[game_preservation] Open Sourcing MMO's that have "died"

[Henry Lowood]

Devin,

as it happens, we have someone from our Stanford team doing video 
capture in EA-Land as it is about to close.  As you rightly point 
out, that's a different model -- documentation of what happened in 
the world, rather than an experience of running the software  -- from 
what you would get from software preservation alone.  And that's why 
we created the Archiving Virtual Worlds video collection -- now noted 
on our SIG page.

The France 1888 analogy is more like re-enactment than archiving, 
although the two are related.  So, yes, I agree with you.

Wouldn't another model be the well-understood one of "replay."  I 
have spoken to a couple of VW designers who thought it was 
technically possible, though mind-bogglingly complex: If one could 
produce every version of a world's software, synced to every version 
of it database, you could replay some things  -- however, there is a 
lot that the database does not record (e.g., chat, though some games 
do offer that) that you can only get from capture.

Another point -- even with the software, wouldn't you need hacks to 
get it to run, since the authentication servers would no longer be 
operational?  I.e., no database of accounts, no server at all.

Henry

At 02:38 PM 7/23/2008, Captain Commando wrote:

>Technically, an archived online world would only be what it was like 

>in the last stage of its existence (though you could technically 

>load an original build if you had the code). You would need many 

>people to play the game in order for it to be close to what it was 

>originally. Preserving an online would would then be the equivalent 

>of preserving 1888 France minus the people.

>

>I think the most interesting thing about preserving MMO's is 

>preserving a record of what happened during its life, a record of 

>what the game was about and how it was played, and the things that 

>were in the game. If you have the code, that's great, but that's 

>basically just like saving the last two minutes of an hour-long 

>performance art piece.

>

>On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 12:29 PM, Andrew Armstrong 

><<mailto:andrew at aarmstrong.org>andrew at aarmstrong.org> wrote:

>Relatively interesting look at the reasons for and against open 

>sourcing "dead" MMO games, 

><http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/23/165237>via. slashdot, here:

>

><http://stroppsworld.com/2008/07/22/open-sourcing-the-mmo-game/>http://stroppsworld.com/2008/07/22/open-sourcing-the-mmo-game/

>

>Fair points most of us know, and it's a patent fact that most 

>companies won't even want to dark archive their code or assets when 

>a MMO or any other game dies, but nice to see a discussion on it.

>

>Andrew

>

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>--

>The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>

>"Until next time..."

>Captain Commando

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Henry Lowood, Ph.D.
Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections;
  Film & Media Collections
HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
Stanford University Libraries
Stanford CA 94305-6004
650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood 
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