Technical notes

Some unrelated thoughts that may be expanded on in the future.

Decentralised technology

Under the hood the network communication of this project is realised by WebRTC, which is peer-to-peer technology. This means there is no central server for the communication between peers.

However, in some very limited cases servers are also needed for WebRTC, viz. for establishing the connecting between peers. No actual data is exchanged over this connection. The requirement for a centralised is when a peer is not connecting to the internet directly, e.g. sits behind a firewall or NAT (which applies to most private home landlines). In those cases, so called STUN and TURN servers are used to compensate network limitations.

The peer-to-peer nature of the project removes a single point of failure and control, but also shifts work more onto the peers. In particular this means that there will be an upper limit to how many peers can join within one space. Numbers are hard to guess at this point (time will tell), but an upper bound might be 30-70 peers. When this limit comes problematic, smarter algorithms for more efficient peer-to-peer communication might be explored.

Video as opt-in

Another goal is to provide a platform for creating spatially-oriented meeting spaces that invite casual meetings in a low-pressure environment. Imagine using Waytale space not only to meet with your friends for a scheduled meeting, but also like in a café with unknown people around, where you might remain for yourself, bump into a familiar face, or strike up a conversation with a stranger. While being aware of the presence of other people online at the same time is a very important feature, initiating a conversation and the mode of communication should remain a matter of consensual choice.

Put differently, having a video chat pop up when somebody bumps into you can be exciting and useful. But sometimes this is not what people want from online meeting spaces and in some situations the prospect of being always ready to talk can even be discouraging. It is believed that there can be more nuance to a way of “meeting online” which is supported by spatially distributed affordances. This project aims to explore this niche. (Of course video chat is still possible in a way.)

Comparison with other projects

There are projects and services that implement this idea in similar ways. Most notably, the commercial Gather Town and open-source Work Adventure. However, in Waytale the focus is slightly different:

• This web application is intended to be kept small, simple and lightweight, to work better on mobile devices. A greater focus is placed on interactive functionality provided by the environment.
• Network traffic is (almost) completely peer-to-peer, which means there is no central server that either needs to be paid or hosted. This is good for data privacy.
• Video calling is (at the moment) opt-in and spatially limited, because video calling is sometimes an anti-feature. Also, for Waytale is not the primary function but rather one of many forms of interactivity.