.DT Dwclone Discworld Creator Help Dwclone .SH Name .SI 5 Dwclone - A clone of discworld for creator use only. .EI .SH Description .SP 5 5 Coding creators have to deal with two problems beyond bugs in their code and learning new methods: distractions from their coding and worrying about what damage their code might do to players. .EP .SP 5 5 This is where dwclone comes in: it is an almost perfect clone of discworld, with some very important differences: .EP .SP 5 5 1. There are no players. This means that you can test code there that might crash the mud without fear of burdening the liaisons with the cleanup for your snafus. However, that also means that if you want to test something on a player, you have to create you own test players. .EP .SP 5 5 2. Certain debugging features have been enabled in the mud driver, to make it easier to catch some types of problems. These features will make their presence known through slightly different error and warning messages when your code runs. In fact, it could very well be that some of your code that will run without complainct on the real mud will produce warnings on the clone: don't ignore those warnings, they more than likely indicate bugs that will be very hard to track down on the live discworld. .EP .SP 5 5 3. Many fixed limits have been lowered, sometimes significantly, in order to make careless code break faster. One prime example is the size of an array (or mapping): on both the live mud and on dwclone, there is a maximum number of elements that an array (or mapping) may contain. If you exceed that size, the whole mud will crash. These sizes are available to your code, and you should check them at run time. This was the cause of the infamous "grep in /logs" bug. This size has been lowered on the dwclone, so if your code doesn't check for that occurrance, and properly handle it, it will crash. .EP .SP 5 5 4. The boards and mailer don't work. Actually, they work just fine, but some index files are wrong, so you'll see things like a message saying there are 30 new messages on the board, but find them all blank. You can still test things that use the boards or mailer, but just be aware of this screwiness. .EP .SH Where is dwclone? .SP 5 5 Dwclone has been known to change it's IP address on a highly irregular basis. At any time, you can find its current IP address by logging into discworld and using 'mudlist dwclone'. This command will list out all the current information about dwclone. Dwclone rarely changes IP address unnanounced, however. If you can't get on to dwclone, your first step is to log on to discworld, and issue the above mudlist command. .EP .SH How to get more help .SP 5 5 Updates on dwclone were previously posted to the development board. Now they are posted to the dwclone club board. This is where all known outages, IP address changes, and other updates will be posted. If you have a dwclone account, it's in your best interests to read dwclone board on a regular basis. .EP .SP 5 5 If you need more help, ask one of the dwclone managers online. The managers are listed when you 'finger dwclone'. These managers are all empowered with complete access to dwclone, and can do anything needed to get dwclone fixed up, or pass out information as they see fit. Of course, these managers are creators in their own rights, and have duties outside of being a dwclone manager. If they're busy when you approach them, then they're busy. Try again significantly later, or ask one of the other managers. .EP .SH How to get an account .SP 5 5 Before you can use dwclone, you have to get an account on it. The process is similar to getting your first account on discworld, with some special differences. .EP .SP 5 5 Since you're reading this, you're a creator here on discworld. Your character on dwclone _must_ have the same name as your creator here. .EP .SP 5 5 Log on some time and catch one of the dwclone managers online. Tell him that you want a dwclone account. If he's not busy he'll get your current IP address, and open up dwclone so you can create a new character with that same name. You'll start off just like when you were a newbie charcter, in the newbie area. You'll need to complete the womble's brooch quest before we can proceed. Then the manager (who will be logged into the clone during this time) will employ you. You must then log out and log back in. Poof! Now you're a dwclone creator. If you want any test characters, you'll have to create them right then and age them so they don't autodelete. Within 24 hours of getting your dwclone account, you will no longer be able to create new characters, without asking one of the dwclone managers for help. .EP .SP 5 5 You'll notice that creating a new character depends on the manager knowing your IP address. Some of you connect to the Internet using ISPs who only assign dynamic IP addresses, so you have a different IP address every time you log in. This isn't a problem as long as you remember to keep your connection going from the time that you ask a dwclone manager for an account and the time that you create your characters. Once you have created your characters, you can log in from any IP address. .EP .SH Synchronization and File Transfer .SP 5 5 The clone is automatically synchronized every Sunday night (PST). When the synchronization occurs, every file on discworld that is newer than the same file on the clone will be replaced. The exception is that none of the files in /w or /logs are synchronized, and only some of the files in /save are synchronized. There are also some files which, while being subject are synchronization, are necessarily different on the clone as compared to the real discworld. These files get automatically patched with every synchronization. .EP .SP 5 5 If you want to synchronize files in your home directory, you'll have to do it by hand. FTP works to the clone just as it works to discworld, and you can FTP all your files to or from the clone as you would expect. Of course, you need an account on the clone to FTP to it. See above. .EP .SH Rules .SP 5 5 Access to dwclone is only given to _current_ discworld creators: if you lose your discworld account, you lose your dwclone account. .EP .SP 5 5 All rules that apply to creators on discworld also apply to them on dwclone. The one exception, of course, is that you can be much more free about code that might crash the mud. .EP .SP 5 5 The access you have on dwclone is the same as the access you have on discworld. If you want to have more access on dwclone, get your domain lord to ask a dwclone manager for permission. In any case, the extra access will only last until the next Sunday night synchronization. If you need your access beyond that time, ask again. .EP .SH See also .SP 5 5 finger, mudlist, ftp, create, security, get_config() .EP
