I like the depth and detail that Diodor and Ecthelion have gone into in the above two posts.

One thing that I envision (that is important to me) is the idea that no governing body can be a one man show. True, a player may bring resrouces with him into the game (troops, wealth, etc.) but it just won''t amount to much as a one man operation.

Imagine the Empire in Star Wars. Sure, there''s a leader, but there''s a group of people (a council, or something like that) and they make decisions together, and backstab each other, etc.

I would like to see the game engine favor large governing bodies so player''s are encouraged to install a hierarchy. Players can call their government titles whatever they want, and they can organize it however they want, but I don''t want to see it where one player can be much of anything all by himself.

For example, imagine a government that is setup where there is a leader, a general, a minister of intelligence, a tax collector, etc. Each one of those guys would be a player. And each one is having fun doing his thing, and possibly scheming to rise in the hierarchy, defect, stay in his position but gain control from his position, or whatever.

Budgets are declared, and funds are allocated to each department. The minister of intelligence can purchase spy equipment (from a player which manufactures that stuff). The minister of intelligence then monitors the information and makes it available to the rest of the people in the government. Or perhaps he withholds information, or sells it to the enemy. The tax collector sets up tax collection plans, and receives the money. He produces reports (that must pass an audit) but he has the opportunity to engage in a little embezzlement if he thinks he can get away with it. The general builds the army, and ultimately controls the army, and must receive information from the minister of intelligence.

Ok, now look at the power structure of these three guys. The tax collector has the money. The Intelligence guy has the information. And the general has the troops. There''s an interesting dynamic going on here. They all need each other to win.

This thread is very interesting. I''ve had some ideas for a similar game, except it was a modern day mafia\crime oriented game, but at higher levels you would just be calling shots and trying not to get caught.

Would the actual "dirty work" be done by players or only by NPCs? This is a pretty important question because if it''s done by players, people who are no in power end up playing a much more traditional game. In a intergalactic sci-fi type game it means the majority of people are fighter pilots, soliders, traders, manufacturers, etc. and only maybe the top 10% have any power to call shots.

If all the players are lobbying for power, and any physical actions are done by NPCs, you end up with a pure power game, but that means players should start in relatively high positions (commander of a few 100 troops, owner of a small to medium size business, publisher of a local paper or website, etc.)

Another important thing to consider is death. Is this a pure strategy game (ala civilization) where individual players are psuedo-gods that can''t be targeted individually, they can only lose resources and power, or can players be targeted for assasination or arrest? I think assasination + perma-death (to an extent) would make the game very interesting, and it helps gives weaker and newer players a chance to rise to the ranks as revolutions and wars kill off more powerful players. The higher level the player the more difficult an assasination would be (killing the president is very, very difficult) and the worse the punishment if they can trace the assasination attempt back to you.

When high level players die it may be a good idea to give some kind of "inheritance" to their next character. So although you lose some of your rank you still have more resources and more connections (from your previous life) than the average player. This means you''re never entirely screwed (unless the government\group you were affliated with doesn''t exist), but once again, allows newbies to rise to the ranks eventually. You could even extend this with natural deaths and elections (in democratic governments), basically giving everyone a chance to make it to the top.

I guess this game is drifting from my own ideal, but then it''s not my game is it?
Anyway, I think what is coming out is really good stuff.
Just a few things I''d like to ask,
First bishop, you haven''t yet addressed the issue of NPCs. I''d imagine things like an army made up mostly of NPCs with players who join being able to achieve something close to hero status maybe to the point where different countries are trying buy him/her to fight for them. but that still leaves a lot of AI soldiers who are more or less just resources(necessary resources) same goes for workers and stuff.
Second, while I totally agree that it should be much much easier to lead with a team of people, it shouldn''t totally block out the possibility of a single player achieving God-like power (in the hope of satisfying megalomanic players like myself ) using your example in star wars, the emperor did eventually grow powerful enough to dissolve the council and become sole leader of the universe.

Awright, on to less me specific stuff,
The idea of open ended game play is cool, but has to be done carefully so that people don''t just lose interest (I lost interest in Simcity as soon as I realised i could go on playing forever) Of course players will create thier own mini stories, someone mentioned something about creating global events. Perhaps a plague that begins to sweep across the galaxy and different governments have to come together to find a cure, Then perhaps a vaccine will be found to exist naturally in some remote solar system, suddenly boosting it''s value, and of course some players would struggle to corner the vaccine, etc. etc.

The goal of such events would be to create something that every player will feel, From shopkeepers losing customers who are either sick or dying, whole solar systems being quarantined, great scientists looking for a cure, to real estate agents trying to buy the planet that produces the vaccine. And by the very nature of the problem every person will have to take some sort of action to protect themselves and thier sources of income. As such solving that problem would become more or less a minigame which will have a clear beginning, middle and end.

Although, I can''t think of that many occurences that will have intergalactic repercussioons, on a smaller scale you could have stars that are about to go super nova, volcanoes, perhaps even an attack by some sort of warrior species(forgive me for constantly going military on you guys).

It will mean the game will need ongiong story writers as part of the tech support team. (I believe there''s something like that discussed in an old MMORPG post)

Oh well 0.02c

Impossible,
I don''t imagine players getting their hands overly dirty with physical actions. I believe players would start out as semi-elite,. I also don''t necessarily advocate NPCs in the sense of individuals, but more as an economic mob simulation.

I believe assasination of players should be allowed, as well as things like imprisonmnet. If a player is caught doing a a crime or whatever, punishment is up to the other players discretion, provided they have built the infrastructure to carry out the punishment.

quote: Original post by thelurch
Second, while I totally agree that it should be much much easier to lead with a team of people, it shouldn''t totally block out the possibility of a single player achieving God-like power (in the hope of satisfying megalomanic players like myself ) using your example in star wars, the emperor did eventually grow powerful enough to dissolve the council and become sole leader of the universe.

That doesn''t mean he didn''t have advisors or people running operations below him. He still had that stuff, and needed it.

quote:
Original post by bishop_pass

One thing that I envision (that is important to me) is the idea that no governing body can be a one man show. True, a player may bring resrouces with him into the game (troops, wealth, etc.) but it just won''t amount to much as a one man operation.

I half agree. The forces directly under a player''s control should be limited (assuming that player doesn''t interact with the others). But I see nothing wrong if a player reaches high levels of direct power with the help of other players.

quote:
Imagine the Empire in Star Wars. Sure, there''s a leader, but there''s a group of people (a council, or something like that) and they make decisions together, and backstab each other, etc.

Let''s take Darth Vader. He has direct control over the Death Star, which was built thanks to the efforts of countless worlds (and probably depends on those worlds to stay operational). If all the galaxy would suddenly turn on the Empire, Vader would be defeated eventually (through fight against superior numbers or logistic failure) but many worlds would be first devastated, so everyone just stays in line because noone dares to make a move first. In effect, Vader is a one man show.

There is nothing wrong with this dictatorship scenario, because the ruling player won his power (at least in part) thanks to the cowardness or stupidity of the rest of the players. There are many lessons to be learned from playing such a game. The temptation of power, the mistakes that can lead to a dictatorship, the mistakes that lead to the fall of a dictatorship, the means to overthrow one. Cool stuff.

For reference, I imagine a player could increase his force at most about 10 times by himself (given enough time), and at most 100 times with the continous support of others (given enough time and enough supportive others), the growth being a logarithmic function of time and external support (as opposed to exponential or even linear growth).

model answer: king of the hill

"king of the hill" is the most accurate model for describing a "king of the data" game

"king of the hill" is world relative: players move relative to the location of the hill

"king of the data" is player relative: the world changes relative to the most synthesized account of available data


game details:

the game dynamic could simply improve the health status of the king of the data

the metaphoric "hill" could simply be determined by any number of player nominated votes/co-ordinates/masses/etc.

extraneous "actionable" advantages to being "king of the data" or otherwise could be added to key positions or their subordinates

From what I have read you are talking about a more sophisticated utopia (I don''t know the website), dark galaxy (www.darkgalaxy.com), imperial conflict (www.imperialconflict.com), or one of those other browser based games. You would just have a more intricate politics system.

Watch out! Most browser based games start with this idea, but end up like all of the others.

"Although I am a beginner with programming, I am the master of stories."

quote:
Original post by deClavier
model answer: king of the hill

"king of the hill" is the most accurate model for describing a "king of the data" game
"king of the hill" is world relative: players move relative to the location of the hill
"king of the data" is player relative: the world changes relative to the most synthesized account of available data

game details:
the game dynamic could simply improve the health status of the king of the data
the metaphoric "hill" could simply be determined by any number of player nominated votes/co-ordinates/masses/etc.
extraneous "actionable" advantages to being "king of the data" or otherwise could be added to key positions or their subordinates

If I understand corectly, you imply that the game can understand who the "king of the data" is. I don''t think this fits with the original idea. Only the players are supposed to know the political information. The game only offers a world simulation that allows and encourages both cooperation and conflict, forming and supporting political structures and betraying them. The game doesn''t implement any way for players to vote a king. "King" is a concept shared by players, and it is defined by interactions between players. A king may earn taxes from his subjects, and in return he must protect his kingdom from outter enemies.

quote: Original post by deClavier

the game dynamic could simply improve the health status of the king of the data

I think in a game like this it is important that the ''physical'' aspects of the game remian constant. i.e. a player doesn''t get ''stronger'' or even necessarily more ''experienced'' with time.

Think of it as a more complex version of chess, where each player enters with a set number of pieces, but when a piece is captured it is not necesarily destroyed but rather now belongs to the person who captured it. So you don''t improve in the game by increasing your characters ''Stats'' but rather by becoming better at the manipulation of pieces.

quote:
1) Goal: Don''t kill the newbie. Poor players as well as weak players (joining late in the game or having suffered severe defeats) should still be able to make a difference. Defeated or bankrupt players with good names will make a living again.

I think geography(Spacegraphy?) could be used to many advantages in the game. For instance if newplayers are always placed on the outskirts of the settlement then they will always be surrounded by players with similar resource levels and it will make it much harder for a group of powerful players to gang together on the weak guys, becuase they will first have to get through ranks of others of similar power.

I also imagine that the game should be slow. By that I mean a player shouldn''t log off and go to bed while all is well one night only to wake up the next morning and find out that his whole empire has been crushed!! I think one of the best ways to implement this is by controlling the powers of transportation. For instance it might take up to twenty or more hours to actually move troops from one end of the universe to the other.

Of course you could have things like teleportation and stuff but they have to be highly controlled, like maybe you can only teleport a specific mass at a time and the teleporter needs maybe a day to recharge or something. And you could have something like Wormholes which provide something similar to express transportation between specific fixed points.

That way daily issues, like commodity transportaion and personal visits won''t suffer. Still the goal is that by defualt players will find it much easier to deal with thier direct neighbours than those far away. Of course, communications can still occur via satellites with almost zero lag

Of course, other stuff will have to a bit slow too. like building, research, etc., not slow enough to be frustrating but so that the player has time to set of many pieces for the execution of complex plans and feels safe enough to log off with out fearing that the world will change irrevocably, or that thier production resources will be spendng most of its'' time idle.