GMUD status

[Reece]

Thought a thread with a progress report might come in handy. I've been trying to keep up on the forums, but between petty bickering and drunkin nonsense I'm Really not sure how far along you are. Also, as an after thought maybe restrict this to Dc and Vitoc only so you dont have to sift through 20 pages of nothing to find out how much has gotten done. For those of us out here like me who just can't wait to play? ;D

Edit
Maybe it should be just Vitoc, Dc does tend to ramble when he drinks....

[DeathCow]

RAMBLE haha, yeah thats ok.  I'll set up a perm locked thread of direct update info at some point but i can give the scoop now. 

Right now I have a fully developed theme for the realm.  Size wise its quite large simply because of the mechanics of the theme.  I have several people, i dont have an exact count atm cause I've basically done no record keeping, that are helping with various areas.  I've attempted to keep everyones work load to a minimum and have only handed out small tasks.  Small tasks=goals within reason.  Right now people are working on cities.  The basic map, the moduless area, will include all the starting zones which are based on class and alignment and the areas in between.  I've been working on ranking up my gunbound character this break, so I really havent got alot of work done.  I have completed the level 1-5 area minus anything i feel i need to add.  (I want there to be more to do in the area than any character would need to/want to do. which means lots of quests and such to be had)  The area includes 3 towns,1 for each archtype(magic combat stealth) and a various areas ranging from complex to very simple.  There are the 1 room arena type areas, as well as larger explorable areas with quests NPCs monsters and so forth.  The idea being that a character can gain more exp in groups, but can also go solo.  I've played several MMORPGs recently.

The level 1-5 area should seem overwhelming large, but innately simple to experienced mudders.  I've done everything i could do to give it a complex and well developed feel, while still staying in the majormud simplicity. 

I've looked over my work I did for my initial calculations for 1-handed combatant enhancements.  I'm working on making it less complicated and something that is translatable into coding(rather than translates into textblocks).  Its be much easier for combat enhancements to be handled in coding (class abilites) rather than having vast amounts of spells and textblocks for each and every weapon.

I've also been looking into expanding the abilities of summoned/charmed monsters.  These abilites easily translate into new classes.  An exciting change for greatermud.

Nothing grand comes to mind atm, OH no pirate class in greatermud, thats just silly.

[Vitoc]

Sounds great DC.

As for the engine, here's a summary of the items that are implemented and working (that I can remember off the top of my head):

• Login - No more WG! ;)? You login and boom, you're in the game.? I may try to add another menu layer where you can have multiple characters under the same login, but I need to decide whether that would be such a good idea or not;? maybe we should make it configurable.
• Character creation - It's not pretty but it works and it let's people properly distribute their CPs and change their last name
• Items currently give their proper AC and spellcasting bonuses, but most of the abilities still need to be hard coded in.? I've already got a fairly thorough list of the corresponding ability values so when I do sit down to add the others it should be fairly easy, if not tedious.
• A combat system is in place - Swings per round is wrong but accuracy and damage is working properly.? Mobs do their respective attacks, including spells (which are doing negative damage atm but I'm thinking it's the spell damages were set up sort of like negative healing).? All weapons use their respective swing messages, and mob attacks use their messages as well.? DR is working, crits are working, backstabbing is working, dodge is not yet.? PVP works (with no alignment penalties currently).? Death transfers you to the current map's specified HOD
• Stealth is implemented and working, but hasn't been very well tested yet
• The environment is pretty much finished, at least most of the common things are: Doors, gates, using keys, opening/closing, autoclosing/locking after a specified delay, traps, action exits, exits requiring actions, etc., all working.? Still need to work on lighting.
• Regen is working... sort of.? NPCs need some work.
• Economics - Shops work, buying and selling works.? Mobs drop their respective cash values.? Giving and dropping work.
• Communication - Talking (currently a . prefix is required), gossiping, telepathing work.
• Experience is properly gained.? You can buy training if you have the appropriate exp and train your stats.
• Top # list works
• Two color pallets are implemented, 0 and 2.
• Persisting state to and retrieval of state from the DB is currently working properly for Players and Mobs.? Shops and rooms need some work.
• All game-specific text and colors are an exact match AFAIK, Megamud feels right at home in it.

Initialization is extremely fast (like 10 seconds).? When running the realm it is stable and only occupies about 100MB of RAM.? Everything necessary is stored in RAM so there is no need to retrieve data from the db after initial startup; IDE HDs and lower end systems should perform quite nicely.

The things I will be focusing on immediately:
Spellcasting for players - this ties in heavily with abilities, so neither one works without the other.
Lighting - should be fairly simple to implement

Slated for later:
Alignment (everyone is currently neutral)
Textblocks

These forums are exactly what I needed to light a fire under my ass.? The past couple weeks I've been taking a breather, but I'm motivated once again.? As soon as I get my ghetto box running (need a cpu and mobo) I will run an engine-testing realm 24/7 for people to log in and see the engine progress.? The realm won't be fun, but it will serve to test all the functionality of the engine, so I'd appreciate any feedback on bugs and what not.

Whew... I think that's about it.? So nice to have a forum where I don't feel like I'm walking on eggshells like I did over at MudForums.? Was just waiting for Metro to ban me or to kill some of those threads.? Anyway, this will be my outlet now.? It should also increase the communication between DC and I, seeing as how he's usually only available to chat after 2am, with roughly a 30% chance anything he says will be coherent. (nudge DC)

PS.? I want everyone to know I'm going to strictly focus on getting the engine to be an almost exact match.? I know there's all kinds of great ideas floating around, and all of them are going to be very plausible with this new engine.? After we get the basic engine finished and working relatively bug-free, then we will start adding in some of these engine-specific ideas, possibly as configurable options.? Just so you all know, I'm not ignoring the ideas, just concentrating on the task at hand.? As for content-specific ideas, I believe those have a better chance of making it into the initial realm, and DC has complete creative control in that department.

[kalus]

When will this fantastic ground breaking game be available for us to play?

[DeathCow]

There are simply too many dependant factors to make an accurate judgement of time at this point.  It is post holidays now, so more progress is getting done at this point.  At least on my side.  Although I admit not everything I'm working on is slated for initial release, so I'm not being very pragmatic in my approach.  But things are getting done.  Which is a good sign.

[lumikant]

I've found that if you have a beta mud up that people can walk around on, you'll actually get more work done, since people will be encouraging you to work. It always feels good to see people playing in a world you created.

[Squidward]

Yeah, it would be nice to see a demo of things.

Are you doing much more than laying out some rooms in nightmare? Cuz that's about the only thing ive seen so far.

[DeathCow]

The majority of what I'm working on isn't directly being put into the databases.  I'm working on realm epic quests atm..lemme post at least the templates I'm working on, this is all posted in the development section but I can't exactly have everyone poking their heads around in there.
EPIC QUESTS

LVL 25

• Quest 1:
  
  LEVEL 30
  
• Quest 1 sub1:
  
  LVL 35
  
• Quest 1 Finale:
  
  LVL 40
  
• Quest 2:
  
  LVL 45
  
• Quest 2 sub 1:
  
  LVL 50
  
• Quest 2 finale:
  
  LVL 60
  
• Quest 3:
  
  LVL 65
  
• Quest 3 sub 1:
  
  LVL 70
  
• Quest 3 finale:
  
  LVL 75
  
• Quest 4:
  Alignment quests
  
  LVL 8
  
• Quest 1:
  
  LEVEL 12
  
• Quest 2:
  
  LVL 18
  
• Quest 3:
  
  LVL 26
  
• Quest 4:
  
  LVL 30
  
• Quest 5:
  
  LVL 36
  
• Quest 6:
  
  LVL 41
  
• Quest 7:
  
  LVL 51
  
• Quest 8:
  
  LVL 57
  
• Quest 9:
  
  LVL 65
  
• Quest 10:
  Class+Alignement Quests
  
  LVL 5
  
• Quest 1:
  
  LEVEL 9
  
• Quest 2:
  
  LVL 13
  
• Quest 3:
  
  LVL 20
  
• Quest 4:
  
  LVL 22
  
• Quest 5:
  
  LVL 25
  
• Quest 6:
  
  LVL 28
  
• Quest 7:
  
  LVL 32
  
• Quest 8:
  
  LVL 35
  
• Quest 9:
  
  LVL 40
  
• Quest 10:
  
  LVL 42
  
• Quest 11:
  
  LVL 47
  
• Quest 12:
  
  LVL 50
  
• Quest 13:
  
  LVL 52
  
• Quest 14:
  
  LVL 55
  
• Quest 15:
  
  LVL 58
  
• Quest 16:
  
  LVL 60
  
• Quest 17:
  
  In theory every class+ alignment combination will have 17 unique quests..so Good Witchunters and Evil theives will have 17 basic quests that they do different from every other class/alignment.  Each alignment will have 10 quests that they have unique to them selves..so good, evil and neutral will have 10 different quests for each.  The epic quests are divided into 3 groups, blance and chaos 1 and chaos 2..chaos is divided between those who wish to destroy and those who wish to preserve the comflict between good and evil...Right now I'm working on finishing up these story arcs, which is a long process that involves lots of back and forth, because I'd like the quests to be as interlaced as possible...Thats what I'm working on. 
  
  Either way running a beta right now would be futile as both content and code are being worked on.  No one would have any idea whats going on based on the game play.  It would just cause myself extra grief.

[Vitoc]

I can open up a demo of the engine, but the problem is content.? I don't have the time or patience to create content that is the least bit entertaining.? I created 21 linked rooms of boringness the other day and was exhausted (was working with raw tables).? Heh, we have some umm.... other "familiar" content we probably shouldn't use.? Hmm... it's not like we're going to go live with it though, so maybe there's no harm?? Maybe if we cut just a chunk out of that content we'd be ok?

[DeathCow]

I could send you something I suppose.  Is it easy enough for you to change the player start room or do you want me to make the start room a particular number?

[proteus]

Really rough. Like gravel.

[DeathCow]

Well yes, it will be very rough.  I'm thinking I'm going to use a small section though.  But I'll probably make it one of the more complicated areas.  That way we'll have lots of things in the database that 'test' worthy.

[DeathCow]

Oh yeah..do I need to set up deathrooms for the beta...or umm can ya die yet :p

[Vitoc]

Yes, you can die.? ;D

Right now the start and death rooms are hard coded, so just tell me the map and room numbers.? I finished the new login system.? Need to fix a slight bug with what happens when someone gets rerolled but other than that we should be good to go for basic testing.? I'm buying a mobo/cpu this weekend to replace my dead server.? Once I get that going I'll probably have it run the realm 24/7.? Unfortunately, I'm on dynamic DSL so I don't think there's any way for us to forward port 23 to the new server from greatermud.com, but I have gmud.dyndns.org which I guess will have to suffice until we get serious.

[DeathCow]

I don't know much of anything about the hosting.  But if there is something you need that is out there I've had lots of people offer various things...hocalbbs offered to run a test board..or..maybe it wasnt hocal..anyway hocal bbs offered- something.  :p I take wonderful notes.