22 Mar, 2010, 3squire wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
Hey All. This is a rather generic looking post, but it's actually an effective way of getting the message out. It's not meant to be spam though (hopefully it does not resemble it too much). I'm heading an effort to develop a new KIND of mud codebase, one that will not only take muds out of Telnet (finally) but will also change the way MUDs are played, preserving the good parts, and enhancing the rest. If you or someone you know is a talented PHP, SQL, JavaScript, developer, or a graphic artist, please take a look at what we're doing.

Team name:
To be announced when a commercial arm of the project is created.

Project name:
KUSHT Engine (http://www.kusht.com)

Brief description:
KUSHT is a development platform for Massively Multiplayer Online games designed to use HTML5 in the Browser to give the same functionality as a standard MMO game-client.

Target aim:
Dual release: All source code contributions to the public Kusht project are open-source under the MIT license.

A commercial venture using proprietary add-ons, graphics, and game content will be developed as well, which will be launching a commercial game (non-subscription) from the open-source code.

Compensation:
All source-code contributions are open-source, meaning you get what you put in. If you would like to be part of the commercial development of the game, we will draw up a profit-sharing agreement based on specific contributions to code and game-content development.

Technology:
This is written in PHP and javascript with small amounts of SQL.

Talent needed:
Since this is PHP and javascript, the real qualification is an ability to design efficient and clear program architecture and write very very good code. This is a great learning opportunity for young developers who would like the experience of working on a multi-person international development project. Since it is open source, you can SVN the project source without ever making a contribution.

We will be looking for content developers (including artists, scripters, and writers) once we have reached launch Alpha (approx. 1-3 months from today)

Team structure:
The team is an international effort, with contributors from around the world. Developers are allowed to submit project code once they have gotten in touch with me and expressed a good grasp of the program architecture.

I am coordinating this project. I am administering project contributions and scouting for new members. I am primarily developing this game from a desire to (a) Make a really kick-ass computer game, and (b) Develop a game that makes a small amount of money each month without requiring that users pay if they do not want to.

Website:
Main Engine Website: http://www.kusht.com
Project Source Code: http://kusht.googlecode.com

Contacts:
Available from the project websites.

Previous Work by Team:
Every team member enters the project with a different experience level. The focus is your ability to learn quickly and to program without compromising overall code-quality. I have experience coordinating mid-size projects.

Additional Info:
(The screenshot is real from a functional pre-alpha test. You can SVN the source and run it yourself to see.)


Feedback:
ANY
22 Mar, 2010, donky wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
Dude, there's a promotions and recruitments area you can post things like this in.
22 Mar, 2010, flumpy wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
donky said:
Dude, there's a promotions and recruitments area you can post things like this in.


I'm sure one of the mods can move it, if they haven't already.


Srsly tho, that looks really cool :) It would be interesting to try to write a server daemon that talks to the client for an existing mud.

Well done, good job!
26 Mar, 2010, 3squire wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
Bump.
11 Apr, 2010, 3squire wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
So, development continues. One of the things we have now are ad-hoc chatrooms which are supported in the interface. This, I think, is a great example of what you cannot do in a regular mud that you can do in Kusht that is not necessarily outside the spirit of MUDs at all, but is simply an improvement over the terminal.

Screen:
11 Apr, 2010, Runter wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
How exactly are private chatrooms/channels something you cannot do in a "regular" mud?
11 Apr, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
Perhaps he means chatrooms that don't go through the MUD server, I dunno. That's the only thing I can think of at the moment that you can't do on a normal MUD without the client implementing it separately.
11 Apr, 2010, Runter wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
Perhaps he means chatrooms that don't go through the MUD server, I dunno. That's the only thing I can think of at the moment that you can't do on a normal MUD without the client implementing it separately.


Well, sure. But then it would have made sense to say "here's a feature that normal mud clients can't do." (Which, I know of at least one that can do this.) I'm not sure he means this, anyways. He probably means the GUI nature of it, but I'm pretty sure there are muds with custom clients/addons to public clients that could accomplish it.

I think the real message here should actually be that normal muds can't do things this aesthetically pleasing this easily.
11 Apr, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
Yes, I suppose it could be just dedicated windows, but regardless yes, that's all a client thing, not a MUD server thing. :shrug:
14 Apr, 2010, 3squire wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
Ok, now Kusht has it's first Mini-Game: Chess. Scripted off of a table "item" that allows players to sit down and play together.



Can someone now please admit that this is not outside the spirit of MUDs, and in fact could be considered an enhancement?
14 Apr, 2010, Idealiad wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
I'm not sure if you're saying this is in the spirit, or out of the spirit of muds.

But like DH says, this is really a client thing. There have been chess games in muds for probably 20 years.

edit to add: but it looks nice.
14 Apr, 2010, Kayle wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
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I'll admit that yours looks prettier than mine. Although it's a lot harder to tell the difference without the background colors in the MUD itself.

But I'm just not seeing the MUD in what you're doing. There's too many pictures for one thing. I've always played and worked on MUD because of the lack of artwork and pictures. Because it leaves more to my imagination. It's like being inside my favorite fantasy novel, being a part of the action. I dunno. Maybe I'm weird.
14 Apr, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
Kayle said:
But I'm just not seeing the MUD in what you're doing. There's too many pictures for one thing. I've always played and worked on MUD because of the lack of artwork and pictures.

It's the client that's responsible for displaying the graphics, not the mud itself. If someone created (for example) a MUSHclient plugin that displayed your chess minigame in the same way as the screenshot, your mud wouldn't stop being a mud.
14 Apr, 2010, Kayle wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Kayle said:
But I'm just not seeing the MUD in what you're doing. There's too many pictures for one thing. I've always played and worked on MUD because of the lack of artwork and pictures.

It's the client that's responsible for displaying the graphics, not the mud itself. If someone created (for example) a MUSHclient plugin that displayed your chess minigame in the same way as the screenshot, your mud wouldn't stop being a mud.


But he's not advertising this as a client, he's advertising it as a MUD.
14 Apr, 2010, Igabod wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
well he is talking about making a mud in addition to this client. The mud will likely only be compatible with his client though so he's just combining the two into a general descriptive term. Why does everybody have to go into semantics on this minor detail? It's not like he's advertising free hosting and charging people for it.
14 Apr, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
Kayle said:
KaVir said:
It's the client that's responsible for displaying the graphics, not the mud itself. If someone created (for example) a MUSHclient plugin that displayed your chess minigame in the same way as the screenshot, your mud wouldn't stop being a mud.

But he's not advertising this as a client, he's advertising it as a MUD.

It was my understanding that his "client" is Google Chrome, and his mud is taking advantage of the features it offers. It's like muds in the old days showing off their ANSI colour and their one 'beep' sound, or the muds of today advertising their MXP options and MSP soundpacks. It's not really the mud outputting those things itself, but it knows how to utilise the features that are supported by certain clients.

If he wished, he could allow windows telnet to connect to his mud as well, but you'd find it looking far less pretty. You could also use Google Chrome to connect to other muds, if you added the appropriate support, and they could utilise the same type of graphics we've seen here. Even the big graphical muds such as EverQuest and WoW are the same kind of beast under the hood, it's just that they're only playable through their pretty custom clients.

It's definitely interesting to see what people can do with Google Chrome, though. If the browser really takes off, I might be tempted to add support for some of its features, as potential players wouldn't need to make any downloads (although I guess you could argue the same thing about existing browers clients such as FMud).

As an aside, there is already a MUD2, released in 1985. It might be better to advertise under a different name to avoid confusion.
14 Apr, 2010, Runter wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
3squire said:
Ok, now Kusht has it's first Mini-Game: Chess. Scripted off of a table "item" that allows players to sit down and play together.



Can someone now please admit that this is not outside the spirit of MUDs, and in fact could be considered an enhancement?


No, it is an enhancement. I applaud your efforts. This is the kind of projects in the mudding community I like to see.

It's just a lot of us here on mudbytes are developers ourselves and when things aren't clearly defined there's a lot of confusion as to what we're actually talking about. It at least appears from your posts on the other thread that we're dealing with a proof of concept client. (Perhaps with necessarily attached to a specific codebase that may not exist ATM.) That's fine. We just need to know what we're talking about. Most of us when we are talking about a MUD are talking about the server side application in specific.
14 Apr, 2010, flumpy wrote in the 18th comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
No, it is an enhancement. I applaud your efforts. This is the kind of projects in the mudding community I like to see.

It's just a lot of us here on mudbytes are developers ourselves and when things aren't clearly defined there's a lot of confusion as to what we're actually talking about. It at least appears from your posts on the other thread that we're dealing with a proof of concept client. (Perhaps with necessarily attached to a specific codebase that may not exist ATM.) That's fine. We just need to know what we're talking about. Most of us when we are talking about a MUD are talking about the server side application in specific.


Hang on, isn't that what he said? It's an enhancement?

I guess you're actually agreeing with him even tho you said "no"…
14 Apr, 2010, Runter wrote in the 19th comment:
Votes: 0
flumpy said:
I guess you're actually agreeing with him even tho you said "no"…


As in "No, you're right."
14 Apr, 2010, flumpy wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
Ah, emphasis on the 'is'. Got it.
0.0/20