Optional connected worlds.

[TamTroll]

So this is just a loose concept, but it's something I've always thought would be neat for minecraft, and i feel it also fits here, as I've been getting a very "Loneliness" vibe from the game ever since i started playing.

So here's the idea:

An optional opt-in feature upon world creation* to have your world be "connected" to the singleplayer worlds of other people who also chose this option. Basically, you spawn in as normal with all your world settings and the like, but thousands of blocks in any given direction, are copies of the singleplayer worlds of other players. If they have different world generation types, then the game would slowly transition between them to blend things together. My island-based map would slowly become a large continent one when entering your world for example.

Now I'm not saying "it's a multiplayer server" here. Perhaps there's a very small chance of encountering other players if you happen to be playing in the same area at the same time, but I'm more thinking "you have a chance to encounter environments and builds made by other players if you explore long enough." Naturally this would have some issues, as you can't exactly trust every player to be friendly towards their neighbours. Theft and greifing might be an issue. Perhaps any changes you make to another person's build don't stick when they load the game. it'll still be there in your game, but not in theirs. similarly, any changes they make to your area won't be visible to you. Alternatively, perhaps the risk of theft and greifing is something you just need to accept when opting in to this kind of world. Or perhaps you can limit who you can connect too so you only connect with trusted friends, or other players who have been vetted as not being hostile.

Naturally you'd need an internet connection for this, which would obviously be a turnoff to some. but I'm again not suggesting a multiplayer server, something more like what Spore had. It's a singleplayer world, but you have the chance to encounter the builds, ruins, or clues of the existence of other players in your world. If you launch the game while you have access to the internet, it uses that to update any changes that may have been made to other worlds you're connected too, if you don't have internet access, then you just remain with the last world state you had before, still able to freely play without issue.

Maybe it secretly becomes a multiplayer world if two or more players have internet access and are playing at the same time, but they'd still be spawning very far apart from one another and not share a spawn-point. Any messages they send in text wouldn't be visible to one another unless in close proximity, and there would be no other sign of their existence while playing. if lag starts to be an issue, the game could invisibly disconnect them from one another while not affecting either of their games sessions to keep things running smoothly.


*Possibly allow this option to be applied to preexisting worlds once if it actually gets implemented


Is it a perfect idea? No. i haven't put a lot of thought into the possible consequences, nor do i know how difficult or even impossible it might be to do or do well. i just think it'd be neat if there was a chance to find someone else's home while exploring my world, or to by chance stumble across someone while we were both out exploring. It wouldn't be a common thing with what I'm picturing, you'd need to go out of your way to really encounter any of it, but if there's even a chance, then that just makes the lonely world seem a little less lonely in my eyes.

Maybe other player's builds just show up as  crumbling and overgrown ruins instead of intact pieces, idk.

Edited January 4 by TamTroll