Armies

[Parkillous]

Perhaps you dont understand me, I dont wish to sit back and order soldiers around, I wish to fight, in first person, as part of an army, against another army. Ordering other soldiers would just be a consequence of what rank I may be.

 

Let me put this in an epic scope... If someone said to you, would you like to be planted into a virtual lord of the rings world (basically virtual reality, where graphics are perfect, everything is real besides the fact its virtual, if you get me), and you can be anyone you want, or part of the fellowship or whatever, so you would go questing and fighting but then sometimes fight at helms deep or minas tirith.. and if u die you do a matrix and are brought back into the real world... would you want to do that? does that appeal to you? I sure as hell think it would be fun.

[Vagrant0]

Now we're talking about two totally different things. Such a system would never exist, there would be far too many psychological reprecussions. The "what if's" don't matter, it is a matter of "what is" and "what could be". Given current technology, and production methods, anything silimar to what you want created would have to exist on a rts platform with some 1st person elements. Actually, it already exists in some form, a neat series of games called dynasty warriors. The point is that game designers shouldn't try to create these meta games as they usually lack the elements that make it good to one group in order to apeal to another. It's a matter of programming skill and production time. Your 1st person rts might exist, but will probably lack the ability to do much of the "strategic stuff" in favor of adding that 1st person perspective. Trying with a RPG platform would be ill advised as the characters tend to be less generic, have better AI, and there's generally more story and interaction between characters. Getting even this much right takes several years of production. Trying to force RTS elements into the mix would mean adding to production costs even more (or diverting time away from other aspects), alienating those who don't want RTS elements, while still not appealing to the RTS crowd because of those RPG elements. Most RTS players don't give a crap about story, depth, or any of that, they play simply for the pleasure of pwning everyone else. So again, go bother the RTS developers.

[Parkillous]

Again, you keep looking at the possibility of my ideas with present day technology... I KNOW FULL WELL ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE A GOOD GAME LIKE OBLIVION WITH ARMY FIGHTS IN IT RIGHT NOW. Thats not going to change the fact that I would find that fun, and that I believe they will eventually be able to do it. If you went back 10 years and showed them screenshots of oblivion they would have said exactly what you are saying, that its impossible to produce a game like that.

 

Btw I have dynasty warriors 4... go the blade fodder that is the NPC's.

[Vagrant0]

Again, you keep looking at the possibility of my ideas with present day technology...

It's not even such a matter of technoology, no matter how advanced, you'd still need people to do the modeling, writing, and programming. As technology increases, modeling and programming takes up more and more time that the game companies don't have. So they cut the effort from writing. Your "perfect game" wouldn't exist by and large because it would take too long to produce. Time becomes an issue since with time, there is cost, there is also the situation where you start out being cutting edge, but end up looking old because it took you 5 years to produce (or add another 2 years to update everything).

 

Beyond that, there is a greater market within specific generes than in the subgroups that span between them. So when trying to make up production costs they usually market to the larger group.

 

We can argue about what "would be nice", but that doesn't change what is. Now graphically, yeah they'll eventually have RTS that have the capacity of looking like oblivion. But it probably won't be first person, and it will probably be another clone of what is already out there set to a different theme. It is what sells, so it is what they will continue to make.

[Parkillous]

Ah, but what if they had a programme that enabled them to create a basic AI and then randomly generate new AI based on those basic principles for thousands of different NPC's.

 

Im sick of arguing this now, all ill say is that within the next decade or two I think they will have armies in games like Oblivion.

[es9875]

Even if you could manage two run the mod wihtout the game crashing what's the point all it would do is kill everyone you buy/sale to and or from.

[Gafgar Adolis]

You don't need dozens of NPCs all fighting at once to convey a sense of epic battle - take a look at the final quest in the Knights of the Nine questline, with the eight knights under your command charging down the bridge toward Galas Malatar. That's a good sized battle right there! It might not be hordes of goblins versus stalwart Legionnaires defending the battlements, but it doesn't really need to be.