Concept

Second Life feels a bit clunky to me. There's definitely a problem with server-lag, since all physics happens on the server-side. Another problem is CPU resources -- all computations are done on Linden's cluster.

It would be interesting to create a similar game, but where the physics could be executed client-side and kept in synch with the server (similar to the way Quake3 does it).

Also, it would be interesting if people could host their own bits of land on their own machines (private islands). Could this work while still having a central agency to manage the money flow?

I'd also like to see a prettier scripting language and a better toolset.

Ideally, Third Life would be a more scriptable, distributed, freely-hosted, interactive world.

Technology Resources

Enbaya's ProGATE

(Streaming 3D/2D data compression)

ProGATE is a library for creating streaming 3D worlds. I found out about it via an I, Cringely article. Here's an excerpt:

• Enbaya's product is called ProGATE and it is, in essence, a 3-D graphics and animation compressor for video games. ProGATE can compress 3D graphics and animation by an average of 50-to-1. The technology is finished and working on PCs, Sony's PlayStation2, Microsoft's xBox, and Nintendo's GameCube. A total of five patents have been applied for.

  But it is probably a mistake to call ProGATE a "compressor." It is really just a more efficient way of describing graphics and animation, much like Adobe's PostScript is a more efficient way of describing 2-D graphics. Nobody calls PostScript a graphics compressor, yet that's what it is. Then think of Enbaya's ProGATE as 3-D PostScript.

The whitepaper on it is fascinating.

EventMachine

EventMachine is a Ruby library like Twisted, but for Ruby.

Firewall-Jumper

Firewall Jumper is a NAT-traversing network protocol that uses a 3rd-party to initiate the connection. This would let the clients have a full-fledged peer-to-peer network without needing to open ports in their firewall.

A maximally connected cluster of servers hosted near ISP's

To maximize the bandwidth of a cluster of servers, the 3-network-card mesh network can be used (paper published around 2000).

PlanetLab

PlanetLab is a massive distributed network of machines that's been made available for research projects.

PlanetLab are the hosters of:

• Open DHT: free public distributed hash table (UDP-based)

• CoDeeN: a clustering distribution network

• Coral Content Distribution Network: a distributed web cache (could be used by clients)

PhysX Engine

PhysX is a free C++ physics engine SDK (which can be accelerated by a PhysX card).

Business Ideas

• Allow Linden Dollars to be translated directly into our currency. (Should we create a free Open Credit System, usable in any game, or even online stores?)
• Import Linden character?