I spent some time reading (and there's a lot of stuff to read about). So now I can explain myself a little bit more.
First to all excuse me if my english spelling sometimes goes wrong. I'm spanish...
As someone says before on this forum:
a Traveller MMORPG would be rather difficult to pull off, at least as Traveller.
One of the keys to Traveller is that information travels at the speed of travel. This is important to back story, and to real operations. The 1 week jump is central to the game.
But, online, while travel may be limited, I can guarantee you communication won't be. You can't stop it, and people won't sit for it.
It's the MASTER QUEST to solve if anyone wants to implement a Traveller MMORPG, at least as we know MMORPG...
I solve it in my gameplay desing (not coding) with two vital points:
First one is COMM CHAT, it's a standart MMORPG chat with some changes. At one hand we've the "say" and "shout" channels, just for talking anyone near you. If you have a Comm and you are in range, you can private-chatting anyone that has a Comm and is in range.
It's so fun because this way the players need another item to do common things in other games.
At other hand we have the tech level. Within a high tech level you can connect to the world-wide-comm (or system-wide-comm for TL A+).
Of course if you want to comunicate anyone in the system when you are aboard a ship, you can use the ship's communication systems instead or linket to your Comm.
Guilds enjoy a "private room" where chat each other, BUT, only if they're in the same starsystem.
The only way to comunicate outside a starsystem is via MAIL. U can use post cargo, X-Boat, or jump yourself.
Second Problem: Jump Time. It's too difficult to solve. If we reduce jump time to 0, we're not implementing traveller. If we make jumps of about a week... No one will play Traveller Online...
Indeed it's a troubling situation... but what about changing game time? Making time faster is wrong because you must speed it up too much to have "playable jumps".
The only way is to change the meaning of "1 week". In this Traveller MMORPG "alternate" universe, a starship is capable to jump in one hour, but there must be a manteinance after jumping: refuelling, re-adjusting the lanthanum hull net, re-orienting astronavigation systems, and a general revision to all the little things in the ship.
This manteinance plus the 1-4 hours waiting for cargo (4 days in traveller) means that a player who spent 4 hours playing a day can make just 1 or 2 jumps in that game session. BUT if the ship was seriously damaged or any other considerations, it cannot jump until repaired, of course.
So were is the lag of time? It's indeed. If you want to explore every world, you must spent some hours, meanwhile your ship is doing maintenance. Maybe you get some quests in this world and you want to complete them... More time spent, but no problem becouse there's a 1-4 hours waiting for cargo... Indeed, you can stop play for today, with some quests unfinished and the ship full of cargo. Next day you complete your quests (if you can) and jump out, this means only one jump in two days. Here's the lag of time.
This gameplay system forces player to mantain themselves "active", or to wait afk or offline, for jump and ship manteinance time lags.
Of course anyone can jump without refuelling (if has fuel) and without making manteinance, it means that a player have a very good starship and indeed he is a high level player, so he knows about self-training and arcade-playing aboard. Now, we have a hour lag between each of two or three rapid jumps, but any jump more could be dangerous and missjump occurs.
Then you cannot communicate outside the sytem and you can only communicate to others by "say" or "shout" channels, or if you have access to some type of Comm.
And if you want to communicate to other starsystem there is 1 hour jump time lag plus the time spent to arrive to jump point plus the time spent if the receiver wasn't online.
It solves the instant communications problem in a MMORPG that implements Traveller, just a few changes, but I think it's better a shorter jump lag for this kind (MMORPG) of Traveller Universe.
Keep Thinking..
