Prefered Type of Multiplayer

What type of multiplayer would be best for M&B?

  • Arena Type (Counter-Strike style)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2-8 Player RPG (Diablo II)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • MMORPG

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0
  • Poll closed .

Users who are viewing this thread

Orion

Still Not Worthy
Global Moderator
This is a poll about the type of multiplayer that the community wants. Seeing as how multiplayer is a suggestion, I believe this poll belongs in the suggestions thread along with it.

This is NOT a SUGGESTION topic.
 
It's not asking for multiplayer, it's asking which kind is most popular.

I voted arena, if that wasn't obvious.
 
I also believe that arena matches would be best, although I think those matches should have a lot of variations. E.g., rather than all of the battles taking place in hilly fields or a large arena, I think there should be various maps with different obstacles and tactical possibilities. I also think it would be neat if there could be objectives beyond just "kill everybody else". There could be variations on team matches, capture the flag maps, escort and defend maps, territory conquest maps... stuff to make life more interesting that wouldn't require a great deal of extra coding.

While I wouldn't mind seeing the game as a MMORPG, it would take a huge amount of effort to make it work. You would need a lot of content -- regions to explore, units to fight with, quests to fulfill, loot to acquire, etc. Then you have to make sure that character progression takes a very long time. Allowing a player to basically top out their character in only a few hours to a few days would be simply unacceptable -- it must take weeks to months of dedicated effort to build up a powerful character, otherwise there's no sense of achievement or investment. You also have to establish a sense of community, and let players work together toward common goals, such as building up cities or tearing cities down. And of course, all of this requires an infrastructure to host the gameworld and allow people to connect to it, which costs money.

The 2-8 player RPG idea... well okay, I only played Diablo once, and I never played its successors, so maybe I just don't understand the idea, but I don't see how it could work. It seems to me that it would basically just be the same as the arena match idea, except with the players all cooperating against NPC opponents, with some persistent changes between battles (e.g., letting the player keep equipment they looted from the last battle).
 
I think MMORPG is the best. cos think that while u r a squire and looking for someone to kill, u see another player who is a merchant and carries lots of stuff and cash.... if u lose.. ull lose ur stuff.....but if u win ull get everything.... think about it..!!!! I think it willbe so cool... and ofcourse think of making a party from 8-10 friends and fighting with other parties.!!!
 
You need an "other."

I think M&B would work wonderfully as a sort of strategy game. Raise armies, control cities on the map, and fight using the game's combat engine to determine loss or victory in key battles. It wouldn't need nearly as much content as an RPG, yet it would provide some great context to allow people to grow a power base and use it to best effect.

(Anyone remember the board game Britannia? -- I'm thinking along those lines, only substituting M&B combat for dice rolls :cool: )

This wouldn't be in exclusion of arena-style though... that would be a fun mode to play as well.
 
Nice thinking Aethelwyn,

I'd like to see other player controlled parties going around the map to ally or fight with. Not quite a massive online thing, but with smaller regions where you battle for supremacy.

You could fight in the arena for spoils, prestiege and experience. Maybe even take some troops in with you.
 
Aethelwyn said:
You need an "other."

I think M&B would work wonderfully as a sort of strategy game. Raise armies, control cities on the map, and fight using the game's combat engine to determine loss or victory in key battles. It wouldn't need nearly as much content as an RPG, yet it would provide some great context to allow people to grow a power base and use it to best effect.

(Anyone remember the board game Britannia? -- I'm thinking along those lines, only substituting M&B combat for dice rolls )

This wouldn't be in exclusion of arena-style though... that would be a fun mode to play as well.

Or you could just say RISK
 
you know that this is a game of a 2head-team and talk seriously about mmorpg?
rofl

i think the only realistic options are
-arena type deathmatch with variation (outside the actual game, so no story), that's the most easy option
-coop mp, where all players are in one party
-every player has it's own party with optional combat between player parties (e.g. when from different factions), but this is already a heavy one

mmorpg, still lol
 
The arena option more or less requires all players to be reasonably evenly matched when it comes to stats and equipment, you could possibly do it cs style and let the players buy/sell equipment after each "round". get money if they win, (or allow them to sell the equipment their opponents had)

the only multiplayer solution that wouldn't be like another game is some sort of co-op (one leads the party the rest are "heroes" and help out during combat). this is probably also the option that is easiest to implement.

MMO is definitly out though, it is too darn hard to make it work. not to mention expensive as ....
a M&B mmo would require much more server power and bandwidth / player than big budget projects such as world of warcraft. so i can't really see a way for it to happen without ruining the combat part of M&B.
 
I'd say the 2-8 player thing. They all start neutral, and wander like they're playing a 1p version of the game. However, they can stick close to each other, and join each other's battles, each taking command of their troops in the fight. Players joining an existing fight could choose a side to ally with, rather than simply being placed on an arbitrary side, thus, players could help each other, or enter battles against each other. Out of the 8 or so players, say 4 join each faction, now you have warring armies that maneuver intelligently and support each other!

A good use example would be player A likes to be a "solo guy" so he never invests in much leadership, but has a small contingent of archers that follow him, he enters combat, finds a nice vantagepoint to order his troops to stand and shoot from, then rushes headlong into the fray. Player B loves cavalry and the thundering doom of hooves. So, he invests in leadership and riding skills, and builds a force of knights, leading them in rushes on the enemy in a battle and intercepting possible trouble headed for Player A's archers. Player C likes infantry, so builds a skirmisher unit that follows the cavalry into the initial fray, remaining behind to help keep the riders from becoming trapped, protect those who are unhorsed, and play the "center of the maelstrom", remaining in the heavy fighting straight through the entire fight.

This, of course, would take a few other changes to how combat worked, and some extra considerations:
- It would mean increasing the total number of units that could be on the field, but decreasing the number any one party could bring in at once to a percent of their side's total.
-In addition to the increased total unit size, one thing that should be considered is that more players mean that that side will have a more dynamic strategy. So, to help ballance this, imballance of players on one side will be offset by decreasing the maximum number of units on that side by 2/extra player, and increasing the maximum number of units on the opposing side by 2. This gives the AI a net bonus of 4 units on the field for every extra player they have to face, while players fighting on opposite sides would face equal odds.
-More players should also increase the size of parties roaming around, not as drastically as the combat ballance above, but it should be considered, since players are likely to ally against AI parties, meaning the AI party will need to be much larger to be able to pose a real threat (especially since cooperation can be devastating).
-A cycling que system would be needed for reinforcements. So, as casualties mount, the reinforcements come from rotating partys involved on a particular side. In the above example, say you have players A, B, and C on Side X, fighting a huge army of dark hunters/knights on side Y. Side X loses 5 units (an arbitrary threshold for the game to decide reinforcements are called for), so player A's unit is refferenced for reinforcements. He only has 5 archers, all have already been deployed, so the que looks at player B's forces, he has 10 Swadian Knights in reserve, so it adds five. The black knights prove a bit more than the players expected, and 5 more fall. The que system checks player C's party, he has 3 infantry he wasn't able to field at the beginning, so it adds those three, then moves to player A, no troops, moves to B, fields 2 more of his cavalry. 5 black knights die, there's only one party on side Y, so the que always just fields more of that party's army.
- Late-comers would have to wait until their side suffered some losses to be brought in, but would be placed before other reinforcements in the "que", with the player being the first to be added.
- Because of the issue with large-scale combat (noticed from the Mod thread on increasing battle size), you could have corpses dissappear in a multi-player game, unless the server was running as a stand-alone, in which case it could likely handle it better.
- It would make this system even cooler if the AI would join fights (perhaps only player-involved fights, conserving units for fighting players, and increasing the challenge, since enemies could get reinforced, losing a bit of realism if they didn't join AI only fights but, meh, can't be perfect). It could even be an invisible rule that AI will only join in on losing sides, or sides opposing more players. That would make the challenge cooler, but might, again, detract from realism. "Man, when we fought on Swadi land, they got like five armies of backup showing up on the field! Those damn Vaegirs just stood there and watched those Dark Hunters lay into us!"


Anyway, it'd be a big project, but I do like the concept of a 2-8 player full version to M&B as opposed to an arena system (I mean, there's a half dozen or more of any given incarnation of this play-style out there, and capture the flag and such, or even counterstrike. . .can get old doing it over and over again, there's other forms of multi-player) I think it would just be more fun to play with and against players in the actual game, where they could explore the full aspect of the game. I think the arena thing would be boring and repetitive, while riding around waiting for the main player to get in a fight so I can do something also doesn't sound like much fun to me.

As for MMO. . . :roll: Honestly, MMO is a thing that has to be part of the core design, not really to be added later. Moreover, M&B is an awesome game to sit down with a handful of buddies I know and play until we decide to do something else. I'd hate to play in the world of M&B and have to put up with "Yu fuggin' hacked! I know it! I'm reporting you!" "Ha! I so ninja'd that fight from U!" "OH! Totally pwnd ju!". Don't get me wrong, I play, and love playing MMOs, but I think it would destroy the M&B experience, even if it were designed in to be Massively Multiplayer. :shrug:
 
Back
Top Bottom