SmedBlog (last year): NPC Enemies and Armies

[Beregond]

Adding some NPC related event would be a cool feature that could add some extra strategic options; the first similar thing that come to my mind is Aion PVP zones: at random times an enormous alien battleship flies over a random base and blow the shit out of it taking control of the zone, acting as an independent 4th faction and players must face them to retake it; retaking the base could give some special bonuses to that faction, something similar to the old PS1 cavelock.

[RoninOni]

Originally Posted by Blackwolf

I'd rather see Zerg type aliens then super powerful ones personally. If it isn't something that a player could take down one on one then it's going to kill the game. RPGs are built around the concept of super powerful baddies that require entire groups to kill. FPSes are built around very fast kill times and are a lot more "gritty". Alien invasion involving swarms of critters that you have to gun down as much as possible just to stay alive? Sure. Super powerful aliens that entire squads might have trouble killing, no way.

I agree, but there should be some bigger, larger ones as well that do take some serious fire power.

TONS AND TONS AND TONS of lil swarmy bastards though

Also, I edited that 1 post... should also be incredibly rare.

Mechanically (programatically) I would see this done as a very very rare (maybe scripted in secret, maybe randomly generated) global event that once triggered lasts 24-48 hours, but actually does nothing but allow for common but random local events. If determined randomly, events should be between 7-11 months apart. Weekends could be given significantly higher proc chance than weekdays.

The local events would be the meteor storms themselves, and their size, location, and even qty and types of aliens would all be randomized. Certain factors programmed into the map different locations, as well as current population densities, would affect the different variables.

As I also said elsewhere, the 'face of the planet' should affect it, so only 1 continent at a time (or 1/3rd the continents), would have a chance at having the local event happen. In effect, as the different continents should have different current time of days to simulate their different face of the planet, so could time of day be used as a filter on local event windows. Any 8 hour (in-game) period could be set (or randomly generated) and would shift by an hour every in game day (as the planet is moving in it's orbit, so does it's impact angle of the meteors), until the end of the event (24-48 real hours, 3-8 in-game days, preset or again... random)

The aliens themselves could pull from a sleuth of inspiration from movies... Sony... you got some licenses to lean on right?

Originally Posted by Baneblade

I think it is a recipe for massive lag cookies.

potentially for sure...

but this is still likely a couple years from fruition at the earliest, and hopefully our net speeds will have increased a bit more.

[Captain1nsaneo]

I can see that NPCs in the first form could work as random events but there's this fang filled maw in the back of my brain that wants to bifurcate things whenever the concept of NPCs in PS is brought up.

(Oh, and any changes you DO end up making, send them through a long beta test. Massive mistake the last crew made. Massive.)

[Zulthus]

Originally Posted by Smed

I didn't go into much detail in my blog post. There are 2 separate ideas here. One is simple - Alien NPCs (the original Planetside design called them Shifters). They are superpowerful aliens that come in and attack everyone. There are a lot of special things about them I don't want to reveal right now but the idea is more the Alien Queen and not Zergs. So there wouldn't be thousands of them. But they would be nasty as hell.

The second idea is this. What if we had certain captureable buildings that when combined with a steady flow of resources the players had to pour in would result in waves of "creeps" ala LoL or DOTA that would go towards premade points in the world. So to attack a particular base one tactic would be to capture a nearby base.. capture the spawning facility and that would result in the NPC wave (again not thousands) moving towards a specific targeted base to attack.

One other key point about them I didn't mention - they would have buildable AI that players could actually make through a scripting language. (forgot this part too) - Also you would be able to sell that AI to other players if you were an AI designer. Think Robot Wars or cRobots.

These are just ideas. I enjoy the feedback.

Thanks

Smed

Pretty much what everyone else said. Yes, no, no.

If you're going to put any PvE content into a PvP game, please limit it to your first idea. If the events were very few and far between (maybe 4 times a year) then it'd be fine.

But NPC armies? I'm sorry, but that's just not a good idea. I play Planetside to kill and work with players players, not to trade/make robots to play the game for you. Think about it! Adding NPC armies to PS2 will be like adding BFR's to PS1.

[Toppopia]

Originally Posted by VikingKong

Yep, that's just what people will want after spending possibly months of their lives, slowly working their way across a continent through a sea of TR blood and whatever it is that a vanu spurts out... Herpa derp im a alion and this iz all miyn naow LOLZ! Great fun.

That was sarcasm, btw. D:

We don't lose, we just let you advance to make you feel better.

[MaxDamage]

Originally Posted by Electrofreak

TL;DR - Be gentle with us Smed... we gamers are delicate and fickle creatures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2qpe2em3fk#t=1m

Planetsides appeal is pure PVP.
PVP is special, 'real' and satisfying in a way that PVE can never be.
PVE encounters during PVP may be very frustrating.
Throwing raid bosses in just to catch some WoW dollah however can gtfo.
Scripting will be abused somehow.

[Baneblade]

Originally Posted by RoninOni

potentially for sure...

but this is still likely a couple years from fruition at the earliest, and hopefully our net speeds will have increased a bit more.

Doesn't matter how fast the network is if the server still has to control hundreds (thousands?) of drones as well as coordinate players in an FPS with locational damage.

[Revanmug]

Originally Posted by Blackwolf

I'd rather see Zerg type aliens then super powerful ones personally. If it isn't something that a player could take down one on one then it's going to kill the game. RPGs are built around the concept of super powerful baddies that require entire groups to kill. FPSes are built around very fast kill times and are a lot more "gritty". Alien invasion involving swarms of critters that you have to gun down as much as possible just to stay alive? Sure. Super powerful aliens that entire squads might have trouble killing, no way.

That scare me a little. MMORPG raid are build around that idea but not really for fps. Big monsters in a fps with hundred of people firing on it sound like :
-1 Stay a as far as possible
-2 Get an ammo pack.
-3 Point and hold left mouse button.
-4 move to another rock with ammo pack if boss(es) get close
-???
-Profit

[Electrofreak]

Originally Posted by MaxDamage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2qpe2em3fk#t=1m

Planetsides appeal is pure PVP.
PVE encounters during PVP may be very frustrating, wouldn't rule out something if it was well thought out.
Throwing raid bosses in just to catch some WoW dollah however can gtfo.
Scripting will be abused somehow.

Haha! Perfect!

[VikingKong]

Originally Posted by Toppopia

We don't lose, we just let you advance to make you feel better.

You already lost the day you signed over your free will and enlisted with the TR.

[Blackwolf]

Originally Posted by RoninOni

I agree, but there should be some bigger, larger ones as well that do take some serious fire power.

TONS AND TONS AND TONS of lil swarmy bastards though

Also, I edited that 1 post... should also be incredibly rare.

Mechanically (programatically) I would see this done as a very very rare (maybe scripted in secret, maybe randomly generated) global event that once triggered lasts 24-48 hours, but actually does nothing but allow for common but random local events.

The local events would be the meteor storms themselves, and their size, location, and even qty and types of aliens would all be randomized. Certain factors programmed into the map different locations, as well as current population densities, would affect the different variables.

As I also said elsewhere, the 'face of the planet' should affect it, so only 1 continent at a time (or 1/3rd the continents), would have a chance at having the local event happen. In effect, as the different continents should have different current time of days to simulate their different face of the planet, so could time of day be used as a filter on local event windows. Any 8 hour period could be set (or randomly generated) and would shift by an hour every in game day (as the planet is moving in it's orbit, so does it's impact angle of the meteors), until the end of the event (24-48 real hours, 3-8 in-game days, preset or again... random)

Why random? If you were going to launch an invasion, wouldn't you put some thought and organization into it?

X number of small things per Y big thing which acts as a commander or lead unit. Y number of big things per Z great big thing if you want a larger scale invasion. The recipe works no matter what kind of aliens you use (a race of aliens that are similar to each other and pilot vehicles, or a insect like race where there are vast differences between creature 1 and 2 based on what they were born to do).

[AvacadoEight]

I just dont know how I feel about AI's. Planetside is a PvP game. I understand that going to attempt to appeal to other audiences, but this is not the way to go.

In the middle of an epic fight between the NC and TR, I don't want some massive powerful aliens coming in and screwing that up. Maybe if they did it right, and it didn't take both sides to focus on to take down, I'd be okay with it. But geez man, Im not sure.

And, on scripting. You know people with good scripting skills would get through exploit it. That is just ASKING for trouble.

[JPalmer]

I don't understand the hate for the aliens evasion. Make them not daily and make them so it is different every time. If there is a invasion set for a day, put a post online somewhere so all the people who don't want to participate will know not to.

The A.I creep things would work great with those Outfit continents you were talking about earlier. Outfits are not always going to have balanced player populations so the creeps would help a little bit there. However I don't think the creeps would work for the gameplay on normal continents. Plus you would have enough QQ to drown everyone in the SOE offices if they messed with the core pvp.

[TheDAWinz]

Originally Posted by JPalmer

I don't understand the hate for the aliens evasion. Make them not daily and make them so it is different every time. If there is a invasion set for a day, put a post online somewhere so all the people who don't want to participate will know not to.

The A.I creep things would work great with those Outfit continents you were talking about earlier. Outfits are not always going to have balanced player populations so the creeps would help a little bit there. However I don't think the creeps would work for the gameplay on normal continents. Plus you would have enough QQ to drown everyone in the SOE offices if they messed with the core pvp.

hey dude i saw you in the stream

[Lafen]

100% PvP and i want my 100%