Benutzer:Amogorkon/PiLife

This is a concept for a long-term software project, a community-driven, scriptable 3D-communication platform, developed and used by people recruited from PPs around the world (which is the reason I write this in English).

The Idea

The idea is to combine the normal game-concept designed to immerse people and make them forget the real world to have fun with the possibilities of web2.0 in order to provide a platform for people around the world to meet and have fun (RPG-like) but also merge many standalone communication channels to discuss serious issues and organize in an Augmented Reality (AR) manner. To achieve this, a 3D avatar game platform (like the engine of PlaneShift) is adapted in such a way that it interfaces with many other online services.

Brainstorming

• The name might need to change. A possible alternative could be "Pirates in Matrix - PiM"
• Accounts: only by invitation (viral, example gmail)
• only 1 char/account
• game clients include jabber-client => communication via XMPP
• possibility to change your name once per week
• possibilities ingame to change sex and outlook
• only 1 playable race: human
• Zones:

1. VR, public - like wild/town in Planeshift
2. VR, private - freely extendable regions and buildings by using instances of maps and action locations, moderation by founder (private regulation like IRC channels)
3. AR, public - overlay of RL interfaces with maps that resemble real areas
4. AR, private - instances of public maps owned privately

• GMs can do everything but all actions are logged publicly
• People apply at the GM team that reviews the application and proposes it to the public after internal discussion. The community votes over every proposed GM and with that grants security levels. GMs can be removed by public vote.
• Voting system is especially important ("stochacracy")
• Private communication is encrypted and signed by default.
• OTR can be enabled if desired.
• Jabber tranport to Twitter and other IM protocols. IRC can be incorporated as well.
• Ingame interface with Inkscape-whiteboard via XMPP
• Content is displayed in a preview that can be visited. People can vote in this mode over content and with this accept or refuse contribution.
• All chars start with a given stat-distribution that can be altered by investing time and braincells. For example: every char starts with 1000 SP (stat/skill points) that can be invested in a skill or left undistributed. The more points are left, the faster a new skill can be learnt. => old skills have to be forgotten before new ones can be mastered. Certain combinations of skills may raise the SP available.

Basic Gameplay

One possible approach is to consider everything ingame as possession of players - items and chars merely are avaters/manifestations of real world players (except of course AI-controlled stuff). It would be possible to choose a nickname (for the player) as ID and be reachable by any means of communications, maybe even go ingame as invisible camera without way of interacting with the world. To interact with the world one would need to create a char that has certain abilities. If items are created, they are regarded also as manifestation of the player and can be dropped anywhere. I imagine a concept in which the player is regarded as "magical being" (similar to Magic the Gathering) with a certain amount of mana that can be used to summon chars, things and creatures under the control of the player (the methods of this "summoning" could range from crafting/casting of the char(s) over gathering ressources to using communications means in a certain way). The (IRC-)concept of "karma" to determine the standing with the rest of the community could affect the amount of mana available and thus determine how much the player can mess around in the world. The amount of mana would be a natural limit of chars, items etc a player could control. By regarding items (buildings too?) also as entities under player-control it would be possible for the player to "manifest" in them and mess around (move, talk through one). Requiring a constant draw of mana during certain actions might work as natural moderation of crazyness.

Death

One possible implication of this approach is a self-regulating free-for-all player vs. player fighting system with ultimate death (a dead char can't be revived, items can't be restored). So players could create ("summon") disposable chars and enjoy some fighting while other of their chars focus on other tasks. Karma can be assigned accordingly whether the fight was fair or not.

Communications concept

On registration, a secure password is generated that is also used for creation of a GPG-keypair. The private key is stored locally (with a special warning for safety), the server acts as PK-authority. All private communication is encrypted with the public key of the sender and receiver before the messages are sent. The server logs all communications (except when marked OTR) in a database in such a manner that sender, receiver, timestamp, communications-medium and encrypted message is recorded. The database can be shared redundantly and requested for reload by receiver or sender from any client.

Movement and Distances

Areas are covered with a hex-field mesh. The radius of the fields is fixed at 3m. Each field is represented as a dict (DB) listing all entities inside. This mech works for all applications based on proximity and can be extend 3D. So for instance in a range-based public communication one would check the surrounding fields for entities instead of using proximity-lists that calculates exact distances. Switching the field is trivial as positions have to be calculated for each movement either way. If the entity is within tolerance (0.1m?) of the border the entity is listed in both fields. Proximity triggers can easily be attached to fields.

For (NPC-)path calculations a movement-mesh approach should be used.