A program with image recognition picks coordinates, semi randomly, finds information about that location, uses databases and search engines and maps to recreate it.  Uses a second program to modify buildings and textures and terrain to be 'post apocalyptic', run down and distressed from time, bombings, zombie attacks, war, etc.  

It does this over and over, creating as many points a day possible and then expanding to 50 mile radii.  At release, players are distributed among these points as the program continues it's work.  Instead of having the entire world complete at launch, only 1% will be done, but the program will keep working, recreating the world as people move and travel, someday eventually being complete.

On top of this creation engine is the ability for it to change through player destruction, building, etc.  A player can venture out, literally, to be alone or stick around others.

Random generation would fill in scavenging supplies, enemies present, npc settlements and possible missions.    Other points in the world, unpopulated by players at first, will be chosen as hives for whatever adversary caused or is a result of the apocalypse.    These colonies grow, expand, and advance in power, while consuming resources as they go.

Players fight for control, freedom, survival, or sick satisfaction.  They can choose to let certain hives wipe out their adversaries, or work together to beat it back.  There's the possibility of humanity becoming extinct.  In the case of a zombie apocalypse, a player can only rebind himself a few different times, having to rebind any time a hive takes over their current bind settlement/point.  When that's used up, the next time they die is permanent; they can play as a weak/med zombie, until a certain time expires and the server resets, zombies win, or players free the last bind point the player was bound to.

Some character progression may be retained between 'seasons', and the patterns and tactics used by zombies/hive could change each time, sometimes with direct developer/GM direction, and partially based on what player zombies do.  Deeds, accomplishments, wealth, etc will be enshrined in the history books for each season. 

 A season, where permadeath and some sort of win condition become plausible, would happen only with certain triggers, even if it took years to get to that point.  Then there would be 90 day limit on how much longer the conflict, and world as they know it, would last.  The goal would be 1 year between server resets,  possibly restricting player starting areas based on overall population to a certain continent/country, and having each one free or doomed by the end, then moving to another one for the next season.  Excluding antartica, even doing it this way you have several years of varying world to explore.

Originally posted by Loktofeit
Would probably make for a good ARG or PBBG. It would be a nightmare in a 3D MMO, as you'd spend more time tweaking/editing/improving what was generated than if you actually just designed the world environment yourself.

That's what I was thinking, with decent online component this could be a big idea.

It would probably be easier to just generate your own world from scratch with a bunch of randomness in it than to try to take Google Earth maps and modify them.

Physics computations would be a nightmare if you're taking arbitrary images and trying to use them as a game map.  The physics and graphics computations in a game are completely independent, and it takes a ton of work to get them to intuitively match each other.  If you're taking an arbitrary image as your map, people won't even agree on what intuitively ought to block you, so there's no way that a computer algorithm would agree with everyone.  And if you can walk right through everything, then that's going to look horribly broken, too.

Just because you use something online does not mean that it's yours to reuse. I know people don't believe it because they steal images all the time and do what they want but you can't just take those images for yourself. You agree to it in the terms.

http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/help/terms_maps.html

"Unless you have received prior written authorization from Google (or, as applicable, from the provider of particular Content), you must not: (a) copy, translate, modify, or make derivative works of the Content or any part thereof; (b) redistribute, sublicense, rent, publish, sell, assign, lease, market, transfer, or otherwise make the Products or Content available to third parties;"

I did work as a cartographer for awhile in the city government. At one point we were converting all our paper maps of road calculations to GIS software with imported satellite images that we could measure with software instead of sending people out on the roads to literally do it. That conversion cost soooo much money - even as a government office - that it's not something worth the cost for a game.

You would have to take this idea away from real life earth because it would be a wasted cost versus generating a world unless, you know, you are an amateur pilot with a wife into photography or something.

Look, who wants to visit earth in their fantasy game, we are already there. Your world should be different in some ways than the real things we see IMO.

Originally posted by greenreen

Look, who wants to visit earth in their fantasy game, we are already there. Your world should be different in some ways than the real things we see IMO.

A Tale in the Desert, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Uncharted Waters Online, Atlantica Online...

And that's ignoring single-player offline games, in which case, there is the Europa Universalis series, the Civilization series, etc.

Besides, the easy way to learn geography is to play a game that uses real Earth maps as the game map.  In UWO, I've had a number of conversations to the following effect:

Someone else:  Where is Tunis?

Me:  It's in Tunisia.

Someone else:  Where is Tunisia?

Me:  East of Algeria.

Someone else:  Where is Algeria?

Me:  Try consuling Google maps.

Originally posted by greenreen

Just because you use something online does not mean that it's yours to reuse. I know people don't believe it because they steal images all the time and do what they want but you can't just take those images for yourself. You agree to it in the terms.

http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/help/terms_maps.html

"Unless you have received prior written authorization from Google (or, as applicable, from the provider of particular Content), you must not: (a) copy, translate, modify, or make derivative works of the Content or any part thereof; (b) redistribute, sublicense, rent, publish, sell, assign, lease, market, transfer, or otherwise make the Products or Content available to third parties;"

 

I did work as a cartographer for awhile in the city government. At one point we were converting all our paper maps of road calculations to GIS software with imported satellite images that we could measure with software instead of sending people out on the roads to literally do it. That cost soooo much money - even as a government office - that it's not something worth the cost for a game. The reason they keep track of road size and length is because they get money from the federal government for them for highways.

You would have to take this idea away from real life earth because it would be a wasted cost versus generating a world.

Look, who wants to visit earth in their fantasy game, we are already there. Your world should be different in some ways than the real things we see IMO.

Thats funny because Google takes images from everywhere without written consent.

I understand your point but google has taken images on our County website and placed them on google Images without anyones conscent... Not that it "matters" (and we would have given consent anyhow...) just sayin'

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by greenreen

Look, who wants to visit earth in their fantasy game, we are already there. Your world should be different in some ways than the real things we see IMO.

A Tale in the Desert, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Uncharted Waters Online, Atlantica Online...

And that's ignoring single-player offline games, in which case, there is the Europa Universalis series, the Civilization series, etc.

Those games don't duplicate the earth - whatchu talkin' 'bout willis?

The two I've heard of , I never heard anything about them being based on the earth and what exists.

Can you expand on what you mean. I have civ on this computer and there is nothing based on the planet other than human buildings, they are placed by me tho and nothing to do with what is already outside the window of my house. I can't go visit my backyard in the game. That's what the OP alludes to, using the earth as a way to create scenery.

Originally posted by ShakyMo
Might work good for an Android phone based ARG mmo though. Especially if you link it to stuff like layar.

Not really impossible

http://aero3dpro.com.au/

Euclideon and Atomonage as well as several others are working on software that may make it possible to just what you are discussing. 

Originally posted by GrayGhost79

Not really impossible

http://aero3dpro.com.au/

Euclideon and Atomonage as well as several others are working on software that may make it possible to just what you are discussing. 

There is a HUGE difference between a 3D replication of a real world environment and a playable gamespace. To clarify, what makes for a great world replication doesn't not necessarily make for even a remotely usable game world. Anyone that has done world building for a game could write pages on that topic alone.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by GrayGhost79

Not really impossible

http://aero3dpro.com.au/

Euclideon and Atomonage as well as several others are working on software that may make it possible to just what you are discussing. 

There is a HUGE difference between a 3D replication of a real world environment and a playable gamespace. To clarify, what makes for a great world replication doesn't not necessarily make for even a remotely usable game world. Anyone that has done world building for a game could write pages on that topic alone.

As someone that has done world building lol... I said software like these may make it possible. So no, the idea isn't impossible. The main reason being that of the companies working on this type of software, the goal for most is to be able to use it in game worlds and other interactive programs :) 

Originally posted by GrayGhost79

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by GrayGhost79

Not really impossible

http://aero3dpro.com.au/

Euclideon and Atomonage as well as several others are working on software that may make it possible to just what you are discussing. 

There is a HUGE difference between a 3D replication of a real world environment and a playable gamespace. To clarify, what makes for a great world replication doesn't not necessarily make for even a remotely usable game world. Anyone that has done world building for a game could write pages on that topic alone.

As someone that has done world building lol... I said software like these may make it possible. So no, the idea isn't impossible. The main reason being that of the companies working on this type of software, the goal for most is to be able to use it in game worlds and other interactive programs :) 

I'm not sure where you got 'game worlds' as one of the main reasons, as it's a GIS-based system for analysis and simulation. What makes for a great looking real world rarely make for a great functioning game world. They have never pitched it as a system for gaming, primarily because the amount of work to redo everything to make it a playable environment for any type of quality game would be more than just changing a few poly counts and smoothing a few lines.

Yes, you could probably use that, but you'd be creating a ton of extra expense and extra work for yourself. Since you've built wrold environments for games, it's surprising you don't already realize that.

FWIW Fallen Earth's devs used USGS maps in their design of the game world.

However, the sheer size of the FE world was arguably one of its downfalls. The game felt empty, because relative to its size it was, and the sheer amount of time it took to travel -- going between sector capitals could easily take forty minutes or more -- meant that trying to find a group or asking for help/trying to help a clanmate was a sufficient pain in the arse that most people didn't bother. Group content was just something most skipped or waited until they outleveled and then soloed, and clans were mostly chat channels with an average lifespan measured in days.

A huge world has some nice aspects, but overall comes under the "be careful what you wish for" heading.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by GrayGhost79

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by GrayGhost79

Not really impossible

http://aero3dpro.com.au/

Euclideon and Atomonage as well as several others are working on software that may make it possible to just what you are discussing. 

There is a HUGE difference between a 3D replication of a real world environment and a playable gamespace. To clarify, what makes for a great world replication doesn't not necessarily make for even a remotely usable game world. Anyone that has done world building for a game could write pages on that topic alone.

As someone that has done world building lol... I said software like these may make it possible. So no, the idea isn't impossible. The main reason being that of the companies working on this type of software, the goal for most is to be able to use it in game worlds and other interactive programs :) 

I'm not sure where you got 'game worlds' as one of the main reasons, as it's a GIS-based system for analysis and simulation. What makes for a great looking real world rarely make for a great functioning game world. They have never pitched it as a system for gaming, primarily because the amount of work to redo everything to make it a playable environment for any type of quality game would be more than just changing a few poly counts and smoothing a few lines.

Yes, you could probably use that, but you'd be creating a ton of extra expense and extra work for yourself. Since you've built wrold environments for games, it's surprising you don't already realize that.

You take one company and use how they are trying to utilize this type of software and feel that all of them are doing the same. 

What suprises me is that you don't look at whats already changed and think more could. I mean at this stage in the game you can scan a person fully and rig them fully, as well as setting up different animation cycles in a matter of minutes due to advances in 3D modeling and animation. 

Again lol, I said nothing more than there are companies that may make this possible. There are currently 12 software developers I'm watching right now.  

Originally posted by wildtalent
My understanding is that's pretty close to what they did with Fallen Earth.  Although it's only a small portion of the planet IE the Grand Canyon region of the US.

Icarus used USGS data for the base map in order to create the post-apocalyptic version of the Grand Canyon and its surrounding areas. Here's a great blog post by an ex-Icarus employee after stopping in real life Kingman, AZ, a hub in the Fallen Earth game.

http://plattandpeery.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/entertaining-peery-video-game-tourism-fallen-earth/