From: usdgog@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Greg Granger) Subject: Re: More on MUDs (Was Re: VR Worlds better than Reality) Date: 5 Aug 91 18:42:47 GMT Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA Continuing the thread (pardon if I rehash anything, I haven't been following this long). I have played LP-MUDs and often thought how impressive these would be as a VR game. I believe the long term future of VR is gaming, likely it will start (has started) in the scientific visualization community then slowly (at prices come down) move into the gaming market, (basically I don't think business will pick up on it (with perhaps the exception of VR-conferencing) ...?, it would be a nice alternative to commuting, but ...) ... Oh well, back on track, mudding on a VR system would be a blast, but would require tremendous resources, very likely a lot of local power with a minimum of communications overhead ('minimum' measured in tera-bits/sec :-), very distributed. This would demand a high degree of hardware/software/network compatibility (unlike what is available today). Further, I believe there would be several physical and psychological factors (in any VR game/simulation), such as lack of exercise, forgetting to eat (really!), addiction, psychosis, etc... Certainly makes the future look interesting ;-) ... Of course it could also be a boon to health, if systems could/would be designed to involve the whole body and there was enough physical (tactile, visual, sound) feedback to remind people "it's only a game" (people seem to forget this in the text version ). Imagine, all the long time MUD players would end up looking like Arnie, instead of Barnie . Greg What kind of processing power/net bandwidth would be required for a VR game in 3D space with stereo sound for say 50 players on-line?