Laingame, an IRC cyberpunk stragegy game

Due to the natural development of ideas from the thread about MUDs. We are going to develop a strategy game. It will be played over IRC through a IRC chat bot but be supplemented with ASCII graphics. It will focus on the technology, economics and social issues a cyberpunk future would have and aim to be impressive but also driven by the community.

>>3092 >economic MUD Fuck yeah, new Trade Wars here we come. >social issues And dropped.

>>3093 "Social" issues may include population control which are numerical and can be calculated into economics.

>>3094 It'll devolve into fat homosexuals and racism, it always does. Please prove me wrong though, I really just want a new Trade Wars. Nobody plays anymore, every bbs is dead.

>>3095 Nobody here is SJW enough to include that in the game. The best way of preventing this is to get involved and joining the IRC channel.

We've been discussing the game on IRC, and I'm posting my own view of how it should look here. The game will be played in an IRC channel, with players talking in the channel and a bot running the game logic. The public channel would be for chat, announcements and public actions. Secret soykaf and fancy ASCII-art status information will be sent to the players via PM. I'd imagined it as similar to a board game in turns of simplicity. Each player control a corp, and gets to pick one action per turn: Research, selling shit, raiding other players, hardening security, etc. Some options cost money, some make money. I imagine the game taking place on a grid of city block, with civilians living in each one. Each corp has exclusive control over one block. The people living in nearby blocks get money based on the jobs the corps offer, but leave if the area gets too violent. This creates tension between profitable activities and the stability of the game, with aggressive play making long-term profitability harder. The whole model is geared to guarantee that the city is going to hell in about ~100 turns (say two hours at the very most). Last one with money still in their wallet wins. The focus of the game then is on player interaction and strategy, with each corp trying to gain an economic monopoly while sabotaging its competitors. At this point though, we're still kicking ideas around.

I think its best to keep the game simple as to avoid micro-management. This is because as the game is being played over IRC its best to keep the game accessible and not make players require to learn lots of commands to interact with the chat bot. I imagine the game playing on a global scale and be turn based. So "turns" would be 12 hours longs so people from every time zone can take part. And games last until a clear winner is formed. Players should collaborate with one another to trade resources to advance through the game but also attack one another so their syndicate of companies maintain domination of the market. Players can also create content to add lore and fluff to certain events that have happened through the game.

>>3098 I'm definitely a fan of simplicity. The idea of spreading games out over days with a turn every X hours is interesting, but I'm kinda torn. On one hand it allows for games with a huge scope and lots of players, an creates a bunch of interesting opportunities. However, spreading games out like that is asking for a LOT of commitment from the players, and the game needs to be set up so that players can be absent for several turns without significantly weakening their position. What, specifically, are you hoping to get out of doing that?

>>3099 I feel accessing IRC once a day is not too much of a commitment. It will mean players are much more involved in their organization and give them time to develop back stories and content for them.

>>3101 >It will mean players are much more involved in their organization and give them time to develop back stories and content for them. This is basically why MMOs work, so I can't argue with it as a business plan. However, we would need to have more options available for people to justify coming back daily. I guess that from a technical perspective it doesn't really matter how fast the game runs, most of the mechanics will work the same. Maybe this is something that we should actually just try and see once we have a working prototype.

>>3097 >>3098 Does it have to be turn-based? Does it have to be scripted? We should really make a sandbox for players to build a world instead of a skirmish that nobody will be genuinely committed to. Allow players to buy, sell, and trade currency, goods, and real estate. Also have a currency of popularity (equal through the course of the game) and have "the consumers" be a 3rd party that can be hired for menial work like building, but pay the companies back (as consumers, buying the product you put out) Players wouldn't be companies, but just people. I'd expect the early players to become companies, due to real estate being extremely cheap early on. Later players that join will find it hard to start up their own company, so they'll be pretty much forced to join an existing one. Multiple cities can fix the time zone problem. Cities can be separated generally by time zone (maybe 3 or 4 hours different) and there are different consumers, popularity, real estate per city. Companies can have their branches in different cities, as long as there are players who live (or operate) in that time zone. The best part about all this is that the players interested enough to play will keep playing, while those who don't will be able to easily drop in or out without effecting the flow of the game

We dont need IRC clash of clans that rewards players for monitoring the game 24/7.

Here is an economic system I have devised. Each player has a GDP, Growth and Budget. Budget is increased by 10% of the GDP every turn and can be used to produce more stuff or buy certain assets. GDP is an arbitrary value of total wealth of the organization. It does not need to be called Gross Domestic Product. Growth is how much the GDP increases every turn. Growth can be increased by trading assets. Each player can produce 1 of 8 assets in the game. To increase growth they need one "set" of the 8 assets. Assets can be traded from other players. Players can fight each other to steal assets if they dont want to trade. I believe this would be a good foundation to build the game off as it requires diplomacy between players to gain all the resources. These are also the only "turn based" actions in the game. There needs to be realtime events so people are not just sat there bored for however long a turn is.

>>3097 >last one with money still in their wallet wins hmm

>>3104 I like this idea best it would allow a continually developing world with it's communities and tensions without explicit scripting for a story or anything. This would also allow the game to be a lot more varied if we just make a system and allow the players to build in it. And we would have to build it in such a way where big powers could fall, but it would be difficult to take them down.

Can multiple people be part of the same corporation/organization? I've never played a mud, but I've played a lot of moderated text-based and map based roleplaying, and a ton of tabletop games. Will there be moderators? I understand there won't be graphics and the like, so I'm assuming there will have to be a team of dedicated game masters, correct? I have offered my services to write lore and background fluff before and I'd still be down to do that. Also if there's ever a project to make a map etc. etc. I can help there, too.

>>3109 I was thinking that would be a good idea people making there own corps so some people can be big evil corps and some can be anti-corp and try to bring them down.

>>3110 Its better for roloplaying to leave what the player is up to the player. However even rebel groups have to produce something to fund their rebellion. This is evident by south american revolutionaries who produce cocaine to fund their rebellion. I like to imagine the players are organizations that are without borders. So not nation-states.

>>3111 sorry I didn't word that well that’s what I was trying to say.

>>3111 I think we should try to start small and have all of us existing in a single nation-state/City-state. At least until we get the ball rolling.

>>3111 >organizations that are without borders. So not nation-states. Stop playing MGS. This is a game about slimy corporations screwing the little guy and the economy. Not some Disney movie about a ragtag group of quirky high schoolers who fight against all odds to save the day. Ideally, we need to be about making shady deals with other players, transferring trillions of dollars, hiring runners, and manipulating the people. Bringing the government into this is the last thing we need. Just assume it's a country like America where the government does jack soykaf to protect the people and lets the corporations do whatever they want.

>>3114 I agree with this, but also think we shouldn't have to be a corporation and be able to be a person and start a corporation if we want too and it would be better for the corporation to screw over other people.

>>3107 >Cyberpunk Monopoly. Exactly. >>3104 >Does it have to be turn-based? Honestly? Pretty much. Unless they're an RTS, strategy games that run in real time are much harder to design. You run into issues with depute resolution, figuring out the order of events, and it's very hard to avoid "snap" situations were people have to quickly react to take advantage of something advantageous. A turn based game ensures that people have time to consider what they're doing. >Also have a currency of popularity (equal through the course of the game) and have "the consumers" be a 3rd party that can be hired for menial work like building, but pay the companies back (as consumers, buying the product you put out) That's pretty much how I'd initially imagined it working. I'm also open to the idea of area-control being a thing, in order to make the conflict between players more direct. I'll probably just start of with something really abstract and add detail as I go. >Players wouldn't be companies, but just people. I'd expect the early players to become companies, due to real estate being extremely cheap early on. Later players that join will find it hard to start up their own company, so they'll be pretty much forced to join an existing one. That just sounds like extra complexity. If it's easy for players to start companies, why not just make each player start with one and skip the extra step? >>3104 >>3108 I was torn on it before, but I think I'm not keen on the long-term play idea. The game would need to be much more advanced in order to hold people's attention, and the logistics of setting up each game would be huge. Also, we would need a LOT of players in order for them to be able to interact. In contrast, getting 4-12 people into an IRC channel for an hour or two would be pretty easy, and if the game is kept simple turns would only last a minute or two, so there's no risk of people getting bored waiting for the next turn. >>3109 >>3110 >>3111 This thread is sorta for the strategy game idea. I don't have anything against the idea of building a MUD, but the other thread would probably be a better place for it. >>3106 >Each player can produce 1 of 8 assets in the game. To increase growth they need one "set" of the 8 assets. Assets can be traded from other players. Players can fight each other to steal assets if they dont want to trade. That strikes me as almost Settlers of Catan - like. It could work, but I think I'd really have to see it in action to know how well it would turn out. It might foster trade, but it could also have the players working in parallel rather than spending the game at each others throats. Still, interesting. >There needs to be realtime events so people are not just sat there bored for however long a turn is. If we can get everyone into a channel at the same time, I'm not really worried about that. People don't tend to walk away from board games, and if we get this right there ought to be plenty of social interaction too. Plus, the turns shouldn't take TOO long.

>>3118 Some people do walk away from hour or so long games on the internet. You cant assume this is like a boardgame because people dont have the commitment of being face to face with one another.

We could use the more traditional Resources > Army Building > War > More resources design Its tried and tested and would be fine to build the game off.

>>3097 >>3098 >>3099 instead of turn based what about mission based? That way you could play alone or with a group, and within the mission turns could take place

>>3148 Each player could have secret win conditions that they have to complete to win the game. Much like some RISK implementations.

rumours say there some development being done

>>3152 Sounds more like that old Tabletop game Paranoia.

Thinking about starting the game with a simple war>resources foundation and building off that.