(Message inbox:97) Return-Path: vexar@watserv.ucr.edu Received: from mail.fwi.uva.nl by gene.fwi.uva.nl with SMTP (5.65c(FWI)/3.0) id AA08555; Thu Feb 18 04:27:34 1993 Received: by mail.fwi.uva.nl from watserv.ucr.edu with SMTP (5.65c(FWI)/3.0) id AA15978; Thu, 18 Feb 1993 21:35:45 +0100 Received: from watnxt13 by watserv.ucr.edu (NX5.67c/NX3.0M) id AA03736; Thu, 18 Feb 93 12:28:14 -0800 From: Joe C Solinsky Message-Id: <9302182028.AA03736@watserv.ucr.edu> Received: by watnxt13.ucr.edu (NX5.67c/NX3.0X) id AA00560; Thu, 18 Feb 93 12:27:34 -0800 Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 12:27:34 -0800 Received: by NeXT.Mailer (1.87.1) Received: by NeXT Mailer (1.87.1) To: Regenesis@watserv.ucr.edu Subject: Protocol of Tomorrow's meeting Fellow Scheppers, Before I get into the semantics of what Freak, Boob, and Wolverine felt was best for the meeting to run smoothly, I have a few things to say. The core information is delimited by asterisks. This morning (thursday morning in California), there were 14 players on Rengenesis. I thought I would mention that. Two of them had advanced levels, and three of them were scheppers (Boob, Freak, and me, Wolverine), there were two guests, and the rest were new players. That was kinda scary, but, suprisingly, there was no lag whatsoever (but earlier, things were screwwy. I guess that the screwwy-ness had nothing to do with the number of players, because I was actually having a hard time keeping up with all the 'how do you...' requests). Just so everyone knows, I am getting up at 5:00 am to join in the meeting. I will be going to bed EARLY tonight! I was wandering around on some planet today, and I discovered an entirely new quest, and I was very excited to see it. Someone said it was falcon's, I think. Voyager, you need to put the soda machine in the game (on Earth by the crossroads). What happened to the telephone in the general store? *********************Important stuff goes here**************** ************************************************************** It has been decided that we will meet in Bram's workroom. It makes sense, doesn't it? I think Freak is working on a special board room for meetings in the future, so it may be there. The rule is that we go where Bram is. There is a certain meeting protocol that should be observed. Given the number of people in the meeting, no one should speak out of turn (but they are welcome to whisper). For the benefit of those who will attend clientless, there must be NO graphics calls, which would include microsteps, changes of shape, cloning objects, disappearing, etc... I have volunteered to attend clientless so that I may record the meeting with a capture file on my my comm program from home. I will email the meeting to everyone who wants it. Because I will be remotely connected, I would rather like it if someone else also recorded the meeting, because I sometimes get line noise, which kills the text on occasion. The general format is that the speaking order should be determined by the order of connection, but Bram will be able to speak first and freely. I suggest that everyone spends some time organizing what they have to say, and making it concise, so that the idea is covered and decided upon, but not filled with details that don't need to be there. I myself only have two general topics to address. We may want to consider doing a voting session at the end, but that is just an idea... If you are unable to attend the meeting, tell someone else who will be there what you plan on saying, and how you stand on certain issues. The meeting should be divided into technical format topics, artistic topics, and gameplay topics. An example of each would be: support of 256 colors and 3D; the addition of certain game drawing standards, like a guidebook (typic height of a character), and walking space, and the inclusion of distant buildings in the background of a separate room; finally, the revision of things like being able to save your character, the addition of an apartment complex, or being able to have certain functions. ************************************************************* One of the things I want to address is the issue hinted at in the the division examples. I like the look of Regenesis, but I do have some qualms about it. Why doesn't the store room appear in the background of the crossroad room? It is certainly there. Also, the game appears to always have a north-south vantage. there should be the option of looking from different angles, so that a player can look to the west, east, and south. If we don't have 3D, we can at least have the foreground-middleground-background ideas. A good example of what I am talking about is Voyager's artwork. He has a long set of stairs on Mars, and you can see them from an entire room off (but you can't see the mountain from two rooms off!). I know that sounds like a real pain, but it would have a definite appeal. Maybe I am being too picky, but I do have an example of this: on Venus, the description of the areas is sometimes "you can see a volcano to the west of here." Why can't you see the volcano west of where you are? that makes absolutely no sense. This is a visual game, so we should be able to look west and see the volcano. The other topic that I wanted to address is the notion of gameplay standards. Admittedly, this game is fairly exciting, and we have a great deal of players (at least we did this morning). But, this game needs to have some gizmo standards, sort of like an operating system on a computer. We need a certain way of addressing details. Should all players be able to have their own 'workroom', regardless of their level? If people had their own section of the game, a home, then that would probably be very appealing. This is the apartment idea again. I like the idea of having mudmail, but I never get any. we should be able to do advertisements in mudmail. That way it would encourage people to set up meeting times, etc. Also, we need a roster of some sort (maybe a residence list) at the apartment complex, or cute little name plates on everyone's room. That would allow people to get a feel for who they know and who they don't, and who all the scheppers are. Beyond this, if we don't go to 256 color, we should at least have the addition of dithered polygons, so we can have more colors than apparent colors. That's all I have time to write up for now. I will see you all at the meeting, and, Voyager, bring along a soda machine. It would be a nice touch. -Wolverine (vexar/ Joe Solinsky)