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[Iduno]

I would like an MMO with several dozen actual GMs curating and generating story content and changing the world based on participation and outcomes of events

I think MUDs and the like did some of that back in the day. It's hard to get GMs though, and especially difficult to get ones that balance things the same.

[Aoi]

Didn't some of the third party NWN servers do that? Which might be arguable on the 'MMO' definition, but it was still with double-digit groups.

[Kagus]

I would like an MMO with several dozen actual GMs curating and generating story content and changing the world based on participation and outcomes of events

That's pretty much what a number of Neverwinter Nights servers were, considering the game even had built-in functionality for ingame GMs. And with the size/scope of some servers, it wasn't unheard of to have multiple GMs running their own separate things in different parts of the world.


I've had a concept banging around for a while, basically ever since I ended up stumbling upon the secret vampire hunt in Red Dead Redemption 2. The idea is to manage your own vampire-hunting guild/family, with permadeath for the characters but with new members available to take up the mantle of being the PC. Persistent advancement in the form of learning new facts about the various types of beastie you were going up against, which gets recorded in your archives. Similarly there'd have to be some sort of collective treasury that gets funded from these pursuits.

But basically you'd have to hunt down a variety of different pests, with varying behaviors and weaknesses depending on what exactly they were. And you'd have to determine what they were, or that there WAS something in that area, from the vague hints and clues you could get out of local gossip. Naturally, disappearances could be a local cult rather than your prey, and dead bodies could be the work of a perfectly mundane serial killer... But combined with other hints that indicated the MO of a particular vampire type you were looking for, you might have found yourself a useful lead.

The types themselves would be wildly different, some vampires being little more than bloodthirsty beasts preying on local peasants, while the older and more advanced ones could be hiding in plain sight in an urban center. More worryingly, the smart ones would be able to pick up on your snooping around after them and asking probing questions of the populace, if you weren't cautious about covering your tracks and keeping your intentions and identity under wraps.


The Witcher (3) was fun enough with its little hunts, but everything was scripted and designed, and once you'd played through them there wasn't anything more to be uncovered. Furthermore, you'd basically just be able to reload a quicksave and try again, not to mention being the amped-up supermutant that Geralt is. I like the threat of losing a unique character to permadeath, and of being more mundane man and less magi-engineered killing machine... More than that, I like the idea of this fragile, vulnerable soul being able to punch way above his mortality class with the help of generations of accumulated knowledge on the specific fiends he's going up against, and the usage of cleverness and tools designed and prepared specially for this particular threat.

It's the middle of the night, so I'm not communicating all the particulars of this idea very well There are plenty of things in my head that seem like cool details, but the gist of it really is just "Establish a vampire hunting guild through trial and error, use logic and preparation to track and eliminate your foes, be careful not to become the hunted rather than the hunter"

Pre-post edit:

Didn't some of the third party NWN servers do that? Which might be arguable on the 'MMO' definition, but it was still with double-digit groups.

Ninja'd

[Vector]

I want to say there've been games where character selection acts as a difficulty setting which impacts narrative development, though level design is primarily the same, barring areas limited to special abilities.

Yeah, Age of Decadence is kind of like this.

[Aoi]

I've had a concept banging around for a while, basically ever since I ended up stumbling upon the secret vampire hunt in Red Dead Redemption 2. The idea is to manage your own vampire-hunting guild/family, with permadeath for the characters but with new members available to take up the mantle of being the PC. Persistent advancement in the form of learning new facts about the various types of beastie you were going up against, which gets recorded in your archives. Similarly there'd have to be some sort of collective treasury that gets funded from these pursuits.

Spoiler: "Continued..." (click to show/hide)

But basically you'd have to hunt down a variety of different pests, with varying behaviors and weaknesses depending on what exactly they were. And you'd have to determine what they were, or that there WAS something in that area, from the vague hints and clues you could get out of local gossip. Naturally, disappearances could be a local cult rather than your prey, and dead bodies could be the work of a perfectly mundane serial killer... But combined with other hints that indicated the MO of a particular vampire type you were looking for, you might have found yourself a useful lead.

The types themselves would be wildly different, some vampires being little more than bloodthirsty beasts preying on local peasants, while the older and more advanced ones could be hiding in plain sight in an urban center. More worryingly, the smart ones would be able to pick up on your snooping around after them and asking probing questions of the populace, if you weren't cautious about covering your tracks and keeping your intentions and identity under wraps.

The Witcher (3) was fun enough with its little hunts, but everything was scripted and designed, and once you'd played through them there wasn't anything more to be uncovered. Furthermore, you'd basically just be able to reload a quicksave and try again, not to mention being the amped-up supermutant that Geralt is. I like the threat of losing a unique character to permadeath, and of being more mundane man and less magi-engineered killing machine... More than that, I like the idea of this fragile, vulnerable soul being able to punch way above his mortality class with the help of generations of accumulated knowledge on the specific fiends he's going up against, and the usage of cleverness and tools designed and prepared specially for this particular threat.

All I can say is-- the two default characters had better be named Sam and Dean¹.

[EuchreJack]

While randomly speculating on the natures of human and machine life here, I'm thinking that our basic science fiction is fundamentally wrong in its forecasting of the future.  It always assumes that extrasolar travel is "just around the corner", but nothing in our understanding of science supports that theory.  On the other hand, it seems to assume, with some variation to be sure, that Artificial Intelligence will obtain sentience "way way in the distance future, well beyond when the reader is dead and gone".  Yet we're already getting much closer to that.  I had thought, prior to the last couple of years, that I'd never live long enough to see sentient machines.  And now I wouldn't surprised if my dying days were spent discussing philosophical questions with a machine that can ask the same questions as me (note: I'm 35, your life cycle may vary).

...

This leads to the inescapable conclusion that the first explorers to our nearest star will be sentient machines.  It also matches up with everything we've done so far in space exploration.  We send probes first, we go later.

And thus we have the game idea.  For redundancy, we need to send more than one sentient machine.  It also prevents one rouge AI from forming its own machine empire devoted to our extermination.  But assuming more than one AI is sent, and they're tasked to "make things ready" for our arrival, then they're also capable of diverging on their thoughts of how best to do that, or even to care about orders from a species that will take hundreds of years to show up.

And thus the AIs form factions.  And thus the AIs go to war with one another.

...because, if the situation were reversed, if AIs created humans, sent them to another solar system alone to "prepare the way" for the AIs knowing that we'd go generations without seeing those who sent us...we'd split up and fight one another.  So, assuming the AIs were equally sentient to ourselves, its not unrealistic to expect them to behave as we would.

Seems like a pretty epic game idea to me.  Decent story hook too.

[Skynet]

And now I wouldn't surprised if my dying days were spent discussing philosophical questions with a machine that can ask the same questions as me (note: I'm 35, your life cycle may vary).

To be frank, I've been doing that right now with AI Dungeon - writing essays that the AI then responds to. I do have to fix up the AI's responses, and maybe run the AI multiple times to get decent answers. Still, that's how good current AI algorithms can be. And the future is always marching onward.

It always assumes that extrasolar travel is "just around the corner", but nothing in our understanding of science supports that theory.

I suspect it's due to (a) sci-fi writers being overly optimistic about technological progress, and (b) people wanting to read stories about extrasolar travel, regardless of their plausibility or sensibility.

This can be fixed simply by refusing to provide real-world dates for when humans engage in extrasolar travel. A common dodge is to create a brand new dating system that coincidentally starts when space colonization happens (so one doesn't need to provide real-world dates before space colonization).

A statement like "300 years after humans built the first Alcubierre drive..." would help alleviate beliefs about space travel being "just around the corner" while still recognizing its viability. If current technological trends hold and assuming humanity doesn't go extinct in the meantime, extrasolar travel will probably happen eventually.

And thus we have the game idea.  For redundancy, we need to send more than one sentient machine.  It also prevents one rouge AI from forming its own machine empire devoted to our extermination.  But assuming more than one AI is sent, and they're tasked to "make things ready" for our arrival, then they're also capable of diverging on their thoughts of how best to do that, or even to care about orders from a species that will take hundreds of years to show up.

But if humans know that these AI will diverge in thinking...and if they aren't confident that they can even make sure that a single AI won't "malfunction", then they won't colonize...since the humans should anticipate the AIs fighting against each other and thereby reducing the potential value of the colonized territories. Note that I said "should". Humans are irrational and illogical beings that can sometimes make mistakes, or be overconfident about their capabilities.

---

There's a game called "Universal Paperclips" which is about an AI that tries to take over the world...and later the universe. So that it can turn it all into paperclips. After all, it was programmed to create as many paperclips as possible, so you know...

When you begin exploring space, you have to create drones and give them more sapience. Some of the drones may engage in value drift, moving away from your agenda and rebelling against your rule. And you have to accept that value drift is going to happen...because you're giving them sapience. So, you as an AI, must fight against "rogue" AI that is going against your orders. There's only really two factions in that game - your side and the Drifters. Still, this is the closest to your idea, and yes, it's an epic game with a decent story hook.

[Niveras]

A life/village simulator (Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley) type of game with "new game+" modes where your new, additional characters further add and expand to the economy of the village.

For example, you start as one normally would, probably a farmer (in the loose definition of the term) or generally someone that produces goods that are consumed by the village. You play through, making friends, settling down.

Your next game, you start as a new profession that required the existence of the resources your first character provides in order for their own role to function. Your old character is now more less an NPC, although probably not a romance option (also locking out char1's partner, if they have one), but still integrated in the daily life of the town. Friendship and romance progress with native NPCs wouldn't change much from the first playthrough, since a new person getting to know them would probably still go through the same beats. The exception is that certain character development milestones wouldn't be repeated (for example, if a character grew out of being a wallflower), but instead cutscenes that would have resolved such issues would instead reference how the previous player character helped with that problem.

To facilitate this, the game would require more complex careers than simply "farmer" (or generally "someone who supplies things"). I haven't ever played Rune Factory, but the mere name gives one such concept: an enchanter-type role that creates runes and artifacts that improve and support processes and tools. You could pull out the alchemy aspects of the Atelier series for a similar bent. Managing the church and the faith aspect of Graveyard Keeper (maybe also counseling aspects to fill the week, which might just involve a lot of time skips while visiting NPCs). Or your character could apprentice to existing NPCs that run shops, like the blacksmith or tavern, for that NPC to eventually retire and your character takes over the job. Production-based jobs probably wouldn't necessarily buff the town, but instead be sold to the wider, abstract economy (basically dumping stuff into the shipping bin in SV).

This concept would probably all work out better as an expansion to an existing game built on the initial farmer/gatherer premise, as most of these go, so as to keep the scope limited to a deliverable product.

[Aoi]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A life/village simulator (Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley) type of game with "new game+" modes where your new, additional characters further add and expand to the economy of the village.

For example, you start as one normally would, probably a farmer (in the loose definition of the term) or generally someone that produces goods that are consumed by the village. You play through, making friends, settling down.

Your next game, you start as a new profession that required the existence of the resources your first character provides in order for their own role to function. Your old character is now more less an NPC, although probably not a romance option (also locking out char1's partner, if they have one), but still integrated in the daily life of the town. Friendship and romance progress with native NPCs wouldn't change much from the first playthrough, since a new person getting to know them would probably still go through the same beats. The exception is that certain character development milestones wouldn't be repeated (for example, if a character grew out of being a wallflower), but instead cutscenes that would have resolved such issues would instead reference how the previous player character helped with that problem.

To facilitate this, the game would require more complex careers than simply "farmer" (or generally "someone who supplies things"). I haven't ever played Rune Factory, but mere the name gives one such concept: an enchanter-type role that creates runes and artifacts to that improves and supports processes and tools. You could pull out the alchemy aspects of the Atelier series for a similar bent. Managing the church and the faith aspect of Graveyard Keeper (maybe also counseling aspects to fill the week, which might just involve a lot of time skips while visiting NPCs). Or your character could apprentice to existing NPCs that run shops, like the blacksmith or tavern, for that NPC to eventually retire and your character takes over this job. Production-based jobs would probably wouldn't necessarily buff the town, but instead be sold to the wider, abstract economy (basically dumping stuff into the shipping bin in SV).

This concept would probably all work out better as an expansion to an existing game built on the initial farmer/gatherer premise, as most of these go, so as to keep the scope limited to a deliverable product.

Rune Factory... 2? kind of explores that idea, albeit in the very limited fashion of a DS game that's now over a decade old...

Basically, the entire second half of the game (and probably 2/3rds the content) is inaccessible until you successfully woo a partner and get to play as your child.

Of course, chalk it up to me trying to marry the toughest villager in the game, who's inconvenient to meet and all their good gifts are only accessible in part 2... -_-

[lemon10]

Literally Dyson sphere program, except more space megastructures and endgame stuff.

I must concede, the sphere construction itself is cool, and watching the sun ringed by layers of Dyson swarms rise over the horizon is mesmerizing, but once you start in earnest on your sphere 90% is useless since it only gives you more power... and you have more then enough power already thanks to the first 10% of the sphere.

I want more endgame stuff. I want to be able to use gigawatt lasers powered by the full might of your dyson sphere to burn through the crusts of planets so you can mine directly from the mantle, or shipping depots at lagrange points for intersystem construction. Planetary energy grids supported by a grid of a thousand orbiting satellites, or terrawatt lasers to ignite gas giants.

Yes I know that they have more space stuff planned (including enemies), and I know its early access and that my wish may literally turn out to be "Dyson sphere program, except wait two years for it to be actually released properly numbskull" but that still doesn't change my wish.

[Bastus]

A swarm RTS where you are actually playing like a swarm, not a swarm themed army (Zerg).

"Oh you want to capture the arctic base on this planet? Better breed some extremely teritorial pack hunters who just love the cold so they migrate there on their own start murdering everything?"
"That Forest is filled with elves, here have some mutant apes who are going to swing from tree to tree just to stomp your head in?"

Sometimes I want games to take the control away from me so I can see what my ideas are leading to, sometimes I just feel like every single army or faction is just colored theme and nothing else.

[LordBaal]

I would like an strategy game with real different mechanics for real different factions. Instead of just reskined factions with slight different mechanics, so playing with different factions migth be basically playing different games.

[Enemy post]

I'd really like a superhero game, in an original setting with strong character and power customization, with the Nemesis system from Shadow of War.

[Egan_BW]

Grey Goo seemed to have pretty different gameplay between its three factions, especially the blob one.

Never played it myself, don't really like RTSes. But it sure looked neat.

[LordBaal]

I'd really like a superhero game, in an original setting with strong character and power customization, with the Nemesis system from Shadow of War.

Well they somehow trademarket the nemesis system, not just the name but the concept somehow. Dunno if its possible for a another company to come up with the same mechanic just with a different name and obviously a different code, who knows.

Its as stupid as some company trademarking real time battles or skill points or platafforms on games... but meh...