I have a lot of ideas floating around in my head for a new MUD that I want to build.
I have limited knowledge of C/C++ and want to learn more, in addition to creating something new.

I'm looking for a minimalist codebase that is functional.
I want a combat system that I don't have to write myself, in-game area editing, colour.
I have a lot of ideas for things that I want to do, so I need a highly flexible codebase to work with.
I was looking at Gammons version of Tiny, but I'm not sure how to get things done in that base.

If someone could point me to a minimal codebase (handles strings and communication, maybe even combat) it would be much appreciated.
Also, I need to find somewhere to host the game on once it's playable.

I've looked at many codebases and too many of them are very large, and have a lot of features that I don't need yet.

Would Gammons tiny be a good option, and if so, what would I need to do to impliment a semi-ROM-like combat system?
How would I add colour, communications commands, skills, spells, race, class, etc?

Any help is greatly appreciated, and I do want to be able to do the bulk of the work by myself or maybe with a couple of friends.

A sidenote: for the world creation i would like a building system simmilar to Coffee, I found the commands easy to follow.

Ok but:





Which is it? A minimal codebase or a codebase with a combat system, in game area editing, color, and a building system similar to Coffee?

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

why does it have to be one or the other crat? I'm guessing that by minimalist he means he doesn't wan't classes/skills/races/levels or anything other than the ability to walk around and enter combat.

@oten I'm assuming you've looked at CoffeeMud and didn't like it for some reason. My suggestion would be to take a longer look at CoffeeMud, because you can change settings in a file to make it so that you have a barebones codebase to work with. It would be a great starting point for you, no matter what genre of mud you are looking to get into. It already has a very basic combat system which can be tweaked within the setup file.

If that doesn't suit you then maybe check out socket mud. I don't recall what all was on it, but it was designed to be a barebones starting point. Nakedmud too. There are quite a lot of barebones systems out there, but most of them won't have a combat system already in them like CoffeeMud does. CoffeeMud is the best fit for what you describe you want.

'why does it have to be one or the other crat? I'm guessing that by minimalist he means he doesn't wan't classes/skills/races/levels or anything other than the ability to walk around and enter combat.'
In any codebase worth it shit (even ROM yep) removing class/skill/races and such is as easy as pressing a delete key.

'I'm assuming you've looked at CoffeeMud and didn't like it for some reason. My suggestion would be to take a longer look at CoffeeMud, because you can change settings in a file to make it so that you have a barebones codebase to work with. It would be a great starting point for you, no matter what genre of mud you are looking to get into. It already has a very basic combat system which can be tweaked within the setup file.'
'I have limited knowledge of C/C++ and want to learn more, in addition to creating something new. '
I think he does want to learn C/C++ in the process and last I remember CoffeeMud is Java.

PS:I hate the quoting system…

try using without the spaces instead of quotation marks.

If a mud has combat and in game area editing and color and a Coffee-like build system, it already has
frameworks, assumptions, and paradigms that in my opinion disqualify it from being miminalist, but I
suppose I might simply be missing the knowledge you have of socket mud, the codebase you suggested.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

I would expect that a combat system relies on skill/levels/stats/spell effects/classes being already implemented.

I want to have something simmilar to ROM with a lot of modifications, just because I'm familliar with it, so I guess my best option is to look at some ROM code, see how it works, and then see how I can change it.

i didn't like Coffee because I'm not a huge fan of jawa, and the flags and stuff are all completely different from what I'm used to, and can't find documentation on how to make a room permenantly lit, so when night time comes the entire world goes dark. In fact, the only thing that I found Easy about Coffee was that that commands for building were straight forward.

Gammons TinyServer Has a lot of things taken care of (time, connect, string handling, etc). and from what I've read on the forum posts for that server has been helpful to me in finding out how things work.
I just thing that there are a lot of things that I want to impliment that I would have to do a lot more work to make them work in any other stock code.

The thing that drew me to the minimalist/barebones servers is that I can be fully aware of how everything works, but the disadvantage is that I guess that I have to write a lot of the systems myself, theres no support for the areas to be written in a format that is familliar, etc.

I'll look through some ROM code today, see how things operate, and then maybe i can get a grasp on how to implement some things.
Being new to coding (i know roughly how to declare and use if/then/else statements), this should help greatly.

However, I'm still not completely opposed to the idea of using Jawa.
I'm still in a pretty early development stage, such as figuring out what exactly out of my notebooks full of ideas that I want to use, and what I don't
But i do have a pretty firm grasp on how I want things to look and feel.

in any case, I'll be looking through a lot of code and seeing what I can come up with.

If your expertise is that lacking, then there is no functional difference between the
work you need to do on a barebones codebase or a fullfeatured codebase.
Infinity plus infinity is still infinity.

Indeed, I'd say that if you want to learn to build a boat, and know nothing and
have no books or guides to help you, you're in a tougher position if what you
have is tools and planks, as opposed to tools and a finished boat to dismantle
and understand and then re-fashion per your preferences.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

Take a look at Nakedmud. It doesn't have a combat system, but then you're not going to find any codebase with a combat system that doesn't already implement skills, levels, classes etc etc for the reason Tyche mentioned.

Nakedmud does include OLC and scripting and a lot of infrastructure for dealing with commands, events, areas, rooms, characters, objects, persistence etc. but with no game logic such as combat, magic, stats, classes or levels.

You can also code all your game logic in Python rather than C which could save you a lot of time and headaches, particularly if you are relatively new to programming.

Nakedmud does take some time to get to grips with, but once you are familiar with the "nakedmud way" of doing things then it's very easy to extend and implement your own game logic.

A fight engine heavily modified yes, but usually stock code is very limited so it is easy to spot everything that is related to specific stuff like classes skills etc.

btw….if you want area effects , avoid ROM, it does not work.

I mean, It's not that I don't have the resources to learn, the internet being what it is (a vast database of knowledge), I have the resources to learn things.
And like I said, I am enthusiastic about learning how to code, and to have something of my own, and despite my rather limited knowledge of how actual code works, I have confidence that I will be able to learn it. "where there's a will there's a way. I also do have some friends that have professional IT jobs that have recommended some books to learn from, and I do plan to invest in them, as well as some of the books that Nick gammon has suggested in his forums.

So as far as combat, I'm stuck with the job of doing it by myself? I think that with a little time, and some patience, I can figure it out. I was just looking for help on where to start.
I will definitely look at socket and naked, as well as the tiny server I have, see what i can learn, how things work, and eventually, I have confidence that I'll be able to do something great.
It will be a slow and gradual process, but I don't want to give up, it's something that I've wanted to do since i was 15, back in those days I was unprepared, and wanted something easy, and I didn't even know the basics of compiling code and so on. I think that I have a mindset more suited for doing this now.

I'll let you know of my results, and I may ask a few questions, and so far you've all been helpful, and I do appreciate it.
And also, if I do code something horrendously wrong, I invite you to insult and/or critique it, because it does help for the learning process.

It is a vast undertaking, and it won't be easy, I understand, but I'm willing to put forth the time and effort to learn, and grow something that I have no doubt will be great.

I think that working with the smallest amount of someone else's code would be the best too, because the more features that are already there, the less I will learn how to do on my own, and that, to me, is a major pitfall.

Never ever trust anything but an academic course about programming.
Most of the stuff you will find online is code posted by student that can be VERY wrong. The experienced programmers are too busy coding for a living to post useful code online.
Or buy/dowload books. But the internets ? Nah wrong idea for that.

What? The mudbytes admins only learned online and they….

…oh

This is nonsense, obviously.

There are plenty of resources and plenty of real world programmers who have useful things to say on the internet. Even on mudbytes.

And how would a newbie programmer make the difference ?
You missed the point.

According to you there's no need to distinguish because the "experienced programmers are too busy coding for a living to post useful code online", therefore everything posted online must be by inexperienced programmers or those not skilled enough to be busy making a living.

So no, I got your point, but perhaps you thought you were making a different one.

IMHO, it's a bad idea to mix minimal coding skills with a minimalist codebase. One of the best ways to learn is by modifying existing code to do something different. There's also coding manuals, but those are very dull–no characters at all, hardly any plot…