XOU ideas from the shower

[Tenlar Scarflame]

yup, the shower is where all good ideas come from. That or brushing your teeth. Anyway...

I was thinking about ways to make X-OU possible. Now, some of the strikes against X-OU as the forum at large sees it seem to be:

-multiple people with massive armadas would be a little crazy and would probably make Ego's server explode.
-newbs could get steamrolled by veterans who have amassed very large fortunes and powerful ships.
-the universe would get crowded very, very, very quickly.

so here's my idea. An individual in the X-universe could work for one of three things: themselves, an association/corporation/company, or a government.

A player who works for himself can control and own only the ship they are currently sitting in. All improvements for a player's personal ship would come out of the player's personal account. The player COULD own multiple ships, but the only controllable one would be the one the player is currently piloting. The player COULD hire or request other players (perferably, players that they trust) to fly ships that they own to move them to other locations. An individual could put money into their personal account by working for a company, a government, doing milk runs, taking out posted bounties and collecting the reward, et cetera.

In order to control multiple ships at a time, the player must found (or work their way up the ranks within) a company. All ships moving in a company would have to each be piloted by one (or possibly more than one) player. These players would be paid as the company's management sees fit- the company would also have assets separate from that of the founder of the company. The company could "own" its own ships- company managers could give "permission" to various members of the company to pilot a company-owned ship or perform certain functions (co-pilot, turrets, missile control etc) aboard a ship.

A player working for a government (Argon Federation, Teladi company, etc) would have quicker access to specialty jobs such as bomber piloting, capital ship turret control and, after a long while of service, could be captain of a government-owned capital ship. The governments could be run by high-level players or Egosoft itself.

Upon generating a character within the X-universe, the player could chose
1) their race (the 5 main, possibly Terran, maybe even Xenon?), as well as other information such as name, sex, appearance?, background information, et cetera.
2) their allegiance- each race could have multiple nations (the Argon would have Argon Prime, Omicron Lyrae, and Light of Heart, each including their surrounding sectors). There would also be pirate factions that would bridge all races.
3) their starting vehicle/vehicles: the player would be given a budget with which to purchase their starting vehicle (starting with a vehicle made by a race that is not your own would cost more) and their starting equipment.

Given these ideas, the universe would still have to be QUITE large to accomodate all the players, and thus Ego's servers would still have to be beastly. However, this would solve the issue of players personally owning and piloting ridiculous numbers of ships and steamrolling everything in their way.

Just had to throw that stuff out there. I'd actually like to hear some other X-OU ideas.


One more thing, I don't think Ego would need to make X-OU a subscription-based thing. If they did, a LOT of X-ers wouldn't play it, and the X community is insular enough that if little stupid newbs tried to get on solely to piss people off, they'd get the snot shot out of them.

[jackhanna88]

Ah the shower. It's like pouring idea-juice on yourself. Having never played an MMO, I've no idea whether these ideas are practical or not, however from a theoretical basis it looks like a great idea. However, by removing the option of a player being able to amass his/her own huge amount of money, ships and firepower, surely half of the appeal of the X games is being removed. I know for a fact that my main ambition within this game is to become absolute ruler of my own sandbox, and surely that same ambition would transfer over into an MMO?

Sorry to be so negative - I'd love for it to work, and your's is the best method for that I've seen so far.

[Constipated_Vigilante]

Good ideas, but they kind of destroy the point of X. Having to work a job as a turret-man or something would get boring fast. The appeal of X is being without limits in a universe, an entity smaller than a speck compared to the larger powers of the universe, rising to become a major contender. It would be cool if sectors could be acquired and policed by players as private companies. Egosoft could run the governments, maintaining whom is allowed to buy what sectors and protecting new players. Maybe 'admin' sort of players could work for the governments after rising in power, policing sectors with fleets given to them by Egosoft to make civilized sectors safe. Players owning sectors would be an incredibly cool feature, though. Players could start inter-sector/company wars with each other, a place where Egosoft would not interfere and new players would be advised to steer clear of. Players could also be hired by these larger companies to fight and maintain assets. So yes, it would be cool if players could be 'employed', but it shouldn't be a necessary to gain power. Freelancing should still be a major possibility.

[Tenlar Scarflame]

Good ideas, but they kind of destroy the point of X. Having to work a job as a turret-man or something would get boring fast. The appeal of X is being without limits in a universe, an entity smaller than a speck compared to the larger powers of the universe, rising to become a major contender. It would be cool if sectors could be acquired and policed by players as private companies. Egosoft could run the governments, maintaining whom is allowed to buy what sectors and protecting new players. Maybe 'admin' sort of players could work for the governments after rising in power, policing sectors with fleets given to them by Egosoft to make civilized sectors safe. Players owning sectors would be an incredibly cool feature, though. Players could start inter-sector/company wars with each other, a place where Egosoft would not interfere and new players would be advised to steer clear of. Players could also be hired by these larger companies to fight and maintain assets. So yes, it would be cool if players could be 'employed', but it shouldn't be a necessary to gain power. Freelancing should still be a major possibility.

I agree that it would be a major sacrifice to have to play it this way. But the possibility is still there to become admiral of the entire Argon Prime fleet, or the CEO of all the power plants in Teladi space, or the deadliest pirate in the galaxy. The possibility would still be there to amass a very large amount of firepower, you'd just be commanding actual PEOPLE to do your work, rather than bots. And hey, this way you wouldn't have to worry so much about them being able to dock without smashing themselves on a roid.
And then, even if you aren't in overall control of a galactic armada, you could still take part in it by flying a fighter, or bomber. And if you were feeling really piratical, you could even take all the spoils of war, quit the company and fly away (hoping they don't find you and exact revenge later... ^^)

You're absolutely right, the growth potential of the individual player would have to be severely stunted in any sort of online X. I've always had kind of a fondness for the little jobs, though- being a private assassin, or a small mercenary or shipping company, a mining ship pilot, heck, even just a truck driver.

I like the idea of player-owned sectors, actually. Of, perhaps, a corporation taking up residence and personally policing a sector. Perhaps only the current "core" sectors would be policed by Egobots, while the "border" sectors would be mostly/entirely privately controlled, and the "pirate" sectors would be under NO control.

Another thing I forgot to mention... I always wanted to see more infighting within the various races. Like, the various "states" of the Argon Federation (Argon Prime, Omicron Lyrae) having differences and disagreements, civil wars within the Split, et cetera. Within an MMORPG, this could be much easier to realize- think about it, a player-owned corporation based out of Omicron Lyrae is going to be a little ticked if their business is getting stolen by the Argon Prime sectors, or if the over-arching Argon Federation only sends its defense forces to aid the Argon Prime sectors.

[Skaarj]

I think its impossible without a playerlimit. About 100 players only. If you restrict all those features perhaps 1000, but never more. Imagine, 800 of 1000 would have a M2. X-OU would be unplayable.
There should be a controled jumpgate like in freelancer. So you have to wait in line until you can use a gate. Otherwise, suddenly a Orca and a Python would appear while you are trying to pass that game.

[Tenlar Scarflame]

I think its impossible without a playerlimit. About 100 players only. If you restrict all those features perhaps 1000, but never more. Imagine, 800 of 1000 would have a M2. X-OU would be unplayable.
There should be a controled jumpgate like in freelancer. So you have to wait in line until you can use a gate. Otherwise, suddenly a Orca and a Python would appear while you are trying to pass that game.

True, it would be tough playing if 80% of players personally owned an M2... I think the limit then would be the number of M2's manufactured in the galaxy at one time. How many battleships/aircraft carriers exist in the world as it stands? How long does it take to build one? It would take a heluva lot longer to build a SPACE battleship.
M2's/M1's/TL's could be limited even further to only companies, governments, pirate factions, etc., basically large groups of players. It would be very, VERY difficult to personally own a capital ship. Much more sensible.

Controlled jump gates = YES. Great idea, needs to be in ALL X games.

[fud]

Oddly enough, when I'm in the shower, all I can think about is how pissed off I am I had to get out of bed to go to work.

[FearOfFlesh]

Isnt EVE basically an online version of this game?

[fud]

Not even close. The only similarities are they're both based in space.

[fiksal]

honestly I have no clue how can they make X-OU to be an X game, and to be persistent world the same time...

One way or the other the game will probably go through major overhaul... to keep the universe sane, and making everything fair for every player (part of the reason I dislike MMOGs)

My ideas come from random scribbles on pieces of paper, napkin, notebook.

But we "can try" to make it possible:

-multiple people with massive armadas would be a little crazy and would probably make Ego's server explode.
-newbs could get steamrolled by veterans who have amassed very large fortunes and powerful ships.
-the universe would get crowded very, very, very quickly.

Not to mention it'll be total chaos.

so here's my idea. An individual in the X-universe could work for one of three things: themselves, an association/corporation/company, or a government.

alright, so we going on from the assumption that it's just one server/world (like EVE), where all the players are

I agree - organizations, clans, guilds and alliances are probably "the must" for such game.

The player COULD own multiple ships, but the only controllable one would be the one the player is currently piloting. The player COULD hire or request other players (perferably, players that they trust) to fly ships that they own to move them to other locations.

I like that depending on what you got you can have different "feature" levels. For instance, as a company - you can own stations, but as a simple mercenary you just got your ship to go from. Obviously you should be able to switch/obtain "features" that you want.

Not being able to hire NPCs to fly all of your ships and only allow other players to fly for you, is almost a good idea... but not really

First - you gotta have lots of players
Second - who would want to be a trader or station supplier? The game should be about fun, not grinding.

One more thing, I don't think Ego would need to make X-OU a subscription-based thing. If they did, a LOT of X-ers wouldn't play it, and the X community is insular enough that if little stupid newbs tried to get on solely to piss people off, they'd get the snot shot out of them.

I wouldn’t play it if it's got monthly fees, or if it requires you to be online constantly... in order to achieve anything.



I think somehow players should be able to own and fly more than one ship (under certain requirements).
It should be a touch harder to own more than one ship.

The universe would have to be expanded by a lot, and the users need to be more or less equally dispersed throughout the universe, for one reason or another.
But if worst comes to worst, the engine better be able to deal with many ships in one place; collision should still exist but be a touch more forgiving... or there should be smarter AI or better and more strict "traffic rules".

Logging off is a big problem when owning assets...

The "mean way" would be - let the ships stay in the universe... Which means, you better have buddies who can take care of your ships once you are offline... or NPCs that could do that too. That's very risky and probably will screw someone like me over and over

A nicer way - to "jump" out all your ships, living them unreachable, until you come back. Which will "freeze" all your UTs and what not, but that's not a bad thing.

Stations on the other hand cant "jump" out.

A mean way - let it be... need your friends once again. Which is a bit better now, since protecting 1 station a touch easier than tons of ships...
Still, someone like me, would be screwed

A "shady" way... - "freeze" the station... let it stay there, freeze its activity, and make it indestructible... I usually hate things like that in simulation-like games, but what can you do.

And in order to deal with possibility of chaos, police force must be strong, and more complex relations and reputations should be added. If the player is high ranking Boron, the Boron government should not look kindly at whoever picks on that player.

so... it's POSSIBLE... I suppose


so how do I apply for a job in Egosoft?

Isnt EVE basically an online version of this game?

Of which game? X3? No, it's not even close to X3.

But it is close to what Tenlar Scarflame has described... it seems to me

[Madw0lf]

Ive got some ideas that could make an X-OU work.

To combat massive player expansion, first off make it take time for shipyards to restock, the bigger and more dangerous something is, the longer it takes to restock.

Add onto that an expansion of the rank system. A certain rank is required to buy most ships (except freighters, those should be easily available) but at that rank, you could only own so many, like, maybe at M3 level you can only own 2 or 3. The higher your rank the more you can own. This includes Admins with the ability to raise or lower rank.

Corporations of players of course could own more, but only a certain percentage of what the players would otherwise total.

Might add mroe later.

[fiksal]

To combat massive player expansion, first off make it take time for shipyards to restock, the bigger and more dangerous something is, the longer it takes to restock.

That will only slow down the expansion. There still gonna be lots of ships at some point.

Add onto that an expansion of the rank system. A certain rank is required to buy most ships (except freighters, those should be easily available) but at that rank, you could only own so many, like, maybe at M3 level you can only own 2 or 3. The higher your rank the more you can own. This includes Admins with the ability to raise or lower rank.

Rank of what? Reputation?
Capturing ships would allow you to have more.

[Madw0lf]

Youre right there will eventually be lots of ships, which brings me to number 2, a continually expanding universe. Either by manual design, or random generation, new "unknown" sectors would be added in, expanding even outside the current grid,so, there could be a sector north of Kingdom End. This means there would be room for players to expand without continuously competeing for space and resources.

For your second point,, yes, some kind of rep is what I was thinking. And capping could be easily controlled. If youve got your quota of ships for your rank, then you dont actually take ownership of the ship, it just sits pilotless and unclaimed.

[Tenlar Scarflame]

wow, my thread grew!

I agree that logging off would present some interesting problems and challenges. It would screw things up somewhat if stations were indestructable and/or shut down when you log off... and if only players could be hired to do working jobs, the economy could easily grind to a halt because people would just be logged on/off at all the wrong times.

So perhaps NPC's could be hired to fly ships and perform some ship functions (turret control etc) for you. The BENEFIT of hiring players to do some of your jobs would be-
they'll be more effective than AI pilots at mundane tasks.
they can grasp orders better.
they will acknowledge complicated tasks much better.
so a very large fleet comprised of only AI ships would probably get pasted by an equal-sized player fleet.

...I like being a truck driver. but I suppose I'm in the minority.

my idea of corporations vs. individuals vs. government...
well, ALL pilots would have their INDIVIDUAL account and assets.
--Individuals could personally own smaller ships and some weapons, but it would be VERY hard to personally own a capital ship, a large number of ships, a station, et cetera. Big stuff.
--Corporations (or factions, companies, mercenary groups etc) would be managed by one or more Individuals. The corporation would not be an individual to itself, but would have its own money account and assets. Corporations would have much easier access to stations, large numbers of ships, capitals. (to begin a corporation, an individual would have to "start" the corporation by taking money out of his own personal account and putting it into a new corporation account, taking out a loan with the government or another corporation, et cetera.) Control of various assets within a corporation (i.e. who can pilot certain ships, move money, etc) would be determined by the higher-ranking Individuals within a corporation.
--Governments would be partially controlled by Ego (production of ships, laws, some law enforcement, taxes?), and partially by Individuals employed by the Government. It would otherwise work in a much similar fashion to a Corporation.
--Pirate factions would function similarly to corporations, but with more booze, weed, and high explosives.

I really like Madwolf's ideas about restock time. It would take AGES for cap ships to roll off the line, and other ships would be much more limited in stock than they are now. Perhaps your "rank" ideas could be expanded to fall under the laws of local governments- as in, nobody in the Argon Prime sectors can own more than 3 M3 class vessels unless their business is reputable and warrants owning more. The ownership laws could be different (and more or less strictly enforced) in various states. Owning a stolen ship and being discovered could get you in deep doo-doo, depending on what state you're in.
Pirates would enforce this in their own way- if one matey owns 12 captured ship and 12 of his mateys each own 1, they'll get a little ticked at him, right?

I haven't actually played or seen Eve... anyone here who's played it? Anyone think we can learn anything from it?

[fiksal]

Youre right there will eventually be lots of ships, which brings me to number 2, a continually expanding universe. Either by manual design, or random generation, new "unknown" sectors would be added in, expanding even outside the current grid,so, there could be a sector north of Kingdom End. This means there would be room for players to expand without continuously competeing for space and resources.

Expanding sectors is interesting idea.
And actually those do not have to be brand new worlds. For example, from Kingdom End multiple sectors can created in the vicinity of the same planet or nearby moon... Space is really huge and the amount of space that sectors take - isn't.

For your second point,, yes, some kind of rep is what I was thinking. And capping could be easily controlled. If youve got your quota of ships for your rank, then you dont actually take ownership of the ship, it just sits pilotless and unclaimed.

Yeah that would solve it, but I don’t like it... Never like things like that where I am not allowed something to do, which I should be able to.

, the economy could easily grind to a halt because people would just be logged on/off at all the wrong times.

right.. I didnt think of that.
well... then make it indestructible, but let it trade... hmmm

I completely agree that in X-style game, you should be able to hire NPCs, and hiring PCs is an excellent touch. The advantage to the last one is obvious, as you mentioned.

--Pirate factions would function similarly to corporations, but with more booze, weed, and high explosives.

and Split girls

nobody in the Argon Prime sectors can own more than 3 M3 class vessels unless their business is reputable and warrants owning more.

That's better. If you don’t physically limit how many ships player can own, but instead have a law in the game that prohibits it, simply because governments don’t want someone to build up an army against them (which you can do now in X3 ).



I've never played Eve either, but I've been on their boards for a while right before the 1st release. Granted, it changed, but I do remember that they had something similar about Factions/Corporations going on.
Not sure what are the rules for station owning, but their stations stay in the game.
Your current ship, on the other hand, "jumps away" when you log off. And you can own more than one ship, but can only fly one at the time.

Some of this might be outdated, but that's what I remember

[Tenlar Scarflame]

expanding sectors would be a very interesting addition... would people need to download a patch to be able to see/visit the new sector? If it worked this way, new ships, weapons, upgrades, ANYTHING could be continually added to the universe. That would rock awesomely.

In keeping with Madwolf's idea, what if the current sectors were divided into, say, "quadrants?" Where each quadrant becomes about the size of one of X3's sectors, and a single XOU sector is made up of multiple quadrants that you can fly between, that are all adjacent to each other but collectively cover a very large area.

[fiksal]

expanding sectors would be a very interesting addition... would people need to download a patch to be able to see/visit the new sector? If it worked this way, new ships, weapons, upgrades, ANYTHING could be continually added to the universe. That would rock awesomely.

I suppose only if actual "new" material is added.
Since planets are 3D objects and all station models are reused - the new sectors, around, say, Kingdom End's planet can be created with existing models. And new BBS and what not can be downloaded like Bonus pack.

In keeping with Madwolf's idea, what if the current sectors were divided into, say, "quadrants?" Where each quadrant becomes about the size of one of X3's sectors, and a single XOU sector is made up of multiple quadrants that you can fly between, that are all adjacent to each other but collectively cover a very large area.

But then, the traveling would take a long time, and that considering that there's no SETA too.
You'll probably need some kind of special Boost extension of super afterburner... I shall call it SuperBurner

[Madw0lf]

Well the way I saw the whole new sector thing working, was you have a library of planet, star, sky, moon etc skins and models, then you just have to make a file, that the game would read in and add to the map. Just a smll txt or xml type doc, like a couple kbs. Other things would be downloaded automatically.

As for the larger sectors, maybe have a "new" kind of drive, one that every ship is equipped with and is integral (read: cant be destroyed) called, i dunno, a hyperdrive? This would effectively be like flying on 10x SETA on 100X, allowing very fast travel inside a sector.

[Tenlar Scarflame]

Well the way I saw the whole new sector thing working, was you have a library of planet, star, sky, moon etc skins and models, then you just have to make a file, that the game would read in and add to the map. Just a smll txt or xml type doc, like a couple kbs. Other things would be downloaded automatically.

As for the larger sectors, maybe have a "new" kind of drive, one that every ship is equipped with and is integral (read: cant be destroyed) called, i dunno, a hyperdrive? This would effectively be like flying on 10x SETA on 100X, allowing very fast travel inside a sector.

Agreed, a Freelancer-like Cruising Speed would most definitely be in order. I think the Jump Drive would have to be somewhat nerfed, perhaps so that it could only jump to a gate that you are "friendly" to, that you have piratically hacked, or something similar. This would prevent the Split from just deciding to jump their entire Family battlefleet right into Argon Prime and obliterating the Federation's core in one go.

It actually bothers me that you can get from one side of the universe to the other in such a short time. For XOU to work, the size of each faction's territory would have to be enormous, just to be able to fit the amount of players that an MMORPG would entail, and to give each faction a significant enough amount of territory. That and I think sectors need to be massively bigger anyway, but that's an entirely different debate.

Just realized something... the strain on the computer caused by all the background calculations in X3 would probably be significantly reduced in XOU... think about it, if Ego's servers handled the universe's calculations for you, and all your computer had to worry about was what's going on in your sector and your property's sectors (just the outcome, not the even the calculations)... much lighter load.

[Madw0lf]

computer load is one thing ive been thinking of. Any NPC calculations, even player owned ships that are computer controlled, could run on Ego servers. Player computers would then just be responsible for what they are dealing with.

Like, take combat. Say Ive got a Titan, taking it up against another titan, my computer just sends a packet saying what I fired, and where I aimed it to the server, the other Titan does the same, and voila, the server decides whtere its a hit or not.

Actually, maybe ALL player owned things should run on your personal comp, so long as youre online. Make it easier on Ego servers.