A good Western
by Justin · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 12/31/2007 (9:35 pm) · 7 replies
I'm thinking about having a western-type game scenario MMO, where the servers are essentially towns and you go to saloons in the town to look for people to dual against. This dualing system will be based off of the whole "walk 10 steps, turn around, and shoot" mechanic but will go a bit beyond that as well to be a whole third person battle system. It'll also have funny but useful minigames, i.e. in your "home" you can practice shooting and draw-speed (perhaps improved on a statistical leveling basis) by looking into a mirror and practicing on it (in reference to several movies, etc.).
On the battle system, the first shot is going to be a standstill in the classic western "who can draw faster" kinda thing, but then right after the first shot is fired if you can predict where the shot is going (if you didn't shoot first), you can dodge the bullet by doing the right motion, and then if both shooters dodge the first shot it goes into a 3D western landscape and you can move freely in it and target the enemy and take cover through the environments or slip a pot-cover under your shirt and use it as a bullet proof vest and the like (that's just an idea, probably will be extremely difficult to develop such an on-the-go combat system). Basically, the first shot is a static, no movement combat system structure that then, if the first shot doesn't kill and the other player dodges the shot, expands into a full 3rd-person style action control with the one goal of taking out the other player(s).
The leveling system will be a bit more than being able to see other player's levels; the system will be on a name basis, so you would be called "[screenname] the _____"; i.e. "Linus the Kid" or something like that.
The characters will be dynamic, changing with equipment changes purchased through the cash earned from battles and maybe minigames or something if I think of some good ones.
Here's a typical experience I want to provide gamers:
You log on, and enter the large open world and explore from a third person perspective the frontier. You enter a saloon in a town, each town refers to a different server (outside of the saloons is a single player world that has its own story that you can progress through). If a server is full, there is a closed sign on the saloon. There will be some sort of traveling system that complements the western times (train?) that allows you to travel quickly from town to town, and also has a grid so you can see all the servers and which ones aren't full and you can travel to those saloons immediately through the transportation service.
Once inside the saloon, the player enter the multiplayer portion of the game. The saloons will be moderately sized to accommodate the users and have 2 main areas: the social area and the waiting area. The social area is where you can just talk w/ other users through chat windows or voice chat, whichever suffices. Here you can play saloon games like blackjack and the likes with friends or strangers. The waiting area is the bar, where people sit at the tables to wait for someone to challenge them. You instruct your character to tap them on the shoulder, the other player can choose to turn around or not and take attention. After attention is taken, the users can converse through voice or type chat until they accept to battle, and they set up terms of the battle (size of the battlefield, location, what items on their person they are willing to bet on). After the terms are set, the battle with the system I previously described ensues. 10 paces, shoot, the person who didn't get their shot in first attempts to dodge, then the 3rd person perspective battle ensues in the moderately sized battle arena complete with western buildings, foliage, etc. Winner takes his earnings, returns to his or her single player world (to his or her "home," where he or she can do various things) or the MMO saloon, whichever he chooses.
What do you think, would Torque be good for this? Ambitious, but I could use something to take up my free time.
On the battle system, the first shot is going to be a standstill in the classic western "who can draw faster" kinda thing, but then right after the first shot is fired if you can predict where the shot is going (if you didn't shoot first), you can dodge the bullet by doing the right motion, and then if both shooters dodge the first shot it goes into a 3D western landscape and you can move freely in it and target the enemy and take cover through the environments or slip a pot-cover under your shirt and use it as a bullet proof vest and the like (that's just an idea, probably will be extremely difficult to develop such an on-the-go combat system). Basically, the first shot is a static, no movement combat system structure that then, if the first shot doesn't kill and the other player dodges the shot, expands into a full 3rd-person style action control with the one goal of taking out the other player(s).
The leveling system will be a bit more than being able to see other player's levels; the system will be on a name basis, so you would be called "[screenname] the _____"; i.e. "Linus the Kid" or something like that.
The characters will be dynamic, changing with equipment changes purchased through the cash earned from battles and maybe minigames or something if I think of some good ones.
Here's a typical experience I want to provide gamers:
You log on, and enter the large open world and explore from a third person perspective the frontier. You enter a saloon in a town, each town refers to a different server (outside of the saloons is a single player world that has its own story that you can progress through). If a server is full, there is a closed sign on the saloon. There will be some sort of traveling system that complements the western times (train?) that allows you to travel quickly from town to town, and also has a grid so you can see all the servers and which ones aren't full and you can travel to those saloons immediately through the transportation service.
Once inside the saloon, the player enter the multiplayer portion of the game. The saloons will be moderately sized to accommodate the users and have 2 main areas: the social area and the waiting area. The social area is where you can just talk w/ other users through chat windows or voice chat, whichever suffices. Here you can play saloon games like blackjack and the likes with friends or strangers. The waiting area is the bar, where people sit at the tables to wait for someone to challenge them. You instruct your character to tap them on the shoulder, the other player can choose to turn around or not and take attention. After attention is taken, the users can converse through voice or type chat until they accept to battle, and they set up terms of the battle (size of the battlefield, location, what items on their person they are willing to bet on). After the terms are set, the battle with the system I previously described ensues. 10 paces, shoot, the person who didn't get their shot in first attempts to dodge, then the 3rd person perspective battle ensues in the moderately sized battle arena complete with western buildings, foliage, etc. Winner takes his earnings, returns to his or her single player world (to his or her "home," where he or she can do various things) or the MMO saloon, whichever he chooses.
What do you think, would Torque be good for this? Ambitious, but I could use something to take up my free time.
#2
04/08/2008 (6:15 pm)
It sounds like a ok idea but how are you going to do the story line if your changing servers (what i mean is if a differnt server is a differnt saloon then dosnt that make it a differnt town? it dosnt make sence how you could have the same characters in differnt towns)
#3
04/08/2008 (7:00 pm)
@ Ash, the servers can communicate with each other, or the character information could be stored client side, but then it could be subject to hacking, so it would need some kinda encryption.
#5
You'd probably also want an option to shake down and extort the locals in each town. The player could rob the stage coach or the tailor at gunpoint. Of course, they might be paying protection money and then all of a sudden there's a posse on your tail. You could reinforce your combat system by adding reputation. If someone robs the tailor and they've been paying you protection money you either need to offer a bounty on the robber or track him down to maintain reputation. Anything to force players to shoot eachother.
And with all the dying, I hope it's not too much of a struggle to set up a new character. Poor newbies will need to set up a new character ten times a day.
04/09/2008 (2:55 pm)
That sounds like a great idea. Kevin's right though, an MMO is a massive project (pardon the pun).You'd probably also want an option to shake down and extort the locals in each town. The player could rob the stage coach or the tailor at gunpoint. Of course, they might be paying protection money and then all of a sudden there's a posse on your tail. You could reinforce your combat system by adding reputation. If someone robs the tailor and they've been paying you protection money you either need to offer a bounty on the robber or track him down to maintain reputation. Anything to force players to shoot eachother.
And with all the dying, I hope it's not too much of a struggle to set up a new character. Poor newbies will need to set up a new character ten times a day.
#6
www.wildwestonline.com/
04/11/2008 (6:13 am)
We've spent a year just building the gunfighting portion of our Western MMO. That game, Wild West Online: Gunfighter is now in closed beta.www.wildwestonline.com/
#7
04/11/2008 (6:42 am)
It's a good idea. I have been actually been working on an open ended RPG (Oblivion style) single player western based game for about a year now as well. I can tell ya its ALOT of work. But if ya have the drive and willpower it can be a great experience. In the end I think that the key to making any game is having the passion to finish it...weather or not ya get paid for the work. If you have the passion for the game it just becomes a labor of love rather than a job. 
Torque Owner Kevin James
Indeed. I can assure you that making a Galaga clone will take up plenty of free time and you might actually have a game at the end.
Don't get me wrong - its a great idea - but MMO's are incredibly difficult to cut your teeth on.