Hay guise, lets kill Deckard Cain offscreen.
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… And GW1’s ending and story was good?
They put no effort into it until Factions. And that was probably the high point.
2-4 describe “much more like a typical MMORPG” just in more words. Not every MMORPG has the “holy trinity” as well, and GW1 never had true tanks so it didn’t either.
GW1 was not an MMORPG.
Anyway. D2 left an impression because at the time it was impressive. It had really nice voice acting. It had a clever and addicting loot system. The skills and different builds you could do were cool.
D3, for the time it came out, it’s like… why would I want to play this junk? Especially with all the massive failures Blizzard repeatedly had with the real money trading system and many other things.
And from what I’ve heard from a lot of PoE players is that there’s just nothing to do in D3, that it’s just boring, unless there’s some big patch that drops that has some new content to get bored of after another 3 hours.
So yeah, sure, if you just released D2 today, it’d be crap. It’d be much worse than Grim Dawn outside of the voice acting and atmosphere D2 had. But D2 didn’t come out today.
GW1 though is still a game that holds up today game mechanics wise. There were a lot of masterpieces of its design.
And its programming too, with the streaming patches and never having downtime.
Anyway, the topic was how large and long battles could work in a way that doesn’t just sound neat on paper like when you’re watching a 7 minute scene from a movie, but actually playing it so doesn’t feel pointless. So it doesn’t feel increasingly frustrating when you’re on the losing side and can probably only do so much.
I’m not trying to be cynical, it’s just it’s something that does need working out. I point it out because I want it to be designed well and asking the questions that good design needs to answer helps that.
A lot of games have experimented with things like where winning one battle moves a front around that changes a map. That was like “the thing” to do for a few years because all the other developers were doing it and no one cared about it at all and it was so meaningless.
Then you have those browser “MMORTS” games like Clash of Clans which are just awful.
The OP said he loves MW:o but that’s a pretty loathsome and unpopular game even if a few like it so not something to aspire to. No offense to people that like it, I’m not saying you aren’t allowed to like what you like, just that we want Infinity to be this big massive world teeming with life, right?
It seems like something that would work best if you had infantry to board ships and fight over ships for a good 12-25 minutes. That would then put a lot more perspective on the scale and timing of things than if you just had ships do horribly low TTKs.
But that’s not really in the scope of Infinity.
I remember on the old forums there was this idea that like what you would normally consider “killing” a ship could be doing only like 3-5% of its real total hitpoints in damage. Where you could spend hours to blast a ship into nothingness, but to simply “sink” it wouldn’t take that much and then you could take their cargo and blah blah and leave someone else or that ship’s owner to deal with the “wreck”.
But that’s out of the scope of I:B.
So I:B is shooting for 150-200 players right?
What can one player do that is going to make an impact if they have the skills/tactics?
Are like 90% of players going to be relegated to a fighter?
What is the goal length for a “match” in I:B?
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That’s one of the goals, yes.
Pilot a capital ship. Scout out resource nodes. Mine resources. Build structures and emplacements. Disrupt the other team’s efforts to do the same. Just off the top of my head.
Doubtful. Considering that a clip of the opening space battle from Revenge of the Sith was confirmed as an example of the kind of experience that the devs are trying to create, I think it’s safe to assume that medium, large, and capital ships are going to be plentiful.
Unless they get that much funding. Then no one gets capitals.
Ideally? Days or weeks, until one team manages to gain uncontested dominance of the map, at which point it would reset.
Otherwise? Minutes.
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It is heartening to see that nearly two years after I created this topic, literally none of the extremely important questions posed (or that are still being posed) have been answered in a definite way. At least we have the kickstarter to look forward to… soon™
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Actually I think Keith answered you question in this reply to someone else “I:B is about getting the tech stable and building out the foundation for the team and company infrastructure we need to really tackle as something as big and complex as the MMO we want to build. The plan is to build the MMO after I:B if possible.”
We’ve described what Battlescape is, yet many still want MMO-like features. As an example, you’ve asked about a galaxy map with territories, but we’ve described many times I:B takes place in a single solar system. In any event, our Kickstarter page will explain the proposed gameplay/funding goals in more detail than we have to date on our forums, so please stay tuned for that.
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I think you’ve misread my paragraph.
Battling a huge dragon is epic and good. The bad ending was rather on a technical side: the combat gameplay was so poor and glitchy that I didn’t enjoy it.
GW1 was first of all simpler to code and the end battles were somewhat more interesting.
Don’t read me wrong either on this: vanilla GW1 had huge plot holes, and the only story I really enjoyed was the last extension “Eye of the North”. All the others were going up, quality wise, until Eye, but had those annoying “Menhlo” guys (aka undying but useless NPC that shouts obvious things while you try to survive).
Also, the background and detail given to every area (much less in high level one though) is really good and the main reason why I loved leveling up and visiting all the areas in GW2.
You mean like not being able to jump at all? Yeah, totaly a classic masterpiece to be used again in MMOs.
Again, GW2 has innovated in its domain. Not to sound too caustic but it looks like you’ve ignored all the good sides of GW2 I’ve mentionned.
Dynamic events should definitely be the future of any MMO and the WvW (world vs world) holds some pretty intersting stuff also. Don’t know much about the “classical” arena though, haven’t played them at all.
I don’t see much the point of it, especially in a battle with a lot of players. Also, the pilotable ships so far have only one person as a crew.
I’ll go ahead and make some shameless auto-highlitghting: not so long ago I’ve suggested what could be interesting to be used in a space MMO. Anyway, not it the direct scope of I:B, but there could be some ideas to be recycled.
I’ll just leave this link here 
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You seem to have missed the entire purpose of this thread so I guess I’ll explain it again: this thread is about the long term playability of the game. Once a player has completed one campaign/match/war/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, why should they play the next one? or the one after that? or the one two years from then?
A territory map was a (quite basic, actually…) suggestion that would keep large groups of players focused for longer periods of time since they had a larger goal to work towards. It also helped to demonstrate what the thread was about. I do not consider it an “MMO-like” feature. Arena shooter games such as World of Tanks and MechWarrior Online both have similar versions of what I am talking about, and especially in World of Tanks case, it has kept the player-base interested far longer than it should have.
These are serious issues that should not be ignored, especially when your existing fan base is as small as it is (and appears to be shrinking). Personally, if you guys released I:B today, and it was just a week long campaign for a solar system that reset every week… I’d play it for exactly one week and then probably drop it and go back to something more rewarding.
I mean look, heres the deal, I wouldn’t still be around on these forums if I didnt want inovae studios to succeed. I’ve been a member of this community for almost ten years now, which is just ludicrous to me when I think back on it, and I think that says something, but the point is that even I wouldn’t keep playing a simple space shooter for more than a week if I didn’t feel like I had purpose. The only reason I keep playing MWO is because I’m heavily involved in its (admittedly laughable) e-sports scene, which gives me a sense of purpose (no thanks to you if you are reading this, PGI…).
What sense of purpose will the player have in in I:B? From what I can tell, your answer is a firm “they don’t need one”.
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….just got the itch to add something… so here goes:
I think Inovae has
to decide what kind of game they want to create.
hmm what kind of games do we have in this genera……
1)Long term progress
I believe games like Mechwarrior Online, War Thunder, World of Tanks, Star conflict and not only them:
EVE – although full blown MMO – all play the card of long term investment.
Essentially in these games player progression is relatively slow.
You would need many months to gain access to a certain vehicles in these games.
In case of EVE it can be decades !
Have you ever used cheat or exploit in some action RPG game like Diablo ?
Game where the gameplay and atmosphere is the very important element ?
Where storytelling takes second (or even third…) seat.
If you did, suddenly game became ….boring.
If your avatar gets too much power in every situation - game looses its atmosphere.
You no longer have much to strive for.
So in these games
(MWO,WT,WoT….) there has to be something to tease you.
You need to see that carrot dangling there in the distance.
- For this to work we would need a substantial number of vehicles.
(this might be our problem)
2)Short term progress
Then there are games like Counter Strike…… Crossfire i guess…… (Killing floor ?)
hmmmm this never occurred to me.
Seriously there really is not that many games like CS ….interesting
In case of CS, every player should more or less be able to gain access to any equipment in the game in time of one match.
- These games tend to attract pro gamers
- Balance can be issue
- Location diversity
3) Team deathmatch
Team fortress, Unreal tournament, Battlefield series
No progression here just pure RAMPAGE ! 
- maps maps maps
- balancing
4) Mobas
DOTA + League of legends, Stellar impact
Blend of 1) and 2)
In case of Dota:
Progression here isn’t the long term goal, but the means to be useful in the match.
All players can use every equipment and character from the start
(well almost from the start)
It is fascinating that, so many players keep playing game on the one single map for
years
- Main draw is most likely in the good balance and teamplay
mixed with - giant variety of skills and equipment.
League of legends, Stellar impact:
these two are special, they have progression from group 1)
where in Dota, there are same conditions for everyone.
I have a feeling that Inovae is aiming at something like this….
But who knows how will it work with such giant scale.
And also ….that ship and equipment variety could be REALLY big problem here.
5)?
Or perhaps they want to mix it with elite/privater like elements.
There were games such as Hardwar , Sub culture , Aquanox(oh look who i found 
)
That didn’t need the galaxy sized world to work.
But how would it work with multiplayer….?
???)??!!
Or something completely original
It all most likely again boils back to money issue.
Depending on the game funding we get different game style…. funny
… … .…… 
……. 
… ¯_(ツ)_/¯
The purpose of the thread while good intentioned, may lead to many ideas/concepts that quickly become out of scope for the resources that will potentially be available and may raise expectations beyond our capability to deliver. Having said that, we appreciate and read all the suggestions and internally discuss whether or not they can fall into our current scope.
Long term playability is definitely a goal for us, and we feel that delivering modding support into the hands of the players is the best way to accomplish that goal in lieu of providing MMO-like features in the shipped game due to insufficient resources available.
We’re hoping the thrill of combat skills & tactics/player & corporation competition/honing of skills will keep players coming back. Holistically at its core, Battlescape is an “arena shooter”. You will spawn, you will fight another team(s), one team will win. As funding increases, the complexity and length of the battles will evolve infusing more possibilities in the realm of tactics/semi-persistence, however ultimately you win or lose a battle, then start over. This is a successor to ICP remember.
It is not in the current scope for Battlescape to include a galaxy generator in to the game, therefore a galaxy/territory map cannot be navigated by players. We of course will generate a galaxy for the celestial backdrop, however there will be no hyperspace mechanics for players to travel to other star systems.
Players and corporations while having stats on battles won/lost, will not be able to hold any territory and freely navigate to those systems at their leisure to acquire resources & whatnot. It is possible that stats could include “planetary systems taken” for corporations etc, however again, members of said corporations would not be actively populating/defending those systems.
With more funding, the star systems where the battles take place can be procedurally generated as we will have more resources to increase planet types/textures etc, so the possibility does exist for a territory map in the sense of systems that “XYZ” corporation has acquired. Whether or not this becomes an interactive map that tracks wins/losses/holdings and intelligently pits bordering corps against one another in future battles…, I’m not sure about that, we’d need to discuss the scope viability internally.
If you could elaborate on your territory map idea with those constraints in mind it could be of help. I am not a MWO or a WoT player, so I am not privy to information that might help me fully understand your idea.
We understand that each players’ gaming goals are their prerogative, and that gaming features and experiences are highly subjective. We have a game goal/idea that we want to achieve/build. We have a scope(s) and a budget(s), and we also have minimum crowd funding goal we must achieve to deliver a product. Combining all of those factors, shipping a solid build is top priority to hopefully demonstrate our capabilities moving forward. Resource constraints will likely preclude us from incorporating many of the player experiences/expectations discussed on the old and current forums as an unfortunate fact of the monetary system we will be dealing with while developing the game.
That’s almost like asking what is the meaning of life 
This is a tough one, because many gamers’ ideas of sense of purpose are highly subjective. IMO the purpose will be to extract the most fun you can get out of the game by becoming the best Interceptor pilot, the best squad leader, the best Cap ship captain, deriving the best bombing run tactics, or forming the most dominant corporation, etc. Our task is to provide compelling gameplay while not exceeding budget/scope. If there are players who feel features such as taking and actively holding galactic territory, setting up interstellar resource acquisition supply chains, or dominating a player run economy are must haves, then we simply cannot provide those gaming experiences with our initial offering. Our ultimate goal will always be the Infinity MMO, however there is a pragmatic path to be taken to reach that ultimate goal, and we are at the first stepping stone.
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Regarding the galaxy map, I think the idea was not so much an actual navigable galaxy, but a sort of territory map that’s merely a method of displaying how well one side is doing against another in the long term.
Eg the map could be composed of tiles. Each tile on the map would not be actual locations that you could travel to, but each arena battle could decide the ‘ownership’ of that tile… If one side kept winning, the border would be gradually pushed back towards the other side.
A requirement for this is that each battlescape system is procedurally generated because two battles representing different tiles shouldn’t be played in the same solar system.
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Randomized orbit order and position would be acceptable in my opinion.
if battlescape is successful enough it’s likely some unofficial leagues with a similar setup to what you described @hrobertson will exist, if it’s not officially supported. Even MW:LL with it’s tiny population had one going. If anything this demonstrates the demand for these kind of campaigns.
I think you’re confusing long-term goals with grinding, and grinding with skills (1 and 4).
A long-term goal could be “acheive rank X in the fleet”. This can be done with a specific set of tasks. It doesn’t always come with grinding, since the tasks can be sufficiently diverse and be somewhat random to not get too fast a sense of repetitiveness. Nonetheless, this means you can’t always do your favorite thing (I hate this arena but I have to go in it for the titale) and players will often track the most efficient ways to acheive the desired goal, creating by themselves the grinding that may not have been there.
Grinding doesn’t need a definition I guess as most are familiar with it.
The “skill” would be getting better at something, for instance DotA.
Playing a thousand hours on World of Tanks (to take the example I best know) will only allow you to get better tank tiers and upgrades, but not necessarly allow you to get better (though it should at some point).
Amongst many measurement, the Elo ladder is used in DotA and LoL to somewhat get a hold of your “skill” level.
As a side-note, LoL does not have any grind type really, except if you wish to buy all the heroes with the in-game currency, which is gained by playing games.
I guess many games use this kind of approach, but the best exampls I have in mind would be GW1 and WvW in GW2 I guess?
How would you see the interaction between the conquered territory and the player’s ability / gameplay?
Fair point. I would like to ask you: if you had all the time and resources in the world, how far would you see the modding control, or rather have access to, the functionnalities of your engine? Would it be a UE-like, that is almost anything possible, or something “limited” so as not to affect negatively the game and possibly make it crash?
If they had this, they wouldn’t be making I:B in the first place, which is really the main issue here anyways if we’re honest, but unfortunately that decision was made a long time ago.
My question remains valid, IMHO. Modding tools are not all equal.
Well, maybe there is no point in answering “if you had all the time and money in the world” type questions, because we won’t have all the time and money in the world…
However, when we do introduce modding, we’d like to give modders the ability to make their own games with the engine. Can I give a rundown of all the available tools/SDK features at this point in time? No, I cannot.
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Surely there will be significant differences between modding Battlescape and creating a new game with the engine?
Not least, the latter requiring a licence.
Not every detail has been decided, but no, if you recall, we discussed many moons ago that the license/SDK would be free, and free to use to make non-profit games etc. And since I:B will allow player run servers, it will be a free for all IMO in terms of modding creativity.
Players will not be able to mod the official game run on INS servers (and official dedicated player run servers), but we do plan to have a dev approved/content marketplace for that.
Ah yes.
From a development perspective, will modding Battlescape be different from developing with the SDK?
Would it be possible to basically make an entirely new game as a mod?
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