Bite me!

Lately, I've been bitten by the creation bug. Its a horrible time of the year to get such a bug, as I'm incredibly busy, and I've vowed not to shirk on my holiday responsibilities like I did last year. I have managed to create some PHP pages for a friend's online game, and that's helped, but I really want to do something more than that, like write a novel, or create a D&D campaign, or some other intellect-bending undertaking.

Part of this I blame on Gunch, who asked what kind of MMO we would make if we could. I proceeded to spit out a description of a game that's been building in my head for some time.

I'd make a good space MMORPG, or attempt to make one. Something on an epic scale, with various starting planets for each race. After starting on your home planet, you go on planet-based quests to get the equipment, notoriety, and respect needed to get on a vessel, captained by another PC. The vessels would be based off of templates, but could be altered and designed in such a way that they would be unique for each vessel. Then there would be vessel based quests as well, and skill-based "stations" on the ship, like navigator, weapons tech, communications, etc. Each of these stations would have tasks that needed to be done while on mission. What quests would there be, might you ask? Well, there would be "bad guy" alien ships to fight, space stations to loot, other PC ships to attack and loot, and of course planet based missions. The ship-to-ship fights can be shoot-to-destroy, or shoot-to-loot, where your ship would try to disable the other ship so you could board it. Once a ship is boarded, hand-to-hand fighting ensues on the ship, with the uniqueness of each ship playing out in the floor plan. The planetary missions could range from the simple recon missions for a reward from your government to full on raids with dozens of ships fighting off the planetary defenses to invade and eventually take over the cities and perhaps the whole world. The planetary defenses would probably be NPC based, with PC defender ships pitching in if they're in the neighborhood. Of course there'd be faster than light speed travel, but through wormholes or space highways, like in the Freelancer game. If battling for turf isn't your fare, there's always discovery missions to find new planets. Of course, there wouldn't be FTL highways to the new stars, but there'd be an in-game mechanism to make it not so boring going through space to the new locations.
Crafting would have its form in planetary play, with the ability to craft weapons, engines, shields, or whatever for ships, as well as chemistry and physics based skills to find new technologies and alloys to give your race, or even just your team, more of an edge. Death wouldn't have a penalty, or if it did, a small penalty, but if you died on a ship, and that ship was destroyed, the ship doesn't respawn, its gone. You've got to find a new ride, or if you're the owner, you've got to raise the funds for a new one. Think about it, a whole galaxy in flux, with planets changing hands and space stations getting built, then destroyed, etc.

Oh, I'd love to be able to make this game, and really get people in to it, but I know that its beyond my scope, currently. My other aim is to make a good Harry Potter style duelling game, and I've got all sorts of ideas for that, but I don't want to reveal them at this point. I've come up with all sorts of ideas lately for some pretty cool things, including an XBox Live Arcade Sumo game, an XBLA curling game,(I think this would be REALLY popular, in some kind of weird culty way) and other weird off the wall things.

But, real life comes in to play, as it always does, and can take us away from our creativity and "free time". I'm really hoping to hear tomorrow about a possible new job, and the holidays are crazily upon us, and that's taking a toll, and I of course still have lots to do at my current job, and there are games for the 360 and Wii that I haven't played nearly enough of, and 2 seasons of Dr. Who to watch, on and on. Its all quite a mess.

In short, I've got a bug, and thank goodness its not the Norwalk Virus. Once was enough for me. Stay tuned for updates, maybe I'll have something to show in a few weeks. Or not.