Multiverse Developer Newsletter

Volume II, Issue 3

In this edition:

• Corey's Column
• Release 1.0: A Major Step for Multiverse
• Multiverse at AGDC: What you can expect
• Worlds in Progress: A First Look at Worlds in Development
• Virtual Worlds Fall Conference and Expo
• Guest Column: How To Fly
• New on the Wiki

Corey's Column: Let the Games Begin

It's been a momentous summer for Multiverse. We've released version 1.0 of the Multiverse Platform, which has led to more teams than ever (over 13,000) building worlds, and—most exciting to me—we've unveiled our "Worlds in Progress" program.

This means you can download—today—the Multiverse World Browser, and actually log in to some of the prototype worlds being built on our platform. These worlds aren't complete by any means; these are "alpha builds" of gameplay and content, although that will change, month to month. But it's a great way to get a sneak peek at the range of worlds that you can build on the Multiverse Platform. Make sure to check back in regularly, as we're adding new worlds and games every few weeks.

Speaking of games, this week we're heading to the Austin Game Developers Conference (AGDC), to show off some of our favorite worlds from "Worlds in Progress"—details below. If you're in Austin, stop by the booth and talk to the actual developers who are building these worlds on the Multiverse platform. Hear straight from the horses' mouths (ah, no offense, teams!) what it's like to develop on Multiverse. Oh, and did I mention that our booth is next to the bar? Stop by, tell me you read this newsletter, and I'll buy you a drink.

And next month, we'll be at the Virtual Worlds Fall 2007 show in San Jose, where we'll be showcasing several virtual worlds for business uses. Just like the web, virtual worlds are a new medium. And as a medium, virtual worlds can be used in radically different ways—entertainment, business collaboration, socializing, simulation, et cetera. We're committed to making it economically feasible for you to build whatever new idea you have for a virtual world, be it fun or serious.

Our company was profiled in The Economist recently. The feature asked if Multiverse was going to be the next Netscape—but for virtual worlds. Setting aside for a moment the fact that the Multiverse team actually was at pre-IPO Netscape, do you think that's too lofty an aspiration? If the work you're doing is any reflection of what's possible, we certainly don't think so.

—Corey

Corey Bridges
Executive Producer, Multiverse

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Release 1.0: A Major Step for Multiverse

by Rand McKinney (c.rand)
Multiverse Documents Guru

We've now released version 1.0 of the Multiverse platform! This long-awaited release includes a number of major new features, improved performance, scalability, and reliability, and enables you to create beta versions of your games and virtual worlds. Upcoming platform releases will enable you to launch full production versions of your games and worlds.

This release includes a number of major new features, plus improved performance, scalability, and reliability. Highlights include:

• Character creation / selection framework: enables you create screens where players create new characters and select from existing characters. Most of the process is controlled through client Python scripts, along with a server script. See Character Creation Framework for complete documentation.
• Client animation system: shifts responsibility for playing animations from the server to the Client. This reduces server load and corrects the "sliding avatar" issue that occurred in previous releases. In the new system, the server maintains state relevant to gameplay (such as reducing the health of a mob when a player executes an attack), but the Client handles matters that have immediate visual or audible effects, for example playing an attack animation and the sound of the player's sword hitting armor. See Client Animation System for complete documentation.
• Server stability, scalability, and performance improvements: we've totally overhauled the messaging system to greatly improve performance. See Multiverse Messaging System for documentation. Also, we've exposed the ability to distribute server plug-ins (such as the world manager) among multiple server processes. Since each server process may be run on a separate physical host, this feature enables scaling and load balancing. See Running Multiple World Manager Plugins for complete documentation
• Online world registration: You can now register a world to enable Multiverse Clients anywhere to connect to your server without a world settings file. See Registering a World with the Multiverse Network for more information.
• New server logging system. The servers now use Apache Log4j for high-performance, easily configurable logging. See Server Logging.
• New minimap component. This rich new client component enables you to easily create a WoW-style minimap for your world, a common developer request. See Minimap Component for documentation.
• Additions and improvements to MARS, including:
  • New trading system to enable two players or mobs to trade items with each other. See MARS Trading System.
  • Improvements to combat system to use "stats" that describe combat-related properties of a mob or PC. See MARS Combat Statistics.
• Extensive improvements to the World Editor tool. See Using World Editor Version 1.0 for complete documentation.
• Numerous other new Client features, including:
  • Hardware cursor for improved performance and ability to move mouse pointer to other apps.
  • Improved Windows Vista support. Vista support will continue to improve in future releases.
  • "Stuck" support, for when avatars get unintentionally stuck in collision volumes.
  • Two new GUI widgets, CheckButton and Slider.
  • Upgrade of the material script implementation to align with the latest OGRE specification.

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Multiverse @ Austin GDC 2007

Next week, we head to Austin to showcase Release 1.0 of the Multiverse Platform and give folks an update on our latest development plans. More importantly, we plan to highlight several early efforts from a handful of development teams. We believe that your work best exemplifies what's possible with our technology. As described elsewhere in this newsletter, we're already really excited to see some really diverse projects launch through our "Worlds in Progress" initiative.

In our booth, we'll demo games and worlds from Telos Productions, Max Gaming Technologies, Wardog Studios, Doomsberg Entertainment and RetroLabs. The "main event"—other than the chance to see Corey give his always entertaining theater presentations—consists of an arena-style deathmatch that pits conference attendees against one another—made possible by Max Gaming's Dark Horizons Universe. Winner take all…prizes are TBD.

Several folks, including Corey, CTO Rafhael Cedeno, and Ron Meiners (Random), are lined-up for panels and presentations as well, so we expect to stay busy. If you plan to attend, please stop by the booth—we'd love to see you down south and learn more about what your development plans are and make sure you get the latest intel on what Multiverse is up to.

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Worlds in Progress: A First Look at Worlds in Development

by Ron Meiners (Random)
Multiverse Developer Relations Manager

Multiverse 1.0 Release opened a new chapter in the creation of virtual worlds and MMOGs. Along with the launch, we kicked-off our "Worlds in Progress" initiative which lets anyone experience games and worlds currently being developed on the Multiverse Platform. These are very early Alpha versions, intended to give a glimpse of the developments to come on our network. You can create a user account (separate from a developer's account) to check them out—see Getting Started for full instructions.

The first worlds to open include Dark Horizons Universe by Max Gaming Technologies, an MMOG set in their Dark Horizons Sci-Fi Universe, and a fantasy MMOG by Doomsberg Entertainment, Forgotten Legends. We are really excited to see such rich and innovative work so soon after our platform's first public release. In the near future, look for the launch of Force of Arms, a Mech MMOG by Wardog Studios, and a social world, City of Sinners and Saints, by Telos Productions. All of these worlds have been built solidly on our base technology, and have created new features beyond what's been seen before—really amazing stuff. Even better, more worlds are in the queue, including the Lunar Quest educational world, and the Mermaids social world from Celia Pearce's Georgia Tech team.

These worlds are the first to go live—the first peek at the diversity and possibility of the Multiverse Platform. To see them for yourself, just log in and check them out. And if you want your world to be listed too, just drop me, random, a line. We'll want to do a tour, and work with you through any last minute glitches, and to prepare a press release to call attention to your creation. Why not open the door now, and let people see the amazing stuff you've been working on?

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Virtual Worlds Fall Conference and Expo

Virtual Worlds Fall Conference and Expo takes place October 10-11, 2007, at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, California. Virtual Worlds Fall is dedicated to helping businesses harness the power of virtual worlds to engage with their customers, partners and employees.

Anthony Zuiker, Creator and Executive Producer of the award winning CSI: Crime Scene Investigation franchise (including; CSI, CSI Miami and CSI: NY), will deliver the opening keynote of the two-day conference.

The conference program includes five tracks featuring over 70 industry leaders presenting the latest techniques and best practices. This conference will bring together more than 1,300 attendees to participate in concentrated discourse with their peers, network with colleagues, learn from industry leaders, conduct business, and see the latest tools, technologies and techniques—all in a fun and relaxed atmosphere.

Registration information and conference details are available at http://www.VirtualWorldsFall.com.

Guest Column: How To Fly

by Jeff Krebsbach, software engineer, Wardog Studios

Force of Arms takes place in a science fiction universe of humanoid war-machines called "mechs" (Mechanized Armor), that battle for control of worlds on behalf of inter-planetary corporations. In our game, we wanted to give players (mechs) the ability to fly. Of course, by default, with the Multiverse platform, players must stay on the ground (that is, the avatar must always follow the terrain). We knew there was a /fly "slash command" that enables a player to fly. When we started looking into the /fly command, we thought it would be as simple as binding a key and moving on, but it was slightly more involved....

This article continues in the Multiverse Developer Wiki.

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"The journal. This is advancing the design ahead, but its something I needed to include as so many developers forget 'An MMO Is A Story.' It's told or lived out by the player. A simple journal system would make big improvements on role-playing plus can have a good effect on your forums as players can post up stories. The journal system should just be a simple in-game text application, which logs the date and time every time the player writes into it. It should just export as a txt. So players could go to the game dir, find the txt file and post online."

Sysdevja, Multiverse Developers Forums