You guys who have played all the latest games will have to forgive me, because I don''t know if this idea has been implemented yet. I was reading up on this thread and the idea hit me. How much longer will it be before the players themselves build the game world, not the developers? When a new player starts out, he/she is given a few simple resources and must make/find/trade for food, clothing and shelter. All the objects in the game world have specific characteristics. The game world would be inhabited by computer controlled creatures which would also are seeking for food/shelter. The players must survive and make a living. Lets take an interesting situation. Lets suppose a small town has sprung up in an area where the new players start out. Each new player has a certain amount of money, and a few other choice items that he/she was allowed to take in his/her pack through the portal (lets just say the new players are settlers coming through some sort of teleporting device, and are settling a new world). Each player must find a way to make food and find shelter. Food could be made by taking a job and work for another player. Such jobs could include material finders (people who find raw material to make items), transportation people, frontiersmen (explorers - sortof like the fur traders), and guards. As you can imagine in any society, there will be thieves who will try to steal items from the other players or the other players dwellings. To combat thieves the society would have to band together and either kill thieves or accept them. The original part of my idea is this - the players will actually build the world. The players can collect bricks to make buildings (of thier own design - just like leggo) or can dig into the ground (this would require some interesting technology - like red faction, but a it modified). This way the player can decide what thier own house is like. I can see this attracting people who prefer games like ''the sims''. Each player could only dig so much or get so many bricks in one day. This prevents the players from making huge cities in no time and makes the items like bricks and pick axes more valuable. The computer controlled creatures would also serve a role in the game world. The creatures could either provide food/items for the people or attack the people and eat them. This would force the younger and more helpless players to work together to either kill the ravaging beasts or build protection together. Since each player can only get so many bricks a day, it would take several days to make a hut large enough to be protected, but even then some of the larger creatures could still destroy the huts. I realize that this would take an incredible amount of bandwidth and such, but there could be a few things to reduce this. The world itself could be broken up into smaller chunks. This way the player doesn''t have to know what is being built on the other side of the city until he/she goes there. How does this sound? Moe''s site

I just thought of another crazy situation...

Lets suppose the creatures are quite large in a certain area, and are rather deadly. They will tear apart small, unprotected buildings and eat the inhabitants. So lets suppose you are using your trusty pick axe to make a nice strong cave to live in. When you are out collecting food during the morning, you notice one of these giant creatures digging in your cave. So what do you do? Do you kill it? No. Instead, when it leaves to find food, you continue to dig the cave further into the mountain and you make a split in it (so you either have to go one direction or another). This way you can live in the one side, and as long as the creature doesn''t find out about you, it can live in the other. It can be your free guard. Now if you were smart, you wouldn''t have let this happen in the first place, but you might as well use the creature to your advantage.

Moe''s site

Yeah, I think an MMORPG like this would be simply awesome So open ended. EQ got stale for me after awhile, but the everchanging gameworld that you are suggesting here would keep my interest for a lot longer, I think.

The only problem I see: how do you make menial tasks (getting bricks, for instance) fun for the player? I mean, do you just sit there and produce bricks, or... ? If they can find a way to make things like that fun, i'll buy into the idea completely.

Overall though, I love it. The thought of actually owning something such as a house in a MMORPG and an ever expanding world is awesome

[edited by - Peon on June 18, 2002 5:17:00 AM]

sounds like a sweet idea :D..... i think everquest 2 is going to have some of these features that your speaking of, like houses and evolving towns, and tradesmen skills.

This is nothing new. Atriarch has it, EQ 2 is gonna have it, and you can bet what i''m help working on will have something like it too.

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Original post by Peon
The only problem I see: how do you make menial tasks (getting bricks, for instance) fun for the player? I mean, do you just sit there and produce bricks, or... ? If they can find a way to make things like that fun, i''ll buy into the idea completely.

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Just buy the bricks... the fun is in building the house, not producing the bricks; and that''s what the game should focus on. You don''t see The Sims requiring you to make the bricks, tar the house roof, and all that do you?

Actually, the original EQ has tradeskills. Not implemented real well, but they are there. I am holding my breath for EQ2 though. They are introducing a tradesman CLASS. You can now be fighter, cleric, thief, trader! (little difference than thief )

There is a MMORPG in the works, called Atlantis or something, that is supposed to let you build settlements and such. From what I have read though, it is a doomed project.

As for the Sims... If you COULD do that stuff, you better believe there are folks that WOULD. That kind of menial stuff needs to be available. Not required - but able to be done if the player wants to. In the not-yet-released game Horizons, you can build scripts that your char will execute when you are not on-line. So the mind numbing tedium of hammering swords and baking bricks can be done in off-line time.

God was my c0-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
Landsknecht

[edited by - landsknecht on June 18, 2002 5:31:53 AM]

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Just buy the bricks... the fun is in building the house, not producing the bricks; and that''s what the game should focus on. You don''t see The Sims requiring you to make the bricks, tar the house roof, and all that do you?

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Yeah, but nobody''s hitting my home in The Sims with a Ballistae bolt, are they? I think that you should be able to build a home with ''standard'' store/quarry bought brick/rock, but if you want the better stuff, you''d better make them yourself or find someone who can make them stronger.

With combat-oriented games, it''s easy to see where you would have differing levels of quality and custom tools. You want a magical wall that will repair itself? Go get some Earth Elemental essence and make your bricks with some of that. Want it better? Get some ground Dragon Scale to mix in there too and your walls will better defend against catapults and fire.

There are many different things you can do when creating your domocile, if the options are there. The key is to include them.

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The only problem I see: how do you make menial tasks (getting bricks, for instance) fun for the player?

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Maybe not the bricks/components, but you can make quests out of finding the extras that make the bricks more than just bricks.

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I realize that this would take an incredible amount of bandwidth and such

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Not really, you probably won''t see fully designed homes any time soon, but you can build a standard ''tudor estate 1'' or ''small keep 3''. Then it''s just an object with a location, nearly no bandwidth involved, no more than any character would take and since most MMOGs are changing to an ''only send updates'' format, you send the object, location, skin (wall texture) and some other minor information and you''re done for the mostpart. You really need to make them price prohibitive and make the price go up as the game world gets richer (average funds per character increases). This can simply be calculated during server downtime or during non-peak hours.

The problems with making a game where the players can change things easily is that you end up with a lot of very annoying issues, quickly evidenced by UO and the suburban sprawl that entered mountain areas and deserts as if they were right off the beaten path.

The economics must be well designed and believe it or not, no matter how many macro economists you hire, you''re going to find that it doesn''t work, so you have to adjust the economics of the game as time goes on. Sure, people will complain, but when don''t they?

The idea is that the player builds every part of his/her dwelling. If I want to make my hut out of ale barrels and dragon skin, I can do that because the physicis will allow it. If I want to collect a few hundred thousand bricks and make a cathedral, I can do that (even if it takes me a hundred years). The idea is that the players build the world from scratch. When the first few players get there, there is nothing but a bit of water, a bunch of dirt, a forest, and a few ore rocks lying about. The players would actually have to build the buildings while getting food.

Moe''s site

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The idea is that the player builds every part of his/her dwelling. If I want to make my hut out of ale barrels and dragon skin, I can do that because the physicis will allow it. If I want to collect a few hundred thousand bricks and make a cathedral, I can do that (even if it takes me a hundred years).

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The problem is that for hardware to catch up to this dream, it will take another 5-10 years, probably closer to the latter.

If you look at EQ/UO, they were built on technology of 5 years ago and while we can support more objects, it''s still not much further developed from what they did. All of those ale barrels are objects, each object must be kept track of, that takes HDD space and it takes time to look up that data, thus slowing down the overall system. Solid state HDDs might be a way to get around it, but it''s prohibitively expensive and you''d need several multi-processor systems to really support anything large enough to be called an MMOG. Even then, you have to wait for the client to be able to handle all of those objects.