The future of Battlezone 2

[GSH]

After the recent changes in the Battlezone 2 matchmaking services, I decided to take a small break to do some research & development as to how to best avoid such problems in the future. Based on current game industry trends and best practices, the following features will be implemented.

All gameplay will be online
Following the lead of several games industry giants, a connection to an online server will be required for everything. Launch the game? Be online. Play single player? Be online. Adjust graphics options? Be online. Purchase DLC? Be online. Additionally, all gameplay features will be validated on these servers, so that one may not play for more than 20 minutes disconnected from the servers. Based on the assurances of these industry giants, even the most basic server located on a 56k dialup line is sufficient to handle thousands or even dozens of simultaneous players. To achieve this, maps will be reduced in size considerably, and all games, even singleplayer will be done in a social environment where other players will be on the same map -- though no direct interactions will be possible.

Microtransactions & DLC

In order to ease the cost for new players, Battlezone 2 will be separated into pieces and sold as DLC. The core game with an options menu will be free. Instant Action will cost an additional $0.99, Deathmatch $1.49, MPI $1.99, and Strategy $14.99. Race:Pluto will be $99.99.

Microtransactions will be fully built into the game. Many popular freemium titles have a model where players must wait for the next piece of gameplay to progress, or pay. Battlezone 2 has always supported this, where the slowly building scrap meter delays players' actions. With integrated microtransactions, technology not readily available in 1999, players will finally be able to bypass the delays. Packs of 20, 40, 100, 1,000, and 10,000 scrap will be available for real-time purchase in game to eliminate the waits. To ensure a fair playing field, all players in a game will be notified when another team has purchased scrap, and have the option to match the purchase for a slight discount.

All players will be required to register a credit card in advance of games so that purchasing is easier. Security will be assured -- with SHA-1, SHA-2 and SHA-3 algorithms in existence, with higher number representing higher levels of security, all credit card numbers will be stored in a +10 level of encryption, ROT-13.

Players will be able to collect and trade items from their games. A Real Money Auction House (RMAH) will be present, allowing players to sell and purchase sniped units in game. Sniping will be dynamically re-balanced based on supply and demand for ships -- if more than 15 ships of a class are available for sale, all snipes will fail until one (or more) is purchased. This limit may be changed in the future based on the size of the BZ2 community.

These features are expected to be available at this same time next year.

-- GSH

[bigbadbogie]

I'd wager that you thought that one up on April the 2nd last year, kicked yourself, then spent the entire year refining it and hanging out to post it.

Granted, you had me until about 1/4 of the way down... then the utter absurdity of it made me remember the date.

[Red Spot]

Should have kept that to yourself and leave this to the more gulleble ones

[Ded10c]

Well played, sir.

[Iron_Maiden]

Initial reaction: What the Hell? No!

Current reaction: Oh.....[slight chuckle and grin]

Nicely Done.

[Apollo]

While GSH may just be engaged in the spirt of the day, there is a game called SeaFight that people spend thousands on to buy their ships, upgrade weapons buy Islands and fortify them etc. From what i've heard the concept is very profitable and has a large community. (i've heard people drop $1500 on a ship with np)

FYI those prices are too low, Atari gets 20% of the gross plus the up front license fee.

[TwinShadow]

Funny thing, a lot of that is true as it is. XD So it actually made sense to make a joke out of it. Nice one though, I like it.

[Red Spot]

FYI those prices are too low, Atari gets 20% of the gross plus the up front license fee.

Race:Pluto will be $99.99.

Packs of 20, 40, 100, 1,000, and 10,000 scrap will be available for real-time purchase in game to eliminate the waits.

Too low?
$100,- for something thats broken is quite steep.
I'm not even going into dept about paying for 'scrap packs'

[Axeminister]

Must admit honestly, you got me hook line and sinker. It perplexed me so much I didn't even respond last night when I read this. I thought, wow, he must really have good stuff in the pipes. But I did notice the price for the strats compared to the mpi's and wondered for a second what that was all about. I briefly thought, I guess the strat players cause the most grief so it makes sense he would want more money from them, but I shook my head and just went back to what I was doing and tried to forget about it.

[Apollo]

Too low?
$100,- for something thats broken is quite steep.
I'm not even going into dept about paying for 'scrap packs'

Atari wants 100k for the eprom of the old 1980 Battlezone, it's not about if it works, it's how well it's known.

[Josiah]

Initial reaction: What the Hell? No!

Current reaction: Oh.....[slight chuckle and grin]

Nicely Done.

this

[General BlackDragon]

Race:Pluto will be $99.99.

$100,- for something thats broken is quite steep.

Race Pluto works, what are you on about? It was fixed by N1 for me back in 2008. It was then added to PB6.0? 6.1?

[GSH]

Yes, this was an April Fools Day joke. Sad thing is, if a b-z-3 ever came into existence by a modern publisher, my original post would probably be a design document instead of a joke.

And $100 for Race:Pluto is the Horse Armor of BZ2 DLC.

And no, large parts were inspired by events of just this past year. SimCity (online) and Diablo 3 were the inspirations for the always-online & RMAH parts.

-- GSH

[Red Devil]

being a Bf3 player, you actually had me going until i hit the microtransactions part.

[Psyringe]

I think everyone, as a community, should consider finding ways to distribute/promoting as much of this game, "legally", free.
Any attempt to make money on a dying engine such as this only hurts advancement or growth, not that I took it seriously.
Grouping the all patches together (including betas) on a single static page - free - hosted on and available from multiple servers, updated as patches are released. Similarly with mods. Updating imagery and presence - that should be the "plan" for the next year.

The biggest "hurt" this game has is that "Audiences", or players, need to hunt down all the patches, mods, pieces, game files, etc individually with searches, and aren't finding necessary information on websites & servers that *they* trust as gamers (understand a sort of "sheep" reference), and trust me when I say most wont spend more than an hour trying. An effort needs to be taken from *everybody* remaining in the community to do this. The MODDB presence is all-time low, and other gaming sites have little to no data or reference that this community even exists, or the files that it takes the time to produce.

While I don't advocate piracy - ways to encourage game population growth needs to be considered. That was my original intent of being here, through video media, but the General & I may have a way to help supplement a method of this by taking something wildly popular and putting it into an engine players would consider doing almost anything to get their hands on, even if performing the taboo.

Take considerations as to why games like Renegade, Counterstrike 1.6, and even Jedi Knight have a bigger gaming population than this game - surviving today - it's effort to really slam dunk Modding - giving audiences what they want in their respective game engine. You're all still here, and if everyone worked together to take every bit of information available here, consolidate it all, and put it all on just the "biggest" gaming file sites - more users would trip over it than accidentally googling for Battlezone II, crossing fingers that someone actually searches for it & takes the time to figure all the forums out during their single "I want to play something fresh" sitting -- they simply wont.

If it weren't for some in the community - I wouldn't have personal "reference files", texts, advice, data - which are scattered across this site and many others and I would have never considered looking for it all. Consolidation of information, data, & imagery - that should be the year long goal - so at least if this forum dies, everything created will remain on the megaservers in zipped categorized files hosted by corporate giants for another underground audience to pick it up. BZII servers have fallen in the past, and their data lost. It's only a matter of time in this respect.

So what you do you guys think of that Year long plan?