An idea I have been dreaming of for ages. For a small interduction I have alot of experiance in modeling but NONE in coding. Heres a system I have been devloping way to big to be put on paper havent had time to type a design doc or name the project.

Base game will use a Procedural generated universe

Generated planets will be realsized and life like Class M Earth like 
Planets or moons will be 12,756.3 KM in diameter They will contain randomly
generated forests oceans continents etc. aswell as generated wild life.

Ingame players will be able to walk around on these massive worlds and there
decisions and advancments will change the universe around them. Instead of a base story
line players will create the story aswell as the games course of history and events.

Players will start by creating there advatar before they are randomly assigned a random 
planet in the universe. There will be 6 worlds in total were clusters of players will
be randomly assigned to. Each assigned world will start off primitive. Players will have to
advance there planet. Transportation technology morals, agriculture. until the point they 
can reach the stars.

Players will start on a primitive level and will pretty much have to rediscover fire aswell
as reinvent the rock.

There will be 3 basic elements that will give a player there abilities and allow them
to make decisions.

Moral
Combat
Science

All 3 will evolve into more deeper proffessions. 

Moral will lead to Philosophy or spiritual advancement

an example of a player far evolved on the spirtual road will be able to shed there physical 
advatar and live on another plane of exsistance as energy or such.

Combat will be a path many players will take. Ingame players can freely attack other players. at
the beginning of the game launch players will start with fist and rely on the scietist or themselves
to come up with spears and further down the road fire arms 

combat will lead to many aspecs such as hand to hand combat. mastary of melee weapons, marksmenship
etc.

Science will play a huge role in the game. It will create the biggest events in the game. Scientist
will be able to evolve in agriculture, structures, weapons and further down the road intersteller travel.

With 6 clusters of players spread out on 6 differant worlds it will allow a course of history to take place
IE: Which Cluster is the first to achieve intersteller travel and make contact with another cluster.

Wars will most likley be fought between a cluster over there world and into the future between worlds with another
cluster

As end content. Mysteries will be scattered through out the generated universe for all clusters to find.
Mysteries such as unknown alien technology or even Mysteries left by people of the clusters
themselves. The Mysteries will drive the players to get out to the stars. yes there will be Anarchy in the
beginning but it will be the drive like in the real world. To build technologies to dominate or explore.

this game will be entirely 3d using an engine simular to The Infinity project. Advatar wise think an FPS advatar but with ALOT of options for customisation.

I assume what you are talking about here is an MMORPG. A couple things to consider for your idea. You want to randomly generate the planets and what not at the beginning of the server start? In this case, most players won't ever reach each other if the world is as large as you are attempting to make it. You are better off creating a static universe. Secondly, the type of technological and spiritual trees that you are planning for this game would require a hell of a lot of thinking, since you mention the players will be discovering all of these pieces.

Also, will you be coding this? If you are, I want you to join my dev team.

Wait, you are starting pre-tool age and going into the FTL space age? And all in one multiplayer game?

That is a LOT of work. So, if this is a MMO, what happens if someone joins a week later? how are they going to get anywhere if they're looking around to figure out how to use spears, while all the other players are mineing copper and throwing in other random metals to find new stuff.

And then there is just the issue of the Tech trees. How simple are you going with them? have you done any reserach on early developments of technologies? Do you know how much work and how many different metals there are in history, and their effects on the world?

I've been toying with something similar (as far as generated planets go) for space age colony/conquest MMO, but I'm sticking with the one timeframe, with limited technology advancement, so I'm interested in your ideas for generating the planets and storing them.

Myself, I'm thinking of making planets a series of grids that filter together (with a few different things for the polar regions). Two layers of grids, a regional grid (I'm thinking around 8 regions for the equator, 6 above and below the equator, and one for each pole) that then changes how the local grids work. The local grids then store a Byte value that then show which of the predefined hightmaps are used. (The regional grid will then decide how each local grid's heightmap is smoothed together, and what land textures are used where)
The regional grid can also hold info like resources and what kind of weather it has. This means I can bring each planet down to about 60kb for the planet itself, plus something like 60megs for the shared heightmaps in storage. (not totaly sure just what size I would want for the heightmaps, and I would want a few different LODs for them)

For advancement I was thinking more in the way of Starwars galaxies OLD leveling system. Proffession trees. When a crafter gets better he will recieve more schematics. But for combat have it twiched based. Im still thinking it up and NO im not coding this I can make superior models but I am no coder. Looking to recruit more than anything. and Talroth do you have AIM or MSN messenger I'd like to talk with anyone who has programming knowlege. see if we can make some of the stuff were talking about here a reality. (I already have an idea of the first major ingame diesaster on most likley every cluster, some n00b discovers fire and decides to start a huge forest fire)

[Edited by - KvasirAegir on July 27, 2006 2:59:02 AM]

This sounds very theoretic... but funnny :)

Lets think about how it could be possible to code this.

What you need for this is a very nice physik engine and additionally massive amount of server power. Lets just say we have this.

Some basic things should be defined at the beginning.
- Plants, Trees, Grass etc.
- Some basic Animals/Monsters

The best would be that these will reproduce themself, but I think it would be better here to take the easy way and just let them respawn automaticly.


Then create Materials. And with many options.
Example:

Iron:
- specific weight
- molten at
- solid at
- gaseous at
- color
and so on


If you create many of these materials and give tools to the players to interact with them, they can create things of it.

They form something into sand, smelt the iron in a before created forge and create their first sword out of it.

If they mix things they may create new stuff due to mixed material properties.

If they want to build a house they just have to cut some trees down and but it all together with some other things.

First they will create some simple houses, later they maybe use some stones or created bricks, later on they use metal and glass and a big crane to build a very huge building.

So everything is player run, you dont have to create new stuff. Just give them all materials and some tools to interact with them.


I like this scenario, its a "real world" simulation...

I just think that it is easier to fly to the moon then to code this stuff. But if you manage to do it...

... the matrix has you ...

Quote:

Original post by Trinavarta This sounds very theoretic... but funnny :) Lets think about how it could be possible to code this. What you need for this is a very nice physik engine and additionally massive amount of server power. Lets just say we have this. Some basic things should be defined at the beginning. - Plants, Trees, Grass etc. - Some basic Animals/Monsters The best would be that these will reproduce themself, but I think it would be better here to take the easy way and just let them respawn automaticly. Then create Materials. And with many options. Example: Iron: - specific weight - molten at - solid at - gaseous at - color and so on If you create many of these materials and give tools to the players to interact with them, they can create things of it. They form something into sand, smelt the iron in a before created forge and create their first sword out of it. If they mix things they may create new stuff due to mixed material properties. If they want to build a house they just have to cut some trees down and but it all together with some other things. First they will create some simple houses, later they maybe use some stones or created bricks, later on they use metal and glass and a big crane to build a very huge building. So everything is player run, you dont have to create new stuff. Just give them all materials and some tools to interact with them. I like this scenario, its a "real world" simulation... I just think that it is easier to fly to the moon then to code this stuff. But if you manage to do it... ... the matrix has you ...

thats the idea I was shooting for but designs would be devloper made I dont want it becomming like second life.
Eh like I said Im no coder Im just a modeler. I would love to recruit someone tho for this I would be happy to provide all the models.

Heres two starghate meshes I have been building in Lightwave.


And I had an idea for character creation. Have a base humanoid model and have it customiseable skin color by pallets etc instead of making pre defined advatars which cost more time.