February 2000
- datagram protocol design theory? (Question about multithreaded servers) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Library error J C Lawrence
- Semi-OT: Linux support in commercial MUDs? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- From the Apache Referrer logs J C Lawrence
- From the Apache Referrer logs Kris Van Hees
- good muds for ai programming? Robert Zubek
- good muds for ai programming? J C Lawrence
- Event Scheduling Phillip Lenhardt
- Event Scheduling J C Lawrence
- Event Scheduling cg@ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA
- Event Scheduling J C Lawrence
- Event Scheduling Phillip Lenhardt
- Event Scheduling J C Lawrence
- Event Scheduling Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Event Scheduling Cynbe ru Taren
- Event Scheduling Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Event Scheduling Cynbe ru Taren
- Event Scheduling Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Event Scheduling Miroslav Silovic
- Event Scheduling Jp Calderone
- Event Scheduling Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Event Scheduling Miroslav Silovic
- Event Scheduling J C Lawrence
- Event Scheduling Cynbe ru Taren
- Event Scheduling Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- IO Speed Suggestions Christopher Kohnert
- IO Speed Suggestions J C Lawrence
- Couple of articles Koster, Raph
- Couple of articles Dr Richard A. Bartle
- OT: Soliciting advice from Canadians Alex Oren
- MUD Specific Building pages MichelleThompson
- MUD Specific Building pages J C Lawrence
- Embedding Python icecube@ihug.co.nz
- Embedding Python icecube@ihug.co.nz
- Embedding Python J C Lawrence
- Embedding Python Todd McKimmey
- Embedding Python Oliver Jowett
- Embedding Python Todd McKimmey
- ADMIN: List post rejections J C Lawrence
- distributed objects Kevin Littlejohn
- distributed objects Vijay Weasel Prabhakar
- distributed objects Brandon J. Rickman
- distributed objects J C Lawrence
- distributed objects Koster, Raph
- distributed objects Vijay Weasel Prabhakar
- distributed objects David Bennett
- distributed objects Phillip Lenhardt
- distributed objects cjones@one.net
- distributed objects F. Randall Farmer
- distributed objects Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- distributed objects Kevin Littlejohn
- distributed objects J C Lawrence
- distributed objects Gary Whitten
- distributed objects Balthazaar
- distributed objects J C Lawrence
- distributed objects Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- distributed objects Eli Stevens {Grey}
- distributed objects Jon A. Lambert
- distributed objects Charles Hughes
- distributed objects Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- distributed objects Charles Hughes
- distributed objects J C Lawrence
- distributed objects J C Lawrence
- distributed objects Charles Hughes
- distributed objects Charles Hughes
- distributed objects Laurent Bossavit
- distributed objects Kevin Littlejohn
- distributed objects markm@caplet.com
- distributed objects KevinL
- Distributed Objects Justin Rogers
- Security J C Lawrence
- commercial muds and cable TV (was code base inquiry ) Sellers, Michael
- commercial muds and cable TV (was code base inquiry ) Matthew Mihaly
- commercial muds and cable TV (was code base inq uiry ) Sellers, Michael
- commercial muds and cable TV (was code base inq uiry ) Matthew Mihaly
- business models Matthew Mihaly
- business models Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- business models Vincent Archer
- business models Dave Rickey
- a shrinking pool of players? Johan J Ingles-le Nobel
- a shrinking pool of players? Matthew Mihaly
- a shrinking pool of players? Sellers, Michael
- a shrinking pool of players? Bryce Harrington
- a shrinking pool of players? Travis S. Casey
- a shrinking pool of players? PartyG2816@aol.com
- a shrinking pool of players? J C Lawrence
- a shrinking pool of players? Sellers, Michael
- a shrinking pool of players? Sellers, Michael
- a shrinking pool of players? PartyG2816@aol.com
- a shrinking pool of players? Ryan P.
- a shrinking pool of players? J C Lawrence
- a shrinking pool of players? Koster, Raph
- a shrinking pool of players? Matthew Mihaly
- a shrinking pool of players? Koster, Raph
- a shrinking pool of players? Chris Turner
- a shrinking pool of players? Matthew Mihaly
- a shrinking pool of players? Chris Turner
- a shrinking pool of players? Draymoor
- a shrinking pool of players? Koster, Raph
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Michael Hohensee
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Ted Milker
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications David Bennett
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Ted Milker
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications John Bertoglio
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Justin Rogers
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Eli Stevens {Grey}
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications John Bertoglio
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Koster, Raph
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Lo, Kam
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Justin Rogers
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Joel Dillon
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Justin Rogers
- Next gen MUD wishlist Bryce Harrington
- Next gen MUD wishlist Bruce
- Next gen MUD wishlist Bryce Harrington
- Next gen MUD wishlist Bruce
- Next gen MUD wishlist J C Lawrence
- Next gen MUD wishlist Chris Jones
- Next gen MUD wishlist adam@treyarch.com
- Next gen MUD wishlist Sellers, Michael
- Next gen MUD wishlist adam@treyarch.com
- Next gen MUD wishlist Bruce
adam@treyarch.com wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Feb 2000, Bruce wrote:
> > If all of this is to be the 'Next generation' of MUDs, then we (the mud
> > world) are largely already there. MOO and Cold have been here at this
> > level for some time, or had the capabilities of being at this level at
> > the core architecture level. They've had graphical clients. Some of
> > them have had coordinate based systems. They've been able to handle
> > 100-500 users. That said, I've moved on from those systems for reasons
> > explained in the list archives.
> >
> > Isn't it time to really move on to the next generation?
>
> Which begs the question, of course: what really IS the next generation?
Since I like questions so much, I'd have to wonder if we really have an
idea of what the current generation is? :)
From my perspective having worked with Cold, the current generation of
servers provides, from the developer's point of view, the following:
* Easy to use networking primitives.
* Automatic memory management.
* Automatic persistence.
* Simple datatypes like lists, dictionaries, strings, buffers.
* An interpreted language for doing all development work.
* The language is dynamicly typed, which makes for rapid development,
but no compile-time type checking.
* Highly dynamic object model.
MOO provides much the same. The current generation has some issues
though:
* Persistence is often not extensible and the ability to modify how
persistence works isn't provided by the driver.
* Datatypes are nice as provided, but aren't easily extensible.
* Sometimes, you just need that native code performance.
* No access to threads or other ways to take advantage of SMP.
* Poor documentation (not an architecture issue, but a problem all the
same).
Some of the 'next generation' projects starting up today don't seem to
have a solid idea of where things stand in terms of history, or what the
issues are with the existing systems. But that's where things stood 2
years ago as well.
Given that, maybe it is interesting to look at why these servers provide
what they do at the programming level?
I think it is fairly safe to say that one of the goals of Cold at least
is to provide services to programmers to make it easier for them to get
their work done. Automatic persistence and memory management work
towards this by removing work from the developer. Having a dynamic
object model allows things to change at runtime in an interactive style
of development without rebooting the server. This can also be useful
for allowing fixes to server code on the fly, without requiring a reboot
or any downtime. The standard datatypes fulfill a role similar to that
of the STL in C++. Being that the server is fully interpreted, it is
also much less likely to crash. Nearly all of these features are aimed
directly at allowing developers to work faster and more effectively.
Addressing some of the things that I listed as issues with the current
generation would serve to help make it easier to write code:
extensible persistence and datatypes. Adding threads would make it
harder to program, but _might_ provide some assistance with scalability
depending on the server design.
So, I'd look at next generation systems as taking much of what we have
today in the more advanced systems and making it more extensible and
easier, providing a framework for server development that is easy to
use, but doesn't limit the developers using it to those datatypes that
the original server developers bothered to write support for.
Also, I'd look at the varying types of people doing development. There
are 3 categories that I can see easily:
* Server gurus. They design and implement the architecture.
* Programmers. They sit between the builders and the server gurus
and write a lot of higher level code implementing game logic
within the architecture defined by the gurus.
* Builders. They build the world and customize the objects to
flesh out the experience of being within the world.
Each of these groups of people has a differing set of needs,
capabilities and interests. The toolset used for world development
should take this into account and provide the appropriate tools for the
developers.
Of course, I've completely ignored game design and game-oriented issues
here.
> Is it simply more scalability, so that instead of 500 people online we go
> to 500,000?
>
> Is it more immersive worlds via graphics and sound?
>
> Is it more malleable worlds, with more 'realistic' entity interactions, and
> especially more complex player<->world interactions?
>
> Is it better tools for organizing societies within the mud world, so that
> players can better interact with each other?
>
> Is it enhanced building/scripting tools so that huge, complex, dynamic
> worlds can be created without requiring thousands of work-hours of
> effort?
I think it is all of this. All of this is possible at the technology
level we currently have today, except for the scalability. What does it
take to do these things? At a minimum, it requires the appropriate
programming tools that are easy for the developers to work with!
- Bruce
- Next gen MUD wishlist Bryce Harrington
- Codebase Ideas punitac@prodigy.net
- Codebase Ideas Bryce Harrington
- Codebase Ideas Aaron Mitchell
- OT: Money as motivator (was code base inquiry ) J C Lawrence
- OT: Money as motivator (was code base inquiry ) Matthew Mihaly
- Guide Applicant : Player Ratio Geoffrey A. MacDougall
- Guide Applicant : Player Ratio Matthew Mihaly
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #286 - 13 msgs Dr. Cat
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #286 - 13 msgs Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #286 - 13 msgs Koster, Raph
- voice vs. text Matthew Mihaly
- voice vs. text Justin Rogers
- voice vs. text John Bertoglio
- voice vs. text Lovecraft
- voice vs. text Lo, Kam
- voice vs. text Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Client side prediction Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Client side prediction Koster, Raph
- Client side prediction Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Client side prediction Justin Rogers
- Client side prediction Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Client side prediction Koster, Raph
- Client side prediction Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Dynamic help files, was code base inquiry Richard Woolcock
- OpenSource licenses for game rules? J C Lawrence
- To all the devoted! (fwd) J C Lawrence
- Newbies Johan J Ingles-le Nobel
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #288 - 9 msgs Dr. Cat
- (fwd) Commercial-use Restrictions on Code Bases (was: help me find 100% free graphical mud) J C Lawrence
- (fwd) ADMIN: "A Classification Of Muds" [was 'In defence of stock muds...'] J C Lawrence
- Distribution Geir Harald Hansen
- player persistence Matthew Mihaly
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 Derek Snider
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 J C Lawrence
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 Justin Lockshaw
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 Christopher Allen
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 Matthew Mihaly
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 Joe Andrieu
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 Kristen L. Koster
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 Richard A. Bartle
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 Bruce
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 David Bennett
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 J C Lawrence
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 J C Lawrence
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 J C Lawrence
- [Off-topic] AAAI symposium (was: GDC-2000) Robert Zubek
- MSP Richard Ross
- Privateer-style mu*? Bobby Bailey
- Minimum community sizes Dan Root
- Minimum community sizes Koster, Raph
- Minimum community sizes Dan Root
- Minimum community sizes adam@treyarch.com
- Minimum community sizes Matthew Mihaly
- Minimum community sizes David Bennett
- Minimum community sizes Matthew Mihaly
- Pike codebase Daniel Podlejski
- chil@gate.net Joel Kelso