Original Post
Hi, I'm Chris. First post...my game-creating experience is mainly in the realm of Qbasic text adventures & a Yuppie Wars clone as a kid =/ ; I've had small experience with Game Maker, I'm a C++ novice, decent modeler, a UT2K4 mapper/modder for Alien Swarm (mainly bizarre joke maps :s)...also a visual artist and pianist. Terribly impressive, I'm sure. ;) I'm aware of the grandeur and complexity of the game idea I'm proposing here, so let's just consider this as speculation with a view to the best-possible iteration of this game given current technology. ((meant to be viewed at 1280x1024+)) Procedurally generated 'galaxy-to-individual NPC' scale simulator/game creation tool -Seamless 'galaxy to star system to planet to character' scale first-person game: -'Foldspacing' for inter-stellar travel the easy way -Discover the artifacts of long-dead races -Seek out strange new xeno races...& fight them! (or chat them up) -Nano-build any scanned object -Create an empire through diplomacy, commerce, & conquest ...and find a way to return to your own galaxy if you still consider it home **Seamless galactic-solar-planetary engine (Ysaneya's project) **Procedural cities (and perhaps cave systems) including full building interiors, (ala Descensor) -Buildings/rooms planned based on purpose -Architectural styles moddable by designer/player **Procedurally generated simulated sapient and non-sapient species -Preferably designer/player created in-game, rather than left to purely random processes -Racial traits/values simulated: scientific, ritualistic, expansionistic, militaristic, etc. -Creature's mesh designable and procedurally animated (ala Second-Life & Spore) -Individual NPCs inherit traits of race, modified by NPC's class and a random factor -Visual art could be imported as textures & textured meshes, &/or could be simulated based on racial color symbolism, fetish objects, racial values -Music should probably be left to an orchestral and electronica soundtrack & a built-in jukebox (procedural music may be possible, but the thought makes me shudder :p) -Generated dance & drama would be interestingly bizarre :/ (Vogon poetry anyone?) -Religion would be based on an NPC's need for understanding and growth -Also, a frequent (in human cultures) purpose of religion is control & direction of the under-classes...to whatever end...very open as to how this would implemented -Based on the status of the culture at that time, a certain unity or disparity of religions will be generated...each faction values certain things/ideas -Personally, the idea of a computer simulating religion (in any sense other than social) irks me... it should be left to an individual scenario's designer **Generated language based on many allowed phonemes, including grunts, hisses, clicks, etc. -Multiple voice actors, or text-to-speech system to produce the alien sounds -Pitch and tone moddable to simulate ranges from heavy & guttural to a wispy & breathless -Words created for known objects, concepts, conjunctions, etc. -Player equipped with 'universal translator' which provides a text translation (supporting major langauges) or perhaps picture symbols -Translator will fill in small, greyed out *unknown*'s with various frequency to simulate the complexities of language which current tech can't support **Player communicates with a text-line parser (ala Interactive Fiction) which may be fed, in-line, by speech recognition, then edited for accuracy as need-be -Further, right-click menu provides topic tree containing all known verbs & nouns (including proper nouns: known names of systems, planets, places, people) **In-game world builder -Most randomly seeded processes can, instead, be defined by designer/player -Galaxy scale/type; star-type, intra-solar bodies; terrain, city generation seed, direct placement of objects -Provisions should be made for directly scripting NPC responses, so the game could be more reasonably be a basis for adventure & RPG style games -Obviously we (royal we) want to create a simulation of higher fidelity and interest than, for instance, Daggerfall (an example of a massive, but repetitive world) -While the computer should be able to turn all the proverbial knobs to generate an entirely random scenario, this (though interesting) would not the point **Add in human government, territories, etc...and you have the basis for diplomacy, recon, and covert missions -Which brings up the challenging puzzle of programming the race-generator to simulate a decently accurate far-future human race (including major landmarks on Earth) -Generate a non-existent human language so as to avoid the 'suspension of disbelief' issue of having an NPC talk in computerish English **Major calculations done at start: generating galaxy, space-faring races' traits and spheres of influence (perhaps all based on simulation of planetary evolutionary history) -Non-space-faring sapients (as if there were space-faring NON-sapients!) :s would be generated upon entering a suitable solar system -AI relevance/LOD will, of course, be a major issue, considering the proposed depth of the simulation **Content data uploaded to master server, where it's checked for quality and set as downloadable by client machines (ala Spore) **Optimally this would be an open-source project **And ultimately, this is about creating a sim that's fun, interesting, believable, & immersive rather than strictly realistic I'd like any comments you'd wish to make regarding technology, feasibility, and the overall concept. [Edited by - Moses2k on July 12, 2005 4:41:19 PM]