Gauging interest in longer MP scenarios

[Bellman]

Yep I've logged my interest.

Looking at Fleet rosters many of the best MP players have 'disappeared.' My concern is that, among many reasons for this, one paramount may be unsatisfactory gameplay with, lets not use the harsh word cheaters, but call them professional foulers.

I welcome any step which takes MP in the direction of the standards that Timmyg00 established in Sub Club International.

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by Bellman

Yep I've logged my interest.

Looking at Fleet rosters many of the best MP players have 'disappeared.' My concern is that, among many reasons for this, one paramount may be unsatisfactory gameplay with, lets not use the harsh word cheaters, but call them professional foulers.

I welcome any step which takes MP in the direction of the standards that Timmyg00 established in Sub Club International.

Maybe I should list that under the advantages column... At least in theory, this sort of tactical situation either reduces the opportunity for "fouling" tactics to be used, increases the consequences of doing so, or at least makes the use of "unrealistic" tactics acceptable if it turns out to be realistic in the circumstances, and costly if it is not. In other words, by allowing the tactical situation to unfold according to the strategy of the teams instead of setting it up myself, there's a lot more to work with and a lot less to get pissed off about.

For example, take the -27 ASM. FFG players in MP are justifiably pissed off when an Akula driver pops off 14 of them and then brags about beating the FFG guy. But in this type of game, firing 14 missiles on "go" might not be a good idea. Really, it's a question of opportunity cost...sure, if you want to kill a ship with a full salvo right in the beginning like that, you probably can...but what do you give up by doing so? The external tubes are gone forever. Reloads are limited, and some at the expense of -27ASWs, UGSTs, and 65-76's. So your location is now known, and you can be attacked or avoided because of that, and your offensive capabilities are reduced to a salvo of 8 or less, and your ASW loadout definitely taken a hit if you brought lots of ASM reloads. Chances are you're either dead or a non-factor for the rest of the match.

[Molon Labe]

I know there's more than 13 people who read this.

VOTE!

[bump!]

[Molon Labe]

[bumpity bump]

The %ages are looking much better than I expected. Maybe I owe SeaQueen a beer.
The turnout is pretty poor though...so it isn't clear that the % is significant.

But I'm definitely leaning towards yes...
And it bodes well for less complex extended-time MP endeavors as well.

[Kapitan_Phillips]

So, its like Wolves at War, for Dangerous Waters? I'm in

[kage]

I like the idea, and I pretty much know that it's *possible* to pull off something of such a big scale. Especially if you can also keep each little thing as simple as possible.

But my concerns are these:

• Do you have the endurance to actually pull this off? Of course, at this point in time this question isn't all that relevant.
• Will there really be 6 to 10 or more people who have that much time? Essentially option 2 above.
• Can 6-10 players actually play for that long without anyones game crashing?
• How much bandwidth will this mission require, for each client? Do we have (stable) hosts with that much bandwidth, for that sort of duration?

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by kage

I like the idea, and I pretty much know that it's *possible* to pull off something of such a big scale. Especially if you can also keep each little thing as simple as possible.

But my concerns are these:

• Do you have the endurance to actually pull this off? Of course, at this point in time this question isn't all that relevant.
• Will there really be 6 to 10 or more people who have that much time? Essentially option 2 above.
• Can 6-10 players actually play for that long without anyones game crashing?
• How much bandwidth will this mission require, for each client? Do we have (stable) hosts with that much bandwidth, for that sort of duration?

If I know people will play it, I think I can build it.

I'm not sure whether you can get 6+ players together for this kind of thing. If I knew it was possible, I wouldn't have needed to put the poll up.

I'm not terribly concerned about crashes or bandwidth. DW's pretty stable, at least in my experience. And I'm keeping the total number of platforms reasonably limited to conserve bandwidth. Issues might arise if people shoot a ton of missiles all at once though, but that's a problem in any DW match.

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by Kapitan_Phillips

So, its like Wolves at War, for Dangerous Waters? I'm in

Well, this won't span the Atlantic, and won't even span the Meditteranean. That would take months to play, not hours. It's just one battle, but it's a big one.

I do dream of a campaign engine that would handle a regional war though. Something like this. Just switch the majority of platforms from air to sea, switch the playables from F-16's to FFGs, SS(N)s, P-3's, and MH-60s (and Udaloys, May's and Helix's!), and substitute where appropriate the ATO with a list of ships, their positions, and orders. Be able to save the campaign after an MP session and come back to it later. Or, have a persistent war going on, with subsim or virtual fleet members able to sign on and jump into the fight. Now that's my idea of heaven.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Molon Labe

The %ages are looking much better than I expected. Maybe I owe SeaQueen a beer.

I don't drink beer unless I'm eating greesy food or sometimes with Mexican. Wine we can do, though. Cocktails are good too.

But I'm definitely leaning towards yes...
And it bodes well for less complex extended-time MP endeavors as well.

I say give it a shot. The key is making sure that people know what they're trying to do, and they have a lot of freedom to do it. People won't spend a lot of time being lead by the nose to a single solution, but if you give them an open ended problem to solve, you'll be surprised at what happens.

[kapitanfred]

My word, I'm all for it. One thing though regarding multiplay; What happens if one of the players drop from the game? Will that particular platform remain in-game as an AI or will it disappear from the map?

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by kapitanfred

My word, I'm all for it. One thing though regarding multiplay; What happens if one of the players drop from the game? Will that particular platform remain in-game as an AI or will it disappear from the map?

Sorry, I didn't notice this sooner. If a player drops, the platform remains in the game as AI. If a multistation player drops, the remaining player and the platform is pretty much screwed since the stations are not reallocated.

------
Okay, my RL craziness is over. The poll results are encouraging enough that I think it's worth doing. Hopefully 1.04 will have strengthened the community enough that we can get a solid group together for it at some point.

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by SeaQueen

I don't drink beer unless I'm eating greesy food or sometimes with Mexican. Wine we can do, though. Cocktails are good too.

I say give it a shot. The key is making sure that people know what they're trying to do, and they have a lot of freedom to do it. People won't spend a lot of time being lead by the nose to a single solution, but if you give them an open ended problem to solve, you'll be surprised at what happens.

Well, open-ended is definitely what I'm going for. These numbers do look strong enough to move forward on. I guess this is what having most of my MP time in virtual fleets will do to me...

Maybe I'll work on my Hurricane mixing some more...