[MUD-Dev] Custom Server Roll Call?

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

(not really sure how interesting my answers to these questions are, but eh,
maybe I can provide some comfort for fellow listmemebers?)

Greg Munt wrote:
> 1. What earth-shattering event made you abandon 4 years of work, to support
> a minority audience?
> Don't get me wrong, it's commendable - BUT FOUR YEARS WORK? Are your brains
> leaking out of your ears again? :-)

Yeah, it is pouring out of my toe nails. (I'm like Goofey and my brain is in
my feet). Oh, it isn't a homogenous 4 years of work.  It is more like 4
years of figuring out and small level prototyping some ideas (like trying to
get different renderers up to an acceptable framerate), as well as sketching
and designing as well as reading and writing.  I see no point in
reimplementing what everybody else are doing! Of course, maybe I will end up
doing it because the other options are somewhat costly, but then I will at
least know why!!! :-)

The design I abandoned was more like a half year of work, and I haven't
implemented much the past year. The reason I abandoned it was that the
implementation was too expensive and heterogenous (little reuse). Mostly due
to a never-quite-seen it approach which makes it risky, partially because it
was graphical and spatial and simulationist, which increase both design and
implementation costs. And then, I realized that the end result would not be
what I am interested in, so basically the cost/reward ratio didn't do it :) 
And of course, there is a limit to how much you can slice down a design
without making it uninteresting/unusable. Anyway, it is not abandoned, it is
more like chopped to pieces. Some of the ideas will certainly flourish in my
future thinking. 

So basically nothing is wasted, I intend to iterate until the different
pieces fits together. I think a lot of my messing has to do with artistic
ambitions though (in terms of original design, implementation and
presentation... :(  The major change is in my philosophy which now has
shifte from bottom-up (hard core simulation), to top-down.  This makes the
previous approach unusable.

> 2. How are you proposing to support handicapped people, specifically the
> blind?

speechsynthesis / braille-devices / spamming restrictions?

I'm not sure if I will be able to support people with cerebral parasis
(wrong spelling :( ) though...

> BTW, I remember this list being more active when it was
> invitation-only. I remember getting 20-30 messages a day. Has my brain gone
> cuckoo, is everyone just busy, or have posters left - to be replaced by
> lurkers?

I guess the most spammy subjects have been tried and tested already, and JC
is not as active in keeping the ball rolling. Somebody has to throw in a new
ball to play with when the old one is leaving the field... (I suspect that
he used to keep a list of balls to throw in on the arena or something?)

--
Ola Fosheim Groestad,Norway      http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~olag/


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