I hadn’t seen anything like it until I got to the EVE Online forums just recently. Wow, the big alliances are at war - and all of 0.0 space is essentially one giant war zone now… and the alliances are certainly using the forums to further propagate their war efforts. Anything they can utilize is in there, from fake battle reports to the denial of actual losses to straight out propaganda from - fake - neutral characters.
Each side is trying to gain the public’s support by all means, although the BoB/LV alliance is doing a better job at it. On the other hand, the coalition seems to be winning most of the battles - and in a better shape for lasting through this war.
It’s amusing to read all those war reports, and there are even some sites dedicated to interviews with these players and the display of ongoing war progress - amazing, compared to the tiny amount of focus most online games put on this kind of player-run PvP. And it’s unusual, but cool, to see the forums involved in this manner…
It might appear a little odd to someone on the outside, but when you’re in there it’s very cool and adds a lot to the immersion of the game.

It sounds like “The Project” will become a good mix of Mech Wars and some more forgiving game mechanics. All the great diplomacy & forum community, with not as much griefing and abuse of the game mechanics. I’ll be certain to give it a try with a couple of friends when you finish it!

Well, it sounds like a fantastic Project.

I’d be very interested to see the design document, if you felt comfortable showing it off either via PM or email or whatnot. Or perhaps a snippet of it. I’ve always had a least a passing interest in designing videogames (what gamer hasn’t?) and I’d just like to see what one looks like from the ground up.

Still though, consider compiling everything and getting it published. You write very well and it could be an interesting read for others both interested in the subject and not. You don’t exactly overburden the reader with technical details so much as the design challenges themselves.

Anyway, the game has a 10,000 word design document (as well as numerous appendices) and hundreds of post in a development forum so it’s all pretty well documented. But the real way of thinking hasn’t been - which is sorta why I decided to do this series of articles on the blog, so I have somewhere to put it all.

I did just finish the game’s private messaging system, but come Monday I start my last semester at uni which will probably mean that I won’t get much done for a few months. We’ll see how it goes.

I hope you are taking notes as you think about all of this stuff. The way you write and your knowledge of programming (Was it you or Kelmon, or both, who have Master’s Level Degrees in Programming?) makes me think this would make a great book on game design.

Zen and the Art of Game Programming. Or, more appropriately, The Art of War and Game Programming.

Anyway, though I have nothing of substance to contribute to the conversation, all of these articles are great reads, and I look forward to the beta.