WorldForge

Infobox Software
name = Worldforge



caption = The Ember client
developer = [http://wiki.worldforge.org/wiki/Coordinators The Worldforge Team]
latest_release_version =
latest_release_date =
latest_preview_version =
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platform = Cross-platform
genre = mmorpg
license = GPL
website = [http://www.worldforge.org/ www.worldforge.org]

The WorldForge project is producing an open source framework for massively multiplayer online role-playing games. The intent lies in creating a widely used development framework and set of libraries by motivating interested developers to improve on the original code.

History

The WorldForge Project began in October 1998, under the original name of "Altima." It was originally envisioned to be an "Alternative to "Ultima" " [Online] " and was mentioned in an article on the Slashdot news website [Cite web
last = Malda
first = Rob
title = The Altima Project
work = Slashdot
accessdate = 2007-06-02
date = 1998-11-03
url = http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=98/11/03/102224] , which became a major source of interested developers.

The original founder has since left the project along with most pre-Slashdot developers.Despite this, the community has become populous and able to sustain itself. A new governing system and selected coordinators has been established, fixing a new direction and a new goal.This community has decided to work on something much more significant than a "mere Ultima clone,"and voted itself the new name "WorldForge". Avinash Gupta was the first leader of the project, followed by Bryce Harrington [Cite web
last = Sundseth
first = Douglas
title = The Worldforge Project: A Gamer's Perspective
work = LWN.net
accessdate = 2007-06-19
date = 2000-03-14
url = http://lwn.net/2000/features/worldforge.php3] , but more recently developers have chosen not to select a leader,and instead rely on consensus among a small group of determined core developers to decide theoverall direction of the project [Cite web
last = Lehmann
first = Frauke
title = FLOSS developers as a social formation
work = First Monday (journal)
accessdate = 2007-06-20
date = 2004-09-22
url = http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_11/lehmann/index.html] .

The WorldForge community has adopted the view that "massive" is unnecessary in a non-commercialgame and has focused instead on "community" environments; estimating on the order of a few hundredplayers per game world, rather than thousands. Because most WorldForge servers are run by volunteers without strong bandwidth and hardware capacities this direction also has practical reasons.

Games

Several independent game projects have joined WorldForge, resulting in a lot of parallel development. The pig farming simulation "Acorn" is the only complete, if modest, gameso far that has been released. Its significance lies in providing a proof of concept that the project can actually integrate and deliver software, artwork and media, as well as maintain a community capable of creativity and innovation. Development of Acorn ended in 2001 as the project has moved on to more ambitious new games.

The primary focus has shifted to a tactical building game called "Mason", which focuses on competitive construction and invention of buildings, traps, and mechanisms. The intent lies in developing powerful yet generic "item invention" algorithms capable of bringing a new dimension of dynamic content to interactive gaming, creating, in effect, a working physics model that enablesplayers to build and operate objects within the game that were not originally intended by thecreators. Other games have been and will continue to be developed alongside "Mason".This game is currently in alpha development and there are two available 3D clients. Mason includes all the functionality of Acorn. [Cite web
last = Wen
first = Howard
title = Brave New Worlds
work = Linux Magazine (USA)
accessdate = 2007-06-02
date = 2005-05-14
url = http://www.linux-mag.com/id/1650]

The project is also beginning to branch out into other forms of entertainment (e.g. comics, paper-and-pencil gaming), as it finds that its processes and multi-disciplinary nature are equally applicable there.

Clients

There are two currently functional 3D clients for Worldforge, Ember and Sear.Both clients are fully capable of normal operation such as moving around the world and performing actions such as starting fires, planting trees, making stakes etc. However Ember has more advanced entity editing capabilities suitable for world building.Both clients are available for Linux and Windows, only Sear is currently available for Mac.

Servers

Cyphesis currently handles the running of the world. It is intended to become an AI only server and Indri is supposed to model Physics. However work on Indri is currently moving slowly by while Cyphesis is being actively developed.

Problems

WorldForge has been struggling with its long early development period during which it had to hash out its own protocols and processes. This has given it an air of being in "perpetual development." It is so far directed more at people interested in developing game software than playing games, resulting in a relative obscurity.

Because it supports many different game development efforts, and because much work goes on in parallel, it can confuse outsiders. With volunteers coming and going and an iterative software development model, the project has frequently and repeatedly restarted pieces of software (such as the server). This may yet result in very tangled code and bad documentation, at worst bursting by severe feature bloat. However it is hoped that Worldforge learns from experience and that new servers are better than the old servers could have been developed to be as they are built from scratch to support whole new concepts.

The project grapples with being thought of as "vaporware,"Fact|date=May 2008 so far giving more bold promises than solid delivery. The developers must struggle against the alienation of gamers reminded of contemporary "overhyped" commercial MMORPGs to gain enough public profile to gain new participants. Other than infrequent release announcements, it is rarely seen in the news.Fact|date=May 2008 This sometimes gives the impression to other software and game projects that WorldForge is stagnating and may vanish before ever being finished.

References

External links

* [http://www.worldforge.org WorldForge homepage]
* [http://wiki.worldforge.org Wiki]
* [http://worldforgedev.org/ Blog]
* [http://forums.worldforgedev.org/ Forum]