SemanticMud
Just an idea (a BlueSky page). Perhaps one of the SeedApplications. This might be a really good way to hammer on trust and security models (and probably everything else). There's a strong motivation to crack a system like this, and no need for serious legal threats against it.
Imagine a MUD/MMORPG based on independent RDF data stores.
Let's start in simple mud terms, as in LambdaMOO, etc.
The client/player begins in some "room". It queries for all the objects in the room, including exits (doors) to other rooms. The query can be distributed, spidering through the web to find all sources of information about what's in the room. The things get described to the player, the player may attempt to manipulate the things; the player may attempt to move to another room.
- Who gets to say what's in the room and how it all behaves?
Maybe the room's creator gets say, but can delegate.
Pseudo-Spacial Inheritance would be nice, so a region of the
world can have general rules, and subspaces can add additional
rules.
So perhaps the room has a state public key which is
used to verify all claims of particular things being
in the room? Or the room simply lists trusted
servers who can answer about the room.
- How do you get to see other players?
It should be up to the room, but the fact that a player
is in some room is just another fact to be shared.
Of course there will have to be a push/pull balance;
player emotes should be directly sent to the other players,
because you can see a StandingQuery from each of the other players
for such things.
- Manipulation and Behaviors?
These sound like reaction rules, don't they. Or effector
procedural attachments.
It's late. More next year or something. :-)
This has been one of my touchstone applications for the Semantic Web since about 1988 (when of course I didn't call it the "semantic web"; I called it Roads), but it's been a year or two since I went back and "touched" it again. It feels funny now. -- SandroHawke