Why no MMO?

[XanderF]

Just thinking out loud, but, from the 'Sh5' thread and discussion from merging Sh3+Sh4, I started musing...

Heck, I'd pay monthly for an MMO of that title.

Could you imagine that? Playing Sh3, with Wolfpacks, but all the other U-Boats and US subs (ALL of them), are actually live people playing at that very moment?

That'd be freaking SWEET. Renown would have another whole meaning altogether. Yes, you'd still need it to buy upgrades, but it would be used as 'historically' - instead of any given upgrade costing "x" amount of renown every time, the U-Boat yard has "y" number of those upgrades available, and the sub skippers engage in a 'blind auction' with their renown to get them first. Ditto new subs, the best crew, etc.

An MMO of this genre would be AWESOME.

EDIT: See my post at the bottom of this page. I am NOT talking about "WoW with submarines". There is no reason for that. All I'm suggesting is expanding the multiplayer component already in the game. No 'grinding', no levelling at all. Same ships, same campaigns, etc. Just more people in at once.

[U-Bones]

Originally Posted by XanderF

Just thinking out loud, but, from the 'Sh5' thread and discussion from merging Sh3+Sh4, I started musing...

Heck, I'd pay monthly for an MMO of that title.

Could you imagine that? Playing Sh3, with Wolfpacks, but all the other U-Boats and US subs (ALL of them), are actually live people playing at that very moment?

That'd be freaking SWEET. Renown would have another whole meaning altogether. Yes, you'd still need it to buy upgrades, but it would be used as 'historically' - instead of any given upgrade costing "x" amount of renown every time, the U-Boat yard has "y" number of those upgrades available, and the sub skippers engage in a 'blind auction' with their renown to get them first. Ditto new subs, the best crew, etc.

An MMO of this genre would be AWESOME.

The immediate problem for that idea is the boredom introduced by the lack of time compression.

[Ducimus]

No more MMO's for me. Kthxbye.

[GreyOctober]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

No more MMO's for me. Kthxbye.

:rotfl: :rotfl: U SUNK MY 8a77le$hip LOLOL!!!oneoneelevel1

[XanderF]

Originally Posted by U-Bones

The immediate problem for that idea is the boredom introduced by the lack of time compression.

Hmmm...yeah, I suppose that's true. FORCED 1x careers could be...tedious.

The solution, of course, would be to do something many MMOs are leaning towards - 'Instancing'. Each war patrol acts as an 'instanced dungeon' (for lack of a better word).

IE., when in or around the port area, everyone forced to be "at 1x compression" isn't a problem - you will be, anyway. Ditto when bidding on upgrades or whatever - whoever is in port participates in that interactively.

When the career starts, though, the sub skippers are free to engage in time compression at their discretion. Whoever is in a certain area of a convoy at a certain time get collectively dropped into an 'instanced' attack on that convoy, at 1x compression again (everyone on the same page).

As an alternative, you could force wolfpack activity, and make each entire patrol out from port as an 'instance' for the wolfpack. IE., a group of 6 or 12 submarines are all in communication with each other, and set time compression collectively. When they hit a convoy, they all work together to beat it. This is much more the traditional "all instanced" type of MMO, like "Guild Wars" (which has no monthly fee). The towns and such in that game are open to all players, but once each group leaves the common area, they are all in their own instanced version of the world.

Anyway, in either case, to keep the upgrade cycle even across multitudes of different time compressions, you'd have to assume a base 'average' TC as a clock that cycle each week. Say, 30 day patrols in 1 week IRL. So, every Friday or Saturday, all subs would have to have their 30 day patrol done (done at whichever TC they used, engagements they chose, etc - they decide during the week how they want to spend that time - although the key of this "clock cycle" idea is that you cannot do MORE than 30 days in a single week), and return to port to bid on crews, upgrades, new boats, etc with the renown they earned.

[elanaiba]

The main issue that one has with online play - campaign style - is time compression.

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by elanaiba

The main issue that one has with online play - campaign style - is time compression.

LOL, thats just one. But ask yourself, do you really want to deal with a demanding, unforgiving audience in the context of an MMO? I won't go into the details, but .. man.... its brutal. I woudlnt touch that with a 200 ft pole. Spend any time on a major MMO messageboard (WoW for example), and you'll see how ugly it gets.

On top of that, while im no guru, i personally beleive the MMO market is saturated. Every tom, dick, and harry wants the game that keeps giving (15 bucks a month subscriber fee). Sub sims are too nich and audience, you'd have to dumb everything down for mass appeal, and then your into balancing the game to please everones sense of fair play and all other sorts of BS- and even then a Submarine MMO woudlnt make it. Too small an audience, too nich of a game, too big the competition. Ugly, ugly ugly.

[XanderF]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

LOL, thats just one. But ask yourself, do you really want to deal with a demanding, unforgiving audience in the context of an MMO? I won't go into the details, but .. man.... its brutal. I woudlnt touch that with a 200 ft pole. Spend any time on a major MMO messageboard (WoW for example), and you'll see how ugly it gets.

On top of that, while im no guru, i personally beleive the MMO market is saturated. Every tom, dick, and harry wants the game that keeps giving (15 bucks a month subscriber fee). Sub sims are too nich and audience, you'd have to dumb everything down for mass appeal, and then your into balancing the game to please everones sense of fair play and all other sorts of BS- and even then a Submarine MMO woudlnt make it. Too small an audience, too nich of a game, too big the competition. Ugly, ugly ugly.

Wait, what? Those arguments make no sense. The subscriber base for WoW is 6 MILLION. That's useless to us - they didn't make 6 million submarines combined among ALL countries in BOTH world wars. We do not need or want anything NEAR 'mass market'.

As to pricing - I dunno, the games are doing fine as it is. I mean, what's a greater number, $50 per copy for 100,000 copies of Sh4 bought once and played for free over the next 3 years...or $50 per copy, and then $15.00 a month for 3 years with only, say, 10,000 copies sold?

The MMO is already more profitable, even with those numbers. And that's presuming a title such as this only sells 1/10 as well as traditional Sh3/Sh4. Personally, I think the sale numbers would well be HIGHER than Sh3 or Sh4 on their own.

As to the argument about "ZOMG, FORUM FLAEMS!!1!ONE" I mean, really. Compare the WoW forums to the Sh3/Sh4 forums bug posts. They aren't THAT much worse, and that IS mass market...which we wouldn't expect or want.

[Ducimus]

I had a flaming reubttle, but it just occured to me this topic isnt worth the time to write it, let alone the long flame war that would ensue after hitting the post button. In short, Your in love with your idea, but i feel I've played enough of those damn things (MMO's) to have an idea about what im talking about. Ive probably been playing them longer then you have. If your gonna dream, dream big i guess. Have fun daydreaming. Reality harkens in another direction however.

[SteamWake]

I can see it now.

You can create your charecter and start out at level 1 with a canoe for a boat and a box full of rocks as weapons.

Go off and kill 20 seagulls to reach level 2 increase your "seamanship" attributes and you can paddle the canoe faster.

Now go off and kill 200 seagulls to reach level 3... at around level 10 you get your first "real" submarine type VII but can only carry one torpedo till you go out and sink 100 tugboatts and reach level 11.

[Harmor]

Doesn't World War 2 Online have naval warfare too? I used to play infantry in that game (was a blast while it lasted) and could see a naval sim work as MMO if you'd let the players choose between, say, surface ships or submarines, perhaps even extending it to carriers and the planes based on them. Then again .. the market is probably not big enough to warrant a Naval sim MMO.

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Harmor

Then again .. the market is probably not big enough to warrant a Naval sim MMO.

Ask yourself this:
How many FPS's do you see on gamestore shelves?
How many RPG's?
How many landbattle, WW2ish games in any form?
How many flight sims do you see?
And lastly,compared to all of the above,
How many naval and/or sub games do you see?

edit:

Originally Posted by SteamWake

I can see it now.

You can create your charecter and start out at level 1 with a canoe for a boat and a box full of rocks as weapons.

Go off and kill 20 seagulls to reach level 2 increase your "seamanship" attributes and you can paddle the canoe faster.

Now go off and kill 200 seagulls to reach level 3... at around level 10 you get your first "real" submarine type VII but can only carry one torpedo till you go out and sink 100 tugboatts and reach level 11.

Halarious. Honestly, though it would be closer to planetside, but even then you had levels which dictated how many things you could do, could use, or could carry.

[melin71]

Originally Posted by Harmor

Doesn't World War 2 Online have naval warfare too? I used to play infantry in that game (was a blast while it lasted) and could see a naval sim work as MMO if you'd let the players choose between, say, surface ships or submarines, perhaps even extending it to carriers and the planes based on them. Then again .. the market is probably not big enough to warrant a Naval sim MMO.

so true. that wwiionline have that. i have prepaid 1 year in that game. but as some have point out. with out TC...the naval game are REALY boring. why....becourse i have spent many many many hours with just a empty horizoen and looking for aircraft. stear the boat to a point that you want..and prepere for many boring hours. i have spend half a day to get over the dam english channel when we did a attack on england. the only action that happens was some air. so..silent hunter III or 4...in those water.......not for me... good idee...but impossibly.