> Assume for a moment a team of developers spend several months if not years doing infrastructure build-out to support the imagined CPU simulation system
Huh? A CPU simulation is not that complicated a task. If it takes Notch several developers and years of time, he's definitely doing it wrong.
> active and interacting with one another at all times.
Yes. That's a solved issue, mostly. It's a large task, but it's not an unsolved problem. (See e.g. social networking sites. Humongous amounts of people interacting with each other)
The point is that you'll need to make some concessions to the realities of large scale when it comes to the game design.
> the closest anyone has got to offline simulation is effectively "event queue and timer" and not for lack of trying.
Funny. And here I thought Havok just gave a talk on physics in MMOs. (GDC China).
I think you might be missing the point, all simulation continues while players are offline. Implementing consistent physics in an MMO is (very) hard, but having all players simulated even when they are logged off is something else entirely. The state of the art there is things like mail systems, auction houses, and skill queues.
I wouldn't be surprised if the offline simulation curtails your abilities somewhat, enabling a much lower CPU-effort simulation. We'll see, I guess :)
(There's also the point that a monthly subscription fee of $15 buys you a nice VPS slice these days. If you're willing to cut into the - significant - profit margin of MMOs, you have a lot of performance available for offline simulation. I'll stand by my judgment that it's a hard, but solvable, problem)
Huh? A CPU simulation is not that complicated a task. If it takes Notch several developers and years of time, he's definitely doing it wrong.
> active and interacting with one another at all times.
Yes. That's a solved issue, mostly. It's a large task, but it's not an unsolved problem. (See e.g. social networking sites. Humongous amounts of people interacting with each other)
The point is that you'll need to make some concessions to the realities of large scale when it comes to the game design.
> the closest anyone has got to offline simulation is effectively "event queue and timer" and not for lack of trying.
Funny. And here I thought Havok just gave a talk on physics in MMOs. (GDC China).