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[Sowelu]

So I mentioned a neat old site called SimCorps in the Other Games MMO thread, and thought it might be neat to...well, revive, short term and small scale anyways.

Basic concept of the original: Two time-travelling agencies vying for control.  You are all agents, and each week they post new missions. Completing a mission gives your faction points and territorial control.  You even got weekly videotaped briefings! In 2000 this was a big deal.

Each mission is actually one scenario or match in an actual computer game.  They used SMAC, HOMM3, Unreal, Homeworld, and a ton of modern war sims.  They either post a map or some basic parameters (UT on this map, versus this many teamed bots at this skill) and some brief story explanation of what you need to do and why.  Give it a shot, then send in an after-action report whether you succeed or fail...from sentences on up.  Sometimes, there were co-op or versus assignments.  Naturally, anyone can take any mission (of their side).

If you guys are interested, and you can agree on a small handful of games that are cheap/free and lend themselves well to 15 minute to 2 hour missions, I'll try to run a campaign for a month or two and see what happens. Zero commitment, jump in on any mission you want even in the middle of the campaign, ignore any or all that you don't.

(One of the games may be X-com; I think I can swing an editor pretty well to set up custom battlescape missions.)

[mainiac]

Certainly an interesting idea.

One thing to point out is that a lot of online games would work very well with this.  Desktop tower defense springs to mind, as do a lot of remakes of classic arcade games.  Admittedly, they aren't versus, but they would still be a good low commitment activity for members who don't feel like a big challenge for the week.

[Frajic]

I'd join in on it.

[Sowelu]

Certainly an interesting idea.

One thing to point out is that a lot of online games would work very well with this.  Desktop tower defense springs to mind, as do a lot of remakes of classic arcade games.  Admittedly, they aren't versus, but they would still be a good low commitment activity for members who don't feel like a big challenge for the week.

Hm, probably mostly trash, but there may be a few gems in flash games. I'll keep that in mind.  Haha, maybe I'll use Tempest or something.

I need recommendations on games.  X-Com and SMAC are a given.  Other strategy games that could mod in a shortish mission?  FPSes?  Yeah I need a good FPS for this, one with good bots and ideally built in mods.  Unreal Tournament GOTY is ten bucks on Steam, I was hoping it was cheaper...but it's a goddamn classic and probably perfect.  Are there cheaper alternatives?

Preferably stuff that people are likely to already have.  Otherwise, things that everyone SHOULD have becaused they are awesome.

(And remember, you don't need them all, you can just play the missions for the games you do have.  The emphasis here is not on making people spend money D:)

[MonkeyHead]

Would jump in if I had access to any of the games...

[Biag]

I would do this, but I likely wouldn't buy any games for it.

[Sowelu]

I would do this, but I likely wouldn't buy any games for it.

Would jump in if I had access to any of the games...

So what do you already have that might fit?

In fact, go ahead and just dump a list of what you have or might consider, anyone who is interested.  We will find common ground.

[mainiac]

It would be really cool if we could combine all the meta-games together into one overarching strategic game that would have it's results determined by the weekly efforts of the two teams.

[cerapa]

I am interested in this.

Looking at the games I have and what might fit:
SpaceChem
Kerbal Space Program (free)
Could do some fights in Toribash
Beat Hazard maybe?

[Sappho]

I might join in for flash games. I don't have much time for gaming these days and I'm certainly not in a position to spend real-life money on games, but if I can join in for short ones on the weekends or something that might be fun.

Also, is there any reason why we have to limit the games to military ones? Why not expand it to include things like zombie invasions (loads of possibilities there) or competing over resources (any sort of farming or management game would work)? Even puzzle games could be justified if the person in charge was inventive with the stories. I'm more interested in these sorts of games anyway and would be more likely to participate if there was some variety. I don't generally play war-based games, with very few exceptions.

[Digital Hellhound]

Rise and Fall: Civilizations At War is free nowadays. It's a RTS with Heroes you can play with in a third-person mode. It has a scenario editor as well.

[ExKirby]

I'd play with;

Any and all freeware games
Anything by Valve
Minecraft
Terraria
Certain Worms games
Star Wars Battlefront II
Anything else I own which crops up.

Free games I'd like to see include Osu, Wesnoth, Toribash and TF2.

...Damn, I like my MP games...

[LordBucket]

Let me just offer some general feedback here:

 * The odds of large numbers of participants all having the same games are relatively small, and even if we do, it takes a certain amount of effort to say....dig my through my CDs, find the one that has an archived copy of xcom, install it, set up dosbox, etc. Some people will be willing to do that. Some won't. If you want participants, it's reasonable to set up the rules to minimize the amount of non-gameplay effort involved. Required downloads will immediately scare away some people. Flash games that can be easily linked to simply most of this. Always having at least a few flash games in the pool of missions is probably healthy for your campaign.

 * It would be reasonable to have people submit screenshots of successful missions rather than simply posting "yeah. I did it." This would also facilitate competitive missions. For example, give more mission reward to people who get higher scores, complete objectives in less game time, etc.

 * There is some problem with the previous in the form of existing savefiles. For example, if you were to post a mission of "beat gemcraft" there are probably a few people who have already done so and could simply load up their existing game, take the screenshot and do done. One possible solution for this, which I realize contradicts some of the above, would be to release missions in the form of downloadable savefiles. For example, in most ToME competitions, one person would create a character and set up initial game conditions, then make the savefile available for download. Anyone who wanted to compete had to meet the conditions with that savefile.

[monk12]

This is relevant to my interests.

I would also speak in favor of not necessarily making every game a military/conquer focus- if the premise is time traveling agencies, after all, then even business sims might decide the future of the world. Imagine if somebody came back from the future and gave Apple the edge over Microsoft, or built such an awesome zoo in Berlin in the 30's that Hitler decided to become a naturalist. Although obviously, strategy/FPS's are awesome and worth including on their own merits anyway. Sometimes direct solutions are the best, after all.

Looking through my personal games library, I'm reminded of how little money I've had to spend on them the last few years. Notable games currently on my hard drive include (but are not limited to) Minecraft, DF (obviously,) Kerbal Space Program, Nethack (maybe as some odd virtual cyberpunk world?) Quake I-III and Civ IV (plus expansions.) A glance in my games cabinet reveals Rome: Total War, Medieval II: Total War, Age of Empires II, Age of Mythology (plus expansion,) Sins of a Solar Empire (plus expansions) and Galactic Civilizations II.

I also think Flash games have merit, what with being readily available to anyone, as well as the fact that score systems lend themselves to indirect competition. The big thing there is finding the 10% of Flash games that don't suck. Browsing my favorites on Kongregate yields Fly or Die Multiplayer (strategic turn based dogfighting,) Second Person Shooter Zeta (as opposed to First/Third Person shooters, it's pretty trippy,) World Rebellion II (Risk clone, some extra maps,) Crunchball 3000, and Red (kinda like Nimbus Commander with bouncy balls on Mars) as candidates that don't suck and might be workable into missions.

In any event, count me in!

[Bdthemag]

Sure, i'd be up for this. But there must be roleplay! (Unless no one wanted to.)