Minigames and sim elements are the two most obvious content choices for a sandboxy social game. Or you could do something more niche and try to figure out what a 3D world version of a forum/fanfiction archive/draw together/interactive fiction maker/hypercard software kinda thing would be like. None of those are that much about adventure, unless maybe you are thinking of something like Wurm Online or Minecraft with more monsters.

A concept I usually try is brain storm on your topics, then trying to plan out a 30 second commercial. If you had 30 seconds of time to advertise your game, what would you cover. (typically 1 to 3 key things)

- Next, consider what your commercial is showing, and compare that to other Game Giant games like Blizzards WOW, or what ever other key games compete in your genre.

- make sure your 30 second commercial is not showing features that already exist as part of the key features in the major games in genre.

- This helps you establish your niche market.

- Also, use your 30 second commercial as a barrier. You need to get something playable, and soon, or you'll probably give up on your game for some other interest. If the concept or feature you are considering doesn't help your commercial become possible, why add it. Maybe a later feature, but not for your first release. Naturally, things like menus will probably not be shown, but they are needed to make the game work.

Second, to help find these Niche features, I recommend asking some general questions on here (or other forums) and with friends who like the genre your building in, about what people really like, what they despise about the games they like in general (annoyances) and what new things in the genre they would like to see. DO NOT describe your ideas. let them speak, and consider what people are saying in your ideas. Once you start describing your ideas, you will probably pigeon hole the conversation into topics that would relate to your concept, and then miss all the creative input you would otherwise get.

I to am planning a game, RTS though. For that, I posted a generic question about RTS's in the same maner. It's presently a hot topic, and from it, 2 or 3 considerably awesome game play mechanics that are not effectively part of any major release game have sprouted out. Its from those that I am considering shaping my game now.

its that Niche target you need to go after.

Every time I read about some newbie trying to complete their first game that happens to be a WoW killer I get discouraged since their is so much hate directed towards anyone attempting to make a game like that.

I will explain it by comparison. Which game is better?

WoW vs a typical other MMORPG:

- [WoW] it has beautiful 3D art assets [other MMORPG] it has less beautiful 3D art assets

- [WoW] is an RPG [other MMORPG] is an RPG

- [WoW] it has items, quests, huge world [other MMORPG] it has items, quests, huge world

So, which one won? Hard to say, it would be a draw I say... :) The other MMORPG failed to trample over WoW.

Now take a look at WoW vs Lords (www.lordsgame.com) (it's my game, I shall use an opportunity for a free advertising :D ):

- [WoW] is boring overused 3D [Lords] is clean beautiful functional text based game with a tiny bit of 2D images that you can play even on a mobile phone

- [WoW] is a boring RPG with some lame standard item system [Lords] is an awesome strategy with countless meaningful strategic choices to make

- [WoW] is an endless grind fest [Lords] is a fast paced game with cutting down on micromanagement as its core design choice and designed for people who don't have much time to play

So, you can clearly see why my game beats WoW so much it's not even worth comparing :D

You can't go for the same values WoW goes for (3D, RPG, MMO, huge world), or at least not for all of them at the same time. You can't win there. Go for values where WoW clearly fails, then you will win. Sure, 99.9% of players like 3D better than text based, also the number of RPG fans is much higher than strategy fans. But you don't need to please 99.9% of players, just 0.1% is more than enough. All that counts is if they like your game *much* more than WoW or not.

Practical advise:

In your case, since you go for 3D I would recommend doing Castle Story. There clearly is a big desire for this kind of game and it is not finished yet, so you still have the chance to be the first. If you make a game where you build a castle and defend it then yeah, you can beat WoW, even with wastly inferior art assets.

Every time I read about some newbie trying to complete their first game that happens to be a WoW killer I get discouraged since their is so much hate directed towards anyone attempting to make a game like that.

I will explain it by comparison. Which game is better?

WoW vs a typical other MMORPG:

- [WoW] it has beautiful 3D art assets [other MMORPG] it has less beautiful 3D art assets

- [WoW] is an RPG [other MMORPG] is an RPG

- [WoW] it has items, quests, huge world [other MMORPG] it has items, quests, huge world

So, which one won? Hard to say, it would be a draw I say... The other MMORPG failed to trample over WoW.

Now take a look at WoW vs Lords (www.lordsgame.com) (it's my game, I shall use an opportunity for a free advertising ):

- [WoW] is boring overused 3D [Lords] is clean beautiful functional text based game with a tiny bit of 2D images that you can play even on a mobile phone

- [WoW] is a boring RPG with some lame standard item system [Lords] is an awesome strategy with countless meaningful strategic choices to make

- [WoW] is an endless grind fest [Lords] is a fast paced game with cutting down on micromanagement as its core design choice and designed for people who don't have much time to play

So, you can clearly see why my game beats WoW so much it's not even worth comparing

You can't go for the same values WoW goes for (3D, RPG, MMO, huge world), or at least not for all of them at the same time. You can't win there. Go for values where WoW clearly fails, then you will win. Sure, 99.9% of players like 3D better than text based, also the number of RPG fans is much higher than strategy fans. But you don't need to please 99.9% of players, just 0.1% is more than enough. All that counts is if they like your game *much* more than WoW or not.

Practical advise:

In your case, since you go for 3D I would recommend doing Castle Story. There clearly is a big desire for this kind of game and it is not finished yet, so you still have the chance to be the first. If you make a game where you build a castle and defend it then yeah, you can beat WoW, even with wastly inferior art assets.

Strictly speaking you can't beat something you're not competing against and when it comes to WoW the generally recommendation is: don't go there, you can't win. (WoW is a constant progression game that requires a steady stream of fresh, high quality content to remain interesting) It is a target that requires very deep pockets to attack head on.

The problem is not that it is a 3D MMORPG with a huge world, that can be achieved even without any real budget (Procedural generation, less content intesive settings, etc), the problem with games like WoW is that they require handcrafted content in large amounts. (quests, dungeons, items, etc), a dungeon that players can complete in less than an hour and get bored with in a few days can take several man-months to make and even big, wealthy companys like Blizzard is having trouble keeping a high enough pace. (They are resorting to grind mechanics to slow players down, something all games of this type suffer from)

The obvious path for small studios or hobbyists who wish to make MOs or MMOs is to focus on creating opportunities for interesting and varied player-player interactions rather than on creating interesting content for players to interact with.

- [WoW] is an endless grind fest [Lords] is a fast paced game with cutting down on micromanagement as its core design choice and designed for people who don't have much time to play

[WoW] allows players to play whenever they want, for as much or as little they want.

[Lords] has a turn system that forces players to commit to logging in everyday to play, or waste turns and lag behind other players. And if you work hard during the week, you can't spend a few hours playing [Lords] on Saturday night, you're restricted to say 30 minutes. Then, you have to switch to another game...like WoW.

Sorry to disagree with you again on this, but I would say [WoW] is a better game for people who don't have much time to play.

You see, even if, that's still 2 of 3 things over which your honest heart was unable to deny the brilliance of Lords over WoW :) And even the third one would be debatable by some players, so if the audience is split over it, I say I can live with sharing player base 50:50 with Blizzard I guess :D

Now imagine that instead of this half text based Lords I would say "look, I made this 3DMMORPG with better quest system than WoW, I will beat them!", what would you say? Probably nothing, since you would not bother checking, and even if you check you would sigh discovering that once again you were tricked into checking some vastly inferior WoW clone.

Strictly speaking you can't beat something you're not competing against and when it comes to WoW the generally recommendation is: don't go there, you can't win.

Yep, the key rule of fighting is not playing by their rules, but by yours. If there is a mighty barbarian that want to duel with you, just accept it as long as it is a poetry contest :D

(I guess Blizzard realizes it too, since they never tried to advertise their game as text based strategy, they must have concluded they would have no chance against my game so they stay in their safe heaven of 3D RPGs, they are indeed clever and sly devils :))