MOBA RTS: The rough idea

[ppombal]

Hi again,

FYI, I want to create a persistent MOBA Tactical RTS.
The game will have the following features:
- Persistent MOBA: instead of fighting in random "arenas", the players will select a strategic location to fight in. The outcome of the battle affects the overall strategic situation. Also, the wrecks left on the battlefield will be featured in future battles fought in the same strategic location. Finally, units will retain experience gained from one battle to the next.
- Tactical RTS: no building, no resource gathering, just tactics (each player just commands units to move, shoot and capture map objectives)
- for a given strategic location, a battle starts whenever there are sufficient subscribed players
- each battle features only 2 factions with each player belonging to one of those factions
- prior to each battle, each player selects his/her army (set of units) and fights the battle with that army
- A faction wins a battle when all the map objectives belong to that faction OR all the units in the opposing faction are destroyed

Considering all the above, I have the following questions:
1 - The lobby client must show a strategic map. Is there such a lobby client available?
2 - The lobby server must keep track of player subscriptions per strategic location and launch the corresponding battle when the number of subscriptions reach a minimum threshold. Is this feature supported by any lobby server available?
3 - Is it possible to select an initial set of units before the battle starts, using the available lounge clients?
4 - Is it possible to have maps with buildings (e.g.: to have urban maps representing cities)?
5 - Is it possible to disable unit and building construction?
6 - Is it possible to disable resource gathering or wreck recovery?
7 - I've seen that units gain experience during battles. Is there anyway to save XP gained after the battle ends?

(I apologize if I'm not posting this in the correct sub-forum and for my poor English)

Thanks in advance,
ppombal

[smoth]

all of that is possible. Spring's Lua API is pretty fing powerful and the rest is just work.

[FLOZi]

As Smoth has said, all is doable. Here's a bit more info:

Considering all the above, I have the following questions:
1 - The lobby client must show a strategic map. Is there such a lobby client available?

Take a look at ZK planetwars (link seems to be down atm).

2 - The lobby server must keep track of player subscriptions per strategic location and launch the corresponding battle when the number of subscriptions reach a minimum threshold. Is this feature supported by any lobby server available?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'subscriptions' here, sounds like something you may have to implement yourself.

3 - Is it possible to select an initial set of units before the battle starts, using the available lounge clients?

Not directly through any of the current clients, however easily done within the game and someone is working on in-game lobby.

4 - Is it possible to have maps with buildings (e.g.: to have urban maps representing cities)?

Yes, many maps have static features. http://springrts.com/wiki/Gamedev:FeatureDefs

5 - Is it possible to disable unit and building construction?

Yep, trivial. MC:L for example delivers all units to the playfield via transports: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dnn5hzr4oz9t0 ... livery.wmv

6 - Is it possible to disable resource gathering or wreck recovery?

Yep, trivial.

7 - I've seen that units gain experience during battles. Is there anyway to save XP gained after the battle ends?

You can use a widget to write data or send it over the network. S44 Zombies ( https://github.com/spring1944/undead-rising ) had persistent armies and a 'unit shop' mode, though it is rough around the edges.

[Google_Frog]

All of this is possible. The Spring side work is not even particularly hard (that is the particular features you are asking for. Making the models and scripts for a game is still hard). From my experience with Planet Wars you are going to spend a lot of time with infrastructure. You are going to need to modify a lobby, set up a server to deal with your strategic map interactions and perhaps make autohost bots. It may be possible to skip the battle lobby part of your game and link each client directly.

[zwzsg]

Do you have a team or are you alone? How experienced are you?


The Spring engine side of this is rather easy: I've done a gadget that implement savegame by storing units, buildings, their HP, XP, whatever else the Lua API expose (and it exposes a lot), into a text file, and then recreate units in roughly the same state from what is read from that text file.

The lobby side of this, you'll have to create mostly by yourself. Yes, Zero-K implemented PlanetWars, but I doubt ZK's PW code is as easy to reuse and adapt as Spring's Lua gadgets. Most Spring lobbies are open source, and there are so many of them that coding your own lobby shouldn't be much harder than creating the rest of the game.


Two problems you didn't ask about, but that I encountered when attempting to implement MOBA-like mechanics (in Kernel Panic's HOMF), are:

• Spring network model: Only orders are sent, then the simulation is run in sync on each computer. And there's no prediction. That means that there is a delay between the moment the player clicks or press a key and the moment the unit obeys. It's unimportant in a RTS, but in a MOBA, it might gives a displeasant experience if units don't react instantly to player's input. And no, that can't be changed without rewritting much of the engine.
• Spring's pathfinding and unit movement system, makes units have a tendancy to never quite exactly follow the way you click them to go. Units might decide they're close enough, and not move when destination is "half a unit's width away". Units might decide to turn 90° upon arriving for no clear reason. Units might decide to follow grid-aligned 8 directions instead of going a straight line. Again, unimportant for a RTS, but unpleasant for a MOBA. I was told to use "MoveCtrl", which gives total control over where units are, but then the whole physic/interaction/movement/pathfinding would have to be re-coded in Lua, which sounds horribly overcomplicated.

[PicassoCT]

Has anyone mentioned the attempt on a MOBA style gameplay allready done?
Zero-K Dota.
http://www.notadota.com/
and another one, whos name i dont remember...

Look at those games. Then start working on the Lobby.

[smoth]

Meh that one isn't good, it isn't the first and it definitely wasn't very moba.

[PicassoCT]

Idea Roughian?

[scifi]

well he has a point they arent very moba.

Just start small, thats my advice, when you start trying to do multiple things at once, lobby, ui, code, models textures, even gameplay e.t.c. eventually that will drag you down a lot.

Focus on one particular thing like getting a simple mod going add some units in, and go from there.

[smoth]

well, I don't want to assume anything. This guy may well already have a few units in game and all. I am not fond of assuming people are incompetent right out the gate. Most of the questions he asked were reasonable as far as trying to get an evaluation of the engine's capabilities.

The rest is all going to be determined when he decides to further personally investigate.

[PicassoCT]

No. If you evaluate a engine, you can make a minimod. Takes two hours . One if you allready have models.

And you got something to show. If questions are asked with screenshots, the questioning person has credit and is in good standing.

And lets be honest over the last years there were a lot of people who
were White Paper Idea guys.
had a High Busfactor, means, if a bus with you in it drives against a wall, your project is gone too, so to speak.

[Anarchid]

White Paper Idea guys

Are we back in the era where Spring is used for academic papers on AI?

[ppombal]

Hi again,

I've been on vacations and I really try to disconnect from the world at that time, sorry for the long silence. First of all, thank you for all the answers.

Next, answering a few questions and comments:

2 - The lobby server must keep track of player subscriptions per strategic location and launch the corresponding battle when the number of subscriptions reach a minimum threshold. Is this feature supported by any lobby server available?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'subscriptions' here, sounds like something you may have to implement yourself.

Each player selects the area on the strategic map where he wants to fight. As soon as enough players for that area are available, a battle starts (thus the "subscriptions"). The idea here is to allow players to either:
- fight, no matter where
or
- fight where it actually matters to change the course of the war at strategic level

Do you have a team or are you alone? How experienced are you?

I am alone at the moment, looking for people to help me with the game.
I'm a good C programmer and I can handle fairly well C++, Java, C#, PHP and AS3.
In terms of game programming, I've never done anything, just extremely basic examples with DirectX, jlwgl and Flash/AS3.

Idea Roughian?

I'm not sure if I understood what you meant there.
I have the idea for the game and I want to start doing it, despite my inexperience - thus all the stupid questions.

No. If you evaluate a engine, you can make a minimod. Takes two hours . One if you allready have models.

And you got something to show. If questions are asked with screenshots, the questioning person has credit and is in good standing.

Assuming that:
- you have had the time to do it already
- you've done that sort of thing before.

And lets be honest over the last years there were a lot of people who
were White Paper Idea guys.
had a High Busfactor, means, if a bus with you in it drives against a wall, your project is gone too, so to speak.

If I am indeed a "White Paper Idea guy", I'll disappear eventually, so no problem. In any case, you're not forced to read/answer all topics in the forum, are you?

[PicassoCT]

No, but while you are not comitted yet, you are a quantum-dev.
Full of possibilities.
A curiosum.
You could be brilliant.
Or just a daydreamer, wasting brilliant peoples time.

And as those other games who allready exist can easily be modified.. (there is nothing to compile there, just opening the .sdz renamed 7zip file and starting textediting +testing).
If you are really really new.
Just make a Unit that says "Picasso is a cunt" everytime it moves.
Do it.
Make a Screenshot.
Post it.

[ppombal]

No, but while you are not comitted yet, you are a quantum-dev.
Full of possibilities.
A curiosum.
You could be brilliant.
Or just a daydreamer, wasting brilliant peoples time.

And as those other games who allready exist can easily be modified.. (there is nothing to compile there, just opening the .sdz renamed 7zip file and starting textediting +testing).
If you are really really new.
Just make a Unit that says "Picasso is a cunt" everytime it moves.
Do it.
Make a Screenshot.
Post it.

I really don't understand why you're being so aggressive with me. Since I'm not here to start a-trolling, I will not continue this "discussion" with you. As soon as I have the time to work on something, I'll post the result here - I'll appreciate if you can make a constructive criticism. If not, all good all the same because I don't know you and I don't need you for anything, actually.

[smoth]

I'll try and translate

No, but while you are not comitted yet, you are a quantum-dev.
Full of possibilities.
A curiosum.
You could be brilliant.
Or just a daydreamer, wasting brilliant peoples time.

You are shrodenger's cat, you could maybe be dead or alive..

you are shrodenger's idea guy, you could be brilliant and execute a great game or just sit around posting about ideas.

And as those other games who allready exist can easily be modified.. (there is nothing to compile there, just opening the .sdz renamed 7zip file and starting textediting +testing).
If you are really really new.

this is not a place with a lot of mystery. Projects do not get compiled instead our archive format is either a .zip file(sdz) or a 7zip file(sd7)

Just make a Unit that says "Picasso is a cunt" everytime it moves.
Do it.
Make a Screenshot.
Post it.

a lot of people come here seeking reams of information seldom ever seeing if creating a unit is too hard or impossible. By at least getting something in engine, you show that you are serious and are actually started. Until then, people are frequently reluctant to help because as he said earlier you are shrodenger's idea guy.

You didn't necessarily ask anything particularly stupid or lazy just more to the point that as you show results and that you are working people will be more willing to volunteer their time and help you.

[zwzsg]

Picasso speaks in riddle, but isn't mean.

What he meant is: Make a very tiny small game modification and screenshot it. Not a new game, not even a new unit, just a one line change in an existing Spring game. That would already show enough commitment that you'd get old timers to spend more time helping you.

[ppombal]

I'll try and translate

No, but while you are not comitted yet, you are a quantum-dev.
Full of possibilities.
A curiosum.
You could be brilliant.
Or just a daydreamer, wasting brilliant peoples time.

You are shrodenger's cat, you could maybe be dead or alive..

you are shrodenger's idea guy, you could be brilliant and execute a great game or just sit around posting about ideas.

Understood from the beginning. Nevertheless, nobody's forced to answer me. Besides, I made one single measly post with my idea. One. That's hardly spamming the forum.

And as those other games who allready exist can easily be modified.. (there is nothing to compile there, just opening the .sdz renamed 7zip file and starting textediting +testing).
If you are really really new.

this is not a place with a lot of mystery. Projects do not get compiled instead our archive format is either a .zip file(sdz) or a 7zip file(sd7)

I understood that right from the first time I downloaded a .sdz file (which was after asking the questions on my first post above).

Just make a Unit that says "Picasso is a cunt" everytime it moves.
Do it.
Make a Screenshot.
Post it.

a lot of people come here seeking reams of information seldom ever seeing if creating a unit is too hard or impossible. By at least getting something in engine, you show that you are serious and are actually started. Until then, people are frequently reluctant to help because as he said earlier you are shrodenger's idea guy.

You didn't necessarily ask anything particularly stupid or lazy just more to the point that as you show results and that you are working people will be more willing to volunteer their time and help you.

I don't think I was leeching anyone in the forum with my questions (which weren't that many), so I don't understand all the aggressiveness.
Whenever I feel frustrated/annoyed/angry/<insert here the applicable mood> I don't go bashing around newcomers in a forum. Probably PicassoCT should play more the games he helps create to vent all that <applicable mood>.

Anyway, I think this thread is long dead, the conversation is pointless atm. I have some advice from you guys already and will start playing with SpringRTS. If I go nowhere, I've been nothing more than a speed bump. Otherwise, you'll get a mod modded sometime in the next weeks (yes, I am that short on time).

Once again, thanks for all the advice.

[FLOZi]

Locking, don't be rude to newbies for crying out.