[Hajo]

Hi,

I'm looking for ideas for a more peaceful game, a game that keeps the player entertained without the need of slaughtering hordes of monsters or other beings.

The game/world itself is more a playground than a RPG in strict sense. It only wants to be a stage to act on, not a story to be played through.

But I quickly ran out of ideas of my own, so I decided to ask here for help. What I have so far are:

Group 1:

- collecting: Collecting 'natural' resources, such like minerals, herbs, fruits or similar. These could be sold for money, or used to create items, or used as ingredients for some kinds of magic spells, healing. Maybe more?

- farming: very close to collecting, just the step of searching is replaced by seeding/planting and growing.

- hunting: also related but with combat ... so not in this scope.

Group 2:

- construction: Altering the game's world, to adapt it to ones own needs. Building a house, bridge, or just a meeting place for a clan.

- buying land: Might be needed for some sorts of construction?

Group 3:

- ???

What kind of interactions can you envision for a more peaceful game? This is a brainstorming request, any ideas, even far flung ones are welcome :)

[BDZ]

I always thought that it would be neat to buy and sell houses and land etc. in an RPG but also be able to dig. By digging in your basement (or elsewhere) you could discover caves that are all over under the game world and interconnected so you could travel from place to place through them.

[Hajo]

*grins*

"How I mine for fish?"

I like the idea of digging, too. Owning land is mostly required to avoid conflicts, although a "mike versus ted" randomly deconstructed building might be valuable, art-wise ;)

Are there ideas for new groups of interactions but "collecting" and "construction" ?

Social interactions come to mind, but between players this will be done in chat (I assume?) and with NPCs it only has limited sense.

One could try to hunt and charm beings and sell them as pets to other players? just a random thought ... looking for more :)

[BadMrBox]

- Fishing: Having different rods and baits.
- Engineering: Ability to create vehicles.
- Tailoring: Ability to create clothes.

Just babbling here...
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[cowgod]

How about allowing people to set up stores and banks? It would also be fun if you could employ people to do things.

[XMark]

Maybe have kind of a "drug wars" style investment game where different towns have items for sale for a certain price per quantity, and every time you visit a new town, or at certain intervals of real-world time or game time, the prices randomly change so along with the money you get from adventuring you could also build up wealth by investing.
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Mark Hall
Abstract Productions
I PLAYS THE MUSIC THAT MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN!

[Hajo]

Thanks all :) Slowly this gets a more complete picture.

Group 1 - Collecting:
- Collecting
- Farming
- Hunting (includes fishing)

Group 2 - Construction:
- Buildings
- Altering the landscape (includes tunnels)

Group 3 - Crafting:
- Create items from more basic items

Group 4 - Trading:
- Buy/Transport/Sell
- Shops
- Banking

This seems good enough to start with. Most likely I don't get half of that done in the next months anyways ;)

Employing others will more or less be part of the freeform RPG between players. I don't think it needs game mechanics to support this? But maybe some group or clan founding feature would be helpful there?

[cowgod]

I think group/clan founding is popular, though it really isn't my sort of thing.

Maybe you could have permanent clan members and temporary clan hirelings. Then people who don't want to commit to joining a clan can work with one for a short time.

[Terry]

I love this idea :) I think there are a few RPG-like games that do this already - Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon spring to mind, at the very least.

Have you played Knytt (or Seiklus)? They're both single player platform games, but they're built around the idea that the point of the game isn't really to do anything, just to explore the world and enjoy the aesthetics of it all. They might be worth checking out if you're looking for ideas.
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http://www.distractionware.com

[Verious]

You could also consider politics.

[JimKurth]

[Hajo]

Politics will come automatically with clans/guilds or similar groups. In an MMORPG this seems to happen on a meta-level, in between players, rather than that a game needs to implement certain mechanics for that?

[RampantCoyote]

The trick is implementing risk and reward for all of these systems. Combat has a built-in risk and reward system that works very well. But farming / mining? In MMORPGs, the risk / cost is TIME (as in, time spent doing that as opposed to gaining levels). But MMORPGs play pretty fast and loose with spending / wasting the player's time.

The character's time... that's another story.

Anyway, gambling is kind of an obvious choice. But having a gambling aspect to everything else done in the game would go well. I never played much of the Harvest moon series, but that might provide some other ideas (as Terry suggested).

Lessee... other ideas...

* Invest in other businesses in town. Sort of a meta-game.

* Black market stuff (smuggling, running the thieves' guild, protection rackets, etc).
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Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Old-School Game Developer talks Indie Games, RPGs, and the Games Biz

[Hajo]