Blizzard What are you doing?

http://www.tentonhammer.com/end_of_nations/reveal

Why are these guys the ones to make the first MMORTS? Seriously blizzard owns the best MMO of all time and the best RTS of all time. You'd think this is something blizzard would just do naturally.

Anyways its an MMORTS designed by the creators of C&C feel free to take a look. Its different I'll give em that.

 

From what I've read it's not as much an MMORTS, as a game with a lot of players per map. 51 does not constitute massive.

 

It's still an attempt at the genre which is something you'd expect blizzard to do...

 

egh, 51 players. All that means is massive lag unless they support LAN.

Also, what does this have to do with Blizzard?

 

Its an MMORTS and blizzards two best games are either a MMO or RTS, So you'd think they'd hit this market first.

 

Since when does Blizzard do anything first?

 

They already did. As you said, Blizzard's two best games are a MMO and a RTS. Making a RTS with 50+ player capacity isn't reinventing the genre or creating an entire new one, it's just a gimmick to get people to buy the game (as ijffdrie pointed out 51 is nowhere near massive).

If a "real" MMORTS existed, it'd be so horribly broken from day one that it'd be nearly impossible to play. How would you deal with player complaints of being attacked by five separate armies at once? Should the devs just prohibit joining forces, even though it's a legitimate real-word strategy? What if one "faction" (player character) started amassing troops/weapons that were considered OP by the rest of the playerbase? The beginning stages would just be one massive cry of butthurt until players founded the in-game equivalent of the United Nations, which would probably generate even more butthurt because players don't like the idea of other players deciding how they play the game. Tack on subscription costs and it's more of a job than anything else.

 

I tried to think up an MMORTS idea back when I was 11. Even at that age I saw so many problems with the concept and even in little details that made it impossible. Since then I have seen no usable solutions for this problem.

The solution this company had was 'We do not make an MMORTS, we simply call it that'

 

Being MMO doesn't necessarily make any genre better.

It's a buzz word (buzz acronym?) that excites people who easily get excited.

 

Its still going to be considered a first in the MMO genre by the industry. Also, sure regular people can't figure out a way to make an MMORTS work, but remember vidoe game designers are people with degrees. They went to college to learn about making video games. So I'm sure they could find a way, and while it wouldn't be easy it is definitely possible.

 

That's not necessarily a good thing.

 

if they are gonna consider it an MMO in any sense, I will not take 'the industry' seriously. This is a RTS where 4 times as much people go on maps. It is cool, but not an MMO.

 

What might work is something like those 4X games, but where each square on the map is played out as an RTS scenario, that you can transport units and resources in from neighbouring squares that you occupy.


For each of those squares/maps that you have units in, you can access that map and give commands to any units you have there. The objective is to dominate all maps, and every other player is doing the same thing, perhaps with some alliances. But the difficulty of expanding to many squares is that you have to divide your time between all the separate battles that may be taking place.

Unlike current RTS games, these battles may be slower paced, so you are able to manage several separate armies on several different maps. To get around the problem of lag, each map may support no more than X number of players, and if the game is strategy oriented rather than tactical/micro oriented, then lag is less important anyway.

Your thoughts ??

 

Game development isn't rocket science. The actual computer work of creating models and the like may be difficult, but deciding when, where, and what models and game mechanics to implement is simply a matter of logic. Besides, all MMO's rely on player feedback. Us "regular people" are as much a part of development as any company game developer.

 

Awesome, some of the staff are former Westwood developers. Hopefully they pull this off with flying colors.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDj11Q7uJ6g
Even though each map is 50ish players, each map is always changing depending on what players do to it. Sounds interesting enough for me.

 

"remember vidoe game designers are people with degrees. They went to college to learn about making video games."

they are probably a few steps ahead of you, they either realized that the concept is seriously flawed and have scrapped it until the technology is there.....

....

...or they are hard at work making your dreams come true !<3

 

Idk, it may be just me, but this game does not even peak my interest. The trailer wasnt even that great, i dont see this game becoming a big hit, and i see Blizzard securing another titan in the gaming industry, making them control the RPG and RTS categories. (as if they dont already)

This game just looks flawed, and having to depend on a random teammate is a risk in itself, let alone ones on a MMO scale? This isnt WoW where you face roll yourself through a game and hope for loot, having 20+ people depend on a strategy.

 

I find that when people don't know each other, but are teamed together, there will be more likely to compete for loot. Players act selfishly because they want the potion drops for themselves. But if those drops need to be used carefully in order to advance through the game, a team of greedies is not going to advance very far.

Random team RTS can work, but only if player skills are similar across the team.

 

The developers are conceited, and that gets you nowhere in business. I wouldn't download the demo if they paid me.

 

I don't think they are conceited at all. They're simply proud of their achievement.

Most people who play games don't appreciate how difficult those games are to engineer. This is especially true if it is breaking into a new genre where there is no similar game to borrow from.