A Restful Architecture for Multiuser Virtual Environments and Simulations

Abstract

JavaMOO is an architecture for creating multiuser virtual environments using the MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) and MOO (MUD Object Oriented) design patterns (rooms and objects in the rooms, including \exit" objects that lead to other rooms). The MOO design pattern traces it roots back to the rst multiuser virtual environments in the early 1980s. The focus of this thesis is joining the MOO design pattern with a distributed architecture. A distributed architecture is pursued to reduce the per-server computational load, compared to a traditional single-server approach. The e ect of transferring computational load to the client software is also investigated, with particular attention to the case of a graphical client with rich 3D visualizations. This results in an architecture employing a RESTful (REpresentational State Transfer) common interface and non-authoritative state synchronization that supports the MOO design pattern, uses fewer server-side resources, and is deployable as a network of distributed servers.