First, you have to look at some of the greatest MMO/RPG games out there - they have smooth terrains, and the environment is so very awesome. The only drawback, is that the entire world is static. For the most part, the player can not change or modify the environment - they cannot build their own home, can not make realistic farms, can not start realistic mines, etc. - Creativity is not present anywhere except PvP/PvE tactics and player clothing/armour/etc. colours/styles, which gets boring quickly.
Second, take a look at Minecraft/Minetest. It's a world of blocks/nodes that can be modified/molded into whatever the player wants. But the blocky environment looks dull and uninteresting after a while, and players' thumbs become tired from hitting the spacebar every time they need to go up a slope. Nothing in the world is smooth, from the pixelated textures to the blockiness of the entire world.
If we combine the two in a special way, we can create a smooth world, with elegant slopes/terrain, but also let it still be dynamic, composed of nodes that can be broken and placed similar to the current method. The way that nodes would take on their shape, would be very similar to the flowing water system of now, yet a little different. Nodes would have a "mesh" that is a flat, 2-dimensional square, for their rendering. There would be points on the corners, on the edges, and in the center of this mesh, and lines would be drawn between those points to form triangles, that act as the collision plane/texture area of the block. It is too difficult to accurately explain, so here I made two cutaway example-images of what the terrain looks like, with the current system and the proposed system:
Current System:
Current system is blocky, as we all know. Terrain looks rough and un-realistic.
Proposed system:
Proposed system would bend the terrain to match the positions of the nodes in the terrain. Past a certain angle, the grass texture would not be rendered - instead, there would be the dirt texture, because grass usually doesn't grow well on the sides of cliffs or terraces. The stone would act the same as the grass/dirt when exposed.
The way the mesh is bent would depend on what side(s) of the block are next to Air blocks - this way, you would actually be able to see the ceilings of caves, and outcroppings of dirt/stone would appear rounded-off where they are not connected to other stone.
Nodes like Wood, Fences, etc. that are not elements of the terrain, would not be bent like this, or would be bent in different ways (diagonal wooden walls, fences, etc.), because it does not make sense for them to bend with the terrain. The terrain around Fences would bend to accommodate the bases of the fence, and would "extend" the mesh of the fence into the terrain node if it is lower than 50% block height.
This would be much more realistic, and make the game look much better. Although it would still be flat and un-smooth in some places, it would be a step closer to awesomeness - combining the smoothness of the amazing MMORPG worlds with the dynamic node-based environment of Minetest. It would allow players and server owners to "create their own MMORPG", or something like that, by modifying the environment to their liking.
Of course, some computers may not be able to handle this level of awesomeness - which is why it would be configurable, defaulting to Off. However, a servers' configuration would be dominant over clientside configuration, because the collision-planes would be different for the two options.
Thanks for taking your time reading this, and remember to tell us your oppinions on the proposed change via reply - that's what forums are for - but do not be unnecessarily negative.
