Evolution - The Game of Intelligent Life

Preface

About 10 years ago, almost to this day, a game produced by the Discovery channel was released titled "Evolution, The Game of Life". To this day, this remains to be my all-time favorite computer game. Evolution has always intrigued me, and has been a passion of mine to see how mankind has come to be ( religion aside, no offence peoples, God is great - go god ). It was a 2-dimentional, yet shaded enough to look 3D. It had an display very simmilar to WC3. It had a user-interface to control evolution, and research tech-trees etc. Basically, you started out with 1 of 5 base Ichthyostegids ( Amphibious land-walkers - they were the first animals to walk on land ). They were Acanthostega, Elginerpeton, Hylerpeton, Ichthyostega and Ventastega. From there, you could evolve these creatures over a period of time ( the earlier on in the game, and evolution, evolution was very sudden and brevice due to new development. ( I.E. It was then that amphibians developed two passageways for air, previously just one through the mouth. Nostrils were grown. Lungs changed to adapt to out-of-water environments. Et Cetera. ) Further on, the more advanced species took longer to develop, because changes might have been very small, or very LARGE and because of this, it took time. ( E.G. From Allosaurus to Tyrannosaurus Rex. Because Allosaurus was about 1/3 the size of the T-Rex, such a spontaneous change wouldn't have had happened - it couldn't have. It took several million years for the change. ). The game was won when an intelligent species was evolved. There were a possible of 5 different sapiens that were off different decents.


-Saurosapiens, developed from dinosaurs and most specifically velociraptor-like creatures. The brains in later evolved species were found to have been very large and capible of obscure thinking.

-Psitaccisapiens, developed from avians. Some parrot species are estimated to have the intelligence level of a 3-year-old human being, and given the right environment, scientists believe that in a natural catastrophe, or other such events the need for a more developed brain could have resulted.

-Elephasapiens, developed from Elephants. Silly, yes, but scientists believe that their brain structure, and ability to manipulate objects with their trunk promotes higher intelligence. Once again a natural catastrophe or other such event could spark the progression in intelligence in this species.

-Homosapiens, developed from Primates. Those of what we are today. QED.

-Vombatus Sapiens, developed from wombats or similar primitive rodents. The Discovery channel admitted that there was no probable cause for why a wombat would evolve into an intelligent species, but it was a good enough reason for them to be an intelligent species - After all, they are terminally cute, and practically anyone is susceptible as any to the charms of small, furry animals.

My expertise

-I have absolutely no experience with the WarCraft World Editor.
This includes
-Trigger Editor
-Minor experience in map creation, however a toddler could probably figure it out.
-Minor experience in unit creation, but no obscure mathematical or programming changes, like creating new spells entirely with made-up effects, icons, screen effects and so-fourth.
-Campaign editing.

I CAN provide my opinions and knowledge about how the initial game was played. I can provide advice as to how the game could be user-friendly and enjoyable, as well as how species evolve, and what names to give them. I can also do minor alterations to the map via creating creatures, but mostly point-and-click procedures. Going into unit settings and changing a decimal or etc to change the way they function would be a bad idea.

What I see as a potential to translate this to a WC3 game.

I believe this could be translated into WarCraft 3 into 2 main directions

1) It could be made into a battle.net map for multiplayer use.
2) It could be made into a campaign, and further development could be ensued that would be impossible to create in a multiplayer map.

What I believe what could be braught to the table through WarCraft3 in relation to this game


I believe there are a signifficant number of factors to make this a very successful, and enjoyable game.

-First and foremostly it's educational, fun, and addicting.
-It's difficult! It's miraculous that life has made it as far as it already has today! Major catastrophies have happened over millions of years to Earth, and life has persevered!
-CARNAGE! Life has never agreed on peace. It still doesn't today. Through player or computer intelligence, another person or computer-controlled unit might start attacking your early keystone species in which you're planning on developing the mammalia family or your small dinosaur-like lizard which will be a keystone species to make that really cool Allosaurus you've seen another character create in another game, or on the provided tech tree in - let's say - the help menu or some other provided ability.
-Control. Take control of life as you guide it as you see fit, the way you invisioned Pangea to take it's course, as opposed to how it developed today.

How the game might run in WarCraft3

Let's ignore multiplayer for now. Let's say a player starts out with Ichtheostega. He/she looks through the techtree and says to him/herself, "I want to shoot for Saurosapiens". Okay!

That player begins with his Ichtheostega, and begins to evolve it into later developed species. As time goes on, his creatures would duplicate ( Imagine that 1 unit would represent about 10,000 of its species ). He would chose one of those units and it would be able to evolve into maybe 2-15 different creatures. From there, once the evolution was complete, the unit would move to its appropriate climate, reproduce and re-evolve.

Here's the part I'm fuzzy with. In the actual game, a species would have to be in a certain climate, or else it would die. Ichtheostega would have to be in swamp, at around 30-40 degrees Celcius. The would would constantly change every few million years, and new climates were developed. Obviously the WC3 map couldn't change, but I believe at minimum climate or terrain would have to be essential to the survival of units - It wouldn't make much sense without climate.

Through the development of his species, eventually he comes across predatorial species! Uh oh! What does he do? Any person would know that a carnivore won't survive successfully on a herbavorial diet! The player would then have to have his predator stalk mercilessly every once in a while on one of his units, or computer / other player's units for it to strive in existence. The success of his creatures would GREATLY depend on the well-being of them, and his evolution.

As the game came to a close, eventually the player would begin evolution of an intelligent species "presaurosapien, or prevombatus sapien" etc.. Things would heat up! Computers and players alike would race to those areas of the map to kill off the species. If that player successfully evolves one of his species into a fully-evolved Saurosapien or Vombatus Sapien, he WINS!

What I'm looking for

Ideally, I know that 90% of the maps attempted are unfinished, never started or somehow never become completed. I'm not expecting for this to even get started, nor am I expecting a team of swedish researchers to jump at my feet begging to make this game. However, I definately might start an approach to make it myself out of personal desire. What I'm asking of the public is:

-Volunteers who might want to assist in creating the map, and could actually promote production and completion of this project.
and
-Anyone who has an idea, and would like to promote it either privately or right here in this thread.

All-in-all, I invested alot of thought into this and would like to see at least a few posts applauding my idea so that I feel like this wasn't a lost cause thread that ends up on page 162 of the archives, lost in the sea of unfinished maps.

My MSN messenger: [email protected]
AoL: Null1fy04

Thanks,
Nully

well, nice idea, it would probably be pretty easy with warcraft to do what you want, but personally im too busy on my own, and will be for some time. though actual game details lack, the concept of evolving is strong and a good idea. IMHO i see the game heading towards either like you said single player campaign, or a multiplayer, in which case it seems like maybe an 'island troll tribes' style. i think the island troll tribes style would really fit this evolution idea. anyhow, if you need help with something small ill lend a hand in what i can, but dont count on anything more than a doodad, or trigger, im a bit too busy to actually 'jump on board' with you. good luck with it though-

Sounds like an interesting game id play it unfortunately im already in a project and i dont have a specialty so unfortunately i cannot help you

I would gladly help just im me on AIM at Wcraftpro and well get working and setting up hosting features and such well talk more about it later