Few games today have any built-in support for clans. A clan in most games is simply a group of players who choose the same naming scheme and try to play together. Given that RW will be team-based game, anything we can do to help players get to know a consistent group of teammates would be helpful. Is there are way we can bring in-game support and relevance to clans? Some ideas:
- Chatting directed only at clan members, cross-server clan chatting.
- Joint clan ownership of siege weapons, some form of shared inventory
- Game types that allow filtering based on clans.
- For example CTF where one side is all clan members.
- Ability for clans to own or take over maps, build fortifications on them, etc.
Meta-Game
By meta-game we mean the context in which individual gaming sessions take place. Clans are a part of this context.
- Better information about servers and games presented to users.
- Possibly radically alternate presentation of servers - displayed as a physical map?
- Ability to occupy territory and modify territory, some sort of larger goal?
- Comprehensive stat and record keeping.
- Top and mid-tier servers that direct game servers with information about state of entire "world."
Realm Wars Development and Community Input
This section describes the Realm Wars development process and the role of community input in that process. The development process will have to be very fluid and cater to the number and skills of the people interested in contributing to Realm Wars.
The Development Process
Release early and often will be our motto. Test, test, test, keep what works and redo what doesn't. We can experiment and roll back if changes don't work out. Our goal is to always have a playable copy on hand that is fun and interesting. Most likely we will follow a very greedy (for you CS people) procedure and grab at whatever next tasks will provide short-term enhancement to the game, especially in the early stages of development. Hopefully we can quickly increase the fun factor of Realm Wars, helping to attract contributions and keeping everyone excited and interested.
Contributing Resources to Realm Wars
Many people are asking how to contribute and what is needed. Soon the task manager will be fully functional and we can begin feeling our way towards an established process. At this time there is not a lot of clear specification about what is needed and most of the development is being handled by GarageGames, who are working on a new release.
At this time if you would like to contribute we would encourage you to do so. It would be wise to stick to things that we most likely will need: basic architectures, wood and stone textures, music and fx, weapons, etc. If you are planning on spending a lot of time on something like an entire level or set of animations please run that by someone first! We would hate to have to tell people that their wonderful contribution doesn't really fit the design of the game.
Contributing Ideas and Criticism to Realm Wars
We welcome new ideas and criticisms of what is written here and elsewhere. I would ask that you try to be specific. If you ask a question like "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" the answer is probably "yeah..." Brainstorming ideas large and small is fine, but you can save some round trips by anticipating some of the obvious questions and hurdles of your idea.
Seige weapons would be cool...but how should they work? Where do you get them? Can you buy them, find them, build them? Who owns them? Once they are destroyed are they gone for good or do they respawn?
Criticism is fine but try to be constructive. Is the problem with the idea itself or the implementation? Is the goal worthy but the method flawed? How could it be fixed, or improved, or what is some alternate plan that might work better. And why. What specifically don't you like, why exactly is your idea better?
Many of the individual decisions large and small have yet to be made or are open to change. We are very willing to listen to suggestions and take them to heart. You will see threads popping up on the Realm Wars forums about specific topics, and I will do my best to collate and summarize suggestions I run into and update the documentation to reflect them. If you have questions, comments or concerns that are best directed at me personally, you can e-mail me at jsm16@cornell.edu.
Please remember that the contributors to Realm Wars will vary greatly in terms of time and ability. Some will be professional level, others will use Realm Wars as a learning vehicle. Let's try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and keep discussions from becoming uncivil!
Immediate Development Goals
Now that we have laid out the overall vision for Realm Wars, the logical question is what first? Clearly some of the elements of the vision are more pressing and more fundamentally valuable than others.
- Come up with a solid set of class ideas.
- Implement some basic classes without appearance or ability customization.
- Cement and implement a working HTH model.
- Implement some basic weapons/items and perhaps spells.
- Create a functional, rudimentary server browser. (One now might be sufficient for time being)
- Create some basic textures, architectures and a few decent maps.
- Implement team Deathmatch and CTF.
In short, develop the fundamental game play needed to build on. Players should be able to choose from a few distinct classes, choose a game type, and play a reasonably fun if basic game that gives at least the flavor of the major game elements. Greater character customizations, permanent items, a greatly enhanced server browser and more advanced maps and game types will come further down the road. Feel free to think about and propose suggestions for these longer-term prospects, but we will be concentrating the design and implementation efforts on the above tasks.
