Use of Language (was RE: [Plib-devel] Re: KobayashiMaru & plib)

[Fay J. F C. AAC/W. <joh...@eg...>]

Folks,
	While I hesitate to do this as a relative newcomer to the list, I
feel that I need to put in a plug for decent language.  Four-letter
Anglo-Saxon words are not only offensive (at least to me, personally), but
they are also unprofessional.  I also have a job-related interest in the
matter:  I have a ".mil" address, and every byte that comes in or goes out
is monitored.  I don't want to have to explain to the computer security
people why I am subscribed to this sort of a mailing list.

John F. Fay
joh...@eg...


-----Original Message-----
From: Sam Stickland [mailto:sa...@sp...]
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2000 10:41
To: pli...@li...
Subject: Re: [Plib-devel] Re: KobayashiMaru & plib



----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Baker" <sjb...@ai...>
To: <pli...@li...>
Sent: Friday, August 11, 2000 9:26 AM
Subject: Re: [Plib-devel] Re: KobayashiMaru & plib



>
> > > But do you really believe that as a beginner 3D programmer, you will
manage to
> > > write a single game that spans deep space PLUS flight sim PLUS
hand-to-hand
> > > combat and integrates all those seamlessly?  Not one single game
throughout
> > > the entire history of game making has ever been that ambitious.  Not
one.

> Utterly universal game engines don't exist because they can't exist.
> There is a galaxy of difference between a first person shooter game
> engine like Quake or Doom and a flight simulation engine like FlightGear.
> The idea that you can just change the model and program some different
> behaviours in is very naive.

Well, I wasn't going to jump in here, but in the end I thought "what the
hell"...

In terms of outdoor and indoor environments being mixed in a single game you
could cite Descent 3.  This game - supposedly (I
haven't seen any truely techy articles on it), managed to successfully mix
an outdoor engine, with an indoor portal culling engine.
At the time it was described as a "tremondous technical feat" :)

So, I don't believe that it's actually impossible - merely just incredibly
difficult.

I'm working on a similar game to KobayashiMaru myself, but I understand the
technical challenges involved and I don't expect to ever
fully complete the project.

I'm tackling it in stages, creating the neccessary technology at each stage
to complete those goals.  So to begin with I have a
straight up space-shooter (and this has taken me long enough! :).

I'm currently in the process of taking the network code from this and
rewriting it into a separate generic library (something I
should had done from the start, but hey, we live and learn).  The network
library (to my surprise), is turning out to be quite
powerful :) . From an API point of view you can just subclass new objects
from the base one provided, and effectively do:

STNetworkObj *obj = new STNetworkObj ;
obj -> SetPos ( blah ) ;

NetworkEnv::AddNewObj ( obj ) ;

( Obviously it's a bit more complex than that.  In actuallality your
subclassed objects have to specify which of their
data-variables are to be transmitted over the network, what accuracy they
require (this can be range based) etc.  Objects can also
be placed in classes and assigned relative strengths.  For example, you
might have a scanning class - into which you can place
scanners and jammers.  The network engine works out what information the
client *should* know about and transmit only that).

The network library shields all the nasty dead-reckoning, time-sync, latency
and path extropolation problems at it's highest level.

This isn't fantasy.  I have this code base working, and I'll have small
programs to demonstrate the library ready in the coming
months (starting with network Pong! and getting more complex).

Now, this is only a very tiny part of what a game like KobayashiMaru would
need to achieve - and this has taken me 18 months to get
this far. :)

When the network library is fully debugged, I plan on adding a basic trading
mechanism to SpaceThing - and the amount of spare time
I have at the moment (maybe I'll have to stay in more), this will be a
while.  After that I need to add a persistant database to the
server-side of the network library.  God knows how long that will take!

From my point of view it's a bit of fun, and I get nice side programs at
every stage - even it is shitty Pong! :)

Well, that appears to be enough of a ramble/blanant plug for my network
library.

Sam



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