Multiplayer madness!

[yerkyerk]

First off, this is an intended suggestion for DLC. And it'll probably only work if there are closed secured servers, which seems to be a farcry from reality at this point. But if there's going to be secure servers, I think a nice addition would be a multiplayer package DLC. Buying the multiplayer DLC would allow access to secure servers or something (it's gotta be paid, right?).

Anyway, why limit any multiplayer fun besides coop to first person shooters?
I think the aRPG genre has an excellent position for offering great team-based action.

Here's a few suggestions;
Capture the Flag. Well, quite simple really, works as in multiplayer. Whichever team captures the most flags (doesn't have to be flags) from the other teams' base wins.
Attack/Defend. One team defends and gets a bonus modifier. The other team has to break through and complete an objective (wether that's stealing an item and returning it, pushing a bunch of levers or destroying an object).
Tug of War - but instead of pulling, pushing something into the enemy's base (for balance, so defense gets the close-to-respawn defense bonus). You'll have to take control of a cart loaded with a bomb - and once you have control, push it behind enemy lines and blow up their base. Get support from respawning npc's.
DotA - 'nuff said

Balance would be a problem - but since it's mostly a campaign-based game and this would be added for fun, I think it's not that much of an issue as with, let's say, DotA or HoN. And if it sells well, balance can always be tuned.

[andreyy]

It's AoS, not DotA ;p

[Malpheas]

wait wait... No, more like another little known game called NOX. Not bad ideas. Kinda fun. Closed servers and a different way to do things. As well, could make it rewards based and force players to make new characters for it.

Interesting, YK.

[alexei]

I actually thinking of the same thing to start a multiplayer thread if there gotta be secure sever in the future. Since you already started it, let's get going!

Capture the Flag.
- nothing much can be said. Just like many other game. Capture the flag not necessarily capturing only one flag, flags might be good and challenging too :)

Attack/Defend
- just like it said, one team defending and another one attacking. Employing mechanic that enable team to take turn attacking/defending might be some work, but like yerk said, if it sell well, it always can be done.
- I think this is like multiplayer of World in Conflict.

Tug of War
- Carrying cart (not actually carry, but push cart that move on itself) to other enemy base or bringing something to your base.
- I think like a campaign in Warcraft 3 where we fight with sentinel warden to take cart that imprison Illidan to a portal.

DotA
- 'nuff said

Other than that

Arena
- duel might be good I think. Many people like to compete and show off their build.
- 1v1, 3v3 and 5v5.
- Finally we can find out whose has stronger character.

Ranking or stat
- Implement ranking or stat for multi-player mode fights is fascinating as well encouraging player to compete.

If all this become reality, I can't see why GD couldn't be successful.

[Roros]

I'd love a well thought out and (relatively) balanced versus aspect, but I wouldn't want it to eat into the development of the singleplayer portion.

The biggest issue with versus in these type of games is that what's required to be efficient in PvP is almost always entirely different than being efficient in PvE, and as a result the class/skill/gear balance goes out of whack.

I've never balanced an rpg (let alone a competitive one) to know what it takes, but I could see it maybe making sense to design the game modes around the PvE classes, instead of twisting the PvE classes into something that tries to work for PvP.

Say, if you had a class who was primarily concerned with AoE's, he's not going to be usable in 1v1 duels, but he might have a use for a mode involving npc mobs like DotA and such. A tank will have no place in team deathmatch as nobody will target him, but he might be useful for capturing flags or holding control nodes.

[eisprinzessin]

I've never bothered much about PvP and was not concerned about, if a skill is good only for PvE or only for PvP. But it's a fair point.

GD will be (TQ is) for single player and co-op mode. Would assume that any single player build has sufficient skills to make its stand in PvP, too. Some co-op builds might have limited use in PvP though.

[alexei]

Adding new ideas:

Town Defense (Tower Defense)
- just like it sound, it's tower defense.
- protect town from surging monster spawned before they reach town and destroying a structure (what we need to protect).
- a bit different from typical tower defense though, is that the monster is actually attacking player. But not all of them try to attack player. We player get his hand full with monster to take care, some of the monster slip through to the town.

[Xifi]

The Tug of War idea nice, but I can't really imagine how that would look in a ARPG. Of course it would be very fun to see it, since ARPG often just have a normal campaign co-op thingy.
Also, it reminds me of the Payload mode in Team Fortress 2.

[yerkyerk]

There's a Tug of War in Warcraft 3: the Frozen Throne, where you have to pull a cage with Illidan in it back to your base. A bit weird, but the best mission I played. Unfortunately, after playing it once it was too easy. So it needs some adjustments - but that's basically what I had in mind.

Perhaps two payloads instead of one going both ways would work better..

[kylol]

I like the idea of competitive team based multiplayer DLC in an online arpg, but i REALLY think the focus should NOT be on direct pvp combat. It would simply be too unbalanced. Maybe some very hard dungeons tuned for a set amount of players where two groups race to defeat the boss and you get extra loot if you win the race. Or maybe a mode where one (enemy) team quickly gets to spawn out traps and groups of mobs and one player team has to try to defeat it, and perhaps the enemy team could also play as certain mobs in the dungeon / bosses. Er, ok, my ideas are kind of terrible. But something competitive that isnt horribly unbalenced character versus character pvp. One because it wouldnt be fun, but moreso two because i never want to see my pve class nerfed for some side DLC pvp.

[yerkyerk]

Dungeon race would be fun :) Give the loosing team no loot and the winning team a little bit extra loot (like 25% or so). And a statistic win ofcourse.