Stand Alone BBS Software or Basically Door Game

[Vitoc]

will the port on which it runs (the builtin telnet server) be configurable?

Yes, and I have already used that feature to test a second realm on the same IP.

[DownUnderBBS]

sounds good...

so if this game going to be a replica of MajorMUD with improvements/fixes onto of that?

is it something that'll be run only by you or is it going to be available for others to run when its complete?

[Vitoc]

sounds good...

so if this game going to be a replica of MajorMUD with improvements/fixes onto of that?

is it something that'll be run only by you or is it going to be available for others to run when its complete?

It won't be a replica since we're not going to be using their content.  It will be MegaMUD compliant, so the interface and look and feel will be nearly identical.  Yes, we will be adding  improvements and fixing things that should have been fixed years ago, but that is for everyone here to decide.

Part of me would like to sell the engine/server for very cheap (think like 100-200 bucks) but another part of me thinks if everyone gets their hands on it, it will destroy any sense of community we might have had since everyone will be using their own set of content.  So I guess the answer is, we haven't really decided yet.

[Colt]

Part of me would like to sell the engine/server for very cheap (think like 100-200 bucks) but another part of me thinks if everyone gets their hands on it, it will destroy any sense of community we might have had since everyone will be using their own set of content.? So I guess the answer is, we haven't really decided yet.

Just to interject a thought here, part of what made Major Mud last this long is the fact that every BBS was setup different. And to add to that, most of my players play on more than one Board. They stay because the different boards make each very different and exciting for them. I would never try to make my users only play on my board, if I did I would not have a board very long.
I think your community will not suffer by haveing it on many sites. but you might loose some if you only let them play in one world..

[Vitoc]

Just to interject a thought here, part of what made Major Mud last this long is the fact that every BBS was setup different. And to add to that, most of my players play on more than one Board. They stay because the different boards make each very different and exciting for them. I would never try to make my users only play on my board, if I did I would not have a board very long.
I think your community will not suffer by haveing it on many sites. but you might loose some if you only let them play in one world..

I agree, some variety is good, yes.? But imagine if all the Major MUD realms had all been running completely different content.? This is why TurboSentry only shows players in realms that are considered legit by Metro standards.? If it didn't the list would be completely meaningless (although the level 75 cap pretty much already rendered it such).? BTW, I'm not saying the list is anything more than a fun way of watching your character progress compared to those in other realms.? Anyway, with different content players from different realms wouldn't have anything in common (especially with new races/classes).? While there would be an abundance of variety, we'd end up with a thousand different realms with completely different content and like 5-10 total players in each.? While that would be good for GreaterMUD, I'm not sure it would be such a great thing for the community.

So what other variety is there?? PVP? Death HP? (not sure that should be configurable) Currency denomination names?

[Colt]

So what other variety is there?? PVP? Death HP? (not sure that should be configurable) Currency denomination names?

Death HP's    Plz do not make this configurable.....
                     I know I had more fun playing when it was set at -15,  Then when it got opened up to -20,000. all the users yelled and asked for it. I did not allow it, then suddenly I had 12 players who were killed instantly and lost all their stuff. My Sysop changed the setting and never told me, (I am a truck driver and gone most of the time)...

Gang house's  a setting that allows or disallows them.
                         When are they allowed? exp? Timed?
                         Room Discreptions?
Gangs             When are they allowed? exp? Timed?

Having one Item, jeweled gold ring, that a user is allowed to set the discreption... Nice.

Plz, leave the signs  alone...... as a part of the game, not for sysops to write notes  on.....

[Toyduck]

I don't know much about WorldGroup.  I do know it's horribly bloated for what is needed to run a text game like Major MUD.  However, I realize people have spent a lot of time and money getting WG setups working properly.

I wonder if WG has a way to set up a protocol that can connect, as a server, to another server via a port.  I know I've seen things like this in the past on BBSs, where an entire BBS connects and the users from the different BBSs are able to interact with one another.  Better yet, would be a way to get WG to act as a proxy between GMUD and the user.  We could set up a special login on the GMUD server where WG would "telnet" (on a different port) over to GMUD when the user enters the GMUD "module", and ideally it should automatically enter the user information that GMUD requires to login.  I don't know how easy or practical this is in practice, but I can make the lightweight telnet server I created, (TGS - Telnet Game Server ;) ) login extremely flexible, and could probably create custom solutions if necessary.  But someone will have to give me all the details on what WG can do and how it does it.

You can strip Worldgroup on practically any module you don't want to use (email, file lib, web, etc). If you have the source you can even go farther. So you can 'unbloat it' to some extent.

Rlogin is one of the most common method for one WG server to login to another.

Toyduck
www.Quicksilvermbbs.com

[Colt]

I agree, some variety is good, yes.? But imagine if all the Major MUD realms had all been running completely different content.? This is why TurboSentry only shows players in realms that are considered legit by Metro standards.? If it didn't the list would be completely meaningless (although the level 75 cap pretty much already rendered it such).? BTW, I'm not saying the list is anything more than a fun way of watching your character progress compared to those in other realms.? Anyway, with different content players from different realms wouldn't have anything in common (especially with new races/classes).? While there would be an abundance of variety, we'd end up with a thousand different realms with completely different content and like 5-10 total players in each.? While that would be good for GreaterMUD, I'm not sure it would be such a great thing for the community.

So what other variety is there?? PVP? Death HP? (not sure that should be configurable) Currency denomination names?

I think most of the content should be goverened by the makers of the game.... you. not the SYSOP's

[DeathCow]

Yeah.  In theory its a great idea, but we already have a test group thats been around for years to show us what the product will be.  It would require serious amounts of management to make the results into a quality product.  It was like last weekend where I was suppose to be part of a group project with 5 editors to work on a single mud.  And our first meeting to discuss what we were going to do, only the bbs's sysop and I showed up.  :/

[Crimsonjade]

I don't believe in Open Source.  For one, it's parasitic; it's the lazy coder's solution.  Second, quality is not as important to every programmer who touches a project, and I'd rather code something myself the right way than look over someone else's code to make sure they did it correctly.  Finally, you get a patchwork of varying programming styles all mixed into one project that lacks consistency.  I could write essays on the topic, but I'll spare you the lecture.

Kind of sad.  I played mud off an on for years.  I heard about this during a recent visit back to majormud and came to see if I could help with this project.  However, this post completely turned me off.  That and the fact you use C#, which is really a Windows solution over something like Python or Java which are cross platform.

I am not trying to insult anyone, just giving my opinion.  I am impressed and excited with what has been done so far.

[The Crazy Animal]

I copied this out of a book cover just for you....

"Microsoft successfully lobbied ECMA to turn its C# and .NET software specifications into an ECMA standard, thereby allowing others to create and release compilers, software, and runtimes for the .NET environment.

Since the release of the standard, several projects have undertaken the development of open source .NET capable of running on Wintel and non-Wintel platforms, such as Linux, Unix, and Mac OS X. The best known of these projects are Mono (from Novell, formerly Ximian), and Portable.NET from Southern Storm and the GNU Project. But can all of these implementations of .NET interoperate? Can you take a Windows .NET application and run it on Linux? The answer is yes, if you understand the issues."

The books almost 4 years old now. So yes C# and .net can be fully cross platform compatible. Its just not a priority for us right now.

-----------

As far as opensource goes the best opensource projects were not opensource until after they were fully developed. This is the way it worked from the first video game ever made to the present day. And it stayed that way because you more often then not end up with a much more cohesive and stable product in the end. I don?t want this to sound like some type of a lecture so I?ll just leave off with the following:

If you want to donate your time and start an opensouce cross-platform project that would greatly help us out we still need work done on a native multi-user editor environment and we would love to get past the limitations that megamud puts on us as being the standard client for the game. Both of those things would be great opensouce projects that would help us out a lot.

Stuff that can take place later once we reach a full release is that were interested in third party modules for TGS that can categorize and run interactive fiction, ones to run door games. I?d be more then happy to post the code I have for tradewars if someone or a group wants to try to code a tradwars clone for TGS. We?d even love to see an opensource mud engine that can run on TGS alongside greatermud.

So there is a lot of room for opensource here however we don't want to go that route for TGS's and GMUD's core programming. I don?t really know any other way of saying it.

[Vitoc]

Kind of sad.  I played mud off an on for years.  I heard about this during a recent visit back to majormud and came to see if I could help with this project.  However, this post completely turned me off.  That and the fact you use C#, which is really a Windows solution over something like Python or Java which are cross platform.

I am not trying to insult anyone, just giving my opinion.  I am impressed and excited with what has been done so far.

No offense taken, and thanks for your feedback. ;)

I'd like to add some context to that statement I made; when I made it I was unhappy with several people that I believe wanted it to be open source for the wrong reasons.  It seems like 98% of the open source peeps out there believe open source is all about getting free software, not making a project better.  IMO, if you're not going to be doing any coding on the project, you have no business complaining about a project that isn't open source.  Out of the countless people that have come here and said "you should make this project open source" only a couple have actually offered to help do any coding; most just want a free version of a clone of the game they love.  That's what open source has become about for most people, and that's why I hate strongly dislike it.  Why should I spend hours of my time using knowledge and professional skills I've attained over the years, and then give the fruits of my labor (source) away for free?

Finally, it's not as if there are legions of old school Major MUD peeps left, and far fewer (if any) from that group that also know C# well enough to be of much use.  Over the past couple years we've taken on a couple developers and (no offense to them) but IMO it's actually been counterproductive.  Soul implemented all the textblock code but when he got busy and wasn't available I had to try to step through his code and figure out what was what, what was completed or not completed, what wasn't working properly, etc.  The developer before that was even less productive.  It's not just their fault; grass roots projects like this are tough to keep everyone on the same page.  It added a lot of overhead that I wouldn't have had to deal with if they hadn't contributed code, especially since they weren't available (logistics) to meet in person frequently to go over design details.