Landing on a sphere is easy, as Killminster already stated. What's hard is:
A: Creating a seamless environment which is not only pleasing to the eye but geologically/environmentally viable for a landing zone. At least for set node-landing like we have in stations with hangers.
B: Creating an environment which is explorable and still meets the criteria set by "A".
C: Flora & Fauna. Variation is needed. The game in its current iteration gets very boring very fast. There is only so much you can see before things get pretty bland and one system looks a lot like the next and so on. Planets, if done RIGHT could fix this problem almost entirely. If every world had its own unique geological formation, environmental conditions, and even life (where applicable) then I can see entire groups of niche players like myself doing nothing but exploring Earth-like worlds or worlds that catch our attention (lava worlds, moons, etc).
D: You need a reason to go there. The stuff listed in C is a good place to start but you'll need to appease the major types of players. You'll want special resources to prospect and mine (maybe? Automated?), the ability to settle on a world, that would be incredible and would give people the ability to make a home for themselves - somewhere to always return to and recognize, maybe military actions on planets?
E: A HUGE issue is cities. Many of the core-worlds have large populations. This means cities. It would be easy enough to create art-sets (buildings, vehicles, etc) for each specific group of people such as the Alliance, Federation, Independents and whatnot. However, when you go into the nitty gritty of it, you'll need to create unique sets for the smaller factions or the sub-factions. Perhaps linked to cultural architecture.
In short: It's a LOT of work to do right but if you can do it, you'll have a game that is so engaging and fluid that it might as well be considered to be a second life outside of reality. The possibilities are endless, especially with procedural seeding, and can be done. Though maybe one bit at a time would be best - otherwise you'll lose far more players than you can afford prior to it coming out. You've got to keep your playerbase interested and drooling over the next thing to come out so segments are often a smart move by a game developer.
A: Creating a seamless environment which is not only pleasing to the eye but geologically/environmentally viable for a landing zone. At least for set node-landing like we have in stations with hangers.
B: Creating an environment which is explorable and still meets the criteria set by "A".
C: Flora & Fauna. Variation is needed. The game in its current iteration gets very boring very fast. There is only so much you can see before things get pretty bland and one system looks a lot like the next and so on. Planets, if done RIGHT could fix this problem almost entirely. If every world had its own unique geological formation, environmental conditions, and even life (where applicable) then I can see entire groups of niche players like myself doing nothing but exploring Earth-like worlds or worlds that catch our attention (lava worlds, moons, etc).
D: You need a reason to go there. The stuff listed in C is a good place to start but you'll need to appease the major types of players. You'll want special resources to prospect and mine (maybe? Automated?), the ability to settle on a world, that would be incredible and would give people the ability to make a home for themselves - somewhere to always return to and recognize, maybe military actions on planets?
E: A HUGE issue is cities. Many of the core-worlds have large populations. This means cities. It would be easy enough to create art-sets (buildings, vehicles, etc) for each specific group of people such as the Alliance, Federation, Independents and whatnot. However, when you go into the nitty gritty of it, you'll need to create unique sets for the smaller factions or the sub-factions. Perhaps linked to cultural architecture.
In short: It's a LOT of work to do right but if you can do it, you'll have a game that is so engaging and fluid that it might as well be considered to be a second life outside of reality. The possibilities are endless, especially with procedural seeding, and can be done. Though maybe one bit at a time would be best - otherwise you'll lose far more players than you can afford prior to it coming out. You've got to keep your playerbase interested and drooling over the next thing to come out so segments are often a smart move by a game developer.
