Vowlesy needs ideas!

[Dog Pants]

However, whilst Berk is ready to build big factories of death, Roman is still making houses out of mud and im sat in a river trying to work out how to stand up. So what happens? Does Berk and his land disappear from out world? Does some wierd and slightly concept breaking barrier appear between his land and ours? Or does he just drag us along with him, giving him a clear advantage over the rest of us?

This all assumes it's done on a map and that your borders are represented as a solid thing. It could be done without that and you don't have borders as such, just a list of people around who present opportunities for war or trade. Admittedly it's not as fun though and I'd prefer to see my borders expand and encroach on other people's tribes. I'd also like to see solid alliances so that we could create a 5punk nation

[Vowles]

It WAS going to be "mapless" to say but I may now do it as

1)Nova Wars style. 1 sector a page.
2)Urban Dead/Shartak style.
3)A Google map of the world where you can pinpoint your colonies location.

Now... this would mean people advancing into new eras would look kinda out of place... but would they? I mean look at the world now... you have the "Western World" all techy, then the middle eastern/eastern europian countries kind of in the middle and then Africa and isolated islands or "Third world countries".

But heres something to think about.
In the first epoch, Your research is determined on how many "Thinkers" your colonie has.Should after researching X amount of things you progress automaticly or like Berk seems to like, choose when to up epoch?

[Joose]

It WAS going to be "mapless" to say but I may now do it as

1)Nova Wars style. 1 sector a page.
2)Urban Dead/Shartak style.
3)A Google map of the world where you can pinpoint your colonies location.

Now... this would mean people advancing into new eras would look kinda out of place... but would they? I mean look at the world now... you have the "Western World" all techy, then the middle eastern/eastern europian countries kind of in the middle and then Africa and isolated islands or "Third world countries".

But heres something to think about.
In the first epoch, Your research is determined on how many "Thinkers" your colonie has.Should after researching X amount of things you progress automaticly or like Berk seems to like, choose when to up epoch?

I vote against mapless. Maps give everything a feeling of substance.

People advancing in to new eras at different times to each other is fine, conceptually. As you say, it happens in the real world. Shit, it happens in the Civ games too. However, you are then loosing your original point of it being a system to protect noob players from being pwned. If that happens, what exactly is the point of the eras, other than some kind of scoring system? And if its just a kind of scoring system, then its got to be manditory.

If its a voluntary progression, like guild wars searing, then it needs some mechanism to stop advanced players, who have progressed to the next era, from dominating the lower era players. And thats where the problem comes in, map wise.

I think, more important than *when* you change eras is the question of *why* you change eras.

also this:

I do have a thought forming about that, but it needs more thinking. Plus I need sleep. I shall post it tomorrow at some point.

...was a silly plan. I *had* a good idea, but im fucked if i can tell you what that idea is now.

[Woo Elephant Yeah]

This post is lacking a gimli beard or two

On a serious note, it all sounds very clever, but a bit too beardy for my liking, so good luck with it

[Joose]

This post is lacking a gimli beard or two

On a serious note, it all sounds very clever, but a bit too beardy for my liking, so good luck with it

heh, our fearless leader here appears to equate intelligence with beards. Does this mean that we lose IQ points when we shave?

*throws away razor*

[Woo Elephant Yeah]

Give me somthing to shoot, and I'm happy
Activating my brain is not something I willingly do in a game, but that's a whole other topic. Keep it up bearded wonders, it's all good

[Joose]

Games where you dont have to activate brain tend to bore me quickly.

Still, would be a dull world if we were all alike, eh?

[Puggers]

I think that with the problem of eras also comes the problem of what it unlocks, how it unlocks it and do you have choices along the way. One possible way around this is that you keep some kind of track record (i.e. BF2 stats site gives you a rank) and then that information is displayed in some kind of lobby, therefore it is the choice of the person as to whether they try and give a big advanced mofo and arse-kicking (ha!) or go for someone more their era/epoch.

You could have a kind of training area (i.e. a nuclear fallout shelter), run by RO-BO corporation where you can have a certain level of interaction maybe (i.e. the Star Wars MMO that flopped like a penguin getting an enema) and have like an arcade machine bank where a training level can be played...Probably a bit complex to be practical.

Maps are good, it means that you can still be making stuff after the game has been around for a while and also it lets people add that homely touch they may want after 20 years of playing this game.

The seed bank idea is brilliant. It gives motive, and a plausibility to all out war. Also it might be an idea if you add a bit of the hooligans idea and be able to recruit people to your tribe/gang/organisation etc. This could also lead to power struggles within factions if smaller players can be 'fostered' by larger players.

I don't think having untraversable borders would be a good idea, or any attrition damage (such as in RoN). because there is no real reason for it to happen. Having race/class/ideology benifits and drawbacks would add some depth to the game. I'd also love to see a game where a laser kills a caveman in one go, RoN really pisses me off when you fire machine guns at people with cardboard cutouts of guns, and they take half an hour to kill.

Another idea might be to seperate two sorts of seed banks, one with seeds of crops, the other with genetic information/'seeds' of animals, and the tribespeople/gang members etc. are happier when they have more than one food to eat=less revolts, riots, people leaving etc. Which leads nicely to the concept of 'fame'. It might be an idea to have a notoriety scale and the more notorious you are the more people come to find you to be in your tribe etc. and the more skilled/loyal they are.

My brain now hurts and my eyes itch, time for some sleep methinks