[MUD-Dev] code base inquiry

[Miroslav Silovic]

Matthew Mihaly <diablo at best.com> writes:

> I just read this again and realize it could be taken too literally.
> Clearly every stock mud does not have the SAME classes, spells, etc. They
                ^^^^^
> do seem, to me at least, to be essentially the same though. Go out, kill
                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> monsters. 

The answer is in the question. If a mud is not the same as stock muds,
it isn't stock. :)

My own perception is that if a MUD codebase implements important
aspects of the world mechanics (combat system and mobs), it's unlikely
that admins will toss them away and implement something different.
Instead they'll keep the mobs and combat code - resulting in
go-out-and-kill-mobs mud, perhaps with some kid-level RP thrown in for
PR. Harshlands is an exception from this rule , they really do RP (I'm
sure there are more - I never stuck long with Armageddon but it seemed
promising)

OTOH, codebases that do not implement world mechanics in either driver
or core (MUSH/MUX, MOO, Cold are those I work with) result in a VERY
wide variaty of games - some of which have combat, of course, and some
of the combat ones are the go out and kill variaty, but many others
are social roleplay (meaning full consent to *everything* that happens
to your character, you can't get killed without agreeing to it, and
differences are to be resolved by concensus - e.g. PernMUSHes, many
MUSHes built by former Pern admins, Elendor, and one or two MUSHes
built by former Elendor folks), pure roleplay (i.e. online simulation
of pen-and-paper RPG, as in all the WoD MUSHes around, and Shadowrun
MUSH), space combat oriented (Star Trek, Star Wars, B5, and BattleTech
if you allow 2d space combat) or pure social (LambdaMOO, TooMUSH).

LP is between the two extremes IMHO. While the driver doesn't
implement anything in particular, too many LP MUDs use existing cores
that unfortunately tend to establish the MUD theme. Of those I played,
Xyllomer strikes me as an exception to this rule, and DarkeMUD could
be classified as combat/RP.

--
How to eff the ineffable?



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