Economy,emergent gameplay and citizens
It would be very fun to have a large number of citizens and a thriving economy
Here are some features I thought would be ideal to have:
Warning: long post ahead!!!!
Persistent citizens
-Have a daily routine set for themselves
-randomly generated
-Ideally, certain information could be gleaned from just observing an NPC. for example, a girl would live in a dingbat apartment but still insist on wearing all gucci clothes. most likely does not have the best of credit ratings. Following a judge at night might reveal he likes gambling,etc.
-possibility to corrupt and blackmail depending on vice, sickness, indebtedness, satisfaction,etc.
-Can hold and buy real estate, or simply rent or get thrown out,become criminal
-Lot of unhappy citizen could form riots
commerce
-Supply and demand including real estate
-Ability to own a business
-a realistic supply chain
-create problems to create demand (e.g. introduce a disease to pump up the price of a vaccine, destroy an apartment to promote a construction company)!!!!
-destroying merchandise, stores, or kidnap/kill/threaten/blackmail/persuade key personel to dampen supply provided by a competitor
-stock market could be created based on the random walk theory
-Fake identities should be available and some sort of legal system set up to counter white collar crime
Media:
-Scandals could be brought to light and demand for a corp's product drop as a result.In extreme cases,provoking a run on the bank or a company`s stock.
-Lies could be made by executives during news conferences about income statements to provide a boost to reputation but a smoking gun revealed publicly could make it come crumbling down
-This allows for a wide range of white collar crime. E.g. a media could help a corp launch an IPO. the success of this would be determined by quality of office, reputation,etc. The corp could then run a legitimate business ...or default and run with the suckers`money (with all that entails).
-Plastic surgery would have a reason to exist beyond cosmetics. It would be a great way to disappear and the more different the changes, the dimmer the trail.
Organizations/businesses
-Should roughly work like a real organization with limited ressources.e.g e.g. In a retail outlet, a truck would be sent from the warehouse to the retailer to restock on food.
-The computer system would hold files about the minutes of the last meeting (e.g. a corporate meeting would hold the location of the next corporate raid) as well as a list of personnel and clients and other relevant data.
-Each building should have inventory which is physically accessible by the PC. Same with employees and machinery.
-Ideally, you should be able to wipe out an organization.
-Should have AI and be able to react to its environment with its ressources.
Advantages of such a system
-Information even on private citizens would become hugely valuable and add a new dimension to gameplay.
Let`s say the persuasion system allow to take into account the various traits and we have a mafia guy that wants to have a SIN.
He can either go to poor neighboorhood and intercept citizens at random with poor odds of succeeding as he doesn`t know the character`s traits
Or he can get
a list of NPCs (bought at high dollars from a data broker) with bad credit for example , find where they live or call them and and pitch them an offer they can't refuse.
He could stalk a strip club visitor to see if he is a bum or a police big wig. He could observe a business to see who are the managers and the CEO, who comes and goes, etc.
Or the minutes of a meeting could provide valuable info on the next move of an organisation and time to allow moving illegal hardware from a warehouse to another (I hope you have another safehouse set up).
-Perpetual game
-It would allow for a pacifist playthrough as many of the class are economic in nature.
-In itself, pricing is a storytelling tool.The PC`s action could provoke a snowball effect which in turn could affect a whole sector. How glorious!
-Automatic quest generation could be directly related to the day to day politics and would feel less generic then say in Skyrim.
-Combined with realistic ballistics and damage, it would add uncertainty and risk to the game. As the economy is fluid, consumer demand fluctuates, your businesses could easily fail and other orgs will actively seek to shut you down. It could work very very well if there is a meaningful and harsh justice system.
Arguably, this is a Christmas wish list ,as any wish list, it is always ambitious, and there is always more.
but it would be really nice to have even a few of these features implemented. I think a lot of these could be abstracted away or a workaround could be found to make a credible illusion. so I don`t think it is necessarily unfeasible by 2015-16.
Extra thoughts?
It would be very fun to have a large number of citizens and a thriving economy
Here are some features I thought would be ideal to have:
Warning: long post ahead!!!!
Persistent citizens
-Have a daily routine set for themselves
-randomly generated
-Ideally, certain information could be gleaned from just observing an NPC. for example, a girl would live in a dingbat apartment but still insist on wearing all gucci clothes. most likely does not have the best of credit ratings. Following a judge at night might reveal he likes gambling,etc.
-possibility to corrupt and blackmail depending on vice, sickness, indebtedness, satisfaction,etc.
-Can hold and buy real estate, or simply rent or get thrown out,become criminal
-Lot of unhappy citizen could form riots
commerce
-Supply and demand including real estate
-Ability to own a business
-a realistic supply chain
-create problems to create demand (e.g. introduce a disease to pump up the price of a vaccine, destroy an apartment to promote a construction company)!!!!
-destroying merchandise, stores, or kidnap/kill/threaten/blackmail/persuade key personel to dampen supply provided by a competitor
-stock market could be created based on the random walk theory
-Fake identities should be available and some sort of legal system set up to counter white collar crime
Media:
-Scandals could be brought to light and demand for a corp's product drop as a result.In extreme cases,provoking a run on the bank or a company`s stock.
-Lies could be made by executives during news conferences about income statements to provide a boost to reputation but a smoking gun revealed publicly could make it come crumbling down
-This allows for a wide range of white collar crime. E.g. a media could help a corp launch an IPO. the success of this would be determined by quality of office, reputation,etc. The corp could then run a legitimate business ...or default and run with the suckers`money (with all that entails).
-Plastic surgery would have a reason to exist beyond cosmetics. It would be a great way to disappear and the more different the changes, the dimmer the trail.
Organizations/businesses
-Should roughly work like a real organization with limited ressources.e.g e.g. In a retail outlet, a truck would be sent from the warehouse to the retailer to restock on food.
-The computer system would hold files about the minutes of the last meeting (e.g. a corporate meeting would hold the location of the next corporate raid) as well as a list of personnel and clients and other relevant data.
-Each building should have inventory which is physically accessible by the PC. Same with employees and machinery.
-Ideally, you should be able to wipe out an organization.
-Should have AI and be able to react to its environment with its ressources.
Advantages of such a system
-Information even on private citizens would become hugely valuable and add a new dimension to gameplay.
Let`s say the persuasion system allow to take into account the various traits and we have a mafia guy that wants to have a SIN.
He can either go to poor neighboorhood and intercept citizens at random with poor odds of succeeding as he doesn`t know the character`s traits
Or he can get
a list of NPCs (bought at high dollars from a data broker) with bad credit for example , find where they live or call them and and pitch them an offer they can't refuse.
He could stalk a strip club visitor to see if he is a bum or a police big wig. He could observe a business to see who are the managers and the CEO, who comes and goes, etc.
Or the minutes of a meeting could provide valuable info on the next move of an organisation and time to allow moving illegal hardware from a warehouse to another (I hope you have another safehouse set up).
-Perpetual game
-It would allow for a pacifist playthrough as many of the class are economic in nature.
-In itself, pricing is a storytelling tool.The PC`s action could provoke a snowball effect which in turn could affect a whole sector. How glorious!
-Automatic quest generation could be directly related to the day to day politics and would feel less generic then say in Skyrim.
-Combined with realistic ballistics and damage, it would add uncertainty and risk to the game. As the economy is fluid, consumer demand fluctuates, your businesses could easily fail and other orgs will actively seek to shut you down. It could work very very well if there is a meaningful and harsh justice system.
Arguably, this is a Christmas wish list ,as any wish list, it is always ambitious, and there is always more.
but it would be really nice to have even a few of these features implemented. I think a lot of these could be abstracted away or a workaround could be found to make a credible illusion. so I don`t think it is necessarily unfeasible by 2015-16.
Extra thoughts?