WorldForge Forges Ahead

Anonymous Coward writes "LinuxWorld has an article up about the WorldForge Projects's game Acorn. Some of the developers of this cool open source EverQuest-like game are hanging out in the article forum answering questions. The groovy thing about the game is that you can contribute to it creatively more than with Ultima, etc., making your own special items and other stuff." There are several of these MMORPG's kicking around, and while I applaud their efforts I have this sneaking suspicion that the amount of work required is so high that none of them will ever be completed.

Re:Is this a Good Thing(tm)?

Cheating, hidden codes, and advantageous bugs will be plentiful in this game, and so nobody will play it. It will be a failure of the Open Source model. And let's not get into the idea of them trusting client-side programs to be run. You can't even trust Diablo client-side, so why would you trust something with open source?

We do not trust the clients. That is actually one of our basic design principles. The server does all the world and character related calculations. The clients are of course free to use prediction, but the server always has the final say.

--
Hans Häggström, WorldForge developer.

Try this!

Um, if you're interested in networked applications involving 3D graphics, such as most modern games (including MMORPGS), you might want to check out Verse [sourceforge.net].

Briefly, Verse is a system (network protocol, client library, and a lightweight server) to make development of such applications easier. It's based on cool tech (such as subdivision surfaces), almost completely free and open (we use GPL, LGPL and BSD licenses), and best of all: not vapor!

Verse has been under development by two full-time developers for over 20 months, so we sure have code. If this sounds interesting, swing by the above SourceForge page and take a look. Thanks.

Re:Try this!

Um, this is probably "helping the enemy", but anyway: here's a link [mutationlabs.com] to Gel3D. I haven't followed Gel's development as closely as perhaps I should, but glancing at their Info page reveals one major difference: it's peer-to-peer, whereas Verse [sourceforge.net] is client/server. The "war" between P2P and C/S network architecture in the distributed graphics/VR community is pretty intense, and I guess there's still no clear cut winner. They both have advantages. P2P offers potentially lower latency and better distribution of course, but C/S has the benefit of being easily understood, administered and also easier to make secure and persistent.

Complexity?

and while I applaud their efforts I have this sneaking suspicion that the amount of work required is so high that none of them will ever be completed.

Complex? You mean like an OS kernel, or a windowing system? How about a database?

TONS of Free Software out there is extremely complex.

Re:What is wrong with having "only" 300 people ?

The distributed server thing ala peer-2-peer for online playing is a great idea! Have each server be a land or portion of a land and you must pass through some kind of gate to move to the next server or perhaps cross some mountains, or take a boat ride, or enter some caves etc.

Yes, this is an idea that many have floated before, in various guises, over the years at WorldForge, and because of that I would have to bet that when we're further along, people will experiment with doing that. In fact, we're planning to put the hooks in to allow people to experiment with this into our next version of the server.

Now, there's a lot of issues to deal with in such a situation, but heck, that's what experimentation is all about, and it wouldn't be fun without some challenges, right? ;-)

It's impressive to see how quickly everyone is grokking what WF is about! And you know you're all welcome to come join in the fun with us, there's plenty of interesting work to go around.

Bryce Harrington ~ WF Coordinator fella

Re:Is this a Good Thing(tm)?

You can't even trust Diablo client-side, so why would you trust something with open source?

I'd rather have a small group of developers (say, 5 or so) writing the game, with no source code availability.

You contradict yourself right there. Diablo was closed soure, handled only by the Blizzad team, but you don't trust them?
Do you think that just because programmers profess a belief in open-source ideologies it magically makes them better coders?

At least with an open game (let alone free-speech) you can look for cheats, bugs, backdoors, etc yourself.

[I couldn't decide whether to mod this down as a troll or reply, but I figure joining the discussion is the noble thing to do. It may not be so blatantly obvious to our "younger readers" why the parent was incorrect]

Missing the point.

Worldforge isn't trying to create one specific game.

They are creating the tools that will reduce the task of creating an online world. Hence the name Worldforge.

Acorn happens to be a client/world that has been designed and developed as a "test" of the current development.

It usually helps to read about something you are planning on criticizing.