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[Zanzetkuken The Great]

...how I came up with this thought?

How different would the world be if, rather than having conflict in reality, there was a massive video game with each country's military within it being based upon the game's players from that country.  Weapons technology within the game would be advanced by funding a department in reality to prove that a type of weapon can be built within reality, with a test proving that it works.  When that would be done, the weapon would be uploaded intot he game for that country, and would become available to others if that country sells the weapon's code or the other country deploys a covert OP in the game.  Main map could be a scaled down version of the world, with other planets being added as they are colonized.  Might even be able to be used to determine the borders of countries by taking what the conquered territories in the game are every ten years or so, and reshaping the nations to be roughly in that shape.  The system could be enforced by a massive United Nations police force funded by premium players (who in game would be officers) paying for subscription fees.

[Levi]

We'd have a lot more assasinations of pro-gamers.   

[Yoink]

On a scale of 1 to bananas, how high are you?

[Jopax]

I swear we had someone suggest this already.

Also it's a concept straight from LoL (of not from something even older) so not that new in any case.

[LordBucket]

Might even be able to be used to determine the borders of countries by taking what the conquered
territories in the game are every ten years or so, and reshaping the nations to be roughly in that shape.

Now all you need are disintegration chambers to execute people who are "killed" in the game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon#Plot

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

We'd have a lot more assasinations of pro-gamers.   

On the flip side, top players would become celebrities, and scientists that would create new weapons for the game would be acclaimed.

On a scale of 1 to bananas, how high are you?

Never had a drug of that kind, as a) it is illegal where I am, and b) I'm too cheap to spend money on stuff.

I swear we had someone suggest this already.

Also it's a concept straight from LoL (of not from something even older) so not that new in any case.

Only one I could think of that would be close to this is Planetside 2.

Now all you need are disintegration chambers to execute people who are "killed" in the game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon#Plot

Eh, that's going a little far.  Disintegration chambers don't exist yet.

[Jopax]

I meant the concept of solving real world disputes via virtual combat.

PS2 IIRC is just dudes fighting it out on a random planet.

[Frumple]

I meant the concept of solving real world disputes via virtual combat.

Iirc, this concept is older than I am. Which is... probably older than most of the active board, here. It's multiple decades since inception, anyway. Been a thought since before video games, I think. Not an unknown sci-fi trope, basically -- not the most common, but not so far out there as to surprise anyone when brought up.

If you want to go even further back, the concept of dueling to settle geopolitical/inter-group grievances is old, old, old. Mock or ritualized battle (of limited scope, generally) to settle disputes and whatnot's, like. Pre-grecian or something. BCE era junk.

[Itnetlolor]

I had a concept for this. They are what I would call Conflict Worlds. Planets engineered solely for warring factions/nations. Basically, they're specialized planets with just about any biome you can think of (more tactical use, than resourceful civilian use), planted away from worlds of origin, to keep damage within the arena/planet. Homeworlds remain safe and intact, and civilians are safe in their ignorant bubbles of reality.

Optionally, these wars can be broadcast like a tournament of the ages kind of deal. Real war and such, but you can place bets on them and such, and even make a quick buck by joining a merc squad to help pad numbers to make battles fair. Oddly enough, Planetside comes to mind with this concept, amplified with Unreal Tournament.

And of course, my Conflict World concept has to be a large enough world to support numerous wars simultaneously; so basically, an Earth-like world the size of Jupiter. Keep nuclear wars literally worlds apart from one another on each pangea-sized continent (literally an Earth's-distance (circumference (24901.461 miles or 40075.017 km)) away from one another). Literal world wars can be held on their own continent, and be broadcast live to the audience via drones (painted like refs with a specialized IFF signal encoded to not be a target for any nation/faction; destruction of one results in a warning, second-offense, you lose a structure, as sanctioned by the war commission, and if repeated-offender, DFA to the sector abusing policy; if abused as a tactic (small group taking out refs to wipe out the bigger enemy with them), then armed intervention by a 3rd party will occur until the war conditions are fair again).

There have yet to be a proper political battleground like this. May be a challenge to herd sheep into a Political Conflict World. The Internet may qualify, I guess.

[RedKing]

The core problem is getting any losing side to accept the outcome. War is what happens when a side which has lost at diplomacy uses weapons to make its argument.

If this had existed in 1939, it's hard to imagine Poland as a whole saying "Oh well, we lost the virtual war. Now we have to give up full control to Berlin."

Hell, even when they did lose, pockets of resistance continued for the length of the war. Ultimately, for some people the only options are victory or death.

[Flying Dice]

The usual answer to that is having a body like the UN with independent military forces significant enough to be worth noting, combined with group pressure. Any one state tries to get away with flouting the treaty, the UN-expy and the rest of the world come down on them like a ton of bricks. It doesn't even have to be military force in the modern era, just trade sanctions &c. So basically you have to have a multinational community which is not the LoN in that it has universal membership and members are willing to commit to any sort of action, and not like the UN in that it has significant independent power and members willing to commit to meaningful action.

Basically a similar notion as the solution to the Prisoner's Dilemma: have an overseeing body with sufficient power and influence to ensure that all actors abide by agreements.

I swear we had someone suggest this already.

Also it's a concept straight from LoL (of not from something even older) so not that new in any case.

Not now that Riot threw all the lore into the garbage. :V

[Criptfeind]

If you have a group of nations powerful enough and united enough to do this, you have a group of nations that already controls the world so this system is relatively pointless and won't be used anyway. It seems to me at least that way.

[Leafsnail]

Yeah at that point you might as well just prevent them from fighting at all and have some kind of international court impose a solution to the grievance.

[Flying Dice]

I don't disagree with that. I was just pointing out what would be necessary to make the sort of system described by OP workable.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

I've always thought of this, and thought the problems would come from two things:
1) Country loses, raises army, fights back, army retaliates.
2) Other countries go 'Hang on...' and start that themselves, too.

Leave it always online as a continual MMO, ala Planetside, rather than in matches?  Player allegiances would only update every 10 years, so that should keep stuff in relative stasis, except along borders.