Why an XCOM MMO could work

chryses

Just playing Xcom on the PS3 and its bringing back memories.

As an MMO fan I would love to see an XCOM game which includes:

 

* 3 factions (Alien, Secret Service/troops and possibly civilian/rebels)

* Humans can form guilds and build underground bases and guilds get ranked on how many UFO's they bring down and territory they save etc.

* Alien players can form guilds and get ranked on territory gained and bases destroyed. Can build alien bases

* Civilians/rebels can form guilds and get ranked for repelling aliens and holding territory and can build guild house. If they take back a territory from aliens then the local populace supports them, not secret service.

Territory can get flipped once every 2 weeks, depending on the territory controlled, all players and guilds get a bonus.

e.g. Secret Service/troops hold on to India, Australia and Japan.  Those countries pay a fund and guilds get a cut. 

So basically all players from the same faction will fight to maximise revenue.

Alien players get resources

Civilians/rebels get mix of resources and money. 

 

I would love to see a game like this developed using the whole globe as a playing field.  It might be heavily instanced in some areas (attacking a base etc) but a lot of sandbox elements could be incorporated. e.g. research to use radars to detect enemy guild headquarters etc. 

 

maplestone

Faction is such an ugly word.

Why not simply have a massively multiplayer X-COM where each person has a base of their own and the ability to potentially cooperate/compete with other bases?  Boost the complexity of the crafting/research/diplomacy mechanics by a couple of orders of magnitude and have players build a social network of connections (that allows trade but risks alien infliltration). 

I say just keep the game that everyone knows and loves but scale it up ... and there's potential.

chryses

Nice! A good mechanic would be the option to link up (not physically) to boost research, engineering etc.  I guess that is where the community could come in. 

I just like the idea of having earth as a playing field in current times but within a sci-fi setting.  I think it would be very popular.  However aliens would need to be playable in my book.  I always feel an MMO suffers if you can't play both sides.

maplestone

I've not played the latest incarnation of the game, but the aliens of X-Com to me were like a force of nature, not a "side".  I prefer the idea that players (perhaps even the developers) never truly know true mind and motives of the aliens.

Bakkoda24

Originally posted by maplestone
I've not played the latest incarnation of the game, but the aliens of X-Com to me were like a force of nature, not a "side".  I prefer the idea that players (perhaps even the developers) never truly know true mind and motives of the aliens.

Agreed. To use another game as an example, you can look at the Tyranids from Warhammer 40K. In the first two games of the second generation, they were there to ruin your day and just be a horde. When they added them as a playable campaign in Retribution, it didn't really add anything to the game other than trying to put a face and personality on something that didn' really need it.

Karteli

It might be nice as a multiplayer lobby game, but as an MMORPG / MMOFPS .. ahh, not really.

 

Factions, especially 3, just spread everyone out.  Faction imbalances always determine who will win (sheer numbers).

 

With MMO's these days, it's less about strategy and the fear of dying, and more about just keep running in.  The saving grace might be if death actually had a penalty .. like you couldn't rejoin the battle, but could watch it in spectator mode..

 

EQNext, Wizardry, and others are trying to bring penalties back into dying.  XCOM should be no less, since that would jive with the original game.

 

XCOM is best left to a single player strategy game, though.

Threatlevel0

I'd just like to see a multiplayer focused, turn-based strategy game like XCOM Enemy Unknown.   

 

If you know tabletop wargaming like Warhammer 40k, or Warmachines and Hordes, etc.   Like that, only on PC.