City in the Clouds

ajohn505 · 2003-06-22, 04:42 PM

Listening to the AGN Dev Interview #2, it was cool to hear Dave talk about "new combat areas", in addition to new continents.

To me, this can mean only air and sea. I'd love to see floating bases. Galaxies would need to fly up and drop off troops. There could be floating turrets on the corners for air defense, etc. Basically it would be a shitload of new art content, but I believe it would add a ton to the feel of the game, and wouldn't be completely out of place in this futuristic environment.

Any comments on bases in the clouds?

Grease Monkey · 2003-06-22, 04:55 PM

LOL i like the idea, sounds great and would make things more 'interesting'

Lonehunter · 2003-06-22, 05:05 PM

Uderwater bases.

Trebor95 · 2003-06-22, 05:47 PM

Underdround bases

with access points at the surface i.e tunnel or something

Seer · 2003-06-22, 06:05 PM

Trebor, most of the bases in game now are pretty much underground. What would be really strange is bases that are entirely above ground.

Wolfeh · 2003-06-22, 06:34 PM

Danger with adding too many new areas is that you spread the playerbase over too large an area which means there would be combat every where but no large battles :|

Happy lil Elf · 2003-06-22, 06:37 PM

Good. 250 person battles are amusing every once in awhile, but this 200+ people or nothing is starting to get kinda old. I think I liked it better in beta when for the most part you'd see 30-40 people per side instead of the enitre empires population fighting over one base

Searo · 2003-06-22, 06:43 PM

I agree. PS becomes much more annoying when doors refuse to open, my gun ceases to have AP Ammo, and also decides against reloading, G is disabled, people are teleporting around, and my messages take three minutes to pop up in chat box.

Smaller battles ownz joo foo!

Seer · 2003-06-22, 06:53 PM

You guys forget that beta wasn't 'smaller battles'--it was a neverending orgy of death on Cyssor punctuated by musical raids on empty bases everywhere else. It's entirely possible, as is, to cap several bases (~45 minutes of time) on empty continents before any real resistance formulates, but oftentimes people don't have the time or will to forge their own territory on an empty continent while the zerg is fed with constant doses of 5k exp caps and intense action.

An ideal solution would encourage a reasonable sized defense as well as a reasonable sized offense, which would be conducive to the addition of new bases and territories. The current situation is 'the bigger the better', which, unsuprisingly, leads to clustering and massive lag, both framerate and network-wise.

ZionsFire · 2003-06-23, 01:40 AM

yes imagine clouds actually being able to fly and hide in em

JLeeAZN · 2003-06-23, 01:45 AM

They need to make underwater bases!! - Which means that there would be aqua suits, submarines, and Torpedo Planes !!

Arakiel · 2003-06-23, 01:48 AM

Originally posted by Seer
You guys forget that beta wasn't 'smaller battles'--it was a neverending orgy of death on Cyssor punctuated by musical raids on empty bases everywhere else. It's entirely possible, as is, to cap several bases (~45 minutes of time) on empty continents before any real resistance formulates, but oftentimes people don't have the time or will to forge their own territory on an empty continent while the zerg is fed with constant doses of 5k exp caps and intense action.

Well said.

I think the new lattice system (when the continent links to sancs were changed) was the beginning of the obscure zerg mess we have at the moment. Every continent except Searhus is pretty much the same predictable battle day after day.

ajohn505 · 2003-06-23, 03:17 PM

I don't think adding maybe a quarter more bases would harm the gameflow very much. It would just make it more strategic. I can even imagine some coolness when they implement the orbital platform.

I.e. you would need to own a certain floating facility in order to get access to the orbital platform from your current continent, and it wouldn't be available from sanctuary.

As an aside, in addition to floating bases, just a base that's high up on a mesa sounds like a decent idea to me. Perhaps each continent would have a "fortress" base like this.

I'm just throwing out ideas.

parakiet · 2003-06-23, 03:21 PM

what about some serieus hard bases?
i don't have the game yet but when i see at the maps then i only can tell one thing: islands switch side really often...

maybe some structure that allows longer battles. dunno something really hard to cap or something

Airlift · 2003-06-23, 03:26 PM

It would be hard to make really impressive sky bases unless they increase the flight ceiling.