We've been assigned to discuss MMO

[joethreeblah]

Er.. is that what it's called?

MMORPG?

Anyway, Sid told us to talk about it in the podcast. I haven't really played too much of these types of games. Does it mean that while we are playing CIV, that our populations would be moving around and becoming happy and sad based on what actually people that were playing as those people were doing??

Can they see my big cursor fly over their head and order an army into the forest they are playing in?

Umm... or maybe you could go back and walk around in your game after it was over and watch everything happen from the ground... I dont know

 

[MaXXXXXuM]

Well, if it goes MMO, obviously that means we are gonna have to lose the turn based part of it right? Are we gonna be waiting for 20 hours while some guy in Japan makes his move? So my initial thoughts are, something like World of Warcraft, but maybe have horses, cows, lions, and barbarians as the mobs?

-Chris

 

[Sullla]

Civ the MMO! I want to be a Worker, then I can sign online and spend hours every day building farms and digging mines. Whee!

Seriously though, someone will try this idea at some point in time, and if done well it could be a very appealing game.

 

[joethreeblah]

Civ the MMO! I want to be a Worker, then I can sign online and spend hours every day building farms and digging mines. Whee!

Seriously though, someone will try this idea at some point in time, and if done well it could be a very appealing game.

Maybe you would want to build more colluseums and strip clubs and what not so your people didnt decide they wanted to be part of the other country.

 

[Ranbir]

They could make it similar to the A Tale in the Desert game.

Everyone online are technically citizens of a world, and together they build a civilization. One player may end up taking the role of a craftsman, while another might take the role of a general. And so on.

A mmo Civ could have a lot of things going for it, providing it can provide a real-time world (even if most initially is AI) where players can influence a bit here and a bit there. And who knows, rise up to be in charge of an entire city. (and then up to the Civ itself!)

 

[playshogi]

I'd like to see nonstop MP games. It would work this way: you logon on to the game which may already be in progress and pick a civ currently controlled by the ai. You then play that civ until game over or you get tired. In that case it goes back to the ai or whoever picks it up. There should be some sort of scoring or rating system that can evaluate your play.

 

[Sub]

I thought it was a very bad idea. Then again, I hate mmo's.

 

[brokguitar]

mmorpg(mmo's) seems like a business idea that all game creators love because they bring in the cash each month on top of the original $50 you paud for the game. So of course sid is looking to make a online multiplayer game, what company wouldnt. As far as making the "Civ" series onine multiplayer i would say no way but, a game like Alpha centari i can see working better. CIV would not be as fun as a mmorpg and i cant even imagine how it would be implimented. In space you can start with a planet all to yourself in a galaxy. Other players would run other planets in the galaxy, of course there could be unlimited galaxies and planets in the entire universe. You could build your civilization from ground up without chance of another person taking you over (cause if you pay a monthly fee, nobody wants to lose all the work they invested months into disappear). Only possible way to have a civilization style game for mass multiplayer online strategy game aka mmosg!!!

 

[Sub]

mmorpg(mmo's) seems like a business idea that all game creators love because they bring in the cash each month on top of the original $50 you paud for the game. So of course sid is looking to make a online multiplayer game, what company wouldnt. As far as making the "Civ" series onine multiplayer i would say no way but, a game like Alpha centari i can see working better. CIV would not be as fun as a mmorpg and i cant even imagine how it would be implimented. In space you can start with a planet all to yourself in a galaxy. Other players would run other planets in the galaxy, of course there could be unlimited galaxies and planets in the entire universe. You could build your civilization from ground up without chance of another person taking you over (cause if you pay a monthly fee, nobody wants to lose all the work they invested months into disappear). Only possible way to have a civilization style game for mass multiplayer online strategy game aka mmosg!!!

That sounds exactly like spore.

And just so you know, they really do need the monthly fee to keep the servers up, it’s not like the 15 dollars per month (or whatever you happen to be paying) is 100 % profit. They have to buy the servers, run them, have a place to run them, have technicians on hand incase there is a problem, pay the developers to continue updating the game and add in more game content, etc.

 

[brokguitar]

Spore is the oddest looking game. If anyone says CIV4'S graphics look cartoony, they should look at this game. Considering that this game is not even made yet,Civ4 doesnt look cartoony at all.

 

[Volstag]

There's no way, that I can think of, to turn Civ into a persistent MMO. The obvious question is: what happens to your empire when you're logged out? I believe Brad Mcquaid's (of EQ fame) RTS MMO ("Sovereign") was scrapped, in part, due to their inability to come up with an elegant solution to this problem.

Personally, I'm sick of MMOs -- especially those of the swords & sorcery, high fantasy, variety.

 

[Naokaukodem]

First off, I don't like this apellation. Who ever saw an online game that was not multiplayer? I think this complicated apellation does not represent well the overall nonsense that can be such games. But well, I guess that 'MMO', for Massive Multiplayer Online, would not necessarily mean a RPG, but an online game with a lot of players, like a Civ with a lot of civilizations on the map, or even several players for one civ. For sure this would be an interesting idea, as well as thinking to allow the player to play against as many civs as this on single player... lot of cities does not mean automatically lot of fun. I think that if we would start with few space, it would be even greater than actually. Imagine, the alliances between players would be differently more complicated, and would be suceptible to change a lot over time. Sure it would be a tiring experience, but an intense one. Maybe a system of alliance dialogue should be created, to spare the blahblah that such things may cause and allow the player to create and uncreate alliances as he does some Tetris!
Now if Sid wants effectively to make a Net RPG, I just think it could not be feasable with Civ4 as it would be some quite complicated... but the ideas expressed in the first post would be sure the thing to do: be a 'dumbass' who plays in a universe of conquests interests. It would surely give some sense to the game. The difficult thing would be to mix a quest system, if there is one, with the needs of conquest. If there are no quests, well I guess that the overall would be focalized on very massive battles. But I don't know if this would be funny to have to follow a formation being a simple archer or a simple pikeman... well anyway, whatever Sid ask for, means he must already have a little idea of what he would do... so in any case I say: of course!

 

[brokguitar]

That sounds exactly like spore.

And just so you know, they really do need the monthly fee to keep the servers up, it’s not like the 15 dollars per month (or whatever you happen to be paying) is 100 % profit. They have to buy the servers, run them, have a place to run them, have technicians on hand incase there is a problem, pay the developers to continue updating the game and add in more game content, etc.

You get a big red ribbon for the most obvious thing ever said! J/K anyway NOTHING IN THE WORLD IS 100% PROFIT. are you ridiculous? If you make a profit, it is worth your time silly. I havent worked for any business that makes 100% profit LEGALLY! Trust me when i say MMO games make plenty of money regardless of upkeep costs. Why would sid want to make one?

Spore does look like a interesting game, by oddest i meant to imply that it is original and different just to clarify i am not bashing it.

 

[Ranbir]

I redirect you to my post! I think it is the only way Civ MMO could work!

 

[Alistic]

It would have to be innovative. Something new. We've all seen MMORPG games, and MMOFPS games like ww2 online. And those pathetic attempts at mmorts and mmotbs games, you know the website based ones.

Leave it to Sid to be innovative. The real challenge would be to make it more fun than Civ hehe.

A civ game itself on a huge scale with 100's of people on a huge globe would be interesting. Possibly letting everyone be a vassel of a larger country or break it down to the city, town and village levels. Just some random brainstorming here.

I cant imagine what type of server power and netcode that would involve.

 

[joethreeblah]

It would have to be innovative. Something new. We've all seen MMORPG games, and MMOFPS games like ww2 online. And those pathetic attempts at mmorts and mmotbs games, you know the website based ones.

Leave it to Sid to be innovative. The real challenge would be to make it more fun than Civ hehe.

A civ game itself on a huge scale with 100's of people on a huge globe would be interesting. Possibly letting everyone be a vassel of a larger country or break it down to the city, town and village levels. Just some random brainstorming here.

I cant imagine what type of server power and netcode that would involve.

What about having hundreds of people manage the cities individually, like mayors... in a Sim City type manner, and then there could be a few people playing the big game directing the armies and such

 

[Alistic]

What about having hundreds of people manage the cities individually, like mayors... in a Sim City type manner, and then there could be a few people playing the big game directing the armies and such

Defniatly an idea thats worth expanding on. You know, not to sway off topic to much, it reminds me of old thoughts of how great sim city would have been with multiple players and armies. I mean stressing that definatly the building economical part is the funnest. War and human opponents would have made such a fantastic icing on that cake.

 

[bio_hazard]

Maybe it could work something like the Democracy games (I'm just speculating, never having done one). Maybe with fewer human participants per Civ but multiple human teams per map.

 

[Crayton]

One thing a game like this has to implemate is the passage of time, 6000 years to be exact. This means that users joing the game at different times will have different starts. Turns will also need to be abolished unless you want to have 15 minutes in-between turns, or maybe an hour between turns. I played this game called Kung Fu Chess online and it game each unit a "wait-time" between movements. I never played Civ3 multiplayer but I think I heard that Civ4 already has turnless multiplayer.

Each users should start with a city, on an uber-sized map. I don't know the capacities of servers but an Earth-sized (actual size) map would yield room for a million cities (the Saharra would be nearly uncrossable).

Of course, each users should play as they would a normal multiplayer game. New additions to controls (to combat that signing-off problem) could allow alliances between players to allow control of the other user's cities while that user is away. Of course, there should also be an auto-pilot or 'rudimentary computer control' if no users have been aligned with in this way.

I have NEVER played an MMO before, so is any of this already assumed or way too complicated?

 

[Grey Fox]

How Civ would be converted to a MMO is a very difficult issue. I have a hard time figuring it out. But I have thought about it before, a long time ago.

I'd like to see a MMORTS too, but thats also a hard issue.