Notch's next game is an MMO

Post by intended » Wed, Apr 04, 2012, 4:55 AM UTC

xymostech wrote: post #81

nullflux wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really sounds like a game for hardcore programmers (16-bit emulation, "assembly in space" as h2s called it.) Minecraft is far more accessible: will this really gain nearly as much traction?

I feel like this will be a game where those of us that know assembly will end up writing our weird assembly programs for playing text based adventures or spinning our ships in spirals or whatever, whereas everything that is actually necessary will (hopefully) be able to be bought/created in game. Also, there's probably going to be a lot of community sharing of ideas and programs (just like there is with Minecraft) so…

Post by nknight » Wed, Apr 04, 2012, 5:03 AM UTC

heretohelp wrote: post #159

nknight wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the processor needs to be. If it's designed carefully, the code should be trivially translatable to native x86, at which point you may even be able to run a few thousand on a single reasonably beefy server, depending on how fast the virtual CPU runs and the average load.

Not to be an asshole, but you do realize we're talking about Notch here right?

Post by cpeterso » Wed, Apr 04, 2012, 5:14 AM UTC

joshu wrote: post #96

cpeterso wrote: post #23

I was a developer for the ill-fated Perpetual Entertainment's Star Trek Online MMO (which was later sold and successfully launched by Cryptic Studios). Star Trek Online's #1 most common feature request from beta testers was "ship interiors." Players didn't want to play "WoW in Spaaaace " game. They wanted to play "The Sims meet Star Trek" and relive their favorite Star Trek TV episodes. That sounds like a pretty cool…

I once had the opportunity to consider licensing Star Trek to do a game around. Figuring I couldn't possibly do anything but fuck it up, I passed.

Post by nknight » Wed, Apr 04, 2012, 5:29 AM UTC

heretohelp wrote: post #164

nknight wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not to be an asshole Typing that should have been a pretty unambiguous clue you needed to stop.

No, it was necessary to reframe the constraints of what can be done designwise. Idle speculation about the design of how it could be done that is wildly outside both Notch's abilities and the allocation of people on his team he plans to put towards it (zero) is pretty pointless.

Post by cpeterso » Wed, Apr 04, 2012, 5:45 AM UTC

pjscott wrote: post #106

viraptor wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That kind of code generation is unlikely to exist. Each line of that code has its own specific purpose, it's not some copy pasta. And surprisingly, it should be trivial to test it! there are no conditions of edge cases apart from the conditional instructions. As long as you test for ranges and off by ones, there's no space for mistakes really. I'd take that kind of code over usual "business logic" any time :-)

Nonsense! Look at the code again. There are a lot of repeated motifs, like the things that fetch from memory and increment the program counter. It cries out to be partially automated. If nothing else, there has got to be a more human-readable equivalent to all that bit-masking and offset-adding. Code generation doesn't need to be heavyweight.