Ok here's the idea. Imagine a treasure hunt game, set in a 1:1 earth (check!) where players would team up, choose their starting location and be given some clues about what they are looking for. They would also be given a starting budget.
Then they would set off to find that objective, which would be placed in a random location in the globe, along with some clues that point to it. By using their budget correctly and correctly translating the clues they have, teams gave to get to the objective before others do.
Right use of the budget is critical. Budget allows teams to purchase vehicles and equipment to aid their expedition. For example, imagine that the goal is to find a hidden temple in a jungle. Two teams have both found out that the temple is located somewhere in the Amazon rainforest. A team that had managed their budget correctly and has rented a helicopter is more likely to find the temple than the team that is trekking through the jungle in jeeps.
Getting more ambitious in terms of gameplay design (what,even more?) teams could interact with NPCs to purchase vehicles, equipment and clues.
That all sound good by let's get back to reality. Who would want to play through an expedition in real time? It would take months to complete a game.
Let's try to shrink that down to weeks (what? Persistence is key here. Just because you logged off a server it doesn't mean that other teams can't continue. Think of Minecraft. You start a goal and take months to complete it.)
So, let's see. How can we shave off useless time from the expedition gameplay? Your suggestions are welcome.
We can ignore sleeping for now and any other too survival based gameplay elements to save time but some for of fast travel would be reasonable as well.
