[MUD-Dev] Re: Cyberspace in the 21at century-- (long)

[Eric Rhea]

On Fri, 2 Mar 2001, Frank Crowell wrote:

> Is anyone following Fitch's articles "Cyberspace in the 21st
> Century"?
> (http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20010226/fitch_01.htm).  Part 5
> deals with P2P, which most people know it as peer-to-peer.  But I
> can tell you that a P2P meme is going around.  It might have been
> caused by Napster or it could have been caused by some people
> looking at the nutty way the computer world is going.  If you have
> ever seen an Activate or Exodus site you know what I mean.  I have
> worked in two companies that have been in love with the ASP model.

Patrick Gelsinger has a web presentation at intel's developer forum site
that discusses P2P from intel's perspective:

   http://www.intel94.com/idf/spr2001/keynotes/webcast.asp

Transcript of his presentation:

  http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/speeches/pg20010228idf.htm

It does seem that the direction that the computer industry is heading
is P2P, but this does not necessarily mean that the gaming industry
will follow soonafter or even dominate this area.

As I understand it, the idea behind P2P is collaboration; however, in
the gaming environment developers have nearly always taken the stance
that there should rarely ever be a situation where every user of a
persistant state be granted any type of access to the system. No one
seems to trust the player, for the player cheats.

So maybe someone figures out a way to create a secure
transaction/trust environment for P2P. The designers of the system
would need some sort of versioning control. It could be possible to
introduce a version-checking method into the software and then dump it
into the bit pool, but what of those agents that aren't necessarily
connected? Sounds like the telephone game, let's get back to that in a
sec.

A solution would be to mix a little of both worlds, I think, but the
scale of complication increases. P2P along with the tested-and-true
C/S model might prove advantageous. This might provide developers some
level of control over what is happening. Might.

It would be novel to see a game that is totally P2P. I'm imagining a
game like the old school-yard telephone game. Each node transforms
slightly the game state. An interactive multi-user chat that is
self-evolving and not necessarily dependent on a node would be a true
treat to try out.  Interactive fiction might head off in this
direction.


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