evolution

[Dinthug]

Not sure really what I want to say on this, maybe you guys can help expand the idea if it's even plausible. I think it would be pretty neat if a game had evolution. Instead of, or maybe in addition to, the traditional leveling systems, the game could base progression off how your "tribe" is evolving.

Start off the game in the middle of no where, all you have is your natural instincts. Have no towns, or anything, and players create their own world by meeting up with each other and creating it.

Few random thoughts about the idea:
-would be cool if initially there were dinosaurs and aliens (primitive and advanced enemies) so there is some conflict and purpose.

-might be hard for beginners to jump straight into something like that, so maybe have a small CPU community or maybe you are born into a tribe of real players

-I'd really like to see a game with real death. You die, that's it. The longer you live, the more stats or whatnot you get. If you live long enough to have a child, when you die, you take over from your child's perspective. Maybe even make it competitive by displaying how advanced you got over X generations.

-Obviously the game would have to be massively popular to actually have many towns full of players, so maybe for every person who joins your tribe, you get a CPU player or more and CPU players take over most of the task of actually building and doing important things for the city.

-Maybe have the start of the game happen after some major catastrophe (like a comet hitting the planet or aliens invading) and have discovering pieces of the old inhabitants of the planet as a way of progression.

-Game probably wouldn't be too hard to get started for a bunch of amateur designers, considering the game could start off simply defending yourself/running from enemies, eating rabbits and defining borders and relationships with others.

-This idea could obviously pan out to becoming extremely complex, but it could also be very simplistic and maybe allow players to develop from a tribe to a completely different race that runs spaceships in a few months. If you follow that thinking, maybe every player has their own planet (but I guess that sounds a little too much like spore)

[Mist]

So like, Spore, the MMO. Come back in 20 years when you're done coding it. :P

[Dinthug]

Wasn't originally thinking about spore, but when I thought about a player developed world like EVE, the idea of having different planets made me think of spore. Started digressing a little too much.

[Aulirophile]

Speaking of EVE, carebear renters in 0.0. All they do is build/farm/pay rent right? From a PvP perspective if you actually own that area of space wouldn't it make more sense to have NPCs doing that, so you can ensure a certain population? Owning space then has a big benefit and it can managed by a real person with certain tools. Each x part of space gives you a certain amount of food/minerals/parts/research/schools/etc. That shouldn't be to hard to code. The NPCs can just run away if the region becomes conflicted so border defense would be a big deal.

And if it is mismanaged, obviously you get less out of it then you could. Make certain regions better at producing certain things if being used optimally but make those areas need to switch production to replenish the "good" item they can produce (like rotating crops) so that trading between areas is constantly changing and maintaining a good economy.

[Wurstsalat]

-I'd really like to see a game with real death. You die, that's it. The longer you live, the more stats or whatnot you get. If you live long enough to have a child, when you die, you take over from your child's perspective. Maybe even make it competitive by displaying how advanced you got over X generations.

If you live long enough ... how long would that be?

Its not a bad idea actually, but if i imagine i would die after like 2-3 weeks of playing only to do all the work again? No thanks.