I''m currently involved in a project of using the position data of a terminal in a wireless network (WLAN, also other networks possible in the future). The idea is to develop a game (service) using this position information for example, to be able to specify a spawning point in a game map for a connecting client based on the location of the client itself in the wireless network. I''m planning the usage of existing games since I don''t have the resources to build a comletely new game. Using Quake1/2 sources could be one possibility, but is there any documentation avaivable for the sources? The idea is to somehow externally, with the help of a location database, determine the spawning point of a player. The logic of the network part doesn''t quite open itself to me from only the source codes . If you want to share ideas for the use of wireless network location information in games, I''m most welcome to listen of course .

An interesting technical idea, I have some problems with the idea of using phyiscal attributes of the players to influence games though - e.g. take Quake deathmatch, the reason it is fair is because all players are in the same boat, regardless of position or any other attributes (the colour of their hair for a silly example).

Other games which may depend on physical attributes, e.g. rugby or football, give the players a chance to train and to match their attributes with those of others (although come to think of it I think I''m talking cross purposes in this paragraph).

I''m sure some games could work this way, but I can''t think of any off the top of my head. What kinds of games were you considering?

I also think it might be kind of annoying, always spawning/starting in the same place because of your physical location...

One possibility would be to use the map of the area covering the wireless network as a game map. But the use of the position of the terminal accessing the network doesn''t have to be so restrictive. Like in a MUD-type game, the neighbouring terminals could be thought of as a group in the game world. Allthough the map would resemble the one of the network, it could have changed types of terrain or proportions etc. The place you join the game affects to the properties of your character. When portable wireless terminals get more common, one could think of literally doing a journey in the game .

Positioning could also be useful in dating-like games, where you could find the "right type" in a hide and seek -type game. Also one could think of a navigation-type games, but these would be more useful as a map-type applications, providing more information than a usual map.

If the wireless network coverage area is to be used as a map, then that area could be used as a map for a tactical wargame, where you would be defending your own area, situated in the real world, and making alliances with other parties to take over more land, land producing some winning points etc.. Wireless terminals could act as spies in the network, capable of moving a smaller resource in the area of a hostile base.

These are just some ideas that i have, the game could be something grand (and demanding) but at first something small would be better and easier to realise and pull through.

Progress, at least I hope so .
I found some documentation for quake 2 and managed to implement a mysql query to the game library. Now it is possible to find out in which cell of the WLAN -network the player in the game belongs to. I have a database in which the addresses of wireless access points of the network are stored with the ip-addreses of the clients using the network, hence I can decide under which access point a player belongs to. This isn''t a very accurate way of finding out the position of the user in the network but atleast the cell coverage areas aren''t usually that large and what is most important, I got something working here . Now, the use of position data with spawning points needs some logic to be done, like determining teams etc..

I''m currently also looking into MUDs or other RPGs. There seems to be some servers with open source code that could be used, but does anyone have a good hint where to start looking? I''m thinking of bringing this positioning system to some existing MUD world if that is possible by any means. Building my own world would be too much demanding at start as I''m not that competent in "content providing" .