GCE: Game Creation Engine
By: Peter Van Dyke, Shon-Ting Fu, Jonathan Zabel
This will be an MMOG (such as World of Warcraft) that will allow players to input and add to the existing game world. The “Game Creation Engine” will be essentially an ongoing extension to play that will give players the ability go add additional content. An apt (though dated) analogy would be to compare this Engine to player housing in DAOC.
Concept:
A modern MMOG comparable to WoW in terms of gameplay and pre-developed content, The Creation Engine will be in addition to the normal gameplay but will still be intrinsically tied into the experience/level progression. As a player in the world you will have the ability to start taking ownership and editing you own personal parcel of land. As you level and gain more ability and experience you will be able to create more and more complicated and intricate personal areas.
Player Gameplay Example:
Meet Joe. Joe began playing Jonasys several days ago and is currently level 10. At level ten, he was unexpectedly deeded a small parcel of land in the player housing instance. Of course he was curious and so he went to explore. What he found was a bland, undeveloped piece of land. The ingame directions helped him to build a house and when he hit level 25 he was given an even larger area access through his original parcel. He could do even more now, and was able to create something even more interesting…
Overview:
Players will be deeded land based on experience/level, quest completion, and involvement in their previous parcel (ie, if players do not pursue their first parcel, they won’t get their second larger parcel). As the owner of these parcels you will be able to create, for example in the first parcel, an entryway of some sort. The second would be a building to correspond to it. This could be a house or a shop, and you would customize this based on your own preferences.
The breakdown of parcel ownership would go something like this:
- Level 10: First small parcel, low-level editing & object creation.
- Level 20: First parcel. More complicated object design.
- Level 30: Second Parcel, larger, One-room house/shop creation
- Level 40: Second Parcel, expansion of parcel, multi-room buildings and areas, static NPC design.
- Level 50: Second Parcel, second expansion. Skills, crafting, more interactive NPC design
- Level 60: Final parcel. Zone-sized, team-based. You will start this zone with a team of other players and the end result will be of your own determination – this can be a zone, a dungeon, a series of shops or a town... anything that the engine would allow you to create. Expansions to this zone will be doled out based on a case-to-case basis.
This feature is designed to allow players to add to the world they enjoyed playing. It will be a slow introduction to the concept for players, giving them more and more editing power as they experience more of the game itself and play with the feature. By end-game, they will have at their fingertips enough tools and power to create a new zone or dungeon of their own.