[DGD] Current state of MUD-dom

[Bart van Leeuwen]

On Mon, 23 Aug 2004, Par Winzell wrote:

> > The problem with an http interface is that it doesn't handle
> > two-way chat very elegantly. So some kind of support for that
> > is also needed; maybe Java, maybe something more advanced.
> > Some way that I can type "Mobydick shouts: The end is near!
> > Repent!" and the other users in the same room as me get a
> > message "Mobydick shouts: The end is near! Repent!" in real
> > time.
>
> I don't understand this paragraph. What's wrong with the way everything
> As for the larger conversation topic, I think the basic problem is that
> the overwhelming amount of work being done in the LPMud area is endless
> redundant reimplementations of trivial low level libraries that should
> have been standardized a decade ago.

Heh.. having been admin and arch on an ancient lpmud for almost a decade..
yeah, definitely... if possible, reinvent the same stuff 10 times on one
mud as well.. its not just that there is no sharing between muds..

> There is virtually no coordination

I have no idea why, but most coders I dealt with on 'ancient' lpmuds are
so protective about their code that there is very little to no sharing,
hence little coordination also (what is there to coordinate anyway...)
The mud I was active on has become a kind of world of its own with its own
incomaptible driver patches and features, a mudlib stuck between 1991 and
1993 mostly, but with some modern features like object management, and had
a culture of not sharing code. As you can guess, in the end stagnation and
inefficiency prevailed.

> in the LPMud world; it seems like every single good programmer whose LPC
> interest is peaking finds a new ancient mudlib to bring from the 1991
> era to the 1993 era, and it just STOPS there. I don't understand it.

Well... unless you are prepared to take some rather drastic measures, its
rather painfull to bring most of the traditional lpmud libs and the games
based on them to a more modern standard, it seems most rather want to keep
to what they have been doing and keep refining it...

As for myself... I may or may not be guilty of the same thing.. I did take
an ancient lib, and am trying to create a modern lib that offers a decent
level of compatibility with area code written for this ancient lpmud.

I threw away almost everything, thus ending up writing lots of low level
libs from scratch...

That said, if you want to use anything based on traditional lpmud style
areas, you better be prepared to do a lot of work and throw out everything
that remotely looks like the ancient mudlib.

Being a bit stubborn (...) I decided I could do this on top of DGD and
could also write my own kernel.... and patch the driver to change the way
range operators function.. I did take a close look at the standard dgd
kernel for that tho.

So where am I a year after that?

I am still stuck with some fragments of lib code from that ancient lpmud,
but at least all the 2.4.5 stuff is gone (I said it was ancient, didn't
I? ;). I have a working kernel and driver, but the kernel still needs
quite a bit of work. Much of the lib has been rewritten from scratch but
needs quite some work still as well.

As a nice sidenote to Felix.. I also ended up with a saber.c and
fingerd.c written by... Dworkin ;P Sorry, both are kinda gone now ;)

At any rate, by far not good enough to build a working game on yet.. but I
think it is worth a try to see if it is possible to move those ancient
games into a more modern age. That doesn't mean www access or graphical
interfaces (altho it could include that) but having them run on a more
modern lib that supports many of the nice features of a modern driver like
DGD without having to patch the by now usually utterly messy lpmud derived
driver that you will find a lot more often then you'd expect still.

If I get this working well enough to actually start building a game on it,
I'll also release the kernel and at least a part of the lib for download, but
heh, if that will help anyone beyond keeping yet another ancient mud on
lifesupport is the question.

But then... I'm doing this for fun.

I get the impression that many newer potential players end up wanting huge
environments with lots of people, or something graphical, and the smaller
muds out there that survive and do well usually have an in part older and
relatively fanatical playerbase.

Bart.
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