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[Ohlawdy]

Now first I would like to mention that I wouldn't care if the game is text-based, 2-d, 3-d, or nth-d. As long as the concept is there I would be ecstatic. I also know that it wouldn't be an easy undertaking and would take an entire team of skilled developers to create. The idea is nothing more than a pipe dream that I want to share and maybe even develop a text version of it on an extremely small scale for fun.

The basic idea of the game is that the players would contribute resources, their character's skills, and whatever else to a communal pool. In a city there would be a voting house. At the voting house you could vote on various things. It might be as low scale as "should we stay safe and grow wheat or venture out and grow lucrative watermelons?" to "Should we spend some of our resource stockpiles to build a blacksmith so that we can repair and buy weapons/armours/metal tools?" to as large scale as "Should a new town/mine/something be founded." or "Should we go to war with the goblin empire; risking sieges and destroyed cities at the reward of possibly getting access to resource rich new lands." All of the resource stockpiles would be purely funded by players. If the players don't want to give up some of their time/resources to donate to their town then I guess they aren't getting a new sawmill. If the players would rather spend their carpentry time on crafting mugs to sell instead of building the sawmill then apparently the sawmill will never be built.
As much of the voting would be automated as possible but some of the bigger things would require new content be made and admin intervention. Some of the votes would be long term and would probably determine the next load of content to be developed.

Pretty much the game economy will be mostly based on the players and so will the services they have access to. If the players don't work together and build walls to their cities and swords for their armies then it is quite possible that the barbarians to the north will rape and pillage the lands until everyone is huddling together, starving and cold behind the Royal Palace walls. If the capitol city is taken/razed by a foreign power then the game world is reset and starts fresh.
Occasionally massive events would happen. The community would be warned ahead of time so that they can prepare and be ready to participate. Examples might be a giant fleet of pirates that are going to attack and loot all the coastal cities or an all powerful dragon/titan has been roaming the countryside and is flying closer and closer to settlements every day. Possibly a sorcerer has started to raise armies of zombies that are sieging entire cities. The only way to stop it is to find and kill the sorcerer.

There could also be an elected player government. There would be different levels of authority and they would have to make decisions based on that level of authority. A local mayor might have the power to divert the town's resources to building whatever the hell he wants or even risk siphoning off it. The decision outcome would have some randomization to prevent calculations beyond statistics but would mainly be determined by various variables and possibly the character's skills. For example, the siphoning off resources success level would be determined by relevant character skills and things such as security of the warehouses/banks or what exactly is being siphoned off (large amounts of lumber might be harder to steal than a few coins). A king might have to make decisions on how much to invest in the army and how to deal with threats to the empire. However, the king would not have the ability to micromanage and boss around every lowly mayor. That is purely just to prevent a government figure from destroying a player's fun. It would be against the rules to use your power to harass other players and ruin their experience. An example of fun-ruining would be to destroy every single building in a town or obviously making horrible decisions for the sake of being an ass. As long as no valid complaints are made, you are free to do whatever as long as you aren't voted out (or assassinated). To prevent people from gaining an office and quitting the game, if a player doesn't log a certain amount of time in a week, they are automatically booted out of office. Government figures should be active members, and if they can't due to real life then someone else should have the opportunity to take their place.

I'm not sure if my idea for handling death would work or not. Basically what would happen is that once the player has access to a home of some sort, they could "start a family". It would be pretty much a money pit that gives a reason to be wealthy other than l33t gear. When you die without a family, your character is gone. Normal perma-death. However, when you have a family, your character is reincarnated (without your current inventory) and take a massive hit to their skills. The more money you throw at your family the less of a skill hit you take. This could be explained by your children having access to better education and services.

PVP would be optional in the game with some exceptions. Cities would be relatively safe with PVP enabled unless you decided to enter some shady alleyways where the guards don't watch (if the town even has guards). Outside civilization can be dangerous for those with PVP enabled as they can only rely on themselves. If you have PVP disabled then you are pretty much safe from all other players. To encourage players to have PVP enabled you can get XP bonuses and reward bonuses. You will just generally progress faster. However once you turn it on there is a long wait time before you can turn it back off. Certain things in the game however would require you to have PVP enabled. If you want a position of authority then PVP must be enabled (so people can assassinate you). If you want to trade lucrative goods with a caravan then PVP must be enabled (so people can steal and loot your wagons). Want to live a life of crime, then PVP must be enabled (so people can hire bounty hunters against you).

Skills would range from swords to farming. Many of the non-combat skills would probably either have a mini-game associated with it or it would be something done automatically while offline (assuming you log off in the right area). Having trade skills be used while offline would let players go adventure during the day and then come back to their farm, log off, and tend their crops while they sleep/work/study in real life.

I have heard that some MUDs have pretty nifty features and you won't see in any other game but I haven't been able to see for myself how fleshed out those features truly are. I fear my dream game here is completely unrealistic, even for a team of people developing it to be played through a console, whether it be on a technical side of the social side of a community never participating like how I envision. I also am afraid that if it is possible to make as a MUD, that it would never be able to gather enough players to make it fun. I can't imagine the game even being developed as a 2d or 3d game just purely because of the amount of work it would take to have visuals for everything but then again I have never finished programming a game myself.

[HavingPhun]

It would not take a skilled team to make this. (I think.) Also depending on how complex it would be. But managing all the servers might be the tough part once the game starts. The art would definetly take longer in 3d but even with many objects it could be done in 2d or 3d. Its an interesting idea. Would money be one of the resources? So like the more cash you spew out to the government the more things and more expensive things they can build. Also maybe setting your character to spend time with there kids and teach them things. Also like you said spending cash on sending them to different schools to boost different skills. Maybe have a child limit that can be raised somehow. Like being able to care for them. So players dont have infinity^2 children.

[Killjoy]

The only viable way to create something you have described is if the game is a sandbox. Basically a hardcore version of Minecraft with RPG elements or something. The problem is that integrating all those diplomatic rules as game mechanic is a real bitch and more or less impossible to implement properly. It is much more viable to create incentive for people for work together than creating game mechanics which force people to work together.

So yes and no. Implementing anything like this as a set of game mechanics is a pipedream. What is much more doable is creating a setting where gameplay like this can emerge.

[HavingPhun]

The only viable way to create something you have described is if the game is a sandbox. Basically a hardcore version of Minecraft with RPG elements or something. The problem is that integrating all those diplomatic rules as game mechanic is a real bitch and more or less impossible to implement properly. It is much more viable to create incentive for people for work together than creating game mechanics which force people to work together.

So yes and no. Implementing anything like this as a set of game mechanics is a pipedream. What is much more doable is creating a setting where gameplay like this can emerge.

While reading it I was also thinking. How could you get all these people to play nice and help with the economy. Since its all by choice. But it would be cool if this could work in a game with many people.

[Armok]

Pretty sure there are minecraft servers that work pretty much like this.

[Ohlawdy]

It would not take a skilled team to make this. (I think.) Also depending on how complex it would be. But managing all the servers might be the tough part once the game starts. The art would definetly take longer in 3d but even with many objects it could be done in 2d or 3d. Its an interesting idea. Would money be one of the resources? So like the more cash you spew out to the government the more things and more expensive things they can build. Also maybe setting your character to spend time with there kids and teach them things. Also like you said spending cash on sending them to different schools to boost different skills. Maybe have a child limit that can be raised somehow. Like being able to care for them. So players dont have infinity^2 children.

I've heard of MUDs having systems similar to the things I described but I wasn't sure if they truly pulled them off or if it was just the bare minimum needed to say that the feature exists. Like you said, if the actual production of the game isn't too bad, managing the servers would be. Keeping the world seem dynamic and living would probably be pretty difficult in the long-run.
Money would be one of the resources to a degree. Towns would require money to provide generic upkeep for buildings and guards so taxes would be pretty much required unless some saintly aristocrat wants to fund an entire city. I think it would be best to make it difficult, if not nearly impossible for a city to build and max out all buildings. That way cities might want to specialize depending on what resources are around them. I would want to simplify much of government system to prevent from having to make RTS version and RPG version of the game.
Your child idea is good. I haven't actually sat down and worked out really any of the details of the game because I know it is well beyond my skill level and I have neither the resources nor the time to make it come true.

The only viable way to create something you have described is if the game is a sandbox. Basically a hardcore version of Minecraft with RPG elements or something. The problem is that integrating all those diplomatic rules as game mechanic is a real bitch and more or less impossible to implement properly. It is much more viable to create incentive for people for work together than creating game mechanics which force people to work together.

So yes and no. Implementing anything like this as a set of game mechanics is a pipedream. What is much more doable is creating a setting where gameplay like this can emerge.

That is my main worry, that forcing the players to act a certain way is both impossible and would probably ruin the fun even if pulled off. You are right in that an incentive needs to be made. That is why I was thinking that if the players decide not to work together, cities could quickly fall to enemies, cutting off safe access to natural resources. Also buildings would never be constructed making it nearly impossible to do certain things efficiently. If a smelter is never built then no one is going to be able to effectively smelt ore and it is just going to be a pain in the ass. Everyone gives up a little something so that everyone has access to better facilities, services, and just generally a better game-life.

Pretty sure there are minecraft servers that work pretty much like this.

Minecraft is what actually gave me the idea, but I found it much too constrictive for me to want to run a server like this.

[Armok]

still probably easier to make as a mine craft mod thou, unles you find a MUD engine that's already pretty much like this.

[Flying Dice]

The real difficulty sounds like it would come from the players. You wouldn't be herding cats, you would be trying to convince cats to herd themselves.

[GlyphGryph]

I've played this MUD. It was pretty fun. There are actually a couple I've played in the genre - one focuswed almost exclusively on intercity conflict based around resources management. It lacked permadeath, but that wasn't the important thing anyway. It was nice, but not really my cup of tea. The other one, a Rome-themed historical industry MUD was incredibly fun, and have permadeath w/family mechanics was pretty damned interesting. Eventually, though, the politics wore on me (it WAS Rome, and politics are to be expected).

Oddly enough, probably my favorite instance of this wasn't a mud at all - it was the zombie game Die2Nite, and I'd recommend playing it to think of a different way this sort of thing could work. People trying to work together to make the right decisions for the town as a whole while pursuing their own goals, permadeath (guaranteed permadeath, in fact. You can not actually win die2nite, or even avoid dying. Eventually, you lose), and a lot of interesting mechanics.

[Sigulbard]

Democracy Simulator 2013