Can you think "outside the box"?

#21 Online charades of sorts.

Think about the last time you played against someone from another country, where they didn't speak english and you didn't speak, say, german.

Level the laying field so to speak, part of the game play is learning to communicate.

Here's another swag at an outside the box concept. Create a language, whether symbolic (involving animation as described above somewhere) or "verbal" where you type, but all that comes out is gibberish, and your players have to learn the language to get in the game.

You have to have SOME kind of communication. Animation might be hard, that's alot of animations to do, but it could be fun.

Still thinking aoutside the box, just tying to figure out where the box edge is :)

#22 Good idea, as long as it doesn't get too complicated for the user, and the programmers.
You don't want to think too far "outside the box", or else people won't like the game because it is more "outside the box" then they can take.

Maybe we should think of it as two or three boxes, standard box, enclosed inside the not standard box, and if you past the not standard edge, you reach the unreasonable limitless space. So, each idea in here would be "outside the box", but just have different levels of it.

#23 Hm. Well your first post said "no communication" but I think you really meant "no typing." Players will communicate, even if you try to stop them (and I'm not talking about running IM on another window).

Players are cavemen (or cavewomen). You are given a handful of "grunts" and "oof" sounds and maybe an intensity bar (so you can *oof* or *OOOFFF*). You can dance around in circles, jump up and down, or beat your club on the ground. You can also extend your arm with something in your hand. Players will eventually figure out how to communicate. Just give them the tools.

The rest of the gameplay I'm sure anyone can fill in. You're a caveman/cavewomen. The basic goal is to secure caves, kill gazelles and bunny rabbits, and reproduce. You can make fire, make basic weapons like clubs and rock blades. Players can build on skills and attributes such as strength, agility, fire making, and weapon making. Commerce would consist of bartering.

I think players could dig learning a new simple language. Consider a given movement or noise a bit. With 3 different bits, you can create a LOT of messages in only a 3 bit chain. Give them 8 different grunts or special movements (plus what they come up with in the order of "run in a circle" or "run in circle and jump" etc) and a language will evolve. This would be great for fan sites. Plus different continents/areas/clans would develop their own languages. :)

#24 Awesome concept Victor!

Yes the need for communication is there all the time, that's the life of us human beings! Unless you want to make a game about Hermits or someone lost at sea then you have no choice but to communicate in some way. Even in the game I mentioned in my post above, there's no direct communication, but if you send a bunch of huge tanks over to a patch of ground and set them to remain there, anyone who comes near gets the idea that you've claimed it. Then they can show fear or retaliation by leaving the area fast or attacking. It's a violent way of saying "That's Mine!!"

If you don't want communication, make a single player game! But wait...you'll still be communicating with the game, huh?!

Did the box just get bigger? Or am I to far inside to tell?

LOL!

#25 There was a game some time back, developed by Cryo called Captain Blood. Captain Blood actually had its own inbuilt language dubbed "bluddian".

Seeing as you spent most of the game communicating with alien species, you communicated via the UPCOM (Universal Protocol of Communication). Whenever you would start a conversation with an alien, 120 different icons would come up on your screen for you to choose from. Each icon would correspond to a different word and you could string the icons together to form sentences and send them to the alien. The alien would generally then reply back to you, actually SPEAKING the words in bluddian (which I can guarantee you, sounds nothing like english). Basically the game had inside it an entirely new universal language that could be used and understood by everyone. This sort of thing could translate almost directly into an online rpg and give it near universal appeal. Sure, the learning curve might be a bit steeper, having to come to grips with a new language, but if this was presented to the player as a challenge within itself and not necessarily an obstacle that has to be overcome before you can enjoy the game, then I think it would be easier to come to grips with.

Oh and for anyone whos interested, I dug up a link to a Captain Blood page, which has the entire bluddian dictionary on it :)

http://argnet.fatal-design.com/bluddian.htm

#26 >The basic goal is to secure caves, kill gazelles and bunny rabbits, and reproduce
I like that idea. You have to take care of your children too. I'd hate to be a woman in the game... Savage fighting.. hmmm. If it was a single player game it could be based differently, like a sim game maybe..

>Plus different continents/areas/clans would develop their own languages.
That would be neat, if the game also made them have seperate languages to a certain extent(different sounds, etc.), then you'd have to try and learn them.

One problem would be if the people aren't willing to spend time to communicate, and dump the game... That would be bad, so you couldn't be more restrective then that.

I like the war game idea, less civilized war, where each person is in their own unit and be able to be inside buildings to equip things, buy, go to a bar, maybe even small towns, you can make pacts with other people or small clans, and fight against others, maybe even a resource system and trade. That would be neat.

>if this was presented to the player as a challenge within itself and not necessarily an obstacle that has to be overcome before you can enjoy the game, then I think it would be easier to come to grips with.

I also like this idea. The better players would be the ones with better communication skills, more experience, and be able to trade and negotiate better through the game. Maybe even a system where you collect scrolls or stone pieces with writing on them that describes parts of the language, making it a challenge to learn the more complex language features.

Some very good ideas.. =)

#27 The pioneering first players would basically get to flesh out the language. The hardcore would simply love this. Not to mention making secret languages that no one else can understand. No private chat. :) But if an enemy clan figures out your private clan's grunts they could raid your cave while you're out. That is, unless everyone just subverts the ingame grunting and ALT-TABs to IM or ICQ.

But, the barrier to entry for learning the language would be tough for new players joining after a langauge has been founded. Getting players into the game quickly would be rough. Perhaps the first few levels would not be as helpless as in other games. It would get tedious sitting in the middle of a town trying to figure out what in the bloody hell people are doing to get a point across. (Discover channel comes to mind -- bees in a bee hive communicating, shaking and dancing... how would you like to have to figure it out?) Something would have to be done about this. I wouldn't play a MM game if I had to spend days learning how to communicate with tedious grunts and counting numbers of times I pound my chest. Even with fan sites that help out the newbies, there would be little "instant-on" multiplayer fun. Someone who buys or downloads it and expects to hop in and join a community is going to be disappointed.

Actually I was thinking reproducing could be an interesting way to level. At say, level 10 you must reproduce, and you become your offspring. You of course evolve slightly, possibly depending on your mate. Possibly get more brains, more muscle, etc. Not sure people would go for the whole reproduction thing in the first place, so maybe it would be a quick and simple routine ala B&W, but you pop out at age 18 ready to go. Maybe you can pick a new skill, like bow hunting or stealth walking.

I'll have to think a bit more about making the grunt stuff actually work as a fun element.

#28 One form of 'communication' which I'd be interested to know why it is absent in most games:-

PRODUCT PLACEMENT!

Surely this must be a great way to get backing for our games (Garage Games even?)?

I.e., I'm playing Deux EX walking past huge Billboards and drinking 'soft' drinks for energy. Why aren't I seeing sponsorship from big companies on those billboards? Why aren't the drinks cans Cola and Pepsi?

Can you imagine the funding which could come into our games if we were prepared to accept PRODUCT PLACEMENT in the game! After all, in games like Deux Ex it's there, it's just not 'real'.

#29 And what big company exactly, is going to be even rermotely interested in advertising in, and sponsering an independant games project? At least try to be realistic.

#30 I take your point William. It's a good one:) I guess advertisers are only going to be attracted to the independent games which are doing well. I hope that my www.cliffhangergames.com site will help the independents to do just that.

#31 Personally, the last thing I want to see in my games are banner ads. While initial product placement would be more creative, soon my map looks like the the side of a stock car.

The only place the ads would even make sense are games in a contemporary setting. I certainly don't want to see floating space billboards telling me to "Enjoy Coke" while zipping around in StarLancer. It just doesn't make sense.

That and I am just sick with our world's over abundance of ads.

#32 You know Dave, on an absolutely personal basis, I totaly agree with you. I'm simply trying to imagine how Game developers might benefit from 'PRODUCT PLACEMENT' in their games. Using Deux Ex as an example, the character gains health from drinking softdrinks. Now supose (just supose!) Coke and Pepsi both wanted to sponsor the game. Now, what if Coke-a-cola pays more than Pepsi. So, in the game, you let Coke give 10 points of health and Pepsi just 5. Do you think Pepsi would stand for that!? I.e, your encouraging them to pay more. See what I'm getting at?

Sorry this is probably moving away from the original concept of this thread:)

#33 @Jonanthan: Sorry if I was a bit snappy, I really wasn't trying to take a dig at you, but the subject has already been covered in another thread. Personally I would love it if your site or GG got someone in the position that a big company WOULD consider sponsering. I just doubt that without a proven track-record and a guaranteed best seller, no big company would even consider it.

#34 Hey,no probs William. It's good to be challenged constructively on our ideas:) In a way it gets back to the communication theme. Communication results in a reaction within the person being communicated with. What that reaction is, is totaly up to them and how they interpret the communication.