[MUD-Dev] A short introduction of a (quite) long-time lurker

[Per Vognsen]

Hello everybody,

I've now been lurking for quite a long time; at least 3-4 months I
reckon. I've been reading through the past archives (and I've probably
also read most of the threads there) and I thought I'd just introduce
myself.

My name is Per Vognsen, and I was invited to join the list by Holly
Sommer for half a year ago. I live in Denmark (in Scandinavia, if
anybody should be wondering) in a rather 'large' city called Randers
with a population of about 60.000. I'm 16 years old and I'm attending
Ronde Efterskole, which is a boarding school (not a boarding school in
the American sense, though).

I started playing MUDs for about 4 1/2 years ago on a dial-up version
of Valhalla (running the DikuII engine), which is/was similar to
Valhalla USA (at www.valhalla.com). After playing for a few months I
soon became interested in doing areas for the MUD. Before this, I
had only done simple programs in Pascal. My area was rejected because
of terrible grammar and quality (my grasp of the English language has
improved considerably since then, though). Then I stopped playing on
Valhalla DK and started playing via the Internet (which was a new
thing for private people back then).

After playing on several LP and Diku MUDs of varying quality (read:
terrible), I downloaded a copy of CircleMUD 2.2, bought a copy of
the classic book, "The C Programming Language" (by D. Richie and
B. Kernighan) and started hacking the code. After hacking and coding
some standard stuff on several Dikus for about one year, I wanted to
create my own MUD. At that time I thought that the number of races
and classes in the game was directly proportional with the quality
of the game. I was wrong, of course.

Since then my coding skills have matured. I now have a good grasp
of C and have been working with C++ for 1 year, mostly doing
libraries which takes advantage of simple stuff such as operator
overloading, templates, exceptions and whatnot.

Now, I'm coding a MUD from scratch (called Ashandar) which has
these major technical features:

- Written in C++.
- Object oriented game objects. Like in LPC where game objects
  inherits other game objects, thus making specialized versions of
  basic object types.
- OO language. I'm in the process of learning how to write compilers,
  so it's nothing fancy (yet). It's, in some ways, similar to LPC.

>From a gameplay perspective it has these major features:

- - A very high emphasis on roleplaying.
- - Skill-trees.
- - Completely skill-based. There's no levels or classes.
- - Alternative magic system(s). There's animism, channeling, tarot
cards,
  demonology, necromancy, et cetera. Magic is _powerful_.
- - A non-automated combat system.
- - An introduction-system. You choose your character's physical
appearance,
  and other characters will only see those features until they're
introduced
  properly.

Well, that's all for now. Sorry for some of the bad grammar - I was
in a hurry when writing this message.

PS. Ling, would you be so kind as to add the stuff here to my bio?

--
Twice and twice shall he be marked. Twice to live, and twice to die.
Once the heron, to set his path. Twice the heron, to name him true.
Once the dragon, for remembrance lost. Twice the dragon, for the price
he must pay.       -- The Wheel of Time, Prophecy of the Dragon Reborn

Per Vognsen (Phaerus)                 Head-Programmer of Ashandar.
vognsen at post10.tele.dk                ICQ: 12808824