Ask HN: What game do you wish existed?

A Massive Multiplayer Online Real Time Strategy (MMO-RTS) game.

I know it's utterly unworkable. But I want it anyway.

Imagine an RTS game that ... just keeps going. Both in time and in play area. Something like the Minecraft map in scale.

You play a few hours online with other people, log off, come back, and then you're still playing on the same map with the same resources, buildings, and units. Other people may have advanced and tech'd up, and now you can too.

I have no idea how to handle combat when a player is sleeping or making dinner. Or any other real conflicts. Maybe a timer of some sort? Maybe catching them sleeping is part of the fun?

I want to change some life configurations and see what is going to happen after 1000 years.

Let's say, humans found a way to live without eating and drinking, now how life is going to look like after a some time?

It is basically a more sophisticated and realist version of the game of life.

Startup, the RPG. As you develop your (actual) startup, you communicate with a DM over telegram or some chat interface, and the DM gives you miniature quests to propel you along in your startup. What happens to your startup in the real world is integrated by the DM into the "game" quests they describe to you.

A true successor to the Civ4 mod Fall From Heaven 2 [1].

As an aside, I enjoyed Civ4 way more than 5/6. They might have hexes and Civ4 (and earlier) may suffer from the Stack of Doom problem but I don't enjoy the dance of units that can no longer stack.

Anyway, I played Civ4 the most (other than Civ1) of the series but, more than the base game, I played way more of FFH2. It's an amazing mod. Sadly, the primary creator went on to work for some other game company. Good for him but not I miss the development.

There were a lot of groundbreaking and amazing turn-based fantasy games in the 1990s and early 2000s. FFH2 is just one (and a notable one at that). Others include Heroes of Might and Magic (primary 2 and 3) and Master of Magic (I believe there was a kickstarter for a successor to this but I don't believe it was well received? I could be wrong).

I don't enjoy RTSs. I like the relaxing pace of turn-based games.

The problem is, games like that aren’t fun. It’s been tried.

Imagine coming home from work and hopping online to go do your second job. A virtual economy implies work. And unless there’s something to hook people in, no one wants to do that work.

Hence you end up with the quest grind and the dopamine trail.

If you can find a way out, I imagine it would be very lucrative. But it’s not really a technology problem.