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Jan 4, 2001, 9:41pm

[View Quote] Well, everything has to be predefined in some way, otherwise it can't
happen. By the way, I wasn't speaking about a specific mountain, I was
speaking about the terrain in general. It morphs when you shoot at it, or
make big explosions. So if the terrain happens to be a mountain somewhere,
you could keep shooting at it until it was a big hole. What you do therefore
has an impact on the terrain as a whole.

> AW places
> no such restrictions on the user, where they can build a mountain, delete
> it, replace it with a park bench, stick a pole in the middle of the park
> bench, build a house around the park bench and pole, delete the pole, etc.
> etc. etc. ... ad infinitum.

It doesn't? Well you seem to overlook a few things... first of all, if the
object isn't available, it can't be built in AW. There is a set of
predefined objects you are working with. You can insert an object, place it
somewhere and rotate it a bit (but only around it's up-down axis).

This works the same in such a game: there are objects, which are at specific
places, etc etc. The objects that are available are limited by the people
who made the game, just as the objects available in a world are limited by
the owner. Do you really think everything in a game is hard-coded into the
executable? That would be very silly. The kind of games that look like AW
usually just are a reality-simulator. The levels, monsters, players, etc are
all completely modular.

> As for games were you can build ... you can only build those things that
are
> supported within the game

In AW you can only build the things provided by the world's owner. If you
own a world yourself, you can put in anything you want.

In those games, you can only build the things provided by the creators of
the game. It is possible to add things, if not by the players, then by the
creators themselves. (read: add-on packs with extra levels, monsters,
pickups, bonusses, etc)

See the similarities?

> and interaction with these "objects" is also
> restricted to what is supported within the game.

Of course it is. But this is the same in AW. You can only interact with
stuff in predefined ways. You can come up with new, creative ways to use
those interactions, for example a bot that reacts on an avatar gesture. But
you don't really create any new way to interact. Interaction in AW is
limited to moving (moving to a certain area, or bumping into things),
talking, using gestures and clicking on things. Nothing more. This is how AW
restricts what you can do. You can use some of these things by standard
(clicking, bumping, coming near an object), and write little scripts for
them. But scripts are nothing special, it's a fairly common way to make
things happen. For example, the Creatures series of games is completely
driven by a scripting language. Creatures happens to be 2D, but it would be
nothing different if it were 3D. Also, you can write bots, but that's
similar to writing a plug in for a game. For example, someone has made an
excellent plugin for Quake, Reaperbots. This plugin controls a bunch of AI
players, and you can use it to brush up your deathmatch skills. (I can
recommend it to anyone who likes quake multiplayer)

> AW provides an environment
> where there are very few rules, and therefore handles any activity in a
> generic manner.

Just the same for games. Most 3D games provide an environment for the games
to live in, the game itself is created by the levels and the objects. Even
Wolfenstein 3D could run customizable levels!

> In the games you mention, the restrictions placed on the
> player represent the "fixed" aspects. You can only do what the game
supports
> which falls well short of a user's capabilities in AW.

In AW you can only do what AW supports, which isn't really all that much.

> It is hardly surprising that these games perform so much better than AW
due
> to the assumptions and subsequent shortcuts that can be made within the
> processing BECAUSE of these restrictions.

You seem to be working with *very* old knowledge, or you grossly
overestimate AW's capabilities.

> With the generic nature of AW's
> concept, everything must be handled in a "correct" manner ... and that
takes
> processing power.

In a game, stuff must be handled in a correct manner too. Take Carmageddon
II. There's a world, with various objects, and there are cars, which are
objects too. Now crash your car into a streetlight at 300km/h. As for the
game, this is just a matter of two objects hitting each other. Therefore, it
has to model the crash to see what happens. The streetlight might break off
and fly away, the car will deform, start to spin and maybe loose a few
parts. Nothing is constant, compared with other crashes - the size and shape
of the car, the size and shape of the streetlight, the overall world gravity
(lunar gravity bonus, anyone), the thickness of the free space around you
(you could be underwater), the speed and weight of the car, the speed and
weight of the streetlight (could already be moving), etc etc etc.

There are assumptions, of course. First of all, real world physics - gravity
for example. And the objects have been preprogrammed to tell the game that
they can break or deform at certain places. But *what* happens, and when and
how, has to be done in the game itself.

Now, for AW, the only physics it has to deal with are the movements of your
avatar. You'll fall down, unless you are flying, and you won't walk through
solid objects, unless you use shift. And if you are flying you'll keep on
going for a while after you stopped pressing the keys.

> Here's an example (of the point - don't take it too
> literally regarding AW). Imagine a ten-pin bowling alley. The rules are
> strict here - if the ball hits the pins at a certain point, from a certain
> direction, the fixed starting position of the pins can be relied upon and
> the after-effects of the strike can be rapidly rendered BECAUSE of this
> fact. Now imagine the same bowling alley in AW ... where the pins can be
put
> anywhere. Each object (e.g. the ball, the pins, etc.) must be handled
> discretely and all the impacts individually calculated and rendered before
> moving on to the next point in time (e.g. frame) because there are no
> assumptions that can be made. There is a massive overhead in handling
> real-world, flexible environments where rules are few and far between
> compared to those where the bounds of interaction are so limited.

Nice example, but it doesn't apply here at all. The physics of the bowling
alley aren't dealt with by the world server, nor by the AW client (unless
you try to walk through it). AW has no native support for moving objects
that influence other objects, and doesn't do any real world physics on them
either. What really happens is this: there's a bot (plug-in) that provides
the game. The bot only knows about balls and pins. The bot notices that you
try to throw a ball, and then handles the moving and the impact. This is
exactly the same as in a standalone bowling game, and everything happens on
the computer the bot runs on. The only thing your client gets through is
where the pins and the ball move, which is the same as when someone's avatar
moves, or when someone moves an object while building.

There simply *is* no real-world, flexible environment with few rules. AW has
very strict rules, even. You seem to think of AW as something much more
sophisticated than it is.

Rolu

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