I actually try and come up with ideas like this pretty often. My dream game currently is sort of a mix of mount and blade, minecraft, and game of thrones. oh, and its an mmo.
The game would start in a closed beta and the only players would be people we know won't mess up the game (the beginning phase is pretty damn important) there would be no friendly npc's, and possibly no enemies aside from natural predators like bears and a few rare boss monsters. for the most part, it would only be the players and the wilderness.
I'm kind of imagining the landscape to look a bit like shadow of the colossus. The players at this point would have to chop down trees and mine rocks to build shelter, which would eventually grow into villages, which would then grow into cities, and so on. To give the player reason to do these things, there will be perma-death, and your character will have to eat and sleep regularly, as well as keeping warm.
There would be no leveling whatsoever. the combat would basically be mount and blade's (download the demo on steam if you haven't heard of it, it's amazing!!!) and the only modifiers combat-wise will be from better equipment. the only things that you will level up in are mundane tasks like farming and bartering and such.
There will also be no pre-made quests in the game at all. The only quests that are in the game will be user created. To keep the game interesting, there will be no set kill area; this means that you can be killed anywhere in the game. To balance this, the players will form their own city watch and hire mercenaries to guard them on the road. this will allow roleplaying as a bandit or a pirate completely possible without sacrificing balance. People would also be appointed as leaders, creating kings, queens, lords and ladies. If any of them died by assassination or natural causes, they would respawn as a new person with a new name (because of perma-death) thus giving another person a turn at the position.
About a year or two after the game's release, the players will have creates several different cities, factions, and possibly even made their own network of spies, assassins, guilds, ect. The devs would also be heavily involved in the game, roleplaying as gods. If there was a point where peace between the kingdoms had lasted too long, they could appoint a player as a champion and give him ungodly powers, making him the most powerful player in the game and giving him an army of undead, forcing the kingdoms to set aside their differences and join together to combat this dark lord (note: if the dark lord defies the wishes of the devs, they can revoke his powers) the same goes for an era of oppression, if an evil regime has ruled over the populace for too long, the devs could appoint a player as a hero and tell him to unite the players in rebellion.
I also have an answer to the age old question of "what do we do about all of the jerks in MMO's", and it's very simple. leave them alone. anyone who is an ass in the game is basically roleplaying as a murderer or a bandit or a corrupt official. all of these are perfectly legitimate ways to play because they are all what I call a "story related problem". this means that it is just another obstical in the game that is meant to be overcome by the players. for example: murderer got you down? report him to the city watch or become "medieval batman" and take him down yourself.
My favorite part about this game is that because of the inherent minecraft feature, every single server would have different cities, different rulers, different stories, and all of them would have a very rich history. and all of these features would easily be able to be put in the game because there are no quests or very many enemies taking up memory space.
Okay, i think i covered everything. The only thing that i haven't come up with right now is a name for it. My best one right now is "Historia", but i think it could be waaaay better. tell me what you think, criticisms, or name ideas. P.S. congrats to those of you who read the entire thing
