((Yes this is a "What if" game)) I thought up this idea after playing a game of Shadow of the Colossus and then playing a game of Dead or Alive 4 a few months later. The basic idea was to create a massive environment with beautiful low poly graphics. I swore off making MMORPGs when I first began programming because they seemed to be too difficult and time consuming no to mention expensive, but it seemed that the glorious vision of this game couldn't be met under any other genre. The idea is to break the tedious and often boring game play that is current-gen MMORPGs by eliminating common themes such as "Levels", "Quests", "Towns", and "Currency." Now most would call this game boring, but the main quest of it is to discover the world around you. You are simply tossed into a random spot in this environment and your goal is to figure it out. To describe the massiveness of this environment, you would only run into another player once every week. Again this would see boring, but I'm convinced that the idea would work because you would get the sense that your character is truly unique. In the game there is no such thing as "your clone." No player will have the same weapon, clothing, anything. There are no shops to buy items, magic, or weapons. In the game you will eventually come across weapons by finding them in the ruined and desolate environment. Magic spells will be found by reading ancient texts (accomplishing your quest) and there is no need for items because I feel that "Buffs" and "Potions" aren't very....fun. Instead your character will find water and this will serve as "health." Despite other players, monsters will be very easy to find and this will serve as the main content of the game besides reading texts which will grant users powers (This includes Flight, Fireballs, Superhuman speed, and strength, the whole nine). The more I thought of the idea the more I ran into problems with it, but I usually got around those with crafty rethinking of the story. Thinks like how would environmental damage work. The first idea was to have the environment constantly repaired by creatures called "Builders." Then I thought sense the environment was so massive then once a player would come across some of it then he or she would think it was made by me or the team. That’s one hurdle. The next was the game play. Long have I hated the standard "ASWD" movement of games and I felt that there was no way around this until XNA. My goal became to make this for the 360 if it was possible. Next was the world that I was trying to create. Not only was it going to take an incredibly long time to make, no way in gods name could you send all of that through a server to the 360. It just wouldn’t work. This gave me that everything that would be seen by the player (short distance) would changed as he moved. Meaning as he got closer to things they would look better and everything that got farther and farther away would be cast out of the memory. This would allow for the player to travel in a very large world seamlessly. So I thought….I don’t really have knowledge of memory or anything like that so I have no idea how to solve this problem without asking for your help…please respond.

Hi. Stick to what you're good at. Design. You trailed off at the end asking about level of detail algorithms, Shadow of the Colossus used them extensively, such as its use of impostors (render the 3d terrain to a 2d texture and display it similar to how you'd billboard a tree).

You have to realize that most people don't want a game that's realistic, they're not as fun. You don't have to have reasoning behind environmental damage disappearing after a while, or reasoning behind finding a potion somewhere. People don't care so much that they have the same item as someone else. Why should one sword do twice as much damage as another?

Sounds to me like you're really just looking for an MMO that you're forcing sparse population on. Sounds like a good idea if you can get people to play it that are really interested in teaming up with others while being able to get along easily. Quite unlikely though.

When I read your initial description, it reminded me of the basic idea behind Myst. Or The Legend of Zelda. Both of those games feature exploration and discovering the world as a core part of the game.

So why are you wanting to make this a MMORPG, particularly if you plan on only making two players meet approximately once a week?! The main design decisions as I see it in MMORPGs revolve around the social interactions, so if you don't really need that feature I wouldn't bother with multiplayer at all.

I can't really give much more comment on your idea because frankly I'm not sure what it is. There's a lot of wish list things in there that I don't really consider core to your game vision. In a paragraph what's the one central core element that makes your game special - the beating heart of the idea that makes your game special and every other game design decision should revolve around? Figure that out, and you can get a better idea of what game elements are mandatory and what are merely window dressing.

I want to play with the numbers a bit.

Let assume we have a ten thousand players that are interested enough to meet up only once every two weeks. For the sake of argument, a quarter of the players will only travel north, a quarter only south, a quarter toward west, and a quarter to east. Now, we assume the player is online for two hours a night.

Google tells me that the fastest human running speed is around 10 meters per second. So, 10 m/s by 2 hours is 72 kilometers or 44.73 miles. Now, to meet another player only once every two weeks, lets pretend that the guy running north meets the guy running east (or west. Both would have to travel 626.22 miles to meet up. I'll assume a 1 mile corridor seperating players so they don't see each other while running parallel.

To maintain this type of game for at least two weeks, each player would need a 1 mile block around them for 626.22 miles until they met the one running perpendicular. Now, 100 square miles to give each player 1 block is already pretty big, but 10000 miles by 626.22 for roughly 2,500 square miles of game needed to sustain for two weeks before the players start finding each other. Thats big. I'm sure an algorithmic terrain might assist in the basic shape, but to make it worth visiting, to make it interesting, you're looking at something the size of Delaware.

Like rpeller said, streaming terrain and world data is no problem. You could theoretically have an infinite landmass as long as you had the servers to store it all on. The problem is that you need to make all this content. Each player gets a unique face, weapon, and set of clothes? Who exactly is going to make all of that art? And unless you use procedural landscape generation, you also need someone to design the billions of miles of world. And I agree with Trapper Zoid, I see no possible reason why this would be an MMO, or even a multiplayer game at all. The whole point of MMO's or just MO's is that you go online and socialize and play with friends. If the game is designed to make it nearly impossible to meet anyone else, it might as well be single-player.

Lonelyness could really intensify the experience of meeting other humans, but I'm not sure if most people have the patience to wait for that. On the other hand, a game where you are in charge of a planet and have to find other lifeforms exploring a vast universe seems quite fun to me.

Thank you all for your comments. I understand that this game would contradict the entire meaning of an MMO, but I think thats exactly what MMOs need, something different. When I am playing an MMO, never do I feel like I'm actually in the world; there is no immersion. Everyone knows its a game and treats it as such rather than another reality. In my opinion, the solution to this is to make a MMO that has more single player qualities than multiplayer qualities. What joy it would be to no have seen another player for weeks and suddenly come across him or her. Your isolation from real players would make you question weather it was actually a PC or just another humaniod mob. Just the thrill, the suspense in figuring out weather it would attack or greet you makes the game truely enjoyable.

As for the art side of things. This is another problem of mine. Perhaps the world could be expanded from area to area. For example, the intial game could just contain a massive deserted city. An expansion pack or downloadable area (which is perferred since it wouldn't add quests or anything like that just, new creatures and terrian) could be made to expand the game. This would lighten the load of artistic content. ((I am also an artist, though not a modeller))

Forgive the overly confrontational tone of what I'm about to write - it's purely to help you focus on (what I think are) the core problems with this idea.

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Original post by Sarxous The idea is to break the tedious and often boring game play that is current-gen MMORPGs by eliminating common themes such as "Levels", "Quests", "Towns", and "Currency."

All well and good, although bear in mind that players often want a degree of familiarity to a game, if only to have something solid to which they can anchor the new features.

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Now most would call this game boring, but the main quest of it is to discover the world around you. You are simply tossed into a random spot in this environment and your goal is to figure it out.

Is there something explicit to figure out? Is there feedback given to the player when they make progress? How will you entice new players without a clear goal?

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Magic spells will be found by reading ancient texts (accomplishing your quest)

Wait, I thought you said there were no "Quests"?

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Instead your character will find water and this will serve as "health."

Is this interesting? Do you want players to have to search for a stream after every fight? Or can they just drink from their waterskin during a battle as if they were quaffing healing potions? How much water do you expect them to carry?

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Despite other players, monsters will be very easy to find and this will serve as the main content of the game besides reading texts which will grant users powers (This includes Flight, Fireballs, Superhuman speed, and strength, the whole nine).

How many texts are there? If there are many, you'd think this would diminish the story. If there are few, then players have got very little to distinguish themselves from one another, and very few options to employ in combat, assuming they fight the monsters (which you didn't explicitly say).

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Thinks like how would environmental damage work. The first idea was to have the environment constantly repaired by creatures called "Builders."

Why is the environment even damaged in the first place? That seems like a key part of the design but you've not mentioned it.

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Then I thought sense the environment was so massive then once a player would come across some of it then he or she would think it was made by me or the team.

I don't think you're going to develop a system that is so good that it convinces everybody that the world is completely hand-crafted. At that scale you're going to need a lot of procedural content placement and presumably a fair amount of pre-fabricated objects. Plus you're going to have to think about how to place those water sources that players need for healing.

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The next was the game play. Long have I hated the standard "ASWD" movement of games and I felt that there was no way around this until XNA. My goal became to make this for the 360 if it was possible.

Movement is only one small part of gameplay. What of combat tactics or long term strategy? Resource and inventory management? Skill and power selection? Trade and bartering? And what exactly is wrong with "ASWD"+mouselook? And how would you improve it? And what on earth does that have to do with XNA?

I think that enumerating your thoughts in a more systematic manner will help here.

My question is whats so special about the world that it needs to be explored? Don't get me wrong, that giant world of Shadow of the Colossus was fun, but I didn't exactly take short strolls through it to look at every little rock and plant. I, as most people I expect, shined the sword to find the next target, mounted the horse, and took off in that direction.

There's a Signal to Noise ratio about things. See, I could have an algorithm generate a height map and let that be my very extensive world. But because it's algorithmically generated, it's very high on Noise in that nothing makes any one part all that special. I could place a single item in this hilly terrain, in which case people will be searching for it only, ignoring everything else. I can add a second item, a third, sure. But then, I reach a point of diminishing returns, where there are so many things to see, that they're Noise again, with no one thing being worth anything more than anything else.

Big world, yeah, sure, that'd be great. But I'd be more focused on designing the locales and landmarks. People come to New York City to see the Chrysler and Empire State buildings. They don't care about some 3 story office building a couple of blocks down from Union Square.

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Forgive the overly confrontational tone of what I'm about to write - it's purely to help you focus on (what I think are) the core problems with this idea.

No, no. I GLADLY accept all critque and what not. It can only improve the idea can it not?

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All well and good, although bear in mind that players often want a degree of familiarity to a game, if only to have something solid to which they can anchor the new features.

Hmmmm.....good point, I'm afraid that I can't say anything about this, but its true. I still have to give it a shot though.

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Is there something explicit to figure out? Is there feedback given to the player when they make progress? How will you entice new players without a clear goal?

The quest is to figure out why you are in this world and how did it get like that. You do this by reading these stone tablets which in turn grant you more power. This entices the player to find more of these tablets and gain more power. Things will start to get interesting for those with more powers than others. As for whats on the tablets...lets say I have alot of writing to do, eh?

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Is this interesting? Do you want players to have to search for a stream after every fight? Or can they just drink from their waterskin during a battle as if they were quaffing healing potions? How much water do you expect them to carry?

You make a good point. Perhaps I could include, cantiens or large gourds the the player could carry around, hm?

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How many texts are there? If there are many, you'd think this would diminish the story. If there are few, then players have got very little to distinguish themselves from one another, and very few options to employ in combat, assuming they fight the monsters (which you didn't explicitly say).

They shall be many and most will be unique in minor or major ways. Furthermore, yes, players do fight monsters. This makes up alot of the game.

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Why is the environment even damaged in the first place? That seems like a key part of the design but you've not mentioned it.

Its part of the story..which doesn't need to be mentioned does it? (Forgive my noobism)

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I don't think you're going to develop a system that is so good that it convinces everybody that the world is completely hand-crafted. At that scale you're going to need a lot of procedural content placement and presumably a fair amount of pre-fabricated objects. Plus you're going to have to think about how to place those water sources that players need for healing.

But it is possible is it not?

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Movement is only one small part of gameplay. What of combat tactics or long term strategy? Resource and inventory management? Skill and power selection? Trade and bartering? And what exactly is wrong with "ASWD"+mouselook? And how would you improve it? And what on earth does that have to do with XNA?

That is one thing that I didn't get to talk about in the original post, combat. I have long hated the ASWD config because it always feels better with a joystick in your hand. Of course I think what if there was a MMO you could play (effectively) with a joystick and here we are. In the game, combat will be like a very open ended fighting game such as dead or alive. One could compare it to other games by saying its like "Path of Neo + Dead or Alive." The player would approach the monster and enter a battle mode. If the monster strikes then the player could simply press a button and block. If the player hits the button at the instant the monster is about to hit then they will block and counter attack physically. If the player adds a directional button to the block button they the counter will be more complicated and devastating.

The battle system will rely heavily on combos, which could span almost forever, and some of which having over twenty button presses. Weapons will be handled with the combo-heavy system also. Spells are handled in a relatively simple manner. The player presses a button, and "destruction" spells appear in a GUI widget on their left. They press another button and "restoritive" spells appear in a GUI widget on their left. Spells could chosen from there. To what it has to do with XNA...it allows me to utilizate the 360 controller not to mention the console.