1998Q3/
<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 -->
<!--X-Subject: [MUD&#45;Dev] [Fwd: Re: brainstormer] -->
<!--X-From-R13: Dvpuneq Ibbypbpx <YnHveNqvny.cvcrk.pbz> -->
<!--X-Date: Sat, 11 Jul 1998 06:24:58 &#45;0700 -->
<!--X-Message-Id: 35A7D90C.7C5D#dial,pipex.com -->
<!--X-Content-Type: multipart/mixed -->
<!--X-Head-End-->
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>MUD-Dev message, [MUD-Dev] [Fwd: Re: brainstormer]</title>
<!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" -->
<link rev="made" href="mailto:KaVir#dial,pipex.com">
</head>
<body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff"
      text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000">

  <font size="+4" color="#804040">
    <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong>
  </font>
      
<br>
[&nbsp;<a href="../">Other Periods</a>
&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a>
&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="/search.php3">Search</a>
&nbsp;]
<br clear=all><hr>
<!--X-Body-Begin-->
<!--X-User-Header-->
<!--X-User-Header-End-->
<!--X-TopPNI-->

Date:&nbsp;
[&nbsp;<a href="msg00163.html">Previous</a>
&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="msg00165.html">Next</a>
&nbsp;]
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Thread:&nbsp;
[&nbsp;<a href="msg00168.html">Previous</a>
&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="msg00156.html">Next</a>
&nbsp;]
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Index:&nbsp;
[&nbsp;<A HREF="author.html#00164">Author</A>
&nbsp;|&nbsp;<A HREF="#00164">Date</A>
&nbsp;|&nbsp;<A HREF="thread.html#00164">Thread</A>
&nbsp;]

<!--X-TopPNI-End-->
<!--X-MsgBody-->
<!--X-Subject-Header-Begin-->
<H1>[MUD-Dev] [Fwd: Re: brainstormer]</H1>
<HR>
<!--X-Subject-Header-End-->
<!--X-Head-of-Message-->
<UL>
<LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI>
<LI><em>Subject</em>: [MUD-Dev] [Fwd: Re: brainstormer]</LI>
<LI><em>From</em>: Richard Woolcock &lt;<A HREF="mailto:KaVir#dial,pipex.com">KaVir#dial,pipex.com</A>&gt;</LI>
<LI><em>Date</em>: Sat, 11 Jul 1998 14:28:44 -0700</LI>
<LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI>
</UL>
<!--X-Head-of-Message-End-->
<!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin-->
<HR>
<!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End-->
<!--X-Body-of-Message-->
<PRE>
Been invited to participate in a graphical mud.  Having spoken with the
person in charge (Thoric, author of Realms of Despair (Smaug)) I feel
he might be able to make some interesting contributions to this list.
If not, I then I will provide you will updates as to the progress of the
mud as best I can.

KaVir.
</PRE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><BR><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="80%">
<UL>
<LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:scryn#game,org">scryn#game,org</A></LI>
<LI><em>Subject</em>: Re: brainstormer</LI>
<LI><em>From</em>: Terri &lt;<A HREF="mailto:jade#surfsouth,com">jade#surfsouth,com</A>&gt;</LI>
<LI><em>Date</em>: Wed, 08 Jul 1998 23:09:47 -0400</LI>
<LI><em>Cc</em>: <A HREF="mailto:kavir#dial,pipex.com">kavir#dial,pipex.com</A>, <A HREF="mailto:darker#darker,com">darker#darker,com</A></LI>
<LI><em>Delivered-To</em>: d#-kavir#dial,pipex.com</LI>
</UL>
<PRE>
&gt;X-Authentication-Warning: hometown.idirect.com: derek owned process doing -bs
&gt;Date: Mon, 6 Jul 1998 13:20:23 -0400 (EDT)
&gt;From: Derek Snider &lt;derek#idirect,com&gt;
&gt;To: Terri &lt;jade#surfsouth,com&gt;
&gt;Subject: Re: brainstormer
&gt;
&gt;On Mon, 6 Jul 1998, Terri wrote:
&gt;
&gt;&gt; Wednesday night, 10 pm. E.S.T.. on ROD. 
&gt;&gt; Important meeting to attend if you're interested in taking mudding into the
&gt;&gt; 21st Century.
&gt;
&gt;Is that everyone that's invited?  BTW... I wrote up a little propsal thing
&gt;that should probably be mailed to everyone involved... take a gander:
&gt;
&gt;
&gt;
&gt;    Proposal for a Multiplayer Interactive Medieval Internet based game
&gt;    ===================================================================
&gt;
&gt;    The idea is to create a "virtual" reality of sorts without any hard
&gt;limits or boundries.  As flexible as possible without compromising speed and
&gt;efficiency.
&gt;
&gt;    The user interface to this environment would be irrelevant.  It could
&gt;start out as a text based interface, and gradually move towards something
&gt;more impressive and marketable.  Ideally it would support whatever interface
&gt;the end user had -- from a simple text interface, to a high end state of the
&gt;art VR interface complete with 3D headset, VR gloves, speech recognition,
&gt;gesture recognition, the whole nine yards.
&gt;
&gt;    The model for this would be a client-server one.  The server would
&gt;maintain the existance of a virtual world in a complex fashion, and the
&gt;client would display a representation of that world based on the hardware
&gt;the user owned.  For the initial text based interface, this is something
&gt;that could be handled by the server, or possibly another process running on
&gt;the server side of things.
&gt;
&gt;    Part of the key to making a full VR based interface possible would be to
&gt;have only the minimum data flow between the client and server.  While at
&gt;first it may seem impossible with current bandwidth limitations, I believe
&gt;this can be easily overcome by the proper design.
&gt;
&gt;    My idea for this would be for everything to be based on an
&gt;object-oriented inheritance model.  You first define all the common base
&gt;elements... your building blocks, and then build everything else from those.
&gt;Rather than describe everything in detail, you describe only the
&gt;differences -- take a sword for example:  you could say that sword 'Y' is
&gt;the same as sword 'X', except that it is a little longer.
&gt;
&gt;    Everything in the virtual world would be relative to something else...
&gt;much how the real world works.  When someone describes something, they
&gt;always say, "it's like this... but..."   No one describes things in absolute
&gt;detail, "It is composed of 50 gazillion electons..."
&gt;
&gt;    When designing something that is a copy of real life, ie: a "virtual
&gt;reality", I believe it is best to try and follow the same trends and
&gt;patterns as real life.  The concept to me is simple and obvious.
&gt;
&gt;    Also, we need to keep in mind that while flashy graphics, cool music,
&gt;sound effects, bells and whistles may make a good first impression, you need
&gt;content to keep the people interested.  It is always good to start with the
&gt;good content, and save the bells and whistles for last, (though it's a good
&gt;idea to keep them in mind while designing).
&gt;
&gt;    It is a person's own imagination which is the most powerful tool.  Hence
&gt;the written and spoken word tends to paint a more vivid and lasting picture
&gt;in one's mind than some flashy graphics.  A very important part of this
&gt;project will be a good story.  It needs to be oozing with good creative
&gt;content.
&gt;
&gt;    Thinking ahead, it would be amazing to have good speech generation, and
&gt;to have NPCs in the game able to hold conversations, to tell stories, to
&gt;reveal important details.
&gt;
&gt;    The key to this project is putting together different technologies which
&gt;already exist, and in fact have existed for many years now.  These
&gt;technologies are becoming more and more refined... and I feel it is time to
&gt;combine them into something amazing.
&gt;
&gt;    Things like speech recognition, speech synthesis, gesture recognition,
&gt;artificial intelligence, a kick-ass 3D engine, 3D headsets, digital stereo
&gt;audio, role playing games, medieval fantasy, mythology, the occult, magic,
&gt;witchcraft, multi-player interaction, the Internet, computers, a dream, and
&gt;most importantly people to take all these things, and make the dream a
&gt;reality.
&gt;
&gt;    I believe all of these ingredients are within reach.  The technology is
&gt;there, and constantly improving.  By the time we are closing in on
&gt;completion, current technology will only be that much better, computer
&gt;systems that much faster, home bandwidth that much wider, and the Internet
&gt;that much more reliable.   As I said, the most important part is the people
&gt;to make this happen.  I believe that we have those people -- ourselves.
&gt;
&gt;    Realms of Despair was a small dream.  I enjoyed playing MUDs while in
&gt;school, and got really involved and addicted to one.  Many thousands of
&gt;people have become addicted to RoD -- it is something to be proud of.
&gt;All this from a small dream... a little hobby I did in my spare time.
&gt;
&gt;    Of course it would have been nothing without the people that helped me
&gt;keep it going, and the players that played it, and encouraged us to keep on
&gt;improving it.  In the four years that RoD has been up, we have touched
&gt;likely over 100,000 people.  The release of the SMAUG code has only brought
&gt;us that much more respect and recognition.  There are close to a hundred
&gt;SMAUG muds out there, and with the release of the next version I can only
&gt;see SMAUG becoming that much more popular.
&gt;
&gt;    I believe that RoD was a great learning experience for all of us.  I
&gt;know I learned more of my advanced coding skills from working on the MUD,
&gt;and it has put me in touch with a lot of great people.  Let us also not
&gt;forget all the dedicated players.
&gt;
&gt;    We must now look towards the future, and see what it holds for us.  I
&gt;cannot forsee the MUD in its current state growing too much bigger.  The
&gt;biggest problems with the MUD are that:  (1)  We cannot make a living from
&gt;running it, and therefore the MUD must come second to making a living.  (2)
&gt;Internet Direct owns the name (Realms of Despair), the domainname (game.org)
&gt;the machine it runs on, and provides the bandwidth -- if we could make money
&gt;from the MUD they'd probably take a big cut.  (3) The DikuMud license
&gt;agreement prevents profitting in any way.  (4) What would stop everyone from
&gt;playing a free mud?  (5) I don't really believe we should profit from RoD
&gt;since that was never our intention in the first place.
&gt;
&gt;
&gt;

</PRE>
<HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="80%"></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>

<!--X-Body-of-Message-End-->
<!--X-MsgBody-End-->
<!--X-Follow-Ups-->
<HR>
<!--X-Follow-Ups-End-->
<!--X-References-->
<!--X-References-End-->
<!--X-BotPNI-->
<UL>
<LI>Prev by Date:
<STRONG><A HREF="msg00163.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Alternate UOL's</A></STRONG>
</LI>
<LI>Next by Date:
<STRONG><A HREF="msg00165.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: You think users won't number crunch and statistise your MUD?</A></STRONG>
</LI>
<LI>Prev by thread:
<STRONG><A HREF="msg00168.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: My "mud" server, A.T.O.M. and the coming design notes</A></STRONG>
</LI>
<LI>Next by thread:
<STRONG><A HREF="msg00156.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Alternate UOL's</A></STRONG>
</LI>
<LI>Index(es):
<UL>
<LI><A HREF="index.html#00164"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI>
<LI><A HREF="thread.html#00164"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</UL>

<!--X-BotPNI-End-->
<!--X-User-Footer-->
<!--X-User-Footer-End-->
<ul><li>Thread context:
<BLOCKQUOTE><UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00171" HREF="msg00171.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Physics Lesson</A></strong>, 
John Bertoglio <a href="mailto:alexb#internetcds,com">alexb#internetcds,com</a>, Sat 11 Jul 1998, 21:59 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00175" HREF="msg00175.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Physics Lesson</A></strong>, 
Mike Sellers <a href="mailto:mike#bignetwork,com">mike#bignetwork,com</a>, Sat 11 Jul 1998, 22:38 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00184" HREF="msg00184.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Physics Lesson</A></strong>, 
Ling <a href="mailto:K.L.Lo-94#student,lboro.ac.uk">K.L.Lo-94#student,lboro.ac.uk</a>, Sun 12 Jul 1998, 23:29 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00168" HREF="msg00168.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: My "mud" server, A.T.O.M. and the coming design notes</A></strong>, 
Chris Gray <a href="mailto:cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA">cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA</a>, Sat 11 Jul 1998, 21:42 GMT
<LI><strong><A NAME="00164" HREF="msg00164.html">[MUD-Dev] [Fwd: Re: brainstormer]</A></strong>, 
Richard Woolcock <a href="mailto:KaVir#dial,pipex.com">KaVir#dial,pipex.com</a>, Sat 11 Jul 1998, 13:24 GMT
<LI><strong><A NAME="00156" HREF="msg00156.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Alternate UOL's</A></strong>, 
S. Patrick Gallaty <a href="mailto:choke#sirius,com">choke#sirius,com</a>, Fri 10 Jul 1998, 22:19 GMT
<UL>
<li>&lt;Possible follow-up(s)&gt;<br>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00163" HREF="msg00163.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Alternate UOL's</A></strong>, 
Felix A. Croes <a href="mailto:felix#xs1,simplex.nl">felix#xs1,simplex.nl</a>, Sat 11 Jul 1998, 12:59 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00179" HREF="msg00179.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Alternate UOL's</A></strong>, 
Jason Goodwin <a href="mailto:wgoodwin#iquest,net">wgoodwin#iquest,net</a>, Sun 12 Jul 1998, 00:30 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00180" HREF="msg00180.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Alternate UOL's</A></strong>, 
Ben Greear <a href="mailto:greear#cyberhighway,net">greear#cyberhighway,net</a>, Sun 12 Jul 1998, 22:19 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</UL></BLOCKQUOTE>

</ul>
<hr>
<center>
[&nbsp;<a href="../">Other Periods</a>
&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a>
&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="/search.php3">Search</a>
&nbsp;]
</center>
<hr>
</body>
</html>