From: mjg223 (mjg223@is7.nyu.edu)
Date: Wed Jul 19 2000 - 17:44:02 MDT
On Wed, 19 Jul 2000, White, Ryan wrote:
> To prevent hackers from creating their own virtual super-weapons or making
> super-characters (which really unbalances the game and makes it unfun for
> most players), EVERYTHING - characters, objects, etc. actually exists on
> Origin's servers. What you buy when you purchase the game is an account,
> the interface with Origin's servers, and all the graphics. The states of
> all of the objects associated with your account are maintained by them.
Yes - If it's a competitive games, rather than a experiment in
collaborative lucid dreaming, I suppose you do need some system of
constraints enforced by some disinterested 3rd party.
> I agree that players should have the ability to design new graphics
> and objects, or even new places - but for this to occur in an
> environment such as the one above, one would need a dedicated user
> design system, built on a foundation of the publication of in-game
> object properties and a strong set of rules, whereby players could
> submit their inventions for review by a 'game upgrade team'. If an
> object is accepted, it must be uploaded into all of the servers (so
> player X with object Y doesn't mysteriously lose object Y when he
> crosses into another server) and would probably be uploaded to
> players' machines in the form of auto-patches on connection with the
Maybe there's some middle ground: Perhaps you let players write whatever
code they want, but you place restrictions on what API's they're allowed
to call and what arguments they're allowed to pass. Like a system of
permissions: root can call anything he wants, but if sword wants to call
wound(), then the parameter it passes must be in the range allowed by the
server-side 'wound-permissions' database. Permissions cost money - it
costs you N credits to load an object and give it wound(0..M) permissions
- so you create a market for conjoured/contructed swords, or anything else
(magic portals, flying carpets) that does something not allowed by the
defaults. Idk - just a thought.
> game servers, as part of an 'update schedule'.
> All of this assumes that you want the 'original game world' to be uniform
> for your global user base. No doubt if the game is open source, the players
> are going to create their own little virtual worlds. I really like this idea
> too, but if this is where you (now were getting to 'we', because this is
> what Wil and I have been talking about:) want to take it, what you'd really
> want to be designing is not necessarily a game, but a object-oriented game
> design program and the engines to run it. Like an 'Adventure Construction
> Set' (first implemented by Electronic Arts back in my Commodore 64 days -
> loved that game.)
ACS! I remember playing with ACS on an Apple II, back when I was in
grade school. It was really very clever - I remember painting my own
tiles, inventing my own objects, etc. I don't remember... could you
write your own tunes, or did you just get to pick from the ones it
shipped with? I remember copying a bunch of tiles from Ultima 5...
A modernized, networked multiplayer ACS is a truly noble endeavor. I
salute you.
-matt
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