Re: Talk about simulations.


Mon, 20 Feb 1995 13:58:14 GMT

Jadrian Zun (zun@athena.mit.edu) wrote:
: In article <3i50ce$2hq@westnet.westnet.com>,
: Paul Munn <pmunn@westnet.westnet.com> wrote:
: >Recently, there have been posts about simulating locales in text
: >adventure form. The suggestions recent and not so recent have been for
: >simulating parts of cities, of college campuses, and the like. The user
: >is then free to walk through the simulations and kick the tires of
: >everything around him or her.
: >
: >This sort of thing is not really interactive fiction as far as many game
: >developers have pursued it. IF requires a plot, otherwise it is boring
: >and we will turn it off and go play something else. Yes, we'd like to
: >walk around and try and burn the houses down with the matches we picked
: >up a few rooms back, but discussions have gone towards saying that such
: >levels of detail are almost prohibitively time consuming to program, even
: >when using a very nice OO language like TADS.

: Yes, that's true. But in pushing the frontiers of IF, where else do we have
: to expand to? IMHO, I'd like to see realistic worlds in which several plots
: can take place, in addition to free-form interaction. This goes even better
: when you get into the domain of multiple players! And such levels of detail
: are not prohibitive when you have up to 30 authors working collaboratively :)

All that you are describing sounds a lot like the MOO system, which stands for
Mud, Object Oriented. Check out LambdaMOO on lambda.parc.xerox.com'
(the numeric address for which is `13.2.116.36'), on port 8888. This is as
close to a dynamic multi-user text adventure as you can get. If you want to
start your own MOO there is sufficient programming information and
binaries/source in /pub/MOO via parcftp.xerox.com.

I think it is the ideal creating environment since you are inside the world
that you create, there is no extra steps between programming and testing. When
I was on LambdaMOO I programmed an object to dump source for the room
descriptions and connects in some of the popular IF languages. I no longer use
LambdaMOO but the object might still be floating around.

: But, just imagine the possibilities of having a richly simulated world of
: Victorian London, in which you can set multiple Sherlock Holmes adventures.
: Throw multiple player interaction in there and you have me drooling. :)

Sounds like a candidate for a MOO to me. If you do decide to use MOO then I
would advise you to limit the amount of programers you have. Too many cooks
and all that.

: For such a project, check the Re: New Language (READ THIS) thread for my post
: about boogum. Or else e-mail me at zun@foop.mit.edu.

: Cheers,

: . . . Zun.

Regards,

Byron