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The Sims Online & "Open Source" Gaming Models
One of my old friends sent me a recent story from Business2 that talks about online gaming, combined with The Sims Online and community involvement in a game. It's not a very substantive piece, but a good discussion starter.
It's not a very substantive piece, but a good discussion starter.
Similar to this story submission.
Apart from the "good discussion starter" part.
How about giving us some reason to want to click the link.
Might as well post cool stories here, check 'em out!
This can be the great new marketing engine for 21th century. You saw the McDonalds affair at SIMS online.
Cheaters can delay the success of this scheme, but I think it will find it's way sooner or later. Everquest platinum may be virtual, but there are auctions at e-bay that move real dollars.
This is maybe a bit offtopic, but this reminds me of something I read here at slashdot: some people justify the bans micro$oft put on modded-Xbox users because modding your Xbox can allow you cheating on-line. Maybe an interesting topic: completely closed devices to make it impossible to cheat online - maybe next big justification for closed software-hardware (and bundling).
How many of you use Mozilla as your Web browser? OK, both of you can put down your hands. Mozilla, you'll remember, was the super-cool open-source version of the Netscape browser that was going to take over the Web because thousands of programmers from around the world, all committed to building a better browser and countering the Microsoft behemoth, would pool their talents and create the greatest browser ever. More than four years later, Mozilla has generated far more press releases than products and has done nothing to help the Netscape browser retake any ground from Microsoft. This was one massively multiplayer project that never took off.
Great Journalism Jimmy, quit breakin my balls here
It's open source too (just read a physics book)
I know you're joking here, but don't you think it's rather the opposite, that we are always trying to find and disclose the laws of nature/physics, somewhat akin to reverse engineering some closed source product?
If physics was open source, it would have been written in the scriptures...
Don't quote me on this.
you guys should check this out, Ryzom has its whole engine and game system open source (err something like that, GNU maybe? me not sure) even all the original content will have the source files available too I think (ie the .max files for the player models and such)
you may not have heard of it, but the graphics and art totally rock, plus the background story is amazingly original, very interesting
and very in-depth (check out the encyclopedia section they just added)
- http://www.ryzom.com/
-- quote start
At Nevrax.org you can find all about NeL including Nel's source code. Nel is Nevrax's platform for the next generation of persistent worlds of which The Saga of Ryzom is just the first.
NeL (Nevrax Library) is a toolkit for the development of massively online universes. It provides the base technologies and a set of development methodologies for the development of both client and server code.
Check out the Documentation or FAQ section at Nevrax.org to learn more about how NeL works, then hop onto the Mailing List and join the discussion.
Click here to visit the Nevrax.org.
-- end quote
You can build software like a house. It's just that the master plan is never good enough.
/*Master plan by oliverthered*/ ......
/*oliverthered2*/ /*oliverthered2*/
Say I produce a master plan for a few classes.
class masterplan public: {
public:
& plans(int planid);
& plans( planname);
protected:
etc....
}
A developer should be able to work on that plan without 'assistance'
Say I decide to write
plan& plans(int planid);
well I know there needs to be a private collection some plans so i implement
protected:
vector vplans;
public:
plan& plans(int planid) excepts elementnotfound{
try{
return vplans[planid];
}catch(...){
throw (new elementnotfound("Plans",planid);
}
};
And update the master plan
class masterplan public: plan{
private
vector vplans;
public:
plan& plans(int planid);
plan& plans(string planname);
protected:
etc....
}
Someone else comes along to implement plans(string planname)
they notice that oliverthered2 may not have done the best implementation of plans(int) so they contact oliverthered(who wrote the masterplan) and oliverthered2(who done some implementation)
etc.......
If OSS implmeneted that kind of design/implemtation practice then you could write software with everyone laying down a brick at a time.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Arimus wrote:
;)
> Interesting article but think participating in a
> online game is a world apart from participating in
> a massive open source project.
Going online to play a game for an hour is really different from an online game community. In the latter, people spend many hours of time working to create addons to the game to share with others.
Take "Creatures" for instance (the early Windows and Mac game, not the later online playing version). Creatures was a game where you bred, raised and cared for artificial life forms, chiefly "norns" (who had their own simulated genetic code, biochemistry, drives, etc.). Creatures had a thriving online community that created and shared genetically engineered norns, objects (created from graphics and the CAOS scripting language), add on programs, etc.
When Creatures 2 came out, it was badly broken. The community cried and screamed, and then set out to fix it. We couldn't do anything about program crashes, that had to come from the company that made it. Multiple teams tackled the insane zombies that used to be norns; my lab at Feral Farms (yep, I'm that Melantha Bacchae) provided the testing facilities for one of the strains of replacement norns. Objects were created to ease transportation snarls and to keep norns from starving to death if they wandered too far from the few food sources. There were even some open source utilities written as I recall. When we got done with it, Creatures 2 was playable and fun.
For the next version the maker, Cyberlife, got too greedy and tried to hoard the development information. They wanted to cut free volunteer work down so they could charge for what we did out of the kindness of our hearts. It didn't help that their newest generation of Creatures were more automatons than autonomous simulated life forms. I didn't stick around for the "online" version.
Different companies have different reactions to user contribution. Cyberlife at first valued it, but later tried to commandeer it for their own profit. Maxis encourages user contribution, hence all the user add-ons that have helped make the Sims popular. Microsoft squashes user contribution like a bug, naturally.
Creatures, however, stands alone. I have yet to see any other game community raise the issue of the rights of the game characters to the point of forming norns rights organizations (ERFN = Equal Rights For Norns) and making death threats over norn torture. Ah, those were the days.
Professor Melantha Bacchae
Paine University, Albia