[DGD] DGD & MySQL

[bart at wotf.org]

On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:17:26 -0500, Par Winzell wrote
> Shentino wrote:
> > I'm actually trying to leverage my time so that OTHERS could spare
> > themselves server costs.
> 
> If you insist that this makes actual sense, I have to agree with 
> Bart -- a programmer of a caliber sufficient to do what you're doing 
> can easily find work, online or otherwise, that pays far far far far 
> more per hour than even a dozen MUDs will ever save in "server 
> costs". This isn't economics or politics, it's just common sense.
> 
> Text MUDs don't use any CPU to speak of and pretty much zero 
> bandwidth. Hosting is very cheap. A busy website asking for 
> donations is a different matter since they pump out orders of 
> magnitude more content to their users.

There are a few ways for text muds to go about this. A few of them could join
up and rent a dedicated server together, or you could start a small commercial
enterprise to rent out webspace or such to others, and run the mud using spare
capacity on the server for that, or some variation of this theme. In all
cases, you won't be able to advertise on your mud or otherwise use it to
promote the 'commercial enterprise'. Using a commercial activity that is
completely unrelated to your mud to also pay for running your mud however
isn't a problem, if it would be, you couldn't pay hosting out of money you
make from your job either.

Also, in all cases, you'll need the skills to do unix hosting, and using a
driver which would allow you to accept money from players isn't going to
change that at all.

Anyway, excuse my sceptisism here, I have seen too many attempts at this over
the years (one of them still in progress, by people who seem to have all the
skills and knowledge required to pull it off also). Conceptually, its not too
difficult, but comming up with an actual implementation that works really well
seems to be pretty difficult. If Shentino can prove this wrong, that would be
all the better, but with all respect, I'm not holding my breath.

Bart.
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