1. Final Fantasy ½: LCO Overview
Doug Buxton
Steve Martin
CSE 403 Winter ‘03
Welcome back I’ve been waiting for you.

2. Operational Concepts
Persistent online world for users to explore and interact with.
Can improve character, find items, talk to others, etc.
Game should be attractive to anyone with web-enabled cell phone and free time.
However, those looking for real-time action should look elsewhere.
Will make the type of gaming that made EverQuest so popular available on demand.
Players will be able to interact with other players online
Players will be able to improve their character incrementally.

3. System Requirements
Midlet will run on wide range of hardware—both old and current phones.
No local storage other than bytecode.
Only real requirement (other than J2ME) is a web connection.
Gameplay will be simple enough to allow anyone to learn to play.
Joystick for navigation, simple menus.
User interface will be designed to be flexible around the hardware its used with.
Will be built with assumption that network connection is unreliable.

4. World Maintenance Server Backend
System Architecture
Backup to Disk
Client Midlet
HTTP (Wireless Web)
World Servlet
Client Midlet
IPC*
World Maintenance Server Backend
(J2SE)
Client Midlet
Stat Servlet
IPC* …
*Note: IPC is short for
“Inter-Process Communication”
Web Browsers

5. Lifecycle Plan Who wants this?
Anyone who enjoys games and has a cell phone.
Possibly phone companies if the game is compelling enough! (The “Killer App” could bring subscribers)
Possible User Scenarios (there are many!):
Travelers with time to kill, students, business people. . .
We will have to support it
There will be servers to maintain
Protection against malicious users
Long product lifecycle
Release new versions as cell phones and networks improve.

6. Feasibility Rationale
We believe this is feasible.
In fact, we believe a limited version of this is very doable within the scope of this class.
Have written a prototype that actually maintains a persistent world
Click here to launch an example of our idea.
(requires internet connectivity)