[DGD] DGD playability

[Joseph Blomstedt]

On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 10:41 AM, Manzell Blakeley <manzell at reaxion.org> wrote:
> Hello all,
> It's been a while since I've been involved in the MUD world, but It would be
> nice to know what the status of playable/buildable DGD distros out there.
>
> So, quesitons are: how buildable/playable is a stock DGD distribution?
> What games are out there running DGD?
>
> Thanks!
> Manzell B

I'm certainly not the best person to answer this question, but I'll
chime in with what I've learned over the past few months as I've
started to explore the DGD world.

The base DGD distribution itself includes DGD and the Kernel Lib. The
Kernel Lib isn't really something that you build a MUD on, but rather
the foundation upon which you build a new mudlib from which you than
build a MUD on. In short, the stock DGD distribution is
"codeable/implementable" rather than buildable/playable.

A great place to look into things is at Noah Gibbs' DGD documentation,
specifically this page:
http://phantasmal.sourceforge.net/DGD/LibWriting/index.html

That page talks about the main available libraries in the DGD world,
including those that are more game focused and those that are more
technical focused / starting points for others to build upon. In
addition to the libs mentioned there, there is also Shentino's
Kotaka/Ulariomud lib
(http://necronomicorp.com/~shentino/public/download) and Mikael Lind's
Leprechaun lib (http://leprechaun.sourceforge.net/). Although, both of
these are what I would consider experimental foundational mudlibs and
not inherently game-ready. I'm not sure how active either of them are
thesedays either. Shentino has recently taken over Phantasmal
development, for example.

As for games, the main ones I'm aware of are the commerical games from
Skotos.net, the Way of the Force at http://wotf.org, and the games
listed on http://phantasmal.sourceforge.net/DGD/MUDs_using_DGD.html.

In other news, I'm a coder from an old LPMud background who has
recently revived an old project to start a new MUD. Spent the last few
months porting over an my old fully custom (build on the Lil mudlib)
MudOS library to DGD and am now presently getting a game together. The
game-focused momentum in this project is rather large given that a
number of ex-coders and players from an established MUD that I used to
code on are involved and looking for a new home after mounting
dissatisfaction with the other game's new admin directions. I have
plans to release that lib into the public in the future, but that will
probably be 6-9 months away.