i took a spin out to the CCC, looking for parts for the trike project. There were some full sized wheels in the recycling trailer, but no 20" kids wheels like Im looking for. It was fairly strenuous cycling for 30 minutes each way, but it was also a lovely morning. On the way back my mind drifted to different topics and i was thinking about how much better MMORPGs can be. Im not exactly an expert but I believe that 100% of the MMORPGs have the barest minimum of a physics engine. To play an MMORPG is to move between pictures. To drop an item is to put a picture over another picture. If someone walks away, its just a picture that gets smaller. If I set a box on the ground, its a picture of a box. I cant set a box on top of that box, I can only set a box next to a box. And if I push on the side of a box, it doesnt move or if it did, it wouldnt push on the box next to it. I realize this is a diffictult problem and exceeds the CPU power of today's CPUs. One of the biggest indicators, to me, that MMORPGs have a long way to go to model the real world, is that they are built with tools that exist outside the MMORPG.

I want an engine that understands just a few things: light, newtonian motion, pebbles, groups of pebbles, and empty space. Nothing takes up space in the world but pebbles. If that space is not taken up by a pebble, then its empty space. Anything that exists is made up of pebbles. Each pebble has a variety of attributes such as mass, volume, color, opacity, texture, elacticity, etc. (water and gas would be hard to model). All pebbles are the same shape. The more pebbles your computer (or group of computers) can handle, the smaller you can make them and the more realistic your world looks.

once you give people the tools to change their world, I think a much more entertaining and interesting would appear. People can start stacking pebbles on each other. It'd also need some sort of "strong force" as a way to keep pebbles together besides gravity. Start with a whole planet of pebbles (the computer power just went out of reach i think :), with valleys and hills and oceans, and see what people build. Player built cities.

Its funny but what got me going on this idea was pulling up to an intersection on my bike, hitting the crosswalk button, and waiting for the light. To my right I noticed a corner of a sizable metal box, almost completely obscured by bushes. The corner of the box had the tell-tale ID digits and green color of a traffic control box. It seemed that an important and vulnerable part of a complex system was suddenly exposed. Let say a player built city had a gate and someone fashioned gears and control rods to an engine somewhere further off. Someone else could come up to the city gates and destroy that mechanism if it werent otherwise protected. It would add realism to the game.

There was a /. article about "real life" as an mmorpg. Real life has its own challenges and rewards and a dazzling hi-res graphics. Why not play in that world? Well, I find 100 acres of unclaimed land and raw materials in the real world to build a city. Nor is it too feasable to ride horseback across a whole nation. Or own a spaceship or a submarine. A trike on the otherhand....