Quantum computing and future games

[Demigan]

So this ends up with a question for both the developers and the players:

Quantum computers and quantum internet are real things that show promise to turn the computing world upside-down by changing everything we know about conventional computers.

A (partial) quote for instance from one of the people building a Quantum computer in Delft (with already actual working Qubits in them): "It can improve materials sciences. Calculations that would take conventional computers as much time as the age of the universe would be possible within a week with a similar quantum-computer".

Just to be sure people got the ballpark estimation here: The age of the universe is estimated at 13,7 billion years or 7,1*10^11 weeks (712440000000 weeks). So these quantum computers can do 7,1*10^11 more calculations than any convenctional computer of the same size. Even if he was off and it would be capable of doing just 1/10th of what they now think it could it would revolutionarize the computer industry. These Quantum computers will be able to do wonderful and horrible things, such as being able to crack every single security alogarithm of current day computers within a week and being capable of stealing or controlling every single piece of data that is connected to the internet. Just know that every piece of information about you that has a connection to the internet right now will be cracked and stored by the first countries and people that buy one before conventional servers are replaced/protected by a Quantum computer.

But I intend to look at the fun parts of this technology.

Then Quantum internet. Through various methods it's possible to entangle two particles so that when one of the particles moves, the other does something similar even when they are apart without any measurable communication between them... With this method they've already proven they can send data faster then light, because there's no matter or radiation that moves in between the particles.

This one actually would launch our space exploration into a new era, just think about a sattelite that can send pictures and receive commands from Mars faster than your PC sends info to your screen, rather than the 13 minutes ping it can take right now.

With these technologies combined, you could have "wireless" computers that have a faster-then-light connection to a random server in the world, which is itself connected with faster-then-light connections to every other server and thus every other computer in existence, and not a single piece of data will have to move outside of a computer or server at any time. This system would allow for less latency than playing at a LAN party.

In fact, why buy a computer at all? Why not just buy a screen with the minimum of computer technology to run, and have all computations be done by some large quantum server somewhere? It reaches your screen as fast (if not faster due to the lack fo a wire from your PC to the monitor) as if the hardware was right in your room, and due to the way Quantum internet works IT'S COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE TO HACK (at least while in transit). Besides the fact that a Quantum computer can scan 100% of the incoming data as fast as it arrives for viruses without slowing down.

Anyway, the FTL internet combined with the computation power billionS of times more powerful than any commercial computer currently in existance, what kind of games would you be able to build?

Or the actual question after this loooong "intro", what kind of game would YOU want to build if there was litterally no practical limitation to your computing power and latency issues? An RTS? FPS? a super MMO hybrid of RTS/FPS/RPG/Simulator combined?

[Glacious]

Sounds like a dream that, quite interesting read but surely this kind of stuff although in development and having some been built is years and years away most probs not in my life time boo hoo

[NodSaibot]

I actually know a prominent Quantum Physicist. Will enjoy talking to him about this he is current interested in neutrinos. He recently told me about what the University of Madison Wisconsin did to the world's supply of hard water. He also told me about the research being done at the south pole.

[Demigan]

Sounds like a dream that, quite interesting read but surely this kind of stuff although in development and having some been built is years and years away most probs not in my life time boo hoo

Well, they want a working quantum computer in Delft with 50 qubits by 2019, 50 qubits could already defeat most of current day computers. I think that unless you are over 65, you have a real chance to witness it. I wouldn't be surprised if this technology would be available worldwide to every company within the next 20 years, within 30 years it would be commercially available anywhere, considering the speed at which computer technology is advancing, and the fact that a lot of the quantum research possibilities are actually invented by computers before testing, it would be a self-accelerating process. Each time a more advanced quantum computer is created, it advances it's own field.

Quantum computing is so real that from at least the 1980's people have been doing research in developing quantum computer programming languages and software development, for computers that didn't even exist!. The first working qubit computer was in 1998 based on just 2 qubits.

I actually know a prominent Quantum Physicist. Will enjoy talking to him about this he is current interested in neutrinos. He recently told me about what the University of Madison Wisconsin did to the world's supply of hard water. He also told me about the research being done at the south pole.

What did he do to the worlds supply of hard water?

Anyway, what kind of game would you like to see with these type of computers? When even hamfisted calculations could work for creating ultra-detailed environments, massive amounts of AI and solid environment, structures and characters build up out of polygons that can be destroyed on that scale (as in, a bullet ripping through your characters arm would be able to show an accurate hole there as well as deal damage based on what it hits while flying through).

[XD_ERROR_XD]

What i would like to build if i was a programmer? Well, unless i can replace my human brain with one of those quantum computers, nothing special really. What i would develop instead are tools that can make entire games with your thought only! If you could grab snippets from all the signals sent to and from your brain, which is already in development, you could make a revolutionary game in a matter of an hour!

The real question however is: Wouldn't this make conventional game development obsolete, if you can build and play all the games you want yourself in 50 years? Would games be developed even more quickly than the amount of video's uploaded on Youtube someday? Would we run out of storage memory due to this? The idea of this being possible in the future frankly quite scares me. What if this kind of technology is created to create other things? Is humanity ready for such a revolutionary change?

[Henk]

What i would like to build if i was a programmer? Well, unless i can replace my human brain with one of those quantum computers, nothing special really. What i would develop instead are tools that can make entire games with your thought only! If you could grab snippets from all the signals sent to and from your brain, which is already in development, you could make a revolutionary game in a matter of an hour!

This was my dream once, tought it would be impossible, but if it is possible, I have that dream back now

On a level of computing/calculations, what I'd like is for games to have super realistic physics, and actual sound physics based on the physical material of objects.

[Mystic~]

What i would like to build if i was a programmer? Well, unless i can replace my human brain with one of those quantum computers, nothing special really. What i would develop instead are tools that can make entire games with your thought only!

You basically just described the process of Lucid Dreaming. If you become conscious inside your own dream your thoughts and intentions have the ability to materialize and create objects, people, environments and probably even stories straight out of the ethers. Most people dream without much awareness and so they're just a jumble of unconscious thoughts and the other tricky part is not getting so excited that you snap-back and wake up.

[Madkill40]

Quantum-DDOS attack.

FTL take-downs worldwide.

...Simulator

[Mystic~]

Engage Quantum Firewall - problem solved

[Demigan]

What i would like to build if i was a programmer? Well, unless i can replace my human brain with one of those quantum computers, nothing special really. What i would develop instead are tools that can make entire games with your thought only! If you could grab snippets from all the signals sent to and from your brain, which is already in development, you could make a revolutionary game in a matter of an hour!

I actually have my doubts that it would be that easy.

People in general have a limited imagination. They can think off the larger picture, but not the smaller details. That's why not everyone can write a good book, it entails more than the story, it is also about the interactions, descriptions and engaging the imagination of the readers.

Then there's balance. Balance is a subjective thing. A high TTK game needs a different balance and weapon stats than a low TTK game, but how do you put that in? Even if the quantum computer can understand and build a world based on your instructions, it would still be the player that has to create a balance. Considering most players want to have their playstyle be the best and most effective it would instantly create imbalances and reduce the replayability of the game, or any game a single man will make.

I think that true game design would still happen by a group of people. By adding different interests, playstyles and idea's into a single game you would be able to create a truly good experience, rather than a more bland reproduction of your past experiences.

Here's an example:

I had the idea for a persistent MMORTS. It has some more tagged on but that's not important.

What is the problem with a persistent MMORTS? You have to find ways to keep it fun for everyone. It has to be fun for the casual player that joins and fights for a half an hour a day, it has to be fun for the dedicated player that spends half his day on the game. In normal RTS's a player that spends hours would be able to build massive armies that can crush 50 casual players, so how do you solve that?

Then there's other factors, what if your base gets destroyed while you are offline? Or even if you are online? Forcing players to start all over again after having all their achievements thrown into the dirt would be bad, especially if any new base gets stomped upon by the people who crushed you in the first place.

How do you stop griefing? With a massive persistent MMORTS there would be hundreds of ways to grief other players. From simply creating large alliances that crush lower players repeatedly with the goal of making them quit to things like banding together with other players to steal their stuff and create weaknesses for your real alliance to exploit. Even the solutions I came up with had their flaws, such as creating 3+ factions that everyone joins from the start, which would allow players to still grief others by teamkilling key facilities or spying on positions/ruining attacks/defends etc. I have actually several pages on idea's wasted on this.

The real question however is: Wouldn't this make conventional game development obsolete, if you can build and play all the games you want yourself in 50 years? Would games be developed even more quickly than the amount of video's uploaded on Youtube someday? Would we run out of storage memory due to this? The idea of this being possible in the future frankly quite scares me. What if this kind of technology is created to create other things? Is humanity ready for such a revolutionary change?

We already make more games than can be played. Of course not all of them are triple A games, but then again triple A game does not warrant success.

I think it won't be that 'bad'. At worst you'll have too little time to play all the interesting things you want to play, at best you'll have too little time to play all the interesting things you want to play. I still think that most of the good games would come from combined game creators, mostly still trained developers who have most of their work cut out for them and who will focus mostly on designing the balance and features to prevent exploits.

Quantum-DDOS attack.

FTL take-downs worldwide.

...Simulator

Not sure that would actually be possible. Especially if you use the following setup:

To buy a game, you buy a USB. This USB has a direct quantum link to the game server. You plug it into your PC and play. This has the advantage that it's unpirateable, no one buys the actual game only a link to the game, and you cannot alter the game direactly with 3rd party software.

The USB limits the amount and type of questions your PC can ask of the server to only the one's it requires. Since the game would have an easy cap to handle and nothing like disconnects or missing packages you can perfectly moniter how many packages each PC needs at a time, especially if all game-related calculations and rendering are done on the server.

Actually, won't we be going back to the original first server system? One PC works as a server (in this case the server itself) and keeps everyone up to date. This prevents almost all possible cheats and exploits, and since you have instant-internet connection there will be no package loss or problems with people farther away from the server who mess up the calculations and input on the server.

The only cheats available would be input cheats. Where your PC has a program that gives the input to aim and fire. That would require it to do a constant analysis of the rendered screens send to your monitor and create mouse and keyboard inputs to have perfect scores. Maybe this could be prevented by sending commands directly to the monitor without ever having a connection to your PC itself. You could then force the game to stop functioning the moment a PC is connected to prevent it, and only mouse and keyboard are allowed to be connected to the monitor.

Cheat-free gaming. It could happen this way actually. The only way to cheat would be to reprogram the server, which would need physical access of you the player to do it...