Darwinia "MMO"

[00Davo]

I've just had a brilliant idea for what would basically be a Darwinia MMO. No, not an MMORPG, MMOFPS, or whatever other crazy connotation is attached to "MMO", which stands for Massively Multiplayer Online, and basically means "A big ol' multiplayer game with lots of players in one big world". This Darwinia MMO would, essentially, be Darwinia. Not the game, the "virtual theme park" spoken of so much in the manual.

Players (or perhaps "tourists" would be a better term?) would purchase an actual Darwinia client, much like the virtual one used in the game. Upon launching, a connection to Darwinia is established, a la the firsttime intro, and then the client requests the tourist's authentication. The tourist logs into their Darwinia account (much like an account on an MMORPG, such as WoW or Runescape), and enters the world of Darwinia.

Within the world, there would be a few main locations, perhaps some of those featured in the game. The player can visit any of these, in their role as a tourist. They're populated with a slew of Darwinians. Most of these are regular AI Darwinians, but each tourist also takes on a Darwinian avatar. These locations are much like the towns of an MMORPG: quiet, relatively safe, and full of useful things. The tourists can observe the Darwinians going about their business in a town (perhaps various buildings spread about, with Darwinian slots randomly popping up on each?). The real fun begins, however, once you enter a Test Location.

Test Locations are, as the name suggests, a sort of beta testing area. These are programmed by Sepulveda as a secure area to test new programs. These programs, sadly, often get out of hand. A Test Location is usually overrun with some sort of baddies, whether they be Virii or rogue Engineers. That's when the players come in! Using the classic gameplay that made Darwinia so great, pull up a Task Manager and start blasting those baddies! Sepulveda will certainly reward you. These Test Locations function much like what are known as "instance dungeons" (I think; I don't play MMORPGs much): a different "instance" of the location will appear for each player, but you can bring a few friends to the same one to help!

Unfortunately, all the various other ideas I'd had have been forgotten while writing these ones. While I struggle to remember them, what are your thoughts so far?