I figured letting you decide what type of role you want them to play would make them more versatile, they be useful many different ways as they progress and you aren't just limited to only one minicon but there will be a limit, probably 3 on you at any time, and they will be rare.


Minicons will also be able to be triple changers but they may not have more than vehicle mode. A minicon target master may be able turn from a robot to mini jet to a hand blaster but he will not have 2 vehicle modes.

Minicons will "evolve" into the type of item you feed them the most.

Feed him defense items and he may powerlink to you to add a force field to your body.

Feed him offensive items such as gun parts and he may become a target master.

Feed him sensory items and he may powerlink to you to help you detect cloaked enemies or hidden items.

Feed him fuel processing and he may powerlink with you to boost your energon levels.

Feed him repair type items and he may powerlink to you repair your injuries over time.

Each minicon will also have a second ability based on what you feed him.

Defense: can broadcast a small force bubble over you or your allies, defense is minimal and can only last for a short time.

Offense: can attack enemies while in alt mode, eg: a tank minicon will fire shells, a jet minicon will launch missiles.

Sensory: will give your radar a wider range and alert you to possible traps and enemy lock ons.

Energy: will be able to locate types of fuel and radiation and convert it into energon, takes several minutes to do.

Repair: can repair you or team mates, can sometimes remove adverse effects such as that done by an EMP blast and can also help repair your ship.

Minicons will be rare and hard to find, but available to all who search for them. You can only take a maximum of 3 with you at a time but you can have more stored in your ship/base. Minicons while physically weak do make great ship hands as they are highly versatile. Several defense minicons could help protect your ship while you're not near it, offensive minicons could attack enemies, sensory type mincons could provide your ships automated guns with better targeting, energy minicons would make sure your ship is running at maximum efficiency and repair minicons could repair any damaged parts of your ship as long as your supplies last. Please remember that your minicons are much weaker than your average mech, while they do make a good crew they cannot survive for too long on their own.

 

Another little bit I thought would be cool would be the ability to NPC transformers become part of your crew. Random made Transformers you can rename and pick their alt mode so everyone has different crew members, maybe find a stasis pod with a protoform in it and rescue it and it could join your team. You could even give him/her some minicon partners to make them better at their job, give a soldier 2 target masters and a sensor minicon to increase his attack power, give a medic 2 repair minicons and an energy minicon to make them heal better, give a sniper type 2 sensor type minicons and a target master to increase his accuracy.

 

An MMO would be cool, but It'll probably work better as an MMO Action title with rpg elements then a straight-foward MMORPG. It'll probably work better for the franchise. Kinda like an MMO version of the TF PS2 game.

 

MMO First Person Shooter would be action, and as far as RPG elements all that RPG really means that players pretend they are their character, doesn't have to mean a player has to click an attack icon and wait for the attack happen like in WoW or FFXI.


Anyways the game I had in mind isn't the whole static combat type thing, where you stand still and cast spells, it's dynamic where you shoot your gun or swing your sword as soon as your push the button. It'd have actual attacks and hit boxes as opposed to the attacks on having intangible animations where a person running from a missile could hide behind a wall and the missile still hit them whereas in this game you could actually use a wall as cover from a missile or a laser blast. I prefer FPS games over static combat games because they require skill and fast thinking where as an MMORPG you just how someone power level you up to level 100 and you're near invincible.

 

So long as the gameplay isn't like 99% of the other MMO's out right now I'd be fine (i.e. grind fests, the same thing over 'n over with different scenery, the works).
DN

 

Nothing would be like that so dont worry. Most MMOs you click an enemy and then select an attack and let your guy do the fighting for you, on here you'd have to aim and pull the trigger yourself. Different worlds, different designs. Enemies would act differently than on other MMOs because it would be actual human players, there will be NPC enemies but a lot of them will be humans.

No one offers the same mission twice, unless it's mission to go somewhere to get fuel i.e. guard a convoy of ships bringing energon back to cybertron, autobots would guard it and decepticons would raid it for energon. Missions will be posted in places like Cybertron for things like "Balance of Power Tipping in Decepticon Favor" and it'd give a location, maybe a group of players from the Con side decided to attack a planet that has lots of energon and all available autobot and decepticon players will be able to rush over and help their faction, the outcome would depend on whichever side actually won the fight.

 

ive been wanting a TF MMO for a very very long time


the only problem i see is how daunting it would be to make one and make it work

most MMO's are fine because all their characters are "human." I think the big thing that would throw a wrench in it is Transforming. Finding a way to utilize both modes and then keep a huge level of customization is a pretty big nightmare .

There's ways to do it [like having transformation templates or something. like how the autobot cars all transform essentially the same, decepticon seekers, etc etc]

which would be something thats possible. have the template robot and then depending on what alt mode you have the game will just apply alt mode kibble into the robot form [or whatever]



there's ways of doing a TF MMO but i think publishers/developers would be a really tough crowd to sell this to mostly because you'd have to re-invent the MMO to make it. As far as MMO players go, if it aint broke dont fix it



but! that cant stop us from dreaming xD

 

Let me try to make my point a little clearer here.

Use the example of G1 Jetfire (the Macross style figure). He came with parts that could be attached to his F-14 mode. We'll just concentrate on the thrusters for this example. The thrusters when he transforms are visible on his back. There are three primary ways of handling this when rendering a 3-D model. The first is to make two different character models, one with the attachment, one without. This is fairly impractical with the amount of customization you are speaking of. The second is to have the computer model being made of separate models, like a leg piece with armor and one without, again using Jetfire as an example. This gets to be a problem in a heavy firefight when the computer is trying to render a dozen different robots, each with a couple of different models. Instead of just the animation for Jetfire running, we have to animate Jetfire's uppertorso moving, his left leg (with armor) and his right leg (with armor). Just adding a couple of different pieces to each robots can cut the number of available characters on screen by half or you start suffer from slowdown (game killer). The third
option that I mentioned and for the record, don't condone is to have the pieces disappear or fold in, similar to the way most of the parts that actually look like a camero fold into movie Bumblebee. That's what I mean by possibly making them have to look like the movie characters. I just didn't want to type that all out.

Another example would be Warpath. If you allow the character to change from treads to wheels, he's going to look a little odd when he transforms and he has treads on his arms. Optinns again: 1)Create second model 2)Render arms seperate from body. 3)Wheels/treads dissapper (shellformer/movie style).

Let me try to forecast your reaction, because I look forward to a developer in the future totally ruining this idea and dashing my hopes and dreams while drooling over the $60 I'm going to drop on this despite the bad reviews. I know you didn't cite specific characters, but if I can't tranform into a pastel pickup truck with a ridiculously small bed and kick young protobots off my Lookout Mountain, than I'm not interested. (Substitute Kup with whatever character the kids liked from the gawd-awful Energon.)

Second, if you're going to use locations from Transformers lore, specifically a paticularly "mostly harmless" planet called Earth, than size and scale will matter or you'll have a police motorcyle that's about the same size as an F-14, which is about the same size as a helicopter, that's about the same size as a tank that's about the same size as Datsun.

Agreed about the movie designs for the most part, btw. It makes the robots harder to tell apart quickle, particularly when they introduce several at once and they're using fast cuts in the scene. Plus, if a robot turns into a car, I want it to look like it has car parts.

 

So long as its not as bad as the Chinese MMO Age of Armor, which pretty much rips off transformers (and other popular mech franchises) wholesale. And is completely unplayable.

Age of Armor

 

That's why I encourage people to be willing to spend a monthly fee on any MMO. MMOs that are free to play always suck noodles, they don't have monthly fees coming in so they don't do a lot maintenance and they never fix any bugs and usually they spam ads in game to make the money they pay their employees and server rent with.

I'd pay anywhere from $10.99 - $15.99 a month for a good TF MMO.

 

Why, if you're going to include all universes, would you have to exclude the movie designs? Some of us actually do like them. If there were all universes, everyone could pick and choose.

 

I haven't gotten the opportunity to read the whole thread so I apolgize in advance for the repetition if there is any.

First off this is a great idea, and one that I am sure many of us have thought of. I have recently been bitten by the WoW bug again and resubscribed so my interest in MMO's are at a high point.

While it is important to to "grow" and keep the game experience enjoyable while removing as many of the negatives as you humanly can, there is a reason that many MMO's are designed around the grind premise that is so hated, and the case is the same for other aspects of those games. From the descriptions I have read (and again, I apologize if I am misinterpreting or missed some information) this game sounds more like a "halo" MMO than anything else. While that would be fun, more likely the game would stagnate quickly.

One situation is that if there is no level system you still will run into the same issues as mentioned when you power-level a character. Except that without a level cap there is really no way but an over-investment of time by a newer player to catch-up to an older by since the older player will presumably have sunk more time into the game and therefore aquired more skills/powers/abilities/phat lewt.

If you are banking on the skill/twitch abilities of each individual gamer, then what is there to differentiate this game from having a more round-based FPS/TPS that uses transformers?

As a side note it there appears to be a distinct dislike for "charging" attacks, and by that I mean (again another WoW example) casting lightning bolt or whatever takes a few seconds. I don't think the idea should be completely disregarded. In WoW and other games it serves a distinct balancing and lore-based purpose. The same things can be applied to this game, but obviously in fewer quantities. It isn't inconcievable to see a transformer with some kind of attack that is incredibly powerful and requires time to power-up.

A similar argument could be made for the class structure of a lot of MMO's. While it may sound tempting initially to do away with a mechanic (healer) class, having people run around with every skill in the game as 100% proficiency could get lame quickly. Every transformer is an island then and theres no need for player interaction.

Basically I am saying don't disregard ideas in other games just because they are "objectively bad". Those companies included those features for a reason to either make the game more balanced/fun/or more likely more profitable which is a relevant point.

Again I just happened upon this thread and decided against my better judgement to post before reading everything but I will get to that hopefully after work today.

 

I don't think TF Online would be anything like Halo, no clue why you think it would.

Certain things would take time to recharges like certain guns that fire charged blasts or missiles launchers that have to be reloaded, upgraded will allow them to be fired faster but never instantly.

There is no need for the WoW type of classes as I hate how in MMOs it's like "you can heal others but cannot use offensive weapons" and things like that. I think it should be like in real life, a medic in the army can shoot someone if needed.

Skills are not all instant and there will be a qausi leveling feature, over times of doing certain things, defeating enemies and things like that your spark gets stronger. Certain things cannot be upgraded until your spark is stronger as you wouldn't be able to use them properly because you'd still have a weak will.

Skills will also take dedication and commitment to improve so no one person will be able to do everything, you need special tools to heal another bot and those tools do take up space on your body so no one will have every upgrade available either. I just don't see the reason to make having to go through a grindfest to have a decent character.

New players will be able to catch up to others in due time, depending on how smartly they play the game. There will be low end missions and tasks for those just beginning the game and they wouldn't be able to be attacked by other factions until they got a certain "level".


The main reason I don't want it to a be a WoW clone like you seem to want it to be is because that type of play doesn't compliment the style of Transformers. I look at it like this, do you think it would be fun to click "fire gun" and wait 13 seconds for your gun to fire then wait 30 seconds to fire it again? What about clicking "Transform" and having to stand still while it "charges" for about 45 seconds then transform? and of course with that type of game engine you could only drive about 25 mph no matter what level you are but what would you care you'd be driving around as a level 75 shaman decepticon screaming "FOR THE HORDE!!!"


SORRY BUT NO THANKS. I'd rather play an action game than another WoW Clone.

 

I mentioned halo because it is an easily recognizable FPS which was something that you said that was how this game would be geared (FPS not halo). I could've said Doom, quake, haze, CoD4 or any others. Just the first thing that came to mind. FPS with lots of combat but no leveling/gear would lead me to believe the structure would not be too dissimilar.

While I can understand the frustration of class restrictions when you think about it, it does make sense. Doctors in real life are not operating cranes at construction sites, or professional athletes diagnosing mental disorders, or soldiers being veteranarians. Of course there are people who are capable of and DO having multiple jobs and in many cases drastically different ones, if you are a medic you are a medic, not a sharshooter. Ratchet/wheeljack was by no means the greatest autobot warrior. Of course being creatures that live for millions of years it would make sense that they would pick up a few new tricks along the way, but in G1 at least you see a distinct division of labor. Now you can argue that you should have a broader range of possibilities mixing mechanic abilities with....I dunno something else random, but you get this same sort of effect with hybrid classes, and specialization isn't without merits. I would think people would gravitate toward specific core things, being a good healer, a good sniper, whatever based on what options you give them.

The reason the grindfest exists is there is no real reason to continue playing if you get the instant gratification effect of better equipment or parts in this case. Further, if the equipment IS better, then how is a lowbie/non-geared person supposed to survive? If they can, then what's the point of the equipment? Is there really a difference between the missions you are proposing and the quest system that is in place elsewhere?

The description you are giving really just sounds like a pay-per-month FPS. That also somehow doesn't have "charging" attacks, but there are recharge rates for certain weapons/abilities? Again, I am just asking to allay some problems that arise in my head when I think about the concept for this

Actually I don't have a desire for a WoW clone, but I also don't have a desire for a halo clone with TF skins. You seem to exaggerate the time "wasted" with certain effects in WoW. Also, TF would fit a "classic" MMORPG, but there is nothing wrong with going another route.

If your abilities in the game are decided by skill and not in-game level or ability values, again this would lead me to the above assumption of a FPS clone.

I am not trying to burst people's bubbles just playing devil's advocate because I would love a good MMO TF game. So please don't take any of my questions/criticisms personally and more...well like I said devil's advocate.

EDIT: Well I lost the edit I had...so attempt #2 and likely not worded as well since I am rushing.

After re-reading your post it would seem you want an MMORPG but not call it an MMORPG. For example from your last post you have:

A "leveling" system
A "backpack" system
"Charging" attacks/abilities (then no charging attacks/abilities)
No class system, but instead on based on gear you have.

Granted these can be vaguely seen in some FPS's or other "active" games as you would put it. But you make WoW seem like a game of risk where you get sandwiches in between turns or something.

Moving on, the last point is interesting with no class system, but you mentioned a CR chamber visit to change abilities. This sounds suspiciously like spending gold at a trainer re-spec'ing a class... Obviously you could implement wider restrictions on what people can do but either they can "respec" on the fly and essentially be 4-5 classes at any given time, or they have to visit a CR chamber and you are essentially recreating a standard MMORPG respec

In addition in regards to "charging" attacks (someone give me another term please), there are transformer based reasons to have a lag time between pressing a button and the result. For example it would take ironhide say 1.5-3 seconds to change from liquid nitrogen to acid (similar to say casting a spell in WoW which takes a similar time frame). Now this isn't quite a straight comparison because the attack would be after ironhide switched, but you can see the point I'm sure. Mid-combat there are times that something wouldn't be instantaneous.

Since I am rushing, and incredibly tired I may be missing something so please correct me where I am in error.

 

I came up with mechanics for getting defeated.

In most MMOs if you're killed in combat you can either wait for a rez or warp back to a hospital but this game will have some differences.


Damages:

Minimal Damage: Can be repaired in a short time, will not effect any of your functions. A player with the proper tools or a repair minicon can fix you up as good as new in a few nanoclicks.

Heavy Damage: May effect some of your abilities such as weapons systems and transformations, these wounds are more severe and take a longer time to heal through regular means, seek a CR chamber immediately. Stay this damaged too long and you'll go into stasis lock.

Severe/Critical Damage: You will be low on energy, unable to transform, minicons will not be able to repair you fast enough and stasis lock is imminent. You are very weak in this state and attacks that usually do little damage to you will be enough to kill you. A CR Chamber will take several cycles for repairs to take effect, please use caution when you are this damaged.

Death: You are too far gone, even for stasis lock, but be at ease for your spark will be restored into an empty protoform and your body restored. Your spark is downloaded to another protoform in the emergency medical bay. When you are restored into an empty protoform you keep your alt mode, appearance and weapons but your energon levels will be depleted completely and all weapons systems will be offline for several minutes, during this time you will be not able to transform, refuel and your mobility will be limited to walking slowly.

These effects vary by "level". The higher a character is in the rankings the more of a penalty he gets for being defeated. A newer character will be able to bounce back faster than a veteran character.


Healing:

Minicons: Repair Minicons can heal most minor injuries but major injuries can often be out of their hands.

Players: Some players who take on the roles of "medics" will have better equipment and tools that can be used to healing, but the time this take varies on equipment type and player skill.

CR Chambers: The best way to heal any injury, the time it takes depends of the severity of the injuries. A shot up arm make take several minutes to heal where as a shattered body may take several days to heal. CR Chambers can be found all over Cybertron, in player bases and even in personal ships.

Stasis Lock: a way of shutting down most of your bodies functions in order to focus on healing, this can slowly regain energon as well as repair some minor injuries, be advised that stasis lock is not good when you are critically damaged. This is similar to other MMOs "rest" ability.


so what's everyone think of these?

 

I would love there to be a TF MMO. With the general awareness of TF's on the rise and the complete absence of a good Sci-fi MMO, I think transformers could really attract a lot of attention. Plus all the basic gameplay mechanics were quickly ironed out above. The battle between good and evil can be easily taken from all of the series. I just think it would fit the already established model for a successful game and would need very little creative development. Great topic!! I would buy it in a heartbeat.

 

I would like a good MMO Transformer game. Sounds like a great idea with a lot of the basics already figured out.

 

WingedWeasel no one cares what you have to say.

I never said switching weapons would be instant but you will not fire your F$#&ing weapon once then wait 12 seconds to fire again, certain weapons follow certain rules. A pistol in real life can be fired rapidly in succession where as a sniper rifle will have to be reloaded, same in this game.

You can fire as many energon blast as you want until your gun overheats, once it overheats you have to wait for it to cool down before you can fire it again. A shoulder mounted minigun will have to start spinning before it fires any bullets. Rocket pods will have to reload its rockets before a player will be able to fire them again, thats enough of a "recharge/charge" time we're not casting spells.

Once again you fail completely to understand what I'm saying, people want to be able to shoot their own guns at enemies not select and enemy and click an attack and wait for their character to do it over and over and over with no skill involved at all. understand?

Please stop putting down FPS/Action games just because you favor static combat in games that you grind to get anywhere, this game will take a persons skills, commitment and the ability to plan ahead in high regard, it will be much more rewarding than killing level 5 whatevers for 6 weeks straight to get to level 50.


Please learn to read before posting from now on, oh and static combat sucks. It seems everyone here would rather have dynamic combat and if you want a TF MMORPG then please go play Age of Armor.



Not trying to be mean or anything, I'm just tired of him spouting the same crapola every post he makes "IT NEEDS TO BE AN MMORPG LIKE WOW"


Thanks for everyone who has made great replies and say they'd love a game like this, it means a lot to me and maybe if Hasbro pays attention we'll get a game like this and not WoW clone with TF skins.

The game will be first person/third person depending on what the player wants to see it as and it can be changed on the fly.

I want it to be a shooter/action game so you HAVE to aim your gun to shoot someone, it'll take skill to kill someone as opposed to I click on them spam random magic attacks and hit them with my magic sword a few times. MMORPGs are very, very lame in that way and that type of gameplay would not work for an action game. My game idea already has enough RPG elements in it without you wanting to cast spells and have wait times on it.

 

This is all that concerns me. Stasis lock should not be an option, and if it is, it should be exactly like death, now lets take a cue from the PS2 Transformers game.

Let's say you are low on health, you kill an enemy and gain energon, which regain health dependent on which type it is, Normal(15% recharge), or Ultra(55% recharge)

Back to Stasis Lock, the only way it could possibly work is if there was a sort of Beast Wars thing where if you stay in robot mode too long among energon crystals.

Also, around what time circa would this happen? modern? prehistoric? what.

Andf one more thing, would there be beast modes? would there be powerlinxing? what about combining?

 

Wow your freaking AWESOME! This sound like it would be an amazing game that would bore me after 1 hour of gamplay. Love the minicon idea. PREDACON for life!. If anything id love to be a Lion, and a Jet. HAHAHA! I hope it would be like halo, i hate that game. I think you could add levels but make them moreso ranks mabey? I really dunno. Mabey you could set guilds up like your own little division of the Autobot, Predcon ECT army. The select few Leaders and Jr Leaders of the guild would have a combiner mode. The person who controls the combiner mode would be a puzzle to me though. Dont make it the pay per month bull shit. Id like cash shop items. Oh and youd have to have drone like enemys, and bosses would be cool as well. But I think you mabe could add a little bit like oblivion in it. Gah Ive kinda confuse myself know!!!! I dont really care for PvP. Its fun sometimes but not all the time. I live killing the underling drone type things aswell. GARFEILD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!