<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD --> <!--X-From-R13: Oqnz Ivttvaf <avtugsnyyNvasvpnq.pbz> --> <!--X-Date: from babe.globecomm.net [207.51.48.8] by in11.ibm.net id 865400680.31220-1 Wed Jun 4 05:04:40 1997 CUT --> <!--X-Message-Id: 199706040504.WAA12708#user2,inficad.com --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: 339ab63b.24702993#relay,mnsinc.com --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, Re: [MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:nightfall#inficad,com"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg01140.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg01142.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg01087.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg01181.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#01141">Author</A> | <A HREF="#01141">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#01141">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>Re: [MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#null,net">mud-dev#null,net</A></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: Re: [MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: Adam Wiggins <<A HREF="mailto:nightfall#inficad,com">nightfall#inficad,com</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 22:04:51 -0700 (MST)</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:nightfall#inficad,com">nightfall#inficad,com</A></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> [Caliban:] > MUDs, on the other hand, lack a lot of flexibility. In order to make Hmmm, methinks we ought to get our terms straight. I use mud (capped or not) to group Tiny, LP, Diku, and everything else we think of as being online, text-based role-playing games into one giant lump. If I wish to reference a specific codebase (MUSH, MOO, Diku, MUX, LP, Abber, Ya..) I will do so. You seem to use MUD as anything that is not a Tiny? > much of any modification to a MUD, you have to drop into the hardcode > and muck around, usually breaking something. When you do go trying to Are you familiar with LPC? I'm fairly certain LP counts as a mud, regardless of your terms. > modify things online in a MUD, you deal with a complex set of cryptic > commands that generally bear close resemblance to the actual > implementation and must be used in proper combination and sequence. On What you seem to be thinking of as muds are worlds with fixed physical characteristics. These are not changable. If you drop something, it will break. Coding around this is a major hack. If you wish to add a material type 'ether' which has no substance, feel free. I grant you that some codebases that attempt this don't do it very well. Diku is now 8 years old, and showing it's age, I'd say. > I created a fountain in the middle of one of my areas. It > doesn't load up into the game when I start the server, though. Totally unrelated to any sort of source-level programming in any codebase I've ever seen. Only possible flaw is somewhere in the area definition file - likely they have the fountain in the wrong place, set to load up after a fixed amount of time, or just have an object other than the fountain set for loading. If people can't figure this out, they have no business whatsoever running a mud. Most area writers I know have little to know knowledge of programming and manage to write areas just fine; if you can't manage this, there's no way in hell you're going to be able to handle actual source level programming. > I did an oxlpt of the vnums to my qmrfs, and then a cdrflp of > the smrflgn. After I assigned the aflexm, I unset the qrblnt > flag and frmbldorped the horgn. What have I done wrong? I am not familiar with this, so I can't comment. Since it seems to be nonsense (if not, it was some *very* poor acronym choices.. smirk), I'm not sure what solid example it serves. A standard answer to this question would be: Type 'show object fountain' to see how many are currently in existance in the world. If there are none, then you have loaded the wrong object. Type 'load object fountain', 'at <room> drop fountain', and 'save area <area>'. Might want to find out what that extraneous object you managed to add was, too. Is there any codebase that does *not* work like this? (Substitute in @ symbols wherever you like to make the commands more familiar.) > (Side note: And you wonder why most MUDs use the same areas.) I'd say it it because creating even a mildly worthwhile area is a time- consuming and arduous task with only the somewhat nebulous reward of 'a job well done'. Actually learning how to create an area is trivial; my friend's 12 year old brother figured out the basic format for rooms and had several up and running the first day he tried. He knew nothing about muds, really, so of course they were terrible. But they worked. > This is an interface problem. As I've said before, RPers want to get to > the business of playing the game. In order for a MUD admin to get areas Hum...is there anyone that doesn't? This statement is the equivlent of, "Most RPers dislike intense and prolonged physical pain" or "Most RPers type with both hands." :) > built, he has to gain a pretty intimate familiarity with the internals > of the code, hack the server itself all to hell, and spend hours on end > playing with these unintuitive and mostly undocumented commands to get > his areas up and working. The reset syntax for areas is a total mess and > looks almost like line noise. Still trying to figure out what codebase you're refering to. I've worked with just about every one in existance (and a few that aren't, yet, in existance) and I've never encountered what you're referring to here, nor do I see what it as to do with "RPers". > I think there is a LOT of potential for MUDs as an RP environment. The Me too. For instance, most of the stuff in the MUSH side of the mud family does pretty well, though I think it could be done a lot better. That's part of what bugs me about muds - they only show how much more can really be done with the medium. > problem is mainly that huge bunch of stuff you have to learn; it's not > like gaming, it's like computer science. What this ends up meaning is Mudding is complex, agreed. I like this; it's not Doom or Duke Nukem. Learning how to step into the role of a character in a world which is somewhat similar but mostly very different from our own is a big enough step, but on top of that you most learn to view this world through the somewhat limited window of endless scrolling text. 'Tis no wonder that the community stays as small as it has despite the internet exploding. > that the type of person who makes a good RP-centric game designer is not > generally the type of person who makes a good MUD builder, and the > converse also holds. The learning curve is steep. The problem is not so Hmmm, don't know that this is true. I've found that a good builder is a good builder, and a good builder is a hell of a hard thing to find. In my mind it's identical to a good author - they may have their strengths and weaknesses (fiction/non-fiction, sci-fi/fantasy/modern day/western, tragedy/romance/heroic/horror) but generally a good writer is a good writer at whatever they choose to try their hand at. > much that the commands themselves are bad, but that there's too little > documentation and what there is tends to be incompletely indexed. Oh, yes. An offshoot of being a part-time project of college kids who generally only want to fool around with things that are fun for a while, and then move on. Something like keeping docs up to date isn't really all that much fun. </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <ul compact><li><strong>Follow-Ups</strong>: <ul> <li><strong><A NAME="01201" HREF="msg01201.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Matt Chatterley <root#mpc,dyn.ml.org></li></ul> <li><strong><A NAME="01181" HREF="msg01181.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> caliban#darklock,com (Caliban Tiresias Darklock)</li></ul> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="01087" HREF="msg01087.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> caliban#darklock,com (Caliban Tiresias Darklock)</LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01140.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Life</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01142.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Life</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01087.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01181.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#01141"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#01141"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><STRONG>Re: [MUD-Dev] Life</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="00990" HREF="msg00990.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Life</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:nightfall#inficad,com">nightfall#inficad,com</a>, Thu 01 Jan 1970, 17:40 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="01011" HREF="msg01011.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Life</A></strong>, Ling <a href="mailto:K.L.Lo-94#student,lut.ac.uk">K.L.Lo-94#student,lut.ac.uk</a>, Sun 01 Jun 1997, 18:26 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01064" HREF="msg01064.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Life</A></strong>, Marian Griffith <a href="mailto:gryphon#iaehv,nl">gryphon#iaehv,nl</a>, Tue 03 Jun 1997, 03:58 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01087" HREF="msg01087.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD</A></strong>, Caliban Tiresias Darklock <a href="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</a>, Tue 03 Jun 1997, 14:27 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01141" HREF="msg01141.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:nightfall#inficad,com">nightfall#inficad,com</a>, Wed 04 Jun 1997, 12:04 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01181" HREF="msg01181.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD</A></strong>, Caliban Tiresias Darklock <a href="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</a>, Thu 05 Jun 1997, 12:19 GMT <LI><strong><A NAME="01233" HREF="msg01233.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:nightfall#user1,inficad.com">nightfall#user1,inficad.com</a>, Wed 07 Jan 1970, 22:41 GMT <LI><strong><A NAME="01236" HREF="msg01236.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD</A></strong>, Caliban Tiresias Darklock <a href="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</a>, Sat 07 Jun 1997, 00:43 GMT </LI> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="01199" HREF="msg01199.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD</A></strong>, Ling <a href="mailto:K.L.Lo-94#student,lut.ac.uk">K.L.Lo-94#student,lut.ac.uk</a>, Thu 05 Jun 1997, 23:35 GMT </LI> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </ul> </ul> </ul> </ul> </ul> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>