I understand that endless worlds are hard to implement due to technical difficulties, but even if you have accomplish it, there will be some problem:
Player cap is limited to a world, so having an infinitely large world with few players would end up in "empty worlds". Connecting every player to a massive permanent world, or 60-80 player servers would mean Ark-like alpha dominance over everybody, which could ruin gameplay for casual players.
I have an a suggestion for that: Devil's Triangle:
My suggestion is to contain an area in each world, which is a Devil's Triangle like, stormy area with hazards. If you reach its end, then you can trigger a world load, unloading previous map, and load a new one. The triangle can either be a sublevel in the current level, allowing the engine to unload previous scene, or it can be a loading screen. It also doesn't need to be random generated, so it fits every world (its stormy, so entering the water would mean death of character -> seafloor can be sampled, vision is blurried due to storm, so vision range is small which helps unloading go unnoticed), it's uniqueness is the big tides, and the "try to stay on the deck during the storm and keep your ship in one piece" feeling. World Compass:
Since every world has its own topology, maps of the previous level would not be updated, or redrawn (since the worlds are not connected to a massive world).It doesn't even shows its old world content. However, it has an another new function in the new world. The world compass is an asset on the ship, like the anchor, helm or mast. It's a container, having only one slot. If you put a map in it, then enter the triangle, you end up in the world which the old map was made in. If you leave it empty, it creates a new world(which you can do infinitely so endless world is a thing there). This also means however, that if you lose your map, you lose your way back to the original world with that ship, adding some hardcore feeling to the game.
The next part is purely about the possibilities of this, not the suggestion itself.
If you somehow can create an anticheat method to the game, to check non-survival made blocks, or external modification of the game (like adding things with admin commands), it could be used for public servers too for clear survival players only. You plan on adding npcs, there could be traders selling maps to official public servers. Such as semi-persistent player hubs, or a timed rocky cliff sea area, where naval pvp can happen for burried treasures. These official servers would not focus mainly on housing players in long term, rather on having pregenerated assets to fight for control over it, or having a peaceful area for trading, and when its decayed it resets(reloads first version of it). For example, an island with a pregenerated marketplace over a huge copper mine can mean, it can be a "center" of copper trade between players. Players can fight over the marketplace to become its governor, and make the npcs there allied with them, earning a part of the money from trades there, but also forced to maintain it well (clear junks, keep pvp at a reasonable level, etc). Since they are temporary servers, they are more of a sight to travel to from time to time, do trading etc, not a permanent home. The home of players would be the unmodified singleplayer/local hosted saves of players.
When you join a server, the game can delete your ship from your save file (your ship leaves the map), and when you arrive back with your old map, the server send the updated data back. If you disconnect, or leave things there, you don't regain the ship (that's why there should be official servers or partnered providers, to avoid server side disconnect ship loses).
I understand that endless worlds are hard to implement due to technical difficulties, but even if you have accomplish it, there will be some problem:
Player cap is limited to a world, so having an infinitely large world with few players would end up in "empty worlds". Connecting every player to a massive permanent world, or 60-80 player servers would mean Ark-like alpha dominance over everybody, which could ruin gameplay for casual players.
I have an a suggestion for that:
Devil's Triangle:
My suggestion is to contain an area in each world, which is a Devil's Triangle like, stormy area with hazards. If you reach its end, then you can trigger a world load, unloading previous map, and load a new one. The triangle can either be a sublevel in the current level, allowing the engine to unload previous scene, or it can be a loading screen. It also doesn't need to be random generated, so it fits every world (its stormy, so entering the water would mean death of character -> seafloor can be sampled, vision is blurried due to storm, so vision range is small which helps unloading go unnoticed), it's uniqueness is the big tides, and the "try to stay on the deck during the storm and keep your ship in one piece" feeling.
World Compass:
Since every world has its own topology, maps of the previous level would not be updated, or redrawn (since the worlds are not connected to a massive world).It doesn't even shows its old world content. However, it has an another new function in the new world. The world compass is an asset on the ship, like the anchor, helm or mast. It's a container, having only one slot. If you put a map in it, then enter the triangle, you end up in the world which the old map was made in. If you leave it empty, it creates a new world(which you can do infinitely so endless world is a thing there). This also means however, that if you lose your map, you lose your way back to the original world with that ship, adding some hardcore feeling to the game.
The next part is purely about the possibilities of this, not the suggestion itself.
If you somehow can create an anticheat method to the game, to check non-survival made blocks, or external modification of the game (like adding things with admin commands), it could be used for public servers too for clear survival players only. You plan on adding npcs, there could be traders selling maps to official public servers. Such as semi-persistent player hubs, or a timed rocky cliff sea area, where naval pvp can happen for burried treasures. These official servers would not focus mainly on housing players in long term, rather on having pregenerated assets to fight for control over it, or having a peaceful area for trading, and when its decayed it resets(reloads first version of it). For example, an island with a pregenerated marketplace over a huge copper mine can mean, it can be a "center" of copper trade between players. Players can fight over the marketplace to become its governor, and make the npcs there allied with them, earning a part of the money from trades there, but also forced to maintain it well (clear junks, keep pvp at a reasonable level, etc). Since they are temporary servers, they are more of a sight to travel to from time to time, do trading etc, not a permanent home. The home of players would be the unmodified singleplayer/local hosted saves of players.
When you join a server, the game can delete your ship from your save file (your ship leaves the map), and when you arrive back with your old map, the server send the updated data back. If you disconnect, or leave things there, you don't regain the ship (that's why there should be official servers or partnered providers, to avoid server side disconnect ship loses).
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