Well, I have played some good and some not-so-good games, all of which I liked some parts and disliked others. I noticed, however, that all the games I liked were of different genre - RPG, Strategy, Action, Adventure - but still had some things in common. I had many ideas of games I would like to play this way and I want to show some basic concepts of these games I have in mind.


1. Characters

For any roleplay games, the player's characters play a central role. I prefer to have diversity in creating your character, be it races, classes, or the distribution of stat- and skill-points.

The development of a unique character helps players create their own identiy in the virtual world and it is also alot of fun.

Depending on the duration you will play the character you create, it might make sense to make it a rather short process, for example choosing only race and class, or you might want to spend alot of time developing your character carefully. The latter is a good idea when you have saved characters or rounds that last several days, the first makes sense for games based on short rounds.


2. Roleplay

Roleplay is the base for any real roleplay-game, as the name indicates. It means that you give your character a personality and have it act accordingly. Some games enforce roleplay, some encourage it, some make it hardly possible.

Personally, I think roleplay for in-character matters should be enforced or highly encouraged, though I don't think restrictions for OOC chat(not mentioning IC matters there) would be necessary. Of course, mixing up these two too much would disturb roleplay.

Roleplay can be encouraged by giving the player a very "realistic"(socially) setting in which he is integrated. A good example for this is Cow RP.


3. Gameplay

What you actually do in the game. Personally, I think there is a very wide range of gameplay elements that can be put together in one game.

It should unite roleplay, strategy, achievements and "action" in a wide meaning. By "action" I mean exciting interaction with the game world, such as battles, riddles, mini-games, etc(it doesn't matter whether they are turn-based or not).

Also, it shouldn't be level-based in an inflationing way. Being 100 times as strong in the end than in the beginning will, apart from making people with flawed ego feel better than others, not give too much flavor to the game(see grinding discussions), but it will work as barrier between newbies and veteran players.

There can of course still be differences in strength between players, but they would maybe be in a 1x-5x range and be much more dependent on RP matters(again, see Cow RP).

Much of the variety in the game would be created by roleplaying of the players, but there would be basic fundaments to the gameplay. Such as work in the specific environment(in a medieval setting it could be: build houses, farm, have an economy, craft items, have wars), global events(monsters are invading your beloved land, stop them), global roleplays(anything you can read in novels, really).

Also, I think rather than having a permament global world, there could rather be rounds with a duration ranging from half an hour to several days, dedicated to a specific environment and roleplay. Characters might be saved in this system or not, I am not sure.


4. Strategy

Really, I don't like games that are all about mindless training/grinding/hitting a button. I think all elements of the game should include some basic strategy and thinking, e.g. character development, roleplay, economy, crafting, battles, anything.

Of course, the game should still be playable without over-thinking everything, but it should give advantages. This especially requires that there is no major inbalance and unrealism, but rather very situation-specific advantages of different decisions, encouraging the player to make up new tactics very often.

A very basic example: Heavy armor has some great advantages for combat, but it isn't exactly the best thing to be wearing on a boat.


Anyway, this is it for now. What do you think? Do you like these game-concepts? Do you think there are people who would enjoy such a game? Would you want to play such a game yourself? Would you like to develop such a game? Hoping for some constructive replies.