[MUD-Dev] Habbo Hotel...

[Andrew Wilson]

Hi,

I couldn't find reference to this in the minimal search I made of the
archive so...

    http://www.habbohotel.com/

It's a little like Furcadia.  The client is built from Macromedia
Shockwave technology, the back end is allegedly Java with perhaps a
light SQL DB to assist.  The client-server protocol is plaintext,
nothing fancy, with a simple magic-key to ensure only permitted
clients get to connect to the servers.

The name suggests that 'Habitat' was some influence.

The graphics are very nice.

There's an in-game link to SMS messaging.  People can send text
messages to-from their phones.  Everyone has a cellphone in Europe,
everyone.

There's an in-game currency you can use to buy props and nicer clothes
and furniture for your private room (graphics are larger in the
private room).

You can top-up your in-game purse or send in-game money to other
people by sending SMS messages to special numbers.  SMS costs real
money of course, and if the special numbers are owned by the
habbohotel.com people then you're effectively paying them $$$s (well
cccs) in order to make use of the system.

The client uses 'event propagation' (quoting someone else here, I'd
just call it 'text-reordering).  When you type your chatter into the
client it seems to tag it with a 'the-time-is' message and sends to
the server.  When the server reflects the message out to all the
listening clients then the message is inserted in the stream of
already-displayed text according to the 'the-time-is' tag.  Is this
something that Habitat did, UO does?

In a busy room you only hear messages from people nearby.  A little
further away an their babble is mangled a little so 'wor.s lo.k
.ik. th.s'.  Further still and all you see is their little mouths
moving.

The people look at each other, tracking the source of nearby
conversation, or so it seems.

Sorry if all this is old news.  I just think it's so cool it's
probably worth mentioning twice.

Cheers,
Ay.

Andrew.Wilson at cs.cf.ac.uk http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/User/Andrew.Wilson/
Cell: 07889 61 61 44                 Voice/Fax: +44 (0) 1865 513 091  
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