git.zerfleddert.de Git - micropolis/blob - src/notes/MultiPlayerIdeas.txt

   1 Notice window
   2   welcome
   3   scenario descriptions
   4   warnings
   5
   6 zone status window
   7   display live map picture
   8   reconfigure to support various tasks
   9   editors for chaging zone
  10   invest $ => develop zone => increase land value
  11   population density
  12   crime prevention
  13   environmental cleanup
  14   enance growth
  15
  16 editor
  17   pie menus
  18   demand gauge
  19
  20 budget
  21   multi user dialog
  22   hour glass timeout
  23   auto budget toggle
  24   pause/resume toggle (to allow changing budget while simulation is running)
  25
  26 map
  27   drag rectangles to pan map views
  28   menus on palette
  29   generate terrain mode
  30   lengend
  31   rearrange
  32   switch overlays
  33   dynamic zone finder
  34
  35 graph
  36   2x3 palelet, 10/120 years
  37   double buffering
  38   communicate data. ard wire in c?
  39
  40 evaluation
  41   historical graphis?
  42
  43 surveyor
  44   other editors
  45
  46 dynamic zone finder
  47   washboard filter sliders
  48
  49 get key dialog
  50
  51 new city -- or "use map"?
  52   name, level
  53   scenario selection
  54   random terrain generator
  55   player can propose a city by selecting a scenario, loading a city, or generating a random terrain.
  56   all players must vote unanimously on a city to play
  57   selecting a new city clears all votes
  58   players can press next/previous to page through proposed city history
  59     you can go back to randomly generated terrains, because it saves the random number generator seed
  60     clears votes, proposes new or old city
  61   terrain editor todo:
  62     Integrate terrain editor code into map editor,
  63     and have a button on the new city map to run in terrain editor mode.
  64     Terrain editor will include only terrain editing tools,
  65     plus random terrain generation interface,
  66     and simulator will be paused.
  67
  68 print dialog
  69   Newspaper printing and publishing metaphore.
  70
  71   Optionally save a snapshot of the city state, to link to from the newspaper article.
  72
  73   Publish in newspaper, print on paper, save to disk, copy to clipboard,
  74   add to journal, blog, etc.
  75
  76   Allow user to enter text to be printed along with an image, like blogging.
  77   Can print any map or editor view with data overlay and chalk drawings,
  78   entire map (fit on one page, or split across multiple pages),
  79   or other windows like graph, evaluation, notices, messages, chat log, etc.
  80
  81   Export text content as html with embedded images.
  82
  83   Make an html/image city overview and journal, like The Sims family view and scrapbook.
  84
  85   Printable windows and views should have a "print" button or function that pops up a
  86   pie menu of possible destinations, for quickly making snapshots in your journal, etc.
  87
  88   Publish illustrated newspapers in the game, like The Sims storybook, with newspaper
  89   articles composed of pictures of the city, text excerpts from chat logs, etc.
  90
  91   A player could be a "reporter" interviewing other player politicians via chat,
  92   before and after the vote on building a stadium, asking them to make their case for
  93   or against the stadium, and publish the interviews in the game's newspaper, the
  94   "Micropolis Journal".
  95
  96   Players can browse each others newspapers over the net, and download the city snapshots
  97   the articles write about.
  98
  99   Flash: Monster invades Micropolis, near nuclear reactor!
 100   (story and link to saved city so you can read the story, then bring up the city and
 101   play it live from the point the story was written)
 102
 103 quit
 104   confirm
 105   multi player logout
 106
 107 save dialog
 108
 109 load dialog
 110
 111 network city browsing and sharing
 112   "What-If?" history tree.
 113   Publish your cities on the net.
 114   Download other peoples cities.
 115   Use a URL to point to a saved city.
 116   Grab a live snapshot of somebody's running city.
 117   Checkpoint and branch timelines.
 118   Save a city back to the point where it branched,
 119   to create an alternate history that other players can load.
 120   Multiple players build a tree of saved cities with branching alternate histories.
 121     Like the parallel universes in Niven's All the Myriad Ways.
 122   Rewind any city up the tree and select available alternate histories at each branch point.
 123   Play back alternate histories edit by edit, stop them at any point and take over,
 124   making a new branch point at that location.
 125   When you play together in the same city, you have to discuss and agree with other players
 126   about what to do, and convince other people of your ideas.
 127   You can try an idea out yourself, by branching your own private history,
 128   giving your idea a try, and reporting back to the other players in the main shared timeline
 129   what happened (with links to the save file and history so other players can see for themselves).
 130   GUI: Branching history tree outline viewer of saved files.
 131   Drag and drop a history point into the chat log which other players can click on to open a
 132   live view playing that history.
 133
 134 status control
 135   views
 136   players
 137   new player
 138   new view
 139
 140 Keep and export logs of simulation values
 141   r, c, i demand
 142   evaluation
 143   tax rate, collected
 144   funds
 145   funding levels
 146   event logs
 147     simulation events
 148       extend simulator to log all interesting simulation events,
 149       so newspaper reporters can write stories about them
 150     editing commands
 151       Log enough information to replay all edits against a save file to recreate same city.
 152       This is the key to high level multi player protocol between
 153       multiple parallel lock-step simulations, like The Sims Online,
 154       better than using low level x11 to implement the multi player
 155       interface)
 156       Treat any editing command as a "what-if" branch point where it could go another way.
 157       Give players an easy interface to replay a simulation up to a branch point, and
 158       and re-make the decision, to see how it would turn out differently.
 159   chat logs
 160   everything else of course
 161   web service to access logs
 162   export logs as xml for programs or csv for spreadsheets
 163   import and export chalk overlay as vector drawing
 164   support image overlays with transparency (begs for photoshop-like drawing interface)?
 165     Careful how far down that road you go, because you could use it to paint the image of
 166     a happy emerald green city over a dreary industrial wasteland.
 167     The simple white chalk overlay has the advantage that you always know what's chalk and what's not.
 168   opml outline with geo-codes
 169     store city overlay information in opml
 170     register the corners of the map with real-world lat/long values
 171       allow rotation and scaling but not arbitrary shearing or distortion
 172     register nodes of the opml outline at lat/long points and areas on the map
 173       what's a good way to associate an opml node with an arbitrary area on the map?
 174       an attribute with a polygon in lat/long coordinates?
 175       a list of rectangles in lat/long coordinates?
 176       a list of tiles in row/col coordinates?
 177     associate geo-coded opml nodes with features on the map like
 178     zones, buildings, streets, neighborhoods
 179       use opml nodes to give names to features,
 180         take notes about them,
 181         attach pictures to them,
 182         write stories about them,
 183       support overlapping features, so roads can cross,
 184       and each tile can belong to any number of features.
 185     allow users to plant signs on the map, like micropolis 2000.
 186       represent signs with an opml node.
 187         signs can contains arbitrary opml outlines
 188           with links to other opml nodes
 189             like a sign at a crossroad, linked to the nodes representing each road,
 190             and the regions of the city that the roads bring you to.
 191       use opml to write a city guide
 192       attach chalk overlays and signs to opml nodes so you can show and hide them hierarchically
 193
 194 head window
 195   Represents root window of Micropolis application to TCL, and ties all the other windows together.
 196   Contains the application's main menus and scrolling message and chat log.
 197
 198   An artifact of the way TCL/Tk/X11 works.
 199
 200   With another gui, might be the main base window that contains all other subwindows.
 201
 202   In X11, we depend on the user's chosen X11 window manager to manage all the separate windows.
 203
 204   In a better world (Sugar) Micropolis should let users save and restore windows
 205   configurations and multiple views, tailored for various roles and tasks.
 206
 207   When a new player joins, the select a role to play, which will grant them
 208   permissions and customize the interface, opening and positioning the appropriate
 209   windows and tools for their role.
 210
 211   Each role supports various tasks that might themselves reconfigure the user interface.
 212
 213   User interface configurations should be selected based on the role and the task.
 214
 215   Users first select a role that stays the same (forever or most of the time)
 216   and which grants them a set of permissions.
 217
 218   Each role supports a set of tasks (like Eclipse's "aspects"), which users may
 219   switch between, to reconfigure the user interface.
 220
 221   Players can hold elections to grant each other roles
 222   (like mayor, treasurer, planner, builder, reporter, god, etc).
 223
 224 Ownershop
 225
 226   This vastly complicates the game, so I didn't try it, but I wrote down some ideas.
 227
 228   Consider the screen area of the user interface it would require to
 229   enable the user to micro-manage all the ownership issues, in terms of
 230   the number of acres of city map it would cover.
 231
 232   It seemed like it would be too complicated to be fun.
 233
 234   Even if it could be magically implemented with a simple gui, would it be any fun?
 235
 236   That said, here are some ideas.
 237
 238   Ownership plane: 0 => nobody, 1-256 => user id
 239     (note: Can't save ownership user ids into save files if we want multiple
 240     players to enter and exit independently from the city itself, or if we
 241     want to support an open-ended, possibly large number of players over time.
 242     As I said, this gets complicated pretty fast, without a lot of beneficial fun.)
 243
 244   Players have separate funds.
 245     This raises issues about: who gets paid how much of the city's overall income,
 246     and who pays for city services?
 247
 248     Could have a main shared city budget, then certain players can be appropriated
 249     funds from that budget earmarked to perform various tasks.
 250     But again, that gets pretty complicated, and how is it fun?
 251
 252   Competition or cooperation?
 253     Should we attempt to make the game support competition between players,
 254     or is it better to keep it cooperation-oriented, by requiring unanimous votes,
 255     sharing the budget, etc.
 256
 257     I think it's simpler and more educational to give players the freedom to misbehave,
 258     while building in social networking and accountability, to let players discuss,
 259     negotiate, make and break deals, establish reputations, reward good behavior,
 260     and punish bad behavior, by developing real-world social interaction skills.
 261
 262     What fun would politics be if you couldn't have scandals?
 263
 264   Land value
 265     higher resolution land value grid
 266     effected by sales
 267
 268   asking price
 269     Tiles are owned by someone, and may be for sale, and given an asking price by the owner.
 270       Requires complex user interface for selecting tiles, assigning price, etc.
 271       How is that fun?
 272     Groups of tiles: parcels of land, for sale all at once, to highest bidder.
 273       M.U.L.E.-like multi player auctions for land.
 274     Developers can build on empty tiles that are for sale, and they're bought automatically.
 275       What's so fun about being a developer? Nothing to do after setting the price of the land.
 276     Buyers can offer to buy something that doesn't have a price, which initiates an
 277     M.U.L.E. dialog with the owner, and allows other players to join in the auction,
 278     submitting their own bids.
 279
 280   Transaction tool - $ (or local currency symbol)
 281     select group of cells
 282   negitiate deals with the owners
 283   automatically calculates default land value suggested price (upon which the tax rate based)
 284     based on modified land value through worth
 285
 286   communication window
 287     so people can negotiate and talk
 288     irc-like chat rooms where people can have a side discussion
 289     private person-to-person messages
 290
 291   calculate evaluation for each player
 292     Independent and combined scores and statistics.
 293     Hard to define what this means in terms of the current simulation.
 294     Would have to deeply change the way the simulation works,
 295     but then would it still be fun?
 296
 297   Zone ownership.
 298     Develop Micropolis into a more Monopoly-like game: SimCitopoly.
 299     A player can own power plants and other utilities, and makes money
 300     by selling electricity and other services to other players.
 301     Zones don't develop until someone buys them.
 302     Own residential => collect rent, pay maintainence.
 303     Own industrial, commercial => collect income, pay expenses.
 304     All zone owners pay taxes.