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Scrym's Terminator Online Pitch
So, if you haven't seen this video, watch around the 45-minute mark to hear Scrym's pitch for this game. After hearing it, I have a few suggestions.
The basic premise: Stateful Terminator-esque world, players put in a quarter to make a new character when they die, high difficulty and skill-based gameplay, requires cooperation, etc.
My expansion:
10 servers. Each server has a player cap of about 10,000. The servers actively compete.
Each server is populated with a finite 1,000,000 Terminators. There are also 100 "Deactivation Keys" which, when put together, allow for Skynet's deactivation code to be learned. A server achieves victory when either all robots are eliminated, or Skynet is deactivated with the key.
New Mechanics in Detail:
Deactivation Keys:
Essentially, some guy found Skynet's deactivation code. But he couldn't get it onto a comptuer that he could use it on without Skynet detecting it and destroying that guy and computer. So he split it up into 100 pieces and encrypted it, storing it on 100 different computers throughout the game world. When a player gets a piece, they can share it with any other player, and it is bound to the character. Character dies, all keys on that character are lost. If someone can get all 100 pieces to a functioning computer (of which there are very few), they can create Skynet's Deactivation Code. This can be shared with other players, but will put Skynet on high alert. It, like the keys, is bound to the player's characters, and when they die, it's gone. Skynet will almost immediately destroy the computer that the code is built on, requiring the player's to share with as many people as possible. If someone with the code can get into Skynet's main computer, they can shut off Skynet and win.
Victory:
When a server wins, everyone bound to that server gets 5 free characters. Then, when they die, they don't have to pay the quarter to respawn a new character for the next 5 characters. The servers are all reset, locations of the codes and computers are randomized, and the entire world begins anew. Each server, on the main screen, keeps track of it's current state. You can see what the current highest number of codes collected by any one player is, and how many robots are currently alive on-server. This inspires lots of competition between servers and cooperation on each individual server.
Anywho, I was just thinking about this and thought it was cool.
The basic premise: Stateful Terminator-esque world, players put in a quarter to make a new character when they die, high difficulty and skill-based gameplay, requires cooperation, etc.
My expansion:
10 servers. Each server has a player cap of about 10,000. The servers actively compete.
Each server is populated with a finite 1,000,000 Terminators. There are also 100 "Deactivation Keys" which, when put together, allow for Skynet's deactivation code to be learned. A server achieves victory when either all robots are eliminated, or Skynet is deactivated with the key.
New Mechanics in Detail:
Deactivation Keys:
Essentially, some guy found Skynet's deactivation code. But he couldn't get it onto a comptuer that he could use it on without Skynet detecting it and destroying that guy and computer. So he split it up into 100 pieces and encrypted it, storing it on 100 different computers throughout the game world. When a player gets a piece, they can share it with any other player, and it is bound to the character. Character dies, all keys on that character are lost. If someone can get all 100 pieces to a functioning computer (of which there are very few), they can create Skynet's Deactivation Code. This can be shared with other players, but will put Skynet on high alert. It, like the keys, is bound to the player's characters, and when they die, it's gone. Skynet will almost immediately destroy the computer that the code is built on, requiring the player's to share with as many people as possible. If someone with the code can get into Skynet's main computer, they can shut off Skynet and win.
Victory:
When a server wins, everyone bound to that server gets 5 free characters. Then, when they die, they don't have to pay the quarter to respawn a new character for the next 5 characters. The servers are all reset, locations of the codes and computers are randomized, and the entire world begins anew. Each server, on the main screen, keeps track of it's current state. You can see what the current highest number of codes collected by any one player is, and how many robots are currently alive on-server. This inspires lots of competition between servers and cooperation on each individual server.
Anywho, I was just thinking about this and thought it was cool.
Comments
Other computers that you use to build the final key would just be randomly spawning in locations, and could be destroyed by Terminators if you were using them.
I would wonder how long it takes before people start to kill others for code.
Think about it, it'd be really interesting. You could even initiate travel overseas - which takes time and has risk - to visit different servers, which would be totally different to your own, it'd be a hell of a lot more interesting than just the "Here's the gameworld! And here's the same gameworld...With Lag!" deal you end up with when going to different international servers in other MMOs.
This is basically hardly more than a map change, and it would make things interesting. Even if it was only trade between the servers.
I can understand it would fuck with the 10,000 cap part of it, and the idea that every server is identical for the purposes of unofficial or official inter-server competitions, but what you're saying doesn't make sense with the original idea, you might as well be saying "I refuse this entire idea", because with the separate servers, player caps, and competing servers, it's already not a single giant world with everyone in it.
Plus, I'd wager that a hell of a lot of the rest of the world is fucking sick of seeing Bombed out LA, or bombed out Chicago, or bombed out washington, or bombed out anywhere in the US but bumblefuck nothing but crop fields in iowa, again and again and again. The terminator franchise has been US exclusive for AGES, despite that we know other parts of the world survived and continue the fight - christ, SCC had episodes about submarines traveling between continents, and a character who was openly from another country(and the future), so it's not like it violates the rules of the universe.
Also, just in general, I'm tired of all games separating people by regions. Yes, there are latency issues, but it's not that bad. I want to unify the worldwide gaming community. Bring people together by having them game together. Can't understand the Chinese guy you just bumped into. Awesome!
Also, go back and read the first post in the thread, with Axel's expansion ideas, that's what I'm going from.
Whether you count a certain number of players as massive or not, it's incredibly disappointing. None of the MMOs that exist really succeed in meeting the grand idea of the virtual world depicted in so many works of science fiction. What do you mean I can't play with my friend because he chose a different server? What do you mean I can't play now because this server is full? What do you mean there are no Russians in this world because they are on a separate server? What do you mean this capital city which would have a population of at least a million people only has 200 people in it right now?
You want a Massively Multiplayer Persistent Unrestricted Single Instance Online game, which is not described by the term MMO, even if games like WoW try to trick players into thinking that might be the case (yet those players are totally happy with what they get from the MMO, and Blizzard isn't trying to please you, because it would be impossible for them to do so).
Really, it's just disappointing that I have a grand vision of the megagame, and to you guys totally miss the point and reduce it to be just like all the crappy existing games that call themselves MMOs. Are you unable to think large and outside the box?
Once you've created a game so massive that I could play for 50 hours and still not even know how or even be able to guess how many more new people I might meet, that counts as massive, to me. Past that point, my EXPERIENCE in the game is indistinguishable from an unlimited single instance.
You don't even have a definition of massive, so, if you'd be so kind, how about you leave the conversation to those who DO have a working definition, and stop being a dick about it.
The entire game that Axel envisions REQUIRES different servers, because the goal is for the people on that server to work together to "win" by completing the task ahead of other servers. Other people are saying "Why not have each server be a single region?" and I'm sure that could be done on a cosmetic level or procedural level so all the servers are still pretty equal, and could still be competitive between servers.
You are now asking for one server, and no limitations, which fundamentally breaks the idea Axel originally stated. He is trying to come up with a new idea, that isn't the same as all the crappy existing games. Thinking impossibly large is not thinking outside of the box. So, if you have a game that large, what game is actually going to be played? Scott, you have nothing, and Alex is the one who has the good ideas here.
Alex's modifications miss the entire point of the game. He might as well be saying, hey, I have a great idea for your Mario platforming game. Let's make it a fighting game instead. Yeah, I don't think you really get it dude.
The guys at CCP have pushed the MMO technology the furthest in this respect and still needs the segregation of regions to handle the work load. It is basically what I felt Churba was describing with being able to leave one server, the NY one, and visit the London one.
A concession of linked regions, through check points or whatever, would make the technology behind the game easier to deal with I think.
Edit: ninja'd by Apsup!
But they've long had a history of their tech not quite being reliable to say the least, and despite their small game population, they're using the largest, most powerful supercomputer in the gaming industry, just to run the world itself. Custom job, too, very, very expensive. They're constantly racing to be just a little less behind where they need to be. And even then, they've been shifting over to a more WoW-like architecture - hosting different systems on different servers, trying to spread the load, and then with another entirely separate architecture behind that to try and make them all communicate.
So basically, it can be done, I guess, but it's a fucking stupid and ass backwards way to do it that will all but guarantee the failure of the endeavor unless you're willing to constantly scramble for inevitable failure, not to mention the insanely high cost - sure, you could have just one, if you wanted the game to essentially be playable only in the US.
Now, my turn for a question or two - Why are you treating every idea that isn't either yours, or explicitly in agreement with yours like it's a threat, and not just another idea?
Why do you think that everyone missed the point, rather than saw your point and said "Hey, that's a good start. Let's see if we can make something more of it?"
Im quite taken by the idea of peoples actions in different locations having effects on others. Say some guys up in the North Sea manage to get a rig working. Suddenly we can start to get more fuel and build more equipment.
The core idea of the game is that it should not be fun. Your ideas for things that would make people feel excited or connected might be great in general for some other game, but they are not the game that I have proposed. In fact, they are directly contradictory to that game.
The idea is that you pay per life, like old arcade games. And thus, you also die constantly like old arcade games. It fucking sucks. You are just some lousy starving human who somehow miraculously survived judgement day. You don't have shit. Guns? BAH! You don't even have a pot to piss in.
There is no connection to any humans that aren't near you right now. The only communications infrastructure remaining is Skynet. If someone else has a major victory, you will never know unless you believe meta-discussions you read on the real world Internets.
If you go outside where a satellite can see you, prepare to die. There are killer robots walking around. They are made of an incredibly tough alloy. They have extremely heavy weaponry. They do not miss. They can see infra red, so you can't hide. They don't get tired. They are strong enough that there is no recoil when they fire guns. They don't really care about fire. They want to kill you. You are John Conner in Terminator 2, but Arnold never shows up.
All people on earth playing this game together is essential to the end goal. It is a challenge to the entire world. Here is a game that is so hard. Can all you gamers beat it even if you all work together? Can the humans of the world work together to save the world? It's a very Independence Day (the movie) kind of message.
Adding to the difficulty is the horror and frustration. It's one thing to make the game mechanically hard, by making the bad guys so strong. It's another thing to make it psychologically hard. When you die, it will be swift and shocking. The screen will instantly go black, and all audio will cut off. After a break of a few seconds the menu will fade back in. The bad guys will be smart, sometimes you will be walking along feeling safe, and then black screen gives you a heart attack.
In order to even see some Terminators and survive, you will need to be in a group of many. And while you are in that group, you may see your friends hosed down like a lawn being mowed. It should be as horrific as possible. I may even have a moral quandary If I were to ever actually make such a game since it may give people PTSD for real.
So yeah, come up with all the game ideas you want. Just don't conflate them with my original idea if it doesn't conform to this vision.