[MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what's next?

[shren]

On Fri, 21 Jun 2002 Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com wrote:
> From: shren [mailto:shren at io.com]
>> On Thu, 20 Jun 2002, Vincent Archer wrote:
  
>>> Even without the linking of modules together in an unified
>>> universe, accepting characters from the Vault meant adhering to
>>> a community of similar characters.
 
>> Very, very similar, since you can't make an item rare.  Or
>> anything rare, on a vault character.

> How about handling all xp allocation and loot generation/transfer
> etc through a central server that has a lot of sanity checks. Sure
> it will allow people to cheat, but it could be throttled.
 
> So if you were writing a module, and you wanted to assign some
> loot to a certain boss, you would tag it as dropping something
> level appropriate, and possibly some hints so that the server
> could contextualise what it generates into your module. After all,
> the AD&D manuals used to have reams of stuff on assigning loot to
> monsters, and one could certainly embelish the process.
 
> Maybe there is an obvious loophole here, but I can't see it at the
> moment.  The only real issue I see is the cost of maintaining the
> central server as it would have a certain amount of bandwidth
> consumption and managed storage costs. Perhaps they could attach a
> pricing model to having a vault character though, and make it a
> value add.

Obvious loophole : I have a server that spits out every five minutes
"character foo killed x.  gimme loot and xp."  The monsters are
spawning in a cage.  Foo is macroed to shoot the monster in the
cage.  Foo's player is off watching _Minority_Report_.  Or, better
yet, build a deviant server that actually has no monsters or
terrain, but reports killing and looting for you.

If anybody comes up with a workable solution that lets you host code
you can trust on a player's machine, then you've discovered
something new.  Untill then, the only solution for this kind of
problem is to host everything on your company's own computer.

That, or let players play whatever they like, which is an
interesting concept I wonder if anyone's tried yet.

--
<a href="http://www.shren.net/.nail.html">
The client needs a tool built. He sends you a description of a nail...
</a>

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