I Need This!!1
Lately we've been looking for some middle ware on which to base our next terrain editor. We've got some pretty steep requirements. Need to build a half scale map of Europe with several thousand towns with roads and rivers and satellite digital elevation data as the foundation.In the past we've looked at many editors but nothing really designed to do what we need. I want it to be automated as much as possible. I'd like a cross between Sim City and Combat Missions. I don't need what most MMO engines have and shoe box shooters can't make stuff on the scale I need. Take a look at Blueberry or Terrex for something close for sim applications. Trouble is I don't want to use satellite pictures and I really need to have playable spaces out of all this.
Those guys have some cool stuff. I think we can work something out of it that might give us quick production and good results. Then I see this:
1 - Good screens of progressive generated interiors with objects.
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=566
2 - Mostly chat about the game history:
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=571
3 - Procedural cities. Code generated in a few weeks into the project....AMAZING! http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=586
4 - Using the same basic algoritrhms from street and river and building placement you can do interiors as well.
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=600
5 - Chicken and the egg, need a dbase for the buildings before you can define the rules to build them...DOOM FTW!
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=683
6 - The buildings and streets...
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=733
To turn a phrase...F. Me.
Labels: mmo design, serious games, tools, wwiiol
18 Comments:
So what's the down side? Is there any idea on a price?
Ah, hadn't read the forums there yet. Didn't realize that you weren't looking at a library-based toolkit like SpeedTree, but rather what some guys are experimenting with for their own game.
Hot Damn! That was cool.
Thanks.
A 1:2 world will be fundamentally incompatible with realistic naval simulation. It'll also lock you out of future uses of simulation-systems like yours for ground/air/naval operational planning based on rapid satellite-photo map creation.
A 1:1 world has 4X the area to fill (but that's what the tools are for) and 2X the flight time for air players, depending on your mechanics choices. Presumably a 1:1 world could be generated procedurally, even if satellite photo capabilities existed on the shelf.
I'm surprised that you're sticking with 1:2.
Technically I'm not sticking with anything yet. This tool will probably not be available commercially.
A 1:1 world would be no better for naval game play than a 1:2 or 1:8 world would be, the play space size does not change relative to the edges of the ocean, unless of course we continue like we do now to actually make you sail around the world in order to have an engagement in which case we might as well not bother because the 4 people on the planet who want to play that are already builders.
It's not like we can put in a x8 button like every other naval "sim" does.
Surprised you hadn't read about that before as it had a story or two on it on Gamasutra. These are the guys that did Darwinia.
Well, speaking of relevant things in Gamasutra...
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1421/propagation_of_visual_entity_.php
I've never understood the idea that what stops people playing the naval side of BE is the time to battle.
Having spent the better part of the last 3+ years maily sailing in game what the vast majority of players wanted when you talked to them wasn't a reduced time to battle but a reason to be out on the sea in the 1st place!
But if you're so convinced time to battle is the vital thing then maybe this would be a way to do it & a 1-1 size world would then be irrelivant.
There was always talk of persistant ships as a way to do the bigger ships, but this would in theory work for ALL ships.
All that is realy neeed is a 'join in flight' multicrewing system.
eg. the HC deploys a naval fleet and gives it orders (eg, go raid shipping off English coast). The persisant fleet sets sail. The players then have the ability to join any of the ships in the fleet as crew at anytime. AI mans the guns when no playes are there.
You could also get the system to put a message in chat when the fleet makes a contact, so that players know there is action to be had.
That would solve your time to battle issues and not have the issue of ships spawning from other ships (eg Naval MS) that would kill any naval immersion that remains.
Anwyay, sorry to go off at a tangent. The terrain system looks interesting.
With the talk of the ability to add other theaters if you had something like this I guess the important question would have to be would these other theaters be linked to the current one?
If these are the guys that did Darwinia you may have a shot at getting your hands on this. It wouldn't hurt to drop them a line.
@mwhitman
Reason is primary, certainly, however, most players won't bother to play even with a reason if they have to sail 3 hours to catch up with the action. We don't haev the x8 time button.
Join in flight to be an AI gunner replacement might be nice, running your own ship with ai gunners would be better.
There's more to consider than just the "naval players". There is also a need to consider all the "would like to be naval players".
New theaters, preferably linked.
If you have topographic data, and you have an automated terrain filler program, why would you not just do the world as one big theatre? Can the new engine not handle expanding the map area?
Isn't this exactly what you want to do if you want to sell this engine as a 'world simulator'? I don't know if that is still on the table I know CRS lost to Microsquash for a guberment contract a year or so back.
But if you can leave leave neutral countries unoccupied, why go for a different theatre unless all you want to do is sell another box? Doesn't that just split up a player base that is constantly harped on as being too small anyway?
Why not have naval CP's that are invisible spawn points?
HC and OIC could move brigades to these points in the sea. They'd be visible to both sides, just like current brigades. Players could spawn directly at those points. If an enemy vessel got within "EWS" range, the naval brigade would automatically fallback, and the CP would transfer to the enemy's control. This would avoid any camping except by air or ground (if close enough to shoreline). There would be normal EWS for air/ground, but only show on map if a brigade was in that location.
Just rambling. The "front lines" of the sea would change often, it seems, but I believe it would encourage a lot more naval activity is you saw this happening and knew there was a large naval battle going on in the middle of the ocean, rather than only at ports where you could spawn a AAA gun instead.
Thinking about it, it would have to work differently. Hmm...maybe I'll work on a proposal with all of the details when I have time.
I'm just amazed no ones thought to try the "Great Naval Battles" model. You still can't beat it today. It's a near perfect map of how it could work in WWIIOnline sans the spawning in.
@gnasche
Write it up and put it on beta for discussion, I like this idea. Also could give us pathing for convoys.
@sonar
Please enlighten me.
http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?gameid=476
If you are talking about Great Naval Battles. If you haven't played them I'm suprised. I'll write up a full report and post it ya?
Gophur, I'll have a first draft by the middle of next week. I'm pretty busy until Monday (bought a condo). That will give me plenty of time to brainstorm.
I'll also read the documentation and possibly load up sonar's "Great Naval Battles" for inspiration.
I may be putting my foot in my mouth here once I cottoned on to what you want to accomplish out of gnasche's post. I do feel though that a lot can be taken from GNB so I'll let as stand.
Gnasche is basically saying that you have spawn points wherever there may be an enemy ship and the enemy ship can take the points and change where you can spawn. This would cause a great deal of problems on how the zones where laid out. Do them as a grid and you have the problems of early WWIIOnline with mad rushes cutting off huge swathes of territory back and forth. Or you do them as actual zones and make them conform to actual sea zones. This would still be incredibly easy to gank and would require constant friendly forces guarding each zone.
The other method as described by CRS is to put moving points out that players can spawn from. High command would presumably control those points.
Neither of those methods gives you what you want in the form of playability and realistic usage. Convoys are out of the question because they are going to be blocked by an enemy CP or always found and destroyed or never found and destroyed. (Either players know where the routes are and go looking for them or players don't know the routes, never find the ships, and complain about them.)
Commanding something really slow like a submarine is out of the question.
What I would propose is simply: If you want a strategic game, use a strategic game model. Let the players FIGHT the battles but everything else needs to take place on a strategic scale.
Divide the sea into zones and allow high command to assign fleets from ports to those zones. HC can also assign convoys through zones, the strategic 'server' moves the fleets automatically from zone to zone at a realistic rate.
Now if both high commands have units in the same zone (Say a British convoy and a German Uboat)there is a chance they may interact. If the strategic server checks for possible contact every hour (if there are sides that could fight in the same zone) and decides that they encounter each other you get a battle sign on the strategic map. Players with rank can select a ship in the fight and spawn.
De spawning a ship returns it to the strategic pool IF it is outside of a certain range of the enemy. otherwise it is flagged as spawnable.
Now comes the jaggy bits.
What if one side doesn't spawn in a ship? AI? No, not necessarily.
If john grabs the submarine he doesn't get to spawn in until there is something out there to fight. If the brits don't grab a destroyer or transport john never spawns in. Maybe give him an outside reserve slot. He can be spawned in the game world with a reserve on the submarine until someone on the other side selects an enemy ship to command. After that happens he has a limited amount of time to despawn and spawn the submarine before it goes for grabs for someone else.
Anyway if one or both sides don't spawn in (I really doubt this would happen, people loves their spawning in) then after a length of time (30 minutes to an hour) the strategic server decides if any ships are damaged or lost. To reflect realistic loses there are a lot of really good systems out there. GNB has one, the strategic game 'World in Flames' has an EXCELLENT strategic level system or if you must go with something already computerized and modern you can check out Pacific Storm. (I play a lot of navy games, can you tell?).
Aircraft carrier fleets are treated differently from regular fleets and have a chance of spawning farther out from the battle than normal, allowing fighters to take off and attack the enemy. Of course you'd have to have someone spawn in that carrier and it would have to be close enough for a minimal time to target. Hope your fighters find the enemy and sink them before they find you. Just think, two carrier fleets fighting each other would have CAP be relevant for once.
Players may whine that they don't want loses decided by the computer. Simply tell them they can spawn in and fight for themselves.
So now lets say we have two sides who want to spawn in. A battle ship and two cruisers against 3 cruisers and two destroyers. (Side A and B.)
The strategic server decides where in the zone the fight takes place. Randomly place the fight anywhere in the zone. Once placed two points are placed, A's spawn point and B's spawn point. Ships spawn in in formation at a set speed and direction. (If you spawn a cruiser on side A you would be in position in relation of where the battleship would spawn in). Working together and spawning in at the same time would be a great advantage so that you could fight together instead of spawning in piecemeal and possibly dying to concentrated fire.
After the ship spawns in the player can keep the ship as long as he is spawned in. If he de spawns the ship goes back to the zones strategic pool even if he sailed the ship out of the zone.
Damage:
Ships that take damage keep damage. This is an excellent point where GNB really shines with an in depth and thorough damage control simulator. Players spawned in can work on repairing what can be repaired. What can't stays damaged until HC pulls the ship to port for repairs. If a player despawns then the server automatically repairs repairable points on the ship - it's just a matter of how many points can be repaired in a set amount of time. If you have a ship lose a turret then that ships turret is gone if it goes into another battle. This means that you would need to add the ability for the server to record and keep damage to units.
Rearming and resupply:
Keep it simple. If a ship is despawned assume it hit a tender and rearmed, it respawns with full ammo. Easy.
What about invasion fleets then?
Those work like convoys. See convoys and moving fleets don't move along a path, they move along zones. That makes invasion fleets tricky, since they aren't spawned in and moving around in the game world how do you set where they go if you want them to go to the coast of London and land some Tigers?
Convoys move from a start city to an end city. New York (city) - Eastern atlantic (zone) - Mid atlantic (zone) - North atlantic (zone) - Edinburgh (city).
Invasion fleets (and by invasion fleet I mean any fleet that is assigned a specific point to go to rather than a zone that isn't a city) move from zone to zone until they hit the zone that contains their end point. They then STOP and hold at the zone bordering the zone containing the end zone. They then become available for spawn. At this point, players must spawn the ships and drive them in personally. I'd suggest giving HC the ability to lock spawning until it wants to prevent invasion fleets from going in piecemeal. After a ship is spawned in if it despawns it is returned to the holding area in the bordering zone. While ships are in that holding area they are subject to encounters like every other ship in the zone - the difference is they can spawn and they spawn in a specific place.
Ok so lets talk about the advantages of this and what the game play costs are to the players.
There is much reduced griefing and spying. Only the HC's know what fleet is in what zone at a given time. You may know that the Graf spawned in the Northern Atlantic zone an hour ago and destroyed a convoy but nothing says the HC didn't move it out. Fleets aren't automatically spotted by Joezimbo out flying his lone stuka because he knows ships HAVE to come that way.
There is much reduced "boring crap". Players don't have to go looking for a fight, and they don't have to drive for hours and hours staring into space. They get only the good stuff. A fight when there is a fight. The last leg of the invasion fleets moving into position tension of being seen not a question of if, of when EWS or a player sees them (Coastal patrols in planes relevant now! Hey I actually DON'T know for five hours that an enemy ship is coming! I better look!).
This means that actual naval play is possible. Ships are treated as they actually are, strategic elements. Players may always fight to the death if they spawn in but at least this way there isn't instant death for the entire fleet. Players aren't allowed to destroy the entire fleet. Instead, with this method, the HC can actually put resources into building a fleet that doesn't respawn. Something that I thought was a goal from CRS.
Want to block an area? Put in more fleets and increase the chances of an encounter. Convoys have a chance of actually making it through instead of being conga lined by HE-111's. Speaking of planes those are still relevant! Nothing stops you from seeing a naval fight and launching a wave of bombers that way.
Costs to players:
Well, they lose personal control of their ships. If joe bob gets his submarine sunk then Amy Lee doesn't get to play with that sub until the navy HC builds another and sends it that way.
Players must trust their HC with the boats. And maybe the HC must trust the players. If the ships are limited then the HC may need to decide who can and cannot spawn a boat. That's tricky I know. At least this way you are ok'ing a vast swath of players to spawn any destroyer instead of saying joe can spawn this one and amy can spawn that one.
Overall this system is the fairest and most workable I've seen. HC handles the strategic, Players handle the tactical. Random chance and luck are still present and real naval tactics and strategies are useful. Blockades can be set, and can be run. They can also be broken if you move enough ships into the area.
You actually have a naval war with this system. Whoa.
looks cool
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