Is Stargate a good franchise for gaming?

[BlakkBilli]

It would have seemed like a natural choice for a vaguely Borderlands type co-op MMO. You get 1-3 of your friends, form an SG-Team and go through Stargates to do various missions, play out a storyline or all kinds of other things.

You could also give people the option to create teams of Jaffa, an Wraith to act as opposition and co-habitate in the same shared world. Then when they run across the teams from the rival two factions on the same planet you get on the spot PvP action.

I'd play that.

I also had an idea like that. Players could choose different classes, an archaeologist with the right skills could give the team the ability to access hidden rooms for secondary objectives or rare loot.
I want to see a game like this come to life but it needs a story. What would be the time line. What and why are we fighting for. Being able to choose different races like with the Jaffa could allow you to have choices like keeping the goa'uld symbiote or use tratonin.
What do you guys think?

[Peterking72]

It could play out in an alternate universe where the story goes toward the direction we made with our choices. Also could have multiple different endings based on my previous thought. Most good games have 2 or even 4 different endings. We could end up on the light side, defeating all of the enemies and that could have two sides depending on for example how we treated our allies, how many casualties were there, how many sacrifices we made etc...Or we could end up as the bad guys, like becoming a goa'uld system lord or an Ori ascended being, or just simple evil human etc. You get the idea.
Also with this alternate universe the creators, studio can take the storyline basicly anywhere and still leave the legacy what the Stargate series left behind completely intact.

[Ouroboros]

I also had an idea like that. Players could choose different classes, an archaeologist with the right skills could give the team the ability to access hidden rooms for secondary objectives or rare loot.
I want to see a game like this come to life but it needs a story. What would be the time line. What and why are we fighting for. Being able to choose different races like with the Jaffa could allow you to have choices like keeping the goa'uld symbiote or use tratonin.
What do you guys think?

You could set it after the close of the series and have the plot be that the Wraith are invading the MW galaxy. The Free Jaffa blamed Earth for it so split off their alliance so now it's a 3 faction war.

It would also get around the problem of "everyone wanting to play as a Goa'uld but no one as a Jaffa" that might otherwise occur with their faction. Since the Goa'uld would seem to be just plain better at everything where as the other races, SGC and Wraith, would be more balanced. So like you said if you played SGC you could be a marine, an archaeologist or a scientist for example, and each would bring their familiar skill sets to the team dynamic. So you might need the archaeologist to figure out what some lettering means or the location of a hidden loot room. Where as the scientist would help you to reactivate dorment alien tech etc.

The Wraith would have to work a bit differently, you'd have the marine/warrior and scientist class but the archaeologist would be substituted with a Wraith queen who would be useful, to a lesser degree, for some of the same kind of knowledge tasks, but would also have command skills and such that would buff the other Wraith in her team, and psychic attacks to debuff enemies.

Jaffa classes would be a bit trickier and you'd probably have to take more liberties in just making things up there, but in general if you keep it similar to the other two so it's balanced, it should be fine. It might work to give them a character class that's a Tok'ra, as their queen/archaeologist type class.

[Peterking72]

Or the Jaffa could have a gizmo for sorting ou archeological questions and stuff. For example a holocron like in Star Wars. They could upgrade it during the missions by finding hidden databanks, downloading data from enemy computers etc. It could be visualized as a holographic companion which either talk you trough step by step or give hints and clues. It would depend on the difficulty and importance of certain quests. That would keep the balance. Tok'ra would not be a good choice since the Jaffa hate them maybe more than Earth people (in case you consider Ouroboros' three faction setup).
I would also bring in the Lucian Alliance as a faction. Plus I would give the Earth faction more ready access to ancient tech to balance the missing Jaffa alliance.

[Gatefan1976]

As a major P&P Rpger, most games have real simple rules to learn. Some though require a lot more in knowledge.. but most after the first 2-4 sessions are quick to pick up.

*Throws a variety of polyhedral dice at garhkal*
Did I get a crit??

[garhkal]

Na.. got a fumble though!

[Gatefan1976]

Na.. got a fumble though!

*consults expansion 15 which covers my specific subclass*
According this this chart, fumbles get converted basic hits......................

[thekillman]

I think the answer to the question is fairly complex.


Stargate in many ways is game-friendly: Hero-based (SG-teams), small COD-like combat. A relatively small impact of ships so they're like COD's killstreak system. Stargates are an excellent excuse for instances and raids and world-loading points.

However, the lore itself is extremely un-gamefriendly. The extreme asymmetric warfare and technological differences means it's hard to lore-friendly justify a ton of stuff.

[Gatefan1976]

I think the answer to the question is fairly complex.


Stargate in many ways is game-friendly: Hero-based (SG-teams), small COD-like combat. A relatively small impact of ships so they're like COD's killstreak system. Stargates are an excellent excuse for instances and raids and world-loading points.

However, the lore itself is extremely un-gamefriendly. The extreme asymmetric warfare and technological differences means it's hard to lore-friendly justify a ton of stuff.

You would need some kind of balancing act to do it, but I think you could do it killman.

[Peterking72]

An advanced leveling system would also help the balancing. Like you need to be a certain level and have certain skills to go to a specific place, so you don't encounter enemies far stronger than your character. Also if this game is an MMORPG you could assign "senior" players as teamleaders for "junior" players to show them the ropes. Of course this only in case if there is willingness for this element among the players. Also lot of MMORPG's nowaday do a survey in game to try out new features instead of forcing it on players without asking if they like it or not.
Also gameplay wise I always liked when in FPS games like Unreal Tournament introduced a gametype where you had to capture then defend certain points in the map. These were domination, double domination and warfare. Would be interesting to try these out in the SG verse with today's graphic capabilities. Also CTF and vCTF would be awesome. I totally liked for example the map Suspense in UT III, taking out the tank with the scorpion or up on the bridge taking out vehicles with the A.V.R.I.L., watcing them as they helplessly tried to avoid my rockets hitting them. The laser targeting was a bit overkill, but that made the weapon so awesome.
You need to include a weapon like that if a game like this is ever made about Stargate.

[thekillman]

You would need some kind of balancing act to do it, but I think you could do it killman.

I didnt say it was impossible. However, i do strongly feel something´s gotta give, and that something is being connected to the SG-verse in terms of lore. Or: the game is of no consequence, which i think makes it less awesome.

[garhkal]

Is there a way the OP can edit this thread to make it into a Poll?

[Ouroboros]

I didnt say it was impossible. However, i do strongly feel something´s gotta give, and that something is being connected to the SG-verse in terms of lore. Or: the game is of no consequence, which i think makes it less awesome.

I'd say the balancing thing would be more of a problem if you made the game about space ships or if you made an RTS type game of civilization vs civilization.

The ground forces are pretty well balanced as it stands. The SGC has the best and most diverse weapons but the characters are the most fragile. The Wraith have the most durable and individually powerful characters but their ranged weapons are pretty terrible, and the Jaffa are somewhere in between.

The major unbalancing element in ground combat would be things like Deathgliders and Darts that the Earth doesn't really have an equivalent to. You'd have to fudge things a bit to let 302s fly through the stargates so all 3 of them would be more similar. The 302 would be the best air to air because of the missiles, the Dart would be scariest vs teams on the ground because of the culling beam, and the Deathglider would... well... be mostly crap, but you could up armour it or something to compensate.

[Gatefan1976]

I'd say the balancing thing would be more of a problem if you made the game about space ships or if you made an RTS type game of civilization vs civilization.

The ground forces are pretty well balanced as it stands. The SGC has the best and most diverse weapons but the characters are the most fragile. The Wraith have the most durable and individually powerful characters but their ranged weapons are pretty terrible, and the Jaffa are somewhere in between.

The major unbalancing element in ground combat would be things like Deathgliders and Darts that the Earth doesn't really have an equivalent to. You'd have to fudge things a bit to let 302s fly through the stargates so all 3 of them would be more similar. The 302 would be the best air to air because of the missiles, the Dart would be scariest vs teams on the ground because of the culling beam, and the Deathglider would... well... be mostly crap, but you could up armour it or something to compensate.

Errr........... Puddlejumpers?

[thekillman]

The major unbalancing element in ground combat would be things like Deathgliders and Darts that the Earth doesn't really have an equivalent to. You'd have to fudge things a bit to let 302s fly through the stargates so all 3 of them would be more similar. The 302 would be the best air to air because of the missiles, the Dart would be scariest vs teams on the ground because of the culling beam, and the Deathglider would... well... be mostly crap, but you could up armour it or something to compensate.

Yea, thing like this are mostly what i was getting at.