Yay or Nay: An RTS/FPS online game.

[Citrus]

While not in the exact details listed below, this was one of the original concepts for Team Fortress 2. It's an interesting concept.

The idea is that there is one commander who plays the game as one plays an RTS: from a top-down, pannable view of the battlefield. He would be able to build up a base, handle technology upgrades, handle resource management, and construct things like vehicles for his soldiers to use. He could also use his superior view of the battlefield help his battling squads by issuing tactical orders.

Other (most) players would play as soldiers in the fray (alternatively, it could be class based, with the engineering class carrying out the commander's construction orders). Players would fight on the ground, capturing resource points and securing ground to give their commander the necessary materials to upgrade their equipment, give them vehicles, and prepare for the eventual assault on the enemy's base.

I think it would be a pretty awesome experience, as both a soldier character or as the commander. (Battlefield 2142 did something similar to this, but the commander didn't have nearly this much of an influence, and actually wasn't necessary at all).

The only flaws that are immediately apparent are that there are players who wouldn't care to listen to the commanders (although they wouldn't necessarily have to), and (under the assumption that the highest-ranked and most experienced players get priority to be commander, so as too avoid one team being put at a disadvantage by a leader who doesn't know what they're doing) few casual players would get to try the RTS seat online.

Regardless, I think it would create a very epic and unique experience, and I would certainly relish the opportunity to play something like this.

Thoughts? How would you make a game like this work?

 

[Valiance]

Thoughts? How would you make a game like this work?

You can't.

I've mentally tried to create something like this, before MMOs even existed. It involved some players in wing-commander style dogfights above the surface of the planet, some people playing like an FPS, a couple commanders playing the game as an RTS, and one player playing the game like Master of Orion, giving orders to the commanders of the forces on every planet...

It's impossible.

I don't think humans will be able to do this, work together, etc...Let alone people who are willing to do so be competent players, giving good orders.

Voice chat wouldn't really do it. You would need an in-game objective set, like

"Primary: Support Engineer (NAME) dropping Sentry at Nav Alpha
Secondary: Set up a defensive foothold in the building at Nav Beta"

Nowadays, I have hopes that it's possible, at least on a smaller scale, but something like what you describe would be wonderful.

I would gladly play it, and take my place on the battlefield as well as in the command chair.

The main issues, as you said, are incompetent commanders and insubordinate soldiers. All you need to do is make following orders fun, and make it easy, and then you do it fine.

 

[black lincon]

That sounds like a cool idea but I doubt it would work. Battalion wars is about as close to an fps/rpg your going to get and that was single player. You can't expect people to take order, trust me when I say that.

Me and some friends tired to play CoD4 as if we were a squad with the conception that we could operate better, the problem was everyone assumed they knew the best way to handle the situation at hand.

The same thing will inevitably happen on this new game, people will try to command the commander and he'll do whatever he wants because he cant be killed because he doesn't have a body and he has the most power and people will rage quit because they're pissed they didn't get their way.

Good idea, utterly impossible.

 

[implodingMan]

This game already exists. It is the Savage series. I think most of the games in the series are free to download on the company website so you can google it to check it out.

 

[ZeroMachine]

Thoughts? How would you make a game like this work?

You can't.

I've mentally tried to create something like this, before MMOs even existed. It involved some players in wing-commander style dogfights above the surface of the planet, some people playing like an FPS, a couple commanders playing the game as an RTS, and one player playing the game like Master of Orion, giving orders to the commanders of the forces on every planet...

It's impossible.

I don't think humans will be able to do this, work together, etc...Let alone people who are willing to do so be competent players, giving good orders.

Voice chat wouldn't really do it. You would need an in-game objective set, like

"Primary: Support Engineer (NAME) dropping Sentry at Nav Alpha
Secondary: Set up a defensive foothold in the building at Nav Beta"

Nowadays, I have hopes that it's possible, at least on a smaller scale, but something like what you describe would be wonderful.

I would gladly play it, and take my place on the battlefield as well as in the command chair.

The main issues, as you said, are incompetent commanders and insubordinate soldiers. All you need to do is make following orders fun, and make it easy, and then you do it fine.

Same here. In my mind, that would really be the perfect game.

But there isn't any way that enough people would want to do that... It is a freakin' shame.

 

[Lonan]

Blast, I thought of this years ago, why didn't I patent it?

 

[PayNSprayBandit]

I would gladly play it, and take my place on the battlefield as well as in the command chair.

The main issues, as you said, are incompetent commanders and insubordinate soldiers. All you need to do is make following orders fun, and make it easy, and then you do it fine.

QFT

I've thought about this before, as well, and yes it would be really hard to pull off, but it would be awesome. RTS and FPS are by far my favorite genres (Starcraft and COD4). So, naturally I would kill to play this game. I would definitely be up for both giving orders and taking them.

Also, I think giving the commander control of some low level NPCs would help.

EDIT:

The only flaws that are immediately apparent are that there are players who wouldn't care to listen to the commanders (although they wouldn't necessarily have to), and (under the assumption that the highest-ranked and most experienced players get priority to be commander, so as too avoid one team being put at a disadvantage by a leader who doesn't know what they're doing) few casual players would get to try the RTS seat online.

Thoughts? How would you make a game like this work?

Anyone could choose to be a Commander, a ranking system would match up even commanders against one another; just as it would do with soldiers. Additionally completion of a solo campaign could be required.

There could be a hierarchy in which a Commander could discipline soldiers or even order one soldier to discipline another.

I also agree that in addition to PvP battles a campaign mode would be really cool.

 

[waggmd]

Hmm a very interesting idea. For it to work though resources would have to be captured as opposed to being gathered to keep the soldier players occupied. It would also be neat if the soldiers carried flares in order to alert the commander of points of interests, and soldier players can unlock commander abilities through achievements. I dont know if class style would work or not in terms of balance. Voice communication is going to be very crucial to this game so its going to need a robust team chat system. All in all great idea I would love try a game like the you proposed.

 

[PayNSprayBandit]

...For it to work though resources would have to be captured as opposed to being gathered to keep the soldier players occupied...

I'd leave in some NPCs for this.

 

[Aethonic]

These come to mind as the major problems to be solved:
1. Difference in players' control over the outcome
2. Humans' refusal to cooperate, difference of decisions
3. Validity of specialization

The first one is about the commander having a much greater effect on the outcome than other players. This is probably not a good idea, because the other players would be less in control of their own success, leading to frustration. A way to solve this would be to eliminate the concept of a single "commander" unit and split some of those powers to the other "normal" units; or maybe just get rid of the omnipotent commander altogether. Instead, you could have the commander as a unit in combat, like some high-altitude aircraft that handles communication, that can watch the enemy movements and make suggestions. Then you could split the ground forces into two sets, offense and defense (or maybe give all units the abilities, but let the specialization come from the players' consensus). Offense would attack and set up places to restock ammo, as a respawn point (maybe), and get more NPC units. Defense would set up the basic resource accumulation, defensive walls, turrets, etc. Or as I prefer, one could eschew the whole "collect and build" system and just have waypoint capture to increase some "morale" value, which would affect supply drops and NPC buffs; it's much simpler, probably way easier to balance.

Point two is about why a player would follow another player's instructions. Well, normally they don't have to. They follow the game's instruction because they want a reward. So naturally, the simple solution would be to create a structured system for giving orders that the game engine could parse; think of how EndWar handles it. Then it gives morale points or whatever to players that follow the orders, and there you have it. But what if the orders are bad? Well, if there is some sort of persistent player tracking, it could reduce some sort of credibility score so other players can know not to give them the command position. If it's just a bunch of isolated matches, that might be tricky - how does one punish a player that is not able to die? The commander would be the ultimate griefing class, I'm not sure how to solve that. EXCEPT! You make them able to die. Make all the units the same, except with different special abilities. Ya, sounds familiar? Perhaps the commander units would need high ground for their radar (or whatever) to work, which could be interesting if the maps were designed well.

The last point is something I'm not going to answer, because I think it would be an interesting exercise for many to think about. Why bother with classes at all? You play the game a little differently, but it's the same game. Or, rather, you could give all players all the abilities, but with the requirements for using them maybe preclude them all from being used willy-nilly, and you'd have to focus (my commanders on the high ground example, you can't go on the offensive sitting on a hill and watching enemy movements). More of a brainstorming thing, really, what do you think?


Edit: I just thought of something! Diplomacy. That's something that would be hard to juggle with FPS-ing! And with vague enough commander orders (commander clicks allied unit, then clicks enemy unit or major location, then chooses attack/capture/follow/defeat; Unit A - Capture - Waypoint C) I think it could work. Voicechat, I think, would actually make players less willing to cooperate, so an engine-controlled order system is pretty important, I think.

 

[Corrion]

There was a HL2 mod called Empires that pulled this off.

 

[Valiance]

There's a game exactly like that. Dammit I can't remember the name. it's from many years ago; it's like a bit of a shooter... One player is the commander for the level... dammit what was that game called - might be 'Savage'

Possibly this game

edit: No it's not that game... i'll keep investigating

edit II: Btw, it's "Yea" or nay

[HEADING=3]Final Edit:[/HEADING]

It is Savage: Battle for Newerth

Yeah, I just found the link, this looks exactly like what the OP wanted, and exactly what I wanted...gonna try it out soon.

 

[Ezzay]

As a few people already said, a game like this does exist, it is called Savage. Its a series of games where one player plays from an RTS perspective (The Commander) while others play the actual soldiers in a 1st or 3rd person perspective.

Personally im not a fan, however it is original, and i do like original.

 

[Cortheya]

throw in npcs and i think that would be a truly innovative game that i would buy

 

[Goldbling]

Love the idea, but many devolpers seem to lack the brainpower to do such a thing

 

[sgtshock]

There was a HL2 mod called Empires that pulled this off.

Natural Selection (mod for Half-Life 1) also had something similar to this. I wouldn't be surprised if you could find more of these types of games as mods.