I had an idea for a game setting on the way home from work tonight. It never felt quite right to me playing first Crysis, no-one should be having firefights in that game's tropical paradise. It's like these nice sunny places feel like I should be taking a virtual location. Obviously other people feel similarly, which is why I guess de_dust and the like are so popular.
So what I want is a game set in a tropical paradise without all the killing and violence. However that sounds rather dull, to my dark side (see my last blog entry), who'd like to be able to go on a killing spree from time to time. The end result is the following MMORPG setting:
Utopia and Undercity
Mankind has conquered the physics of faster than light travel and spread his culture to many colony worlds, one of which was the oceanic world christened "Utiopia", by the mega rich industrialists that founded it.
In the early centuries of it's founding much of the surface was covered by a sprawling mega city, sealed off from the then toxic atmosphere. Later the founders used their great wealth to terraform the surface, burying all but the cities highest towers in coral and sand. These alchemists of global transformation changed the once noxious atmosphere into sweet breathable air. Far above the ignorant masses in the cities Utopias surface was transformed into a planet-wide archipelago of tropical paradise islands.
Only the wealthiest knew what was going on above and built new and gleaming, hypertech mansions and towns on the beautiful islands. The crowded, dark, noisy original metropolis of the original Utopia came to be known as the "Undercity". The wealthy surface-dwellers used their power and influence to establish laws preventing the population form traveling to and from the surface, without license.
When the aliens were founds by human explorers, they directed them to Utopia, calling it the jewel of human worlds. And the alien species were greatly impressed with what they saw on utopia, a technological advanced race, living lives of leisure. Never seeing the undercity the founded embassies to learn the wisdom of humanity.
So above ground it's all light, air, sea, parties, free healthcare, flying cars and alien diplomats and underground it's all grimy, dark, claustrophobic, drugs, slavery and fight for survival. Here and there are executive elevators that connect Utopia, to the Undercity below.
RPG players are born in Utopia and are taught about the undercity as they "come of age", which is where the player takes over. You can have a virtual holiday in Utopia, training skills, socializing, trading, fly from town to town in flying cars. Or you can take the lift down and hunt slavers, illegal tech or any of the other dark delights of the undercity.
