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I am a software engineer, although I write business software, I have been playing Masters of Orion, since the first version, along with all of the Civ games. Anyway to my point:
One of my recent projects required a new e-mail driven database front-end to be written, basically the ability for the database to receive e-mails and act on them, and then e-mail reports based on results or other triggers.
This made me think of a game idea, and Masters of Orion popped into my head. Please let me know what you all would think of a game like this.
I would use this new e-mail front-end I wrote and write a Game back-end to it based on the Moo series (Moo2 specifically sine IMHO it was the best). Except instead of a turn based game change the game into a semi-real time game. All game elements would be pushed through e-mail or a web-based control panel. Let’s say a normal turn of Moo2 would take 24 hours, when your race finished a tech, an e-mail would be generated to let you know the new tech, its benefits, and what new techs you can research next. A default selection would be made, and you could reply to the message with the new research topic, or let the system continue on with the default selection. Or you could go out to the website, and login, and be presented with a snap shot of where your empire is at, and you would have the option of changing techs there.
Other examples of how play would work:
When you build a ship, an e-mail is sent with a graphic of all of the options for where it can go. You can then reply to the e-mail and give it a destination. The ship will then head off to that system. When it arrives a new message is sent letting you know what was discovered at the new location. Ship locations, and commands would be available from the web interface as well.
Colony management would happen similarly, when an improvement was completed an email would inform you of it, and ask for new orders, or if the colony grew, you would be informed of where the system placed the worker (scientist, or farmer) and you could move it if you wished. All colony based e-mails would come with a current report of what the system was producing, food status, production status, etc.
After playing a few of the democracy games over in the Civilizations forums it has occurred to me that people are interested in games that may take weeks or months to play, and those types of games allow for unique game play styles as well. With the e-mail based front-end people could play with a minimum time requirement of replying to an e-mail, or be more involved by utilizing the web-based reports. Game play would continue even if 1 of the players dropped out and stopped playing.
The overall vision would be to make a larger version of the game to allow for more than 8 players, and much larger universes. Maybe even new Tech trees and other.
But before I put all the work into the game side of it, I thought I would do some research and find out if you at Apolyton would think that this is something I should pursue, or scrap it as a dumb Idea.
Please let me know your thoughts. All suggestions or criticisms are welcome.
One of my recent projects required a new e-mail driven database front-end to be written, basically the ability for the database to receive e-mails and act on them, and then e-mail reports based on results or other triggers.
This made me think of a game idea, and Masters of Orion popped into my head. Please let me know what you all would think of a game like this.
I would use this new e-mail front-end I wrote and write a Game back-end to it based on the Moo series (Moo2 specifically sine IMHO it was the best). Except instead of a turn based game change the game into a semi-real time game. All game elements would be pushed through e-mail or a web-based control panel. Let’s say a normal turn of Moo2 would take 24 hours, when your race finished a tech, an e-mail would be generated to let you know the new tech, its benefits, and what new techs you can research next. A default selection would be made, and you could reply to the message with the new research topic, or let the system continue on with the default selection. Or you could go out to the website, and login, and be presented with a snap shot of where your empire is at, and you would have the option of changing techs there.
Other examples of how play would work:
When you build a ship, an e-mail is sent with a graphic of all of the options for where it can go. You can then reply to the e-mail and give it a destination. The ship will then head off to that system. When it arrives a new message is sent letting you know what was discovered at the new location. Ship locations, and commands would be available from the web interface as well.
Colony management would happen similarly, when an improvement was completed an email would inform you of it, and ask for new orders, or if the colony grew, you would be informed of where the system placed the worker (scientist, or farmer) and you could move it if you wished. All colony based e-mails would come with a current report of what the system was producing, food status, production status, etc.
After playing a few of the democracy games over in the Civilizations forums it has occurred to me that people are interested in games that may take weeks or months to play, and those types of games allow for unique game play styles as well. With the e-mail based front-end people could play with a minimum time requirement of replying to an e-mail, or be more involved by utilizing the web-based reports. Game play would continue even if 1 of the players dropped out and stopped playing.
The overall vision would be to make a larger version of the game to allow for more than 8 players, and much larger universes. Maybe even new Tech trees and other.
But before I put all the work into the game side of it, I thought I would do some research and find out if you at Apolyton would think that this is something I should pursue, or scrap it as a dumb Idea.
Please let me know your thoughts. All suggestions or criticisms are welcome.
. No battles = no fun! 
I have some tough competition and possibly much fun playing them in the future...
and sinking grog
MOOOOO 
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