<HEAD><TITLE>discuss@charon: [1377] in "Coldmud discussion meeting"</TITLE>
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<HR><H2>Re: [COLD] NBC Online project</H2>
<H3>daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Thu Nov 20 03:18:33 1997
)</H3>
<PRE>
From: jeffk@tenetwork.com
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 1997 00:11:25 -0800
To: coldstuff@cold.org

FRank,

A serious RPg is a big undertaking.  I can't imagien anyoien doing anything
that will live up to any of NBC's hopes for free.

They really are dreaming.  UOL was a many milio ndollar project and, while
my own project is a shoe string in comaprsion, its still got an 85k a year
software developer (me) on it.

They need to face reality IMO.

JK

At 11:56 PM 11/19/97 -0900, you wrote:
&gt;NBC Online/Homicide plans to include an RPG mud as part of their online
&gt;offerings.
&gt;(http://www.nbc.com)
&gt;Their intention is to have some sort of mud that can be used to exend
&gt;the Homicide/Second Story series that's being developed for the web; all
&gt;this is in support of the television series Homicide.
&gt;
&gt;NBC Online will not pay for the project (what a surprise!), but they are
&gt;willing to have online promotion for the mud/company that gets involved
&gt;with the project.  Currently I'm tossing around some ideas with their
&gt;software developer and their producer, but I'm not interested in
&gt;promotion.  However, if someone can make a decent Homicide RPG Cold, it
&gt;could really help give Cold a boost.
&gt;
&gt;I'm willing to provide the Black Rabbit server as a "proof of concept"
&gt;server, but the Homicide RPG will have to be moved off the server by the
&gt;end of March.  This means that the project will have to find another
&gt;machine.  If a sponsor for the site can be found, then that sponsor
&gt;should get the promotion from NBC Online.
&gt;
&gt;The project will also need a builder or two and an admin.  If anyone is
&gt;interested on working on this project, I will give you complete mud
&gt;control so you can get the job done.
&gt;
&gt;There are also some technical problems.  They want the mud to be able to
&gt;handle 300+ online users. I believe that LambdaMOO lags to an impossible
&gt;level at over 200-- don't know how well a Cold could handle that many.
&gt;Many two servers is better.  Suggestions?
&gt;
&gt;Another concern is the use of the web.  I'm still not clear on this
&gt;requirement, but I know that they want to tie it in to their web page
&gt;some way.  If you look at the NBC web page, you will see that they make
&gt;heavy use of web technology, including lots of javascripts, and maybe
&gt;even java.  I don't really know what to do about this part.
&gt;
&gt;Finally, there will be some use of NPCs.  The "proof of concept" will
&gt;have to include some functional NPCs, TBD.
&gt;
&gt;So what do you think?  Is that a project worth doing and are there
&gt;enough resources in the Cold community to make it happen?  It's not a
&gt;great project if you want to run your own mud.  But it may enhance your
&gt;resume.
&gt;
&gt;So send me some email if you are interested in the project,
&gt;
&gt;frankc@maddog.com
&gt;
&gt;
&gt;
Jeffrey P. Kesselman
Senior Game Integration Engineer
Total Entertainment Network

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</PRE>
