Ok ladies and gentlemen here is my Game Design Specification, Business Model and Development Strategy of the all mighty online world, ZwappaLand! Please tear this concept apart into a thousand peaces or praise it into heaven ! Would you play it? Would you like to develop such a thing? Do you think the business model would work? Would you like to enter this world? What would you do in it? What would you love most, what would you detest? Hope to get some nice criticism! -MarcDM LINK --> "ZwappaLand" Ps: For Linux users, if the link doesn't work (it's a Word document), feel free on advising me on how to make it available to you. [edited by - MarcDM on September 16, 2002 9:12:07 PM]

Hiya, I like the sound of the game design document so far. Nice little artwork there and good ideas. I''d like to collaborate with you and help out with it. My e-mail is pinken@bellsouth.net

Common ladies, give me some feedback please

Uh didn''t I already talk to you?!

I''ll send another e-mail incase you didn''t receive the others. My e-mail seems to be working weird.

GeoGod I''ve sended you an email, you got it?

I like the idea, but it seems way to machoist. Like the only thing girls grow to do is become wives, and have babies, and have lots of jewelry, while the guys become warriors and stuff. I don''t know if you want to consider this, but maybe you could add in homosexuality?

Xefo, gay's are allowed, they can kiss eachother but they simply won't have children as a man can't become pregnant. Also a women can take up leadership roles or become a warrior.

However I do will try to implement some characterics for women so that they are, on average, physicaly not that strong as man (The man will shoot their wapaballs harder a they are on average bigger and have more weight compared to women of the same age.)

This way I motivate them to give women more the farming and house organizing tasks and the men the fighting tasks. But they are free to do whatever they want. I f a girl has ambitions to become leader of the group she can try to, and it will probably work as women have some intelligent tactics to do so! . But physical strength will be more important in Zwappalnd than in our society of today so that if a girl wants to become a leader she will have to become even better in her social maniupulating, finding strong guys who are on her side but at the same time wouldn't kill her the moment she's on top simply to replace her.

Note also that people can chose whether to be born as a boy or a girl.

Xefo, I tried to simulate a tribal society. Meaning the social relations players have can be compared with the social relations typical tribal groups have, such as the indians, or the hunter-gathers we ourselves used to be in the past.

So typical relationships will be more machoist, like you wisely remarked, simply because it's a more primitive society, but that is not too bad, I think it's an interesting learning experience to be part of such a society and try to function in it and be successfull for men as well as for women.

[edited by - MarcDM on September 21, 2002 8:53:33 AM]

Hey Marc =)

I''ve liked the ZwappaLand concept ever since you first told me about it. I''d like to help ya out where I can although I''m quite restricted at this time.

The male/female issue that Xefo brought up caught my attention. What exactly is the attraction of being a female Zwappa? There would have to be a definite advantage or else not enough people would choose to be one.

You said the males would be dominant in strength. Could the females be dominant in speed perhaps to give some sort of strategic advantage? The speed advantage would (I imagine) give them the ability to build/organize/farm faster and therefore they would naturally be assigned to the tasks you want them to be assigned to. Just a thought =)

- Jay

There''s an old saying in Tennessee... well, it''s in Texas but probably in Tennessee too. It say''s, "Fool me once, shame on... shame on you... uh... ya fooled meh uh can''t get fooled again."
- George W. Bush

Get Tranced!

Hi jay! :-) I''m glad to hear from you, really

quote: Original post by coderx75

The male/female issue that Xefo brought up caught my attention. What exactly is the attraction of being a female Zwappa? There would have to be a definite advantage or else not enough people would choose to be one.

Since only women can get pregnant and this only once in a while, they are of uterly critical importance to the survival of the group. If the group does not have new children, (there will probably be a need of aging and dying when old (note: ofcourse you can influence this by eating healthy crystals, who ask more time to grow...)

So if the group does not has children, the tattoo identity of the group will not be set forth. (the tattoo from the parents is inhereted by the children) And ultimatley the group will die out.
So women are important to the group for procreation. If there are not a lot of women available in the group they will get probably lots of attention from the males and have a better life than the males who constantly have to compete to get some attention of one of the women.

When one knows that there aren''t a lot of women in a certain group he will probably chose to play one just because of the attention and the advantages they bring with them in a social setting. (This already happens in Everquest and such)

quote:
You said the males would be dominant in strength. Could the females be dominant in speed perhaps to give some sort of strategic advantage? The speed advantage would (I imagine) give them the ability to build/organize/farm faster and therefore they would naturally be assigned to the tasks you want them to be assigned to. Just a thought =)

I don''t know, it''s not that in real life women are faster on the contrarary. If they would be faster then that would be a physical advantage, also in combat, and that may certainly not be the case. Women should be physically weaker. Otherwise you will miss certain subtle men women relations we know from real life and it''s those relationships that I want to see in that world also.

However I do think that there should be more detail in the housebuilding, housekeeping aspect so girls can find more fun in the zwappaland world. So that just like in the sims you can create a whole identity by the attributes you have in your house and the clothes you wear. But all that maybe does not fit in the tribal society atmosphere. The group aspect. Maybe this is too individualistic. hmm

I do like the level we are talking on. You know where you have to change parameters so that you get the desired effect. Apart from you only my brother has until now giving me advise on that level!

M.