Be Excellent To Each Other

So there's a load of MMORPGs, fewer MMOFPS, but next to no MMORTS games. I'm thinking of games like Planetside, where you've got smaller scale skirmishes carried out by tons of players that have an impact on a single global campaign map. Why couldn't the same thing apply to RTS games? Think of things like C&C - you could quite easily have an overall campaign map where macro events control things like resource availability etc, and the players control groups of units with the ability to recruit more based on both macro (your side's winning ratio in a particular area) and micro (securing strategic locations individually) events. Want to take it to an iOS platform? Introduce turn-based FPS gaming in the same wider campaign area with the same impact on the larger environment. Take it up to an intergalactic level and you can have Homeworld fans and C&C fans playing in the same universe.

The only thing I've seen that really comes close is Stronghold Kingdoms, but that seems so geared towards persuading players towards microtransactions to get ahead that it doesn't really fit the model at all - and it's more of a resource management game than an RTS. They've talked about it with Eve and Dust, but I don't really think that ever materialised.

Am I missing something? Would this sort of thing work?

Dust is still on the way, it's due this year some time, but it's an FPS rather than an RTS. It's also now a PS3 exclusive which I didn't realise, that seems a bit weird given the PC heritage of Eve.

Make one.

RTSes are few and far between as it is. Nobody wants to take the risk. StarCraft 2 has monopolised multiplayer RTS, and you've got those Dota style RTSes which are also really popular, then there are the more traditional AoE/Civ games. (I know Civ is turn-based, I just mean the style - god games, empire building, etc - that's a consistently popular genre.)

Although I'm pretty sure there's an AoE online that came out about a year ago. That's an MMORTS I believe.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Empires_Online

But basically I think the answer is that very few people are making RTSes full stop, let alone taking a risk on an MMORTS as you describe.

Ah yeah there's that! But it's browser based and complete shite! I played the beta. How did I forget about that?

Yeah, the trend seems to be that instead of making fun games with this model, they're instead making browser-based free-to-play microtransaction tossfests.

Planetside was a bit like an RTS for the commanders, who'd be directing the battle by marking objectives and destinations for players, but that was about it. There wasn't always a commander online, and even so it wasn't always a case of much-needed reinforcements being sent to your position.

Dust is going to be FPS players fighting over planetary interaction installations. I suppose there's a risk that you just won't have enough players (or one side is grossly outnumbered) as was sometimes the case in Planetside leading to a complete walkover for one side.

Isn't World of Tanks thinking of having proper campaigns where each match determines who captures a particular territory on a world map?

I've played a couple of MMORTS, I've always liked the idea of it. Build a base, invade other planets/countries, build more bases, log out, let the computer auto defend etc.

http://www.mankind.net/ is the only one I can remember the name of. It's also a bit poo. Most MMORTS I've played have been a bit poo.

http://endofnations.com/en/ is a new up and coming one, but I don't know what it'll be like.

OpenTTD allows multiple players to play simultaneously on the same map. As the nature of the game allows for quite severe griefing, I prefer co-operative games where both players are members of the same company (and so can share infrastructure like railways and airports) and each picks a corner of the map and starts building. Once your networks have developed a bit it gets very interesting as you start sending trains onto your friend's network to collect resources or suggest they access yours.

Even so, that's not massively and I think the thing holding back most RTS style games is they're not suited to lots and lots of players, all the time. You need absolutely huge maps and you'll still end up with lots of players clustered together thus mostly defeating the whole point. I've never played the ones Pod mentioned, mind you.

That's not really what I was thinking of - I'm thinking of a huge campaign map, where you do strategic movement/actions. Then combat occurs in smaller skirmishes, effectively loading in an RTS map of 1v1 or 2v2 or whatever to resolve that individual combat. Then the result of that combat has an effect on strategic events or resources on the larger campaign map. Imagine someone doing a space based combat - they win, then for a limited period people on their team doing ground based combat in that area can call in orbital strikes, for example.

So you are thinking a bit like any number of games that have a large map and then detailed battles when two units meet on the map (Nectaris is the only one I can think of off the top of my rather tired head)... except instead of you controlling EVERY unit you'd each control one, so as you advanced across the map you'd encounter a different player in every battle?

That is a good idea if I've understood you correctly!

Not wierd when you consider that MS insist any network stuff must go through xbox live, and cannot communicate with any other platform. Sony let you do anything you want pretty much, so if you need it to talk to non-MS servers then you don't really have much choice.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. There'd be devil in the details, of course, but conceptually I think it's a nice idea. The Total War games might be an example of such a game in single-player - strategic world map with tactical real-time combat, only you'd be playing as one part of a great big team and fighting all sorts of other people.

It might be annoying at chokepoints to move into a crucial spot where there's already a battle taking place. How would that be handled? Wait your turn? Appear as another army in the battle? If you have to wait, is your enemy (assuming they win) allowed to repair and resupply or do they have to face you with whatever they've got left? There's balancing issues here but it's fascinating stuff to think about.

you could take it one step further and have the battle waged by people in tanks, but their movements are limited to where the general sends them.

So the general marks a location on the map and the players driving tanks are ordered to make their way there? That *sorta* exists in stuff like ArmA but not on a massive scale, and already does in Planetside.

Final Fantasy 11 disagrees with you.

Like how, in CoD, when you're doing well, you get dog-firing gunships to help you do better?

Game balance is surely the problem. Need to come up with some conceit so that, even if your side is losing the war, you can still meaningfully fight and win battles.

I'd say there are probably more problems than game balance

Narrowing each fight down to small micro-skirmishes means the larger combat needn't have overwhelming impact on each fight, just enough to make it feel worthwhile. A couple of extra units if you hold nearby supply depots, or a one-shot orbital strike, etc. I don't think it would be that tough.

Maybe the losing factions could become future leaders in the automotive industry.

I like these ideas. Maybe, for balance, if the unit you controlled was say a 5 man squad, whose actions in the game helped out a regiment rather than a whole army. That way if you get too far ahead the game could rebalance things. Not sure if I'm getting my point across well here...

Aye, fair point, I totally hadn't considered that aspect. How does all that work with Minecraft (which I admit to being almost completely ignorant about having never played it on any platform)? Is there just no concept at all of private multiplayer servers like Pazland in the Xbox incarnation? Also, did I pick things up wrong or can you not rent private servers for Battlefield 3 multiplayer? Or are those all somehow wired in to the XBL architecture rather than being true private servers like you'd have for a PC game?

Apologies for the bombardment of questions there and anyone feel free to slap me for going off topic but Dom's comment just set of a chain of thoughts.

That would become more and more of a problem the more you're losing. Eventually it would become pointless without some incentive (boosted XP or in-game cash or something for continuing to fight that you could use later) and then you'd have to determine what the tipping point was where people would just give up and let the enemy win.

What happens when one side wins? The map resets and you start again, I suppose. I can't remember how Planetside handled this.

Has the OP tried that campaign mode of Command and Conquer Kanes Wrath.

Pretty neat, and I think sort of what you are thinking of but a MMO version of it.