Strategic Level Interface

* See also Server
* See also Interfaces
* See also Game Mechanisms
* See also Templates
* See also Auto-Generator & Procedural_Generation
There would be an Interface for some 'Game Masters' (company personnel) to adjust the Game World's progress in ways (human intervention) which would otherwise be horrendously difficult to do automatically (inbuilt static logic) and also with a great deal of effort. Such an Interface would allow tuning and adapting the flow of the game in its 'shifting' as time went on -- ESPECIALLY for this MMORPG with Players actions affecting/changing the mutable world. 
Tools within this Interface would allow flexibly scripting such adjustments ( versus clumsy/tedious direct/manual data modification that games without such Tools are struck doing, or simply do without ). Templatized like everything in the game, the Tools could be designed to be 'added to' as time went on and as new needs were seen.
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Factions high-level actions/tasks/targets ( the territory control 'Influence Map' )
Interface showing overall Game World Map Status
New Rapture Economics ( indicating ratios of automatic vs Player economic activities )
Player Concentrations of Activity
Abstracted Status Maps 
High Level events and trends 
Scripting interface to pre-implement scheduled events and adjustments ( like the next Splicer incursion into New Rapture )
Auto Expanding World Map - overrides/guidances/new-openings ( without the usual Game Expansions of the standard static terrain maps )
Testing/Planning system to 'Test' Applied scripted events and simulate interactions ( debugging BEFORE changes mess up an in-progress game world )
Attribute Tuning for all of the 'strategic' level game balance
Catastrophe events ( like in Sim City ? ) to stir things up ( including NPC 'reactions' to be programmed/scripted )
" Game Moderation " ( Moderators/Mods, etc ... )
Analysis of New Rapture situations ( ie- electrical power - to prompt for Power Failure Event in some subsection )
Automatic Event Scripting System - added to by hand over time for at least the SIMPLE things ( and with a 'Query First' activation allowing manual verification ).
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Moderation of the Game World (of Map Growth) :
One problem that I foresee :  Players too easily running all over the World Map 'discovering' new places that would require the Auto-Generator to greatly expand the 'known terrain', and thus have to use the available templates which initially may not be as large a set as later ( when the Player Creation additions have a chance to grow ).   Once explored/defined/composed 'on-the-fly', the terrain/props/contents/denizens would be 'REALized' as data, and then have to largely stay constant ( because was seen by a Player ).  This might cause large areas to be fairly repetitious, when later there may be many more options to combinatorically randomize and create the location's contents from.
You also generally don't want some easy passage allowing the first Player to find and scoop up all the goodies leaving little for anyone else.  This game doesn't have endless 'special' respawns "so everyone can have one" which make so many MMORPGs seem so lamely staged. 
Some solutions - Slow down ability of Players to traverse large areas : 
* Vehicles/equipment they wont initially have, which are required to cross certain boundAries ( Diver suits, Subs, working Bathysphere routes, Gasmasks or Oxygen ).  Likewise early on after the MMORPG officially starts, many Players would not have enough skills to get past moderately difficult obstacles.
* Difficulty in passage - blocked doors/passages that take time to open/repair, hazardous areas that must be carefully traversed or cleared/neutralized, hostile Splicers/Vermin/Others that do not allow free passage ( and since Splicers move around they can reoccupy places ).  Some locations are just too hard to get to for a long time.  Even when you get to a 'new' place, exploring it all in any detail will take a long time with all the hazards/blockages and the multitude of interesting things contained.
* Compartmentalization - a passage thru one section does not reveal adjacent sections which can be 'realized' later after similar slowed access ( if you never open that blocked door  there could be just about anything behind it ).  General detail of space can be defined (the basic shape of the City would exist in premade 'seed data' of building locations/themes so the city will have a cohesive design), but specifically what is in the unseen volume can be deferred until Players get closer.
* Limiting information about areas 'discovered' by others, to make it more difficult for a Player to pick easy routes to reach new areas.  Surveys which expand 'common knowledge' should be required (and take some effort/time) before such information is available/easily accessed 'by the many'.
* Changeable situations in terrain which require subsequent accesses to exert additional effort ( hazards are not static, inhabitants move around ).  A changeable environment may close off paths, if the Player later tries to retrace their steps ( various malfunctions, entropy(damage), actions of Splicers, even mishaps by other Players ). 
* Many Quests/Missions (carefully) use generic locations which do not have to persist ( Splicers/Factions move around and situations seen on a Mission may not remain at the locations any longer ).  Twisty confusing paths that aren't exactly traceable (back) - ex- drainage tunnels in basements throughout the City's buildings.
* Players themselves often will take "paths of least resistance" and often not be willing to go into hazardous areas ( ex- 'new' areas never 'pacified' incrementally by previous Players ... ).  Deep penetration reaching 'new' areas likely will take too much resources most of the time ( inventory wont be unrealistic like in most games ).  Camping out in the 'Ruins' is extremely hazardous so 'returning to base' will force Players to retrace their steps ( increasing difficulties of going 'far' into new areas ).
* Interesting activities in the 'already' discovered areas (one hopes) should keep alot of Players from needing to explore so far and 'random encounters' along the way to keep things from always going the way the Player expects.  A term I coined years ago was : "a game where there is something interesting under every rock".
Early experimentation on Testing Servers will have to determine how difficult things NEED to be to stop excessively fast expansion, as well as how effective various tuning factors can be and for what.  How fast is fast enough? (too slow is as bad as too fast.)   That's a design issue, similar to how hard the City Rebuilding is to be in the game.  Players will want to see visible progress, but the game Worlds will run for years.
NOTE - Possibly a Sims-like interface might stand in for the symbolic/high-level 'Strategic Level Interface' which the Company employees would use to direct 'tonal' events in a Server World - Manually doing deciding and making adjustments/balancings which would take horrendous AI programming and cause worse botch-failing operation BECAUSE of the (costly) proper testing it would require to operate'Automatically'. Such interfaces DON'T require highly polished interfaces and controls as they are never seen by Game Customers.
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Interface :
High-level Splicer faction 'strategy' would be controlled/guided by Company employees. It is much simpler to do this than spend(waste) ALOT of money/effort on attempting some 'intelligent' AI programming to control this all. Mid-level control logic will be difficult enough to do.
* Tools/Interfaces for situational visualization ( symbolic maps representing the faction situation ) would be made to facilitate this ( a World Map indicating zones of influence/resources/control ) so that human brains would guide factions logical strategies ( the lower level unit AI takes it from there ).
* Managing each Faction's goals would be more a matter of setting objectives (NOT micromanagement). Factions could thus act following well thought out (appropriate) Canon themes.
* Guidance notes and ideas would be recorded so that later employees could continue cohesive long-term strategies.
* Each Server World would develop its own unique situation and each one would be handled individually.
* Once set into motion, only minor day-to-day adjustments would be needed ( one employee could actually handle ALL the Server Worlds' faction guidance ).
* It is handy to be able to steer a Server World that inevitably gets out of balance - Humans are much better at this - programming can only do so much.
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