[MUD-Dev] Re: Current Projects

[chris at realm.zfn.uni-bremen.de]

Greetings,

Alex Stewart wrote:
>  * What kind of software are you working on? (MUD driver, MUD client, etc?)
>  * Why?
>  * What are its features?
>  * What does it do (will it do) differently than other things do?
>  * Any neat concepts involved?
>  * Any boring concepts being used in neat ways?
>  (you get the idea.. anything big I'm leaving out?)

We're currently working on the second major 'release' (in quotes because the
code is non-public) of the Realm of Magic Server (based on Circle MUD 2.2).
The aims are to get rid of the formerly rigid hard-coded social system
(it was almost impossible to 'harm' players in anyway...what first seemed
to be a blessing [no gossips like: *whine* my home has been robbed] turned
out to be a great curse; as life became boring, we had a really great loss
of players); implement a new guildsystem, which only needs a minimal amount 
of hard-coding once it is in...new guilds (or classes) can be added online
then; finally we need a rescaling of our combat system badly; also there
will be many internal changes that are overdue - throwing much bulk and
bloat overboard and finally change even the last (which aren't many)
datastructures into classes (yes, it is possible to have a C++ Circle
MUD ;) ) ...

We also introduced a new development model inspired by the Linux Kernel.
Before we only had one main branch in our CVS tree for the MUD sources.
Now we have two branches, the main mud and the beta mud. The main mud branch
is frozen, and only bugfixes go in there (of course with forward porting
to the beta-mud or vice versa). The beta mud is running simultaneously
open for any interested immortal/player, however without any gurantees
to stability; we have daily builds and they might be buggy like hell.
Until now we have made great experiences with this model, as the players
actually feel involved with the MUD development; this makes them feel
good :)

I guess we finally take the chance with this 'seperated' and 
'fast developing' beta MUD not to only introduce new features
pretty quickly but also to finally get rid of old mistakes that
we made in terms of MUD management completely.


- Chris

--
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| Christian Loth, chris at rom.mud.de    |           REALM OF MAGIC             |
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