Okay, I\'ll outline something that has been gnawing at the back of my mind for a while... or perhaps my mind has been gnawing on it. I guess I\'ll never know.
Here\'s my idea: a fisherman\'s shack.
This could involve all the art-people, settings/writers, as well as programmers.
The \"easy\" part...
numbers in brackets are for footnotes, look at the end of the page
The art would be fairly easy to start on since the map would be chiefly a lake surrounded by stalagmites. Since from an art and technical standpoint this would just be to keep players from wandering off the edge of the world, settings/writers would have to come up with an explanation[1].
The larger part of the map would be a huge lake, perhaps with a river (later to connect with the one that was supposed to flow to hydlaa? I remember some bluish areas outside the walls.) This would be easy, I think, since it\'s just terrain + mountains around the edges + water plane + invisible wall around edge of water so you can\'t wade in past your waist. If someone wanted to spice it up, there\'s the idea of a waterfall. The particle effects would be pretty fiddly though, I think.
Shaders! it\'s pretty hard to get a good water shader :\\ someone with mad shader skills should find or make a good one for the water in the lake... I can see it now... the young enki with his fishing line and pole, playing hooky from school... looking in the water, seeing his reflection... then lagging to hell and crashing ;]
The \"not so easy\" part...
The complicated part of the map would be the fisherman\'s shack... but that\'s only complicated relative to the rest of the area and shouldn\'t be a show stopper for a dedicated team of modellers ;] Personally, I think that the shack (or house... multipurpose building.) should have a slightly exaggerated \"slump\" or more organic feel to it. the buildings ingame currently are a bit too calculated and angular-looking.
Fisher-dude
Now, here\'s where some other stuff besides art comes in: the fisherman himself. Work on that falls into three categories: settings, programming, and modelling (yes, well, that is art isn\'t it...)
Settings: Someone could write the dialogue for him (and a wife?)... This fisherman is an enterprising sort, trying to make money off all the crazy people fishing on his lake. He would sell you a fishing rod, some line, some bait, and (of course!) fresh fish[2]. Someone else could set about thinking up some native yliakean fish (and don\'t just change the number of eyes. -.-) and attributes (this one has really stiff scales that can be used in armor, that one has medicinal properties), then pass this info on to some artists for modelling of wacky fish.
Programming: I\'ve asked stfrn about this already, and he says that it should be a piece of cake to add a /fish, since the required code is nearly the same as /dig. For the fisherman, a programmer could add a \"fish\" behavior to npcclient. (get up, close shop [disable the \"buy\" icon?], walk to fishing spot [don\'t make this an actual \"resource area\", people will all just follow the fisherman and crowd in one place], cast line, etc.)
Arting: You would need to model the rod and line, various kinds of bait, some accessories for the fisherman to wear (some kind of vest..?), any objects that should be lying around in the house, the fishes [3]... any thing else?
The conclusion?
Okay, I realize that this is hardly the small task people were looking for, but on the other hand it does scale well. Best case scenario, do all of the above. Worst case scenario, have a lake surrounded by mountains and a /dig for carp >.>
Now, I\'d love to see this actually happen, so I\'ll be donating web space, private forums, and a mediawiki install to the project if it gets going.
jose \"my-formatting-sucks\" Phoenix
[1] for example... the great warlock greeble stole some glyph of the gods and tried to draw too much of the crystal\'s energy through it, resulting in an enormous explosion that carved out a lake and knocking stalactites off the \"roof\", where over time they eroded into more acceptable mountainous forms.
[2] another interesting aspect: you might have to do a quest for a chef in which you must quickly acquire some fresh fish for a dish (The enkien ate his usual store). You could either buy the rod, line, bait, etc. and go fishing for it yourself, or you could buy them off the old man and then run back as fast as you can so they don\'t spoil.
[3] probably could rig and animate them too, you\'d only need three bones if I\'m correct... swish the tail and wiggle the body. They could just be npcs that \"swim\" on a plane below the surface of the water. Another thing that isn\'t needed but would add a kickass bit of realism to the world ;]
