Solipsis - a Decentralized Open-Source MMORPG

Anonymous Reader writes "Calling it an MMORPG is a bit of a misnomer because at this point there aren't any players, much less hit points, monsters, or flaming swords. Solipsis is an open-source project that aims to create a decentralized multi-user virtual world. It's still very much in its infancy, and as such the visuals are a bit lacking, but the aim is to create an endlessly scalable user-contributed world and it seems it's a nice platform to play with."

Comments

most MMOs

[HTL2001]

most MMOs forbid client modification... this makes it easy!

and since its decentralized, server modification also. unless they store user data securly on a central server, cheating is gonna be BAD.

Re:most MMOs

[Elwood P Dowd]

unless they store user data securly on a central server, cheating is gonna be BAD.

No, cheating is going to be redefined. While they're a billion miles from Metaverse-like, Neal Stephenson already worked this out pretty well. While you're walking along the street, the computers that run the street place limits on the appearance of your avatar. The sunbeams shooting out of your hairdo do not extend across everything else on the street.

When you get into a fight on one server (in a bar, for example :), they can track your stats. If several servers agree that they trust each other, then they could share stats. Everyone knows there's no cheating in the Black Sun.

If you're worried that the <Lord Pants; Level 60> floating above your head won't mean anything because anyone will be able to do that... then yeah, you're exactly right. Some servers will follow conventions and some won't and that's fine. Hang out in the areas where you like the rules.

Croquet

[Elwood P Dowd]

Also vaguely interesting and along similar lines is Alan Kay's Croquet project.

It's not particularly mind blowing, but it has potential.

As an oldtimer, let me say...

[Anonymous Coward]

*Waves cane*

We called them MUDs in our day! And people played with the concept of decentralizing them back then as well. Nothing ever came of it, AFAIK. As other posters have said, trust is a huge issue. There are other problems with latency, bandwidth, synchronization, etc.

Hacks

[CrazyJim1]

When you do that client side stuff, you need to put checks on hackers. I won't get into much detail because maybe .01% of people who read this care, but you can pull off anti-hack tricks. Its important not to allow players to know the anti-hack tricks because they'd work around them. But if you make people pay for the game, and ban them, the overhead of loss will prevent most hackers.

For example: Have every client connect to the main server to track stats. If a stat gets modified faster than it could be changed in game, then an alarm goes off.

If you set up tons of trip wires like this, and institute a player based police system such as Halo 2 has, then you're set. If you don't protect a client side game against hacks, then if it gets popular, it will be hacked into the ground.