Sonic Online - How fast can YOU go?

I've always envisioned an online version of Sonic 2's multiplayer, only with up to, like, 8 players. That'd be perfect for me.

 

That was a little diffrent from the IRC ideas, most obvious thing you removed was spectators jumping on track and going 'OMG LOLO IM IN TEH RAECZ'. Ah well.

I did some research, and I think these cliches would work rather good in your game, assuming the physics are right.

Tropical Island cliche - Imagine GHZ, in all it's loopy and jumping over obstacles glory. Could be fairly straight-forward, with a few sharp turns, area's where maneuverring will be needed, and a big huge loop.

Underwater cliche - I imagined it a bit like Hydrocity, it maybe doesn't actually have to go under the water, but if it did, this would be useful for shortcuts. If you pick up enough speed, you can right across water and quickly get to the finish. If you fail at this, you would fall to the pits of the pool and be forced to slowly drag yourself out of it. Could also be good if high walkways are involved.

Death Egg cliche - We briefly mentioned a level titled 'Death Egg - Exterior', which would look a little like the end of Star Wars IV, running around a spaceship, maybe with turrets aimming at you. No time to stop! An interior would also be good, perhaps walking over a reactor, being careful not to fall in.

Snow cliche - pretty much, exactly like Ice Cap. Sections where you are high up outside, trying not to fall, and sections inside, with slopes to pick up speed, avioding large pieces of ice, and so forth.

Other possible cliches could be the Large Factory cliche, the Casino cliche, the Ancient Ruins cliche and the Desert cliche.


I also did imagine an online multiplayer myself, very similar to this, though not racing, more like a Second Life style thing, where you can talk to friends, fight for items, look after Chao, etc.

 

All I thought is why the hell Unleashed didn't have an online Multiplayer section for racing in the day stages. The Wii version inparticular just seem empty to me, and almost scream the need for multiple players racing for the goal at once.

One thing to note is that after finishing the race, you aren't stuck just standing there, waiting for the retard who wants to 'exlpore the level', who is just obviously making you wait for the hell of it. Let me move around and backtrack if I want to, and insert a time limit for the rest of the people to make it to the goal or force disqualification.

In a condensed version, Add the Wii day stages to the Xbox 360/PS3, And call them multiplayer maps and take it online. Hell, take some of the best arenas from the Night Stages and have some fighting gameplay for those who enjoyed the Werehog.

 

This reminds me of my idea from before:

The stages would be made up of chunks of a huge hubworld like in the newer NFS games. In the freeroam world, there would be an island area, a ruin area, a factory area, a city (probably the main) area, etc. You can't make your own character, but you can choose from a whole bunch and equip them with special abilities. Some special abilities would probably contradict others so you'd have to choose wisely depending on the course and character. Abilities would probably be collected by spending rings you earn from races at the shop. Characters would probably unlocked via special requirements in offline vs. CPU races. There would probably also be speed, flight, and power classes for each character to reach certain shortcuts like in Sonic Riders. You'd have to be careful because there might be a character like Metal Sonic with insane speed but terrible deceleration, which could make things a little tougher when going around a sharp turn or coming to a precision platforming section.

 

That would be the most awesome thing ever.

MAKE IT HAPPEN!

 

I'd rather they did this with some other series.

 

The only online component I could see working—and would be content with—would simply be online multiplayer for a much larger, otherwise single-player installment of the series. Think Sonic 2 with a more advanced, online-based multiplayer mode—you'll be able to pick up to a certain amount of characters who can race in a single level at once, and then you tally up all the different variables (Score, Rings, Time, etc etc), tack up a score, and declare a winner.

It's simple, it's Sonic, and it's far from bloated. This becomes less "Sonic Online" as a game, though, and more of a decent online Sonic experience. Which is fine by me, really. :v:

 

It's more than fine by me, it's preferred. I think a lot of games today get bogged down with the idea of making an online version of game X (metal gear online, resident evil online, etc) that they worry too much about how to make an online version of the game, often at the expense of the core concept. I'd much prefer a great game with a good online component over Game X Online. Hence why I'd prefer an online version of Sonic 2's multiplayer - because, at it's core, it'd be Sonic.

 

I don't think Sonic is a very social series. A key component of the concept seems to be a single character (or occasionally two) exploring a land and overcoming its obstacles. An online Sonic game makes as much sense to me as an online Tomb Raider or Zelda game.

 

<!--quoteo(post=263002:date=Jan 4 2009, 10:34 AM:name=87th)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (87th @ Jan 4 2009, 10:34 AM)

 

Sonic 06 had pretty good multiplayer. Well, about as good as it can be, the way that game's physics were. Playing as Silver in co-op was hillarious because of how slowly he went through the loops.

 

This actually sounds like a neat idea. Personally, I'd like some sort of Sonic R meets Mario Kart type deal, but obviously without the cheap-ass blue/spiky shell. Perhaps with ranking being determined based on score rather than exact finishing place (like you get score for ring bonus and time bonus + whatever score you got for killing things), and of course you get an additional point bonus for being in first/second/third/etc.

So if you come in first you could still end up with a lower ranking because the guy in second took the time to get extra rings and still managed to come in right behind you to earn a similar time-based point bonus.

So some sort of classic-sonic meets sonic R meets mario kart (simply because it'd be nifty to have a FEW useful items, so long as they aren't overly cheap.)

 

Sonic Adventure 2 had a really good 2p mode, barring the crappy Treasure hunting. In fact that statement extends to the game as a whole. But, yeah, Something similar to SA2, but online. A simple race is sufficient, after all, Sonic was always more about the stages than the characters.

 

See with a game like Trackmania there's a HUGE online component to the game. I think this would be a great idea, combining arguably the best elements of PS3's Home (and Second Life, etc.) and Trackmania.

Being able to create your own courses and share them would be awesome too, but I'm not 100% sure how that would work in this way.

 

I recall there was once a prank on Sonic Stadium regarding a Sonic MMO in development based on the Saturday Morning series. Unfortunately that was fake but I think that universe could have a solid base for an MMO. There's a deep enough story, a wide enough environment, plenty of characters, and a universe to create new characters.

 

Imagine Disney's Toontown only with naked characters...
That's your Sonic MMO.

 

Well Sonic Online is kinda iffy because the essence of Sonic lies in platforming, something that most of the time is enjoyed the most from a single player experience, but on the other hand a Zelda Online, that can work, of course nobody could be Link, Zelda or Ganon, but it could be cool having random generated dungeon to explore with your friends, adding a level up system similar to Zelda II, but with more levels and classes.

 

I honestly think this would be a pretty cool idea, but only if it's kept separate from the rest of the series (What Sonic Spinball was to the rest of the Sonic games, basically). I don't want it to become something deeply story involved, as it would just mess too many things up.

Plus, I always felt that MMORPG's should have more of the ability to create your OWN stories, rather than just following a bland, probably crappy translated, plot. Therefore, if they ever do this, it should be a big project that they actually put alot of effort into. Essentially, they should stuff it full of nifty little features and the like to make it fun.

In my opinion, it should have a bit more than racing, as said- something like a fighting arena would be awesome, cuz I mean, there were plenty of awesome bosses. It just needs to be done pretty well, not just "lol I hut u wunts I wyn", and certainly not Shadow the Hedgehog style combat.

Speaking of, though, I'm curious as to what everyone's opinions would be on having weaponry in a game like this. Certainly not aforementioned style of weaponry (Where guns are everywhere), but basically a really high grade/cost (It better not have a generic level system where you grind all day) item that functions as a weapon. While the potential for fanbase horrors (God forbid a Sesshomaru the Hedgehog...) would increase a bit, so too would the potential for some awesome. After all, Eggman/Robotnick used plenty of weapons, and so did his robots. On top of that, so did Fang.

Which leads me to another idea- It'd be amazing if you could be bad guys, too. Basically, separate the good guy and bad guy areas, and have some more serious races where it's good vs bad only (4vs4, or the like). Bad guys could perhaps be the only ones with weaponry, but would have various drawbacks. I can't think of too many, since Shadow (He was a bad guy in SA2 anyways, sort of), Rouge, Fang, and so on were pretty normal-ish characters, thus dropping the idea of having bad guys be robots only before I could seriously suggest it.