06-02-2009, 01:04 PM
We had talked about this some in another thread, but I thought I'd just start a separate thread for this.
Given:
* World size is massive. World War 2 Online size would be ideal. (Actually we just need to sell this idea to Cornered Rat Studios, since they have the only game engine in the world that can even handle this...)
* You are meant to spend your life working on local factional wars. Moving across the map should only happen if you don't intend to come back
* Let's just assume the game will have "magic". Sci-fi technology and magic are basically the same thing, so we're not limiting ourselves much.
What methods of travel should we support?
I'm thinking...
* You can fairly easily travel from one town to another regardless of distance if the destination and source town both employ a wizard and both wizards like you. This sort of travel is cheap if distances are short but can be very, very expensive if distances are far. So basically once you are friendly enough with 4 orc villages, the orc shaman will teleport you from one village to the next. The orc shaman in the 5th village doesn't know you well enough, though, and refuses to cooperate in such a spell, so you still have to get over there the hard way.
* Wizards may be able to teleport you away to a location of your choosing, but the further away you want to go, the more it costs and the less accurate the spell is. (e.g., if you want to teleport to that 5th village 20 miles away, the wizard will send you there, plus or minus 3 miles, and he needs 3 gold bricks to complete the ritual for that range.) This trip is one-way. He cannot call you back.
* No "WOW style" mass transit system. There simply is no easy way to travel large distances.
* NPC caravans. There would probably be caravans that you can hitch a ride on, which will travel whether you're online or not. (If the caravan gets destroyed, you would log in and find yourself in the bushes near that location.) These might take you longer distances.
* Moving large amounts of cargo would be extremely risky. YOU log out of the world but your cargo caravan doesn't.
I would probably do horses/vehicles, though, just because I think they should have a place in the game. But it would still take a damn long time to completely leave your region.
I was also thinking that a faction could, in an emergency, do a mass teleport to basically fling themselves into the wild blue yonder to start over. This could be an idea if we wanted to make sure that factions never really died. The faction decides they're losing, so they empower their best wizard to use all of the buildings in town as "fuel" for a spell which teleports all the people and possessions (including any players who logged out in the inn) 500 miles away to a fresh position where they will start to rebuild.
So from an attacker's perspective, you would be fighting this faction, taking over their towns, cruising for a victory and then their last 3 villages basically explode and everyone in them is gone -- their land is now free for the taking.
Given:
* World size is massive. World War 2 Online size would be ideal. (Actually we just need to sell this idea to Cornered Rat Studios, since they have the only game engine in the world that can even handle this...)
* You are meant to spend your life working on local factional wars. Moving across the map should only happen if you don't intend to come back
* Let's just assume the game will have "magic". Sci-fi technology and magic are basically the same thing, so we're not limiting ourselves much.
What methods of travel should we support?
I'm thinking...
* You can fairly easily travel from one town to another regardless of distance if the destination and source town both employ a wizard and both wizards like you. This sort of travel is cheap if distances are short but can be very, very expensive if distances are far. So basically once you are friendly enough with 4 orc villages, the orc shaman will teleport you from one village to the next. The orc shaman in the 5th village doesn't know you well enough, though, and refuses to cooperate in such a spell, so you still have to get over there the hard way.
* Wizards may be able to teleport you away to a location of your choosing, but the further away you want to go, the more it costs and the less accurate the spell is. (e.g., if you want to teleport to that 5th village 20 miles away, the wizard will send you there, plus or minus 3 miles, and he needs 3 gold bricks to complete the ritual for that range.) This trip is one-way. He cannot call you back.
* No "WOW style" mass transit system. There simply is no easy way to travel large distances.
* NPC caravans. There would probably be caravans that you can hitch a ride on, which will travel whether you're online or not. (If the caravan gets destroyed, you would log in and find yourself in the bushes near that location.) These might take you longer distances.
* Moving large amounts of cargo would be extremely risky. YOU log out of the world but your cargo caravan doesn't.
I would probably do horses/vehicles, though, just because I think they should have a place in the game. But it would still take a damn long time to completely leave your region.
I was also thinking that a faction could, in an emergency, do a mass teleport to basically fling themselves into the wild blue yonder to start over. This could be an idea if we wanted to make sure that factions never really died. The faction decides they're losing, so they empower their best wizard to use all of the buildings in town as "fuel" for a spell which teleports all the people and possessions (including any players who logged out in the inn) 500 miles away to a fresh position where they will start to rebuild.
So from an attacker's perspective, you would be fighting this faction, taking over their towns, cruising for a victory and then their last 3 villages basically explode and everyone in them is gone -- their land is now free for the taking.