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SL in a browserJuly 9th, 2007 |
Log in here to try out an Ajax client that talks to Second Life and gives you access to the basics of chat and teleportation. It’s the work of a student named Katharine Berry, and a great demonstration of why MUDs and MMORPGs (and virtual worlds!) are the same thing.
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No, they’re not the same thing, and BTW, I had two questions that I couldn’t really answer fully satisfactorily for Katherine: a) can the same ability that she used to hack the client to make this lite browser be used to hack my password b) how about secure transactions of Linden dollars?
I know it’s politically-incorrect to point out that one of the features of the world that give it world-heft is the ability to secure the transactions and run a currency exchange, and that’s why a browser and a 3-d immersive log-onned world are different.
When you are merely chatting, the sense of place you have in your imagination isn’t the same as physically moving your avatar around, and combining camera view, sound, interaction with others, the springiness of some objects, motion, etc. to give a different sense that really is more immersive at the end of the day than MUDs. I realize that MUD advocates don’t believe this, and it’s true that people don’t demand a lot of versimilitude to start interacting and immersing with a world, but still, there’s nothing like a 3-d streaming world for well, worldyness.
um. wait a minute. did i miss something? did you just say that the web doesn’t do secure currency transactions?
just checking….
m3mnoch.
p.s. muds indeed ARE the same thing as modern-day mmorpgs — just with a different interface. just as both books and movies tell stories. fidelity of immersion are purely subjective. doubt me? ask a blind person which world is more immersive — mud1 or wow with text to speech.
a) can the same ability that she used to hack the client to make this lite browser be used to hack my password b) how about secure transactions of Linden dollars?
a) In general, this client could be hacking your password, in theory capturing any password that is typed in — just as any webpage could. But since she’s using https, it’s actually encrypted when it’s passed to her, and if she is just passing it through encrypted to the Linden secure login, then it stays encrypted the whole way. That said, yes, having an intermediary there could be a security hole, I would imagine.
In general, an attack like that would fall under the category of phishing, just like getting you to log in via a fake bank login page or something.
b) Transacting Linden dollars happens entirely on the server, so no, this shouldn’t make any difference there.
I know it’s politically-incorrect to point out that one of the features of the world that give it world-heft is the ability to secure the transactions and run a currency exchange, and that’s why a browser and a 3-d immersive log-onned world are different.
You can do that via a plain text client. Or a browser.
When you are merely chatting, the sense of place you have in your imagination isn’t the same as physically moving your avatar around, and combining camera view, sound, interaction with others, the springiness of some objects, motion, etc. to give a different sense that really is more immersive at the end of the day than MUDs. I realize that MUD advocates don’t believe this, and it’s true that people don’t demand a lot of versimilitude to start interacting and immersing with a world, but still, there’s nothing like a 3-d streaming world for well, worldyness.
That one is highly debatable either way, but I think beside the point, actually. Bottom line — here’s a functional text client to SL. Therefore you could build a MUD interface to SL. Therefore SL’s “SLness” does not reside in the client. Ergo, it resides in the server. And the server is in every way something that falls within the bounds of known MUD and MMORPG technology.
Were there ever any peer to peer text MUDs? I doubt you even need a frail central server farm at all, for either case.
MUDs aren’t the same to any one of my CPU or GPU cores, which don’t like to operate at above 160 F. And I don’t need FiOS or the new 150 Mbit cable modem to play a text MUD. I seem to recall they work fine on 2400 non-mega bits per second, completely streamed sans client install.
Of course, even 150 MBits isn’t enough. There should be another revolution waiting in the wings to take us to a gigabit. But I wouldn’t hold your breath for that, cable guys can’t move very quickly.
Did anyone else notice that Katharine Berry is only 15 years old?
Now there’s a person with a great future.
Richard
Were there ever any peer to peer text MUDs? I doubt you even need a frail central server farm at all, for either case.
I don’t know of any P2P txt muds, but again, text is just a display mechanism. Nothing seems to me to preclude it.
MUDs aren’t the same to any one of my CPU or GPU cores
The MUD is on the server. So is SL. So unless you are running the server, your client machine capacity is kinda moot. 
And I don’t need FiOS or the new 150 Mbit cable modem to play a text MUD. I seem to recall they work fine on 2400 non-mega bits per second, completely streamed sans client install.
You can make a text mud that would saturate a broadband pipe. And you can make a graphical client that doesn’t. That has nothing to do with the question either.
Quick Note: Depending on how the client is implemented, it could grab your password. It looks like she has implement a version of the SL client protocol and is connecting directly to Second Life. Nothing would stop such a tool from sniffing the password and sending it back to her (or elsewhere), however.
If Linden Lab actually hosted this application (or opened its Server API),you might not have this problem.
Phishing is about intent, not technology.
Ah well I guess it was the wrong question. I do think it should all have high quality text equivalents, as a matter of best practice, similar to the way HTML works.
Ahh… another iteration of the Internet isn’t the same without teh images.
m3mnoch, Prok’s point is that the interface matters. However, that’s because the interface is necessarily user-facing. In terms of That Which Is On The Server, the interface is irrelevant. Why? Because it’s not user-facing. Words like “immersion” are completely irrelevant when you take the users out.
Details…
Unfortunately, this was, IIRC, argued out in the last thread (the one Raph links), but no one seems to remember that.
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