Plan for Trace Kern

Shattered Prism: Lost Wastelands The world of Wasteland was once created by an advanced alien race to be a massive laboratory. An artificial world, with two moons and orbiting a single star, all contained within a pocket dimension. To collect their experiment 'samples' the aliens devised a system of autonomous 'gateways' which could be sent out into our corner of the galaxy. These gateways functioned only one way, and when they encountered a viable sample, the subject was pulled in and dropped on the surface of Wasteland. That was millions of years ago. Since then the aliens have left, but their legacy remains. The gateways continue to function, dilligently pulling in samples from throughout the galaxy and depositing them here. You are one such 'sample'. Wasteland is a dangerous place, a largly savage wilderness inhabited by the Outsiders and the Enclaves. The Enclaves faced their situation by banding together to form some semblance of civilization on this world. The Outsiders however, faced with the fact that none of us can return to our homes, have reverted to a savage state. Preferring to live in a 'survival of the fittest' mindset, they form into gangs and warlord nations scattered all over Wasteland. In addition to these sentient threats, there are many non-sentient creatures dropped here, and many of them would like nothing better than to have you as their next meal. Welcome to the Wasteland...

The idea this project embodies isn't an MMOG, but it is a persistant-world, multiplayer, online RPG. The numbers of players I'm aiming for is considerably less than a thousand, and if I hit 500 players online at a time I will be impressed.

Which actually brings me to my second question, for anyone willing to answer.
What are some of the technical requirements of this type of game?
Here's what I can forcast, but if I've left anything out, lemme know:

Server-Side Team:
Data/Account management
Networking/Connections
Gameworld database
Runtime engine (what actually makes everything in the game move)

Client-Side Team:
Networking/Connections
Graphics (2D top-down art)
Sound and/or Music
Interface

Did I miss anything?

Oh, in addition, I do have what *might* serve as cannon-fodder for writing a design document. If you feel otherwise, or have some suggestions to make, feel free to reply here or via email.

***

Lemme tell you a little about the project I'm starting. The title is called
Shattered Prism: Lost Wasteland.
It's a combination of two earlier ideas/projects I've worked on but never
finished.

About a year ago I started designing a tabletop RPG (Pen & Paper) titled
Shattered Prism, based on ideas which had been growing in my head for years.
Early this year I burned out trying to overwork on the RPG rules and getting
it 'just right'. So I put the project on hiatus, and started working on a
new idea.
Lost Wasteland was turning into a rather interesting MUD project, and in
fact is still under active development by a friend of mine. Unfortunately
the basic idea could be taken so much further if I had the programming and
other talents needed to turn it into a graphical game, something a MUD
server can't do.

For a little information about the game itself, here's some theme text I've
written recently:

***
The world of Wasteland was once created by an advanced alien race to be a
massive laboratory. An artificial world, with two moons and orbiting a
single star, all contained within a pocket dimension. To collect their
experiment 'samples' the aliens devised a system of autonomous 'gateways'
which could be sent out into our corner of the galaxy. These gateways
functioned only one way, and when they encountered a viable sample, the
subject was pulled in and dropped on the surface of Wasteland.
That was millions of years ago. Since then the aliens have left, but their
legacy remains. The gateways continue to function, dilligently pulling in
samples from throughout the galaxy and depositing them here. You are one
such 'sample'.
Wasteland is a dangerous place, a largly savage wilderness inhabited by the
Outsiders and the Enclaves. The Enclaves faced their situation by banding
together to form some semblance of civilization on this world. The Outsiders
however, faced with the fact that none of us can return to our homes, have
reverted to a savage state. Preferring to live in a 'survival of the
fittest' mindset, they form into gangs and warlord nations scattered all
over Wasteland.
In addition to these sentient threats, there are many non-sentient creatures
dropped here, and many of them would like nothing better than to have you as
their next meal.
Welcome to the Wasteland...
***

It needs a bit of polishing yet, but that's the basic idea behind Lost
Wasteland.
Now, as for Shattered Prism: Lost Wasteland, it will be the combination of
the ideas expressed in my SP RPG, and the LW MUD. You see, in the MUD you
can be any race, any character you want because those 'gateways' roam the
entire universe. The system developed for the MUD doesn't restrict you to
race selections because you can write a description for anything you want.
However, I've come to the determination that this won't be the case for a
graphical game, where art for each 'race' selection needs to be done
beforehand. Which means I need a limited 'list' of racial selections; and
that brings me back to Shattered Prism RPG.

The SP gameworld is populated by 26 different alien species, and covers
roughly one quarter of the galaxy. For SP: LW, we will keep this list of 26
races, and drop them onto this world in a hidden corner of reality,
Wasteland.

Well, I suppose that's enough information about the setting, what about the
game?
The game will be a combination of three gameplay elements: Combat,
Economics, and Strategy.

Combat:
Wasteland is a dangerous environment. There are plenty of intelligent
creatures who have joined the Outsiders, and most wouldn't think twice
before killing you if they saw you wandering the wilderness, looking for
minign sites or whatever. Even more, there are plenty of non-intelligent
beasts/animals which would like nothing better than to make you their next
meal. All of this means combat is likely to occur anytime you're outside one
of the Enclaves. One major difference from most combat-oriented MMOGs is
that gaining power/advancement in SP: LW will not be based on killing
things. No rabbit bashing for the newbie player just to get to 'Level 2'.
Combat in this game may be inevitable, but the player *can* choose to try
and avoid combat and still be effective. But for those that do want to go
kill stuff and loot the corpses, they can.

Economics:
I want players to have the eventual option to make all the equipment they
and other players might need and use. Weapons, armor, gear, vehicles, etc.
This means I need some form of economic model. I've decided to take a page
out of Star Wars Galaxies and use a similar model.
Here's how it works. The first step to building, say a sword, is to go out
into the wilderness and mine some Raw Materials (metal ore). Then you can
bring this back 'home' to a workshop and you have to turn it into Processed
Materials (metal ingots) through smelting. Thirdly you take the processed
material and craft Components (Hilt and Blade) using metalworking. Finally,
you assemble the components into Finished Goods (the sword) with
weaponsmithing.
Each of the above four steps requires different character skills, different
resources, and different tools. Players who don't have the tools or skills
to finish one of the steps themselves must buy from those players who do.
This creates trading. Buying and selling at each of the steps.
In addition there are two basic commodities which can be harvested and are
consumed by many things: Energy and Food. All Enclaves need both of these to
continue functioning. Creating a form of resource management simulation.

Strategy:
Finally we get to this element. In the later stages of play, after a player
has built up their 'capital' and resources, they have access to some
interesting play options. Players with the cash and resources can purchase
or build what they need to found their own Enclave. First by building an
Outpost in the wilderness. This can be upgraded into a Fortress, and you can
start claming territory around your base. You can then hire/create troops to
defend your base and your land. These are NPC units which can be commanded,
given orders, sent on missions. If someone attacks you, a battle will take
place where you can give orders to any of your units defending your base.
Further, a Fortress can be upgraded into a full Enclave, with the ability to
claim more territory, and to form new Outposts and remote bases. Enclaves
are like small cities, with lots of NPCs 'behind stage' doing many things a
Fortress can, only better, faster, and without player supervision being
required.

Allright, enough about the game. How about the interface?
Okay, this part is going to be the most sketchy because I don't have the
background to know what is or isn't technically unrealistic. But here
goes...

The game interface will be largely a top-down perspective of a 2D world
using tile-based mapping and a keyboard/mouse interface. There will be
different interface screens for various elements of gameplay: Combat Maps,
Travel Maps, In-Building Maps, Inventory, Manufacturing, Base Management,
Vehicle Travel, etc...
Here are some screenshots of a game one of my friends started some years
back. The game is called Wormhole, and he started it as a demo for getting
into the games industry. Why am I showing you this? Because these images are
the primary source of inspiration for what I would like SP: LW to look like:

http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v258/TracerFox/Wormhole/

The graphics from Wormhole were very early and simple. If all I can find is
talent to do things like that, so be it. But if I can improve the graphics,
then all the better.

So, those are the basics of this project idea.
Any questions?
***