Island Creator/Your multiplayer island and the WonderLand paradigma
From Croquet Consortium
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I believe that 50% of my readers abandoned this Manual when I said that Cobalt is not for make money. Now other 45% will go away, because I will say that Cobalt (today - it will change in the future) is not for Internet . It is good for WiFi networks that we have at schools, campuses etc.
A product like Second Life works using a big server (to be precise, it's a "farm" of servers) to administrate all the islands, avatars, scripts etc. The architecture of Cobalt is "peer to peer" (P2P). Each copy of Cobalt can be a server. But, to be an Internet server, your machine needs to have a direct professional connection to the Internet. Not the usual connection available at homes, campuses, companies etc. Any computer connected to the Internet has an address (an IP address - something like: 200.207.643.57) but, 90% of the IP addresses available at the world today, are not public. The machine can contact a web server at something that we call: "port 80", an email server at some other default "port" or a chat server or FTP server. But your machine CAN NOT BE A PUBLIC SERVER!!! If you don't know what is a proxy, the address of your gateway and the ports liberated by your firewall, I imagine that you HAVE NOT A PUBLIC SERVER!!!
In the last 5 years of the existence of Croquet, I only know ONE company that has a server that, sometimes, is public available, having an "island" using an architecture based in the same used by Cobalt. It's the QWAQ, that commercializes the virtual "Qwaq Forums". And you need to be a registered QWAQ's client, or perspective, to use its island.
And, even if there were many public IP addresses now, Cobalt islands are not recommended to be accessed in the Internet (today - it will change in the future), by security reasons. A Cobalt island can access your hard disk - like we saw in the previous lessons. So, there are the PLATINUM RULE OF COBALT
PLATINUM RULE OF COBALT "You should only go to an island of someone you trust."
This is the reason that I recommend (just for now - as it will change in the future) the use of Cobalt islands only at internals WiFi networks, where you can interact with classmates, friends, partners etc.
Like a Cobalt island (today - it will change in the future) is unsafe, if you have some "bad guy" at the island you are visiting, he can, by example, click some button and erase all your hard disk. And this can be done too without any participation of the "bad guy". The island you did at the previous lesson accesses the hard disk (to read an .MP3 file) when it's loaded.
OK. If you still are reading us (and have the interest to follow the development of Cobalt until the version 1.0 - it's at a pre-alpha version), we will teach, now, how you can test your island being multiplayer at a WiFi network, accepting chat etc.
The first thing you need to know is that every computer has an ID (identity), a name, defined when the operational system is installed.
But lets go, step by step:
1 - You need to have 2 machines below the same WiFi network (like there are at some schools, some campuses, Starbucks, airports, public libraries etc.) and the two machines for the test need to have the "official Cobalt" installed.
2 - Download and unzip, inside the main folder of each Cobalt, at each machine (C:\cobalt-base-current-build) the file Firstalia.zip you have created.
3 - The first machine (we will call it: A) will be the "owner" of the island.
Open Cobalt on it, using the image: Firstalia.image. Drag the ball, like ever, and the island appears.
You will hear the applauses... Like it's the "owner's island", you need to click the Registered Ball to be a Registered Visitor. Walk a little in the island, verifying the collision against the panel, the change of camera position etc.
If you didn't change your Cobalt defaults, the avatar is Alice and her nickname is "Alice".
Open the Chat Window using: People | Text chat. You can move this Chat Window.
4 - The second machine (we will call it B) will be a "Normal Visitor". Open Cobalt using the same image: Firstalia.image. Drag the ball, like ever, and will appear the island; the same Firstalia, but not that one you like to go, where is the "owner" So, don't click the Registered Ball.
Change the avatar to the Rabbit, using: Tools | Modify avatar. Change the nickname for chat to: "Mr. Rabbit", using: People | Text chat.
6 - Select, at the menu of this machine: Place | Connect to CoWiFi World. Click the arrow of Nearby Worlds. Will appear a list of the islands available at this WiFi network. Each line has the name of the machine - not the name of any avatar. The first name is the name of your machine. At the Fig. 6-3 you see that the machine B is "Americo" and the island to visit is at the machine "Peter". Select this line and click OK. At your test these names will be different, of course!
7 - Will appear a Portal, open to the island (that is a copy of that you are, but is that of the owner).
8 - Using the Rabbit, go to the other island. Walk a little. You can see that, like the Rabbit is not a Registered Visitor he has not collision against the panel. You can see also that there are available a Portal to return to the "island of Mr. Rabbit".
9 - At the machine B, open also the Chat Window using: People | Text chat.
OK, we are talking too much. Better, to you, to play. Enjoy. Have fun.
The chat has a little bug: you need to alternate the type of "voice" (shout, speak etc.)
IMPORTANT: The sound does not propagate from one island to the other. The reason is that it's usual to create a "sound track" for an island. If, when we open a Portal to the other, we hear the sound of it too (not synchronized), this will be not very good. We can say that the sounds are at "Squeak level".
Cobalt (Croquet) has a concept that can be a little confuse in the beginning. You need to have, at your machine, a copy of the island you would like to go (the GOLD COBALT RULE). You go to this island (the copy at your machine) and open a Portal to the "other island" that is similar. And you will cross this Portal. It's like to have a mirror, seeing, on it, the same island, and you crossing through this mirror. This idea of "crossing through a mirror" was the subject of a Lewis Carroll's book: "Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There", the sequel to "Alice's Adventures in WonderLand" (1865).
Look, in the Fig.6-7, two original illustrations of this book, showing Alice in the two sides of the mirror:
This technique used for Cobalt multiplayer island communication is the reason that the "WonderLand paradigma" was chosen for Cobalt. It's a little confuse and surreal. But it is like it is. Oops!
