I''ve been bouncing this around in my head for a while. I think this could work equally well for a MMORPG and a simple one-player game. If there''s anything I''ve learned from the Sims, it''s that life is pointless. After you''ve maxed your skills, and gotten rich, there''s really not much more point in playing. MMORPG''s try to correct this with skill caps, so that a player can''t become a god, and dominate the world. But I propose that time-honoured, real world method: death. Yes, once your character kicks the bucket (from combat, or disease, or just old-age), he''s gone, and your skills are all lost. But, and here''s the kicker, your wealth moves on to another. If you wanted to keep playing, your character had better have either some siblings or some children. You got to pick your heir apparent before death, and all your belongings move onto this person. Now, let me sidestep a moment, and outline what I propose. Say that a year in game time is two days real time. Your character lives to 30 (a ripe old age ), then dies. So each generation takes about a month, and if you managed to spit out a kid at 15, your child is now ready to go out into life once your character dies. Each child''s attributes (like str, int, etc.) are determined 50% by a composite of the parents'' attributes and 50% by nurturing it has recieved. So a player would need to balance getting rich and preparing the kid for the world if he wants to succeed in the game. The kids skills are determined entirely by nurturing from the parents, with different ages determining different skills. Base skills would be determined at a young age, while specialty skills would be determined at an older age. If only one parent is around at a certain age, then the kids'' skills are stilted to one side. The player could hire a wet-nurse of some kind if he didn''t want to deal with the kid at all, but the kids attributes and skills would be lower than if he did it himself. Also, say that skills could be maxed out sometime before your character dies. Then you could go fight dragons, or produce incredible weapon, or something else truly amazing, and it wouldn''t take 16 months like in other games to become strong enough. Also, weather would be really important. So if your out in the middle of winter without a coat, you can get sick and die. I would assume that youd lose if your current character doesn''t have any relatives to transfer teh wealth to. In a MMORPG setting, a male and female PC could get together to raise a family, (keep in mind, that you can also get an NPC spose, but you have to spend time seducing them ), then you can make even stronger children, but then to reap the advantage of this, at least one parent (ie: one PC) would need to stay with the children at all times to raise them. So you would create a new class of player: the stay-at-home (wife/husband). The couple could figure out how to split the family''s wealth among the kids when their characters die. Those relatives which are not in use by the player just exist as NPC''s, and go about their business. What do you think?

Interesting. No doubt you will receive some "constructive" criticism.

Here''s an idea. Flesh it out. Flesh it out as completely as possible.

Read the article section of this web site and figure out design documents for gameplay.

Add this to your portfolio and get better at generating and fleshing out ideas.

Cheers
-James

I like this idea - mainly because it would be great to see all those sados who want to keep their characters for ever having to watch them DIE. Seriously I think it is a good idea - a breath of fresh air for stale MMORPGGHFTFDDSSTTVVs. Now all we need is to get rid of that god awful leveling grind.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions (www.obscure.co.uk)
Game Development & Design consultant

I think the generational idea is interesting, but if I were going to develop it I would go at it from more of a monster breeding game angle. You have a player character, but physically you''re real wimpy, so you need to symbiotically attach to a monster if you want to go out adventuring in the world, and naturally the better monster you can breed, the more dangerous places you can adventure to...

The symbiot idea is neat, but I think that it and the kid idea are in a different class...

After all, raising a child and raising a monster (ie: pet) are a little different. For instance, if nothing else, there are the psychological differences to the player.

But either way, a strong AI would be needed for the kids/monsters you aren''t currently playing. I think something along the lines of the AI in Black & White would be necessary (well, a little less inane than that.) So you could take your kid along with you on some kind of dungeon raid or envoy, and they''d gain skills in adventuring or trading.

If you do the monster idea... non-combat would become a little silly (I caught and trained this ogre to be my heir-apparent. He''s going to be the best silk merchant in town!)

But on the other hand, both really correct the same problem, just by going about it in different ways. I would really like to see some kind implementation of this, unfortunately, I lack the skill for so ambitious a project.

Also, just an unrelated side note, I don''t think that monsters should spawn. I think they should have villages and towns, and reproduce in some way. Except, their birth rate is incredible, (that''s why they attack humans. They''re running out of resources, and need more land), so the fighters have to fight them back. If a village is destroyed, then the birth rate of other monster villages is increased to compensate, with some eventually founding a new village to compensate.

As for the ''leveling grind'', leveling could be made to be relatively easy (like in Eve Online for instance), since your character will die in a while anyway.

Speaking of dying. Items should get old and break too. Everything in the world should get old and die!!!!! Even your house, so that part of the multi-generational thing is to recooperate losses from deterioration.

Interesting idea, but for a MMORPG I think a year should be more than 2 days. That would mean that 24 hours is about 8 minutes real time (182.5x normal speed). No way anyone would "get to know" their character at that speed. So much so that many would possibly try to "breed" a better character instead of trying to make the current better. And most if not all the "Oh teh noes!1!! My 1337 character DIED!!11" reaction would be lost.
Neverwinter nights (not a MMORPG, I know) had 48 minutes realworld = 24 hours gameworld (30x normal speed). A year would then be about 12 days, but I think it should be even slower than this. Perhaps 10-20 times normal would be best, though the "lifetime" of the character will be more than a year of real time... Balancing this would be hard.
I don''t know how the speed is in current MMORPGs, so I have nothing to compare with.

Another promblem will be that the player needs to get hitched.. A prospect made easier by the fact that the AI is dumber than most girls , but still..

BTW: with some simple math you''ll see that a round in NWN (3 secs) is 90 seconds in the game.. In this time the character manages to swing once at lower levels.. What a boring fight - Just imagine that at 182.5x instead of 30x

Perhaps add in the fact that there are only X positions of rank Y. That way no matter how powerful you become, unless you can take it and keep it, you loose it. The hill should get smaller at the top.

the thing you said is exactly like a game called "europa 1400"
you must in your lifetime get a wife/husband and get a child
and if you die before getting a chile it''s game over, otherwise you continue as your child, the child''s skill is dependent on the parents and during childhood you can give hime items that help certain skills etc,

check it out,it''s a very nice game

Europa 1400...

I''m totally taken back! It''s so close to what I had pictured in my mind! (I think, I''ll have to play it to see)

But, it''s nice to know that good ideas (or even bad ones, depending on your take) aren''t limited to just myself

But I still think it''d be cool to see it done in a MMORPG.

As for the speed of the game, I think a bit of suspension of disbelief would be in order. A year would take two days, and a game day could take like 1/2 a day. Sure, that''d be only 4 days a year, but I won''t tell if you won''t

As for having to get hitched, I kinda pictured it as a game feature. You''d either have to woo an NPC (made reasonably easy, perhaps even fun ), or team up with another PC to raise the kids. I just think it would help to add meaning in the meaninglessly flat worlds of most MMORPGs. At the very least, it would add a sense of ''home'', which is always nice to have, even in a game.

I have been working on this idea for almost a year now. I can''t find my notes right now, but I doubt they contain that much more than has been said.

I was wondering about just what level of hybriding system you could achieve in multi race breeding (wow, never thought I would say anything as creepy as that.) I even researched the whole chromosome thing to see if there are any compatable races out there (science is not one of my strong points). I was also wondering to what level cross breeding could safely be... encouraged. That is a rather silly issue though.

I have been thinking about it also in regards to my current project. I have players (passably) composing themselfs from seperate body parts (but still being humanoid). So if two players bred, the child could have daddys kanine head or mummys snake head. which is now a lot wierder than I thought when I come to write it down.

I do have the productive scribblings of a good few journies to school and back somwhere, with a little though on this issue. It is a good idea, and a natural one, considering that reproduction is one of our great aims in real life.