Bay 12 Games Forum

What I'd like to see is a hypothetical game that's an intelligent hybrid of Star Control 2, Space Rangers 2, Imperium Galactica 2, and Noctis. So that there's a huginormous (no-hope-of-exploring-in-a-single-lifetime huginormous) galaxy out there, pregenerated but with randomly allocated "pockets" of intelligent life that tie themselves together via some FTL system, and strive to protect the galaxy against a suddenly appearing threat, which you first fight a losing battle against, then assemble an alliance, research the enemy's origins, develop countermeasures, and eventually drive the invaders out of the galaxy. This in a completely "living" environment with real trade routes, real NPC ships milling about their business, exploring, pirating, liberating, etc. All the time you're also free to explore the uncharted space for minerals, give names to stars and planets, fund or build spacestations, design and craft your own ships, then eventually control an armada that you will wield to (effectively) single-handedly drive the push against the enemy. That is a game I'd really like to play. X3 just seems too cramped.

• I'd like to see a serious take on a closed world/economy. In a single player game, at least, there wouldn't be griefing from one person hoarding every Iron Longsword in the world. I want to apply this to everything, though. Items, monsters, civilians, even raw materials. The stories about possibly being able to drive a species extinct in DF Adventure mode make me a little giddy. I like things being possible even if they are entirely unfeasible.
• I hate it when the AI (or the player, in some cases!) gets an unfair advantage. Bonus resources, endlessly-respawning ships, the works. Basically tied in with the complaint above though. I ought to be able to starve an opponent out.
• I want a real dynamic quest system that responds to, and capitalizes on, the game world. So many times game designers break this guideline along with the ones above! In X2 for example, I'll get to a station that's dry on a resource and there will often be a quest to fill its needs. That's the good kind of quest. There's also horrible ones where the guy's like "Save me from the Xenon" and they spawn immediately after the quest is taken. And if the quest isn't taken, they don't spawn at all!
• Ties in with the above, but I'd like quests not to always wait for the player. In a dynamic, procedurally-generated world, the player shouldn't be the only one doing fetch quests. If that poor sap can't find someone to protect him from the Xenon (and their presence should trigger the quest to appear, not the other way around!)... then that guy's out of luck, and he's dead. Don't do this with static quests though, the existence of those pushes me into a completionist mindset and if they expire on me, I get rather upset. xD I just want the world to be able to crumble from collective apathy.

Inferior materializing it might actually lessen it's value, so avoid that, and likewise, avoid using change materials and superior materials on it.

*whistles and innocently hides the fully cleared very hard difficulty file on his memory card*

Yeah...I'm fucking insane in case you haven't noticed.