a new world engine?

[Robbie Ogrenix]

Hi guys,

I was thinking about starting a new project, just for fun.  I'd like to create a world generator with a flexible and logical ruleset.  I'd like to make a planet, with continents and regions, water features and mountains.  All with weather patterns and seasons.  It's funny, honestly, because it's like proposing to make the foundation for a story, rather than the story itself.  I guess the journey really is the destination.

Anyway, I am hoping to find a few programmers, musicians and artists who would be interested in creating -- as a hobby -- a virtual planet.  Not for profits, but for fun, to meet new people and maybe learn something new about game design theory.

Is there anyone out there who would be interested in this sort of thing?  Maybe I'm just odd.

[mushroom patch]

Standard response to this kind of post:

Unless you're already a very prolific programmer, no one will be interested in what you want to do. Something like what you describe has been tried. It was called WorldForge and it generated some buzz in the open source blog world in the early 00s. It eventually produced some playable material, but nothing that had any impact. It's pretty much dead now after 15 years and I don't think there was ever a significant number of players for the "games" it put out. There was a huge amount of sustained interested in this project, yet very little came out of it -- this should give you an impression of how far you can go with hobbyist programmers, artists, etc. in this area.

If you're interested in learning about game design for fun, you should either 1.) figure out a project you can do yourself and do it or 2.) contribute to existing open source game projects and develop relationships (and reputation) with like-minded people, via email correspondence, irc, etc.

[Krice]

Anyway, I am hoping to find a few programmers, musicians and artists who would be interested in creating

Get real.

[jim]

Most ideas, even some of the best ones, die before they are born. No disrespect intended, but ideas don't need any extra help with that part. When the post is, "Why won't anyone join my team," or "Please contribute your hard-earned money to my vague project," then it might be time to weigh in with the pragmatic life advice. Robbie is asking if anyone wants to get together and play in a treehouse. Maybe he's also asking them to bring a bit of tree and house with them, but hey, I've heard worse suggestions.

[mushroom patch]

Well, it may be harsh, but at least it's not condescending to say that you need to bring something substantive to the table and that the way to find people to work with is by working. At least there's some hope that this will lead in a positive direction, even if it's slight.

[Robbie Ogrenix]

Thanks for all of the input!

[Vanguard]

Most ideas, even some of the best ones, die before they are born. No disrespect intended, but ideas don't need any extra help with that part.

Bad ideas should still be mercilessly struck down, just in case

[ProfessorOak6]

Is there anyone out there who would be interested in this sort of thing?  Maybe I'm just odd.

You are not odd.  I have done this many times on my own, trying to create worlds for my games to work from.  I'm not exceptionally good at Perlin Noise or anything, but a few fancy algorithms definitely can do some neat tricks

Have you ever played, or just started up, Dwarf Fortress?  What you are describing sounds similar in design.  Create the world, make a history, weather and all!

Would this project be for ASCII / tile based games in particular?  Or are you viewing this as a more 3D or 'floating point' based system?  Tile based stuff looks well enough with tile based games, but making a tile-based world for a 'floating point' based game make it looks silly a lot of times (from my personal experience).

What programming languages do you use in particular?  What graphics libraries?   C++ and OpenGL, by chance?  I wouldn't mind sending you some code of what I've done in the past, though a lot of times you will not be impressed at all.

The use of this type of program / tool would be handy for those who wish to have something like this, but those people might be few and far between (especially looking at the above responses).  I myself had thoughts to make huge games, massive and deep.  But I find that games are best when they are games.  When they are fun   And I can't seem to make fun things from crazy algorithms anymore.  

Anyways, thanks for asking, you can email me and we can talk more if you like