Mass multiplayer Civ/MOO?

[Trifna]

I created this thread because I wish to explore the possibilities of a mass multiplayer Civ/MOO, should it be in 50 years I don't care. If it seems impossible to you, well it already exist on the Internet, generally mail or web-based. How could it be? How could it work? They're only STARTING to make mass multiplyer RTS and it seems to have alot of potential since it creates a real political universe. And in the case of Civ and MOO, it's more than just political, it's cultural, scientific, etc.

It could be some persistant universe where the governors are doing all the job automatically until you go change something (so you're not obliged to always be connected regularly to not lose everything). It would give an infinite map with players on it, all trying to expand, trade, etc. Of course, it would need some adaptations but could be awesome...


Now I have work so I'll continue thinking on the subject later if I want to be able to give this work on time.

[Inverse Icarus]

whats the point of having an infinate map? i could own a bajillion tiles, and that would mean nothing. there would be no true sense of victory at all.

also, the tech tree presents a problem.

first off, when new people join, would they start off in the stone age? it would suck to jump in and meet some tac nukes on turn 4 of the game.

also, when the tech tree is exausted, what then? just conquer everyone, wiht no real point, as the map never ends?

if you wanted to make a REALLY massively multiplayer game, you'd have a galaxy of planets with special charastics, and you would work your way up from the stone age to space-faring civilizations. it would be interesting to see the planet versus solar system dicotemy.

imagine starting on a planet like in civ, developing up to the space-era, with several major powers on a planet, and beginning interstellar colonization / war. imagine being at war with someone ON YOUR OWN PLANET while fighting them for colonies on the outer rim of known space.

woo!

if you wanted to run with your thing though, you'd have to re-think the map thing. infinate maps seem pointless to me.

[Trifna]

Yeah well my message was built very rapidly... (6 hours left to make my essay )

I have to agree your idea of starting from stone age and going through future... seriously good game. But it seems we'd need to see QuickSilver and Firaxis join to do this, otherwise building from scratch would make something really colossal ($$$) otherwise less complete.

About technology, two options:
- We're in the future and it never stops
- We're anywhere and the game stops some day, as Civ3... (this means you don't have players joining mid-course)
- There's no technology, only improvements and else (some of these games are like this, but doesn't seem to work here)

A persistent universe is not always about winning and be the last on the map but rather like actual countries, all continuing to exist. Like EVE, which will come out some day...

If there's absolutely no official winner but only a world where people play, it's more realistic since people aren't playing only to beat others and more for their own country, it's sorta RP. You can have a game that stops after a certain time (there's an event there), and before if some allied people won (only one player winning over 20 000? Yeah, after 4 years).


PS: A very good element of comparison is Earth 2025, a mass multiplayer TBS game.

[Rasbelin]

Well, at some point there was even an idea that Stella Polaris would be a MMOG TBS game (IIRC, Pande suggested it), but the idea was turned away or left untouched as it didn't get support, because it would require more work and factions. But IMO there's some potential for a MMOG version of Civ or MoO as there's people who like to have many competitors and maybe it brings more reality as normal Civ games are limited to a much smaller number of civs, than there's in the real world.

[DrSpike]

It's not as pretty as what you want but there are already huge online MP strategy games like Utopia. You can play for 15 minutes or 24 hours a day.

[Jamski]

I'm sorry, I was about to write about mass MP TBS games, but I realised the suggestion was for RTS games. Wow ! Big difference there. Imagine the processing power for keeping all that moving.

No, I was going to suggest a TBS system, with one turn every 24 hours. Everyone can do as much as they like during this time in the way of adjustments, managing, attacks etc, and then all the orders go into effect at once. Sure the pace of the game sounds a bit slow, so it would have to have massive depth and heaps of real-time diplomacy, dealing, trading and internal problems to solve. Now that would be good. There should also be no way to win as such, only to get better all the time, like classic MUD games. It won't happen though, probably.

-Jam

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by War of Art
I'm sorry, I was about to write about mass MP TBS games, but I realised the suggestion was for RTS games.

Where'd you get that from?

[Jamski]

Re: Mass multiplayer Civ/MOO?

Originally posted by Trifna
They're only STARTING to make mass multiplyer RTS and it seems to have alot of potential since it creates a real political universe.

Hey Doc,
It was this got me thinking RTS, or am I going up the wrong river again?

-Jam

[DrSpike]

I think he was just using that as an example to say mass MP was becoming more prevalent........I think his post was about mass MP TBS, like MOO or Civ. But I can see why you might interpret it your way........perhaps Trifna will check in later.

[Jamski]

I hope this thread is about MMP TBS games, I'm much more interested in TBS. I don't have the nerves for controlling 1000 units and keeping my eyes open for everything. Sudden Strike makes me mad, for example. All those infantry running around, and seperate drivers for the tanks...
Give me TBS or RTS with big grouped units please !

If this thread is about RTS games, then shall we threadjack it ?

-Jam

[Trifna]

I was truly talking about TBS. I mentioned RTS because everything comes on RTS first since it has more market.

About Utopia, I already now its existence. But it's not as coherent as MOO3 and such from what I've seen yet.

[Leland]

Some random thoughts...

• No victory conditions are possible.
  
• MMP Civ has to make sense for new players. Some limits have to be put so that you don't get nuked after 2 turns. Consequently, small primitive nations have to have some sort of "ecological niche" where they can grow to be bigger ones, e.g. there are some things new civs can do that advanced civs can't, or that they can produce some things more efficiently. This way, the oldies aren't inclined to obliterate the newbies, but rather trade with them or find them otherwise useful.
  
• More emphasis on diplomacy, and organizations like UN or NATO or whatever the players will figure out. Socialization is pretty much what makes MMP games tick.
  
• Infinite map, or lots of smaller maps, or map that "grows" so that any arbitrary points A and B always move farther away from each other. I could imagine lots of islands floating in the sea, and new ones being formed all the time, for example.
  
• Limits to growth. At least geographically. There has to always be room for new players to arrive, and it would be terribly frustrating to have tens of thousands of cities anyway.
  
• Balancing tech trading. There has to be a real choice between researching stuff on your own, and trading techs... if current models were carbon copied to a MMP game, the first few players would research but the others would just get the techs from the established civs for free. Not fun.
  
• Lots and lots of new techs, units, facilities, wonders, etc... maybe even let players create their own.

[Nikolai]

Ah... Ideas like this have been a dream for me for a long time! I remember reading in the List about an idea of something like this, here it is:

Massive Multiplayer Online Civ - Bloodlines
In the context of Civ 2: The game would be played on an earth world that is much larger in size than any civ. You would build cities and civilizations to actual scale, and some players would play regions within civs, and can rebel and try to start their own civ, etc.

New benefits: Fun.

Discussion: You would play a bloodline that could marry with others and have children. If your bloodline dies out you have to restart the game.

Marrying would be the equivalent of making an alliance. Each member of your familly would be listed. Government would be such that you can tell different players, if you have completely captured their bloodline, to control a region for you, which they would do under the threat of eradication. The converse is of course also possible, and rebellion remains a possibility.

In a republic, the players in that civ would control different factions in the senate and would have to do actions to get them more popular so that they got more power. In general, play could move as in SMC’s simultaneous mode.

New players would start along the edges of civilization and in historical areas. In the game you could “launch huge realistic campaigns against others, or manage a real looking and acting civ…”

And then over to what's posted here:

Originally posted by Leland [*]MMP Civ has to make sense for new players. Some limits have to be put so that you don't get nuked after 2 turns. Consequently, small primitive nations have to have some sort of "ecological niche" where they can grow to be bigger ones, e.g. there are some things new civs can do that advanced civs can't, or that they can produce some things more efficiently. This way, the oldies aren't inclined to obliterate the newbies, but rather trade with them or find them otherwise useful.

I don't understand why you can't start in the middle of the game? You can just start with some of the same techs as your neightbours or in the edges of civilization, can't you? Or you can, as the idea form the List suggests, lead a revolt, and if successfull lead the new nation.

[Lemmy]

I've actually been thinking about a sort of Mass MP Democracy Game.
Where you play the citizen in an empire, and can vote for other players, or yourself, to take on leader roles. I'd imagine it have to be a sci-fi and in space, sci-fi to overcome certain communication problems when voting, and in space to keep the universe infinite, allowing it to keep growing.
There would have to be something for the citizens to do while they're not voting. Maybe some sort of market mechanism. To make it possible for the citizens to start businesses , and keep 'm busy.

[Trifna]

I think that the concept of Earth 2025 could be very well applied here. Earth 2025 DOES have technologies and it's dealing with all this mass multiplayer stuff.

Maybe this kind of game could be run on a server, a little like Ultima Online, with as little as 15 players to as many as the server supports. Or maybe even by some sort of "multi-computer uncentralized server", each computer able to overtake it having some tasks. But I'm no computer geek to know if it'd work...