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[tNok85]

I'm sure this has been done before, but let's describe it in terms of other games we've played.

My combination: Starflight/DF/Oblivion/Fallout 3/Wing Commander Series/X Series/GalCiv/Majesty/Sins of a Solar Empire/SWG:JTL/Spore/Political Machine/Tropico/Any RPG

I'd like a massively single player game with a jump in/jump out multiplayer option (8/16/32 max players) that is based around a massive universe with a randomly generated seed (variable, a mix between Starflight and DF map creation) with first/third person views and RPG styled stats (Fallout 3/Oblivion, but more of a solid feel to combat - similar to the feel of 'real' FPS games).

Space flight - completely free form. Any type of ship. (WC:Privateer/X-Series) Join a military and fight in 'wars' between civilizations (WC and Freespace). Create your OWN ships if you have the manufacturing capabilities... even design them yourself. (Galactic Civ) Found a colony if you want, manage the creation (DF/Majesty, not micromanage as much as DF but push, more control than Majesty though). Move towards Empire Management/Wars if you want ('Realtime 4x' - SoaSE).

SEAMLESS ATMOSPHERIC FLIGHT. (Only if the ship supports it, of course)

Walking around your own ship while it is moving, be able to look out actual windows. (SWG:JTL)

Recruit party members. (Almost any RPG...)

DESTROY WORLDS! (Spore) Although in much more creative way. Think Dwarf Fortress styled self-destructions.. creative ways!

Politics! (Political Machine, Tropico) Get yourself elected to rule a town/nation/world/solar system/galaxy/universe!


Graphics... whatever. ASCII would even work, but that would rule out the Oblivion/FO3 first/third person combat. Eye candy is just eye candy.


Hah... would be such a massive project, with such a limited market, no way it'd ever get made. But I'd have fun.

[Tilla]

Mine would also be spacey but I'd like to have something along the lines of a full battleship simulator -the ability to leave my station and explore the rest of the ship, or even operate other stations should it be necessary, seeing the other NPC or players operating theirs. Perhaps taking command of a shuttle or fighter for appropriate situations. Repairing damaged systems after battle enough to get back into port. And so forth.

[Gabeux]

Im too sleepy to be really specific.

But one which features building, colonization, research, resource management, optional combat with many alternatives to it conquest, and many more.

Like what "Spore should have been" or something.

Let's say Space RPG/Sim that gives you the opportunity to be whatever you want (Like the X series), plus being able to do atmospheric flights (and exploration), colonize etc. And later on being able to build ships to make an Armada, take over planets etc. And while your armada is somewhere else, your character is exploring some distant planet or killing some aliens for the lulz.

Let's say I'm waiting for Kerberos' Northstar (http://northstar.wikidot.com/), or that 'vaporware' russian game 'Precursors'  (http://www.precursors-game.com/eng/).
For now I'm playing a bit of StarQuest Online, Hegemonia: Legions of Iron and Alien Legacy on DosBox.

EDIT: Now that I've opened my eyes properly, I pretty much want the same game as you. heheh

[varnish]

My ideal game is a life simulator taking place between the 12th and 15th centuries in the Mediterranean. It would be like The Guild, only so much more. You want to be a Venetian merchant? Go for it. A bricklayer in Damascus? Yes. A high class courtesan living in Florence? A miserable beggar living in the slums of Cairo? If you can manage it, yes and yes.

Not saying these things are possible, or even remotely interesting to anyone but me. But it's my dream game.

[Puck]

Mine would also be spacey but I'd like to have something along the lines of a full battleship simulator -the ability to leave my station and explore the rest of the ship, or even operate other stations should it be necessary, seeing the other NPC or players operating theirs. Perhaps taking command of a shuttle or fighter for appropriate situations. Repairing damaged systems after battle enough to get back into port. And so forth.

Pretty much this. To be completely honest, I'd probably be happy if it was some sort of simulator for ANYTHING biggish and shipish. I dont care whether it would be an oil tanker, an aircraft carrier or some sci fi starship. Heck, I'd even take some steampowered contraption travelling the deserts of a madmax inspired world.

What I want from such a game would be... a detailed crew working on the substations, with some rpg elements. RPG as in statswhoring, not as in gay(excuse me, I have nothing against homosexuals, but I wouldnt know how to put it)overdone JRPG cliche stories regarding their personal lives.

It would be cool if the vehicle in question could be upgraded. Either by ... factory made original parts you have to purchase as well as macgyverable jury rigging (with a chance for hilarious failure, depending on skills of your machine room crew?). Of course all the repair stuff and damage control options need to be in.

the game should have a nice single player campaign (that continues to be sandboxey after you finished it) with the option to play multiplayer in different ways:
,) just co-op it with friends, everybody commanding their own vehicle
,) co-op it with your friends as the crew, ie, everybody gets their favourite substation. Can you picture the nerdgasms? All your favourite gaming buddies take a weekend off for a lan party, people get some funky accessoires (maybe a pair of cheesy sunglasses and a cigar for the captain, a soldiers helmet for the weapon officer...), you stock up on beer and pizza and dive off into 2 days of jolly group escapism. Oh boy that could be fun... I can even picture that game to be so realistic that you go on autopilot and turn down the lights when everybody goes to bed. And suddenly, at 5 am the alarm rushes you all out of bed because there's a hostile contact on the radarthingamabob 

And of course.... I cant think of a single game that fills those needs and I dont think I can make it myself.

Oh, and it's probably not my "ideal" game, it's just one of the nifty games I got in mind I still havent seen anywhere.

[beorn080]

I know this is going to be ridiculed, but Pokemon comes close. However, I want something like the TV series Pokemon, with control and dodging and attacks that require strategy to be effective. Where moves don't just hit and need to be set up first. Kinda like SSB, but with all the pokemon, and all the pokemon moves. The moves also have to have other uses, like using Dig can set up holes which would allow a spread Flamethrower attack, and Thunderbolt could explode trees nearby.

[Sowelu]

tNok85, Tilla, Puck:  I'll add you to my "list of people when the game I'm working on becomes playable", because it's maybe half of what you want...not much of the sociopolitical/building, but maybe exactly the space stuff you're after.

I originally specced it out as "Puzzle Pirates in space in 3d, with Starflight/Noctis planetary exploration".  I tried SWG:JTL after starting my project, and now I think that "SWG:JTL except not sucking" is more appropriate...the ship systems in that are pathetic, repairs should be more involved than "walk into an empty room and click a patch item".  More like, oh, a plasma duct blew in the main corridor, but the shields need to go back up right now, so crawl through the jefferies-tube to get to engineering.  I'm aiming for a medium-sized ship being crewed by 4-6 players in stations much like the Starflight ones, except doing their work by solving puzzles in real-time.  (IE constantly remodulating the shields, re-routing power, reversing the polarity on the transducer array, whatever).  In addition to maneuvering and shooting and engineering and stuff, your head scientist can help out in battles by trying to find the enemy shield frequency or whatever, any of a big pile of things.  Of course smaller crews could also do the work but they'd be running (in first-person, literally running) from station to station when an emergency comes up.  But, all ship data is viewed through viewscreens on the bridge, and all the duty puzzles you work on are in-world on various consoles.  Whenever possible, no HUD.

There wouldn't be a focus on NPC crew, but surely they would be there, especially on bigger ships.  And while I've considered FPS elements during boarding operations, nobody else seems to like that idea, so I've kinda scrapped that.  (It wouldn't be the focus, anyway.  :/)

Though I guess it's more like what Star Trek Online should have been, instead of some stupid one-player-per-ship thing.  More like ST:TNG.  Fly out to a star, dealing with whatever technical problems or attacks you run into along the way, then orbit some planet, solve scientific problems, send down your officers on a landing team.  Either that or just hop in a shuttle alone or with someone, and fly out to unknown stars to explore the surface of billions of procedurally-generated planets Noctis-style.

Uh, sorry for the self-advertisement (especially when it's far from playable yet).  But I think it still counts because this IS also my ideal game.  I just got tired of waiting for other people to make it, so I'm trying it out myself.  Progress isn't BAD, by any means.

[Puck]

Sounds nice. Personally I havent fleshed out a lot of ideas when it comes to repair crews and substations and whatnot.

The closest I got so far with games that actually exist is silent hunter 3 and Battlecruiser WhateverAD, which both have a ton of shortcomings. The repair stuff, however, I found satisfying enough. ie... just get skilled crewmen who are not tired and set them to repair the most important stations first.

However, especially with my (as I like to think - very nifty) multiplayer idea that is probably not enough to keep your head engineer guy occupied and entertained enough... A more interesting way of mainaining that ship is probably desirable. However, it shouldnt be so cool that everybody wants to be scotty, but nobody wants to be kirk anymore.

When it comes to boarding, I'd probably prefer some sort of squad based RTS thing. I have said it a thousand times, I really LOVE how the real time part of Fallout: Tactics (for PC) has worked out. I could live with that, plus, it could be played "in the background" while the rest of the crew keeps piloting the ship. No artificial waiting because of turnbased.

The tactical officer or boss of your marines or however you wanna call it could take care of training and fitting out your troops, and when the needs arises he gets to play the shooty part. The other guys, like me, who probably dont like that playstyle as much could concentrate on stuff they like more. yay!

[Wooty]

Puzzle Pirates in Space needs to made. Or heck, just Puzzle Pirates anywhere, as long as the "puzzles" are more relevant to whatever the hell you're doing. Like actually running around patching up holes, or climbing the rigging and adjusting the sails, or digging for gold, instead of just playing bejeweled.

[LordBucket]

What's your ideal game?

My ideal game would be a real life simulator with a built in, toggleable, God-mode available to me. Think Star Trek holodecks. Or better yet, real life, only with me able to toggle on that God-mode.

Think of all the fun things you could do: replay historic wars, stepping into the positions of various leaders and commanders. Introduce superior technology to various historic periods. Operate your own fuedal kingdom, but introduce libraries and refridgeration to the peasantry. Interbreed various earth species and develop greater intelligence. Create alien races and play out first contact scenarios.

It would be a lot of fun.

[Tilla]

tNok85, Tilla, Puck:  I'll add you to my "list of people when the game I'm working on becomes playable", because it's maybe half of what you want...not much of the sociopolitical/building, but maybe exactly the space stuff you're after.

I originally specced it out as "Puzzle Pirates in space in 3d, with Starflight/Noctis planetary exploration".  I tried SWG:JTL after starting my project, and now I think that "SWG:JTL except not sucking" is more appropriate...the ship systems in that are pathetic, repairs should be more involved than "walk into an empty room and click a patch item".  More like, oh, a plasma duct blew in the main corridor, but the shields need to go back up right now, so crawl through the jefferies-tube to get to engineering.  I'm aiming for a medium-sized ship being crewed by 4-6 players in stations much like the Starflight ones, except doing their work by solving puzzles in real-time.  (IE constantly remodulating the shields, re-routing power, reversing the polarity on the transducer array, whatever).  In addition to maneuvering and shooting and engineering and stuff, your head scientist can help out in battles by trying to find the enemy shield frequency or whatever, any of a big pile of things.  Of course smaller crews could also do the work but they'd be running (in first-person, literally running) from station to station when an emergency comes up.  But, all ship data is viewed through viewscreens on the bridge, and all the duty puzzles you work on are in-world on various consoles.  Whenever possible, no HUD.

There wouldn't be a focus on NPC crew, but surely they would be there, especially on bigger ships.  And while I've considered FPS elements during boarding operations, nobody else seems to like that idea, so I've kinda scrapped that.  (It wouldn't be the focus, anyway.  :/)

Though I guess it's more like what Star Trek Online should have been, instead of some stupid one-player-per-ship thing.  More like ST:TNG.  Fly out to a star, dealing with whatever technical problems or attacks you run into along the way, then orbit some planet, solve scientific problems, send down your officers on a landing team.  Either that or just hop in a shuttle alone or with someone, and fly out to unknown stars to explore the surface of billions of procedurally-generated planets Noctis-style.

Uh, sorry for the self-advertisement (especially when it's far from playable yet).  But I think it still counts because this IS also my ideal game.  I just got tired of waiting for other people to make it, so I'm trying it out myself.  Progress isn't BAD, by any means.

Related to Star Trek Online, did you ever get a chance to read the original plans for STO, before the first studio that had the rights to make it were bankrupted? It pretty much was going to be my dream game, with multiplayer ship crews including all the engineers and so forth. I'm kinda sad what has become of them, I didn't want this crap where everyone HAS TO be a captain.

[LordBucket]

did you ever get a chance to read the original plans for STO, before
the first studio that had the rights to make it were bankrupted?

Yes. I was following it semi-regularly for a little while. Now though, it seems like it's going to be a more like a first person shooter with vehicles. The latest videos are absolutely nothing but people and ships spamming phaser blasts.

[Yolan]

Star Wars universe, open elite style trading + first person exploration, daggerfall scale world, joinable factions.

I want to be a stormtrooper, or an admiral of a star destroyer, or a smuggler, or a bounty hunter.. etc.

[Sappho]

Something like DF + Unreal World + Faery Tale Online + A Tale In the Desert.

A persistent online world in the DF style - I prefer ASCII, perhaps with a simple tileset option.  Enormous mountain ranges, vast forests and plains, haunted and evil areas, etc.  Animals which behave like animals, eat food off the map (removing grass and plants or hunting other animals), travel in herds if appropriate, and breed.  Species can be wiped out if overhunted.  New herds form from time to time using breeding pairs from old herds.

Resources are all usable.  You can harvest wild plants and extract seeds to use to make farms.  You can cut down trees and use the wood for various purposes, but they take a while to grow back.  In true DF style, it would be 3D, and you could build towers or underground lairs or what have you.  Underground would be different veins of metal and stone and gems and so forth, just like DF.

The building system would be similar to Unreal World, combined with the complexity of DF and FTO.  You build each item piece-by-piece and construct buildings however you like, and discover new items by experimenting with combining various things using various tools.  Somewhat tedious alone, but would go quickly when people band together.  Each action takes real time to complete, but is interactive, so you feel like you're actually DOING something during that time rather than just clicking "build" and leaving for an hour.  Construction would be done in a minigame system.  Tap a button in time with the music to hammer, for example, or alternatively it could be more like Puzzle Pirates where the games are more abstract (and probably therefore more fun to play).  Each construction task has a percentage meter telling you how close to completed it is, and you can leave a project halfway through and come back to it later, or multiple people can help.  This system makes building things a serious task and an accomplishment and also prevents griefing players from walling in others while they're not looking.

The character system itself would be more like Faery Tale Online.  Characters are mortal, they start as children, they grow old and die (permanently), they have limited natural abilities which they can improve with hard work but which will slowly decrease again when not exercised.  Once in a great while a rare character might be born with magical ability of some sort, but this would be extremely rare and unusual.  Unlike FTO, the characters would not have to breed (creating a waiting list for getting into the game which SUCKS), but rather come into the world either by hatching from a pile of eggs in the town or being spontaneously created by some natural phenomenon or supernatural being.  There would be varying start points with different races, though NOT the typical fantasy races which have been done to death.  In the beginning, the goal of each settlement would be simply to survive, get enough food and such for everyone, create shelter before the winter comes and everyone freezes to death.  As time goes on, the technology level would increase (a la A Tale In the Desert) and more advanced things could be done.

Travel would be fairly slow because of the size of the map (another reason to use ASCII) and need to hunt/forage for food and drink.  Eventually civilizations would discover each other, and it would be up to them how to handle it.  The world would also be populated with NPC civilizations of various types and, of course, powerful gigantic beasts which would be extremely difficult to slay given the limits on character strength and abilities and mortality of characters.  Therefore, the slaying of such a beast would be a genuine accomplishment worthy of myth and legend.  When the number of such monsters gets down to a certain level, some of them would breed and their offspring would move to new places, ensuring that there will never be a lack of such targets for ambitious adventurers.

As you might have noticed, I've been thinking (you might even say fantasizing) about such a game for a long time.  Several times I've tried to learn a programming language so I could make it myself, but I seem to be absolutely retarded when it comes to code and I've never been able to get anything work.  But think of the possibilities!  You could lead your town to prosperity and success, engage in warfare with a neighboring civilization or seek out new trade routes, become a hermit and live in the woods by yourself, become a wandering hunter or gatherer, selling furs and rare herbs in whatever towns you come across, train your whole life to take down the giant living in a cave nearby, dig out a full-sized and fully functioning DF-style underground fortress, become a bandit and rob people at swordpoint on the roads or sneak into towns at night and steal their possessions, create a maze full of traps and puzzles with a treasure at the end, encounter the ruins of old civilizations which have failed, and so on and so forth with whatever you can imagine.

[Mr.Person]

Mine would be a mixture of Dwarf Fortress, IVAN, Elona, Armok 1's magic, and Dungeon Crawl. So pretty much, it would be Dwarf Fortress with an awesome magic/artifact system, a whole mess of object/spell/monster interaction, and a good, sensible way of upgrading the minions through teaching them magic, teaching them skills, and giving them better items. Then, once you've made your awesome dungeon, an upload system so everybody else can run heroes through it, if they wanted. It would probably be a little light on the "survival" aspect, at least in mid-game out, but it should have a strong focus on attracting, teaching, and training good minions. There'd be a good number of options for mundane items you can make and trade with various nations and groups, but the real fun begins when you start attracting mages. In addition to the pure mage who just studies the meta-physics of magic, how it works, and what it can do, there'd more importantly be your mages you teach a trade skill. From there, they can start making powerful magic items. Sure, you can have them enchant pre-made items, but while they would make an "iron sword +1" that way, if they made the item from scratch using their skills, you could have them make a "iron sword that heals you +1" or "flaming iron sword +1", depending on the magic they know, how good they are at the magic, and most importantly, how good they are at the trade skill.

Oh, and of course, a whole slew of crazy, rare-as-fuck randarts and fixedarts based on insane magic items and effects, randomly generated and seemingly=randomly-generated high-level beasts that your mages can create, somewhat to extremly random spell effects, and of course, randomly-generated enemies with different asperation and goals to conquer, ally, or trade with. For example, you might have an umbrella that makes it rain when it's open; a giant naga with another head and set of arms on the tail end; a spell that will attempt to turn the target into gold, which could either make the person a gold statue, a pile of gold coins, an entire gold golem, turn the target's items into gold, turn the target's LIMBS into gold, or even do weird-ass stuff like give the target the Mida's Touch; and your foes would be a nation of elves that have taken refuge in a mountain forest and ride giant eagles while shooting magically enchanted arrows; a barbarian tribe of orcs ruled by a known vampire orc; and a powerful were-cheetah with a whole army of cheetahs under his iron fist (litterally, his right hand is made of iron somehow), all of which were randomly generated from various premade parts stuck together in strange and unpredictable ways.

The strangest thing, of course, is that this is what Dwarf Fortress is going to become, so you know what? I'm happy. If I wanted something else, it would be the same thing with only the magic and magic items system, but it would be a 3d RTS with really smart AI. I do enjoy sitting back and letting two computer players kill each other in an RTS. Failing that, it would obviously be online, and I would enjoy watching games, if possible. I wouldn't mind it being 2d, of course, but 3d would be better in pretty much every way. As long as it's not psuedo-3d, I'm ok. You know what I mean, like Starcraft and Warcraft, I can't stand the sprite-based 3d games, it just looks strange. Maybe if the sprites were really high quality, I could stand it, I dunno.