[MUD-Dev] Complexities of Retention without Addiction? WAS Retention Without Addiction

[bradley newton haug]

Jessica wrote:

> Raph is right; they are wet behind the ears when it comes to
> persistent worlds.  It doesn't matter how many P2P games they've
> done or that they are masters of that style; P2P games are not
> Persistent Worlds.  It is one thing to design a system that merely
> chooses one PC in a session as the 'master' and lets it run the
> session; it is quite another to build out a client/server
> architecture that requires an ability to hold and discern 3,000
> simultaneous connections per server cluster and has servers that
> must keep track of all simultaneous users and display the proper
> data and results to them and they move and interact.

I disagree with the second point, of all the aspects of my project,
communication and raw server implementation (including client data
pump) was by far the easiest(compared to NPC AI, object brokering,
etc), it is something that has been done before, many times, for
many years by many people who shared their experiences and work.
Though I agree with the general assumption that a company has to do
something one or two times to get it right, there are notable
exceptions when proper thought is given to the engineering process.
Understanding your roots, I think is important here, anyone who's
implemented an MMOG server without ever played/ran/looked at code
from MUD/MUSH/MOO/web server/message queue system is asking for
trouble, as for the state sync on a scale mentioned (3000 players) I
think, I had no difficulty in finding a wealth of practical
information in both academia and government areas.  I have to admit
it confounds me how the first person shooter genre grabs papers from
Chapel Hill the second they are published, but it's rare that the
MMOG genre delves into the wealth of readily available 'Get Out of
Wheel Reinventing Free' cards (yes there's fluff, but there's good
stuff too if you dig).  I talked with a long time coder who claimed
to be responsible for part of the server for a game I won't mention
here, and he wasn't even familiar with basic tenets of MUDDing
(coding, playing or running), and didn't see any reason to become
familiar.  Now this is more than a case of someone not agreeing with
me (heh), to me it's like building a multistory building without
building a hut first, or at least watching someone build a hut, or
reading about it.


regards
-bradley newton haug
Dev Lead - The Archon Engine, basis for unannounced game.
CO-Founder Faith and Disease, Projekt Records (irrelevant to list, but
explains my email address)

PS long time lurker (years), first time poster.  Hi all.


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