Fantasy google earth - dumb idea?

Caffy's 3d earth screensaver thread got me thinking about how neat it would be if there was a fantasy google earth - sort of a Google MiddleEarth, if you will - in which you could zoom down from a planet-wide view to see all the little fantasy continents, and lower still, to check out all their landmarks and cities (etc).

Ok, so it'd be pretty useless, but I reckon that it would be quite fascinating - and it'd also be an intriguing creative exercise for writers and worldbuilders.

Dumb idea?

If you could set it up so that everyone could register and contribute their own portion of the landscape somehow, it could be pretty popular. Give it a little bit of that MMORPG style, only instead of decorating and furnishing your home, you get to design a small piece of a huge landscape. That might appeal.

I think something like this already exists... can't remember the name of it though. And I can't remember if it was set in a fantasy setting.

How about Spore?

From the videos I saw, the planets are not nearly as detailed as google earth is.

And also I'm thinking more along the lines of it being a "creative exercise" rather than "game" - although having said that, Spore looks interesting.

How about a nice fractal planet like in Terragen 2? ;-D

I think this isn't a bad idea for world-builders. Especially if you can load the planet into a game and use it as a map. Think, the over-world map in the Final Fantasy 8.

Hmm, a creative exercise could be just about as fun and enjoyable as a game. My sister, for a long time, enjoyed creating maps for Duke Nukem with their Build map editor. (I never liked any of her maps... but don't tell her that. :p )

Will you be doing this with any 3D? It would be cool if you could build a house of yours and then zoom in from far away, then go flying around / through the house you built. Though simply building a landscape around your buildings might be nice too.

I think it would be cool to have a historical one, ie the days of the greeks/egyptians or middleages europe.

i also wana see a google mars or google Y'uranus :)

Just for fun.