Hey... you guys must probably hate me now for making you read about my *amazing* game design ideas about economics and whatnot... well, I had some more great ideas, unfortunately... I had a dream about a zorgasmic 3D RTS strategy game... it was set in a sci-fi future where you led colonies on different planets, and you got to design all these cool colony towns with cool dark sci-fi buildings and you could dig massive complex tunnels deep under the surface of the planets (all in 3D) with a special "in profile" view where you could view the underground networks in a "slice" (much better than having to wind through the tunnels... what a headache)... and you could also zoom out or zoom in from the world like in Supreme Commander (giving you levels of strategy). The economy was on a very large scale (with resources having to make their way long stretches of the map, having tiny vehicles transport them in comparison to the big size of the geography they travelled), and when you zoomed in, you could design the arrangement of your defensive structures... because the battles would be of FPS-quality (imagine Counter-Strike) where the units ran around, taking cover, shooting with recoil, etc... (all AI-controlled)... I wish I could start work on it.... unfortunately I am currently working on an FPS game, like I said before... without dedication to my current project, I'd get nothing done of course, and my ideas would be worthless (they are actually pretty worthless... I have so many ideas and have abandoned so many projects...) Anyways... I gotta go do bed... [edit] *Sneaks out of bed for a moment to detail yet more brilliant ideas...* The game would be called... Terra Scape: Colonial Factions... or something... that's actually a name of an earlier project that I abandoned (go figures...) but it's fitting and it's a continuation of my ever-growing collection of ideas for a zOMG-tastic 4X sci-fi space opera strategy game... The resources in this game would be... Energy, Minerals (there would be several... Iron, Aluminum, etc.), Currency, Petroleum (yes... there would be fossil fuels on other planets... read the abiogenic petroleum origin theory), and others I can't think of now... And people suggested that instead of petroleum there would be electric cars and that there would be other forms of generating electricity (fission power plants?)... well, fossil fuels are cooler, because you can refine them and build cool-looking buildings,... but please do tell how a non-fossil fuel economy would work. Tell me your vision of the future... And there would be a cybernetic AI "overmind" system that ran the economy and operated all the machinery, all the factories, etc... imagine... all the mechanical things in the colony would be like appendages of a cybernetic super-organism... *gets chills from the coolness of that* These are actually ideas I've had over the years... if I combined them into one game... imagine how awesome it would be... do people share my feeling for how awesome this is, or would you rather I shut up? Anyways... please do share your thoughts. [edit] Some more resources... Software (yes... very abstract and generic... but it's a cool idea for a resource), Hardware/Electronics (yes... also very abstract and generic... I dunno, maybe I should change this... or stick with it), Wetware (which would be "grown" on an industrial level), ... Information (yes... also very abstract... this would be the "research" resource that would be spent on technologies)... To build more structures or cybernetic units you'd need some combination of Software, Hardware, and Wetware (since everything is in some way cybernetic, even the buildings, which are all connected to a HAL-like super-intelligence). The classes of workers would be... Programmer... (lol... I'm putting programmers in a videogame... opportunies for self-parody abound... anyways these guys would generate the "Software" resource... I don't know which buildings or structures would be associated with them... not "Offices" because that's not sci-fi or cool enough... it would probably be some "Machine Hub" or "Matrix Nexus" or something... some facility that housed the "brains" of the super-intelligence that ran the colonies)... and other workers would be Prospectors (who search out other planets? or searched out land?)... Mercenaries (the soldiers)... Researchers... and Labourers (mmm... physical labour? in a sci-fi future?... well, you need miners)... The idea I have is of a dark, grimy, dystopian future where people are reduced to ants in a colony run by a giant machine super-intelligence... in creating a machine to do their work for them, they ended up creating a super-intelligence that ran their lives... (wow... that sounded so cool... *shivering from excitement* XD) Yes... you can see I don't have a life... and have too much time for this kind of stuff... [edit] And the programmers wouldn't actually be programmers (guys sitting in front of a computer manipulating code), instead they would actually have to "hook-up" to the super-intelligence and reform the the intelligence through mental processes... like the Matrix or something... [edit] Wow... I should be sleeping... [edit] Another resource would be Ideology or Culture or Memes or something... these would be used to control the people... see if you can wrap your mind around that... basically the people would be gears in a giant machine... I don't know who would be the thing or person or group of people creating these Memes or whatever controlled the people... maybe it would be the super-intelligence? And maybe the player would be this super-intelligence? But then what of the economy... do the people actually do anything themselves? Maybe society is run by the super-intelligence but beyond that individually people do anything they want and earn money and then spend it... and the machine would be managing the economy and would track the flow of money (maybe it would be communist/socialist or technocratic... or maybe it's a giant all-encompassing corporation...) [edit] Maybe if you don't have enough Memes or whatever, the people will gain too much freedom and revolt or join other colonies/players, or something... or maybe something deeper and cooler will happen... [edit] The idea for digging massive underground networks is inspired by Cortex Command by the way... maybe I get some of the wetware/cybernetic/super-intelligence stuff from it too but I had those ideas before... [edit] Oh yeah, another resource would be Genetics (genetic modification would exist... not sure how it would be in the game... still gotta think about it) and Biology or Biomatter (don't know how that would be used...) Mmmm... the future is a scary place, n'est-ce pas? [edit] So what is the point of this thread? Since I'm never really going to accomplish this idea? I have no idea... just brainstorming... fantasizing about an awesome game... and I would actually try to make this... and would enjoy just trying.. even though I might fail. [edit] I just thought of a use for the Genetics and Biomatter resoruces... maybe all the people in the colony are incubated/grown in giant glass fluid-filled tubes (you know what I mean)... and the Biomatter would be spent on growing them and the Genetics (genetic code/genetic info) would be spent on modifying them? But I'm not sure what kinds of modifications you would do... maybe there's only a fixed set of types of people you can clone/incubate/grow/whatever and the Genetics is just another resource that's used up like Biomatter (instead of being a special resource like Research points)... The 'types' of people I guess would be Worker/Labourer/Miner types who were physically well developed but not mentally (so they can be controlled easily and won't pose any risk of rebelling)... and there would be other 'types'... the Programmers, Prospectors, etc., like I mentioned before... but I'm not sure what they would be like. The programmers would be super-intelligent probably? But then again... what's the point of the super-intelligence growing these super-intelligent programmers to modify itself? Is the super-intelligence in charge or the people? Dunno... maybe there's something deeper... needs more thinking... [edit] And all the people would follow a type of pantheism (look it up) that would be used to control the people (this would be the memes/whatever generated by the super-intelligence or whomever/whatever)... and there would be a class of workers/people associated with generating the memes/whatever I guess... like a religious class, but more sci fi... the Memecists? The Meme-engineers? *shrugs*... and I guess they would be the ones creating this propaganda that controlled them... Has anyone ever seen the original Aeon Flux series of short films? It got me thinking and some of these ideas are probably inspired by it... *Can't wait for somebody to comment* [edit] This would be the most controversial game ever... :O !!!!!!1111oneone [edit] What units would there be? Tanks for one... lots of cool tanks... Mechs... gotta have mechs... Soldiers... What if there weren't any air units? Or maybe there should be? What if in this grimy futuristic universe all the wars were fought with only land units? Or what about nukes? Or maybe they'd have some even more destructive weapon? How would wars be fought then? Well... if nukes were used... there would be anti-nuke systems for inter-planetary nuclear warheads... and I guess only one faction could occupy a planet at any time because if there was another they would face nuclear annihilation... but maybe there would be bunkers? Maybe the colonies would be underground... yes! Perfect idea... it fits so well with the theme I created already... so underground wars would be fought by having opposing armies dig tunnels and send soldiers, tanks, mechs, etc.? But what would be the point of that? Would they just use nukes underground then? That would be a whole lot simpler and more effective... [edit] Argh... someone reply already... [edit] Cooommmeee ooonn.... pleeeeaaasseee.... *squealing* :( rreeepppllyyy.... I'm losing precious sleeping time over this... I must get up in a few hours and... go work in a child labour factory... and I will have a thrasing headache... please reply... jk... but do reply... I want to hear what you think... [edit] *Pressing refresh button over and over again*... [edit] And sorry if I offend anyone with this... it's kind of controversial and scary and twisted I know... a world where humans are grown for use like tools... and where religion is used to control people (sorry if this offends anyone... it's just a game)... [edit] *Hoping this thread won't get deleted* [edit] *Looks at "who's online"*... o_o noooo... nobody's looking at my thread... [edit] Mmmm... maybe I'm too self-absorbed? Maybe I should care more about other peoples ideas than mine... oh well... maybe someone will find this interesting... [edit] Okay, I'm going to bed for real this time... I hope I will have a bunch of replies when I come back... post away! [Edited by - polyfrag on March 2, 2008 9:07:33 AM]

Wow... That's a lot of editing :P

Your ideas seem good, actually pretty damn good. Very well thought out. But as I'm sure your aware ideas don't make games. And what are you trying to offer exactly? Do you want someone to start working on this for you? Or do you want to start a second team and work on it yourself?
Also, this is a in fact a huge amount of random ideas! I'm not even sure what genre this would be classified as...
I'd save your idea, refine it, make sure you have a well design Game Doc and then consider if it's worth the 2-3 years it would take to make something like this.

Best of luck to you... on both projects :)

Okay, thanks so much for reading all that... I actually have no idea what I want to do with them... just thought they were so cool I had to share them... but maybe I should've been sleeping instead. It's just random fantasizing about game design I guess...