses.
The object was to capture the artifacts and hold them for 8 hours to win the game.
Then there is the issue "what if I'm not online?" Well that is an issue since you can't be at your computer all day. Often the best players were on all the time. People would keep their game online while they were away so they looked as if they were online. Alliances could also be given permission to control your units and build your city up while you are away. While you were at work, someone on your team would be watching your units and perhaps even using them.
It was a fun, very little known game! Also the MMORTS genre is dominated by browser games like Tribal Wars. If that isn't a popular MMORTS then I'm not sure what is.
Theres also games like Shattered Galaxy and DotA which use the elements of MMO's and RTS in a good blend.
Hmm, I wonder why there are none....
I believe squad-based RTS gameplay similar to Company of Heroes and Dawn of War 2 could be translated into an MMO form with relative ease. Gameplay could consist of using your squad to capture strategic areas or accomplis missions in hostile territory, defended either by AI-controlled baddies (PvE content) or enemy players (PvP content). These type of conflicts could work in open as well as instanced settings.
Squad management would be an important aspect of the game. Acquiring new weapons, armour and tools for your squad, taking care of injured squad members, replacing dead ones and protecting the more powerful squad members, as well as specailising the individuals to form either a well-rounded, or highly specialised, squad (perhaps the guy with the really good aim should be specialised to being a sniper, and getting the best sniper rifles around?).
The writer explains quite succinctly why RTS has never taken of in a MMO then wonders why. He has answered his own question.
I do realise these concepts need to be sold to MMO companies as much as players. But repeatedly using the reason that a MMORTS will help companies battle piracy hardly warms a players heart. We want to hear how a RTS will be made more exciting online for players, not how the company will be able to pocket more dosh. But I am sure should a MMO company step up and take this on that increased profits will never be mentioned. It will all be about player choice and so on, like RMT’s and all the other exciting developments they have in store for us. :)
most of what people are saying these MMORTS should be or would be they sound like MMORPGs
This seems to be the dominant reply here - noone appears to have actually played a MMORTS for anything like the time required to actually review it properly - quite shocking. And the poster saying how graphics sucked etc - seriously think of the logistics involved here, the opening up of the game to those with low end spec machines and connections and you will see why the graphics take second place to GAMEPLAY. Also you can adjust the settings but, tbh, going by most posts here I will assume that option didnt occur...
I am disgusted that a bunch of gamers who dont run games or create content for the MMO market should post here saying no MMORTS exist and its a 'nice' idea. How insulting to those producing MMORTS games for the last 11 years. How arrogant of many here to assume they know anything about this. If you havent immersed yourself in a MMORTS for over a month AT LEAST you dont know anything. Sorry but thats just fact. The background issues are awesome and make mmorpg rubbish appear trite and lightweight...oooo he owns a whole 30 objects .....wow... gosh. The gameplay has suffered with the bland repetative psuedo RPG MMO's we see now - with no scope for real roleplay with consequences. The sole reason for most folk walking away from MMORTS games is largely based on the experience of playing one without the large numbers. Retention is an issue and developer support/activity also. Both are highly unusual within this genre compared to any other. And the impact if its not right can be crippling for a game that relies on live prey.
Eve is cited as a MMORTS - this is untrue but we cover it on our site down, purely, to the player orientated and defined narrative. For this is as close as MMOrpg comes to MMORTS. Shattered Galaxy is more MMORTT or even comparable to the recent wave of online RTS with persistent avatar objects/cards/rank/medals. But the lack of persistence on the field of play relegates it to RTT imo.
I am constantly suprised how easy folk post from ignorance. I refuse to post many of my opinions and thoughts as they are half formed or I consider them lacking in evidence sufficient to impose them on others. Some of you have no such restraint I see lol.
Im a long time RTS fans playing everything from starcraft to Total Annihilation. What I get from reading this "interview" is the fact that the person writing clearly cannot be a RTS fan. The gameplan sounds more like a badly structured RPG with RTS features.
A good RTS doesnt have to be massive as Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander or Age of Empires but it do need good core. It need res. collection, it needs player building (only game Ive played that were any good without player building was Ground Control) and then a strategy to fight?! Not to trade, not to meddle or trying to be social but to wage war. Sure there are management games that do trades and carebaer fluffy things but cmon thats not a real RTS.
Fighting an opponent that has an instanced base thats impossible to kill/destroy will be a serious hussle, there needs to be control points to capture in order for a gameplan as this would be to succeed unless you wanna go carebear full out and go "only pve with instanced pvp" at that time the game would be stone cold.
To sum it up a good RTS is not a RPG with lots of units and sky-view, its about strategy, planning and executing, its not about quests or fighting versus some random computerized mob. Its about player(s) versus player(s) in a war were there really can be only one victor.
Someone doesn't know about Shattered Galaxy.
The only true MMORTS out there.
Uses a risk-like map, 3 RvR races. Also, I think, the first MMO to be purely RvR. Player tries to take over an enemy territory, enemies join in the map to fight it out. 15 players vs 15 players, each with 40 units (6 to 12 can be deployed at a time depending on skills).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8clWKb2994&feature=related
Nice intro/tutorial video.
Maybe, just maybe the majority of us say there is mmorts is because the games released that claim to be mmorts fail to live up to our expectations. It may be true that the majority of us havent played the current titles under the name long enough to 'review them properly', but that speaks more about the titles themselves, rather than those playing them. If i dont like it im not gonna stick to it for another month, if the game doesnt have the ability to catch users on the first impression, then somone has failed at somepoint along the line.
Tho i have tried a few titles, I played saga in beta but the whole card thing was a big turn off, especially after they made the only way of getting units via micro-transactions. I also tried beyond protocol, which admittedly i would have liked somewhat if the ui werent an utter pile of garbage, im an eve player and used to shitty ui, but I couldnt stand that for over a week.
Maybe the wording was a bit off, but the point still stands. - We have yet to see a successful mmorts title, and its doubtful we will see one for some time.
Also, Eve is not a rts, but at the larger scale it has many elements people would desire out of an mmorts (territory control, unit coordination, etc). And the upcoming planetary interaction seems like it will be a pseudo-rts within the game itself, which would be awesome if emulated in a game solely designed to be an mmorts.
Im a long time RTS fans playing everything from starcraft to Total Annihilation. What I get from reading this "interview" is the fact that the person writing clearly cannot be a RTS fan. The gameplan sounds more like a badly structured RPG with RTS features.
A good RTS doesnt have to be massive as Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander or Age of Empires but it do need good core. It need res. collection, it needs player building (only game Ive played that were any good without player building was Ground Control) and then a strategy to fight?! Not to trade, not to meddle or trying to be social but to wage war. Sure there are management games that do trades and carebaer fluffy things but cmon thats not a real RTS.
Fighting an opponent that has an instanced base thats impossible to kill/destroy will be a serious hussle, there needs to be control points to capture in order for a gameplan as this would be to succeed unless you wanna go carebear full out and go "only pve with instanced pvp" at that time the game would be stone cold.
To sum it up a good RTS is not a RPG with lots of units and sky-view, its about strategy, planning and executing, its not about quests or fighting versus some random computerized mob. Its about player(s) versus player(s) in a war were there really can be only one victor.
Being as this is MMORPG, a raw RTS type discussion wouldn't be all that appropriate. Instead, the article is structured to provide cross-over between RTS and RPG style games.
"A good RTS..." depends on who you talk to just like a good RPG depends on who you talk to. Complex/overly complex UI's, queuing of moves (which queuing didn't exist in earlier ones), etc... Some think the queuing is "cheap" and takes "skill" away from the play, others find it essential and so on... and so on... "You just can't handle doing it "real-time" so need those cheap tools to make it possible for you? pft... where's the skill in stacking up moves like that!" Yeah, I remember some of the arguments about that stuff and it's been a LONG time for me...
As another poster put it with the picture of a round peg in a square hole -- RTS doesn't fit the MMO format well. Not the way it's currently implemented. Then again, RPG's are different than their predecessors in many respects but it might be possible to bring aspects across though the play would need to change a bit and that's what the discussions here are looking at. Not a "purist" view of it but a cross-over view.
Being as this is MMORPG, a raw RTS type discussion wouldn't be all that appropriate. Instead, the article is structured to provide cross-over between RTS and RPG style games.
"A good RTS..." depends on who you talk to just like a good RPG depends on who you talk to. Complex/overly complex UI's, queuing of moves (which queuing didn't exist in earlier ones), etc... Some think the queuing is "cheap" and takes "skill" away from the play, others find it essential and so on... and so on... "You just can't handle doing it "real-time" so need those cheap tools to make it possible for you? pft... where's the skill in stacking up moves like that!" Yeah, I remember some of the arguments about that stuff and it's been a LONG time for me...
Sure Il agree to that somewhat but again its like saying all people like different games in all genres, we dont. Sure we dont all like the same games but there are a few titles that stand out from the crowd so you might say a good RTS would be one that most/many players would be considered to be a good game (which they play *points at ex SWG drama queens*). Take a couple of the largest titles in the RTS genre, Starcraft, Warcraft 3, Age of Empires, Company of heroes,Total annihilation etc. They all follow a certain path and whats that well for one theyr all PvP exclusivly, secondly they all focus on build up time and "player building".
As another poster put it with the picture of a round peg in a square hole -- RTS doesn't fit the MMO format well. Not the way it's currently implemented. Then again, RPG's are different than their predecessors in many respects but it might be possible to bring aspects across though the play would need to change a bit and that's what the discussions here are looking at. Not a "purist" view of it but a cross-over view.
RTS doesnt fit the MMO format at all, you wont be able to do a truely MMORTS without constricting players to a rather small amounts of units or using stacks with a max number. It will simply become a RPG with RTS features it just doesnt work. RTS players dont generely want to play versus computers so PvE content would be considered farming at best, this may sound very sterotypical but if one wants to raid a dungeon, kill computerised mobs etc then those players prefer playing RPGs aside their RTS games. I just see this entire idea to be too hard to get right and perhaps even harder to get RTS fans to play it.
I think a MMORTS could be done, but they would have to keep fights at a respectable length and home bases would have to sacrosanct. Can't have others sneaking into your base in the middle of the night.
The first thing that comes to mind when someone complains about graphics is they are a console player moved over to MMO's. The vast majority of MMO players are far more concerned about gameplay than anything else. So, soon as you start whining about graphics it just dates you as being very new to MMO's and not very versed in the genre.
Curious why no one is talking about Evony, does no one like it? From what I can tell it's really popular and seriously is an mmorts. You gather resources, build things and it is definitly in real time.
Actually, if you recall on Starcraft and Warcraft 3 (2 of the ones you list that I've played), they start PvE and go PvP. You play against the world long before you join the online communities to play them. Then you queue up and join a scenario for a session of play so claiming "all PvP" doesn't work and the time limits on them also don't fit an MMO style environment.
RTS players don't generally "play well with others" no matter what. The current format for the play is me vs anyone/everyone else on the map -- be that AI controlled or player controlled. The very nature of the current incarnations is counter to any MMO setting you can come up with unless it is redefined away from the "I am GOD!" style of play that the current RTS community is attached to.
By shifting to a team oriented approach, where many contribute their pool of resources to a common goal, you could -- with fair ease -- incorporate the overall strategy elements to it and "real-time" -- well, that's what most popular MMO's are about right now.
So do I think it could be done along these lines? Yes. Do I think you could do a conversion "in tact" of what players are used to in RTS games? Hell no. No more so than you can have the save/restore of a standalone PC game like Witcher in an MMO game like WoW where you save, try, fail so restore and try again -- *VERY* common when learning RTS games as you do the same scenario over and over until you "get it right".
There are several obstacles in terms of mechanics which are conventions of RTS games which stand in the way of making an MMORTS because of the technical limitations.
First lets talk resources in terms of the players who come to play RTS games.
Game length problems
Players in a typical RTS settting, come for a game which lasts 15, 30 or at most 90 minutes. Beyond 90 minutes players lose attention span and the need of the brain to do something else triggers and interest or enjoyment in the game is lost. This is especially true when playing something for the 100th time.
Most players prefer games which can be decided by a win or loss in about 30 minutes because there are numerous distractions which prevent players from focusing on the game beyond this amount of time. Phone, work, family, etc.
The ideal game length is about 15 minutes because if the satisfaction of a victory can be condensed into this amount of time it is likely that there will be no interruption and focus can easily be maintained for the amount of time. If a loss the next game can be quickly jumped into and played.
Existing MMORTS games stretch out resource accumulation and unit deployment over much longer periods in order to prevent any single player from becoming too powerful.
Conventional Design
Most RTS games are built on a map which is much too small for the size of which an MMORTS would need to take place on if it were a continous space. Reason being the speed with which units move, relative to the total map space. There are technical ways around this, example, a jump gate type of structure that lets your units go anywhere on the map. However the counters to this are not well developed because there are very few games which to base design on. One of the most expansive map sized games is called Time of Defiance which is a true MMORTS. It is also much more like a turn based game, because of the length of time that is required to develop and execute strategy. It also doesn't play well. Because the distances take hours to traverse, and the time required to develop units takes days.
What is needed
RTS needs to evolve iteself. The RTS games are really RTT games and in general the only employment of strategy is identifying which strategy your opponent is using and how will you counter it. Once the best series of strategies are identified in a particular RTS game they show up over and over again and the game becomes about choosing the best matchup in terms of my set of units verus your set of units. Conventional games rely on units which values do not change from game to game. That is a mechanic which needs to be changed in order for MMORTS to be truely RTS versus RTT.
The way to make this happen is to create technology which is usable in real time. The way to make that happen is to keep it absolutely as simple as possible. Decisions on which tech to utilize and how to augment your forces because the strategy which is where it belongs, and you do this based on whoever you are battling with at present, you will also need to change your strategy based on the their changes and when you encounter new opponents.
Strategy made easy and smart
Each player gets 4 research centers, to research from 4 branches. The research centers cannot be upgraded to allow more research, and you cannot research more than 4 projects at once, so the limiting resource is how fast you can make make your choices and keep the research going. You can research any branch with more than one center so If your fall behind in a particular area you can catch up fast.
Each research branch gives you only two options and with very simple attribute buffs, % improvements of a characteristic of your forces this enables a decision in less than 3 seconds for each branch keeping the focus on the tactical situation. Each research takes 180 seconds.
Trade
Research centers should be able to queue 4 total technology choices so you can make these choices in some free time. Economics should be very simple but also very flexible, trading should be allowed with a market, and executed quickly. Resources should be kept to a minimum. Player focus in RTS should be on the battles and in an MMORTS their forces should be what they spend 75% of their time on, scouting, attacking, defending, which is what players enjoy doing and what makes a game worth playing.
Great article. The "Robin Hood Warband" is a good example of how this approach might work. Imo it definitly has a better chance to appeal to a larger audience than what we've seen so far in mmorts. I hope some developer will give it a try soon - lots of potential for innovation there.
The only decent MMORTS out so far is SAGA. Which isn't bad, but it wasn't what I expected of it. Dawn Of Fantasy (which didn't even make it to your list?) is the only MMORTS that I got hopes for atm. And believe me, I've been looking for a decent MMORTS for a long time. :)
Dawn of Fantasy is just another example that shows that empire building doesn't really work. The MMO features were continually cut down and meanwhile it sounds more like a game with an enhanced skirmish mode.
I never got the fuzz with Saga, either. Played it for a few hours, then got bored. Where is the persistant world? All i got to see was a bunch regular RTS-maps. I never met another player, either. What makes Saga a true MMORTS and not just another RTS with some enhanched Multiplayer-features?
Unlike most games, in Beyond Protocol you can fight to earn a place on the senate and, as long as you provide a decent example, you could easily get UI aspects changed. Things are improving all the time through this. This senate idea was a fixed feature years before Eve's stellar council and was implemented in alpha.
I will state that I prefer gameplay over fluff and graphics, kinda implicit in the strategy aspect. Like UT3, all the gubbins clutters the view and distracts periphery vision response and gameplay suffers - though it becomes easier for those with less skill as everyone is equally handicapped with this. In MMORTS this 'fluff' really has an impact on a one universe server with hundreds of players with thousands of units.
There are a number of things inhibiting this genres mass appeal and many attempts have been tried to resolve this. The TCG aspect was to appeal to the RPGers who need daily achivements recognised and bolster revenue imo - but doesnt appeal to me, my real RPG days are well over (not mmo role play gaming but roleplay gaming). Microtansactions are becoming more popular with devs but I am not convinced they lend themselves to MMORTS well - they affect balance too much. Subscription models still seem successful though.
Whilst i have great hopes for beyond protocol and enjoy the game, the jury is out on its ability to make a success of the one universe player defined narrative as it has just started, in the scheme of things, and the universe is still settling after a somewhat confusing start (I felt the devs felt it should begin traditionally and expand outwards but maybe a more managed last days of beta would have kicked the economy off better) and the player base/ guild assets arent settled enough to snapshot the soon to be expected gameplay fairly. Eve was not regarded as anything but niche intially and many expected it to fail through lack of direction/purpose etc but it built up core communities who developed in game assets that made the game more attractive for new players and the casual alike. The economic boom also helped lol.
Other games within the genre all have specific issues and these are fully spelt out in the forums by the community and argued fully there. I have yet to see any ideas down here that havent already been tried n dismissed by previous games.
And why discuss MMORTS when you want a MMORPG with some mass effect structure - I would give your genre a go if you could design and place structures that then form part of the narrative - the wizards tower or a small castle. This hasnt been worked with any success either yet would, imo, define a MMORPG proper - where u dont play slot in roles but define your own role with activity and your choices. Atitd or eve are the closest to this, maybe second life. Thats MMORPG - the present batch seem to be social gaming with instances.
Which game tried to do the "Robin Hood"-concept?
Similar to DoW2's squad-based combat in a persistant world like that of WoW?
That's called a hack n slash.
Dawn of War 2 is an RTS. Hack'n'Slash games are a completely different genre.
Why not set up a MMORTS set up like Mech Commander in the Battle Tech Universe. You could set the time period up before or after the Clan invasion.
There could be a few "Home Worlds" in each "House" that are basically off limits from invasion. That is where you could group up with other commanders and then hop on a jump ship to a specific world and then the RTS begins. As you take more worlds and complete more objectives you grow in rank and then are able to aquire new technology, mechs, Drop ships, resources, abilities... That way if you log out you do not lose anything specific other than the world that you were fighting for. When you relog you start back at the "Home World" where with a quick jump you can move back to the front lines. The worlds can have a max number of players, a "Commander and Chief", someone who assigns the starting locations and objectives to the other commanders as well as bonuses for the owners the deeper you are into enemy territory.
If you wanted to include mercenaries this would be a great way to have the ability to go and fight who you want when you want. Just pick up the next contract either from a player or from a npc. Mercenaries would have their own "Home World" as well so they can group sell and buy the supplies that they may need for the next mission.
If you put the time period during the Clan invasion, specifically the early years, you could have players be part of the Clans. Players then would build their invasion forces outside of the realm and then compete with other players through the course of bidding for the amount of resources that they plan on using in order to invade a given planet. The House planets could be either other players or be non-players. If you included the scenario with the mercenaries and Houses from you then would have three factions at the same time.
I personally would prefer the pre-Clan invasion time period. The possibilities are endless imo. Drop ships = spawn points; Missions like raids, recons, frontal assaults, siege of cities.... Optional Careers like resource gathers and salvage crews....
The only reason why they do not build a MMORTS is because for the most part developers like the masses of people are sheep and pretty much follow the herd (again imo).
I was a developer on Ballerium, and want to add my two cents.
First problem is: it's not mainstream. This has several effects:
- It's harder to get started programming an MMORTS. There are a lot more free and inexpensive engines for RPG and MMORPG than for RTS, and I don't know if there are any for MMORTS. There's also more discussion because more people are interested in writing them.
- It's hard to get money. A game is one of the more complex programming tasks, and takes time and people. Without a proven market for MMORTS it's hard to keep development going. Without a lot of people paying for the game it's hard to continue to add content. Chicken and egg.
Second problem: It's technically more difficult. The large number of units causes a burden on everything: graphics, AI, networking... It's a burden on the server as well as the client. Things like creating a seamless world, which many MMORPG's don't even do, are a lot harder when each player has many units. One of the main ideas originally behind Ballerium was to have an "infinite" world. It wasn't until we gave that up that the game got anywhere. The amount of time spent trying to get a seamless huge world with many players was too large.
Last issue is, MMORTS games as people talk about them here only appeal to the PvP crowd. MMORPG games try to cater for both PvE and PvP crowds, and PvE has a pretty big following. Another feature in Ballerium that got dropped was quests. I'm a PvE fan, and the quests, simple as they were, were the only thing that made me play the game for some hours at a time.
But what would the point be of making a badly thought of RTS. If it wouldnt have a good foundation you couldnt pull the fans from their other RTS games because they wouldnt accept trash, well maybe if it was free to play but for RTS fans to pay each month it has to be dam good especially since most of the players that I talk to rescent the "pay per month" rule that MMOs have
I just dont see this as a good idea, I think it sounds cool but in reality it would be crap. I would be loved to be proven wrong but I think atleast for now MMOs should be RPG exclusive
There’s tons of MMORTS around, some of them even came out this year. The issue of MMORTS is mostly due to sites like this one completely neglects the genre. Therefore, no one really knows about it here. There is an MMORTS community and as I keep saying in so many posts, Mankind Online is among the first MMOs and one of best MMORTS ever made. Shattered Galaxy is great as well.
What’s really good about Shattered Galaxy is that it’s very balanced. One cannot win by simply using Zerg Tactics. You need to be smart and about each moves and attacks.
Mankind was also very anti zerg. Sure you could do a lot of damage but a well placed dread to counter a fleet of tiny ship was more then enough.
EVE is not an RTS but then again… if you’ve been in fleet battles where it’s 400 versus 400 players, then yes.. the Fleet commanders are basicaly playing an RTS.
Indeed. Mankind was the first MMO I played, in 1999. I investigated UO only after I'd seen Mankind and realized the persistent-world genre was becoming viable. Sadly, it seems many people here "looking' for an MMORTS have never heard of Mankind.
Anyone who enjoys games such as Master of Orion, Galactic Empires, Space Empires V, and similar products will appreciate Mankind, but it is much more RTS (War/Starcraft, etc) than turn-based strategy. Mankind had addressed most of the general "problems" of the MMORTS paradigm quite effectively before the turn of the millennium. Based on reports that its graphics have been modernized, it may be well worth checking out even now.
I'm more of a Turn Based Strategy gane fan then an RTS fan....and I haven't really tried out any of the exisiting MMORTS attempts. However I'll dive in and offer my opinion, just like everyone else here.
I think the way to do something like this would be to offer a hybrid command/control based system. You'd have elements that "belonged" to individual players and elements that "belonged" to factions (think Horde & Alliance in WOW, but you'd probably want maybe a dozen or more factions available to keep it interesting) but that could be controled by individual players for a time (when they were logged in).
What would "belong" to individual players would be thier own individual character and a small core of units attached to them (think a sort of personal guard). These could gain experience/abilities through game-play.... and while they could be destroyed (though perhaps not the players main character)... they would NOT persist when the player logged off and could not be commanded by any other player.... thus if the player lost them, it would be soley through thier own gameplay actions. Of course, the player could recruit new core units to replace those destroyed and engage in the process of building them back up in experience and equipment.
Territories, resources, and "pooled units" would belong to the Faction...not individual players. However, these objects would be "controled" by whatever players of that Faction happaned to be logged in at the present time. Basicaly, you could use a ranking/bidding system within the game to determine which logged in player of the appropriate faction controled which particular resource. Ranks could be earned by individual players through game-play (just like Prestiege/Fame/Reputation/Etc is gained in some MMO's today). What faction resources were available (or perhaps the cost to purchase/build new ones) would be determined by how the Faction as a whole was doing in the game (example... if a faction controled 20 resource areas the cost to build a "pooled" infantry squad could be 5 points of rank....if they only controled 10 it would cost 10 points to build the same unit).
This would encourage cooperative play...since the better the Faction as a whole was doing....the easier time any individual member of that faction would have in controling objects. Since there is a Rank based limit on the number of objects any individual player could control at one time (and probably a practical one as well)..... it would also encourage delegation of resources/objects rather then hording. Doing things that increased the Factions position as a whole (like building in game structures or capturing resources, etc) could be one of the methods for increasing an individual players rank. Thus you are further incentivized to do/build things personaly, that may pass out of your control but that help your faction as a whole....because it builds your personal characters abilities/standing as well.
If there were insufficient players of appropriate rank to control a factions permanent (on map) resources...then the AI would control those. Not an ideal situation....but it should encourage players to help build-up thier fellow faction players.... since this would reduce the things needed to be controled by the AI and help the faction as a whole (and by extension the individual player belonging to that faction).
Possibly the Game might need to have a Campaign End or Game Reset.... to allow for the possibility of Conquest and to insure that a faction which was loosing would not be perpetualy on the short end of the stick.... but this need not neccesarly be done on a short cycle....and certain things (such as objects belonging to the individual players, not the faction) could be persisted through such resets.
ELUSIVE MMORTS
www.shatteredgalaxy.com
Shattered Galaxy. It's old school and is past its hayday but it was once so saweeeeeeeeet
As i saw a developer mention here, rts games can get messy messy server load wise.
A very good example of this is Celetania, its a 'relativly' modern RTS in space, with similar setup system to eve, modules and such, and can feature some really HUGE battles, with no restrictions on players engaged or otherwise.
Problem, well the server could not handle even 50 x 50 battles, so when we hit the frontlines with over 300+ ships it went lagtastic, sort of reminicient of EVE. I haven't played it for a while now, so I don't know where it is upgrade wise, but I admire the effort.
Janster
Interesting article and concepts. There was one sentence, however, that demonstrates a common misperception I see so often in the MMORPG community.
"no one has had even a modicum of the success of a more traditional MMORPG or even a single player RTS."
Or even a single player RTS?? Successful single player RTS games have FAR outsold those successful 'traditional' MMORPGs like EQ and UO. Command and Conquer alone sold 30 MILLION copies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_&_Conquer
Those numbers outshine even WoW which redefined the MMORPG audience and can hardly be called 'traditional' in that respect.
Many from the 'traditional' MMORPG community constantly forget or overlook that 'traditional' MMORPGs were jokes as far as the gaming industry was concerned. Before WoW, MMORPGs were considered a niche market, unable to appeal to the vast number of gamers who bought RTS, FPS, RPGs, 4X, Sports, Racing, Simulation and all the other genres of games whose successes were selling millions while 'successful' MMORPGs floundered with fractions of those numbers for a decade.
Keep things in perspective here. That theoretical MMORTS would be a miserable failure if it only gathered the numbers of a 'traditional' MMORPG and it would be considered very successful if it could be 'even' a quarter as good as success RTS.
There are several issues with MMORTS that I think were failed to mention. The first being how to deal with progression. In a standard MMO the player progresses in two way. First by building up their character in levels and second by progressing through the world. The problem with this in a RTS setting is the later. If you are building structures and u aren't really moving through the world as you are spreading through it, expanding from a central point. That means players are competing for land area to expand upon. Which is fine, but there sheer size that this game would have to expand to would be huge. The second issue is with the introduction of new players. How do they compete? They are small don't have the resouorces, the expanse, ganking them would insanely easy.
I think it would be great, but it would also be almost infinitely complex with finite set limited end. In the end only so many players would be able to dominate a single server. However, that isn't to say it is impossible. Making the game a Realt time game, but incorporating elements more from Civilization and Imperial Conflict in a vast setting, I imagine the depths of space, would be plausible. Having to fight your own expanse and progression as a civilation while competing with other players over resources in the vastness of space would provide an almost perfect sandbox environment. Using a forced tutorial to have starting players develop the basics of their civilzation from priitive to space faring, as well as uniting and maintaning their homeworld.
Is there any chance that Ballerium will get a relaunch? Or maybe make it open source? I never really got to try it... The one time i played it the lack of PvE content was a bummer for me as well, i had a hard time getting into it. I decided to give it another try later on when there are more tutorials and quests - then, the servers went down -.-
he means that MMORTS aren't nearly as sucessfull as regular RTS, while being much harder to pull off.
I feel like the one topic people are not talking more about is the main reason why some people avoid MMORTS..
Time away from the PC… having to check into the game at lest a few times a day.. not being able to sit down and play for a long period of time without waiting…
What happens when my internet goes down during a match?...
Sure you could use an AI, but wouldn’t that be a unfair advantage, I mean what if you truly stink at playing an RTS, so you unplug your internet and hope you win?
The only way I can see an MMORTS is to have about five different play styles….
Home-city/planet Vrs Outposts… you could have a Home-Area that would be more PvE, and only limit a few PvP actions, and outposts that could be destroyed and not as customizable as the home-area, your home-area would give you the default amount of resources, and let you fully customize it. And the outposts would have a limited “city” buildings and more of a defense area, which could help you boost your resources.. (you could even go as much as having a tiered level of places… Realm level, Guild level, Home-Area, Outposts… (that way you could interact with different places of the world))
Quest/Missions, this would be co-op or single player missions you play, these could even be long missions you could pause and play later, maybe set a time limit of two days or a few hours for the Quest/Missions
PvP, these matches would be more of battle for control of an area, would be more fast pace, and the winner gets more resources, maybe even items.
PvE, this would be more co-op, maybe a battle over a city, where people could capture a large resource for their Realm or Guild.
Free-Play, this would be parts of the world that you could build on, and if an army happens to find it, they can destroy it. What is great about these types of areas would be unlimited amounts of resources, so if you can somehow keep your city/outpost here the longest the more resources you get.
The only way I can truly seeing this system to work correctly would be for a Space/Si-Fi type game…
Maybe have the story of “space laws” where you couldn’t attack a person’s home world unless they are a hardcore player..
Depending on your (level), depends on how big of an army you can move to a different planet
You could have planets that you could just explore on with an army, or planets you could build on
Each planet would have different rules and maybe different areas to explore
Get rid of “wait for 8 hours to travel to that planet” (like ogame) to make it more instant action… the point of an mmorpg would be the people who play a lot would have an advantage and the people who can’t play a lot aren’t lost in the dust.
Expansion packs would open up new types of planets and units
You would be paying for being able to customize your army/race/buildings..
I would agree with the four reasons you list, but I think that there is a counter to each of them, that if applied correctly would not only invalidate that reason, but bring players in from other genres.
First, the mindset of short v.s long play, in my opinion should be tackled from a different angle. I feel that for a MMORTS to be done properly the game must be developed with a "Tiered Play" approach. There will always be star players, and players that are average, and so on. As a result, there will be players that are not capable of leading and must follow. Start each player out as an individual in something akin to a MMORPG/FPS approach. Use a renown/leadership stat that increases with achieved accomplishments and the like, and use that stat as a mechanism (one of many) to attract followers. These followers grow with renown, and their levels of loyalty to the player waxes and wanes depending upon the actions of the player. Once a player gains X followers, allow a game mechanism to trigger the player being able to take on other players as followers, and so on. Those who want to follow, will do so, those that want to lead will refuse an invitation to be led and therein creates the PVP mechanic. The other leader will raise an army in contention with the first player for renown, followers, and the like.
Second, the issue of someone losing is the nature of an RTS. Its just the way it is. As you said, MMO's tackle this with respawns and xp penalties and the like. If a similar system is implemented for RTS...but how, a dead character is a dead character, a fallen army is a fallen army? All these are correct from the perspective of current rewards systems available in MMO's of today. You have to transcend that paradigm and move to a more "Tiered Play" approach, as I mentioned earlier. Reward leaders for leading and reward followers for following. If a leader decides to take an action that doesn't necessarily benefit all of the populace, the opportunity is there for one of his disenfranchised "loyal" player followers to try to garner the loyalty of a percentage of the leaders kingdom. Create political espionage, create factions within factions, create political and civil unrest. These things all contribute to an atmosphere where a follower with a strong and loyal support base can stage a coup and overthrow the current system. Force the king into exile where he must rebuild a loyal base of followers, and above all reward all minor successes to keep motivation high...greed, power, and revenge are all powerful tools to wield and are a great source of motivation.
Third, the RTS and logging off aspect is one I see as a huge hurdle to overcome; however, its not an impossible. For it to work, the first thing that would have to be implemented is that there are no resets, no time outs, and that everything that happens within the world is persistent. The changes that players effect are permanent and lasting. Razed castles do not respawn, they must be rebuilt through player action or direction. Burned fields do not regrow with out some assistance and direction from a player. Followers killed in the process are gone forever, and the player must earn more renown/leadership to attract new followers (or conquer more territories and force fealty). Another great implementation would be a sleep mode or auto-pilot AI feature for your account, where you can dictate tactics and actions to take in the event that your holdings are attacked while you are logged out. I would say that there should not be an attack mode for when you are logged out, but a defense mode that you can enable and will take advantage of your specific holdings and resources. One other option to explore would be allowing you to put your second in command (possibly another player "loyal" to you) in charge of defenses, as in defenses only, no having your friend win wars for you. The first two ideas I threw out will both help with and, at the same time, complicate that. The old adage applies here, "While the cats away, the mice shall play." The question is whether they are playing for your team or against you, or even playing your own team against you. Oh, the fun this will create.
Fourth, justification for players to spend money on your game, this is another big one, especially given that there are free games out there that already have a strong following. This is a tough one, but is easily enough answered. Blizzard is successful for one reason. Its not having the most money, as that was made after the fact. Its not having the most talent, because talent is everywhere. The clutch point for successful games to me is lore and story. A game with an empty plot is dead before development even starts. Blizzard is successful because they created a rich story with lore of incredible depth, and took that into a MMO format very very successfully. To match that success, you have to match their depth of lore and the intricacy of their plot and story arcs. You have to create something that players can get behind and stay behind. There can't be a single instance where a player asks "Why?" and the answer is "Because that is the way that it is." Players are finely tuned BS detectors. The second that happens the player sees through the fog and realizes that and then starts finding other holes in the story and the play. The story behind the game and its translation into game mechanics has to be beyond reproach.
Now I know this post (wall of text that it is) will fall prey to nay sayers and trolls and the like, but this is my two cents full of concern for something I'd love to see come to pass. Rant and /flame as you will, I am wearing Nomex Undergarments...lol.
Tom Clancy End War for the xbox 360 live sure does a great job as a MMORTS , only problem is that this console attract 3rd person shooter players ( wich dont like games where you need to think before you act )
so from there alot of people got disapointed .
it received so much bad reviews and so many friends told me the game was garbage that i decided to stay away from that title until 5 months ago i decided to rent it to check it out , due to boredom because lets put it that way xbox 360 has avout 90% of its game as shooters where the only difference between a title is one has a tabk grenade launcher and the other one gets an auto tea bag feature.
Well
End War is the most under evaluated game i have ever played , im totally hooked and all the other 360 titles can go to hell , nothing is as fun as End War on this console . Your units online gain experience and abbilities wich can really give you an edge sometimes .You feel just like a commander giving out orders and if you feel like playing dirty you can destroy and kill the units of your enemies so they need to gain experience again , , its a game where you need to think and the community feeling you get with your faction makes you hate the other 2 faction your fighting not to mention that you can share a battle 4 vs 4 , so from time to time youll find allies with wich your playstyle perfectly matches.
it has medium learning curve , but under 2-3 days youll probably learn all the options you get.
End Wars 10/10 and THE MMORTS that perfectly works.
Some of the previous posts are missing the point imo. There's that talk again about how to solve issues with huge empires, offline-time, dominated newbies, and all that stuff.
Massey already suggested the best solution imo:
DON'T DO IT.
All that stuff is already working fine in mmos based on management and TBS, like browser mmos. That's where it belongs and that's where it should stay. It certainly isn't needed in an RTS, some might even say it's out of place. Developers and players alike need to rethink their approach towards MMORTS if they want this genre to get on its feet.
MMORTS these days feel too much like browser mmos with downloadable clients, but imo the bigger ones will be similar to Atlantica Online with RTS features or League of Legends with MMO features.
www.evony.com
is a Hugely popular online RTS. There are more than 100 servers w/ some well over 50k players. The interface is flash based and has almost no system requirements. The game mechanics and graphics appear fairly simple, but the amount of intensity the game takes on through Alliances (Guilds) and PVP is purely addicting.
It has almost everything any game like Civilization has, resource building, conquering land, gaining rank, pve, hero development, and quests, etc. The land is staggeringly humongous. There is a lack of animated soldiers, but really the game becomes so intense its simply not needed.
give it a shot, its free (Micro transaction based), ya got nothing to lose.
You got the complicating MMORTS, Beyond Protocal and Star Alliance
www.beyondprotocol.com and http://www.star-alliances.com/
But I find MMORTS's to be a bit slow, and less epic then you want them to be... Also you can work so hard, and loose everything in a swift kick...
Post #100?
Yeah baby!
Anyways... I've been away for a while, but on coming back I see my favorite genre being called a myth... so annoying...
I would have to say that Beyond Protocol and it's little brother Star Alliances are the best versions of MMORTS that I've seen around. However, as the OP said, somewhere, because RTS is much more like a sport than an RPG, they actually require some skill and grey matter... It just really gets me when I find people saying that it hasn't been done, or been done right. It's just because the unwashed masses can't wrap their small brains around it...
That's all I have to say for now.
http://www.star-alliances.com
FFS!
this has to the most awful website I've seen in a decade or so.
This actually sounded really good... It would basically be Kings of Chaos, a txt based game i used to play, but with a gui which would be awesome.
re: OP. mentioning piracy = stupid/.bad move. It shows you don't fundamentally understand MMORTS at all. Lots of successful MMORTS and MMOFPS have been around over the years.
Mentioning piracy (blizzard,etc) = we're not rich enough off this game, we think we deserve more.
Make better games and piracy will become less of an issue. Also stop charging a goddamn arm and a leg (and using psychology to get people to accept the price). Indie developers can make great games too and do it with a smaller budget. Short answer is the more cash you put in doesn't mean a better game.
I'm tired of this, the people that want $50 for a game plus a $10-15 monthly charge. There is no rationale for the $50 investment, if you are developing a game, then you as a business have already accepted the risk it will fail. Charging people upfront for your development costs is unreasonable bar minimum and shows how little faith gaming companies have in selling their games. Long term costs (service wise) can be mitigated with instances/other p2p methods, look at guild wars for that. Thus, sell the game for free (and only charge monthly) and what do you get? Oh right, no piracy and more customers (Since people can afford $10 or $15 a month easier).
MMORTS has 2 simple requirements to fulfill: MMO, and RTS. If those are not filled, well then, it won't be successful.
I read your post and literally did a "WTF?!?!?!!??!"...two times! Not too good at thinking on our feet are we? Not offering a game for free has nothing to do with the confidence the company has in their product, its about making sure their people get paid and the business stays afloat. Millions of dollars in development and time and all you can say is "Why isn't it free?"
And just something to ponder on here...companies like NCSoft, Sony, and even Blizzzard had cashcows to draw funding from in the first place, but even then, how does that mean that they should invest all that time and money in creating something new and not ask for something up front for you to use? Tell ya what, come mow my yard for a year and at the end of the year I will pay you $15 a month. Don't forget to stop by on New Year's Eve...I'll have that check ready...I promise. Hypothetical transactions don't sound as appealing now, do they?
And since I am on the topic, the status of it being an MMO is what helps prevent piracy. Since the playability of the game is not fully reliant upon or isn't fully held on a disk that a player "obtains" and you have to authenticate into it to use it, there is less of a chance that piracy can occur as it can be more easily controlled and prevented.
To Everyone:
Howdy. This IS my first post, and yes, that means I don't have street cred on MMORPG.com, but I've been on the MMORTS scene for more than 5 years now (I helped with MMORTSGamers.com), and honestly I don't care what people think! So, either welcome me with open arms or feel free to waste your time yelling at me over the interwebs...
To mjelz:
I do have to agree with most of what you said. Of course, when I pay $50 for a game, I'd expect to get at least a month's play time with it, like Eve and Beyond Protocol do it (or did it when I began playing). @ piracy, you bet, MMO is the easiest way to prevent it, of course, that's an argument to lower initial cost, but w/e ;)
To Dana Massey:
Like others... really? No one's done a successful MMORTS? It's the "Sasquatch of the video game industry"?
Well, perhaps that's true if you're counting only media frenzy, pr campaigns, and total revenue. However, there are some great MMORTS's out there. I do doubt that we will ever see one with the popularity of WoW, but honestly, that's not necessary to have a great game.
My favorites are Beyond Protocol (BP) and Star Alliances (SA), but I really enjoyed Boundless Planet, Mankind, Shattered Galaxy and Time of Defiance as well (with Mankind and Shattered Galaxy being the two most popular, but also most dated).
As for network issues, yes they often become problematic, however, this is where BP and SA step way ahead of everyone else. In the beginning, BP had issues yes, but after nearly a year of operation and constant development, it's no longer an issue. I've frequently had fights involving at least 4 players with 300 units each in one tight area and no lag, while skirmishes rage simultaneously in many other environments. It can be slow, because of the vast amount of strategy that goes into actually creating an empire, but that's why we have SA now.
SA is like Shattered Galaxy for those who know MMORTS. Don't let the initial site throw you off, this game is solid. You get a huge amount of customization, with none of the empire building that slows BP down. Build units, go into battle, earn influence (like credits for research) and experience (so you can have better/more ships), lose all your ships or repair, and redesign, then do it all again.
Ok, that's my piece, take it or leave it. Just know that upon posting this, I'll be off to play some MMORTS!
I'm also having freshly killed sasquatch for dinner if anyone want's to come over ;)
I read your post and literally did a "WTF?!?!?!!??!"...two times! Not too good at thinking on our feet are we? Not offering a game for free has nothing to do with the confidence the company has in their product, its about making sure their people get paid and the business stays afloat. Millions of dollars in development and time and all you can say is "Why isn't it free?"
And just something to ponder on here...companies like NCSoft, Sony, and even Blizzzard had cashcows to draw funding from in the first place, but even then, how does that mean that they should invest all that time and money in creating something new and not ask for something up front for you to use? Tell ya what, come mow my yard for a year and at the end of the year I will pay you $15 a month. Don't forget to stop by on New Year's Eve...I'll have that check ready...I promise. Hypothetical transactions don't sound as appealing now, do they?
And since I am on the topic, the status of it being an MMO is what helps prevent piracy. Since the playability of the game is not fully reliant upon or isn't fully held on a disk that a player "obtains" and you have to authenticate into it to use it, there is less of a chance that piracy can occur as it can be more easily controlled and prevented.
do some research. Venture capitalists have to weigh their gains, but the cost *of* a game reflects solely on the investment value perceived by the company and nothing to do with the actual value of the game and is basically asking the consumers to pay the company's bills in an inappropriate fashion.
Free MMO's get more popularity because nobody has to buy the game. Of course that makes goldfarming more prominent too. Doesn't mean you can't have ways to make a profit (more than before), but means that charging for the game is just asinine.
Games are on a server only because companies think that it is better if they force people to duplicate server functionality and the concept of "well nobody will be able to steal it from us" that the average person won't be able to play somewhere else. Look at WOW private servers on that one. It's just a hassle. Give it a few years of education and you'll see how wasted such an idea is.
Piracy should be 0 focus. Absolutely none. All it means is you don't understand what the term represents and it shows how out of wack with reality you are.
The main problem with MMORTS games...most people mentioned big/small army's, solo/co-op plays, payment etc. etc. etc.
Sure all those could be a big problem but the accual problem is Balance of Units. In most of the mmorts's its the biggest problem. That is if they have Faction/Race units.
How Profitable is an MMORTS? If someone made Starcraft Online (mmorts) or Warcraft Online (mmorts) or hell... even Diablo Online (mmorts). And accualy made it good of course. It would be as profitable/more profitable than WoW.
The BIG names will always get profit like Warcraft,Starcraft,Diablo,Heroes of Might & Magic, Final Fantasy etc.
The reason why MMORTS ain't working as of yet (properly atleast) is becouse of gameplay.
Sure some games have proper gameplay like Saga Online and Beyond Protocol. While i didint play much of Beyond Protocol i can only talk about Saga Online since i played it since alpha up to long long time after release (about 2 years total) and eventualy quit it becouse of developers (not the game itself).
What people look for in an MMO-RTS?
1. Building
2. Command Lots of different units
3. Big Battles
4. PvP (PvE not so much)
5.Gameplay
6. Graphics
Sure some people don't look for Graphics much , some don't even like PvP much, but what when they make mere 10% of total players. Same why can't you Huggle (Hold in arms) Male-Male or Female-Female in Perfect World and other games.
Someone mentioned something like a 6v6 players battle where 1 player controls archers, 2nd player controls footmen and 3rd controls cavalry. I say why not?
Online & Offline issues
Sure you can't be online 24/7, some might even be Casual players not Hardcore gamers.Some might have a life.
But its accualy the cause of developers lack of imagination and/or skill to make proper AI.
Hell theres even so called "Super Computer" Mastermind of Chess with all known moves and impossible to beat.
That's 1 of the reasons why no1 wants to play Bot/PC , becouse their too damn stupid.
If a dev made proper AI for their own game they would be good enough to defend your own base while your offline, or copy your play style and use it vs. enemy. IT CAN BE DONE, but the only reason no1 does it is becouse "The Big Boss" doesn't wish to waste time on something like that.
IT CAN BE DONE, Saga Online done it, sure its an alternative as in their AI is extreamely bad (doesn't use abilitys properly and has no knowledge of formations(same like ability , gives passive bonuses when activated) but they done it so , you set the terrain you Can be attacked at, you can lose buildings there but you set it up as you wish and put in units you wish to use, by doing that you can attack other players that done the same, of course if you done it you gain some special resources on daily basis , that is if it doesnt get destroyed in the duration.
But again, the main problem is balance, if devs dont know how to balance, even things like that wont work, and Saga Online is a great example of that. Like that thing i just sayed before, you attack someone and you wish to capture his mines that provide that special resource, but of course its walled and you gotta kill enemy units AND destroy part of wall to accualy get to it, so they buzzed it up and made units that can teleport. yay... there goes the whole idea.