[MUD-Dev] Flexible, Modular Server Design

[Brandon Cline]

  I've seen a couple of people talk about a general server design, which
interests me because, as my ideas for a complete game develop, they seem
to come in three forms.

1) The Main Server:
    Game control, event handling, object handling and world base.

2) Game systems:
    Combat, armor, equipment, user interface, skill handling, levels (or
    lack of), class or profession, magic, etc.

3) Scenario's or genre:
    Sci-Fi, Fantasy, game goals, player interactions (pk, non-pk, rp, etc)

* Might be a few I missed, and some might be able to be moved between
  catagories but you get the general idea.

  My problem is, that if I was to design say, a Sci-Fi game, game systems
and posibly part of the game server would be different than if it was a
Fantasy game.  Especially if the game server itself is made into 
simplifications or approximations of the genre.  On the other hand, if the
game server is made to be fully modifiable, through user objects, you have
the possibility to create the different genres, but at the same time it
requires a great deal of time and effort to create each game.  If maybe,
the game sever was designed with easy modifiability in mind, and had a
world base event handling and object handling that would fit most genres
nicely (less simplification), then it would make sense to have decent
support creation of new game systems (skills, objects, combat, armor,
etc).  In a sense it is a hybrid of some of the current game systems out
there, but also in itself a new design approach to the whole thing.  
  I am interested in input and ideas on this, and possibly people that
would want to design a server of this type.  



Brandon L. Cline
brandon at sedona.net