If...?

[SS]

You're an expert coder, capable of turning any concept into script.
Annoyed with the bad coding in Kings of Chaos you intend to create a similar game, with the intention of removing cheating, link-spamming and general discontent.

Tell me what you would create.

[Rug]

Graphics >.<

I've told you trillions of times im on board for this, do I have to tell you again.

[SS]

I know you're willing to help, but without a general structure there is nothing to help with, and if I go off and create the structure without input then I would be able to count the number of players I'd get on one finger, hence asking a selection of the target market what they want.

Graphics are a good idea though, but makes everything slower... depends how things work out as to how big a part they play.

[Shadow Hawk]

::Some Specific Things::
1. More weapons, more things to do with money.

2. More sense to some of the key mathmatical rules. eg. why does an army of 200 with a shit attack/defence tend to kill about 50 men of an army of 1000??  just cos they are attacking someone much higher than them they shouldnt kill a lot of men, they should get slaughtered completely and utterly ffs!

3. Only one weapon per man.  (eg. make it much better to spend ur money, especially near start) plus of course u should include stuff like pillaging enemy's weapons if u win a battle, and losing weapons if u lose men.

:::Some Unspecific Things::
4.  Umm...its hard to explain, but there should be something built into the game that incorporates alliances/clans/guilds.  (whatever u want to call them) sort of like a team thingy.  i dunno exactly how it would work, maybe an invite and accept thingy, but however u did it there should be the ability to send messages to these people who have "accepted" and u would not...and i mean would not! be able to attack them, unless u left the group.  i guess there would also have to be leaders, otherwise people u invite would just keep inviting, so on and so forth.  so if leader leaves maybe he could have option of passing leadership on or closing whole group.

anywho...i can't think of other stuff right now, but i'm sure i will.
that's just my thoughts...

[SS]

Yup, more weapons is an obvious one.
Mathematical rules will definitely make more sense.
One weapon per man? Maybe. Or maybe the option to have one large melee, two small melee, and/or a ranged weapon might be better? This is one thing I need to spend time thinking about... how complex to make it?
Alliances/guilds are a definite feature. Currently I'm thinking that each person joins a certain nation, which will define their alliance, however when their army is big enough they can break away from that nation and become a seperate clan or something. Not sure how joining/leaving would work.

These are the kind of suggestions I want, thanks. :thumbs-up:

[jlwd2]

Just a few suggestions...I have no idea how one would go about implementing them or if they are feasable.

The whole co-operative / alliance thing is a good idea. Again not sure how that would work. Maybe be able to temporarily join together to form armies to achieve communal objectives or for communal defence.

Spies should be able to do more than just find out info. Maybe anonomously steal gold / steal weapons / kill a soldier or two. Though limit the number of availible non-info missions they can do per day.

It would be an idea to have different modes for attack. Eg
Set out to steal as much money as possible.
Set out to kill as many men as possible.
Set out to take as many weapons as possible.

& Consequently different modes for defence. (With different bonuses and effects)
Run at the first sign of trouble. (eg casualties halved but so is defence)
Hold your ground.
Fight till you die. (eg casualties doubled but so is defence)

More possible bonuses at the start. Ie. Not just one trait per race.

Random events.

Maybe the option of being able to send a message (chosen from pre-set selection) to the person you are attacking.
Eg. (Just farming, Stop farming me etc...)

If you recruit attacking mercs,  they cost very little to hire, they have their own weapons but take a fairly hefty % of the winnings of every attack they win. And leave if they dont get that much money, or have lost quite a few recent battles.

These are just a few suggestions I have. I hope you can find something in there worth while.

[SS]

That attack/defense modes is an awesome idea!

Spies being able to do thief/assasin quests is something I do want to include, and a limit would have to be set on this... or perhaps just make it harder with each attempt, so that eventually there is a 99% chance of getting caught?
Also something I want, if the spy is spotted, the victim is notified.

Random events is a good idea, things like natural disasters, disease, etc?
Oooh, perhaps you could have spies poison water supplies of enemies?

Sending messages... that's a difficult one, as there are bad sides... perhaps having to use a man as a messenger for one turn would be a better option?

Start bonuses, I guess that could depend on the nation you choose, as well as which race. Also there would probably be different races... certainly more variety.

Mercs, I'm not sure about them...depends how the combat system works as to if they are a good idea.



Good ideas. :thumbs-up:

[Perdition]

oo SS r u thinking about doing this stuff?

[Felipe]

Heh, most amusing you asked this, because about 5 months ago I started making my own, till I f****d up MySql and I formatted my harddrive... because I was upset :.  I had planned on starting again with a few school friends who play it, I currently have php 4.0.13 I think and apache 2, mysql latest on my comp running for............................   My Trillian profile LOL.

A 205mb waste of ram basically but oh well,  theres a multitude of things I would love to do , have a list around here somewhere back from a while ago when I was trying to make my own .  

[Everous]

less reliance on the click system...this can be avoided by more of a focus on tactics, which in turn will mean much more open ended gameplay, more variations on setups...

here is a general plan, ripped from Internet sources with modifications of my own, and thought up myself

...though i beg you not to read this with any preconcieved notions...take it as a new game

---general idea---

the basic idea of the game is twofold, you must build up a strong army and raise a kingdom. Raising a kingdom will mean building certain structures on a designated area of "land". These structures will raise the limits of what is allowed for the army. Homes will provide a higher maximum troop limitation...Hospitals will lessen the casualties suffered in combat...Outposts will boost defense and security a certain percentage

as you can see, homes raise the maximum ammount of troops per area of "land" so having a strong army is dependent on the balance of structures that are built within the land...if a player were to build all homes and amass a huge army, then thieves will simply walk in and assasinate everyone...or a small but highly efficient army will slaughter it...its all about balance...

of course a kingdom with no structures will have an extremely low troop limit, be highly inefficient and incapable at just about everything, and will get beaten down extremely quickly

but all of these structures are to be built on "land" this land must be gained from opposing forces by combat, of course the defenders will have an equal, or perhaps better chance of defending the land that they worked hard to build up, its not like KOC when you can pick a random target, attack blindly and will almost certainly win. When starting a new game, players are given an area of land to build and start on.

new areas of land may periodicly open up for use to allow expanding of kingdoms...i'm not sure how this will be incorporated as if the need to gain land through combat is compromised...then it will create sterile gameplay...but constantly more land is a must because of continuing growth and with any luck, extra players

---money and link clicking---

you may have noticed i've not included any reference to link clicking...

well, new buildings don't simply pop up off the ground, they need resources to be built, these resources may be gathered from clicks on a unique link much like in KOC

a certain amount of these resources (most likely to be called Gold) could also be produced on a per-turn basis...its up to you really, although i like to emphasis strategy rather than sheer volumne of popularity...

---combat---

i was discussing to Auron how there aren't any tactical combat games, games focused on clever use of a small team such as in Pokemon...just less...sad, it seems unlikely a small group should occupy an entire kingdom, which got me thinking, and i came up with this combat system...its complicated but it should be a blast to play:

Each side has created at the start a set of heroes (maybe 10), a certain ammount of money and land is needed to activate a hero, so a small, new kingdom will have less heros than older, more badass kingdoms

Now, these heros each have a set of skills that the hero can use, they should fit what type of a hero it is, fighter mage or thief...a Knight may have "charge", "cleave" etc etc.

now, the troops will be assigned to the hero, so the effects of a skill used will be magnified...
say a hero with 1000 men is assigned to him, he then uses "cleave" on a defending army, he would cause much more damage to the defending army than a hero with 600 men assigned to him...and thus would be more likely to win...all the troops are is a multiplier for the hero's attacks...nothing more

the obvious choice would be to pile all of your army onto one hero and get him to whack the enemy damn hard...well that'd be great...but strategy should also be avaliable to those who seek them

for example, you may assign 1000 men to a Knight hero and use cleave, hitting the defenders hard

when an attack is initiated, you should be able to use all the heros who have men assigned to them in a predesignated order

assign 300 men to a Wizard (maybe an Illusionist) hero, 700 men to a Theif (such as Assasin) hero, cast "blind" on the defending army using the wizard (this could do something like, multiply effect of thief movements)...then "assasinate" the enemy using the thief...

of course, if "blind" was defended...your assasins will go in fully seen...and be completely mauled over by the defense, this means that there are very great gains to be made by a combo, but if it fails...the effects could be very bad for your health... :ph34r:

this would create devastating effects, superior to if you had just whacked them hard...of course you will need to have chosen the right heros at the start, place men correctly on the heros, and have gotten large enough to unlock these heros

this would give combat a more varied approach, not just about who has bigger armies or better equiped/augmented armies...also, as gamers play for longer, it will get more interesting, not more boring...as more heros are unlocked...and thus more combos become avaliable...i believe this approach is unique...something rarely heard on the internet

---defending---

this is easy, plain and simple troop defense...no heros, nothing...move a portion of your troops to defense, more troops to attack may augment your Hero's abilities but will leave you vunerable on defense...and vice versa

jlw2's idea of defense, hold the ground, run away, fight till the death...is also good...it'll balance out a little all the badass combos people will be laying down on you...

also, the defense strength will be augmented by the structures you have, such as fortresses, outposts etc.

the amount of outposts and men on defense you have will also determine your resistance to thief encounters, and thus assasins and spies...


there ya go...thats my idea of a perfect game, if you could use a few ideas from there, i'd be delighted...but i understand if you have to strip it down to save time...tell me if theres any questions i've missed, glaring errors that i made...

[jlwd2]

At first I wasn't so keen about this hero and combo thing. I was thinking more in terms of divisions (archers, cavalry, foot soldiers etc....) and lots of different tactics with each of them... Then I realised that its basically the same. Just replacing division with hero and tactic with combo. The good thing about everous's idea is that (although very reminiscent of the HOMM series), it seems quite unique for an online game (I think). An important fact if and when this is actually made. As unless it is pay-per-play, advertisers will be needed. A unique sounding game may draw more interest.

[matt_the_shark]

I have a good suggestion.  Perhaps along with Everous' idea (which sounds like a really good strategy game already) you might add POW's into the game.  when you attack, you might have certain units trained to capture high ranking officers (or perhaps even heroes) of the opposing army.  These POW's might be traded for more money or territoey from the opponent, depending on negotiations between the two players.  If negotiations fail, then the captured person may be tortured into giving out information on the opponents army, land, or locations of various buildings.  Also, the opponent might send in a part of his army to try to recover the POW(s) in question.

[Biteme360]

those are all realy good ideas, but somewhere along the line you have to consider the fact that there is only so much bandwith avalible, and if you get a lot of people playing (it sounds like it could be very cool), well look at KoC they have no animations, in this there will be a whole world, thats interconnected. although a very cool idea it will probably have to be made so that the animations run not from the server but from a download previous to play, and then all the server has to do is tell your comp whats happening where, instead of sending all the animations as well, although that is way over my expertise   which is very very small in software. oh well, i am trying to learn though, call me a beta geek trying to advance :hehe:    LOL  

[Mecta]

All that I read so far kicks ass!  One thing I would love to see is with the accounts them selfs having real profiles and the fact that you can at any point change your officers? Leaders? Commandars?  when you go to join an alliance you can really be on the alliance and under the alliance members in any way the alliance owners want you to be place so on.  I mean I my self started this game as a officer under someone I can care less of and such it would be nice if i could move "mecta" to someone else or by him self.

--Mecta

[Rug]

Building on the one weapon/soldier thing here:

Say you have 100 soldiers, and a selection of weapons (Say... 60 Short swords, 80 Spears, 60 Longbows)

Every (10? 20?) soldiers are organised into a unit, and each unit may be armed differantly - For example, Unit 1 and 2 have Spears, Unit 3 has Longbows etc.

This A, makes weapons easier to control, as theres little point in buying 10000 knives for 50 men.
B, Means that there IS a point to buying additional weapons... as you can re-equip units to give them differant effectiveness in combat.

Maybe a system for equipment resale?

[Getting_really_ambitious]Maybe a system for production of weapons and equipment? Based on having territory with a mine, a forest etc and developing it?

I totally realise that there is a need for a map screen to implement this... such things make games like this better