I know nothing about designing computer games. I only play them. But I'm posting to find out if there are any designers out there who are up to the task of finally fusing a game like Empire Earth with a game like The Sims. Both of these games represent the extremes of the gaming experience to me. One focuses on the military and conquest side of life. The other on peaceful civilian pursuits. Games in the conquest genre, like EE, have finally made it possible for us to Zoom in and out on the action and choose and control an individual citizen much in the way we control one in The Sims but not engage in civilian leisure activities. In turn, The Sims has given us the ability to go inside buildings (among many other things) but not the ability to build an army and wage war on other empires or control masses of citizens and soldiers at one time. It is my personal wish to see both of these extremes of gaming finally fused together into one game. [Edited by - ducksoup on March 10, 2006 2:19:36 PM]

Heh, I''m not posting this to be rude, but just so ya know, in the field of game programming, ideas are the most abundant things out there. After that come programming, and art . It''s not very likely for someone to just pick up an idea out of the forums and make it their project.

Sorry.

--Vic--

No offense at all taken. Really, I appreciate you telling me that since I know very little about the activities of game developers. If ideas for games are as abundant as you say, I suppose i can then hold on in hope of someone getting around to creating just what I''m looking for in a computer game eventually.

Any other revelations you or anyone else want to drop on me based on what I''ve written in my post would be welcomed.

I just thought it couldn''t hurt to try and I would at least learn whether this was the way to go about it in the process which indeed I have. Thank you.

BTW - you must know alot about these games - I''ve only played a few - why do you suppose we haven''t seen a game like the one I suggested? Have they just not gotten around to it yet? It seems to make games more realistic would be an obvious and natural progression. I guess they just have to attend to one idea at a time.

quote: Original post by ducksoup
Any other revelations you or anyone else want to drop on me based on what I''ve written in my post would be welcomed.

I couldn''t read the whole post (my lack of patience is pretty well known), but I do have this to offer: storyboard your idea. Draw (or get someone to draw) images of the locations and people and units and resources. Articulate the means of interaction. Define clearly the various interrelationships, the causes and effects of phenomenons within the game world. And so forth. By the time you have expended such an effort, spurious inclusions will largely have been weeded out, as may some of the less cohesive elements.

If you wish to take things a step further, you can then prototype the idea using one of the many game creation utilities out there - Klick n'' Play/Game Studio, etc. At this point you can present a highly developed, well-reasoned concept, design and partial (preproduction) implementation, which would serve as very persuasive arguments to get people to seriously consider your idea and/or join up with you to develop it.

quote:
BTW - you must know alot about these games - I''ve only played a few - why do you suppose we haven''t seen a game like the one I suggested? Have they just not gotten around to it yet? It seems to make games more realistic would be an obvious and natural progression. I guess they just have to attend to one idea at a time.

Realism - the purported "Holy Grail" of videogaming - comes at the cost of processing power and time. It may well be that there still isn''t enough power to fully realize your vision, because I can guarantee you that there are others with similar (and in some cases grander) ideas.

one thing i''d like to point out, that''s a heck of a list of feature''s you''d like to see there

to implement and debug each feature can take a day, week, or a month, each. Now, im not saying it cant be done, but it would take a while for a company like stainless steal studios, much less an indie developer to complete it as you described.

and remember, the management, and publishers (not usually the developers however) need the games to be made within a time period, as time is money.

Read this:
http://www.cliffyb.com/have-great-ideas.htm
from here:
http://www.cliffyb.com/

It was written by Kenn Hoekstra of Raven, so it is a good source of information.

<SPAN CLASS=smallfont>quote: Original post by Oluseyi
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I couldn''t read the whole post (my lack of patience is pretty well known), but I do have this to offer: storyboard your idea. Draw (or get someone to draw) images of the locations and people and units and resources. Articulate the means of interaction. Define clearly the various interrelationships, the causes and effects of phenomenons within the game world. And so forth. By the time you have expended such an effort, spurious inclusions will largely have been weeded out, as may some of the less cohesive elements.

If you wish to take things a step further, you can then prototype the idea using one of the many game creation utilities out there - Klick n'' Play/Game Studio, etc. At this point you can present a highly developed, well-reasoned concept, design and partial (preproduction) implementation, which would serve as very persuasive arguments to get people to seriously consider your idea and/or join up with you to develop it.

<SPAN CLASS=smallfont>quote:
</SPAN>

okay

[Edited by - ducksoup on March 10, 2006 2:56:11 PM]

If I understand you correctly, you''re looking to fuse many different parts of many different games together. You want to be able to build an empire, while also building each house if the player so chooses. You want to be able to control the military, while also having the option of controlling each soldier. You want to be able to take care of civilians daily needs (eating, working, bathing, etc.), while also being mayor and running the city. If this is what you''re looking for, my only question is why? There are many games out there that already have different portions of this implemented. Can''t you simply choose which part you want to play at any one time and load that game? It seems to me that any game that''s trying to simulate all these different things at once will probably never end up balanced decently, leaving a poor playing experience all around. Maybe I''m missing something important in your idea? Could you explain why this one game would be better than simply having a few more specialized games around?

Thanks Anonymous. I''m reading the page right now but had to come back and tell all how much I suspected about the industry of game development it has already confirmed. Great stuff. So far it seems the less you advertise your idea the better the chance it has of being produced. Who''d a thought?

<SPAN CLASS=smallfont>quote: Original post by Melraidin
If I understand you correctly, you're looking to fuse many different parts of many different games together.

[Edited by - ducksoup on March 10, 2006 2:00:30 PM]