On the subject of Paradox games and videogame wishes, I loved the randomness and the sense of reality and the twisted family trees in Crusader Kings. But I hated the unrest that kept happening whenever I grew larger.
I’d like to see a Crusader Kings 2, with more logical crusades, and less of the events that destroy kings in a few years. Oh, and some kind of navy. The lack of a navy model allowed me to do some pretty unrealistic things with my army.
My second wish is for a CIV style game that takes terrain improvements to a whole new level. My favorite part of Civ 4 and of Alpha Centauri is improving my terrain, building farms, watermills, etc. I want to see something like that where there are even more possibilities for developing the land than in AC which had a lot. Overall I want to see a CIV 5 with expanded peaceful gameplay. I enjoyed the additions Civ 4 made with religion, it added a whole new aspect to diplomacy and gameplay in general. I’d like to see something like that adds a new dimension to play. Maybe languages, or seperate currencies, or something.
Oh, me too. Especially awesome would be one in a world like EVE Online, where you can do pretty much anything you want. I always say that EVE is the best game ever made except for the fact that it is the most boring game ever made. What needs to be made is a game with the freedom of an RPG without the dice-rolling of one or the exploits of FPSs.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
ETA: And my dream game would also incorporate some form of perma-death. I still haven’t figured out how that would best be implemented, but when I kill the most elite player in the game, I want his character to stay dead. One idea I’ve thought of is a respawn system that must be diligently protected and maintained; if the system ever gets sabotaged or the provider cuts you off and you die, you don’t get to come right back. Imagine deleting a player’s DNA backup in EVE so that no more clones could be made.
Actually, for that matter, I think my dream game would be less of an FPS and more of just a general virtual reality-type thing from a first-person perspective, i.e. you wouldn’t be forced to actually be a “shooter”, at least not often, if you prefer more subtle forms of interaction.
I’m intrigued by this Europa Universalis series, though I strongly prefer turn-based strategy.
One thing I’d like to see is a Civ-like game with an “adventure mode”. At any time, you can take a break from the main campaign and create a character to explore and interact with the world. These characters’ exploits can affect the campaign, even though they themselves don’t live very long in the grand scheme of things.
For example, you could choose to make a commodore like in the Uncharted waters series. Sail from port to port trading goods and build up a fleet. During the Age of Discovery, sail to far-off lands and amass a fortune trading exotic silks and spices. Return to the campaign and your nation has new maps and trade routes. If you make a commodore back in the Classical era, it would be drastically different, with a whole other set of goods and ships, and sailing outside of the Mediterranean would be too dangerous. Other eras present different challenges.
Make a spy and infiltrate a rival nation and steal their secrets, or play a scenario in which you must foil a plot to assassinate your nation’s leader.
Make a conquistador and pillage an overseas kingdom. Make a pioneer and build and manage a homestead or even a large plantation. Make an ace pilot and fly a fighter plane in the battles of the war that you are waging in campaign mode. Make a gangster and establish him as the kingpin of the underworld of one of your cities. Make a warrior in the ancient era and go all Dynasty Warriors on your enemies. All this and more on randomly generated maps on which you and your rivals vie for supremacy.
I would like to see more gay themed, or at least gay friendly games. I’m currently playing Red Alert 3, and although I quite like the game, I’m really annoyed with the short skirts, deep cleavages and centerfold positions of the female NPC’s, where the males are buffoons or gruffy army commanders. Where are the hot dudes?
The talk of MMORPG’s reminds me of my other video game wish:
A pirate MMORPG that requires working with lots of other players, in large groups, not just 4 or 5 people. You’d have to join a crew of a ship, instead of everyone having their own ship. You could man a single cannon (aim, fire, reload) or fight melee with other ships crew, or just hang out and play minigames (gambling, dueling, etc) between ports with the other crew when there’s no action. The captain would be just another player who earned lots of money and bought his own ship. He could plan the routes and steer and manage wages/booty split.
For anyone who has Unreal Tournament 2004 and is interested in ship-to-ship cannon combat, there is an interesting mod called Air Buccaneers. It involves combat between balloons armed with cannons. It works best when one player is controlling the balloon and one or more other players man the cannons. My friend and I usually play with bots. He steers and I man the cannons. Very different, and the look and feel is nicely done.
Don’t let the ‘real time’ scare you. I strongly prefer turn-based but EUIII, while technically not turn based…time is not an issue. EUIII is a good game.
Yes, EUII is nothing like a real time strategy game. It’s quite a bit like Civ3 or Civ4 except there’s no “End turn” button. And the game doesn’t move in “real time” at all, it’s like a day every few seconds, or faster.
I’m still figuring it out. I think I like it, I first tried playing as Switzerland and kept getting my ass kicked. Now I’m playing as Portugal and am doing much better, I’m colonizing Virginia. But the Native Americans have some HUGE armies.
If there’s a decent arcade baseball game for the PC, I haven’t seen it lately. I’m talking about something which accurately simulates the batter-pitcher interface, with the bat controlled with the mouse on a pixel-by-pixel basis (kind of like this Flash game), a likewise accurate sim of the pitcher, realistic physics, lots of stats, etc. Since EA locked up the MLB license (and then stopped supporting the PC market) we’ve seen virtually nothing close to this ideal for the PC, unless it’s from some minor shoestring publisher who’s only in it for the labor of love aspect.
