tl;dr
Take Romance of the Three Kingdoms 10. That's our base template.
Well, okay, first let me explain why: RotK10 is a game you're either going to love or find incredibly boring. You play the role of a historical figure from the Three Kingdoms era of ancient China (or create your own). You can choose anyone, from one of the mighty rulers like Cao Cao or Liu Bei to some low-level sheep inspector who got a one-line mention in the books. And as that character, you go about doing whatever the hell you want to do; help your empire win the war, or set off on a pilgrimage to learn magic from the great masters, or ambush other officers on the road and steal their stuff.
If this sounds cool to you, then good, but here's what makes it particularly interesting to me: in theory, if the player never interacted with the game at all, it would perfectly simulate the events of the period and end with the Wei Empire uniting China. (This absolutely does not happen in practice, mind you, but it's the idea.) You, the player, are a tiny ripple in the river of history that can alter its course in a very real way.
So. We take RotK10 as the template. But instead of doing ancient China, we're going to design our own setting. For simplicity's sake, let's say we've got a typical fantasy setting; in the east are the Dark Forces of Evilness, in the west are the Light Forces of Goodness, and in between are dwarves, elves, hobbits, and a few less-radiant human kingdoms. Now, we write the base storyline (basically, what will happen if the player never interacts with this setting). The war will go on for decades, the Kingdom of Survival-Oriented Pragmatists will eventually join the Dark Forces, the hobbits and elves and dwarves will be wiped out, and in the end, the Light Forces will have to set off a Nuke of Goodness and basically eradicate everything on the map. So, basically, if the player never does anything and never talks to anyone and never goes anywhere, the game will end in an apocalyptic stalemate.
Of course, the player isn't going to be doing nothing, and that's why the game will be interesting. The player can create as many characters as he wants; he can create his own kingdom, or sprinkle elite mercenaries throughout the world, or both. Each character will have the typical statistics (like Leadership, Combat, Intelligence, Charisma, Magic) and a few personality traits (like Good, Evil, Honorable, Mercenary, Pragmatic, whatever). Any kingdoms created will basically have the personality of their rulers.
So now we have the player and his created characters dropped into this world, a bunch of capable, influential X factors. Each new addition will alter the story in some way. For example, thanks to the leadership of General xxDeathSkullxx, the Dark Forces will conquer the Stereotypical Arabian Desert Kingdom in half the time, while the legendary dwarf fighter StubToe singlehandedly routes the attacking elven army.
Okay, so we have a cool sandbox thing, but let's face it, unless you're really into playing with Chaos Theory, it'll probably get old. That's why we're going to add procedurally generated quests to give the player something to do besides reinforcing his castle's walls or looking over the local blacksmith's shoulder and giving him advice. It wouldn't be anything amazing, but there would be some Diablo-style dungeon crawling in places, and some text-based quests (like the ones in King Arthur: A Role-Playing Wargame) to infiltrate enemy towns or confront leaders, and a dueling system sort of like Suikoden's one-on-one fights, only taking stuff like magic into account.
Now, the only problem with RotK10 is that unlike RotK8 before it, it doesn't support coop, since everything happens in real time. However, switching the game to turn-based would mean that traveling across the map to another city would take freaking forever. So this is something I'm stuck on...no clue how to wedge coop in.
So, that's my dream game. If you actually read this all, have a cookie.
Take Romance of the Three Kingdoms 10. That's our base template.
Well, okay, first let me explain why: RotK10 is a game you're either going to love or find incredibly boring. You play the role of a historical figure from the Three Kingdoms era of ancient China (or create your own). You can choose anyone, from one of the mighty rulers like Cao Cao or Liu Bei to some low-level sheep inspector who got a one-line mention in the books. And as that character, you go about doing whatever the hell you want to do; help your empire win the war, or set off on a pilgrimage to learn magic from the great masters, or ambush other officers on the road and steal their stuff.
If this sounds cool to you, then good, but here's what makes it particularly interesting to me: in theory, if the player never interacted with the game at all, it would perfectly simulate the events of the period and end with the Wei Empire uniting China. (This absolutely does not happen in practice, mind you, but it's the idea.) You, the player, are a tiny ripple in the river of history that can alter its course in a very real way.
So. We take RotK10 as the template. But instead of doing ancient China, we're going to design our own setting. For simplicity's sake, let's say we've got a typical fantasy setting; in the east are the Dark Forces of Evilness, in the west are the Light Forces of Goodness, and in between are dwarves, elves, hobbits, and a few less-radiant human kingdoms. Now, we write the base storyline (basically, what will happen if the player never interacts with this setting). The war will go on for decades, the Kingdom of Survival-Oriented Pragmatists will eventually join the Dark Forces, the hobbits and elves and dwarves will be wiped out, and in the end, the Light Forces will have to set off a Nuke of Goodness and basically eradicate everything on the map. So, basically, if the player never does anything and never talks to anyone and never goes anywhere, the game will end in an apocalyptic stalemate.
Of course, the player isn't going to be doing nothing, and that's why the game will be interesting. The player can create as many characters as he wants; he can create his own kingdom, or sprinkle elite mercenaries throughout the world, or both. Each character will have the typical statistics (like Leadership, Combat, Intelligence, Charisma, Magic) and a few personality traits (like Good, Evil, Honorable, Mercenary, Pragmatic, whatever). Any kingdoms created will basically have the personality of their rulers.
So now we have the player and his created characters dropped into this world, a bunch of capable, influential X factors. Each new addition will alter the story in some way. For example, thanks to the leadership of General xxDeathSkullxx, the Dark Forces will conquer the Stereotypical Arabian Desert Kingdom in half the time, while the legendary dwarf fighter StubToe singlehandedly routes the attacking elven army.
Okay, so we have a cool sandbox thing, but let's face it, unless you're really into playing with Chaos Theory, it'll probably get old. That's why we're going to add procedurally generated quests to give the player something to do besides reinforcing his castle's walls or looking over the local blacksmith's shoulder and giving him advice. It wouldn't be anything amazing, but there would be some Diablo-style dungeon crawling in places, and some text-based quests (like the ones in King Arthur: A Role-Playing Wargame) to infiltrate enemy towns or confront leaders, and a dueling system sort of like Suikoden's one-on-one fights, only taking stuff like magic into account.
Now, the only problem with RotK10 is that unlike RotK8 before it, it doesn't support coop, since everything happens in real time. However, switching the game to turn-based would mean that traveling across the map to another city would take freaking forever. So this is something I'm stuck on...no clue how to wedge coop in.
So, that's my dream game. If you actually read this all, have a cookie.
