Here''s another reversal I was thinking about. What''s the typical stereotype of a cyborg or machine race? The Borg is the best-- an undifferentiated hive mind. I think simply casting them as monolithic badguys is the second most popular. What about wildly irratic, fractious, and contentious-- but mostly non-violent society made up of a bewildering array of groups. I''m imagining a hyperfast society that looks to average people to be changing wildly. The pendulum of society that swings for us one way or another every half-century might for them change every few days. Gameplay wise, this would mean that if the player had to trek through their territory, their laws and rules, attitudes and reactions, might change very often. It could be confusing, but intentionally so, in order to show that they''re not like us. Opportunities would be short-lived, so players would have to pounce on them as they arose. (For example, they could sell something one day, then a few days later declare it illegal, and the player would have to sneak out or give it up or fight.). They wouldn''t be unstable, but would appear as such to outsiders. Dialog could be used to help convey the idea, with the player being able to ask questions like, "Why does everything change so fast?" or "Okay, tell me, what are the laws TODAY?!" These guys would obviously be difficult to deal with, but certainly wouldn''t be your typical mech race stereotype. -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership...

So basically you''re saying that a cybernetically enhanced society would experience, say, a century in a matter of hours/days due to their heightened reflexes & computational ability, and so their culture would change rapidly?

No offense, but that would piss me off to no end. And it would be a nightmare for a designer if he/she has to write all those different scenarios.


"NPCs will be inherited from the basic Entity class. They will be fully independent, and carry out their own lives oblivious to the world around them ... that is, until you set them on fire ..." -- Merrick

I don''t think that this is to be looked at strictly from the designer''s point of view; sure, it would be a nightmare to code and balance, but that is not the point. The point is the design idea. While Merrick describes it as a nightmare, I find it fascinating. One, I haven''t ever seen it done before (although, this is typical of many of your posts). Mainly I feel that it could be done in a way that would facilitate both 1.)great non-linear gameplay and 2.) (based on 1) great replayability. I don''t really like limiting this idea to another steroetype reversal--leave that to the previous topic. And how about not limiting it to a cyborg race, although that is a definite possibility. The idea of changing common law, political thinking, etc. in a rapid timeframe is way cool.

Two possible additions/continuing paths of thought:

Design based upon a human culture that resembles current humans, but under heavy political turmoil. Change power between 2-5 diferent powers in varying timeframes, as little as hours or as long as weeks. Plot: you are working for either one of the powers or a private interest, but current power holders can seriously hinder you or help you depending on your goals va. their goals. Serious plot design would need to be fleshed out to make interesting alliances appear and dissolve to keep you constantly wondering who is friend or foe and where you stood in the game.

My other thought focuses more directly on your idea--some sort of "hyperfast society" as described, but with one addition: Evolution. This can be interpreted as technology if we continue dealing with a cybernetic style race. I''d like to let you guys run with that twist, but one consideration is the elimination of hoarding in your game...no longer do players hang on to every little thing thinking it may be useful, because long before they have a chance to use it, it is outdated and fairly useless. On the strict evolution note, what about trying to deal with an aquatic society that evolves to land dwelling to airborne and then backa and forth....ahhhh too many neat ideas spawned from this topic.

Wavinator,

I think it might work very well, provided you provide some constant aspect of the society. If _everything_ changes all the time, the player just sees random noise without reason and won''t even try to understand what''s going on.

OctDev mentioned one such possibility: Have a number of factions fighting for power. The factions themselves might be reasonably stable and understandable, but which faction is in power may change hourly. This way the player can understand some aspects of the society, which is satisfying, while being surprised at the same time.

"Ah, the holographic crystal-bots are in power again. That probably means the biochips I have are illegal. But I might get a good deal on 3D-converters."

Good luck!

/Martin




... we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender...
Winston Churchill, June 4 1940

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

I''m actually intrigued by the idea of combining BOTH of OctDev''s ideas! Here''s the refinement:

The player is always an outsider to this culture. They''re only subject to their weird ways if they decide to enter their territory.

What about a machine race confined to a few star systems, which is constantly changing, evolving, and collapsing? They''d go through periods of random length where they expand, conflict with one another, advance, and finally experience an apocalypse.

Gameplay-wise, this would present a wild and potentially dangerous area, depending on when the player encountered them. If they were on the rise, then there would be the weird trading system where goods would be legal one day, banned the next, and the player would have to either forgo, fight, or sneak if they wanted to make money.

They''d have a continuous cycles of birth, advancement, and death which would change gameplay.

During their primitive "Emergence Cycle," they''d be a good species to sell to.

During their advanced "Prominence Cycle" they''d be a good species to buy from.

During their frenetic "Chaos Cycle" they''d be very dangerous, war torn, and aggressive.

During thier eerily quiet "Incubation Cycle" their territory would be rife with booby-traps and loot.


You could look at it as trapped in a terrible cycle, or just their way of life.

Plot twists could involve people wanting to raid their territory, or finding out why they''re the way they are, or even a (misguided?) attempt to free them from the cycle.

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

Well, I went to Disneyland about a month ago with my girlfriend, sister, and roommate, and while waiting in a horrendous space mountain line, I started bouncing ideas for a fps off of my roommate, to get some feedback. We came up with some cool concepts to describe aspects of gameplay, weapons, items, etc, primarily driven into integrating bio mechanics into the player. The only problem was that while it sounded like a really cool multiplayer game, there was very little plot beyond the general background. I think these ideas solve that. Rapid technology increases would facilitate more and more bio-mechanical options; radical changes in technology ALWAYS cause political upheavel, so the integration of this into the game would be realistic (after taking "upgrade my personal cpu" with a grain of salt!). After pondering this for several semi-sleepness nights, all kinds of good, workable plots come to mind. I would probably limit the complexity of the system to one planet (although I really like the idea presented of several planetary systems, where world appocalypse could both be appropriate and not an ''end of game'' scenario, it just wouldn''t fit in my previous model that I am trying to mold). Technology would be presented in cycles, which would be directly controlled by politcal influences.

My main problem is linearity and replayability. To write this, one could essentially tell a story. Begin here. Pass a level, this happens, now play level two, blah blah blah. This is neat, but in reality the plot seems to fade by about level three...who cares about the plot--you are going to the next level when you eventually pass the current one, and will do whatever is required, so hurry up and click through the silly movie slowing down gameplay.

How about giving the player many mission options at all times, with each of these missions having many (possibly seperate) objectives. Let the outcomes of these missions, coupled with their timing in the game and the general degrees of turmoil, plus some semi-randomness ALL be combined to generate the new turmoil level. Additionally, educate the player about the game states, so that they can make decisions to try and affect the outcomes. Soon, the player isn''t just playing to pass the level, they are playing to influence the game world, and to generate outcomes of their own design.

Realistically, this would require scores of writers, artists, game programmers, mass-AI programmers, and millions of dollars. Realistically, there is no way I will ever implment something like this by myself...to make it fun, it would just have to be too large and too complex for a small studio. However, the idea of adding tons of chaos to the system, and changing the goal form winning to controlling the chaos makes for an interesting and different type of game. Also, this could easily be applied to many game styles, be it a shooter, rpg, even a puzzle style game (although, I would prefer to stick to one of the first two...). Maybe I''ll post more on this chaos twist tomorrow.

--OctDev