Regarding the pre-designed world part, I''ve researched it and have an idea: Instead of making the world by hand, which could easily make it un-natural an unbalanced, I tought of growing it using the earlier mentioned agent-based method. In a different word: Before making the world on-line, it should be grown using independent agents (characters) that after a while would have settled in this world and balanced their life against the environment. Just look at all the RTS''s out there. It is possible. In this way, cities, characters, etc would be placed near important resources and their occupation would be logical to the resource type. Anyone seen Sugarscape. It''s kind of like this, only simpler, but a very interesting start.

I would just like to know if anyone here has heard of Shiny Entertainment...and their little game called Messiah.
That allowed you to ''wear'' humans as ''armor'' to get tasks done.
This post is almost sounding like an MMO version of the Messiah engine.


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Except Messiah was too linear and platformish, and near-sighted in scope. The messiah engine was focused mostly on graphics and scaling performance, AFAIK. It had not complex AI, socially-driven gameplay, or an open-ended world to play in.
gartland - I agree with that idea about letting the agents grow and form the communities. It would be very cool just in and of itself to see that happen.
This sort of goes along with the discussion further down somewhere about generating/growing terrain using erosion, earth movement, and etc in a simulation, so that it looks quite real and then using that terrain in a game. You could do both, generating and growing everything (this would be quite a feat), then see how players affect it when you let them loose on the world.


Nothing is difficult, only the mind makes it so.

I agree on downsizing the graphics and such to concentrate on substance and depth. One small tought I had was to develop this world/game as opensource and making the graphics rougelike (or sligthly better) just to start seeing the effects of the AI, the plot, and the whole idea. I''d guess the hardcore RPG''s and MUD-fans out there wouldn''t mind trying it out (for free).

New idea (they''ve been piling up lately): Taking the concept to come in Neverwinter Nights further and developing the engine to be fully distributed on the internet. I mean to give people the chance to run their own server that could simulate a planet (seem to be the best partition-level so far) where they could control access to players and GM''s by them self. The idea would be for such ''planet-servers'' to compete among them self on getting most visits and play-time by the players. These planets could at some point apply for membership in ''The Empire'' (run by the game owners or some agreed upon party) where certain membership advantages and criteria should be given and followed. When the players move in space (controlled by the game owners) they could find a planet and decide to land (or dock to a space-port), which would render them to the planet-controlled scrutiny and rules. Think about it: A game-world parallell to the web. Open source, standard protocols, etc. Grand ideas here ;-)

Yeah, this is alot on the lines of what I had thought of! A person can have their own planet like you say, and you can travel between them looking for whatever you like best.
What I had thought of didn''t involve space and planets, but its basically the same thing as far as open protocols, source, and design. Provide the tools, and let people build your game for you
This way there is not any centralization of a couple main game servers, but the game is still connected to itself.

It amazes me how people so far away can think so much alike

Nothing is difficult, only the mind makes it so.

Cool, an SF idea! (Now why''dya have to be such a butthead to the newbie asking for help...????)

quote: Original post by gartland

New idea (they''ve been piling up lately): Taking the concept to come in Neverwinter Nights further and developing the engine to be fully distributed on the internet. I mean to give people the chance to run their own server that could simulate a planet (seem to be the best partition-level so far) where they could control access to players and GM''s by them self.

Yes, I''ve had a similar thought. Be it planet or plane, the GM would be in charge of setting up the rules. This really works if you think in terms of governments, and rules and such. One place could be a dictatorship, another a super-capitalistic oligarghy, another a democracy... etc.

quote:
The idea would be for such ''planet-servers'' to compete among them self on getting most visits and play-time by the players.

Yes, I thought this would be a great way to stop GMs from screwing with players. It gives them incentive to behave, and makes for good continuity.

quote:
These planets could at some point apply for membership in ''The Empire'' (run by the game owners or some agreed upon party) where certain membership advantages and criteria should be given and followed.

If you wanted, servers could also use players to compete against other servers. This gets you missions, and more reason to move from server to server (spy operations?? theft? sabotage?)

quote:
When the players move in space (controlled by the game owners) they could find a planet and decide to land (or dock to a space-port), which would render them to the planet-controlled scrutiny and rules.

Exactly. But of course, unless you want uniformity (all servers conform in a way that players like, or get no votes) then you need reasons to go to unpleasant places (as mentioned above).

I thought the system could work through trade and docking fees, by the way. As a server owner, you''d want to build up services to attract players. This would give you more power, and more influence among other server owners. You could then bribe other memebers into joining or seceding, or whatever, and you could pay players to be mercenaries for you. So GMs would in effect be players too.





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Just waiting for the mothership...