[MUD-Dev] Remote client connection

[Richard Tew]

> From: Kyle Leithoff [mailto:bortoas at ksu.edu]
> 
> Let me begin by introducing myself I guess.  I'm currently a 

Hello Kyle

> Is this something which could be used to make a world more 
> persistent? 
> Rather than have a character removed to storage when a player 
> logs out,
> would it be feasible to allow updates to be sent via a pager or cell
> phone of what's happening to a character, then allow that player to
> modify the characters behaviour through the cell phone?  I 
> guess working
> somewhat like stock trading and the updates you can receive now.
> 
> Would this be something that you'd want to do?  Would the added
> resources to support this outweigh the niftyness of the 
> feature?  This,
> from what I can see, would only add to the average connection time of
> players.

This is something me and a colleague discussed a while back.  Well,
sort of.. The opportunity came up where if we could write a SMS
to mud gateway we could earn some money from it.  However, we couldn't
see a way to provide a usable interface to the mud.

Although, recently I have been playing interactive fiction on my
(borrowed) palm pilot and it seems to me this might be a possible
solution reading your suggestion.  I think you can connect through
your cellphone via the infrared thingy in the Palm Pilot so that
might provide a somewhat better interface than the limited
cellphone keypad and miniscule screen.

Theres some potential there anyway.

> Finally, would players use such a feature?  Obviously, with a 
> text mud,
> it's far more useful, as a player could nearly operate as if from an
> actually PC.  For graphical muds, this would be far more limiting to
> certain situations.  Perhaps after the characters finished a certain
> task, the player is notified and can opt to change tasks.

I don't see why not. Although, I don't see much market for new muds
created around the use of a cellphone interface anywhere but places in
Europe where cellphones are very popular. For muds where players are
hooked on and want to stay in touch when they are not near a
terminal I can see them using a simplified interface on a bare cellphone
to access it.  Richer players might have opportunity to have the PDA/
cellphone alternative.

Based on my interactive fiction experiences playing through a cellphone
and palm pilot would be very usuable although I am not sure what the
connection/lag would be like. If you have a palm pilot and want to see
what playing using a palm pilot might be like, try out PalmFrotz.
(I recommend the game Photopia :)

Richard.



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