<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: [MUD-Dev] Ubiquity Scope & Requirements --> <!--X-From-R13: "Uert [hag" <tertNhav-pbea.qrzba.pb.hx> --> <!--X-Date: Sun, 5 Jul 1998 12:54:55 -0700 --> <!--X-Message-Id: 000301bda84f$9b4c6600$15b8989e@uni-corn --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, [MUD-Dev] Ubiquity Scope & Requirements</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:greg#uni-corn,demon.co.uk"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg00047.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00049.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00050.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00056.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00048">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00048">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00048">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>[MUD-Dev] Ubiquity Scope & Requirements</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: "MUD-Dev" <<A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A>></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: [MUD-Dev] Ubiquity Scope & Requirements</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: "Greg Munt" <<A HREF="mailto:greg#uni-corn,demon.co.uk">greg#uni-corn,demon.co.uk</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Sun, 5 Jul 1998 21:00:11 +0100</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> What follows are my scoping and requirements documents. I plan to publish all my development documents on the web. I don't have any plans to publish the code right now. I'd much rather have my design copied, rather than my implementation. If you can think of anything I've missed, please let me know! Additionally, I'm hopeful that it will provoke discussion here. Defining The Project's Scope Considering the mistakes made in the development of Frontiers, I wanted my next project to begin as something simple, which, through iterative development, would evolve into a fully-fledged, complex online environment. Using Bartle's classification of player goals, I considered the fact that one type of game could not be all things to all people; Socialisers would not appreciate an environment where commands not internally consistent remained unimplemented. (The tell command, for example - it is difficult, if not impossible, to plausibly explain how people thousands of miles away from each other can communicate. Exceptions to this rule warrant the intervention of technology, or magic. I did not feel that such intervention could be implemented effectively, within an online environment.) I had two choices: develop one style of mud, dedicated to one particular player goal, or develop a server with dedicated subareas. (This would effectively be multiple games in a single mud.) Frontiers was an attempt to provide multiple games, for all. But I only really knew about what Socialisers wanted. So, I decided that my initial goal would be to develop a piece of software that would cater specifically and wholly for Socialisers. After developing that, as fully as I could, I would enhance it through iterative development, establishing a 'world', with the original Socialiser-specific software becoming an OOC command shell. Analysing The Project Requirements Let's take a look at the basic requirements of a Socialiser-specific online environment. IT'S ONLINE 'Online' need not mean the Internet; however, the global network is a very publicly accessible medium - and therefore a great provider of many potential users. Additionally it is well-standardised, and facilities to build Internet support into software are common, and freely available. ITS USERS ARE PERMANENT, OR AT LEAST SEMI-PERMANENT Users need a permanent identity within the provided environment. This sociological demand stems from the need for people to develop relationships with their peers, irrespective of the setting. Clubs, societies and guilds are a selection of the many examples of this phenomenon. The required sense of identity is used to further this sociological goal: it is difficult to develop a relationship with somebody if your name (and therefore your friends' frame of reference to you) is unstable. Could you be sure that Bubba is really Bubba? Maybe they are really Boffo, who has taken Bubba's name? What happens when the real Bubba tries to connect? IT PROVIDES LOGIN SECURITY FOR ITS USERS To ensure that Bubba really is Bubba, and always will be, user representations need to be secure. It is no good to save Bubba in a database of some sort, only to allow anyone to connect as him. A typical security method is to require a username and password combination to be input, before full entry into the world is permitted. IT SUPPORTS A PERSISTENT WORLD A persistent world is saved across server reboots. Some muds, such as DIKUMUD and its derivatives, provide a static world which is reset at regular intervals. Reasons for this include repopulating areas (replacing 'monsters' which have been killed, for example) and resetting traps and puzzles. A persistent world is more dynamic, in that things killed stay dead, and doors unlocked stay unlocked - just as in the real world. IT PROVIDES A CLEAR, SIMPLE AND INTUITIVE USER INTERFACE The traditional mud is text-only, accessed via a telnet-compatible client. However, the mainstream Internet-aware public is quite engulfed by the graphical medium. First Windows, then the Web, have shown how appealing a graphical user interface (GUI) is - and why mud-playing has remained on the sidelines. The average Internet user believes the Internet and the Web to be synonymous, and, whilst a gross inaccuracy, this large number of people has eluded most muds up until now - primarily, in my view, because they are not accessible via a well-known medium. The closest many people have come to using muds, is through Microsoft Chat, or web-based chat rooms. If Ubiquity should use a web interface, the question of whether to support telnet clients still remains. Since almost all of the current mud users use these clients, it would be in Ubiquity's best interests to support it - in the same way that it is important to have a web interface, to cater for the users who are not telnet-aware. Additionally, it would perhaps allow for the testing of lower-level functionality than can be visible from a GUI. IT PROVIDES VARIOUS SERVICES TO ITS USERS In order to determine what functionality it is that Ubiquity should provide, the Internet facilities that are currently available need to be looked at - those that satisfy Socialiser goals. The reason for this, is that only a small minority of people will use something completely different to that which they are used to (this can be clearly seen by the dominance of TinyMUD, LPMUD and DIKUMUD throughout the mud world); people tend to stick with what they know, even if a newer product is much better. These services are as follows: Email Newsgroups Internet-Relayed Chat (IRC) Information Repositories Games </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <ul compact><li><strong>Follow-Ups</strong>: <ul> <li><strong><A NAME="00056" HREF="msg00056.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Ubiquity Scope & Requirements</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Vadim Tkachenko <vt#freehold,crocodile.org></li></ul> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00047.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00049.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00050.html">[MUD-Dev] IMatix Tools: Libero and SMT</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00056.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Ubiquity Scope & Requirements</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00048"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00048"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><STRONG>[MUD-Dev] Re: Affordances and social method (Was: Re: Wired Magazine...)</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="00448" HREF="msg00448.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Affordances and social method (Was: Re: Wired Magazine...)</A></strong>, Marian Griffith <a href="mailto:gryphon#iaehv,nl">gryphon#iaehv,nl</a>, Sat 01 Aug 1998, 21:57 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00451" HREF="msg00451.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Affordances and social method (Was: Re: Wired Magazine...)</A></strong>, Robert Woods <a href="mailto:rwoods#nebula,honors.unr.edu">rwoods#nebula,honors.unr.edu</a>, Sun 02 Aug 1998, 01:11 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00453" HREF="msg00453.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Affordances and social method (Was: Re: Wired</A></strong>, Jon A. Lambert <a href="mailto:jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com">jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com</a>, Sun 02 Aug 1998, 05:37 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </ul> </ul> </ul> </ul> </ul> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00050" HREF="msg00050.html">[MUD-Dev] IMatix Tools: Libero and SMT</A></strong>, J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#under,engr.sgi.com">claw#under,engr.sgi.com</a>, Mon 06 Jul 1998, 20:39 GMT <LI><strong><A NAME="00048" HREF="msg00048.html">[MUD-Dev] Ubiquity Scope & Requirements</A></strong>, Greg Munt <a href="mailto:greg#uni-corn,demon.co.uk">greg#uni-corn,demon.co.uk</a>, Sun 05 Jul 1998, 19:54 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00056" HREF="msg00056.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Ubiquity Scope & Requirements</A></strong>, Vadim Tkachenko <a href="mailto:vt#freehold,crocodile.org">vt#freehold,crocodile.org</a>, Tue 07 Jul 1998, 02:51 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00043" HREF="msg00043.html">[MUD-Dev] Meta (Are code release announcement appreciated?)</A></strong>, Ben Greear <a href="mailto:greear#cyberhighway,net">greear#cyberhighway,net</a>, Fri 03 Jul 1998, 02:13 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00044" HREF="msg00044.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Meta (Are code release announcement appreciated?)</A></strong>, Nathan F Yospe <a href="mailto:yospe#hawaii,edu">yospe#hawaii,edu</a>, Fri 03 Jul 1998, 02:20 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00045" HREF="msg00045.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Meta (Are code release announcement appreciated?)</A></strong>, J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#kanga,nu">claw#kanga,nu</a>, Fri 03 Jul 1998, 05:44 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>