[MUD-Dev] A place of my own

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <Pine.SUN.3.96.970925150136.3049B-100000 at sun38>, on 09/25/97 
   at 12:50 PM, Shawn Halpenny <malachai at iname.com> said:

>First, I'll draw the distinction between security of one's space and
>security of the objects one designs.  The latter is managed at a
>fundamental game-object level and will (hopefully) be completely
>ignorable by those using the objects.  It will prevent things like
>Bubba coming along and using his free-user programming talents to
>wipe all the descriptions for the rooms of your house and remove all
>the locks on the doors without you saying he could.  

>The security of one's space can be managed at a much higher level (I
>say "can be" since it is certainly not required).  The player can buy
>locks for his doors, for example, or program up locks of his own. 
>Now these locks can still be bypassed if the intruder is aware of the
>interface to the locks, and has the appropriate skills and what not
>to get around them.  The difference in this case is that the intruder
>will be required to use objects and methods that haven't been
>programmed by some user (or that have, but have been accepted into
>the game as valid objects (*)).  I'm not yet entirely sure this
>scheme will be possible in the fashion I'd like, but I hope to have a
>better idea once I've finished the fundamental game object design. 
>At the moment, it seems possible and even plausible.

>* Any user can create any object that he would like.  The catch is
>that the object is allowed limited interaction with other game
>objects--it cannot modify any object's data if the object it wants to
>modify has been accepted by an administrator.  It can, however,
>freely interact with (not entirely the same as modify) any other
>user-programmed object that has not yet been accepted by an
>administrator.  This is one of the base premises for my low-level
>object security.  More details at some point in the future since I
>want to bounce this off all of you, but at the moment the model is in
>such a form as I would be embarrassed to post.

FWLIW: This would seem very close to the security model I've espoused
here and am using.

<<Yes!  A one sentence ack to a two page post!  Rahhh!>>

>Anything.  There's no reason a player couldn't have a family.  The
>question becomes "how does this player that just built a house get a
>family?"  Buying one seems rather awkward, but so does deriving one
>from a generic family object (and how would that sort of thing be
>represented in a mud world--for me, I suppose a possible out is that
>they are cloned or grown in a vat because those sorts of things are
>perfectly reasonable in my scenario).

If you have not yet read "The Unconquered Country" by Geoff Ryman,
run, do not walk, and go find a copy and read it.  You will not regret
it.  It will change your views on bio and genetic engineering.

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...