You site Battletech as one of the games that inspired Neveron. Can you tell us a little about Battletech and how it influenced the creation of Neveron, and the history of Neveron itself?
Battletech is an old board game where players would fight each other on hex-grid cardboard maps with large robots (mechs). Over the years it evolved to include tanks, infantry, and space combat and a somewhat cumbersome role-playing game was incorporated. This eventually grew into the popular Mechwarrior series of computer games.
I was a big fan of the original battletech game as a kid. My friends and I would create elaborate campaigns for our armies to fight and we spent countless afternoons moving miniature mechs around homemade maps spread over the floor. I kept a passing interest through college and as multiplayer Internet gaming really caught on I decided I wanted to play a Battletech-style game in a persistent world where you could create empires and wage wars against other players. There were a few games out there that I had high hopes for, but as years passed without any visible progress I decided that if I wanted to play such a game, I'd have to make it myself.
So yes, Battletech definitely inspired Neveron, although Neveron has moved far beyond a simple board game of mech combat. Many of the rules and terminology are carried through, although at this point single combat between two mechs is generally confined to controlled arena settings while the world of Neveron has become a much larger, complex place.
I noticed that Neveron doesn't require any downloads or browser plug-ins such as Shockwave. What kind of technology does Neveron use?
Neveron is entirely browser-based. That has always been a requirement for me, that plus having it free for everyone. I've never been a big fan of playing games that require downloads, and I figure there are probably other people out there in the same boat. The client-side scripting is VBscript and ActiveX, with a small dose of javascript sprinkled in. The bulk of the coding is in ASP and in the database itself (SQL Server). Offline applications we write to help manage the game for us (such as the AI programs for combat) are generally in VB.
What are the objectives of the game? Does it ever end or get reset?
Thats a great question, and a hard one to answer. The game doesn't ever reset. Neveron has been around about 5 years now and let me check real quick .. about 170,000 empires have been created over the years and the oldest one has an ID of 23, so at least one person who probably started playing the first week Neveron came online is still playing.
Nev is a very complex world, and people play for different reasons and set different goals. I'd guess for most the main goal is the growth of their empire. You begin with a single 3x3km zone of land and 100 civilians, 4 machine-gun armed jeeps, and a small pile of cash. The largest empires in the game have armies of over ten thousand elite units and millions of workers driving massive economies supporting them and their factions. Although you can't ever win per se, there is always someone, or more often a group of players, you might consider to be winning. These players are the faction leaders of the most dominant alliances in the game, those who cause lesser players to run in terror when they see they have come under attack by one of these giants. There are dozens of rankings to measure your growth and power, summed up in the faction directory where you might strive to one day lead your alliance into the number one spot.
In terms of gameplay options, is there any AI in the game? Can players practice against computer opponents? What happens when your empire is invaded while you're not online?
There is an AI, and if you are attacked while offline there are a number of systems to ensure your survival. The AI programs will do a decent job of fighting for you, but its very tactical combat system with far too many variables to handle too intelligently. A skillful human player can usually defeat an AI foe with similar forces. There is also an "Automated Battle Resolution" (ABR) system that can relatively quickly resolve battles where there are no active players on either sides. This can facilitate large-scale warfare when neither side has the interest in entering battle and actually fighting out the many lesser engagements.
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