Good point. We were trying to strike a balance between what's actually being tested now, and what our plans are. We'll adjust the site to make that more clear. Thanks.
A Mac client is on our roadmap. We'll be building the Windows client first, as we're a small company, but our long-term strategy is absolutely cross-plaform. Our Multiverse site will soon be more obvious about making this point. Our Kothuria site, where our initial game lives, will probably always be a little more focussed on the near-term features for that game. (So if it's more than a couple quarters out, you probably won't see us mention it at Kothuria.com, while people expect and deserve to know more of our long-term vision at the multiverse.net site.)
We all worked at Netscape (if you've read my other posts, you're getting sick of reading that, I'm sure), so we've got a reasonable track record of delivering cross-platform products. Back then, we didn't always release the products on all the platforms on the same day, but we did a fair job. As I say, we're a small company, so the other clients are a ways off, but we're planning for them now.
Yup. We use Ogre. Axiom, actually, as the XP client is written in C#. We'll post more at our site soon about what we're doing with protocols.
And seeing how you mentioned Stephenson's Metaverse, our goal is to build the framework where *other people* can take up that charge. Too many companies have burned through too much money, thinking they can just build the Metaverse themselves. It can't be forced. It has to grow organically. (I'd say that we just want to be the garden, but that's too easy a setup for fertilizer jokes.)
Our server software is written in Java, so that gives you some flexibility with your server OS.
And as I mentioned in a different thread, the client that's in beta right is WinXP, but other platforms are on the roadmap. We are a bunch of early-days Netscape folks, so we've been pretty committed to the cross-platform thing for a decade or so.
We'll be posting more info on our tech specs at our site in coming weeks and months. You won't have to be an early developer on our beta platform to find out the important details.
We do indeed plan on developing the client on multiple platforms. First comes Windows, but Linux and Mac are on the roadmap, as are other platforms. We aren't just former Netscape developers--we are current cross-platform zealots. (Some religions you pick up and you just can't shake.)
Our own game in beta-testing, Kothuria, is available on Windows only right now, but you can be sure that we'll be testing any new client tech with that game first.
> I wonder if anyone will ever get around to making a distributed MMORPG. Something > where different parts of the game world would be hosted by different operators.
That's actually one of the more interesting things that we hope to enable. Here's a likely scenario:
How about instead of each indie dev team building a separate world, you have three dev teams who DIVIDE a world: "You guys make North America, you other guys make South America, and our team will make Australia." And then ALL of the teams share a common character database, ruleset plug-in, combat plug-in, et cetera, et cetera...
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Good point. We were trying to strike a balance between what's actually being tested now, and what our plans are. We'll adjust the site to make that more clear. Thanks.
--Corey
A Mac client is on our roadmap. We'll be building the Windows client first, as we're a small company, but our long-term strategy is absolutely cross-plaform. Our Multiverse site will soon be more obvious about making this point. Our Kothuria site, where our initial game lives, will probably always be a little more focussed on the near-term features for that game. (So if it's more than a couple quarters out, you probably won't see us mention it at Kothuria.com, while people expect and deserve to know more of our long-term vision at the multiverse.net site.)
We all worked at Netscape (if you've read my other posts, you're getting sick of reading that, I'm sure), so we've got a reasonable track record of delivering cross-platform products. Back then, we didn't always release the products on all the platforms on the same day, but we did a fair job. As I say, we're a small company, so the other clients are a ways off, but we're planning for them now.
--Corey
Corey Bridges
Exec Producer, Multiverse
http://www.multiverse.net/
Yup. We use Ogre. Axiom, actually, as the XP client is written in C#. We'll post more at our site soon about what we're doing with protocols.
And seeing how you mentioned Stephenson's Metaverse, our goal is to build the framework where *other people* can take up that charge. Too many companies have burned through too much money, thinking they can just build the Metaverse themselves. It can't be forced. It has to grow organically. (I'd say that we just want to be the garden, but that's too easy a setup for fertilizer jokes.)
--Corey
Corey Bridges
Exec Producer, Multiverse
http://www.multiverse.net/
Our server software is written in Java, so that gives you some flexibility with your server OS.
And as I mentioned in a different thread, the client that's in beta right is WinXP, but other platforms are on the roadmap. We are a bunch of early-days Netscape folks, so we've been pretty committed to the cross-platform thing for a decade or so.
We'll be posting more info on our tech specs at our site in coming weeks and months. You won't have to be an early developer on our beta platform to find out the important details.
--Corey
Corey Bridges
Exec Producer, Multiverse
http://www.multiverse.net/
We do indeed plan on developing the client on multiple platforms. First comes Windows, but Linux and Mac are on the roadmap, as are other platforms. We aren't just former Netscape developers--we are current cross-platform zealots. (Some religions you pick up and you just can't shake.)
Our own game in beta-testing, Kothuria, is available on Windows only right now, but you can be sure that we'll be testing any new client tech with that game first.
--Corey
Corey Bridges
Exec Producer, Multiverse
http://www.multiverse.net/
> I wonder if anyone will ever get around to making a distributed MMORPG. Something
> where different parts of the game world would be hosted by different operators.
That's actually one of the more interesting things that we hope to enable. Here's a likely scenario:
How about instead of each indie dev team building a separate world, you have three dev teams who DIVIDE a world: "You guys make North America, you other guys make South America, and our team will make Australia." And then ALL of the teams share a common character database, ruleset plug-in, combat plug-in, et cetera, et cetera...
--Corey
Corey Bridges
Exec Producer, Multiverse
http://www.multiverse.net/