I think we really need to get the sphere thing right from the beginning. Also, I think it could be interresting if we could have more sphere's, almost like a universe.

OK, to be a sphere we need to master the coordinates so that I can do a database lookup to find all nearby people and objects.

If the coordinates are in degrees, then a location on the sphere could be (120,40). Would the degrees go from 0-360, or -180 to 180 ? Or radians, or rotations?

If the coordinates are like latitude/longitude we have the rather difficult problem that distances vs angles are not uiniform. For example longitudes come together at the poles.

But that space and planet thing sounds cool. Just ... how do we do it?

Oooooh, ooh, oooooh!

Geez, listen to me. Well, that's basically all my input for the moment, but I will think about it.

You are the best testers!

BTW justlookingforth is exactly 16 characters ... the same size as the data field. What a coincidence. Maybe I had better increase the size?

Huh, how do I change my position? I can't move from 0, 0. I type my coordinates in and press refresh, but the position in the box doesn't change.

Torus sounds good. justlookingforth sounds good, too.

There's two of me too, now. Yes, I think it's working now for me but in a weird way. To see the text at the bottom of the dialog box I have to highlight the text and continue dragging down the text, until it scrolls.

I think my (and others') ideas would be more useful if I actually understood more about the overall plan you have in mind. I mean, I could put down a lot of suggestions which may or may not be related to the plan you have in mind and hence a great majority would be irrelevant.
You must have firm contention to write a good essay, and I think it needs to be better defined.

Last edited by Toast (2006-12-08 18:32:38)

Just an update.

I have been looking at the number and quality of MMORPG (Role Playing Games) - these guys spend millions with a staff of artists, designers, coders, etc, and it is an economy worth billions. The games mostly center around walking through a pre-developed landscape, interacting with the other players (sometimes violently of course) and the gameplay has been cleverly designed too.

To build such a game we would start with a graphics engine, define landscapes, buildings, characters, etc, write lots of code for game play and tie it all together somehow. Lots of time and effort, and then "we too" can have "yet another" MMORPG.

But I was hoping for something different ... more "pure" like mathematics itself. Pre-designed characters, hills and valleys seems a bit "fixed".

And it seems a bit cheesy to walk around doing math tests to get to the next level.

So ... maybe something different? With rules and environment that develop as we go?

====

Anyway, I am trying to do some basic coding for 3D transformations. I want to be able to see a 3D shape ahead of me, and then turn around and have it move appropriately. With perspective.

I am doing it in Flash (well, Swishmax), but I know from previous experience that Flash is really slow with calcs and so may not be the right choice for later on (unless Flash 9 is much better).

Very nice!

With speed, I found it very slow to respond to my keystrokes. I had to hold down the pageup key for a long time before I started moving.

And once I had zoomed off into the greyness, I found it almost impossible to return to my original spot!

But these are not real problems ... it's great!

Well done!

Very good. Still only basic, but very impressive.

Thanks!

If someone can figure out the pattern of what goes wrong with the "thrust" vectors it may help me to debug it. (You can now see how much thrust in the top right corner. )

An obvious error is the fact that by rotating using z and x, you find yourself going backwards! Or sideways.

BTW: if you give about 10 thrust and then turn left "around" the first cube (using just left and right keys), you can then do "figure eights" around the others, back and forth. It almost feels like flying.

Huh?

MathsIsFun wrote:

Commerce would help. You could buy cheaply then travel (teleport?) to sell at a profit. Get your calcs wrong and lose money. 500 bricks at 0.43 each, 10% discount for payment in the next 10 seconds!

It makes me think that the game should be seeded with "drones" (AI players) until we get a few hundred real players.

Perhaps you could build an AI that "sells your profit" for you, and then, after enough time, the robot becomes free and becomes a player just like you. Is that somewhat plausible?

Sorry about last post, I missunderstood you.

Last edited by LQ (2006-12-19 19:38:00)