Re: GMSV: Spores

[David M Chess <chess () us ibm com>]

Just to extent the tangent...   *8)

> From: Col <colweb () gmail com>

> I watched the video recently, and I got the distinct impression he
> actually went and explored another galaxy and attacked what he
> described as "someone else's world". Sounded quite multiplayer to me.

I finally got around to watching the whole thing, and what he says 
confirms what I'd heard; it's multiplayer in the sense that the universe 
that I'm playing in is populated by _copies_ of species and worlds created 
by other players. 
But in terms of actual impact of game actions it's single-player: when I 
in my universe fly over to a world that you created (that is, the copy of 
it that my game has sucked down from the net), and conquer it or destroy 
it or plant colonies on it or trade with it or whatever, those actions of 
mine don't do anything to your own original version of that world in your 
universe.

He did imply very briefly that you might get some sort of more indirect 
feedback about what other people were doing with their copies of stuff 
that you created, but it was clear that it's not a multiplayer game in the 
usual sense that if I shoot a bullet in my play-space, it can break things 
in yours.  (Which makes sense, give that The Sims and The Sims 2 are also 
very much that way; I can upload copies of objects and houses and Sims 
that I've created and you can download and use them, but if your copy of 
my Sally Raptor gets married or drowns or something, that has no effect 
whatever on my original.)

It's an interesting hybrid.  Sort of like (and I think he fell just short 
of making this point in his talk) leveraging the player community for game 
content creation in the way the Open Source movement leverages the 
community for program development.  Applications to the security community 
are left as an exercise for the reader...  *8)

DC
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