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
- 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
On Wed, 25 Nov 1998, Jon Leonard wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 24, 1998 at 10:06:23PM +0100, Niklas Elmqvist wrote:
>
> [building a Distributed Interactive Simulations system as a school 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.)
>
> Make sure your school permits releasing your project as open source.
> The school I attended probably would not allow this.
Really? I must look into this. In a similar vein, would your school allow
you to turn a project like this into a commercial venture and earn money
out of it? Why/why not?
> Also make sure that GPL is the license you want, though that's a
> flamewar we don't need.
Right. I can't say I have a personal preference on what license to use, as
long as it is free. And I also believe that it would be nice if all
changes, additions and modifications of the code are free as well (in
this case, I'm not sure I want somebody to take the code and start making
a profit from it). The way many American universities have developed
hi-tech software (SPICE, ) is my inspiration.
> [dishonest clients/peers problem, as in Diablo multiplayer. Details snipped]
>
> This is a fundamental problem. If you can't trust the people you're playing
> with, then a peer-to-peer design is worthless.
Indeed. That was my feeling as well, but I needed someone other than me
(someone with a little more experience as well) to say it. :)
> > 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:
>
> These aren't the only two options, of course.
What are the other options, then?
> > - Is it a sound decision (using client-server)?
>
> For small-scale stuff, yes. If the simulations get really big this requires
> too much compute hardware and bandwidth in the main server. If you don't
> aspire to something on the scale of UOL it should be fine.
Sure, but I was under the impression that UOL, EverQuest and Asheron's
Call all use big bad-ass servers. Don't they? Oh, and Quake 2 does too,
and that game allows for about 128 simultaneous players provided you've
got some good hardware. Does anyone know of the computational as well as
bandwidth loads imposed by games on the scale of large-scale Quake, UOL
and EverQuest servers?
> > - Is it possible in an Open Source project where anyone has access to the
> > source?
>
> Open source doesn't change much in trust situations. You can demonstrate
> that there aren't traps in the source code, though.
Right, but I am thinking that it is much easier for players to hack the
clients if the client is open source. That is, UOL would probably have a
*much* harder time if all a dishonest player would have to do is change a
few lines and then recompile the binary. Having to fire up a debugger to
reverse-engineer the code or sniff the network packets to figure out the
transfer protocol probably weeds out all but the most enterprising
players.
> > 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?
>
> I'd recommend a hybrid architecture. Insteed of a single server, use a
> network of computation peers that interact using the DIS protocols. Each
> of these can have several "display clients" which take care of UI stuff
> without handling any computations that need to be trustworthy.
Hmmm... But the computation peers would be like a server cluster, since
they most definitely could *not* be dished out among the players? Yes,
that would certainly help in the scalability department.
> If you have a trustworthy network and players, just use one peer per player.
Right. This is probably what the DoD DIS implementations do.
> For smaller games, just use one peer as the server. They handle multiple
> clients, right?
In this context: yes, they would.
> > - 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?
>
> This depends on what you consider acceptable behavior. A lot of games like
> this can have "cyborg" or AI players. If this isn't a problem, then you
> can trust a fair amount of data to the client. If it is, you have to trust
> the client to some degree. Design your system so that data you care about
> can't be compromised by people/code you don't trust.
Cyborgs or bots will always be a problem, and one that is hard to address.
Hopefully, the sheer size of the scenarios will ensure that this won't
have *that* much of an influence (even if the German machine gunner has a
aimbot, he will most certainly not be able to thwart the entire D-Day
Allied landing force single-handedly).
> Jon Leonard
Btw, thanks!
-- 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 Greg Underwood
- 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 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