OK, so I'm moving on entirely from this project. I think that I'm undertaking a real life search, one that will take up most of my personal time and so I don't think that I'll really ever get around to making this game. I'm not young. All the same, I was happy enough with the design (and with the input from a few of the gang here) that getting a page or two written about it would mean a lot to me.
Core points about the gameGame would take place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, in a lull during the civil war. Similar to the mediterranean during Colonial Era (where Muslim/Christian conflict served as a backdrop), religious conflict would be the theme of the civil war. Most PC's presumably wouldn't be Crusaders or anything, merely adventurers who were trying to play both sides in search of fame, fortune and power in a land where resources were scarce and political boundaries unsteady.
Monsters, mazes and deserts would predominate the landscape, with civilization being scarce and far between.
Obviously there were several ways I would improve upon Arm's formulaFour zones
I liked the idea of an Allanak, a Rome from which culture, commerce and civilization flows. I think from there a lot of Armageddon ends up being patchwork, and then if you want to change anything, you're irking the people who built those areas and are familiar with them. What I envisioned for my game was a central Rome, and then four concentric rings of declining conservatism with the innermost being the safest and most conservative. To wit, Rome would be fairly static and you wouldn't really be able to change it easily. You wouldn't want to log into Allanak and find that everything had been moved or burned down, would you? Outside of Rome, the nearby fields and hamlets would be pretty static as well.
Moving into the next ring, you could change things, but you'd have to really fight to do so.
In the next ring out would be the builder's ring. There would be plenty of space here for PC's to build little forts and towns and things, but the bad news is that pretty much any other PC could hire his personal band of thugs to roll in and take it from you.
The last ring out would be effectively no man's land. Change would be so dramatic here, that powerful NPCs would quickly work to steal or burn down anything you tried to build. Not a place where most PC's would be comfortable.
Hire Professional Arbitration
Homeboy and I had a way worked out where we could cheaply bring in professional arbitration to sort out gripes and disagreements. That way staff members would be free to implement and administer, and wouldn't have to waste time managing. Arbiters could let us know if we were being unfair.
Campy Theme
I wanted a somewhat campier theme that Armageddon has. Armageddon is just so doggone conservative, everyone is afraid that some decision or other will offend one of the dinosaurs that plays or manages the game. People are afraid of fear and controversy. By making my game 10% less serious, people would be a lot freer to design the sorts of grotesque characters that should be populating a mage-scorched post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Completely new features
Cities would be smaller, society would have a flatter social structureThis is a problem that has long plagued Armageddon. We....effectively have teenagers and cat ladies playing Black Robes, & etc. Armageddon just simply doesn't have the playerbase to model a city rigidly-hierarchical (Allanak) city of some 300,000 people. I think a large town should maybe be 10,000 players.
It would be a lot easier to build new things in Armageddon
Starting a clan, for example would be really easy. But running a clan? Good luck on that one. It would be a lot more difficult to maintain things and to build something lasting would be the real challenge. Most people who had been playing for more than a year, would also effectively be builders.
Game design would emphasize a mentoring system
This would shift work away from staff. Staff positions would be rotational. Players would have a union to manage and advocate for them.