Ok, I have been thinking and I'm just going to resolve the player inter-breeding issue. The first release will not have that ability. There is a possibility of adding it in the future. It's just beyond the scope of the project at this point. All spouses must be NPC's

--In-depth character customization

I assume by this you refer to the graphics.

This is a good idea, lots of people worry about what thy look like and games give them the chance to decide.

--Your character has his/her own needs, wants, and inherent attributes

Random abilities and stats.

This is a good idea because it forces a player to take part in the game and start a family, to have control over those attributes.

--Through game play, discover your character's unique strengths and weaknesses which affect your skills

--Claim an abandoned house in the world as your home and customize it.

--Depending on how you deal with NPC's, they can become good friends, lifetime enemies, or even your spouse.

Exploration and discovery is a large part of all gameplay.

--Mate, raise a family, grow old and pass control on to the next generation. or die trying... You only live ONCE!

--Children inherit the traits of their parents and can be trained in various skills.

The whole point of this step would be to allow players to control there stats, why else would you want to start a family if not to survive together.

To prevent players from creating over powered characters is a simple matter of limits.

If your game uses three stats then the players first should have a strength that gives it a advantage in your world.

Starting Player: NPC Player:

Stat: Min 0 Max 3

Player Max 3 stats

Str: 2 Str: 1 (Strength allows you to carry more, and take more hits)

Int: 1 Int: 2 (Intelligence allows you to find better items, and use your abilities more)

Dex: 0 Dex: 0 (Dexterity allows you to reach places others can't, and run faster)

Child:

(Player + NPC)/2 =

Str: 1.5 //If you don't like point values you can round

Int: 1.5

Dex 0

Oh no, this is min maxing!

Now the new player doesn't have the same strengths as the parents, yes it also doesn't have the same weakness.

Still players who's characters have a high Dex stat can reach places this player can't, the solution is to allow players to take control of any member in the family.

Now players will want characters with deferent stats so that thy can have all the rewards.

Limiting there abilities to a set number will mean each family member is better for a different situation, also allowing players to learn some abilities only while playing the game will mean that making a new profile and mating with them would be pointless.

If two players have a child and split up thy can have some kind of custody battle.

--Craft, scavenge, and fight to survive and protect your family

This will probably be the meat of your game, I advice that you find as many uses for scavenged items as possible

If can use a metal pipe as a weapon when you have none, that's good but if you can also melt it down to make a sword or ammo maybe even a nuke, that is awesome.

--Choose a faction in the on-going fight and complete opposed missions to help your side.

The choices and often moral dilemmas that come from factions, often serve as a good distraction of day to day survival.

Wait..isnt this the sims?

Wait..isnt this the sims?

It is heavily influenced by The Sims obviously. Unlike The Sims, this game is multi-player, you control only a single character while the rest of the group is AI, you control your character all the time rather than just ordering the character to do something and waiting, the world is very dangerous and caution needs to be taken at all times to prevent death, resources are scarce and you need to be scavenging, crafting, and trading wisely to keep you and your group alive.

I guess you could call this game Extreme Sims (hehe) but I usually describe it as a cross between The Sims, Wurm, and APB Reloaded.

Look for a full Game Design Document soon which I will post up here for feedback when I get it completed.

Wait..isnt this the sims?

In the sims the first thing everyone does is download mods to turn off aging and death. So in practice playing this would not be a lot like the sims.

In the sims the first thing everyone does is download mods to turn off aging and death.

Interesting. I've never heard of anyone doing that although I'm sure there are some people who do (especially since you mention it). Wouldn't it get really really boring? It would basically just make it the same as The Sims 1 which was fun for a little while and then got old after a while and you'd have to just start a new family.

It would basically just make it the same as The Sims 1 which was fun for a little while and then got old after a while and you'd have to just start a new family.

That's a matter of having plenty of of quality-content.

But that still leaves the possibility for someone to purposely breed a character that has ultra high strength (for example) at the expense of all other stats, which is pretty much the definition of min-maxing.

Isn't the whole point of a game to try 'n win it with the possibilities given by the developer ?

Right now I am planning on making only one character available per account and making accounts cost a little bit of money to create (like five or ten dollars) to discourage people from creating alternate accounts,

I don't want to say you shouldn't do this, because you need a money-making business model as well off course,

but that business model should realy be the priority when charging money.

Perfectly, you would design a game in which multi-accounting has little to no benefit for the cheater and little to no damage to the game/community.

(and umm, virtual characters marrying each other, nobody cares.)

I doubt you're gonna get many players to play the game far enough to get hooked if their characters are all random, btw.

Isn't the whole point of a game to try 'n win it with the possibilities given by the developer ?

That's why it's the job of the developer to not give them possibilities they shouldn't have, hence that whole conversation. Anyway, this is not the type of game it is possible to win anyway. There are no levels, no points, no win criteria whatsoever. It's a sim game.

Perfectly, you would design a game in which multi-accounting has little to no benefit for the cheater and little to no damage to the game/community.

Indeed. That's why it seems that random characters and no inter-character breeding is the best option.

I doubt you're gonna get many players to play the game far enough to get hooked if their characters are all random, btw.

Maybe, maybe not. But then it would be really boring if I just designed games that have already been made now wouldn't it? What would be the point of that? The fun of making games is to try out new and interesting things. If I wanted to retread old ground, I'd just play games that already exist.

In the sims the first thing everyone does is download mods to turn off aging and death.

Interesting. I've never heard of anyone doing that although I'm sure there are some people who do (especially since you mention it). Wouldn't it get really really boring? It would basically just make it the same as The Sims 1 which was fun for a little while and then got old after a while and you'd have to just start a new family.

No, it's not boring in unaging/deathless mode at all, or at any rate not unless you think killing off sims is the most fun activity in the game. Even if you stack up a no jealous mod and a lots of money cheat, there are things in the game that are quite challenging to accomplish. Personally I spend my time breeding sims and their dogs, trying to get one character to the top level of each performance art and each career, trying to get one abducted by aliens and one turned into a werewolf, etc. Also I do things like create two different households such that when I'm playing one the other is available in NPC mode, and I use the one I'm controlling to romance the other one until they agree to merge households. All of these things take a while.

No, it's not boring in unaging/deathless mode at all, or at any rate not unless you think killing off sims is the most fun activity in the game. Even if you stack up a no jealous mod and a lots of money cheat, there are things in the game that are quite challenging to accomplish. Personally I spend my time breeding sims and their dogs, trying to get one character to the top level of each performance art and each career, trying to get one abducted by aliens and one turned into a werewolf, etc. Also I do things like create two different households such that when I'm playing one the other is available in NPC mode, and I use the one I'm controlling to romance the other one until they agree to merge households. All of these things take a while.

That's the good thing about The Sims. there are lots of different play styles available so it can interest different kinds of players. I certainly don't go around killing off sims. In fact, I'm often a little sad when they die. :-( But that's life. I just recently had a guy die right on stage right after just getting married and having a new baby. It was very sad. I had such plans for him, but now he's dead. But life moves on. Now his son is a successful private investigator and has a girlfriend he intends to marry soon, and life is good. It's the ups and downs that make the game for me.

Personally, I do a few things every time I install it.

1. Turn off all occult types and set the moon to be one phase to avoid that full moon silliness.

2. Install the nraas Story Progression mod so my NPC sims actually do reasonable things with their lives.

3. Install nraas Mover mod so sims that leave home and become the new active family don't take all the family's money with them. They take a reasonable percentage.

4. Sometimes install the nraas Traveler mod so they can visit other neighborhoods on vacation, but this mod breaks the Into the Future expansion :-(

5. Sometimes install the nraas Woohooer mod so adult sims can date and woohoo with teens, and sims can enter the prostitute profession as well as provides the possibility for accidental pregnancy.