Let's Call it MLT.

I need a name for the Ultimate Online Game Framework we've been discussing so people know what I'm refering to (crazy idea, or something for that project). I want it to be the greatest thing in the world. And as everyone knows, that is a nice MLT (Mutton, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich). I was toying with calling it Quantum, because I like the thought of Quantum Entanglement to represent entity state replication. So maybe the Quantum Distributed Entity System (QDES), and later the Quantum this and that.

I'm also really stuck on what language to write it in. C++ or Java. I think it is critical that a game development team use the same language on client and server. Otherwise the team gets split in half, and winds up not talking enough. Being able to swap people onto what ever needs work is really important for keeping to a schedule. And hiring from two piles of expertise is just that much harder. Java has so many great libraries. But C++ is so much more popular in the game industry. On mobile, you've got Objective-C. If you're using Unity, you've got C#.

To be honest, most of your game logic should probably be written (at least initially) in your favorite scripting language. Java and C++ both support Python, Lua, Javascript for example. IKVM appears to allow Mono to be embedded in Java, so you could maybe even do C# on both sides. This argument (http://www.mono-project.com/Scripting_With_Mono) is certainly compelling. Ever heard of Gecko? It embeds a C++ compiler so you can compile and load/run C++ "scripts" at run time. The reason I bring up all these options is: you could implement client and server in different languages, but embed the same scripting engine in both sides, so the game developers get the benefit of reusing their staff on both sides.

If the architecture and design of QDES is awesome enough, someone might reimplement it in their favorite language anyway. Or port it to a very different platform that doesn't support whatever language choice we make. So maybe the choice I'm stuck on isn't that serious right now. Maybe I should just start with the architecture and design.

I'm drafting some high level requirements and am thinking I'll post them here on a "page" instead of a blog article. Not sure how comments and such would work with that however. But I wanted something stickier than a post and something I could update and have a single reference to. Same with the designs as they start to come.

Anyway. Thanks for being a sounding board. Maybe some of you and your friends will have time to contribute to (or try out) all this. (And I haven't completely forgotten about doing that tech survey to see what other similar projects are out there in the open source world. I found a few. Some are a little dusty. Some are a little off track from what I'm thinking.)