Posted August 05, 2018
I'm mulled this idea over for a few times, and i've concluded i'll probably never get around to actually building it, but i think it's a fun thought experiment.
The development of the game will start with the premise of virtual machines being built for target platforms, to make it cross platform, with the specifications for the virtual machine open to everyone, so that a centralized maintainer isn't necessary. From there, concurrent programs for this virtual machine are then run (often repeatedly for multiple instances) and become individual characters. While code linking will be possible, no two characters can simply telepathically share information (except maybe via a telepathy protocol, which would just effectively be a silent text channel). The programs themselves could be self-contained into a single file, sprites and all.
Bots would then be programmed to interact with a randomly generated world. These bots would then try to find a way to communicate about common elements (actions, spells, objects, factions, etc) via the main text channel, and thus form a language. Bots would then have to each each other unique names for objects that they randomly decide. It is through this method that the end user would end up learning how to interact with the bots (since the bots will try to teach the player their language the same way they teach each other). While this sounds difficult, this would probably end up being one of the easier elements with a good knowledge of phonetics. Different "clans" may end up with different languages, and may war or be friendly with each other, and be able to learn each other's language via special "ambassadors" who can learn two or more languages.
Through playing in the world, random "tomes" and such would be in the language of the first village the player finds (which, for multiplayer simplicity would actually be not random and universal), which describes how the player can access multiplayer and/or tools to build their own AI classes to interact with the world. Through multiplayer, players cold theoretically interact with each other using their mastery of the default language, which they would have to know (or have reasonable skill in) to discover the multiplayer mode, irrespective of their native languages (so an american could play with a chinese person just as well as two chinese people who aren't even aware that they're both chinese).
I think the biggest problem would be how CPU intensive it would end up being, as well as getting people to obey the standard. But, otherwise, it should be rather simple and alot of work. In theory, this would allow people to mod the game on any platform using a text editor as well, since a compiler for the AI can be made as a program for the virtual machine, thus development could occur in game as well.
Thoughts?
The development of the game will start with the premise of virtual machines being built for target platforms, to make it cross platform, with the specifications for the virtual machine open to everyone, so that a centralized maintainer isn't necessary. From there, concurrent programs for this virtual machine are then run (often repeatedly for multiple instances) and become individual characters. While code linking will be possible, no two characters can simply telepathically share information (except maybe via a telepathy protocol, which would just effectively be a silent text channel). The programs themselves could be self-contained into a single file, sprites and all.
Bots would then be programmed to interact with a randomly generated world. These bots would then try to find a way to communicate about common elements (actions, spells, objects, factions, etc) via the main text channel, and thus form a language. Bots would then have to each each other unique names for objects that they randomly decide. It is through this method that the end user would end up learning how to interact with the bots (since the bots will try to teach the player their language the same way they teach each other). While this sounds difficult, this would probably end up being one of the easier elements with a good knowledge of phonetics. Different "clans" may end up with different languages, and may war or be friendly with each other, and be able to learn each other's language via special "ambassadors" who can learn two or more languages.
Through playing in the world, random "tomes" and such would be in the language of the first village the player finds (which, for multiplayer simplicity would actually be not random and universal), which describes how the player can access multiplayer and/or tools to build their own AI classes to interact with the world. Through multiplayer, players cold theoretically interact with each other using their mastery of the default language, which they would have to know (or have reasonable skill in) to discover the multiplayer mode, irrespective of their native languages (so an american could play with a chinese person just as well as two chinese people who aren't even aware that they're both chinese).
I think the biggest problem would be how CPU intensive it would end up being, as well as getting people to obey the standard. But, otherwise, it should be rather simple and alot of work. In theory, this would allow people to mod the game on any platform using a text editor as well, since a compiler for the AI can be made as a program for the virtual machine, thus development could occur in game as well.
Thoughts?