I have a game idea that I would love to see implemented. It fits the adventure, online, and RPG categories.

The game would be akin to Diablo and all the other rogue-like games, except finally in a 3D First Person setting.

Take the first person view from Quake, EverQuest, etc. (No explanation needed)

Gameplay is similar to Bard's Tale, but with a 3d interface;

The game is played in a large, complex city that can change from day to day. Streets can be re-routed or blocked, stores can close and new ones open, buildings can burn down and be re-built from their own ashes. All wandering non-monster characters are unique. Each has a unique set of statistics, including a randomly generated name (see pets in EverQuest for an example). Once he dies, his name goes into the recycle bin and is used again in a month or so.

Towers and catacombs lead to 'dungeon-like' areas where the player must work his way toward an inevitable 'boss' encounter. Layouts of the dungeons change on a daily basis so that no maps can be posted on spoiled sites. Rooms will be arranged semi-randomly in 'blocks' similar to Rogue-like games. Loot is randomly generated, as are monsters (although combat mobs will mostly be generic 'orc' or 'skeleton' type monsters with ranges based on depth into the dungeon).

Players advance by levels, although the skill disparity between level 1 characters and level 100 characters will not be as huge as they traditionally are in games like these. Low level monsters should flee in panic from high level characters, yield no experience if killed, and drop no decent loot, to prevent higher level characters from preying on easy pickings.

Puzzles will be sprinkled liberally throughout the game, with random alternate solutions in cases where available. Some puzzles will require player cooperation.

Death results in loss of experience points and random loss of equipment.
Player killing is supported and encouraged.
As players increase in level, their rewards are fame, loot, and experience points.
- Fame means NPCs will respond differently to them, and some NPCs in the city will attempt to kill you for notoriety. Your name will be listed on the game website so that others can see your accomplishments (and plan your demise.)
- The loot can be part of the fame, as certain players can be rewarded with unique or rare equipment that is tracked and noted on the web page.
- Experience points = levels. Killing a higher level player can be very rewarding.

When fighting another player, players would go into a 'duel mode', where no PCs or townpeople NPCs should be able to interfere until they settle the fight. Fleeing a fight results in loss of experience points.

The difficult part of this game would be balancing player abilities so that player killing is encouraged and rewarded, but very risky.

Also, new quests and puzzles would have to implemented routinely to keep the game fresh, but they can be variations on older quests to cut down on maintenance costs.

A game like this could scale to accomodate fewer players (make the city smaller, use less server hardware) or more players (expand the city size, open up new cities to choose from, and use more server hardware).

Discourage spoiler sites as much as possible, and maintain as much surprise for the player as resources allow in terms of creative team man-hours.

Online RPG adventure

Jim H
unix_guy@hotmail.com

As more and more people will get a broadband connection, online games will see dramatic changes in the near future. A Complex game like this will have no problem running online.

Idea Reviewer:
-Vegard Aure-