Silent Storm Multiplayer and MMORPG

[Unsterblich]

Originally posted at Nival forums, here

 

Well, guess this is a somewhat old subject, multiplayer for Silent Storm.

 

But it has to be said. Also, I have some ideas, and I would like to share them here, in the hopes someone has enough programming skills, like Novik and so many others (and wich I don't), and listen to me and make this thing happen. Of course, I would work day and night, for free, to help it.

 

But because I'm a SS addict? No, because I know it will work. Plain and simple.

 

Let me explain: games like Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat, two Half-Life-based mods, are still out there, better than never. In fact, CS 2 and Dod 2 came out recently. So did Half-Life.

 

But let's get this straight: who do you think kept HL alive to this day? The mods, specially CS and DoD. And whow do you think people kept playing them until today, even when they're so outdated in graphics, always the same weapons and enemies, stuff like that?

 

For the very same reason extremely old online rpg's, like Ultima Online, are still played today, on free servers around almost every country: they never get boring. They always have content. That's the magic of multiplayer games: content. The human challenge never ends.

 

You can play against the computer at the most challenging difficult level. Either you give up, or eventually will beat it. When you win, it's over, you conquered the game. But against humans, it's a different story: it never ends. You can win the first round, and loose the others. The challenge is always present, and the human players are always doing different things, exploring the scenario, trying new tactics and strategies, new ways of exploring the weapons and the combat ground, etc.

 

And we have all this content in a type of game that is very straight-forward, like CS and DoD: teams on both sides, they're armed, they're ready, they have to capture the flags or destroy the objective, or kill everyone on the other team. What could have less content than that?

 

Now, take all those limitless possibilities, and enter them on a single multiplayer map of Silent Storm. You have different classes with different skills, all of them with perk trees and skill points to alocate. You have an infinity of weapons, ammunition types, explosives, grenades, medical items and other things to put some more color and add elements of strategie. There you go, at least ten years of fun.

 

And this is just for starters. The real deal, the real thing, what I really wanted to talk about, begins here.

 

Before that: as for the gameplay, that's just details: it would be much more intelligent to assign for excample one minute to each side. In fact, the total time would be agreed upon by all the players, before the beginning: one minute for veterans, three or maybe more minutes for greens. Then they can move their units and assign commands. If they move some units quick, they'll have more time to think on what to do with the other units, engaged on delicate or critical situations. If they end sooner, so much the better: they pass the turn. But like I said, that's just details. I want to talk about something bigger here.

 

And what is it? The concept of Silent Storm servers.

 

No cheating. No exploiting (of course, this kind of thing gets corrected over time and playtest), none of the things that make us players unhappy. And no piracy , because to play on the server you have to have a valid cd-key, pay the monthly fee, or something like that. None of the things that make the game developers and publishers unhappy.

 

I mean, for Christ sake, didn't we learn the lessons from Ultima Online? CS, DoD and Half-Life with it's "Death Match"? Or the recent Star Wars Galaxies, Warcraft Online, and similars? Official servers to play the game means "no piracy". Even if you copy the game, or download it, you have to have a valid key, and/or to pay monthly to play on the server.

 

And with a Silent Storm server, running a "world", my friend, that's when the REAL MAGIC begins...

 

Imagine a cross-bread between S2, S3 and Hammer & Sickle. Imagine you start with a main hero, say, on the post-WW II scenario. There are still Werhmacht units on the fight, refusing to surrender and adopting hit-and-run guerrilla tactics (this really happened). The world is polarizing between the capitalists and the comunists.

 

After creating your main hero (which can be from any nations displayed on S2), you can choose your political affiliation, which side your fighting for (at least, you say you are), or decide to be a rogue combatant, just a "soldier of fortune". You have to choose somewhere to begin, then, on the real map, you have to find and create a base of operations. From there, you will have to do something to raise money: sell infomartion, sell your services as a soldier, attack military forces, or just rob the civil population.

 

Almost all of the civilians are AI (with the exception of a player or group of players disguised as civilians: you could be attacking Eagle, the russian Sniper, and realize it when it was too late), and some of the military units. Some civilians (other starting or disguised players) and most of the combat units are human-controlled, real-live players, eager to find and rob-kill someone to get more weapons, items, uniforms and money. Anything goes.

 

You would, by paying for informants, buying the local newspaper, or giving items to some AI civilians or military, obtain info about what's going on in the world. Is the city being attacked by american marauders dressed as soldiers? This could bring an uprising of the locals: with leadership, money and training, you could start hiring some civilians and turning them into your team of soldiers. Or you could just hire some mercenaries to do the dirty work. Although they're professionals, they're expensive and not an example of loyalty. If you're injured and the situation get's ugly, they may even leave you to die or be captured, on the battlefield. On the other hand, civilians would be extremely loyal and fight to the death.

 

Also, you would have to manage resources on your base: food, money, ammo, weapons, maintenance, etc. And, if your system of inteligence is weak (what you mean, you don't have intel?), you might even wake up with the turn-based system on, and discover your base is under attack by a much superior force. Even if you win (winning, in this case, would be to survive while standing ground), your base will be left in pieces. More money to spend reconstructing your house/fortress/bunker.

 

I am still developing the game concept, but the general idea is putting much more rpg elements on Silent Storm, while maintaining the action, and putting all this on a server, then let the players enter.

 

Other two ideas: damage system to the ground (so you can have mortar holes, holes from bombing, or just create a fox hole, a trench, using your spade or shovel, for purposes of constructing a defensive position), and expanding the maps, to include the casual vehicle, like cars, tanks, etc. And yes, they would be controlled by you and the other players.

 

Maybe even script some events, or make them available, like the use of artillery fire, or parachuters to take enemie positions from behind. Imagination is the limit. But it all starts in only one place: a silent storm multiplayer.

 

But before we go on into details, let's skip them, and concentrate on the game play concept. And to understand it better, we have to look first to S2 and S3 game concepts (wich are the same, actually).

 

WARNING: S3 Spoilers. If you didn't play S3: Sentinels, don't read this.

 

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On the Silent Storm series (S2 and S3), the concept is somewhat straight-forward: you start the game already in an introductory mission. Either you complete the objectives, or you have to replay it.

 

When you do complete the objectives, you are directly transfered to your base. From there, you can modify, heal and equip yourself and your squad. Also, you use the base to store equipment, weapons and ammo (and money, in S3).

 

When you leave the base, you see the global map. One or more of the regions are highlighted, indicating you have something to do over there. You can click on that regions and see one or more places where you can deploy your squad. Even if there's nothing for you to do there yet, there are always the random encounters, and the possibility of camping on the region.

 

So, we see here the basic struture of the game: you do a mission. After sucessfully completing it, you open up other missions, like a tree-branch structure. Thanks to that structure, you may fail one or more missions, and still be able to progress on the game, opening other missions or doing already opened missions.

 

S3 Changed that somewhat, giving you a "menu" of missions to choose from. You complete 3 of the 4 available, you move on to another menu of 4 missions. This odd structure led to strange things, like if you want to see all the 4 missions, you must fail one of the first 3 that you try, so that you can see the fourth mission.

 

Also, S3 has a serious flaw: on the "hire/fire soldier" menu, there's no ability to hire or fire the two secret characters. The consequence is: once you get one of the secret characters (Shade, the ninja, and A.B.R.S. - the Robot Soldier), you're stuck with it for life. The only way of getting rid of him is killing him. Wich is a problem, specially on the last part of the game, where you can choose one of two missions (frontal assalt, or the special commando back-door entry). The commando mission does not allow use of panzerkleins...

 

...wich means you can't do this mission if got the Robot Soldier. Only way of taking the mission is destroying the Robot Soldier, wich is not only unpleasant and anti-game enough, but worse, it's very difficult. The thing just don't die.

 

But enough with the "SS" game concepts and S3 flaws. So, we want a open-ended single-player game, to lay the foundations to a Silent Storm MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online RPG). What concept do we have to work on?

 

Here are some more of my ideas. Fell free to contribute or critisize. As the ideas keep coming up, I'll post more here.

 

Instead of "opening" the mission zones when you complete previous missions, how about all, or almost all, the mission zones already opened?

 

Also, you don't have a base. You choose somewhere to appear (country), and you're there. You have to find an empty house, or base, or fortress, ocupy it (or fight your way in, if it's already occupied), and you will have the option of "make this your base". From there, you can start stocking weapons, ammo, equipment and personel in there. Also, you can change the view: normal map, or "base view", with fixed camera positions and the base sorrounded by black, empty spaces.

[brandeburg]

This is a really good idea, with a good potential. The on line project would be great, but it is already so frustrated in therm of time to mod a normal game, that it should be done by a whole team, whose members won't diseapeared after a months: this is were is the problem.

Whatever, Ihope this project would be done. Keep on going.

[ziggary]

I recently purchased Silent Storm Gold, and of course one of the fantasies that come to mind as you play the game is the concept of multiplayer play.

 

However, I never really envisioned Silent Storm being the kind of game you'd want to turn into an MMORPG--in my opinion it would be better suited to small tactical "sessions" where you compete (or cooperate) with other squads to complete mission objects in a specific time limit.

 

I enjoy the squad-based combat of SS2 a lot, and I think I would not enjoy it so much if I did not have control over my *squad* when executing manuevers.

 

The styles of missions for multiplayer SS2, I thought, would have to conform to a few ideals: fast, focused, fun. A single session that goes on for hours would be heaven for some people, but not everyone has that time. Singleplayer is different: you come, you pause, you go, you get chips... so multiplayer "missions" would have to be short and focused, while leaving a lot of room for the exciting kind of combat that S2 provides.

 

Set up "missions" similar to single-player style. Let one player control 10-15 "bad guys" on a map, while the other players -- divided up into squads of 3 or 4 -- work together to try and take the objective. Have "king of the hill" where squads compete to take a position from the enemy (another, random player) the fastest.

 

That's the kind of stuff I've always envisioned multiplayer SS2 as, even though I've only been playing for 2 weeks.

[Unsterblich]

It's an interesting idea!