[MUD-Dev] [DGN] MUD Books

[Scion Altera]

Friday, May 31, 2002, 7:15:35 AM, James Edward Gray II wrote:

> I've been looking for some good MUD related books, but the
> pickings are slim.  Have any of you read "Secrets of the MUD
> Wizards: Playing and Programming MUDs, MOOs, MUCKs, and Other
> Internet Role-Playing Games" who would be willing to give a
> mini-review.

I just acquired a copy of that from a friend of mine, and was quite
impressed with it. It is extremely outdated and old, but I have
never seen a similar book before or since. One point of interest
however, is that when it says "programming" it means "building" (by
the commonly accepted vernacular) and not "coding". The book is
written primarily by someone from an LPMud background, so most of
the book focuses on that codebase. If you're interested in a nice
overview of Diku, LPMud, and one or two old MOO codebases, it's a
good one to pick up. If what you're looking for is a programmer's
reference for writing a MUD from scratch, I'd advise you to look
somewhere other than the public library.

> More generically, what can anyone tell me about about "Swords &
> Circuitry: A Designer's Guide to Computer Role-Playing Games",
> "MultiPlayer Game Programming", or "AI Game Programming Wisdom".
> Finally, I'm open to suggestions, so if you have a favorite book
> of at least loosely related MUD wisdom, do tell.

I bought a copy of _Game_Architecture_and_Design_ because it talked
about the entire software development process from concept to
postmortem, but all from a game developer's point of view. Again, it
doesn't contain a magical formula for writing a MUD either, but it
does have some good tips for at least figuring out where your
planning has gone awry.

The resources that have been the most useful in designing my own MUD
in Java have been my past experience with Circle, Merc and Smaug,
this mailing list, a few good MUD playing friends of mine (heya
Justice and Ntanel!), and a short list of books:

  (for Java reference)
  Java in a Nutshell
  Java Enterprise in a Nutshell
  Java Examples in a Nutshell
  Design Patterns by Erich Gamma & co.
  Effective Java by James Bloch

  (for game design reference)
  Game Architecture and Design
  The 3rd ed. D&D Player's Handbook
  The 3rd ed. D&D Dungeon Master's Guide

Good luck!
-- Scion

"Hell.. I can probably do it without having to lie at all." -- Anonymous

           --     scion at divineright.org    --
-- ICQ: 1824934 -- AIM: ScionAltera -- MSN: ScionAltera --
     -- http://www.divineright.org/~scion/meme.html --

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