MMO in loving tribute to xkcd-1110 | Hacker News Reader

MMO in loving tribute to xkcd-1110

1110.n01se.net

204 pointswooby61 comments

I found a bug

In the Chasm of Fate, after you defeat B'Joril the TimeMaster, you're supposed to get 1 piece of Titan class armor, and a random roll for 1-3 Peacock Plumes, but every time my group only gets the armor, and never any Peacock Plumes.

The devs really rushed this one out. I can't believe they expect people to pay 12 dollars a month for this.

NO BUG FOUND: (Spoiler Alert) You haven't activated the Orb of Flounderment which is in the Antideulivation Room.

So serious question- right now its not accepting connections to the (websocket? haven't looked at the code) server as its out of connections.

Any theory as to what the most likely bottleneck for something like this is? I've been tempted a few times to put something like this together, and never been sure where its most likely to fall apart.

It's probably just running a single instance that has a set limit of maximum connections. Unlike a big MMO where you connect and you get "forwarded" to one of their hundreds of servers with free spots.

FWIW I set my own instance of this up for anyone who's getting locked out of the main server.

http://www.feoh.org/1110

This is great. I much prefer this experience for viewing than the zooming ones that people posted right after it came out. This seems much more immersive. Great work!!

Yeah the only issue with this one is exploring the underground bits are difficult. It's practically impossible to get down the holes near the Mario bit in the east.

If you become a ghost you can go through the ground. It's slow, but sufficient for getting past blocked tunnels.

If you click on yourself then you switch to a ghost - in that state you can pass through objects.

Explore away!

Tip: As others mentioned, you can switch to a ghost by clicking on yourself, allowing you to pass through solid objects. Once you are in front of a solid object, you can click on yourself again to return to your normal self and travel more quickly through the solid object.

Note: it's xkcd, not xckd. (in the page title)

(note on the note: this has been corrected since my comment. Thanks!)

The server's overloaded. I'm refreshing the page madly but it's only getting worse!

To label your guy, type "I am Joe", and it will have Joe underneath instead of a number.

To write really long names, use chrome console, type avatar.msg="I AM 123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890", close the console and press return on your screen

I think its a beautiful cartoon - I'm just worried that it sounds so wistful, did something happen in the author's personal life to make it so contemplative?

xkcd has been wistful pretty much from day one.

Martin is right, but there was also this:

https://xkcd.com/1048/

https://xkcd.com/931/

Because of this: http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/06/30/family-illness/

I don't get 931. He is saying the same thing twice but drawing a bigger picture.

Read the mouseover text.

Probably the 1000th person to name themselves "import antigravity", but I'm still giggling about it.

Holy crap this is cool! Thanks for ruining my productivity for the rest of the day.

If the server hits its user limit, you can console yourself with a demo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvLxOVYeo5w

I'm curious - how did you handle the collisions with objects? Did you run some sort of algorithm to auto-detect which objects should be solid, or was it all done by hand?

Maybe it is simple as: "if there are more than n black pixel ahead in the direction of movement, bounce"

Yes, more or less. Just read the source, all the game logic is client side. Line 132 in 1110.js.

This reminds me so much of pitfall II http://youtu.be/TSUk_bmJQRQ?t=23s

Server issues. Let me guess: node.js?

Apparently yes: https://github.com/n01se/1110

Thanks. Not surprised.

And I bet they use HTTP, too. Pfft.

It's easy to confirm biases against wide-spread technologies.

HTTP is a teensy tiny bit more used than node.js

You say that like node is known for being flaky at scale, which is completely unfounded.

... and MongoDB.

Hey, it's web scale

Do you think the server would perform more effectively if they had enabled the Cluster configuration (assuming the server has multiple cores)?

I'm fairly new to toying around with Node, so i'd be interested to know if there are fairly obvious or simple reasons for poor performance here

that would certainly help but it's just not running on a very powerful server, it's nothing to do with the language.

Makes sense

It's nothing to do with the language, it's to do with the threading model. It's a much argued about topic nowadays: one approach give peace of mind to programmers, and the other one gives peace of mind to users.

Looks like the maximum number of clients is limited to 20 in the code: https://github.com/n01se/1110/blob/master/server.js#L44

node.js on a ti-micro. Just not much horsepower on the back end.

I got tangled in the radio tower.

Same here. I almost got tangled in a bit of dialouge too.

I haet when that happens.

If you click your guy, he becomes a ghost and can phase through objects.

I wouldn't call this "massively" multiplayer. More like a MUD (multi-user dungeon).

Yeah, server is limited to 20 users. "Massive" was more the wish than the reality.

Why is the limit so small?

EDIT: Never mind, read another comment where you pointed out it was running on a server with few resources.

Goll-lee! That's an awfully large antenna tower in North Dakota.

Awesome! I'd be happier moving around using WASD keys.

I was thinking the same thing! I actually considered doing something like this (using the image as a game map) last week, and being able to jump/fly around with a jetpack or something (or maybe import antigravity), but then realized I had no idea where to even begin. This project will be an excellent starting point.

I think this could help you: http://higherorderfun.com/blog/2012/05/20/the-guide-to-imple...

Some issues with bounding boxes and collisions it would seem. http://imgur.com/MMM3o

I fell into the exact same trap...

You can click on the stick figure and turn into a ghost.

Thanks for making this. This is exactly what I imagined when I first saw that XKCD.

This is neat. To delete all text, hit enter and type something else.

I'd like world to be darker.

This is very beautiful.

Cool!

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