Slashdot Mirror
Bioware MMOG Likely Slated for 2009
InformationWeek is running an article looking at a piece of technology Canadian developer Bioware will be including into their in-development Massively Multiplayer Online Game. The still un-announced project, the article also lets on, is likely to launch sometime in 2009. The technology, called StreamBase, is a form of complex event processing. Bioware plans to use the ability to change the codebase on the fly, while the game is live. "One of StreamBase's functions is to analyze events and make sure no intruder is trying to disrupt the game's logic, make malicious movements against the activity of other players, or activate the hidden Easter eggs that are sometimes known to lurk in the game's logic. An Easter egg might make a sound that was not consistent with the game's design, show a message, or cause a character to move out of the logic of his role, Dalton explained."
Someone has obviously been told not to call them bugs, and was looking for another word. They chose 'easter eggs' with having any bloody clue what they were saying.
Obviously, it isn't an 'easter egg' if the developers did not put it there on purpose. And if they did, they would indeed remove any exploitable ones before shipping.
That aside, the whole 'change the code live' thing is a programmer's wet dream. As such, there's probably a reason it's not very common. Like, oh, it's a nightmare to actually use. Updating a cute little Lua script is easy, updating a library or even a big nasty lua script is not easy at all.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
they can swear it's not lag...it just means they changed something. Seriously, changing on the fly to me means high probability of entire realms going down for hours on end because some codemonkey forgot a semi-colon.
StreamBase is a COTS (commerical off the shelf) streaming database with all sorts of on-the-fly analysis capabilities. They are more likely to use this technology to analyze how the players are engaging in the "world" and reactively modifying the behavior of the environment as result (altering behavior of NPCs), rather than dynamically rewriting code and so forth. This is actually in innovative approach, and not something that has anything necessarily to do with making the software bug-ridden and prone to crashes.
The article makes it sound like they'll be using this system basically to track down the people who type in IDDQD and activate God Mode, but it seems more likely that it'll be used largely as a GM tool. Looking at some of the exploits in other MMOs, it's easy to see how this could be used to track down exploits, from botting to teleportation hacks to bugged mobs that give too much loot. ("Hmm, why has Lesser Bog Rat been killed 700 times more often than any of the mobs around it?")
It could also be a valuable tool for GMs. If it really does keep a detailed log of everything that's happened in-game, they should be able to track down lost items, punish bad behavior, and so on much more effectively.
Bugs, errors, variances, failures, abends, crashes, defects, deviations from spec, undocumented features, grits...tsk tsk tsk those just don't sound right.
I know, lets call them easter eggs. Everyone likes chocolate!
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"