this is just an idea, and I'll probably never have the time to realize it. So i thought i'd post it here, that it won't get lost. in recent days i've been working quite a lot with IBM Eclipse, which is (not only) a Java IDE. I had to write a plug-in for it at my job and i realized that it is quite easy to extend and very powerful. a few years ago i was quite into game programming, so i had the idea of a real-time strategy game based on the Eclipse platform. You could have a 3d-view to display the game environment. and on the left and right you could have a list of your units or buildings thus being able to select them very easily and fast, even if you have large amounts of units at your hands, without having to move the camera or scroll to that unit/building. At the bottom (in the "tasks view") messages and alerts could be shown. The Look and Feel of such a game would definately be different from other games being more 'technical' and 'serious'. But i think that with my approach much more complex games would be possible thus enabling a completly new game design in the area of real-time strategy. Note: you'll need to use Java to make a plugin for eclipse. I think there are OpenGL bindings for Java, but i guess there are none for DirectX. Please let me know what you think about this. -Phil