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The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)
61–70 of 83 posts
Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)
#62Every time another nostalgia post comes along for MUDs people start replying with the name of a small MUD they enjoyed but I’m surprised how rare it is to see Iron Realms MUDs mentioned. I’m almost certain they are the largest MUD development company to exist. I played two of their MUDs — Achaea and Lusternia. The sheer imaginative scale of these worlds and engines are unmatched by even today’s standards. (And they s…
I also always look for the IRE MUDs :) I played Achaea about 15 years ago; the community of players really makes the game what it is. (If anybody remembers Soludra, that's me!)
Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only general-purpose languages that come close to the required execution model are Common Lisp and Smalltalk well, and pike, which itself is based on LPC so it has the required execution model by design. the point is that LPC and pike are the kind of sane language being asked for.
I might be wrong - I investigated Pike just once, a long time ago - but I think Pike dropped a lot of the "liveness" that LPC provided (ie. reloading objects from a (changed) source at runtime while keeping their identity and updating clones). It's still probably a good fit for a lot of more advanced MUDs, but it's even more niche than CL and Smalltalk, so again, not much of an advantage over a home-grown solution. P…
reloading objects from a (changed) source at runtime while keeping their identity and updating clones)
the functionality is still there, but hidden. roxen can reload modules but the reload creates a new object instance which new http requests will get, whereas old requests keep the old instance until the request completes.
however open-sTeam, a collaboration platform developed by a university in germany built a system of proxy objects such that your code always only interacts with the proxy allowing the actual object in the background to be replaced by new instances. in your own code you don't realize you are dealing with a proxy. it's completely transparent. it also stores the object state in a database creating full object persistence. the architecture is very similar to a MUD. they even wrote an object protocol allowing you to access the object from remote, so you can write remote clients that interact with objects with implementations in pike, php and java.
the university is no longer working on that platform, but since they released it as GPL i am able to continue using it as a base for all my websites and web-apps.
persistence and runtime reloading of objects are my favorite features in any language. i just love to be able to change code at runtime without having to restart the server. it works just like i am used to from my LPmud time.
Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)
#64Between this and the previous MUD post about LLM MUDs I'd love to see a comeback. A few months ago I tried out my old (1999-2004) hang, wocmud.org Some of the quests were still sometimes broken. auto attacking mobs were still unfairly strong. But, there were a couple people more than willing to help me get my gear back from my corpse. They helped me remember the areas, quests, syntax, etc that I had BURNED into my me…
I'm sure you mean wotmud.org, and I always look for someone to mention this one in MUD threads, but rarely see it. Man I was hooked on that game in high school. Joined the Lion Wardens, multiple high level characters, knew the zones. Nothing has come close since then. That feeling of leveling in a safe zone when your screen fills with red names of opposing faction characters and you just get deleted and lose all your…
Wotmud taught me to type fast.
Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not sure I understand your question- MUDs have a text interface, somewhat similar to a command line. It wouldn't be a proper MUD if it had a graphical interface- there are plenty of games out there that do this like Baldurs Gate. The files part of your comment I don't understand either.
Simply untrue. There have been hundreds of MUD clients and many of them were not purely text based at all. Many had images and map screens built in.
MUDs are text based. Some of the clients can have graphical features but the basic way to interface with the MUD itself is with text.
Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)
#66I thought it would be fun to do a modern reimplementation of LambdaMoo, but someone already did it in Rust! https://github.com/timbran-project/moor
Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, that’s a MUD for you. It’s inherently text based. It’s of the golden age of the internet where passing the UX bar meant you earned your place in the community. The genre opened doors for MMORPGs like EverQuest. If you want something modern and polished there are no shortages of other games. I think part of the nostalgia for MUDs is a nostalgia for the era of the internet where communities were small and speci…
I disagree. I think there's value to making a mud that uses discord-style slash commands outside of Discord without the player memorizing the text grammar.
Welcome to your new side project!
Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)
#68I thought it would be fun to do a modern reimplementation of LambdaMoo, but someone already did it in Rust! https://github.com/timbran-project/moor
Yep, that's me.
Join in the fun.
Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)
#69FYI the wikipedia link in the footer is broken (points to mod, not mud)
Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)
#70But now comes the real question - will the MUDs be programmed in something sane? The last MUD/MUCK I was on was done in RPN-style code. That was a headache to code various plugins and options.
you are looking for LPmuds. LPC is a language that looks like C (the C in LPC) and there is even a general purpose language called pike that is a rewrite of LPC. in an LPmud, the engine and the world itself including user contributed part are all written in LPC. unlike other MUDs that have a core written in C and an obscure custom language to define the world inside. this made LPmuds very approachable, and i believe…
One thing I obliquely enjoyed about cutting my teeth on LPC was occasionally having to write things from scratch where we'd just be reusing well-trod FOSS in other languages. Growth opportunities :)