Udo's Techblog

Deeper Simulations


We have a lot of experience with simulations of all kinds. For instance, most people are familiar with the "game of life", a simple simulation of organisms that traverse a hunting ground where they bump into food objects and each other. These little creatures can be programmed with a limited ability to learn and they may even procreate using simulated genetic code, allowing them to adapt by evolution. Why am I talking about this? One of the astonishing facts of the "game of life" is that it creates content from a set of simple rules. The little creatures are free to do whatever they can within the rules of the universe, and as a result they create content in the form of their properties and "lives".





We can also simulate basic ecologies, calculate parameters for plant and animal life on certain kinds of environments. One might argue that, if we would decide to throw a bit of each of those scientific simulations together into one, we could simulate an entire world, running all by itself.





The Dynamic Premise


I'm basing this idea on the premise that the world of an MMORPG can be simulated by using a set of relatively simple rules that are just executed perpetually, developing the world dynamically and continouusly both with and without player interaction.


I'll just keep making up and posting some stuff as it comes to my mind, let me know what you think!





Traditionally, there are two distinct kinds of rulesets in the MMORPG universe: gaming rules that handle the immediate player-related world mechanisms like combat and character development, and environment rules which make up the "world" and "nature" aspects of the simulation.





Gaming Rules


Why, we already know how to formulate RPG rulesets very well! This is perhaps the oldest concept and probably the easiest to comprehend and implement. RPG rules have been around since the invention of pen&paper games. The only additional functionality we need for deep simulations is that the system must use those rules not only "in the foreground" when dealing with player interaction, but those rules must be used wherever appropriate by the world's background processes as well.





Environment Rules


While gaming rules cover mostly abilities of creatures and how they interact, we also need basic ecological rules so the system can create a believable eco system.


On the most basic level, this starts with plant life. We could, for example, generate the terrain once using a fractal random generator. Along with properties like height, ground material and such we'll need parameters like humidity, nutrient values, and perhaps a soil type property. Working with these, the world can be enabled to simulate plant life. (Note how this differs from all the current games where plant life is basically just a different texture on the ground, nothing more.)


On top of the plant life, of course, are animals. The presence and attitude of animals at a given location can be determined by the properties of the ground and the available plant life. While I don't think it makes sense to make real entities from plants, animals should be the basic creature class of the system. Each animal is simulated according to its properties and needs - it wanders around, reproduces, dies, it even gets eaten by monsters or other animals. (This is where the Gaming Rules apply.)





Boundaries and Ruleset Overlap


In an ideally simulated world, there are no differences between gaming and environment rules, because the behaviour of the entire world is implemented in a uniform way. This concept is much like our own physical world, where even complex rules can be derived from simple physics interactions. We do, however, recognize that this goal is not realistic for the development of a MMORPG, because the level of simulated details would have to be too immense. Instead, we will later describe a model where the universe is broken down into loosely coupled mechanisms that can provide the overall behaviour needed.