Wow this stuff is GOLD I tellz ya!
Great material to take a trip down memory lane

Every so often I really miss Seed, and when I do I like to imagine what I would love in a reboot.
Allow me to share my thoughts

Repair and general idea?
The idea would still be a roleplay centered game that focuses on player interaction and cooperation instead of combat. The tower would still require massive maintenance and repairs so players would still be needed to go around repairing stuff. You would have the option to create specialized crews or clans that deal with the more severe problems, like for example a crew that deals with radiation problems, or a crew that is specialized in engine related problems and so on...

When an area becomes problematic it would continue to deteriorate until it starts to affect other sectors or regions so more repairs or crews would be needed to deal with the issues. Radiation would slowly spread making the affected parts hazardous to enter without a radiation suit. Crews would need to coordinate their efforts, like for example, radiation crews would fix the radiation (I know it sounds weird but you know what I mean) so that the mechanical crew could enter and fix the broken machinery etc... The more specialized or experienced the crew the longer it would take the machinery to break down again.

Medical personnel would be in high demand and also here there could be specialized trauma teams, or surgery, paramedics and other medical related teams. Medical and science would consist of making, researching and inventing compounds that could benefit the user in some way (reduced radiation effect, immunity boosters etc...) Events or results from repairs would make it so that airborne viruses or toxins start to infest the tower so that medical would need to combine forces to fight this new threat.

Exploration would be in both the tower and the surface. Maybe a few % of the entire tower would be known and used while most of it would be in need of exploration. It would take a lot of time before new areas would be discovered and it would highly depend on a council that would decide on the course of action. Exploring would take a combined effort, surface exploration would require food which would be grown by players that focus on farming and or food processing, equipment would come from mechanics, inventors or tailors, medical would prepare inoculations or first aid kits and so on.

How would an exploration work?
Well the council of elected players would first decide on which kind of exploration. They would set a certain goal and time span and they would also issue a request for supplies. This would all be a team effort and a supply request would call for certain amounts of items that need to be crafted by players (crafting could take several real world hours or even days) and delivered to the hall of exploration. Once the entire supply request is complete the expedition would be ready to launch. Once on an expedition your team would be on their own until they either succeed or fail. No quick travel, no teleporting just good old walking and running. Eventually their could be vehicles but the planet would be very hostile. Think constant storms, snow, ice etc...

Player housing and customization.
Player housing would just be your cabin, but you would have an great amount of customization and upgrading you would be able to do with it. The cabins would not be very large but just the right size to be able to make it cozy and functional. You would be able to do some crafting from your cabin for example if you place the required stations which would also be made by players that chose this as their profession. Character customization would also be very vast. From hairstyles to clothing and on. Basically everything in the game would be player made. Recipes and blueprints would either be unlocked from TAU or found on expeditions. Unlocking from TAU would require characters that could hack or work with computers in an advanced way.

Basically their would be a lot to do for players, it would be an online society with elected officials and the desire to reach a common goal. Traders, crafters, scavengers, miners, medics, engineers, explorers basically all kinds of roles would be available. Eventually some sort of minor combat could be added to deal with the hostile environment or some sort of law enforcement if needed. I don't think the game would need it but I also don't think it would be too much of a problem since the main focus would not be combat related anyway.

Free time?
But Emine, all that work and no play makes me a very grumpy... colonist. No need for that! Their would be a few clubs or places to hang out. Great music (streamed by players that have the required real life set up) dancing, role play, socializing and so on.

Permadeath?
Well yeah, why not? It won't be easy to die, and an accumulation of conditions would make it so that a character could die from injury, maybe some heroic act of someone that sacrifices him or herself to save an entire sector from overloading? If you would die, you will leave your belongings to your heir. Basically your second or new character that is related to you in some way or another

Final thoughts.
So there you have it. My dream.
I truly believe that a non-combat mmo can work, and I also think that now is a pretty good time. The industry is congested with combat mmo's and people and looking for something new.

Just need someone to take the first step.

I reached out to him on twitter and he told me he had thought about it but currently has other games he wants to make.

http://ratatoskgames.com/

Still not giving up hope however!!
I still want a non combat community focussed sci fi mmo 

Aha, how was it, where there actual "dead" and visible characters lying about, or was it strickly text / article based?

For those that are interested, I have completed a draft of my intro story.

I used some official info bits within my story so that the players of the campaign have some grasp of the setting seeing none of them know Seed.

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Seed...

1000 years ago, unmanned Seed ships left Earth carrying cryo coolers with DNA codes, sperms and eggs. The goal: To colonize distant planets.

Journey to the stars
The building and launching of the seed ships.

Having successfully colonized the Moon and Mars, Earth was looking further away for the purpose of spreading humanity wide across the universe. The recent development of ram scoop propulsion made the bold vision possible.

During the course of several years five huge spaceships were built. Each a kilometer long and filled with machines needed for terra forming a suitable planet into a habitable environment for humans. The humans themselves were not to populate the ships. Instead DNA codes, sperms and eggs were carried along in cryo coolers leaving it to the TAU computers aboard to hatch the colonists at the right time.

TAU was also to contain any relevant Earthly knowledge. This proved to trigger a long and heated debate about what to store in the database. At the end it was decided to make the colonies idealistic societies based on community and co-operation.

After searching the universe for several years, the first suitable planet was spotted near the star Beta Hyi 24.4 light years from the Sun. Probes indicated that the planet had an atmosphere, water and living micro organisms. It was to be the destination of the first seed ship. The four remaining ships continued their journey.

Unforeseen events
The accident and loss of the convoy.

Ten years after the departure of the first Seed ship, the convoy reached a dark sector of space. It was a region of space without stars, planets or any other astronomical bodies. External sensors failed to register anything except the other ships in the convoy. Using each other as an anchor, the TAU computers kept the ships close to each other and continued through the dark sector.

Three weeks into the dark sector disaster struck for the third ship, the “Argent Dawn”, a sudden and violent jolt could be felt and the ship started to rapidly bleed energy. TAU was unable to detect or remote repair what has occurred and started to lag behind the other three ships.

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” was one of the program parameters of the TAU computers. The wounded ship was cut loose from the cluster, and left behind.

On board TAU was trying to find means to safeguard the ship, but hope was diminishing at a rapid pace along with the energy that was bleeding from the ship. After running all scenarios TAU was left with only one final option, she could charge the remaining power into the capacitors for the hatching area and speed grow a select group of humans to repair the ship.

Humans are speed-grown from embryo to fully functional adulthood in the span of two years, in the same float bed that they will use the rest of their life for nourishment, getting rid of waste, decontamination, and sleeping. During the growth period the skills, knowledge, and personality of each person are developed and coaxed forth by a complex range of stimulations, sessions, and dream sequences.

The “Argent Dawn” went into torpor when the last of the energy was transferred to the capacitors, TAU sealed off the ship, went to minimum power and for the next two years nurtured fifteen growing human lives.

Rude awakenings
The hatching of the twelve and hostile environments.

Two years have passed, green status lights start to faintly glow on the float beds and one by one the release systems come into action. It takes forty-five minutes to have the twelve float beds go into release status and slowly they start to open, three remain closed and appear to be unpowered. The lights are faint, systems are running on the last fragments of energy and ice crystals cover the entire room.

You start to wake up...

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From here on, the players, (5) will each have a main character and a character pool to choose from when they need to. The GM (in this case me) will make the characters (we do this all the time to avoid powergamers and this way we can keep it balanced, works perfectly and every member is a fan of this way of working)

Also, the benefits of multiple characters is player death, we use perma death (this often leads to very tense and scary scenes, even though they have multiple chars, noone want's any of them to die, we give the chars unique abilities / skills and if that char should die, the difficulty might increase)

Example, one will be a master engineer with high skills, others will be regular with lower skills, should the master die, the repairs will be harder for the remaining players etc (simple example)

Anyway, I'd love some suggestions and feedback

E.

I suddenly get the eerie feeling I placed this topic in the wrong section

Thanks, I've been looking around a bit yeah, still alot of info and things I need before I can really start writing my rpg, but it's still early so I have time ^^

Been working on a Chimbot now, got a nice picture and am trying to figure out what they really are and can do etc...

I might even make a topic where I can gather some info, I'd be happy to share the story I wrote once it is ready, maybe the experts here can help me fine tune it.