quote: Original post by RDX
Note: He said ''a god'' not THE God.

Thank you. At least someone noticed that.

RDX:

I had not thought of that before, but now that you mention it, it''s a lot better than what I''ve been playing around with.

Dracoliche:

I like that too.

I think I''m gonna'' head back to the drawing board with this.

Thanks for the feedback.

You know you''re a programmer when your computer is like family. When it''s more like a lover, you need help.

Thought I''d throw in my two cents.

First off because humans have free will the game play should mostly focus on getting humans to believe in you. There definitely needs to be competing gods as well. It would be interesting to see that if you were playing the evil god that there was a good god that went around undoing all the things you did. C.S. Lewis''s "The Screw tape Letters" might provide you with some ideas as far as this area goes.

Secondly there needs to be limits to what the player/god can do. MatchNL is right when he says it wouldn''t be any fun if you could do anything. Of course choosing what the player can and can''t do will be a major design decision.

As for whether you are "borrowing" this idea from other games. Peter Molyneux has two games which you are borrowing from. The aforementioned Black and White where you have the ability to play a good god or a bad god and another one of his games where you play a dungeon master who kills off heroes called Dungeon Keeper. For anybody who thinks its not fun to play the evil guy once in a while they should check this game out. It’s a laugh riot slapping your workers to get them to work faster.

Hikeeba, just keep in mind that it''s not the idea, where the idea came from, or who thought of it first that matters. It''s how that idea is implemented.

MorganE put quotes around ''borrowing'' which should serve as a self-clarifying message, but I''ll bolster its meaning right here.

Ideas are a dime a million. For example, you have hundreds of first-person shooters excluding indie games. Most RPGs have at least one thing in common. And the basic concepts of all games remain the same. It''s been awhile since any game has revolutionized the game industry.

I''ve never played Black & White so I merely pulled some ideas out of my head for a more mature version of your game. I played Dungeon Keeper but I never really had an interest. Now that I look back on it, Ultima Online reminds me of Dungeon Keeper... only it would be called Ultima Offline.

Back to the good/bad concept... this concept is all too familiar in most games. It''s also called CONFLICT. I reckon you don''t need to have conflict to have a good game, but in my opinion, a game with conflict would play a lot smoother than one without. Because Black & White has the concept of good gods versus bad gods, that doesn''t necessarily mean you can''t implement that concept into your game. Otherwise, Electronic Arts would be like Hasbro Interactive, thinking they are the center of the universe and can copyright societal laws of nature.

Anyway, rant done, and I hope you, Hikeeba, get a better feeling of what MorganE was saying.

PS.
MorganE: Is your name Morgan? If it is, my name is Morgan, too. If it''s not, then I''m just RDX.

Yes Morgan is my real name. :-)