[TML] New 3d computer simulation design

[Timothy Little]

On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 10:20:43AM +0100, Knapp wrote:
> We are talking, about talking :-}, between planets and I was just
> assuming that it would take a lot of power to do it thus have high
> cost but getting cheaper with higher tech planets.  Even with VoIP
> you must pay for your internet.  Cost more for more bandwidth makes
> sense to me.

The flip side is "costs less for less bandwidth".  Voice communication
requires *hundreds* of times the bitrate of text.  Basing the
difficulty of character-to-character communication on the cost of
voice calls and ignoring text is just silly in a game that will likely
be based almost entirely on text communication anyway.

And yes, I agree you must pay for your bandwidth even with VoIP.  For
me, that's about 0.000000005 cents per bit.  Your cost is probably
lower.  If it were 0.01 cents per bit, then VoIP would cost about
$36/minute.  At the same bandwidth cost, the contents of this email
would be at most 90 cents - but probably quite a bit less, since then
it would be worth encoding more efficiently.


Not that any of this matters since the players won't accept any
nontrivial cost (or even free with restrictions), regardless of how
realistic it might be or how much you want it.


- Tim