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I edited my previous post, go check it.

EDIT

I didn't say MMO has only one requirement. It has to be persisitent and has support for thousands of players at the same time to be considered as MMO. If either one is false, then the game is not MMO. Freelancer isn't quite MMO, strictly speaking.

Giovane - Imperial Pilot Ace | Jedi Master
Guo - Freelance Master Pilot | Master Medic
Rong - Alliance Ace Pilot | Master Trader (Shipwright/Architect)

Drop-off vendors: 3895 -6157, roughly 1250m from Mos Eisley starport


((((Official Thread about Jedi Innate Armor))))

I thinkit's thepeople whocame up with the term Massive Multiplayer Online. There's indeed a definition somewhere if you search google.

I'd look at MMORPGs as a separate genre, not just a subset ofRPG. And I think MMORPGs are more about the communities and less about the game - roleplaying. In fact, most MMORPGs, not just SWG,don't have roleplay built into their systems. They left the players to deceide what they want to do. If you're really into roleplaying, play offline RPGs like KOTOR, or pencil and paper RPG games.

Giovane - Imperial Pilot Ace | Jedi Master
Guo - Freelance Master Pilot | Master Medic
Rong - Alliance Ace Pilot | Master Trader (Shipwright/Architect)

Drop-off vendors: 3895 -6157, roughly 1250m from Mos Eisley starport


((((Official Thread about Jedi Innate Armor))))

I never said I was offended, I was just pointing out that what you said could be considered inflamitory. I know it isn't your intent to try to offend or anger people. I don't remember calling anyone a whiner on this thread.

Sorry about the disagree in previous post, I misread you. My mistake. I can admit when I'm wrong.

PK badge would be nice, but probably hard to implement. Not to mention hard to find 100 people PVPing anymore. Im still up for more PVP zones.

Something like WoW might work. Players get a tef when they cross into a certain area of the map. It lasts for 5 minutes after you cross the border. JTL could be a really fun part of the game if they just had a little mroe for the PVP crowd to work with.

All this who-haw about badges and such misses the point. PvP, ground or in space, isn't relevant. From the original post:

"- Space needs to be part of the GCW. - The super top secret never spoke about or revealed plan for the GCW needs to take space PvP into account. Ground and space do not feel intertwined and need to be."

Once the GCW is implimented in such a way that it means something then we can come back and revisit bells and whistles. Trinkets and kill lists are nice. Winning a battle that means your faction has access to a planet's resources while denying them to the other side, or something equivalent, is a meatier way of getting folks into space. There have to be PvE elements as well as PvP elements in the GCW but once PvP means something other than "I've got a bigger cleaver than you do" you'll find more people interested in it - wherever it happens. As space is currently more skill-based that stat-based I wouldn't be at all surprised to see more roleplaying and casual type gamers get in on it as phat lewt and membership in the lightsaber club won't matter nearly so much.

One thing I've proposed in the GCW threads is the idea of sector Balance of Power ratings (determined by the number and difficulty of accomplished PvE GCW specialized missions completed). That's 'setting the stage' for the real battle for a given sector (and it's planet(s)). Setting the stage through Balance of Power determines the availability of NPC forces to each factional side through caps, spawns and costs (of placement not acquisition). Victory would be determined in a final series of PvPbattles both in space and on planetside (and ideally in space-based rendered locales like starship and space station interiors). The consequences should be important for both the winning and losing factions. Having two seperate sectors become active in the GCW at a time will allow both factions to decide which is most important and defensible, or vulnerable, and will encourage factional players to organize in order to become efficient. Rather than just running around in tribal gangs as we see currently.

Casual players and roleplayers wishing to influence which resources might get cut off or become available will more likely get involved in space combat, both PvE and PvP, as it's alot less time consuming picking up skills as a pilot than grinding away to get uberbuffs and ultralewt for the current ground game. It's also lightyears more like Star Wars. Of course, if the combat upgrade and GCW fixes take hold ground combat could become worthwhile as well.

But I don't think anything short of vital relevance to daily game-life is going to bring people into the GCW as it is and without a GCW that's meaningful, and a central place for JtL in it, there's not going to be alot of life in JtL's PvP game. Not doo-dads, not badges, and certainly not "King Of The Hill" minigame battlefields...

Mandash Grim
Captain of The Ikopi Stag

"If tyranny's cold grasp should tighten, what is left to endure? One man or one woman, a grain of sand in that clammy clot, a fellowship of wet misery. But if some strange fire should fuse that sad company into glass, then what newborn edges might bloodily cut and win release?"

Oddjob - Good call on getting this thread re-focused. Your right in that space needs to impact the ground game as well as the GCW. Effecting resorurces is a slippery slope though...

As it stands, player TIE's can swarm around Rebel ships and fire on them all day. The same can be said for Rebel ships.
Neither side will do any damage unless they are overt or in a PvP zone. That in itself is a very "gamey" mechanic that does not lead itself to realism. This being the case, why not have add more experiances that are "gamey" but fun!

Capture the flag. - This could be described as a battle between Rebel and Imperial forces where the objective is to capture a power module or a ship and then bring it to a friendly base. The battlefield could be in an astoroid belt or some other place that adds some environmental elements. A system wide chat channel announcement could let people know that a battle is beginning or something along those lines.

Note you MUST be Overt to take part in this, if you are not, the rings will not work for you.
King of the Hill -In militray terms this is a capture anddefend mission. A base with 5 rings on it is the "hill" you have to fly your ship through the rings to activate them. When you have flipped all 5 rings and prevented the enemy from changing them for lets say 5 minites, your faction controls the base. Control of a base gives you some cool GCW benefit. Control
all of the bases in a Sector, and you get another benefit.

These two "games within a game" would make space, all of space, not just Deep Space, fun as heck! The key here is to give reasons for taking part, some "REAL" meaningand reward that goesway beyond the thrill of victory.

People like trophies, giving them something to show combat prowess is a cool thing to have. The DEV;'s know this, that is why Jedi get a list of people they defeated. The game should not be so dang Jedi centric. Give Ace's the same ability!

Blackjack Nova

<Rebel Scum>

Good Ideas Blackjack 5 stars

______________________
Dru McNastian
South Vilas, Corellia

/checkJediStatus
System Message: You a Jedi!!?? You must be joking.
______________________

The reason I tend to focus on resource availability (and an associated concept - no more neutrals as covert Factional status essentiallyserves an identical purpose) is to make the GCW mean something. Yes, it will be inconveniencing. But if you don't like how things are going either switch sides to the faction that's got resources or pull on the battlegear and get going. Players who are natural leaders will pick one side and tend to stick to it along with thier associated PAs and playgroups. Players who just want to keep their heads down and stay out of the GCW will have to cope with the inconvenience of switching sides from time to time. But they did purchase a game about An Empire Divided so there should have been some built in expectation of galactic conflict of consequence on occasion.

The minigame scenarios you described more fully definitely fit into a Star Warsy vein. And insofar as minigames have some impact on the real GCW it's worth exploring the idea. In the framework I'm messing around with these elements would be if PvE standard PvE missions or periodic events that would contribute to Balance of Power in a particular sector (and there should be both ground game and hybrid counterparts). Once the Prelude to a Battle was finished (determining intial BoP ratings) thena series of conflicts involving victory locations would determine the Climatic Finale. How you determine the final winner would be seeing which Faction has managed to hold the various victory locations over time. Some might simply require flipping some switches inside a base or onboard a captured spacestation or corvette. Others could have more unusual mechanics like the 'ring' system. Perhaps that's how one activates, or deactivates, an orbital shield generator? Perhaps only when that shield generator is in one Faction's hands can it deploy troops to the surface?

I've got some fairly strong ideas and opinions but, honestly, I'm just reaching like everyone else. Something's definitely missing here, some sense of a Galactic Civil War with a Star Wars sensibility. My proposed solutions might have some holes but I'm not sure half-measures will be enough to save the patient at this point. We need some real adrenaline and excitement again.

Mandash Grim
Captain of The Ikopi Stag

"If tyranny's cold grasp should tighten, what is left to endure? One man or one woman, a grain of sand in that clammy clot, a fellowship of wet misery. But if some strange fire should fuse that sad company into glass, then what newborn edges might bloodily cut and win release?"

In the end when you kill a player TIE or an NPC TIE it is still a TIE, they may act different but they are the same class vessel, my point stands there is no difference your talking play style but they are both still TIEs.

The name is the same the ships are not though and you Know it.

Well if you want to clutter up server memory sure, but I think SWG is laggy enough. It simply is easy to say 100 different player kills, but the code and memory to actually implement it is not simple, there would be no practical way to prevent killing bots to get badges and rewards, you idea only sounds practical but it isnt.

It would be a inline function to access a array, quick simple easy.

Now aside from the programming and server lag your idea would create the other impractical thing is if we took your 100 different players for a badge, that is impractical from a playing stand point as well. How often will you encounter 100 different PvPers during your normal play? Maybe if there are ALOT of overts on when you play you might, but I see posts showing PvPers complaining about being the only one overt, in deep space, etc or one of few. Even a seemingly small number like 100 maybe improbable to attain in a respectable amount of time, most PvPers get ALL content done in 3 weeks or less per expansion, who is gonna have the patience to hunt 100 different players or even keep track of each name so you dont kill Joe_1802 5 times, Larry_the_loser 18 times, and Bob_underpants 2 times, which under your system would be 3 kills not 25 kills. Alot of bookkeeping on the player end too, few players like to guess when it comes to rewards it isnt practical.

A) The PvP player does it for fun, they can check thier status after they kill the overt.

B) it would cause no lag, Nubulas in the game cause more lag for people then this would.

C) it would be a rare reward which would keep many going just like Jedi did early on with the holo grinders.

Oh and your flight sim from "1984" is not an MMO, the first game that that term was attributed to was Ultima Online not Air Warrior which I beta tested in 1992, it was in PC world in 1992, and yes DOS was still widely used in 1992 I remember how much I loved the idea of a metwork flight sim, which it was called. Falcon 3.0 was the sim of choice and Air Warrior was supposed to blow it away cause you could play online. I dont know if you recall what graphics and gaming was like for the few PCs out there in 1984, but think of the Adam system and Buck Rodgers which was aorund that time, most "Network" games where text based MuDs and chess games, your about 10 years off Air Warrior was the 90s not 80s.

You have the internet how about you check, you will find you are wrong as it was live in 86 on GEnie. If you Beta tested anything it was AW win or AWII or AWIII each was differant, AW3 was a open beta test onGamestorms server in that time frame.

In the 80's Falcon 1.0, Art of War, Art of War at Sea, Wing commander if you could afford the high end 286 or early 386.

And Names such as MMO, MMORPG are terms created for marketing by game makers, any game which has a large number of players online playing and interacting with each other past or present can be called a MMO same as a old game such as Falcon 1.0 could be called multiplayer since it had modem accesiblity built into the program.

Now I was playing AW online on GEnie in 86-87 and had to quit playing when I shiped out ot Germany in early 88.

The first modern MMORPG is now mostly credited as Meridian 59 (1996), but it was Ultima Online (1997)

"If you're new to the genre, you might not know the long history of this groundbreaking massively multiplayer game: Air Warrior III is the latest incarnation of Air Warrior II, which was previously called Air Warrior for Windows and, before that, Air Warrior for DOS. The story doesn't end there: Air Warrior was actually the first real-time online multiplayer flight sim, appearing over ten years ago on the Mac. A decade of development means the Air Warrior flight model is one of the best of the genre and the new offline campaigns, enemy A.I., and mission editor found in 1996's Air Warrior II finally made it possible for newbies to sharpen their skills at home before joining the intense multiplayer combat that made the game so unique."

Cut from IGN mag.