"Holy Trinity" of games idea

[Sagefire135]

I was thinking about a funny idea for a sort of social experiment with a BBG. mafia style games are ridiculously popular, as well as pimping games and RPG style ones. What if you made a game, then had 3 different "faces" you put on it depending on how a player signed up. you would have in effect 3 different games going on with 1 code. if nothing else this idea could be used to have multiple target audiences for the same game.

of course, if you wanted to have some fun...it would be interesting to see what happened if you simply switched faces so that all of a sudden the mafia guys might be playing a "nerdy" RPG, or if the RPG guys abruptly became pimps. Would it totally confuse people to the point where they didnt know what to do? or would they be able to continue player since...nothing REALLY changed except names and such.

[karnedge]

The idea of it changing randomly would make you lose your targeted audience. I think an idea to build off of this one would be to have an entire game with 3 different faces (like you said: just have it dynamically change names, text and pictures change) and you pick when you register. That way you get 3 different audiences all on the same game. If you play mafia, it will look like everyone is playing a mafia game. If you play the pimping game, you'll think all the users are playing the pimping game... etc.

Although, this may be what you meant to say. Its an interesting idea, but when it comes to in-game communication between the players (especially the role players), it will become very confusing because they will mention names and text for a facet they aren't viewing.

Example:
MafiaPlayer goes to PimpPlayer's profile and posts a comment saying "The Godfather accepts your gratitude for our protection. Join my Mafia." and PimpPlayer has no idea what he's talking about.

Although, another idea would be to have 2 or more similar games coexist together. In this way, Pimps and Mafia could coexist together. Become a mobster or a pimp... There wouldn't be any weird name changes or what not. A mobster could come to the Pimp's bordello and recruit his women... or even give them protection, etc.

[Sagefire135]

Yes, that's essentially what i was thinking. 3 games worth of players all interacting, but nobody really aware that the hitman they just pmed to kill a mob lord actually thinks they are a dragon slayer on the hunt for a dragon, and the mob lord being killed thinks they are a prostitute getting some lol

as for communication inconsistencies, you cant eliminate all of them due to people being people, but a simple filter to interchange names going through messages would catch alot of the names and fix them. Its possible to limit communication between the groups, which would help, but that would result in breaking up alot of the community that might have formed. which would suck.

It would be fun to try sometime as a side project

[shoespeak]

Is there any difference between game play? Would having different names (eg. 'thug' vs 'dwarf') be enough of a difference to capture the different audiences you speak of? Also, would players be allowed to play different versions...possibly creating confusion between multis.

What about having 3 different games with different objectives (one could be single player, another a sim/pet game, team based rpg, etc.) that are all connected by a 'meta world.' When a player signs up they create a global character and a global profile page. They can then play in different games, questing for some universal reward (global currency, rare cross-game skills, etc.) This would fix the problem of communication and allow the team to create games that have vastly different gameplay yet remain connected to a huge community of people they might otherwise never meet (but probably not )

[Sagefire135]

the games would be identical except for names.. I think different names is more than enough to attract different people. i mean if you think about it at the most basic level all these brower based games are the same just with different names right? sure some have different features that make them unique but it wouldnt take much work to change a mafia wars game into a D&D style rpg. players are technically already playing all 3 games they just dont know it. remember the only different between "games" is the visual parts. if someone created a account on the rpg theme and on the mafia theme they certainly would cause a bit of confusion but it wouldnt be any different than if they had made a second account on the rpg theme instead.

in my mind its less of a real idea to try and more of an experiment just to watch people who wouldnt normally cross paths playing the "same" game

the idea you mentioned would be more along the lines of 3 completely separate games interacting rather than 1 game acting as 3 seperate ones...if that makes any sense

[zykal]

you could take it one step further and make it appear to everyone as if they are playing the same game(only problem i see are player names).

as in mafia attacks RPG, to mafia it looks like he attacked another mafia player, to the RPG it looks like he was attacked by another RPG player.

have the top players listed as if they were from the same game and such. only problem i see if when MAFIA DON attacked RED RAIDER, the names will make it seem odd sometimes.


very interesting idea though.

[jannesiera]

you could take it one step further and make it appear to everyone as if they are playing the same game(only problem i see are player names).

as in mafia attacks RPG, to mafia it looks like he attacked another mafia player, to the RPG it looks like he was attacked by another RPG player.

have the top players listed as if they were from the same game and such. only problem i see if when MAFIA DON attacked RED RAIDER, the names will make it seem odd sometimes.


very interesting idea though.

Well, I think that's exactly what his idea was... I could be wrong though?

[Sagefire135]

ya, hit the nail right on the head, i was thinking exactly that.

[zykal]

That sounds like an awesome idea, it would work too, like I said the only problem I see is the naming, since different styles mafia RPG space what ever tend to bring about different naming conventions. If I was playing a mafia game and saw a bunch of enterprises and borgs (ex) in names I would defiantly wonder.

But as far as everything else goes the names could be changed to the "view" of the play style you are playing. Course you could just forgo that part and make the different games factions and have wars.

[Sagefire135]

I suppose it woudl be possible to create an array of different names that could be used in each game. sending a mail of sorts would be complicated because the game would need to swich out names everywhere but its doable. also...if the games were popular...you might need ALOT of names...which is problematic lol

a dedicated bunch of staff could pick out the players that need name replacements though, and just put those into the system. to replace it for those people only.

the staff for a game like this would have to be superhuman...as many things as they woudl need to be doing.

[zykal]

indeed, you could also write a name gen script.

make it so it creates names like the red pilgrim and the great staff ect.

and create a program to pick out names against a word bank list that are "problematic"

[Sagefire135]

but lets be honest, there's not too many people that actually USE those names that are generated when they play. Ive never given my name as somethign like 'Hildath, Guardian of Nithlang' or 'Vlancer Drgonslain'...ever lol although they are both names that i may consider using now that i made them lol *makes note that he is actually pretty good at name generation off the fly*

[zykal]

no theres not, but you could customize it to how you want it. also you could just use it as a temp name till you rename it if you wanted too.

you could just parse a forum board and use the names from it .... like a VNboard they have 1000's of names.


course not sure on the legality/ethics of that but its an idea.

[jannesiera]

Or just make it like they are playing against an NPC. So you could just give them general names like "drugsdealer" or "Rat".

[zykal]

I think he was looking more twoards a PVP game just by the sound of it, how ever theres nothing wrong with a few NPCs in the ranks either.

[jannesiera]

I think he was looking more twoards a PVP game just by the sound of it, how ever theres nothing wrong with a few NPCs in the ranks either.

Mhm, sorry, I didn't explain enough I see now. I meant that you could make it look like they are playing against an NPC, but are acctually playing against a real player. I don't mean you should lie to them or anything, they may know they are acctually playing against real players, but they don't have to know the other player's real name.

[Scion]

it may be possible to come up with a game mechanic that precludes the need for giving the opponents full name....rather a description could be given (that then matches the current players percieved universe)

Skinning a game differently to appeal to a differnet demographic is actually reasonably common, After all its great business sense if you only need to generate a new set of templates and graphics and re-use the same game engine...However having the differnt versions actually being in the same metauniverse with players from different versions able to play against each other is not something ive seen or heard before....

[karnedge]

What I meant by my post was instead of having different faces for the metauniverse and having to deal with player interaction, have different types of games that are similar interact with each other. Like mobsters, pimping and underground racers. So let's say a pimp needs protection for his hoes so he goes to a mobster player for that, or a racer needs a pimp's girls to promote his big race, or a mobster needs to have drug shipment done as fast as possible by a racing group of players. Now you would have 3 different types of game for one universe and you wouldn't have to worry about names or whatever and be able to have a new multiplayer aspect not used.

[Scion]

karnedge, sounds like your describing a game where players choose one of several roles/classes and then must work together with others of other role/class to achieve goals.....its a good base for setting up a co-operative or party bassed game, but not quite what i think the original poster had in mind....

you would still also have to have all players in the same general setting....so no dragon hunters helping out the pimps to wipe out an indian tribe....that think their helping the dwarves clear their mines of a goblin invasion.

Still its a good point. If you can offer it in game it gives your playeers more options about how they want to play the game, personally i like games where that is achieved through skill trees, rather than fixed roles, but role bassed is still very popular, and can also promote replayability as players try out other roles....

[karnedge]

@Scion
Very true.

[zykal]

I think its a really cool idea now that I know more about what he's talking about. would be very interesting to see

as far as not displaying names thats an idea, except when that happens it kinda looses the effect that your playing against other players, even with the description.