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Total Members Voted: 16

[dennislp3]

If we want to, I think it would be a good idea to run a more public poll to determine setting and scope. But I am fine with the results which seem to be:

a guild/business simulator in a steampunk? world (votes for high and low magic world) that is meant to take course over a few decades.

[mainiac]

It would be kinda neat to do an alternative route to industry besides steam.  If you think about the typical magic in an rpg, they could use that to shake up the economy in ways that people seem strangely uninterested in.  So maybe this could be the world where they do decide to use all that magic to break out of the medieval economy.  A world where turbines are run on magic potions instead of coal.

[Sensei]

Tech tree ahoy!

Maybe you develop early machines (looms, powered mills, trains, light sources, printing presses) and in the late game, consumer appliances (dishwashers, refrigerators, ovens, etc) using various means, and compete with other manufacturers who have different technologies to accomplish the same goal- EG maybe your forge that uses dragon hearts burns hotter than other forges, but it's more expensive to make than your competitor's which burns fairy dust. Or you didn't research Magic Wands or Automatic Scrying Sensors, so now your automatic garage door opener has to have a little man inside who opens it, which is a disadvantage compared to your competitors' automatic garage door openers, because the owners have to feed him (expressed as an upkeep cost). Along the way you have to deal with Luddites (who hate you), unions (who hate you if your machines are unsafe), your ever-advancing competition, and some of the regular dangers which occur in a fantasy world. Focus would probably be on your factory/warehouse- you would be on researching technology, inventing new products, then manufacturing and selling enough of your products to turn a profit, perhaps while looking at your warehouse from top-down and physically placing down objects (EG assembly lines, research spaces, etc).

What do you think of that idea?

[mainiac]

While some of that is pretty ambitious I think that simple tech trees would make an appearance pretty soon on.

A cool way to subvert tropes with tech trees would be to make it so that nothing is unlocked by new discoveries, it's just that technologies make new applications commercially viable.  So it's possible to make an automatic door opener on day 1, it just is prohibitively expensive.  But once you have remote word of activation spells and self pulling pulleys and municipal mana grids to power it the cost is much lower.  And of course there needs to be enough people with horseless carriages to make a market for such devices.

[LoSboccacc]

arcanum had an interesting fantasy/industrialization theme going on, with orcs semi enslaved and magic on the decline because of interactions with heavy iron machinery

[dennislp3]

I would personally like to stay away from vanilla steampunk as well. I will jot up an idea or two and post them here once they are all typed out. I will try and post at least 3 ideas for the setting. Should have them typed up and posted within a few hours. Have to do it from work so it depends on how busy I am.

[Zangi]

Spoiler: Business Concepts (click to show/hide)

*Insert Monster Here* Monster Hunting - Go out there, kill *Insert Monster Here* monsters for parts.
Said monsters are a limited resource, overhunting is possible.  But, the population will replenish overtime, if not severely hunted...  Maybe extinction is possible...

Later tech perhaps allows you to make a *Insert Monster Here* Monster Ranch of those Huntable Monsters... but depending on the monster, vast amounts of land and/or 'fencing' is required.  Can release monsters back into the wild too.
In case of extinction, some sort of cloning tech or something to bring em back into a Ranch...?

Basically players will have to police each other...
Another supplemental 'business' to this are Rangers. They don't make any money.  Basically, they cut into the profit margins of Hunters going after X, Y and/or Z monsters.  (Kind of a way to protect species from being wiped out by anti-competitive big ranches... and/or people who just don't care.)
(Perhaps this is based off of settlements/factions/regional rather then individual players.)


Another business concept:
Banditry business.  No-one likes you for that.  Except for the people benefiting from it of course.  Same deal with players policing each other... they can choose not to deal with thieves... but... some businesses only care about the bottom line.  Basically give players the tools to not deal with bandits/unscrupulous players, but that is ultimately up to the individuals how they conduct themselves.

Supplemental:
Police 'business' to counter that, but the law can't be everywhere all the time.  (Settlement/Faction/Regional based rather then by individual players...)
Smuggling/Re-Branding/Black Market: When some settlement/faction/region outright bans your company and/or products... you always have other ways to get your goods and services to your customers.

[kytuzian]

I don't believe it has been decided whether this will be multiplayer or singleplayer yet.

We also need a basic list of products.

I'll probably make up some menu stuff tonight in Unity and then see what people think of them.

[LoSboccacc]

But it was kind of consensus to have it a business sim not a fighting game

[kytuzian]

But it was kind of consensus to have it a business sim not a fighting game

I assume that's directed at Zangi? Because I agree.

[Zangi]

Its not fighting.  Your employees hunt monsters and bring in their meat/parts.
Its a business.  You hire faceless mooks.

Same with banditry, you hire faceless mooks to do the job and take your cut of it/take and resell what they steal.

[LoSboccacc]

oh didn't got it. in that light, I wholeheartedly like it

[dennislp3]

Given that we seem to be all over with suggestions, which are good, we need to lay out an order of priorities. I would propose we work in this order:

Planning (current phase):
Setting details:
We need to decide what sort of world this is taking place in, what sort of technologies are involved, what sort of magics are involved, and what sort of races their are.

For the world we need:
Geography and climate - Earth clone? earth itself? Ice planet? etc
History - Once again...completely alternative history? Human type history?
Population - How many people, how many races, what sort of animals
Locations - how many cities? what is the average size? what is the largest city? I would assume this is taking part inside one nation and outside nations can be simulated some but ultimately will not show up

After we have a rough sketch of the world and what we want from it we can move on to more specific aspects such as:
How does magic work and how widespread is it? who can use it?
What sort of technologies will exist?
we need to of course also flesh out the nation the game takes place in

After we have an idea of what sort of place we are working with THEN we can start working on specifics

I propose the first iteration, essentially a tech demo, should consist of a flat map, 5 or 6 basic resources (food, wood, metal, coins, magic stones, and something else). There should be a few "towns" plopped about on this flat grid with your guild starting in one of them. Each town can have a basic system of consumption and production

Once we get this tech demo up we can work on details. I personally don't much care to speculate about all this stuff it could be until we actually have something.

To make this happen I would prefer we start working on a roster of sorts, who is going to do what? I would prefer a core team and others can volunteer. If we do not set up a proper team to coordinate the project it will likely die in a battle of attrition against the constant revolving door of people jumping on to help then abandoning the project.

My skills in coding are lacking no doubt, but I can code, and most importantly I can and will learn whatever so I will fill in where needed  as I am going to start school soon for a bachelors of computer science and I would love if this project could pan out for personal experience and resume reasons. There is no greater drive to be motivated for me than to personally invest myself into this project so I am all in. Does anyone want to take any other specific rolls?

We probably need at least one person for each of the following:

Project Lead: Delegate tasks, Coordinate people and code, hound people to finish their tasks , fill in to code things that need done or where people need help etc. I would be willing to take this role if no one else desires too

UI: Implements and directs interface and menus as well as coding them

Art/Graphics: someone to direct and create graphics and/or an art style. We don't need AAA studio 3d graphics...but I would like to have more than programmer art and if we want people to enjoy our game on a slightly larger scale we need more than text or ASCII level graphics

Mechanics Programmer: It would be best to have at least one experienced coder to direct and monitor the bulk of the actual programming

Story/Lore: This place is brimming with creative and intelligent people. I am more than sure we can find at least one person who would love to help lead and direct lore for our game. With this we can have a unique setting even if we use procedural generation

Taking one of the roles does not mean you would "own" that portion of the project. you would simply direct it and make it work. I would prefer people to work as a team and come to a consensus on how it turns out, not strong arm people into making the game what you want it to be.

That said I would also like if someone were to volunteer for a position that they actually mean it and stick with the project.

[LoSboccacc]

I can code and maintain the tooling around that. I can also organize, but I'd prefer to see a project lead to emerge based on the direction the coding will take, not having one nominated ex ante.

[dennislp3]

What exactly do you mean by emerging based on direction of the code? Do you simply mean to not have a lead until we see who sticks with the project and actually does work? That certainly seems a fair way to do it