Game Design Philosphy?

[croxis]

First off a disclaimer:  I am by no means trying to insult or step on anyones toes.  I've been reading these forums and there are a lot of nifty ideas, but the one this that I havent seen is an over arching game design philosophy thing, or a meta philosophy, whatever you want to call it.  I am not accusing that you don't have one, I just havent read it.  Part of the intention of this post is to find out what you guys have in mind so far.  This post isn't also an attempt to make the game my way or me trying to take over the project, just an opportunity to throw out some ideas and just trying to be helpful.  I also very much know that some of these ideas are a bit large and may be Taking On Too Much™.

The reason for all of that blabbing is because 1) I'm new and you all dont know me and 2) I understand there is a... thing going on with a couple members of the community and hope you guys don't interpret this as part of the same. On to my long winded blab!


The Blab

Great Games
I think we all agree that we want this game to be the best it can be, to fill the potential left open from Outpost 1 and 2.  I think we can also agree that we don't want this to be a Outpost 2 clone or Outpost 2.5, but something that is its own game.

I one read from a major game designer (I think it was Will Write) that what makes games great is that creates situation where the player has to make interesting choices.  Hitting the same number keys in every battle or build builds in a specific order because any other way is not as effective are not interesting choices.  This is a concept I'll bring back quite a bit because I believe it to be true.

The Focus
Here is the hard balance that we will have do -- colony management vs the military aspect.  I am personally a fan of the colony management side and think all the war stuff gets in the way (oh if OP1 was what it said it was.....), however I understand that this isn't a universal sentiment   .  There are two extreams - on one side we just have the colony building simulation OP1 was, on the other we have something similar to star craft where the buildings are just a means to the military end.  OP2 explored a region in the middle, but I still felt it lacked in many ways that I am not sure if I can fully articulate.  I think that more can be done to develop a rich military and domestic experience.

Thriving at Surviving
How will a player achieve victory?  What is the path they will take?  If a player wins by building the same things in the same order and throws attack units at the other player then I would tire of the game quick.  Interesting choices need to be presented to the player and one of the most easy way to do this is create limits/restrictions.  I am not talking about hard limits where more supply depots are needed to build more units, but limits to where the player can't do everything, they must choose the path to take.

Let us say there are 8 general ways a player could specialize their colonies, but because the planet is a harsh place with limited resources they wouldn't be able to research and build everything to take full advantage of all eight options -- the player has to choose what paths to specialize in.  For example a player could take a more stealth approach and focus on buildings and units that are weaker but can remain hidden and undetected longer, or focus on a path on large, heavy tanked units, or focus on domestic issues and create a very desirable colony to live in.  Or the player could try to be well rounded in a little of everything, but probably wouldn't have time to reach the end of the research tree that contains the strongest units or abilities.

This leads into victory options.  A good case study is to look at the Civilization series.  They expanded from conquest to adding a spaceship, to adding an economic victory in SMAC, to cultural victory and some capture the flag type options for multiplayer games as well.  For OP3 the most obvious three options are conquest, spaceship, and population victory. All are somewhat obvious but the pathways to them should be varied based on the different paths the player chooses to take.  Population is one I see a bit of creativity in - a player can either sabatauge (by some means) another players capacity to produce people, or if there was immigration between colonies based on desirability (like in OP1) you can leech away the population of other players.  The players should be able to choose which victories, or combinations there of, that are allowed in their game.


Ok, I have more thoughts but I am becoming more and more specific and doesn't involve the overall design.  Please blast away  B)  

[CK9]

okay *fires an RPG round*

one of the reasons the same building order comes up is because people start getting into loops of playing the same basic map over and over again.  You change the map, you change the effective building order/layout.  If there was a way to have certai aspects randomized, you would bring in the interesting aspects that you say are needed for a great game

[omagaalpha]

intereesting specailty like part about can't research everything in game and that choose how want coloney develop.

note: yea another person perfered no miltary in a game.

[Sirbomber]

And while this may work for SimCity, this would never work for a real RTS.
You can add some personal variation if you want, but every games always has the same basic philosophy of "Whoever has the best guns fastest: wins."

It's not about "interesting situations".
Most people I know hate it when their schedules get messed up.

And remember: This is coming from one of the few people who play as Eden, and I'm guessing the only one here who despises Plymouth.

[Betaray]

you want different ways to play the game, one way being stealthy, another being big and direct exc, but people dont want to have their options directly limited

the answer is simple, have more coloneys, op2 already has this sort of idea with eden being more milatary while plymouth is more humanatarian, we could make new coloneys to expand that idea

[dm-horus]

i know this isnt very creative but one of the most effective methods of variation i have seen (although it was unfortunately put into a fairly crappy game) was the Generals in Command & Conquer Generals : Zero Hour.

Each faction has its own group of 'generals' which have their own methods of waging war. one specializes in tank production but takes a hit in special technology. another specializes in special weapons, power generation and production but doesnt have advanced units. another specializes in superweapons (emp missile?) and defense.

this could work the same way in op2 or whatever sequel.

i AM NOT suggesting we just copy and paste the whole generals theory. i am suggesting the method for providing variation. a player can choose to specialize in one thing while knowing they will take a hit in another area. that way, they would still be able to come up with and maintain build orders but the amount of variation in the game would be huge. it would also encourage teamwork.

a 3v3 could have a trifecta with one player spamming tanks, another player hoarding emp missiles and another player running support by producing base defenses, mining huge amounts of ore and trading to the other team mates.

but the number of choices shouldnt be limited to just 3 per faction. i think more like 5 would be great. that way no matter how much team work a side has, there will always be some vulnerability.

generally my view on game design is to provide a moderate amount of variation that stresses strategy and team work. tactics generally run short and are reproducable. they dont mean much in an rts game as the person with the most numbers of best units will always win out in a melee. people have a better time when a plan involving other people is successful. this is why ppl love fps games so much. playing team fortress of CS involves team work and pats on the back. rts titles typically do not pay much attention to this.

thats one hell of a complete thought. *breathes*

[croxis]

If the game is, ultimately, nothing more than who has the most guns wins then the game is going to be fairly shallow.  Doing the same things, over and over again, isn't much of a game.  Heck take chess for example -- it didn't last for two and a half millenia for no reason.  I am by no means any good at the game but I usually don't play the same way twice.

Like I said, I think there should be no direct hard coded limits.  There should be no unit limits nor limits to what you can research.  What I mean by limits is limits to the resources available.  We have the resources of minerals, people, power, but the one most people forget about is time.  Given enough time a player will be able to develop all the various branches of development and, (depending on map settings I'm sure), have enough resources to build all the various buildings, but time is a limited resource.  Generally a player/team will win long before everything is fully developed.  

A player can do a little of everything, or b-line it to the end of, say, spaceship construction at the sacrifice of not developing advanced weapons or advanced mining operations.  On the converse while player A is focusing on the spaceship player B sees this with a scout (I am assuming there is fog of war) and can either try to beat player A to the spaceship, or mad dash to developing the branch with the heavy tank weapons in time to blow up the relatively undefended player A in time.

A game which exhibits this kind of limited resource decision making is Allegiance.  There are 5 unique branches to the technology tree and the commander can, in theory, build all of them; but it works better if the commander chooses one to focus on and only develops another when it is economically viable (almost never in that game).  I haven't played Generals but its quite similar to what you described.

Just a quick brainstorm, here are some possible tech tree and building branches:  Domestic development, Economy development, spaceship development, heavy weapon, light weapon, emp, stealth, and misc.

I am assuming that vehicles and buildings have a sensor range and also have a signature, allowing them to be undetected until scanned, and well as population migration.

• Domestic focus gives you happy and fruitful people and steals the other bases population.
• Economic focus increases mineral output.
• Spaceship development gives you the spaceship and ability to launch sats that would hinder anyone using the stealth path.
• Heavy weapons would result in expensive but powerful units
• Light weapons are weaker but cheep and fast, so for example the late game units in this path could go faster than the early heavy units could track them.
• EMPis various methods to disable the enemy.
• Stealth creates units that can get very close to the enemy to sabotage them (and can also keep remote bases and mining stations hidden better).
• Misc can have general colony building stuff everyone needs.

And then a player can work on any combination of these as well.  There is no direct limits on the options a player can make, but there are indirect ones because time is a limited resource.  Players can still have their schedules.  Players can still try to have the standard, overdone, run-away richer gets richer situation, but its not the only way.  It is still who has the bust guns (spaceship, population stealing, whatever) fastest wins, but now a player has to be Smart about it.

Dear god I write alot.

[Stormy]

generally my view on game design is to provide a moderate amount of variation that stresses strategy and team work. tactics generally run short and are reproducable. they dont mean much in an rts game as the person with the most numbers of best units will always win out in a melee. people have a better time when a plan involving other people is successful. this is why ppl love fps games so much. playing team fortress of CS involves team work and pats on the back. rts titles typically do not pay much attention to this.
 

That's what I want for this also. It would also be good to have another aspect that can be handled by one player, and it is still as much fun (like in a 1v1). That's one thing I wish had a bit more emphasis in OP2, Teamwork and team strategy.

[TH300]

You showed up a lot of points, that I'm sure we want to consider in op3.

A game is more fun if there are many ways to win rather than one.
I think, we will not only make different branches of research, but also make the number of researches in one branch depend on the colony thats played. E.g. Plymouth would have more topics in the Domestic branch, but Eden would have more in the military branch.

I can probably tell you that there will be at least three different colonies in op3, maybe 4.

[dm-horus]

nice. are they each simply splinter colonies or are they diametrically different from one another as between plym and eden?

[Stormy]

Not really either. One of them is, well, the decendants of New Terra, named the Genesis colony. That's only one of 3/4 (we are unsure because one of them we don't know if you'll get to play as it).  

[croxis]

Sweet.  

On a totally different topic, will multi-player be avalable for the single player campain, so that two or more people can play the same colony at the same time? Or even have that in general multi-player?