How exactly would one go about building a game where the player can do anything they want?
Well… you can’t. Seriously, unless you want to be Second Life 2, you have to exert some content control over what the players create. That’s why I have come up with a two pronged assault…
First: a lengthy beta period. The original people brought into beta will serve two functions, the first being to test the game for bugs… but the more important function is to “think shit up”. Want to build a weapon by attaching an ice skate blade to a hockey stick? Sure, sounds good, recipe inserted into game and now everyone can get an ice skate, a hockey stick and some duct tape (or string) and make this new weapon.
Second: the design tool. We won’t allow players to design their own models directly, but they will be allowed to submit suggestions. Suggestions will consist of two types “Assemble” and “Dismantle”. The dismantle submission will be accomplished by having the player drag the item model, for example: an ice skate, into the model window and then in the provided text box explain “I would like to be able to remove the blade from the ice skate.” The game designers/admins will review the suggestion, and if approved will create new models for an ice skate blade and an ice skate shoe without blade, and then add the new dismantle recipe to the game (and to the patch notes, “Ice skates can now have the blade removed from the shoe”). For the other side, they’d drag the models for the ice skate blade and the hockey stick into the design window, align them as desired, attach them with tape (or string) and then in the provided text box explain “Would be used as a weapon.” Again, the designers/admins would review it, if approved they would need to add the new assembled model, animations for using it, alternate uses for it if they think them up, item statistics if they are required, and slap it into the game (and the patch notes, although since part of the fun of the game is to figure stuff out, assembly notes might be intentionally vague).
This way, you give players the ability to create what they want, but we retain control of what goes in the game and how, mostly so we can prevent player_x from inventing yet another in a long line of freaky sex toys. Sure, it is labor intensive, but since I plan for the game to have no bugs, my CS people will need something to do. 🙂