I'm far from being involved in game development anymore, but recently I bought Fable 2 and just "finished" playing it (I didn't have an xbox360 until last month) and it sparked an idea so I thought I'd toss it out there on the off-chance that someone is trying to figure out what to work on for their next project.

So this is a freebie with no strings attached; I just wanted to share the idea.

Fable 2 was a pretty fun game, and I really enjoyed the experience.

At the end of the main quest, however, things just kind of lost their momentum and motive.

I spent the main quest duration building up this near King of a character, and after I was done saving the lands from the epic threat, I found myself just not nearly as compelled to engage with the world as it mostly just sat still without world progress.

It got me thinking, what if there was a game that played like Fable (take your pick on your personal favorite version; it doesn't matter which) until you were done with the main quest line, and then the end game took your well developed character and entered into a sort of Total War series style world political and war strategy game?

I pick Total War because in Total War you can choose to be an active participant directly managing the battle, or you can choose to let the battle run automated.

If you chose to personally engage, then there could be some interesting play in that you already have your character well built from the Fable-like game experience.

In this, your character would then be in the battle directly and you could develop a gui format for managing the battle commands, while at the same time directly engaging in the battle in a sort of Dynasty Warriors form (as Fable's combat system is somewhat a cousin of Dynasty Warrior's combat system...sort of; at least, it's not a development stretch to marry the two concepts).

This, I think, would be pretty fascinating.

The personal questing would be a character development game, while the "end game" (not really an "end game" at all, really) would be a world development game; borrowing the same concepts as whatever was used in the previous system.

For example of that last line, in Fable, there's allot to do with good and bad, and like and not like.

These same concepts could be carried over into the world development rather easily as a part of the political attributes.

The part of the world that you control (be it a vagabond troop or a full kingdom) could gain a portion of its attributed statistics from your character (the leader) for a starting point in the world development stage.

From there, your character and your ruling region(s) could develop in relation to each other.

Indeed, similar to Total War (or similar styles of games), it is not uncommon to have secondary leaders that the player selects to rule over a given region based on that leader's statistical advantages.

I think this would be a pretty interesting genre mixing concept.

Just an idea; thanks for reading.