i'm quite interested in this discussion. gameplay logistics is something that i've been thinking about for a while now. all your answers help me to consolidate and expand what i know. cheers in advance

re: LAN play
so how would a LAN game play out? i mean, is it like a game of civilization? how long would a normal game take? how would you 'win'? wouldn't the game devolve into, 'get the most weapons as possible and hunt down the other players ships and gank them'? would dead players respawn or wiped from the game? would it be more diablo style, where you can work on your character playing solo, and then use them in LAN games? how would that be kept fair?

re: Governance
how would you tell ships what to do? what would you tell them to do? would you have to build these ships or each planet has a set number of support ships? if building, do you require resources? do these resources have to be gathered?

re: Planets
should planets revolve around a sun?

re: User content
i was thinking along the lines of a flatfile xml, like that used for warcraft addon manager wowmatrix, so it's easier for developers to retrieve and parse the information, since all the meta is in the xml. obviously all the 'real' data would be on a file host somewhere.

re: Garage
what would be the best way of doing this without ruining the space exploration illusion? ie grand theft auto: you buy a house and a house has a garage. you have to get to this house to open the garage to get the car out. if you do not put the car back, it is lost.

An EV LAN would be best set-up by having various "scenarios", ranging from PvE missions like working together to escort a freighter convoy or fighting off an attack to PvP missions with duels, large battles, and all the little fun games like capture the flag or tag. Throw in some built-in scenarios and use something like a different mission resource to code them. People with plug-ins can play user made/modified scenarios, assuming all players involved have them.

Ares multiplayer, while limited to two players, is a good example.

My thinking is mainly have LAN for co-op (allowing govt to be single for player; think escorts) and a controlled head-to-head, where the ships are generated before-hand by mutual agreement or some kind of weighting system, and fight it out, with no jumping or landing (although instead those might count as forfeiting, which might be seen as better than defeat - although there should probably be a mutual-agreement-to-cancel option...)
Edit: limit wouldn't necessarily be two, but definitely limited.

This post has been edited by Nonconventionally Creative : 03 October 2008 - 08:18 PM

Personally, I'd let the scenario be set to either generate the specific ships or let players load a pilot.

I was thinking of little variation on the traditional Quake (and associated mod) modes. - Free for all up to a certain kill count, Team match (different team members would get different ship classes, such as a carrier, some fighters, a heavy battleship or two, and perhaps a 2-3 medium ships for a balanced fleet, AI players allowed), Capture the Base (See: Tremulous. Each team gets a base/planet with some automatic defenses, and the goal is to eliminate the other team's base and all of the other team's players. You can only respawn if one base "repair station" or more exists. bases would rebuild and repair themselves gradually over time). System variables such as number and size of asteroids, murk, etc, would be decided by the host at the start of the game.

If you can have a PvP LAN, and you have a game where players can make their own plugs, then you run the risk of people making their own cheats. What you run into is something like what Blizzard had to deal with when players exploited online flaws. Only in this case if you run into a plug made by DarthKev (the EMP cannon does 3000 energy, 3000 mass damage and bypasses your shields.)

Now, If you are playing straight and the other guy pulls one of those you are in for one very short fight.

About the only thing I can think that could work would be to Report the cheater and the Mod would either look at the person's ship or kick 'em off the system.

re: cheats
the server would calculate damage and those sorts of things. the client would also have a checksum of the data files, so you couldn't edit them easily without the client realising what you did.

re: scenarios
i like the idea of having a premade scenario that you and a bunch of friends could play through. kind of like D&D. possibly the player on the server could add random elements during play. ie you and your comrades are escorting a fleet somewhere, the server player clicks a button and a blackhole opens on top of half the fleet, what do you and your friends do!!?!?!? sounds fun.

for those that don't know what D&D is like. this humorous animated cartoon is a good introduction:
http://www.urealms.com/

This post has been edited by Tycho : 04 October 2008 - 11:12 PM

The community will self-correct cheaters. If someone edits their lasers to insta-kill, people won't play with them and tell others not to. Any EV multiplayer community that were to spring up would be small enough for that to work.

My vision for a multiplayer EV4 is that individual, player run servers would support multiplayer games that are independent of the solo-missions. These independent missions could include hide and go seek (with bazookas, of course, 'cause everybody loves paintball. ), capture the station, where two teams of players or more could defend their respective stations while attempting to capture another team's station, and just a chaotic melee not unlike what we've got in CTC. I highly doubt that multiplayer missions would (or could) advanced much beyond combat.

This way there would be no central server requirement, meaning no monthly fees like with other MMOs, and players could invite their friends into games. Admit it, it would be fun to watch Qaanol, JoshTigerheart and others have at each other head-to-head.

How about having games in multiplayer where you are given a sizeable fleet (1 carrier, 2 large ships, 3 med ships, 4 fighters), some of which could be AI if you ran out of players. One extra medium ship has a planetary destruction weapon. The first team to destroy the enemy home planet wins. You could have a more developed escort menu or even a chat box to talk to other players, and you would behave to your friends like a carrier does to it's fighters, able to give them shield or armour if they were disabled. In a multiplayer game, you could also add a 'rescue your friend' mode, so if a friends ship is destroyed you can pick up their escape pod and send them out in one of your fighters/land them on a planet and let them buy a new ship. I would also like to see a way of scanning ships for illegal goods, and an explore the port mode, where you can go around a spaceport and visit rooms/shops. This would also be good if you wanted to buy your character a home on a planet, where they could meet contacts in private/sleep for the night (pilots could perform better when rested, they could sleep at home, or in hyperspace). I also like the explore your ship idea.

Any online game that has the mechanism for plugins and self upgrades has the potential for problems. As long as the community or the people in charge have a means of controlling such things then everything is fine.

As far as general game play, I was never a fan of Paint Ball, Capture the Flag or any of the like. Thus I never got into Strategy games. A fleet vs fleet vs fleet game would be very strategy based. I would be inclined towards a group fighting towards a common goal type game. Though I never got into those type of games either.

Now I think the idea of the D&D game was interesting. If it is the same one I am thinking of. If you use a ship that supports 5 or 6 Characters/Players, you could have a fun game It could take place some time between Ory'Haras, so no character become super powerful and the others are left out.

this game looks interesting

http://www.youtube.c...usuG0avM&fmt=18
http://naumachia.aureasection.com/

also:
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=eJuurm7Olv0
nice choice of music

This post has been edited by Tycho : 13 October 2008 - 08:20 PM