Traveller MMO?????

[Gatsby]

I am sure this has been discussed in detail elsewhere...but...

PLEASE! I want it! I never have played a MMO, but TMMO would threaten my social skills like nothing else!

"Honey, did you pick up the kids?"

"Errr....I'll go right now! I was just making sure my cargo got through to Efate! What with the war and all, I needed to make sure we Jumped into a safe place." :devil:

If it was real time, as well, I'd schedule my life around one week Jump intervals.... :rofl:


Someone, somewhere, cut a deal! Traveller gaming used to be computer friendly!

 

[jappel]

This has come up several times in the past, and generally the question or request is posed by people with no experience in MMOs. Unfortunately, I'll have to deflate the dream balloon a bit for you.

Traveller, as written, is actually poor fodder for an MMO for many reasons. Key among them is that Traveller does not, as a game, lend itself to the behavioralist mechanisms (rewarding gameplay character improvement and "loot") which are fundamental to keeping subscribers paying for a game.

Interstellar travel would have to be handled completely differently; who would play a game where your character was stuck in jump space for a week? Perhaps by yourself, if no other players were making that jump? Ditto for communications.

MMOs work when the players have something to do, generally with other peolpe (though there's any number of people who spend much if not all their game time soloing.) The vast majority of players look to combat against various foes to achieve this, and all players are stuck with that model. "Kill the monster and take their stuff" is not part of Traveller's DNA.

That's not to say someone couldn't take various aspects of the OTU, or certain aspects of Traveller, and make a successful game. But it would be a very different game than Traveller as we know it.

For examples of successful SF MMOs look at EVE Online. Star Trek Online launches today and looks promising (though I won't be playing). The original Star Wars MMO, Star Wars Galaxies, was initially successful but managled horribly over the course of it's run (according to knowledgeable friends, never played it).

 

[Murdoc]

Hmm, I haven't seen these other threads yet, but I'm not so sure I agree. I think that a lot of Traveller would fit MMOs well. One of the main things in many MMOs is trading, which is a core activity in Traveller. Exploration, ship combat, mining, empire and company building, I've seen all these things in other MMOs. And as for "getting stuff", I remember reading a rationale for why Traveller pcs don't get much in the way of skills was because one of the main "rewards" was material things: new weapons, armor, fancy tech, ships, and of course, money. Heck, I think that the whole TL system could be used to advantage just by players wanting higher TL stuff (kind of similar to going up character "levels", but for equipment instead of pcs). And in the end, I don't see the Star Trek MMO having getting stuff as a primary reward given that universe, so if they can make a game out of that, then I think that there is more flexibility than some may think.

We all know that there is plenty of story potential, with so many different worlds, cultures, aliens, and political entities. The game already has character "classes", although there isn't really a need for that I think, in order to be a good MMO (but it would be Traveller to do so of course).

Now the whole jump system I will grant is a major issue. It may need to be either sacrificed or "simulated" somehow in order to work. How I'm not sure, but just because it is a problem without an immediately visible solution, does not mean that it is an insurmountable problem with no practical solution. The person who can conquer this problem could be well on the way to helping build a great game. Heck, for all we know, it may be one of those problems which, when solved, provide a unique benefit that no one had ever even thought of before, giving a TMMO a leg up on the competition. And then of course there is the cross-marketing that would promote the paper rpg as well...

So until I see more problems to make this a not worthwhile idea, I think that it is at least worth thinking about, which I admit there may be many such problems I don't know, potentially solvable or not. But for now I just see it as an idea with remarkable potential and a single, big obstacle, and personally I like challenging logic problems. I'll give this some thought. If anyone else has any ideas (or more problems), then this is the thread to hash it out.

 

[Beech]

Interestingly from the Eve Online entry on Wikipedia:

According to the developers Eve Online evolved from the classic computer game Elite, which itself was based on concepts from the science-fiction role-playing game Traveller.

 

[Space Hamster]

I second that Eve Online is probably the closest game to Traveller. There is no ground aspect to the game. It is all related to your ship. You are captain of this ship. You can have many ships that serve different roles. You can fly only one ship at a time. The game has speculative trading and missions from spaceports. It is FFA PvP (Free For All Player vs. Player) so if you leave the high security systems the other players may gank you if you are not prepared. There are large crafting and mining elements to the game as well. As a warning, some people call this a spreadsheet game as there is a lot of book keeping to it. The book keeping is automatic so it is not a lot of typing just a lot of information you can look at to make decisions.

The way you travel from system to system is through jump gates. You need to get within 2km of the gate and activate it. You then load into the next system that takes about 3 to 5 seconds. Inside the system you have three speeds that travel at. The slowest is variable and is intended for combat and ship placement. The second speed is for ships properly equipped, this is an out of combat speed. If you need to travel a long distance in an asteroid field to get a particular resource you would use this second speed. The final in system speed is warp speed that you use to get around the system as they are quite huge and I would not want to guess how long it would take to cross a system at combat speed. To use the fastest speed you select a destination in the system and select warp to. You travel at a very fast speed and they distort what you see of the system a little as you travel at this speed.

The game is a skill based game that you train skills to gain abilities. The training time is in real time. You do not do anything to gain skills except to queue them up and make sure you are constantly training. They have many different skills to train and you can spend many real years learning them.

The player guilds are called Corporations. They have many Corporations that establish sovereignty in the different systems. This is a large element of the PvP.

 

[Zparkz]

I would like to see a Traveller like MMO. My wishlist of features would be:

- Deckplans
- Starship design (also internal / see above)
- Realistic as possible FPS style combat.
- No levels
- Skill level earned through using them, and lost of a skill isn't used in a certain time.

I have tried Eve once 4 or 5 years ago and recently started a new trial account. I like the concept of training skills the Eve way, but in general the learning curve of the game is just staggering.

It may be difficult to design a game where levels aren't a part of the character development as this is usually tied to the reward of doing dangerous stuff (and loot of course)

 

[Kilgs]

Eve Online is an excellent representation of Traveller. As the game evolves, it will become even more so. Station-walking (leaving the ship) will be enabled soon as will Dust514 (mercenary game on consoles that have impact on MMO).

 

[sfisque]

Traveller mmo

I am sure this has been discussed in detail elsewhere...but...

PLEASE! I want it! I never have played a MMO, but TMMO would threaten my social skills like nothing else!

"Honey, did you pick up the kids?"

"Errr....I'll go right now! I was just making sure my cargo got through to Efate! What with the war and all, I needed to make sure we Jumped into a safe place." :devil:

If it was real time, as well, I'd schedule my life around one week Jump intervals.... :rofl:


Someone, somewhere, cut a deal! Traveller gaming used to be computer friendly!

i would be lying if i said i have not "toyed" with the idea of trying to build such a beast. i have written client/server stuff in the past and did some stuff with java3d. if anyone else has this "nagging itch" we should talk.

== stanton

 

[Zparkz]

I have the itch, alas not the programming skills though.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

I hear they have a cream for that...

I too am very interested! But no itching, I stay at TAS Hostels.