Ilumino

Join Date 11/2008

Persistent Worlds

So I've heard mention that Elemental will work similar to Spore, in that users will be able to upload their own custom creations to the game.

I'm a little confused here. Spore worked because the Universe was persistent for all players. A player's creation got uploaded to a master server, where it was dispersed to each user's computer.

A Turn-Based Strategy doesn't work like this. Players usually connect to each other via LAN or VIA IP. There is no "master server". Also, if there was a master server world to connect to (which I have heard mention of), how do thousands of players upload their creations to a single persistent map? Wouldn't it get crowed REALLY fast?

Or are we talking about many, many game worlds playing on a large server where players can join one of their choosing? If this is the case, that's not really like Spore at all.

Now here's my suggestion:

I think it would be cool if there was a way to build a massive persistent map, divided up into regions. Each region would be "battleground" where players could connect to compete in a persistent, ongoing war. The entire "world/server" would share all the same races, items, etc, based on what users would upload, but regions would be split up into battlegrounds, on a smaller scale. So players could upload their own maps, which would turn into new "battlegrounds", adding a new region to the world.

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+152

I don't have any real picture of the "persistent universe" mode yet either, but I'm pretty sure that the "Spore-like" stuff is about publishing (hopefully with manual options) stuff that you create to a server and being able to download stuff (also hopefully with manual options) from that repository. Kind of like if us GC2 players could all share our ship designs from inside the game interface.

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Here's something else to add to my initial questions:

A persistent world (PW) is a virtual world that continues to exist even after a user exits the world and that user-made changes to its state are, to some extent, permanent.

-Wikipedia

So for a TBS game like Elemental, how in the world does this apply here? If I'm not logged in to the persistent game, how can other players keep playing without me? Does my turn get skipped somehow? But that would seem to unbalance the game.

If you are truly defining "persistent" as Wikipedia does (traditional definition), then it leads me to believe that conquering the other factions is not the be-all, end-all goal of this game. Maybe I'm misinformed, maybe this game does not use turns, but real-time instead.

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I think "persistent world" is more like Civ 4's Pitboss; a dedicated server that processes logins and turns. Just a guess.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2393

The things people submit into the game universe end up as part of all game universes depending on the options players choose.

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Ah. Okay, that makes way more sense now, I should have seen that before. That, indeed, makes it very much like Spore.

Will a player's game get streaming content automatically, if he so chooses, or is it a choice made before a game even begins?

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RonLugge

Join Date 05/2004

+50

I'd imagine a lot of it has to be before the game ends -- it'd be hard to add a new custom race in the middle of the game! Unless it happens as a random event...

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Quoting Ron Lugge,

reply 6

I'd imagine a lot of it has to be before the game ends -- it'd be hard to add a new custom race in the middle of the game! Unless it happens as a random event...

That sort of contradicts what's on the dev-post today:

The idea is that the worlds you get will slowly evolve based on what players make. New races, new types of buildings, new technologies, new spells, new units, etc. will slowly find their way into the game if users choose to the option to allow user submitted content.

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+152

Quoting Ilumino,

reply 7

That sort of contradicts what's on the dev-post today:

The idea is that the worlds you get will slowly evolve based on what players make. New races, new types of buildings, new technologies, new spells, new units, etc. will slowly find their way into the game if users choose to the option to allow user submitted content.

I think the plural "worlds" there is the crux. I read that to mean you don't get content updates mid-game, but new stuff can be an option when you start a new game.

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There is a game that uses that feature its cold "EVE-ONLINE"

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Of course it's cold, it's a space-MMO.

On topic though: I also think the new content will be added in-between games, as each game is a 'world'. However, I'd like to know more about the options that players can use to customise the streaming content.

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