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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by nottheking:
Of course, from some of what I hear, your plans aren't so much technology-dependent as technique-dependent. That would be impressive if you were to make a set of basic scripting rules that would allow for almost any type of creation. That's a rather big problem to try to wrap your arms arround, though.
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Of course, from some of what I hear, your plans aren't so much technology-dependent as technique-dependent. That would be impressive if you were to make a set of basic scripting rules that would allow for almost any type of creation. That's a rather big problem to try to wrap your arms arround, though.
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It's really a trade-off between scripting complexity and processing power. On one end you have your generic game wherein everything is scripted, with no re-useable basic components (i.e. if you want a gun, you have to script out exactly how fast you want it to fire, bullet damage, aiming uncertainty radius, etc.). On the other end of the scale (and I don't think this has been tried before) you could have a game in which you program the basic rules (standard model, newtonian mechanics, relativity, whatever), and you build everything out of individual sub-atomic particles. Not one at a time, mind you, but for example if you wanted a gun, you would start by, say, designing the barrel, and you would define a cylinder of such-and-such a radius and length composed of an alloy of iron and carbon, etc.
So the first example is more complex in terms of what you have to program, but needs a lot less computer power. The second example uses a very simple set of basic rules but an inordinate amount of computing power (which will probably never be available unless we turn the entire moon into a huge quantum computer or something).
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"The interesting thing about video games is the way you can take about 50 shotgun blasts to the head and be instantly healed by a little white box with a cross on it."