Tides of War

MMOG or Massive Multi-player Online Game is a generic term used by companies and people like you and me to describe the phenomenon that is still alive and kicking.

Everquest was truly the first game to break the barrier when it came to gamers and casual players. It brought forth gamers like you and me, but also brought a whole new segment of a population that was previously untapped. Instead of remaining a nitch market for games, Everquest tapped into a growing market where even whole families played online together. More importantly Everquest was the first game to reach out and bring many women into the genre. Suppossedly 20% of all gamers playing on Everquest are women, considering that Everquest has over 400,000 subscriber's. This total is an impressive amount.

Now you are probably asking why this all has anything to do with Enigma-Rising Tide and why it was brought up. Let me ask this then. Because the developers TesserAction Games are pushing for a MMOG release of this game, instead of creating an MP version that you can play on Gamespy. The question then needs to be asked. Can they create something that can keep the appeal of their game alive with new content being constantly added in?

Already there is slated to be well over 20 games coming out within the next few years that will try to grab market share from the big daddy of them all, Everquest. But TesserAction Games does have one advantage. They already brought out a single player version of their game. What's more the single player version at least in the US version, didn't have many of the serious bugs that new releases usually go through. But when you are talking about a massive online release of a game, then you need to factor in many things. For one, no MMOG release has had a smooth launch. There has always been glitches since server loads for populations and invariably software issues due to overpopulation can cause lag. No beta test can accurately fortell what will happen especially for server loads.

So aside from the probable growing pains that a MMOG launch will entail, I do have have some hopes that this game will do well. For one it is well placed to enter into a market that has few competitors especially since Enigma-Rising Tide is a nitch market game. The only other MMOG that would be in the same market to challenge Tide's of War would be World War 2 Online. And they blundered badly by pushing their release of their game out too early. And paid for it by lossing many of their subscriber's.

I look at the game now and see how smooth it operates and how well it looks, and already half the work is done. TesserAction Games already has the solid base on which to continue. The real work is will of course go behind the scenes. Getting the network code to deal with all the stress of players playing on a server should be a challenge but invariable a challenge that can and will be conquered. But the real challenge will lie in whether TesserAction Games can adequetely conduct a PR campaign to get their game noticed by the gaming community. More importantly to keep their game from even remotely being associated with WWIIOnline and the disaster that it went through. Having and getting the support of some of the online gaming sites that cater to the genre would go a long way to bringing more publicity to Enigma-Rising Tide and hopefuly set it apart from any other games that ever came before it.

Sites such as the Firing Squad http://www.firingsquad.com/ Getting exposure there go a long way to attracting the right attention, especially if a writer on such site starts playing Enigma-Rising Tide. Its a given that they will write about their experience's and tell both the good things they like about Enigma-Rising Tide and the bad.

I see alot of good things with Enigma-Rising Tide and I hope the developer's conduct a successful launch of it. I will post what I would love to see in the Massive Online version. Its more like what I would hope to see in Enigma-Rising Tide but neverless it should give you a good idea of what a massive online community will be like.

Duma

Duma,

Welcome aboard, glad to have you with us. Thanks for that post and I'm looking forward to more.

--East

When I first picked up Enigma-Rising Tide, I fully expected to be able to play Submarines to Battleships. Little did I know that the game would turn into a Submarine vs Destroyer game. Still I enjoyed the battles and even though I found depth charging a submarine to be an utter pain, I did have fun.

I decided to understand more about the game, I should check out the website and maybe learn how to depth charge alittle better. What I found out to my relief was that TesserAction Games was part of a new breed of developers committed to bringing on new content for their games. What gave me alot of hope, was their announcement, that I WILL be able to control a fully buffed out the ass Battleship. Yes yes, I am a Battleship whore, but neverless rolling around in one of them squishing annoying Destroyers would be a hell of alot fun. With further installments that were free to the consumer and added chapters to their game, this alone impressed me.

What made me sit up and take notice was that TesserAction Games are intending to bring out an MP portion of the game, again free to their consumer. Now I expected it to be like what Homeworlds2 is like and play on Gamespy. But I was getting rapidly bored with the MP battles on Gamespy especially since the network coding was buggy. But TesserAction Games got my notice when they clearly stated it would be a massive online multi-player game. Something that immedietely took my notice since MMOG and MP are two VERY different things. By taking the route of launching their game as a MMOG, TesserAction Games in my opinion are doing the right thing in following through with this idea. The premise that you can keep your game alive and intresting by continuing to add more content and with human interaction being what it is, the players should do the rest. After all playing against 5 other players when you can play with 1000, makes a huge difference.

Now for those that may or may not understand why TesserAction Games will not produce a version of their game for LAN play or Gamespy. You need to understand that its the network coding that goes into all this, and for MMOG play and LAN play are two very different things. To do the coding for both elements would require more time and resources since both are separate from eachother in coding. Obviously TesserAction Games are committing to moving their game to the next phase and pushing for a MMOG release, so for them, the obvious answer would be to concentrate on this area and make sure its done right.

My hopes for Enigma-Rising Tide.

I know there are probably many of you that have played Massive online Games. So I'm sure all of you will have idea's what you would love to see in Enigma-Rising Tide. For me its not necessary what goodies you can hope to see, like E-boats and so forth. What concern's me is how to project the game so its friendly to the average user and allow players to feel that they are apart of something larger. By doing this, you create atmosphere and draw player's into the larger scheme by adding backstory and building on it, player's will feel that they are contributing to the greater goal for their faction.

Dedicated Website.

One key ingredient to all this is having a website devoted to the Online play of Enigma-Rising Tide. A website that will tell the backstory and inform the player's why they are fighting this war. Also as you flesh out the story, more important objective driven goals can be alluded on and player's can strive for those goals. Another use for a dedicated website to Enigma-Rising Tide is server driven information. Where the website can be divided into the different servers so players can click and check on their individual stats and see how their faction is doing. Further elaborating on this, you can create a Map of the server where real time updates can be fed to it and have the map be updated.

Map of the World.

Map of the world. On the website for each server, a map of the world where real time updates can be fed in and updated, say every 1 hour. The map would show geograhic ownership of lands of each factions. Also on the map, bases where fleets are based out of can be shown and colour coded to each faction. The reason for having this feature is simple. To make your playerbase care for their faction. To make them want to see their faction do well and prosper. By allowing them to see the overall picture, you give them the sense they are part of something bigger and give them even more incentive to play and help their empire achieve their goals. Note I have no idea if TesserAction Games will implement anything like this, since I have no clue how play will resolve online.

Gameplay Issues.

Chatting online.

Now where going into the meat of the game. Gameplay will always be what keeps a game going and what finally in the end kills it. Either to dealing with too many things that distract from the game, or the game mechanics being too complicated that player's leave in frustration. Much of all this can be smoothed over by creating a chat system taylored to the game in question. For the most part a MMOG is one very large chat room where 1000 players can group together and chat about anything. What makes this different is that these 1000 players share a common hobby. Playing Enigma-Rising Tide as captain's of warships in an alternative history of World War 2. With this in mind, the goal of any developer is to create a chat system robust enough that player's will feel comfortable with it and have enough leeway that they can use it for the day to day operation's of their fleet's.

What do I mean by robust? How bout a system that allows you to toggle tags so you can go into Fleet chat. Or how bout using keyboard command's to send personnal tell's to fleetmates. And if ships are close enough to eachother, say docked at a base, the ability to chat openly with other players without having to send tells to them. Even more importantly, players who advance in rank, say reach the admiral rank's. Rear, Vice and so forth. The ability to send Faction broadcasts to everyone so Admiral ranked players can have the ability to rally ships to battlegrounds. You can have group channel with a squadron. (by squadron, a group of players grouping up and setting up a tempory squadron which communication can be shared between them.) Fleet channel, with your guild affiliates that can reach anywhere in the world. Shout broadcast where you can reach everyone in a limited radius from you. and Normal broadcast where you can chat within the immediete vicinity with strangers.

Guts of the game.

We don't know really any specifics on gameplay. We don't know if we will be in an open envirnment or in area's which we can call zones that we will load into. There are 2 differing ways to look at this situation. Admittedly I am assuming alot here, by even speculating how the game will be. Then again isn't anyone slightly curious as to how the world will look when we load into the world? I am, so I am willing to take a stab at discussing the game in general and what would be cool to see.

As I said there are 2, maybe even more ways to look at how TesserAction Games will develop the world in general. What I mean by world is the envirnment that you will load into. The guts of the game basically.

Massive online games in general will break down into 2 categories. Remember I am discussing the guts of the game. If people have had prior experiences playing MMOG's then these examples should be a nobrainer to them. But I am going to elaborate and expand on my theory.

Firstly TesserAction Games can follow the route of building their world by using "Zones. By "zones" I mean that the world or server in this case will be divided into sections or zones. The reason behind this is to reduce lag for specific area's and allow the server to devote more resources for a certain zone that would need it. The downside to all this is normally zones have a finite limit to how much "traffic" can run into a zone. So for instance, if say over 100 players crammed into a zone or loaded into a zone, the server would probably hick up and crash that zone. Again I must appologize since I am playing very loose with numbers here.

Each zone can incorporate numerous objects and in a game world would probably hold bases where fleets can base from and refueling jetties or whatever. There will be whole zones that might just be sea zones with some islands sprinkled in. Zones don't need to be the same size, but TesserAction can of course divide zones by using grid coordinates and keep zones fairly equal in size.

With zones, you can then link each zone to eachother. Depending where you need to load to get to another zone, you can follow interconnected zones to get where you want to go.

Second path that TesserAction Games can follow is building their world by minimizing the zones that players need to load into. With technology now, its quite possible to provide whole ocean's where players will not need to load into. The idea behind this route is to minimize load times for players, so they can get into the battle quicker and for many players, less frustration. Players will only need to load into different ocean zones or for special areas, such as safe ports where newbie players can reside and not be hunted down by unscruplous players. This is still very much like the first path that I explained, but if any of you have played Everquest, you will understand when I meant that a game can be subdivided into many zones to cope with hardware issues or a game where the world is very fluid and mobile.

Depending on which path that TesserAction Games takes, more then likely one of the two will be followed to build their world.

How the world will look.

I can't really say how the world would look, but knowing that this will be based on World War II and that it is a global conflict. One has to wonder how TesserAction Games will model their world to look like. For instance. will they limit the scope so players won't have to spend hours chugging their ships to one port to another? Or will they go for a grand feel of the game and try to replicate the world and bring about world conflict by having battles play out in Asia, the Atlantic and in the Medetterrean? Or can TesserAction Games bring about a balance where moving your fleet to one base to another won't be too tedious but allow players to feel that it is a world conflict?

Having the ability to create a whole world where thousand or two thousand players can play in at the same time is a huge challenge, but more importantly its quite an awesome responsability as well. Many players will be naval buffs and world war II enthusiasts. So getting the right amount of detail is important. Yet with the conflict involving the whole world, how much is too much? Can a server realistically be able to accomodate such a vast scope of detail?

I'm going to post up later how gameplay in general might look like. Basically what I think will drive the game and how it will evolve. You may think I am assuming alot by doing this, and yes I am, but the whole point is to ask and wonder, how this world will look like. And to me that is a fascinating question to think upon. And maybe just maybe some of the developers will give us a hint. Or maybe they have and I am clueless, or asleep. zzz:

In either case, I like this game alot, hearing that it will be a massive online game is icing on the cake. I see alot of potential with this game. I'm definetely hoping this game works out.

Duma

Great posts!

A couple of points. Note that E:RT is not WWII, it is WWII era, where WWI had a different outcome. The entire world will be mapped, with the initial scenarios set around the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean. I'm not sure about "zones" or long distance travel.

/bux

I used to play the MMOFPS Planetside and this game is great in only one way. It has some huge battles. I was in a fight to capter a point of on of the continents that lasted 6 hours with no faction making any progress. Everyone continued to bring in reinforcemtns until the entire continent was in war. The downside to capturing a point is it really gets you nowhere..... you capture the point and someone takes it back an hour later. There is no goal to the game and it lost my interest way to fast.

i played planet side too, i had the same problem, i liked how you could capture areas and defend them too, but it did get pointless.

i think enigma should learn from planetside, it was a game many people were looking forward too and it had a fan base of 10,000 players easy, but it was people became bored of its pointlessness.

maby enigma could have computer convoys, for example, if eaqch server is divided into zones meterianain, south atlantic, north atlantic, indian ocean, south pacific, and north pacific, each server would hold like 1000 players. now, lets say a computer convoy left Bombay, wish 16 ships, players could choose to escort that convoy to the the edge of the indain ocean, where it meets the south atlantic lets say cape town, the players escorting would get points and wait for a convoy coming from the south atlantic.

then in a south atlantic server, the convoy would apear in capetown and then u escort it.

then in a south a

Remembering that AI freighters and convoys are planned, playing a role in the supply.

Everquest and other types of MMORPGs aren't real concurrents for Enigma imo, because they provide a different kind of gameplay. I do like some roleplaying, but playing a MMORPG (Neocron) doesn't brings me to quit WWIIonline which I play at moment. In my case Enigma has to compete with WWIIonline, the Warbirdsseries (althought it 'lost' already against WWIIonline) and the new AcesHigh, with aircraft and naval as my favourites in the simulationgenre, at best together. Neocron has to compete with the upcoming MMORPG Face of Mankind in my case, but on the other hand all have to compete in some kind with Pirates of the burning sea (btw uses the Intrinsic Alchemy engine too, East ) because I don't want to pay 3 onlinegames at the same time.

Enigma Rising Tide may not be anywhere close to games like Everquest, but you should realize that because Everquest has been so successful, gaming companies such as TesserAction Games have a market which they can tap into.

More importanty they can easily learn from what Everquest did well and what went wrong. The type of success that Everquest has enjoyed has propelled this industry to new heights in graphic quality and CPU requirements.

Enigma Rising Tide will not be like Everquest, but you have to understand that the premise is still the same. You are creating one vast world where 1000 to 2000 players will gather and play your game. You need to keep adding content so your playerbase will thrive. Customer support will be key and constant attention to feedback of players is a must. Though if you read the boards for say Everquest and Planetside, most of it can be summarized as complaints that my faction/race is too weak and so forth. TesserAction Games will have their hands full separating what needs to be looked at.

Most importantly TesserAction Games will need to create an illusion that they are listening and are responsive to the needs of all the players despite the fact that most of them are only looking at their situation and not necessary the balance and health of the game.

However you look at, its the big daddy of them all Everquest that has shaped this industry to where it is now. And it was them that openned the doors to other companies to a genre that has alot of potential. Much of our software industry is under attack by hacker's. No matter how hard a gaming company tries to protect their product from hacking, a hacker will always be one step ahead of them.

Online gaming is the next step, a way for companies to fight hackers and prevent them from abusing their product. Its why when a company decides should they create a game with a single player compotent or should they move it to the Massive online market. Both has risks but an online game with a stable monthly subscriber base can be immensely rewarding for the company.

The risks are huge, especially with dozen's of companies planning massive online game launches. But for those that can grab a nitch market, the rewards are justified.

Duma

Because of work restraints and just lack of time. I haven't been able to follow up on my posts. I did want to elaborate more on what I would like to see in Enigma Rising Tide. But with that said, I am going to go more into the multi-player aspect and offer some idea's.

I am not in the beta, so my opinion's will be my own and will break no NDA's. What I can though is offer some idea of what we can see in a massive online game.

My opinions will be honest and fairly blunt and to the point. Massive online games just by their names can conjure many images. For vetran player's who have played other MMOG's, the first few months of a game, what I am about to say will be no surprise. For those that are going to be dipping into their first MMOG, let me reassure you that what is about to come is no unique experience totally related to Enigma. Rather you should expect and plan for it.

The idea that any game that will try to bring 1000 to 2000 players to play together and have a smooth launch, is well living in a dream world. There will be many complication's but for the most part the serious one will be server load. Anyone familiar to this will know that gaming companies will try to stress test their servers so they can accomodate the amount of player's they expect. But for the most part, they tend to under-estimate the player load. Planetside for instant never expected more then 5000 player's for a server, yet in the beginning they had well over 5000 players logging in. Thier stress test probably allowed for 2500 to 3000 players. It wasn't until a month later, that they started bringing network code patches to deal with the immense lag that would happen when hundred's of player's would gather together and slug it out.

Player's also found an exploit where they can drop into a continent with a population lock. A pop lock refer's to a zone that is locked to anyone because it has reached a population limit. Well for everyone who played, there was an exploit where you could set a personal waypoint and then zoom into it, then drop yourself onto the continent. So any sense that a pop locked continent existed, well frankly it didn't. So instead of having 200 or 300 players for each faction on a continent, you had well over 500 in many cases which created immense lag in battles. Sony later brought out a patch to fix this loophole.

So for new players to this genre, please expect that for the first several weeks, there will be bumps along the road. It's a true test to the game developer to rapidly develop patches and to be responsive to any change in the game. You'll even find situation's where a fatal error is found and an immediete patch will go into effect the next day.

Now understandably many player's who are not apart of the beta process won't know what to expect. We have some clue's like the world will be divided into zone's where player's will play in. By zone, we've been told that sea's and different parts of the world will be divided like it was in World War II. Medeterrean Sea, the Pacific and so forth. We also know that Enigma will be mission based. Hopefully we will be able to have independent action so we can gather into fleet's and conduct sea battles.

Another facet that game developer's have to deal with is game balance. Not necessarily balance in the sense the world would need balancing. But balance in player conflict. After all Enigma Rising Tide is a player driven, conflict based game. Player vs Player. The decision's by a player can and will impact on another player. TesserAction Game's will need to balance out the need to keep faction's relatively balanced, or they will have player's leaving their current faction and joining the precieved stronger one. This always happens in games, but its up to the game developer to limit the preception that one faction is more dominant then the other. It doesn't mean that each faction should be alike, but each faction should have strength's and weaknesses.

I already see some balancing issues. Not with faction's in general, that will become more evident as we play. But between ship classes. Without the ability to accurately pinpoint the depth of a submarine by a destroyer. I believe if you have two equally experienced captain's the submarine will have an edge over the destroyer. Maybe this is how it should be, but when more player's switch to submarines because of the precieved strength of them, then you will have a balance issue. I'm not saying that the submarine will walk all over the destroyer, but the submarine will have an easier time in catching the destroyer offguard. A submarine will always know where the destroyer is while the destroyer must use sonar to find the submarine and then use depth charges to figure out what depth the sub is in. So expect lots of debate on this issue. Maybe nothing needs to be changed, but sub and destroyer captain's should have a lively debate going on, on it.

Powergamers.

Ok most of us know what a powergamer is. Its a player that will use whatever strategies to quickly build up in as short amount of time to do it. Powergaming exists in ALL games, regardless of which game you play, you will have powergamer's there. How does this effect Enigma Rising Tide? Good question, that can be easily answered by saying, how does rank work in Enigma?

We know we will have rank's in Enigma, but how exactly do you build rank up? For me I have a theory on how this can go about. There are 2 method's, one using mission's and as player's continue to run mission's, they build up what I call prestige. Prestige is like experience and as you get more prestige, the more rank's you can obtain.

Option 2, building battle experience. Battle experience is exactly like prestige in that you gain prestige by "killing", "sinking" ships and participating with other player's in battles. AI convoys can continue to ferry supplies, and player's can join into small squadron's to hunt them down for easy prestige. As player's mature and their skill's go up, player's can try hunting down other squadron's and battle it out. Prestige of course can be rewarded for those battles but at an increased amount since you are damaging a faction's ability to war.

Of course you can do a combination of both these options and offer mission's to newbie player's so they can run mission's solo and learn the game abit easier, and allow player's to group up and do squadron battle's. This way you can offer more flexiblity to your playerbase and thereby provide more option's for them to control their own destiny.

Ranks.

Here's my take on how getting rank's work in Enigma. Remember this is just my opinion, so I can be very well wrong here. TesserAction Games will implement some system in where player's will gain rank's. Its important because player's want to feel that they are accomplishing something and gaining rank's and striving for that goal is a very good way of going about this.

Here's how I think player's will gain rank's. As I mentioned previously player's will gain pretige as reward for accomplishing task's and destroying ships. As you gain more prestige, you can also gain more rank when enough prestige is gained to get that rank. As you rise up in rank, more ship's become available for you to captain and hopefully more responsablilty. I am hoping here that Enigma won't force you to move up to the next ship but allow the captain some descretion in whether or not he wishes to remain in a destroyer or move up to a cruiser. Some player's will not be inclined to move up into a larger ship, but would rather captain a speedy ship instead.

Now here is where I see some problem's. As I mentioned previously a powergamer will use whatever strategy to rise up in rank as quickly as possible. Whether it will be using a guild to powergame together constantly or spending an excessively amount of time play Enigma. Excessive is like 16 hours of playtime at any given stretch. Its very hard to beat a gamer that will spend hours of playtime like this or an organized guild that can do rapid mission's or strikes together.

So what happens if you have a powergamer playing 16 hours a day and in one week reaches the rank of Admiral? If the system I mentioned about rank's allowing a player the ability to command a bigger ship. An Admiral should quite feasibly command a Battleship then. One week to a Battleship regardless of how you look at it, is VERY bad. It wreck's any semblence of balance and keeping the playing field relatively balanced. Of course I highly doubt even a powergamer could reach the rank of Admiral in one week, since I'm pretty sure TesserAction Games will make sure the journey will be long. But I can see it happenning in a few weeks. And that isn't a big stretch to imagine.

But there is a solution to that problem. In keeping the playing field balanced and making sure certain ships do not become available too soon. The easy way about this is to control the shipyard and the construction of each ship class. Limit what ship's become available and more importantly limit the quantity of the big ships, so there is actually a higher end strategy for the game, where it's in the player's best intrest to keep their faction as viable as possible. Keeping a faction's supply line's open can add another aspect to the grand feel of the game.

Allowing a player to choose what ship he wants to captain would also add more to the game and a shipyard would be perfect for this. You can also easily add variants of each ship tayloring it to individual tastes for player's. Ship's highlighted are selectable and the one's in gray can tease a player to checking them out and offer them even more incentive to build pretige to gain the rank to command that ship.

And lastly if a player does lose his ship to another player or in a mission. Then there should be consequence's. Not in the sense that a player should be punished, but economic consequence's. By taking into account that a faction can replace a lost destroyer more easily, but replacing a lost battleship would be very costly. So again using the shipyard you can add more depth to all this. Once a player loses his ship, he must re-purchase another ship. A destroyer would be easily replaceable but a cruiser and especially a battleship might not be. Even though a player does have the rank to command a battleship, there might not be a battleship in the shipyard to purchase, so he would be forced to purchase something lighter in the weight class and wait until a battleship does become available.

I'm excited about ERT, and I do hope there is alot of flexiblity for the player's. So I'll keep looking and waiting for more information and of course add more comments.

Duma

Wow! That was an in-depth post. I've never played in an MMOG but this thread has been a great introduction. Thanks! buxton:

My 2 cents from very early ERT experiences:

Without the ability to accurately pinpoint the depth of a submarine by a destroyer. I believe if you have two equally experienced captain's the submarine will have an edge over the destroyer. Maybe this is how it should be, but when more player's switch to submarines because of the precieved strength of them, then you will have a balance issue. I'm not saying that the submarine will walk all over the destroyer, but the submarine will have an easier time in catching the destroyer offguard. A submarine will always know where the destroyer is while the destroyer must use sonar to find the submarine and then use depth charges to figure out what depth the sub is in.

I agree. After playing the demo (over and over and over and over and.....) and now the full game, I definitely prefer being below the surface.

I saw East mentioning work on better damage models. Obviously, if TAG can tweak damage to affect tubes and specific vessel functions, then subs will have to be that much more carefull. Of couse, I assume the same will go for potentially damaging a surface ship's firing and launch abilities, should it be hit and damaged in the appropriate area.