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New Technologies Attack the One-World Problem
Hugh Pickens writes "An MIT Technology Review article has new details on the challenges of a 'one world design' in Massively Multiplayer Online Games. Most games shard their servers, putting up artificial barriers between friends and family members. Technologies are now being developed to keep lots of players within a single world, some of them based off of the unique PvP-heavy title EVE Online. The best part - the technologies don't just apply to gaming. 'NASDAQ, for example, can be thought of as a very large MMO, supporting very large numbers of 'players' performing billions of transactions daily in a graphically intense environment, all within a single shard. Technologies that solve this problem effectively, says George Dolbier, technical lead for games and interactive entertainment at IBM, will have applications in any industry that requires spotting and reacting to trends, or "anything where behavior is dynamic and you need to move resources around rapidly."'"
Shutters click as cameras capture the publicity stills, the pictures that will be on the cover of every magazine this week. This is how the world will remember the Olsen twins: matching tight pink blouses highlighting firm, buoyant adolescent breasts, tight black jeans suggesting a level of sexual experience which the twins do not, in fact, possess.
When the pictures are complete, the twins are turned so that they stand facing one another. Their arms are held behind their backs. The bailiffs bring a pair of cuffs for each girl. The cuffs have no keyholes; they are not designed to be removed. This fact is not lost on the girls, who begin to sob helplessly as they feel sharp steel close around their slender wrists.
Twin winches hum to life, pulling the girls up onto the balls of their naked feet. They begin to strangle almost immediately. They emit tormented gurgling sounds as boiled hemp digs into their tender throats. Quivering lips strip a couple more years off their apparent age. Their increasingly desperate facial expressions confirm that the Olsen girls are in no way prepared for the sudden pain. They have led lives of comfort and pampered privilege. They have never known suffering, until now.
The winches fall quiet, their cruel work done. This is where the girls will remain: in that place where the pain is psychologically overwhelming but not physically dangerous, in that horrible place where they could, perhaps, remain forever.
Still, this is an execution. And so the girls must not remain on their toes forever. They listen carefully as the announcer explains the rules of the game. He makes it sound erotic and exciting, and that is surely how the audience sees it. But it does not sound erotic and exciting to Ashley or Mary-Kate. Indeed, it fills their hearts with an almost limitless dread.
If nothing else happens, then in one hour's time, twin trapdoors will open beneath the girls' feet. Because they are already on their toes, there's no chance that their necks will snap. They will have to dance themselves to death--a process which, the announcer explains, could take up to an hour, because the twins don't weigh very much, and because their nooses have been tied loose.
If, on the other hand, one of the girls chooses to take action, she can buy herself a quick, easy death. As the announcer speaks, bailiffs slip small cylindrical remote control units into Ashley's right hand and Mary-Kate's left. If either girl pushes her button, then her winch will lower her down onto the gallows platform, while the trapdoor drops out from under her sister's feet. She may watch in comfort, her breathing perfectly unrestricted, while her sister endures a terminal slow hang. The girl who pushed her button will then have earned a neck-snapping long drop.
The moment the announcer finishes his introduction, the twins begin to negotiate through their tears. At first they are selfless, altruistic:
"You have to drop me, Mary-Kate," Ashley whimpers. Her voice is thick and rough. The noose is tight, and it hurts to speak. "You're my baby sister. I have to take care of you. I can't bear to watch you hang!"
"Baby sister? You're two minutes older than me, Ashley! And how do you think I'd feel, if I had to watch you spend an hour strangling to death? No way! We'll die together!"
"Don't be stupid, Mary." A little anger surfaces now, through the pain, through the laborious breathing which is required to get even a few words out. "Do you know how much that'll hurt?
"Hurts now," Mary-Kate replies. She is being economical with her words, for each one costs her dearly.
"Yes. And we're still on our toes. Airdance...much worse."
"Scared," says Mary-Kate.
"Then push the button."
The girls perspire as they suffer. The thin pink cotton of their tight tops sticks to their skin; the wet fabric is slightly translucent. Naturally, they wear no bras. Their taut, pouting young breasts press up through their blouses, yearning towards the heaven they will surely
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
First, can a server even handle 2 million simultaneous logins?
Distributed computing. You have your world spread across multiple servers, with certain zones on certain servers. It is done this way already in modern MMO's.
Second, the game world would have to be enormous in order to give people enough room to move around and do their own thing. Just imagine hunting a single boss, 300 people at the same time trying to kill one monster... it'd make me quit.
(1) bigger world with more targets
(2) instancing - allow multiple groups of people to have-at the same target at the same time. Everquest had this since 2003, and WoW does this too on certain targets.
And updating every user's stats? Unless we all have 1000mbit internet connections, I don't think we even have enough bandwidth.
And the travel time in-game for that kind of world? You better give everyone instant teleport to any destination or nobody's going to want to move around...
Or spread it out logically. Theres no reason a max level character should travel to a noobie zone unless (1) it is for a quest or (2) they are trying to twink out a new friend. So lay out the world such that they progress from easy to hard. Travel won't be difficult if you follow the natural progression. More zones - less people - less updating.
Don't get me wrong, I agree... but it's cute (imo) how there's a need to explain how gaming technology is benefitting the blind people in Africa. :) It's like deep inside every gamer, there's this need to apologize for having fun with technology, rather than solving all the world's problems. :) Game on!
--Ray
http://www.beanleafpress.com