Subject: The Netgame Mailing List

From: Bernie Roehl <broehl>
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 92 10:14:30 EDT

Welcome to the Netgame Mailing List

By now, several of you on the list are probably wondering why it's been so
quiet.  The answer is simple: I've been waiting for the initial rush of people
joining the list to taper off to a trickle.

The list now stands at 30 people, which strikes me as a manageable number.

ADMINISTRIVIA:

This is intended to be a relatively low-traffic list.  Many of us are on
half a dozen different lists (and I'm administering several myself); we don't
want to have to deal with information overload.  Keep your messages to the
point, and move any (potentially) long-winded debates to direct email.

In other words... if it isn't of interest to the whole list, just send mail
to the person you're responding to, discuss it with them, and let the list
know if the two of you come up with anything that other people might find
useful.

Remember, if you want to be added to or deleted from the list, send mail
to [email-masked] (NOT to the list itself!).  To send
mail to the list, address it to [email-masked] and it will be
forwarded automatically.

THE ARCHIVE SITE:

I'm maintaining an archive of the list, as well as a collection of documents
and proposals people have written; it can be found on sunee.uwaterloo.ca in
the pub/netgame directory.  If you want something added to this collection,
mail it to me (NOT to the list!) and I'll be happy to add it.

If you don't have FTP on your system, send a mail message containing
just the word "help" (in the body, not the subject line!) to
[email-masked], and you'll receive mail back telling you how to get
the files via email.  If you have problems with ftpmail, please direct them
to a newsgroup... again, NOT to this list!

The archive is a bit of a jumble right now; I hope to find some time to clean
it up later this week.  In particular, there is some duplication and at least
two incomplete works.  Please wait until early next week before retrieving
anything.

THE NAME AND CHARTER OF THIS LIST:

A few people have wondered about the name "netgame".  It was chosen because
most of the people who initially expressed an interest in shared virtual
environments were looking at them from the standpoint of multi-user games.

The name is not intended to limit discussion to games; the focus of the list
is on techniques, data formats and protocols that will allow multiple users
to share a common virtual space.  It is intended to be a fairly "techie" kind
of list; things like "wouldn't it be neat to have a virtual tennis match"
would only be appropriate if accompanied by a discussion of some of the
technical problems involved in doing so (or better yet, solutions to those
problems!).

Some of the issues we expect to see discussed on the list are:

   - network topologies
   - client/server models -- who should do what?
   - restrictions imposed by limited bandwidth and network "burstiness"
   - representation of objects: polygon, wireframe, CSG, other...?
   - caching -- where and how
   - synchronization
   - protocols

Before posting anything on any of these, please read the things people have
already written (in the archive).  Remember to wait until next week when the
archive is cleaned up.

If you have any questions or concerns, direct them to me (Bernie Roehl,
[email-masked]) and I'll try to deal with them.  I tend to get
pretty busy, but I will get back to you as soon as I can.