Matt_82 wrote:

You've linked to your own post.

I thought that was part of the joke, sorta "how do you keep an idiot/zombie busy?". Derp.

H1Z1 looks interesting. Though there are a fair few games coming out these days that are Minecraft But Less Blocky and Scarier Edition (Rust, Seven Days to Die, H1Z1, etc.).

I think a proper open world zombie survival sandbox game will be the next big thing. A true next gen experience. Always online. Everything persistent. 

You've got to get your character to a safe house at the end of each session or risk getting eaten when you leave him in the woods while you sleep, have dinner, go the pub. You can form a regular team of like minded players that all play when you do, hunting and searching for food, transport, fuel, batteries, weapons, anything that maybe an of an advantage. 

You should be able to build a proper defensible fort out of scavenged building materials you have to haul yourself by any means; be it lorries, boats, forklifts, helicopters, planes, hell, even using the scenery and a bunch of you to push something into place; a real scrapheap challenge. 

The game must include proper tree felling and fully deformable/destructible scenery, but within the limits of what a team of humans could realistically do. You can plan forays into distant horizons, draw your own maps to share with your team. You should be able to provide cover for your peeps whilst they build/move stuff about and create.

You should be able to set up perimeter fencing and electrify it, and build fences and walls and turrets and watch towers.

Forming strike teams to go attack/pillage/kill other player teams and rob their forts across the country, take there women to procreate, have Mad Max style convoys that clash on the road and end up in all out wars.

Have an in depth family system where training and looking after future soldiers/builders/cooks; a game in itself; for those who don't wish to put their shit on the line day in, day out.

True next gen that.

It's the killing other players that I think is most fun. Also the most frustrating but imagine ambushing a team on the road so you can get their jeep with the .50 cal on the back. 

To add to Chalice's excellent post, I would also like to see a Dark Souls style random invasion type system but at clan level.

So you choose who you play with, like a clan. However other clans can invade your game . So not an MMO but still keeping some threat.

Obviously there would have to be some risk involved with invading, perhaps you leave your world open to attack by Zeds and other invaders while you are gone.

You do realise you are describing a 3D urban dead?

You could come across another faction and see if they might accept you. You'd obviously have to have something to offer, and that's even if you get within shouting range before you got sniped. 

Renowned clans would be prominent marks on your map, to be avoided if out on your own. Towns, shops and houses could be raided for maps, binoculars, walkie talkies, compasses, shovels and equipment etc. Just starting out on your own could take days.  

If you die you lose everything. Even the map with all your points of interest on it.

The possibilities are endless. Carry on!

If it's procedurally generated, how would the map work? Serious question, with thousands of players, all that map info needs to be distributed, else we might be in the same place but I'd be in a city and you might be on a beach

I think it's perfectly possible to create a map large enough to house, say, 500 - 1000 players. Obviously a lot of the stuff I've mentioned is in cloud cuckoo land, but there's no harm in striving for it. Who knows what we'll have in ten or twenty years time.

You could have various servers hosting the same map but at different stages of its 'evolution'. You could have one server where the outbreak has just begun and people are still finding their feet: - supplies are plentiful, there are wars for possession everywhere, and the map is still in its original state.

Then you could have another server with the map barren after a good few in game years, with clans having stripped the land of its fruits, and journeys out into the wilderness are lonely but deadly, and certain factions ruling certain areas and there are huge pockets of zombies scouring the land. There could be big stalemates between two or three of the main rivals.

Having different servers could also be used as a kind of tutorial: e.g. If you're starting out you will be put into the Year 1 server, where everything is fresh and chaos is reigning. Forming alliances is most important, and getting your base together paramount to survival. 

Getting a team together of an evening and starting out all together in the one world and progressing through the weeks/months/years and building a community together and fighting for your lives? That would be the greatest thing.

Seriously tho, we rip the piss out of Molyneux for his blue sky thinking shit. But where are the people trying to do the stuff Chalice is on about?
Making Halo 6 I guess.

Chalice for Molyneaux.

Make it absolutely huge.

Also, make it unrewarding and not beneficial to lark about and be a cunt. Basically, if you don't form alliances and survive, you're more than likely to die a lonely death and have to spawn again in the middle of nowhere. 

You could also implement a system whereby you spawn a certain amount of miles away from another player, therefore there could be an enforced wait until the area is clear or you face an epic trek until human contact is possible. 

I can't imagine many people would want to repeatedly do that by farting around. Also, by being a cunt, your group could very well turn on you and murder you. 

I think you'll definitely get internet arseholes being internet arseholes, but they'd soon get sorted out and sensible teams would form and make short work of them.

Exactly. We're not talking about GTA or Just Cause, where you can traverse miles of terrain in a couple of minutes. We're talking about slow, meticulous progress, but a world filled to bursting with hazards, diversions and opportunities.

Even the smallest outhouse in the woods might have something in it. Maybe some matches, a map, a zombie or another human player. 

It would be about treading very carefully and weighing up your options before you take action - scouring the horizon for signs of smoke and activity, finding rivers for water or maybe even hunting the wildlife for food (although I imagine things could get a bit clusterfuckery with animals as well as zombies roaming about.)

I wouldn't include any kind of point or upgrade system, nothing to be gained from getting kills. There should be a stats page, but just for browsing, it shouldn't have any impact on the game itself and should not be visible to other players.

The only thing I would have would be a 'days survived' stat that you can see when you meet another player. This should also be visible on the player avatar with a suitably grizzled, bearded look. 

COD FANBOY!?!?!??!111!!11

That is why it would be so important to work with people.
You die as part of a clan and you still have somewhere to go with people who can help you back on your feet and will still have some of the resources you helped collect.