Imagine a game...

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vede

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Dec 4, 2007
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My dream-game (and game that I hope to actually create in the future, despite its crazy ambitiousness) is a game (exclusively for the PC, all you console-only bastards) that randomly generates an entire world with multiple continents, beliefs, and climates with hundreds (maybe thousands) of randomly generated people. At the beginning, it randomly generates (with nudges in certain directions for radically different philosophies or other factors) dispositions between randomly generated nations or tribes or whatever. The AI would have to be freakishly awesome so depending on very small factors, every NPC can make dynamic choices, which, in the long run, can result in pretty much anything, be it a blood feud, or a rebellion of the merchant's guild, or maybe just a divorce. All the NPCs can have relationships, and have drama, and have preferred shops, or own shops, or whatever. Wars can begin and end based on the actions of NPCs and their dynamic choices. It is possible for NPCs to have big scientific breakthroughs, not just randomly, but based on previous experiences, like a person seeing a rare plant have a strange effect on an animal, and eventually figures out that a certain substance in it can do whatever (all the plants and effects would randomly generate also, just like their appearance). Cities can go into uproar because of the death of a widely liked person. Societies can mourn the death of famous people, especially scientists. Merchants regulate prices based on economic happenings such as war or disease. Plants or creatures (who have contracted disease from plants) can cause epidemics. Some diseases can be passed on to young (mostly only important for wildlife).

(MAYBE) It would be an option for the time-period at the beginning of the game. Like medieval or renaissance or futuristic. I doubt that would happen, though, it'll probably be medieval, though the time-period might be changeable within that, like tribal, or feudal, or such.

All of that and the player is basically just a person. They can go on to greatness, become a person of great influence, be a merchant, or a scientist, or a king. Or they can pull grand heists, or deflower the king's daughter under the guise of an economic rival, sparking up a war, so the prices of goods will rise, forcing both countries into an economic depression, then sell all of the stuff he bought/stole beforehand for huge amounts of money, so when the war dies down, he is rich as ever! Or maybe he could find a cure for some strange disease spreading through a large city and become a famous scientist. Or put an obscure, exotic plant into the water supply of a small town (or large city, hehe, or the king's if he can get to it, ,maybe by bribing the groundskeeper, or revealing hidden information about a rival nation, or by, ahem, sleeping with the queen, anyone?), without even knowing its properties.

What kind of game do you think would epitomize your gaming philosophies? Would you release it for consoles, PC, different? What do you think of my and others' ideas?
 

stompy

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Jan 21, 2008
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Your game sounds like something I heard of a while back... a 'pen-and-paper RPG' if I call correctly.

Nah, in all seriousness, while that sounds cool, I don't think we'll get that kind of massive game without quantum computers. Shame I'm most likely not gonna live to see it.
 

Omnidum

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Mar 27, 2008
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Sounds very good actually, but I would fear the massive amounts of bugs it would contain.
 

vede

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Dec 4, 2007
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I realize the bugs and quantum computers bit, and it is inspired by pen-and-paper RPGs. Basically a single player p&p (whoa! online capabilities? computers of the future can handle anything, right?) with a computer interface... and without magic.

Any crazy Utopian ideas of your own?

We're assuming that computers of the future can handle even the most ridiculously huge tasks imaginable.
 

klarax

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Mar 24, 2008
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well i for one would not like to programme that game. nor debug the bast@rd. lol

Sound good enough, but would take forever to make...
 

Lord Krunk

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I think it sounds like a great idea. I have a couple myself, but I'm saving those for letters to Double Fine, as I know they'll do it right.

I think it would be great, but, as mentioned, size, time and playability pose a problem.

In response to this, maybe you can distribute a game driver cheap, and buy game "packs" later that provide the details, so people can choose what they want?

Also, you can not give the player too much choice. It gets scary when that happens, and people head to the forums to see what you can actually do, which results in less gaming.

I would like a sci-fi or present day element myself, as I believe that medieval fantasy is overused. Alternatively, you could give the game a "Life on Mars" approach?

Anyway, I hope my opinions helped.

Have fun designing!
 

vede

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Are you saying that my idea is Morrowind with an engine update?

If so, that'd be one hell of an update.

A life on Mars approach would be really cool. It wouldn't be Mars, though, it would be a distant planet with proven life, maybe, more like a large unexplored land in distant galaxy with high-tech gear type thing. Various Earth factions living on it, away from the barren and polluted planet they once lived on. Hmm...

I also like the game-packs with driver idea.
 

Lord Krunk

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vdgmprgrmr said:
Are you saying that my idea is Morrowind with an engine update?

If so, that'd be one hell of an update.

A life on Mars approach would be really cool. It wouldn't be Mars, though, it would be a distant planet with proven life, maybe, more like a large unexplored land in distant galaxy with high-tech gear type thing. Various Earth factions living on it, away from the barren and polluted planet they once lived on. Hmm...

I also like the game-packs with driver idea.
Why thank you, good sir.

Also, I sorta meant the show, "Life on Mars." Oh, well.
 

Copter400

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I don't really think that would work. I mean, there's so much emphasis on the NPCs and the rest of the world the player won't be able to get a word in edgewise. Besides, PC or console, I don't think we have the processing power yet to allow for every goddamn NPC to make dynamic choices based on what's happening. Your poor NPC has to be able to look at everything that's going on in his immediate surroundings and make a decision based on that. Those coders get carpal tunnel too, you know.
 

Rabid Toilet

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Mar 23, 2008
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While it might not be too long until computers could actually handle something like your game (considering how quickly they are advancing), unless you had a truly genius team of programmers, I would imagine programming the game itself would take at the very least upwards of ten years.

What you are talking about is damn near true artificial intelligence. Considering it generally takes four or five years for a team of a few dozen programmers to make something that can learn the most simple of tasks, I highly doubt we would be seeing your game any time in the near future.

However awesome it may be.
 

Zemalac

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Apr 22, 2008
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This closely resembles an idea I had a while ago, and as such I wholeheartedly support it being made. Such a thing would be incredibly awesome, especially if you made the character advancement work properly. Please don't put a limit on the number of skills the player can get, because that would mean that every time you want to do something different you'd need to make a whole new character.

Just a thought.
 

OurGloriousLeader

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May 14, 2008
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I've had that idea for a while, and it would be awesome. However, if these NPC's are making their own choices, from experience and lives, at what point are they actually alive? At what point would I actually be ending a life? I don't want to accidentally run someone down and be done for AI murder.
 

vede

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Dec 4, 2007
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Lord Krunk said:
vdgmprgrmr said:
Are you saying that my idea is Morrowind with an engine update?

If so, that'd be one hell of an update.

A life on Mars approach would be really cool. It wouldn't be Mars, though, it would be a distant planet with proven life, maybe, more like a large unexplored land in distant galaxy with high-tech gear type thing. Various Earth factions living on it, away from the barren and polluted planet they once lived on. Hmm...

I also like the game-packs with driver idea.
Why thank you, good sir.

Also, I sorta meant the show, "Life on Mars." Oh, well.
Ah, I've never seen "Life on Mars."

OurGloriousLeader said:
I don't want to accidentally run someone down and be done for AI murder.
That's part of the game, facing dire consequences for dire actions. Unless you mean being punished in real life. That would not happen. I think.

And for everyone saying that it would probably be many years in development, I know. I've still got sixty or so years to go. I might get it finished. Maybe.
 

NotPigeon

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Feb 26, 2008
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How about a game where...
there's no heaven
all the people live for today
there're no countries
there's nothing to kill or die for
there's no religion
etc.
Sorry. I can't see the word imagine without thinking of John Lennon. Is that bad?
 

chaostheory

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May 14, 2008
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My perfect game would have one open world enviroment in which you could shift dimensions. Each dimension would have it's own laws of phisics, which would affect the whole world, including the culture, archecture, and weapons. Examples include a dimension where the speed of light is slowed down, resulting in everything being dramatically affected by relativity. You even could do retro throwbacks, like a dimension made up of large polygons, which act as atoms, making it so everything can be stretched, and if some one breaks anything it causes a nuclear reaction. I just think it would be intresting to go around and mess with the different laws of phisics, or see how one dimensions laws effect items from other dimensions.
 

vede

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chaostheory said:
My perfect game would have one open world enviroment in which you could shift dimensions. Each dimension would have it's own laws of phisics, which would affect the whole world, including the culture, archecture, and weapons. Examples include a dimension where the speed of light is slowed down, resulting in everything being dramatically affected by relativity. You even could do retro throwbacks, like a dimension made up of large polygons, which act as atoms, making it so everything can be stretched, and if some one breaks anything it causes a nuclear reaction. I just think it would be intresting to go around and mess with the different laws of phisics, or see how one dimensions laws effect items from other dimensions.
That sounds completely awesome.
 

Gooble

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May 9, 2008
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That does sound like a pretty awesome idea chaostheory, and the original one.

For me it would either be an FPS/flight simulator/ship simulator etc. whee you play through an entire war! You could have an awesome bullet impact thing where it's got the entire human body mapped, and wherever you get hit affects your immediate performance, survival chances etc. Say you got hit in the leg, then it's back to hospital where you could have convos with ppl, do mini-games for rehabilitation, then you get shipped back off to combat. If you die, then you ocntrol a different, randomly selected person.

All of this could apply to jobs in Army, Navy, or Airforce. Could also climb in rank depending on surviving/performance/randomness (if you've died) which could bring in more Medieval Total War/Sudden Strike etc. gameplay, where you control the actions of others.

Could also include battles basically everywhere in different towns, fields, other settings, all that technically happened, but you should have it so you can actually lose battles, which would then affect future missions.

This would involve years and years of development, with probably when released outdated technology, and would require many discs to play, but would still be pretty awesome imo.

Or you could have it like a MMOFPS, with just a continous huge giant online war!
 

PedroSteckecilo

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Feb 7, 2008
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My ideal games need to be split up into two categories, Action and RPG, mostly because I want different things out of an Action Game than I want out of an RPG (to all you anti Turn Based people, Action games are where Pure Action belongs, keep it off my RPG's).

For an action/adventure game I would like the following...

1) A Gears of War/Drakes Fortune cover/combat shooting system: I really like this style of gunfighting and I personally preferred how it was implemented in Drakes Fortune (though I WILL admit that it was a blatant rip off of Gears's system) but that's because I find it more "Adventure" friendly. Though I would also like a Auto-Targeting system you could turn on and off at will, why? So you could do fast action scenes where you quickly snap off a shot at a badguy without having to worry about targetting resets or finding your reticle and other such things.

But this game should also have...

2) A hand to hand combat system, ideally I would like one similar to the engine used in The Warriors or Bully though I would also like a psuedo-timed button press Grappling system like God of War, where you Grapple a foe and then do timed button combos to pummel/block though I would prefer it if it were like Indigo Prophecy, where your timed actions always had the same controls ex. A is always punch, X is always block, your just screen prompted when you need to do one or the other.

3) Platforming elements should be handled similar to Shadow of the Collossus, in my opinion, as I found this to be an excellent mix of Action and Platforming and I think it would work well for say... a vehicle chase where you're leaping between vehicles and hanging onto rooftops and other things like that.

4) Thinking Puzzles, not Fetching puzzles, enough of this Find Item A to fit in Slot A, I would prefer something more interesting and involving, though what would blur the line between fun/interesting and not head+wall=smash frustrating is difficult to settle on.

5) CHASES! This is important but good chases are the cornerstone of excellent action and games need more of them. None of this GTA random cars getting in your way crap, we need well coreographed and fast paced chase sequences, on foot, in cars, planes, boats you name it, games need more of it.

6) Action Sequences: Games need more action sequences, less "walk down hallway, shoot guy, walk down another hallway, shoot guy". Gears of War did this right, as did (IMO) Drakes Fortune, Prince of Persia 1 and 3, Beyond Good and Evil, ZOE2 and the Metal Gear Solids (to a degree, there is a lot of Random Guy Killing, but the actual action sequences make up for it) and even the GTA games, in some of the missions. Battles with enemies should be big, epic affairs, and you should rarely be fighting one guy at a time, unless that baddy is one hell of an opponent. I understand why the "random guy kill" is used, its easier for developers and it pads length, but I'm almost liking these shorter games with better action than these long, drawn out affairs where most of the length comes from fighting boring hallway full of bad guys after boring hallway full of badguys.

I'll post my Dream RPG later.