Avaeryn says 'ok log is on, proceed :)' Quixadhal taps the mic. Sandi says 'Q, what experience do you have with ROMs?' Quixadhal says 'Very little actually. I played a couple back in the day. :)' Sandi just had a nasty idea. Quixadhal says 'I did some work with Smaug's, and my own game pre-dates all of them.' Sandi nods at Quixadhal. Quixadhal says 'Well, all the derivatives… not Diku Gamma, of course.' Sandi says 'That's pretty old.' Quixadhal says 'But, over the years, I've retrofitted several codebases trying to find one I liked enough to convert to, so helping pick up ROM's bits seems like a good task.' Sandi says 'Avaeryn, how about you?' Quixadhal says 'Yeah, I believe WileyMUD was just after games like SillyMUD, DaleMUD, and maybe Copper.' Avaeryn says 'I'm a Rom/Rot person from day one' Avaeryn says 'Mostly as a builder and admin. I've tried coding a few times but it just isn't me :P' Sandi smiles. Sandi swore she'd never code again in…. 74? ;) Quixadhal chuckles politely. Quixadhal mutters about not dealing with stupid C and no native strings again… Sandi says 'I know the ROM codebase pretty well. From that, I infer C.' Avaeryn nods. Avaeryn says 'It would be nice to learn though.' Grumny says 'for me, the C itself isn't so bad, its the C + trying to figure out how ROM is doing stuff' Grumny says 'there is enough there that I usually can't get my head around it' Quixadhal says 'Yeah, it's a pretty convoluted system.' Sandi nods at Quixadhal. Quixadhal says 'Of course, no real documentation. :)' Quixadhal says 'I'm actually trying to figure out why the gsn skill stuff is done differently than the spell code… it bugs me, since they kindof do the same thing.' Quixadhal says 'I just hope to not find any more gems like get_random_room()' Avaeryn nods. Avaeryn says 'From what I can see, and understand, it is pretty confusing and intricate.' (Avaeryn has major connection issues. About 30 minutes of the log is missing, sorry.) Quixadhal says 'Yeah, the original coders generally didn't do code for a living either, so documentation wasn't an issue. :)' Quixadhal says 'good old ISP's.' Quixadhal says 'I can't complain too much about Charter though… it's fairly stable and even though I have a dynamic IP, it hasn't changed for about a year.' Grumny says 'I use yahoo broadband here in Japan' Grumny says 'pretty sure I'm dynamic, and it hasn't changed since I got it years ago' Quixadhal says 'Wow, a few people poked their noses into my dusty old mud again…. I wonder if anyone stayed longer than a minute this time. :)' You chuckle politely. Avaeryn says 'ours was wonderful when it was adelphia' Quixadhal says 'It's not really very n00b-friendly, nor easy. So far, I think an hour is the longest visit I've seen.' Avaeryn says 'but since comcast bought out adelphia, it sucks' Avaeryn says 'what type of mud do you have quix?' Quixadhal says 'That's what I hear about cingular/sprint.' Grumny says 'I hate that' Avaeryn says 'verizon bought out alltel, so i think i'll go with net 10 since verizon's customer service sucks :P' Grumny says 'I just love how people on the forums claim to want something new, but log off in 5 minutes because it doesn't look familiar' Avaeryn says 'ah anyway…' Avaeryn nods sagely. Quixadhal says 'It's an offshoot of Diku Gamma, with bits of DaleMUD, SIllyMUD, and a few other bits I don't recognize.' Avaeryn says 'the old "log on, who, quit" thing?' Grumny says 'or just do "area" and see lots of stock areas and quit before finding out if anything has been done with them' Avaery nods. Quixadhal says 'wiley.shadowlord.org 3000 if you're curious. I don't think I have an area command. :)' Avaeryn says 'i would hope that the rebirth/reworking of RaM will attract more people to muds' Avaeryn says 'do you have a mud too, Grumny?' Grumny says 'sort of' Grumny says 'I'm with Sandi' Avaeryn nods. Quixadhal says 'yes, I think having another solid codebase will help.' Quixadhal says 'MUD's are still great ways to express creativity, but so many of them are so buggy you spend all your time fixing them instead of adding onto them.' Avaeryn nods. Avaeryn says 'i want a good, solid codebase with user-friendly olc that would allow me to do a lot of things' Grumny says 'nod' Avaeryn says 'then i can just make this place a builder school, or just use it to build for myself when i'm bored' Quixadhal says 'I'd even like to eventually allow several OLC interfaces… the old command-based ones "rset flag foo", and higher level ones like Oasis (for example) that walk you through menus.' Quixadhal says 'The underlying code is the same, but having both views would help people who want to see what's available AND people who just want to make quick changes.' Avaeryn nods. Avaeryn says 'ugh i hate this internet, honestly' Quixadhal chuckles politely. Quixadhal hands Avaeryn a form letter addressed to Al Gore. Avaeryn chuckles politely. Avaeryn says 'so where are you guys now with Ram, quix?' Avaeryn says 'I've seen some of the changes that have been made and think things are moving forward so well' Quixadhal says 'I'm currently refactoring things to try and get related code into the same files so it's easier to understand.' Quixadhal says 'I just finished adding signal trapping for ctrl-C so it does a proper exit, and THAT lets you compile with profiling enabled.' Quixadhal says 'I really should write a perl "bot" to "play" the game so I can test it under load.' Quixadhal says 'I don't suppose anyone has a "bot" already?' Avaeryn nods. Avaeryn nods sagely. Avaeryn says 'umm no, i mean no :P' Avaeryn says 'wish i did though' Quixadhal says 'I've written perl code to telnet into muds (to grab their login screen) before, so it shouldn't be too bad.' Quixadhal says 'It just has to be smart enough to wander around and find things it thinks it can kill.' Avaeryn nods. Quixadhal says 'Unlike my game, I don't think ROM will let you die from hunger or anything.' Avaeryn says 'most won't' Grumny says 'nope' Grumny says 'no you wont die' Grumny says 'your healing rate goes down is all' Quixadhal says 'I cut my teeth on the predecessor to my mud, which was considered one of the hardest out there at the time. Death took half your experience and often de-leveled you. :)' Quixadhal says 'So I just assume everything else is soft and cushy.' Quixadhal says 'It looks like there were a lot of things that ROM started working on but didn't finish.' Grumny says 'I remember those days' Grumny says 'yeah, lots and lots of dead ends in ROM' Quixadhal says 'I see rudimentry support for clans, for example.' Avaeryn says 'i think that's where rot came in, but i think that code also sort of left a lot of dead ends or unfinished items' Quixadhal says 'I might grab a copy of that just to see the evolution.' Quixadhal says 'For now, I'll be happy to just bring all the parallel things into sync, so things that are the same kind of thing work the same way.' Avaeryn says '1.4 is an interesting one, and was quite popular back in the day. it's a pity more people don't use text-based muds' Quixadhal says 'I've also done a little work in LpMUD's, so I tend to look at stuff more abstractly.' Quixadhal says 'or that might just be the object oriented perl from work a few years ago. :)' Quixadhal says 'If you see $_ show up in the code anywhere, stop me before I kill again.' Avaeryn says 'not to get too far off-topic, but how long do you think it will be before features will be added into RaM?' Quixadhal says 'I'm hoping to start adding things like the bit code in about a week, and after that it'll be much more open to pouring things in.' Quixadhal says 'Walking down that nice fat bug list is probably around that time too.' Quixadhal says 'So, perhaps shooting for Halloween might be a good target?' Quixadhal says 'hmmm, real channels should probably be on the list too.' Quixadhal says 'How many people, do you think, would cry if music.c were yanked and tucked away as a snippet?' Avaeryn says 'what types of editors will be added, do you think?' Avaeryn says 'i'm sure music.c wouldn't be missed all that much :P' Quixadhal says 'I'd love to add a full blown "ed", but we'll have to see if we can find a non-GPL'd one that can be embedded.' Quixadhal says 'if we added some telnet support code, a full screen editor would be possible, but it would have to be a toggle, since mud clients wouldn't know what to do with it.' Quixadhal says 'builders would love it, everyone else would ignore it or hate it. :)' Quixadhal says 'unless you meant OLC editors, then whatever we can liberate from hard-coded constants.' Grumny says 'sorry, was afk' Quixadhal pats Grumny on his head. Grumny says 'I doubt anyone will even notice if music.c goes away' Grumny says 'and a nice editor would make me very happy' Avaeryn says 'it would me too, especially if help files can be edited without causing major problems' Avaeryn says 'and without the pain and heartache it sometimes involves now :P' Quixadhal says 'I wonder if I still have the old copy of TMI-2 with vi hacked in….' Grumny bounces around with a happy smile. Grumny like VI Quixadhal says 'Yes, help entries need to be editable.' Quixadhal says 'ANYTHING that makes it more likely for help entries to be correct, or even just existing, is high on the priority list. :)' Grumny says 'definitely' Avaeryn says 'i think detailed help entries are a must' Grumny says 'anything that will help to fix things "now" instead of "when I have time" is a good thing' Darva has entered the game. Darva says 'ahh, it's back. I had assumed since i wasn't getting a connection earlier today, there wouldn't be a meeting this week.' Quixadhal says 'Hi there Darva!' Darva bows before Quixadhal. Quixadhal says 'Yeah, this week has been lots of fiddling and shifting code, but no major shinies.' Darva nods. Avaeryn says 'hi darva' Darva says 'Is there anything that needs doing that's within the skills of a mid-range coder?' Quixadhal says 'music.c is on the chopping block. :)' Darva says 'thank god.' Quixadhal falls down laughing. Quixadhal says 'I've been resisting yanking that for fear of the ROMulan reaction. So far, it looks like nobody has used it since the days of the vt220.' Avaeryn says 'It doesn't hurt my feelings at all :P' Darva says 'I've seen it used on exactly one mud. And then only the imms had access to it.' Grumny bows deeply. Darva bows before Grumny. Quixadhal says 'If anyone misses it, I can send you a tinyfugue macro to do the same thing via shout. :)' Avaeryn says 'a good prog can do the same thing as well' Darva falls down laughing. Darva nods. Quixadhal says 'I'm aiming for Halloween as the end of the code cleanup and getting the infinite bit code in, so by that time there'll be lots of work for everyone to jump on. ;)' Darva says 'I remember someone saying something about it needing to be tested on a 64 bit machine? I've got a 64 bit laptop, though i'm running in 32 bit mode at the moment. I suppose i could re-partition my drive and add a 64 bit partiton.' Darva says 'and give it a test.' Quixadhal says 'Davion let me log into his machine, so we're good there (as long as I remember to do it before svn commit)!' Darva nods. Quixadhal says 'although you're more than welcome to grab the svn copy and see if I missed anything!' Quixadhal says 'especially if you've got gcc 4.3' Darva says 'I just grabbed the copy on mudbytes from today, and tested it at least on my current config and everythings good.' Darva says '4.2.3 apparently.' Darva chuckles politely. Quixadhal says 'my normal compiler is 4.1.2, I have a 4.3 on a vm, and Davion's machine is 64-bit 4.1… so I figure it's mostly covered.' Darva says 'yeah, probably pretty much.' Quixadhal says 'For amusement, enjoy the new get_random_room() routine.' Darva raises an eyebrow. Darva greps. Quixadhal says 'compare it to the old one over a beer.' Darva falls down laughing. Quixadhal says 'all I can say is, Russ (or his predecessors) seemd to have a fetish for while loops.' Darva says 'I can see the improvement immediatly. Thought it reminds me of another need. Something to prevent people teleporting/gating/whatever into areas under construction.' Darva says 'Some owners do actually build on their main port.' Darva sighs. Quixadhal says 'yep, that's part of the new fangled Oh Ell See thing you guys all want. Me and my grandpappy just vi tinyworld.wld and reboot the game. :)' Avaeryn says 'a flag could be added that would prevent areas under construction from being accessible to mortals' Darva says 'I never got the feeling that Rom was designed to be optimal, just to work.' Darva nods at you in agreement. Quixadhal says 'I figured with OLC, we'd have some kind of bit somewhere that says "not public yet", so it would check for that.' Avaeryn says 'did i see a fetish statement above?' Quixadhal grins evilly. Darva says 'that was my solution i used, an obj, mob, and area flag. (so obj's wouldn't save, mobs wouldn't give xp, and you couldn't even get there in the first place)' Quixadhal says 'One of the things on my wish list is to break the immortal code so building/admin stuff isn't tied to "level" any more.' Darva says 'Hey, i'm not that big on olc. I just want an in-client text editor, and access to the files personally. Something that isn't olc's buffer editor that is.' Darva says 'Well, it's tied to trust as well as level isn't it? ' Quixadhal says 'It shouldn't be either… "building" has nothing to do with "level".' Darva says 'and you can have a mortal builder with no imm abilities. Or at least you should be able to.' Quixadhal says 'I want my admin to be a level 1 fighter, but have the admin/building bits set too.' Darva says 'The problem with that though, Quix, is testing.' Darva says 'Oh. *laugh* trust <admin> 200, set <admin> security 9. Admin is still level 1, but can do everything you can do.' Darva says 'Though they're still treated as an immortal, don't need to eat, can't die, etc.' Quixadhal says 'Sure, although what's the point of "trust 200"… are there 200 seperate levels of security to hand out? No.' Darva says 'true. But that's an abstraction thing.' Darva says 'If you take the level checks out, you could reduce trust to 5 levels. Player, Builder, Immortal, Admin, Coder.' Darva says '(I always consider coders to be the highest trust, so they can set commands in testing aside so no one else can use them.)' Quixadhal says 'Yes, and then I'd say implement that as 5 bits instead, that can be set or cleared.' Darva says 'You could do that, or call it a char and save a bit. :P' Darva says 'blah, nm, i'm brain dead.' Quixadhal says 'that way if you want to interact as a mortal, it just clears the bit and disables saving.' Quixadhal smiles happily. Quixadhal says 'the other thing is, if you seperate the logic, you allow for open-ended level progressions.' Quixadhal says 'if someone wants to make a game with 500 levels, they don't have to worry about missing a security checkpoint.' Darva says 'Rom doesn't handle high levels really well in my experience.' Grumny nods. Quixadhal says 'That's why we're here, to kick Rom's ass into behaving itself. :)' Darva says 'I've played one that went to 291 mortal levels, and once you passed 60 the combat math didn't work real well.' Grumny says 'What Sandi and I have discovered is that ROM as is, is best played with 1 to 30' Grumny says 'much above that and it just becomes a "who has the most HP" thing' Darva falls down laughing. Quixadhal says 'That said, I think the 20 level of AD&D are plenty, but I'd like the code to allow for people who believe otherwise.' Darva says 'Well, the one i'm refering too also made the mistake of giving you access to 95% of the skills/spells in the game when you hit 130.' Darva nods at Quixadhal. Grumny nods. Quixadhal says 'Ideally, anywhere that uses tables probably should have a nice math formula with the data points plotted on a curve, so moving from 20 levels to 2000 levels still works.' Quixadhal says 'even though you may need a 64-bit machine to handle hit points.' Darva falls down laughing. Grumny says 'well, it won't be too long before everyone has a 64 bit machine' Darva says 'Yeah, but how long will it be before everyone is using them as 64 bit machines?' Quixadhal waits for Grumny's promised 64-bit machine to arrive at his doorstep. Grumny says 'well, how many people are using 16 bit stuff now?' Darva chuckles at Grumny's joke. Grumny digs in his Santa Sack and comes up empty. Grumny says 'sorry, all out.' Quixadhal doesn't think he can pull off claiming to be using his Amiga 500 to log in. Darva says 'True. But like i just said a few minutes ago, i'm runnin 32 bits on a 64 bit machine. Mainly because several programs i would like either aren't available or are a pain in 64 bit.' Grumny nods. Darva is trying to remember if his phone is 32 or 64 bit. Grumny says 'don't get me wrong, I do think we need to make both useable' Quixadhal says 'Don't make me go buy that ethernet card and get out my C64!' Grumny says 'that's why I want to keep the code able to use C without forcing C++' Darva used to have an analog modem for his trs-80. Quixadhal waves his C compiler for the C64 in a meanacing fashion. Quixadhal says 'I really do have one… it even did color syntax highlighting…. very slowly.' Quixadhal says 'in 40 columns.' Darva says 'Is the bug with sacrificing objects people are sleeping/sitting on still in stock rom? I was gonna load a tent and a mob and check, but since there are no area's.' Darva falls down laughing. Darva shudders at the horror and represses tears. Darva says 'that's kinda scary quix.' Grumny says 'used to have an apple ]
Avaeryn says 'ok log is on, proceed :)' Quixadhal taps the mic. Sandi says 'Q, what experience do you have with ROMs?' Quixadhal says 'Very little actually. I played a couple back in the day. :)' Sandi just had a nasty idea. Quixadhal says 'I did some work with Smaug's, and my own game pre-dates all of them.' Sandi nods at Quixadhal. Quixadhal says 'Well, all the derivatives… not Diku Gamma, of course.' Sandi says 'That's pretty old.' Quixadhal says 'But, over the years, I've retrofitted several codebases trying to find one I liked enough to convert to, so helping pick up ROM's bits seems like a good task.' Sandi says 'Avaeryn, how about you?' Quixadhal says 'Yeah, I believe WileyMUD was just after games like SillyMUD, DaleMUD, and maybe Copper.' Avaeryn says 'I'm a Rom/Rot person from day one' Avaeryn says 'Mostly as a builder and admin. I've tried coding a few times but it just isn't me :P' Sandi smiles. Sandi swore she'd never code again in…. 74? ;) Quixadhal chuckles politely. Quixadhal mutters about not dealing with stupid C and no native strings again… Sandi says 'I know the ROM codebase pretty well. From that, I infer C.' Avaeryn nods. Avaeryn says 'It would be nice to learn though.' Grumny says 'for me, the C itself isn't so bad, its the C + trying to figure out how ROM is doing stuff' Grumny says 'there is enough there that I usually can't get my head around it' Quixadhal says 'Yeah, it's a pretty convoluted system.' Sandi nods at Quixadhal. Quixadhal says 'Of course, no real documentation. :)' Quixadhal says 'I'm actually trying to figure out why the gsn skill stuff is done differently than the spell code… it bugs me, since they kindof do the same thing.' Quixadhal says 'I just hope to not find any more gems like get_random_room()' Avaeryn nods. Avaeryn says 'From what I can see, and understand, it is pretty confusing and intricate.' (Avaeryn has major connection issues. About 30 minutes of the log is missing, sorry.) Quixadhal says 'Yeah, the original coders generally didn't do code for a living either, so documentation wasn't an issue. :)' Quixadhal says 'good old ISP's.' Quixadhal says 'I can't complain too much about Charter though… it's fairly stable and even though I have a dynamic IP, it hasn't changed for about a year.' Grumny says 'I use yahoo broadband here in Japan' Grumny says 'pretty sure I'm dynamic, and it hasn't changed since I got it years ago' Quixadhal says 'Wow, a few people poked their noses into my dusty old mud again…. I wonder if anyone stayed longer than a minute this time. :)' You chuckle politely. Avaeryn says 'ours was wonderful when it was adelphia' Quixadhal says 'It's not really very n00b-friendly, nor easy. So far, I think an hour is the longest visit I've seen.' Avaeryn says 'but since comcast bought out adelphia, it sucks' Avaeryn says 'what type of mud do you have quix?' Quixadhal says 'That's what I hear about cingular/sprint.' Grumny says 'I hate that' Avaeryn says 'verizon bought out alltel, so i think i'll go with net 10 since verizon's customer service sucks :P' Grumny says 'I just love how people on the forums claim to want something new, but log off in 5 minutes because it doesn't look familiar' Avaeryn says 'ah anyway…' Avaeryn nods sagely. Quixadhal says 'It's an offshoot of Diku Gamma, with bits of DaleMUD, SIllyMUD, and a few other bits I don't recognize.' Avaeryn says 'the old "log on, who, quit" thing?' Grumny says 'or just do "area" and see lots of stock areas and quit before finding out if anything has been done with them' Avaery nods. Quixadhal says 'wiley.shadowlord.org 3000 if you're curious. I don't think I have an area command. :)' Avaeryn says 'i would hope that the rebirth/reworking of RaM will attract more people to muds' Avaeryn says 'do you have a mud too, Grumny?' Grumny says 'sort of' Grumny says 'I'm with Sandi' Avaeryn nods. Quixadhal says 'yes, I think having another solid codebase will help.' Quixadhal says 'MUD's are still great ways to express creativity, but so many of them are so buggy you spend all your time fixing them instead of adding onto them.' Avaeryn nods. Avaeryn says 'i want a good, solid codebase with user-friendly olc that would allow me to do a lot of things' Grumny says 'nod' Avaeryn says 'then i can just make this place a builder school, or just use it to build for myself when i'm bored' Quixadhal says 'I'd even like to eventually allow several OLC interfaces… the old command-based ones "rset flag foo", and higher level ones like Oasis (for example) that walk you through menus.' Quixadhal says 'The underlying code is the same, but having both views would help people who want to see what's available AND people who just want to make quick changes.' Avaeryn nods. Avaeryn says 'ugh i hate this internet, honestly' Quixadhal chuckles politely. Quixadhal hands Avaeryn a form letter addressed to Al Gore. Avaeryn chuckles politely. Avaeryn says 'so where are you guys now with Ram, quix?' Avaeryn says 'I've seen some of the changes that have been made and think things are moving forward so well' Quixadhal says 'I'm currently refactoring things to try and get related code into the same files so it's easier to understand.' Quixadhal says 'I just finished adding signal trapping for ctrl-C so it does a proper exit, and THAT lets you compile with profiling enabled.' Quixadhal says 'I really should write a perl "bot" to "play" the game so I can test it under load.' Quixadhal says 'I don't suppose anyone has a "bot" already?' Avaeryn nods. Avaeryn nods sagely. Avaeryn says 'umm no, i mean no :P' Avaeryn says 'wish i did though' Quixadhal says 'I've written perl code to telnet into muds (to grab their login screen) before, so it shouldn't be too bad.' Quixadhal says 'It just has to be smart enough to wander around and find things it thinks it can kill.' Avaeryn nods. Quixadhal says 'Unlike my game, I don't think ROM will let you die from hunger or anything.' Avaeryn says 'most won't' Grumny says 'nope' Grumny says 'no you wont die' Grumny says 'your healing rate goes down is all' Quixadhal says 'I cut my teeth on the predecessor to my mud, which was considered one of the hardest out there at the time. Death took half your experience and often de-leveled you. :)' Quixadhal says 'So I just assume everything else is soft and cushy.' Quixadhal says 'It looks like there were a lot of things that ROM started working on but didn't finish.' Grumny says 'I remember those days' Grumny says 'yeah, lots and lots of dead ends in ROM' Quixadhal says 'I see rudimentry support for clans, for example.' Avaeryn says 'i think that's where rot came in, but i think that code also sort of left a lot of dead ends or unfinished items' Quixadhal says 'I might grab a copy of that just to see the evolution.' Quixadhal says 'For now, I'll be happy to just bring all the parallel things into sync, so things that are the same kind of thing work the same way.' Avaeryn says '1.4 is an interesting one, and was quite popular back in the day. it's a pity more people don't use text-based muds' Quixadhal says 'I've also done a little work in LpMUD's, so I tend to look at stuff more abstractly.' Quixadhal says 'or that might just be the object oriented perl from work a few years ago. :)' Quixadhal says 'If you see $_ show up in the code anywhere, stop me before I kill again.' Avaeryn says 'not to get too far off-topic, but how long do you think it will be before features will be added into RaM?' Quixadhal says 'I'm hoping to start adding things like the bit code in about a week, and after that it'll be much more open to pouring things in.' Quixadhal says 'Walking down that nice fat bug list is probably around that time too.' Quixadhal says 'So, perhaps shooting for Halloween might be a good target?' Quixadhal says 'hmmm, real channels should probably be on the list too.' Quixadhal says 'How many people, do you think, would cry if music.c were yanked and tucked away as a snippet?' Avaeryn says 'what types of editors will be added, do you think?' Avaeryn says 'i'm sure music.c wouldn't be missed all that much :P' Quixadhal says 'I'd love to add a full blown "ed", but we'll have to see if we can find a non-GPL'd one that can be embedded.' Quixadhal says 'if we added some telnet support code, a full screen editor would be possible, but it would have to be a toggle, since mud clients wouldn't know what to do with it.' Quixadhal says 'builders would love it, everyone else would ignore it or hate it. :)' Quixadhal says 'unless you meant OLC editors, then whatever we can liberate from hard-coded constants.' Grumny says 'sorry, was afk' Quixadhal pats Grumny on his head. Grumny says 'I doubt anyone will even notice if music.c goes away' Grumny says 'and a nice editor would make me very happy' Avaeryn says 'it would me too, especially if help files can be edited without causing major problems' Avaeryn says 'and without the pain and heartache it sometimes involves now :P' Quixadhal says 'I wonder if I still have the old copy of TMI-2 with vi hacked in….' Grumny bounces around with a happy smile. Grumny like VI Quixadhal says 'Yes, help entries need to be editable.' Quixadhal says 'ANYTHING that makes it more likely for help entries to be correct, or even just existing, is high on the priority list. :)' Grumny says 'definitely' Avaeryn says 'i think detailed help entries are a must' Grumny says 'anything that will help to fix things "now" instead of "when I have time" is a good thing' Darva has entered the game. Darva says 'ahh, it's back. I had assumed since i wasn't getting a connection earlier today, there wouldn't be a meeting this week.' Quixadhal says 'Hi there Darva!' Darva bows before Quixadhal. Quixadhal says 'Yeah, this week has been lots of fiddling and shifting code, but no major shinies.' Darva nods. Avaeryn says 'hi darva' Darva says 'Is there anything that needs doing that's within the skills of a mid-range coder?' Quixadhal says 'music.c is on the chopping block. :)' Darva says 'thank god.' Quixadhal falls down laughing. Quixadhal says 'I've been resisting yanking that for fear of the ROMulan reaction. So far, it looks like nobody has used it since the days of the vt220.' Avaeryn says 'It doesn't hurt my feelings at all :P' Darva says 'I've seen it used on exactly one mud. And then only the imms had access to it.' Grumny bows deeply. Darva bows before Grumny. Quixadhal says 'If anyone misses it, I can send you a tinyfugue macro to do the same thing via shout. :)' Avaeryn says 'a good prog can do the same thing as well' Darva falls down laughing. Darva nods. Quixadhal says 'I'm aiming for Halloween as the end of the code cleanup and getting the infinite bit code in, so by that time there'll be lots of work for everyone to jump on. ;)' Darva says 'I remember someone saying something about it needing to be tested on a 64 bit machine? I've got a 64 bit laptop, though i'm running in 32 bit mode at the moment. I suppose i could re-partition my drive and add a 64 bit partiton.' Darva says 'and give it a test.' Quixadhal says 'Davion let me log into his machine, so we're good there (as long as I remember to do it before svn commit)!' Darva nods. Quixadhal says 'although you're more than welcome to grab the svn copy and see if I missed anything!' Quixadhal says 'especially if you've got gcc 4.3' Darva says 'I just grabbed the copy on mudbytes from today, and tested it at least on my current config and everythings good.' Darva says '4.2.3 apparently.' Darva chuckles politely. Quixadhal says 'my normal compiler is 4.1.2, I have a 4.3 on a vm, and Davion's machine is 64-bit 4.1… so I figure it's mostly covered.' Darva says 'yeah, probably pretty much.' Quixadhal says 'For amusement, enjoy the new get_random_room() routine.' Darva raises an eyebrow. Darva greps. Quixadhal says 'compare it to the old one over a beer.' Darva falls down laughing. Quixadhal says 'all I can say is, Russ (or his predecessors) seemd to have a fetish for while loops.' Darva says 'I can see the improvement immediatly. Thought it reminds me of another need. Something to prevent people teleporting/gating/whatever into areas under construction.' Darva says 'Some owners do actually build on their main port.' Darva sighs. Quixadhal says 'yep, that's part of the new fangled Oh Ell See thing you guys all want. Me and my grandpappy just vi tinyworld.wld and reboot the game. :)' Avaeryn says 'a flag could be added that would prevent areas under construction from being accessible to mortals' Darva says 'I never got the feeling that Rom was designed to be optimal, just to work.' Darva nods at you in agreement. Quixadhal says 'I figured with OLC, we'd have some kind of bit somewhere that says "not public yet", so it would check for that.' Avaeryn says 'did i see a fetish statement above?' Quixadhal grins evilly. Darva says 'that was my solution i used, an obj, mob, and area flag. (so obj's wouldn't save, mobs wouldn't give xp, and you couldn't even get there in the first place)' Quixadhal says 'One of the things on my wish list is to break the immortal code so building/admin stuff isn't tied to "level" any more.' Darva says 'Hey, i'm not that big on olc. I just want an in-client text editor, and access to the files personally. Something that isn't olc's buffer editor that is.' Darva says 'Well, it's tied to trust as well as level isn't it? ' Quixadhal says 'It shouldn't be either… "building" has nothing to do with "level".' Darva says 'and you can have a mortal builder with no imm abilities. Or at least you should be able to.' Quixadhal says 'I want my admin to be a level 1 fighter, but have the admin/building bits set too.' Darva says 'The problem with that though, Quix, is testing.' Darva says 'Oh. *laugh* trust <admin> 200, set <admin> security 9. Admin is still level 1, but can do everything you can do.' Darva says 'Though they're still treated as an immortal, don't need to eat, can't die, etc.' Quixadhal says 'Sure, although what's the point of "trust 200"… are there 200 seperate levels of security to hand out? No.' Darva says 'true. But that's an abstraction thing.' Darva says 'If you take the level checks out, you could reduce trust to 5 levels. Player, Builder, Immortal, Admin, Coder.' Darva says '(I always consider coders to be the highest trust, so they can set commands in testing aside so no one else can use them.)' Quixadhal says 'Yes, and then I'd say implement that as 5 bits instead, that can be set or cleared.' Darva says 'You could do that, or call it a char and save a bit. :P' Darva says 'blah, nm, i'm brain dead.' Quixadhal says 'that way if you want to interact as a mortal, it just clears the bit and disables saving.' Quixadhal smiles happily. Quixadhal says 'the other thing is, if you seperate the logic, you allow for open-ended level progressions.' Quixadhal says 'if someone wants to make a game with 500 levels, they don't have to worry about missing a security checkpoint.' Darva says 'Rom doesn't handle high levels really well in my experience.' Grumny nods. Quixadhal says 'That's why we're here, to kick Rom's ass into behaving itself. :)' Darva says 'I've played one that went to 291 mortal levels, and once you passed 60 the combat math didn't work real well.' Grumny says 'What Sandi and I have discovered is that ROM as is, is best played with 1 to 30' Grumny says 'much above that and it just becomes a "who has the most HP" thing' Darva falls down laughing. Quixadhal says 'That said, I think the 20 level of AD&D are plenty, but I'd like the code to allow for people who believe otherwise.' Darva says 'Well, the one i'm refering too also made the mistake of giving you access to 95% of the skills/spells in the game when you hit 130.' Darva nods at Quixadhal. Grumny nods. Quixadhal says 'Ideally, anywhere that uses tables probably should have a nice math formula with the data points plotted on a curve, so moving from 20 levels to 2000 levels still works.' Quixadhal says 'even though you may need a 64-bit machine to handle hit points.' Darva falls down laughing. Grumny says 'well, it won't be too long before everyone has a 64 bit machine' Darva says 'Yeah, but how long will it be before everyone is using them as 64 bit machines?' Quixadhal waits for Grumny's promised 64-bit machine to arrive at his doorstep. Grumny says 'well, how many people are using 16 bit stuff now?' Darva chuckles at Grumny's joke. Grumny digs in his Santa Sack and comes up empty. Grumny says 'sorry, all out.' Quixadhal doesn't think he can pull off claiming to be using his Amiga 500 to log in. Darva says 'True. But like i just said a few minutes ago, i'm runnin 32 bits on a 64 bit machine. Mainly because several programs i would like either aren't available or are a pain in 64 bit.' Grumny nods. Darva is trying to remember if his phone is 32 or 64 bit. Grumny says 'don't get me wrong, I do think we need to make both useable' Quixadhal says 'Don't make me go buy that ethernet card and get out my C64!' Grumny says 'that's why I want to keep the code able to use C without forcing C++' Darva used to have an analog modem for his trs-80. Quixadhal waves his C compiler for the C64 in a meanacing fashion. Quixadhal says 'I really do have one… it even did color syntax highlighting…. very slowly.' Quixadhal says 'in 40 columns.' Darva says 'Is the bug with sacrificing objects people are sleeping/sitting on still in stock rom? I was gonna load a tent and a mob and check, but since there are no area's.' Darva falls down laughing. Darva shudders at the horror and represses tears. Darva says 'that's kinda scary quix.' Grumny says 'used to have an apple ][ plus' Grumny says 'applesoft rocks' Quixadhal says 'hmmmm, probably. what happens?' Darva says 'My father refused to give me a C compiler till i wrote a mdi word processor with spell checking in gwbasic….' Darva says 'Nothing happens, except the item goes away. Wouldn't you notice someone saccing the tent you're sleeping *in*?' Grumny says 'that's mean' Darva grins evilly at Grumny. Darva was a pkiller. Quixadhal says 'Maybe you're a sound sleeper…. who had too much to drink earlier…' Darva falls to the ground and rolls around laughing hysterically. Grumny says 'so, um, where do you wake up?' Darva says 'On the ground.' Quixadhal says 'on the first mud I played on, energy drain still drained levels from you…. so when the first mage (a friend of mine) hit level 15, he declared nobody else would ever pass level 14.' Quixadhal says 'they implemented PK registration because of him…. he was successful. :)' Darva falls down laughing. Grumny grins evilly. Grumny says 'there is always one…' Grumny smirks. Darva says 'Our big thing was scrolls of holy word, holy word, heal. Holy word was suped up if you were a cleric casting it against people you're opposite align. We called em scrolls of drive by.' Darva says 'you recite it on yourself, and watch everyone in the room die, then you walk away with about 1k hp.' Darva has created a tent! Darva loads a tent. Quixadhal says 'of course, then I figured out you could stand (invisible) in front of the mob that did the PK registration and cast 'ventriloquate' register me on people….' Darva loads foober. Darva appears in a swirling mist. Darva mutters something quietly to himself. Quixadhal erects a fan to blow the swirling mist away. Grumny pulls out a bottle and tries to catch the swirling mist. Darva says 'oh, that's an awesome trick with ventriloquate. I've never seen that used for much, since it isn't usally updated to match the say command.' Darva has created foober! Darva loads foober. Grumny says 'I know folks who pay good money for that.' Darva mutters something quietly to himself. Darva says 'they didn't name the bloody mob right' Quixadhal sets fire to the tent. Darva falls to the ground and rolls around laughing hysterically. Darva slaps himself, really strange … Darva purges the room! Darva has created a tent! Darva loads a tent. Darva sighs. Darva says 'it's been too damn long.' Darva purges the room! local> A small goblin runs up and sets the tent on fire. Darva sticks his tongue out, catching a few flies in the process. Darva has created a tent! Darva loads a tent. Darva goes to sleep in a tent. Darva wakes and stands up. Darva has created foober! Darva loads foober. Foober goes to sleep in a tent. Quixadhal points at the offending local> and mutters about removing code again. Darva says 'local only shows if you're an imm.' Foober wakes and stands up. Darva blinks innocently. Darva purges the room! Darva shrugs helplessly. Quixadhal sets fire to Foober. Darva says 'I guess it did get fixed.' Darva has created a tent! Darva loads a tent. Darva purges the room! Darva says 'yup. Ok, so nm on that. *laugh*' Quixadhal says 'That's because the ROM people didn't use my idea of making objects and rooms be the same class of thing.' Darva shudders at the horror and represses tears. Quixadhal says 'so you aren't *really* "in" the tent, you're just next to the tent with a silly description modifier.' Darva says 'yeah, i'm not sure i like the idea of the room i'm in being picked up and stuffed in someones bag.' Quixadhal says 'What else would you call an immortal using OLC?' Avaeryn says 'a guinea pig?' Quixadhal says 'I wouldn't think a mortal could carry a room. :)' Avaeryn says 'i really was here, just balancing my check book o.O' Darva says 'well, if your tent is a room, and a mortal can carry a tent… *chuckles*' Quixadhal says 'Sure, an empty one…' Grumny says 'well, any builder who flags a room as "take" needs to be slapped.' Darva grins evilly at Grumny. Grumny smirks. Darva says '"where's the clan hall?" Darva removes a small box from a bag. Darva hands you a small box.' Quixadhal says 'vehicles are just fancy rooms that can be relinked on the fly.' Darva nods at Quixadhal. Grumny says 'make the tents a portal :)' Darva says 'i dunno why, but i've always hated vehicles in muds.' Darva says 'that's how a lot of places handle it.' Quixadhal says 'it's when you realize that zones are also just containers that hold lots of objects called rooms, which in turn hold objects called mobs and players and things, that it gets interesting.' Darva says 'I really think the channels need to be unified into one function and a table.' Quixadhal says 'but I digress' Darva says 'maybe some callback functions to determine if you can talk/hear on a channel.' Quixadhal says 'bits will save us there…. channel names with bits for enabling/disabling.' Grumny gossips 'yeah, they probably should all use the same code, witth flags for range… room, area, world, plane, universe' Darva gossips 'emote' Darva gossips 'mutter' Grumny says 'and flags for group, clan, dwarf, all' Darva says 'nono, that's why the callback. :P' Quixadhal says 'I would suggest implementing all player communication as channels, with say/shout/tell/etc being special cases that just don't show the channel names.' Grumny says 'see, me no coder, me thinker' Grumny says 'ahh' Darva chuckles at Grumny's joke. Quixadhal grins evilly. Quixadhal says 'I suppose an ignore list is also in order.' Quixadhal says 'although at least we won't have gold spammers to worry about.' (more connection difficulties, part of log is missing) Grumny says 'gold spammers?' Grumny says 'not familiar with that term' Darva says 'WoW term.' Quixadhal says 'the bane of most of the newer MMO's' Avaeryn says 'i have to be going soon guys' Grumny says 'ahh, never played' Quixadhal says 'People pay real world money for in-game gold' Darva nods at you in agreement. Avaeryn says 'yah cabal has the same problem' Grumny says 'hehe, that I have heard about' Avaeryn says 'people pay for alz which is basically gold' Quixadhal says 'and so people spam the chat channels trying to sell it.' Darva says 'I think the simplest solution to that is the same as the real world drug problem. Legalize and regulate it.' Darva shrugs helplessly. Darva says 'Anyway… RaM. Is there anything that actually needs discussing at this point?' Quixadhal says 'I disagree, because it then says rich people win regardless of skill… just like the real world I'm trying to escape from.' Grumny says 'I can't wait to see someone buy a used car for that +37 sword of slay everything but purple bark beetles' Quixadhal smiles happily. Quixadhal says 'I think as long as nobody minds me continuing to claw away at things, next week is probably the one where we start planning what to tackle and whom wants to do what.' Avaeryn says 'i don't think so darva, as far as ram goes' Avaeryn says 'sounds good quix' Darva nods. Grumny says 'I doubt that will be much of a problem for most though, not enough of a customer base, to make it worthwhile' Avaeryn says 'ok. i'll stop the log here then :)'
Avaeryn says 'ok log is on, proceed :)'
Quixadhal taps the mic.
Sandi says 'Q, what experience do you have with ROMs?'
Quixadhal says 'Very little actually. I played a couple back in the day. :)'
Sandi just had a nasty idea.
Quixadhal says 'I did some work with Smaug's, and my own game pre-dates all of them.'
Sandi nods at Quixadhal.
Quixadhal says 'Well, all the derivatives… not Diku Gamma, of course.'
Sandi says 'That's pretty old.'
Quixadhal says 'But, over the years, I've retrofitted several codebases trying to find one I liked enough to convert to, so helping pick up ROM's bits seems like a good task.'
Sandi says 'Avaeryn, how about you?'
Quixadhal says 'Yeah, I believe WileyMUD was just after games like SillyMUD, DaleMUD, and maybe Copper.'
Avaeryn says 'I'm a Rom/Rot person from day one'
Avaeryn says 'Mostly as a builder and admin. I've tried coding a few times but it just isn't me :P'
Sandi smiles.
Sandi swore she'd never code again in…. 74? ;)
Quixadhal chuckles politely.
Quixadhal mutters about not dealing with stupid C and no native strings again…
Sandi says 'I know the ROM codebase pretty well. From that, I infer C.'
Avaeryn nods.
Avaeryn says 'It would be nice to learn though.'
Grumny says 'for me, the C itself isn't so bad, its the C + trying to figure out how ROM is doing stuff'
Grumny says 'there is enough there that I usually can't get my head around it'
Quixadhal says 'Yeah, it's a pretty convoluted system.'
Sandi nods at Quixadhal.
Quixadhal says 'Of course, no real documentation. :)'
Quixadhal says 'I'm actually trying to figure out why the gsn skill stuff is done differently than the spell code… it bugs me, since they kindof do the same thing.'
Quixadhal says 'I just hope to not find any more gems like get_random_room()'
Avaeryn nods.
Avaeryn says 'From what I can see, and understand, it is pretty confusing and intricate.'
(Avaeryn has major connection issues. About 30 minutes of the log is missing, sorry.)
Quixadhal says 'Yeah, the original coders generally didn't do code for a living either, so documentation wasn't an issue. :)'
Quixadhal says 'good old ISP's.'
Quixadhal says 'I can't complain too much about Charter though… it's fairly stable and even though I have a dynamic IP, it hasn't changed for about a year.'
Grumny says 'I use yahoo broadband here in Japan'
Grumny says 'pretty sure I'm dynamic, and it hasn't changed since I got it years ago'
Quixadhal says 'Wow, a few people poked their noses into my dusty old mud again…. I wonder if anyone stayed longer than a minute this time. :)'
You chuckle politely.
Avaeryn says 'ours was wonderful when it was adelphia'
Quixadhal says 'It's not really very n00b-friendly, nor easy. So far, I think an hour is the longest visit I've seen.'
Avaeryn says 'but since comcast bought out adelphia, it sucks'
Avaeryn says 'what type of mud do you have quix?'
Quixadhal says 'That's what I hear about cingular/sprint.'
Grumny says 'I hate that'
Avaeryn says 'verizon bought out alltel, so i think i'll go with net 10 since verizon's customer service sucks :P'
Grumny says 'I just love how people on the forums claim to want something new, but log off in 5 minutes because it doesn't look familiar'
Avaeryn says 'ah anyway…'
Avaeryn nods sagely.
Quixadhal says 'It's an offshoot of Diku Gamma, with bits of DaleMUD, SIllyMUD, and a few other bits I don't recognize.'
Avaeryn says 'the old "log on, who, quit" thing?'
Grumny says 'or just do "area" and see lots of stock areas and quit before finding out if anything has been done with them'
Avaery nods.
Quixadhal says 'wiley.shadowlord.org 3000 if you're curious. I don't think I have an area command. :)'
Avaeryn says 'i would hope that the rebirth/reworking of RaM will attract more people to muds'
Avaeryn says 'do you have a mud too, Grumny?'
Grumny says 'sort of'
Grumny says 'I'm with Sandi'
Avaeryn nods.
Quixadhal says 'yes, I think having another solid codebase will help.'
Quixadhal says 'MUD's are still great ways to express creativity, but so many of them are so buggy you spend all your time fixing them instead of adding onto them.'
Avaeryn nods.
Avaeryn says 'i want a good, solid codebase with user-friendly olc that would allow me to do a lot of things'
Grumny says 'nod'
Avaeryn says 'then i can just make this place a builder school, or just use it to build for myself when i'm bored'
Quixadhal says 'I'd even like to eventually allow several OLC interfaces… the old command-based ones "rset flag foo", and higher level ones like Oasis (for example) that walk you through menus.'
Quixadhal says 'The underlying code is the same, but having both views would help people who want to see what's available AND people who just want to make quick changes.'
Avaeryn nods.
Avaeryn says 'ugh i hate this internet, honestly'
Quixadhal chuckles politely.
Quixadhal hands Avaeryn a form letter addressed to Al Gore.
Avaeryn chuckles politely.
Avaeryn says 'so where are you guys now with Ram, quix?'
Avaeryn says 'I've seen some of the changes that have been made and think things are moving forward so well'
Quixadhal says 'I'm currently refactoring things to try and get related code into the same files so it's easier to understand.'
Quixadhal says 'I just finished adding signal trapping for ctrl-C so it does a proper exit, and THAT lets you compile with profiling enabled.'
Quixadhal says 'I really should write a perl "bot" to "play" the game so I can test it under load.'
Quixadhal says 'I don't suppose anyone has a "bot" already?'
Avaeryn nods.
Avaeryn nods sagely.
Avaeryn says 'umm no, i mean no :P'
Avaeryn says 'wish i did though'
Quixadhal says 'I've written perl code to telnet into muds (to grab their login screen) before, so it shouldn't be too bad.'
Quixadhal says 'It just has to be smart enough to wander around and find things it thinks it can kill.'
Avaeryn nods.
Quixadhal says 'Unlike my game, I don't think ROM will let you die from hunger or anything.'
Avaeryn says 'most won't'
Grumny says 'nope'
Grumny says 'no you wont die'
Grumny says 'your healing rate goes down is all'
Quixadhal says 'I cut my teeth on the predecessor to my mud, which was considered one of the hardest out there at the time. Death took half your experience and often de-leveled you. :)'
Quixadhal says 'So I just assume everything else is soft and cushy.'
Quixadhal says 'It looks like there were a lot of things that ROM started working on but didn't finish.'
Grumny says 'I remember those days'
Grumny says 'yeah, lots and lots of dead ends in ROM'
Quixadhal says 'I see rudimentry support for clans, for example.'
Avaeryn says 'i think that's where rot came in, but i think that code also sort of left a lot of dead ends or unfinished items'
Quixadhal says 'I might grab a copy of that just to see the evolution.'
Quixadhal says 'For now, I'll be happy to just bring all the parallel things into sync, so things that are the same kind of thing work the same way.'
Avaeryn says '1.4 is an interesting one, and was quite popular back in the day. it's a pity more people don't use text-based muds'
Quixadhal says 'I've also done a little work in LpMUD's, so I tend to look at stuff more abstractly.'
Quixadhal says 'or that might just be the object oriented perl from work a few years ago. :)'
Quixadhal says 'If you see $_ show up in the code anywhere, stop me before I kill again.'
Avaeryn says 'not to get too far off-topic, but how long do you think it will be before features will be added into RaM?'
Quixadhal says 'I'm hoping to start adding things like the bit code in about a week, and after that it'll be much more open to pouring things in.'
Quixadhal says 'Walking down that nice fat bug list is probably around that time too.'
Quixadhal says 'So, perhaps shooting for Halloween might be a good target?'
Quixadhal says 'hmmm, real channels should probably be on the list too.'
Quixadhal says 'How many people, do you think, would cry if music.c were yanked and tucked away as a snippet?'
Avaeryn says 'what types of editors will be added, do you think?'
Avaeryn says 'i'm sure music.c wouldn't be missed all that much :P'
Quixadhal says 'I'd love to add a full blown "ed", but we'll have to see if we can find a non-GPL'd one that can be embedded.'
Quixadhal says 'if we added some telnet support code, a full screen editor would be possible, but it would have to be a toggle, since mud clients wouldn't know what to do with it.'
Quixadhal says 'builders would love it, everyone else would ignore it or hate it. :)'
Quixadhal says 'unless you meant OLC editors, then whatever we can liberate from hard-coded constants.'
Grumny says 'sorry, was afk'
Quixadhal pats Grumny on his head.
Grumny says 'I doubt anyone will even notice if music.c goes away'
Grumny says 'and a nice editor would make me very happy'
Avaeryn says 'it would me too, especially if help files can be edited without causing major problems'
Avaeryn says 'and without the pain and heartache it sometimes involves now :P'
Quixadhal says 'I wonder if I still have the old copy of TMI-2 with vi hacked in….'
Grumny bounces around with a happy smile.
Grumny like VI
Quixadhal says 'Yes, help entries need to be editable.'
Quixadhal says 'ANYTHING that makes it more likely for help entries to be correct, or even just existing, is high on the priority list. :)'
Grumny says 'definitely'
Avaeryn says 'i think detailed help entries are a must'
Grumny says 'anything that will help to fix things "now" instead of "when I have time" is a good thing'
Darva has entered the game.
Darva says 'ahh, it's back. I had assumed since i wasn't getting a connection earlier today, there wouldn't be a meeting this week.'
Quixadhal says 'Hi there Darva!'
Darva bows before Quixadhal.
Quixadhal says 'Yeah, this week has been lots of fiddling and shifting code, but no major shinies.'
Darva nods.
Avaeryn says 'hi darva'
Darva says 'Is there anything that needs doing that's within the skills of a mid-range coder?'
Quixadhal says 'music.c is on the chopping block. :)'
Darva says 'thank god.'
Quixadhal falls down laughing.
Quixadhal says 'I've been resisting yanking that for fear of the ROMulan reaction. So far, it looks like nobody has used it since the days of the vt220.'
Avaeryn says 'It doesn't hurt my feelings at all :P'
Darva says 'I've seen it used on exactly one mud. And then only the imms had access to it.'
Grumny bows deeply.
Darva bows before Grumny.
Quixadhal says 'If anyone misses it, I can send you a tinyfugue macro to do the same thing via shout. :)'
Avaeryn says 'a good prog can do the same thing as well'
Darva falls down laughing.
Darva nods.
Quixadhal says 'I'm aiming for Halloween as the end of the code cleanup and getting the infinite bit code in, so by that time there'll be lots of work for everyone to jump on. ;)'
Darva says 'I remember someone saying something about it needing to be tested on a 64 bit machine? I've got a 64 bit laptop, though i'm running in 32 bit mode at the moment. I suppose i could re-partition my drive and add a 64 bit partiton.'
Darva says 'and give it a test.'
Quixadhal says 'Davion let me log into his machine, so we're good there (as long as I remember to do it before svn commit)!'
Darva nods.
Quixadhal says 'although you're more than welcome to grab the svn copy and see if I missed anything!'
Quixadhal says 'especially if you've got gcc 4.3'
Darva says 'I just grabbed the copy on mudbytes from today, and tested it at least on my current config and everythings good.'
Darva says '4.2.3 apparently.'
Darva chuckles politely.
Quixadhal says 'my normal compiler is 4.1.2, I have a 4.3 on a vm, and Davion's machine is 64-bit 4.1… so I figure it's mostly covered.'
Darva says 'yeah, probably pretty much.'
Quixadhal says 'For amusement, enjoy the new get_random_room() routine.'
Darva raises an eyebrow.
Darva greps.
Quixadhal says 'compare it to the old one over a beer.'
Darva falls down laughing.
Quixadhal says 'all I can say is, Russ (or his predecessors) seemd to have a fetish for while loops.'
Darva says 'I can see the improvement immediatly. Thought it reminds me of another need. Something to prevent people teleporting/gating/whatever into areas under construction.'
Darva says 'Some owners do actually build on their main port.'
Darva sighs.
Quixadhal says 'yep, that's part of the new fangled Oh Ell See thing you guys all want. Me and my grandpappy just vi tinyworld.wld and reboot the game. :)'
Avaeryn says 'a flag could be added that would prevent areas under construction from being accessible to mortals'
Darva says 'I never got the feeling that Rom was designed to be optimal, just to work.'
Darva nods at you in agreement.
Quixadhal says 'I figured with OLC, we'd have some kind of bit somewhere that says "not public yet", so it would check for that.'
Avaeryn says 'did i see a fetish statement above?'
Quixadhal grins evilly.
Darva says 'that was my solution i used, an obj, mob, and area flag. (so obj's wouldn't save, mobs wouldn't give xp, and you couldn't even get there in the first place)'
Quixadhal says 'One of the things on my wish list is to break the immortal code so building/admin stuff isn't tied to "level" any more.'
Darva says 'Hey, i'm not that big on olc. I just want an in-client text editor, and access to the files personally. Something that isn't olc's buffer editor that is.'
Darva says 'Well, it's tied to trust as well as level isn't it? '
Quixadhal says 'It shouldn't be either… "building" has nothing to do with "level".'
Darva says 'and you can have a mortal builder with no imm abilities. Or at least you should be able to.'
Quixadhal says 'I want my admin to be a level 1 fighter, but have the admin/building bits set too.'
Darva says 'The problem with that though, Quix, is testing.'
Darva says 'Oh. *laugh* trust <admin> 200, set <admin> security 9. Admin is still level 1, but can do everything you can do.'
Darva says 'Though they're still treated as an immortal, don't need to eat, can't die, etc.'
Quixadhal says 'Sure, although what's the point of "trust 200"… are there 200 seperate levels of security to hand out? No.'
Darva says 'true. But that's an abstraction thing.'
Darva says 'If you take the level checks out, you could reduce trust to 5 levels. Player, Builder, Immortal, Admin, Coder.'
Darva says '(I always consider coders to be the highest trust, so they can set commands in testing aside so no one else can use them.)'
Quixadhal says 'Yes, and then I'd say implement that as 5 bits instead, that can be set or cleared.'
Darva says 'You could do that, or call it a char and save a bit. :P'
Darva says 'blah, nm, i'm brain dead.'
Quixadhal says 'that way if you want to interact as a mortal, it just clears the bit and disables saving.'
Quixadhal smiles happily.
Quixadhal says 'the other thing is, if you seperate the logic, you allow for open-ended level progressions.'
Quixadhal says 'if someone wants to make a game with 500 levels, they don't have to worry about missing a security checkpoint.'
Darva says 'Rom doesn't handle high levels really well in my experience.'
Grumny nods.
Quixadhal says 'That's why we're here, to kick Rom's ass into behaving itself. :)'
Darva says 'I've played one that went to 291 mortal levels, and once you passed 60 the combat math didn't work real well.'
Grumny says 'What Sandi and I have discovered is that ROM as is, is best played with 1 to 30'
Grumny says 'much above that and it just becomes a "who has the most HP" thing'
Darva falls down laughing.
Quixadhal says 'That said, I think the 20 level of AD&D are plenty, but I'd like the code to allow for people who believe otherwise.'
Darva says 'Well, the one i'm refering too also made the mistake of giving you access to 95% of the skills/spells in the game when you hit 130.'
Darva nods at Quixadhal.
Grumny nods.
Quixadhal says 'Ideally, anywhere that uses tables probably should have a nice math formula with the data points plotted on a curve, so moving from 20 levels to 2000 levels still works.'
Quixadhal says 'even though you may need a 64-bit machine to handle hit points.'
Darva falls down laughing.
Grumny says 'well, it won't be too long before everyone has a 64 bit machine'
Darva says 'Yeah, but how long will it be before everyone is using them as 64 bit machines?'
Quixadhal waits for Grumny's promised 64-bit machine to arrive at his doorstep.
Grumny says 'well, how many people are using 16 bit stuff now?'
Darva chuckles at Grumny's joke.
Grumny digs in his Santa Sack and comes up empty.
Grumny says 'sorry, all out.'
Quixadhal doesn't think he can pull off claiming to be using his Amiga 500 to log in.
Darva says 'True. But like i just said a few minutes ago, i'm runnin 32 bits on a 64 bit machine. Mainly because several programs i would like either aren't available or are a pain in 64 bit.'
Grumny nods.
Darva is trying to remember if his phone is 32 or 64 bit.
Grumny says 'don't get me wrong, I do think we need to make both useable'
Quixadhal says 'Don't make me go buy that ethernet card and get out my C64!'
Grumny says 'that's why I want to keep the code able to use C without forcing C++'
Darva used to have an analog modem for his trs-80.
Quixadhal waves his C compiler for the C64 in a meanacing fashion.
Quixadhal says 'I really do have one… it even did color syntax highlighting…. very slowly.'
Quixadhal says 'in 40 columns.'
Darva says 'Is the bug with sacrificing objects people are sleeping/sitting on still in stock rom? I was gonna load a tent and a mob and check, but since there are no area's.'
Darva falls down laughing.
Darva shudders at the horror and represses tears.
Darva says 'that's kinda scary quix.'
Grumny says 'used to have an apple ]
Avaeryn says 'ok log is on, proceed :)'
Quixadhal taps the mic.
Sandi says 'Q, what experience do you have with ROMs?'
Quixadhal says 'Very little actually. I played a couple back in the day. :)'
Sandi just had a nasty idea.
Quixadhal says 'I did some work with Smaug's, and my own game pre-dates all of them.'
Sandi nods at Quixadhal.
Quixadhal says 'Well, all the derivatives… not Diku Gamma, of course.'
Sandi says 'That's pretty old.'
Quixadhal says 'But, over the years, I've retrofitted several codebases trying to find one I liked enough to convert to, so helping pick up ROM's bits seems like a good task.'
Sandi says 'Avaeryn, how about you?'
Quixadhal says 'Yeah, I believe WileyMUD was just after games like SillyMUD, DaleMUD, and maybe Copper.'
Avaeryn says 'I'm a Rom/Rot person from day one'
Avaeryn says 'Mostly as a builder and admin. I've tried coding a few times but it just isn't me :P'
Sandi smiles.
Sandi swore she'd never code again in…. 74? ;)
Quixadhal chuckles politely.
Quixadhal mutters about not dealing with stupid C and no native strings again…
Sandi says 'I know the ROM codebase pretty well. From that, I infer C.'
Avaeryn nods.
Avaeryn says 'It would be nice to learn though.'
Grumny says 'for me, the C itself isn't so bad, its the C + trying to figure out how ROM is doing stuff'
Grumny says 'there is enough there that I usually can't get my head around it'
Quixadhal says 'Yeah, it's a pretty convoluted system.'
Sandi nods at Quixadhal.
Quixadhal says 'Of course, no real documentation. :)'
Quixadhal says 'I'm actually trying to figure out why the gsn skill stuff is done differently than the spell code… it bugs me, since they kindof do the same thing.'
Quixadhal says 'I just hope to not find any more gems like get_random_room()'
Avaeryn nods.
Avaeryn says 'From what I can see, and understand, it is pretty confusing and intricate.'
(Avaeryn has major connection issues. About 30 minutes of the log is missing, sorry.)
Quixadhal says 'Yeah, the original coders generally didn't do code for a living either, so documentation wasn't an issue. :)'
Quixadhal says 'good old ISP's.'
Quixadhal says 'I can't complain too much about Charter though… it's fairly stable and even though I have a dynamic IP, it hasn't changed for about a year.'
Grumny says 'I use yahoo broadband here in Japan'
Grumny says 'pretty sure I'm dynamic, and it hasn't changed since I got it years ago'
Quixadhal says 'Wow, a few people poked their noses into my dusty old mud again…. I wonder if anyone stayed longer than a minute this time. :)'
You chuckle politely.
Avaeryn says 'ours was wonderful when it was adelphia'
Quixadhal says 'It's not really very n00b-friendly, nor easy. So far, I think an hour is the longest visit I've seen.'
Avaeryn says 'but since comcast bought out adelphia, it sucks'
Avaeryn says 'what type of mud do you have quix?'
Quixadhal says 'That's what I hear about cingular/sprint.'
Grumny says 'I hate that'
Avaeryn says 'verizon bought out alltel, so i think i'll go with net 10 since verizon's customer service sucks :P'
Grumny says 'I just love how people on the forums claim to want something new, but log off in 5 minutes because it doesn't look familiar'
Avaeryn says 'ah anyway…'
Avaeryn nods sagely.
Quixadhal says 'It's an offshoot of Diku Gamma, with bits of DaleMUD, SIllyMUD, and a few other bits I don't recognize.'
Avaeryn says 'the old "log on, who, quit" thing?'
Grumny says 'or just do "area" and see lots of stock areas and quit before finding out if anything has been done with them'
Avaery nods.
Quixadhal says 'wiley.shadowlord.org 3000 if you're curious. I don't think I have an area command. :)'
Avaeryn says 'i would hope that the rebirth/reworking of RaM will attract more people to muds'
Avaeryn says 'do you have a mud too, Grumny?'
Grumny says 'sort of'
Grumny says 'I'm with Sandi'
Avaeryn nods.
Quixadhal says 'yes, I think having another solid codebase will help.'
Quixadhal says 'MUD's are still great ways to express creativity, but so many of them are so buggy you spend all your time fixing them instead of adding onto them.'
Avaeryn nods.
Avaeryn says 'i want a good, solid codebase with user-friendly olc that would allow me to do a lot of things'
Grumny says 'nod'
Avaeryn says 'then i can just make this place a builder school, or just use it to build for myself when i'm bored'
Quixadhal says 'I'd even like to eventually allow several OLC interfaces… the old command-based ones "rset flag foo", and higher level ones like Oasis (for example) that walk you through menus.'
Quixadhal says 'The underlying code is the same, but having both views would help people who want to see what's available AND people who just want to make quick changes.'
Avaeryn nods.
Avaeryn says 'ugh i hate this internet, honestly'
Quixadhal chuckles politely.
Quixadhal hands Avaeryn a form letter addressed to Al Gore.
Avaeryn chuckles politely.
Avaeryn says 'so where are you guys now with Ram, quix?'
Avaeryn says 'I've seen some of the changes that have been made and think things are moving forward so well'
Quixadhal says 'I'm currently refactoring things to try and get related code into the same files so it's easier to understand.'
Quixadhal says 'I just finished adding signal trapping for ctrl-C so it does a proper exit, and THAT lets you compile with profiling enabled.'
Quixadhal says 'I really should write a perl "bot" to "play" the game so I can test it under load.'
Quixadhal says 'I don't suppose anyone has a "bot" already?'
Avaeryn nods.
Avaeryn nods sagely.
Avaeryn says 'umm no, i mean no :P'
Avaeryn says 'wish i did though'
Quixadhal says 'I've written perl code to telnet into muds (to grab their login screen) before, so it shouldn't be too bad.'
Quixadhal says 'It just has to be smart enough to wander around and find things it thinks it can kill.'
Avaeryn nods.
Quixadhal says 'Unlike my game, I don't think ROM will let you die from hunger or anything.'
Avaeryn says 'most won't'
Grumny says 'nope'
Grumny says 'no you wont die'
Grumny says 'your healing rate goes down is all'
Quixadhal says 'I cut my teeth on the predecessor to my mud, which was considered one of the hardest out there at the time. Death took half your experience and often de-leveled you. :)'
Quixadhal says 'So I just assume everything else is soft and cushy.'
Quixadhal says 'It looks like there were a lot of things that ROM started working on but didn't finish.'
Grumny says 'I remember those days'
Grumny says 'yeah, lots and lots of dead ends in ROM'
Quixadhal says 'I see rudimentry support for clans, for example.'
Avaeryn says 'i think that's where rot came in, but i think that code also sort of left a lot of dead ends or unfinished items'
Quixadhal says 'I might grab a copy of that just to see the evolution.'
Quixadhal says 'For now, I'll be happy to just bring all the parallel things into sync, so things that are the same kind of thing work the same way.'
Avaeryn says '1.4 is an interesting one, and was quite popular back in the day. it's a pity more people don't use text-based muds'
Quixadhal says 'I've also done a little work in LpMUD's, so I tend to look at stuff more abstractly.'
Quixadhal says 'or that might just be the object oriented perl from work a few years ago. :)'
Quixadhal says 'If you see $_ show up in the code anywhere, stop me before I kill again.'
Avaeryn says 'not to get too far off-topic, but how long do you think it will be before features will be added into RaM?'
Quixadhal says 'I'm hoping to start adding things like the bit code in about a week, and after that it'll be much more open to pouring things in.'
Quixadhal says 'Walking down that nice fat bug list is probably around that time too.'
Quixadhal says 'So, perhaps shooting for Halloween might be a good target?'
Quixadhal says 'hmmm, real channels should probably be on the list too.'
Quixadhal says 'How many people, do you think, would cry if music.c were yanked and tucked away as a snippet?'
Avaeryn says 'what types of editors will be added, do you think?'
Avaeryn says 'i'm sure music.c wouldn't be missed all that much :P'
Quixadhal says 'I'd love to add a full blown "ed", but we'll have to see if we can find a non-GPL'd one that can be embedded.'
Quixadhal says 'if we added some telnet support code, a full screen editor would be possible, but it would have to be a toggle, since mud clients wouldn't know what to do with it.'
Quixadhal says 'builders would love it, everyone else would ignore it or hate it. :)'
Quixadhal says 'unless you meant OLC editors, then whatever we can liberate from hard-coded constants.'
Grumny says 'sorry, was afk'
Quixadhal pats Grumny on his head.
Grumny says 'I doubt anyone will even notice if music.c goes away'
Grumny says 'and a nice editor would make me very happy'
Avaeryn says 'it would me too, especially if help files can be edited without causing major problems'
Avaeryn says 'and without the pain and heartache it sometimes involves now :P'
Quixadhal says 'I wonder if I still have the old copy of TMI-2 with vi hacked in….'
Grumny bounces around with a happy smile.
Grumny like VI
Quixadhal says 'Yes, help entries need to be editable.'
Quixadhal says 'ANYTHING that makes it more likely for help entries to be correct, or even just existing, is high on the priority list. :)'
Grumny says 'definitely'
Avaeryn says 'i think detailed help entries are a must'
Grumny says 'anything that will help to fix things "now" instead of "when I have time" is a good thing'
Darva has entered the game.
Darva says 'ahh, it's back. I had assumed since i wasn't getting a connection earlier today, there wouldn't be a meeting this week.'
Quixadhal says 'Hi there Darva!'
Darva bows before Quixadhal.
Quixadhal says 'Yeah, this week has been lots of fiddling and shifting code, but no major shinies.'
Darva nods.
Avaeryn says 'hi darva'
Darva says 'Is there anything that needs doing that's within the skills of a mid-range coder?'
Quixadhal says 'music.c is on the chopping block. :)'
Darva says 'thank god.'
Quixadhal falls down laughing.
Quixadhal says 'I've been resisting yanking that for fear of the ROMulan reaction. So far, it looks like nobody has used it since the days of the vt220.'
Avaeryn says 'It doesn't hurt my feelings at all :P'
Darva says 'I've seen it used on exactly one mud. And then only the imms had access to it.'
Grumny bows deeply.
Darva bows before Grumny.
Quixadhal says 'If anyone misses it, I can send you a tinyfugue macro to do the same thing via shout. :)'
Avaeryn says 'a good prog can do the same thing as well'
Darva falls down laughing.
Darva nods.
Quixadhal says 'I'm aiming for Halloween as the end of the code cleanup and getting the infinite bit code in, so by that time there'll be lots of work for everyone to jump on. ;)'
Darva says 'I remember someone saying something about it needing to be tested on a 64 bit machine? I've got a 64 bit laptop, though i'm running in 32 bit mode at the moment. I suppose i could re-partition my drive and add a 64 bit partiton.'
Darva says 'and give it a test.'
Quixadhal says 'Davion let me log into his machine, so we're good there (as long as I remember to do it before svn commit)!'
Darva nods.
Quixadhal says 'although you're more than welcome to grab the svn copy and see if I missed anything!'
Quixadhal says 'especially if you've got gcc 4.3'
Darva says 'I just grabbed the copy on mudbytes from today, and tested it at least on my current config and everythings good.'
Darva says '4.2.3 apparently.'
Darva chuckles politely.
Quixadhal says 'my normal compiler is 4.1.2, I have a 4.3 on a vm, and Davion's machine is 64-bit 4.1… so I figure it's mostly covered.'
Darva says 'yeah, probably pretty much.'
Quixadhal says 'For amusement, enjoy the new get_random_room() routine.'
Darva raises an eyebrow.
Darva greps.
Quixadhal says 'compare it to the old one over a beer.'
Darva falls down laughing.
Quixadhal says 'all I can say is, Russ (or his predecessors) seemd to have a fetish for while loops.'
Darva says 'I can see the improvement immediatly. Thought it reminds me of another need. Something to prevent people teleporting/gating/whatever into areas under construction.'
Darva says 'Some owners do actually build on their main port.'
Darva sighs.
Quixadhal says 'yep, that's part of the new fangled Oh Ell See thing you guys all want. Me and my grandpappy just vi tinyworld.wld and reboot the game. :)'
Avaeryn says 'a flag could be added that would prevent areas under construction from being accessible to mortals'
Darva says 'I never got the feeling that Rom was designed to be optimal, just to work.'
Darva nods at you in agreement.
Quixadhal says 'I figured with OLC, we'd have some kind of bit somewhere that says "not public yet", so it would check for that.'
Avaeryn says 'did i see a fetish statement above?'
Quixadhal grins evilly.
Darva says 'that was my solution i used, an obj, mob, and area flag. (so obj's wouldn't save, mobs wouldn't give xp, and you couldn't even get there in the first place)'
Quixadhal says 'One of the things on my wish list is to break the immortal code so building/admin stuff isn't tied to "level" any more.'
Darva says 'Hey, i'm not that big on olc. I just want an in-client text editor, and access to the files personally. Something that isn't olc's buffer editor that is.'
Darva says 'Well, it's tied to trust as well as level isn't it? '
Quixadhal says 'It shouldn't be either… "building" has nothing to do with "level".'
Darva says 'and you can have a mortal builder with no imm abilities. Or at least you should be able to.'
Quixadhal says 'I want my admin to be a level 1 fighter, but have the admin/building bits set too.'
Darva says 'The problem with that though, Quix, is testing.'
Darva says 'Oh. *laugh* trust <admin> 200, set <admin> security 9. Admin is still level 1, but can do everything you can do.'
Darva says 'Though they're still treated as an immortal, don't need to eat, can't die, etc.'
Quixadhal says 'Sure, although what's the point of "trust 200"… are there 200 seperate levels of security to hand out? No.'
Darva says 'true. But that's an abstraction thing.'
Darva says 'If you take the level checks out, you could reduce trust to 5 levels. Player, Builder, Immortal, Admin, Coder.'
Darva says '(I always consider coders to be the highest trust, so they can set commands in testing aside so no one else can use them.)'
Quixadhal says 'Yes, and then I'd say implement that as 5 bits instead, that can be set or cleared.'
Darva says 'You could do that, or call it a char and save a bit. :P'
Darva says 'blah, nm, i'm brain dead.'
Quixadhal says 'that way if you want to interact as a mortal, it just clears the bit and disables saving.'
Quixadhal smiles happily.
Quixadhal says 'the other thing is, if you seperate the logic, you allow for open-ended level progressions.'
Quixadhal says 'if someone wants to make a game with 500 levels, they don't have to worry about missing a security checkpoint.'
Darva says 'Rom doesn't handle high levels really well in my experience.'
Grumny nods.
Quixadhal says 'That's why we're here, to kick Rom's ass into behaving itself. :)'
Darva says 'I've played one that went to 291 mortal levels, and once you passed 60 the combat math didn't work real well.'
Grumny says 'What Sandi and I have discovered is that ROM as is, is best played with 1 to 30'
Grumny says 'much above that and it just becomes a "who has the most HP" thing'
Darva falls down laughing.
Quixadhal says 'That said, I think the 20 level of AD&D are plenty, but I'd like the code to allow for people who believe otherwise.'
Darva says 'Well, the one i'm refering too also made the mistake of giving you access to 95% of the skills/spells in the game when you hit 130.'
Darva nods at Quixadhal.
Grumny nods.
Quixadhal says 'Ideally, anywhere that uses tables probably should have a nice math formula with the data points plotted on a curve, so moving from 20 levels to 2000 levels still works.'
Quixadhal says 'even though you may need a 64-bit machine to handle hit points.'
Darva falls down laughing.
Grumny says 'well, it won't be too long before everyone has a 64 bit machine'
Darva says 'Yeah, but how long will it be before everyone is using them as 64 bit machines?'
Quixadhal waits for Grumny's promised 64-bit machine to arrive at his doorstep.
Grumny says 'well, how many people are using 16 bit stuff now?'
Darva chuckles at Grumny's joke.
Grumny digs in his Santa Sack and comes up empty.
Grumny says 'sorry, all out.'
Quixadhal doesn't think he can pull off claiming to be using his Amiga 500 to log in.
Darva says 'True. But like i just said a few minutes ago, i'm runnin 32 bits on a 64 bit machine. Mainly because several programs i would like either aren't available or are a pain in 64 bit.'
Grumny nods.
Darva is trying to remember if his phone is 32 or 64 bit.
Grumny says 'don't get me wrong, I do think we need to make both useable'
Quixadhal says 'Don't make me go buy that ethernet card and get out my C64!'
Grumny says 'that's why I want to keep the code able to use C without forcing C++'
Darva used to have an analog modem for his trs-80.
Quixadhal waves his C compiler for the C64 in a meanacing fashion.
Quixadhal says 'I really do have one… it even did color syntax highlighting…. very slowly.'
Quixadhal says 'in 40 columns.'
Darva says 'Is the bug with sacrificing objects people are sleeping/sitting on still in stock rom? I was gonna load a tent and a mob and check, but since there are no area's.'
Darva falls down laughing.
Darva shudders at the horror and represses tears.
Darva says 'that's kinda scary quix.'
Grumny says 'used to have an apple ][ plus'
Grumny says 'applesoft rocks'
Quixadhal says 'hmmmm, probably. what happens?'
Darva says 'My father refused to give me a C compiler till i wrote a mdi word processor with spell checking in gwbasic….'
Darva says 'Nothing happens, except the item goes away. Wouldn't you notice someone saccing the tent you're sleeping *in*?'
Grumny says 'that's mean'
Darva grins evilly at Grumny.
Darva was a pkiller.
Quixadhal says 'Maybe you're a sound sleeper…. who had too much to drink earlier…'
Darva falls to the ground and rolls around laughing hysterically.
Grumny says 'so, um, where do you wake up?'
Darva says 'On the ground.'
Quixadhal says 'on the first mud I played on, energy drain still drained levels from you…. so when the first mage (a friend of mine) hit level 15, he declared nobody else would ever pass level 14.'
Quixadhal says 'they implemented PK registration because of him…. he was successful. :)'
Darva falls down laughing.
Grumny grins evilly.
Grumny says 'there is always one…'
Grumny smirks.
Darva says 'Our big thing was scrolls of holy word, holy word, heal. Holy word was suped up if you were a cleric casting it against people you're opposite align. We called em scrolls of drive by.'
Darva says 'you recite it on yourself, and watch everyone in the room die, then you walk away with about 1k hp.'
Darva has created a tent!
Darva loads a tent.
Quixadhal says 'of course, then I figured out you could stand (invisible) in front of the mob that did the PK registration and cast 'ventriloquate' register me on people….'
Darva loads foober.
Darva appears in a swirling mist.
Darva mutters something quietly to himself.
Quixadhal erects a fan to blow the swirling mist away.
Grumny pulls out a bottle and tries to catch the swirling mist.
Darva says 'oh, that's an awesome trick with ventriloquate. I've never seen that used for much, since it isn't usally updated to match the say command.'
Darva has created foober!
Darva loads foober.
Grumny says 'I know folks who pay good money for that.'
Darva mutters something quietly to himself.
Darva says 'they didn't name the bloody mob right'
Quixadhal sets fire to the tent.
Darva falls to the ground and rolls around laughing hysterically.
Darva slaps himself, really strange …
Darva purges the room!
Darva has created a tent!
Darva loads a tent.
Darva sighs.
Darva says 'it's been too damn long.'
Darva purges the room!
local> A small goblin runs up and sets the tent on fire.
Darva sticks his tongue out, catching a few flies in the process.
Darva has created a tent!
Darva loads a tent.
Darva goes to sleep in a tent.
Darva wakes and stands up.
Darva has created foober!
Darva loads foober.
Foober goes to sleep in a tent.
Quixadhal points at the offending local> and mutters about removing code again.
Darva says 'local only shows if you're an imm.'
Foober wakes and stands up.
Darva blinks innocently.
Darva purges the room!
Darva shrugs helplessly.
Quixadhal sets fire to Foober.
Darva says 'I guess it did get fixed.'
Darva has created a tent!
Darva loads a tent.
Darva purges the room!
Darva says 'yup. Ok, so nm on that. *laugh*'
Quixadhal says 'That's because the ROM people didn't use my idea of making objects and rooms be the same class of thing.'
Darva shudders at the horror and represses tears.
Quixadhal says 'so you aren't *really* "in" the tent, you're just next to the tent with a silly description modifier.'
Darva says 'yeah, i'm not sure i like the idea of the room i'm in being picked up and stuffed in someones bag.'
Quixadhal says 'What else would you call an immortal using OLC?'
Avaeryn says 'a guinea pig?'
Quixadhal says 'I wouldn't think a mortal could carry a room. :)'
Avaeryn says 'i really was here, just balancing my check book o.O'
Darva says 'well, if your tent is a room, and a mortal can carry a tent… *chuckles*'
Quixadhal says 'Sure, an empty one…'
Grumny says 'well, any builder who flags a room as "take" needs to be slapped.'
Darva grins evilly at Grumny.
Grumny smirks.
Darva says '"where's the clan hall?" Darva removes a small box from a bag. Darva hands you a small box.'
Quixadhal says 'vehicles are just fancy rooms that can be relinked on the fly.'
Darva nods at Quixadhal.
Grumny says 'make the tents a portal :)'
Darva says 'i dunno why, but i've always hated vehicles in muds.'
Darva says 'that's how a lot of places handle it.'
Quixadhal says 'it's when you realize that zones are also just containers that hold lots of objects called rooms, which in turn hold objects called mobs and players and things, that it gets interesting.'
Darva says 'I really think the channels need to be unified into one function and a table.'
Quixadhal says 'but I digress'
Darva says 'maybe some callback functions to determine if you can talk/hear on a channel.'
Quixadhal says 'bits will save us there…. channel names with bits for enabling/disabling.'
Grumny gossips 'yeah, they probably should all use the same code, witth flags for range… room, area, world, plane, universe'
Darva gossips 'emote'
Darva gossips 'mutter'
Grumny says 'and flags for group, clan, dwarf, all'
Darva says 'nono, that's why the callback. :P'
Quixadhal says 'I would suggest implementing all player communication as channels, with say/shout/tell/etc being special cases that just don't show the channel names.'
Grumny says 'see, me no coder, me thinker'
Grumny says 'ahh'
Darva chuckles at Grumny's joke.
Quixadhal grins evilly.
Quixadhal says 'I suppose an ignore list is also in order.'
Quixadhal says 'although at least we won't have gold spammers to worry about.'
(more connection difficulties, part of log is missing)
Grumny says 'gold spammers?'
Grumny says 'not familiar with that term'
Darva says 'WoW term.'
Quixadhal says 'the bane of most of the newer MMO's'
Avaeryn says 'i have to be going soon guys'
Grumny says 'ahh, never played'
Quixadhal says 'People pay real world money for in-game gold'
Darva nods at you in agreement.
Avaeryn says 'yah cabal has the same problem'
Grumny says 'hehe, that I have heard about'
Avaeryn says 'people pay for alz which is basically gold'
Quixadhal says 'and so people spam the chat channels trying to sell it.'
Darva says 'I think the simplest solution to that is the same as the real world drug problem. Legalize and regulate it.'
Darva shrugs helplessly.
Darva says 'Anyway… RaM. Is there anything that actually needs discussing at this point?'
Quixadhal says 'I disagree, because it then says rich people win regardless of skill… just like the real world I'm trying to escape from.'
Grumny says 'I can't wait to see someone buy a used car for that +37 sword of slay everything but purple bark beetles'
Quixadhal smiles happily.
Quixadhal says 'I think as long as nobody minds me continuing to claw away at things, next week is probably the one where we start planning what to tackle and whom wants to do what.'
Avaeryn says 'i don't think so darva, as far as ram goes'
Avaeryn says 'sounds good quix'
Darva nods.
Grumny says 'I doubt that will be much of a problem for most though, not enough of a customer base, to make it worthwhile'
Avaeryn says 'ok. i'll stop the log here then :)'