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Why are there no MMORTS?
VowOfSilence
Member UncommonPosts: 565
from the article "Five Companies That Should Make MMOs":
"Ensemble Studios, the company behind the real time strategy series Age of Empires, would have been a perfect candidate to try their hands at an MMO-style game. [...] More and more, people in the MMO community complain that these games have become stale, that no one is doing anything new. One of the ways to revitalize the overall genre is to expand it. Why not an MMORTS that follows the same rules and conventions laid out by MMORPGs?"
exactly my thoughts.
before i get flamed:
yes, i know that there are some MMORTS. But their numbers are real small compared to the flood of MMORPGS, most of them have a tiny budget, and it shows. Also, some of them aren't even really MMOs in any way (f.e. Dreamlords).
soo... what's up with that? Why don't bigger companies have the guts to do a MMORTS?
is anyone actually interested in MMORTS?
Hype train -> Reality
Comments
I think bigger companies are worried it would flop. My biggest concern with an MMORTS is the persistent world aspect of it. In traditional RTS games you train people to harvest, then you build buildings for training armies and upgrading. Now, if this is how an MMORTS were to work, you'd worry 24/7 that someone is going to come along and destroy everything you built. I like the idea of an MMORTS; however, its the implementation of a true RTS that seems difficult. Then there's also the number of people who would play it. Most people are used to games like WoW, EQ and such... just throwing a new genre into the mix would be a difficult sell.
Take the MMOFPS genre for instance. Those games are still far and few between. And many of those self-proclaimed MMOs aren't even MMOs at all, they're just lobbied deathmatches like Counter-Strike. The only true MMOFPS games out there right now are PlanetSide and World War II Online (or whatever it's called now). Neither of these games really have that large of a population. And quite frankly I'm surprised the latter is still running after almost 9 years in constant beta. I know there's a few MMOFPS games in the making, like Huxley and MAG though.
So... it's just a matter of implementation to attract players to the genre. I think a lot of players are just content with their traditional RTS games and there isn't that much of a demand. That's not say that if someone came along and made an MMORTS and did it "right" that players wouldn't play though... it's just a tough sell, especially with the economy in a slump.
Let it be known that I hate WoW with a passion and will defend almost any MMORPG against it.
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Starcraft 2 would beat the living hell out of any MMORTS. Starcraft is the 880 lb gorilla for the RTS industry, like WoW is for MMOs :P
Currently restarting World of Warcraft
No.
I think someone needs to make an MMORPG that looks like an RTS. Lets take Warcraft III for example. People make custom maps that are rpgs where you gain levels, stats, and skills. It is played from the perspective of a RTS but you only control your character and any extra units your character summons/owns/ect.
Now look at how many units are on the battlefield on the screen at a time. Now imagine each of those units are controlled by a single player following the commands of their fellow guild or group leaders on ventrilo. You could easily have the depth of an MMORPG of today with the scalability of an RTS to allow for large numbers of people on the screen at a time.
These games would play no different that other MMORPGs in except that instead of using ASWD or arrow keys to move, you click around the battlefield, controlling your character in a strategic field of view.
Also, an RTS allows for older computers to play as there is a limited field of view in which to draw. Also, RTS games generally make creating the world and setting much easer as it is scaled down. This leads to larger worlds because of the smaller scale each player is compared to the world.
MMOs Played: I can no longer list them all in the 500 character limit.
The Empire series is pretty big.
No.
Yes.
battleforge.com
The Empire series is pretty big.
After AoE3, I'll be hesitant. Though I will admit, AOE1/2 are great, I need to reinstall AOE1...
Currently restarting World of Warcraft
After playing the WAR trial I was thinking how I'd have designed an RvR game and I was thinking make it like an RTS but where the players were the Peons and soldiers.
So each zone would have a bunch of objectives like mines, woods, quarries, shrines etc and if you controlled them they'd give your realm 500 units of iron, wood, stone, mana etc every 15 minutes or something and that stuff was used to build structures that improved the objective and/or helped defend it. The crafting in the game would mostly revolve around building and repairing structures and building siege weapons to destroy them. The other team would be attacking and trying to destroy your structures.
I'd make the PvE revolve around the same things i.e each mine, wood, whatever would initially have a group of NPC mobs guarding it so the players would need to clear them to take the objective but there'd also be a timed respawn where the NPC mobs tried to take it back again. So for example a mine would initially have 24 goblins mobs guarding it and a flag somewhere in the middle and players had to clear the goblins in the mine and take the flag to capture the objective for their side. Once they took it the goblins stopped respawning in the main part of the mine but on a random timer e.g every hour plus or minus 30 minutes a bunch of goblins spawned in one corner of the mine and tried to fight their way to the flag. So players had to fight off NPC mobs as well as the other team(s).
Shattered galaxy was a great mmorts, It didn't have the whole base building thing but it was fun and engaging its a example for rts combat it was awile ago so don't expect it to wow you if you look it up, its pvp was great and had pretty fun pve.
Shattered Galaxy was excellent, but it's PVE was terrible. It was all about fun faction vs. faction continental warring.
If someone made a polished game with Shattered Galaxy's gameplay model (controlling batches of units with teammates against an enemy faction, vying for control of territories across large continents) I would buy it in an instant. SG was amazingly fun despite its lack of polish.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
maybe so.
But Starcraft 2 will dominate the traditional RTS market even more, just like WoW still dominates the MMORPG market. A good mix of WoW and Warcraft 3 would mean you're offering something that is both new and familiar at the same time. Sounds more reasonable to me than trying to compete with Blizzard games directly.
Hype train -> Reality
I would love to see an MMORPG/FPS based on the Civilization series. Age of Wonders would be really neat also.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I think another problem would be like what happened in Shadowbane. A powerful individual(in Shadowbane's case - guild) would come along and dominate the server. It would be impossible in a persistent world to battle the huge advantages they would have. Just my opinion.
there are/have been MMO/RTS/FPS games put out where you have 1-5 people in an RTS mode the rest are in a FPS view screen. the RTS guys drop buildings and give orders the rest build and attack people they have been pretty popular.
though i dont think a full on RTS would work, simply because it would be very hard to do. i played a net/lan match with some buddies in AOE2 where we all played as 1 player it was pretty hard at the start to figure out what your doing.. until we managed to regulate who did what and where.
so its possible to do but very difficalt and i dont think many companies want to take the risk to make a RTS mmo. when they can just throw in a MP in to a standard RTS and let the players kill each other that way.
I think another problem would be like what happened in Shadowbane. A powerful individual(in Shadowbane's case - guild) would come along and dominate the server. It would be impossible in a persistent world to battle the huge advantages they would have. Just my opinion.
Well, they could always reset it after somebody "wins" like they do in most RTS and TBS. They could even randomize the maps each time to make it more exciting. One of my favorite parts of RTS and TBS games is scouting out a new map. If someone was exploiting the game, like if they won, but didn't do the final action to reset the maps, then they could always just reset it every month or so.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Are a lot of people still playing Shatterd Galaxy? Sorry just wondering lol
I would love to play a mmorts but it has to be good and not done half-assed like. Grade A or bust .
I miss playing Age of Empires, it was my first rts game ever.
agree, but it doesn't have to be this way. Managing huge persistant empires only causes problems and isn't a real element of RTS, anyway.
Some people have already posted concepts that are imo more promising: Make it much like a MMORPG, but have each player summon or hire a rather small amount of troops to battle RTS-style. Like Atlantica Online with RTS-battles or some kind of "Defense of the Ancients Online". DOTA is quite popular for a Mod and would be a nice template for a MMORTS.
Hype train -> Reality
No.
Yes.
actually the warcraft rts games were everbit as popular and is some cases more so than starcraft
Think i'm going to dl Shatterd Galaxy now lol. I remember it was fun when i played but I didn't play enough to get strong to compete with others heheh. Anyways I think RTS are my favorite type of games.
There are two that I know of that follow the traditional client distribution system. beyond protocol, and a second one that's actually 3 different games with very different version from localization(forgot name).
The reason there are more is because web browser games are so very well suited for slow time games.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
Try Beyond Protocol or Galaxy Online.
The first one has a steep learning curve. The second jus' takes a while to get started in.
I'm still playing Galaxy Online on Leo server on Rofilla side, if you want to join me.
Ikariam and CitiesXL lean in that direction.
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I like the idea of a mmorts because the idea you just logon and then in a persistant world choose to do some micromanaging or do some offence is a nice one. It's when you think about it in more detail and it maybe seems kind of inconceivable. I mean any base you have might be vanquished while you're offline, and when you're online you might not even have any rivarly. Would it therefore come down to 'instances' between those who are online at any moment- and then wouldn't that really be no different to games of say individual games of WC3 or any other RTS that goes on anyway?