1. The MegaHub Server
Gunter made that hub.quakeone.com when I shared some ideas with him and he implemented some cool stuff like the portals doing a "test" on the server to notify you of how many players are present on the server.
The megahub concept is the idea of a huge (64 capacity?) map where you can look around and walk to what you want to play with other players hanging out at, say, the a ThreeWave building/hangout on the map.
The biggest barriers to this are:
1) Someone would need to make the map -- would require a lot of planning some concept of how to make it flexible.
2) Only DarkPlaces can do 64 players
3) The QuakeC
Proof of concept servers:
1) hub.quakeone.com
2) Rook's old quake.intertex.com gateway experiement server where you connected and pressed 1, 2 or 3 to connect to another server.
Uses the port forwarding concept that was frequently used in the past by servers such as Widomaker.
2. Single player mod/map auto-installer auto-launcher
Not a theory. It exists --- well, on my computer it does
It can install from the original .zip and play Quake single player mods, but does require the building a definition file. The definition file is a simple text file -- not too unlike XML -- that contains information on how an archive can be auto-installed and played optimally, CRCs and -- via Base64 encoding -- contains a screenshot of the mod in the text file.
3. Build your own museum/art gallery
The Quake engine is GPL and the Quake map format is very friendly. I've made a prototype by then ended up working on other projects.
I didn't have the knowledge to pull off one of the things I wanted to do at the time --- generate perfect "text labelled caption textures". I have that now
The biggest obstacle is making a nice looking museum or art gallery map and working on the generator.
The concept is that using a GUI you made the exhibits you want in the museum, type in the data and click a couple of buttons and try it. Furthermore, you click a couple of buttons and make a self-contained installer for it for redistribution. Totally portable -- well, on Windows operating systems.
Gunter made that hub.quakeone.com when I shared some ideas with him and he implemented some cool stuff like the portals doing a "test" on the server to notify you of how many players are present on the server.
The megahub concept is the idea of a huge (64 capacity?) map where you can look around and walk to what you want to play with other players hanging out at, say, the a ThreeWave building/hangout on the map.
The biggest barriers to this are:
1) Someone would need to make the map -- would require a lot of planning some concept of how to make it flexible.
2) Only DarkPlaces can do 64 players
3) The QuakeC
Proof of concept servers:
1) hub.quakeone.com
2) Rook's old quake.intertex.com gateway experiement server where you connected and pressed 1, 2 or 3 to connect to another server.
Uses the port forwarding concept that was frequently used in the past by servers such as Widomaker.
2. Single player mod/map auto-installer auto-launcher
Not a theory. It exists --- well, on my computer it does

It can install from the original .zip and play Quake single player mods, but does require the building a definition file. The definition file is a simple text file -- not too unlike XML -- that contains information on how an archive can be auto-installed and played optimally, CRCs and -- via Base64 encoding -- contains a screenshot of the mod in the text file.
3. Build your own museum/art gallery

The Quake engine is GPL and the Quake map format is very friendly. I've made a prototype by then ended up working on other projects.
I didn't have the knowledge to pull off one of the things I wanted to do at the time --- generate perfect "text labelled caption textures". I have that now

The biggest obstacle is making a nice looking museum or art gallery map and working on the generator.
The concept is that using a GUI you made the exhibits you want in the museum, type in the data and click a couple of buttons and try it. Furthermore, you click a couple of buttons and make a self-contained installer for it for redistribution. Totally portable -- well, on Windows operating systems.