User:Jae

My name is Jürgen, and I'm a Wikiholic. Okay, okay, my full name is Jürgen A. Erhard (that A stands for... the name of my godfather (having been born and sort-of raised catholic), a guy I never took a liking to, and I generally don't like this name anyway).

I have a website at http://jerhard.org, but sadly it's in need of an overhaul (has been for years, as is pretty obvious).

General Thoughts

Some general (and not-so-general) game design thoughts based on experience with AO and Neocron2, and stuff I'd like to see, I put into this draft.

Comments I just put here so I get'em outta my mail folder.

My scratchpad for random thoughts don't like immediately fit anywhere.

And a scratchpad for WF-specific thoughts.

An example for /Quest Generation, combining automatic algorithms (like this) and manual "intervention", and including ideas about player "rewards" and meshing different players' experiences.

My (playing) Experience

Current Playing

• Anarchy Online
• City of Heroes And City of Villains. Love the Mastermind AT of CoV... though it's not really "mastermindy" enough.
• EVE Online - 14 day trial, but upgraded to full account not long ago. The promise of actual walking people lured me back.

Previously Playing

To various degrees.

• World of Warcraft
• Neocron2
• Ragnarok Online - 7 day trial only, but didn't like it so much that I started paying for it. So, 5 days or so, and that was that. Actually, I didn't really like it. They should let someone who speaks english well (preferably a native speaker) check the english texts. They were horrible!
• Everquest 2 - 7-day trial. Fantasy MMOs are not quite my cup'o'tea.
• SWG - Only for a month I think, but I actually had a subscription. Post-NGE, unfortunately, so I never got to try the pre-NGE "sweetness".
• Lineage - Not Lineage 2, but the first edition. The isometric view. Nah, not really good either, too ancient. And too korean ;) Yes, the feel of Ragnarok, Lineage and RF Online is very similar.
• RF Online Urghs. Pretty, if you like that style (I like Anime, but not that chara design). But other than that... I hate grinding. The story, as little as their is, could be woven into the missions better. More story.
• Auto Assault
• Guild Wars Got all the 3 current parts, but not playing it much or at all atm

Scratchpad

Anything below is transient.

Distributed Architecture

I want a distributed system. Where user data resides on a network of servers, which cross-check each other somehow.

Those servers should be... as free as possible, such that any person can become a node. Even better would be if any player would also become a server (as much as possible), bittorrent-style.

One slightly difficult problem (actually, the most difficult) is what to do when the client loses connection.

At first I had thought to just leave the user data on the users machine. Tamper-proofed by signing it with a server's key.

But then, well, what if a client's connection just goes down? What's with the character's stats changes that happened since the last save?

The server manipulates all data, nothing is actually done on a client (too insecure against cheats). The server signs those stats from time to time and saves them on the client.

So, when a connection goes down unexpectedly, but the character had gotten some XP since the last stats save, what then? Trigger data saves on certain important events. So, getting xp triggers a save of char data.

Servers

A server is some system with a server key. A server key is a crypto key that is signed by someone the user trusts.

Hey: CA. A CA will authenticate all server keys. Done. So, you want to run a server: get a key, get it signed by someone who can, and you're in.