Home World Forum
Stars! AutoHost web forums

Jump to Stars! AutoHost


 
 
Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » Game concept: Clan Wars
Game concept: Clan Wars Sun, 27 July 2008 19:07 Go to next message
beanspoon is currently offline beanspoon

 
Chief Warrant Officer 3

Messages: 182
Registered: June 2008
Just about every other game in existence has them, so why not us?

That's right, I'm talking about clans. In most games, clans can be a small, tight-knit group of players playing together, or a gigantic community playing many skirmishes with many different players.

Well for stars, I propose this. I think stars clans should consist of 8-16 people. Anyone can form a clan, but it must contain 8 people. Each clan would need its own private forum to discuss matters.

Then, every so often (this would have to be decided), the clans play tournaments. The grand tournament would be 8v8, two teams made up of 8 people from each clan. These clans would eliminate one another in a series of heats until you end up with two finalists, who fight for the overall victory.

As well as this main tournament, various smaller tournament for 2v2, 4v4v4v4 and such could be set up.

Of course to begin with we'd need at least 4 clans (2 semi-finals a final), but this could grow as big as we like!


What do you think? The forum would need some bits adding on, but I think it would be a new and interesting way for us to go!



The goat whats YOU.

Report message to a moderator

Re: Game concept: Clan Wars Mon, 28 July 2008 09:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Adacore is currently offline Adacore

 
Chief Warrant Officer 2

Messages: 156
Registered: February 2005
Location: Shanghai
I'm not sure we have a large enough community, and I'd strongly suggest reducing the team size to 4 even if we do - coordinating 8 players would be horrible and the game lengths (which is already, imo, the main problem with the idea) would be impractical with decent 16 player games.

My suggestion would be for 4v4 games but with each team having perhaps six members in order to maintain activity.

Remember that most people limit themselves to 1-2 games at a time; belonging to a clan would, therefore, take ~half your available playing time.

I'm not sure about the idea myself - it would require a commitment of at least a year, probably more like two, for a proper clan, given the length of most stars games - 50% of your stars time for 2+ years is a big ask.

Note that I'm coming from a background of highly-competetive FPS gaming here - I played four hours a night, 5 nights a week for three and a half years, I was a member of the UK national team in Enemy Territory for a bit as well as a few high-level clans (won 1000 euros with one of them at a LAN event in the netherlands). I'm still involved quite heavily in orga and admin stuff for some LAN events in europe (and elsewhere). So, all in all, I'm probably thinking of something nothing like what you have in mind.

I do like the idea of a less structured team tournament though, if there is interest, and I think that's probably what you had in mind anyway. It's just to me 'clan' implies practically full-time commitment over an extended time period.


[Updated on: Mon, 28 July 2008 09:59]

Report message to a moderator

Re: Game concept: Clan Wars Mon, 28 July 2008 11:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
LEit is currently offline LEit

 
Lt. Commander

Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT
8 player teams in stars are not that interesting, it's too easy to optimize the team, however, as Adacore said, coordinating them is a major chore. Look at the EACvsIRC team game for an example. There are two theories to the team design: mixed bag so you get all the toys, or ITx6+CAx2 (or so). ITs have explosive growth once a gate network is up, and with a bunch of ITs, you start with a gate network.

Even teams of 4 there are some fairly easy decisions.

As to the time, actually, unless you get two very good teams, the games will probably be fast. A good team can grow really fast.

Teams of 8 have an obvious hab split: give each race half of each band, there are 8 possibilities. Teams of 4 can have one imm or wide band and the other two split in half.

Tech splits are easy for 8, everyone gets one cheap rest expesive (maybe another cheap or normal for speed) and does wolf/lamb to trade, in EACvsIRC there was some tech problems, so perhaps a second cheap field might make sense).

IMO, teams of 4 or more make things too easy, so I'd recommend teams be smaller then 4. Stars is all about making tough choices, and big teams remove too much of that.


[Updated on: Mon, 28 July 2008 11:34]




- LEit

Report message to a moderator

Re: Game concept: Clan Wars Tue, 29 July 2008 07:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Micha

 

Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1
LEit wrote on Mon, 28 July 2008 17:33

8 player teams in stars are not that interesting, it's too easy to optimize the team, however, as Adacore said, coordinating them is a major chore. Look at the EACvsIRC team game for an example. There are two theories to the team design: mixed bag so you get all the toys, or ITx6+CAx2 (or so). ITs have explosive growth once a gate network is up, and with a bunch of ITs, you start with a gate network.

Even teams of 4 there are some fairly easy decisions.

As to the time, actually, unless you get two very good teams, the games will probably be fast. A good team can grow really fast.

Teams of 8 have an obvious hab split: give each race half of each band, there are 8 possibilities. Teams of 4 can have one imm or wide band and the other two split in half.

Tech splits are easy for 8, everyone gets one cheap rest expesive (maybe another cheap or normal for speed) and does wolf/lamb to trade, in EACvsIRC there was some tech problems, so perhaps a second cheap field might make sense).

IMO, teams of 4 or more make things too easy, so I'd recommend teams be smaller then 4. Stars is all about making tough choices, and big teams remove too much of that.


8 player teams, coordinating is indeed a pain, even worse with players in different time zones. Second I agree big teams remove too much of the "making choices", you can have everything you want. Though you might have game restrictions on PRTs.
Still, there is the choice of playing the "mixed bag of toys" or the powerhouse. Wink

The not that interesting part for me is that you only have 2 sides. I played a 3vs3 and the other side was no match, that was not much fun, and indeed the game was over fast.
(I know that duels of player vs player also only have 2 sides but that's different.)

4 player teams, without restrictions you'll probably end up with something like CA+IT+AR+something. Of course universe size matters here, just as for the 8 player team game.

3 player teams, personally I find these about the best choice. I played in (and hosted) several of them. In our small community 3 players to form a team are not too hard to find. Having only 3 races makes team design harder, tougher choices to make, especially once you ban CA. Wink
Once I forgot to also ban (next to CA) the use of 3 the same PRTs and ended up in a game with the fearsome 3xIT combo *twice* in a 4 team game ... Both lost however, diversity was king! The final slugfest of the two major teams was between the Underworld (IT+WM+AR) and the AI (IT+WM+IS) which was of course won by the AI. Wink

mch

Report message to a moderator

Re: Game concept: Clan Wars Tue, 29 July 2008 08:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Adacore is currently offline Adacore

 
Chief Warrant Officer 2

Messages: 156
Registered: February 2005
Location: Shanghai
I think it could be interesting to see what the 'optimum' 3v3 team would turn out to be, but I'm not at all sure we've got a big enough community to support it - if one team is/gets really good then there aren't going to be a huge number of challengers.

Report message to a moderator

Re: Game concept: Clan Wars Tue, 29 July 2008 16:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
neilhoward

 
Commander

Messages: 1112
Registered: April 2008
Location: SW3 & 10023
I am interested. IRC maybe?


By the time you realize how steep the curve is, you will be using five types of calculus to get to the market. You will then need three different calculators to perform what you once considered basic arithmetic.

Report message to a moderator

Re: Game concept: Clan Wars Wed, 30 July 2008 18:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
beanspoon is currently offline beanspoon

 
Chief Warrant Officer 3

Messages: 182
Registered: June 2008
Well if you don't like 2 sides and 3v3 is optimum how about this: 5 teams of 3 players each? How does that sound? (I'll have to think about the name though)


The goat whats YOU.

Report message to a moderator

Re: Game concept: Clan Wars Sun, 26 October 2008 06:05 Go to previous messageGo to next message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
Commander

Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008
3 player team is obvious: CA-IT-AR or ITx3. 4 player is almost as obvious. 5x3 player teams could work, because then players would be encouraged *not* to go for CA-IT-AR for diplomacy reasons.

Report message to a moderator

Re: Game concept: Clan Wars Sun, 26 October 2008 16:58 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Coyote is currently offline Coyote

 
Lt. Commander

Messages: 906
Registered: November 2002
Location: Pacific NW

I like this idea - however, you don't need an AR, IMO they're too vulnerable and their benefit comes too late. IT seems like a no-brainer, though a team might work okay without it.
I would consider either banning CA, or allowing it only if the team is 3xCA.


[Updated on: Sun, 26 October 2008 17:00]

Report message to a moderator

Re: Game concept: Clan Wars Sun, 26 October 2008 17:20 Go to previous message
swp1 is currently offline swp1

 
Petty Officer 1st Class

Messages: 68
Registered: February 2008
Location: outside Philadelphia, PA
I seem to recall doing something like this back in '97-'98. It came down to choosing races from groups like this:

1) CA, IT, PP
2) WM, SS, SD
3) IS, JoaT, HE
4) AR

(I could be misremembernig the HE and 1 other, not sure)

Pick 1 race from each of 3 categories. less experienced players (if any) would be allowed to either choose a "group" for a more experienced player not in their clan after knowing what that experienced player wanted, or choose a specific race, or choose all of the LRTs of whatever race the more experienced player chose to play.

it was a pain for the host, who had to generate a lot of universes to get the grouping right, but the gameplay was fantastic once it got going. IIRC, the PP/SS/IS team won, using superior hit&run tactics against the CA/WM/JoaT team in the end. Hard to fight what you can't see...

just my thoughts on a nice Sunday afternoon outside the city of brotherly love.

Report message to a moderator

Previous Topic: Game Concept: Clusters
Next Topic: Your thoughts on Galaxy Clumping?
Goto Forum:
  


Current Time: Fri Mar 29 11:39:14 EDT 2024