If this doesn't belong in this forum, I apologize.
I had this odd idea for a game. Take a step away from your computer, and take a look at it. You're posting on a forum, with dozens, nay, .. (4x12) members, each coexisting. .. Now, what would it be like to build and manage an online forum? .. Now what could we do to make it even more interesting, and worthy of being ported to a PC Title? :p
The goal of the game is to get as many members as you can, and have as many members as you can post, and frequently, and and have your members enjoy posting there. I suppose those are the main three goals for any forum. (Much like park rating, # of guests, and guest happiness of Rollercoaster Tycoon.)
Okay. In this (Completely Fictional) game, you are the owner of a forum. There are two gameplay modes: Sandbox, and Campaign.
Campaign mode would set you as the owner of a specific forum, sometimes already established, (AKA "Set Piece" scenario.) to accomplish certain goals. These goals would be fairly simple in theory; Attract 50 Members, and have at least half "enjoy" your forum, and post at least once per day. .. okay, seems reasonable, right? On the first scenario, that would be fine and dandy. But if you were to see those same goals on say.. the fourth scenario, you may be given a challenge to overcome.
These challenges would come in a number of tasty varieties, such as a Spammer, hacker, Super-Spammer, (One like I had, who never seems to quit, and is very good at what he/she does.) a board malfunction, a malfunctioning feature, an extremely annoying guest, etc. Perhaps as a solution, you could do any number of things, such as Ban the member, or Ban their entire IP range, or even as a very creative approach, get the other members to attack him! You could do many different things to tackle these challenges.
Things you could do to improve your forum would be things like adding new skins, adding an arcade, ... Um... I think AGN seems to do this, especially this and last month. A whole lot more was added. You see what I mean. Skins, hacks, features, etc.. all of those would attract (and keep) more members.
As for keeping members, that would have to do with the staff, as well as the forum features and visuals. (Skins.) Each member would have his/her own personality, and this personality is crucial to adding staff members to your team. You should have a certain balance of staff to members, and even a staff to staff ratio. The staff will be a major part of the game, running it, and making sure it all stays in order. They're sort of like the handymen and policemen all in one. They can fix things that break whenever they get on. The personality of each member consists of a few characteristics: Friendliness, (the willingness to interact with each other, including how long their posts are, and helpfulness.) Intelligence, (How detailed and informative each post is, and how well they enforce rules or get their point across.) And Posting Time. (How long during the day they have time to browse the boards.) It's best to have varying sets of the first two per staff to ensure a varied package, with the real challenge being picking a staff with the highest board browsing period. <Loses Train Of Thought>
So in Sandbox Mode, you have no goals at all. You just build and build and build to your hearts content. As far as I know, the "currency" available in the game, (And I still have to work this part out.) is received from each post. Each post gives you a small amount of prestige. The more posts your forum has, the more popular it is deemed by guests. The more posts it acquires, the more prestige it'll have, and the better a reputation it'll garner for itself. The better its reputation, the more people will want to flock to it as guests. Then if they like what they see, they'll register.
I've been squeezed out of ideas right now, so I'll open the floor to discussion. I'm not expecting anything.. at all, really, as it was just an interesting idea I had. Something to kinda laugh about.
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