Terrain Environment

* See also Game_Experience
* See also Lighting
* See also Maps
* See also MMORPG's Flexible_Game_Terrain_Design
* See also Construction
* See also Game_of_this_type_-_Difficulties
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==ENVIRONMENTALS==
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Atmospheric Effect( s ) : 
IE- Seeing your breath in a cold area ( maybe heat waves in 'hot' )
Didn't they have that where there was Ice ? Steamy shit for a Jump Scare ??
The MMORPG can add far more such effects with the added capacities of current game Client platforms. (( See "Red Dead Redemption 2" for the vast improvements in" Atmospherics" )) 
So yet another Templated Terrain/Object Effect Asset type.
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Unstable Ground (Terrain Complexity) :
Higher complexity of the Terrain mechanism would mean that Players could (should be able to) climb atop just about anything, including movable objects ( figure the handy tools like placeable Ladders and such would be needed for that ). It would become one of the Puzzle components of the game.
That ( in the MMORPG ) would allow :
* Unstable ground which might require skill and actions to 'steady' the Player (with slower movements).
* Piling/Stacking of things to use to climb on (perilous if done wrong - we had a little of this in BS1)
* Team NPCs that can climb like monkeys (within reason) without the Players micro-management direction, leaving the Player to 'navigate' their own Avatar (reaching some things taking more skills than others)
* Use of tools like Ladders/Grappling Hooks
* It means you'd better look where you are going, because you can stumble over things ( it wont impress your 'Team' NPCs )
* Slower Movement - You can't be 'charging about' (running) like you do in most games (often THE WHOLE TIME) Games where you are allowed to 'Run' all the time because there is little to see in their huge uninteresting Terrain.
* Finding 'cover' is an important skill ( for Combat, for Sneaking, for getting behind something when you are blasting something open, etc ... )
Sorry, no 'Levitation' ala Infinite BS magical fantasy physics
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Exploring - All the Small Hidden Spaces :
I've always found it interesting to explore the Worlds in various games, especially where the gamecreator's imagination was accommodated.   There were more than average Hidey-holes/Nooks-and-crannies. These are actually technical terms used in the industry - NOT !! /Secret-passages in the Rapture game levels.  They often contained many strange little vignettes.  The MMORPG should continue in this vein, except even more-so.   
Because of the MMORPGs 'Create-on-the-fly' mechanism, where locations can be Procedurally-scripted/generated and thus custom-fitted when needed. AND varying NPCs, by design, further change/mutate those locations to match their needs.  Such interesting little spaces could be everywhere, and be quite varied ( and make sense/fit to the local area/situation ).   Using multitudes of interchangeable details and props/inhabitants substitutions and harmonized more than a little, Splicers preferences would shape the places they inhabit/visit. Such 'vignettes' can be near unique and appear far more 'organic'.  Players actions can change these places as well and persist to be seen later.
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Flowing Water Which Actually Affects Things (in-game) :
* Note -- placed in game with water deep enough that this makes a difference
* Pushes Players about ( hazard - can sweep your feet out beneath/knock you over, if it is fast enough )
* Floating things move ( good indicator of flow current )
* Rush of water rearranges items in its path ( interesting swirling eddies, etc ... )
* Having actual Player/NPC Swimming (not in Ocean with the bulky Hard_Suits, but inside in various places the water is deep enough), or the more common 'waders' ( common gear for expeditions out into 'Ruins').
* Water Spraying from a ocean leak (or other source) can be enough to knock you over, etc...), or worse quickly fill up with water the small/confined/claustrophobic space you are in.
* While swimming, if there is a current/flow then you move with it ( a bit trickier to simulate believably )
* Electrical Equipment, if not protected, usually does not like getting wet ( shock hazards, and shorts malfunction results ... ).
* Wet = Cold. (bring a towel)
I think I saw at least one occasion : in Worley Winery (Farmers Market) where a corpse (with nice loot) flowed past under the floor grating, and if you weren't fast enough you lost access to it. In the MMORPG, THAT would be an indicator OF that water/drainage passage which would be accessible somehow ( Yes, realistic sewer system in MMORPG Rapture ... )
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Watch Out, Slippery When Wet :
Or slimy, or oily or icy or coated in blood. Things to trip you up or turn an ankle. Bang your head - skin your knee - you getta concussion ... ( Tetanus Vaccines might be first thing to order from Ryan's Surface Organization ).
More detailed effects on movement by various obstacles -- A little more realism here - a game where you have a reason to often 'walk slow' instead of 'running' the whole time to get past all the boring parts of the scenery ( as in so many MMORPG and Solo games ).
Various equipment has pros and cons ( reason to switch gear for different situations and pre-equipting wisely ).
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Stale Air - Don't Forget To Bring Your Breathing Mask :
* Methane not just poisonous, but explosive fun too.
* Brackish air in sections completely sealed up ( bacteria and oxidizing of material can absorb free oxygen )
* Toxic Mold Spores - hazard
* Get those vents working ( you may have to trace airflow  blockage back towards sources in the Air Network )
* Open the Bulkhead valves ( many pressure triggered seals were automatically closed )
* Air Sensor devices of various sorts ( standard equipment for the well-prepared Explorer/Adventurer ).
* Not sure if there are any Canaries left in Rapture ( No, mutant pigeons don't really work ).
* Note - Fires use up oxygen and may be quite problematic in areas with no air circulation/renewal.
* Fortunately the air system in Rapture ( being a critical system from the start ) was well-built.
* Greenery is recommended for all residences as a way to freshen the air, as well as for a bit of color amongst the drab grey walls and faded wallpaper.
All these need some visual indicators - a miasma effect - not to blatant - not too subtle.
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Rapture -- NOW WITH MORE DETAIL ! ! :
One thing I noticed using the Solo game Cheats (fly & ghost) to move around the thru game scenery is the limited detail in many places where the Player doesn't get close to, or to see. With the MMORPG, the terrain will be more accessible ( especially with climbability for movement, and more freedom in moving 'outside' in the ocean ). There will be significantly more details visible to the Player ( and that all putting more load on the rendering engine). But t hen, releasing this MMORPG game would be years off, and the average (Client) computer target hardware would have improved quite a bit in the interim ( and the consoles may also get some new generations ).
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A Better FPS Experience :
The new 'Ruins' and 'Wild' ( the unsafe areas outside the boundaries of New Rapture ) -- How to make the environments in those areas as creepy/creepier than what we saw in BS1/BS2 ( now with Player imagination to call upon to make far more ).
* More overgrown views blocking stuff, more varied debris and obstacles ( for things to 'jump out at you' or 'down onto you', or even climb out of holes in the ground/floors etc ... )
* More dark areas, mists/smoke/vapors that obscure view ranges.
* Eerie sounds heard, but not being easily able to identify where they are coming from ( or what is causing them ).
* More doors open now, I'm sure Players can come up with more strangeness for what's behind them.
* More territory so that you are not going thru the same places ( yet Again and Again ) and already know where everything is ( after replaying it 5 times ).
* Things keep moving around/change-on-you since the last time you visited ( most MMORPGs have the same Mannequin Dummy opponents standing in the same place forever and reset like ducks in the feeble shooting galleries those games merely are ).
* Enough different objects which you don't exactly know what they will do, till you interact with them ( surprises are good ).
* The MMORPG Splicers will do much better job setting traps and using the terrain against you.
* More combinations of situations, more hazards to watch out for, sneaky Splicers ...
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MMORPG - Collision - To Collide or Not To Collide, That Is The Question :
Online games have problems with latency delays between the Clients and Servers ( over the Internet ),  which cause aberrations in the timings of Player's interactions.  So you will see many games that do NOT do collision detection between the Players ( You can run right thru other Players ), and game mechanics which don't require split second reactions.   The game doesn't have to handle the complication when Players positions are on different relative delay timelines.
That can be disconcerting and unrealistic ( particularly in a better detailed game like the MMORPS wants to be ).   It can be solved by having the Client do predictive calculations to prevent passing through another Player/NPC, along with a bit of visual 'patching' when something suddenly changes course while moving rapidly, and the change causes an 'unpredictable' conflict.
Its more processing and harder to program successfully.  You still cannot do the 'twitch' actions/reactions of fighting games, but higher detail and more realistic movements is where MMORPGs need to go to improve.
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Game Fire Effects Improvements :
Obscuring Smoke and Steam and roaring Infernos and asphyxiation, sprinkler systems, smoke being seen coming under doors/out of vents, your Team NPCs saying "Hey, Do you smell something burning ??", etc ...  Lotsa fun.
Closed areas fill quickly with smoke ( How do you have fire-escapes when you can't get to the outside of the building ??? )   Fires don't just go out quickly and can spread rapidly if the conditions are right.   Beware the Splice with the gallon bucket of Kelp brewed 180-proof Alcohol ...
"Warning, Fire spreads."   (in Incinerate! User Film...)
Hearing your own scream when you are on fire might be a bit disconcerting ( not quite as easy to shrug off as the old generalized damage system in the original games - 3rd degree burns needs skin grafts... ).   Dousing oil flames with water doesn't work very well, neither does it work well on electrical equipment ( different kinds of fires ... )   Equipment can be damaged by burning.
Breathing gear would be a key piece of equipment for Rapture's Firefighters which may have been most often manned by 'volunteer' fire brigades ( like in the old days ).   Most building structures had sprinkler systems and firewalls as a standard safety measure, but not everyone maintained the systems on their properties.
Arson... Who ever said that there are "no laws" in Rapture ?    Ryan only said HE would only make the "One Law" ( the one about Smuggling having the Death Penalty ).  Rapture would have its own laws for many things.  Many societies had (often the most) severe penalties for Arson due to its easily getting out of control and the indiscriminant way it could kill and destroy.
Fortunately most of Rapture was built out of concrete, which doesn't burn easily.   Internal furnishings/subwalls burning would often use up the available oxygen before getting hot enough to burn the cement.  This limiting fires largely to the contents and inhabitants of an area contained by the door seals.
Along with many of the other 'New Rapture' roleplaying missions, a gig being part of a 'volunteer' fire department and assisting in various fire scenarios would be included in the MMORPG.  Seeing some NPC's possessions go up in smoke might make you aware so that you don't skimp on your own fire prevention/suppression systems for YOUR property.
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Fire in MMORPG Rapture, Not so Nice and Tidy Any More :
Fires exhaust the air (oxygen) or builds up sufficient Carbon Dioxide to make it toxic ( even with oxygen remaining ).  Other toxics in the smoke can be even worse ( some plastics give off cyanide when burnt ).
Things continue to burn until the fuel or the oxidizing component runs out ( and even without flame they can smolder for extended time ).
Post 'civil war' ventilation in Rapture isn't as good as it once was : Limited Circulation = Limited Air ( New  Rapture is definitely working on that issue ).   But all those trash cans burning we saw or puddles of flaming chemicals - was that why we saw so many corpses - Actually, they were dead of Asphyxiation ?? ( Except we then were in those places as Jack, and any bad air seemed to have little effect on us. )
Items near/in the fire can be damaged or destroyed and can burn even more, or explode spreading the fire further.  Flinging fire around and setting ammunition on fire isn't a good thing ...
Another thing to have the Safety Doors close for : Automatics preventing the spread of fire and toxic gases and potentially to stop fire by depriving it of oxygen.  Vents have containment doors/valves also.
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MMORPG NEW Hazard - Slippery Sewage :
Very embarrassing to slip on feces and fall on your ass right into it.
Needles everywhere - catch a disease from all those used injection items covering the floors ( and watch out for Booby traps made from them too -- Note also : a bucket of feces over the door is a warning from Splicers to go away ).
This in emulation of the ruined city of San Francisco Known to many as 'San Fran Shithole' these days, which the bums have been allowed to take over, and have left their feces and needles ( and themselves lying about on the sidewalks ) everywhere for ordinary folk to enjoy ( including right where the tourists go ).
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Secretsssssssss ... :
I always liked games with Secret Passages. Well, in MMORPG Rapture, more than half the place is really 'secret passages' ( all the services/utility areas not visible from the space the majority move about in ).
Various maintenance hatches and passages ( vents/manhole covers/shafts, gratings with drainage-ways underneath, utility rooms, spaces where pipes/cables run and various machinery operates ).
Different kinds of access Skills being required by the Player, Tools/equipment - Ways to spot and open them. Locks ... ( Yeah right, Elizabeth "learned Lockpicking from a book" ... a rather feeble plot excuse, that one ).
Blockages and Repairs - with lack of maintenance things often start to 'gum up', and they may need a little 'help' to allow passage.
Etc ...
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Perhaps it is a Good Thing We Didn't Have Smells Reported to Us in BioShock :
* Corpses in a damp environment
* Splicers, after most of the showers (and the laundry) no longer work
* Disagreeable Spills of all sorts.
* Electrical Ozone and Smoke from fires.
* No longer fresh Fish, and rotting food
* Mold and Mildew, Rust and Wood Rot
* Gangrenous flesh
* Urine.
That will all be fixed in my marvelous BioShock MMORPG ( Smell-O-Vision ... )
Even in the Golden Times, Rapture's air circulation wasn't overly impressive, so watch out for those sealed doors when opened, inside may smell like homemade Mayonnaise jar left at room temperature for 9 months, or certain cheeses.
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Impressed by the Climbing Puzzles in Far Cry 3 :
The Radio Towers in FC3 were interesting, and the idea could be greatly expanded upon for the MMORPG, with the aspects of Rapture's various internal environments.   Maze-like Player-movement Puzzles with climbing up/jumping down/crawling and slithering through twisty passages/opening gratings/spaces behind walls, and assorted utility spaces ...  Such things can be Auto-Generated ( via Procedural Generation Programming ) in the Terrain using many Combinatoric building blocks of pieces of such obstacles - To greatly vary the 'maze'.  
With the interior tunnel-like parts and blind corners, you would get a greater claustrophobic feeling of getting lost.  There still could be more than a little of exposed girder structures as well ( which Far Cry 3 mainly had, with a nice falling hazard ). Much of Rapture was hidden to us, even though we walked thru the middle of it all.
In Far Cry 3, you had the task of getting to the tops of many Radio Towers to activate something, and along the way there were minor goodies to obtain.   Rapture's "guts" likewise would hold useful things like utilities to be repaired, many stashed goodies, Splicer lairs, and many many Secrets. 
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Cheat Codes allow you to freely wander around in the game. In Bioshock the Cheat Codes I used were "Fly" and "Ghost", which allowed the Player to movement in any direction freely ( not stick to the floor ), and to go through walls/objects.
This is a picture of the back sides of some '3D' building structure sections with some graphics Texture set with a default which is easily spotted - Something used by level designers (while editing) to spot bits of terrain they haven't finished. These wall panels were seen from a spot no Player could get to, and so did NOT have to have proper wall textures specified for them.
The MMORPG would have similar editing tools, and Terrain would be seen from far more angles. so spotting 'unfinished' details would be important for the terrain creator's Vetting process.
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