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Sorry for the vague title, but it's really hard to put the core of this concept down to just a few words.
I read about an awesome Minecraft "Mod" (it's not really a mod. It doesn't modify the game) that was presented by none other than Jason Rohrer, whom some of you may know from little artful games like "Passage", at this years GDC during the annual Game Design Challenge (this years topic was religion).
It's pretty simple:
One person would start a Minecraft world, do whatever he wants to do with the world until he dies for the first time. Upon dying, he would have to quit the game immediately and pass the map file on to the next person.
This way, the adventures of any person who would ever play that world would be built upon everything which those who came before left behind, and the persons who played the world before would become ancient unknown beings who left behind miraculous wonders. They would become gods, so to speak.
The idea, to me, was as simple as it was astounding. I was fascinated by this concept for quite some time, and in fact, for the past few months, I've actually been quietly thinking about a game concept for a game I would develop based on that very concept, and now I heard about Jason Rohrer's idea.
Jason Rohrer implemented it using an USB stick, I think, which he handed on to the person after him and so forth. But I think it would be absolutely no problem to simply play such a game in a TL.net thread.
Somebody would organize a queue of players who want to play the world, and once a player dies, he contacts the organizer who officially passes on the file to the next person.
There would be additional rules attached, of course, like forbidding the use of signs in the game.
Players could write blog posts in here, detailing what they found and how they interpreted what they found.
Of course this would have to be played on a strict trusting-basis, as it would be pretty easy for anyone to die more times without anyone noticing.
What do you think about this idea? Would you be interested?
Poll: Would you like to participate in this?Yes (29) 83% No (6) 17% 35 total votes Your vote: Would you like to participate in this? (Vote): Yes
(Vote): No
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what? why would signs be forbidden? i mean, yeah, i get that posting complete books of manuals for the world is besides the point, that should be forbidden. But when building some funny thing, i even labled my rooms and stuff in singleplayer. I don't think, signs in general should be forbidden.
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On March 05 2011 21:15 MisterD wrote:
what? why would signs be forbidden?.
To keep things open to interpretation. We wouldn't want players documenting what they've just built. A player shouldn't built a cavern underground and put a few signs in front of the entrance which say: "I was bored so I dug a huge hole for 2 hours". That would kind of take the magic away of discovering new things yourself.
The point of this would be to discover the world (if you die, you could of course still play the world and look what you've missed so far after passing on the file in it's state where you died the first time) and make up stories for how those things came to be for your own.
Of course, simple signs could still be allowed, for example, if a player built a house and there'd be a box in it with a labeling sign above which says "Cobblestone", or if he built himself a mine and it says "Mine" at the entrance.
But these are all technicalities, what do you think about the idea in general?
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This sounds really fun. Put me on the list if you can get it going!
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I've added a poll. A shame that I didn't think of it when I created the blog post, now that most people have read the topic and moved on 
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Sounds like fun!
I'd suggest adding a rule though, forbidding running in one direction for 30 minutes, since that easily bloats up the save file to hundreds of megabytes.
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I like it, although only a "when you die"-turnover sounds a bit lenient. Sure, at times I die five times to creepers in minutes, other times I won't die at all before I get tired of a world and delete it. How about also adding a day limit in addition to the death-limit? Say, five or ten ingame days or so. Alternatively, force danger so that death is more realistic - by this, I mean a rule that prohibits using beds to pass night, and also prohibits hiding in shelters during night time - yes, you'll be running or fighting!
I like the general concept though, and would like to participate.
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for me, exploring the current tl minecraft from time to time is enough adventuring, so i voted no, however it sounds really cool
i suggest a time limit too, dont allow someone to not die for months and ruin it
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maybe even a time limit instead of a death limit?
oh imagine, there could simply be a software thingy, that gives you a new random world previously built by another player automatically once per week. How cool would that be? And maybe even add a comment system, so players, that have had a map previously can talk to each other (obviously new or future players must not be able to read these comments)? That really sounds like a fun thing.
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A time limit would only be appropriate in addition to a death limit. Feeling a real threat while walking around is important to the game. You'd have only one life and little time to discover and shape the whole world to your desire. Much like in real life.
But these things are all just specific to the rules of the game. For now, I'd like people to focus on the general concept on the idea, on why they like it or why not, if it would even be doable since everyone is depending on everyone in the chain of people who play the game.
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well i wouldn't want to be involved in a statically planned chain or something, that sorta forces you to play at that time, i don't like that.
Hence my idea for a software which just provides you maps on demand so to speak. I think i'd check in there every now and then.
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Regarding the time limit- you should kill yourself when the time is up so the person to pick up the game sees exactly what his predecessors saw when they picked up. Not load up the game with a diamond pick-axe and such...
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Sounds like fun imo. 
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Beds should also be banned, its really easy just going to bed every night and never be in contact with enemies throughout your whole play through :p
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This is similar to what people used to do in Dwarf fortress. When people play they should write up what is happening, and then people can read the hilarious stuff that happens even if they don't actually play
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I'd say you could implement signs, as long as they stay in character of the game. You can have signs like "tribute to Aesopa" on a building and it adds a little mystery to the game. Was Aesopa someone who previously had the game? Or is it just a made up person someone made? It's almost RPG level, but I think it's intriguing.
But yeah, no beds. And it'd be nice if everyone agreed on playing on hard difficulty.
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a time limit would be much better. It's just a question of how long. Sometimes I won't get on for days and then I'll play for like an entire sunday. plus, you need to time to make nice stuff. conversely, if it's a week per person and we have abig list....
and yeah, I think signs that add to the game witout taking away the mystery would be sweet.
if you're into other cool ways to play, do ironman in singleplayer. You play on the map til you die.
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On March 06 2011 03:21 Hawk wrote:
a time limit would be much better. It's just a question of how long. Sometimes I won't get on for days and then I'll play for like an entire sunday. plus, you need to time to make nice stuff. conversely, if it's a week per person and we have abig list....
and yeah, I think signs that add to the game witout taking away the mystery would be sweet.
if you're into other cool ways to play, do ironman in singleplayer. You play on the map til you die.
If you do a time limit (which is a good idea) then the person who's handing off should suicide themselves at the end of the situation. I think it'll be a lot cooler if the next person comes alive at the spawn point with nothing rather than starting in the middle of a giant fortress with diamond armor.
You could even just have both restrictions as in 5 days or 1st death then you hand off.
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i wasn't thinking TL specific. Imagine a whole system like, whatever, a sort of minecraft platform with multiple players and multiple maps circulating around at all times.
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We could have a warrior graveyard too! I agree though, the new person should start bare or with only a few given items that is predetermined.
wouldn't that get confusing with multiple maps?? The game itself wouldn't necessarily have to be confined to TL though, yeah
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On March 06 2011 04:02 MisterD wrote:
i wasn't thinking TL specific. Imagine a whole system like, whatever, a sort of minecraft platform with multiple players and multiple maps circulating around at all times.
I get what you're saying, but your software idea is not that easy to implement. A software which connects to a server, randomly picks a map that was played by another player and then downloads it, plus which can upload your map to the server when you're done playing should actually be pretty easy to implement (in fact it's not unlikely that I could program that myself with a little bit of research since I've never done network programming, but it shouldn't be that hard), but even then, you'd still need a server that handles a lot of traffic - I don't have exact numbers but Minecraft maps, as far as I know, get pretty big pretty fast.
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I do recall a very similar, if not exact, idea being passed around on reddit /r/minecraft.
In fact, Reddit has their own subreddit for this Minecraft "succession" game mode
http://www.reddit.com/r/MinecraftSuccession/
The rules given by the subreddit's mod/creator seem to be a very solid base of guidelines for this endeavor.
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On March 06 2011 04:16 heishe wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2011 04:02 MisterD wrote:
i wasn't thinking TL specific. Imagine a whole system like, whatever, a sort of minecraft platform with multiple players and multiple maps circulating around at all times. I get what you're saying, but your software idea is not that easy to implement. A software which connects to a server, randomly picks a map that was played by another player and then downloads it, plus which can upload your map to the server when you're done playing should actually be pretty easy to implement (in fact it's not unlikely that I could program that myself with a little bit of research since I've never done network programming, but it shouldn't be that hard), but even then, you'd still need a server that handles a lot of traffic - I don't have exact numbers but Minecraft maps, as far as I know, get pretty big pretty fast.
Yes, map size and traffic caused by that would be the main concern here. I haven't looked at the new map format, i hope at least the "30k files per map" issue is gone, so those are a little easier to handle. But they still will remain large, you couldn't even zip these properly. In the end, yeah, you need a big ass server, which is the absolute kill to develop this for only a small sized audience as a hobby.
But i think i'd really like such a system. you'd need to implement some legislative stuff like broken map reports and ppl to then sort these out, you'd need to get into the map save format to enforce the "player starts naked" stuff on newly downloaded maps, but if it existed, it'd be fun i think.
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On March 06 2011 05:04 MisterD wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2011 04:16 heishe wrote:On March 06 2011 04:02 MisterD wrote:
i wasn't thinking TL specific. Imagine a whole system like, whatever, a sort of minecraft platform with multiple players and multiple maps circulating around at all times. I get what you're saying, but your software idea is not that easy to implement. A software which connects to a server, randomly picks a map that was played by another player and then downloads it, plus which can upload your map to the server when you're done playing should actually be pretty easy to implement (in fact it's not unlikely that I could program that myself with a little bit of research since I've never done network programming, but it shouldn't be that hard), but even then, you'd still need a server that handles a lot of traffic - I don't have exact numbers but Minecraft maps, as far as I know, get pretty big pretty fast. Yes, map size and traffic caused by that would be the main concern here. I haven't looked at the new map format, i hope at least the "30k files per map" issue is gone, so those are a little easier to handle. But they still will remain large, you couldn't even zip these properly. In the end, yeah, you need a big ass server, which is the absolute kill to develop this for only a small sized audience as a hobby. But i think i'd really like such a system. you'd need to implement some legislative stuff like broken map reports and ppl to then sort these out, you'd need to get into the map save format to enforce the "player starts naked" stuff on newly downloaded maps, but if it existed, it'd be fun i think.
well for a small size community you would not run into the aforementioned problems in the first place...
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Not sure if it was mentioned yet but Goons had a Let's Play of Dwarf Fortress where they did essentially this, except each goon would keep the fortress for 1 ingame year.
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
On March 06 2011 09:50 Turgid wrote:
Not sure if it was mentioned yet but Goons had a Let's Play of Dwarf Fortress where they did essentially this, except each goon would keep the fortress for 1 ingame year.
Boatmurdered? That came to my mind as well.
I can imagine this would be fun to follow as an observer too. I can just see someone pressing an unlabelled button somewhere to see what it does and getting killed by a trap, haha.
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EPT
