Ooh, good one. It satisfies some of my desire to have a 4x game with more than just fighting and expansion – in MOM there’s always the possibility of getting something (or someone) nifty in your next encounter…
I agree with Qenan about a non-warfare exploration game, I also often enoy the exploration and building more than the fighting. Some of the trading games like Patrician 2 do this by requiring you to travel to places to find out what they buy and sell, but I can’t think of a 4X games that doesn’t have you fighting at least at some stage, even in GalCiv you couldn’t rely entirely on cultural imperialism.
On a related note, how about an RPG that doesn’t require you to stop the big bad foozle taking over the world/universe. I know that in Morrowind you can just ignore the main plot, but I was thinking of a plot with a different slant.
X:w Alliance was the only Xwing game I haven’t beaten. Some of those levels were damn hard.
Personally I prefer an updated Xwing v. Tie Fighter.
A film-noir detective RPG, in which you created your original character and the action took place in a large city populated with a wide range of interesting characters. Cases are generated in a dynamic fashion. Your actions in one case determine how people react to you in later cases (e.g., you run across some evidence damning to a local crime boss - you let him know you have it, but all you want to do is find the missing lady and so you’re going to keep it quiet. In subsequent cases he’s helpful to you. OTOH, one of the local detectives who’s been trying to nail this crime boss for years will correspondingly be on your ass now.) Cases are interesting and complex (the complexity coming from relationships: a hidden affair, a cop on the take, a mobster looking to knock off the boss, etc.) But the cases are generated by a good “story generator” so that replayability is high. And characters react to you differently based on your character “stats” - a tough, blunt P.I., large but not so great looking, intimidating; a sexy female P.I. who’s easy to underestimate; an unassuming but very intelligent P.I., etc.
A driving game that features an entire country, not just a few city blocks or a single path track.
More rpgs set in western, modern, and scifi themes
A fun Space combat game
A role-playing game that isn’t a dungeon crawl. How about an RPG about intrigue and court politics, set in a single city in the midst of a succession? Or an RPG based on the pen & paper game Paranoia. Or a western.
I don’t think that Paranoia is good fit with CRPGs. After all, its a game that encourages you not to get close to your characters. I’ve been thinking that a Battlefield 1942 style game would be the best fit.
Great idea. (My wife’s NWN Campaign has some of this, but there have to be monsters somewhere for her to keep her players. Maybe if one drops out, you can get on the waiting list.)
I would like a political sim, where you manage or run a political career. Republic: The Revolution promised something like this, but failed spectacularly in a morass of scripted missions and limited actions.
Troy
Yeah, but you have clones. They could even work that into the save system. I don’t mind the idea of a game that doesn’t fit with RPG convention, in any event. In fact, that’s sort of the concept behind all my suggestions–I’m tired of the same old-same old, and would like to see something different.
Ask, and ye shall receive!
A first-person amateur wrestling sim. The guy’s ankle passes through a corner of your screen; you click in time to grab it, then click again to twist it, then push a button to lean backwards. Meanwhile, your opponent has triggered “roll left”; the results are calculated with strength and weight factored in, and they occur. Could use real-time or a WeGo system.
The mumbledy-peg sim I described in the sticky thread just before it vanished (though I was kidding, of course).
Barbershop Tycoon. You start out in barber college (a tutorial section) and learn to give virtual haircuts. When you graduate and are hired, you continue to give haircuts but must deal with angry customers and a shady barber’s union trying to goon-squad you into joining. If you do well you’re promoted to manager and must counsel barbers with romantic and drinking problems, find out who’s stealing Dubble Bubble from the bin by the register, etc., in addition to managing the shop’s finances. Eventually you can open a whole chain of shops, possibly including other cosmetology enterprises. Oh, and there’s a cheat to unlock the Flowbee Haircutting System.
A rock star RPG/karaoke hybrid. You ascend through a rock star’s career, but the turns of events depend in part on how well you perform karaoke segments at key plot junctures. There could be an EyeToy option (if I understand what that thing is) letting you substitute air guitar for karaoke. The game would come with prest plots for Elvis, John Lennon, Keith Richards, Janis Joplin, Alice Cooper, Loretta Lynn, Curtis Mayfield, Blowfly, Boy George, Young MC, Axl Rose, and Kurt Cobain, and there could be fan-made mods for whoever.
I’d love to see someone re-do Merchant Prince with better AI, a modern interface and some gameplay enhancements. I don’t know what those are, but something to make the game livelier rather than so abstract.
My other dream (well, the one I’ll admit to) is to have a Fallout Tactics or Silent Storm, but with X-Com base building, some over-arching conflict you can affect but never steer completely, and X-Com quality random missions. The game should develop slowly, there should be a ton of weapons, items and enemies, but you shouldn’t encounter one every mission. It should take months to discover it all.
This is what you seem to be asking for.
I’m pining for that game as well. Or at least a consolation prize of a MMOG set in the United States.
I even have a name to offer… Real World.
I think MTV offered it first.
Troy
I wish someone had told me that before I went.
Have you played EverQuest? The Karanas alone take an hour so to cross, at least without some sort of haste equipment.
This is what you seem to be asking for.
I’m pining for that game as well. Or at least a consolation prize of a MMOG set in the United States.
I even have a name to offer… Real World.[/quote]
They problem is if I want to race at 180 miles between two cities and then launch my car over a bridge into the river below, its a bitch to rest.
Road to Moscow
It was an ambitious project that promised to let you be sort of the army general staff for the Great Patriotic War (either side I think). You could select maps of the front and set up operations and designated objectives. Your army, corps, division, kampfgruppe commanders then carried out your plans to the best of their abilities. Can’t remember all the details of the new interface and gameplay concepts but it sounded very intriguing.
OK so here is a game i’d like to see. Combine Freelancer, Independance War 1, with a FPS.
Basically the game would be a space trading game, like Freelancer or X2, whatever. The space battles and space physics would play like from Independence War 1. Not the Zero G underwater physics that almost all other space sims use. The FPS part would play like if you set Vietcong inside a space station. With scifi weapons like from Aliens, no crazy green energy shooting weapons or anything like that.
The thing that would set this game apart would be the first person mode used for walking around space stations and when boarding enemy ships. Thats right when attacking an enemy vessel if you want to get its cargo/capture the ship you would need to dock with the ship after you’ve disabled it and go into first person mode, board the ship and take it over.
You could hire marines for a boarding party to go with you, or if they are good enough and you’ve equiped them well enough you could have them board without the player going.
It would be cool when boarding random ships, the FPS level for each ship would be the same for each ship class/type. For example there could be 3 different hulls for destroyer class ships, so there would be 3 different FPS interior levels for those hulls. Of course boarding the same hull will not be totally like playing the same FPS level over and over, because there will be varing levels of internal security depending on how valuable this ships cargo is. Like if its a ship with worthless cargo the player would only have to fight the ships crew armed with pistols. But if its a ship with very valuable cargo the player would encounter the crew heavily armed and even a compliment of marines onboard. Possibly if its a really valuable cargo the ship could have robotic gun turrets at chokepoints within the ship.
That sounds really cool, tron.
I’d like to see a good open-ended squad based RPG with FPS assault elements based in the Shadowrun universe.
Also, SysShock3 and Bioforge2.
I would have to add a true update to the citybuilding series, only with real combat this time. The idea of a real time building sim with actual fun combat to me seems like a no-brainer, but hey what game companies have brains these days anyway. :D
Of course an update to pretty much the whole Bullfrog catalog, with special emphasis to Dungeon Keeper and Populous.
Along this theme speaking of games that might actually happen, does anyone know what’s happening with Madjesty Legends? Some fairly mature looking screenshots came out six months ago, but I wasn’t able to dig up any mention since.