The entire point of it is that it is for multiplayer over the internet. And nobody is going to be Darth Maul because that will almost certainly be a reserved name.
Assuming that Verant continues on the same model as Everquest (and considering the low development time, I find it likely that they will), there will be a number of separate servers, all run by verant, all hosting the same world. Each world will have a limited PC namespace, handled on a first-come first-serve basis, with offensive names (usually) being rejected by the system or by any GM that notices.
Unfortunately, if they design the world the same way as Everquest, it is going to be mind-numbingly tedious, with no real sense of accomplishment other than to watch numbers go up. The world system doesn't allow players to interact with it in a permanent sense. Fighting is actually handled by timed respawn, and it doesn't take more than a few months for players to learn the timing. If they opened up the interface specs, I might come back for the sole purpose of writing bot code to play, kind of like an expensive version of gnurobots, but the fact that this is feasable shows how limited the world is.
The other problem that I expect is server overloading. Currently, each world can support comfortably about 1000 users. On average, there are about 1500 users on each regular world, with peak hours driving this figure up as high as 1800 or 2000. This is apparantly by design, as the official word from Verant has been that the 1500-2000 loads are acceptable, despite noticable overcrowding (and the resultant antisocial behaviour) in most zones.
Well, I would dispute that the future of home computing is definitely in internet appliances and handhelds, but assuming that it is, let's think about what would be necessary for them to require 1 ghz processing power anytime "soon" (say within the next half decade).
Heavy processing power generally gets used in one of three ways: heavy number crunching (i.e. scientific analysis), entertainment (the latest games that I feel are the actual driving force behind desktop CPU advancement), or multi-user servers.
Both "internet appliances" and handheld computers have by their nature somewhat limited interfaces, making them somewhat inappropriate for cutting edge entertainment. That leaves heavy number crunching, servers, or an as-yet undiscovered technology.
Internet appliances being by definition of limited function, they are also inappropriate for most scientific work, which requires a flexible environment. That leaves heavy servers, or an advance in technology. They *might* be useful as servers, but here again, think about what would require that kind of power: horridly complex cgi being hit at a tremendous rate. Bandwidth will get you first, and even at that, since it's something that distributes well, a multiple processor setup at a lower speed will probably be better bang for the buck. This also holds true for any significant VR advances on web pages -- either you'll need massive bandwidth to handle all the data, or massive storage to handle some kind of superlist of standard textures.
Handhelds tend to be used as personal organizers, and furthermore won't have the room to handle the heat dissipation of the current generation of 1ghz chips, but disregarding that, let's think about where they're going. The tendency right now is in the direction of communication, so let's assume we suddenly get cameras on them that imply a need for compression. Well, that still doesn't require 1ghz, but beyond that, to transmit moving images like that requires again a decent amount of cellular bandwidth, which is going to be harder to come by than even the new Intel chips. So how about number crunching? Generally that requires large sets of data, and that requires miniaturized storage, which isn't there yet either.
We've got at least one generation of technology yet before 1ghz chips get used in anything but the conventional personal computer that we know so well already. Even granting that the PC isn't going anywhere, though, the 1 ghz milestone is more symbolic than functional. There's been no change is basic computing efficiency per mhz, and for a 100% increase in price you get a 25% increase in processing power over the previous 800mhz chips. The only reason it seems suddenly impressive is that it's a BIG and ROUND number in our wonderful base-10 system.
This isn't to say that the new processors aren't going to be functionally useful; they are. Just simply no more than the previous generation of processors was above the set it replaced.
I'm pretty sure that Ultima VI and VII will not run under dosemu due to the way that they mangle memory. IIRC, anything requiring 32-bit protected mode access isn't going to do very well under dosemu.
I didn't have any problem on 0.98.8. I'm on a dual P2/266, though, so you might in fact be having problems with speed. You might also try turning off sound in the program and starting it with/g:bios.
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Assuming that Verant continues on the same model as Everquest (and considering the low development time, I find it likely that they will), there will be a number of separate servers, all run by verant, all hosting the same world. Each world will have a limited PC namespace, handled on a first-come first-serve basis, with offensive names (usually) being rejected by the system or by any GM that notices.
Unfortunately, if they design the world the same way as Everquest, it is going to be mind-numbingly tedious, with no real sense of accomplishment other than to watch numbers go up. The world system doesn't allow players to interact with it in a permanent sense. Fighting is actually handled by timed respawn, and it doesn't take more than a few months for players to learn the timing. If they opened up the interface specs, I might come back for the sole purpose of writing bot code to play, kind of like an expensive version of gnurobots, but the fact that this is feasable shows how limited the world is.
The other problem that I expect is server overloading. Currently, each world can support comfortably about 1000 users. On average, there are about 1500 users on each regular world, with peak hours driving this figure up as high as 1800 or 2000. This is apparantly by design, as the official word from Verant has been that the 1500-2000 loads are acceptable, despite noticable overcrowding (and the resultant antisocial behaviour) in most zones.
Heavy processing power generally gets used in one of three ways: heavy number crunching (i.e. scientific analysis), entertainment (the latest games that I feel are the actual driving force behind desktop CPU advancement), or multi-user servers.
Both "internet appliances" and handheld computers have by their nature somewhat limited interfaces, making them somewhat inappropriate for cutting edge entertainment. That leaves heavy number crunching, servers, or an as-yet undiscovered technology.
Internet appliances being by definition of limited function, they are also inappropriate for most scientific work, which requires a flexible environment. That leaves heavy servers, or an advance in technology. They *might* be useful as servers, but here again, think about what would require that kind of power: horridly complex cgi being hit at a tremendous rate. Bandwidth will get you first, and even at that, since it's something that distributes well, a multiple processor setup at a lower speed will probably be better bang for the buck. This also holds true for any significant VR advances on web pages -- either you'll need massive bandwidth to handle all the data, or massive storage to handle some kind of superlist of standard textures.
Handhelds tend to be used as personal organizers, and furthermore won't have the room to handle the heat dissipation of the current generation of 1ghz chips, but disregarding that, let's think about where they're going. The tendency right now is in the direction of communication, so let's assume we suddenly get cameras on them that imply a need for compression. Well, that still doesn't require 1ghz, but beyond that, to transmit moving images like that requires again a decent amount of cellular bandwidth, which is going to be harder to come by than even the new Intel chips. So how about number crunching? Generally that requires large sets of data, and that requires miniaturized storage, which isn't there yet either.
We've got at least one generation of technology yet before 1ghz chips get used in anything but the conventional personal computer that we know so well already. Even granting that the PC isn't going anywhere, though, the 1 ghz milestone is more symbolic than functional. There's been no change is basic computing efficiency per mhz, and for a 100% increase in price you get a 25% increase in processing power over the previous 800mhz chips. The only reason it seems suddenly impressive is that it's a BIG and ROUND number in our wonderful base-10 system.
This isn't to say that the new processors aren't going to be functionally useful; they are. Just simply no more than the previous generation of processors was above the set it replaced.
I'm pretty sure that Ultima VI and VII will not run under dosemu due to the way that they mangle memory. IIRC, anything requiring 32-bit protected mode access isn't going to do very well under dosemu.
I didn't have any problem on 0.98.8. I'm on a dual P2/266, though, so you might in fact be having problems with speed. You might also try turning off sound in the program and starting it with /g:bios.