Idea for special event

Stardouser · 2012-03-26, 01:00 PM

Here's an idea I had, I wanted to get it out on the airwaves.

Let's just say, a year down the road, they've got an AI 4th empire. Or they have the capability to it whether or not they actually do it.

One thing they could do is make it so that there is a hidden continent not normally reachable except when an event is running, and basically, that continent will be full of AI, supplemented by SOE devs and employees. And the challenge of this special event is to invade that continent and kick the devs and their AI out. Basically, the AI will make it so that no matter where you attack, there will always be a presence, but the devs and SOE employees will provide a live spearhead at certain locations, with the ability to use naughty powers here and there to keep the players on their toes.

This would be great fun and as you capture territory from the dev-continent, the likelihood of encountering dev/SOE tags increases. There could be statistical rewards for killing the most SOE tags, the player run news sites could be allowed to somehow "ride with the troops" of either side in order to help them write articles, etc. These rewards could show up on player stat pages like "April 10-12 Weekend DevWar, 2nd Place Killed Most SOE Tags" and it's a permanent entry on their stat page.

There are tons of variations on this theme. The devs could be the invading force(though that would be less fun since live players won't sit around and defend deep bases like AI can), or the devs could occupy more than a single continent, etc.

And basically, how this could work is, let's say there are 6 servers. The devs and SOE employees could run this as a Challenge Event every weekend, hosting it on a different server every weekend in rotation, to give all servers a chance to experience it.

Obviously, instead of hosting this on a different server every weekend, they could have a separate Event Server that comes online only for events, but that would fill up too quickly and it would be too chaotic as far as giving people a fair chance to participate. Some people would miss out every time, others would get lucky and get in every time, UNLESS they've got an organized way of inviting people to them.

Lokster · 2012-03-26, 01:03 PM

Good idea. This would be the only way I would support an AI faction. If they have their own island and stay off ours ;-).

Sounds like there could be some fun events created with this concept.

Skitrel · 2012-03-26, 01:09 PM

I want to see a 2000 player zombies event.

Devs start as zombies, knives only. Perhaps they could be cloaked zombies to start to give and edge to get the game rolling.

Players have to hide across the entire continent.

Zombies have to infect everyone.

Die, you're now a zombie hunting everyone on the continent down.

Survive for long enough? A galaxy extraction point happens, survivors have to get to it to escape.

It could go on for several hours.

I've played similar types of events in other games, mainly 2D ones with player created cities. The tension of hiding while vast hordes of rampaging player zombies hunt you down is amazing. Much better than the arena type zombies games with only low player counts.

Lokster · 2012-03-26, 01:16 PM

Originally Posted by Skitrel

I want to see a 2000 player zombies event.

Devs start as zombies, knives only. Perhaps they could be cloaked zombies to start to give and edge to get the game rolling.

Players have to hide across the entire continent.

Zombies have to infect everyone.

Die, you're now a zombie hunting everyone on the continent down.

Survive for long enough? A galaxy extraction point happens, survivors have to get to it to escape.

It could go on for several hours.

I've played similar types of events in other games, mainly 2D ones with player created cities. The tension of hiding while vast hordes of rampaging player zombies hunt you down is amazing. Much better than the arena type zombies games with only low player counts.

Dude that sounds awesome. And I don't typically like zombie elements added to games (ie. COD).

Knocky · 2012-03-26, 01:20 PM

Combat Arms did this.

And I will admit that those games were fun.

However the teams were small.

I don't think that particular game will translate over to a map with 1000+ people on it.

That being said....ANYTHING is an improvement over those damned meteor strikes the GMs inflict upon us from time to time.

Skitrel · 2012-03-26, 01:22 PM

Originally Posted by Lokster

Dude that sounds awesome. And I don't typically like zombie elements added to games (ie. COD).

Cod zombies sucks. No no, a real 1 life zombies event where everyone changes sides and has to hunt down zombies would be incredible.

What you do to speed the process up and create vast hordes chasing players down is allow zombies to "teleport" to other zombies. So basically when a zombie finds some humans he tells the other zeds in chat and tonnes of them teleport to him, creating a horde, those humans now have a hell of a job escaping. The key for humans is to kill zeds fast and get the hell away from where they were previously hiding before they come back.

Obviously, ultimately you want the zombies to be relatively tough to kill, if they're tough to kill and in a horde, with regen shields for example, that horde then becomes impossible to kill as when they're low on health the low health ones will just back up in the pack and you're left with full shield ones at the front.

Used to play a tonne of zombies on a 2D spaceship game called Continuum waaay back in the day that does it like this, tonnes of fun and that was only with 200-300 players or so. Games would last for a couple hours at times. You'd get huge bands of humans banding together in vast gangs because sustained firepower was a great way to survive but eventually and inevitably the lines would break under vast hordes of zombies and as soon as one human in that pack turned it would turn into chaos. Then you'd have the singular loner folks and smaller groups scattered everywhere.

Lots of fun and would be a blast in first person.

Knocky · 2012-03-26, 01:28 PM

Originally Posted by Skitrel

Cod zombies sucks. No no, a real 1 life zombies event where everyone changes sides and has to hunt down zombies would be incredible.

I got the impression that is kinda what the Devs are thinking about with this AI empire of theirs.

I think that there goal is to have aliens land on top of us and try to get the three empires to work together to push back the aliens.

But still AI sucks....Do as they did with the black ops, recruit players to fill the ranks to attack during these events.

Stardouser · 2012-03-26, 02:16 PM

Originally Posted by Lokster

Good idea. This would be the only way I would support an AI faction. If they have their own island and stay off ours ;-).

Sounds like there could be some fun events created with this concept.

You mean there are actually people who think AI could be used as anything more than defense? Offensive AI is too problematic because they can attack too...precisely...

But defensive AI is a different story. Also, I just had another thought...defensive AI could be used as a check on stealth capping. They could do away with the lattice system and basically, you can cap any flag no matter how deep in enemy territory, but there would be 2 defenses against it:
1. AI defenders providing a minimal defense that will prevent 1 man lone wolf caps
2. The farther a base behind the lines, the longer the cap timers/hack timers are, within reason.

It could even be possible to expend team or personal resources in order to buy additional AI forces to set up at bases.

Graywolves · 2012-03-26, 03:42 PM

I want to have an epic battle over a giant christmas tree that drops weapons from its branches, an easter egg hunt (empire with most eggs collected gets ton of resources), beach mayhem (summer, beaches have bonus resources and are aestheticly[sp?] decorated), And on Halloween we get candy (SOE sends us all candy)

Knocky · 2012-03-26, 05:24 PM

If Outfits actually get their bases/outposts they can erect, then I could see a use for AI.

As sentries. They would be nothing more the patrolling spitfire turrets.

Shogun · 2012-03-26, 05:34 PM

the zombi last man standing event would make for a great halloween event.

it´s only once a year, or one week around helloween and after this event the world is back to normal.

in this kind of annual events soe may experiment hardcore and throw crazy and revolutional ideas at us. if it rocks, everybody will be happy, if it sucks, next years event will be something different.

Stardouser · 2012-03-26, 06:13 PM

Originally Posted by Knocky

If Outfits actually get their bases/outposts they can erect, then I could see a use for AI.

As sentries. They would be nothing more the patrolling spitfire turrets.

Maybe AI could even be a check against single squads going around capping the whole world in the middle of the night? Maybe each base could get a skeleton crew of AI defenses, which can be increased by expending empire resources?