[vworld-tech] Ultimate MMO Platform

[Jim Purbrick]

> I think there will be a new indie generation, as the last one 
> becomes fully commercialised, entrenched, and stagnant.

I guess I must count as commercialised and stagnant then, I wondered what
the smell was ;-)

> > I'm not sure that I've seen a viable business yet, although 
> it may be
> > happening now. As far as I can see it file and music sharing 
> > is still mainly copyright flouting anarchic piracy.
> 
> I think one needs to be very careful before one repeats the 
> RIAA's mantra that this is piracy. They don't like it one 
> bit, certainly, but think about the artists before shedding 
> tears over the decline of the labels' empire.

I said it was "mainly copyright flouting anarchic piracy" I didn't say I
didn't like it ;-)

> My original point was, that despite the lack of a business 
> case, sometimes p2p systems get implemented anyway.

Agreed. I wonder if p2p systems would thrive without a big pile of content
(of varying legality).

> Well, even at the extremes, you can still have complete loss 
> and still feel like carrying on. I've played RTSes and before 
> I learnt to use the pause feature, sometimes I would leave a 
> game chugging away by itself for a while and when I returned 
> I'd find half my city decimated. C'est la vie.

We have to cope with internet chugs anyway. As I said I'd like to build a
system that did something over e-mail. p2p probably isn't the biggest step
from there.

> It's a bit like building castles in a sandpit or on a beach. 
> You go away for lunch, and if you're lucky, the tide hasn't 
> yet come back up, and other kids haven't trampled it. 
> Otherwise, your half-built ramparts are a now vague bump in 
> the flat sands, or some dog has crapped all over them.

The social element of MMOs means that things are different each time you
enter anyway. Sometimes your friends are there, sometimes not.

> Even with p2p filesharing, if you put a file in your shared 
> folder, nothing short of a raid by the RIAA will destroy, 
> remove, or even corrupt that file.

So you log on and at the very least what you had last time would still be
there, it just may not have updated to become consistent with other people's
views. I suppose it's like a patch process when you log on, except you may
not get all the patches everyone else has.
 
> That's the other extreme.
> 
> Somewhere in between we have a fair consensus held by the 
> majority in permanent opposition to a vandal minority.

In reality I think people who invest in a world will hound out a vandal
minority, or leave themselves.

> Oh dear... Don't tell me that "MMO" has now been completely 
> appropriated solely for the use of client/server systems or 
> Graphical MUDs?

Sorry, I must spend too long looking at orks ;-)

> I though MMO meant any multiplayer game that involved a 
> massive number of players simultaneously interacting in the 
> same online environment (via the Internet).

A much better definition.

> I'd agree that X is unlikely to be like any of the current 
> server arbitrated games.

I'd like to know what it is, but that's another discussion.

> There are no rules in real life apart from the laws of nature.

But we are trying to imagine some kind of game here. At least my original
question was about a platform for some game, even if it hasn't been invented
yet. In order to do that you need someway of keeping score and if you have
100 PCs all telling you that the score is different it could make it
difficult to decide who's won.

> There are groups of people that threaten force or other 
> penalty as a means to persuade other people to adhere to a 
> set of rules (society+police+imprisonment), but God does not 
> enforce these, though many would like to think so.

Again another interesting discussion to be had, but not the one I'm trying
madly to steer back towards! ;-)

> Where's today's CERN eh?

Games companies. They develop virtual worlds for their games, but may just
end up enabling cyberspace as a by product.

> Hehe. This ball you've left here sure does have a lot of 
> shoulder prints in it.

I think we're after slightly different things. I want to know what people
here think the Ultimate MMO platform would look like from a technical
perspective, without caring about the funding or buisiness model side of it.

There are interesting issues to be discussed there, but at the moment I'm
still mainly thinking about what you'd ideally want from a technical
perspective if you were going to make an MMO.