[Meta] Re: [MUD-Dev] Future of MMOGs

[Amanda Walker]

On 11/3/02 7:59 AM, Ted L. Chen <tedlchen at yahoo.com> wrote:

> But, as I'm writing this, I've begun to question myself as to why
> I'm thinking on a one-to-one relationship between editor and
> displayed geometry.  I guess you could very well have individual
> full mesh models of paper, pencil, and desk which gets
> automatically compiled into a seemless low-poly cluttered desk.
> That'd be an interesting research topic in itself.

Sure, just like bouncing down tracks in an audio editor or
pre-rendering texture and light maps.  Nothing says that the
editable representation has to be what the graphics engine uses to
render the scene.  I'm mostly talking about the user experience:
there's a middle ground between uneditable and raw geometry.

> This brings up an interesting side topic: that of mindset.  I
> can't talk for everyone, but for me at least, when I played with
> Lego or erector sets, I had to have a rather high level of willing
> suspension of disbelief that what I made was what I imagined it to
> be.

Well, kids at least come with suspension of disbelief built in ;-).
Given the propensity of people (as with the UO grand piano example)
to express their artistic (or at least decorating) urge using
whatever comes to hand, I'm not too worried.

> Static teflon coated worlds have the unique aspect in that a
> modelled piano is a piano.  It's authorative.  In a world made up
> a building blocks, fish steaks and dyed cloth could be a piano
> (thanks for the interesting link Raph).  That's creative.  But
> does that pose any problems for multiple people living in the same
> world to agree on what means what

Seems to me that depends a lot on the tools.  I don't have any
problem with letting uses create raw geometry: I can quite easily
envision playing an MMO game as, say, a musical instrument vendor:
Give a character the right to duplicate a particular mesh, for
example.  You could model "real" pianos in Rhino or Maya, upload a
static mesh object, and sell pianos out of your shop.  Interaction
mechanics could get interesting ("Can I use pianos as ammunition in
my trebuchet?"), but for teflon-coated props & scenery, go for it.
In fact, I think that letting people give away (or sell/"sell")
content they create is a wonderful opportunity.  Stuff for housing
or group areas, designer clothes for characters, makeup artists
(face/body texture maps), etc...  Players love customizing their
appearance and environment.  Why not leverage that?

Amanda Walker


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