26 Nov, 2011, plamzi wrote in the 1st comment:
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Introducing Bedlam's new web-based area builder:







26 Nov, 2011, kiasyn wrote in the 2nd comment:
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awesome.
26 Nov, 2011, Runter wrote in the 3rd comment:
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I love it. Good work on this.
26 Nov, 2011, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 4th comment:
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Impressive, a very professional look as well.
26 Nov, 2011, Chris Bailey wrote in the 5th comment:
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That looks really nice. Almost makes you want to build, eh?
26 Nov, 2011, Idealiad wrote in the 6th comment:
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Have you thought at all about packaging this in such a way that users might come to it independently of your mud?
26 Nov, 2011, JohnnyStarr wrote in the 7th comment:
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Idealiad said:
Have you thought at all about packaging this in such a way that users might come to it independently of your mud?


2nd
27 Nov, 2011, plamzi wrote in the 8th comment:
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JohnnyStarr said:
Idealiad said:
Have you thought at all about packaging this in such a way that users might come to it independently of your mud?


2nd


This project began as a POC pitch for a generic web-based OLC. But since it didn't get much interest I decided to abandon configurability and make my life a whole lot easier.

You're still welcome to grab the code from the page (most of the good stuff is in the JS) and the icon packs were recently posted to the repo.
27 Nov, 2011, Idealiad wrote in the 9th comment:
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Sorry, I realized after I posted how that question had more than one meaning – what I meant was, have you considered making the building a standalone activity from the mud? Like a website for creating stories, only people would build areas. The people however wouldn't necessarily have anything to do with your game.

I realize there are several critical problems with this, but if those could be solved I think this could be an interesting way to create content.
27 Nov, 2011, KaVir wrote in the 10th comment:
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plamzi said:
This project began as a POC pitch for a generic web-based OLC. But since it didn't get much interest I decided to abandon configurability and make my life a whole lot easier.

Er no, you explicitly pitched it as an offline (from the mud) building tool. The general response was that it would be better as a web-based OLC tool, but you said you weren't interested, that people didn't want that, and that you felt it would be wasted effort.
27 Nov, 2011, plamzi wrote in the 11th comment:
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KaVir said:
plamzi said:
This project began as a POC pitch for a generic web-based OLC. But since it didn't get much interest I decided to abandon configurability and make my life a whole lot easier.

Er no, you explicitly pitched it as an offline (from the mud) building tool. The general response was that it would be better as a web-based OLC tool, but you said you weren't interested, that people didn't want that, and that you felt it would be wasted effort.


Keeping it both generic and online seemed, and still seems, impractical. If you think it's feasible to make both a configurable UI and a configurable interface to multiple live servers, then you're welcome to take the POC code and run with it.
27 Nov, 2011, KaVir wrote in the 12th comment:
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plamzi said:
Keeping it both generic and online seemed, and still seems, impractical.

That's not the point I'm getting at. In post #8 you said you pitched a web-based OLC on MudBytes and it didn't get much interest. In fact you pitched an offline building tool, and several people expressed an interest in seeing a web-based OLC instead, but you were the one who wasn't interested.

As I said in the thread you referenced, "I think it'd be interesting to combine it with a browser-based client, giving the users a sort of "builder mode" that has the advantages of both OLC and a browser-based building tool". If that's what you've now done, then great, I still think OLC is a good idea.

As far as making the tool generic is concerned, whether it's an OLC or an offline tool, many muds will require some degree of customisation. If it's handled online through some sort of client then you could do it automatically when the client connects (you can already do this with Mudlet for example). But if it's an offline tool, it would need to be customised manually - or else the data files it produced would need to be manually tweaked before being added (this is what often happened with MZF).
27 Nov, 2011, plamzi wrote in the 13th comment:
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KaVir said:
plamzi said:
Keeping it both generic and online seemed, and still seems, impractical.

That's not the point I'm getting at. In post #8 you said you pitched a web-based OLC on MudBytes and it didn't get much interest. In fact you pitched an offline building tool, and several people expressed an interest in seeing a web-based OLC instead, but you were the one who wasn't interested.

As I said in the thread you referenced, "I think it'd be interesting to combine it with a browser-based client, giving the users a sort of "builder mode" that has the advantages of both OLC and a browser-based building tool"…


I think the point you're getting at is that I should be doing what you think is interesting rather than what I think is practical.

FYI, the Bedlam AreaBuilder is currently not a true OLC tool - it connects to the database and the server (be it production or development instance) requires a reboot or soft boot for any changes to take effect. I only called it OLC in the thread title because it's a handy shortcut for prospective builders to understand what the tool is a substitute for, from a builder perspective.

FWIW, I actually agree with you that a true OLC web-based interface for world manipulation would be very neat and interesting. But I'm not interested enough in it to pour hundreds of additional hours when a combination of the AreaBuilder UI and telnet OLC gets the job done so well. In the case of Bedlam, there's also the web app, which I recently made fully compatible with in-game OLC. Builders who want to see the world take shape around them can use that to create, and that I believe realizes your "builder mode" idea.
27 Nov, 2011, KaVir wrote in the 14th comment:
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plamzi said:
I think the point you're getting at is that I should be doing what you think is interesting rather than what I think is practical.

No, the point I'm making is that your first thread went like this (general gist, not quotes):

Plamzi: I hate online editors. Do any muds want to use my offline editor?
Others: They'd probably be more interested in an online editor.
Plamzi: Not interested, online editors are weird and it would be wasted effort.

Then six months later you started this thread, which went along the lines of:

Plamzi: Here's my new online editor!
Others: Looks good, how about letting other muds use it?
Plamzi: I asked them in another thread and they weren't interested.

If you're not interested in a generic OLC then of course you don't need to create one, but it's not fair to claim that the only reason you didn't create it is that other people weren't interested. Several people said they felt an OLC would work well, it was only the idea of an offline editor that didn't attract much interest.

plamzi said:
FYI, the Bedlam AreaBuilder is currently not a true OLC tool - it connects to the database and the server (be it production or development instance) requires a reboot or soft boot for any changes to take effect. I only called it OLC in the thread title because it's a handy shortcut for prospective builders to understand what the tool is a substitute for, from a builder perspective.

Erm okay, well that is not an OLC then. I like the layout and the icons, not overly keen on the background pattern but overall I like the look and style. However it's not OLC, and I think it's confusing to refer to it as one, particularly on a forum dominated by developers.
27 Nov, 2011, Scandum wrote in the 15th comment:
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plamzi said:
FWIW, I actually agree with you that a true OLC web-based interface for world manipulation would be very neat and interesting. But I'm not interested enough in it to pour hundreds of additional hours when a combination of the AreaBuilder UI and telnet OLC gets the job done so well.

How easy would it be to modify your AreaBuilder to use MSDP? And would it be capable of functioning as an automapper?
27 Nov, 2011, Runter wrote in the 16th comment:
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Scandum said:
plamzi said:
FWIW, I actually agree with you that a true OLC web-based interface for world manipulation would be very neat and interesting. But I'm not interested enough in it to pour hundreds of additional hours when a combination of the AreaBuilder UI and telnet OLC gets the job done so well.

How easy would it be to modify your AreaBuilder to use MSDP? And would it be capable of functioning as an automapper?


Web browsers don't have access to raw TCP sockets. So imagine it wouldn't be possible without msdp implementing a web server to post to, or the client posting the messages to a proxy web server that does have access to TCP and uses MSDP. Which would probably work for a limited user counts, but I dunno if that's ideal, and on a scale of easy to do to complex, somewhat involved.
27 Nov, 2011, plamzi wrote in the 17th comment:
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KaVir said:
Erm okay, well that is not an OLC then. I like the layout and the icons, not overly keen on the background pattern but overall I like the look and style. However it's not OLC, and I think it's confusing to refer to it as one, particularly on a forum dominated by developers.


I put in a hot boot command after changes are pushed to the builder instance–it was easier than getting mudbytes to rename this thread. This is now true WebOLC and you can stop feeling confused and start feeling interested, if you want.

Runter said:
Scandum said:
plamzi said:
FWIW, I actually agree with you that a true OLC web-based interface for world manipulation would be very neat and interesting. But I'm not interested enough in it to pour hundreds of additional hours when a combination of the AreaBuilder UI and telnet OLC gets the job done so well.

How easy would it be to modify your AreaBuilder to use MSDP? And would it be capable of functioning as an automapper?


Web browsers don't have access to raw TCP sockets. So imagine it wouldn't be possible without msdp implementing a web server to post to, or the client posting the messages to a proxy web server that does have access to TCP and uses MSDP. Which would probably work for a limited user counts, but I dunno if that's ideal, and on a scale of easy to do to complex, somewhat involved.


You could plug in a Flash telnet layer like the one I shared a few months back, and then modify the UI to do all transfers using MSDP. If you already have server logic that can serve and modify entities in-memory then you're in a good position and most of the work would be in adapting the UI to fit your particular world structure. That would still be involved, but feasible.
27 Nov, 2011, KaVir wrote in the 18th comment:
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plamzi said:
I put in a hot boot command after changes are pushed to the builder instance–it was easier than getting mudbytes to rename this thread.

Sorry, but if you need to reboot the mud for the new content to appear, then that definitely isn't OLC.

"Online Creation, also referred to as OLC, Online Coding, Online Building, and online editing, is a software feature of MUDs that allows users to edit a virtual world from within the game itself. In the absence of online creation, content is created in a text editor or level editor, and the program generally requires a restart in order to implement the changes."
27 Nov, 2011, Runter wrote in the 19th comment:
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Quote
You could plug in a Flash telnet layer like the one I shared a few months back, and then modify the UI to do all transfers using MSDP. If you already have server logic that can serve and modify entities in-memory then you're in a good position and most of the work would be in adapting the UI to fit your particular world structure. That would still be involved, but feasible.


Yeap, sounds like what I said. Involved, although feasible.
27 Nov, 2011, plamzi wrote in the 20th comment:
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KaVir said:
plamzi said:
I put in a hot boot command after changes are pushed to the builder instance–it was easier than getting mudbytes to rename this thread.

Sorry, but if you need to reboot the mud for the new content to appear, then that definitely isn't OLC.

"Online Creation, also referred to as OLC, Online Coding, Online Building, and online editing, is a software feature of MUDs that allows users to edit a virtual world from within the game itself. In the absence of online creation, content is created in a text editor or level editor, and the program generally requires a restart in order to implement the changes."


I stand corrected–this is still an offline editor. Feel free to stop reading this thread and petition for its renaming.
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