14 Feb, 2007, Ickmund wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
First things first, hats off to this place. Stumbled across it last night and it's been some good reading indeed!

Now down to buisness; I'm trying to decide what codebase to use for a new Mud. I've spent most of my 10 years of mudding on a Circle mud from -94, that ofcourse was heavily modified. So while I'm familiar with that environment in some sense, I'm not sure if I want to travel down that road. Originally I wanted to base it off Emlen, but don't seem to be able to find a copy anywhere.

The Mud will be PK oriented within the frames of RP, and whatever base we choose I'm quite confident that there will be massive modifications. While there's still things to iron out, we have some basics fleshed out. We are starting off with a classic light vs. dark scenario, with plans of several more sides within the theme. Class(es) will be picked up as you play, and there will be limited remorts, again within the frames of the RP. Sidetrades will be available and hopefully play a big part; player made equipment will shape both PK and the economy and to a degree the RP.

If there were time, we'd probably try to start from scratch with inspiration from the various sources out there. But as it stands, we would like to get started as quick as possible, just to get something working and get a sense that we're getting somewhere!

The combat system is not decided on, but we're looking for something fast paced, probably speed based. The magic system would probably have to be custom built to allow for spells to be casted without interrupting those already on a timer, if that makes any sense. Magic shouldn't be speed based in the same sense I guess…

Since it's my understanding we'll have to change alot to get what we want (and if not, point me towards the mud and I'll go play there! :) ), I wonder if it would be best to start off with something very clean. Perhaps a stock with alot of derivates to look to for ideas? Preferably with a good OLC, would much rather spend my time implementing features other than the back end.

If I were to choose, I'd probably want it to be written in C++, but C or Java would work just as well. What language it's in is secondary to how well written it is, as well as how big the community is.

So, any pointers? I know alot of you have been around for a long time and tested all of these codebases, and while I plan to test a few myself I'd just love to get your input on this!

- Icky
15 Feb, 2007, Sandi wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
I chose ROM myself, long ago, but if I were starting now I think I'd use Circle. Good OLC and scripting, the code seems well laid out, and the community is healthy.
15 Feb, 2007, Guest wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
I'm pretty well biased toward the Smaug side of things. But it sounds to me like most of what you're looking for will need to be custom written to get the desired result. So you might actually be better off with something like Murk++ since you specified a desire for C++. It's pretty barebones, but should be easy enough to add an OLC for even though you didn't really want to do that.
15 Feb, 2007, Ickmund wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
Mos def gonna install both Murk++ and some Smaug tonight and start testing some. Circle and ROM stock was already planned.

While you explained why Murk++ might be a choice for me Samson, why the bias towards Smaug?

The reason I would like C++ is that I think some of the things I want to do would be best handled in an OO-environment, and while Java have its pros, I reckon it's pretty hard on resources as well. Some of the things I feel OO would help with is classes, subclasses, guilds and remorts. For example I'd want players to go through a number of "subclasses", such as Human > Warrior > Swordsman > Blademaster. I'd rather not have to duplicate all info (skills and other perks) that Human, Warrior and Swordsman contains, in Blademaster. Rather I'd just have the Blademaster extend Swordsman which extends Warrior which extends Human.

Since it's not set in stone how we'll handle all of this thou, I can't say for sure how I'll code it (ofcourse). Perhaps you could pick several subclasses? You could be a Human > Warrior > Swordsman > Blademaster as the same time as a Human > Warrior > Pikeman and a Human > Rogue > Assassin. But that's a problem I'll tackle later. :P

Is there a better way to handle classes and subclasses or whatever you want to call them, then with the OO version described above?

- Icky
15 Feb, 2007, Conner wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
Given that I share Samson's bias toward Smaug, I'd imagine it's for roughly similar reasons.
    Smaug really is a pretty good code base overall.
    We both have been working with Smaug for years, though Samson more intimately for longer of the two of us.
    I started with Smaug as my first code base both for play and coding, I suspect that may be true of Samson as well.

I'm sure there are probably other reasons as well, but those ought to be enough to easily justify what we're both clearly willing to disclaim as a bias. :wink:
15 Feb, 2007, Guest wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
My Smaug bias is mainly from being most familiar with it. Back in 97 when I was codebase shopping, it had the most features of anything around and was chosen for that reason. I've seen plenty of other things since then like Rom, Circle, etc, and I'm just not impressed. They all feel stagnate. Most codebases seem like they've been frozen in time since 1995. As it later turned out though all of those features came at a price. The base was moderately unstable due to memory leaks and other things that needed fixing.
15 Feb, 2007, Kayle wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
Which we've since worked on fixing with the FUSS Project.

While I'm still relatively new to the FUSS Project itself, I've been working with Smaug since 1.4a was released, and I was even taught how to build on Realms of Despair (The original SMAUG Mud) by one of their predominant builders, Dominus. Thus, I have a major bias towards Smaug, because it's where I've "grown up" in the Mudding Community. I'm now currently working on my own Smaug Derivative, Obscurities, that may or may not see a public release.. I haven't quite decided yet.
15 Feb, 2007, Ickmund wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
* We frown upon player killing and stealing. If you wish to pk and steal
there are other muds for you.


Hehe, not a good start for Murk++. ;)

- Icky
16 Feb, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
Ickmund said:
Quote
* We frown upon player killing and stealing. If you wish to pk and steal
there are other muds for you.


Hehe, not a good start for Murk++. ;)


It's the same message as the original Merc MOTD. It's quaint, and brings a tear to my eye.
16 Feb, 2007, Tyche wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
Ickmund said:
Quote
* We frown upon player killing and stealing. If you wish to pk and steal
there are other muds for you.


Hehe, not a good start for Murk++. ;)

- Icky


Sorry, I have a patch that fixes that.

— help.are    (revision 41)
+++ help.are (working copy)
@@ -93,8 +93,8 @@


-1 MOTD~
-* We frown upon player killing and stealing. If you wish to pk and steal
- there are other muds for you.
+* We frown upon players smoking and touching themselves while playing. If
+ you wish to smoke and touch yourself there are other muds for you.

* Type 'HELP' for help. Also check 'HELP NEWS'.
16 Feb, 2007, Ickmund wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
Haha, great, thanks Tyche! :)

What I meant, in the small part of me that was serious, is that a non-PK mud might not be the best codebase for me to start out with. But then again, since Murk++ is so lean and clean it may work out even better, instantly getting better control of the flow of battle instead of having a bloated code with lots of features I will just end up scrapping.

- Icky
17 Feb, 2007, Scandum wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
Emud 3.0 is way better than Smaug.

It has the electrolytes mudders crave.
17 Feb, 2007, Ickmund wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
That actually has alot of features built in that I could use Scandum. Well worth looking up, thanks!

Been testing Murk++, Circle 3.5, ROM 2.4 stock and Smaug 1.4 so far but have lots more to do, pretty much only set things up and checked that they worked so far. Working on installing AFKMud 2.01 too, but having huge troubles getting gcc to find my gd installation on FreeBSD.

- Icky
18 Feb, 2007, Justice wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
While technically written in C, SmaugFUSS can easily be converted to use a C++ compiler. I've taken advantage of this, and have posted a variety of snippets in C++ for SmaugFUSS.
19 Feb, 2007, Ickmund wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
After some to the point answers by Samson, AFKMud is up for testing as well.

So far I must say that I understand the strong support for the Smaug tree. AFK and FUSS are both really nice.

- Icky
20 Feb, 2007, Kayle wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
Well, They both have a full community of support, I should hope they are really nice, otherwise all our work is for naught. :tongue:
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