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I've just spent several hours going through various posts on the forums here, and one thing that jumped out at me (other than the standard discussions about "PvP destroying/making games", "End Game vs Treadmill", and other common forum discussions) is that there hasn't been much discussion on MMOG's that combine genres.

There was one thread that discussed a tactical interface for commanding armies in a MMOG, which hinted at a combined RPG/RTS genre, but in general it doesn't seem to be a discussion that has been covered in much detail at all--or even at the "shitty idea"/"no freaking way" levels.

So--what do you think about the concepts of:

--RTS/empire management players that build the cities, harvest the resources, train the armies, and provide quests for the....
--RPG/Avatar players who captain small squads of mixed PC/NPC's in the middle of large scale battles, escort resource caravans from remote areas to large cities, accept quests to go kill the...
--FPS/Console players that spawn semi-randomly into monster-style avatars in an appropriately challenging world area to go randomly kill RPG players, raid RTS/empire management cities, and otherwise enjoy no-holds barred FPS style fighting?

Sounds cool to me. My ideal setting for a game would be in the Wild West (or something like it), and much of the same would work well within that. The only thing I don't care for is letting players control mobs (I think it's been discussed here before), and most definitely not having RPG combat vs FPS combat. The RPG'ers will get smoked every time (I'm not even sure if it's possible to merge the two in the first place). EDIT: Maybe I'm confused here, please explain more.

To add on more genres, there could be card and casino games, railroad building/management, horse and stagecoach races. All that tacked on with the standard MMORPG features -- town/shop/brothel management (OK, "brothels" aren't exactly "standard"), farming/crafting, hunting/exploration, duels/pvp, etc..

As far as current games go: Star Wars Galaxies has a good thing going for it with Jump to Lightspeed. When (or if) they fix the ground combat, there won't be another game out there with such a wide variety of fun things to do. Not that I know of at least.

If you are considering a matchup of 1v1 (1 FPS vs 1 RPG), absolutely--and that's not what the intended mechanic would be.

Instead, we're talking about a scenario where an "FPS" player would randomly login as a monster near cities of appropriate strength, and then proceed to attack the town itself. An RTS playstyle player would be madly rallying their rts unit squads to attempt to repel the attack, while any RPG style players nearby (and of course willing to work to defend the town, for whatever reason) would be forming a group (or a couple of groups depending on the strength of the FPS player's "monster") to attempt to defeat the attack.

An alternative scenario would be that a group or a couple of groups of RPG style players are "raiding" an infested dungeon/city, and when an FPS player logs in to play, they might be given the option to actually log in as one of the minor (or major, depending on their own advancement in their playstyle) "bosses" of the area the RPG players are raiding.

Forget for a moment balance, game mechanics and similar concepts--it's blatently obvious this type of cross-genre mixed environment is only going to work (if it will work at all) with extreme balance testing of an exceptionally well thought out design, so no real need to comment on that aspect. What I'm curious about more than anything else is that it's been commented many times on many forums (including this one of course) that to "solve" (loose term here) the problems with the two major styles of PvP players, taken in context with the general nature of PvE players, a completely new game mechanic of some form or another must be explored--because it's true--you can't have fully open PvP and PvP with consequences in the same game enviroment using the "known" game mechanics currently shown in MMOG's.

Instead, you need to design new paradigms to both attract each type of player (griefer/asshat RPK'r, PvE'er that likes occasional challenges against human controlled opponents, and PvP'ers that also like to be "left alone" when the interest moves them), and most importantly have the conflict interactions more immersive then "Pwnd!" when a ganker takes out a newbie. I'm curious what people think of a cross-genre type of mechanic like mentioned above specifically in regards to issues like this.

My gut reaction is, I like the concept, but the devil is in the implementation thus the cynic in me says, "cold day in hell".  It's a little tough to say without much more detail, but waving our magic wands and having a "balanced" game that cross game types sells short just how hard that would be.  How on earth would you balance a 6 man rpg group vs a FPS mega-monster vs a RTS army of mixed squad types?

Still, the concept sounds great, as long as you assume each part of the player base is actively trying to do their part "well" and enhance the overall game.  Sadly, you just can't depend on this.  If the FPS monster can trash a town at 2am when the RTS player is offline, he will.  If the RPG group can have one of their friends log in an be a high level mob, and play him badly so his buds farm him for easy loot and exp, they will.  If the RTS player can make an overhead picture of a giant phallus from piles of resources or buildings, or docking his ships to block a port, he will. The potential for cross-type asshattery is tremendous.

So, where I believe I'd start is have a game with several different game systems embedded within it, but don't make them codependent, make them optional gameplay portions.  SWG has the general idea with their ground based, avatar driven rpg, and a seperate space dogfighting game, (and actually the economy could be considered its own game in some ways).  You can do one, or the other, or both, anytime you choose depending on your desire for that play session.  Allow you players the flexibility to engage in each of the systems, else you might as well not have them (i.e. Shadownbane's city management and shop ownership; fun if you were one of the few who actually got to do it...)

I still think this is a tougher road to hoe by several orders of magnitute over a focused game that seeks to do one element well.  Trying to mix a macro and mico focus game system will be tough.  To wit, we have yet to see a mmorpg that has tried to make the world truly dynamic to player change as part of the design beyond simple things like housing in certain areas only.  So how then can we incorporate RTS level geographic strategy building and destruction into such static worlds?  Can I build a fort to block a pass and man it with npc guards to protect my town, and if I can, does this mean the rpg players can't use the pass now either?  Can the rpg player destroy the fort without the rts system?  Can they open the gate to let a FPS mob in?

I like the thought though.

Xilren

There are a huge amount of not-so-obvious design problems as well, the base of which derive down to fundamental expectations in time scale between the genres.

For example, in an RTS game, it's common for the encounter to proceed from 'startup' to 'game over dude' in 15-45 minutes (depending on the game itself), so all player controlled actions and game influence are on that timescale--you generate probably 10,000 gold in WC3 on a decent map in the 30 minutes you play...but if you use the same basic output per time scaling yet mix in RPG style play, you've now set a "standard" of 20k gold per hour per player--talk about an economy nightmare in a MMOG.

Not only that, but RPG players expect just a few accomplishments in a several hour game session--while an RTS player is going to expect to have built up to max tech, won or lost several huge battles, and repeated this cycle playing against 3-10 different opponents in the same session time. You can't accelerate an RPG player's session timescale to meet that, so you have to in some way slow the progression timescale for the RTS player--and that's going to make for some damned bored RTS players.
The only real solution we've come up with is to go ahead and slow down the RTS time/production scales, but make the RPG and RTS mode very symbiotic so that the two playstyles are much more blended--you spend part of your time in whatever RTS type task you have, but unless there are major battles going on, you'll probably spend a good portion of your time in RPG mode.

FPS mode is pretty much standalone in the way I see it--it's a sub-game in and of itself that simply happens to be within the same environment. In general, a game session would be very similar to how many console action/rpg games work now--select a character/monster, go kill stuff until you die, rinse and repeat.

Your second point is extremely valid as well--you simply don't see the type of (coining new term here) interaction persistence at the levels required for this model in current games. At most, "persistence" in MMOG's is slammed down into "saved game across a network" combined with "faction/reputation adjustments" that affect how you interact with the world, but in no way really affect how others interact with the world. For a multi-genre model to work, you absolutely must take interactive persistence to an entirely new level, with all the challenges that entails as well.

I think we've seen a small indicator of RTS/RPG feasibility already, though unfortunately its not in the MMOG arena. The example I am talking about are the new WC3 games with the RPG like "heroes". One of the reasons I found that game highly enjoyable online is because I got to mix elements from both and I personally think Blizzard did a good job of balancing the elements. A hero led squad could still get thwomp by the typical RTS massive assualt, but the hero led squad could handle a fair amount units on its own.  

So based on Blizzard's apparent success of the game(the profit indicators show that WC3 and WC3:FT are still selling well) why not attempt to transform this system into something more MMOG like? Now before I get shot so full of holes at least let me attempt to explain.

The way I see this as feasible to balance the game is that RPG players and RTS players need to team up in order to do anything profitable. My thinking is that the RTS player(s) would build the base and basic troops and tactical battle plans/city development; while the RPGer(s) would be the specialized units that lead/worked with the basic units. Engineer type chars would help with resource gathering, possibly allowing more advanced resources, faster collection rates, more storage. Politican type chars might be able to allow building to be more efficent or allow new upgrades, different troop selection, diplomatic missions. The scout type char could provide advance reconissance, detailed enemy unit reports, PoI's. The more attack type chars could lend suitable benefits to the certain type of units they are assigned to lead, the ability to add a few more RPG players into the unit, upgrade unit weapons, morale boosting. Merchant type chars could add a whole new aspect to the game and possibly create an advanced economy system.

I do agree with the majority of the prior posts. I think it will be extremely hard to create a game that is an RTS and an RPG AND a FPS. I think the more likely solution we will see is a game that combinds ELEMENTS of the said types, instead of a 3 in one. If it is done well however it may certainly feel like a 3 in one. So theres my line of thought. Feel free to poke air/sink holes in it or help it stay afloat.

Here is how I would combine genres:

1) take a UO progression system, i.e. fast skill gain, for player characters in a seemingly PvE world.

2) let players play monsters in a prgression scheme: orc, orc shaman, orc leader, troll, troll shaman, troll king, etc. Progress is through player kills.

3) Give the player monster RTS abilities as they progress: summon weaker units, build a lair, etc. Physical elements (forts, lairs, even new dungeons) can become permanent if defended long enough.

4) Player characters cannot fight each other. Player-controlled monsters can fight anything but only get better if they kill player characters.

An acquaintance of mine was in a beta(I think) for what appeared to be an MMO RTS game.  You had an avatar that belonged to one of 4 factions, whose base was in one corner of a square map that had 'provinces' carved in it, a la Total War games.

You start with some minor income and stat points to spend in areas like research or leadership.  Research gained you access to new technologies, leadership allowed you to control more units.  You built a small combat group, then went out to disputed territories with other players, and helped defend them.  You got money or exp or something based on the result of fights in which you took part... and attack where your faction gained a new territory was worth more than a failed attack, but doing something was worth more than nothing.

I'll try to find out what it was called, but it did seem to be a sorta RPG/RTS cross-over MMOG.

Alkiera

I really like to conceptualize the ideas that you present, but have my concerns with implementation as do the others above.  

I think the difficult in combining anything with the mmog genre is altering the paradigm where time = power.  I think some aspect of this lies in every genre (experienced FPS players tend to be more successful on average than new players) but due to implementation of the diku/D7D system was most pronounced in mmog's.  

Guild wars is attempting to counter this by having time remain a factor but a) reducing the time required to be maximally competitive (at least so far) and b) Offering players more skill choices with time rather than significantly greater hp/power/ac etc.

Persistence is also a key here.  Giving players a reason to stay within a game world/context.  Creating compelling and meaningful reasons for conflict that aren't transparent constructs.   You also have to balance this with some artificial downtime such that people would develop even minor social networks.  

Keep throwing out ideas... if there's one thing we'd all like to see it's new thinking in the gaming industry.

Magic: The Gathering combined with a traditional fantasy MMO setting.

I would love to see an immersive MMORPG that has a pvp system that requires skill and intellect like the M:TG card system.

I picture a traditional PvE experience like WoW that players use to gear up and get rare cards. There would be a parallel pvp system where players would compete against each other. Better gear gives small bonuses and rare cards can lead to more varied strategies.

The head to head duel would be turn-based and strategic.

This idea may not be practical, but it would be pvp that I would really enjoy participating in.

Some parts have been quite easy actually, but some are a serious bitch--and we're nowhere near actually trying to balance the damned thing.


It's a huge challenge. You can't have all the RTS player's buildings and units simply dissapear when they log off for the night, so you obviously have to leave them in game in some form. That implies AI handling, and also implies that since their "assets" are online 24/7, they have an inherent "time" advantage as you describe.

This of course means that you have to somehow compensate the RPG players with the same type of advantage---and that leads to some interesting design issues...


There is always some form of "get to know the game" period where the player has to be (relatively) isolated from the 'real game', but in general the goal is to keep that period as minimal as possible. Without a doubt 95% of MMOG style players hate the treadmill, but deal with it to get to the "end game", which is normally either raid content (PvE), or siege/guild v guild content (PvP). This breakdown in design (first you have to survive this tedious shit so you can "build up" to the fun stuff) is almost fixed in Planetside--you drop right in and are a grunt in the fights from the first minute you log in. You simply aren't a very effective grunt.

Properly balanced (and we all know that along with scaling to Massively Multiplayer, this is the hard part, not really the implementation), large scale sieges, set piece combats and the like directed by the RTS players are simply going to need cannon fodder, and there isn't any reason even a "newbie" can't be either in command of a small squad of cannon fodder, or hell if they are that new, simply be cannon fodder themselves.



This falls back to the "creating new content" question really. Look at SB--while no one ever agreed on the why of fighting, it was a rare occurence when there was no fighting to be had. If you try to stuff reasons for conflict down the player's throats without it seeming completely natural, they will have no reason or draw to actually want to fight...but when you are defending your kingdom's capital fortress from hordes of undead (or are the Necromancers leading the hordes of undead!), there's no need for forced conflict from the game itself.

As long as the game mechanics allow positive conflict generation (fun, interesting, and world evolving reasons to fight) and tend to dampen negative conflict generation (angst, OOC hatred/asshattery, griefing, etc.), the players are going to do the rest themselves.

My two previous posts on the subject are:

http://forums.f13.net/viewtopic.php?t=1120#25727
http://forums.f13.net/viewtopic.php?t=1215#34781

And also, Savage (http://www.s2games.com/savage/) combines FPS+RTS.

Yes, I was pretty damned impressed with your tactical command interface discussion...it's what triggered this topic actually! With just a few changes/clarifications, it looks pretty damned close to our vision document for the interface.

Savage is on my todo list for sure, thanks for the link again.

Krak... hurry and file those IP patents!

SZ: Any thoughts on minimizing the effect of the midnight raid?  One suggestion has been to prearrange combat conditions

Ex: Dignitaries from both sides agree that their terms can only be resolved through war and war is declared formally... then after a buildup period, war ensues.  

Can this be done naturally?  Will there be a way to encourage skermishes that have provide great deal of impromptu fun without imposing any lasting effects (i.e. requiring rebuilding of compounds, hardware, etc.)?

What I'm saying is: Is there a way to separate the battle (short-term) from the war (long term including attration, etc.)?  Can this be done while combining platforms?  

FPS people want their gratification NOW.  RTS or strategy people tend to be more outcome focused.  Is it possible to please both under the same system?

Well, keep in mind our goal is to funnel the "instant gratification" FPS style players (including "griefers", although I mean that in a loving way) into the FPS mode, where they click to pick a monster type and go play shoot'em up (or slash'em up, or drain 'em up, or whatever) against whatever tasty citizens (RPG, RTS, NPC, PC, it don't matter none) happen to be closest. Hopefully of course, the "lair generator" as we call it will be beefy enough to make it a decent challenge for all involved, instead of a slaughter one way or the other.

The other topic however is a difficult one to achieve. We expect that the implementation is going to have a set of naturally occuring stages from light skirmishes on borderlands, to resource denial hit and run raids, to eventual city/capital sieges. While it's very difficult to draw parallels, here's a kind of rundown:


The buildups would be roughly approximate as well. RTS units needed most of the time for example to destroy a capital city are going to run in the thousands (example: 50 players per guild, controlling 2 squads of 20 at a time, plus reinforcements as players/units die), and logistics of moving your troops through hostile terrain, building offensive siege structures, etc. Slight historical aside: sieges lasted weeks and weeks, and most of it was nothing but sitting there...while we don't want to obviously put players through that type of boredom, there will be some logistical buildup required over a couple of days for any huge scale siege that gives the defenders a chance to prep as well.

Regarding "midnight raids": We already know that we need a pretty capable AI that can handle standard RTS type fighting. We also know that due to the nature of an RTS playstyle (ongoing), RTSUnits are going to be sitting around 24/7 (when not actively rallied, or in use by a player in that kingdom). This tends to drive the design towards simply allowing mindnight raids to happen--and having a decent enough AI that the defenders aren't going to be destroyed totally simply because there are no humans around to do micro-controlling.

As another aside,Shadowbane in it's endless attempts to "balance PvP" went through a huge period of time where defensive structures (walls, etc.) tended to be more detrimental to the defenders then the attackers. Real world historically, without a huge technological or strategic/tactical surprise advantage, 3:1 odds were required in most any conflict to give the attacker enough capability to win the attack and still have enough troops around to be effective (RPG players may respawn, RTSUnits will -not-). Against fortified positions with strong terrain advantages, 10:1, 20:1, and in some rare circumstances thousands:1 were barely enough odds for a "successful" attack. This was due to a variety of combat factors, not the smallest of which was the fortified nature of the defenders.

We obviously don't want to go to those extremes, but unless a city's garrison is totally depopulated of RTS Units, you're not going to see the SB style "let's go camp tol's tonight!" play. Getting enough troops to totally take over a defended city will not be a whimsical task.

Now, a stealth raid into an unsuspecting city with the goal of killing off some of their primo weaponsmith NPC's--that may be a night's task.

This is one of those high-falutin' game concepts that would go belly up during production, while the competing generic levelfest sails through to release and sells 200k units.

Thanks for your input, please move along!

Seriously, if you have reasons behind your thoughts, or can demonstrate a logical thought pattern behind your claim, I'd love to hear it.

Otherwise, thanks for playing, please insert coin!

You'all got one hell of an idea here.  Of course like someone said above "The devil is in the details."  The basic groundwork is nice, but I think you need to look at how someone could grief/fuck up the whole system.  

Would it be possible for a group of friends to all log in as the same monster type in the same area?  The problem being that players are generally better than AI controlled mobs, and a whole pile (6-10) of decent players could really put the smack down on a RTS city in the middle of the night.  In the above scenario the RTS player would suffer a rather large loss, assuming their entire city was destroyed (or whatever) whereas the FPS player would have virtually nothing to lose.  A death as a FPS mob would be virtually meaningless, as deaths in most FPS are (look back at any FPS you have played.  Most of the time you don't simply count a single death as a real big deal, but a string of them earns you a n00b or shitstick nickname), so what would be the deterrent to doing this?  Personally, if it was fun... well fuck, let’s do it again tomorrow.  I don't think that a lack of gain in a character profile is enough of a deterrent for a group of asshats not to try the midnight raid technique.

Ramp the FPS difficulty up w/ regards to what kind of city they would be attacking?  Be it more hit points on the units in the city, or what not.

There's already difficulty settings in FPS games.

That's Shattered Galaxy (http://www.sgalaxy.com/), which I played for a while. The problem with that game when I played was that your victories were usually very transitory. You might play for a few hours and "cap lock" another side (their capital would be the only territory left that they owned), then you go to the bathroom and come back and find your side is now cap locked.

Natural Selection (http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/) is a multi-player hybrid game as well. There have been other single-player games like BattleZone and Sacrifice that blended RTS-aspects with FPS/3PS-gameplay.

Yes, balance is a hugely difficult thing to have without putting in completely arbitrary limits (like "combat windows" that many games attempt).

The basic idea here (and it's by no means fully fleshed out yet), is to have FPS players randomly assigned a "lair" when they login, which is basically a spawn point and some geometry (think of a small set of caves, or wizard's tower,etc.). This assignment is totally random based on the FPS player's selected "power level". An FPS player's success for that "session" would not only be how much killing (or protecting, nothing forces FPS players to be only attacking/ "evil" creatures) they accomplish, but also how well they can protect their lair. It would be expected that the RTS/RPG players would handle any initial attacks, and then proceed to "clear out" the local lair(s) that are occupied by the FPS player(s) to remove the threat.

Additionally, other FPS "lairs" nearby that are occupied will affect in some way the power/score of competing FPS players also in that locale. This will tend to have the FPS players not only compete with the RTS/RPG players, but each other as well.

To keep FPS players from "ganging up" as you mentioned, both the lack of ability to select where exactly you would have your lair, as well the competitive territorial scenario should tend (in the statstical sense) towards limiting cooperative FPS play, although obviously it won't completely remove it.

Few ?'s (well actually lots of questions but here's the top one that came to mind)
Whats to prevent a FPS player from just logging out and in repeatedly until they get the mob they want?
Since FPS players generally want "action now!", how do you funnel action to them once they do actually log in (i.e. what if no other rpg or rts players happen to be ready for them, or even around)?
What happens to their lair if they log out?  What if an rpg group is in the middle of going through one?
Whats to prevent a fps player from not following their script (i.e. if they login as an aggressive monster and dont attack anything)?

This may be semantics, but what you are seeking to do with player driven mobs to me smacks much more of needing RPG friendly players than twich FPS gamers else you'll end up with rocket-jumping leet-speaking wyverns...

Xilren

Good questions. Going to just answer directly (if I can, some we don't know yet!) based on question number.

1) The very loose gameplay idea for the FPS mode players is to track an overall set of "play points" that they can use to buy certain levels of mobs to play as. When they startup for their session, they see how many play points they have available, and are given options to play various monsters along with their play point cost. If they play "well", they'll get the play points basically reimbursed, as well as a bonus (general advancement for next session), but if they play poorly (however that's defined, no clue as of yet), they actually can lose play points.

2) The server side "lair manager" will track available lairs in the game world that have "action" nearby, as well as an appropriate suggested level range for the lair. Similar to the "hotspots"/instant action of Planetside, but a bit more in depth. Saturation of FPS players vs RTS/RPG players is a very big issue, and all we can hope is that the other two play modes are even more attractive than this one!

3) Just like RTS mode, if an FPS player logs out, control reverts to AI. We're playing around with the idea of having the FPS player's running score be based on post log-out time as well, but really not sure if this will be the best route to go.

4) We don't really expect a "script" for each FPS session, but we'll be granting FPS play points based on the mob selected, and then what the FPS player does. Again, extremely loose design at this point, but in general if an FPS player doesn't act 'as expected', they will wind up losing the play points they spent to use the monster, and if it's a continued trend, wind up having less and less powerful monsters to play in the future. Serious balance issues here obviously, but the idea again is to tend towards (in the statistical sense) rewarding those players that contribute postive conflicts instead of negative ones.

5) You are never going to get rid of the true asshattery...but what we are trying to do here is to analyze what it is that the "I just wanna kill shit, especially if it's another human behind the keyboard" style players are really looking for, and provide a play style within the game that will appeal to at least some of them. It's pure conjecture at this point, but market research (mostly forums such as this one) tend to suggest that at least a good portion of the players that fit in the general "kill all blue dots/kill anything that moves" style would work well in a system that was designed to provide for their play style needs with minimal forced restrictions, as long as it's natural for them to play that way. Pure asshattery is of course not what we want, but if we can provide a playstyle that grabs the attention of at least a good portion of the players that default to griefing because of boredom/game mechanics, not necessarily simply being assholes, it's better than nothing!

10Six (http://www.google.com/search?q=10six) was a MMORTS by Sega with a FPS commander character. You joined a faction and then fought over territory. You would have a home zone which you could build up with buildings and then you could sally forth and attack enemy zones. All while riding a hoverboard like Silversurfer.

I assume you read my earlier post (http://forums.f13.net/viewtopic.php?p=4567&highlight=#4567) so I’ll just add a few points on what you have been talking about.

1) For stopping midnight attacks rolling ‘daylight’ across the world.  People can only play in a band of the map while it is day everyone else is "sleeping".  The day should last only the time an average player stays online. I would guess without the threat of getting attacked while you're offline the time would be 2-4 hours.  catassers shut up and read on.  Those players who wish to play longer will have a larger sphere of influence as they always have, they will simply pass through their land from east to west chasing the sun. But the casual player will only NEED to be on for a reasonable chunk of time.  If you traverse so far that your home is ‘sleeping’ when you want to logout, leaving you stranded, when you logout you simply said to be ‘walking home’.  

This is mostly based on the antithetical example I found back when I played  SW:G, as the earth turned and different areas of the world were getting "prime time" the demographic of the game changed, in my case I was on late and at the end of my day Italians were just getting on.  At the time many Italian players had joined one guild that was stationed nearby.  Pair the fact that we couldn’t kill them because they were never on, and with the devs ceding the ability to destroy structures out of fear for the ‘midnight raid’, this ended up allowing them to totally overrun my guilds initial base without any resistance.

2) RPG vs. FPS balance could be handled a few ways:
First, RPG PCs are simply a step above the fps types. For this type of system just watch a few episodes of Stargate SG1 and imagine each RPGPC with a personal shield (http://www.gateworld.net/omnipedia/technology/s/shieldpersonal.shtml).  The only people who can attack RPGPC are other RPGPCs but a FPSPC could wipe out their entire troup forcing a retreat.
Second, RPGPCs simply have way more hit points and armor.  Like above but not as hopeless, a good unit of FPSPCs could take on a lone RPGPC.
Third, allow for ‘pet’ FPSPCs to be summoned to fight other FPSPCs by RPGPCs. Nothing balances better then giving everyone the same tools.

 The first two examples have RPGPCs with Much more power which just makes sense, as stated above FPS players don’t care if they are killed 20 times RPG players do. The third example goes along more with the other statements above wherein the FPSPCs are the more dominant ones.

3) There are only ever one or two dozen dungeon crawls going on at any one time. You can assume there will be more then that many FPS players trying to play, there has to be enough FPS slots to be filled and that means not everyone gets to be Bowser some have to be Gombas.  Think of your FPS players as patrons in an amusement park. No one gets to ride the roller coaster all the time. So there has to be other attractions, maybe some will wait in line for a specific event but you can’t ask all of them to. Expand your ideas of what can be controlled by FPS players not just monsters but turrets and other RTS units and structures, going further you could allow for either ‘instant action’ random assignments or the player could specify a clan to be loyal to. The loyalists may not always have a host to inhabit for their clan but that’s when you go back to ‘instant action’.

I'm jumping in late here, to there may be some things I'm missing, but I'm not really clear on how this game would work.  I'd love to see some more FPS/RPGs, or RTS/RPGs, but I'm not sure how, from a gameplay point of view, you could combine all three of them.

By FPS game, I assume we're referring to Quake et al, where the player runs around and blasts away with guns (or swords or whatever), at anything in his crosshairs, yes?  And by RPG, I assume we're referring to the Baldur's Gate style of "player mostly stands still and selects attack options while the computer fights for him," correct?  I don't see how these two options will work together.  On the one hand, you've got your RPG-playing Knight frustrated by the fact that he's always having to strafe and jump around and missing frequently despite being level nine million.  Or, on the other hand, you've got your FPS-playing Goblin frustrated by the fact that the Knight's attacks auto-aim and all the terrain tactics in the world aren't making as much difference as the computer's dice rolls.

I suppose the question I'm curious about is: is it possible for a skilled FPS player to kill a high level RPG player?  If not, I can see it really annoying the FPS players.  If so, I can really see it annoying the RPG players.  It seems like a very, very difficult balance to strike.

On a more basic level, I'm not sure how the two styles would mesh.  When I, as an RPG player, swing my sword, do I have to aim, or will the computer aim it for me based on my stats?  When I, as an FPS player, hit an enemy with my sword, will I automatically do damage, or will the computer tell me I missed because of my target's armor?  The flow of melee based combat in FPS games (like Savage, or Jedi Knight) is extremely different from melee based combat in RPG's.  I suppose you could take the middle road, like Savage (or Deus Ex, for those who haven't played Savage), and basically just be a first person game where your stats affect your proficiencies in certain respects... but in that case, it seems like the only difference between FPS and RPG players in this game is that RPG players get persistent stats and gear.

One thing I've seen in this thread is the idea that the FPS players would be much weaker than the RPG players, inhabiting the bottom rung of this player food chain.  While I can't think of how else you'd run this to keep things balanced, it doesn't seem like it would make for a fun FPS to just repeatedly charge at some nigh invincible enemy, only to get repeatedly killed.  It would be like playing a map entirely populated by boss monsters.  I see how it's pretty much required for the sake of balance, but I don't see how it would be fun.  I'd guess (with absolutely nothing in the way of evidence to support it, of course) that most players would rather be the super-powerful RPG character, rather than the fragile FPS character, thus making the FPS player outnumbered as well as outgunned.

If this is the case, it's also going to be hard to keep FPS players engaged in "honest" combat.  If they're severely disadvantaged against RPG players, I can see them avoiding RPG players entirely in favor of softer targets, like unguarded NPCs.  It just seems like it would lead to forced griefing.

I don't want to come off as excessively negative or anything here.  I really do enjoy hybrid games a lot, and I'd love to see some kind of "Ubergame" that combines everything into one title, but I can't think of a way to put them all in one game and still keep them separate.  It would be interesting to watch, though.

IMO, when mixing a FPS and RPG, there are a few rules to follow (most of which I stole from System Shock 2 or Planetside):

1)When you shoot someone, and aim correctly, you always hit them.  

2)When you level up, you can get new ways to shoot people.  However horizontal advancement is for the most part much better.  Its not a great idea to force someone to "grind" sniping skill in an RPG/FPS hybrid in order to snipe well.  They should be able to get the sniper rifle or equivalent, and do well with it off the bat.  Maybe some upgrades can come in the future, such as quicker reloads and more stable aiming, but damage should stay the same.  Damage should be the same for weaponry/spells/whatever, but higher level characters should have auxillary benefits to using spells/weapons and more of them.

3)A low level player should be able to beat a high level player, but only if the high level player isn't playing very well.

4)A high level player should have enough options to be able to use them strategically to beat lower level players even if they aren't as good at FPS games.  On the other hand, a lower level player playing exceptionally well should be able to occasionally at least beat a higher level player who is busting out all the weaponry.


There are alot of possibilities for this, not just as a PvP game.  Ever played Serious Sam co-op?  Now imagine it on a bigger scale, with RPG type character development.

Given the existence of an RPG/FPS hybrid - Neocron - how does that game work as a hybrid? I tried it in beta, and found the interface well-suited to the task. Any other experiences with it?

(http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/images/comics/20030901.jpg)

Hehe..point taken, and good comic!

Not having read all the thread, but just going off the first post.

There are a number of problems with RTS style management. The most obvious one is that in an RTS, you don't have minions that won't respond to your commands; you might have morale issues, where the AI minions will ignore you because they have broken and are fleeing, but otherwise, your commands are unquestioned. In an MMOG, that won't happen, unless the king/rts player is so far removed from the players he gives orders to that he appears to be an NPC. And even then, you'll still need to incentivize the players in order to get them to react to commands issued by a player. In today's MMOG world, players will not follow another player unless they choose to, either by choosing at the point of command, OR by electing someone as their leader. This part COULD work if the part of king/RTS player was begun on release by a hired, temporary employee of the company. After a few months, once a community was established, perhaps you could either hold elections, appoint a successor yourself (chosen by the dev), or hold some kind of tournament to determine succession.

But RTS also falls down in another way, in that it relies on other players to be online when the RTS player is. Otherwise, the RTS player just issues orders with huge lags in time to execution. It might work better as a "play-by-email" type of game, where the RTS player issues orders through email that get fed into mission generators in the game.

The biggest problem with the whole hybrid is the necessity to create 3 unique interfaces, with the art assets and programming required of that. Each one has to meld with the other one, they have to share data, etc. In the end, it becomes not the creation of one game, but 3, each with entirely different design philosophies.

You actually stated the underlying difference (RTS style management) we're shooting for, which IMO is a fundamental flaw in the RTS genre itself: "god mode". There hasn't been a conflict in history where each and every troop in a fight responded instantly and absolultely accurately to any order given, and the "fit" into having an RTS style management of both players and NPC troops in this type of game actually corrects that (again, IMO) genre flaw.

Additionally, this mechanic (giving orders, but not being guaranteed they are going to be followed), especially with NPC troops which will make up the majority of the force sizes, also gives a method for negative conflict reduction (I'm working on an article that details postive vs negative conflict and their effects in a persistent world, so I'm not going to delve too deeply into it here). Since the order-giver (at whatever level, from LT to Field Marshall, to use recent terminology) isn't guaranteed to have his orders followed, he naturally needs to give orders that have a high probability of being followed to achieve success. This is just one good game mechanic way to limit griefing--you can certainly code in game mechanic behaviours for the NPC troops to resist ARAC/Grief style play. The concept is similar to Masters of Orion 2/3's use of "causus belli(sp?)"--you may want to go to war with someone for whatever reason, but you'll have to convince/force your troops to carry out your orders for that war to actually be effective. If your dwarven horde worships the Holy Church, it would be very difficult to wage a successful war against said Church unless/until you met the game mechanic's validation of the war. No, it's not perfect, but it is a way to reduce the negative conflicts that tend to destroy gameplay.


I'm not sure I see a need for an "out of mechanics" mechanism for establishing top level leadership. Leaders that work within their chosen faction and realm to support, motivate, and cultivate the npc populations appropriate to those decisions, as well as provide the support and motivations needed to keep the "human" players interested in supporting them will rise to the top, and those that don't won't be successful.

I also think the very fact of success will give incentive to the players--look at gank squads and tactics focused Guilds/Clans/Outfits in most MMOGs now: leaders arise through skill or determination, form an effective group of players+tactics, and players stick with it even though they aren't "in charge", because the thrill of winning against strong odds is a motivator as well.


If you are talking "micro-management" style RTS, absolutely. However, this isn't the only way to play in the genre itself--in fact, the entire genre is actually wildly mis-named--in almost all of the marketed games, you aren't really playing a strategy game, but a tactics game--they almost all focus on the tactical level, and the strategic level is limited to gathering a few resources and teching up as quickly as you can. In a true real time strategy implementation, I feel that the players should be setting objectives and long term plans to be carried out by others (human or npc). Of course, this doesn't work very well in short, non-persistent games--you would set 2 or 3 objects and sit back and watch, which is why I think the micro-management style of play was put together early on, and still used today.

While Masters of Orion 3 sucked very badly, it did attempt to implement the concept of letting a player focus on the particular game area they were interested in. Theoretically, you could do nothing but design ships, and let the game handle the rest--or, you could focus on designing fleets, and have all of the logistics of building the ships, upgrading/maintaining them, delivering them to the task force rally point handled by AI (this latter one never was actually implemented by the way, at least not before I stopped playing). The concept of a hybrid genre game is to provide the same type of game play layers so that players can play what they like to play, and leave the rest to others, or AI if necessary--and providing the functionality without requiring it for each player along the way.


Damn straight--this has been the hardest design all along, and will continue to be so for the life of our project--and it's not just the interface, but integration of everything, from time scales to relative power to expected play session length, and tons of other worries.

I know that guild leaders and leaders of the community WILL arise, given time. But the problem is that on release, unless you go full-bore at recruiting guilds to move to your game wholesale, or rely on the beta testers to do so, these positions WON'T be filled until a month or two after release. Relying on beta testers is generally a bad idea, because for the most part, they are the same selfish fuckheads who hide the exploits they find so they can get the advantage right off the bat. It also makes those who do not get into beta come into the game at a severe disadvantage, such as what happened in Shadowbane on release. Beta guilds ruled for at least the first month or so, because they knew the most efficient hunting grounds, build methods and templates. Beta guilds were the tank rushers, who owned, got bored and moved on. One of SB's biggest design flaws was that it provided nothing to do once you "won" your shard, and made it too hard for losers to recover enough to challenge the winners. As a result, the design drove people to win/lose and quit after that. You don't want to design anything that gives people a reason to quit because of one outcome or the other.

God-mode IS a problem with RTS games. But if you wish to drag in RTS players with the RTS style management, their expectations are of the genre's past. Making them understand that they can order 6,000 troops into battle and only get 4 will be a hard sell.

I believe that in order to make the RTS style of game work, the players allowed to use the RTS layer will need the ability not only to create missions for players, but also to command their own NPC retinue, a personal Praetorian Guard if you will. In order to send them on missions, the king/RTS commander would have to accompany them, and the "rewards" for whatever mission you create would have to be "docked" based on the pay of the retinue as well as the need to feed the money/reward back into the kingdom. This would be an effective means to combat the "I give myself the missions to build my own stats" problem, if you have some form of experience/advancement treadmill involved.

Merging the RPG and the FPS style of gameplay will be difficult. FPS style is mostly about physical skill manipulating the interface, while RPG style is mostly about mentally manipulating the statistics so that the character's manipulation of the environment is optimal (either in the sense of being more powerful or optimal in the sense of fitting the character concept). They are almost diametrically opposed philosophies of gameplay.

All outstanding points, and I pretty much agree with all of them, so no real comeback here!

One the one I specifically quoted, you (and others previous in this thread) have made it clear to me that we need to come up with a better term, because you are absolutely correct--"FPS" means a lot of things that we don't mean. In our design document, we actually call this playstyle "low persistence", in that players that focus on this playstyle don't actually have a session to session direct tie in their actions, or even the "creature" they are playing in each session. What they accomplish in a particular session does have persistent impact on the world environment, but in a different way--instead of building empires and developing assets, they are one of the antagonists in the game--powerful (relative to single NPC troops, or even a single RPG style player of equivalent level) enemies in the game for the RTS/RPG players to compete with on a session basis.

I guess another way to look at them is they are the equivalent of "boss mobs". Each play session (from login to death in this case) is in a different "boss mob", with different success criteria to evaluate their play session (some "boss mob" players may perform raids on villages, some may actually spawn in to defend their lairs against RTS/RPG players, etc.). They will utilize the same general game mechanics, and a First Person PoV, but not necessarily "genre normal" aim/fire/avoid play tactics. The interfaces will be different, but they will also be using the same underlying game mechanics, so you are correct in that it really isn't "FPS Players" in your definition that we mean. What we are shooting for is the player "class" that doesn't really care about the RTS or RPG aspects of the game, but likes instant action using a wide variety of "boss mobs" and relatively short, and not linked, play sessions.

That is a much more coherent description. If I was so inclined to use Bartle-types, I'd say you want the FPS player to be the "killer" type, the RTS to be the "achiever/killer/socializer" and the RPG to be "socializer/explorer/achiever." I would also imagine you'd want the "killer" type to have a more Guildwars style of character creation. Pick a monster, be given a set of skills to choose from (but only be able to use say 4-8 skills at a time) that can only be changed on spawning, and go at it. You're essentially given a maxed out character in the form of a boss, choose your skills.

That about sums it up! Thanks for the reference to Bartle's types, I hadn't considered using them directly in the descriptions. You've also given me a much better way to organize my article!

An excellent summary post.  Very close to what I thought you meant when first started posting this thread.  I like the ties to Bartle's archtypes (though I would question how the "Explorer" faction would be satisfied... If such a faction ever really existed).

I could imagine that WoW (or SWG or many such MMORPGS) would seriously benefit by the ability for a "Killer"-type role that would allow you to jump on for 30 minutes into a random mob (set by level) on a random shard (to minimize collusion with friends).   If you're killed by someone within an allowable level range, you lose some of your ranking points and spawn as another similar MOB.   If you kill them, you gain some ladder points (possibly weighted to the level difference).

You get a mini-menu of gear/skills/abilities to choose from (kind of like Battlefield 1942/Star Wars Battlefields) to fit your playstyle.   It's almost free AI and happy killer types, to boot!  Throw in random AI taunts (for when the computer does play), and the Adventures playing the normal game will always wonder if they're going up against a human or not.

Brilliant!

You should really just look into 10six.... let me take you back to 1999 and my first mmog.

In 10six the world was divided into "camps" each was a certain space w/ randomly generated terrain and 5 hotspots where you generated resources.  When you started you joined one of the 4 major corporations that were battling for control of the planetoid Visitor.  You had one camp, and some basic stuff. 

-Your avatar was fps, you had a hoverboard, you could jump the aiming was fps and you could equip armor guns gear (grenades, toxic bombs ect) on your avatar.  You also had to carry TU which was the only resource that powered everything.  All weapon fire required tu.

-Your army (rts) was made up of "rovers" this were rudamentary ai, they would fire at things that got into range and chase them once they started firing.  That was it.  You could have them patrol but that never worked perfectly.  When in a camp w/ your rovers you could select them tell them where to move, what to attack ect ect.  Each rover was a mass of seperate items combined:  Rover/Armor/Armor mod/Weapon/Weapon mod/Rover mod.  We'll get to items in a second, there was a allot of different combinations lets just say.

-In your camps you built defenses, using primarily turrets, but also mines and walls there were many types of turret that used different weapons (artillery/direct fire/anti avatar/anti rover/flying turrets ect).  One of the most important aspects was being able to setup defenses that would slow down your enemy as well as traps to kill them.

-Items were obtained by selling your TU (the game's resource) to your corporation, each camp could have 5 wells, placed on the hotspots they would mine the TU so you could make money.  Once you had sold the TU you could buy "jitter packs" from your corporation which would give you a random assortment of items to be built.  The items had various classificatoins (rare/limited/common)  You would recieve 1 rare 2 limited and 7 common per pack.  You could go to no-fire UN camps to trade or buy from other players.

-When you killed an avatar, destroyed a turret, or a rover all the jitters carried or that make up the thing you destroyed would be dropped. 

-Everything but your main camp (chosen by you) would be open to attack 24/7, your main could only be attacked when you were online.  Therefore all players were forced to join Multi Defense Networks (MDN) the clans of the game.  Each clan had a max of 20 players and it was paramount that each person be active in fact the more active the better.  Wars were all about discovering the other MDN's weakest hours and exploiting them.  Attacking multiple camps at once making it hard on defenders to respond or doing fake attacks and withdraw wasting the defenders time teleporting to camps only to find them empty while you hit another camp w/ your rover army.

-You could "newbie lock" a player, by destroying all his camps and his main, he would loose all of his stuff unless he realized he was going to get locked and started transporting his stuff to friendly camps (which was rare and hard to do).  Once he lost his last camp he would have to start from scratch, claiming a new camp and rebuilding his empire.

-This was the most hardcore game ever made, no game will ever be this hardcore because it literally required you to play a absolute minimum of four hours a day.  Most players found themselves playing 8+ hours per day during wartime.  The best MDN's were always comprised of skilled players who were very active. 

If you want to try it out it still exists in a ghetto player run form here:   www.projectvisitor.com

Best game I ever played    *sigh*