I took a look at a few of these engines.
http://box2d.org/
http://chipmunk-physics.net/
http://home.iae.nl/users/starcat/dynamo/
http://www.opentissue.org/mediawiki/inde...
http://www.chronoengine.info/chronoengin...
http://www.tokamakphysics.com/

To me, none of them seems really suitable for the sort of physics engine you'd need in a mud.

Maybe, maybe it is a copyright problem. I am sitll not conviced it worth anything for a game.



Simulation is the key word here. IF there is any hope of a database with real values in it, it will come from a simulation. But I still doubt that accurately simulating a forge is all that fun to begin with. (Using real values also means knowing the result, where is the fun in that).

This is going to reinforce Rarva's point. But having done modeling and simulation professionally I can tell you the only difference between a game and a simulation is:
- A games goal is to capture the players attention and hold it for as long as possible.
- A simulations goal is model reality as closely as possible given the constraints of the system and provide useful results.

When I was attending IITSEC there was a game/simulation produced by the army. In the simulation version, guns only produce the sounds they are suppose to make (apparently many of them are quiet). Peoples movements are slowed down. In the game version all guns have a nice pop sound like you would expect, run speeds are increased. There are other differences but those were the only two I remember off the top of my head. The point is the real version is too real to be fun; but it is useful.

When your thinking of adding a simulation to your game, you should ask yourself
- "Of the simulators I can pick from that I don't have in the game is this the one that will attract the most players?"
- "Can I cheat and my audience not care?"

I assume the granularity is much too high as they try to represent the physical world graphically?

I do think a physics engine is the next step in the evolution of MUDs, but I don't see it happening.

If you look in the IF community you'll find libraries for handling liquids, fire, and so on; no doubt it'd be a lot of work to port them to whatever you're using but it might give you a headstart.