[MUD-Dev] Requirements for MM (was Complexities ofMMOGServers)

[Ted L. Chen]

Caliban Tiresias Darklock writes:

> From your more detailed description, it sounds like VATSIM is
> something I *would* consider a MMOG, because your statement that
> most people don't interact with each other doesn't seem
> sensible. Clearly, each pilot *does* interact with other pilots,
> and this is a natural and necessary part of the system. I don't
> understand why you'd say most of them don't interact, except in
> the strictest technical sense that a pilot will not interact with
> most other pilots... which is an entirely different thing.

Possibly poorly worded in my case: I had meant the last strict
literal interpretation, that a pilot will not interact with most
other pilots.  If it helps, think of it basically as a bunch of
scattered EQ camps for airports.  Everybody wants to land, but only
one person can do it at once.

>> It's a big world.  Big enough that I'd term it 'M'assive.  And
>> going through the same definition, delphiforums can't be
>> considered massive much in the same way this list isn't a MMOG.

> Ten million registered members and over a million messages a week
> on several thousand forums isn't massive? Explain the logic. Did
> you even look at the site?

Yes I did.  But I'm not saying that delphiforums doesn't have a lot
of members.  Instead, I'm saying that the world encompassed by
delphiforums.com 'seems' small.  Each place on delpiforums.com is
connect by two degrees of separation (namely through the master
directory).

  Buffy, who's reading posts in a Hobbies & Crafts forum, can pop
  out, jump into Religion & Spirituality and effortlessly talk to
  Bubba in much the same way as she did in Hobbies & Crafts.  She
  can do this countless times with any possible combination of
  people and forums.  In essence, these people are right next to
  her.

Compared with:

  Buffy, who's on a MOG, is a world-away from Bubba.  She needs to
  spend the next 30 mins running from the city of Hobbes to the city
  of Relis.  Granted, she can send Bubba a tell, but then that is
  not the same as being there next to him.

Physically, both are big worlds.  But whether it seemed Massive -
for me at least - came down to whether it actually seemed big from a
player's perspective.  On forums, players (users) are given god-like
omniscient powers, thereby reducing the apparent size of the world.
Teleports promise to do exactly the same thing in games.

> You *have* real-time interaction on Delphi. You post, and it's up
> in a matter of a few seconds. I've had several discussions there
> which involved four or more people simultaneously posting in
> response to one another for an extended period of time.

And I could play Tradewars on a large BBS that had multiple dialins.
I doubt anyone here would label Tradewars as a MOG (maybe a close
cousin to a MUD).  At first pass, I would say the distinguishing
feature is that the interaction on Tradewars and bulletin boards are
of a non-interrupt fashion, hence it doesn't seem 'real-time'.  You
could very well send a forum message to me but unless I refresh my
screen before logging out, it doesn't get to me until the next day.
Send me a tell in a MOG and you're assured that I'll get it.

TLC



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