So I'm thinking about MMO design and it occurs to me there are only two or three "zones" anyone actually uses in an MMORPG. The dungeon, the town, and the pvp arena.

Then I decide to play the Dark Spire, having been a fan of Wizardry in the past. And I realize, games don't need multiple towns and dungeons, they just serve to confuse people and introduce travel times.

So imagine this:

One big town with everything in it. One enormous dungeon with everything in it. Form a party of 6 and get to work for the next 3 years. Expansions? Just build more on top of the dungeon.

Wasn't that a big problem for DDO?

When I heard that DDO was using Eberron's campaign way back when, I looked at how they were approaching instanced combat and figured they shot themselves in the foot for not going with Planescape. Similar to your point, the main hub would have been the ring city of Sigil and the rest of the game accessed from it. The ultimate hub, and endless options for outer worlds because there was no set theme. Some doors could have led to and interior, some to a vast desert or something. The open zone and instanced quests could have been balanced out without the need of connecting regions. Though people really do like that aesthetic.

~and ya, DDO surface maps were tiny and few when I played. If they took anything near the scale of what Sigil is supposed to be it would have been massive hubs.

I think DDO did this from memory (At launch at least).  This was a turnoff for me as I like a good overland trek.

Not really. DDO had a bunch of tiny dungeons. This would be one singular ENORMOUS dungeon, located somewhere convenient. I'd be trying to duplicate the feel of games like Etrian Odyssey, Wizardry, and The Dark Spire.

so you're making a mud? Or well the old school dungeon crawlers?

Originally posted by Draq

Not really. DDO had a bunch of tiny dungeons. This would be one singular ENORMOUS dungeon, located somewhere convenient. I'd be trying to duplicate the feel of games like Etrian Odyssey, Wizardry, and The Dark Spire.

Well most of those kinds of games are a rogue-like, which is hard to do if you intend for people to actually meet in the dungeon. Otherwise I think having only one overland town will make the hub's charm run dry, so why not a range of them circling the dungeon and each have their own tasks through it's depths. I have a theory that people need to see sky every once in a while in games or it feels crowded, so a few overland areas could be helpful and make a good basis for the PvP zones, as players need to jet across bandit territory to the next town.

How you wanna handle the dungeon is up to you, but I suggest either the tiered approach - or the metroid approach. The former is making each 'floor' of it a new theme and experience, while the latter is pretty much a giant interconnected maze that does the same. Both have their good points, but tiers leads to expectations of scaling difficulty, and mazes get annoying.

Wat. No, i'm not making anything. Least of all a MUD. Just like any other MMO only with everything conveniently located.

But yes like oldschool dungeon crawlers. Just one huge, multi-floored dungeon with a few shortcuts, side quests inside and a final boss located on the deepest floor, lots of death traps, and NO MERCY. Not even like DDO's raid dungeons, there would be no safe place in the dungeon.

If I made a MUD out of it, given the low population of MUDs, the entire game would reset when the dungeon got conquered. But in a MMO with 1000+ players, I'm not sure how I'd work it.

The basic idea, though, is this would be a MMO with a clearly defined plot and goal. It would be "Get in there and beat up this demon/archmage/god/robot. It might take a few hundred tries." instead of "wander about aimlessly doing what random NPCs tell you to do until you've done it all then pvp until the next expansion".