Mud-Dev FAQ
Ling
K.L.Lo-94 at student.lboro.ac.uk
Sat Jan 3 16:44:28 CET 1998
Mud-Dev FAQ
Last Messed 01/01/98
1. Frequently Asked Questions
2. The Members
3. Glossary
Any corrections, suggestions and constructive criticisms, please email to
Ling, elkll at student.lboro.ac.uk.
Recent Changes:
Made into a real FAQ.
Reformatted members' bios.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Frequently Asked Questions
1. What should I do now I have joined?
Lurk for a few days to a week to get the gist of what is going on. Chip in
when you think you have something relevant to say or perhaps start a new
thread. If you have not, please read the rec.games.mud.* FAQs (as well as this
one!).
2. I just made a post about such and such but no one responded to it!
There could be several reasons why no one has answered to your posting. If it
was to start a new thread, it could have been that the topic has just recently
been discussed, try waiting a while before bring it back up again. If it was
in answer to a current thread, other list members will have read it but not all
posts facilates a response.
3. What is meant by high signal to noise ratio?
The noisy postings include the likes of messages which essentially say "I agree!" or does not relate to the purpose of the list. Try to keep on topic and you
won't go wrong. However, the list is infamous for long postings which start
with one topic and end up rambling on about something else completely
different towards the end. But so long as it is regarding muds...
4. What has been discussed previously?
[Could someone provide this? JC, did you not make a post last summer which
summed all the threads posted up to that point?]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2. The Members
Below is not the complete list of members but it does give a good picture
of a small and active cross section. Feel free to post one to the maintainer.
--------oOOOo--------
Travis S Casey
Occupation: Unix sysadmin
Address: casey at nu.cs.fsu.edu
Personal details:
- Started in '89 on a Tiny variant.
- Really started in '93 on MudDog (LP).
- Accidently wizzed on SWmud (LP).
- Erratic development of a cyberpunk mud.
- Contributed some to the Lima LP mudlib.
- FAQ maintainer for rec.games.design.
- Married with two cats.
Signature:
|\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <casey at cs.fsu.edu>
ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ No one agrees with me. Not even me.
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-'
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)
rec.games.design FAQ: http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~casey/design.html
--------oOOOo--------
Matt Chatterley
Occupation: Student.
Location: England.
Addresses: neddy at itl.net
caffeine at unreal.org
root at mpc.dyn.ml.org
Personal details:
- Main interests are game design (theoretical), and ways to change
things that are (tm) into things that should be (patent pending).
- Occassional cynic, and critic of online gaming environments.
Server: Caffeine (LP)
Signature: [deleted mail from him *whistle* - Ling]
--------oOOOo--------
Reed Copsey, Jr.
Occupation:
- Whatever I find at the time (Usually programming or database
administration or setup)
Addy: rdc at efn.org
Personal details:
- Too damn busy to do anything
- Spends lots of time lurking here, and unfortunately doesn't
participate nearly as much as he should and would like to
- Basically a self-taught programmer who spends more time
tinkering and coming up with different ways of doing things
than getting anything productive written
- Is always trying to figure out the best (and cheapest, as he's
currently way in debt) way to learn just about anything he can
get his hands on
Secret Server Project:
- Kolmteist
Server Highlights:
[ Note: This is mostly in design phase. I very recently decided
on a complete rewrite for both the server and the client, so all
that's left that is at all useful is some basic utility-type
classes: socket handling, data structures, string handling, etc... ]
- Written in C++
- Uses a relational database backend, though total persistance
is not (yet) a major goal (though this has changed many times
as he comes up with new arguments for or against it)
- Completely event driven
- Object customization through an internal extension language
- Current design (which will probably last another week
*snicker*) is actually inspired by MS Access (yuck),
with simple extensions being written as very straitfoward,
macros on any object, which have the ability to call
user-written procedures, hopefully allowing some semblance
of flexibility in a roundabout way
- Hoping to allow players to use the same macro interface
in a stripped down manner to allow for a fairly high
degree of player-customization and automation (see below)
- A significantly slower-than-average combat system which is
completely unautomated unless macros are used... (Roughly turn
based from the player's POV, with a turn/round once every few
seconds, the avg fight lasting 1-4 minutes)
- Completely disassociation, both in code and in game, of players and
wizards/imms. (builder/administration have no direct in-game form)
- A custom client required for various reasons:
- direct path (completely bypasses the game server) to the
relational database backend, allowing building
and game administration even if the mud is down or the
builder doesn't want to deal with people
- more flexibility in display to allow better-than-ansi color
and text handling parsed client side, inline images, and
some html-ish functionality simalar (and inspired by)
various mud extensions chaco add in pueblo (point and click
commands, etc)
- the ability to spawn multiple windows (crucial)
- Will have an account style login, with menu's to choose
which character(s) to play, each of which spawns a separate
window.
- All out of character communication, information, etc will
be directed to the account window (or a private chat-style
window spawned for private, ooc communication)
- the hope is to encourage roleplaying by complete separation
of VR and non-VR commands, both in the commands (without
using a special character like $, @, or #) and in output
Signature:
-- Reed
--------oOOOo--------
Chris Gray
Occupation: Programmer (UNIX?)
Addresses: cg at ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA
Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Personal details:
- Never really played a MUD other than his own (bar 4 hours on Northern
Crossroads, and some LP experimenting)
- Old enough to be the father of most of you, so his perspectives
might be quite different
- Done very little RPG-ing, but a fair amount of Adventure gaming
- Thinks the Web and C++ suck big time! (shocking!)
- Studied programming languages for AI at Alberta. Attempted to
implement a language called ALAI (A Language for Artificial
Intelligence - original, huh?) but got bogged down.
- Taught computer architecture, programming languages, and adaptive
information systtems for the department instead.
- Started but never finished PhD in required internal features for
multi-user protected OSes (at Alberta!)
- Creator of programming language 'Draco' for CP/M, later ported to
Amiga/68k.
- CP/M version of Draco still in Simtel. Docs managed to end up in a
McGraw-Hill book without any permission!
- Worked with Myrias, a parallel computer company.
- Wrote Myrias' ANSI C compiler.
- And Amiga Empire (rewrite of Empire, in Draco of course!)
- Heard about MUDs and wrote a quick and dirty AmigaDUM.
- Myrias went bust two months later (no connection!).
- Now works with the remnants of Myrias which has been brought back to
life.
- After 6+ yrs, AmigaDUM it is now called AmigaMUD and can be found on
Aminet (v1.1).
- Isn't AmigaMUD running at a myrias.com machine?
Signature:
Chris Gray cg at ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA
--------oOOOo--------
Marian Griffith (De Vries Griffith to be more precise)
Addresses: gryphon at iaehv.nl
Web page: <http://www.iaehv.nl/users/gryphon>
- Lots of information on the !Overlord project. An attempt to collect
ideas to improve on muds but does not aim at any finished product.
Interests:
- Interest in roleplaying and game world building but will talk about
anything ;) (except for pk because there's nothing to be added that
hasn't been said many times already)
Signature:
Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...
Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey
--------oOOOo--------
Michael Hohensee
Occupation: Part time student?
Addresses: michael at sparta.mainstream.net
Personal details:
- 17 yrs of age during March '97
Server: AeMud - Arbitrarily Expandable MUD
Server concepts/features:
- Written in C.
- Treats all objects equally for certain common uses.
- A spiffy and mostly efficient memory-allocation/recycling system.
(Which may actually be kinda pointless, but it was interesting to
code)
- A command queue that is used equally by players and computer-driven
objects.
- Highlights include interactive portals and simulation of liquids.
Signature:
Michael Hohensee michael at sparta.mainstream.net
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/9025/
Finger me for my PGP Public Key, or use:
http://sparta.mainstream.net/michael/pgpkey.txt
--------oOOOo--------
Derrick Jones
Addresses: gunther at online1.magnus1.com
Location: Maryland, Baltimore, MD, USA
Signature:
Gunther
--------oOOOo--------
Raph Koster
Occupation: Mud programmer?
Addresses: rkoster at origin.ea.com
Personal details:
- Creative director of mud.
Server: LegendMUD, known on there as Ptah
<http://mud.aus.sig.net>
<telnet://mud.aus.sig.net:9999>
- Runs a lecture series often of interest to the mudding community.
- Origin raided the mud for talent followed by M59 two weeks later.
Server concepts/features:
- Has evolved into a weird hybrid of LP and Diku.
Game concepts/features:
- First classless mud.
- Probably the first historical theme gaming mud.
Server: Ultima Online
[Should be able to read this up in various reviews and such?? - Ling]
Signature:
-Raph
--------oOOOo--------
Jon A. Lambert
Occupation: contract programmer for 12 years, primarily mainframe DBA
Addresses: jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com
Web page: <http://www.netcom.com/~jlsysinc>
Personal details:
- Former BBS operator - C64 and later DOS, ran many mud-like games.
- Occasional player on funny little Compuserve mud
- Attempts to rationalize interest in muds as practical professional
education. :P
- Player of paper & pencil games since mid-70s... primarily early
D&D, RoleMaster, Vampyre, Warhammer and Cyberpunk
- Favorite Computer Games - Tradewars, Civilization, Simcity, Hammurabi,
Empire, Railroad Tycoon...Ok just about anything design by Sid Meir
- Age - Too old to rock-n-roll, too young too die.
- Favorite color - blue
- Favorite character - Odysseus Laertes of Ithaca
Secret Project: TychoMud
Mud theme:
- Greek city states - synthesis of historical period 2500-200 BC with
unique interpretations of popular and lesser known mythologies.
Game physics, sciences and medical lore almost wholly based on
Plato's wacky universe. Yes, water does flow upward, at least
through the hole in middle of Earth.
Alternate Themes:
- Original FRPG campaign world.
- Dark postmodern theme.
Server concepts/features:
- Complete persistent objects backed by transactional relational
database
- Event driven and multi-threaded
- Graphical interface to text-based game
- Object-oriented concurrent stack-based mud programming language
(a twisted genetic mutation of Rexx, Java and Ada)
- Graphical user/builder component-level programming/building
Game concepts/features:
- Game system based on RoleMaster FRPG - skill driven system
- Heavy roleplay single account - multi-PC, NPC, or
gamemaster/storyteller
- Deistic intervention (always IC), capricious and encouraged
Direct
- Deistic programmed control of in-game systems (solar, lunar,
climate, oceans, etc.)
- Realistic flora and fauna ecologies (reset/repop - thou shallt not)
- Resource driven economies Social, political and economic driven game
- Magic rare and equipment poor
- Realistic professions
Signature:
Jon A. Lambert
--------oOOOo--------
JC Lawrence
Notes:
MUD-Dev list owner.
All postings as list owner are identified as such.
Occupation:
Contract programmer for 15+ years, ex-school teacher, printer,
sailor, fisherman and other sundries, small time SF&F, writer,
dinosaur, philosopher. Self taught.
Addresses:
claw at null.net (work)
coder at ibm.net (home)
Please use these in preference to all other addresses.
Personal details:
Started MUDding in '84 on Shades, SX MUD (MUD1/MUD2), and still
heavily influenced by same. Was a part of the IOWA project with
Pip Caudrey. Been working on a MUD server on and off since '85.
Major inspirations in chronological order: Shades, MUD2,
Transputers, Marcus Ranum, Uber, Unter, LP, Aber, Tiny*, Northern
Lights, MOO, Stephen White, LambdaMOO, a large bunch of IBM's OS/2
developers, Cool, Interlude (neat!), Dave Engberg, C++, Cold, Mike
Cowlishaw, Legend, ColdX, Greg Hudson, MUQ, BeOS, Inferno, Limbo.
Self-educated in pure math, english literature and religious
philosophy.
Server:
Unnamed, but last referred to as "Murkle". There are several
increasingly sarcastic acronymic expansions of "murkle" that are
left up to the reader to discover.
Server features:
Written in C++. Compleatly persistent world achieved by
transactional persistant store. Event driven heavily
multi-threaded lockless server design. OO internal programming
language ala Python/C. Server has no prior knowledge of the game
mechanics it is hosting. DB (persistant store) is disk based and
contains a full rollback feature for crash recovery, bug hunting
and logging. Same rollbacks allow for limited time travel by
users. Free user programming allowed. No logical difference
between mobiles, NPCs, and players. Players may control multiple
bodies simultaneously. Swarm-type bodies as possible. Players are
heavily abstracted from their characters, which are heavily
abstracted from their character bodies. Players connect to
accounts, from which they select characters to play, which in turn
control bodies. Thous shalt not repop, and thou shalt not reset.
No global namespace in game, players and characters all have
individual private namespaces.
Game features:
Particle based energy-centric resource economy drives and limits
the game world. Magic is merely a side-effect of the particle
economy. Permadeath. Free PK. Extremely high magic world. No
particular interest in RP. GoP-centric. Players and mobiles may
freely steal bodies from each other. The goal is to re-attain
godhood. Resolution of control from body toward player is
generally not possible. Violently fluid programmable combat where
very minor items and affects can be devastating. Skill webs. No
real levels. A human should never have to wait for a machine --
there is no waiting. Heavy use of unstable positive feedback loops
for populations and NPC behaviours.
Scenarios:
Bubba and the Crystalline Tree
The Great God GooGoo and his holy relics
Castle Krack, the Elven Forest, and the Sceptre
UggUgg's mana fight
Orc breeder/fighter/nobles
Mobile population migrations
A farcical justice system
Trash collectors (TC's)
Bubba digging the Panama Canal
...many others...
Signature:
J C Lawrence Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*) Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...
--------oOOOo--------
Kam Ling Lo (prefers Ling)
Occupation: Electronic & electrical engineering student, will probably
specialise in either digital communications, microprocessor
design or EMC. Or all three. :)
Addresses: K.L.Lo-94 at student.lboro.ac.uk (or elkll@ for short)
Personal details:
- Year of the Dragon and 21!
- Knows far too much about cars and planes (due to overexposure from
bods of appropriate courses).
- All the computery stuff is self taught.
- Thinks gameplay is not emphasised enough on the list.
- Going for the purple hair and green eyes look.
- Heavily sci-fi orientated. Influences include all C64 and Amiga games
past, various books, cartoons, especially those with 'mechs in them.
- Strategy games, although there isn't a game out there deep enough to
keep him amused for more than a day.
- Somehow managed to accumulate knowledge of various paper games no one
else has ever heard of (eg: Air Eaters Strike Back!)
- Pet interests include artificial life and graphic novels.
- Extremely critical of computer games (very few games get rated good).
- Dislikes things by Sid Meir. :P
- Only non-athlete in England's sports University (bit of a bummer).
- Keeps changing projects and will probably go for a PBeM (upset over
time problems in muds).
Server: Renaissance (LP)
Server concepts/features:
- Undergoing a massive overhaul right now. Utterly gutted.
- Switching from the tradition view that the connection controls a body
in the game to the connection controls a soul which directs the
body. Oughta credit JC Lawrence one day for inspiration/blatant
rip-off.
- This design should eliminate a few design problems and further
minimise creators cheating by forcing creators to code only when
disconnected from the body.
- Aiming to release the mudlib towards the autumn of '98.
- Yes, that is its only redeeming feature.
Game concepts/features:
Server: Vague (Cold)
- Not even started. Still learning the ColdC.
Server concepts/features:
- Using ColdC, see their homepage <http://www.cold.org>.
Game concepts/features:
- Meat of the mud is not remotely mud-like in the traditional sense.
- Players direct a team of agents on a series of missions, for each
mission a 1km x 1km world will be generated.
- Game will be turn based with a time limit for the player to input
their moves.
- Players perceive the game world through the eyes of their agents,
text descriptions will be generated on the fly.
Signature: [The fish stays no matter what]
| Kilo Lima Lima Oscar dash Niner Four, over and out. ---o
_O_O_ Electronic and Electrical Division, Loughborough Corp. <+=+=+>
--------oOOOo--------
David Love (aka Sauron)
Occupation: Student
Address: dlove at kusd.kusd.edu
Personal details:
- Worked as admin on ROCK
- Oldest of six children
- Has a grasp on perl, expanding on C, trying to learn Java
- Enjoys indulging in mindless hack & slash off and on
- Lover of the Final Fantasy series along w/ many console rpg's
- Pastimes: arcade games, paper rpg's, ccg's, computer games (XvT
and War2 among favorites), bbs-ing (anyone remember MajorMUD?)
Server: TWON, a slowly warping version of PennMUSH
Game concepts/features:
- Attempt at a hybrid between the RP aspects of a MUSH and the
in-depth combat style of a MUD
- Faction-based
- Attempts at a working real-time combat system
MU* Theme:
- Attempts to be an epic war story
Signature:
-Sauron
--------oOOOo--------
Greg Munt
I lurk too much. Partly due to being unemployed (maybe I should petition
BT(*) for free local calls), being overwhelmed by list traffic, and partly
due to the fact that I have been in New York for the past 3 or 4 months. Whilst
there, I got engaged to a Bahamian. Maybe my email address will swap a 'uk' for
a 'bs' soon (reasonably likely). At least local calls are free there. Grrr.
Found muds in early '94, in the form of a Tiny derivative, UglyMUG (one of
the few muds on JANET(**)'s PAD network at that time). Left six months later to
join the administration of a derivative of Ugly. 18 months after that, was
running it. 6 months after that, had been kicked out of the admin team, and
banned - now bitter, twisted, and forever opposed to democratic muds. The
so-called "Admin Wars" produced a satirical re-telling of Star Wars,
where I was reduced to a dribbling figure, shivering over a VIC-20 and a
2400 baud modem. (I kid you not.)
My 'real' experience has been working in COBOL/DB2 for British Steel.
Currently I'm trying to use that to get a job. Alternatively I might
have an opportunity as a Junior Games Programmer (with CodeMasters -
possibly UK-only company? *shrug*)! Who said mudding was a waste of time? :)
Since selling the VIC-20 (*koff*), I hacked up a mud from scratch, and
after six months produced "Frontiers". The website (at
http://www.uni-corn.demon.co.uk) was produced - not by me, I hasten to
add - in 6 days, and is infinitely better. It was around this time that I
began reading rec.games.mud.admin, and Martin Keegan wandered onto
Frontiers. (Read DejaNews for the results;)
Now, Frontiers has been closed down, and I have started anew. First
efforts are always worst efforts - probably - but I learnt a lot from it,
and continue to plod through. Current project is called "Ubiquity", and
is, I am quite proud to announce, at the design stage (Frontiers started
at the implementation stage *doh*). At the moment, it is nothing more
than a BBS with talker extensions, but I plan to later turn that into an
underlying command shell for a coordinate-based, all-singing, all-dancing
mud (yes, I'm still working that bit out). The command shell idea was
actually suggested (or I evolved it from one of his ideas, I can't
quite remember) by Nathan Yospe, on this list. This time I am going
slowly, working on the things I know about first, rather than tackling
everything at once, and achieving nothing (see Frontiers).
Age: 24.
Height: 6'8 (which may be irrelevant - though it's always
sort of relevant to people, when they meet me).
Likes: unconventional ideas.
Dislikes: the accepted norm (see DejaNews).
Worst attribute: 50% of my time is spent planning; 5% of my
time is spent carrying out those plans.
Best attribute: Selfless, emotional.
Best thing about my life: I'm so in love...
Worst thing about my life: ...with someone who lives thousands of miles away.
Claim to fame: I once met Ling's brother. He compared me to
John Lennon, which I still find amusing.
Signature: this one will become semi-permanent, I
think. It almost illustrates my opinion of the world.
Ha - even my mother calls me arrogant, now.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is a 99% chance that I hate and despise your miserable little existence.
(*) British Telecommunications charge 1UKP/hour for local phone calls. Scowl.
(**) The Joint Academic NETwork - now forms the *.ac.uk part of the Internet.
--------oOOOo--------
Mike Sellers
Occupation: Mud programmer?
Addresses: mike at online-alchemy.com
Location: Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Signature:
Mike Sellers mike at online-alchemy.com
Online Alchemy A division of The Big Network
Combining art & science to create new worlds.
--------oOOOo--------
Greg Underwood
Occupation: Foole :P Student, primariy, Simulation design Co-Op to pay
the bills. (as a side note, I am probably one of the younger members of
the list, weighing in at age 23)
Addresses: s001gmu at nova.wright.edu
Location: Dayton, Ohio, USA (yeah, the place where they had the Bosnia
Peace Talks a couple years back).
Personal details:
- Used to work on Diku/merc/rom derivatives, specifically Eternity of
Discord. (the code base of which has survived in various forms
under a couple of of different names, which surprises the heck
out of me.. it sucks. :)
- Currently working on a home-grown project with a friend who is
currently a lurker on the list.
Server concept/features:
- Key features include event driver, object orientated nature of the
program, mSQL relational database for info management and non-io
specific, requiring specialised clients to transform data into
something more palatable.
Game concept/features:
- The major foci of the project include a MUCH more realistic combat
model from Diku. Key differences include combat between one
versus many results in one dead opponent v.quickly, usually.
- Heavy magic world with well defined metaphysics, which defines the
physics of the world.
- Primarily a numbers/resource management game, rp will be a side
effect due to the multi-player nature.
- Pkill & "permanent" deaths.
- Player characters will include self-preservation code/instincts,
player can override instincts for complete control but without
overriding, can't get character to behave self-destructively.
Signature:
-Greg
--------oOOOo--------
Nathan F. Yospe
Occupation: part time student, writer, cartoonist. (yes, really, all of these)
Addresses: yospe at hawaii.edu
Location: Hawaii
Personal details:
- Interests in elements of solid state and materials science, and
biochem, specializing in molecular genetics and crossover areas
with biomedical science.
- My goals are not particularly relevant to this list, aside from the
fact that I have written sucess at them into the ancient history
of my mud universe, by some anonymous other, fifty years after
I'll likely be dust. The goals: complete supplemental immune
system simulated by organic nanotechnology.
Server: Physmud++
Server concepts/features:
- Mud built by first defining fundamental laws and then constructing the
world in a lego-like manner.
- Functions as a client with a single server, every text transaction and
most decision-tree transactions are handled clientside and passed to
the server as tokened sequences.
- Physmud++ has evolved in the time that I have been on this list, from
a Diku-like C++ mud to what it is today, completely unique.
Server: GURU
Server concepts/features:
- Started 2.5 yrs ago, completion date of December 2002
- Graphical, VR orientated, mass scale distributed fantasy world.
- Designed from the world go for scaleability and most of the
innovations in Physmud++ are really those of the GURU, simplified
and tested in an environment that I can, peice at a time, actually
accomplish.
Signature:
"You? We can't take you," said the Dean, glaring at the Librarian.
"You don't know a thing about guerilla warfare." - Reaper Man,
Nathan F. Yospe Registered Looney by Terry Pratchett
yospe at hawaii.edu http://www2.hawaii.edu/~yospe Meow
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3. Glossary of Terms
The list has come up with its own jargon, here are some of the current
buzzwords:
Artificial life: Similar to artificial intelligence except the concept is to
bestow individual components with rules or a program, the interaction of
various components will/should be more than the sum of the parts (emergent
behaviour).
Repop: See Reset.
Reset: Usually a function called in a mud at irregular intervals, the purpose
of which is to put back into the game a creature/quest/item/etc.
Skill net: [someone?]
Skill tree: A skill system where skills have a single parent and several
children. A skills at the bottom of the tree being very specialised. Skills
higher up the tree will affect the value of skills further down.
Multi-threaded: Pretending the computer has more processors than it has. In
this list, the threads are usually light weight.
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