[MUD-Dev] Login and Accounts

[Mike L Kesl]

. o O ( Logins and Accounts ) O o .
(mlkesl 980716 - revised)
(mlkesl 980711 - created)

Problem: What do we do when someone logs in...
Goals: Allow a secure login for a single person.


I propose that we have a system in which players have a single account. This
account should somehow be linked to a verifiable identity. The most obvious
way of doing this I can think of is by using email authentication.

. ( email authentication ) .
Under this system, a new player logs in and gives his account a name as well
as a valid email address. The server then mails a randomly generated
password to that address. The player receives this mail and reconnects to
the server, where he connects as a normal player would using the password
mailed to him. He will also be forced to change his password at that time.

I am currently thinking that we will have to allow addresses from the free
email services as valid, as I am sure there are people who use such accounts
as their sole form of email. This could be a problem as people might simply
get new free email accounts in order to create multiple accounts. This same
problem goes for those people who actually have more than one valid email
account, such as myself.

There has to be a way we can do this well...

An account is the player's account, it will hold all OOC info as well as
provide them with the ability to participate in an OOC chat room, which will
be the place for OOC conversations.

Each account can have a single character.

Each account might also have one or more of the following:
a builder
a ventriloquist?/storyteller?
a dugeonmaster?/puppeteer?
a god (which is simply all of the above?)

Perhaps each account will simply have a contributor ranking instead, where 0
means that account can only be used to play, 1 might mean they would also
build, all the way up to 10, which would be the for like the coders. Then,
with that hierarchy established we could assume that an account of such and
such rank was automatically granted the powers of all those ranks below his
own. This is not good OOD, and maybe neither is the above idea.

Another thought that comes to mind is to use a composite model, where
accounts are a composite of one or more "priviledges". Some examples are
necessary to best illustrate this concept of composite design.

	Eg.		Account: Mike L Kesl	E-Mail: mlkesl at hotmail.com
			Priviledges:	builder, designer, coder
			
			Account: John Q Mud		E-Mail: john17 at usa.net
			Priviledges:	ooc, character
			
			Account: Mahst R Bilder	E-Mail: mrbilder at leet.org
			Priviledges:	ooc, character, builder, helper
			
Stuff like that...That does not seem like a bad one to me...*shrug*

Those with different priviledges would be given different choices on the
main menu. On the same note, those accounts connected as something other
than character would be somewhat seperated from those connected as builders
for example. This should be pretty helpful for everyone.


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