Microsoft Corp. today announced that its .NET-based “Terrarium” game has been downloaded by more than 9,000 developers just one week after its launch. “Terrarium” is a peer-to-peer distributed computing game written using the Microsoft .NET Framework, Microsoft’s new programming model for developing and running applications and XML Web services. In “Terrarium,” developers use code to design herbivores, carnivores or plants and then introduce their creations into a peer-to-peer, networked ecosystem where they compete for survival.
Peer-2-Peer Survival-of-the-Fittest Computing Game Attracts Developers
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Not that I would develop in a M$ language.. but im definately not going to register to do it
I am in the process of downloading it to see what it is capable of – the 3D / DirectX and AI / smart creature aspects interest me.
A group of us on IRC a couple of years back began designing a virtual zoo but it petered out as projects often do when people get busy
To Mr/Ms dot.not, it is easy to pretend superiority but doing so only reveals stupidity and an inability to be open minded.
As a person studying to be a biologist (mathematical and computational ecology being my main area of interest), this looks pretty damn interesting. Shame I’ve not any machines on which I could play around with it. The next step of this, of course, is something called an object ecosystem, like the MyBeasties perl package, to allow evolutionary computation, with an ecosystem of genetic algorithms, competing to survival, and in the end, finding a good population of objects containing the algorithms to solve some problem.
(holds sign)
“Will accept donations of Win2k machines with VNC Server running!”
This sounds like a big enhancment of the old ‘fight for memory’ asm games.
Sounds like a lot of fun… So when are we going to write our own ver for the rest of us?
With a protocal and someone to host a enviroment server .. this could be fun for all OS’s…
Hehe. Funny how everyone seems to think along the same lines at some point. In the REBOL community, a small group had furious discussions over creating Reb World, a P2P world made by the users, using XML as the data sharing method.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/reb-world/
sounds like a good excuse to learn .net
Once again we see a misleading representaion of the evolutionary process. Darwin specifically rejected a competition-based approach to understanding evolution. Species adapt to their environments through a process of natural selection. A chance variation in physical characteristics allows a species to better adapt to its environment, very often even allowing it to exploit an ecological niche where no competition in fact exists.
It is also worth noting that Darwin also rejected the idea of evolution as a process of improvement (something his father Erasmus Darwin had advocated). Survival of the best fit, not survival of the fittest is the core message of Darwinist thought. For a fuller (and more learned) explanation the books of Steven J Gould make particularly informative reading.
Modelling a game based on the evolutionary process would indeed be an interesting project. This game however seems to be yet another allegory for the Free Market, which is not the same thing at all. It doesn’t mean that it’s not an interesting game of course.
Darwin wasn’t the end-all on evolutionary biology any more than Newton was for physics.
Intra- and interspecies competition is a huge cause of selective pressure in the process of natural selection. Competition is one part of the selective pressures placed against a population, together with environment.
A change variation in physical characteristics doesn’t allow it to adapt, it decides whether or not it is better adapted, genetically. One of the key features in an ecological system are other organisms. With a finite amount of resources (nutrients, space), direct and indirect competition with other organisms is very important.
Perhaps I’m not understanding the point you’re trying to make, as I’ve not downloaded and tried this game myself.