it increases the data volume that needs to be exchanged when people meet. Right now it is very lean which actually is good. We should expect that compromises will be made.
I disagree. The reason why you have so much to download for just say one planet is that the only thing that is left out is data specifically associated with what is on the ground on that planet. Basically you have all the resources/textures and so forth (that could travel) already on your computer. So yes, while
more data needs to be exchanged when you can see other avatars, the data only consists of a handful of codes and values. Even scaled up to the pitifully small amount of avatars in a single area that the game can currently support (well) this still doesn't come anywhere near the bandwidth available to modern home connections or to servers for that matter.
Think about it, take a standard shirt and trousers. That's 2 item codes and 2 values to represent how worn the two items are, then for each item there are 2 fields for colour ID, plus % applied and 2 fields for texture ID plus % applied. So assuming 24bit IDs (16 million possible in game items) and 16 wear/application levels (greater detail needed for item view but not for watching an avatar run about) we are talking (for basic clothes) the need to exchange something in the region of 25 bytes per avatar.... I mean, you could drum that one out with bongos.
My workings:
(in bits)
Item ID 24
Item Wear 4 (assuming in reality clothes only ever
show 16 different levels of wear)
Paint1 ID 4 (assuming only 16 colours - is that right?)
Paint2 ID 4
Paint1 % 4 (assuming only 16 levels of application ever actually
shown)
Paint2 % 4
Texture1 ID 24
Texture2 ID 24
Texture1 % 4
Texture2 % 4
= 3+0.5+1+1+6+1 = 12.5 bytes
x2 = 25 bytes per avatar (for standard shirt and trousers)
And remember this only needs to be exchanged once on first contact (and if someone switches clothes) and could even be cached for a while. So in short, no, I don't seen any reason to compromise.
Wistrel