Notch's next game is an MMO • Hacker News Board

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#231

Post by heretohelp » Wed, Apr 04, 2012, 6:06 PM UTC

coopdog wrote: post #210

heretohelp wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You realise how much money they've made from Minecraft yeah? If he wants cutting edge virtualisation technology he can no doubt pay for it (if it'll be fun, and he definately has an intuition for what is and isn't fun)

>You realise how much money they've made from Minecraft yeah? If he wants cutting edge virtualisation technology he can no doubt pay for it (if it'll be fun, and he definately has an intuition for what is and isn't fun)

That's kinda my point, coding ability didn't limit his ability to delight people.

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#232

Post by nateberkopec » Wed, Apr 04, 2012, 6:08 PM UTC

tomrod wrote: post #216

tomrod wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sir, are the best hybrid of geek and reddit. Have an upboat. Shame the name is trademarked.

Wow, tons of downvotes. There goes 6 months of hard work. Bad way to start a day.

Welcome to Hacker News, where everything is made up and the points don't matter!

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#233

Post by kanchax » Wed, Apr 04, 2012, 6:33 PM UTC

w1ntermute wrote: post #58

I hope the graphics don't suck, like they do in Minecraft. I know it sound superficial, but graphics do matter. Minecraft succeeded despite its graphics, not because of them.

There is beauty in the simplicity of the graphics.

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#234

Post by chromejs10 » Wed, Apr 04, 2012, 7:09 PM UTC

padraigm wrote: post #172

chromejs10 wrote: post #157

I'm super excited for this game. I like open ended games, and Notch spends a lot of time trying to make the game fit each user. But does anyone know why Notch gets so much shit online for being "greedy" or an "ass"? I've never seen or heard about him doing anything to get those ugly titles. Looking at the twitter feeds on 0x10c.com, I see a bunch of "greedy bastard" comments. There is nothing wrong with selling a gam…

In light of his giving away his dividends last year to his employees[1], I think it's hardly appropriate for anyone to call him 'greedy' or an 'ass'. He actually seems like a genuinely great guy. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/markus-notch-persso...

Exactly. And he also did that last coding competition for charity.

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#235

Post by tubes » Wed, Apr 04, 2012, 8:13 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #39

someone13 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope that code is auto-generated. Because that coding style is ATROCIOUS.

That looks like pretty much every small virtual machine I can remember reading. There's nothing atrocious about it; that's what small virtual machines look like.

With a couple of simple macros, the code could be fraction of its size and much more readable. Code with that property is atrocious in my mind. For example these "argument reading" bits are repeated over and over again:

ram[PC++0xfff]&0xff

((ram[PC++0xfff]&0xff)|((ram[PC++0xfff]&0xff)Of course Notch said it has been generated, so he probably had a neat definition that barfed this garbage out. But it's strange that so many commentators here are defending the output as a reasonable coding style for a VM!

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#236

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 04, 2012, 9:17 PM UTC

jiggy2011 wrote: post #51

stephengillie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will players have to maintain multiple accounts just to remain competitive, as in EVE? Someone will have to make and sell a 16-bit "minesweeper" to play while mining. What will the first computer virus do? Will there be "actual" viruses? Can we convince Notch to let our characters get Space Flu?

Well if there is some way to make the ships communicate data between each other's computers then I think exploits and viruses become a feature of the game whether the developers like it or not. It really depends on how the admins choose to handle this, whether spreading viruses is fair play or whether it will get your account banned. I can imagine a newbie would find it highly annoying if 5 minutes into the game they…

[deleted]

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#237

Post by bonch » Wed, Apr 04, 2012, 9:18 PM UTC

dholowiski wrote: post #109

aresant wrote: post #18

A four paragraph website outlining the vision coupled with a simple way for customers to engage directly with the CEO of the company. Notch understands "Minimum Viable Product"

I think he proved that with minecraft. I'd pay for 0x10c right now.

Given the bugginess, performance issues, and flat-out incompleteness of Minecraft 1.0, I'm more hesitant than you when it comes to purchasing pre-1.0 anything from Notch.

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#238

Post by recursive » Wed, Apr 04, 2012, 9:26 PM UTC

kreeben wrote: post #213

If someone will create a .net-like framework for me to run managed code upon, then sure, I'll play this game.

DCPU-16 = CLR

DCPU-16 machine code = MSIL

The framework is the machine. Free your mind.

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#239

Post by mattstreet » Wed, Apr 04, 2012, 9:57 PM UTC

ajuc wrote: post #219

sp332 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've followed his comments on Twitter. Apparently he considered doing a clone of a real CPU (6502), but it was too complicated to emulate efficiently. According to notch, the custom architecture he's inventing can run 2,000 DCPU's at 100kHz each and only use 50% of the time on a real CPU. Here's the first public spec from a few days ago, I think it's changed a bit since then http://notch.tumblr.com/post/20056289891/s…

He could just interprete code on clients :) You have N players == N computers to simulate. Assign randomly 5 computers to each player to emulate. Choose the result that majority of clients return and optionally punish cheaters. EDIT: apparently simulation will go on even when players log out, so each connected client may need to simulate 100 in-game computers to account for that. Still less resource intensive than ru…

Letting the clients handle the simulation would have a lot of problems for a MMO. Extra problems if you were doing the work for other players as well.

I think part of the point of it being a special emulated CPU set at a certain speed is to make it fair for each player, rather than the player having more processing power just because they have a better computer.

The easiest way to secure all that is to run it on the server. Anything going to the client or trusted coming from the client eventually gets hacked if there's much interest in doing so.

Re: Notch's next game is an MMO

#240

Post by mattstreet » Wed, Apr 04, 2012, 10:16 PM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #139

heretohelp wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physics/vector math aren't getting off-loaded, a virtualized 16 bit processor is.

What would it take for the average i5 or i7 to virtualize a 16bit processor? Could it run on a separate thread from the main game? Could you run part of your MMO server work as a distributed-computing setup on client PCs? (but how would you get that working in real time?) Maybe the players that are online at a particular time could be doing some of the extra processing - the game client could run 1 or 2 extra 16-bit…

I think it would be really hard to secure that as far as an MMO goes, not that there aren't a few tricks that might be worth trying. (Like having a player's CPU emulated on several different peers and comparing the output to find errors or hacks)