Ideal Space Empire game part 1

Tonight I'm going to do a blog post that is of no interest to anyone but me. It's discussing an ideal game I have in mind that I am well aware will never happen.

One of my ideal games is a 4X style space-empire sim game (in this case, Galactic Civilisations II) crossed with Total War crossed with Homeworld. The ideal is that you're guiding a space empire in it's development, getting into wars, resolving situations diplomatically, directing trade, etc. One of the major appeals of GalCiv II is the ability to design your own space ships, both aesthetically and functionally. So, let us consider how this 'design your own ship' idea could function in a game like this on a larger scale, especially for use in the RTS parts of the game

The first item to consider is research. The ship cannot be designed until it's associated parts are researched. GalcivII used a three-pronged battle research system where you could focus in either Mass Driver weapons, Energy weapons, or Missile weapons (and their respective countermeasures). While it took a great deal of research points, something I found interesting was how unchallenging it was to research ALL the type of weapons over the course of a long game. Let's consider ideal concepts for this ideal game.


1. Weapon Differentiation.

The different types of weapons should have genuine differences in gameplay and design rather then merely causing different types of damage. Energy weapons and Mass Drivers are relatively similar in function (direct fire weapons). Perhaps the difference between them could come in the direct effect of the weapons, with different 'classes' of energy weapons being better at their respective focuses and worse at areas outside that, while different classes of Mass driver aren't quite as good at their focus, but better at their weak area. Missiles would be different, since most of them would naturally be able to adjust course and target nearly any vessel. However, this higher accuracy would come at the cost of delayed damage.


2. Weapon Classes

Rather then merely putting the exact same weapons on different ships, let's vary it up a little. Fighter, Point-Defence, Medium, Large. With each degree of research, different 'classes' of weapon open up. Let's take Energy weapons as an example.

The player completes X degree of research and has opened up four different types of energy weapon, we'll call these Blaster (fighter class), Laser Turret (Point-Defence class), Laser Cannon (Medium) and Lance (large). The Blaster can be equipped easily on small fighter-class ship chassis very easily, but their lack of power and inability to be 'turreted' makes them poor choices for much larger classes. The Laser Turret is a naturally turreted weapon that can be equiped on all classes of vessel. On a fighter it is very large, taking up most of the space, while large classes of vessel could have dozens dotting them. It's main advantage is against fighter-type vessels, since it naturally has a fast turret, making it ideal to dot around large vessels to defend them from fighters.

The Medium class Cannon is too large for fighters, and only the largest corvette would be able to fit even one. At the cost of increased price and space they can be turretted, allowing them a larger arc of fire on the vessel, in which case their arc must be carefully positioned to allow the player to use them effectively. Finally the Lance would be a very large, very powerful weapon, restricted mostly to very large vessels, and very, very costly to put on anything but a quite restricted turret. These would be the primary armaments of capital vessels.

You can imagine this would be similar with Mass Drivers and Missiles. Larger versions of each would be available, going from anti-fighter missiles/gatling guns as point-defence weapons, all the way up to anti-matter torpedoes/Coil-Cannons as the medium or large weapons. Or alternatively the classes may be different for different research-types of weapons. Missiles may have "Light anti-fighter" as fighter, "Light anti-capital ship" for bomber-types, "Guided seekers" for point-defence, and "Heavy Torpedoes" for heavy capital ship weapons.

Let's go back to the energy weapon examples now. Let us say nowIf the player then researched further down the research tree for this specialisation and has unlocked two further techs. Laser Cannon II and Plasma Blaster. The Laser Cannon II is a relatively simple upgrade of the Laser Cannon tech and would be automatically applied to vessels with the Laser Cannon (possibly at a small fee). However, the Plasma Blaster is a completely new Fighter-class weapon, and new fighters would have to be designed to bring this weapon into battle.

As you see, this makes research very attractive without requiring very regular redesigns of ships. Galciv's "one research opens one better weapon" method worked for it, but for a more hands-on RTS style game it would need to be streamlined a little with different types of weapons that can be used. This means fighters aren't stuck with the same types of weapons


3. Research variety

It was a bit too easy to get THE BEST weapons in multiple areas in Galciv. Maybe instead the players should choose a focus. This would be determined by the first area they begin research. All subsequent research in that weapon area is a little easier, while research in other areas is a little more costly and time consuming. A relatively arbitrary artifical scaling would work. Opening weapon research costs X research units, while researching into a different area costs X1.5, and the final area would cost X2.

Hopefully this would mean that players wanting to specialise in one area can do so, while players wanting different types of weapons (for the advantages each offers) are still able to do so.


Next post: I'll explain what I mean by 'turreting', as I talk about actually designing the ships.

Yeah, sorry this is so dull, pretty much just doing this for me.

Blogpost-words

You know what I enjoy? A movie that knows precisely what it is and honestly just doesn't give a shit. G.I. Joe is a perfect example of this mentality, it knew from the beginning precisely what it was going for and went for it with the force of a thousand hurricanes. Boobs and explosions. It knew what sort of movie it would be and it didn't try to disguise it.

Today I saw a trailer for a movie I intend to see. It's called... are you ready for this? I wasn't.

Ninja Assassin.

Yeah. It's that open about it. It's name is basically "Guy who kills shit REALLY WELL" It's like if they called Die Hard "Pissed off white dude" or Pulp Fiction "Criminal anecdotes + dead people".

The movie - from what I can tell from the trailer - is about a Ninja who assassinates people until he decides he doesn't want to assassinate people or be a ninja (so really the title should be "Ex-Ninja Assassin" or "I can't believe it's not a Ninja Assassin"). Of course the retirement plan involves killing EVERYONE so he doesn't have to kill again. It had a sharp knife on a piece of chain, lots of swords, and ninja stars that had a rate-of-throwing that could challenge machine guns.

This movie knows precisely what it is, and just goes to do that REALLY WELL. There was no hint of a love story in the trailer (though there will be at least half of one, it's an accepted fact in movies), all there were, were a large number of people getting killed to death. I want to see this movie.

Superhero MMOs - Epilogue

As a final post on the matters of superhero MMOs, I am now severely 'meh' on Champions Online. I understand I should take everything I read with a grain of salt, everyone has different opinions on what makes games fun, etc etc, but from a read-through of how combat, leveling and gameplay works in the game? It's really not jumping out at me. And perhaps the nail in the coffin is this. I'm not sure if it's ironic that the unofficial character builder is what turned me away, or what.

The truth is I struggle to wring out builds with personality that I would be happy to play from that. They all feel a bit samey to me as I wrestle around the open ended character creation. Let's see, I've made a super-strong tech-suit guy, a sword armed vampire (with 'bite' and 'summon wolves' and everything), a rejig of one of my lesser villains I played in City of Villains, hell, even a beastial werewolf among other things.

It hit me when I looked back at the builds I made. They all centered around a small number of powersets. Tech suit, Might, Martial arts (usually unarmed, occasionally 1 sword), very rarely Munitions (and then only for characterful reasons) and Supernatural. The only character who used none of these was the villain rejig who was a mix of 'Force' and 'Fire'. I have no interest in elemental or sorcery superheroes, and only a minor (it being a secondary thing) at best interest in heroes who's focus in ranged combat. If I play this 'open ended you can make anything with your character' game I'd be missing out on about 2/3rds of the character possibilities, and from the remainder I struggle to put together a really characterful build that is unique enough that it's worth putting in the builder.

I am a major Roleplaying nerd, I need to feel a character I make is not only unique enough that it's unlikely others have made them, but interesting and captivating enough to me that I want to play them. Hell, one of my favourite characters I ever made up back in City of Heroes was a sociopathic super-hero-hunter who did it for sport, then developed an obsession with a superheroine who beat him. That was some fun roleplay.


Well, drifted off the point a little bit, but it's my blog so I can do what I want! Ha! And my audience just have to sit and read the ramblings I go on ab- wait, where are you going, come back!

filler post part X+1

Short post today. I'm preparing for the first of my 5(or more) interviews I'm doing for my Honours thesis. A tad nervous, but then again she sounded a bit nervous too, so that's all alright then.

I won't really bother with a meaningful post today, since I was just sent a link to this story. It's kinda hard to write when you know full well that nothing you ever do will ever be this cool.

G.I. Joe is an awesome movie

Having seen G.I. Joe last night, I can honestly say it was one of the most enjoyable experiences I've had with a movie lately. Note, I did not say it was a good movie. It is a decidedly average movie on the good/bad scale. What it is, is fun. Pure, unfiltered, fun.

The best analogy I heard for G.I. Joe (which is a pity, since I heard it from moviebob, the movie reviewer at the Escapist, someone whom I am sincerely unimpressed with, and it always bothers me when I agree with people I don't like) was that it was like the action scenes were designed by a child in a sandbox with access to an unlimited number of G.I. Joe toys. You seriously expect to see the omnipotent hand of a seven year old reach down and move the actors, making the required sound effects with his mouth as he does so.

It is a movie that knows precisely what it is trying to do (entertain) knows precisely who it's target audience is (people who want an entertaining action movie, majoritively guys) and knows precisely how to do this (explosions and arses you could bounce a coin off).

This is a fun movie. It's a movie you rent on blue-ray, go over to your friends place with the huge TV, and watch with about four guys, two cases of beer, and enough popcorn to make a scale replica of the Great Wall of China, complete with soldiers guarding it from the Mongolian hordes. You don't NEED to watch it. You can stand around talking shit, and then occasionally cheering as you see an awesome bit of action.

The movie is like if you asked a 30 year old to come up with a James Bond plot, and a bunch of children to come up with the action scenes, then gave it both to a professional writer along with a bunch of comics and connection to wikipedia and said "make it so".

A great many things about what made this movie so fun were explained when I looked up the director. He's the guy who did all the Mummy movies.

The Mummy movies - magic + superscience - old setting + "in the not too distant future" setting - main smartarse hero + main stoic hero + smartarse sidekick + unironic Ninja + more arse + submarines = X

X = G.I. Joe
X also happens to equal fun.

Yeah, that's the equation of the movie. It WORKS.

Insert pun here about 'Steam'.

Short post today, I'm buried under a mound of not-doing-much.

I'm going to express an unpopular opinion here: I do not use Steam. I avoid getting Steam put on my computer, and even go so far as to refuse to try the Dawn of War II demo sitting on a DVD in front of me, purely because it requires Steam to be installed.

One reason for my dislike of Steam is the Big Brotherish method of playing it's games. You MUST be on the internet and have Steam running in order to be able to play it's games. That doesn't seem like a massive thing at first, but as well as using computer resources it's also keeping a tab on the games people play. It bothers me that my recreational habits are being poured over by some market research consultant (even though, let's be honest, even without Steam that's probably happening)

The main thing is that it's a DRM method that no one seems to even notice. Starforge gets every nerd's hackles up like there's a large predator in the room, and the "5 install only" methods of some recent games (Mass Effect, which I admit I loved, and Spore, which I'm INCREDIBLY indifferent to) raised more of an uproar then jokes about putting a baby in a microwave.

Steam is a DRM method just the same, which no one even considers because it means they can get games without getting to get up from their chair. I don't mind Digital Rights Management, since I believe people are entitled to payment for their hard work. What bothers me is that if another DRM company tried to do what Valve does (require you to be constantly online to play it, not to mention having a program in the background monitoring your gameplay time) they would be crucified. But because it's part of the store's system and Valve made Half Life, they get away with it.

It just bothers me.

Superhero MMOs part 3

Champions Online.

I can write the most about this at the moment since I've been reading up a fair bit on it. In the then untitled part 1 I voiced my ethical concerns about looking forward to the game, so here I'll just talk about what excites me about it, and where I've got concerns.

The fighting systems looks interesting and the requirement to use energy building attacks so you can unleash more devastating ones is something that sounds good on paper, but I'll hold off having an opinion until later.

I have to say, my only major concern at the moment is the server system. Rather then having different servers running separate and independent of one another as most MMOs do, CO is using a shard system. Basically there's one massive server and every location in it has a maximum number of players, once that's surpassed the server makes a new location for excess and so on and so forth. While this means it's easy to meet up with friends in game, it's also highly problematic. City of Heroes had plenty of times when some of the servers would go down, and players had to migrate to other servers just to play. Imagine that on a single server, if it went down every single player would be screwed.

Plus I'm a roleplayer, even when there aren't official server designations people try to label servers into types. If I'm roleplaying, I don't want to be bothered by some wanker begging people to power level him and calling them cocks if they don't

But I have to say despite that it looks pretty good. The nemesis system is clever, at level 25 - a little over halfway to max level 40 - you can create a Nemesis using the same system as is used in character creation (with the ability to describe the kind of villain they are, mastermind, thief, psychotic, etc) who is used in generated missions. I have no doubt people will come up with ways to make shit Nemesis for easy experience, but this really gets me going.

The character creation looks impressive. The physical creator looks more in depth then City of Heroes, but I've heard it has less actual costume pieces, at least to begin with. The actual leveling up and power system looks incredible. I'm seriously all goey in my manparts with anticipation. Just reading the half or so mix-and-matchable powersets they've released details on so far has me coming up with dozens of character ideas.

You see, instead of just picking your class and powersets, the game is open-ended in its design. You pick your opening powers from any powerset you want, and later on you earn roles that you can switch in and out of (with four total equating to most MMO class slots - Balanced, Offence, Defence, and Support). Individual powers within the sets have a number of power requirements you need to satisfy, usually just X (a lower number) of powers already from within that set, or Y (a higher number) of powers from outside of that set. A gun-wielding hero can dip into Supernatural and grab Regeneration with immense ease, or a Might-based hero can dip into Battlesuit for technological attacks.

I know I shouldn't be getting any distractions, now that my Honours Thesis is due in two and a half months, but fuck me this looks awesome.

Superhero MMOs part 2

Let's continue on from this small gem of a post.

As you might guess from that link, this post is about Champions Online. As someone who loves roleplaying games, enjoys roleplaying, but is bored stiff of the usual fantasy cliches, the prospect of a superhero based MMORPG is one that makes me moist.

So to deny the presence of the contenders in this market would be an act of stubbornness that is totally in keeping with my character, but doesn't match with my cool, calm, incorrect self image I've built up about myself. Let's talk about the warriors in this somewhat small ring, discussing their pro's and con's from my entirely selfish perspective.

City of Heroes
Ok, time to be honest. I've played this before, I played it for nearly two years, and in the end I just got bored of it. My main RP character was pretty much dead (at which point I killed him off, for good). It's a good game, and it's the only MMO that kept my attention for long.

It was a good game, it's well established and it's got a solid roleplaying society. However, what killed the character creation for me was the classes. I understand the need for classes in an MMO environment that contains PvP, they make it MASSIVELY easier to balance things, especially in comparison to each other, and it makes it easier for players to work on their playstyle (they know that if they play class X, they should play the game in manner Y). This doesn't mean I enjoy them. I'm not a munchkin or powergamer, I prefer more choices (with the potential for accidently (or delibrately) breaking it) rather then less choices (in order to prevent breakage). Yes, I know it's a very selfish view to take, but it's just my preference. I'd rather have a game with more choices then a perfectly balanced game. This is primarily because I don't play MMOs to be competitive. If I want competition, I play something like Chess or Monopoly where everyone is perfectly balanced already.


DCU Online
DC Universe Online (an MMO based around the DC comic universe, you know, Superman, Batman, etc) is also in the works. It's not going to be ready until much much later, but it's being worked on. Of course, being neither our nor close to release, there isn't a huge amount of info on it. And, I must admit, I haven't been following it closely. I gave it a brief look-through recently after checking out the Champions Online powersets for the fifth time that day.

First impressions are... mixed. It's got some things I like, some things I find a bit tacky/dodgy, and alot of gaps in information. One thing I have to admit admiring is it's method of dealing with loot. Loot is a fact of life in the modern MMO model. You play/grind the game through for two rewards:
1. The gradual, guaranteed reward of experience and levels. This is what makes each individual action worthwhile in the game (at least until you hit max level).
2. The random, unpredictable action of loot. That is what keeps people playing past max level, and punctuates an evening's worth of gaming with a few moments of "hell yeah!" to convince you you're having more fun then you are.

Ahem, sorry, tangent. Anyway, loot. In a superhero game, appearance is everything. In a Fantasy MMO your equipment is MEANT to change your look, it's a primary factor, it's a sign of "hey hey, look at how awesome I am, I've got this sweet loot".

However, like I said, in a Superhero game you want control over your appearance. Superman doesn't look exactly the same as everyone else with the same gear, why should your superhero? So, how does DCUO get around it? Easy, it allows you to toggle on and off which pieces of gear are visible. I think this is a neat solution to the problem, and one I'm going to shout the awesomeness of from the rooftops.


Champions Online
Ya know what, I'm tired. Let's continue this another day. TUNE IN NEXT POST FOR THE ADVENTURES OF COMPLAINY, THE BLOG POSTER.

Taking to the air

You know what, I am running out of nerdgasm topics.

Dirigibles. You know what they are? Picture a hot air balloon, inflated massively, with a full blown interior, kind of like an airplane. Actually, nevermind that, just watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and you'll see one.

Using my rudimentary knowledge of things (I know a lot about things, just not much about specific things, and a great deal of general things), here is how I piece together the timeline.

Dirigibles are slower then planes, much slower, even when put side by side with directly comparable technology Dirigibles are slower. However, at the time they were around they had much larger carrying capacity.

However, there are two things that screwed with the history of the development of this stuff. Back then there were three methods of traveling between continents. Boats, which were slow and sturdy. Airships, which were a little faster then boats without the risk of dangers at sea. And planes, which were something the public found highly resistable, I mean, they're a tiny metal box with wings that's supposed to somehow stay in the air! That's friggin' mental!

The two events that occured were:

1. The Hindenburg disaster. Happening between World War 1 and World War 2, it showed just how disasterously Airships could go. Everyone on board killed in a firey conflagration of the elements. Yeah, not pleasent, but it was one of the most widely publicised disasters in media history, because the entire thing was RECORDED ON FILM. Seriously, the "Oh the Humanity!" line is common knowledge. So naturally airships got a bit of a bum rap from that.

2. World War 2. Now, in this one, I MAY be speaking out of my ass. I read this somewhere ages ago, and could be wrong, so if I am just call me on it. In World War 2 there needed to be discussion between America and their European based allies. Of course this couldn't be done over morse code or other unreliable messages, so there needed to be steady, reliable transport for the American President to meet with his allies. Airships were out, for obvious reasons. They couldn't use boats, out of fear of German boats intercepting them. So instead they went for an official plane (which, if I recall right, is the origin of Airforce 1 being used as the designation for whatever plane the President is on).

So, having seen their President go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, side to side (sorry, just been watching too much Dr Steel) on a plane, the American public thought "well golly, if the President can use those fan-dangled plane machines, so can we!"

And now, airships are limited only to the friggin' Goodyear Blimp. Screw Godyear, I want to see research put into Airships. If they had as much technological development as planes did, they'd probably still be slower, they'd be much safer, they'd be much more luxurious (more like spacious train travels then cramped airplane confines) and I sincerely doubt they'd use as much fuel. The only major "Holy crap, we're in trouble" factor with Airships is the fact they need to use flammable gasses to lift themselves, but that is something that could be mitigated and possibly even dealt with entirely as a threat. If not for the Hindenburg, rather then Slow Boat -> Fast plane, there could be the middle ground of Slow Boat -> Moderate Airship -> Fast plane

I want an Airship, damnit!

(P.S. Yes, I know there are still some Airships in use, but I much prefer the mental image of them being used as a cheaper, longer, but more luxurious travel alternative then floating advertising).

Mystery Science Theater lives on!

I sincerely doubt they need the plug, but a couple of months ago, while looking through Zero Punctuation back catalogue, I came across 'Unskippable'.

Quickly, let's backtrack. Before I knew my left hand from my right there were a series of TV shows in America (they never got exported to Australia, I think) called Mystery Science Theater 3000. Through the magic of Youtube, about a year ago I managed to watch what is affectionately called "A shitload" of their episodes. It was great fun, and whenever I watch a bad movie I always now get the urge to give it MST3K commentary (however I imagine my ad-libbed version would be far less amusing. Everything's funnier with robots). The general idea is that three characters sit in the corner of the movie screen (as if you were sitting behind them at the cinemas) and talk smack about the movie. Simple concept, great execution.

Back onto Unskippable, when I stumbled upon this I shouted with joy and thrust my arms in the air triumphantly, as if I had achieved some kind of victory, rather then just randomly found this. Unskippable is MST3K done to game intro CGI movies.

Here's a link to their catalogue.

Something you may notice is that their most recent video is "Metal Gear Solid 4: Part 1". Yes, that's right, they're dedicating five weeks of videos to Metal Gear Solid. I gave up on MGS after the first game, but even I find this stuff hilarious. Mainly because I heard of how bad MGS cutscenes were in the past, but now I can see for myself why they're so bad.

Ultimate showdown of all time

Having just watched Godzilla: Final Wars, I am left with many questions. Many, many questions, of which I will receive no answers.

However there is one answer I will definitely never receive, which upsets me.

If Godzilla fought Superman, who would win?

I'm trying to imagine it, and it is AWESOME, but I can't picture who wins. Let's try to reason this out. First, the ground rules

1. Godzilla is moving to attack Metropolis, but not there yet, so the fight is happening in a relatively sparse area, but with enough debris around to make it interesting. This means Superman HAS to fight him (to protect the city) but Godzilla can't get an unfair advantage by inadvertently threatening people Superman cares for, thus distracting him (E.G. Lois Lane is in danger... again)
2. Godzilla is pissed at Superman and trying to kill him, rather then just ignoring him and moving on.
3. There are no reinforcements on either side.
4. The story is being written by a neutral party, so no vested interest from either DC or Toho.

GODZILLA:

PROS:
- Enormous Strength. As strong as Superman is, I think current presentation of the man of Steel (rather then the bullshit "I'll spin the earth backwards and reverse time" thing) shows him as incredibly strong, but not Godzilla strong. I would go on record that I think Godzilla is stronger then Superman, and could he get a good grip on him it is entirely possible Godzilla has the strength to crush him to death.
- Radioactive breath. While Superman is probably agile to avoid this while flying, at least once this could be sprung on him as a surprise.
- Immense toughness. Godzilla is ridiculously tough, easily tougher then any other villain Superman has faced.

CONS:
- Slow. While his large gait means Godzilla can move pretty fast, Godzilla would not be capable of the kind of rapid self correcting swing needed to swat a human-sized target in mid air while it's flying. It would be like a human trying to hit a fly. Sure some people can catch them, but it's as much luck as it is skill, and you can swing all day without connecting.
- Large target(s). Superman could never miss Godzilla. He's friggin' massive. More importantly, let's assume that Godzilla, like is the case for all animals ever, has relatively sensitive eyes. Those alone are larger then a human, and as such easy targets for Supe's.
- No Kryptonite. That seems to be the only way to beat Superman these days.

SUPERMAN:

PROS:
- Strength. As I said, I don't think Superman is as strong as Godzilla, that said, he IS very strong. He could easily start using abandoned tanks (or equivalent weigh objects) as projectiles by flinging the damn things at Godzilla, who would have a hard time dodging them.
- Speed. Superman is far, far faster then Godzilla. Godzilla would have a genuinely tough time hitting a flying Superman, either with swinging fists, tail, or radioactive breath.
- Heat Vision. Let me start off by saying I do not believe that Superman's heat vision could hurt Godzilla traditionally. However, a blast of that to the eyes would slow ANY giant Monster down.

CONS:
- Not strong enough. Superman is strong and with a myriad of offensive weapons at his disposal. I do not believe either any of them, or he himself, is powerful enough to take down Godzilla. Hell, I don't even think the Hulk, jumping at full strength at Godzilla's head, punching at full strength on the way through, could knock Godzilla over, let alone Superman.
- Not enough leverage. It's shown in plenty of Godzilla movies the most damaging way to hit Godzilla is to throw him around or knock him down. I honestly don't believe Superman could pull that off. The only way I could see that working is if he, in a matter of seconds, flew past at the same angle and hit Godzilla over and over again on the way past. However, that opens him up to a Radioactive breathing to the face.


Y'see, this is my problem. In the vision I paint above, Superman cannot really hurt Godzilla, while Godzilla cannot hit Superman enough to really hurt him. A full blown stalemate, which is as satisfying as a carelessly abandoned blowjob.