The MMORTS - Why Is It So Hard to Make an MMORTS? - Extra Credits

The MMORTS genre is one of the most difficult and complex genres in which to design a well-balanced game. How can MMORTSes move beyond real-time resource collection and explore more interesting, multiplayer mechanics?

(Original air date: August 10, 2011)

Check out Cat's artwork here! Seriously, do it. She too is pretty darned good.
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♪ Intro Music: "Penguin Cap" by CarboHydroM

♪ Outro Music: "Industroscout" by Gecko Yamori

[Penminfire]

0:55
Ah the past, when League of Legends was new and risky, and people drove horse-drawn buggies to work.

[kristijan]

So watching this in 2019 i guess that genre didn't succeed :(

[xylophone]

He said "Defense of the Ancients." Wow, this video is old. Good old YouTube.

[KittXenn]

What about a PvE MMORTS? I could see fighting waves of enemies or attacking AI encampments co-operatively working, especially with different races that contrast each other interestingly. You don't have to worry about balance in PvE.

[TheCyberate]

There is a old old game Called "Shattered Galaxy" Atleast around here. it is pReeety old. It is EXACTLY that. Yuu have a overworld map. a Finite army count. With Units that can get stronger. Your Player stats increase stuff. Taking over a place gives the Faction control and recources for speical units. PVE is in form a Alien race that is within layers of a dungeon basicly. 
I belief the Servers are still running. It looks highly outdated (Starcraft 1 Graphics). Maybe that is worth a look for you guys

[OccamsChainsaw]

So... After watching this, I realized that every feature you wanted was available in the MMORTS "Shattered Galaxy" Originally by Nexxon (I think). Your character was a Commander of an army, which had a finite size. Battles took place in sections of a large planet-sized map, and you got to take a finite number of units into the battle, usually arranged into squads of varrying number depending on your attribute assignments.

Each unit your owned had it's own level and attributes. You could upgrade them to higher MKs, giving them more room for higher tech equipment (which you also had to buy/earn). When a unit died in combat, it was dead until you repaired it after the battle. If you ran out of units during the in progress battle, you were ejected from the battle to make room for commanders who could be useful.

There were many unit types, and four unit categories; Infantry, Air, Mobile, and Organic. You could focus on one, or be more well rounded. The experienced players had a certain balance to that.

As far as more experienced players rolling over newbies, there was a starter planet, where you could play until like level 20, then you would move up to the higher level planet, where the real action was.

There's a lot more to the game, but as far as I know, it's long dead. I used to play it in the mid 2000's. God I miss that game...

Also, you guys should revisit this topic, as it really is a worthy genre that doesn't get enough attention (short of stupid shit like clash of clans).

[ArchOfWinter]

What if you start out with only a squad of unit and play more tactically and as you level up the larger army you'll have. Have a tiered approach that split the focus of the game between different level of players and encourage cooperation.

Early game: Few units and lots of micros. Units can be customized to fit play style. No resource management is needed but you'll earn resources after each engagement or mission (quest). Small number of unit available and no building at all for the player early on means a good learning curve for players to slowly master each new system as they progress though the game. Can accept missions from higher level players to earn bonus resources to permanently research upgrade for your units. When you leave the game, your squad is evacuated from the world and returned to your 'barracks' away from danger and must be redeploy when you log in.

Mid game: Vehicles, tactical front line building and small minor resource gathering element is introduced. Can give missions to the newest of players, treating them as special hero units (because human tactics is still better than the AI that governs your own unit's behavior on a larger scale). When the player quit, they must decide to weight the risk of leaving certain units to remain deployed and leave medical and other strategic resources behind to support them. The AI will manage you deployed units. You can set how the AI control your held position, when to call friendly players for help, how far will your AI respond to help request, and how long to hold out before evacuating the position.

Late game: Can establish main base and manage larger land area. Macro and resource management play a huge role. You can build large army but there is a population cap (for balance sake). Since there is a population cap, the only way to play as if temporarily bolster your number is to hire lower level players to command their own smaller armies and squads. Other players also are depending on your main base support on their smaller fire base and other positions. You can leave your base for AI to control when you leave the game or when you want directly take control a smaller squad to deploy into another area. Just as mid game, you can set how your AI will manage your base and army.

Because of this tiered approach, newer players are protected by their faction's more experience players since the armies of the lower level players as a whole are just as important as your own army. Human players are in control of their own squads and armies, they will be just as effective as your own army.
In a PvP situation, this will create dynamic and unpredictable gameplay. Newer players will have the security of higher level player to protect them because lower level armies are an important resource.

[VarunSingh]

End of Nations never made it to release :(
I remember being so excited by it.

[jothewerewolf]

I'd love to see a followup on this one, or on other... "Marginalized" game genres. The problems with designing and marketing an MMORTS or other speculative concepts, maybe a "Games you may not have tried" about odd genre-combinations?

[koihc]

There are 2 types of progression for Shattered Galaxy(SG) - Unit levels, and Character levels.

Character level is divided into 4 areas - infantry, mobile, aviation, organic - and each level in those areas gives the character a stat point.
To level your character, though, you must level your units. Each levelled unit gives that division a little experience.

You start a battle by entering an enemy faction's land, and fight it out with your units. The units gain exp by the end of the fight.

[vladnovetschi]

end of nations is at the end XDDDD. I mean its dead.

[TotallyNotAFox]

Imagine what a Planetside 2 styled RTS would be - but instead of basebuilding and commanding an army the players only command lets say a platoon. A fix amount of points that can spend and units that occupy these points. Like, taking the CERT mechanics and all that from FPS to RTS. Ressourcemanagment could a bit tough, but I guess such thing would have potential

[dylanvickers]

So what you're saying to me, is that if they seamlessly integrate the equipment system in tabletop Warhammer into a RPG like progression system (even skill tree) and convert that points system into that game It would be a good place to start? Can we get a Warhammer 40K rough draft please?

[ryuzen]

I have an idea.



The character that you customized and played in the MMO world can join in battle, and then spawn them with a spawn circle you point around. Or you can have a sky view and spawn units like that. You can customize units with certain options of different states in battle for example: FRONT LINE: Unit moves to the front of all other units. Other units will make sure that unit is in front of them. Which you should spawn the front liner first anyway. Used for tanks or units who drop bombs at death or explodes or something.

ATTACK: Stay behind Front line unit or go to the front. Used for high attack units.

HEAL: Unit stays behind and heals closest unit or chosen unit in options when customizing unit. Used for healers. Another back zone for snipers.


You can select a unit and can select if they should attack or heal (if they have one ability or another or both), then select who you want to heal in your team in the battle. Or to attack an enemy team’s unit.


The problem with how much land there is for bases can be fixed. You can own your own planet or piece of land. I forgot that one game’s name. It did the same thing. You can customize a base there and can have battles with other planets nearby owned by other players. For now killers destroying gameplay for beginners there will be a starter planet. Then a advanced planet. If there will be some land like in the video you will have to spawn the buildings but when you leave you will be asked “Are you sure you want to leave your buildings here?” Or something like that. Where if you say yes your buildings stay and other players can destroy your buildings and take resources. If you say no you can spawn them in when you log back in.

In battle you will be able to join your troops and help in battle. Or you can stay in sky view and deploy units like that. But to balance out the problem of the other player in battle making his team more powerful will be that if you are in battle with your units you will have a less amount of units to spawn with your point limit.


If everyone has there own separate planet then. You can have certain attacks you can do, you can raid bases and earn resources. You can also challenge another player to a battle to earn medals or points which will determine a tier you are in.


We are still in the player owned planets version here. There will be planets you can travel to. After a certain level or tier you reach you can travel to planets to find special resources in an MMO experience.


For the MMO experience you can design your character similar to a unit with a certain skill tree. Damage, Defense, Support, Ambush, etc. Maybe you can spawn yourself in battle? 😏

There will be other planets that have certain cities where you can find gear and units you can unlock. You can earn gold or credits on those planets and reach higher player level. You can explore the world like in Everquest, and add a mix of WoW quests in there also. You can make alliances and do loads of different things. You can (I can’t stop saying You can) explore world and fight bosses, you will be able to bring some units with you to help you to make it more linked to your base.


SPACE COMBAT

If you want to make that space MMORTS experience more interesting, you can add space battles. Same battling as ground but a little different. The look of the ships when they battle will be a bit weird unless you can make a different way for them to fight. With not going close and attacking but maybe flyby attacks so two ships don’t stop in space, stare at each other and shoot. BORING!!! 🙄

That’s all my suggestions for making an MMORTS and how it should work. Some holes are left in the ground only version of it. But you can transfer some ways of gameplay from the space version and adapt it to ground only. Like this comment if it helped you.

[LostScarf]

Shattered Galaxy was a really good MMORTS, played it for years.  Too bad it never got majorly popular, would have been great to see it evolve.

[michaelcollins]

You literally described a game called Shattered Galaxy that was released back in 2001. It was an awesome MMORTS and was ahead of its time.

[swishfish]

How about a pirate game? Your base is represented by your ship, that can freely move across an open world. When you crash into another player, a battle instance begins. The pre-made map you play depends on where you are in the world, kinda like the battle arenas in the 3D Pokemon games. The goal is to either cripple or destroy the other ship, although there are other objectives you can complete to win (like "steal their gold" or "assassinate their captain") depending on your quest.

[archonerikr]

Warhammer and Warhammer 40K both lend themselves handily to this kind of thing. You could start off with a smaller maximum points limit (like, say, 1000) and fewer units available (like just 1 HQ, 2-3 Troops, 1 Fast Attack or Heavy Support, and 1 Elite), and you could fight PvE or PvP for control of the sector/point/whatever. Progressing, or holding points/sectors for a certain amount of time, could allow you to get either new units, or in-game currency that allows you to purchase new units. Levelling up could unlock higher points caps, allowing you to field and face bigger armies. Occasionally, you could have events where you're restricted to smaller point matches (like 500 pts for Kill-Team) and you have to design a small team, or face overwhelming odds. Some mechanics would have to be reworked for an RTS (leaving it turn-based is also fine) but this would work.

[duckdictator]

Huh, only a few months after this video came out, clash of clans released. Coincidence? Maybe.

[cody]

I'm currently working on an MMORTS game. We actually found out how to structure battles to allow lower level users to win agains higher level players. We also figured out a method of infinite progression that tapers off as the player progresses with the bulk of stat boosts occuring in mid game.

We also plan to avoid allowing players to pay to progress.