Been a while, so I decided to offer some commentary.
I don't know if many recall the late Harry Chapin song, "What Made America Famouse", but a verse has the following:
"That how together yes we can
Create a country better than
The one we have made of this land, ...".
That is so true in so many communities, includnig the emu world. I use the term "community" loosely, for what one really has is factions. Each little camp huddle around their favorite emu, with very little new inovation, or excitement. Perhaps just the outcome of a mature market.
With all its maturity, the basic limitations remain. One is still a slave to the UO client, and understanding the file formats (although for the most part, they are understood well enough).
What can one do, to reviatlize the community? Could one really rally around a new development? What has stopped that in the past?
Lets look at this for a moment. The shard operators today, want total customization. Without controlling the client, that can not be fully achieved (and the corresponding control of the data). So, ultimately a client needs to be part of any project, that is open and understood.
From a development perspective, what keeps the factions from joining? Platform, language, implementation desire. What if one didn't dictate the implementatin, but developed a standard for the data, and communication protocool (yes, that is a tad of implementation). Each faction could continue on, but now, shard operators could freely pick and choose, with their customizations to the core data transferring between.
yes, this is similar to the worldforge project (www.worldforge.org). There is a slight difference. That is a very ambitous project, taking on all aspects. What I am proposing is a modification to an existing data/protocool set, to enable total control. One can even use the artwork and data with the UO client (within copyright restrictions), just converted as needed. It makes the project a smaller scale.
If something like this could actually get support, I think it would have a variety of benifits, with few detriments. It would revitalize a somewhat stagnant development community (new and intersting usually attracts people, both old and new), without forcing anyone to join any particular project (and give up their individual preferences). In other words, yes, the factions can be maintained! But move it to more of a conferation, to give the shard operators a tad more freedom!
Just rambling as normal!
Its been a while..
Moderator: punt