A different kind of city sim?
Wed, 05/05/2010 - 04:53
A city sim game is great but maybe if we added more RP to it, it would really shine. Perhaps we can borrow a few ideas from 2nd Life.
Perhaps we can create a land in which people can build what they want. You can create the island of Manhattan and allow people to build what kind of buildings they want with a choice of different 3D programs to choose from.
People will build their dream home on the outskirts of the city. The developer team can decide exactly what kind of buildings can be used in the city. People will have to make relatively realistic looking buildings in the city. Or, you can allow people to build whatever they want in an area outside the city called 'the junkyard'.
The developers can create an economic system with different goods to make from manufactured items (furniture, appliances, cars) and artisians can build shops in the city.
Those who are succesfull at their crafts can build multiple shops in the city, their own succesful chain. They might even make real money off of it like those in 2nd Life.
The devlopers can make models for apartments and allow users to rent rooms to construct their dream room with assorted 3D models, etc.
Groups of people can organized into engineering clans. They can agree to purchase whole districts in the virtual city. They can infact create new districts like Little Italy or really anything across the world.
Finally, you can allow real world advertising into the game. Public video screens, posters, and signs on the sides of trucks can be used to get advertising income.
Of course, alot of this freedom will require a trust in people. Some people will want to make realistic models of famous buildings and others will make six story models of penises. This may require an army of mods.
Still, this would such an epic game.... or is it just a copy of 2nd life?
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 12:08
#1
I have an idea for a Sims/SimCity/Second Life game but it would be very expensive to make (and for people to use).
Below is completely unrelated to The Metropolis Project.
What you are suggesting is very similar to my idea but there would only be 3 companies that could pull off something of that scale: Linden, EA, and Blizzard. EA is the best candidate because it owns SimCity and Sims and was responsible for SimCity 4, The Sims 3, The Sims Online, and Spore.
There would be 2 games that one could buy and each one could potentially have up to 10 expansion packs. The base games would likely cost $30-$50 with the Limited Editions costing $40-$100. Expansion Packs would cost $10-$30 and EA would most likely try to sell garbage such as $5-$15 content packs. In order to play the SimCity portion online, one would need both the game and an online subscription. The games would share 3 currencies: Simoleans (game money), Gold Simoleans (reward money, same name as in The Sims Online), and real money. Simoleans are earned easily enough but cheating would be limited to 1,000 simoleans for every time the cheat code is entered (same as rosebud in The Sims, kaching in Sims 2-3, and weaknesspays in SimCity 4). Normal gameplay would only use up Simoleans but one can buy Simoleans if one is low on cash. Special (cheat-like or presitigious) objects would require Gold Simoleans. Custom content (like anything made in Second Life) can be sold for real money or Simoleans. Owning an online city would cost 0-$2000 with a 0-$500 charge per year. All cities would be 1kmx1km and can be split into 4 areas/neighborhoods (each with its own server). In the city, the mayor can zone various parcels and sell (large immediate profit, receives only taxes afterward or rent parcels (make less money at a time but it adds up to be potentially much larger). Players with The Sims portion (might as well be SimCity 6 and The Sims 4) and an online subsription for their Sims Game (one subscription is the same for both games but in order to have a subscription for both games, one would have to pay 1.5x the amount) pay real money to rent or buy parcels. There would be a free subscription for the Sims online portion where one cannot own property and the free subscription for the SimCity portion allows 1 city for 1 month and the ability to work on free, EA owned, cities with all profits of those cities going exclusively to the cities' coffers (therefore no one can make any profits from the online portion).
Thu, 06/03/2010 - 00:32
#2
I'll be honest, mazman, your proposal *is* Second Life.
Albeit with maybe a few more restrictions, etc.
The game already supports user-created content. You can make stuff for others or for yourself, and can buy/rent it from other peeps. Really everything you wrote is already in the game in one way or another. You'd have to get something different about it.
AzamoCram, that idea is a travesty to gaming. you'd let EA milk people more? Content packs are really a bad way of doing DLC but thats a different discussion. Mind you, if you allow simolean cheating, then theres no reason to make anything out of simoleans...
Thu, 06/03/2010 - 06:09
#3
As I said, "EA will probaby try to sell such garbage as $5-15 content packs." That means that I hope that they do not make any content packs but it is likely that they will try to milk as much money out of rich players as possible. They would probably also have a Sims/SimCity Online Store where they sell average items for real money (which can be bought ingame for Simoleans). Expansion Packs would most likely be worth the price but if it is like Second Life, it would be possible to make content almost as good (or possibly better) than the new default behavior with expansion packs.
It would not be very smart to sell custom content for Simoleans but it might be smarter to sell custom content for the special currency (which should have a variable exchange rate based on the power of the online market and be set against multiple real world currencies--unlike the Linden Dollar which is set against the US Dollar) and have it set so that each copy costs Simoleans.
Simoleans would be used for gambling if the game follows US laws because online gambling with real money is illegal here.
Thu, 06/03/2010 - 10:22
#4
Yeah, I have to say I'm kind of with BSPiotr on this one... how is this different from Second Life, exactly?
btw, I think if you can trade in this fake currency for real currency you would still run afoul of the laws against online gambling. Of course, if you wanted to have that you could just incorporate somewhere else with sane laws. :)
Thu, 06/03/2010 - 13:22
#5
Simoleans, like FarmVille bucks, can be bought but not sold. Real money might be converted into EADollars (or whatever will be the equivalent of Linden Dollars).
Fri, 06/04/2010 - 04:56
#6
okay then... To tell you the truth I only played 2nd life in a demo. I didn't want to spend alot of real money in a virtual world.
So... what could be the difference between the game I am talking about and 2nd life? Or should I just give up on this topc?
Fri, 06/11/2010 - 04:01
#7
Second Life is free. I have yet to spend a dollar on it and I have been playing for months.