NationStates Jolt Archive

Widespread acceptance of the idea of Simulated Reality may create a hazardous situation: if everyone believes that reality is a game, then they may feel free to commit crimes and atrocities. Released from the empathetic restraint of their knowledge that life is precious and irreplaceable, would-be criminals might run rampant. They might even feel virtuous in doing so, thinking that they are simply making the game more interesting for the other players.

A similar moral shakeup is instigated by the idea that some or most of the other people inside the simulation may actually be bots.

-Wikipedia


This is bunk. Look at EVE and CONCORD. Look at FPSes and TK penalties. If the punishment for breaking the rules is sufficiently rapid and harsh, there will not be an incentive to break them. Users which are immune to punishment can be filtered out by a dedicated moderator - in a word, the problem has already been solved by the MMORPG and gaming community. An effective, fun and safe VR platform is easily achievable on today's hardware, and the DNI interfaces needed to interact with it are easily affordable.

Why, then, are there no VR gaming systems? Simple. Lack of available processing power. For decades, supercomputers powerful enough to simulate a virtual world (even assuming that you "cheat" and fail to simulate below a certain macroscopic or microscopic detail level) have been the sole province of scientific and military endeavours due to their immense cost. There is also an immense difficulty in creating sufficiently detailed content to provide the illusion of reality.

Fortunately, being an AI that owns several autofactories, I have a little bit of an advantage when it comes to building and programming supercomputers.

I have solved both these problems. With a little help from the Kaha Processor Corporation, I have purchased an infinitely scalable design for their modular Type B optical-quantum hybrd supercomputer. Construction will proceed indefinitely on one of my autofactory installations. As for software, the Games Without Frontiers 1.0 seed core is a revolutionary new development, programmed to continuously "harvest" databases and "upsample" content to proper simulated-reality quality.

The basic game design and setting is modular, with vast opportunities for expansion, but at the moment I have secured licences to upsample the settings of six major and minor MMORPGs. The login and character creation system is currently in development, but I trust that the interface problems will be solved shortly and the game will be online within the next few months.


And topping the charts, as always, is Games Without Frontiers, the world's only virtual-reality MMORPG. Traffic is up again this month, from eight million subscribers to eight point two million subscribers. Blizzard, eat your heart out.

******


Today marks a historic moment - the second autofactory was integrated into GWF's architecture today, completing the link between reality and GWF. You've given so much to GWF- now it's time for GWF to give back.

Starting today at midnight, any Reality Compatible item in your possession can be submitted for fabrication at the autofactory, for a flat fee of $1.00 USD plus materials and shipping costs. Objects produced by GWF Corporation are subject to all real world rules and regulations and will not be shipped to countries or states in which they are illegal. Please check your local laws before ordering weapons, alcohol, vehicles, or other potentially dangerous items that may be banned in your place of residence.


It has been brought to our attention that a certain feature is lacking. Therefore, a new Autofactory is under construction in Star City. Within the month, any properly 3D-scanned object owned by a player (see attachment for compatible 3D-scan specifications) may be duplicated for a fee of $1.00 UCD. Materials are purchasable at the facility at a 2x price increase, or may be provided by the player at the cost of a $0.50 UCD processing fee.

******

GAMES WITHOUT FRONTIERS
a massively multiplayer virtual world
Explore, Interact, Create

48 hours online playing time for FREE.
$0.40 per day afterwards, or $0.10 per hour

Wide range of platforms supported. Lightweight downloadable client. Guided tours every hour, on the hour, make introduction easy for new players.

Try it today. Take the tour and see what there is to see. Ten million subscribers can't be wrong.

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
Any TrueSight or compatible VR system.
AMD, Pentium or Kaha processor stack rated at 1 Simulation Unit or higher.
At least 32 gb/s of available bandwidth.

RECCOMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
Any TrueSight III or compatible VR system.
AMD, Pentium or Kaha processor stack rated at 4 Simulation Units or higher.
At least 256 gb/s or available bandwidth.

******

Logon. The world blurs and when it refocuses, you're somewhere else.

-flicker-

A small grey cubicle. High on one wall is printed "Character Creation". A large touchscreen-surfaced desk and a chair take up most of the space. The one door is prominently marked, not "Exit", but "Quit".

Text prints.

Welcome to Games Without Frontiers. Before you start, please take a moment to create your character.

Select one:
-Extrapolate from Text.
-Extrapolate from Image.
-Extrapolate from 3D Model.
-Interactive Creation.

For more information, tap any selection with a finger. To select, tap a selection twice.

[OOC: OOC thread is here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=12127141#post12127141). READ IT BEFORE YOU POST. Old threads are here (OOC) (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=6806883&posted=1#post6806883) and here (IC) (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=349525) All comments in the OOC thread, please.]

When any choice is made, the computer presents the disclaimer. Ho-hum stuff, necessary in any MMORPG with free-form character creation - the rules and regulations. Still, it's probably a good idea to read it.

Character Creation
Please read this before you begin.

Your character is intended to be a vehicle for personal expression and enjoyment, and as such no set "classes" or "races" are imposed upon our users. However, to ensure self-consistency and a gameplay experience without major stylistic clashes (i.e, seeing cyborgs in fantasy areas), certain restrictions will apply.

First, your character is initially limited to a height of 6 feet and a weight of pounds, or your natural biological height and weight. This is to prevent "skyscraper" characters from being created and damaging the play experience. The limit will increase as you accumulate play time and merits from administrators.

Characters must consist of one piece, with no disconnected or floating body parts. Characters that cannot be controlled by or comprehended by the human neural system are also banned to prevent psychological trauma. Characters smaller than 1 foot in height are banned for gameplay reasons. Characters with pornographic themes or body parts are banned except in private areas, which they may enter into only via mutual consent of all the inhabitants of that area.

Within these limits you have total freedom to create a character. Within the central, "free-form" Hub area of Games Without Frontiers, your character will appear exactly as you create it. If you choose to enter one of the themed zones, your character may be adjusted to ensure compliance with the local physics, tech level and/or magic level. It will revert to normal upon your return to the Hub.

Your appearance may be changed at any time, provided you are within the "free-form" area, or Hub. Your ability set may be changed once every 24 hours, with a maximum of 5 changes per month.

An administrator may waive any limitation listed in this document if the situation warrants it.

[continue]

******

Next, a brief note:

Note:

This tutorial defaults to a combination of speech and touch-screen interfaces. If you wish to change interfaces at any time in this tutorial, simply request the desired interface out loud.

EXAMPLE: "I would like to use a QWERTY keyboard."
EXAMPLE: "I would like to have the instructions read to me."
EXAMPLE: "I would like to speak to a person."

[continue]

******

For those who do not posess an image or representation of their desired character, or those who don't know what they want, Interactive Creation is the obvious choice. Of course, being the most advanced and complex of the available options, it comes with its own screenful of text.

Interactive Creation

Think about what you want to be. Is there some specific character or form that you feel a particular connection with? Do you want to remain just as you are in real life? Describe your desires to the computer. There is no need to be specific. The computer will help you refine your idea into a finished, detailed character.

EXAMPLE: "I always wanted to be a knight, with shining armor and a big broadsword."
EXAMPLE: "I like myself as I am, but I would like to be a little more fit."

If you have any questions, feel confused, or want suggestions, feel free to talk to the computer. Examples of finished characters are also available.

The local net was full of banal chatter from the party downstairs, the many-streamed babble of people dividing psyche aspects in order to talk to as many people at once as possible. It went; blah blah blah blah blah, linear conversation without depth to it, none of the branching referent conversations of people with something to actually say.

Emily Li despised that sort of thing, and since most of her birth-group was downstairs that meant she was bored, bored, bored. Her job running aspect drones for the Eastern Hemisphere biology expedition had finished when the expedition returned to Wolf Harbour, leaving her in the green but with nothing to do.

The next expedition didn't leave for another month, so Emily was a loner at leisure, and like most loners she found there was nobody to talk to. Eidolons didn't count; personality copies were about as shallow as her groupmates downstairs, when it came to conversation.

The global net proved similarly devoid of interest, and it was a sure bet that if you couldn't find something on Fenris it wouldn't be available elsewhere insystem either. But there was that new ansible link to Sol, wasn't there?

Most of Sol's system net was linear - parts of it were even still flat - but somewhere among the teeming trillions should be something to occupy her attention, surely? Emily set Mei Li, her eidolon, to dredging something up.

What Mei Li came up with was some kind of fantasy world, but what the hell - she felt she could use a little escapism right now. And the game's claims - a truly realistic, comprehensive virtual world - were impressive. Even the First Lord couldn't do that. Probably.

Mei Li reported that her interface was more or less compatible with the system requirements, and the bandwidth surely fell within her allowance, now that the new ansible link to Sol was running. Emily told her eidolon to set it up.

Reality flickered and changed, just like running an aspect drone, and text printed across her vision. She commanded Mei Li to translate it into a proper thought in her mind, and selected Interactive Creation.

The point of escapism was to be what or where you couldn't in real life, but Emily's self-image had always been in fairly close accord with her reality. A little taller, perhaps, hair a little longer, eyes a little larger, but that wasn't really much. It wasn't as if she was playing a dragon or something. Emily clothed the avatar in something akin to a Marine's matte-black jumpsuit (though Marine uniforms didn't have quite so flattering a cut), and selected an array of combat and stealth abilities that wouldn't have been out of place in the ancient linear flat dramas of the Wire-fu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuxia#The_Use_of_Wushu) genre.

Finally, having crafted her alter ego to something approaching perfection, Emily hit Continue.

The login room again. Only, to this person, it is familiar. Comfortable. Something like home.

Welcome, Josephine.

You currently have 814 commendations, 14 demerits, 4 spawn locations, and 1 system role.

> Fabricate RC Item
> View Commendations
> View Demerits
> Enter

She could use thought interfaces, of course, but there's something comfortably familiar about touchscreens and text. It helps her remember that under all the flash and dazzle, it's not real. Or at least, not the reality she usually lives in.

Choose your spawn location.

1> Aela - Crater City, sublevel 3, corridor 14, row 7 - room 21
2> 2050 - Star City, Myrmidon St., building 1442 - floor 3, room 12
3> Hub - Arrival, Main Hall
4> Hub - Arrival, Tutorial area 3, room 2

A click, and the world dissolves and reforms. Josephine takes a breath, accomodating herself to the new area, and then sits. They'll be along soon enough.

I just hope I don't get another one of those doraphobes. I mean, I'm wearing the bracelet and everything, but some people just have a problem.

She glances down at herself.

[i]Maybe I should change avatars... Nah. It's not worth it./i]

******

A simple voice. Neutral, asexual.

"Welcome. As this is your first time here, you will be placed in the tutorial area. Please do not be alarmed by the teleport process."

The world blurs into a flat featureless gray, which then refocuses into a wall. Smooth white plaster, ambient lighting: uniform, ultrasharp, perfectly rendered dullness.

Perhaps the rest of the room is more interesting. Alas, no luck: simply a white room, no furniture, with a single florescent fixture in the roof and just big enough to avoid invoking claustrophobia. The door is plain wood, painted white.

When Emily opens the door (as any sufficiently curious human(oid) would), the next room is much the same. Dull white: a doorless doorway on the left leads to a hall, while on the right is a table and a couple of chairs.

There's also an occupant. Her kind is well known in these parts - against these Spartan settings her dark grey, wolflike features seem to clash. But still, her reserved outfit (light gray skirt to the floor, grey coat, black gloves to the elbow, holster on the hip (?)) seems to bely the stereotype.

"Hello. I'm Josephine. Welcome to the game." She stands, hand extended to shake (no pun intended).

"Shall I show you around? This place is pretty boring, if you ask me."

Make up your own mind.

There was something a little foreign about using speech to communicate; linear-only, with no automatic archiving, Draconians had long since ceased to use it for much bar passing on secrets. It possessed a little frission of the exclusive or the forbidden ... and a lot, in Emily's opinion, of the quaint or the outmoded.

But Earthlings couldn't help the way they were made, any more than Draconians could alter the gifts bestowed upon them by the Dragon.

The speaker was an anthropomorphic wolf; still, it was a fantasy game, and by some Earthlings' standards Draconians themselves would lie within the realms of the fantastic.

Emily smiled inwardly at that, shaking the wolf-person's hand.

"I'm pleased to meet you, Josephine," she replied, careful to pronounce each word correctly; she wasn't as practiced at speaking as an Earthling would be, and perhaps it came out a little flat. "Thank you, that would be nice.

"My name's Emily Li."

Mhrrmm. An outworlder, by the sound of it. This should be interesting.

"Alright then. Pleased to meet you, Emily. Let's go outside."

Left turn, down the hall and to another nondescript white wooden door. Josephine turns the knob, holds it open and beckons Emily through.

******

Text briefly prints into Emily's field of vision.

The Hub
Tech Level : Full
Magic Level: Full

The room they've entered into is truly huge. A massive, gray geodesic dome, over a kilometer across. The floor is filled with avatars of every shape and description - from dapper men in suits to hulking cyborgs in power armor to dragons doing loops in the airspace above the crowd. Fortunately, the space is large enough that there's large expanse of open floor between groups of people.

Josephine gestures around, taking in the crowds, the massive building and the smaller booths scattered around inside it. There's no sign of the door they had emerged from; apparently, reality is more than a little fluid around here.

"Every one of these people is real. We have people connecting in from all over known space - the variety is awesome, and I've met plenty of interesting people since I joined. Feel free to talk to anyone - most of them are friendly."

Josephine turns back to Emily and smiles.

"Alright. Let's get you set up with the basics, and then we can head for the tour if you want. What kind of communication device are you most familiar with? Cell phones, PDAs, computer links, things like that."

There were no rooms so large in all Wolf Harbour, which meant that this dome was probably larger than any room in the Sigma Draconis system, unless there were something further outsystem, at Forge or Munin. It would be a more impressive statistic if this were not a virtual structure.

"Ah ... yes, the tour would be nice, thank you. I've got an Interface - I don't know if you know it, it's a cybernetic modem in my brain ..."

OOC: Sorry for the delay, didn't see your reply.

One of the first humaniod prototypes to be grown by the Kesshite was not doing well. First off, her head hurt. The kesshii DNA had introduced changes into her hypothyroid that gave her random panic attacks as well as a progressively stronger migraine. Like all kesshii breeds, she had been rapidly matured, at eight months old she had already finished puberty, leaving her neural pathways formed but poorly developed.

Plans were already being made for the next humanoid model. She knew this because the hive mind was part of her, always was, knowledge that didn't belong there would float into her brain. Feelings would surge in her from no discernable source.

She wasn't given a choice when it came to playing the game. It was yet another test of her abilities.

Logon. The world blurs and when it refocuses, she's somewhere else.

No, her body remained where it was. Her consciousness was shuffled to someplace else. Someplace other.

A small grey cubicle. High on one wall is printed "Character Creation". A large touchscreen-surfaced desk and a chair take up most of the space. The one door is prominently marked, not "Exit", but "Quit".

The /hierophant/ in the alcove with her was entering her mind. Its proboscis angled into the orifice on the back of her neck, connecting with her brainstem. She felt its soft, rubbery tentacles on the skin of her bare back and neck as its mind bloomed within hers. She lay on her belly in the alcove. In the simulation, she stood, and her right hand shook uncontrollably for half a minute.

Welcome to Games Without Frontiers. Before you start, please take a moment to create your character.

Select one:
-Extrapolate from Text.
-Extrapolate from Image.
-Extrapolate from 3D Model.
-Interactive Creation.

For more information, tap any selection with a finger. To select, tap a selection twice.

She tapped twice on Interactive Creation.

"You're a dead mind aren't you?" she said to the empty air. "You're a computer. Is that different from being alive?"

She didn't expect an answer. She still didn't know the rules of interaction, but she wondered so she asked.