Well I’m finally posting this openly. At this point development is stymied due to lack of a decent development machine but the conceptual design for the system is coming along. Its site is on Google and comments are enabled on the pages so feel free, the descriptive whitepapers are under developer info. there is no sample code as yet as this sys wont even run what test code I’d written before. It was an Infinite Ralph derivative with latitude longitude heading display and a skydome that was made to track the user’s position, I was working on getting SQL figured out and some sorta networking. Anyway read the whitepapers to see the overall idea. Comments appreciated.
sites.google.com/site/foxyworlds/
Raven
Hi.
here are a few points you might want to consider.
- Advertising usually works better with a clean and readable website. Pink on grey is “in”, but not that well suited for longer reading.
- Your papers are more of a wishlist than technical how-we-do-it. How about giving it more order and more extensive descriptions about not what you want, but how you want things being done?
- I was somehow lacking a clear, short statement about what the whole thing is about. Is it a browser-embedded 3D RPG? Is it online, multiplayer, third-person, realtime…? Is it more like clicking around and reading or more about direct action?
A rule of a thumb with software projects is: start small. You seem to have a big and solid team, but keep in mind, that they need constant and visible progress. Else the motivation sinks rapidly. Try to make 2 or 3 very small playable proof-of-concept applications. I assure you that it’s not a waste of time.
Good luck and best wishes from me.
We are working on a “smaller test version” first the Fox island test which will be a relatively simplified test of database and chat functionality.
Right now the whitepapers are sort of a general guide to what will be implemented, a wishlist to use your term. The next step will obviously be more detailed specifications of each component and at least the beginnings of writing the actual test code.
Currently I have on this machine WX Python and IDLE running so i have somewhat of a development environment running now, enough to at least start some coding and syntax check it at least, even if I have problems getting it to run. This machine lacks RAM and appears to have some problems running non power of two textures and ARBFP1 shaders of any complexity but for right now its what I got to work with. I have Demomaster 0.8 but some of the more complex demos like “Yarr with water” freeze up completely may be a graphics driver or parasite buffer issue.
I know damn good and well I’m biting off a LOT to chew here so I’m looking for some friends with sharper teeth to assist. Basically when done it will be a network of user created RPG worlds with most of it P2P hosted. If I CAN make it work as browser plugin all well and good else it will be a standalone client module that interfaces to a P2P network.
Right now I’ve decided to shut down the whole thing until after tax time. I should qualify for earned income credit this year so theres the new laptop, with decent video.
Thing is, I DO have a good idea about how to replace the Disney created distributed objects protocol with something more “mom and pop” friendly. Nowhere any of us can afford to host are going to allow us to run a big bandwidth intensive Python app like CMU server or Disney OTP. And without some sort of DO layer we’re stuck doing little toy single player sites, PERIOD. Most people in AmeriKKKa are stuck behind dynamic IP addresses and are therefore unable to run their own servers. I doubt CMU would be willing to even put up some sort of freebie OTP style message reflector.
Anyway any ideas I have on the subject don’t really matter. Only person who followed the link seemed more interested in complaining about my choice of text colors than reading what I had to say. Like the Terminator “I’ll BE BACK” maybe…
I visited your site and i have to agree with Nemesis#13… The site looks unprofessional its slightly confusing on whats going on. After I spent some time looking at it it seems like you are creating something like second life, but instead of a giant world you give each person a region that they host and do what ever they want with. Unless I read the site wrong, it seems like there will be no hosting on your servers. That presents the issue of up-time. If your average joe american uses this, they will eventually turn off the computer or logout of this virtual world would disappear. While this seems like a good idea there are problems with it
final comment, any interest I had in this project died when I read the unedited project updates:
extremely unprofessional and uncalled for. Hope my comments can help.
deleting ALL data and any artwork and test code. will not be utilizing anything on the web at all in any future all interest in anything has died for me. As far as any ideas I had relating to any replacements for the Disney D. O. protocols which are In My Humble But Worthless Opinion the biggest stumbling block to getting any acceptance for Panda Based Multiolayer systems out there , well too bad. Hope everybody is happy paying thru the nose for virtual land over at Second Life
Moya, starburst us the frell away from this planet before I hurl up
I never said it wasn’t a good idea, it just needed some fine tuning. My problem was just the lack of professionalism that was shown considering how you wanted your project to become a big thing.
I apologize for offending you. It does need to be stated again that it was hard to navigate your site and it took a while to understand what you where trying to do. Looking at Nemesis#13’s post he is commenting not on the actual idea because its hard to understand and find the idea. The fact that two people have stated (and who knows how many just gave up after a few minutes) that it is hard to understand what is happening is a good comment for you. The biggest issue was the dev blog. Just be careful about what you post on it because some people will shy away from you if they read what was in it.
once again i would like to apologize and I hope you rethink you decision.
Looks like the whole collision detection system is problematical with GEOMIP or Craig’s shader generated terrains, and animated textures are a serious problem as the only thing available are those EGG Texture Cards.
. Personally I do not care who I offend anymore, I was totally cheated out of the college degree necessary to do ANYTHING at all anymore in this field let alone make a living doing it. II just wanted to create a “mom and pop” VR system for those of us without big fat credit cards who can AFFORD to do something cool at a place like Second Life…
. Maybe I should just take up “alcoholism” as a better hobby! With the economy dying and the “temp” jobs I depend on to even keep the internet on here becoming fewer and less frequent its all over for me and FoxyWorlds anyway… somebody cue the fat lady its time for her aria.
Have you checked out OpenSim? It seems to be similar to what you’re doing, and is compatible with the Second Life client (but of course there are also open-source clients). There are open networks you can connect to, such as OSGrid, and of course anyone can host their own server.
You might be able to get some inspiration or ideas from it.
rdb, your constant professionalism never ceases to amaze me. +float(“inf”)! 
Gee thanx RDB, I didn’t even kno about those two yet and will look at them. As far as suggestions of running my own server the pricing for a static IP here makes it problematical which is why I’m working on P2P. File sharing networks have existed for over 10 years, why not P2P VR.
Maybe I can finally earn my bio page on Wikipedia and not die a “worthless nobody #$$@slave”.
I think the primary reason no-one’s made a P2P MMO comes down to 2 major roadblocks:
- Client integrity - this is hard enough with client-server; with P2P, it’s almost out of the question.
- Scalability/efficiency - my Panda project will (hopefully) have an average of 10-15 clients per server, and there might be hundreds of ODE-controlled dynamic bodies bouncing around in the world. Considering how P2P is a lot less efficient than client-server, this is also a real problem.
Not trying to get your hopes down or anything, I’m just making sure you know of the challenge that lays before you, that’s all.
P.S: I too really think you should get a web designer to re-design your website; again, not trying to hit your berserk button, I’m just trying to make a useful suggestion.
First as to client integrity that will be handled at a later step in this design. For speed reasons the whole Python app will have to be put thru Cython, at that point it becomes a big ugly monolithic block of C++ anyway. Behavioral scripting on “prop objects” by then will still be interpreted Python but will run in a sort of sandbox. Client package will run a checksum on all code files at startup to insure that they have not been subjected to any unauthorized modification, a functioning avtivirus antimalware app will be checked for and the app will not run unless these safety checks are successful.
As far as ingame “cheating” is concerned I’m not going to worry too much, it might just become part of how things work here. Its not like I’ll have some kind of real valued ingame currency like the “LindenDollar” to protect.
As to the website its just the "temporary " project site anyway and since you all seem to hate it SOOO much… poof. all documentation will be in .txt from now on integrated with the code package. I’m done with trying to have any kind of style here and most of the stuff about building a network is over anyhow as I will not ever have the funds to do the foundation, get server space etc. ( let alone find some paid “professional” web designer to build yet another butt ugly site all in black text on a conformist white background ) this thing is now going to be more of a free developer’s kit for a framework for building such a thing. I’ve decided to go the way the SQL Lite folks did… eg: heres the code heres the source use it however you wish build whatever have fun.
Why am I still bothering to go on coding something with NO chance whatever, uselessly pounding my unwanted brains out against the figurative brick wall all the rich people and “professionals” have set up in my way. SIMPLE, I PROMISED MY LATE WIFE I’D KEEP GOING NO MATTER WHAT! This whole thing is no longer “fun” for me nor is it anymore a task I enjoy, but damned if I aint gonna finish it throw it in everybody’s face and say “there do whatever you want with it… I’m DONE!”
no one, and i like to repeat myself in this point. no one intends to tell you what to do (as if we could).
it is just that some of us tried to make something similar and run into technical difficulties there. so we point them out so you can think about how to solve them before they hit you,too.
for example. game integrity on a p2p based system (or any decentralized system) is a very real, and very important problem. you cant put those in the “fix later corner” as they will break your game from the very beginning.
putting all your python code through cython might not fix any of the bottleneck you experience. if fillrate or overdraw is your bottleneck, you end up with a lot of time spend but no improvement. please use pstats to analyze ,find and then, improve slow parts of your code. there might be no need for cython at all.
checksums and antivirus apps are useless, once the code is on a clients harddisk, you have no longer any sort of control over it, no exceptions. there hasn’t been i single working solution for this problem since computers were invented.
thanks to modern age software, you don’t need any real funds to get a game going. no need for expensive software. no need for expensive servers (the ones that you might need to get your game up running go for about the price of a burger per month), and if you do a good job with coding, even artist may feel like helping you out.
i cant remember anyone telling you they “hate” your website. they just pointed out that it is uncomfortable for them to read and hard to navigate. and i agree with them as it took me ages to get to the source code repo which i then found to be empty.
even if it is easy for you to find stuff there (you made it after all), for others it might not be that easy.
coding is encouraged. if you share your plans and ideas here, you will get feedback (positive and negative ones). try to evaluate it, and improve your plans when neccessary.
if coding ain’t fun, then programming is not the right thing to do.
Such a harsh community we have… 
PS, I’ve seen other website pages similar to the one you had setup. Not the same color, but similar layout. Didn’t think it was that bad at all.
I just had problems hearing your voice in the video. Everything else was fine by me.
After looking at all the problems with terrain collisions and non EGG terrain and procedural objects, I have decided to permanently shutdown project. Looked at other engines but Python support not as complete, If I could write C++ and afford MS overpriced compiler I’d just get the Panda source and FIX the problems with non-egg geometry and colliders. (I can’t) C++ and Windows was what ended me as a DOS/ Forth / Assembler programmer in the first place.
I just wanted to create something for the rest of us who cant afford Second life and all the “credit card pay” sites. Thats why it was to be a P2P cloud, not that it would be better or more stable just that it wouldn’t cost me big bucks to run forcing me to charge users so much they can’t enjoy… one last try at not having to die a useless worthless nobody. Somebody whose ideas and dreams are all deemed “crap” by all the "Mr Rich Man Sir’s " who are busy rinning this society into the ground .
Well its all over, over the next week I will be closing down and deleting all of my online accounts after which I intend to smash this computer with a ball peen hammer and call A T& T and have my net cancelled. I am just plain sick of trying to create anything in this moneygrubbing hellhole world and have decided the net money will be better spent on booze or drugs.
I understand and appreciate computer-directed frustration. I hope you are eventually able to overcome these issues. Maybe it would be better to redirect your efforts to different or smaller projects in the meantime. Good luck!
David
actually opensim will allow anyone to connect to it. you just have to know the protocol. they have done it with several clients. this allows anyone to have a server and its ok. the only things if you do graphics, you have to stream it.
i recently got a c# client and found out they stream graphics so its not that hard to do for c#.
On 1 July,2012 ALL U.S. ISP’s will block ALL “illegal” downloads. In collusion with RIAA and MPAA they will spy on ALL traffic and will have to resort to blocking ALL P2P ( peer to peer ) protocols to kill all torrent sites. This is a DEATH BLOW for FoxyWorlds and me as well. We will ALL be permanently “ballgagged” and there is NO future anymore for free 3D VR websites and user created gameworlds anywhere in this country. On that day I am cutting my net connection and telling Ass Turd & Toilet ( AT&T Uverse ) to go to Hades, bye Facebook, bye Yahoo and bye Google… kiss my $90 a month for broadband goodbye. I am also boycotting all music, movie and theater purchases!
At this point we are closing down for good, no point in wasting further effort on something that can’t be used, I suspect this could have detrimental effects on other projects like MV3D that are further along as well.
check out our final page on Google sites:
sites.google.com/site/foxyworlds/
nice roadkill photo found on web, and I don’t give a flying “F” if somebody else owns it!
see my effects of SOPA thread for article URL’s
[effects of S O P A on online game projects (kinda off topic))
My project FoxyWorlds originally began 3 years ago just before my late wife’s death as a cooperative thimg between me and one of my stepson’s exes, Jessy, as a P2P 3D VR chat for the “furry” community, she was running a 2d system and wanted something better. I ended up generalizing the concept into a full P2P “second life” killer. Unfortunately during the interim, she moved to Portland, was forced to shut down “FurryOasis” ( losing me my beta test crowd ), my wife passed away dealing my finances the second death blow ( since 9/11 ) and loss of my bank account ( her SSI yanked back everything after I’d already paid off most of her final bills resulting in a “charge off” ), Jess and her husband’s house burned resulting in a total loss of their computers ( now they’ve separated and I’ve lost both of them and a third friend of theirs who was going to help with serverside security issues ) and as for me the plastic molding jobs I’ve been getting thru a local Cleveland temp agency are becoming scarcer and scarcer ( therefore no money to put together the non-profit needed to run the thing without it being destroyed by my own financial mess )
Now they’re going to do deep packet spying and port and protocol blocking to kill the torrents so P2P becomes impossible, while not torrent based we have many similarities, if it walks like a duck quacks like a duck it gets shot down like a duck.The only reason I’ve kept at this was a promise to my late wife to continue, which meant I was a lone programmer and modeller on a HUGE project. Its long since stopped being fun, now on July 1 its about to stop even being possible.
A year ago my stepson dropped this HP laptop destroying the LCD, CD/DVD drive and damaging the fans, it “safety shutdown bluescreens” daily and I have NO funds for a replacement or repair.
Making FoxyWorlds totally server based like “second life” is would destroy any hope of having a free option for those like me who will never again be able to have credit or bank cards or who just do not have funds to pay. I’m currently wasting $90 a month on AT&T’s fastest U Verse speed for a connection that will soon only be good for paid streaming like Netflix and Hulu+ ( things I have no card to buy and no funds to pay the card for ).
Having no “Ivy League” degree and in fact no degree at all ( blame Reagan 30 years ago ) I cannot get any kind of job doing programming commercially, so I’m just quitting and yanking out the cord so to speak. To the folks at the Panda BBS who were nice and helpful “kudos” to the so called “professionals” who were snotty to me and nagged about my webpage color scheme “PHTTTTTT!” Ive replaced my SOPA protest landing page on Google Sites with a goodbye page:
sites.google.com/site/foxyworlds/
Everything in the world anymore is all money, greed, power, lawsuits etc especially the computer field, I’ve had my fill.
YIP! YIP! YIP!
goodbye ( w/ sincere affectionate lurps to the deserving )
Lord Raven Gengoro Foxfire-Ninetails
" the Dirty 'Ol Fox "