Impacatus
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#16 id:37186 Posted Nov 6, 2009, 1:00 am
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David Haley said:
Are we trying to think about something practical that could lead to releases and use, or just some abstract thought experiment about something that might be nifty? I guess I'm not really sure what the point of this exercise is, since it seems to me that we're faced with technical near-impossibility (or incredible lack of practicality at best), lack of necessity, and no real use case to motivate this.
It doesn't really have a point, just a bizarre thought I stumbled across, possibly while sleep deprived. You can do whatever you want. 
Quote:If the idea is to make plug-and-play gameplay, why not do that at the server level first? It's hard enough to freely mix and match rulesets when you're in total control of the game, let alone when you have to work through some funky proxy system and talk to a server that isn't cooperating. If you do it at the server level, you can go with well-defined user extension modules, like what Elanthis referred to. The advantage of using proxies is that the different rulesets could be designed completely independently from each other, without any cooperation or centralization. Anything on the server itself would require cooperation with the MUD admin, while this would not.
Quote:Such proxies are not fun to think about. They're broken by design from a game play perspective, in that you as a player would be forced to pick a single proxy to connect to, and hence a single feature set to extend the game with. It's not just impractical, it's worthless. Maybe you should set up a competing hotline to that 1-800 TBS funny. People could call you and ask if what they're doing is fun. 
Multiple proxies could be linked up in a chain, if necessary.
Not saying the situations are equivalent, but looking back, agriculture was a really, really bad idea. It drastically increased the labor requirements of a society, it forced them to settle leaving them vulnerable to disease and invasion, it dramatically reduced the quality of nutrition, and it had the potential to cause a famine whenever there was a crop failure. But look where we are today.
What if we think smaller. Proxies could easily be used to add some new emotes. They could provide a moderated environment with different rules than the main server, at least when it comes to chat. They could be used to enforce things like the "permadeath" pacts in D&D Online. It just needs to keep the passwords from the players so they can't log in without the proxy.
By the way, I forgot to thank you, David Haley, for the term "proxy". Exactly the word I was looking for. 
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Cratylus
Wizard
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#17 id:37187 Posted Nov 6, 2009, 1:14 am
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Impacatus said:For example, let's say you want to add PvP. You create a special server that everyone who wants PvP can log into. Most of the time, this just relays commands to the client from the official server and back. However, when you want to fight a PvP battle with someone else on the special server, it uses the stats to of the two characters to run a battle. Once it's resolved, it makes the loser hand over their inventory and commit suicide.
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David Haley
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#18 id:37188 Posted Nov 6, 2009, 3:41 am
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Impactus said:Not saying the situations are equivalent, but looking back, agriculture was a really, really bad idea. It drastically increased the labor requirements of a society, it forced them to settle leaving them vulnerable to disease and invasion, it dramatically reduced the quality of nutrition, and it had the potential to cause a famine whenever there was a crop failure. But look where we are today.
Err.. what? 
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Runter
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#19 id:37191 Posted Nov 6, 2009, 5:34 am
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David Haley said:Impactus said:Not saying the situations are equivalent, but looking back, agriculture was a really, really bad idea. It drastically increased the labor requirements of a society, it forced them to settle leaving them vulnerable to disease and invasion, it dramatically reduced the quality of nutrition, and it had the potential to cause a famine whenever there was a crop failure. But look where we are today.
Err.. what?
Yes. So, really, really bad ideas are actually really good ideas. I'll keep that in mind when designing my protocols in the future.
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......................... CoralMud project
For once you have tasted flight Ruby you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards,
for there you have been and there you will long to return. --
Leonardo Da Vinci Yukihiro Matsumoto
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Idealiad
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#20 id:37197 Posted Nov 6, 2009, 10:34 am
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If you start overusing the terms 'good idea' or 'bad idea' I think you'll run into many problems. In the case of agriculture I think it's better to call it 'an idea with serious consequences' :).
On point, this proxy idea sort of reminds me of peer to peer MMO networks. What if you extended that idea so that players could indeed run locally modded versions of the main game? I think that could get quite interesting.
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Impacatus
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#21 id:37215 Posted Nov 6, 2009, 2:07 pm
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David Haley said:Impactus said:Not saying the situations are equivalent, but looking back, agriculture was a really, really bad idea. It drastically increased the labor requirements of a society, it forced them to settle leaving them vulnerable to disease and invasion, it dramatically reduced the quality of nutrition, and it had the potential to cause a famine whenever there was a crop failure. But look where we are today.
Err.. what? Are you disputing these facts, or just inquiring about the relevance? I'm willing to indulge you either way.
Quote:Yes. So, really, really bad ideas are actually really good ideas. I'll keep that in mind when designing my protocols in the future. Exactly, because whenever someone provides a counter-example to a popular assumption, they're obviously stating that the opposite assumption is an immutable scientific law. Especially when they begin with a disclaimer like "Not saying the situations are equivalent". It's like if I said "I saw a blue car yesterday.", I would clearly have meant to say that there's no such thing as a red car in the entire world.
Can I ask you guys something? What are you trying to accomplish? You've made your point that this idea is impractical, and I don't dispute it. What more do you want?
Quote:If you start overusing the terms 'good idea' or 'bad idea' I think you'll run into many problems. In the case of agriculture I think it's better to call it 'an idea with serious consequences' :). That's true to a point, but the perceived cost-benefit ratio of an idea is usually the main factor in deciding whether or not it will be implemented. For most societies, it would appear that agriculture had too high of a cost-benefit ratio to be seriously considered, making it a "bad idea".
Quote:On point, this proxy idea sort of reminds me of peer to peer MMO networks. What if you extended that idea so that players could indeed run locally modded versions of the main game? I think that could get quite interesting. This sounds interesting, but I'm not sure what you mean. Could you give an example?
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Last edited Nov 6, 2009, 2:30 pm by Impacatus
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Cratylus
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#22 id:37217 Posted Nov 6, 2009, 2:41 pm
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Impacatus said:Can I ask you guys something? What are you trying to accomplish? You've made your point that this idea is impractical, and I don't dispute it. What more do you want?
I think you implied that people aren't really grokking you when you said this:
Impacatus said:Not saying the situations are equivalent, but looking back, agriculture was a really, really bad idea. It drastically increased the labor requirements of a society, it forced them to settle leaving them vulnerable to disease and invasion, it dramatically reduced the quality of nutrition, and it had the potential to cause a famine whenever there was a crop failure. But look where we are today.
You seem to be implying that something that in retrospect sounds like a bad idea, turns out to
have been a good thing to have done. In the context of this debate, the obvious message is that
your "bad sounding idea" could actuall be a good thing to do.
I really can't think of any other reason for you to write that, and I'm guessing I'm not
the only one making that inference. If it is mistaken, and you actually mean something
else, then maybe you can explain what you mean.
In any case, I think the premise is mistaken. Agriculture doesn't seem like a bad idea
in retrospect at all, and in fact your statement is pretty out there in terms of being
sensible.
Wikipedia said:Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of human civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants (i.e. crops) creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and stratified societies.
That is another reason you may have piqued interest. You said something
to support an idea you yourself seem to be accepting isn't practical...except the thing
you said really doesn't make sense.
I don't think you should take it the wrong way. I don't think you personally are
getting personal hostility personally put on you personally. Your use of language
sounds like you're making an argument, people are not in agreement with it,
and are finding your statements, eg "agriculture == bad", to be startlingly misguided.
It's not really about you, it's about the weird things you're saying.
-Crat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture
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David Haley
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#23 id:37218 Posted Nov 6, 2009, 2:46 pm
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Impacatus said:David Haley said:Impactus said:Not saying the situations are equivalent, but looking back, agriculture was a really, really bad idea. It drastically increased the labor requirements of a society, it forced them to settle leaving them vulnerable to disease and invasion, it dramatically reduced the quality of nutrition, and it had the potential to cause a famine whenever there was a crop failure. But look where we are today.
Err.. what? Are you disputing these facts, or just inquiring about the relevance? I'm willing to indulge you either way.
Well, both, actually. I guess it doesn't really matter -- there is indeed little need to discuss agriculture's foundational role in civilization as we know it -- I just thought that that statement came out of the blue and I wasn't sure why we were comparing proxied games to agriculture.
Impactus said:Can I ask you guys something? What are you trying to accomplish? You've made your point that this idea is impractical, and I don't dispute it. What more do you want?
I'm trying to establish if we're daydreaming or trying to discuss practical solutions. There is nothing wrong with daydreaming and exploring vision, but I want to know what the goal is here to help frame the discussion. It sounded like we were talking about concrete means of implementing game proxies; but now I'm thinking that you're more interested in exploring what-if potential rather than making something concrete. That's fine, it's just a different kind of discussion.
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Tonitrus
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#24 id:37219 Posted Nov 6, 2009, 2:52 pm
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I suppose if you wanted some sort of weird supermud server for some reason, you could write a simplistic login server that accepts connections from clients and servers and just dispatches messages around. Sort of like a mud IRC.
I don't really know why you'd want to do this, however.
You could possibly set up a sort of world-hopping centralized mud network where users can jump around through different muds like channels, and maybe repeated problem users could be given a sort of central ban, but mostly it seems like a waste to me.
I think the idea of having different proxies set up for different sub-games within a game is probably a terrible idea if more than one can connect at a time.
Let's say for example that you have a world where a bunch of other worlds connect. I think Rifts had something like this called a Nexus or something. Your main server could be such a Nexus. And players could connect to it, and still theoretically jump between different worlds. The logistics of this would be unpleasant, but not necessarily impossible, you'd just need some sort of to/from world conversion scheme (ugh).
Now compare trying to have 1 game, where you're in a town called Townonia (my name, don't steal it, it's epic), and you're talking to 50 people, each of whom have connected through a different sequence of proxies, some of which grant varying commands. You tell them all that your group is going to lead a charge on the Great Dragon of Smelling Bad. Now a bunch of the people agree. A bunch of them haven't connected to the proxy that creates this mob and have no idea what you're talking about, and a third of them use the "wtfno" social, which you currently don't have access to, because you're not connected that proxy. Worst case scenario, some of the people connected might be able to talk to you as if present but not actually be in the same town (and not even able to see it).
The second case may be an exaggeration, but I suspect the actual implementation of it would be much, much worse.
The former is doable, if messy, but I'm not sure it has any advantages to making up a central server with user-defined worlds.
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.........................
[00:01:15] KaVir: That's why I'm always careful to empty my inventory before picking up players.
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Impacatus
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#25 id:37253 Posted Nov 7, 2009, 1:24 am
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When I brought up the agriculture thing, I was just musing that there may be some ideas out there that have potential that will never be explored because of short-term practical reasons. I wasn't neccessarily saying that mine was one of them, the situation just made me think of it.
That said, the following is for informational purposes:
First, let me clarify: when I said "looking back", I meant "considering from the perspective of the people who lived a long time ago". I can see why that would be confusing, and I probably should have phrased it better.
In that post, I named five drawbacks to an agricultural life style:
-labor requirements.
-nutrition
-vulnerability to disease
-vulnerability to famine
-vulnerability to invasion
This textbook I have in front of me happens to confirm all of them but the last:
Judge,Edward H. "Connections: A World History." (New Jersey, Pearson Education, 2009), 16 said:"Early farmers and herders, for example, typically had to work much harder than gatherers and hunters. Farmers had to clear the land, till the soil, sow the seeds, tend the fields, pull the weeds, and do their best to shield their crops from insects, animals, and birds. They also had to harvest, process, and preserve the food that they grew, as well as to care for their livestock and protect it from predators. Furthermore, judging by remains found in excavations of early farming villages, Neolithic farmers appear to to have been smaller, and probably less healthy, than nomadic foragers. From living in close contact with their pigs and cattle, farmers acquired new illnesses, the forerunners of deadly scourges and such as influenza and smallpox. By settling continuosly in the same place, they accumulated garbage and waste, which fouled their water and attracted disease-bearing insects and rodents. And, unlike small nomadic groups whose mobility and flexibility provided access to a variety of plant and animal foods, settled farming societies typically relied on a few basic crops to feed many people, leaving them vulnerable to disasters such as floods, droughts, crop failures, insect infestations, and famines."
Complementary gender roles are commonly associated with foraging as well as a minimal work day (as little as 5 hours a week)
Another source on nutrition.
Mind you, there were lean times in hunter-gatherer societies, as this article mentions, but they weren't as catastrophic as the famines brought on by putting all your eggs in one basket.
The invasion claim may have been an error on my part. It's only true if the society in question occupies land unsuitable for agriculture or pastoralism, and even then there still might be feuds between tribes.
Wikipedia via Cratylus said:Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of human civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants (i.e. crops) creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and stratified societies. This is true, but it means little concerning the quality of life of the individuals involved. If you went back in time and tried to pitch the idea of settling down and practicing agriculture to a tribe of hunter-gatherers, how many do you think would be willing to trade their health, leisure, and security for "stratified societies"?
Agriculture is believed to have developed independently in only a handful of places in the world. There are a number of theories to explain why, and most of them posit that these societies were placed in a very unique situation where the cost-benefit ratio of agriculture shifted.
Cratylus said:I don't think you should take it the wrong way. I don't think you personally are
getting personal hostility personally put on you personally You're, right, sorry. I'll calm down.
David Haley said:'m trying to establish if we're daydreaming or trying to discuss practical solutions. There is nothing wrong with daydreaming and exploring vision, but I want to know what the goal is here to help frame the discussion. It sounded like we were talking about concrete means of implementing game proxies; but now I'm thinking that you're more interested in exploring what-if potential rather than making something concrete. That's fine, it's just a different kind of discussion. The original post was meant to be more on the practical side, the thing about linking up a bunch of proxies to make a customizable game was more daydreaming. Even the first one isn't meant to be entirely serious, just a discussion of the possibilities. Call it "hard science fiction".
Tonitrus said:Now compare trying to have 1 game, where you're in a town called Townonia (my name, don't steal it, it's epic), and you're talking to 50 people, each of whom have connected through a different sequence of proxies, some of which grant varying commands. You tell them all that your group is going to lead a charge on the Great Dragon of Smelling Bad. Now a bunch of the people agree. A bunch of them haven't connected to the proxy that creates this mob and have no idea what you're talking about, and a third of them use the "wtfno" social, which you currently don't have access to, because you're not connected that proxy. Worst case scenario, some of the people connected might be able to talk to you as if present but not actually be in the same town (and not even able to see it). You're right. What I was thinking was that the entire string of proxies would essentially be one "game", and players wouldn't interact with other players on different "strings". But again, that wasn't really a serious suggestion.
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Erok
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#26 id:37258 Posted Nov 7, 2009, 8:50 am
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I toyed with a proxy server once, but for a different purpose. In that case, the intent was to drop users into a chat room on the proxy server, while the game server was rebooting or otherwise unavailable for a brief window. Basically, I wanted to keep users online and doing something while waiting.
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Idealiad
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#27 id:37269 Posted Nov 7, 2009, 12:17 pm
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Impacatus said:
Quote:On point, this proxy idea sort of reminds me of peer to peer MMO networks. What if you extended that idea so that players could indeed run locally modded versions of the main game? I think that could get quite interesting. This sounds interesting, but I'm not sure what you mean. Could you give an example?
A peer to peer MMO is a game where there is no central server, but a 'server' on each player's computer (this isn't to say this is a popular practice at this point). Another way to look at it is distributing a 1P game with online multiplay capabilities -- then each player has a copy of the game locally, and the game also acts as a client to the other games you network with.
Anyway, you could extend this comparison to include all the local mods that players will get for 1P games. If a network of players get the same mods, then they could play the same locally modded MMO.
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