Along with MOM, this is my recommendation:

Share your stories or ideas here!

What language? I vote for C++ because of portability.

My idea for the game is this:
a graphics-based cave crawl 3D adventure game, with combat and puzzles.

If 3D doesn't work, we could do it 2D.

I vote 2D, and for the language, whatever the community is best at.

A cave crawl game with combat and puzzles..

hold on, thinking, I don't want to use my ideas (might be a little too much) but I'll build up on AP's (which is a good base to start off with).

Ok,

I was thinking of a 2D platformer, where you must go venture out into the underground cave world and fight monsters and solve puzzles to gather important resources to help repair the town that is under attack.. at first. Instead of just wacking rocks with a pickaxe or punching creepers in the face, lets make it action packed and use powerful melee attacks as well as spells to destroy parts of the environment that you can gather. Reaching what you really need, however, takes puzzle solving. The puzzles themselves, I have a good idea of what they can be, but I am still thinking.

For long expeditions you have to set up camp sometimes, or build things to solve puzzles. Camp will allow you to go even further without dieing from fatigue, a system that keeps players from venturing out all the way to the end in the beginning.

Your main objective is to always gather some specific type of material. Think of this as the golden star at the end of those super mario 64 games. You must do this by utilizing your resources carefully, building the wrong things can suck a lot.

There should be a money system to buy different types of materials that are not found in the caves. Stuff like cloth, ropes, etc. Or potions and scrolls n such.

You can also upgrade armor and create stuff you can use through any material you find, except the special ones you need to finish the level.

Equipment consists of a weapon, armor, helmet, and an amulet. Amulets are basically gems that you find, only unusable in crafting. These give a unique bonus to the character.

Well this is my spin off of AP's idea. Which reminds me a lot of minecraft.

I actually want to try this, a group project with you people. Sounds like fun!

Actually Howitz, your idea seems a lot like a cross between Cave Story and Terraria.

I like the idea of an RPG, I'd love to make a good one, rather than all these lame ones coming out in stores. Actually, the only retail RPG I like at all is Dragon Quest IX, it has an amazing storyline as well as the perfect engine. It is probably the best 3D graphics you'll ever see on a DS. Anyway, that sounds alright. It will be an RTS, right? And no, I dislike the idea of having "levels" with "goals". Rather, we should give the player a world to do crap in, several "rooms" with doors leading to each at different points throughout. (so we don't crash computers with one huge map)

If we can have a story, that'd be great. Also, maybe a map-download system so the game never ends. Best. Game. Ever.

Not my idea, I just built on what AP said >_>

My idea is coming up soon

A STORY IS SO IMPORTANT. Even World of Goo has a great story, with Product Z and stuff.

My idea of the great game is one that is only composed from boss levels,
a first shooter(Not necesary with guns)with a star calification system.
and a great visual enterteinment, also the bosses are not necesary to be human,
they will be colorful , epic and creative monsters that will keep your eyes in the screen.Also some fitting music that will give the game a movie ambientation.

Oh, as for the technical side of things, I'll start coding this. I tried SFML, but I might just stick with SDL. Then again, I may just be sour about taking hours out of my day just to get it to work.

Anyway, a basic engine is being started.

Hmm. Looks like you guys have already started without me, but I had a real good idea for a game.

Kind of like a single-player Maple Story, or a side-scrolling Zelda. You have towns, go into houses, get quests/requests/info/help/whatever from NPCs, buy stuff, collect stuff, and maybe even have a sort of karma system like Fable or Fallout 3.
It'd be comparatively easy to code (I think), and if you make a good open-ended storyline we can make infinite downloadable content. And maybe some multiplayer functionality would help.

That's my idea, but whatever idea we're going with I would like to help with the story or design. If I can.

Is funny because we are giving technical ideas and we don´t know what to do certainly.
Here in Mexico we describe it as "Cantinflear".

My little addition to the collective idea...

How about adding a Vancian magic system, such as in the game Enchanter? (The game came out before Super Mario Bros. was created, so most of you probably haven't heard of it)

The way magic works in that game is that you can find scrolls, which have a spell written on them. At the top of the paper is the name of the spell. You can say the name of the spell to cast it from the spell, but that destroys the scroll. For most spells, it's possible to copy them into a spellbook. From the spellbook you can "memorize" spells, at most you can have 5 memorized at a time. You can cast a spell from memory, but that confuses you and you forget it after the casting. More powerful spells cannot be copied down and therefore can only be cast once.

Shorter explanation: this is what a partial transcript of Enchanter might look like.

>INVENTORY
You are carrying a spellbook, a lamp, a stained scroll, and a brittle scroll.
>READ SPELLBOOK
The following spells are in your spellbook:
   Gnusto - copy a spell into a spell book.
   Frotz - cause something to glow with light.
   Blorb - protect a small object in a strongbox.
   Nitfol - converse with animals.
>SPELLS
The Gnusto spell, the only thing you managed to learn at the Academy, is yours forever. Other than that, you have the Frotz spell once and the Nitfol spell twice committed to memory.
>READ STAINED SCROLL
Exex: cause something to move with greater speed.
>GNUSTO EXEX
Your spell book begins to glow softly.  Slowly, ornately, the words of the exex spell are inscribed, glowing even more brightly then the book itself. The book's brightness fades, but the spell remains!  However, the scroll on which it was written vanishes as the last word is copied.
>READ BRITTLE SCROLL
Kulcad: dispel a magical effect.
>GNUSTO KULCAD
Your spellbook glows faintly, as the Gnusto spell tries in vain to copy the powerful Kulcad spell into your spellbook. Fortunately the scroll remains unharmed.
>LOOK
Winding Stair
This staircase seems to wind forever up and down around the tower.
>FROTZ STAIRS
The stairs slowly begin to glow with magical light.
>KULCAD STAIRS
The brittle scroll crumbles to dust.
The stairs suddenly disappear beneath you!
 
Bottomless Pit
You are falling into a pit...

@RedTheGreen: I'd recommend SFML over SDL, as flat SDL doesn't use hardware acceleration, and SFML has a lot of important classes and stuff already built for you. It'll save you a whole lot of time.

Looks like we want to go the RPG route, correct?

However, here is some things I would suggest to keep in mind:

Quests (if there are going to be any): lets not make our hero the newspaper boy of the century. Or a slave. Lets do something important besides gathering 15 pieces of dumb wood for some dude who can't get it himself.

Monsters, creeps, uglies oh my! No monsters of "medium difficulty", basically, 99% of all the monsters in Maplestory. When you are fighting, it should either be 1 Huge bad ass, like a boss, or a swarm of small ones. But they shouldn't be roaming around randomly. Either the player gets ambushed, the player sparks up a battle by killing some of the wandering few, or the player attacks an enemy base or something.

I love RPGs. Sure, I'll try SFML tommorow. Today is my birthday.

As for a battle system, will it be turn-based (walking into monsters that follow you or something will go into a turn-based battle sequence) or just do attacks in the air like Maple Story?

Please not turn based.

And if it will be like maplestory's, lets not make it so "boring".

Mine is going to take a while, I want to add pictures with it.

I think turn-based makes games boring. I mean, OK, games like Pokemon make it work, but it doesn't really require much skill and with most games you just end up pressing the same sequence of buttons each turn. I haven't played Maple Story so I don't know the fighting style, but just a side-scrolling Zelda fighting system (as I said) would be good, i.e. you just come along monsters and kill them without any transition.

And the idea about quests is good too. Silly quests like "rid my garden of slugs" or "go get the mail" are boring and pointless, even in tutorials. The tutorial of Spiral Knights is good, it gives you a proper task to do while learning the ropes.
But the quests should be actual stuff that has a point. For example, Fallout 3 quests (including side-quests) are long and significant, but are feasible because they consist of multiple tasks. So stuff like that would be good, but not just things like "go kill the dungeon lord because he's ugly".

Y'know what I'm sayin'?

And what will the setting be?

Medieval? Modern? Fantasy-medeival?

My original idea was some sort of underground-cave-ruins type thing.

Ahhh thats the thing about my idea...

...the setting can be ANYWHERE. Just hold the @#$% on!

But I have something else to do first. Has something to do with colors.

Okay! Idea: epic underground game with ambiance cave sounds (like dripping water and waterfalls and scratches on rocks) and moving backgrounds with some animation (like a waterfall in the distance and some holes in the ceiling pouring out light)

Yeah, turn-based may be kind of a bad idea. As for quests, Dragon Quest IX's most stupid quests are like "My granddaughter said I looked like a slugger. Go kill 10 of them so I feel better about it." or "I really want a tangleweb, so can you go around the lake and take one from the giant spider-web for my enjoyment?"

Scenario: preferably medieval, maybe something without modern tech.

edit: scrapped!

@Howitz: In all honesty, I don't think hiding the storyline from people gains anyone anything. If this is a community-based project, we're all going to know the story anyway, and there's not really anyone to hide the story from. Open discussion should be what we're aiming for here.

@Everyone: I agree with pretty much everything everyone is saying here. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to help, but I like the ideas I've seen so far.

@RedTheGreen: Happy Birthday!

Well the thing is, I don't want to give it in "parts". I want to give it in its entirety. If I gave it in parts, it would change perspective if you already know information! Its story telling! Sorta like how Braid makes World 1 the last level.

Well, about the setting, I think that Red's idea about medieval/fantasy is good. However, I have a suggestion: it'd be cool if we had stuff like a sort of mechanical time-machine (kind of like the one in Blackadder: Back & Forth).

So yeah, things like science-fiction, but in the "past".

If we go with a cave/underground theme, I had some puzzles involving light sources planned out. Eg, you have a torch that burns out after a certain amount of time.

Lighting sounds great, the game would become much more complex as a result. Most starting levels would have full lighting throughout, and deeper caverns may have pure darkness with you having maybe some sort of holdable torch.

These ideas are great. BTW Howitz, I'm not sure what story we'll have, but I don't think "dreams" will be as good as just a straightforward storyline.

EDIT: Are we going to worry about cross-platform support? We'll finish a lot quicker if we use a windows-only platform like XNA.

Yea I figured, plus I am brain dead. I agree with Caves!

Lets do windows only, then worry about something later. This isn't for $$, we don't have to feed families, lol.

Hmmm I'll try to come up with a story involving a cave world... YOU TOO PUGGSOY!

Lets come up with a name for this.

edit: a straight forward storyline. Yea, I like to get complicated

hmm so scrap my idea, lets really do something like a cave.

But as for the combat part (i know we can do puzzles...this is goofans!), how is that gonna work? I really hope its gonna be something like Cave Story.

I'll start drawing. I will submit what I have in this thread in 2 hours or earlier.

I think we should have a combination of medival/fantasy with a bit of futuristic machinery. It is fantasy, right? I mean, it could be anything we want it, guys.

Yes. I think for combat we should have melee weapons (eg, swords), ranged weapons (eg, a crossbow), Vancian scroll magic, and magic items.

First sketch coming up. This one is for the character design. I have a bunch, so please point out the ones you like OR features you like. This way I don't waste time drawing things that won't work.

I would like to talk to some of you in real time, not just by this thread. Too slow, imo.

I would also like to know if you guys want a cartoony or serious kind of look...

...don't be afraid to draw up something on your own! submit through tinypic

cuz seriously right now, i can't think of anything.

Should we allow the player to choose their gender? That would mean we need animations and images for both female and male characters.

I'll work on some stuff in Photoshop and Flash and post it here.

Should we make a Google group or something for the project?

something we can talk in real time.

By the way, I am about to take your hill.

NOOOOO!