Currently, I have only an idea to work with here. I'd like some help developing it. I'm part of another programming community(LLRGT, using darkbasic language) where the majority of us are an older group than those on the offical DB forums. So when I refer to the community, it is them I'm referring to. I had an idea about a possible online RPG that could be completely customizable to its players. Much like how people can create their own maps and graphics for Unreal Tournament, they would be able to create "zones" within this rpg. Possibly creating small towns and controlling the physics of the world within that zone. (such as gravity) The style of the rpg is still yet undecided, it could have cars driving around medevil towns for all I know. Regardless of all these custom zones, a common goal or objective would still need to be included which would also incorporate the different zones somehow. Before most people decide to join in on this project, naturally they want a better idea of how this is going to be programmed. I know it'll have to have a very modular design to add zones in such a way into the gameplay. I'm not quite sure of how to structure such a game. I'd appreciate some pointers or ideas on how to go about designing such a game.

You should check out Second Life, sounds alot like what your trying to accomplish.

Completely customizable? If you give players free reign, I'm not sure that you're going to be able to design a game around the result. There's no point in discussing "style," except in the sense that "mish-mash of everything the players decide to build" is a "style." As for gameplay -- well, what kind of game can you have when the players with content creation skills can "cheat"? A lot of your creators will be making cool stuff with absurd stats to give to their friends. Others will be building player-traps. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely...

Maybe your idea of "completely" isn't my idea of "completely," though.


Edit: As I understand it, Second Life works by not having an overall game -- just player-created ones.

well, obviously there has to be a limit to what can be customized. We've refined the idea a bit, and to paraphrase what someone else said, "we could make a building with empty rooms, and the players can design the particular rooms". Suggestions for building a scripting system to create new zones are being discussed. To be honest, I never liked rpg games, so how they work and play is rather new to me. An rts is more my style of project. There have been some concerns about darkbasic being capable of building such a game, so it looks like we may be moving this into another language.

I suppose there could be an overall goal to the game built, and the user created zones would just be for their own fun and amusement.