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<H1>[MUD-Dev] Re: mud client development systems</H1>
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<LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI>
<LI><em>Subject</em>: [MUD-Dev] Re: mud client development systems</LI>
<LI><em>From</em>: Chris Gray &lt;<A HREF="mailto:cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA">cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA</A>&gt;</LI>
<LI><em>Date</em>: Sun, 6 Dec 1998 21:57:29 -0700</LI>
<LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI>
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<PRE>
[Sunny Gulati:]

 &gt;1. I want to build a world where the players take part in the economy
 &gt;   and law of the world, where socializing is looked towards. [that's
 &gt;   a whole 'nuther topic, and doesn't require dream #2 to be
 &gt;   implemented first]

Been lots of discussion about that. No real conclusion, other than
"it would be good, but hard to do well".

 &gt;3. I want to publish a framework/API/convention that makes it easy for
 &gt;   OTHER people to build a client/server/mudlib combination, to make
 &gt;   ultima-online type of worlds.  Make it open source :), see where
 &gt;   the world takes it.

Sounds like DevMUD could fit that bill.

 &gt;** Everything still depends on "telnetting" into a mud just as we do
 &gt;nowadays.  I want to layer the client/server connections on top of
 &gt;telnet.

I'm quite curious as to why you want to put stuff on top of telnet. Since
you are requiring a custom client anyway, why not use a custom binary
protocol of some kind? That cuts down on your communication, and avoids
altogether the problems of accidental interpretation.

 &gt;I would like this system to be runnable over a 14.4 or 28.8 link.
 &gt;Actually, i have my mom's laptop - its a 486/25 running win95.  If I
 &gt;can get the client written in Perl/Tk, get it running on there,
 &gt;connected to the mud via PPP on a nullmodem cable running at 19200 and 
 &gt;it seems to work well, then I'll say i've designed a good system.

Should be doable. My AmigaMUD system uses a binary protocol to the custom
client, and it is actually playable over a 1200 bps link. At 9600 bps,
it responds very little different than a local connection.

 &gt;** SERVER-&gt;CLIENT: "hey I want a connection to your object xyz,
 &gt;   instance foom, and my socket id is 8192".  (different socket number
 &gt;   for every connection)

Beware of running out of sockets in the server process!

 &gt;0. Is there any previous work on this?  I've only been on this list
 &gt;   for about 2 months now.  I've tried going through the archives..
 &gt;   there's a LOT of stuff out there.  One of these days I'll just
 &gt;   download all the .tar.gz's and less and grep through them. (JCL,
 &gt;   I could not get the "search" function to work well.. it
 &gt;   never returned on me.  waited about 5-10 minutes.)

A bit of what you are asking about was done in a primitive fashion in
my old AmigaMUD. Hopefully more will be done in a newer version. But,
that comes after some DevMUD fiddling, and some byte-code testing, and
writing a whole new client.......

 &gt;7. Looking like this would involve a bunch of short packets.  I'm not sure 
 &gt;   what the effect is of various packet sizes regarding congestion and stuff.
 &gt;   Maybe some sort of buffering is in order; bundling several individual 
 &gt;   messages into one ~...&lt;CR&gt; and MCSL...&lt;CR&gt; pair?   How much of a difference
 &gt;   would this make?  Maybe the layers can be designed so that actual 
 &gt;   interpretation of a ~message&lt;CR&gt; allows for decoding of an array of messages
 &gt;   (though initial implementation, only one message is returned).

I can't think of any reason *not* to buffer things up. What I did was
to keep buffering until either my buffer was full or the output got
directed to a different client. A better approach would have buffers for
all clients. Then, you only force-flush them at the end of the top-level
event which caused all the activity. That would be something like a
command entered by a user, or a complete action step by an NPC.

--
Don't design inefficiency in - it'll happen in the implementation. - me

Chris Gray     cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA


</PRE>

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<li><strong><A NAME="00918" HREF="msg00918.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: mud client development systems</A></strong>
<ul compact><li><em>From:</em> &lt;greear#cyberhighway,net&gt;</li></ul>
<li><strong><A NAME="00917" HREF="msg00917.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: mud client development systems</A></strong>
<ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Sunny Gulati &lt;sunnywiz#radiks,net&gt;</li></ul>
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<ul><li>Thread context:
<BLOCKQUOTE><UL>
<LI><STRONG>[MUD-Dev] Re: Netscape's "Gecko" Browsing Engine (fwd)</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM>
<ul compact>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00932" HREF="msg00932.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Netscape's "Gecko" Browsing Engine (fwd)</A></strong>, 
Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:adam#angel,com">adam#angel,com</a>, Mon 07 Dec 1998, 23:18 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00937" HREF="msg00937.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Netscape's "Gecko" Browsing Engine (fwd)</A></strong>, 
greear <a href="mailto:greear#cyberhighway,net">greear#cyberhighway,net</a>, Tue 08 Dec 1998, 02:04 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</ul>
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00922" HREF="msg00922.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Stack-Based NPC AI</A></strong>, 
Felix A. Croes <a href="mailto:felix#dworkin,nl">felix#dworkin,nl</a>, Mon 07 Dec 1998, 19:00 GMT
<LI><strong><A NAME="00920" HREF="msg00920.html">[MUD-Dev] Thought Treasure</A></strong>, 
Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:adam#angel,com">adam#angel,com</a>, Mon 07 Dec 1998, 18:27 GMT
<LI><strong><A NAME="00916" HREF="msg00916.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: mud client development systems</A></strong>, 
Chris Gray <a href="mailto:cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA">cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA</a>, Mon 07 Dec 1998, 04:52 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00917" HREF="msg00917.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: mud client development systems</A></strong>, 
Sunny Gulati <a href="mailto:sunnywiz#radiks,net">sunnywiz#radiks,net</a>, Mon 07 Dec 1998, 05:50 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00918" HREF="msg00918.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: mud client development systems</A></strong>, 
greear <a href="mailto:greear#cyberhighway,net">greear#cyberhighway,net</a>, Mon 07 Dec 1998, 06:04 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
<UL>
<li>&lt;Possible follow-up(s)&gt;<br>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00919" HREF="msg00919.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: mud client development systems</A></strong>, 
Chris Gray <a href="mailto:cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA">cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA</a>, Mon 07 Dec 1998, 06:05 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00924" HREF="msg00924.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: mud client development systems</A></strong>, 
Jon Leonard <a href="mailto:jleonard#divcom,slimy.com">jleonard#divcom,slimy.com</a>, Mon 07 Dec 1998, 19:01 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</UL></BLOCKQUOTE>

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