Space opera game?

SONOFAGUNN

I saw a post about a user lookiing for that classic space opera type game, and thought to myself that this is exactly what everyone is looking for. A game that has ..

1. Is persistant

2. is PvP

3. has depth

4. Allows multipule gameplay styles (Space combat with fighters up to big capital ships, on planet exploration, in space stations) all with a varity of missions.

5. Where your gameplay helps or hurts your factions place in the universe, Or adds and builds on the storyline.

6.Perhaps have player bounties where a player could put a bounty on another player. Hmmm mabye not that last one....

If you could combine two or three games into one what would they be?

For me ..

Combine MECHWARRIOR with EVE and throw in some of the old SWG or even ANARCHY ONLNE.....

I wonder if something like that could ever be pulled off....

Rayx0r

so basically Eve?

SONOFAGUNN

Eve with expanded gameplay....

Not just a space sim, but one where at least some of your experience can be gained outside of your ship... planet based missions and such.

I imagine a mission where you may fight your way to a planet, land and continue the mission as a person not a ship.

I think that perhaps there is a line that I see that is hard to describe.....

MadAce

Starport: Galactic Empires.

Rayx0r

ah.. i get ya

ya it would be a hell of an experience.  what would be the focus of the game? space play or planetary?

Scaris

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Originally posted by SONOFAGUNN
I saw a post about a user lookiing for that classic space opera type game, and thought to myself that this is exactly what everyone is looking for. A game that has ..
1. Is persistant
2. is PvP
3. has depth
4. Allows multipule gameplay styles (Space combat with fighters up to big capital ships, on planet exploration, in space stations) all with a varity of missions.
5. Where your gameplay helps or hurts your factions place in the universe, Or adds and builds on the storyline.
6.Perhaps have player bounties where a player could put a bounty on another player. Hmmm mabye not that last one....
If you could combine two or three games into one what would they be?
For me ..
Combine MECHWARRIOR with EVE and throw in some of the old SWG or even ANARCHY ONLNE.....
I wonder if something like that could ever be pulled off....

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I would prefer Traveller over Space Opera. From what I remember of Space Opera the game was way over burdened with numbers and rather dry.

Nu11u5

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Originally posted by Fadeus
I would prefer Traveller over Space Opera. From what I remember of Space Opera the game was way over burdened with numbers and rather dry.

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I think your definition of Space Opera is not the same as the OP's. It is a genre in this case, not any game title or system.

Wikipedia Article: Space Opera

zhombie

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Originally posted by Rayx0r

ya it would be a hell of an experience.  what would be the focus of the game? space play or planetary?

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The true focus of a space opera game would be both space and personal/planetary. Any individual would be able to affect the course of the system/galaxy/universe what have you. The key in space opera is that not everyone has to be a pilot. Excellent examples of the genre from a [very] basic point of view would be Traveller or Dune. Maybe Serenity.

esourced

quite some time away from completion, but emperium-online.com. No planetary landing planned, but playing as character in stations.

SONOFAGUNN

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Originally posted by zhombie


The true focus of a space opera game would be both space and personal/planetary. Any individual would be able to affect the course of the system/galaxy/universe what have you. The key in space opera is that not everyone has to be a pilot. Excellent examples of the genre from a [very] basic point of view would be Traveller or Dune. Maybe Serenity.

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Exactly.... perhaps every player cannot affect the galaxy but could have a part in it... what if a NPC came to you and wanted to hire you to take them to some planet and wanted to "Avoid any Imperial entanglements......" perhaps you wouldn't change the universe but then it could open up a lot of missions that was not previously available or make it so the the Imperial fleet now actively tracks you down.

I guess I am dreaming of a game where your choices affect the gameplay more than I have seen in previous titles.

Haruto

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Originally posted by rentantilus
I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Eve Online + Planetside = PERFECT SCI-FI GAME

If you're really out to attract as many people as possible, just add in a psionics system to cover people who enjoy "magic" effects in the game (levitation, telekinesis, mind blasts, etc).  Then maybe you can add in boats to round-out the vehicle selection (spaceships, conventional aircraft, wheeled vehicles, boats, submarines, personal vehicles like speeder bikes and jetpacks, etc).  Imagine Eve Online's economy with a planet/moon/space station interface like Planetside.  All you're missing by that point is player housing and a few other obscure MMO features that could easily be added.  Now THAT would be perfect.

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Fully agreed, I have thought that would be a perfect game ever since I started getting into Eve and recalled all my Planetside time. However I doubt it will ever really be able to happen. Only way I can see if it basically sent you to a seperate server system dedicated to the planetary gameplay system as just the space section alone is so expansive and has so many players it would be overwhelming to add in planetary FPS on the same server system.

Adversly, perhaps have the planets be instanced encounters with just you and perhaps one party land to fight purely PvE. That might be possible as part of a mission whereas the Planetside style addition might be a bit too much to get in.

Elnator

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Originally posted by MadAce
Starport: Galactic Empires.

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Not a bad little game but kinda basic doncha think?  Now... if they made it 3D it'd get a lot more attention.

Elnator

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Originally posted by Haruto

Originally posted by rentantilus
I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Eve Online + Planetside = PERFECT SCI-FI GAME

If you're really out to attract as many people as possible, just add in a psionics system to cover people who enjoy "magic" effects in the game (levitation, telekinesis, mind blasts, etc).  Then maybe you can add in boats to round-out the vehicle selection (spaceships, conventional aircraft, wheeled vehicles, boats, submarines, personal vehicles like speeder bikes and jetpacks, etc).  Imagine Eve Online's economy with a planet/moon/space station interface like Planetside.  All you're missing by that point is player housing and a few other obscure MMO features that could easily be added.  Now THAT would be perfect.

Fully agreed, I have thought that would be a perfect game ever since I started getting into Eve and recalled all my Planetside time. However I doubt it will ever really be able to happen. Only way I can see if it basically sent you to a seperate server system dedicated to the planetary gameplay system as just the space section alone is so expansive and has so many players it would be overwhelming to add in planetary FPS on the same server system.

Adversly, perhaps have the planets be instanced encounters with just you and perhaps one party land to fight purely PvE. That might be possible as part of a mission whereas the Planetside style addition might be a bit too much to get in.

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Erm... SWG had a totally different space and ground game combat system.  No reason another MMO couldn't do that.  (Talking PRE-NGE).  Ground combat was more typical RPG style combat while space combat is/was twitch based space sim combat.

There's no reason in the world why you couldn't make a space combat system like eve and ground combat system like PlanetSide work in the same game engine... 

It's just bits, how you manipulate them dictates how they act.

zhombie

How would that be too much for a server to handle? SWG: Jump to Lightspeed handled pretty well. It was one of the best things about that game. It handled both space action and planetary action without any issues. Well I thought so anyways. But you had a Wing Commander style twitch flight/combat system with the ability to move around inside the bigger ships or man turrets and there was a fairly separate ground based play. Ignoring SOE, ignoring that the game is SWG (and consquently where it is now) and you have all the viable game dynamics to make an excellent space opera. There's a lot you could do with those game mechanics and would please sci fi gamers on both sides of atmosphere. Just make separate content (missions, hunting, harvesting, etc) exclusively for both space and ground the have content associated with stations and starports to mix the two.

Something else I would like to see that I think would work really well in a space opera... don't create the typical "galactic war" scenarios for the setting. Use a cold war instead. Lot's of espionage and make pvp completely open, but have nasty consequences. A cold war setting would add a nice undertone of tension to a game and if the players are able to affect it through their actions would determine the direction the game goes eventually.

Haruto

I was just saying that it would probobly cause a lot of lag issues to have that all set up at once, considering the scope of Eve and of Planetside, would basically be like having two interconnected MMO's operating simultaneously with a userbase that averages something like 8-10k players online or more at any given time. Never looked into SWG at all so no idea how it worked out there at all.