[MMO] MMO FAQ

What is an MMO?
Stands for "Massively Multiplayer Online..." So MMORPG is an online roleplaying game, MMOG is just a generic online game, and so on. "Massively" means it can cope with hundreds of players rather than two.

In particular, I plan a virtual copy of the entire disc, all 800,000,000 square kilometres of it, precisely duplicated on your computer in 3D down to the nearest blade of grass.

Who, me, ambitious?

Why an MMO?
Because I think that we have a narrow "window of opportunity" to do something great, and I think we should try to take it.

There are other ways that would build the community faster or better or more profitably. I am not so sure they would be as worth doing from a satisfaction point of view though.

Do you have a to-do list? If so, how many items are there because they are things you want to do before you die? How many are there because they have become your responsibility? I looked at mine recently. Hundreds of items of responsibility, none of wishes or dreams.

This? Making a virtual world? That's my dream. I want to do it. I will do my best. I don't want to look back and think "I coulda done, if I tried..."

Why us?
Because... because there's a distant chance that we could do it right. I honestly don't think that a huge games company could. Would you want to see a Discworld where you run around, killing goblins for loot and XP in order to level up? I would not.

What are our chances?
It's a million to one chance.

So, it might just work?
Y...no. This isn't the Discworld, it doesn't work like that here on Roundworld. In the meantime though, it'll be a fun ride and we'll hopefully all learn stuff.

Who knows, we might even get a playable game out of it.

Shooting for the stars so you might just hit the moon?
From my limited archery experience, I reckon we're more likely to get hit in the eye with our own arrow when it comes down, but yeah, that's a good metaphor which shows approximately the size of the problem.

Given that you struggle already, when this gets under way will you have any chance of leaving the house?

None whatsoever. I have rarely even left my chair in the last month. I do need to do some shopping today though...

Why do posts here show up in "new forum topics" but not "active forum topics"?

The MMO forum isn't Thud related, but is likely to get high traffic, and may drive all "legitimate" Thud posts off the "active topics" list if it were allowed to. Anyone posting or reading the MMO forum is most likely going to be here just for the MMO, so will only need to check just the one forum ( http://www.thudgame.com/mmo ) anyway, and will not need the righthand block to tell them what the newest posts are.

What happened to "thud"?

Thud remains our core thing. It's what were licensed for and it's what all the players currently here are here for. I would like to have it so that people could play thud in the MMO as well as outside it. If there's a way to tie the two together so that you could play in the applet against someone who is in the game, that would be my ideal. I think I could do this, if applet players are represented by characters sitting in a cellar playing the game, and if anyone in the game who enters the cellar, also appears in the chat client. Challenges could be tricky though....

What happened to "cities"?

This idea of having properties, each city and house within a city represented by a web page, was nice, and still will be done. But you will also be able to walk around the city, and your house, in 3D in the MMO.

What happened to "the jamboree project"?

Scrapped. Too complex to start off. Plus, the Jamboree happened already.

[More as they are asked.]