****************************************************************************** File Name : readme.txt Description : The "READ ME" file for Glad. ****************************************************************************** In March 2000, Erwin Andreasen made a post to The Mud Connector with the first ideas for a contest - to see who could construct the best mud in 16K or less of source code. He later tidied up the rules and gathered a group of judges, all of whom had considerable mudding experience. I decided to take part in this contest, creating Gladiator Pits. After submitting my entry, I started tidying the source code up. Eventually I decided to go the whole way and turn it into a proper little codebase and this - Glad 2.0 - is the result. Other than the new combat system (which I wasn't able to use in my competition entry due to size restrictions) the game is basically the same, but from a development point of view the code is more advanced and better organised. Glad 2.0 also served as a prototype for the God Wars II combat system, which was still in the design phase at the time. Feedback was positive, and the combat system made its way into the God Wars II design. Some of the source code from this mud was also reused. ****************************************************************************** About the mud ****************************************************************************** The Gladiator Pits is a player-vs-player deathmatch game set in a fictional fighting arena. Players are given a number of points which they can use to customise their characters before engaging in one-on-one fights against other characters. ****************************************************************************** About the codebase ****************************************************************************** Glad is a fairly small, bare-bones codebase containing slightly over 7000 lines of code. It contains socket code, a combat system, loading and saving of ascii player files, context-sensitive help files, and various other features. The codebase is not designed for newbie mud coders, but is ideal for those who just need a little help to get started. ****************************************************************************** Documents included with this distribution ****************************************************************************** glad_license.txt The legal license for the Glad codebase. glad_history.txt The revision history of the Glad codebase. readme.txt This document. setup.txt How to set up your own copy of the Glad codebase. software.txt The software naming convention used within the Glad code. faq.txt Frequently Asked Questions - and their answers. commands.txt A description of all the commands in Glad. statistics.txt A description of all the character statistics in Glad. ****************************************************************************** About the copyright dates ****************************************************************************** Although Gladiator Pits wasn't started until April 2000, some of the code used within it comes from snippets I wrote in 1999. The files containing those snippets are therefore copyrighted from 1999-2001 rather than 2000-2001. ****************************************************************************** About the version numbers ****************************************************************************** The codebase name "Glad" did not exist until version 2.0, however I consider the original Gladiator Pits which I submitted into the 16K MUD competition to be Glad 1.0 and the tidied up versions of it which I later submitted to be versions Glad 1.x. Glad 2.0a has been almost a complete rewrite, thus I have given it it's own full version number. Glad 2.0b consists of minor fixes, so that the code will cleanly compile under the latest version of gcc. The documentation has been updated and the mud has been relicensed under the MIT licence, but there is no new game functionality. ****************************************************************************** Useful links ****************************************************************************** 1. SITES OF SPECIFIC INTEREST TO THE GLAD CODEBASE 1.1. God Wars II (the full combat system for which Glad was the prototype). http://www.godwars2.org 1.2. The Gladiator Pits section of the God Wars II website. http://www.godwars2.org/glad.html 1.3. The 16K MUD competition. http://www.andreasen.org/16k.shtml 1.4. Firetop Mountain (inspiration for the combat system). http://www.gamerz.net/~fm/ 2. GENERAL MUD SITES 2.1. MudLab. http://www.mudlab.org 2.2. The Mud Connector. http://www.mudconnect.com/ 2.3. MUD Quest. http://mud.adventmud.org/ 2.4. MUDBytes. http://www.mudbytes.net/ 2.5. Top Mud Sites. http://www.topmudsites.com/ 2.6. FindMUD. http://findmud.com 3. USEFUL SOURCES OF MUD INFORMATION 3.1. Mudpedia. http://www.mudpedia.org 3.2. The Sourcery. http://sourcery.dyndns.org 3.3. The Mud Timeline. http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/mudtimeline.html 3.4. MUDseek. http://mudseek.com/ 3.5. MUDStats. http://www.mudstats.com/ 4. PROGRAMMING INFORMATION AND RESOURCES 4.1. Make - a tutorial. http://www.eng.hawaii.edu/Tutor/Make/ 4.2. Beej's Guide to Network Programming. http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~beej/guide/net/ 4.3. Network programming under Unix systems - part I. http://users.actcom.co.il/~choo/lupg/tutorials/internetworking/internet-theory.html 4.4. Network programming under Unix systems - part II. http://users.actcom.co.il/~choo/lupg/tutorials/internetworking/internet-programming.html