And tdb, Sandling suggested you check out polycount.com for gfx people.. The sites I was thinking about were all danish sites it turns out.

To up the chances for this project to survive, I suggest you/we/whatever start small. Pick a simple yet complete concept and find the most important mechanics to implement that. When that core works you can add more stuff.

Check out Saga of Vinland for a more detailed description of one possible fantasy settler concept. That was meant to be a NWN2 world, though - your project doesn't have the downside that it has to look medieval. We could even make it the settlement of Americas (read Orson Scott Card if you think that rules out magic and fantasy).

It's true this concept would rule out big and finished nations in which PCs can belong. It doesn't rule out:
a) NPC nations such as Native Americans
b) different settler nations such as the English, the French, the Dutch, the Spanish...

I suffer from the all-or-nothing disease. I believe the game's core concept should be compact and complete, and everything else should either support it or be moved to a different game.

Here are a few comments on your rules:

Would you be using adjectives instead or completely hiding the numerical mechanics from the players, letting them estimate their skills based on their prior performance? The latter might actually be interesting and even bring some sort of realism.

This would be relevant if the game is focused on, say, farming, very tactical combat or... maybe sailing. If it's there only to add a -1 to the arrow rolls in the regular D&D style combat, then it's not worth implementing IMO.

Pretty standard, I suppose, though as far as I know people (even roleplayers) hardly ever care about the time of day when they decide what they do. It also results in conversations lasting for several days in a row.

I'd like this. Though there should be some ways to make travelling interesting so people won't just log off (or multitask if that's not possible) while doing it. Maybe some random encounters (other than random attacking monsters) and definately the ability to talk with your group.

Ruling out thievery? A good call if that's not the focus, since I understand thievery can cause a lot of OOC trouble.

Automatic camping on client disconnect? Are there uncampable places?

Vast amount of skills suggest a vast amount of game-mechanics to make those skills useful. I'd rather have the exact amount of skills needed for the game mechanics in place. (And the exact amount of game mechanics to implement the core concept.)

Would training be time-based (Seed/EVE) or would you have to stand around beating some dummy? The same about teaching: would you have to stand around doing some repeated teaching actions or would you just set some sort of a teacher/student relationship and have it take effect over time?

What would be the most efficient way to train skills? I hope it's not killing huge amounts of animals/bandits/monsters. Personally I like time-based systems, because they don't cause such huge caps between the skills of the more regular and less regular players.

Please use this only if skill training is also time-based. Grind-based skill learning combined to time-based skill degradation is like two punches in the face of the less regular player.

Relevant if trading varieties of different items is central to the game concept.

Here, I believe, you're designing the world from the wrong end again. First decide what the world is all about, and only then think about what magics (if any) fit in there.

That said, some sort of a ritualistic magic system might be great for RP...

Great ideas for a game with a strong crafting focus.

Great ideas for a game with strong combat focus (or other ways to get injuries fairly regularly).

Great ideas for a game focusing on everyday life or the fight for survival in harsh conditions.

And what would the player get to do while sleeping? Stare at the empty screen, in case of the random wolf attack?

What about letting people roleplay their going to sleep/waking up during this mandatory resting time, but skipping the actual sleeping part?

Great ideas for a game focusing on everyday fight for survival/life in a hospital.

Permadeath needs to be handled very carefully, due to the great possibility of frustration -> players quitting. Some possible ways to handle it:
a) The game/world is all about death, for example a realistic war story. The players will know this when they enter and thus accept death more readily (at least in my theory).
b) You can always avoid death 100%. Risking your life might get you greater rewards but is never required to get ahead in the game.
c) You can never die of lag/disconnect/bugs. This applies even when using a, b or both.
d) Let the player keep all/some of the advancement of the character, giving bonuses to the next character. The next character can be a heir or something but that's not necessary.

I'd add an OOC channels (public and private) where people can arrange "chance" meeting and such. Otherwise people will just move such communications to IRC.

I'd like to note that the current list of possible rules is more or less a list of (somewhat processed) thoughts I've had.  Not all may be implemented to begin with and some may be dropped or significantly altered during testing.  It's still more like a notepad than the beginning of an actual rulebook.

I've been thinking of adjectives so far.  I might go for not showing any indication of skill at all.  Time will tell.

It would also be relevant to metallic armor and weapons rusting in rain if not cared for properly.  Also getting frostbite / sunburn if not dressed properly.  (Finally an RPG where you can't go around all year in your chainmail bikini!)  Naturally there will be combat effects as well, from various kinds of weather.

In most games the cycle is purely visual.  I intend to have it affect your ability to see and the activity of animals and NPCs.

Talking with your group will definitely be possible.  Meaningful random encounters will need some GM power to at least set them up, but they would be nice too.

Ruling out unnecessary frustration of players when a local thieves' guild decides to plunder everyones' prized possessions during night just for the fun of it.  If I could control the type of players that get in the game, I'd leave PvP thievery an open option as well.  But in an open-for-everyone MMORPG there just has to be some limitations on PvP actions.

I might add an option to make your apartment vulnerable if you're ready to deal with the consequences.  Maybe roleplayer cities where this will be mandatory.

On link death there would be some rudimentary logic on what to do - if near enough to an apartment or a paid-for inn room, the character would automatically go there.  If in the wilderness, he would camp.  Uncampable places could exist if they logically fit there, haunted ruins or some such.

It basically means that there's no need to try and force different actions under the same skill.  Some skills are also quite closely related - for example, there would be separate skills for forging swords, hammers, axes and so on.  Since they don't differ by much, they get significant bonuses for each other.  If you know how to make a sword, there's a good chance you can make an axe too, even if you've never made an axe before (assuming you know what an axe is like).  When a new skill is added to the "weaponsmithing" group, it would get an automatic base value according to the other skills in the same group.

Possibly both.  Since this is not a sci-fi environment, it doesn't make sense to learn about building houses while you cook.  So to learn from a master cook, you would need to stay in the same room as the master and observe and listen to him cooking.  If both master and student(s) are players, they are free to talk and possibly do a limited number of other things (depending on skill being trained).  Or log off and let the characters train for the day (in a safe place).  The balance in training speed needs to be found through trial and error.

As for the most efficient way, this is a learn-by-doing system.  I'll try to make sure you can't get to be a master cook by baking bread for three months - you'll have to make a wide variety of different recipes.

Degradation would be sufficiently slow that you would not notice it for the skills that you use at least semi-regularly.  It's intended to encourage skill specialization and discourage every player trying to do everything by himself.

See comment at top of this post.

The amount of required sleep will be sufficiently small that it's bearable.  Besides, it's healthy for the player to take a break too.  There could be an audible alarm on a random attack (possibly a short while before it) so the player can go to read a book / surf the web and still get back to the game in time to react.

Skipping the actual sleeping would lead to major temporal inconsistencies in a MMO environment.  To a bystander, it would still seem that the character went into his room weary and came back two minutes later well-rested.

By saying "always avoid death 100%" I assume you mean the game (or rather GMs) should give give choices in the plot that allow players to choose an easier path, and not that players should always be able to get alive from every situation they got themselves into.

Getting forward in life means different risks for different people.  I might have a one in ten thousand chance of getting into a car accident during my daily trip to work - a fireman might have a one in then chance of getting injured during a difficult rescue mission.  In a "free" MMO world, what actually is getting forward?  A mercenary's life has considerably more risks than a cook's.

I agree though, that too easy permadeath (or too easy death at all, for that matter) is going to cause frustration.  Whatever I finally decide on this though, I want to discourage players from just trying things to see if they're too strong, or engaging some boss a dozen times until the dice finally roll in their favor.

That has the problem of players using it for actual IC communication.  Of course, so does IRC.  This again is an issue of not being able to control the players' actions.  I will think about whether or not to include an OOC channel.

Indeed.  I can do meshes to some extent (although not very high quality ones, especially of living beings), but I totally suck at making textures.  I'd prefer a more skilled modeler though.

I have some thoughts..

day/night cycle = 24 hours. As Kryigerof says, it's strange being able have a conversation lasting DAYS. Destroys immersion that the time shifts constantly, and there are some more benefits to this too, namely in regards to travelling. If you worry about players never playing when it is day (or night for that matter), due to the 24 hour schedule, keep in mind that it might only be night for 8 hours, and you can always make time zones and let players from differring time zones start out in similar timezones ingame.

And in regards to travelling.. I very much also prefer a world where travel takes time and effort. LOTS of time and effort. If players started out in the same place, or in 2-3 different places and spread from there, then it's ok that going on foot from settlement a to settlement b might take 10 hours in game = 10 hours in real time. You would never travel to a settlement that far away on foot unless you had a reason in any case. You=the typical fantasy peasant.

This is how it was in the middle-ages. Royal couriers and possibly others could get from a to b somewhat faster by utilizing a series of stables, riding a horse hard for some hours (top speed 50-60 km/h, but a horse can only maintain that for a short while), then changing to a fresh one and continuing. With that tactic and good roads, you could cover the distance from a to b in perhaps half an hour instead of 10 hours, i.e.

So you could have a lot of exploration taking place in a small area, slowly spreading outwards. And you could have PC's and NPC's establishing ways of faster transport gradually with this, centering a lot of story on that aspect, and watching how humanity spreads slowly. Or if you have a fully fledged fantasy world with towns and countries, you can still use this real time way of checking distance. But keep in mind that there is no reason to flesh out the entire world, or make the entire world inhabited. That's a very huge tasks too in any case, but especially so if you use real world time and distances.

But if you want travel to feel like travel, and distances to feel like distances, I think this would be a neat and realistic way to do it. You just need to keep the story and plot focus on the fact that most action will take place surrounding a settlement at first, and then spread from there. I also am a big fan of not being able to go anywhere instantly.

Permadeath is fine, with some ways out:

1. You can get raised for free during your first week of playing by asking a GM (unless you've been a fool on purpose)

2. Gods can decide to send you back if they think you are useful to them or if your friends perform certain hefty rituals, promises, killings, etc. in return for letting you live again.

So basically, you will die permanently after that first week if you die, unless you've done a lot of RP directly and indirectly. And any death of an important person would then spark stories and efforts to resurrect him, which the GM's can use for great tales and plots

As for skills, I'm greatly in favor of a skill system like EVE and Seed, where you are constantly learning. However, this should be RP'ed. I.e. if you run around all day drinking in the tavern, and then suddenly gain 10 in 'Hunting', it just doesn't make any sense. There are easy ways around that, but then it's not time-based anymore but based on how much you practice/use those skills. So maybe it is a matter of trusting the RP'er to RP the things he is training. Like we do in StSC.

I agree with Darkhawk in some way that the day cycle should be longer than 2 hrs.. at least 6hrs or so imo..

I think it is pretty important to step back and take a look at what the focus and vision of your project is going to be, before adding or removing ideas such as how long should a day last, what about permadeath and travel, etc. tdb. You have to ask yourself who your target audience will be and what the focus of the game will be. And then proceed to add elements in accordance with that. Trying to make a game for everyone fails for almost all MMO companies, not to speak of hobbyists. Also, the game gains a much stronger and clearer appeal to the target audience if the focus is clear. It's also more fun to make for the developer.

So I think you should take some days and weeks to think about focus and audience before thinking about the things that come after. Let me illustrate:

1. Resurrection vs. permadeath. Casual MMO crowd vs. older more experienced players looking for something different.

2. Focus on combat/combat/no combat. Casual MMO crowd vs.. the same if you will

3. Extensive Skills/Grind or not so many skills/no grind = Focus on mechanics or story/interaction.

4. Easy travel or making the players life difficult = standard MMO fare vs. smaller, more tenacious audience.

And so on, just to show you. These decisions are at the core of the direction you'll need to take. If you have a good and clear idea of this before tackling the other things, it'll result in much, much effort saved along the way, less work wasted and a higher chance of success.

Now, most audiences are heterogenous to some extent. i.e. they enjoy elements from other audiences too, or accept them. But there can be said to be three 'core' audiences, grossly generalizing:

- The standard MMO'er. Focus on combat, levelling, quests, pvp, pve, accepts grind. Wants good gfx and good 'standard' MMO gameplay. Wants to play a game to relax, doesn't want to take things too seriously. OOC'ers, but can RP 'light' or casual when they think it's fun or to be a part of a RP group.

- The puzzle-solver/dedicated grinder/mechanics-nerd. Enjoys the challenge of working with and against the game, enjoys crafting, will grind a lot, will stick with the game because of its mechanics or puzzles. Likes exploring both rules and geography. OOC, most of this type of gamer think RP'ers are aliens from another dimension. They cannot fathom them.

- The RP'er. Focus on being able to change things, on interacting with other RP'ers, on the stories being good and the world feeling 'believable'. Values GM's running NPC's and plots. Doesn't usually like grinding and doesn't care too much about mechanics or levels. Wants a game that feels 'real' and wants to be able to not hear (or see for that matter ) OOC'ers.

Trying to satisfy all groups will be a lesson in frustation, AND you have to be realistic about this project I think. You have to, before brainstorming too much, have clear-cut borders and a vision, and eliminate as much work and design as possible, while still retaining that vision. Otherwise the work will overwhelm you and the game will lack focus/vision. One cannot just make a game and dump all the things they see as cool into it as if it was one large basket. I'm repeating my point though And I don't say this to be the partypooper or to be critical, I just think it is of the highest importance to have this level nailed down first before making of systems/mechanics/the world.