Mud-Dev FAQ - Part 2
---
Last modified: 20 September 1999
14 November 1999
16 Januari 2000
13 April 2000
11 June 2000
24 March 2001
25 Januari 2001
08 September 2002
08 December 2002
10 August 2003
1. Introduction
2. Frequently Asked Questions
3. Previous Topics
4. Scenarios
*5. Resources
*6. Glossary
*7. Changes, To Do & Acknowledgements
(* chapters found in this part of the FAQ)
A web based version of this FAQ can be found at:
<URL:http://www.kanga.nu/FAQs/MUD-Dev-L/>
Please email any corrections, suggestions or constructive criticisms
to Marian Griffith at gryphon@iaehv.nl
Recent Changes:
16-01-2000
Resources: Added Asheron's Call, Everquest, Legends of Futures Past,
Terris, Treshold and Sojourn to the list of muds.
Changed the address of The Eternal City.
Added mudwords.com, mudconnector, mudlinks and gamecommandos
to the mud resources
20-04-2000
Resources: Changed the adress of Medievia, added two muds (BloodDusk
and Realms of Despair.
Started a new section for FTP sites
Glossary: Replaced Adam Wiggins's example code on his request by
something more print friendly.
11-06-2000
Resources: Started a list of muds that are run by members of this
list to distinguish them more clearly from other notable
projects.
24-03-2001
Resources: Added references to the MUD timelines by Raph Koster and
Jessica Mulligan
25-01-2002
Resources: added new adress for habitat. Added a resource site by
Bruce Mitchener
07-09-2002
Resources: Various changes to mud adresses, listings and new muds
08-12-2002
Resources: Various changes to mud adresses. Added resource site
by Skotos.
10-09-2003
Corrected url for website of Dark Age of Camelot mud. Updated the
description for Terris
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5. Resources
Anything notable and mud related that should be read/investigated.
Mud-Dev site
<URL:http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev/>
<URL:http://www.kanga.nu/library.php3>
Especially the searchable archives and the library. There is a
much larger collection of design related web articles there than
can be included in this faq.
Webpages:
MUD Tree/Timeline
<URL:http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/mudtimeline.html>
Raph Koster's timeline of the development of MUDs
MUD Timeline
<URL:http://www.happypuppy.com/features/bth/bth%2Dvol8%2D36.html>
The start of Jessica Mulligan's timeline of MUDs (3 more pages)
A Rape in Cyberspace
<URL:http://www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/lpb/muddex/vv.html>
The infamous article by Julian Dibbell.
How it really happened...
<URL:http://www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/lpb/muddex/bartle.txt> or
<URL:http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&threadm=1427@thar.UUCP>
Richard Bartle's early history of MUDs.
Also by Richard Bartle
<URL:http://mud.co.uk/richard/academic.htm> and
<URL:http://mud.co.uk/muse/speke.htm> For a dictionary of MUD1
and MUD2 terms.
<URL:http://www.skotos.net/articles/DAWNOF.shtml> Richard Bartle's
column on engineering muds.
Imaginary Realities
<URL:http://imaginaryrealities.imaginary.com>
Online mud orientated magazine.
Killers Have More Fun
<URL:http://www.wired.com/wired/6.05/ultima.html>
An article by Amy Jo Kim.
Lucasfilm's Habitat
<URL:http://www.communities.com/company/papers/lessons.html>
<URL:http://race-server.race.u-tokyo.ac.jp/RACE/TGM/Mud/habitat.html>
<URL:http://www.communities.com/people/crock/habitat.html>
<URL:http://beta.communities.com/>
Detailed documents about an ambitious graphical mud. [JCL]
May currently be located at <url:http://www.vzones.com> [Mats Lidstrom]
also several of th documents may no longer be at the indicated location
Lydia Leong's MUD resource collection
<URL:http://www.godlike.com/muds/>
[Raph K]
Marian Griffith's !Overlord project
<URL:http://www.iaehv.nl/users/gryphon>
Full of information useful to mud designer/admins.
MUDDex
<URL:http://www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/lpb/muddex/>
A collection of documents including Bartle's, Dibbell's mentioned
above. [Raph K]
Raph Koster's Website, Gaming Section
<URL:http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/>
<URL:http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/links.html>
Lead designer on Ultima Online, plenty of snippets on muds, particularly
those pertaining UO itself. Many of the above sites are index in the
links section. Raph's Laws of Online World Design can also be found
here.
Skotos Articles Archive
<URL:http://www.skotos.net/articles> Regular columns on game design,
development, engineering and playing.
Bruce Mitchener's Agora website
<URL:http://agora.cubik.org/>
knowledge base for mud-related topics.
Mud Finders:
Mudwords
<URL:http://www.mudwords.com/>
-- This site seems to be suspended --
Mudconnector
<URL:http://www.mudconnector.com/>
I think this site took over when Doran's mudlist stopped due to an
overwhelming number of muds that made it impossible for a single
person to keep up.
Game commandos
<URL:http://www.gamecommandos.com>
Mud connector and peering review of muds.
-- This site is now defunct --
Muds:
AlphaWorld: <URL:http://www.cs.cuc.edu/~sopwith/aw/>
Anyone care to comment?
Anarchy Online
Armageddon: <URL:telnet://ginka.armageddon.org:4050>
To my knowledge the ONLY truly successful full-bore RP environment
based on a Diku-style server with full combat and the like. Often
cited as such at any rate. [Raph K]
Asheron's Call: <URL:telnet://??:??>
If I recall correctly this is one of the first first-person graphical
commercial muds. (after Ultima Online and its predecessors)
Aturion Dynasty: <URL:http://aturion.com:4444>
Almost all the muds done by Owen Emlen have interesting design
features to them too. [Raph K]
[See also EmlenMud II]
Avalon: <URL:http://www.avalon-rpg.com>
Commercial text muds. Avalon has an interesting newbie tutorial
mode, and room description generation code that is nifty
too. [Raph K]
Cold: <URL:telnet://ice.cold.org:1138>
A branch off the ColdMUD (below) using the Genesis driver, sometimes
referred to as Cold/Genesis or ColdX/Genesis.
ColdMUD: <ftp://ftp.kanga.nu/pub/MUD/Servers/ColdMUD/>
ColdMUD is for all intents and purposes dead. Greg Hudson officially
stopped development of it back in 1994, and I just 'branched' the
ColdX/Genesis from it, rather than making an issue with people and
continuing to call my development of it 'ColdMUD'. [Brandon Gillespie]
CoolMUD: <URL:http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/u/sfwhite/coolftp>
Incredibly elegant server design. [JCL]
Dark Age of Camelot <URL:http://www.camelotherald.com><telnet n/a>
Big commercial graphical mud
Dark Sun Online: <URL:http://www.ssionline.com>
Commercial graphical mud with turn-based combat in a real-time
environment. [Raph K]
DartMUD: <URL:telnet://dartmud.com:2525>
A very ambitious LP mud with lots of good ideas which never seemed
to have gelled together correctly. Plenty of bugs. A sequel is
being worked on.
DragonRealms (Gemstone): <URL:http://dragonrealms.net>
Gemstone was and probably still is the most popular mud in the
world, period. It evolved into DragonRealms. [Raph K]
Duris: <URL:telnet://duris.org:6666>
A pk mud with economy?! [Down? Jul 1998]
Changed name to Duris: Land of Bloodlust, <URL:http://www.duris.org>
Eternal City, The: <URL:http://www.eternal-city.com/>
Commercial mud using the Cold server.
EmlenMud II: <URL:http://degu.cs.indiana.edu:6669/em2.html>
Looks like Owen Emlen is in the process of making a new mud.
Everquest: <URL:telnet://??:??>
A commercial graphical mud
Furcadia: <URL:http://www.realtime.net/furcadia/>
A commercial graphical mud by Dr. Cat.
LambdaMOO: <URL:http://vesta.physics.ucla.edu/~smolin/lambda/>
One of the pages for this MOO.
LegendMUD: <URL:telnet://mud.legendmud.org:9999> <http://www.legendmud.org>
First classless mud? Historical theme, since Feb. 1994. Uses
inheritance and attachable internal scripting system. Raph Koster
still forced to advise. Mud run by Kristen Koster
[Source: email:kaige@legendmud.org]
Legends of Futures Past
An excellent commercial text based mud [Ilya]
This mud closed its doors at dec 31st 1999
Medievia: <URL:telnet://medievia.com:4000>
The most popular free gaming mud I know of. Pioneered the use of
things like in-game spam ads for themselves and lack of due credit
given for code (:P) but also has things like ASCII map terrain,
large algorithmically generated areas, etc. [Raph K]
Meridian 59: <URL:http://meridian59.neardeathstudios.com/>
Possibly the first graphical first-person (commercial) mud.
Mortal Conquest: <URL:telnet://199.74.98.37:9999>
That game I can't remember with the whities and the darkies. [JCL]
By Own Emlen. [Down, 1st March]
MUD2: <URL:telnet://mud2.com:23>
<URL:http://www.mud2.com>
or <URL:http://www.british-legends.com/> (version recoded in C)
A licensed copy run by Bartle.
MUQ: <URL:http://muq.sourceforge.net/>
Northern Lights:
<URL:http://www.ludd.luth.se/mud/aber/northern_lights.html>
<URL:telnet://aber.ludd.luth.se:6715>
Realms, The: <URL:http://www.realmserver.com>
Realms is a commercial graphical mud from Sierra.
Realms of Despair: <URL:telnet://realms.game.org:4000>
Popular mud and development ground for the Smaug codebase
[Derek Snider]
Shades: <URL:telnet://games.world.co.uk:23>
TODO - get Bartle's comment here.
Skotos: <http://www.skotos.net>
A community of online games, including two text MUDs: Grendel's Revenge
and The Eternal City, a text MUSH: Castle Marrach, and a strategy game:
Galactic Emperor: Hegomony.
Also offers designers the ability to build new games using the skotos
tool kits.
Sojourn: <URL:telnet://toril.org:9999> <URL:http://www.torilmud.com>
Predecessor and sister game to Duris. A strongly PK oriented mud
[Apparently no longer in existence.
anybody willing to write a post-mortem?]
Sojourn3: <URL:telnet:sojourn3.org:9999> <URL:http://www.sojourn3.org>
Apparently the current version of Sojourn
(source: Elia Morling. email:elia@familjen.se)
Terris: <URL:telnet://??:??> <URL:http://www.legendofterris.com>
A text-based mud. Initially accessible through AOL, but currently
independent (www.onlinegamescompany.com). Modular build and with
a powerful building language for both building and quests. Aims
to be without reset. Cooperative gameplay (no PvP or PK)
Toril: <URL:telnet://torilmud.com:9999>
One of two offshoots of Sojourn (other being Duris).
[Apparently no longer in existence. Anybody willing to
write a post-mortem?]
Treshhold:
TODO: Ask Ilya about this one.
Trash: <URL:http://games.world.co.uk>
Somewhere in the webpage with Shades. [Down, Sept 1998]
Tron: <URL:telnet://polaris.king.ac.uk:3000>
An out and out pk mud, more of an arcade game using ASCII maps than
a mud in the conventional sense. Not one for the faint hearted.
Should you want a game but can't find anyone, drop me a bell.
Start learning with disc or spider. Be prepared to break your
keyboard. [Ling]
Underlight: <URL:http://www.underlight.com>
A technically/GoP modest, socially interesting RP first-person
graphical mud. [Source: Dave Kennerly email:Dave@Nexon.com]
UOL: <URL:http://www.ultimaonline.com>
Ask Raph K.
VR1 Crossroads
TODO: Ask Ilya about this one
Worlds of Carnage: <URL:telnet//carnage.labs.emich.edu:4000>
The first Diku mud with an internal scripting language, called
"easyacts." This code formed the basis of the MobProgs put into
Merc 2.2. LegendMUD is a spiritual offshoot of Carnage, and Cythera is
a literal offshoot. (Interestingly, Damion Schubert, a designer on
M59, was also a Carnage immort alum). Imperium Gothique's scripting
was derived from either mobprogs or Carnage, not sure which. Carnage
definitely had a lot of influence on the world of Dikudom. [Raph K]
Muds run by list members
Achaea, Dreams of Divine lands: <URL:http://www.achaea.com/>
A commercial mud by Matthew Mihaly <the_logos@achaea.com>
running the Vortex server
AmigaMUD: <URL:telnet://mud.graysage.edmonton.ab.ca:6666,6668,6669>
Chris Gray's custom mud. Moving site. [Jun 1998]
Mud is infrequently running.
Blood Dusk <URL:telnet://mud.dusk.org:7000>
<URL:http://dusk.org/BloodDusk>
Mud ran by listmember Adam Wiggins <adam@treyarch.com>
Dark Ages <URL:http://www.DarkAges.com>
Graphic MUD with player-controlled politics and religions
Mud previously run by listmember Dave Kennerly <dave@darkages.com>
Discworld <URL:http://discworld.imaginary.com>
A custom lpmud that has been running since 1991, still administed
by the same person, David Bennett <ddt@discworld.imaginary.com>.
Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds <URL:http://www.NexusTK.com>
US version of Asia's first graphic MUD (1995)
Mud previously run by listmember Dave Kennerly <dave@darkages.com>
Retromud <URL:http://www.retromud.org>
An LP-mud with 5 years custom development by Rayzam <rayzam@home.com>
VieMud <telnet:http://viemud.inetsolve.com:2500>
<url:http://viemud.inetsolve.com/>
Mud run by listmember Alex
Notable muds yet to be found:
IOWA Project, The:
Rememeberance pages are at <URL:http://www.iowa-mug.net>
Island:
Did this not die some time back? [Thouhg Keegan may yet resurrect it]
MUD1:
Although MUD2 is up above.
Not so mud related webpages.
ANSI and VT terminal codes in general:
<URL:http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal_index.html>
And in case you wanted to know more about VT-### in particular:
<URL:http://www.sdsu.edu/doc/texi/screen_10.html>
<URL:http://www.mhri.edu.au/~pdb/dataformats/vt100.html>
Or ANSI terminals:
<URL:http://www.mhri.edu.au/~pdb/dataformats/ansi.html>
AI Nodes/ANN:
<URL:http://206.107.246.21/packhste/5/>
Amit's Games Programming Page:
<URL:http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/gameprog.html>
Anti-Mac interface:
<URL:http://www.acm.org/cacm/AUG96/antimac.htm>
BSP trees:
<URL:http://reality.sgi.com/bspfaq/index.shtml>
Image formats (esp PPM):
<URL:http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/~mxr/gfx/2d-lo.html>
R-Trees:
<URL:http://www.cs.cuhk.hk/~drsam/methods.html>
VR programming tutorial:
<URL:http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~rg3h/networkVR/paper.html>
Programming references to get the budding scratch mud coder started:
BSD Sockets: A Quick And Dirty Primer
<URL:http://world.std.com/~jimf/papers/sockets/sockets.html>
With other relevant papers pointed to by:
<URL:http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/%7ebentlema/unix/>
Vic Metcalfe's (vic@brutus.tlug.org) unix-socket FAQ can be found at
Text version:
<URL:http://unlser1.unl.csi.cuny.edu/faqs/sock-faq/usenet/unix-socket-faq.usenet>
<URL:http://www.ibrado.com/sock-faq/usenet/unix-socket-faq.usenet>
HTML version:
<URL:http://unlser1.unl.csi.cuny.edu/faqs/sock-faq/html/unix-socket-faq.html>
<URL:http://www.ibrado.com/sock-faq/html/unix-socket-faq.html>
There's a nice leader page for the FAQ with other related pointers at:
<URL:http://unlser1.unl.csi.cuny.edu/faqs/sock-faq/html/unix-socket-faq-1.html>
<URL:http://www.ibrado.com/sock-faq/>
The TCP/IP applications FAQ can be found at (of course):
<URL:http://www.faqs.org/faqs/internet/tcp-ip/applications-FAQ/index.html>
The TCP/IP FAQ from comp.protocols.tcp-ip (probably also on news.answers
etc) can be found at:
<URL:http://www.dc.net/ilazar/tcpipfaq/default.htm>
The raw IP networking FAQ (most interesting to those of use doing
custom clients or server inter-connects) can be found at:
<URL:http://www.whitefang.com/rin/>
The TCP/IP resources list has all sorts of useful pointers:
<URL:http://www.faqs.org/faqs/internet/tcp-ip/resource-list/index.html>
Including the various BSD socket programming tutorials:
<URL:http://ftp.std.com/homepages/jimf/sockets.html>
<URL:http://ccnga.uwaterloo.ca/~mvlioy/stuff/ipc_intro_tut.txt>
<URL:http://ccnga.uwaterloo.ca/~mvlioy/stuff/ipc_adv_tut.txt >
The Unix Refence desk is another good reference:
<URL:http://www.geek-girl.com/unix.html>
As is Unix Guru Universe:
<URL:http://www.ugu.com/>
And of course, W R Steven's page:
<URL:http://www.kohala.com/~rstevens/>
FTP resources for MUD code
ftp.game.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6. Glossary of Terms
The list has managed to come up with its own jargon. Here are some of
the current buzzwords:
Cooperative role-playing: Refers to a specific kind of RP where each
player's personal 'storyline' is paramount. All players are aware
of, and sensitive to, the needs of each player for their story, and
all actions are completely consensual. This is a type of play often
found on MUSHes.
Event: A system design alternative to polling loops. Objects generate
events, which are processed in their proper order by the event
handler. This is frequently clearer and far more efficient,
especially with large numbers of objects. Examples are a torch
generating an event to burn out in two hours, or a spell generating
an event for an earthquake to occur in four seconds.
The following is a compilable example of generic event-handling code in
C courtesy of Adam Wiggins.
---<begin code>---
#include <stdio.h>
typedef float Tick; /* Time counter type */
/* Defines for event types */
enum { EVENT_ALPHA = 0, EVENT_BETA, EVENT_GAMMA, NUM_EVENTS };
/* The event structure itself */
typedef struct SEvent
{
int Type; /* EVENT_x */
Tick RipenTime; /* time at which event ripens */
void *Data; /* any extra data to be passed to the callback function */
struct SEvent *Next; /* next node in the linked list of events */
} Event;
/* Defininiton for the callback function type */
typedef void (*EventCallback)(void *);
#define EVENT(x) void (x)(void *)
/* Event function prototypes - these should be defined somewhere else, like
so:
EVENT(EventAlpha)
{
code to execute on event completion;
}
*/
EVENT(EventAlpha);
EVENT(EventBeta);
EVENT(EventGamma);
/* Master list of event callbacks, by type */
EventCallback EventCallBacks[NUM_EVENTS] =
{ EventAlpha, EventBeta, EventGamma };
Event *EventList = NULL; /* Master event list */
Tick GameTick = 0; /* Current game time */
/* Call this to add an event "time" ticks into the future */
void AddEvent(int type, Tick time, void *data)
{
Event *newEvent, *e, *prev;
/* Sanity checking */
if (time <= 0)
return;
/* Create the event */
newEvent = (Event *)malloc(sizeof(Event));
newEvent->Type = type;
newEvent->RipenTime = GameTick + time;
newEvent->Data = data;
/* Descend the list until a later event is found */
for (e = EventList; e && e->RipenTime < newEvent->RipenTime; e = e->Next)
prev = e;
/* Insert the new event before that event */
newEvent->Next = e;
if (prev)
prev->Next = newEvent;
else
EventList = newEvent;
}
/* Call the function below during your update loop */
/* The parameter is how many game ticks have passed since the last update */
void EventUpdate(Tick ticks)
{
Event *e, *next;
int update = 0;
GameTick += ticks;
/* Execute each event that is due to ripen */
for (e = EventList; e && e->RipenTime <= GameTick; e = e->Next)
{
(*EventCallBacks[e->Type])(e->Data);
update = 1;
}
/* Second pass, delete all ripened events */
/* This part is done in a seperate pass in case one of the event callbacks
adds a new event, to avoid munging up the event linked list */
if (update)
{
for (e = EventList; e && e->RipenTime <= GameTick; e = next)
{
next = e->Next;
free(e);
}
EventList = e;
}
}
---<end code>---
Faucet->Drain economy: A virtual economic system wherein there is an
ongoing influx of new items into the game (usually via a reset model)
and a hopefully corresponding outflow, usually accomplished through
object attrition involving equipment damage, rent fees, etc. It is worth
noting that traditionally, designers have been unable to easily come up
with a big enough drain to handle all the 'water.' This is as opposed to
a "Closed economy" in which an attempt is made to close the loop,
creating new objects only when old ones are used up. [Raph K]
Fixed random seeding: Using a fixed value (such as a character's
unique ID, or the character's position in XYZ space) to seed the
random number generator, assuring that the same random number will
always be rolled if the circumstances are exactly the same, but
requiring no storage. This allows parts of the world or its
behaviour to be dynamically generated from the seed value as
needed, and yet to have each "new copy" be the same as all the
others because the seed value hasn't changed.
Fluidity of Identity: Referring to the difficulty of positively identifying
a single person who takes many guises in a game world. Any particular
action against one of those guises is fairly ineffective; they choose
another and continue. This makes it very difficult to pin down
trouble makers. ATtempts at identifying people based on their hostname
(site deny/allow), e-mail address (email registration), credit card number
(for commercial ventures), or just asking really, really nicely are all
easily circumvented, especially when it is easy to create new characters
or accounts (that is, the process is short and automated). This frequently
makes it difficult to implement 'real world' solutions to in-game problems
such as psychotic killing sprees. Once you catch someone and lock them
away or put them to death in RL, they are gone. When you do this on most
muds, they just log on two seconds later with another character.
Full world reset, aka "groundhog day" muds: Muds wherein resets occur
globally, simultaneously (sf reset and repop). [RaphK]
Functional roleplaying: A kind of gaming, whilst GoP motivated, is heavily
tailored to the in-game reality. There's no thee's or thou's, or even
pretension of IC/OOC separation, but an awful lot of attention is spent
by the player in working his character thru the game realities rules as
it controls and affects his character. Examples would include
negotiation of reputation and influence systems, votes, political systems,
clans and guilds and other similar structures, etc. Appearance is not
the key. Function is. [JCL]
Global namespace: Referring to the fact that most muds rely on characters
(and sometimes other objects) are given a single and unique name.
Typing 'who' on most muds gives you a list of these; if you see
someone named Bob you know that he is the only Bob in the world, and
can't be confused with anyone else. This is as compared to a system
of generated descriptions to which players can attach proper names
as they please, which may or may not overlap or match up with the
names assigned by other players.
GoP: Short for 'game-oriented play' or possible 'goal-oriented play'.
This is usually a competitive style of play usually oriented around
the accumulation of various resources (money, power, combat ability).
Levels: For the purpose of keeping discussions generic, this term may be
used as an abstract measurement of a character's ability, skill or
expertise whether the game system is level-based or skill-based.
Eg: "If a low level character tries XXX a high level character..."
The precise details are not of interest as opposed to the impact and
result of the undefined imbalance.
Lockless server or DB:
Events request objects from the DB.
If the object is not in the cache, the DB loads the object.
The DB replies to the event with a read-only shared reference to the
object.
The event is added to the "interested parties" list for the object.
If the event attempts to modify the object, a new local, event-specific
copy of the object is made, and the changes are made to that. A copy
of the original reference however is still kept.
The event (loosely) attempts to keep track of what members of the
object it referenced.
During the execution of an event. all external IO is buffered and held.
Upon the event terminating it compares its copy of the original object
(the local reference) with the object that's actually in the DB (may
have been changed by events committing during the current event's
execution). Some intelligence is attempted here to only compare those
values etc which were referenced by the event.
Should the original copy and the current-in-DB copy compare OK, then
the event commits, the IO is released, and all its changes in its
written-to copies are committed atomically. This is the
Compare&Commit, or C&C.
If the C&C fails, the event is thrown away, all the copies are released,
the IO is discarded, and the event is rescheduled to try again.
There is also some background intelligence here where the DB watches
the objects that are affected by event's C&C'ing, and will signal the
other events that are members of those object's interested party list
that they may be invalidated by the other event's C&C and so should
kill themselves and reschedule.
ref: DEMOS and the DOME project (JCL)
Markup language: An internal set of codes used by a server to generate
semi-dynamic messages. An example is "%c dives %I %o" which might result
in "Bubba dives behind the wall", "A woman dives into the pool", or
any number of other strings.
mud or MUD: It is not an acronym. It is a collective term for all the
types of games discussed on this list, including both RP and GoP.
[NB: Another description may be found at the list's homepage
<URL:http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev/> ]
Mule: Character created on goal-orientated muds those sole purpose is to
supplement a player's primary character by supplying services such as
equipment repair. Mules usually have skills that cannot be obtained
without creating a new character but are perceived to be undesirable to
play. For example, an alchemist class could be considered unenjoyable
to play but due to their special ability to repair equipment, the regular
players create mule alchemists just to access that ability.
Object: Because most of the servers discussed here are
object-oriented, the word object is being used in its general
programming sense to include characters, locations, inanimate items,
and so forth, rather than referring to only inanimate items as is
typical in some mud servers.
PK, player-killing: The intentional killing of a player character by
another player, with or without the first player's prior knowledge,
agreement, or consent. [JCL]
Psychological disinhibition: The term for when people act less inhibited
than normally because of circumstance. All behaviours online tend to become
less inhibited, and the greater the absence of identity cues for the
people you are interacting with, the less inhibited the behaviours tend
to get.
[RaphK]
Realism: This is not necessarily correspondance to the real world, but
rather refers to internal consistency. In many cases using the
working of real world systems (physics, for example) is a good
example for how to build a consistent system for a game world.
To quote:
"This is, of course, partially my invention, to suit the gaming world
we are working on, and is not intended to mirror Real Life - just to
borrow enough bits and pieces from it, so that it is recognized as
somewhat structured (rather than totally whimsical) to the player."
- Holly Sommer
Repop: See Reset.
Reset: Usually a function called in a mud at irregular intervals, the
purpose of which is to put back the game, or some fragment of the
game or game world into a known state. Typically this might mean
locking an opened door, or resurrecting an NPC that was killed by a
player and putting him back to guard the door, Resets and repops
are common on games that promote repetitive actions for advancement.
Skill net: A single layered skill web. Skills are directly weighted to
each other. See skill web (NY)
Skill tree: A skill system where skills have a single parent and
several children. A skills at the bottom of the tree being very
specialised. Skills higher up the tree will affect the value of
skills further down.
Skill web: a non-hierarchical two layered skill system wherein each
skill is weight-related to an arbitrary number of attributes, and
the improvement of skills therefore automatically improves related
skills. Examples of skills might be rowing and flycasting, examples
of attributes, strength (upper arm) and precision (forearm).
[Note: I triple weight my skill web, so that there are direct
connections to the condition of the character's body and mind, and
so that the resilience of same are improved by conditioning. Nathan Y]
[Note 2: The web is modelled after a simple neural net design I found in
Dr. Dobbs' Journal. Nathan Y]
Verb binding: Attaching verbs to an object, such as 'fly' to a
jetpack. The command essentially does not exist when you don't have
the jetpack.
Virtual sociopath: a player who shows no empathy towards any other players
and therefore is a willing killer of them) but who is perfectly normal
in real life--someone whose disassociation from others only occurs in
an online setting, because of their lack of empathic connections to
other players. See "psychological disinhibition." [RaphK]
World state: a mud which saves world state is one in which there is
persistence not only of characters but also of objects other than
characters. Worlds which do not save world state (such as muds derived
from Dikus) only save character data and the world itself (other than its
static map) is not persistent over reboots. A snippet from my website:
--->
The "middle layer" referred to is the one of the three layers of
significance in a virtual world: that which is the static database, that
which is the play of data on said static database, and that which is the
dataset of players themselves. Depending on the method of state-saving of
the mud, they may save one, two, or all three of these things. As an
example, a classic Diku saves only the third layer: players. Ultima Online
saves both players and the environment. A typical MUSH saves players, the
environment, and also the actual map and setting which holds the
environment, since MUSHes allow dynamic alteration of the static data.
Some early muds did not save any of the three, and thus were not truly
"persistent."
<---
[RaphK]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
7. Changes, To Do & Acknowledgements
990613 -- Frequently Asked Questions: Brought up to date with current
affairs.
990514 -- Resources: New link to Imaginary Realities, a mud magazine.
990417 -- General correction of Frequently Asked Questions. However,
have not been able to get to kanga to verify new addresses.
990321 -- Scenarios: Added two more scenarios, The Stamp Collector's Dilemma
by Dr. Cat and The Tailor Problem by Marian Griffith.
Glossary: Appended generic event-handling C source code to the term
"event" courtesy of Adam Wiggins.
Added new definition, "mule".
990112 -- The Members: Whole section removed. Look forward to an HTML
version to appear on kanga sometime soon (this weekend hopefully).
981213 -- The Members: Updated Adam Wiggins' bio. Subjectively stripped
the bios of members that haven't posted recently, includes:
John Bertogio; Reed Copsey, Jr; Marc Eyrignoux; David Love (aka
Sauron); Katrina McClelan; and Greg Munt. Expect the whole
section to go in favour of an HTML version in the New Year
integrating the thread titled "Current Projects".
981110 -- Just found a long lost email for FAQ alterations.
FAQ: Changed MUD-Dev links from /index.html to /
The Members: Minor alterations to JCL's bio.
Resources: Link and brief for original ColdMUD added.
More links for Habitat added.
Displaced programmming links with those supplied by JCL.
980907 -- Resources: All things ansi and telnet related added.
980811 -- The Members: Matthew R. Sheahan's bio added.
Greg Underwood's bio amended.
Resources: Amit's Games Programming Page added.
Whole bunch of programming references added.
Glossary: "Fluidity of Identity" added.
980708 -- Snipped signatures from members' bios suggested by Alex Oren. :(
Minor typo and adjustments suggested by JCL. Overdue addition
of MUDDex and Lydia Leong's MUD resource collection to Resources.
"Faucet->Drain economy" term for Glossary added. Stole list
charter from homepage to act as a welcome message of sorts.
Small reorganisation of sections 1,2,3. Added Bartle's early
MUD history to web link in Resources. The Bungle link in Resources
disappeared, added back in, though different site. Quietly dropped
Derrick Jones' bio (was empty).
980506 -- Moved the changes list to a section in the back, only the most
changes since the last post appear here now. Appended Holly
Sommer quote to "realism" glossary term. Added "functional
roleplaying" glossary term. Updated Frequently Asked Questions.
Added networking tutorial web link to Resources. Added Bungle
web link to Resources.
980428 -- New scenarios section,a couple more glossary terms and more
member's bios.
980308 -- Mailing list invite.
980301 -- Even more addresses for the resource section.
980201 -- More bios, more addresses for the resource section.
980107 -- Added a few more questions. Previous topics now has its own
universe as suggested by Adam Wiggins. Plonked in a resources
section. Took out standard technical terms as suggested by Adam
Wiggins.
971201 -- FAQ created.
To Do:
Conventions of example scenarios (Bubba, Boffo, Buffy, etc)
List of references for specific scenarios/docs (Habitat/Great God GooGoo,
Crystalline Tree, recognising Sting in the weapons shop, etc).
Solutions for the scenarios?
Obtain addresses for the muds in the resource section.
Statement of topic definition (cf welcome message).
Update previous topics section.
Acknowledgments:
Everyone on the list who contributed with a bio, everyone on the
list who posts and special thanks to Jon A. Lambert, Adam Wiggins,
Nathan Yospe, Raph Koster and lastly but definitely not the least,
J C Lawrence.
marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...
Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey
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