[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants)

[Adam Martin]

On 09/03/07, Morris Cox <morriscox at gmail.com> wrote:
> That is what I'm really interested in. I suspect that a company could
> make a lot of $$$ by building something like that and then selling

There have been many that were, and are still a few out there. Have a
look at BigWorld, Simutronics (Hero), Qazal, etc.

> licenses to it. Releasing it as open source and for free would greatly
> increase adoption; however, I doubt most companies (if any) would be

If you want open-source, WorldForge has been doing OS MMO engine(s)
for decades :).

> One thing I've noticed looking at systems like WorldForge or Darkstar,
> etc., is that they require that you use a particular language such as
> C++ or Java. That is understandable, however it locks out those who
> don't know that one language. What would be better is a system that

OK, what exactly are you aiming at here? The vast majority of
competent programmers will know one (or both) of those two languages,
and if they don't would probably benefit from starting (given they are
responsible for the vast vast majority of all programming jobs
worldwide, or so I'm told by people with vested interests ;)).

If you want to make this available to people who both cannot program
and have no interest in learning to do so with modern mainstream
programming languages, then my above comment is irrelevant. But, if
that's the case, I seriously doubt you're going to see any non-trivial
game, certainly little that is interesting and novel.

> would allow use of multiple languages so long as there was an
> interface between them. One developer could use C++ while another
> developer could use Java (or C# or PHP or XML, etc.) and still
> interoperate. Properly implemented, that should lower the barrier to
> entry.

IMHO, there are far bigger concerns than whether it supports each and
every programmer's language of choice.

Adam