[MUD-Dev] GRUMPS

[maddog at best.com]

Travis Casey wrote: 

>  I remember the thread, having been one of the major partakers in it. 
>  I thought that the idea had merit and was workable, but I didn't think 
>  that many admins of existing muds would be interested in opening their 
>  muds up to such transportation.  However, if you build it, they will 
>  come.  :-)  That is, I think that if you can create a workable system 
>  for intermud character conversion and transportation, at least some 
>  people building new muds will use it. 

The admins were definitely very conservative about the idea-- but then I think 
the ability for saving position and equipment was also somewhat rare.  Now 
its fairly common for the MUDs to save position and equipment.  The next 
step will be to save your virtual equipment and character in some place 
outside any particular MUD.  Some famous name company is already playing 
around with Limited Edition Digital Objects (or something like that). The 
LEDO will be available only within a llmited game system, but I can see the 
idea spreading as a digital version of what cards are to MtG.

>  This is basically the idea that I espoused on the newsgroups, except 
>  that I don't believe the conversion medium has to be a "game system." 
>  Rather, all it needs to be is a way of specifying characters and 
>  equipment. 

Right.  In fact I've seen some work-in-progress along those lines, but I 
don't think anyone has taken it to completion.



>  A mud that wanted to use the system would need two converters:  one to 
>  convert characters to the specification, and one for converting them 
>  from the specification.  Extra converters could be added as well, for 
>  muds that have special agreements with each other for converting 
>  characters. 


I'm sure that at some point it will involve multiple conversion or using 
some kind of shell character that won't translate completely back to the 
"big generic" world. 

>  Note, by the way, that even if you have a "universal" RPG system, 
>  there may be things that can't be conveniently expressed in it, and 
>  things that it won't work for.  GURPS, for example, breaks down at 
>  high power levels unless you do a good bit of modification. 

Noted.  

frank