POLL: What gametype should this game become?

[Xoel]

This poll is to see what people think Reign of Olympia should play like. Feel free to expand your suggestion by adding to your answer.

I personally think Reign of Olympia should be "Ancient Greece as the Greeks themselves thought it was". That is, if you venture out into the wilds, you would find occasionally a Chimera or somesuch other mythological beast. Extremely rare mounts would involve those taken straight from actual Greek legends and myths, and the gods appear from time to time. The core of the gameplay however is focussed on the Pelepponesian War, fighting against the other League, but mythological stuff is there so that "heroes" can be made and legends can be told. Also, if you were to tame a mythological mount you'd be able to use it for the good of your polis.... etc.

Let me know your thoughts, I want to make this mod a game that many people will appreciate and enjoy both as being true to history and exciting and mythological, but I want to know what balance of this people want!

[burley]

Perhaps two styles of play should be incorporated which could keep things following the time line of history while providing a MMO experience as well.

The different warring camps would have very little contact outside of warring or during times of peace. One could have alts in both camps if the player was interested to experience both sides. When not warring then each camp would be your average MMO experience. They could RP, hunt mobs, etc..

However warring between the camps could either be GM event driven or module like driven. For example the Battle of X event is planned and a means is given that players can teleport, or be teleported to the battlefield map. It would not be something that you could just happen upon. Then, should a character be killed during the combat they would not be able to pop right back there.

In this way one could have the MMO experience of the battlefield without worrying about changing the real historical time line.

It could be taken further in that one is on a battlefield against a spawn of NPCs; requiring the bare minimum of pne PC. With such warring modules one would not need be restricted to GM staged events.

Little skirmish modules could be available for Groups of players to join in. It could work in a group form like challenges on PS. Once everyone is ready and agrees they are thrown/teleported to a battle field where they can have a skirmish against the opposing groups.

Again, the win and loosing of such skirmishes need not alter the real historical time line.

Employing such systems would also mean that a huge player base need not be required for a very active game.

Going and coming from such skimishes/battle fields could employ an animation rather than walking physically there and returning via a map. One could see their squad or phallax(?) marching off to war and maybe another of them returning victorious or in the case of loosing the battle returning in small dispersed groups.

My feeling is that the graphics would be neat enough on a digital tourist level that the game should be designed to make it a fun experience to a player on their own or hundreds of players at the same time.

- Burley

[Xoel]

I am beginning to realise that PlaneShift's engine would definitely not support phalanx combat on a historical level. Major factors:

1) Scale. A phalanx consisted of 8x4=32 soldiers (Lakonian phalanx) or 64 for a full phalanx. The real battles consisted of many phalanxes, thousands of soldiers a side. This would be hard to achieve in any MMO even as a GM event.

2) Collision detection is turned off in PlaneShift's engine for character models. Phalanx combat was very much about push and shove.

This is mostly why I chose 429BCE as the year the game is set in, along with the tension at the time (a goldmine for RP). There were no major battles as the Spartiates didn't want to come into contact with the Athenians in their plague ridden state. So small scale skirmishes will probably be the main form of combat.

I intend to set the maps up so that each side is well seperated in their own territories, however, there will also be a network of contested or neutral zones in between. The difference being that contested will be PvP and neutral will simply be accessible to both sides.

"Raid Zones" could be added to allow groups of players to seem to conquest something, fighting their way through a bunch of NPCs to raid a rival minor polis' treasury.

Just some ideas.