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Heroes and Generals- I think they are on to something
LydarSynn
Member UncommonPosts: 181
Many of us here are on the forums and not playing an MMO becuase we are tired of the same old same old. Today on the site, there is an article about Heroes and Generals. While I am not a huge fan of FPS, I think the devs of this game are onto something. I hope that this concept takes root beause I believe it could give us a new generation of MMOs.
The concept that I am excited about is that there is a strategy element along with a FPS (in this case) element. It appears to me that there are players are making a direct impact on the game world through strategic decisions and orders. Other players try to carry out the orders to win for their side.
What if this concept was applied to other types of MMOs? I have been thinking about this type of game for quite a while. If fhis concept was applied to either a fantasy or sci fi MMO, I think it would be a blast. You could have government (kings, president, mayor, Senate whatever). The goal of the game would be to make your faction or nation more powerful through economic development, politics, magic and warfare. The 'leaders' would ask the players to do certain things to further the goals of the faction. So, that job to make 50 longswords or eliminate that monster in your kingdom would actually come from other players in response to challenges they face in the strategy portion of the game, I would favor a concept where the players could have multiple charcters so they could play both the strategy and MMO portion of the game if they wished.
Lastly, this concept would not need a linear story. The story would be created by the players as they respond to the challenges of the game. Give the players the tools and a setting and let them decide whether or not there is going to be war or peace or whether or not to send some knights in search of that magical artifact.
Comments
No. I don't think that will work very well.
Gamers are NOT trained soldiers and it is not likely that they will follow orders (or suggestions). If you think it is hard to get 10 people in a raid not to stand in fire, it is nothing compare to try to maneuver large groups.
Have you played an online FPS? People just curse at one another and there is very little coordination.
Well, my thought on it is like this. I'll use fantasy as an example. Your main character is a lord- the leader of your House. This guy is your avatar and is the person who has some say in the strategic decisions. Depending on the power of the lord, he will have other characters under him- adventurers, soldiers, mages, crafters etc. All of these represent you stable of of characters and are contollable by the player or they can just be set to doing tasks that the lord gives them. You could choose to recruit any type of character and these are the people who will actually do things in the world.
For example, you could choose to enlist one of your military characters in the army. You can play him or not as you wish but he is going to do what is expected of someone in the army. If you are not playing him, he would be under the strategic control of the player who is commanding his section of the army. The lord, of course, would accrue benefits from having his men in the armed forces. If he is killed in battle then he is killed as he is not your only character. And there is no issue of 'getting people to do things' as there is structure that demand that their character do the things they are ordered to do. If the players does not want that kind of structure, then they don't need to join such an organization. But if you have men in the army, the player would be offered military missions.
The same principle would apply to anything else like crafting. Say your town needs tools made and you have a blacksmith character. You can have him make the tools or not but it would benefit you if you helped your town/city. Again, this would be a mixture of strategy, RPG and MMO that I think would work especially if players had multiple characters that they could control. The team that has the most cooperation and better strategy would probably wind up 'winning' the game.