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What are online games- what do they actually offer us? At the moment, my answer to that question would have to be “surprisingly little”.
Rather than having online games that enhance the gaming experience and allow you to feel that you are playing your part in a far wider community, the online games of today are little more that just multiplayer modes that give you a bigger range of “friends” to play with. Online first-person shooters games are no more than a four (or sometimes more) player death-match that you could play with some mates in your living room. Real time strategy games are simply a one level skirmish. Racers are diminished to the level of a one-race challenge.
These games could be so much more.
Take, for example, the real time strategy game. Instead of just having online games as a one level survival of the fittest, you could also have a “real” virtual world online. Instead of just playing one game, and that’s it, you’d have clans of armies controlling different areas of this world, with them continually battling each other to gain land, resources and tactical position. The members of such clans would have to work together to co-ordinate attacks and control armies.
That is what an online game should be about.
Of course, there would be several problems that would have to be overcome in my example…
With the world being active 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, how would you let people attack each other whenever they want? You’d feel a bit let down if you logged onto your account only to find that a hoard of angry ogres had savaged you camp while you were gone. Perhaps you could make it that each “clan” in this game would share one common city at the centre of their empire. When a ravenous army was invading it would have to come through your borders- possibly several hours walk from this city, giving you ample time to prepare to defend.
And how would you cope with the potential tens of millions of gamers wanting to own their own bit of land? Well, for one thing you could have several different “virtual worlds”, each corresponding to a different difficulty level. Every week say the smallest clans from each world would be demoted, and the largest promoted.
Anyway, you should get the idea by now quite how epic this game would be. Like the current crop of free online strategy games, like dominion or planetarion, but with proper army manipulation and interaction. Now, if someone could pull off a game like that they would truly go down in gaming history.
Sonic
Rather than having online games that enhance the gaming experience and allow you to feel that you are playing your part in a far wider community, the online games of today are little more that just multiplayer modes that give you a bigger range of “friends” to play with. Online first-person shooters games are no more than a four (or sometimes more) player death-match that you could play with some mates in your living room. Real time strategy games are simply a one level skirmish. Racers are diminished to the level of a one-race challenge.
These games could be so much more.
Take, for example, the real time strategy game. Instead of just having online games as a one level survival of the fittest, you could also have a “real” virtual world online. Instead of just playing one game, and that’s it, you’d have clans of armies controlling different areas of this world, with them continually battling each other to gain land, resources and tactical position. The members of such clans would have to work together to co-ordinate attacks and control armies.
That is what an online game should be about.
Of course, there would be several problems that would have to be overcome in my example…
With the world being active 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, how would you let people attack each other whenever they want? You’d feel a bit let down if you logged onto your account only to find that a hoard of angry ogres had savaged you camp while you were gone. Perhaps you could make it that each “clan” in this game would share one common city at the centre of their empire. When a ravenous army was invading it would have to come through your borders- possibly several hours walk from this city, giving you ample time to prepare to defend.
And how would you cope with the potential tens of millions of gamers wanting to own their own bit of land? Well, for one thing you could have several different “virtual worlds”, each corresponding to a different difficulty level. Every week say the smallest clans from each world would be demoted, and the largest promoted.
Anyway, you should get the idea by now quite how epic this game would be. Like the current crop of free online strategy games, like dominion or planetarion, but with proper army manipulation and interaction. Now, if someone could pull off a game like that they would truly go down in gaming history.
Sonic
CDouch wrote:
> Hey SonicRav do you know you have to GAD's to claim?
LOL... got 2 to claim, and one in the post... when it comes out!
Anyway, Solskjaer, true online games aren't as far off as you might think. Already we have "universes" in the form of online RTS games like Dominion and Planetarion. The only problem is that they don't have a real time graphical engine interface- ie you don't see little men that you control.
Once we have broadband, it's only a matter of time before someone comes out with a way to impliment this idea.
Sonic
> Hey SonicRav do you know you have to GAD's to claim?
LOL... got 2 to claim, and one in the post... when it comes out!
Anyway, Solskjaer, true online games aren't as far off as you might think. Already we have "universes" in the form of online RTS games like Dominion and Planetarion. The only problem is that they don't have a real time graphical engine interface- ie you don't see little men that you control.
Once we have broadband, it's only a matter of time before someone comes out with a way to impliment this idea.
Sonic
Hey SonicRav do you know you have to GAD's to claim?
I like the idea of a 'real' virtual on-line game. When I was younger, and first heard of the net, I used to wonder if there was a game where you could actually drive around England in a car, with everything there just like in real life! It's a good idea, but probably something that'll never happen for a long long time at least!
I don't like games like Red Alert, I just fins them quite dull and boring, and i'm hopeless at them! But people play them on-line for a reason, so maybe on-line capabillities unlocks something new in a game??
I don't like games like Red Alert, I just fins them quite dull and boring, and i'm hopeless at them! But people play them on-line for a reason, so maybe on-line capabillities unlocks something new in a game??
Stryke wrote:
> It might be more applicable, because everyone would have the same speed as
> opposed to different speed modems or PCs or whatever. Good post.
cheers...
Well, one of the big problems for online gaming is speed- we need broadband!
Sonic
> It might be more applicable, because everyone would have the same speed as
> opposed to different speed modems or PCs or whatever. Good post.
cheers...
Well, one of the big problems for online gaming is speed- we need broadband!
Sonic
It might be more applicable, because everyone would have the same speed as opposed to different speed modems or PCs or whatever. Good post.
What are online games- what do they actually offer us? At the moment, my answer to that question would have to be “surprisingly little”.
Rather than having online games that enhance the gaming experience and allow you to feel that you are playing your part in a far wider community, the online games of today are little more that just multiplayer modes that give you a bigger range of “friends” to play with. Online first-person shooters games are no more than a four (or sometimes more) player death-match that you could play with some mates in your living room. Real time strategy games are simply a one level skirmish. Racers are diminished to the level of a one-race challenge.
These games could be so much more.
Take, for example, the real time strategy game. Instead of just having online games as a one level survival of the fittest, you could also have a “real” virtual world online. Instead of just playing one game, and that’s it, you’d have clans of armies controlling different areas of this world, with them continually battling each other to gain land, resources and tactical position. The members of such clans would have to work together to co-ordinate attacks and control armies.
That is what an online game should be about.
Of course, there would be several problems that would have to be overcome in my example…
With the world being active 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, how would you let people attack each other whenever they want? You’d feel a bit let down if you logged onto your account only to find that a hoard of angry ogres had savaged you camp while you were gone. Perhaps you could make it that each “clan” in this game would share one common city at the centre of their empire. When a ravenous army was invading it would have to come through your borders- possibly several hours walk from this city, giving you ample time to prepare to defend.
And how would you cope with the potential tens of millions of gamers wanting to own their own bit of land? Well, for one thing you could have several different “virtual worlds”, each corresponding to a different difficulty level. Every week say the smallest clans from each world would be demoted, and the largest promoted.
Anyway, you should get the idea by now quite how epic this game would be. Like the current crop of free online strategy games, like dominion or planetarion, but with proper army manipulation and interaction. Now, if someone could pull off a game like that they would truly go down in gaming history.
Sonic
Rather than having online games that enhance the gaming experience and allow you to feel that you are playing your part in a far wider community, the online games of today are little more that just multiplayer modes that give you a bigger range of “friends” to play with. Online first-person shooters games are no more than a four (or sometimes more) player death-match that you could play with some mates in your living room. Real time strategy games are simply a one level skirmish. Racers are diminished to the level of a one-race challenge.
These games could be so much more.
Take, for example, the real time strategy game. Instead of just having online games as a one level survival of the fittest, you could also have a “real” virtual world online. Instead of just playing one game, and that’s it, you’d have clans of armies controlling different areas of this world, with them continually battling each other to gain land, resources and tactical position. The members of such clans would have to work together to co-ordinate attacks and control armies.
That is what an online game should be about.
Of course, there would be several problems that would have to be overcome in my example…
With the world being active 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, how would you let people attack each other whenever they want? You’d feel a bit let down if you logged onto your account only to find that a hoard of angry ogres had savaged you camp while you were gone. Perhaps you could make it that each “clan” in this game would share one common city at the centre of their empire. When a ravenous army was invading it would have to come through your borders- possibly several hours walk from this city, giving you ample time to prepare to defend.
And how would you cope with the potential tens of millions of gamers wanting to own their own bit of land? Well, for one thing you could have several different “virtual worlds”, each corresponding to a different difficulty level. Every week say the smallest clans from each world would be demoted, and the largest promoted.
Anyway, you should get the idea by now quite how epic this game would be. Like the current crop of free online strategy games, like dominion or planetarion, but with proper army manipulation and interaction. Now, if someone could pull off a game like that they would truly go down in gaming history.
Sonic