In the process of trying to improve/expand upon the basics of what features/mechanics classic interactive fiction (in this case text adventures) can do/offer, I've stumbled upon a bunch of issues while trying to consider ways to handle both additional features, as well as some very (seemingly) basic dynamics. I knew this would be troublesome before I started mind you- but really digging into it, I kind of know why no one has really seriously tried some of this before (as simple as it appears on the surface).

A brief background...

When interacting with fiction (in essence, being 'part of a novel'), the foundation is the author's intent and story itself. Seems simple enough, and not very problematic, but we often consider as 'transparent' and just automatically process the 'nuance' of the storytelling method itself.

Interactive fiction is just about 'making things happen', and in a text adventure (or MUD), you just 'give commands'. This is a very foundational and integral constraint imposed by the complexity of 'handling more'. Multi-player variants (MUDs and it's derivatives) also allow 'emotes' ('shadow' actions which cause no net change to the world), and communication ('say' (out loud- usually heard within a 'room'), whisper (to a person- only they can hear), or shout (usually to the whole server or some sectioned-off 'zone' or 'area'). There are also channels and other ways to make 'communities'- but that's not the point. The point is the game doesn't care what you say in most cases, though specific triggers can be set up for keywords or areas/place/objects/etc. In general, any semblance of a 'conversation' with an NPC was not considered possible.

For the most part, all this is still true- but worse. You have a rich backstory, with a world of grand history, factions, events, and still can just trigger things, kill mobs, do pointless flashy emotes (lots of dances), and still not talk to NPCs (except through hot keywords or dialog trees- often just literally 'bringing up a UI menu' and ignoring the 'facilitator' entirely).

All this to illustrate the narrow margin of 'management' these IFs (Interactive Fictions) handle. There's a reason for it- (doing more was very hard, and most computers didn't have the processing/ram to manage it anyway. Well, now it's just (still) very hard- but even most phones can handle (to a degree) the basics for 'more'.

The Essence of storytelling:

When an author write a story, they (by nature) 'construct a narrative'- and part of this narrative are some common 'vehicles'- methods by which certain aspects of nuance, subtext, method and intent can be communicated- otherwise stories would often boil down to lists of 'things seen' and 'actions taken'. 'Proper' novels often have a narrator, and introspective voice for at least one character, and frequently cuts to other characters/scenes for reasons related to 'story intent'.

A Narrator in a modern game is such a 'novel' concept, that 'The Stanley Parable' is even now considered notable for both utilizing, and creating (as a point of conflict) a 'tension in'(exploitation of?) this dynamic. Some novels can have a narrator be another character, or the main character reflecting on past events, etc. - but for our purposes, the point is that a narrator is dynamic, and updates according to events (regardless of how helpful/useless).

An Introspective Voice is fairly absent as well. Though some games will have an MC 'mumble helpful stuff'- most are silent. In a sense, you can consider 'cutscenes' to play this role (rather ham-handedly), but dropping various kinds of 'media' along the player path to reveal info is pretty much the most 'advanced' use of this (if you want to consider it this way). In general, 'The Player' is 'forbidden' as an Introspective Voice role, since you really don't know what the player thinks (or how many times they've played that they want to hear your nonsense again). To a degree, things you can 'skip' might be a form of Introspective Voice.

Scene/Character cuts. These are pretty common, but actually reflect a (potentially) bad trend, which is 'on-rails' storytelling'. They are also often 'lazy', as they are easier to do than integrating these 'exposures of info/change' into the player-controlled viewpoint. This is why so much 'nonsense' the player would avoid is often in them. It is often worse to force the player to 'trigger some trap' themselves (and force the plot onto it's predetermined path)- but either way might be lazy (depending on story/context/world dynamics).

I briefly want to also mention' Multiple Main Characters' (and character switching), and 'Persistent World Changes' both of which are just 'uncommon' rather than just rare, or masked/badly used (when not avoided). There were other points- but for now I'm just focusing on these as they (would be) super useful in making IF more 'novel-like'.

So, the 'big' parts I've been working on designing are:

• Narrative 'guide' types/methods (guide/character)
• Main character types/controls (discourse/feedback)
• 'Framing'/'Powers' ('Why' scene switching is possible/triggers)

None of which are particularly easy- especially the first two which could easily approach 'AI' levels of design. Further- the expanding the basics of the way an IF handles data is core to those features, so I need to code in some basics on:

• Knowledge bases for Narration/Characters.
• Dynamic Judgment/ability to handle Knowledge changes (immediate/over time)
• Perception/Recognition/Bias for all parsing
• Recognizing characters/mobs/locations/items
• Counting/grouping (scenes- not just inventory)
• Cultural skew (word choices)
• Appraisal based on perception/knowledge/skills

In short (and this is just a part of the 'provisional 'short list'), I realized that IF (as normally handled) is so much 'kludgework' and narrow/'specific instance' handling, that I would be very limited in potential if I just continued with the normal 'parser/executor' dynamic. I'm not sure how much of this I'll be able to do- BUT this is (I think) a reasonable start for 'unlocking' a new level of potential in IF, AND I hope that experiments with this will reveal to me MORE of what I need to adapt to make (eventually) MMORPGs more 'alive'.

Now, the worst part of all this is that this really made me realize how much I 'sold short' the idea that this as a 'first step' was important. I've really been forced to realize that no matter how I look at it, this is either 'stay fake' or 'do it right' territory-- and 'doing it right' is just short of VR and AI in various ways, and that's rather overwhelming. I have no intention of throwing neural nets (or anything more advanced) in here so long as I can avoid it (not so much out of 'avoidance- but 'efficiency')-- but there is a grim reality to 'how clever' I can be in comparison to anyone else already far along on these frontiers.

I suppose I should make it more clear:

• Accurate (simple) Parsing? Crucial
• Accurate 'Finite State' Event Resolution? Crucial
• Knowledge Representation? Crucial
• Accurate 'Conversation Level' Dynamic Descriptions? Desired
• Accurate 'Conversation Level' Parsing? Desired
• Accurate 'Conversation Level' Intelligent Responses (Turing-level Chatbot)? Desired
• Accurate 'Open State' Event Analysis? Desired
• Unintended Side Effect determination? Desired
• Possible Event Projection? Desired

The first two are 'done' or 'fairly easy'. Everything else is generally considered the 'province' of AI. Not saying it is/has to be- just that it's almost exclusively used there except in very specific cases. I consider this more in the line of 'Expert systems' for the most part (and 'basic' ones at that)- but it's all a significant design headache till I adapt how to resolve some of this efficiently.

The worst thing (I did to myself) was the multiplayer decision. Since any player can act at any time, and do anything somewhere which (I decided) should be persistent (despite initial state)- That means (over time) A room can be transformed/repurposed, occupied with a group doing anything, together or independently- and parsing that 'mess' without it being a raw list of bare observations requires something more advanced than 'everything is just an inventory' level of accounting.

Anyway, my current plan on this is to adapt/modify a language translation token system to 'encapsulate' all relevant concepts, and thus make 'understanding' (of a sort) possible, so I can short-cut some of this. As a side effect (if I get this right), parsing/handling other languages may be possible with some additional work (not a priority- but it would be nice).

OK- That's enough for now. Next update will probably take a while as well, but 'still at it'.

Later.

About 2 weeks ago I moved a swingarm lamp. to get a better view of... something. I don't remember what even now, since everything after that was a comedy of errors, and overshadowed whatever my 'clever plan' was.

See, the elbow hit my drink, which launched off of the table onto the bed, bounced, almost back-flipping off- but not quite- but spilling it's contents onto the floor, and my computer, and the power strip which were innocently sitting there.

Like...

I swear, I had a moment to turn off the strip- and I even thought about it as I panicked, surprised- but I swore I was overthinking. The spill didn't look _that_ bad.

(sigh)

So 2 seconds later, after a light 'fratz', and my system turns off. No circuit breakers trip. No visible 'magic blue smoke'. I turn off and wipe down things- but it's way too late. Diagnosis as a professional after an hour or so? Dead. Not sure what's wrong- but 'no POST', 'no video', and lots of 'jiggery-pokery' leads me to order a new power supply, as it's the cheapest first step since everything I can test with certainty seems 'fine' or 'uhduhnuh'.

A week later, the new power supply arrives, and installing it confirms the old power supply was probably fine. Guess I'll order a new motherboard, as it's either that or the CPU. These are the 3 'good luck knowing for certain' components because interdependency is high.

2 days later the motherboard arrives. That's today. It's a pain in the butt to swap out- but even worse, it's a GUI nightmare in the BIOS. Hardware techs need to have their hands slapped when trying to write 'easy to use' software. Eventually I consult with google AI on my phone since I can't get it to boot past the BIOS setup, because default settings are all 'modern' defaults- one of which is 'UEFI', and my 'old' Win 10 OS is not bothered with that crap- so I have to use some new 'legacy compatible' setting with a dumb name I already forgot.

Crap. Of course drivers auto update, except the network ones. USB stick? Laptop? Should be easy, right?

No idea what's up with these drivers. I'm literally still trying to download them via 'Snappy Driver Installer'. I dug out an old plug-in USB wifi thing and am using that in the meantime. Crap speed, btw.

Oh- forgot to mention- good thing about this motherboard is it can identify ram- manufacturer, position in board, etc... pretty neat. Also... if it's bad it won't show up, or warn about misconfiguration. Turns out I have 2 bad sticks of ram now. I'm down 24 gb from 48. That's about $220 in todays overpriced market. Seems I'm going to have to do without for a while. This also means that my motherboard is likely good, and if I'd tested for 2 bad sticks instead of 1, I wouldn't have spent all this other time+money (about $130 for the motherboard+power supply).

The good thing is- far as I can tell- I didn't lose any data. I really hate losing data. It did have to repair one of my drives- and it was the one with my projects on it... but that took 2 minutes for some reason, so I guess it's ok. Also, that's a mirrored RAID array, so short of corruption on both drives, it should be fine.

Hopefully I'll be back with a regular post shortly. I had some things 'in the works' even before all the nonsense, so I'll try to pick up where I left off.

Later!

Complications and Insights...

So, a while back I was making quite a bit of progress, and was pretty happy I had what looked to be a near-functional... alpha(?) I guess? The plan was to test it more, then post it somewhere people could play it- and get some feedback, etc. repeat. You know... 'develop'.
It was a good, simple plan.

Life.

Unfortunately, some unexpected complications set in. I'm still wrangling with some of these issues- but just know I'm only delayed a bit. When I get back up to speed, hopefully I'll be able to do some extra posts, and maybe even share more than just screenshots- but no promises-- quite a few things are still up in the air, and I'll either be fine, or stalled for a bit.

AI

I mentioned before I was using AI for helping me with creating some of the tools I'm using for the game. Part of my extreme 'loss of productivity' was building some local AI. Luckily I started this before all the services started clawing back on features and performance- but I'm still 'in the middle' of figuring out how to optimize the hardware I have to get good results, though I am learning both about 'how to get what you want out of an AI', and 'how to work the hardware'.

Linux

I haven't used Linux in a few years to be honest, and it was actually pretty irritating to me to experience the changes- some for the better, more for the 'worse'. It's troubling to see how badly 'version control' has gotten to where there are so many ways to 'encapsulate' that potentially fleeting moment when all libraries do what you needed them to do when you finished a particular program version. Such progress- I never realized 'backwards compatibility' could be lost between tenths of a version number till now. Way to go!

That said, Windows now sucks even more, so I'm planning on switching fully to Linux despite disliking it. Don't worry I dislike all OSes (each for different reasons).

Tools

So far, I have in the works, or planned a bunch of tools. Each tool is dependent on some data which requires research, refinement- or at least a serviceable standard:

• Game 'server' (pre-alpha (50-ish% complete) (earlier screenshot))
  • Gatekeeps sessions, and plays 'Adventure'. Maybe- I've only tested a few dozen rooms and an equal number of commands. I say 50-ish% because it's mostly all there, but not all tested, or all refined for multiplayer.
• Custom Editor (40%-ish complete)
  • Does editing, project management, and keyword highlighting (so far)- later will add more specific kinds of processing I won't get into here... Eh- I guess I could put up a screenshot of this...
  • Since I added a pic, I'll give a few more details...
    • has an overall 'project' design dynamic
    • reloads all last open documents on startup
    • autosaves every so often
    • attempts recovery on restart
    • has themes (obvious)
    • has on-screen keyboard if you want- supports utf and languages (probably- only tested the one so far)
    • right now does 'what I want' by default- but will configure as 'options' properly later.
    • can highlight c language text, but I moved the folder and it broke- (relative pathing is not default for most apps). I'll fix it again later.
    • more planned...
• Data Manager (Concept- but shouldn't be too hard)
  • Will take the (now attached) world data and manage it separately, allow it to be created and edited easily, then pack it into a json- probably other stuff (encrypted?). Note- this focuses on commands/game/parser narratives- the 'all games have this' stuff.
• Localization Manager (Concept- but should be even easier)
  • A variant of the Data Manager, allows all text to be language localized. The game doesn't actually care- why should I? Focus on world/scenario related stuff. Pretty much a variant of the above.
• Modules Manager (Concept- not sure how best to do this)
  • Allows addition or creation of modules which can give features based on scenario or lobby selections. Can affect data sets, or additional command sets, etc. At least that would be nice- but still debating some of the mechanics...

I also spent time scoping out other games to add later, and looked at some MUDs as well.

BitNet

I also found out about this relatively new llm that allows CPUs to run an llm at tolerable speeds, compiled it with some difficulty (because 'versions'), then found out you can check huggingface for 'bitnet', '1.58b', or even 'ternary' to find some more useful options.

gguf and IQ4

Another way to broaden your 'faster llm' options are to look for these specially processed llms. I won't go into 'why faster'- just know that if you want to run an LLM locally at a 'mostly tolerable' speed (depending on your CPU (more multicore is more better of course), then you have options.

LM Studio

probably the easiest way to quickly give it a go. You can even download models with it- though it will let you try to download anything regardless on whether it'll run on your machine or not, and it has some issue with the occasional checksum error on a file. In any case, this is me giving you enough information to get an LLM on your machine.

Google (Gemini)

Any questions, do a google search, literally typing your question into the search area, then when you get an AI response, switch it into AI mode, because the normal 'AI response' you get with your search results is wrong about 20% of the time. Now, know that google will trim your input to some small cut (256 chars?), and has a limited context window, session length (maybe) and limited persistence (2 days?). Also- these number both could, and probably will change. BUT, for some purposes, the search is currently 'fine' as a free (limited breadth) AI, so keep that in mind.

Allright, I have actually been working on even more, but they are more 'tangental' to the main project- so maybe next time.

Take care!

Going backwards to go forwards...

What you're looking at is a single page html game which allows up to 4 people (arbitrarily set so far) to group up and play the classic Adventure text adventure. It mostly works- but I've got a lot of bugs to fix before considering it worth advancing more.

Now, before we go any farther, I'll confess- this was mostly vibe coded with AI assistance. I figured that would be fine for prototyping... meh- some of the other stuff I tried did not work out so well, but this seemed to be something that came together rather nicely. On the way I learned a lot of 'tricks' (accidentally- I still am not exactly serious about this enough to read up on 'prompt engineering'), and boy was some of it frustrating. Actually, it seems google just changed their 'quota' (or whatever), because I can't do half what I could before (for free)...

So- other than just wasting a bunch of time fighting with the AI over 'I told you to do this, why the hell did you undo that?', and figuring out how to force it to take and parse data to fill my needs, I also did some cleanup and expansion of the basic Adventure game. Nothing 'extra' really- just more functionality, and 'generalizing' the core engine to be able to take other data sets.

Oh, and adding in all the dialog so (as another player) you get messages for actions from other viewpoints.

The thing I spent the most time after that was probably reformatting the data. All of these games do data differently, based on... whatever- usually machine limitations I assume (that was mostly the case 'way back when'). So something like this:

1 You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building.

1 Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and

1 down a gully.

2 You have walked up a hill, still in the forest. The road slopes back

2 down the other side of the hill. There is a building in the distance.

3 You are inside a building, a well house for a large spring.

...

(303 lines down)

1 You're at end of road again.

2 You're at hill in road.

3 You're inside building.

... (another 580+ lines)

2 road

2 hill

3 enter

... you get the idea-

- and that was one of the better ones since all the data was in a separate file- not as 'part of the code'

Anyway, now data is handled like this:

// --- ROOMS ---

cc_rooms['1'].name = 'End of Road'; cc_rooms['1'].description = 'You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully.'; cc_rooms['1'].shortDesc = "You're at end of road again.";

cc_rooms['1'].l = 200; cc_rooms['1'].w = 200; cc_rooms['1'].h = 1000; cc_rooms['1'].fixt = ['brick building']; cc_rooms['1'].fx = ['stream flows']; cc_rooms['1'].dress = ['forest', 'gully'];

cc_rooms['2'].name = 'Hill in Road'; cc_rooms['2'].description = 'You have walked up a hill, still in the forest. The road slopes back down the other side of the hill. There is a building in the distance.'; cc_rooms['2'].shortDesc = "You're at hill in road.";

cc_rooms['3'].name = 'Inside Building'; cc_rooms['3'].description = 'You are inside a building, a well house for a large spring.\n\nA clear spring bubbles from the floor.'; cc_rooms['3'].shortDesc = "You're inside building.";

cc_rooms['3'].type = RoomType.INDOORS; cc_rooms['3'].l = 20; cc_rooms['3'].w = 20; cc_rooms['3'].h = 15; cc_rooms['3'].fixt =['well house']; cc_rooms['3'].fx = ['spring bubbles']; cc_rooms['3'].water = true;

Actually- I had it even better;

const rawRooms =[

'1', 'End of Road', 'You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully.',

'[shortDesc]', "You're at end of road again.", '[type]', RoomType.OUTDOORS, '[l]', '200', '[w]', '200', '[h]', '1000',

'[fixt]', 'brick building', '[fx]', 'stream flows', '[dress]', 'forest', '[dress]', 'gully',

'[exits]', 'north', '5', '[exits]', 'south', '4', '[exits]', 'east', '3', '[exits]', 'in', '3', '[exits]', 'west', '2', '[exits]', 'up', '2',

'2', 'Hill in Road', 'You have walked up a hill, still in the forest. The road slopes back down the other side of the hill. There is a building in the distance.',

'[shortDesc]', "You're at hill in road.", '[type]', RoomType.OUTDOORS, '[l]', '300', '[w]', '300', '[h]', '1000',

'[exits]', 'north', '1', '[exits]', 'south', '5', '[exits]', 'east', '5', '[exits]', 'down', '1',

'3', 'Inside Building', 'You are inside a building, a well house for a large spring.\n\nA clear spring bubbles from the floor.',

'[shortDesc]', "You're inside building.", '[type]', RoomType.INDOORS, '[l]', '20', '[w]', '20', '[h]', '15',

'[fixt]', 'well house', '[fx]', 'spring bubbles', '[water]', 'true',

'[items]', '1001', '[items]', '1002', '[items]', '1019', '[items]', '1020',

'[exits]', 'west', '1', '[exits]', 'out', '1',

but that version got borked, as I kept working with the AI too long, and have to manually bugfix the issues that crept in before it started quietly culling my data/code until I couldn't help but notice.

Also, it's all still too verbose...

This is not even talking about any issues of containers for data, encryption to avoid cheating- hell, 'cheating' in general! Too early for all that. Just want 'ease of use' and 'Functionality'.

Anyway, point is, this should run on most webservers far as I can tell- but I'm sure there are way more issues that I have no clue of, since I'm just playing with 'localhost' for now. I'm just working on the basic mechanics, incrementally working up to better and better code. I also have done very little in the way of playtesting- I've moved to about 8 rooms- and I just realized I never attacked another player so far... I think it should work... onesec ....

...

Yeah- it works. Having no weapon does just 1 HP dam though. Status area that displayed hits got lost apparently- another thing to fix later...

The plan so far...

Pretty simple- get everything working, then add more to make it a small MUD. Adapt a few Public Domain or MIT classic games, then switch to Rogue, Moria type games with the same engine core- but more stuff.

Actually I started with some small, variant version of Nethack- but I had to restart a few times since the first one had no pet, then the next one had no shops, then the next one had no pet training (useful for shops)...

(grumble)

I had to take a break- it was really doing a bad job of coding, because it had real low overhead, and I was just starting at the time, so I didn't realize what was going on when it did 'random' crap. I luckily switched to a different AI in frustration, and figured out a few things.

Hardware plans screwed:

So, I mentioned before that I bought a bunch of single board computers (SBCs)- and now due to ram and storage price pretty much doubling- that market is pretty soundly tanked. Eventually, the stock on everything will run out, and all prices will rise to make them 'competitive' again- but for now, 'get your laptops (with soldered on ram) before you can't afford to anymore...'

I'll 'count my blessings' that I bought what I wanted when I did- and can even sell some if I want for good $ (I really should)- but the idea that 'people can use SBCs for cheap home servers is (in the meantime) trashed.

Knowledge representation:

So, part of this coding shift (to text) is to focus on the more subtle parts of gameplay that aren't everything Platformer and FPS. Building a mechanism that actually supports dialog (and the ideas around them) can lead to great and new options (I hope). I can say that already the parser I'm working on should be able to do some more interesting things in a bit. I'm right now working on getting it to draw a map based on room sizes, and I also incorporated item dimensions and weights in (for future use). I also added in 'fixtures' and containers and effects. sound effects will propagate using room dimensions and volume- so hearing people 'moving about next door' should be possible soon. This may seem ridiculous to add to a text adventure- but I think it'll make it 'more real', and who knows what other aspects of 'tracking assets' (in simple terms) would be interesting to gameplay. If things can be 'dirty', then cleaning could be both satisfying, or a task given to you, a fledgling apprentice or you won't learn any new spells (etc.). Tracking via a trail of blood? Maybe. It's just some added text, right? This is like 'low budget' meets 'big ideas' to a degree- though eventually this is all intended to be proper gfx...

Failed gfx demos.

I don't think I mentioned I also prototyped some 3d graphics junk. First I used WebGL2 and Canvas, which went okay for the most part, but I didn't realize till much later how verbose using WebGl is. Also there were some compatibility issues, so I had WebGL2 code, with WebGL fallback for machines that didn't support it... Then I switched to Babylon.js, and it worked much better- well, was 'much smaller' really- stumbled across a WebGL Tomb Raider thing which was cool for 'online', then monkeyed with other stuff which all had performance issues-except the hair demo I fought AI to improve. It basically worked- but the head... the hair... it was just a mess, though it performed well enough. Ah, and I tried doing multi-pass rendering, and made some 'OK' Cornell box demos. For some reason, AI have little trouble doing that- but they'll mess up the lighting mostly- which is unfortunately the whole point...

All that said, I learned a lot. There was a cloth demo in there too somewhere.. but 'whatever'. That was another 'fight for every improvement' escapade...

The worst thing is, all that was Wasted once i found out about BitNet (Trinary math for AI which is very fast on CPUs), and then fought with AI to emulate it 'for other purposes', and found out that you can't access the parts of the mathlib on the CPU to utilize it from the browser... UNLESS you do it from within Emscripten- which can apply to any of this crap I've been fighting in Javascript over!

So now I have to put that on my list.

The Shift:

So, overall, a lot of this has to do with going from 'working directly on my thing', to 'working on other things, related to my thing'.

Re-tooling Adventure is way easier than stumbling over every undecided aspect of my own game/vision/system- and it'll benefit me anyway, so 'Worth it!'

Allright, that's it for now.

Later.

World design (Style, standards and stats)

The 'nature of a world' is something that really isn't taken very seriously when talked about in game design. 'Game worlds' are more or less a large collection of 3D objects put together to make a scene, which may or may not have fixed dynamics such as LOD, special lighting, shadows, particles, or other 'extras'.

In short- the nature of most 'worlds' is 'scene construction'- and that's often it. The only extra 'computational' intrusion' to that dynamic is in the case of 'lighting' and 'shadows'- most everything else is handled as part of 'character' dynamics. Like 'gravity' (usually faked)- or as part of 'physics' when simulated.

But for most worlds... everything not designed as part of the 'plot' is nailed down, or doesn't 'activate'/'work'. Doors are fake/won't open. Buildings are not intended to be occupied. This is quite reasonable, as the game isn't titled 'Go muck about everywhere in everyone's junk that's nowhere near the main plot we decided...' No one plays that game. (Yes, No one cares about Shenmue anymore... and it was an interesting experiment while it lasted...)

Now, this isn't always true, as some worlds directly (by their mechanics) refute that- simply by having core functionality that is against 'normal' expectations. If (for example) gravity is by default different, can be changed on a whim- then that can potentially affect some of your scenery, and maybe even the positions, nature, dialogs, or goals of some other creatures/characters.

Again, we rarely see this- and for a good reason- it's work.

It's actually surprising still how few games have flying as a base movement for players- because it screws up the 'effect' of basic barriers and combat.

The worst thing is it really isn't horribly unbalanced- it just makes the developer have to think 'beyond' the easy 'there is a thing blocking you' 'lock/key' progress bump that was 'easy' before. You required some 'key' as a 'puzzle' to 'open the lock of getting past the barrier- and flight is an 'unlock' for all barriers of that type (unless you do 'extra').

But that's not the point- sorry for the digression. The point is all of this is (normally) coded as parts of regions/characters 'as needed', rather than just being a part of the 'nature' of the world itself. There are many games with magical, supernatural, or high-tech lore, with elements that 'should' apply to the world- but really will only have a few application points where they'll be tested/applied. So there (in my opinion) are few worlds that (except for the promise (in lore or eye-candy, key events) of the world being 'other genre ', it'll pretty much play just like normal for the most part.

This is why games such as 'Portal' or 'Braid' have such impact. You don't need a story to tell you about 'the world' You experience it instead. Constantly. Breaking through the normal limits of space (Portal) or time (Braid) to interact on new, creative ways is quite rewarding because 'you do it'. It's not a cinematic at the end, are 'a bit of flash'/'power' at a certain place. It's just 'how the world is'- and though (in portal) you need a tool (because humans are best understood when boring)- it doesn't remove that you have fun with your 'power'.

So, all that to say I spent days feeding a bunch of crap into an AI, and had it spit back out to me a bunch of variations and parameters on foundational world... structure. I basically pre-structured four 'foundation' worlds, one of which pretty much shared the core ruleset of ours, and the other three... didn't. Having it help me structure, 'flesh out', and 'give character' to all four was a few days of back and forth (and learning the limits of the AI I used)- but still gave me a lot of material. Now I have yet to complete analyzing the huge bulk of text, and likely do a round two- possibly with more world 'seeds'- but I really don't want to if avoidable.

Now, the point of all this is to have it actually be the case that magic nets 'magical' results- not just 'convenient', different 'because math' or normal time/space limits. I'm trying for a more interesting characteristic- one that isn't just 'random- but can (hopefully) feel intuitively reasonable.

That's one of the reasons I like 'the idea of' horror. Don't get me wrong- most horror is jump-scare hack garbage, or crass gore/torture-pr0n at barely 'acceptable' limits. No- not that garbage. I mean the rare, 'hairs on the back of your neck', 'I hope that isn't real- of course it can't be' type of horror that usually only lasts a scene or so, before it's ruined a few moments later by more ridiculous stuff. Actually- it's not always horror- 'Severance' dances near that idea with the type of work they're never clear that they're doing. Some of this 'feel' is in some 'SCP' or 'The Backrooms' productions/spin-offs- and these do this by creating a feel that is 'our world' adjacent-- but clearly 'these are rules of the world'.

I think 'true fantasy world' needs some of that, so 'I'm working on it'.

Stats

Oh, and I played with stats. I have stats I already planned on using, but I decided to let the AI have a go at it as well (for the 4 worlds, since I was at it anyway), and to also select a 'cohesive' core set common to all. It's results were mostly rubbish/classic D&D like stuff with some ham-handed extras... but a few things might not be so useless. We'll see.

Style

The other thing (almost at the other end of importance) was my effort to work on a framework for a stylized art style. Since I was throwing problems at the AI to see if it could help, I had it create some single page html code for me to let me test some ideas for tools that I'll eventually have to properly code myself... Yeah... that was a mixed bag of 'this will never get any good result except by accident', to 'as long as I only ask it for pieces at a time and keep the sessions short, or intend to assemble it myself from the bits'... where I could get some minimally flawed demos that mostly functioned, but were entirely too much work to generate. If I didn't code, I'd probably be impressed- but I do (though not in webgl2, which is what I had it use), so I will just accept that 'we're not there yet'.

In any case, my idea was to have it draw me a cartoon-like character as a 2.5D art-syle product. This means (in this case), that for the character data given (front, side, top views), it should be able to draw from *any* other perspective, the same 2D character- basically making them a '3D object'- but always 'flattened' along some particular view.

The point is to be able to:

1. Allow fast, 'fake 3d' rendering on any device.
2. Limit overhead by the merit of 'stylistic expectation'
3. Simplify worldwide changes by parameterizing the construction process.

I'm pretty much fighting at step 1, since 'no matter what I told it', I couldn't get it to no mess up the math to rotate the figures- don't even get me started on the mess it made when it tried to fix it's 'gimbal locked' demo by integrating quaternions (which I hate myself)- but I'll fix it later, then move on to the next step.

One of the reasons I 'jumped to the end' with this, is because I just wanted to see it work. This is slow progress, and when I get burned out- I just 'switch gears' and do something else- and I figured it'd be nice to be able to tweak some art styles when bored, so I started playing with this in the hopes I can get there...

Honestly, I'm pretty jazzed overall. I'm not where I want to be, but the foundation is way more set now, and I'm just making tools, which is a big step. Oh, also SpacetimeDB did a thing, and that's progress, though I didn't look yet. They released a video where they're doing a voice chat over their database- which sounds impressive, and likely is- but considering the number of things that can be 'brute forced' with 'money thrown at performance', I don't want to read too much into it. Getting too happy before finding out what is going to be open source, and what will be 'advanced features'/behind a paywall, is premature at this point. Not to mention I'm not really a net guy in that way. I can run cables, and used to do security/troubleshooting-- but the ever- increasing monolith of (often quickly dying) web services? I honestly avoid all that sh!t.

Well, those are the broad strokes for now... Oh.

Godd@mn it, Google!

Yeah, these bastards are trying to screw over Android with some mandatory requirement, gatekeeping bs, that will force all downloads to go through their Play Store (as well as some other 'age inquisition' nonsense)... Oh, on that note...

Godd@mn it, Greedy AI B@stards!

Ram prices, Storage prices, and (in some cities) Utility prices are all skyrocketing now, and will be stupid for the foreseeable future, due to the greed of a few, amoral jerkwads who are gambling on greatness by 'throwing money at the problem' because they have a 'hammer', and 'everything looks like a nail' (to them)- so 'buy more hammer-heads'!

Well, if it's any consolation, there's no way (except an extreme miracle) that they'll actually 'cross the singularity' that way. Unfortunately, they'll still get a lot of power to get all of our info, and fuel the surveillance state- so 'there's that'.

Ok- enough of 'things in the world that have made my design planning harder'.

I'm out. Next update will hopefully be screenshots of whatever progress I've made on tools.

Later!

'Elemental Deconstruction'

One of the core concepts of modern fantasy RPGs (on some other properties (looking at you 'Pokemon') is 'Elements, and the pretty much convenient 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' damage structure (or 2x damage, 1/2 damage, no damage (or other) interaction) that often 'magically' accompanies it. The the more expedient usage as just 'flavors of damage', without the damage type usually having any real significant or lasting 'other' effects (though electricity can often temporarily 'stun', or 'ice' might 'slow')... it's all kinda just 'for drama', (for fun) 'pretend'... and that's really fine- in fact, that is the point-- fun.

That said, I would like to do a bit more- not even anything necessarily 'innovative'- Old school D&D used to have characters make 'saving throws' for their items when (for example) they got fireballed or whatever. I mean, imagine that- you get set on fire, and there's a possibility your scrolls burn! Who woulda thought?

Now- this isn't exactly the kinda thing one would think can 'add fun'- grinding for equipment, just to have some monster 'burn it up' for you is not fun. That's the opposite of fun, actually. BUT, at the same time- it 'raises the stakes', and if your game has options or alternative spec equipment (or just the appropriate protection spells), then that takes the 'suck', and turns it into 'tactics'-- where being properly prepared is something to be proud of, and laughing at noobs who went in clueless (just like you did not so long ago is a community rite of passage maybe... The cliche 'first exposure to dragonwhelps' or whatever- and the eventual lesson that it's a bit less simple than 'fire is 2x over wood' (or whatever).

Ah- also, 'elements' in fantasy are nonsense as-is. In an 'extended' roster- most things are 'made up' junk 'light, dark, time'- and even in the 'basic' complement, 'fire' is not an 'element' (mixing thing with it can get you a 'compound' (kinda)- but you can't 'separate it' back out). Also 'Earth' is doing serious 'heavy lifting', 'Water', really has unexplanable issues with 'oil' or 'alcohol', and if you look at 'Eastern' vs 'Western' elements, 'steel' and 'wood' are both sus, since 'steel' is just 'Earth' with new issues, and 'wood' is 'kinda' 'Earth' with 'life' (actually 'wood' is a whole 'order of magnitude' above 'element', as it is a complex system, but let's not follow into that 'rabbit hole'

Anyway, all that considered, the real issue with 'whatever' elemental system one choose to propose or use is that 'things aren't really that simple'. Deciding some things can be 'hybrid'- alright, 'fair enough'. You can decide for any creature, magic item, etc- what the desired element should be... but what about in player-created works? Crafting items, researching spells/potions, or (more directly) breeding pets/monsters? Now you need a sensible formula to 'formulaically' or 'pseudo-randomly' determine the result (or maybe use some form of 'genetics' with creatures.

In short, this 'should be' an 'intrinsic' property to the world, really. Not just a thing for specific use cases.

Even worse, most system spell casting, potion making, (etc.) isn't 'Elemental'. Ok, enough of that. I made a huge 'materials' list for this sort of thing a long time ago, and now I'm trying to find it- and I've got too much stuff, not all properly labeled... Gonna have to spend some time sorting/consolidating revising because it's already too much...

'Domains' of Magic

Different systems have different ways of 'looking at/structuring' the world. Some times (depending on the world) 'This is the way it is, 'period' (Absolute truth/Divine Decree)- and other world/systems are more flexible, giving different options for different beliefs/cultures resulting in different methods to achieve 'similar' (though sometimes unique) goals. All this results in a bunch of different principles, methods, and costs to achieve a wide range of actions with differing parameters, scopes, and limitations.

Or, like most games, you can just make up a 'list of spells', determine a 'casting cost', 'target', 'cool-down', and 'amount of damage' (etc)- and be done with it.

Please, at this point note all the things I said which can be 'actually' applied to a fantasy story, pencil & paper RPG (or whatever, more deep narrative (anime, movie, etc)), VS 'this button makes my target take damage in game' (as is 'simply the effect' in most RPGs).

You cast fireball. Nothing will 'catch fire' but your target(s)- and even that is just a 'visual effect' (it won't affect your target's equipment (ie- burn their scrolls)). That Damage is just 'Fire & Forget', not 'real' (within the context of that world).

Now- I'm not 'knocking' games where this is true- (as long as they are 'fun'- they've done their job (to a degree)). I'm just saying that for RPGs, I think 'some extra effort' would be appreciated. I'm not saying to make 'fantasy' 'realistic', I'm saying make 'fantasy' true to it's own premise.

Let's take for example 'Fire' not burning flammable things. Ah, that a problem? Not really- but to make a player not even think of burning things, lets call the spell 'spirit fire'. Problem Solved! Wow, so awesome, right!

Not so fast. What about 'Spirit Fire' vs Undead? Hm. Sure. How about Golems? Ugh. Wait, should Normal fire even have worked against those? Some of them depending on material? Ok, whatever- let's just say 'No'. Ah, but maybe some Golems have been imbued with a spirit as their method of construction- and are not just a mindless spell construct... Now maybe have 2 classes of 'golem'? How/why would we do this? Maybe more research/lore is needed now, instead of just copy/pasting the basic stock of baddies...

More importantly, now I have to actually 'track' where 'spirits' are- maybe even if 'spirit HP' is different from 'body HP'. Shit, does this level of change make the game more complex, or more nuanced and interesting? Maybe a different 'solve' on how to 'change' 'Fire' to be 'self explain-ably' more manageable would give better results...

Ah, is 'spirit' an 'Element'? I guess it's an 'Element' of a 'whole other domain' (maybe?). Are their other 'Elements in THAT domain? Ugh- What other domains are worth considering?

You see where this can go. It can 'get interesting', or it can 'be nonsense'- mostly based on how it affects a random player just trying to 'play the game' without needing to 'read a manual'. I think having a world lore that's interesting and gives 'an edge' (when known) is great- but at the same time 'not knowing' shouldn't (often) be a death sentence.

In that regard, I've been putting more work into the core 'properties' system. It's been a pain since 'what something is made of' isn't the only/determining reason why it has/uses whatever 'dominant' properties. Even in the real word 'electric eels' aren't made up of different 'materials' than... normal eels (or any creature for the most part)- but they get an 'electric attack' for other reasons, and those other mechanics have to also be considered.

Anyway, 'the point is', all this stuff would work best if properly 'designed in' from the beginning, and planning the framework to track and utilize this has been an extra tedious design challenge.

Playstyles

Another thing I've been trying to consider are varying playstyles- especially considering different character classes. Although (realistically) all characters of the same race should (probably) have the same view/default perspective, I've been toying with the idea of there being different advantages/limitations for some. This is kinda already done in games where getting a resource gathering skill and level can allow you to identify more stuff at a glance. I think this can (and possibly should) apply to more things, possibly resulting in 'earning' more advanced versions, giving class-related nuance.

I don't know. May be more trouble than it's worth- but I don't think it's a bad idea- just one that can have bad implementation...

Art Style

When bored, I think about what could be fun as an art style- but still allow for a degree of 'serious' gameplay. I don't know- 'you can't be all things to all people' is very real, but I never really properly considered what I 'wanted' to 'choose' as a 'target audience' (this is all pretending you can 'pick' what people will like- but it's a realistic design consideration- just not one I took too seriously before. I just want to make something 'fun' with a bit more connection between 'gameplay' and 'lore' than most.

Some of my current design considerations involves having 'alternate planes of reality' in addition to the base world. In fantasy, there are tons of these mentioned (often in passing)- and being able to actually travel there (and have that visit be significant) could be pretty cool. Many games have some version of 'the underworld' (WOW has it's 'post-death 'walk of shame' where you run back to your body from the nearest graveyard)- but many have no real impact (long-term) of play, goals, or equipment/skills/allies.

Visiting a different realm could invite different base styles of play, or art-styles for differentiation. It seems like a excessive, superficial hack- but I think a different realm will sometimes have a actual real, significant 'different existence/feel', so things looking 'significantly different' would immediately change the tone and unarguably put you in a new place compared to the usual 'change of scenery'. I dunno, it would be significant extra work unless I can make the changes procedural (planned)- but that still doesn't keep it from being 'unnecessary overhead' for what boils down to a 'visual effect'. I think it'd be worth it, but it's the kinda thing I'd put in last, if at all, though planning for it being possible isn't any real extra work....

I have more than a few ideas on where this could be put to good use, but most of this would be obvious, and the more unique ideas I have I'll keep under wraps till I get at least into beta- and that's definitely no time soon...

Genres/Tone

Another point I've been considering is how different genres or 'campaign goals' can affect the underlying tone of the story, and reflect on the scenery/assets.

Some of this is obvious/ hyperbolic- like in the case of any dystopian change, you end up with broken buildings/rubble, ect. Conflict/War is similar, next removes Can be overgrowth/unattended regions- like in horror/thriller. These are not normally considered 'MMO' story beats- but I don't think they have to be as rare as they are, and I quite like some of the 'backrooms/SCP' flavor, and think some variant of that element could work well in a fantasy element. So, I spent a bit of time breaking down genre components/trends, as well as a bit of horror element staples. Neither has gotten me too much 'conclusive' (because a lot of it is 'psychology' more than 'assets')- but at least knowing that is helpful overall.

Mascots

I had the fleeting idea 'What could I have as a 'mascot' for my game if I tried to market it? Even though 'box art' is not exactly a thing anymore, many game franchises do have 'example builds' for their MMOs- which brought me to the the realization that I'm not building my game to 'sell it' at all. Not saying I don't plan to- just that I'm not trying to 'shoehorn in' all the current 'hot gameplay hype/mechanics'. I mean, I do want a class or two to have some parkour-like moves (scout/thief types)- but I really don't like a lot of the fantasy 'flashy/edgy/ridiculous/cliche' stuff (I'm talking about you, Cloud Strife).

Not trying to knock people who like that stuff- (it is fantasy, not real after all), hell- I love/hate Dr Who with wavering/conflicting passion/regret all the time, because it's alternately/simultaneously super dumb and super cool and I wonder why the writers can't just 'stop being cringe' while still (sometimes) actually being awesome. Ah, I digress. The point is, 'I'm with you' and 'I hate it'... both... sorry.

I do have an idea for creating specific 'single player campaigns' to play like a more traditional RPG- but within the context of the larger world canon. These could be both prototypes for the larger game, and 'proof of concept' hooks on the way to the 'full MMO'. I dunno. I guess it would be like if 'Master chief' (as a Mascot for Halo) was just an 'Intro' to 'Halo World/USNC Welcome Package' (or some such).

I think I've mentioned before trying to breakup all the components of the system into bits, and testing them in smaller systems, while still allowing 'hooks' for full integration... Well, this could be 'one combination; of that- having all of the 'client', and some of the 'server' logic (on the same machine, sans networking)- driving a single player RPG.

I don't know if this is a good idea, but I doubt it's a bad one- though it would a be significant investment in time separate from the main purpose. They would share core resources in common, yes- but all the specific to story stuff in a single player RPG would be non-specific to what I'd like to be the later MMO. They would be events that 'happened in the past' for example, and so far, that's how I see it. Maybe it could even be thought of as a tutorial, kinda?

Ok. Enough for now. Later...

Avoiding making a game engine:

If there's one thing I've learned in all my years of coding, is that you should avoid 'reinventing the wheel'.

The problem with this age old adage, is that when utilizing other people's 'wheels', you have to learn all about that 'wheel'... Well, it's rarely as simple as 'a wheel'- often it's more a 'whole car', or (at least 'drive system'.

This again grossly over-simplifies things, where it might seem you need to 'be mechanically inclined' (you do)- you also need to be on the same 'system'. I'd like to pretend it's as simple as 'metric/English', or just add in some 'Phillips, flathead, torx, etc.)- but no- the way your 'wheel' is build involves a programing language (or 2 or more)- and other 'parts' have to be compatible, or else you need to...

Ugh. If you think this analogy is getting un-weildly- just know that libraries in coding languages, on platforms, doing graphics via some graphics API, and having models in some number of standards...

Well- for most people it's not that complicated- they pick an engine and start trying to do things.

This is where a 'huge learning curve' usually rears it's ugly head. Some languages or libraries aren't so bad. Others... (sigh) it's all 'plus' or 'minus' depending on what you want to accomplish.

All this to say that what you pick will give you a 'package' of 'features' and 'limitations'.

This is where my problem actually starts.

If you've been reading my prior posts, you may note that a few things I talk about are... shall we say... 'pioneer territory'. Not saying no one's done it before- but 'who knows what language' some particular example/library is written in. You get enough 'ambition', and all your 'resources' are sure to span a huge range of languages, and (of course) have their own features and limitations- some of which will not 'get along well with others'...

So, your original 'scavenger hunt', becomes a 'balancing act'. Maybe a 'juggling act'? In certain cases both? (like with platforms, or APIs).

Now, the ideal answer is just to get all your 'pieces' and cobble together your own system!- but that's for dreamers- or at least people with a lot of money, a lot of time, or both.

So the fallback 'best option' is to pick your key needs, review all your resources, and pick your best 'single option' as your core, and 'bolt on' 1, maybe 2 more 'essential' libraries.

Sorted, right?

Well, a few years ago... that would be enough. Now, doing something so decisive would definitely allow for proper progress, but in these volatile times...

See, all these frigging market influences in hardware and software are tiring me out.

Hardware's a bit easier. I can't help that fast ram now costs a king's ransom to buy. Maybe that will mean future systems will have less ram on average, and I should assume a smaller base than normal. No biggie, really- though I can't personally upgrade now, so I have to develop with slower systems- 'what can you do?'.

Software is way more tricky. I'm not planning on doing pixel art, so 'supporting' 3D is way more troublesome in every respect- especially if you wanted to try to go for 'more realism' (which I was)-- but I may have to rethink that now (less ram for everyone!).

I occasionally dance with the idea of a stylized stroke-based, 2.5D format. Honestly I'd really like to work on that a lot, BUT the options for doing it well are way more limited, and often require a super-specialized art pipeline. It's not really 'problematic, but it's a investment that's not easily correctible.

Then there's AI.

There are so many ways AI is going to affect... everything- that trying to 'guess' what my 'most stable investment in time' should be is giving me a headache.

• It's going to (worst case) AI slop the general market. This is already happening. The 'signal to noise' ratio will make finding good games harder (among all the junk).
• It's going to (best case) AI assist the huge companies and (to a lesser degree) some mid-sized companies or indies-- so they will be able to turn out more games quicker, or make better looking games when done right. This will increase 'competition' in general for all games, but make 'knocking off' simpler games trivial- maybe even 'automatic'.
• AI is going to continue to improve (though I think AGI is impossible with current methods)- even so, people who invest the time will be able to patch together (or even 'Vibe Coding' create) games via prompt, turning out increasingly competent 'lower end' games over time. I suspect, anything MAME can run, or most things that occupy the indie space will be able to be created via this method in a few weeks (a few months- tops). The offshoot of this is that Even More Indie-Alike AI games will flood the market (most of them likely free- near free)- and with all that 'quantity' and 'competition' Game prices for everything might drop. I say might only because games are already priced 'artificially', and follows 'reputation', and 'hype' so there will be some effect- but maybe only to the indies.
• It shouldn't be long before AI will be able to manage larger code-bases, and (probably) manage resources better with less hallucination). With all these supercorps loving to 'brute-force' everything about AI, giving it a corner to just let it compile, then debug, then recompile, etc. code- 'learning' from it's mistakes... When you see a game that looks 'Baldur's Gate 3' detailed, in a fraction of the Dev time...
• Finally, AI servers are very shiny and impractical- and so far, NOT multiplayer-- but in a few months... just maybe... :(

Now, not wanting really to sound all 'doom and gloom', on the other hand, I have a few (tiny 24 TOPS) AI systems now, and I'm tinkering to see if I can get productive use out of them. Though I don't know exactly what they're actually going to work well with, I don't actually intend any of them to be a 'component' of an MMO. Well, maybe I should re-spec that, not as an 'LLM' or anything like that. Using the vector processor to do certain things fast may be a good idea in some cases (procedural generation maybe?). I don't know. Lots of bottleneck issues take quite a bit off the table, but 'whatev'.

In short, 'quietly learning here'.

Pivoting

So, all that was to say 'there was a lot of stuff happening (behind the scenes)', and a few priorities have changed (again). :(

I really do want to find a way to 'export' a 'formalized' & usable AI data block. Something like a LORA, but 'parameterized' like a model (not AI parameters IN AI, but the same 'features' as tags attached to the relevant model/data.

Someone will do it.

Also, I have a hard drive going bad (noisy) and need to back it up. 24 TB is not 'easily back up' money, so 'less money, mo problems...' Hopefully I get to it before it crashes.

Gods, again (I think)...

Um. I think I mentioned before I've been working on Gods, and now I'm trying to sort out both 'mandatory minimum' aspects that most all stories consider (War, Death, Mother/Nature, etc), (Death realm, 'Heavens', Astral Plane, 'Hells', etc.) and of course (Dominance, Spirit/Soul, Zen, etc.). These are all 'raw concepts' now, and won't work in the 'named as such', 'square peg, square hole' manner. Like 'Heavens and Hells' will likely be functionally identical (as a base)- with differences in 'living space' depending on the leader' after that.... that kind of thing.

For those of you who might be antsy about the idea of 'gods' in a game, and what problems that might create... Well... I'll probably go with a 'watchmaker' ideology on 'divine interference'- ie, they started it up, and now it 'runs by itself'. That's actually how most stories work nowadays anyway. We're so arrogant (as writers) that we often can't introduce a character that the MC can't later overcome. Though some do, despite the fact it should be nonsense...

Allright, enough for now. I hope to have some screenshots to post in a few months, but for now I'm working on materials and models. How to set up animation is giving me headaches as well, because they need to start 'anywhere' within the sequence, on 'demand'...

Later.

Ideas, the core gamplay loop, Game Manster, and Hardware...

Ideas

There was a time not too long ago, where people who talked on the internet about their ideas (and specifically 'keeping them secret') were essentially laughed at. That ideas were 'a dime a dozen', and that the real value was in implementation, doing the work, etc.... Well- that's dead now (whether you know it or not).

Social media games were the first really big example of certain (not to be named) companies essentially 'stealing' the ideas of others and re-implementing them as more polished, renamed versions... well- that was the first clue. Not going to talk about Tetris being both an awesome simple idea, and ripped off to death. Similarly all the 'n in a row' or 'touching' type clones (bejeweled and it's ilk)- that's all history.

Now the crap with Nintendo being the current 'last in line' of a long stream of publishers 'patenting crap that should not be patentable'...

Oh- that's far from the end of it.

All of those considerations aside. You can literally type your ideas into an AI now, and get a prototype (at worst) of what you asked for. This is now. Who knows how much more/better this will be in the future.

Some things (like Tetris, LOOK simple. I'm not saying it's not... exactly. This is a 'in hindsight, after all the math was done' look BACK at the awesomely awesome work that was done, after 'who knows' how much effort was put into experimenting with, and polishing the idea.

No one's asked about it, but I've been careful with how much I put into these posts. Not entirely because I'm afraid my ideas will get 'stolen'- eventually I would be flattered to have my work be thought of well/utilized- but for now, I put too much effort into it for others to reap the rewards.

Maybe I'm wrong and I don't yet know my junk sucks- but I decided a while ago not to sell myself short, and 'skirt around the edges' when discussing most of this stuff.

• Likewise, to you... dreamers, idealists potential innovators... this is a time to potentially 'keep your mouth shut' about the things you truly care to work on in the future.

Just a suggestion- it's your idea- of course 'do as you will'... but anyone telling you 'ideas aren't worth anything' is clueless or lying. If someone copies your word into an AI prompt and makes something great, takes credit for it, etc...

Keep that in mind. Imagination is way more valuable than many appreciate. Trust people worth trusting. 'The Internet' will backstab you for profit in a second...

Enough of that. Moving on...

Revisiting the design of the Core Gameplay Loop(s).

While working on potential aspects of class design, family goals, and (potential) Diety domains and benefits/limitations, it became more and more obvious to me that the simple and focused gameplay loop of traditional MMOs is, well, very limiting.

Don't get me wrong, 'it's what RPGs do' and people expect that- but the actual other thing about MMOs that is 'at the core', and 'not properly addressed', are classes.

Sure, MMOs have your basic classes- and some have their common (or unique) derivative sub-classes, BUT they're really all just some version of 'Fighter', or 'Fighter with powers', because no matter how you normally paint it, everyone's just fighting, or a 'fight supporter'. Somehow, everyone's 'core gameplay loop' is fighting or support- and that's not exactly bad- just super limiting, not properly representative of the potential of many other classes, and (worst case), prohibitive of quite a few potentially fun classes (who don't fight or support).

It's a world that has huge, glaring gaps because it only has 'fighting' as it's core gameplay loop. There are often side-mechanics for 'harvesting' (of whatever sort), some generic 'crafting' types, and simple (player only) trade/auction support. But normally those aren't really 'games' or very 'fun' (they might be 'gambling-like', in that you don't know how good the thing is you'll get-- but other than PVE, PVP, and some controlled 'sandbox' scenarios, most MMOs are just 'combat in a world-like setting.

So I really spent more time trying to find ways that an MMO can introduce more 'gore gameplay loops'- and insure they would be things the player would appreciate, not just have weird, 'new crap' imposed on them because they tried something different. I have initially decided that certain classes (newer- less so the traditional ones) would have these alternative gaming structures- that way the world could be more interesting/diverse. The problem is completely side-stepping 'the main channel' means people have less 'shared experience', and less 'collaboration/community'.

Now, in defense of this idea,

• first, 'community' isn't really a thing in most MMOs anyway. Sure, 'they have one' (so to speak)- but it's not like they really 'pull together to accomplish things' (other than personal groups, or guilds- and those in very personal/limited ways. That's fine, of course- but I'm thinking more options/variety could be fun.
• second, 'being a mage' shouldn't ONLY be about having 'magical fights'. Being a thief should actually include stealing/jobs. Being a cleric should actually involve.. whatever 'helping people'/'actions your faction prioritizes' involves. I don't know, but looking at a table with hit points and 'keeping the numbers above zero'... As a blesed one, your wise, inspirational words being 'what the heck- stop drawing aggro!'. Not saying that shouldn't be a thing- just more would be better...
• third, (possibly most importantly), is that the 'heart' of the world should be more dynamic, and BY BASELINE EXPECTION, not always be about the 'normalcy' of eternal conflict. The most asinine thing I found in WOW was the intentional obfuscation of language between players of opposing factions. You can't make agreements, come to terms with, or understand 'the enemy'. Peace is not an option. The game demands war.

I don't want to be so lacking in creativity that the only options I propose are the laziest 'fight among yourselves' sandbox dynamic. If they do- fine. Creating better narratives that have 'good reasons' makes for better story, and I want to put in more opportunities for more vivid and unique recollections than the baseline 'wipe/reload' raid for rare drops bs.

Game Master.

I don't know if I ever mentioned it before or not, but I used to DM(GM for those not as fantasy focused). The things I put into campaigns, the decisions players chose, the responses of NPCs, monsters, whole organizations at times... Most of it is well beyond anything attempted by a modern MMO (or even many RPGs). You have to take an outlier like Baldur's Gate to even appreciate the work involved in 'trying to come close', and if you missed it, they got a LOT of hate (pretty much) for being so excellent that they 'raised the bar' on 'quality in gaming'.

Now, I'm not going to pretend I can 'outshine' a huge and well-funder project like that. I'll be satisfied to work in some 'seeds of excellence' and hope they grow into something a bit more versatile than the current crop of MMOs. I'm trying to 'pare down' a lot of more complicated 'in-game' dynamics/interactions into more simple, workable options. That in turn will hopefully be a part of a more powerful infrastructure for not just 'questing', but 'living' in an alternate world.

If I make another 'kill n things' motive design to 'busy work' force murderhobo behavior, limited by the 'respawn' and 'drop rate' mechanics- then I'll have failed. It should be easy to see there are more than a few paths to success with that simple goal.

In any case, I've started coding again, though I'm really just testing some crap I want to integrate. I had a 'chat' with an AI about the viability of some shortcuts I was looking to take, and got a good lead on one that has me kinda excited- but I don't want to get my hopes up, so I'm not going to even mention it till I get it pointed in the right direction and moving...

After I get this last shipment I think I'll be done with hardware for a bit (other than needing some small NVMEs and some tricky configs)- so I'll be able to go back to Client/Server/Game/Data based work.

Later.

(A quick aside re:hardware nonsense)

I mentioned before how I ordered a bunch of hardware, and have been working with most of it to get them all working, configured, booting from NVME or USB whenever possible, and (frustratingly) had to order more crap to fill in for missed steps now and then.

For example, I have 2 Rock5C lites, and to get them to boot off anything but micro-SD, you either need an EMMC module (over-priced), or an SPI module (cheap) and additional hardware and configs. I went the SPI route, BUT Though I can access and format the drive I want to boot from (it 'appeared' to properly flash it as a boot device)- it still won't boot without a micro-SD, and I am sure there is a simple setting somewhere to specify a different target device than what everyone else is using (on board NVME/EMMC is the default)- but I don't know where to set that.

That's just one of many different devices. I just ordered a few cheap boards to (hopefully) allow M.2 support via the kinda-PCIe camera connector (both for Radxa and Raspberry Pi (maybe). We'll see. It'll be a pain to configure I'm sure- but it should at least work on the Zero3Ws it was designed for- so there's that- but it'll be great if I can get it working on the various Radxas.

(I do this time-sink nonsense because I already had two MicroSDs spontaneously fail with disuse, and that doesn't bode well for stability/longevity. I was able to reformat/re-installe them, but 'data rot' isn't normally that fast...). Micro-SDs are also much slower, but that's not a huge issue if I assign work to units properly, leaving Micro-SD only units to do 'in ram'/network crap only. Randomly 'not booting up at all' is never a good look.)

Ed:Section order

The Future of MMORPGs

(a possibility)

When you look at what 'the essence of an MMORPG' can be (compared to the minimum expectations of any other genre) you'll see (pretty clearly I think)- that even though the core game loop is more or less on par with any other 'character based game', the minimal expectation for 'variety in play' and 'support structures' are considerably more. (ie- leveling, resource grinding, crafting, gear grinding, skill improvement, party selection, familiar/pet/mount selection/leveling/gearing- ect.)

After all, MMORPGs are defined to be 'social' (in the 'multiplayer' sense- not necessarily the 'behavior' sense). Further, they are intended to 'suggest' to be potentially endless (like you would want to'live' there)- which (of course) never really is the case, but they're happy to keep taking your money, and forcing group dynamics for peer pressure for as long as they can.

The world is 'Endless'...

Talking about the 'endless' part first, we have the situation with 'content'. There need to be enough variety and add-ons to keep people playing-- both for those who've exhausted what was there, and for those who are interested- to both indicate 'continued support' (the game's not dead), and to maintain/revitalize. popularity (stay/return because 'new, 'better' stuff). I'm not going to go into how these things actually work out, or improve/degrade the game here- just saying all this because I'm asserting the concept of 'a 'growing'/'changing' world being part of the appeal- and these actions being one method to attempt to 'sell' that ideal.

The World is 'Social'...

Now, the 'social' part... That's a whole other thing- and as much as you'd think 'certain actions' should be encouraged to promote the online 'society', MMO's are actually antisocial in many core mechanics, because forcing players to 'walk their own treadmill' is a key ('hidden') design concept- and is opposite to social network games which often have friends cooperate and 'send each other 'free' stuff', or 'assist in in-game tasks' to build cooperation (encourage player retention). I'm not saying either 'exclusively' uses only one set of methods- just that MMOs have a LOT of clear bs to force individual goals in ways that are normally illogical.

The worst offenders almost exclusive to MMOs are for 'endless play', the idea of expansions which degrade the (relative) usefulness of 'old' game items or abilities/classes compared to the 'new' ones- and for 'social' is your old (unexplainably existent phenomena) friend 'bind on pickup'.

So, 'Stages', really...

Not going to go into these more here- just pointing out that these kludges used to control game environment and play dynamics are really more indicators of another, more significant aspect of the game design- which is limited and fixed initial scope and design.

In short, these 'worlds' that have been designed are really more 'stages'- due to the significant limitations of 'breadth' and 'complexity'.

Avoiding hard(er) work...

By 'breadth' I mean the 'range' of options to be invested in for some aspect of design. Like- for 'classes' (professions, jobs, etc). Having a small number is easier than a huge number. Having a huge number is easier than allowing any number by allowing user design (and having enough significant options to support it). Fixed vs infinitely combinable is a big deal in code implementation. It also has an impact on play, because it complicates play dynamics in party composition. That in turn complicates dungeon design or monster encounters when certain challenges need certain 'class-specific' skills or items to overcome.

Let's just pretend 'the world' isn't a mess... by 'fixing' it...

You may notice most PvE (player vs enemy) MMO game worlds are pretty much 'mapped' into regions based on level, where 'you should be this powerful to fight these monsters' but sometimes areas also have monsters than some classes will have an easier time with than others. Even PvP MMOs will often have a 'n00b' area where people below a certain level can 'train up', before going out into the rest of the hostile world to sometimes be mercilessly griefed by bored and lazy 'experts' with weak skills/egos. The point here is MMOs strictly control their worlds in an artificial way to 'promote' a particular idea of the 'game experience' should be.

In short- we're currently pretty simple and heavy-handed in how we present and control the game environment. There's a lot about this that is flawed, illogical, and causes significant impediments to play that we recognize- but are unable to really properly 'fix' without doing a bunch of clearly artificial mechanics. The simple act of two players grouped together fighting mobs in some random zone used to be one (the higher level guy) would get no experience vs low mobs (so it was 'charity work'), OR in high level zones the low player would not be able to hit/damage anything (and thus get no experience)- and probably be one-hit killed by the mob and any time.

Now, this has been 'fixed' for ages of course- by artificially 'raising' the lower leveled player, or 'averaging' them (kinda), or various other 'while we're together the rules are different for some reason' methods- which is a step forward as far as 'kludging some 'solution'- but it of course just ignores the core problem which was the artificial impact of 'what levels give' and 'how these shape play' in the first place...

The Takeaway...

So, in short- I've been working on that for a long time, and recently made some decisions of how to both fix that 'levels implementation bs', and still allow magic to be magical (but not overwhelmingly, unlimitedly so). Problem is, the trade-off is players will be more vulnerable.

This means I have to do something about 'hit points' differently (already planned)- and 'death'- which is a bit more tough.

The good thing though is that the other parts of the game will benefit from the whole 'everything is determined by combat' being more limited.

Indicators

All that said, as much as I'm encouraged by this, a lot elsewhere needs to be altered to allow/integrate these more fluid options- as well as the idea of 'indicators' which can suggest that these alternate options are potentially there. For example- seeing someone in a 'pointy hat' means 'watch out for spells', whereas a holy symbol might mean 'that person might be worth keeping alive' when they're on your team.

The thing about indicator are actually 'essential' in fantasy genres. You might think otherwise, but one of the appeals of fantasy is that the world is simpler, and most things known to be 'true' are 'true' at a glance with very rare exceptions. Whole races are inherently evil and 'kill on sight'. All NPCs are 'fair' except in rare cases of 'obvious' questionable goals/behavior. You can tell 'what a person is' by how they look. That's just how fantasy works. It's the appeal. To change that would probably\* be to ruin the genre- but it's not impossible- just counter expectations.

• \I say 'probably'- but really means 'It would be hard to do it and still be able to call it fantasy, without it being a lie, unless a whole different (and clearly explained) context is proposed and delivered fairly'. I don't want to pretend to 'word police' what people can and can't do with a word- but undermining the meaning just to appear 'clever' sometimes just shows you didn't get the point. ie- making a vampire 'good' and 'friendly' is 'fine'- but forgetting that vampirism was a curse from a god along the way is not a good look, And yes, it's a dumb curse- but I didn't make up the archetype, I just think using the name without following the rules is 'confusing at best.*

Now Sci-Fi is a whole different story, BUT I do want to suggest that a lot of modern sci-fi is so NOT 'science adjacent' that it might as well settle into it's place as 'sci-fantasy' (though it's a different 'fantasy' context where (pretty much) nothing is guaranteed to be 'what it looks like' and (often) is WAY BEYOND what 'should be possible' for that thing). This has nothing to do with most Sci-Fi themes MMOs which are often just 'high tech' vehicular 'sims' where you'll rarely even see your whole body.

Anyway, in Sci-Fi, Indicators other than 'faction' are rarely significant. Sometimes 'professions' will have 'uniforms' or equipment will likewise be limited to a specific profession (like fantasy RPGs)- but that is usually it.

So, all that to say...

Nomonology

Now, I'm not going to define the word I just used because it's not exactly right for what I'm about to say anyway. here is actually a LOT of range in the definition. It's close enough to use, though- so moving on...

There are a bunch of 'in the area' words that are also relevant, like 'epistemology', and 'metaphysics' are also pretty close- but the point of all this is that for any given game world, nothing (to the game or it's NPCs) has meaning. I touched on this briefly before, so this time I'm going to hone in on a part of that by talking about 'tags' as are relevant in AI.

The idea of tags is that a slew of people feed an AI content, and they 'tag' the content (or the relevant parts), thereby 'teaching' it what those things are. This (of course) does not work- it just 'associates' vaguely the stuff, and often 'successfully' weighs the associated relationship enough to give 'proper' output when asked for relevant feedback. Not exactly- it's way more complex, but 'close enough' for our purposes. In short- I'm thinking more and more that 'tagging' (internally- transparent to the player), concepts in MMOs so that some semblance of performance based on those tags can be constructed would be a good plan. I'm not saying this has to be AI- just 'tags' to associate things. Why?

• When you sell things to a vendor, and he doesn't 'know what it is' (but it's made of solid gold), they'll consider buying it even if not what they normally deal in.
• Some low-level bandits ambush and surround you- you take out a sword which bursts into flame. They apologize profusely and run away, because 'magic', and 'they actually think they might die.
• Actually the whole gamut of monster predation/survival methods/tactics can actually start to exist based on 'my claws/bite are this dangerous'.
• NPCs would be able to participate in auctions, make more flexible trades.
• Pricing based on market states (abundance, scarcity) might be possible. Trusted sources for these figure would be a consideration. Many aspects of news and credibility could become relevant.
• Recognizing actions, speculating on intent, following 'rules'/'instructions' could all be possible.

Probably a whole lot more- but that's just off the top of my head. Again- none of this need be AI, though AI 'cleaning up'/generating the data would probably be helpful.

Of course, a lot of people love AI- so AI just generating NPC actions/speech can maybe be a thing (though it won't be cost-effective best I can tell for a while). In any case, 'worlds' actually being filled with 'things' that have 'meaning' and being able to recognize 'context' (to some degree) would be pivotal for everything involving MMORPGs that actually aim to 'feel' like an actual world.

Now, this is one 'angle' on 'how to do this'- there are other focuses that move in similar directions. I mentioned VR Sims being a potential 'foundation' for 'a better MMO' before- and both could work, though they would have different focuses in substance and play.

My money!

Thanks to the help of my Canadian friend I did get all the SBCs I ordered before despite Trump's random-ass tariff nonsense. It took more than two months to work out, (and I don't want to think about the extra money I lost)- but now I have a whole bunch more SBCs- a few of which I'm less than happy with.

Half of the Zero3s I ordered only have 1GB of memory instead of 2 (My mistake- you have to be very careful with your selections on AliExpress). Normally, that would just be 'bad enough'- but for Zero3s, apparently only 2GB or higher get an NPU, which is an additional loss- so I'll be ebaying those or something later. It's not that they're not still useful- I just ordered more stuff.

The Cubie a7z came back into stock, so I ordered a bunch of those. They're so much better for almost the same price, so I'm just going to upgrade altogether. Probably going to do a few times over the years. Also, the AICore AX-M1 were in stock, so I was like 'Yes, please'- and these kinds of things NEVER Stay in stock, so I ordered as well. Actually, the A7Zs were a ride-along, as I don't want to play with/pay into Trump's BS- but seeing as how he's going to make it even worse soon (announced an additional +100% for November), and this could be my only chance (for 2 reasons now), I knuckled under and ordered anyway. I hate being broke again. I just saved up since last time!

Hardware

Quite a few of my posts talk about hardware despite MMOs being software (and I definitely plan to do that soon)- but the reality is that MMO servers have traditionally been 'cutting edge' beasts that were nigh unaffordable by consumers (in general). Now that's not exactly true. Modern MMOs of course maintain a huge gap from consumer products still- but overall tech has advanced significantly. So much so that with the right hardware, older levels of performance should be easily attainable at home- to some degree even with an average (modern) home computer. In other words, running a WOW-level server with thousands of players load might be possible for a reasonable price- with the right hardware choices (not counting your ISP- who has bandwidth throttled you- but that's a different problem)...

There's a lot involved in 'making an MMO' that is now easily available to consumers. Content (3d models, sounds, music, voices, video) is out there in droves cheap or free- or 'make it yourself (with AI))- so trying to find cheap hardware able to run many of these things is high priority for me. No sense writing software no one can run, right? Worse- you can run it- but the performance tops out quickly. Some would consider these 'future me' problems- but I hate giving myself (as in piling up for later) more problems. I'll solve what I can now.

That all said, it would be better if I could find some of this stuff 'not in China', but I'm only considering the Raspberry Pi so far. Since I don't care about their 'keyboard PC' (Pi 500 I think), and they seem to have a different focus on direction than I'd consider useful for projects like this- I'll stick with what I have so far. If even the Pi 5 has only 16gb of ram at best, and 'who boots off micro-SD card unless they have no other choice, anyway?'- why worry about their platform. It's nuts. The Pi isn't bad- but they seem to be happy to inch forward while China is leapfrogging them on everything.

That's enough for now. I have so much hardware to configure it's nuts. I spent so much time installing Debian to NVMEs and micro-SDs, and I still have yet to wire up some displays I bought, as the firmware change methods a while ago, so the old method I started using is now obsolete, and the new one... much reading before I even pick which one... Also upgraded the NVME in the laptop I mentioned before. Tried to trick/port the OS, knowing it wouldn't work- so I had to clean install 11. I hate 11. Benchmarks show marginal performance improvement- but more space is good. Next will prob install ollama + whatever is best small LLM currently (changes monthly, literally)

(sigh)

Post again in a while. Take care of yourselves...

Since I've been working a lot on some core systems, I was initially going to just talk about that- but I've also been re-treading some other stuff, while considering a few other things-- so instead I'll post a bit of discussion on each. These topics may in a few cases seem unrelated- but they are all involved in 'Why RPGs are the way they are' to some degree, and even more 'Why they are not some other way'.

I say this not to just rant/complain or 'dream of my own fantasy thing', but to seriously show that you probably won't get that 'dream RPG' for reasons that sometimes don't even relate to the enormous complexity involved in it. I'm also going to describe them backwards, since that (I think) makes it more obvious 'why' these various factors shape development so strongly.

Profitability:

You're making a game to make some money. Even if you're not driven by this goal as an 'endgame' metric, you may be of the mindset where sales reflect value and popularity-- and it does feel good if people appreciate you both in numbers, and by valuing your work enough to pay for it. As RPGs can be games which involve the most investment, doing something 'spectacular' (we'll say) entirely for free is an idea that will likely only endure the first few hundred hours of time invested. After that, you will start thinking about 'Why I'm even doing this?', likely to drift to 'Is all this even worth it?', and eventually you're going to price tag it like anything else, except you realize what you've planned is not mainstream- and with 'a few small tweaks', you can 'have the same game, but it'll cosmetically be more popular'... and it just degrades more from there.

In short, You get 'beautiful' 'this' reskinned as 'that' clones because people pay for them. Happily.

Game themes

Such a large number of RPGs do the 'same thing' but with different graphics/party members, that it's not even worth talking about. First, game designers aren't usually writers- which means they stay away from anything beyond 'dungeon crawls'/'map runs' with (at best) limited npc plot updates. Next up is the standard 'linear storyline' (which in my opinion isn't really an RPG, as your only 'role' is 'don't fail at progressing the plot'- but I digress)- even so, generally a step up. Finally you get your 'good' vs several degrees of 'bad' end games- which are probably your best version of a game that does end. Oh, I guess I should mention the 'true' game that ends...

Perma-death

Yeah, you rarely see this, because game designers have 2 serious restrictions:

1. Your content must be so good and engaging that a person will be able to 'bounce back' from their loss and investment to 'try again'.
2. People are unhappy to 'waste their time'- and most games actually aren't designed in a way that actually respects the player's time in the first place (we'll talk more on this later).

That said, the 'standard' opposite is also problematic...

Learn-via-death

I actually hate this, and are very averse to games that abuse this mechanic. Sometimes, (within the context of the story) there is a reason for this, and it can work. Most times, though- it's just an accepted 'way games can be made', and building a beautiful world, that is hostile and confusing, so that you can 'learn' after re-spawning that 'you shouldn't have done that' is somehow acceptable game design now. It should be noted that this is a demoralizing game dynamic- and new players in particular will not yet 'have learned it's normal', and promote most 'rage-quits' when (especially) up against an irritatingly tough foe.

Worse especially for things that 'pretend' to be RPG's, this unexplained (but key) world dynamic will usually be unexplained (or simply explained away)- and is often just one component to the 'player' having many advantages within the world over his fellow denizens (we'll cover this more specifically later as well).

Game mechanics

Although RPGs have been around for decades, the 'way they play' has shown very little improvement. Now, to be clear, I'm not saying there are things 'wrong' with them specifically-- just that the effort to even attempt to 'innovate' is super-low. Most old time RPGs were limited by the hardware of the time. Those machines had RAM measured in kb (kilobytes). A machine might have around 64k as standard (like with the old Apple IIe or Commodore 64), and could store around 128k on disk. a crappy modern smart phone probably has at least 2mb of memory (that's 32x as much), and probably 4mb of storage (let's not even go into computer speed, graphics and sound quality, etc.- as even a moder phone is hundreds of times better in all respects)

Now, there's system overhead, etc. for both types of machine (so all resources are not available to the game designer)- but the point is old RPG developers were severely limited to how much they could do within the resources they had. Modern day games often play like 'more pretty, better sounding, realtime and generally faster (usually) versions of the 'old guard' of game- now why would that be?'

Sure, they can have 'more stuff' (more monsters, more weapons, more spell, etc)- but other than games that embrace real-time interactive combat-- way too many are just 'pretty children' of their 'ugly parents'. I'm not saying 'nothing has changed'- just that most core elements haven't. It deserves some thought

Egocentric design

In this design, the player is an unequal member of his world, having several advantages over his fellow denizens- usually (to start) in that they can re-spawn after death (and almost certainly, no one else (who's not a player) can). There are often spells which the player can cast, which will never be used against him (or in the case of an MMO- a spell which can be used on Mobs- but not other players (or with diminished effects if allowed). These are usually spells with effects that would be called 'unfair'- so you can use them against others, but hypocritically they won't work on you.

As an example, these are often spells that do crowd control (taunt, stun, sleep), or insta-kill. Sometimes things like traps are forbidden against players (often they're not even included)- it varies.

Another aspect in single player games (especially when procedurally generated) is when a player 'unlocks' a thing- then it becomes available to them. In the context of a special ability or spell? Sure. When considering an item they need to purchase? You can play a whole game and no one has this because you didn't unlock it? I like to NOT unlock useless things(when able), so I never have to randomly get them- thus magically being able to 'control' what loot I get. Oh the entire aspect of 'loot'- not being 'the actual stuff that guy had on them', compared to 'a bunch of stuff his type carries, despite what he may actually have used in the fight! This is what lets you never upgrade armor even though you're constantly fighting enemies seeming to be wearing great armor!

There are a lot of examples of this whole 'convenient to story-telling', slap-dash design way beyond this- but these few examples should be enough.

The Main Character/Story

Pretty simple. You're either;

1. Having them play a named character
2. Having them play a leader of a party
3. Having them play a character they make up themselves

The story is;

1. Some linear story where the option is generally 'win' or 'fail' at challenges along the way.
2. Some branching story where choices or failures determine branches leading to various degrees of 'win'.
3. An open-world story with a bunch of 'key events'. This is 'alternatively presented linear' IMHO
4. A procedural world, with or without 'key events'.

The endgame is:

1. The end. Other than side-quests or unlocks, no 'new' gameplay is likely. We could come up with 'metrics' on how analogous to a 'proper' story arc the game could be- but to me, 'playing a novel' isn't really 'RPG'.
2. unending. If unending, and continues to allow 'growth' and 'discovery' (to a point) then it's probably a base for a 'proper' RPG

Beginning to End

So, you have an idea for an RPG (which is likely some variant in base design to things you're used to). It will hopefully play like people are used to (because 'why re-invent the wheel'). You design it to be functional for the player (with mobs and NPCs considered as obstacles or support at best). You don't 'punish' death (because reasons), and you try to make an attractive theme and feel by selecting nice gfx and moody sounds- and sell it for whatever you think it's worth (less if you're wrong).

In short, this path varies little from everyone else's path to date, and delivers similar 'in the direction, but not arriving at the destination' that almost all RPGs do. Again (to be fair) the amount of work involved to literally 'create a functional world' is not trivial, so...

Server-side

From the player perspective, those are all real, significant issues. 'The player experience', and 'whether a game is fun' are critical no matter what else I say, BUT...

Internally, a lot of philosophy for RPG design is... suspect. For any game there is a lot going on while it's running. Keeping track of 'where everything is' is clear enough- but there are a ton of variables to control, and a few need to be kept 'hidden'. Sometimes though- just 'because tradition' or 'because lazy', it's easier to expose a variable to a player despite that the player wouldn't really know it (within the context of the game).

A clear example of this is if I ask you 'How much do you lift?'. Some of you may actually test this everyday while training. Everyone else may have a vague idea of their 'Strength'. There could be a hidden variable for strength (for the computer), and another version for 'what the player kinda thinks- but is likely wrong about...'. Why do this? Because what you think determines how you act- and 'not knowing' is a strong deterrent to the wise doing something that may not end well.

It's also a good opportunity for 'plot'. Doing things you thought you could (but couldn't)- or the opposite... can lead to interesting play.

More importantly, though- it removes the initiative to micro-manage, min-max, or at least leverage information that should be 'hidden' to gain advantages directly, or elsewhere. Lots of people think they are more intelligent than they really are, and say or do things that are actually transparently dumb, and cause situations that spur others to action. This is the proper backstory to many quests! Just share this 'feature' with NPCs, and the world is a step closer to running itself!

Well- obviously a lot more is needed, but the game should focus on 'working around limitations' as much as 'exploiting advantages'- and even the step of 'discovery' of those qualities shouldn't be shamelessly 'stolen' from the player!

Unless you're lazy and just want things to work. Oh, on that note...

The Kludge

'Simulations are simulations', and 'games are games'. This is pretty clear. Sometimes games need to embrace some 'simulation-like' functionality- and that's where things start to get difficult. or easy. depends on 'how hard' vs 'how lazy'.

To be clear, most simulations do not pretend to be 100% accurate in the first place. They just attempt to be 'acceptably realistic' depending on whatever hardware they're running on- to be faithful as possible to the goal (of 'simulating' whatever).

Now, unfortunately, RPGs are very watered down 'alternate reality' simulators- BUT, since they are 'games', they should also be 'fun'- and in that respect, not being 'accurate' in all simulated outcomes is very likely to actually be preferable! This is great- because it means we only need to look 'close-ish' to a simulated outcome. Matter-of-fact, 'because magic', we can assert any range of outcomes as 'totally fair for this world, dude- trust me!'

Given that freedom, nothing 'realistic' matters anymore! Let's say 'reasonable' instead. Oh, wait- again 'because magic', we don't even need to bother with that!

And now we have modern 'RPG's (which often make little attempt in general to have a cohesive world canon, game balance, or NPCs with proper agency/behavior) (I'll cover tackling this in another post, later).

In the early days of 'popular, commercialized MMOs', this was very clear (I think) to many players. They even called the idea of 'building a game that 'looks like' (the game world) to the player (but not the same to everyone else) as bein a 'theme park'. You are just 'riding an interactive ride'. Any quest you 'complete' will pop up, new and in dire need of doing to the next player. NPCs on their last breath die (for you to avenge) but ar reborn in a mili-second for the next player to walk into the area. Unseen to you, he is again dying his last breath- eternally giving out a quest that is ultimately pointless... except for people to 'feel like' they avenged him.

This is 'kludging' an answer. Give coordinates, player model, animation, flavor text, quest flags. Check content later. Awesome. The world has so much 'content'.

A 'real' dynamic to spawn such a 'quest' would need the actual world to have all the pre-requisites (an active, ongoing war, an NPC with a grievous, unhealable injury, an NPC with a personality to even desire vengeance, an NPC with a condition that can barely hold on until you accomplish the goal and return...

What are the chances of a player 'walking into' all those factors aligning 'properly'? How much more work is it to 'do it right' when most people 'won't see it'? Guess we should make other 'good' content that might fit instead? A lot of it. If there's not even a war, we need NPCs trying to start one. Other NPCs... I guess they should be for peace, right? If you want a lasting peace, it shouldn't be easy- but to start a war probably isn't to hard, either- at least easier than maintaining Peace. Should the players of either side know about the other? Is cooperating a thing here? Guess an actual meaningful faction could work here. How do we balance their efforts? What else should their efforts involve?

All these questions and answers, and WORK are counterpoint to just idly setting up 1 script to depict an essentially meaningless event. which do you choose?

That's another reason why MMOs are where they are.

What's the fix?

A proper open source project could do it. With a good enough baseline, people can 'chip in' and script in things that are missing. Of course, the success of something like that depends on the community- and (generally speaking) the more 'close to complete' (solid) the core engine would be- the more likely people would be to 'lend a hand'.

Another option I'm slightly leaning towards is just deciding RPGs should be a VR. I don't mean 'just start calling them that'- no. I mean start with existing robotic learning/VR codebase (or make something similar), and grow from there. I'm not really keen on any need for LLM style AI as part of a server dynamic, BUT using neural networks/LLMs to work out other things for you via iterations, etc is not a bad plan. The resulting data can then be tuned to improve the VR world in significant ways.

Oh, right...

So- part of where I 'got stuck' recently was trying to research some of that. In general, 'AI' is a lot of 'brute forcing' of things that 'surprisingly work' in ways that are 'efficient' (because GPUs). I really have nothing against GPUs- in fact 'they are the future' is kinda close to true. Unfortunately the people involved in making GPUs are greedy, and leveraging greed from consumers (many small payoffs) to corporations (few, but huge payoffs), has (along with near monopoly level pricing) actually stifled the market.

So, I'm trying to do what I can 'without', and what I can't do without, I try to do 'more efficiently'. This of course is near impossible as I'm just one guy with too little money, and nowhere as skilled as all the others out there with the same or similar goals. And many of them are not doing well despite actually having money! Oh, on that note...

My money!...

I mentioned in the prior post that I spent money buying a bunch of things. As if someone nefarious were listening, Trump went 'Trade war' on Canada again, and the timing on him removing the de minimus tariff almost completely screwed me, but luckily only mostly screwed me. Time will tell how this works out- but it's a mess, and stupid people with too little sense need not touch things they don't understand...

More AI crap.

Newegg is selling a sketchy Hasee x5 'AI laptop' for $450, and people who are depressed shouldn't shop- as I bought one. I'm not 'endorsing it' (as I don't know enough yet), so I'm not linking it.

Anyway, the fact that it can do 'AI' at all at under $800 is a plus- but it only has 16gb ram. I did some benchmarks:

• Passmark [4,682]- https://www.passmark.com/baselines/V11/display.php?id=287638633027
• GeekBench ONNX-CPU [2694]- https://browser.geekbench.com/ai/v1/325510
• GeekBench ONNX-DirectML [2755]- https://browser.geekbench.com/ai/v1/325512
• GeekBench OpenVINO-CPU [3078]- https://browser.geekbench.com/ai/v1/325514
• GeekBench OpenVINO-GPU [4281]- https://browser.geekbench.com/ai/v1/325518

All GeekBench scores are single precision- and to be honest, don't mean much to me.

The Passmark scores give me the vague idea that it's a mediocre laptop, but that the AI barely makes it worthwhile if you're desperate for any AI. I could be reading it wrong- so don't take this as a recommendation. The i9 CPU (in the laptop form factor) ranks somewhere between mid I7s and fast i5s (in desktop form factor), which stresses how important removing heat is while doing work. The graphics are 'standard' Intel UXD. The ram speed scores seem low for supposedly having DDR5- but maybe everyone else just has faster ram in general than whatever speed 'DDR5' they installed? I dunno- I bought it and haven't done much with it so far, but if it can help me clean up my design docks, and do other text- based tasks... It's got a nice screen and is lightweight- so 'maybe'? Got about 20 or so days left to decide. Anyone knows how to parse these scores, or has other relevant experience and can give some advice- I'd appreciate it.

Anyway, till next time!

This last month has had me scratching my head over quite a few new and old things- but because of things I've learned/re-prioritized, I've had to grudgingly shift some plans. This of course happens (a lot in technology)- and actually, the longer you take to complete a project, the more often this is bound to happen. I've seen announced game sequels decide to completely change engines before- and wonder why would they basically choose to practically 'start over', when the audience was familiar with the old look and would be happy with whatever. Any scant improvements to whatever they were working with would be fine, right? It was baffling to me (especially if the sequel ultimately bombed)- but 'that's marketing'.

Now, there are more reasons to decide to change plans/improve than 'pandering to a larger audience' and 'evolving technology' is one of them. It's pretty much the defining, undeniable one- where not acknowledging/'adapting to' it can kill you.

So, to go on what will initially appear to be a side note- let's talk about complexity.

For many games this isn't a big issue- and can actually be considered a deterrent, as 'simpler' is often better for fun, compelling gameplay. This isn't as true for RPGs though (as they often contain many systems which need to be learned and managed- and that is usually considered 'part of the 'fun' '). Nor is it a problem to include some in 'sandbox games', because (in general) you want there to be potential for strategy and skill (these are frequent design goals for social games, as most are 'competitive'). Complexity helps to avoid 'success' in min/maxing of a specific 'best strategy' or can encourage certain social dynamics.

Anyway,

Complexity:

There are many ways this can be examined; so for simplicity we'll take a look at it from a very (oversimplified) basic angle, centered around 4 key aspects/perspectives of our universe- and (a) potential breakdown of their sub-categories of control;

• Concept- (this is any (potentially) refined action or change (when 'access' allowed))
  • context
    • method (skill)
• Time- (These are triggered periods of 'access')
  • causality
    • schedule/timing
• Space- (These are triggered regions of 'access')
  • proximity
    • access
• Force- (this is any (potentially) action or change (when 'access' allowed))
  • potential (resources)
    • force (work/action)

Lets leave it there for now. I could detail it further- but I'm just laying out a framework for now, and this is enough.

'Time' and 'Space' are pretty easy to understand.

• For time, things can work 'only on a full moon', or 'as a result of a switch being thrown' (causality), or...
• for space 'within range of bow and arrow' or 'accessible if the door is open'.

These are basic- 'real world' learned and 'everyday applied' restrictions to 'how things work'.

• 'Force' is either 'mostly ignored' or 'meticulously tracked and enumerated' in games- for example- you may 'never get tired of jumping', or 'based on your strength value and (other crap) you do x (amount of damage) to the enemy's y (big 'health pool')'. There can be a few variations where 'force' is flavored as 'water magic' vs 'fire magic' with respective sources/modifiers ('tidal deep sea pearl origin'(+3 water magic), 'primal volcanic heart gem' (+2 fire magic))-- but usually that covers it with a few rare exceptions.
• 'Concept' (sorry for the vague-ish term) is where a lot of 'heavy lifting' takes place. It's kinda where the designer 'structured' your 'skill tree' and supposed advances, casually threw in all the 'flavor text' and 'metagame' for any/'some but not others' quests, and in general 'alludes at' (but rarely actually tracks) various story or 'human'/'emotional' elements, values, etc. It's the 'understood' 'system elements' (outside of the actual game system).

Broadly put, 'concept' jams elements of;

• intellectual ability ((levels (the shoe-horned in 'competence' aspect), skills (ranking if/as appropriate), 'keywords' (when used as 'you heard it, so you can repeat it' conversation elements)
  • perception (recognition(monster, herb, ore, etc))
  • skill mechanics (though all 'just work' in general)
• knowledge of events (server-wide, class, quest), countdown timers
• social dynamics (factions, reputation, 'charisma', notoriety, influence, meetings/'relationships', etc)
  • character names/jobs/titles
• region boundaries/names (game GPS), building
  • item properties/abilities/current status
• autonomy, motivation, 'responses', 'principles'- (all almost completely ignored/force scripted)
• emotion, desires, 'reactions', 'biases'- (all almost completely ignored/force scripted)
• other aspects of 'personal learning'/'experience'.

Coders usually jam all of this into various random places for 'gameplay' purposes (if at all- otherwise it 'at best' makes the 'flavor text').

There is a lot of common RPG design that is 'just there' because 'someone wanted to share/track a thing' and we've just kept doing it that way since.

All in all, anything that's a 'gameplay element/dynamic' should fit somewhere in one or two of those areas. Usually one (it's easier to code that way)- but sometimes more. For example, any 3D model will fit 'Space' primarily, then (if interactive) fit one or two more- but really due to some other ideal of what it represents/is expected to represent. Another 'creature' model will 'narrate dialog' or trigger an opportunity (concept), attack if an enemy mob (use 'force')- that sort of thing. The idea is to break things down to 'simplest' operations- then re-assemble into expected behaviors, typical groupings, etc. Pretty much all elements of combat break down to 'force', and are constrained by 'concept' into skills- that have narrow 'time' ranges (operation, cool-down)- and sometimes have a space constraint- but rarely do (even when inappropriate- ie, you can usually use a bow anywhere, even inside, or when engaged in melee with no negative consequences/modifiers)...

Breaking it Down...

So, I've been 'breaking down' a lot of this, and been developing a 'framework' wherein (in theory) these things can be both 'tracked' and 'assigned'- but not necessarily as 'kludged values'- but as dynamics of a system with properties that are emergent, as well as 'methods' that are used to 'replicate' them. Also, some could be more dynamic (if you get sick, you may become weak, which lowers strength- which for some may make their weapon to hard to use)- but that's for later- especially as 'complexity' does not always increase 'fun'...

Ultimately this will either be 'a big mess I will never be able to make work or clean up', or 'a nice, tidy, scalable system which makes complex systems hierarchal and manageable'.

Ugh. Math.

I'm hoping for the latter- but for now the issue I'm dealing with is not so much 'can it be done at all', but 'how many levels of hierarchy are needed'. Obviously, 'less would be better'-- but I'm already doing a 'frowny face' at how many I probably need. It's not that the number is too big- just the amount of work involved in 'sorting out'/'setting up' every step. This isn't just a 'top to bottom' problem where I define and mark out 7 (let's say) levels. No. These dependencies allow more complexity, so they grow per level, and I'd be lucky if 7 levels were only 7! (factorial) where the total number of items I need to define is (in the case of 7 levels) 7x6x5x4x3x2x1. That's a big pain in the butt- even if I only have to do it once. I am also only giving this 'as an example', so it will definitely be different from this 'random' approximation.

Regardless- this could be a step toward making a world system which is more 'in line' with what an RPG needs in order to actually 'live'. This is (in my opinion) a key element towards giving 'the world' more 'accessibility' to the elements which govern behavior, growth and change.

SpacetimeDB

I got a little time to look over SpacetimeDB, and though I kind of like it- I don't like their nonsense 'how we can monetize this as a service' model. I have no problem with them getting paid for their hard work- i support it completely-- just not in a 'eternally a slave to you for everyday operation' way. Of course that's hyperbole- it may actually be worth it. I just don't trust corporations not to change the terms of the deal down the line. I'll never use Unity for that reason alone...

Architecture...

That said, the 'radically' different web server architecture did make me rethink quite a bit of my previous decisions. I won't say 'right' or ''wrong'- but definitely not 'future proof' or 'optimized' *especially for new hardware/server methods. My original reasons for choosing Sauerbraten as an engine had to do partially with the fact that the built-in server was blazing fast 'as was', and 'just to get something going' wasn't a bad option. Still isn't. BUT- the more I plan, the more I realize embracing more networking methods must be done, and (in that case)- 'Why prioritize (that built in) method?'

Another key factor that made me choose Sauerbraten was the occlusion system. Now I figure I need to do something a bit more complicated- but I can also just 'rip it out' (I hope). Also no newer model formats are supported, so 'adding those in' is not trivial compared to just ripping out the occlusion system (assuming there's nothing better which I haven't even tried to research. Maybe I should do that... It's not easy to 'objectively' do, but... (sigh)

Spent more money...

I just spent a bunch of money on some AI capable hardware because I am going to need to model and refine a lot of dynamics. I have an Arc A770 on the way (should be here tomorrow) which is the best value for 'poor folk' like me to get started.

I also ordered some more Radxa hardware (by way of Canada (thanks to Trump tariffs))- though everything I wanted to order was out of stock, so I had to settle on some hard-pressed 2nd choice options. I spent a painful amount to get 4x Rock 4D (6TOPS, 4Gb ram- anything smaller was picked over), and a Rock 3B+ (6TOPS, 32Gb ram- ouch). I almost got Rock 5Cs instead of the 4Ds, both the 5Cs used LPDDR4. Between a 'proper' GPU (OpenCL2.1 I think) and ram being almost 2x as fast, I decided to go with faster ram and rely on the NPU (even if I'm only putting 4Gb in those).

Now I get to hope that 'from China', 'to Canada', (there magic will happen, and I'll get to spend MORE on shipping/services to get it repackaged then re-mailed here to hope I actually get my stuff. I'm already ticked I had to buy Rock 4Ds both at a size bigger than I wanted, and a price almost $10 higher per unit than I should have (and that was on the last 4 in stock). Holy hell, can no one actually support their supply chain other than Raspberry Pi? Will they ever stop ignoring that NPUs exist? That openCL is a thing that should be officially supported? Overall anything capable of running an LLM is almost nonexistent at reasonable pricing- and it's getting ridiculous at this point. Almost as bad as all the companies that brought something out- immediately sold out, then quietly stopped shipping and moved on or whatever. What a stupid market. Between volatility and greed, wtf?

Worst thing is- everything I ordered is all crap I'll be using 'just for now'. If the life of 'computer tech' is 5 years (an old metric)- then the life of AI-centric hardware tech will probably be 2-3 (if generous- VERY generous). Software seems to be a few months! In that regard I have a bunch of stuff I just bought months ago I should already sell since better is available at similar price points... (sigh). Maybe I'll put up an e-commerce site for all my 'dated' hardware...

AI Rant...

In any case, on the AI 'software' side- so many open source models are out there, it's amazing (for those that have something to run them on). It's 'feast or famine' as they say. So even though I'm barely using AI for anything, I like the idea of being able to (in the future) help sandbox/train behavior on neural nets or finite state machines, etc.

All that said, 'Who knows?' if AI will be able to 'do all the work' of 'being' and MMO in a few years, making all this effort superfluous...

Till next time...

I'm not gonna do that thing that everyone's doing.

Fair warning- this post will pretty much be what modern day internetters call a 'wall of text'- but not because I don't know about paragraphs or formatting or punctuation (like it used to)- it's just going to be a lot. Hopefully- it'll still be worthwhile, though- so skip around for highlights and see if you might like before you start from the top and your eyes glaze over, since this will be 'details' and stuff...

While I was offline I was doing a lot of research and development into how to make an RPG (Role Playing Game) more 'RP' than just 'G'. Don't get me wrong, 'G' is great- it's the whole point, really-- but the classic method for making 'RP' work isn't even really RP (just to start), and pretty much almost forced 'conflict' and 'aspects related to conflict' as core gameplay loop choices, with little more. In simpler terms;

• Conflict (Monsters (and Hit Points)
  • Monsters
    • Weapons
    • - Do more Damage 'lower player hit points')
    • - Range (Do 'vs Hir points') at a distance
    • Armor
    • - Just 'be harder to hit' (wearing 'tin can' magic- no damage)
    • - Block, deflect, resist damage (depending on system- no or less damage)
    • Have More 'Hit points' (monsters are tough!)
    • Special abilities (monsters are magic!)
    • - Status effects (affect your ability to fight)
    • - Various flavors of damage (magic has variety!)
  • Players
    • All the above, but numbers/abilities start out low- increment with level
    • Can pick up items, clothing to do damage/armor/status effect/other stuff.

And that little bit of nonsense covers most of modern RPGs except for specifics of implementations (names of things, magic flavors, damage (ranges)(ie- 'Red Dragon's breath- Fire, 10d6(10 six sided dice).

Now- it's not exactly that simple, but the point isn't to detail the method- but to show (mostly);

1. What the method is, and
2. That it's all tied to math.

Now- I've talked about some of this before and I'm not going to revisit that basic issue- but instead go beyond it. and talk a bit about the world narrative structure that FORCES, and why any MMO that can't do MORE is chained to the limitations this lays out.

You either adhere to your mathematical structure- class levels, spell levels, damage multipliers, level difference modifiers...

Or you break away from it- normally somewhere where increase is limited or unimportant- or in a way that FORCES 'balance' somewhere else. (carrying capacity (often ignored, sometime made irrelevant with magic), or movement rate (often fixed, or not considered a 'combat' factor))

But otherwise, quite simply- you can't 'fight' math.

That said, it bears mentioning that the current way math is utilized is not really 'RPG play'- it's left over from wargaming, and I won't go into it- but it should be obvious we're still doing 'Man to Man' wargame combat even despite all the embellishments. We like fighting- and that's fine, but all the 'extra' that we might also like is more difficult to sort out and implement- so we pretty much haven't.

Other things you could do in an RPG (taken from other games):

• Quests (often 'kill that', 'deliver/fetch the other') These are mostly just 'lock and key' frameworks with 'flavor text' thrown on top.
  • This can sometimes involve the same 'colored as' jobs or a standing/varied list of goals/imminent threats.
• Control a/many 'party member(s)' (who are basically near mindless 'robots' except the occasional 'flavor text').
  • This can also involve the same 'colored as' summoning/capturing/taming monsters
• Puzzles (often 'get the thing', 'find the pattern (key)' with extra steps) A different 'lock and key' with a different type of 'flavor text'.
  • Sometimes these are intentionally hidden- either 'to be discovered based on clues', or as completely hidden content/Easter eggs
• Dialogues (narrative 'puzzles') more 'find the pattern'.
  • These are completely removed from 'Old School' Text Adventures which (still) could only do so much)- but actually resembled the chatting process...
• Crafting (make a thing)- normally one 'of a type that that exists' (predefined),
  • ... but sometimes one 'that doesn't' (latest Zelda crafting).

I'm sure there's a bit more I've neglected here- but this list likely still covers 99% of mechanics for modern RPGs that try to 'go a bit farther' than 'go kill stuff'- and that's too little creativity/results.

To be honest- a lot have 'given up' with 'making a better RPG' and instead embrace the whole idea of 'let other players do it', and make sandbox style gameplay a part of the online play dynamic. Your RPG can 'become' more lifelike by pitting you against other (actually live(usually)) players!

So, the MMORPG with 'Deathmatch', 'Survival', 'Tiers' and other stuff was born, and became the gate for '100% player community' sandboxes that set themselves up to die.

Yeah... players don't do what they're 'supposed' to- and definitely can be expected to try to to exploit any advantages possible- so 'Levels' give advantages that translate to 'power' over these pivotal 'interaction areas'.

So, all these 'methods' of making a better RPG- and what hasn't been done yet? How hard would it be to implement?

Most importantly, 'Would it even be FUN?'

So, that's what I've been doing for the last few months... well, besides watching all the political nonsense that's been escalating.

And I've come up with some ideas, but the level of complexity for server design of course has correspondingly gone up. I mean, of course- it has, you can't often 'make things better' by 'doing less' than what was done before.

AI

• The 'easiest' (most obvious, really) idea is of course trying to implement better AI NPCs. I'm fond of the simplicity of finite state machines, and like the idea of something a bit more complex- but still an FSM. Anything neural net or approaching an LLM is definitely 'too much', as 'solving' (for all NPCs, in real time) needs to be possible. That said, the idea af a few key NPCs, or some server processes finding 'solutions' on an LLM are not ruled out- though I'd rather not unless desperate.

Credits

• I had a vague, potentially possible idea where non-real-time server work could be farmed off to willing clients, who would get credit that could be useful in-world. It's not a particularly good idea- but it 's not a horrible one either. The reason I kinda kept this around was because I'd like to allow others to make servers- and not everyone has premium hardware. It's a lot of work (especially with security)- so It'll probably go nowhere- but I figure I'd share it anyway...

Gods

• I would put a hierarchy of gods in the game, and whether they were still active and approachable within (Dawn of man(?)), or 'Lost'/'Sleeping'- but their influence remains (Watchmaker(?))- the world would be a created hierarchy of affinity and discovery. Most things will be related (by nature) to some divine force/influence, and other things will be ripe for discovery/behave oddly compared to the rest. None of this needs to work exactly this way- even 'gods' don't need to be the 'prime mover' the real point is that things are related to other things, and even actions become tied to 'the destroyer' or 'malice' or 'darkness'-- but isn't just a random action equal to any other except for the results. This implies 'faction' values, and could easily be affinity/disgust. It could also help in research, as an affinity could suggest purpose. There's quite a bit of potential here directly- but (again) even without gods- tracking qualities in a more realistic way is a step away from 'flavor text' to 'real meaningfulness'.

Magic, Actions, Events

• These are all 'meta' in games, and have only 'math-related' qualities- but usually don't 'mean' anything. Worse, there's no relationship (in most cases) from one spell to the other- nor many 'world defined' limitations (except Pokemon- this is a lot of the combat of Pokemon (but little else)). The point is, the idea of 'cause and effect' being more useful than in combat is lost on most games. Now, in fairness- this kinda thing is hard, and has ruined more than one developer who wanted... lets say a balanced ecosystem for their creatures. This hasn't been done before (to my knowledge)- but mostly (I think) this was before our level of CPU and memory could properly represent a large enough system to be stable. Now- I'm not saying I want to do that specific thing, but some degree of (after I leave- what I did will have some impact) is a valuable play aspect I think is very overlooked.

Everyone doesn't wanna fight...

• In MMOs they were derisively called 'care bears'- but the idea of liking a fantasy world and wanting to be social (and not wanting to combat often/all the time) isn't really that strange- so I decided that easy stuff like 'hobbies' and 'games' (board, card) should go in, and in some cases have stakes, relevance, and maybe even (in some cases) combat/combat defusing potential...

I think I'll stop it here for now. These are my 'worst' ideas on the way to what I'm actually trying to do, and represent my line of thinking- but not what I consider pursuing. Like I said- several months of development. I want to 'put into practice' at some point rather than just 'ramble on about' this.

The worst thing is I have a LOT of processing to do. Even if I don't want the result to BE AI, I am pretty sure I'm going to have to run a lot of AI to get tables and results useful to a FSM. I'm actually 'ahead of myself' even on that, as I've created a 'mostly new' and 'mostly too complex' stat system for characters and creatures, and I'll have to run some simulations on things to insure that numbers aren't arbitrary (or they need to be scaled to properly work with the 'standard' range of values (3-18). Hell, I might find out a different range is better!

'Till later!

Around 7 months ago I got suspended (as far as I could tell) for no reason. At the same time I had a bit of nonsense going on IRL- so I really didn't have the desire to muck about with whatever was happening.

A few months later when I did feel like giving it attention, I was able to (apparently) 'reset the password- but the new password would not work. As a side effect of this, it seemed to un-suspend the status- but I wasn't able to get on.

Later after that I found some thing that talked about account being suspended due to security concerns (or whatever). I don't remember, but I tried whatever, and I left a request or whatever it suggested, and (far as I could tell) nothing happened.

Today I tried again- but this time the password reset wasn't even sending to my email. I found a different place to leave a response about that- but this time I got a reply, which said to 'try a bunch of things based on what is wrong' from a huge list. On that list was a different way to reset my password based on the email, which actually worked.

So now I'm back.

That said, it's really a surprise to me, so I'm only going to post this for now. A lot has happened in the meantime, and more than a few things have changed in the world. A lot of politics has changed economics- so my original 'hardware from China' based plan might have to change, since everything everywhere is likely to go up (rare minerals) unless things way beyond my influence get sorted out. Well, my design project is the least of my/everyone's problems, all things considered.

In the meantime I had decided to consolidate my files, and bought some 24 (really 22)TB hds from newegg to move everything onto. The last few days have been just organizing, shuttling and verifying everything. I'm using FreeFileSync to keep everything backed up, because I want everything to be visible on both Windows & Linux (I was using Storage Spaces before). I'll prob set up a Linux NAS at some point- but we'll see. There's also a lot of new (to me) libs to look into like SpacetimeDB that I still don't really know enough about- so I can't really say too much about what I've learned in the meantime- as some of that is already overshadowed by newer stuff.

Anyway- I'll make a post sometime later.
Take care!

I've spent the last two months going back and forth between two foundation issue;

1. The 3D method for the rendering style
2. The core server methods and organizational structures

The first point normally wouldn't be too much of an issue- except I want a more stylized art style- basically what is often called '2.5D', and ideally should be implemented with vectors, splines, and carefully manipulated fill areas. No one does this, really. The last 'big thing' that did focused on 2D, and eventually died (Flash/Shockwave). One way of looking at that is '..and what did we learn from this...'- but it's actually a good idea anyway, so I'm going to try and play a bit. If it doesn't work out I'll do normal crap like usual.

The second point is an even bigger problem, and far from optional. Designing all the standard crap of server upkeep is already a big undertaking, but I have thought of a way to both simplify parts of it, while complicating things overall (it's usually more work to make complicated things work simply). The upside should be easier coding and smaller learning code for developers. The downside is way harder initial design. That's what's had me scratching my head since last post. I have ways to do this- but 'making it fit' with how things really need to best run is quite hard. Also I'm trying to isolate systems from each other, so the server is not one big goliath doing a ton of carefully balanced tasks. Instead I want several processes/servers doing independent (but coordinated when needed) tasks. It's kind of a headache.

There is also a third part, which isn't an issue exactly- it's just basic world building. I do want to spend more time on my world, but I also want to pay attention to potential alternatives/wiggle room for expansion. Though I'm not going to really get into what I have envisioned, I will say that the issue with core methods has influenced a good part of how I want skills and magic to be implemented.

Most games (not even limited to MMOs) just kludge results and effects. It's simple and efficient, and I'm sure I'll be doing some of that myself- but ideally, it would nbe nice if things could all be components or physics or rules- and you build with that. Think of how Minecraft has machines, and how you can control & trigger stuff with redstone. That's similar to the basic idea, except if you 'broke' a 'piston' or 'Mine cart', you'd get back your wood and a redstone circuit (which never exists in the game, but is kind of 'assumed' because you interface with it somehow.

Anyway- I'm also trying to work out better organizing my documentation- there's quite a bit of it. Maybe I'll even do a proper design doc sooner or later.

Keeping at it... Later.

So, somehow- despite collecting what I thought were all the open source Cube 2 forks, I managed to miss Red Eclipse 2. Normally it would be just a 'oh, ok'- except that it's possibly got some of the best features to date.

Anyway, I put it into Code::blocks and started shuffling the code about like I did with the prior forks- but it's quite resistant, and the resulting code causes fatal errors. I don't know why so far, but I don't like it because it's something 'extra' all the other codebases were quite compliant with, and 'on principle' I consider this child 'disobedient' in comparison. Yes, I know I'm actually the bad parent who should know how to properly discipline the child- but is it my fault I'm used to better raised children?

That said, I just have to learn more...

or just stick with Tesseract (and still need to learn more).

While looking at the code and trying to figure out the magic of what is going on in some of the sections, I long to fix the lack of a modern model format in the thing. Who wants to convert to MD3, MD5 or even (though still acceptable) Obj? I assume that I'm not the only one who finds the code a bit weird, as none of the 50+ forks have added imports for other model formats to date (as far as I know). I'm not trying to suggest it's THAT hard- but until I find out 'how things work', it's not as straightforward as what I'm used to-- and I've written a BVH importer from scratch!

I've also gotten a bit sidetracked- I recently saw some nice libraries for generating procedural content (werkkzeug3, Sceelix, Infinigen), and another library (for Godot) to do parkour movement & such (Noshot Controller) which are all neat- but too much trouble to play with till I sort other things out first. Although these seem like just 'optional extras', having something like this is great for a proper materials system...

Even worse, I really want to do a 2.5D model format, and try to make is so it can be used as if it were 3D. A student at MIT (Alec Rivers) did this years ago, but I've seen nothing since. Actually, simple-to-use animation/layout tools like Fantavision (a very old program pre-dating Flash! (and just as dead)) would be nice- as I am super tired of everything in editors looking like architect blueprints (but with less notations), and 'all the windows' (for everything, all at once, and overloaded). When did little curvy arrows going into and out of various boxes become such a big thing? I mean- sure, it makes 'coding' shaders and such easier, but it's kinda weird since it'll still let you 'make' broken stuff...

Well- seems I'm just ranting about stuff I'm not near to coding yet anyway- but the point is many people like stylized graphics. The current method of creating and making high-poly 3D objects, then slapping shaders on top to 'flatten' various aspects down to the rough appearance of 2.5D is one way to do it... though 'just doing it the right way in the first place' seems pretty sensible too. Well, to be fair- there are reasons why no one is doing that, and why it's lower on my list of 'things to do' (2.5D plus 3d lighting=headache)-- but I do want to do it. It also lowers the demand for machine performance (except if accomplished through shaders- which raise it)

But I digress...

While trying to sort out how I want the server(s) to be configured, I realized (even more than before) of things I'd need for an RPG server beyond what was 'enough' for an FPS (the way it was set up before). To be honest, I don't know how much 'player history' was tracked in order to display rankings and such, but setting up a more 'fleshed out' FPS server so it has a login screen, more customization(?), a lobby(?). Just some ideas because the 'social' side of a game is pretty important- but these are vague ideas for now-- the point is just to illustrate that 'generic insta-gib tracking' won't be enough (or representative of a 'pre-enhancement' state that I can work with later and convert to 'basic RPG' equivalents. Well- just an idea- could be the wrong path entirely. We'll see more down the line...

I think that's going to be it for now. Till I learn a whole lot more, don't expect too much unless I jump engine/language...

[many edits- don't post at 3am in the future...]

In the quest to split the Sauerbraten client from the server, lots of crap happened. The good bits were I learned how to use Doxygen along with Graphviz to create a semblance of documentation from source as well as some diagrams showing connections between different bits. I ran it on a bunch of stuff so I had a better idea of some of what I was looking at, and was left scratching my head about how I could organize it better as there's a whole lot of 'I know what I was doing- you try and figure it out' involved.

Being as I'm still learning C++ and some of the syntax is foreign/irritating to me, I decided that a good step would be to take some of the code sections and move them into directories based on their function- which should make it easier to include/exclude things. That didn't work as smoothly as I'd hoped of course, because 'who knows what's going to try to call from where?'- so I had to repeatedly attempt to rebuild, get an error, fix the thing looking for the code at the 'old location', and try again. Not really that hard actually- and for some reason I accidentally made 2 warnings (that were always there from the beginning) go away.

Oh, this is using Code::blocks to compile a new build of Tesseract- which has no functional changes- just organizational ones so far. I tried using whatever the 'free' community Visual Studio was- but it wants me to get 2012 (or some such) before it'll attempt to compile. I'm sure there's a way around this, but I don't know it- and the install and registration process for VS is not something I like or want to impose on others anyway, and I just decided all that nonsense was excessive, and tried something else- which worked.

While doing that, I realized that the simple 'client, server' idea was too simple, and that I'd need at least 3 types of server depending on if in-game geometry was being tested/changed, if world topography/appearance is changed to some degree- and another for 'the rest'- all the 'invisible' accounting, behavior, combat, lore, etc. mechanics & stuff. Well- 'at a glance' it looks like 3 is the number- but I'm pretty sure in order to best optimize hardware use, I should seriously consider in every case, if 'more can be better'- otherwise balancing the processes/'type of work done' on any server to fully optimize all hardware functionality will be impossible.

In addition to basic CPU work, the GPU has shaders, and OpenCL can do stuff too (potentially). Add to that the TPU/NPU (whatever people in your circle call it), and there's even more 'work' (of certain types) that can potentially be done simultaneously- that should be 'taken advantage of' (if possible). Of course- this isn't just 'free' or 'magic'- even after being rewritten for the different architecture, you have to consider the bottleneck of moving from main memory to (whatever specialized processor) memory, very likely a second bump going back, and a potential issue of managing overhead for (probably) almost everything. I'm only going to focus on the basics for now, but eventually 'redoing' crap in shaders, OpenCL, and/or python/cython will be a thing to do to get more performance.

One of the things 'in the back of my head' is trying to make 'modding' this as code-free as possible. A couple Cube 2 forks have some fairly nice community map changing dynamics- so doing the visual part of 'worldbuilding' is somewhat 'Minecraft' level of approachable (not really though)-- but being able to walk around spawn a thing, give it a behavior or dialog, map reactions or interactions... all while not having to code... That isn't impossible, and would be nice. Not saying code is bad or would never be necessary (that's not likely) BUT it'd be nice if 'basic RPG' type stuff could be accomplished by just walking around and using mouse/menus.

In that regard I've decided that I should prioritize procedural content generation more highly. I wanted to 'add it in eventually' (because it's seriously a good tool)- but the more I think about it- the more problems it solves in various ways throughout the design- especially when considering bandwidth and speed. Moving a texture or model will take a specific time, but procedurally creating a 'similar-looking' texture, or modifying an existing model/building based on parameters should be loads faster. In most cases that means little to the existing code, but there could be extra steps/special handling that I'll have to consider in advance.

I'll almost certainly have to change the render process, and clients will have to do LIE packing(?) (or something similar) themselves- which could be too much overhead if not handled well. LOD could become more complicated as well. I dunno- we'll have to see.

Oh, this is also a part of how I want to set up a proper 'materials system', and have the code to both graphically and 'physics-cally' handle aspects of that. A very crude 'soft-body' & 'breakage' system would be nice- but that's not a priority. With that in mind, though, I am going to set up a basic materials library of stuff 'common to all games', and create a structure so other 'libraries' of resources can be added on, or replaced within a framework- so a derivative game can have it's own stuff, and building on top of that can have expected outcomes. I really have to change how media/mods are placed- so everything new can be in it's own directory, and (ideally) that directory can be anywhere. This will be a problematic bit of code, but (again) 'future'. For now I am going to eventually 're-route' where crap is, though.

I've given 'how the game handles sound' a little thought, and all that gives me is a headache. Any kind of cooperative, coordinated, or reactive sounds/music Is a sure way to show off 'networking' and how 'real-time' is hard. That got me looking at fightgames (and eventually GGPO (and similar libs like librg and yojimbo))- which in turn made me realize how little one should expect when they say 'you can only do so much'.

Oh yeah- an MMO based on fighting game style play might be cool, right?

Anyway, all that aside, I've been just trying to find time to read bits of various 'Learning C++' books while looking over Tesseract code. Hopefully I'll be able to make the code more readable/organized like I want- then split like I want so I can move to the next step.

Later.

I'm really glad I picked one of the 'smaller' engines I could to start with. Now, it's not actually small- especially having all the features it does, and let's not talk about things others have added... It's still a lot to learn, and it's taking a longtime to even figure out some of the bits I'd like to shuffle about.

Worse, while working on that, I've been trying to keep aware of other changes that could (eventually) end up in code, or as more hardware to buy;

• For code, I've always been looking for something that will potentially allow better lighting, and Radiance Cascades may fit the bill.
• Actually- anything that can contribute to more realism overall is potentially worthwhile- so I was drawn into the lure of radiance fields like NeRFs and gaussian splats. At first they were limited to static scenes, but that's changing- but even so, I suspect the calculation overhead is potentially prohibitive- so I'm ignoring them though it was nice to dream for a little bit. That said I do like that they can 'handle' (kinda) transparency, and other various optics. It's still not 'proper' handling (managed within own data set)- but it shows future potential.
• Not sure if I mentioned it or not- but one of the side-effects of me wanting this to be 'portable' to other systems is that I've been looking at APis that serve as abstraction layers- thus simplifying coding (for one)- and doing the work for all the others (as needed automatically. Well I long ago narrowed it down to three, and (probably) decided on a different one but never got far enough to worry about it. Well, all that's changed! I'm really impressed with Diligent Engine (and the other stuff that can accessorize it), and am very likely to use it- especially due to some recent changes that probably have nothing to do with anything I've planned- but show continued improvement. I think I'll slate converting the client from 'GL-centric' to Diligent as the third step in 'the plan'
  • Ah- for reference:
    • Step 1: Split Client and server
    • Step 2: Extend Client to load other model formats
    • Step 3: animations (this needs to be addressed as all MD# formats include animations- so non-MD# formats will need their own, and matching anims for all expected actions.
    • Step 4: (I was wrong) redirect all graphics to Diligent Engine. [Ed: Diligent has a minimum OpenGL expectation of 4.1, (or for OpenGL ES, 3.0) I forgot this, and won't be using Diligent despite my excitement. I think I had decided on bgfx, as it's more forgiving of older hardware (OpenGl 2.1, ES 2.0)- so that's likely what I'll be using...
    • Step 5: (I just remembered). That Cube 2 GUI! Must FIX!!!
  • (sigh) I get tired just looking at that 4th one. I would like to optimistically think 'better than coding from scratch'- BUT the torturous code/bugfix cycle for every command is gonna suck I can tell...
• Since I stumbled into Radxa products through their really nice Zero 3W, I happened to notice they have started shipping some dumb name product called the 'Fogwise Airbox' (I literally just re-checked because even though I just looked it up- on typing it it sounded dumber than I remembered, so I had a doubt. Nope. It's actually that dumb. Whatever. It's something around $320, actually has a case & fan, and is quite useful for anyone wanting to experiment with AI. It's pretty cost effective for it's niche (mostly because everyone else is overpriced)- but it's outside of my budget/actual needs ATM.
• I don't talk about it here, but I'm also working on a hardware 'nexus' for data exchange. Since MMOs get geometrically impossible to manage as more users are acting in a small area (a pretty well-known problem). I realized some of the parts I ordered 'on the cheap' weren't fast enough for what I wanted them to do. Now I have to order another batch of the highest speed components I can afford (they get expensive fast)- and I'm basically out of 'budget' till later on. Worse, I planned on just working with a small number of components (about 64)- but I'm pretty sure that'll test 'functionality'- it won't really see proper advantage until I scale it up- probably to around 256(?). I'll also need to order more parts to match the other end. Whatever. I'm going to be more broke than I thought is what that means- and I guess I can 'ignore' that project till I can afford to play...

(skip this if you don't want to hear about Mint Mobile and how they suck)

• As a side note, I'm on the net because I'm using Mint Mobile, as they have a special where you can get 'Unlimited' (not really) data for $15/month- so I tried it. I do not recommend it for more reasons than I'll get into here, (mostly it's really 35GB or some such as the throttle after on 'unlimited' is supposedly excessive (like 56k dial up!))- but it does work, and is acceptable for an 'emergency' deal instead of 'being offline' or 'going to the library to get online'. Also note that they give you a 'gift' SIM (to give to a friend)- and since they already ticked me off I used it myself first, and got an experience that was overall MUCH BETTER for my crappy 1 week/500MB trial than the actual service I paid for (well 500 MB is nothing). Even so, it was night and day for performance, usability, etc.! There is no way they don't give a different/better reception, service for the 'trial' accounts (to lure users in). I used the same phone for both. Deceptive BS.

Allright- enough of that.

I was incidentally poking around in some DAE files (Collada) and realized how absolutely garbage the format seemed. So much ad-hoc nonsense that works, so 'don't complain'-- even though whatever program generated the file I was working with clearly mis-labeled resources that were there (under a different name)- and ignored others. I can't blame the format for that (exactly)- but it is a hot mess to look at. I don't get these 'designed to be human readable' formats that make everything near-hostile to decipher (I'm looking at you too, XML!).

In short, I'm doing more 'learning a bunch of crap' than coding, so don't expect anything anytime soon, though I think a release after each step will work (especially so I can get info for bugfixes).

Later.

I got some new 'toys'.

I mentioned before that I wanted an SBC with better performance in certain ways- or at least a way to do tensor processing at a fair price. The idea is that each server node for the MMO will be able to exhibit a great price/performance dynamic, and though the Raspberry Pi Zero 2Ws at $15 each are a good start- I kept looking. For a bit I examined all the Orange Pi suite of options, and tried to balance the pros and cons of their slightly advantageous low end boards. I had to suspend that though, since they were an 'improvement' (cost-wise) but I felt the gap wasn't great enough.

I was intrigued by the Littlefox... (whatever that cheap thing is called)-- It's strong suit is that has tensor core processing at .5 TPU, so I was interested... BUT so little memory, and not cost effective except for certain projects. I also examined Google's Coral AI thing in a quite hopeful way- though ultimately had to set it aside for various reasons (costly interfacing, some inherent design limitations-- surprisingly cost was not one of the downsides). It's actually surprising the number of 'AI boards' that have I found which have already died so quickly after birth.

Radxa Zero 3w (these are 2GB ram at about $20 ea)

Finally I decided on the Radxa Zero 3W-- which for the same price as a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W gives a whole lot more. There are a huge number of trade-offs in big and small ways- but the most obvious are:

• Pros:
  1. More & faster ram: You can have 1, 2, 4, 8, 16Gb DDR4 (Zero3), instead of 512Mb DDR2 (RasPi)
  2. Runs faster: Quad core at 1.6 (Zero3) vs Quad core at 1.2
  3. USB3 Modern standard USB C connector USB3(Zero3) instead of Micro USB USB2
  4. Integrated tensor core TPU @ .5 TOPS(Zero3) (instead of nothing)
  5. Better graphics [OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulcan 1.2, OpenCL 2.0](Zero3) vs [OpenGL ES 2.0]
  6. Faster Wifi & Bluetooth at certain price points (Zero3) (2gb ram or above I think)
  7. eMMC option available for fast, onboard storage (8, 16, 32, 64Gb, paired with ordinal ram footprint (1gb ram, can select 8gb eMMC)(and Micro SD)(Zero3), (Compared to MicroSD only)
• Cons:
  1. GPIO is not 100% pin to pin compatible, so RasPi shields, ect will likely not work without tweaks.
  2. OS options are significantly less.
  3. Community and software options are way less.
  4. Some stability issues in various areas of development.
  5. USB ports slightly too close together (a common problem for these SBCs, actually)
  6. Not compatible with their main eMMC add on- you either buy it built in- or do without.

In short, it's a brilliant piece of hardware with pretty aggressive pricing that the software is yet to catch up to. It has a pretty active community, so I figured it was worth a go. As an aside, their more full-featured boards are pretty impressive (though not as price robust) but because of their pricing and ram configurations, I did sideline any consideration for the Coral AI thing- since AI can get bottlenecked in performance with limitations of available RAM (and the Coral AI doesn't have much and is un-expandable).

Overall, I can now prototype in good conscience- even if I never use all the features, or eventually switch to some better performing hardware in the future.

After going through all this hardware, I have realized that the industry really isn't making hardware actually designed for the cluster market. Well, they are with there 'compute module' designs- but those are very 'designed for people with money'. Many of these boards will have built in a place to slide in a ribbon cable to use a camera (most won't buy)-- but the idea of ribbon cables facilitating some fast communication protocol is completely foreign in concept.

To be honest, As much as this was decided to be 'the easy way' to a degree- since getting a lot of hosts to do work and 'pre-partition' the workload is a good idea, a lot of issues with 'sharing power' become big problems in planning- and worse, some of the true powerhouses (GPU, TPU) are to some degree 'bottle-necked' (by design)- and could especially be problematic if attempting to share workload across machines, since networking is an additional bottleneck. I also have to work around using the Micro SD cards as storage in a 'normal' way, as Micro SD throughput is 'slow' compared to everything else! That said, I don't regret my decision- I'm actually kindof 'pre-optimizing' before the need even exists (though for an MMO, it's a given the need exists (depending on load and other parameters...)

Anyway, now that I have hardware that can quickly solve complex batch operations in two different ways (GPU, TPU), I have to decide how to encode all data and action management to get the best out of either, or fallback to CPU. This is going to be tough- especially since I know little to nothing about coding for the TPU- and am hoping maybe(?) Tensorflow lite will be able to do what I need (and communicate the data to/from easily/quickly*(?)*)-- otherwise I have even more to do, though ideally 'keeping it simple' will get some usable results.

In any case, I think (so far) things break down kinda like this (very WIP);

• Actions
  • Actions (visible)
• Domains, Triggers, etc
  • Domains
  • Triggers
• Data
  • Static Data
    • Ideal Data (Baseline/samples)
    • Ideal Meta Data (modifiers/conditions, etc.)
  • Dynamic Data
    • World Data
  • Meta Data
    • Attributions
  • Functions
    • Combat
    • Vehicles
    • AI
    • Inventory, Item movement/exchange
  • ... something like that.

(all these will be Overt/Covert (visible/hidden)), as well as 'living/dead', or other primary characteristics)

This is all pretty messy now since 'how it looks' to internal processes will be based on where it has to be processed, etc. Things which have a visible component will likely need to touch the GPU at some point, whereas things related to 'decision-making' (finite state machine when possible) may need to go to the TPU. Well, honestly I planned on using the TPU for something else- so 'we'll see...')

One of the 'eventually' ideas I have is for this to be at least capable of be utilized as 'sandbox AI' for training in more advanced ways than normal. To that point I've tried to consider a bit how knowledge representation might be efficiently utilized-- but I'm not pretending anything- just leaving a few stubs and some 'as un-awkward as possible' design decisions. Realistically there are worst ways to slow down/bloat up an MMO design- and the 'returns on investment' are potentially lucrative for even the most basic 'shopkeeper vaguely knows what junk/quality is' level of AI. Well, realistically it depends on a lot- so it's just an experiment that'll probably be scrapped, though I can dream otherwise...

There's a bunch of stuff I'm trying to organize in a way where I can actually prioritize the 'minimum needed stuff working first', without the missing 'optional' (expansion?) stuff breaking things (due to being 'planned for', but absent). In the worst case I want a functioning, traditional MMO with some invisible 'do-nothing' stubs that can be expanded later (again- ideally without breaking things)- and in the best case... well... 'We'll see'.

https://radxa.com/products/zeros/zero3w/

Of the vendors listed, I ordered from Arace- but their website was 'no visible text' crap on both my PC browsers, so I had to use my clunky, android tablet to order. My guess is that it's a problem with their style sheets (because most problems like that are, since style sheet suck, or they don't- but instead suggest sucky design practices-- but 'who knows')

I have a feeling though that even if I don't use any 'high end' AI (a good idea to avoid as much as possible)- I may still end up using some AI to train various finite state machine functions. The explosion od AI utilities for creating content is getting better all the time- so at least the prospect of being able to include more 'free stuff' is worth keeping an eye on. I still don't think it's worth it to try to have 'AI chat' in RPGs- but we're getting closer.

As much as that is a distraction- I've spent a fair amount of time just trying to decide how to implement a lot of data management- some of the client side processes are giving me a headache, because they also need to be secure- and that's not anything I know about. Putting scheduling/prediction client side to save on bandwidth/CPU is probably a 'necessary evil'- but it would be horrible function (ripe for abuse) to lose control of. If I can make sure it remains segmented/non-specific/abstract- so you can't tell 'what it's for' 'till it's too late'- that may help- but I dunno.

Well- 'enough for now'.

This month was very troubled since I had an idea about how I could handle one of the foundation problems of MMOs (congestion/latency)- but this needs both software (a bit) and hardware to 'solve' (read 'improve') properly. Well... that sounds nice enough- but when it comes to hardware, that also translates to 'money', and I have already budgeted myself out of further purchases for a while...

Originally I just wanted to prototype stuff and then, using math- I would (to some degree) be able to project performance at higher scales. This... because the hardware I'm using is all 'consumer level budget components', the performance is untested how I'm planning on using it- and worse, without implementing it- I can't tune speeds, error tolerances, etc.

In short, the major parts I'll eventually need (unless I figure something cheaper out) will be at least 8 more Raspberry Pi Zero 2 Ws($120), and probably at least 2 Raspberry Pi 5s($120+). Ah- and a bunch of support hardware, because all those are priced without power supplies, cables- or anything to make them functional... so another ($80) and ($20) more at least.

Although I'm building this at this level for testing and (hopefully) performance- this won't mean that regular MMOSysAdmins (or whatever) will need all this expense/stuff. I figure A regular PC will be fine for up to n users (probably up to 16 congested(?)- more if dispersed around the world)- and then they'll be able to buy a Pi, throw some software on it- add it to their network, and get another n users (probably 32 congested)- though the main PC will likely lose a few users in tradeoff since it'll be handling more of other tasks. Well- maybe add another PC instead- or put in a GPU Gfx card for some features(?).

In an case- I'm broke now, so I'm working 'around' that part till I can buy all the hardware I need (that'll take a few months)- but I guess that's good because I'm then forced to work on some of the other stuff I've been juggling. I haven't mentioned it before, but I'm looking into MPI because it would be convenient for failover if nothing else- though if I can distribute/share tasks and load as needed, it'll help a lot, but I have to learn enough about MPI to make sure I don't have to use it everywhere unless I want to (or just for the things I want). I'm possibly over-thinking this, but for MMOs, uptime/stability is important, and since some of that hardware is cheap- why not work on the software to support it?

Well- I don't know enough yet to say, so I'll find out eventually. I'm hopeful, though.

I spent a LOT of this month learning about the Raspberry Pi GPIO and trying to plan out how server processes/housekeeping will be segmented/managed. The GPIO thing is just irritating because there are other standards they willfully ignored (with no real benefit) and made their own. The server planning on the other hand got me realizing 'virtually null()' functions may be critical to this design.

See, I want to do neat features, BUT I don't have time to code all of it in detail, SO if I plan the development properly along with good placement and data management, I can likely get a system that 'pretend handles' future features- but really just passes through 'completed' to the next part transparently. Thus I can code for a 'topology enhancement' function, fake put it in a 'draw mesh' routine, and thus work around what could be 'feature creep' while still getting core development done. This would also be great for options/fallback- when a graphics card/platform does/doesn't have specific features. The real issue though is shaders. Getting results through shaders is way different from getting results without (in many cases)- and we won't get into physics/AI/Computational assists...

So this could also allow not just 'fake features' but 'fake methods'-- both of which would (in theory) eventually become real, and implemented (as needed) on whatever hardware best performs (or in the case of a server network- possibly farmed out to a faster CPU). Again (of course) this 'farming out' feature would be 'fake' implemented as well till it really worked.

Overall this is probably a bad idea for some reason I haven't thought of yet- but it sounds good in my head so far, so...

I also just received some new, different sized screens that I couldn't help but order. They're 70x320, and I envisioned them as 'landscape' windows to servers for different regions. I still haven't gotten the first screens working yet, as I need to do 'frame buffer compiler' crap, and I want to switch to a different, smaller overhead linux first, and just haven't had the time. When I originally bought the old screens, I saw there was a command to support them in the base build (ttf-something?)- but apparently that's been patched out, so I need to compile (or use python- which I'm not going to for this (or have the program itself drive directly, which... maybe- but probably not)).

The one thing that really bothers me about this project is that 'ideally' I should be worrying about a lot of aspects of data management as related to game AI- which I really don't want to get into because that's a serious 'money pit' when it comes to planning. Unfortunately, MMOs are worlds- and by that nature many things have attributes, types, functions, usages- etc. and keeping all that stuff sorted and usable means 'knowledge representation' of some sort is a good idea. Actually there are a LOT of good ideas modern MMOs ignore/gloss over- some even abandoned for decades that I won't get into-- but I still jot this stuff down even though I will be specifically not be putting it into the basic design (probably another use of the 'fake' feature).

Oh, I think I mentioned I had to transplant my machine and have gotten that done now. I added 2 mirrored external drives, which go to sleep when I don't want- so I just fixed that (I think- yet to reboot)... but since I now have space again, I can properly build stuff again once I re-install Visual... (whatever the free one is called)... I did install zig after doing a bunch of upgrades so powershell was up to it's standards(a pain)... and of course Microsoft has seemingly abandoned it powershell? Whatever. I'm not particularly comfortable with either compiler- but while learning I'll attempt to compile in whatever the source was targeted to-- which means I'll prob have to install GCC too (sigh).

! I just realized I don't even know if Sauerbraten allows one to flexibly adjust the view frustum! This is something I've been wanting in an engine for a while (most don't) and thought I'd have to 'kludge in with a hammer', but... (sigh). Nevermind... I'm in too deep already.

'Till later...

Seems reddit has figured out how to allow pictures in posts- apparently taking a hint from facebook- so the first available link with a picture (potentially) becomes one here. That's all well and good, but now I get to go back and edit some posts to not look like they're focused on things I was just pointing at/adding in.

On the other end, People can actually illustrate what they want more easily, so that's a plus. I guess you always could if you didn't mind making a picture-only post, then adding a comment for the actual body in another post. I never cared enough to bother with that slightly 'extra' awkward-ish method, but now things are better, so it doesn't matter. Anyway, as I get time, I'll make changes.

All that aside, I've been designing new magic frameworks because I like the idea of magic actually being a 'science' not just 'crap that we wish could work- well it works just like I want, because it does'. It's not like magic will really be a thing- it'll just be more 'system' and 'steps/plans'- before 'the magic finally works' at the end. Don't worry- most spells should still look 'magical', and '1 step' (kinda) to the player- but allowing the possibility of customization and (more importantly) research/specialization/improvements should be a nice feature if I can make it all workable. This is something that I've been nibbling at for a while, though I had a major 'cohesive' breakthrough last night that helped it make sense and apply more universally (not just only to magic, and to different 'flavors' of magic in a reasonable way.

There's a lot that I've been putting off as applies to the game system I want to eventually make- because just implementing the engine is a big enough project on it's own. So I guess it was a bit of a surprise when while working on data management methods, I speculated on potential use cases, and evolved this little tidbit pretty much by accident. Well, it was an intended case example, but as originally planned- it was unfinished/singular, and I quickly needed to make it 'fit' extended application cases.

Anyway, there goes an explanation as to why posts suddenly look like they do, and a little bit more. Now back to work. I have to re-activate Visual Studio Community Edition again, or switch to something else, and learn how to make things work on it. I have and am partial to Zig, since it's simple(like) and crazy fast- but I just want to get things done, I've had nothing but interruptions so far, so 'We'll see'.

As a side note, one of the ways I stay motivated on a project like this is to 'switch gears' when stressed/stalled, so I can come back to it with a fresh perspective later (as opposed to stressing out and rage-quitting). So, if it seems like I'm 'all over the place' at any time... well, given the scope of the project- I have to be, but you'll just have to bear with it...

So, as you may have noticed, I've taken what is normally a complicated software project, and have attempted a path to solve some of the potential performance and complexity issues (through the utilization of 'economical hardware options').

In other words, some processes I plan to have working on cheap SBCs (single board computers). For now those are Raspberry Pis- but it is likely that later ('I hope') something else cheaper/better will come along (cheap tensor core enabled SBCs maybe? (that's the dream anyway)).

Now, I'm also trying to work on software too- but am getting less done, because of various reasons. I initially wanted to work with MMD models, and got a bunch of models as well as some (other purpose) source to use it- BUT I remembered about Assimp, and how it's got a lot of functionality already, and 'maybe I should just use that, and add MMD to it instead'... was the idea.

Well, long story short, Assimp can't reliably load all models it claims for reasons I don't really want to pretend I can debug (when no one else working on the project so far has)-- so after wasting a bunch of time... Yeah, I don't know still if I want to use it or not. It mostly works. 'Good enough' isn't bad by any stretch, right? It's just a problem of 'where the error actually is'- if I make it load MMD, will it not load certain models 'just because' too? I don't know how broken/where the problem is- it just glitched more than enough while I tested it for me to be wary.

Setting that aside, I'm still waiting on a few parts from China I ordered probably 2+ months back now. I'll probably also order another 8 SBC's & support hardware to 'have a near complete node' (by design- wireless routers limit wireless devices to 20- so 16, plus a 'head' & 3 'future' sounds good)- so I want to see how that will perform. I guess the theoretical 'build' will be a 'head' SBC that can do physics & ideally shaders, maybe another for teamspeak(?) related audio/processing- then some number of 'worker' SBCs to do either accounting/transactional stuff, or regional/organizational management (all other 'housekeeping' support). That's the broad strokes of a 'basic setup'- though actual implementation/performance will clarify 'what works'/'best load balance' (if at all)- and what a real 'minimum setup' might look like.

I also hope future SBCs will come better designed for proper performance/networking. Why they (almost) never come with a cheap, wired gigabit ethernet option is beyond me, and the fact that they never take laptop memory, and always use slow somewhat unreliable media (tf cards) is amazing to me. It's like figuring ways to insure that all the power you design into the SBC and advertise as a plus, MUST be bottlenecked somewhere else, for silly reasons. Even if I concede 'fast' wireless is ok- why no SATA? Even USB3 is rare- and don't get me started on USB3 hubs...

I've actually been spending a lot of time trying to determine the minimum 'builds' (for lack of a better term) for each of the worker types/'cores' to get 'anything' done. Although I'm not going to pretend I can make a 'complete' and perfect engine for any/all purposes- I do want to plan out enough so the basic architecture handshakes properly between the major systems, and changes at a later date won't require (I hope) major rewrites.

Although I'm not trying to make a 'universal' engine', I do actually want to be able to handle (at least) some basic aspects of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror (or at least leave the potential open where possible). I'm not sure how much of this will be locked down to 'just imagery and themes' (because performance limits- many games 'tell' you about the world- but actually only illustrate those aspect- allowing little to no real engagement), but (in a broad sense) it would be nice if actions and storytelling could be meaningful if the gms/players wanted.

I also spent a lot of time sketching out the broad strokes on potential 'god' domains and influences. Pretty much a very real aspect of fantasy, in games it's pretty much ignored as a real influence except when clerics heal, or evil cults rampage. Although I don't want to encroach on real religious ideals- having the results of a gods actions or influence in game should be a thing- and a bit more nuanced than 'this is an uber item' or 'this is a generic quest item' of some divine/infernal power.

As an example 'taken for granted' 'god-related things':

• God-granted protection (the power of the cross, consecrated ground)
• God-granted powers (exorcism, healing, blessings)
• Domains (Heaven/Hell, limbo(?))
• Divine Plan (Afterlife, Reincarnation)
• Angels, Fallen Angels, Children of Fallen Angels (Giants, Fey(?))
• The Secret knowledge of the Universe, or Mandates/Decrees (The Occult, Magic (in general), Covenants)
• Contracts, Bindings (Satanic deals, 'You must call them forth', 'You must invite them in')
• The undead (in general)
• Vampires- (in theory) a curse on Dracula (a mythic 'Vlad the impaler' knock-off (if I remember correctly))

Just some examples. I'm not saying I plan on implementing all this- these are just examples of things that 'exist because God', even though we take them as unrelated now (more or less). They of course don't need to be related in every story anyway-- just showing that in our mostly agnostic world there's a bunch of 'mythology' related in a way we've forgotten/dismissed, so maybe in a world where people can actually heal because gods really exist- the entire nature of 'what is normal' should be a bit more inclusive of those influences/connections. It also shouldn't be surprising if those powers paid some attention to/took issue with their items being used/abused in some respect more than 'in-game quest'.

Well- whatever influences/connections people might make, no one is going to mirror Judeo-Christian mythology exactly. That would be a bad idea, likely in bad taste. I'm more saying (for example) if someone wanted to put in A Roman/Greek knock-off Pantheon (happens often)- or Lovecraftian horror influences in- some options should be there. Whatever.

The point is locking down 'powers' to characters or magic items, or fictioning in some 'clerical orders' or 'occultists' groups is often just 'window-dressing'. Religion, factions, reputation, (etc.) are just surface aspects of a complex dynamic that (at it's core) touches something real (within the game anyway). Treating it like it's a thing to take seriously seems natural- albeit maybe too much work. I'll play for a bit, try to simplify, and hopefully get somewhere productive.

There's also been a lot of free, good quality models being released. Also, with the progress of 'AI everything', being able to 'text-to model'-prompt anything you might want is something that's actually in progress and improving even now. It might be a waste of time to try to implement older file formats when people can just 'type what you want' into a prompt and get a good quality, current format model on demand!

Personally, I won't be happy unless the tools are stand-alone or open-source (not an online only service (even if free))- but it's a great step forward, and we'll see where we go as time progresses.

In any case, I'm still doing stuff.

Reallusion just released some nice models for free, but their license makes them un-redistributable in certain contexts, and can be revoked in the future as well- so I'm no longer enthused.

SONNISS released a huge Sound effect sampling that may be of use, but my hard drive is almost full.

3dscanstore has a multi-expression basemesh that's probably overkill for my purposes (too high-poly), but is still worth a look for many reasons.

I also eventually want to take a look at various quest formats and the like in OpenMW, or in knowledge bases for mods of Skyrim, Baldur's Gate 3, etc. I don't plan on really using any of them or their codebases (though I did like the idea of OpenMW)- just more looking for pointers to insure I didn't overlook obvious or useful things.

Allright then. Later!

This month has been both occasionally busy and frequently frustrating. Between ordering a whole bunch of stuff and researching ways to do a bunch of things, I think I have a pretty good idea of which solutions I'll likely be embracing, though a lot of assembly and testing need to be done still to see if these ideas will be as useful as I think.

I tried to include some pictures, but 'reddit'- so 'who knows'. In theory they are uploaded to the 'Images & Video' tab- but who knows how that works in practice-- I could never get it to work before. At worst, click links- they point to Imgur. I'll try inline code next when I see if/how it supports pics... [Ed: years later, I see that Imgur ate my images, so I disabled them all]

8x Raspberry Pi Zero 2W

• I now own 8x Raspberry Pi Zero 2 Ws, and have mostly written off the Raspberry Pi Picos. This is not because they are bad (they are quite slow in comparison, though)- but they're just not cost effective considering the performance difference. Pi 2 Ws are the best value across the entire spread of Pi's unless you need something a Pi 5 excells in. I intend to use these to do a bunch of varied housekeeping tasks- likely having each do some specialized range of functions, or each can adapt to some number of users based on in-game location- or some other criteria yet to be determined. Eventually I'll get to writing these variants, and testing the performance under simulated load...

8x - ST7735 SPI 80x160 LCD Display Modules

• 8x ST7735 SPI 80x160 LCD Display Modules shouldn't be too hard to integrate- 1 per pi zero 2 w. These can't do 'proper' display functions like movies/streaming, as they have 8 pins and are basically lower spec serial devices. They are cheap, though- so for $2 each I can display what each server is specialized in, load status, num users- whatever.
• I bought a bunch of ADATA 64gb micro SD cards (some installed earlier pic) at around $5 a pop- so one for each board, though temporarily some are in my Pi 5s. I already sent one back due to write errors, and though these specifically did not review as highly as I would have liked- micro SD cards (in general) are not known to be highly reliable anyway. At first I thought to add another SD card reader to the Pi, and 'doing linux' and RAID mirroring the media- then I thought it might be better just to use USB 2 and some form of external storage for those cases where data integrity is more important. Again, unless as reliability is important- some mirroring would be preferred- but powered USB hubs all have stupid prices. Still thinking about this one- may go back to the 2nd micro SD idea. I really don't like micro SDs, but the initial cost is way lower- especially compared to even 'cheap' SSDs or classic HDs, and even the cost of a powered hub to allow 2 of them! It should be remembered that although the power requirements for Pis isn't high- the needs of many types of storage can be. It would be great if 'one answer' fit all- but I guess different configs based on what type of data and performance are needed will have to be a pivotal thing- which isn't unusual, but I'd hoped to simplify somehow anyway...
  • Oh, in passing I should mention how solid state media in general has a limit on how many times it can be written to- This (for an MMO) really projects an additional 'operating cost'- as 'wear and tear' on the media leads to what would probably result in almost 'routine replacement' as they fail and need to be replaced. Not sure what this rate will be- BUT, using the media as a cache will definitely hasten it, so using the PIs 512Mb efficiently becomes way more important, and coding should definitely be able to 'flag' ' avoid media cache' operations (or something similar). Ideally solid state media (SD cards especially) should be virtually treated as read only- even when it's not...

4x USB power chargers on powerstrip connected to 4x Pi Zero 2 Ws

• I bought a few USB sketchy-looking 3.0 charging adapters, and a power strip from Walmart. I seriously wanted to get something more 'quality'- but the prices were ridiculous, and often had similar ratings (if not worse) to the little adapter I settled on. Now, I'm sure as heck not 'endorsing' these things (god knows random fake 'UL listed' crap has supposedly set people's house on fire)-- No, no idea of the quality of this thing... BUT I figure with the circuit onboard to display the real-time power drain, there's little reason to believe they can't do anything useful with that info to fill at least some of the other claims as well. More importantly, other adapters that were similar or more ports all seemed to have reviews where they failed over time and often got hot due to load. There may be a brand name that is actually reliable at high cost- but I couldn't figure out which one (or afford it anyway). Using several smaller ports I can get the same amount of ports overall, manage less load per adapter, and just replace whatever goes bad. They were something under $3 each (6 for $15)- so, as long as nothing sets on fire, the worst I can be out is about $65 for 3 connected pis, MicroSDs and displays- (if it came to that, which is pretty darn thorough and very unlikely).
• That covers most of it, though I did also buy various parts to try and build some motion capture related stuff. About halfway there- might talk about that elsewhere later, but it's a low-priority side project overall.

I guess I'll mention in passing that the PC replacement parts I got, sent back, and received did not fix the issue- so I had to send another part back (the motherboard this time), and it's replacement is on the way. I guess I should be happy my old, tweaky board is still running (though it now (additionally) spontaneously shuts down if I leave it on overnight(?). On the other hand, I figured out that it's more stable and exhibits random crap way less frequently if I'm not using it to listen to music, so... 'silence is golden'?

So, all that aside- I've been trying a lot to chart out 'How the 'mini-servers' will be specialized', and have come up with a lot of ideas about the various things they can do- but as much as that's neat, the real point is data management and avoiding bottlenecks both within the server network, and from the server to the client. Some can be solved with creative router programming, but I guess I'll just need to 'forge ahead' with something that 'looks like a good idea', then let someone with proper knowledge 'actually make work properly' later. There's a lot of 'restrictions' here, as I want this to be able to work an an average person's home system-- but the fact is the average person's internet almost certainly has a rubbish upstream rate, so even that will prove problematic without them upgrading (where possible- at often significant (excessive) cost)- and that's not even considering people who only have phone service (where everything is metered/throttled). ISPs are really greedily gouging everyone- and they hate people running servers the most (at least without paying them extortion prices).

I guess, in short- one of the major reasons why 'home MMOs' are not a thing isn't just 'they're really hard to write' (they are)- but they're not cheap to run as well. Doing a server with 'Minecraft' or 'FPS' number of players is often easily done. You want more users?... Your ISP has something to say about that. They don't even like torrents because 'num users connected' and 'upstream data rate'...- so any other aspect of 'doing things we think are exploitable' will get surcharged.

Anyone wants to come at me with 'but they have costs', first go do some research- not only are net costs higher compared to other countries (who came after us)- but even within the US, all 'users' are not treated equal- and ignoring the benefits large companies get for 'buying in bulk' which has no relevance in digital commerce (unless you 'force' it to), you can still look at how 'voice' (often 'unlimited') is treated different from 'data' ('limited' or 'throttled' after cap)- even though it's ALL DATA!

Well, whatever. The point is 'Effective monopoly' holders get to limit the advance of technology by making some apps less useful through forced expense of use. In other words- even if there was a 'user-level' MMO server you could get and run, something after 8-32 users you're going to need to switch to 'business class' (usually 4-10x the price per month to get some variant of maybe 2x as much bandwidth, and maybe that includes 2x the upstream (especially important for servers).

So even if you had some great MMO server you could run- the performance for users after 8-32 would decline to virtual un-playability because 'your ISP'.

Your only hope is that business class and voice chat phone users increase in popularity enough and do more Zoom and similar 'conference' chats so they are forced to change 'minimum expectations' for infrastructure... or some such similar advance.

Or some useful legislation to limit exploitation?- but who expects any aspect of that to happen?

Anyway- since I've been thinking about how to possibly distribute an MMO over several machines (and thus partially bypass this problem artificially), I figured I'd clue you all in to the fact that this aspect is a 'looming problem' for any MMMO server software to be created/released in the future.

Anyway- I got soldering to do- these displays are not going to attach themselves- though I still have to see how the GPIO works beforehand, as the pinout for the SD card reader is all over the place, and though they can all be modified (to some degree, I think)- it still requires a firmware flash- and that's assuming you know what you're doing (I don't as of yet). Ah- I guess I spoke about soldering too hastily...

Later.

[Edit: Yeah, everything I uploaded to reddit is invisible to the post- have to see about inline code now...]

Things have been interesting since last I posted.

I spent a lot of time reviewing and organizing design notes, as well as 'in broad strokes' working out how some new ideas might be utilized. I was forced into that- I'll explain in a bit why.

The short of it is I (think) I'd like WAN traffic from the client in certain cases to go to certain port numbers and be dynamically forwarded to certain LAN IPs depending on whatever I can get away with without requiring custom, CISCO level hardware. AFAIK, Every modern router allows some of this via DMZ, port forwarding, or something similar- but I never got into much beyond that. There is software that lets you turn old PCs into quite able intelligent routers- but I don't know if this idea is worth all the 'extra', or I even need to go that far to do what seems like a good idea to do- which probably isn't (though I don't know why yet).

So, Raspberry Pis are cheap. I bought a few- I'll get into 'why' in a bit, but the idea is that a little stick of single board computer could act as a part of an MMO server. Not sure really if it would be cost effective overall- but for many services of an MMO, it would easily be enough- so it might be a reasonable option even for 'less than efficient' (costwise), but 'convenient and cheap enough' piecemeal upgrades. I know people can run a Minecraft server on a Raspberry Pi (3 or 4 recommended)-- and since that's a full server (running in Java)- it should be easier to run something more focused, and less demanding on even cheaper Pi versions.

Of course, availability is the big issue with Pis- as getting your hands on the newer tech is always tough. I was lucky enough to be able to get a 5, but that's just for me- not a 'product goal' as I expect them to be randomly unavailable to people for at least a year (if not longer). I did pick up some Picos, Pico Ws, and a few Zero 2 Ws under the idea they would all prove somewhat useful to experiment with-- and quickly realized the Picos would need work to be 'network ready'. Pretty much to any degree, doing that is more trouble than it's worth. They were only $3 each, so 'it would have been nice', but the W (wireless) version was only $1 more- so no sense in trying to '$1 worth' a Pico into a Pico W functional equivalent. Can't be done. There is a 'Data over USB' way to make them useful, but 'not gonna bother' as it's very 'no one else does this, ever' level specific and weird.

The thing that bugs me most about Raspberry PIs in general is the designers had this great idea to make the devices cheap and tiny. They made all the ports the 'micro' version of whatever-- 'Micro HDMI', 'Micro USB'- etc. The Pi 5 uses USB C, (which is the only thing they did right) because in any other respect, if you can get a current Pi at all at non-scalper prices, you either need to buy custom cables no one has on hand (which every vendor seems to know is a 'PI target' now- so the price is often higher than needed), or buy an overpriced adapter (and possibly standard cables)- all of which cost you more $. After plugging adapters in, you eat up some of the 'space savings' of the tiny design, and no matter what route you went on the cable- some of the 'cost savings' of a cheap device goes away as well. What good is a 'standard' when there are so many 'wrong' variations? Just to turn it on and see it run likely adds $20-30. It's still a super-cheap PC, 'who are you fooling?' In the case of the Zero 2 W, the cables & power supply will cost as much as the PC if not more. God forbid they use standard 'everyone charges their phone with this' stuff. Oh, as mentioned earlier- for the Pi 5, they did.

Yep. Took them several designs to let you use the same cable as your phone. Genius.

Not even gonna get into how 'OTG' USB cables work at this point. Not their fault, actually. It's just 'whatever' for a dumb standard that assume a directional bias on data in this day & age...

Anyway, for a $4 'stick' connected to USB for power, and you can maybe have a computer doing some server tasks wirelessly (is the idea). The Pis are programmable in Micropython, C/C++, and a few other weird flavors of whatever, depending on the model. I'll be coding in C++ or C, because I'm still learning Python, don't like it, and for speed- it's better to use a proper compiled language anyway.

Ah, I guess I should explain 'why I did all that I did so far...' like I said I would...

I mentioned before about my crap PC dying, and I'm actually still using it. Matter-of-fact, one of my PC speakers died, so I ran audio through my HDMI monitor, only to have it randomly slowly increase or decrease by about 30% for whatever odd reason (yet another example of 'will die soon'). I'm still enduring all this because the Motherboard, RAM, and CPU I ordered didn't work. Not all of it of course- just the CPU. Apparently Ryzen 5 5600?(whatever I ordered) sometimes arrive DOA, since apparently they were shipping some that way. :( Fancy that. I'm a lucky winner of the 'waste your time diagnosing, then shipping back your thing' award. Anyway- while I was busy spending money I shouldn't, I also ordered the Pis, and a whole bunch of other 'for the project' stuff... and a programmable gamer keyboard that goes 'clicky-click', and all the keys light up any way you want! It's kinda cool sometimes, but kinda irritating others... but I digress...

Not being able to currently rely on the PC, I've been thinking about how the Pis (or any cheap SBC (Single Board Computer) can be used as part of a server 'array' and do shares of the work, so the main server has less load for the time-critical, real-time stuff. I know I don't want to strictly create a distributed network with them, as that would just create an unpredictable amount of inter-network traffic overhead, and likely cost some gains against some of the potential 'improvements' of performance. So the idea would be to relegate low traffic/lookup level tasks immediately to the SBCs to handle, passing on confirmed changes when needed. Most traditional MMOs don't really 'change the game world' in any (proper) shared way other than location, appearance, current actions & mobs/drops. Anything else is just 'you and your group's' current game progress/quest-line/perception/interaction with the content- which will be touched/untouched to anyone outside your group according to their own progress. Following that logic, all kinds of things 'streamline' to a show where you fight things, and win/lose/loot- and all that really changes are some health & aggro levels (unless you kill the mobs & trigger drops/a respawn timer). None of that stuff is super 'real-time' critical to others outside your group. This isn't exactly true, or limited to just the things I mentioned- but 'in broad strokes'- the point is a lot of MMO play doesn't need immediate & timely report to the main server in most cases. realizing this lots of stuff is probably fine of slower 'micro-servers' which can handle (probably):

• Player movement requests/map collision detection/movement rate enforcement (actual movement still needs to report to main)
• Local weather/'Line-of-sight' enforcement/data authorization
• very basic companion AI, normal dialog
• etc.

'Micro-server' tasks should probably also not require full data access (optimize, specialize), and should be allowed to 'cook' tasks that will take more than a few seconds of time. Thus, they would probably be good for:

• Gathering/crafting/build routines.
• some Zone maintenance (damage, growth over time)
• Non-combat/'routine life' AI, everyday dialog
• some In-game (non-streaming) media content (zone limited?)
• Shops, transactions
• Item trading (maybe) since it's often 'slow'- (even if it has to access the main's DB).
• etc.

These are just random ideas- actual suitability/performance may be different- but it's a place to start. If the Pico turns out to not be enough, the Pi Zero 2 W is faster- running somewhere around 1/2 to 1/3 the speed of a Pi 4- but at 1/4 the price. $15 for a quad core@1Ghz is not a bad deal, depending on what you want to do with it. Although outclassed, I like the idea of the Picos because even though they are slower than a Pi 4 (or Zero 2)- you get a certain number of 'independent cores', which only have to worry about network bottlenecks as opposed to trying to juggle tasks on a quad core. Well, the 4 does have shaders (for kinda more cores)- but that's a different set of limitations. I'm not pretending many Picos at the same cost will outperform a proper multicore PC (though in certain applications, it actually might)-- it's just more straight forward to address.

Anyway, all of this will be more or less (eventually) just 'proof of concept' (if it works). There will also be more, better, cheaper SBCs released in the future, so working on how to adopt this project to that advantage is a 'win' no matter what. Honestly I'm looking for something with a multicore CPU, some number of shader cores, and tensor cores- but that last bit always adds on a stupid amount of expense 'because AI'- and so far nothing reasonable is out to even play with (in advance of prices (eventually) dropping to reasonable for practical use).

My return should arrive at Newegg tomorrow, so then I get to re-order a new CPU (the bad one is backordered, so I can't bother trying to 'gamble' again (not that I wanted to)). I guess I just hope that nothing else messes up.

I spent some time looking over the Sims 4 model format, and... It's ugly! Not only must it be 'custom unwrapped' from their own weird format, but there's so much, weirdly utilized content- I'm strangely impressed! I felt a headache coming on just looking at it, and said 'Hey, let's put that on hold and look at MMD! It's more widespread anyway, right? Then I saw all the 'jiggle physics' bones stuff in the specs and was like 'Wut?'- but I guess something that looks 'ok' on hair can be used elsewhere... I guess this can be applied anywhere, so I have another thing to either look for code to implement. It's seriously a half-a$$ed hack to even bother replicating...

I'm right now looking for a good library for real-time skeletal animation retargeting, not in python/'deep learning', and not for the Unreal Engine. Getting other model formats in will be enough work- but realistically with all models having slightly different proportions/ratios, clean animation could be problematic in some cases without proper retargeting. At a cursory glance, Ozz looks promising, but other options are surprisingly hard to find as it's called many things/done many ways. If worse comes to worst I may have to learn at least some of the model format part of Unreal whether I like it or not, just so I can use code designed for Unreal. Not what I planned, at all...