[MUD-Dev] Distributed virtual worlds (Was NEWS: Why Virtual Worlds are Designed By Newbies - No, Really (By R. Bartle))

Sat Nov 27 22:54:17 CET 2004

On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 10:29:52 +0930, Mike Rozak <mike at mxac.com.au> wrote:
> Morris Cox wrote:

>> What if games were interconnected in a way (via some standard
>> that used XML and compression, for example) that allowed players
>> to travel among them? Not only would that expose players to more
>> possibilities/experiences, it would be easier to encourage them
>> to try virtual world X or Y or Z, etc. A multiverse of games
>> would also offer more value and playability. (A book of spells
>> hidden in a nonmagical world that you must retrieve for a
>> quest). Such a system could also offer rent-a-game-server (with a
>> set of sliders that allowed changing default values in the game,
>> such as physics laws) that allowed people to run their own game
>> server and have it be part of the multiverse.

> I just had a discussion about this idea with someone else...

> It would be great if it would work, but I can't see how to make it
> work. The problem is that the book of spells is (a) a 3D model and
> textures, and (b) code. Transferring the book of spells from one
> world to another requires that the model and the code both be
> transferred. Transferring the model is doable. Transferring the
> code is frought with problems, the worst being that someone could
> write a viral object (like a Tribble from classic Star Trek) that
> would take over any virtual worlds that it would let in. The
> security concerns can be dealt with by approving objects, but the
> approval process becomes such a burden that I can't see if
> happening. Nor is the approval process perfect...

I've been thinking about this very problem for a few years
myself... I was thinking of an XML solution to transfer character
and equipment descriptions from one world to another world...  I
don't think that you would have to transfer neither the model nor
the code, although if you were *really* interested in maintaining
the appearance of the spell book as an object you *could* transfer
the model (not really necessary, though).  What is really required
is a transfer standard that can reliably describe the attributes of
the character and associated equipment, and then it becomes a task
for the target system to translate the information into something
meaningful for that system.

If you think about it, trying to transfer a spell book any other way
is basically pointless in the most general sense.  Take the most
extreme example, transferring a fantasy character to a hard-core,
sci-fi world.  The sci-fi world has no concept of magic or
spells. Trying to transfer the capabilities of the spell book would
be an exercise in futility in that case, since the target world
would have no actual means to support those capabilities, and the
fiction of the world would have no basis for those capabilities
anyway!  It would also probably make some players in that world
rather unhappy if they started seeing fantasy characters roaming
around breaking the rules of their reality all the time...  So
moving code to try and force the target system to work with that
spell book is pointless.

The same thing applies in even less extreme examples, where a player
takes a spell book from one fantasy setting to another.  The second
setting almost certainly does not have a magic system that is
identical to the first system, and so trying to move code for that
book would, again, be pointless, since the new system would not have
the means to handle that code (in the best case...  In the worst
case, you could get malicious code).

Instead, what you need is a set of standards by which equipment and
characters can be described that can be used by systems importing
that character to determine exactly how the character and equipment
can look and behave (or just behave, if you insist on transferring
models, something which is not necessary and which I am not in
favour of...)

So, in this case, the spell book would be described as a book with
contents that describe spells, which have various capabilities.  The
hard core sci-fi system would look at that spell book and say, "Wow,
neat book."  The character would end up with a book that had no real
function in that world.  The second fantasy system would say,
"You've got a book that contains spells, and of those spells in that
book, spells x, y, and z have analogs in this system, and so those
spells work (though they might look different then they did in your
world)." Of course, how that information is actually decoded by the
target system is entirely up to the target system, so it is entirely
up to that target system to decide exactly what to let through and
what not to let through, and that can be done all automated assuming
a sufficient set of standards (or a set of sufficiently evolving
standards and developers that are willing too keep up to date).

In this way, if a character decided to bring their +5 Holy Avenger
from their home fantasy world to the sci-fi world, maybe all they
end up with is a hunk of steel resembling an outlandish sword.  Or,
maybe in the translation process, that sword is turned from a +5
Holy Avenger to a Super-Mega Plasma Rifle.  It depends on how the
target system wants to handle it.

One thing that would have to be insured, though, is that the
original description of equipment from the equipment's originating
world must be maintained.  That is, original descriptions cannot be
modified by subsequent worlds.  Otherwise, that spell book that got
translated to the sci-fi world might end up a nifty paperback back
novel in the original fantasy setting if the character ever decided
to go back home.  Other systems could add interpretations to that
original description, but the original description itself would have
to be tagged for it's origin and remain unaltered until the journey
back to its origin system.  Tagged interpretations, in turn, would
have to remain unaltered except by the systems that originally
created the interpretation.  And probably all tagged items would
have to be date-stamped as well (in case the original system wanted
to try and incorporate any changes that had been made to the
character or equipment upon the voyage back home).

There are, of course, security issues involved with this.  You would
have to have some way of securely identifying the source of the XML
character and equipment data, and you would have to make sure that
the data couldn't be spoofed or hacked, and given the fact that
you're transferring between such disparate systems, I doubt that
there's any way to do this 100%...  Even one successful attempt at
manufacturing an uber character to be transferred via XML could have
damaging and far-reaching results...  But, maybe I'm just being
pessimistic.

I also have my doubts about whether or not any standard like this
would actually be used commercially, excepted in closed networks
that exist within a company (and then, why use standards at all?).
But, maybe I'm just being cynical :-)

> For a real life example: About 70 years ago the Australian
> government allowed 38 "Cane toad" objects to be imported from
> Hawaii and released. The "Cane toad" object is (a) a prolific
> breeder, and (b) poisonous to eat. Consequently, the monsters in
> norther Australia (carnivorous wildlife) are dying out when they
> eat the prolific cane toad objects. (Does the person who
> introduced the first cane toads get all the XP for the monsters it
> killed?)

That is a truly horrific example of irresponsibility.  How
depressing.

--
Wayne Witzke
wayne.witzke at gmail.com
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