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[Folly]

Why is that exactly?

[Footkerchief]

Because that would only allow armies to fight at fortresses, instead of anywhere in the world they happen to meet.

[wallie79r]

There are actually several moderately successful mmorts's, though none are particularly mainstream. Beyond Protocol, Saga, Boundless Planet, Shattered Galaxy, Battleforge, a few others. They tend to be either absurdly simple or of a complexity surpassing that of even DF. A few of them are even fun, and I've heard rumours that one or two are profitable. That said, I can't imagine an MMO dwarf fortress being enjoyable. If nothing else, I can't picture many players having the patience to stick with a fortress long enough for the higher-level interactions that make MMOs fun to be able to occur.

[praguepride]

No offense, but WoW is wildly successful despite our gripes and groans.

"As of January 22, 2008, World of Warcraft has surpassed 10 million subscribers worldwide, with more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and about 5.5 million in Asia."

Given a monthly subscription is what... $15 a month means they make $1.8 billion a year.

I don't know about you but I'd say a billion dollar a year video game is hot stuff.

Doesn't mean I like it, support it, or thinkt hat DF should be an MMO, but just saying. MMO's are all the rage because you can get people to KEEP PAYING for the same game.

[yaklin]

my two bits for online DF

one map with 2-4 players on a LAN that play together either working together, killing each other, living the longest, or building the biggest or most epic construction ever.
the players decide on a region, decide where to play on that region, then play.
I just dont think that MMODF will work because it will take to much processing and programing to play like the single player DF, also as other people pointed out people usually abandon a fort when it either gets to hard or to easy, I know I do

[Sowelu]

I just don't see how sieges work in an asynchronous environment, if you actually want to get something BACK from your siege.

So you send your soldiers out, stop playing, and upload your game.  Then what?  When does it get the results?  Does the receiving player need to finish the siege before the server gives your units back?

Maybe the server says that if the victim doesn't respond within 24 hours, the attackers just never got there, and return unharmed...  But still.  There's a lot of stuff that doesn't add up.  Can't your siegers get hurt when they're out in the field?  You NEED to know what happens at the target site.  But if you play 10x as fast and 10x as often as your victim, that's just not going to happen!

[profit]

No offense, but WoW is wildly successful despite our gripes and groans.

"As of January 22, 2008, World of Warcraft has surpassed 10 million subscribers worldwide, with more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and about 5.5 million in Asia."

Given a monthly subscription is what... $15 a month means they make $1.8 billion a year.

I don't know about you but I'd say a billion dollar a year video game is hot stuff.

Doesn't mean I like it, support it, or thinkt hat DF should be an MMO, but just saying. MMO's are all the rage because you can get people to KEEP PAYING for the same game.

And ironicly MMO's fail continiously.

I have beta'ed 3 that have failed... (suprisingly I even told them they would fail because they were boring.... but no one listens to beta testers =( 

Earth And Beyond
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[Pilsu]

Given a monthly subscription is what... $15 a month means they make $1.8 billion a year.

Common misconception. Asians have a dramatically different (and cheaper) subscription system

[Tormy]

No offense, but WoW is wildly successful despite our gripes and groans.

"As of January 22, 2008, World of Warcraft has surpassed 10 million subscribers worldwide, with more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and about 5.5 million in Asia."

Given a monthly subscription is what... $15 a month means they make $1.8 billion a year.

I don't know about you but I'd say a billion dollar a year video game is hot stuff.

Doesn't mean I like it, support it, or thinkt hat DF should be an MMO, but just saying. MMO's are all the rage because you can get people to KEEP PAYING for the same game.

Just some notes...they are also making a lot of money from:
1. Selling the expansion packs
2. Arena tourney fees
3. Merchandising
4. Paid char xfer/name changing/char customization etc.

[praguepride]

I have beta'ed 3 that have failed... (suprisingly I even told them they would fail because they were boring.... but no one listens to beta testers =( 

But...you're the bottom line

Yeah, for every WoW there's about a 100 WoW immitators that suck and fail.

[Folly]

I just don't see how sieges work in an asynchronous environment, if you actually want to get something BACK from your siege.

So you send your soldiers out, stop playing, and upload your game.  Then what?  When does it get the results?  Does the receiving player need to finish the siege before the server gives your units back?

Maybe the server says that if the victim doesn't respond within 24 hours, the attackers just never got there, and return unharmed...  But still.  There's a lot of stuff that doesn't add up.  Can't your siegers get hurt when they're out in the field?  You NEED to know what happens at the target site.  But if you play 10x as fast and 10x as often as your victim, that's just not going to happen!

You don't send your soldiers out, you just worry about defending. Each client generates sieges coming from the other fortresses, but the soldiers are in no way taken away from those other fortresses.
By building up bigger armies and more fortresses, the other players around you will receive harder sieges whenever they play. If they don't play for too long, their fortress will auto-abandon. Then you can move in and claim their territory.

[praguepride]

How would you play two forts at the same time?

[Folly]

You can't...that's why you form alliances with other players.

I don't know...maybe we could allow a player to hold multiple fortresses played independently of each other. But then it turns into a competition of who can spend all day managing dozens of different fortresses, and that just doesn't seem as fun. Unfortunately I can't really think of any way to prevent anyone from registering multiple accounts and doing that anyway...

[praguepride]

And then there's the problem of what if one player has a ton of freetime and builds a ginormous fort.

Suddenly MASSIVE sieges will just spawn on everyone's maps? Is there a way to prevent my starting 7 dwarves from being slaughtered by 30 legendary hammerdwarves before they have time to scrap the wagon?

[Sowelu]

What exactly does "Territory" mean?

And remember how awful the siege AI is.  Seems like a winning strategy is "embark with forty traps, a pickaxe, and a pile of food and booze", then you make two entrances to your fort down two passageways, each with twenty traps and a door at the end.  Alternate locking one door, then the other, to make the siegers scurry back and forth and die.  I know, I know, it's lame to play that way--but it'll probably get you masterwork steel and even adamantium loot.  Which suddenly turns the game into a COOPERATIVE one, because sieging is now a positive-sum game.  All you're doing is donating metal to other fortresses.