30 Jan, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 41st comment:
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Besides, McLuhan was talking about somewhat different things to begin with. There is a lot to be said about the medium affecting society, for instance by erasing distance due to effectively instant global communication, enabling electronic transactions the world over, etc. Basically, he is making a sociological, anthropological and/or philosophical point. I'm not entirely sure how that applies to deciding if a game should be connected to with a MUD client or a browser, though. :wink: (Admittedly, I haven't thought much about this, but still…)
30 Jan, 2009, calylia wrote in the 42nd comment:
Votes: 0
DavidHaley said:
I'm not entirely sure how that applies to deciding if a game should be connected to with a MUD client or a browser, though. :wink: (Admittedly, I haven't thought much about this, but still…)


I think it was in response to your earlier quote, where you said,

DavidHaley said:
If you're trying to make a fun game, the interface for connecting to it is nothing more than a medium. The medium matters only to the extent that it enables (or makes more feasible) certain kinds of interaction that matter to how fun your game is.


I understand the context in that, no, we shouldn't underestimate the power of the medium nor its effect, but i'm not sure if i'm applying the theory correctly, that's all
30 Jan, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 43rd comment:
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What I meant is that I think that McLuhan's argument was being made in an entirely different context than the one we have about making games. But even so, let's grant that the medium has some great societal message power for MUDs. What are we going to do about it? The same thing that we've already said: pick whatever is most appropriate to make your game fun. :smile:
31 Jan, 2009, Igabod wrote in the 44th comment:
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calylia said:
Igabod said:
You can't really knock mudmaker too much though cause they are providing a service that allows non-coders to bring their ideas to life. Sure they charge an arm and a leg but it's still a really nifty idea. And if calylia decides to do something like this then I'd suggest reading the forums at mudmaker and avoiding the problems listed there. It would be nice to have several different places like this around the web.


Thanks for the link, Igabod! Yes, i was thinking of doing something like this :) I took a look at the site, and I feel like MudMaker's approach is more about making money rather than actually getting things done.

But since the topic came along, i'd like to ask: If you have a mud hosted right now, how much do you pay per month? I've seen tiny ones from $4/month, and i've seen huge ones …. but most of them average to around $8-10/month? mudmaker is $7.95/month, except the quality of service is -.- … is that considered too pricey?


I myself have my game hosted at www.evileyehosting.net and have had no problems at all. In fact they have helped me with a couple coding problems occasionally. In the first week of them being open I was able to go into other people's files, but that has been fixed and I've not noticed any problems with it since then. My mud isn't open to players at all right now and I'm the only person working on it, so I don't know how evileyehosting handles crowded muds, but for a mud in development it serves me nicely. I've also heard a lot of good things about zeno's server but can't say anything from personal experience except that he seems to be professional and knowledgeable. I don't know if zeno provides coding support or anything like evileyehosting does, but I'm sure you can use the forums there or here for that help.

Sorry for the sloppiness of this post but I'm getting over a nasty cold and am too fog-brained right now to care to try and reread what I've typed.
02 Feb, 2009, Rojan QDel wrote in the 45th comment:
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If you are still looking for hosting, we offer free and paid hosting at http://www.yourmud.net/
02 Feb, 2009, calylia wrote in the 46th comment:
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Rojan QDel said:
If you are still looking for hosting, we offer free and paid hosting at http://www.yourmud.net/


Forgive me if i'm a bit of a noob at this … What's the difference between 3 MUD Ports and 100 MUD Ports? (I know the obvious answer is 97 MUD Ports, but I'm wondering in terms of practical use, what's the difference?)
02 Feb, 2009, Kline wrote in the 47th comment:
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The 100 port package looks like, and is labeled, reseller. So the practical difference of 97 more ports would be that you intend to manage and further sell the service to another tier of your own customers, not necessarily run a game on it yourself (though you certainly could). Pyramid marketing at its finest :D
02 Feb, 2009, calylia wrote in the 48th comment:
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Kline said:
The 100 port package looks like, and is labeled, reseller. So the practical difference of 97 more ports would be that you intend to manage and further sell the service to another tier of your own customers, not necessarily run a game on it yourself (though you certainly could). Pyramid marketing at its finest :D


ahhh okay :) cuz i think earlier, we were talking about how some places limits the number of simultaneous connections you're allowed to have at a time, and i thought it might've been one of those, but just wanted to make sure :) 3 ports, i can imagine one for builder, one for imm, one for player or something. but 100 ports was a bit beyond me :)
03 Feb, 2009, Rojan QDel wrote in the 49th comment:
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The number of ports, at least on our server, merely means that we will open that many ports for you in the firewall to run your MUD on. In theory, you could run 100 'ports', but no one on the outside would be able to access it.
03 Feb, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 50th comment:
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Did you mean:
(1) you open that many ports in the firewall, for one MUD server;
(2) you open that many ports in the firewall, for up to that many MUD servers;
(3) you can run more than 100 MUD servers, but only 100 would be visible;
(4) some combination of the above;
(5) something else
?
03 Feb, 2009, calylia wrote in the 51st comment:
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yeah, not to dwell on my noobiness, but … i was a bit more confused by the explanation.
03 Feb, 2009, Rojan QDel wrote in the 52nd comment:
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If you get 3 ports, for example, you choose 3 port numbers, lets say 2000, 3000, and 4000. We then open ports 2000, 3000, and 4000 in the firewall so that people can connect to your game. This is per user (regardless of how many shell accounts they have).

The best summary: "(2) you open that many ports in the firewall, for up to that many MUD servers; "
29 Jul, 2009, calylia wrote in the 53rd comment:
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Just like me to resurrect threads more than 6 months old :\

I'm looking at VPS hosting now … Do you guys think that VPS is suitable for mud hosting?
29 Jul, 2009, Davion wrote in the 54th comment:
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That's a big question :). Do I think a VPS is better suitable for a single MUD to be hosted. No. Get a $5/m account somewhere and setup shop :). If you want to run multiple muds and servers, then yes, a VPS is very suited for your needs. Of course, if you want to learn how to admin a server, go ahead and just get one :). Knowledge is priceless.
29 Jul, 2009, quixadhal wrote in the 55th comment:
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It could be convenient as well. If your host is really nice, they might allow you to upload an image file of your VM and initialize it from that, rather than having to install the OS remotely. That would let you (assuming you have the same VM software they use) setup, test, and configure everything on your home machine and then send it off into production.

Even if that isn't allowed, they might well be able to send you full backups of your VM on request, which would let you easily run a testbed with real data, as well as giving you an offsite backup.

It is probably overkill for most, but if you think you're going to also want web hosting, shells for trusted developers, and all that jazz, it might just be worth it.
29 Jul, 2009, calylia wrote in the 56th comment:
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Thanks for the prompt reply!

I think I'm probably going to need web hosting and databases for what I'm thinking of doing, which is why I'm leaning towards a VPS. Probably wouldn't hurt getting into the practice of learning how to admin a server too.

Although, this means that development time is going to take even longer with more admin stuff to do :/ but I wouldn't mind being able to hook it up to somethng fun, like a blazeDB.

Still at the planning stage. I'm ashamed at my progress :/

Thank you all for your replies!
25 Sep, 2009, Valcados wrote in the 57th comment:
Votes: 0
An (albeit rather advanced) possibility noone seems to have addressed might be: having one host for the actual MUD, and another for a database. The majority of harddrive space goes to playerfiles, and there's little reason these must be stored by the same host as the MUD itself.

Incidentally, I just converted the now-defunct Lands of Aethar into an HTML snapshot: HTML MUD snapshot experiment. Whether or not it's a good medium for a live game, I think it's a cool final resting place for a very old MUD :)
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