Helo.
Ive thought about this concept before..and left it at that. I reacently read allot of filosofical books and ideas about society and such and i remembered the good old Civ Games!
Well, the ide for an MMORPG Civ I thought about is a merge beween Civilization and Sims! So you could call it an MMORPS or Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Simulation. It wouldnt be a simple game anymor becaus you couldnt really win, its a simulation, like the real world and you win by playing the game as good as you can, and that is the challenge!
Back to the gameidea. The game starts at the ape-stage. The gameworld is the earth and there are small ghaterings of tribes or beginning of societies or very rudimentery civilisations. When the game starts all players lets say 10 000 are all NPC. They are scattered over the world and they have different traits and starting positions. The NPCs or the characters all behave like people and mate and there are new NPCs. They eventualy die and so on.
When a IRL human want to play the game he buys a NPC in the game. He then has control of the character as a "mini-civilisation". When he has a baby with another character he has a claim/family to that person but it is still a NPC. When the main character of the player dies he can choose a new main character from the one in his bloodline..or start a new one. The claim this way is only valid for 2 blood-generations. One can proclaim succesors and such.
If two IRL humans character mate the offspring is ecualy claimable by both.
I think the challenge for this ide is to create the evolutionary world. I would create it so that every player connected share the processing power of the world in an amount relative to the computers capabilities. (Similar to the Human Protein Folding Experiment).
Another challenge is the introducing of new game-concepts and new technologies. One solution could be that people playing the game contribute with suggestions and ideas at town meetings or forums or halls of science in ones community. There would still be pre-made technologies and a techtree that will evolve without this. But if someone in a community can invent a new ide that fits the timeline it could be implementet there, If they have all nessesery resources.
Every character in the game has a statusvalue or influense. The chanse of succes in different ontakings in the simulation could be based on this to some degree. The characters statusvalue increases with contributions to the society in this scienceway like in a science way of wonders and in the constructions of material things and concuests and such. Things that will benefit other characters or impress them. (Family size and the status of it).
This way it will be a game/simulation that is about collecting material resources for the character (family and allies/friends), manageging social relations and diplomacy and laying out larger strategies. It will be about what life is about and it will include cool stuff, fighting/action and best of all SEX!
I suggest it should be able to have adult material to be turned on or of. That was one thing i thought sucked in Fallout 2, they didnt show the sexscene! Maby this could have some fostering ide that i havnt considered thoug.
The gamemakers would get cash for every new started game! And if you play well you dont have to spend any more mony! And if the cashfund would get low for some reason, in consideration to the expense (this would be a moral formulated gameconcept that everyone agrees to so the players dont get cheeted) the gamemakers could cause natural disasters so people die. This could be a random factor based on the world map. Living next to a vulcano has its dangers and they would occur anyways sometimes. On the other hand, you have acess to sulphur.
The startingpoint in a rudimentery world limits the ability to suggest new technologies in a way that is in line with the timeline or you could say in line with the NPCs in the civilisation. Maby there could be formulated different qualificational ideas that must be satisfied for an ide to be included. And a timelimit for the influense of the ide to reach other civilisations, if they are susseptible for it.
Another question would be about the timeflow. How fast should it go? I would say it should flow in normal time. This way it is natural and reallike and it wouldnt be as affected by differences in playing 24/7 and only once in a while. Well, it would almost be constructed to be played only once and a while. Maby later scenarios or whatever could be sett upp to be played as simulations of alternative realities to the original one for more action proned players. The advancement in the simulation would be based on the contribution of the players playing in it.
The real problem then becomes wich possibilities should it have originaly? I leave that up to you because now the time is almos 4 in the morning.
I almost forgot. When a player buys a new character in the game he starts randomly on the map. Maby you could choose preferences or something. Maby you could spend extra mony to get a more valuable starting character, atleast to some degree. And you can only have one main character for one licenscode.
One more. When your not playing you could have your character act as a customized NPC or you could have it go on vecation if you dont want it to scew things up when it wakes up on the wrong side of the bed!
And maby this ability to go on vecation is limited by rescources and the nature of the world. One could spend a week in the desert eating grashoppers or maby in a horehouse retreat or maby wondering in the woods talking to trees, eating mushrooms and baked bread and meditating.
Best regards, Fredrik. (An old fart of 25 years almost "raised" by Civ2 and Master of Orion2).
