Break the Chain - Less RPG Servers
 

I've had small time but I feel enough time to think about this and I have to say..

WHAT IS WITH ALL THE RPG SERVERS?

We have ourselves a game platform with what we can make as far as our imaginations and minds can go, Are we really only capable of RPGs?

I had small brainstorming and I came up with an idea or two.

Real Time Strategy Graal: (AoE 2 joke) Age of Graal: Age of Noobs, Expansion: Age of Graal: Age of Lamers

Visual Demonstration of what I see for this (Prepare for cool looking stuff also very crude looking stuff):

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/7931/ageofgraal.png

Explaination for my abominable GFX: The sword would be some sort of iconic cursor (Just for kicks I was bored) though the small arrow and circle bit would be for directing your men.

Units I thought of to show:
Monks, Archers, Soldiers and a Hero/Paladin King like guy (Definitely changeable if desired).

Church building like castle place, Just to say that we could also have buildings created to have settlement. Players could design their very own villages through villagers and things (like in the game I mentioned for the joke and many other games like it) It would bring chaotic competition, It would make players think of much strategy. The only true thing I see to be extremely difficult would be the scripting and MASSIVE development work required to make this a plausible idea, But imagine this as a server and since it's kind of the new fad an iPhone game server!

This is simply an idea to bring a Real Time Strategy based server instead of the usual RPG drool. Roleplay is cool and all but on graal it's become rather bland, recycled and quite frankly lacking.

Feel free to talk more on this idea, or even construct and criticize upon it. Give good reason and arguement and perhaps even suggest ideas to go along with it.

Also could this be moved to the correct section of forums?

P.S: Used N-Pulse stuff like the grass, long bow for archers. Used Kain4lyfe's Tier 2 Paladin outfit (from a certain game I don't think darlene would like me mentioning on here.)

do want, loved AOE:ROR

A couple concerns to also answer.

1. Okay, a command and conquer server. How would you keep the balance in tact? Players would just farm all day long

Answer: The game would be very large, and it would be running all the time. People would constantly uprise against each others kingdoms, taking over their land day and night. I'd say If you completely lose your kingdom (lack of villagers + main building on your end) you would lose all your resources with it and have to restart from scratch with your "hero".

2. Okay, your hero is your main unit? If he dies doesn't it mean we cant continue on?

Answer: Not necessarily. I'd say there would be two stages to your hero. Before and After Fame stages. Before Fame would be when you have to build your main land. You would have to harvest your resources first and before fame heroes cannot be killed. Your hero would then proceed to pick what style of life he wishes to live (He could be any race or in this case any graal server perhaps?) and then once your main structure is up. He'd become after fame stage and you would then proceed to work yourself up with two villagers you start with (or maybe one a wife/husband as your worker? Im not sure which to pick) you would then work on from there.

3. Heroes are kind of powerful most of the time. How would you balance this?

Answer: Considering I based this idea mostly off of AoE, I believe It should work the way they made it to be. Heroes would be nothing more than special builders with small power boost over the units themselves that way they cannot determine who would reign.

I tried to make a C&C-style server, but I was working alone, and it was just WAY too much work.

I was leaning toward 1v1 or 2v2 matches (players would challenge each other), which is kind of lame now that I look back.

I'm glad I'm not the first. I would love to see such a server come up. The good thing is I believe this would be more suited to the iPhone environment considering if you made probably what I would say by the LAAAAAAARGEST gmap imaginable for this game. You could very well easily have a profiting, fun server that would constantly play itself out. It would need heavy balance and testing. Moderation all over it definitely but It would be a fantastic server for all. That's the only true downside to my idea like yours. It has a major load of development work that would be required to even call it playable.

I'll start caring about any of these problems once you have a proof-of-concept engine going, with a usable UI, pathfinding/AI and stuff like that.

We started toying with the idea of an RTS interface back on GK when we wanted to have events staff control large amounts of monsters at players, but it never went anywhere. :v

Oh ****... I just realized I made a problem. This isn't a server I'm making. I'm only suggesting that a server is made this way.

That's all nice Loriel but I don't understand your point other than controlling stuff is hard. Which is kind of obvious.

Yeah my point is basically that it is easy to come up with ideas for servers and everybody has dozens of them, actually coding it is the hard part and what lends ideas credence.

I would like to defend my idea on your argument point of "Coding is hard, your idea isn't worth the time It would take for this." but It's pointless on multiple levels to the point of just random spam. It's an offered idea with a very simplified form of how it would run, Don't even understand why you needed to state what you stated in the first place.

or do something like civilization if anyone has ever played it

If this was mobile-released, I could see a large amount of income for Graal and the developers. RTS games are cherished by iPhone gamers. ~25% of the top paid games (well used to be) RTS.

Maniaman and I were talking about one ages ago, we just never got it off the ground. Would be cool if someone pulled it off

I think I remember Maniaman asking me if I'd be willing to make graphics for something like that.

if I ever had some time I'd help do graphics, this sounds like a kick-ass idea to get Graal going somewhere. aoe is the **** btw

I know right? AoE 2 was my canidate choice as inspiration because of the high balance it held.

I think some ideas could be implmented involving buying units with gelats?? what could this be like? not overpowered but helpful in different ways...

As far as balancing I would want it to be a carbon copy of AoE 2.

The hero(s) were only a slight above stronger than the actual units. They only standed out in small small ways that made them different. The units were the toughest and nothing else. You had your normal units, then your special race units (non castle and castle age castle units) and you had numerous upon numerous upgrades which made the development lengthy and competitive worthy while my idea says make a HUUGE gmap I'm talking jumbo sized even for a GMAP, like old N-Pulse Rebirth's original gmap size (was to have over 1000 land levels. R.I.P) which allowed conquest to be very extensive while knowing servers will only be active so long, those who start in any time, play anytime have a chance to make for conquest, No one would reign forever and it would be a continuous fight, attacks would be interestingly different. Now imagine guilds making nations and they'd form into one kingdom, now things would be a lot more chaotic. This idea is just abundant with fruitful success!

sick. and if you managed to find a randomly generated map script... quick matches like a pro.<3

lol, I wasn't thinking of it like that.

I was saying a gigantic map where everybody competed all at once, All the time over a land of much land, resources. The only true thing I didn't come up with was incentive other than domination of the weak.

ooopoop.
thats sounding a little chaotic. I like it.

I still think have quick match things would be cool :noob:

Maybe both? :o

That would be like the tournament style perhaps so theres more than just FFA madness.

This is something that I have thought about before and it was why I wanted Flying Technology so badly, because I thought it meant real GMAP zoom, but then when I learnt that it was just using screenshots of the levels I realized it wouldn't work.

I'm slightly confused. You're talking about zooming of the map right? For like seeing more than current or seeing less than default on your screen right?

Yeah. So that you could zoom out to building level or zoom out to city level to manage your productions.

Could still use the up down left right keys to move around the map as fast as possible.
But I see where that's a slight let down :(

Haa! This idea would be awesome! Maybe you could implement many of the different graal "races" when you decide what team you're on. Humans, Zorbi's, maybe even baddies.

Here's a few ideas. (using humans and zorbis of conqueror's)

Humans
Zorbis
Lizardons
Server Loyalists (Players of Classic Servers everybody or most would know)

I'd totally play this if presentation was done well (I'm picky) <3 AoE series

As am I <3

fulg0re I would love you if you actually got this together

I wish I could... But the only developers I know capable are taken by other servers or real life. :[

I could help you achieve this win of a server, I haven't actually played Graal since November due to boredom but I'm a pretty good gat and I could see this as a good place to teach myself how to script. other than that I'm sure some of your friends could contribute at the least part, this would be something that would be easy to do once the scripts are set up. anyway, I'm glad you could bring this to the light, it's probably inspiring alot of people to create servers different then the usual rpg thing.