Well hello everyone. I have recently been on and off with the truckloads of mmorpgs these days. I sign up for an open beta where ever i can and usually turn out disappointed. The problem is, as we all know it, that they are all too similar. In order to be successful, the mold must be broken; therefore I had an idea for a political mmo. Instead of revolving around "quests and wonder" it will revolve around political ambition. In the start NPC empires will control the regions, since no player will have the potential at that time. To start an empire players will have to create clans, and if there clan reaches a certain requirement, it will have the chance to upgrade to a faction and so on until it reaches the status of an Empire. At a certain level, they will be able to take over a city or town or even start one. Once this is achieved, the leader of the group will be able to choose the type of government (monarchy, dictatorship, communism, democracy, and so on) and appoint fellow leaders. The leaders will then be able to set rules and regulations, ranging from taxes, open trade, religion, laws, and so on. They will also be able to (upon reaching a higher level towards empire) create buildings by purchasing building plans and either hiring workers or allowing their own members to complete the construction. Military conquest will be the greatest feature, allowing sieges, invasions, coups, revolutions, and sabotage. NPC Guards will be an item which the leadership of a city may purchase, and these would essentially make up the NPC enemies. Players will be able to swear allegiance to factions, therefore becoming an active role in the society. The game would also require historic accuracy based on the region it would take place in. It would also be a total PvP situation, allowing for utmost realism and advancement. With a game like this, who needs dungeons and dragons? We are already seeing games focusing on political aspects of gaming like Lineage II and Shadowbane. If there were a game totally geared to that subject, it would clearly be a success with time. What are your thoughts and suggestions?

My first thought is that it would require a lot of development resources and be very hard to pull of. But if done right, even I would be hyped about it, and that is not a small feat in terms of MMOs.

It''s easy to get carried away in this sort of design and start putting your own politics into it. If you think that democracy and capitalism is the best and you design your game so that it is, then people who try to apply perfectly valid Hobbesian or Machiavellian techniques will find themselves being punished for using fear as a tool, even though in a feudal society it is one of the most effective ways to control people.

Balancing will be your biggest concern here.

Also, how will it be played? Will you walk around in 3rd person, able to talk to NPC and other players or spy on them or assassinate them? If you''re a dictator, and you get killed, what happens? Do you respawn back in your palace with a tenth of your treasury gone? Do you have to start a new character? Political movements will take place over the course of months and maybe years. If you lose a character, they shouldn''t be able to just pop back in where they were, but if a player who''s been building his nation for eight months catches a knife in the ribs and loses all that work, it''ll be the suck.

It''s a daunting task. You''ll have to rework many of the conventions of MMO games. Good luck.

Sounds good! I''ve always wanted to see how modern society would organise itself in terms of politics, and I''d like to see this game a reality. Of course, you''ll need a helluva lot of resources, but the game idea is promising.

I like the general idea that you put forth, but I think Iron Chef Carnage makes some good points - especially about how design assumptions could influence the available forms of political organization.

To illustrate, your description states "... the leader of the group will be able to choose the type of government (monarchy, dictatorship, communism, democracy, and so on) and appoint fellow leaders." The notion of having the leader pick the form of government does not strike me as conducive to democracy. Rather, I should point out that is not how democracies are formed. That is also not how republics are formed. Except in situations where the leader wants to present his government as more benign then it is. Of course, these observations flow from history and part of the intrigue of a game such as you describe is that it will unfold in a quite a different manner than history.

In this light, I would posit that design assumptions such as clans, towns, empires and so forth already presumes too much. Granted, without some form of cultural structure already in place, such a game probably wouldn''t attract many players. In other words, there has to be a large element of make believe or what''s the point of playing. Nevertheless, positing a culture introduces a host of political assumptions that could preclude some forms of government.

If you want to get around that - or downplay it - then concentrate more focus on the geographical aspects of the game. In global scale politics and history, geography is destiny. Mountains and rivers form natural borders. Oceans form even greater barriers. The abundances of resources in one area may make it''s people powerful or may make them a target for the powerful. And so on and so forth.

At the same time, give players the flexibility to form their own social and governmental arrangements rather than forcing them to fight first and organize second.

The question of assasination is interesting. It would suck to lose months of work that way, but it would hardly be realistic for anything else to happen. Designing the game so that death meant death would shape the play tremendously - just as it does and has in real life. If you don''t want your months of work to go to waste, surround yourself only with those you can trust and defend yourself well against your enemies. If you fail and die, your belongings could fall to your family, your tribe or what have you. It''s worth pointing out that inheritance - and the concept of ownership itself - flows from cultural assumptions about how people relate to each other.

As a compromise, perhaps after an assasination, you would have to create a new character, but that character wouldn''t start out as a peon but at some fraction of the level were you were before.

Well, thanks for the feedback. You guys have raised some very interesting points. As for death, perhaps you could respawn but you lose your position to who you chose to take it (you can choose someone to take your place if an accident happens). It is then up to the person in charge to put you back in power. (depending on your government type, you must be either voted back in by your members, a council, another leader, etc.) If your entire leadership is removed, or your town is successfully besieged, you lose control altogether. There will be a death penalty to the state treasury upon the death of a member of your leadership. The logic behind is from reality, because when a leader dies, the state usually suffers economically, so to be realisitic, the death of an important official (the higher the position, the higher the penalty) would result in a $$ penalty.

And yes, it woudl be third person, with the leaders (appointed generals or actual leader) able to use a overhead view to tactically send messages to their men. In an organized battle, members can be put into legions (5-15 people per legion), and the general or appointed leader can message each legion via chat. However, in an unorganized fight, the commanding officer would still be able to use the overhead view and give messages, but only to individuals and not legions. The overhead view would only show the area in a specific radius depending on the officer.

Spying, assasination, raiding, pillaging, diplomacy, sieges, would all be significant parts of gameplay. Geography would be very important, so to successfully alow players to create towns, points would be placed along the map, where realistically a town could be made, and if a faction were to purchase the land and develop it, they coudl turn it into a bustling city.


This type of MMO wouldn''t be so much of a "stay online playing for 8 hours straight" type game, but a casual time to time game. Of course, it would require lots of beta testing to balance it out and complex programming. But if it could be made, it could perhaps be one of the most engaging mmos in a long time.

a very interesting idea. If done right this game could be a lot of fun. However, i''d like to point out another problem. You wrote about what a leader of a nation could do, however you did not mention what a simple non-leader person would do.. What would keep him occupied, what would make the game interesting to him? If you''re looking to impress strategy fans, then you must give a chance to play strategic game for each and every player. Otherwise, at the lowest level this game will be yet another traditional mmorpg, or worse, there will be nothing to do for a starter. Not everyone can be a leader, there is always some kind of hierarchy in any political system, and it is usually in the form of a pyramid. You only mentioned the top, what about the biggest part - the very bottom?

There is one major thing that you have failed to mention and this relates to all player control games.
The Majority of players are non-active or just do not have the real-life time like some people to just sit at a computer.
What if someone like this did manage to gain alot of control over something and then became in-active without notice. Everything would fall apart and people would be fed up an quit because nothing would go according to plans, since not everyone is as reliable as they seem.
Not only that but you would also have to find ways to prevent scam to gain control over areas.
Just thought this info might be of interested.

You might find this interesting: Online game idea - politics & conquest and its follow-up, Testved for intergalactic political machinations.