November 1998
- ADMIN: Unsubscriptions J C Lawrence
- ScryMUD [CUSTOM] Code release. Ben Greear
- Designgoals for CoolComponentCore(Was MUD-Dev's...) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Designgoals for CoolComponentCore (Was MUD-Dev's...) Niklas Elmqvist
- Designgoals for CoolComponentCore (Was MUD-Dev's...) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- DevMUD: CVS Tree is ready. Are your sources? J C Lawrence
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article J C Lawrence
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article Jon Leonard
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article Adam J. Thornton
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article J C Lawrence
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article Chris Gray
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article Jon Leonard
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article David Bennett
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article Alex Oren
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article Chris Gray
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article Marc Hernandez
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article Chris Gray
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article Vadim Tkachenko
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article Jon Leonard
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article Alex Oren
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article Alex Oren
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article Chris Gray
- Designgoals for CoolComponentCore (Was MUD-Dev's...) Chris Gray
- Fallacy Watch and DevMUD Vision (was ... CoolComponentCore) Hal Black
- Fallacy Watch and DevMUD Vision (was ... CoolComponentCore) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Fallacy Watch and DevMUD Vision (was ... CoolComponentCore) Jon Leonard
- Fallacy Watch and DevMUD Vision (was ... CoolComponentCore) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Flamebite of the day Vadim Tkachenko
- META: DevMUD, MUD-Dev, and (list) futures J C Lawrence
- META: DevMUD, MUD-Dev, and (list) futures Jon Leonard
- META: DevMUD, MUD-Dev, and (list) futures James Wilson
- META: DevMUD, MUD-Dev, and (list) futures J C Lawrence
- META: DevMUD, MUD-Dev, and (list) futures J C Lawrence
- DevMud RFC #1 - Was DevMUD considerations and the Halloween article James Wilson
- My vision for DevMUD Jon Leonard
- My vision for DevMUD Niklas Elmqvist
- My vision for DevMUD Jon Leonard
- My vision for DevMUD Thandor
- My vision for DevMUD Robert Woods
- My vision for DevMUD ApplePiMan@aol.com
- My vision for DevMUD Thandor
- My vision for DevMUD Jon Leonard
- My vision for DevMUD Adam J. Thornton
- My vision for DevMUD Jon Leonard
- My vision for DevMUD Adam J. Thornton
- My vision for DevMUD Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- My vision for DevMUD ApplePiMan@aol.com
- My vision for DevMUD James Wilson
- My vision for DevMUD ApplePiMan@aol.com
- My vision for DevMUD James Wilson
- My vision for DevMUD Jon A. Lambert
- My vision for DevMUD Darrin Hyrup
- My vision for DevMUD Jon Leonard
- My vision for DevMUD J C Lawrence
- My vision for DevMUD ApplePiMan@aol.com
- My vision for DevMUD ApplePiMan@aol.com
- My vision for DevMUD ApplePiMan@aol.com
- My vision for DevMUD Jon A. Lambert
- My vision for DevMUD Hal Black
- My vision for DevMUD ApplePiMan@aol.com
- My vision for DevMUD Jon A. Lambert
- My vision for DevMUD Chris Gray
- My vision for DevMUD Chris Gray
- My vision for DevMUD Ben Greear
- My vision for DevMUD Jo Dillon
- My vision for DevMUD Ben Greear
- DevMUD Prototyping (was META: DevMUD, MUD-Dev, and (list) futures) Jon Leonard
- DevCore Project Management Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- DevCore Project Management Adam Wiggins
- DevCore Project Management Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- DevCore Project Management Simon Duggan
- DevCore Project Management Jon Leonard
- DevCore Project Management Chris Gray
- DevCore Project Management Darrin Hyrup
- Fallacy Watch and DevMUD Vision (was ... CoolComponentCore) Chris Gray
- Drama Theory Ling
- Moral license (My vision for DevMUD) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Moral license (My vision for DevMUD) ApplePiMan@aol.com
- Moral license (My vision for DevMUD) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Fwd: My vision for DevMUD Jon Leonard
- DevMUD Prototyping Niklas Elmqvist
- Altima... Thandor
- Fwd: My vision for DevMUD Darrin Hyrup
- Tim O'Reilly's "Open Letter to Microsoft" ApplePiMan@aol.com
- Tim O'Reilly's "Open Letter to Microsoft" Adam Wiggins
- [DevMud] quick question... Franklyn Colebrooke, Jr.
- signal to noise... Andrew Wilson
- "knights and merchants" - NYTimes review James Wilson
- ADMIN: DevMUD posting authority promotions J C Lawrence
- A Small Conceptual Object System For MUDs Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- A Small Conceptual Object System For MUDs Emil Eifrem
- A Small Conceptual Object System For MUDs Mark Gritter
- A Small Conceptual Object System For MUDs Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- A Small Conceptual Object System For MUDs Jon A. Lambert
- Random Quest Generation chris@realm.zfn.uni-bremen.de
- Random Quest Generation Chris Gray
- Random Quest Generation Michael.Willey@abnamro.com
- Random Quest Generation J C Lawrence
- Random Quest Generation J C Lawrence
- Quick socket question Dr. Cat
- Quick socket question Jon Leonard
- Quick socket question Ben Greear
- Quick socket question Chris Gray
- Quick socket question J C Lawrence
- Quick socket question J C Lawrence
- Quick socket question Adam Wiggins
- Quick socket question Petri Virkkula
- ScryMUD [CUSTOM] Released under GNU General Public License Ben Greear
- Quick socket answer Dr. Cat
- Rebol Ling
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... quzah [sotfhome]
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Chris Gray
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... quzah [sotfhome]
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... JavaAl@aol.com
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Adam Wiggins
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... quzah [sotfhome]
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Nathan F Yospe
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... quzah [sotfhome]
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Hal Black
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Ling
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Ben Greear
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... quzah [sotfhome]
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... quzah [sotfhome]
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Hal Black
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Peck, Matthew x96724c1
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Nathan F Yospe
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Ben Greear
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... JavaAl@aol.com
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Chris Gray
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Nathan F Yospe
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Adam J. Thornton
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Franklyn Colebrooke, Jr.
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Emil Eifrem
- Spell components, chemistry, and the like... Nathan F Yospe
- ADMIN: Attributions J C Lawrence
- AMIN: Unsubscriptions J C Lawrence
- OO Design Question Brad Leach
- OO Design Question J C Lawrence
- Chemistry [Warning, scientific content] Peck, Matthew x96724c1
- MUD clients, testing Chris Gray
- MUD clients, testing Scatter
- MUD clients, testing J C Lawrence
- JOB: Project manager and scaling/networking guru needed for game project J C Lawrence
- More module ideas Mark Gritter
- The Innerworld Project Niklas Elmqvist
- META: FAQ's bios. Ling
- Mage 2 Mage 0.89 J C Lawrence
- Game library notes J C Lawrence
- World Building Page Ling
- ScryMUD [CUSTOM] Code release 1.8.1 Ben Greear
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Niklas Elmqvist
I have a little problem (which is not in any way unrelated to MUDs,
although it is border-line), so I thought I would post to this list in the
hope of getting some advice from some more experienced members.
Here's the situation:
I'm currently drafting a proposal for a group project course me and my
fellow classmates will undertake next year. This course will include a
range of several different projects which all students will be able to
choose from -- I am aiming to contribute one of the project ideas.
The subject is the construction of a complete DIS (Distributed Interactive
Simulations) system with real-time simulators used for education as well
as entertainment. Hopefully, we will be able to come up with a system that
will accept a plethoria of heterogenous clients (potentially hundreds of
them) connecting from an unsafe network (such as the Internet) and playing
in a shared world. With enough flexibility built into the system, I am
envisioning sort of a universal battlefield simulator able to support
simulations of all kinds of battles -- why not pop onto the net, take a
look at the current scenarios being played out, and then jump into a
simulation of Omaha Beach at D-Day, for example? Or why not the Battle of
Endor, Thermopylae, Hastings or Gettysburg?
That's the idea, anyway. Of course, I am concealing all of these
entertainment aspects in a cloak of respectability; I am not entirely sure
everyone would approve of a game project! ;)
I am also recommending the project members to release the simulator system
as Open Source under the GPL at the end of the project (GNU Sim?), so
hopefully, this quite ambitious undertaking will bring something back to
the community. You can do a whole lot with eight enthusiastic developers
in a full year! (Despite the fact that we won't be exclusively working on
this project.)
Enough chattering -- this brings me to the problem. The term DIS is quite
general; for one thing, there is a DIS standard. I have some problems with
it, though, and I am looking for justification of the deviations I want to
make from the standard (in general, I believe it is a good read). One of
the keypoints of DIS is that it is a strict peer-to-peer architecture,
which means that there is no central server which makes the decisions and
calls the shots. For example, in the DIS standard, the shooting client is
responsible for reporting the shot and the ballistics to the targeted
client, but it us up to the targeted client to decide whether the shot is
a hit or not, and the extents of the damages. In a trusted network
environment (such as the "safe" LANs the US DoD no doubt is using DIS on),
this is no problem. To me, however, this instinctively feels like a big
stumbling block in an untrusted network such as the Internet -- horrible
visions of Interstate '76 and Diablo multiplayer rise up to haunt me. In a
naive DIS implementation running on the devious Internet, clients could
easily be hacked (especially if the client is Open Source) and modified to
always tell the shooter that the shot missed (or that the damages are
minimal). Clearly, this simply won't do. (Yes, one in Raph's collection of
laws, the one about clients being in the hands of the enemy, does spring
to mind.)
So ATM I am seriously thinking about proposing a client-server
architecture instead of peer-to-peer. I now need justification for this
decision. Basically, I am looking for all the good arguments why
client-server should be used instead of peer-to-peer as well as the
advantages and disadvantages of each approach. Some sample questions:
- Is it a sound decision (using client-server)?
- Can peer-to-peer be implemented without a lot of hassle with
authentication and so on? How?
- Is it possible in an Open Source project where anyone has access to the
source?
- Are there any large-scale multiplayer games (MMPOG, I believe they are
called) which uses a peer-to-peer architecture?
(Besides, it is much more fun to write a bad-ass server than a lot of
uninteresting clients, which might be justification enough... Sort of.)
While I am at it and provided the answer is "yes, client-server is the way
to go" I might as well ask some additional questions:
- How would you keep the "distributed" in DIS with a client-server
architecture?
- What things can be trusted to the client? (Yes, I know there has been a
rather extensive thread on that.) Does anyone know, for example,
what the client-server relationships/responsibilities are for
games such as Quake?
Any comments, suggestion, pointers or links to documentation are welcome.
Thanks for your time.
-- Niklas Elmqvist (d97elm@dtek.chalmers.se) ----------------------
"The trouble with being a god is that you've got no one to
pray to."
-- Terry Pratchett, Small Gods - DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer J C Lawrence
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Niklas Elmqvist
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer J C Lawrence
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Ling
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Niklas Elmqvist
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Ling
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Nathan F Yospe
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer J C Lawrence
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Niklas Elmqvist
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Marc Hernandez
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Marc Hernandez
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Mik Clarke
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Adam Wiggins
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Jon Leonard
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Niklas Elmqvist
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Greg Underwood
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Greg Underwood
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Marc Hernandez
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Greg Underwood
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Niklas Elmqvist
- DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer Greg Underwood
- Ruminations on CVS and developing in the Bazaar Ben Greear
- Ruminations on CVS and developing in the Bazaar Chris Gray
- Ruminations on CVS and developing in the Bazaar greear@cyberhighway.net
- Ruminations on CVS and developing in the Bazaar J C Lawrence
- Ruminations on CVS and developing in the Bazaar greear@cyberhighway.net
- Ruminations on CVS and developing in the Bazaar J C Lawrence
- Ruminations on CVS and developing in the Bazaar Petri Virkkula
- DevMUD: List data, subscription, and the rest J C Lawrence
- DevMUD: List data, subscription, and the rest J C Lawrence
- Atention SSH/Java-developers (MindTerm update) J C Lawrence
- ScryMUD/Hegemon code Release Ben Greear