HELP SID Make a Civ Massive Multiplayer Game!

[Jon Miller]

my current idea is a bit different, maybe not as crazy..

Jon Miller

[Nikolai]

I imagine something along these lines:

A game where you start as one among many small kingdoms/tribes around the world. The world should be big, so that a huge empire would be like the Caliphate in the real world was. In the start, all players get their own little kingdom, but as time passes, your empire might grow on the expense of the neightbouring civs/cities. All civs wouldn't be player controlled, but rather be controlled by the AI until a player logs in, and when the player is away.

Now, as time goes by, and your empire grows, there will be harder and harder to rule it all by yourself. And then other players can be placed as vassals/governors of you, so that even though there becomes less independent kingdoms in the world, noone is forced completely out of the game, but rather takes over a small position somewhere in the world when they are conquered, and begins from scratch there.

But as we all know, no empire lasts forever. An empire can fall in so many ways: There can be military conquest, but let's face it, in the world the danger can also come from inside. The leader might have become weak, and if his position is weakened, some of the other dynasties/vassals could try to exploit it. It can be explited through assassinations or coups, or perhaps more subtle by marrying into the king's dynasty and take over with royal blood line as the claim.

So, if there is a coup, different things can happen from there. If one is lucky, will no external force meddle in the affair. Of course, the meddling doesn't have to be direct by military force, but perhaps through support of one of the sides in exchange for influence, land or something along those lines. Anyway, if the king is strong enough, there might come a civil war where either one side wins it all, or the empire gets divided.

I'm not sure what would be the ideal way to make this game in turn based vs. real time respect. Any ideas? And btw, this is of course only dreaming and brainstorming, but dreams can sometimes give something valuable, so who knows?

[OzzyKP]

Another thought, 4000 bc to 2050 ad (the standard civ time span) is 6050 years. If we broke up the game into 6050 turns, and fit that within a year. Each turn would last approximately an hour and a half.

Of course that would probably put too much emphasis on early history.

[Harovan]

Idiocy. Clearly shows, that it is time for Meier to retire.

I like Civ and I like MMO. But I would HATE CivMMO.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Idiocy. Clearly shows, that it is time for Meier to retire.

I disagree.
Clearly however, it would not be something we would participate in, Sir Ralph.
If Firaxis chooses to develop such a thing as CivMMO, let the market determine its fate. Let us also hope that if it succeeds, it profits them enough for them to continue to develop games we are more in favor of, ...
and if it fails, that they recover enough to develop those more favorable games still.

[DRoseDARs]

My thoughts on scientific advancement in such a game:
Obviously, new players would be at a distinction disadvantage to more established players if everyone played the same game. You'd never get new blood in numbers to support such an online environment for long. Instead, establish different worlds that have a set time limit before closing off to new players. The admitted players would start fresh together and there wouldn't be any of that "restart eliminated players" crap. If you wished to even the playfield further, research could be twofold: First, the standard form of private research would allow players to discover new things themselves; second, the research of all admitted players in the locked world would collectively add to the progress of said players, ensuring no one is left completely in the dust, even if they conduct no research. If the players are a well-connected group, this would be a good way of slowing the pace of the game; it could be a pre-game agreement to tailor that world to their playing style. This is what we do now in multiplayer civ games, there's no reason it can't be translated into an MMO version.

[Lancer]

You pony up the $, go through basic training, get assigned to a unit as a soldier, fight in a war, get promoted, and rise through the ranks commanding those who join after you as you fight troops from other civilizations in a regular civ game in which all civs start out commanded by the AI in 4000BC.

Nah, never mind.

[Addled Platypus]

IHMO

1)the logistics of getting all those playing to show up at roughly the same date and time would be more the entertaining in itself

2)and the rate players drop out of games for good and bad reasons

how would 2 be handled?
how would number

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
My thoughts on scientific advancement in such a game:
Obviously, new players would be at a distinction disadvantage to more established players if everyone played the same game. You'd never get new blood in numbers to support such an online environment for long. Instead, establish different worlds that have a set time limit before closing off to new players. The admitted players would start fresh together and there wouldn't be any of that "restart eliminated players" crap. If you wished to even the playfield further, research could be twofold: First, the standard form of private research would allow players to discover new things themselves; second, the research of all admitted players in the locked world would collectively add to the progress of said players, ensuring no one is left completely in the dust, even if they conduct no research. If the players are a well-connected group, this would be a good way of slowing the pace of the game; it could be a pre-game agreement to tailor that world to their playing style. This is what we do now in multiplayer civ games, there's no reason it can't be translated into an MMO version.

One way to do it potentially would be to build outwards from certain points. Lets say the first player starts roughly at the spot of Babylon. Then when each new player is created, they are placed near that city, expanding ever outwards. Pack the cities relitively close to each other. Keep adding on new people at the fringe of the settled area.

What would happen then is players would start in areas roughly the same as themselves. If one of the first 20 players gobbles up his neighbors and forms a good sized empire, a new player wouldn't be placed right next to it, because there would be rows and rows of other moderate players between you and he. You'd be placed with other new players.

I'm not being clear, but do y'all understand my point?

[AeonOfTime]

I'll have to agree there are nice ideas here, and if Sid were to risk such an endeavour I guess it could become something grand. But I would not be a part of it.

I don't like MMO games. While the concept is nice, to really apreciate a game you have to show a certain amount of dedication that I can not and do not want to invest. I do not even like 'basic multiplayer', and would have preferred the Civ4 team to put the effort that went into multiplayer into the game itself.

There are many MMO games that would have made brilliant single player games, and it really disturbs me not to be able to play them (eve online or warcraft online come to mind for ex.) - and it is a trend that does not seem to stop.

I sincerely think that if Civilization goes MMO, I will give up on gaming altogether. Unless the Elder Scrolls series stays true to its current singleplayer mission

[OzzyKP]

Don't be so anti-social. Other people are fun.

[Jon Miller]

I have been writing up my current ideas

will post them soon

JM

[ruby_maser]

The very idea behind the Civ series is putting the control over the destiny of a nation in the hands of the individual, the player. How do you go about restructuring that framework to include so many people that you invariably must take power out of the hands of most all and place it in the hands of a select few?

Unless we are talking about a massively multiplayer democracy game, and if so, my vote already doesn't count in the real world...

I would love to participate in a massively multiplayer version of Civilization... if significant power were concentrated in my hands. I'm guessing everyone else here is no different.

Ergo, you'd probably have a very high degree of participation among those fortunate megalomaniacs that have status and power in-game. Only if these aspects can be achieved in a timely fashion and by guaranteed means do I see it working at all in its present form.

What does everyone else pay to do in the meantime, subject themselves to that? And how is that satisfying? People stripped of power would simply find another outlet.

[Lemmy]

Power is relative. Sure, you might have full control over your civ, but with hundreds of other civs on the same map, how much power do you really have? All you can do is influence your little corner of the globe, but in the grand scheme of things you're no more powerfull than someone who runs a city in a demo game. But in the demogame, if you take the numbers i've mentioned, you'd have an influence on the entire Civ, it wouldn't be complete control, but it would be some influence on 1/16th of the game. While if you were just 1 Civ out of 1024 on a large map, i doubt you'd be able to affect 1/16th of the game, or 64 Civs...simply too many to keep track of, let alone influence consciously.

You say the idea is to control the destiny of a nation, i say the idea is to control the destiny of the world. But if you want to do that in any MMOG, then cooperation is required. The Demogame approach (with the necessary modifications to keep it interesting for all participants) is then a very interesting way to do it.

[Jon Miller]

but that is not what people want for a MMO

at least, that hasn't been what has been successful

JM