Armchair-Dev Seeking MUD start...

[Sentack]

Okay, I'm an armchair developer basicly. I've been reading the books, scanning the sites, watching the latest news, trying to keep up with the latest debates and repeating the same questions that the last archair developer asked in years past that everyone hates to answer.

So now i want to start my own small MUD, something to kick around, mess with on my free time. I work 9-5, A C coder by profession and have pleanty of time to devote to any new project. With an old Ultra-1 Sparc Solaris 7 machine available for my every whim, I hope to maybe turn it into something usefull in my desires to make a fun and engageing new mud. But the question is, Where to start.

In NeoArchaeology's 3rd article, "Got a License for That?" He speaks about how a lot of the open source MUD servers have been quite stagnant in development. And that the majority seem to lack documentation. Well being new to MUDs in general, Haveing only touched on them a bit durring my collage years 5-6 years ago, I can't say I'm all that experienced at how one runs. I've mostly played with the bigger graphical muds but they say any blossoming developer needs to start somewhere, so I though a mud would be the place.

That being the issue, the first question is, what do I use then? LDMUD? Diku-Mud? Something new? Somthing Old? Or should I dare to start on my own and try to build it myself, risking everything and learning via Trial by Fire! I want to learn, I want to understand but how should I really start off this endever?

Sentack

[angelbob]

Originally posted by Sentack
I work 9-5, A C coder by profession and have pleanty of time to devote to any new project.

My God. Where do you work? :-)

That being the issue, the first question is, what do I use then? LDMUD? Diku-Mud? Something new? Somthing Old? Or should I dare to start on my own and try to build it myself, risking everything and learning via Trial by Fire! I want to learn, I want to understand but how should I really start off this endever?

Mostly it depends on your goals. Trial by fire is the best way to get a really good appreciation of, say, sockets programming. However, it's the worst way to actually get a MUD running. So that could be good or bad, depending on what you want to do.

Using some LPMUD variant (DGD, Shattered World, MudOS) is best if you mainly want to write scripts and things to get the world working. There's also a little more documentation for LPC than there is for Diku-based stuff.

However, Diku-based MUDs are the most popular, which makes it easiest to get something more-or-less working and easiest to find new developers. You'll also have the broadest possible base to steal ideas from, and the server code is usually simpler for Diku than LPC. In LPC you don't generally touch the server code except to make simple extensions. In Diku, it's basically mandatory to rewrite big sections of it if you're going to make noticeable changes. I like LPC-style, though you may not.

So it depends. What do you want to do? What are your goals?

It's like asking, "what's the best car?". The answer may be a Porsche, a motorcycle, a Honda Civic, a schoolbus or a dump truck, depending on what you're planning to do with it.

[Sentack]

My God. Where do you work? :-)

Hey, I do my work, I get the job done. I go home, now I'm ready to mess around. :-)

So it depends. What do you want to do? What are your goals?

Well, Mainly I want to design. Learning how to code a mud WOULD be nice, but I think Primarly I want to focus on design. That being said, scripting like with LDMUD does sound appealing. I also found that LDMUD just had a recent update. I'm not sure exactly what got updated but I was a bit shocked after this article came out, I spoted an updated LDMUD available.

But, that doesn't mean I don't want to learn about the internal workings of an online game. It seems a good competiant Developer really needs to know just how things work in reality so he can base his expectations in that, or perhaps try to push the right boundries without makeing wild assumptions that don't offer any real backing on a resoultion as to how they should work in reality.

Since you mentioned LDMUD, I might give that a shot again, although I found the whole thing to be really messy when I tried it out at first. I guess I may want to learn how to operate and use a MUD, customize it, then code my own mini-mud to get a real feel on how it all works.

Am I answering my own question now or do you have any other suggestions to make? One thing I must admit, I've tended not to like the Diku system in general, which seems popular with other muds, and really am looking to come up with a much simplier, cleaner system of my own. Perhaps a mud-lite game.

Sentack

[Lee]

Originally posted by Sentack
That being the issue, the first question is, what do I use then? LDMUD? Diku-Mud? Something new? Somthing Old? Or should I dare to start on my own and try to build it myself, risking everything and learning via Trial by Fire! I want to learn, I want to understand but how should I really start off this endever?

Sentack

Something new.

Although I disagree with Noah on why MUDs haven't advanced I most certainly agree they have not.

So following that logic, why would you want to reuse something that has, at best, minor incremental advancement over the last 10-15 years or so?

This isn't to say you should ignore the previously mentioned codebases. Quite the opposite. You should become the literate coder Noah was talking about and find out what makes them tick, what is good and bad about each type. Then go and research the design of modern 3d game engines and see how they do things. Look through some of the slides posted from the last couple years of GDC. Pay attention to the data-driven object hierarchies.

And of course, you gotta implement things to test your designs and figure out how to do things better. All part of the fun. Good luck.

- Lee

[angelbob]

Originally posted by Sentack
Well, Mainly I want to design.

Design what? Algorithms? System architecture? Rooms and monsters? Coding languages?

You'll get different answers to the question of what MUD is best depending on which of those you want to design.

I also found that LDMUD just had a recent update. I'm not sure exactly what got updated but I was a bit shocked after this article came out, I spoted an updated LDMUD available.

If I remember LDMUD correctly (that's the one maintained by Lars@bearnip, yeah?), you'll find that there isn't an awful lot of development going on there, but he *is* at least maintaining it, which is definitely good.

There are a few MUDs that are actually advancing. I'm a big fan of DGD, and it's actually adding big new features that *nobody* else has. With that said, it's still only semi-free.

One thing I must admit, I've tended not to like the Diku system in general, which seems popular with other muds, and really am looking to come up with a much simplier, cleaner system of my own. Perhaps a mud-lite game.

Whether Diku is simple or not depends on what you want to do with it. I actually first learned on CircleMUD, which is a classic (and simple) Diku derivative. It'll show you the ropes if you want it to. It's a good, clean base to build on. It won't do much for you, but it will rarely get in your way if you want to build stuff for yourself.

Then there's SMAUG, which is probably the biggest and most featureful Diku-derivative, which will get in your way a bit more but give you more in return.

Or you could switch to an LPMUD derivative like LDMUD, or CDLIB, or MudOS, or DGD. Those all provide an entire new language and programming environment, one unrelated to things like C and C++, though you can extend most of them with functions in C. It's not necessarily easy, but you can do it. Anything LPMUD-derived will give you the chance to write in LPC, which is a C derivative. You'll have to decide if it sounds like a good idea to you or not. There's some decent LPC documentation out there. My personal favorite ('cause I rewrote it) is at "http://phantasmal.sf.net/DGD/LPC".

So when you say you want to design -- what, exactly, do you want to design?

[Sentack]

Originally posted by angelbob
Design what? Algorithms? System architecture? Rooms and monsters? Coding languages?

You'll get different answers to the question of what MUD is best depending on which of those you want to design.


Primarly I want to design the game mechanics. Such as, let's say it's a fantasy game (Like that's unexpected) I would be the one who builds up the races, the classes, the combat system, the spell system, Any kind of quest system, a faction system, perhaps meddleing with the interface, a default template for content generation, maybe even a Rogue like Random dungeon generator too. I want to design a game and the rules that govern it.


I'm a big fan of DGD, and it's actually adding big new features that *nobody* else has.


Hmm, Well what is DGD and where can I findout more about it? I'm not too familure with that name off hand.


Whether Diku is simple or not depends on what you want to do with it.


I messed with Diku a touch and found it kind of messy for my likeing, although I must admit, it's perhaps I'm far too spoiled by a few clean cut graphical interfaces that allow me to stare at a lot of numbers easly without a lot of commands. I guess I'm hopeing to capture that same kind of grace but in a text based system.


Then there's SMAUG, which is probably the biggest and most featureful Diku-derivative, which will get in your way a bit more but give you more in return.


Well I'll honestly give it a look.


Well Like I said, i'm an armchair developer, I'm kind of feeling things out right now so I'm glad you can at least offer me these few tid-bids. Thanks.

Sentack

[angelbob]

Originally posted by Sentack
I would be the one who builds up the races, the classes, the combat system, the spell system, Any kind of quest system, a faction system, perhaps meddleing with the interface, a default template for content generation, maybe even a Rogue like Random dungeon generator too. I want to design a game and the rules that govern it.

Tall order. Really almost any MUD will let you do this. The LPC variants will make it less likely to crash while you are, but the Diku variants will probably restrain you the least. Either will work well.


Hmm, Well what is DGD and where can I findout more about it? I'm not too familure with that name off hand.

Do a Google search on it, or try "http://phantasmal.sf.net/DGD".


I messed with Diku a touch and found it kind of messy for my likeing, although I must admit, it's perhaps I'm far too spoiled by a few clean cut graphical interfaces that allow me to stare at a lot of numbers easly without a lot of commands. I guess I'm hopeing to capture that same kind of grace but in a text based system.

The closest to that that I know of is Skotos, and their stuff isn't readily available. If you want a good graphical interface for building, you'll mostly have to write it yourself. Another thing to look at, though, is ScryMUD, specifically the Hegemon builder client. It's written in Java. Not perfect, but maybe a good starting point.