18 May, 2008, Sandi wrote in the 1st comment:
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Two years and no action? My goodness.

Well, if anyone drops by and wants to talk Tiny, I usually check in several times a week.
26 May, 2008, exeter wrote in the 2nd comment:
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Well, I wouldn't exactly know where to start. The most similar thing I know well is LPMUD (which, IIRC was inspired at least by Tiny).

Maybe you could submit an article or two to the articles section giving an introduction and overview of TinyMUD?
27 May, 2008, Sandi wrote in the 3rd comment:
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Well, briefly,

TinyMUSH is a derivative from TinyMUD, with the addition of a (then) very primitive script-like language. Its name, MUSH, stands for Multi-User Shared Hallucination. Original code written by Larry Foard. Introduced JUMP_OK like TinyMUCK, and has recycling, called @destroy or @recycle. Also introduced the concept of PUPPETs, and other objects that can listen. In later versions the script language was extended greatly, adding math routines, many database modifying commands, and sophisticated string handling functions. TinyMUSH evolved into PennMUSH, became memory-based rather than disk-based, added ANSI color support and database altering ('side effect') functions. Then, in 1995, Lydia Leong passed the Penn development to Alan Schwartz while she resurrected TinyMUSH and concentrated on increasing stability and security rather than adding new features like ANSI color. Also in '95, David Passmore released TinyMUX, which internally was based on TinyMUSH but externally looked like PennMUSH (due to color support and side-effect functions). TinyMUSH is disk-based, while MUX can be either. Recently, David and Lydia have joined forces and released TinyMUSH 3, which combines TinyMUSH and TinyMUX. Lydia's TinyMUSH 2.2 has been picked up by Lucifer and his team, while TinyMUX continues as MUX 2.0 from Stephen Dennis.

All "brands" of MUSH/MUX are virtually the same, and they have configuration options to mimic each other in case someone cares about the minor differences.

MUSH's strong point is a built in scripting language that is both newbie friendly and very powerful. Most game owners never touch the MUSH hardcode - everything is done with the scripting. MUSHes have a set of special commands that allow the creation of rooms, exits, objects, and even players, all in game. All of these are considered "objects", and any "object" may have scripts written on it by the owner. ALL messages sent to the player are evaluated for this script, so it's possible to put day/night switching on specific words in a description, not just swap out whole paragraphs.

If you're a roleplayer rather than a coder, and you and your friends would like an online venue for your adventures, then a MUSH is likely the best choice. It does, however, come with just one room and a God character, so be sure your friends don't have writer's block. ;)

The fashion in MUSHes lately has been the creation of worlds that incorporate the complete rulebooks of popular table-top games. Worlds of Darkness is well represented, as is AD&D, ST, SW, and various comic and manga themes.
26 Oct, 2008, Argent wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
Sandi said:
MUSH's strong point is a built in scripting language that is both newbie friendly and very powerful.


Hi,

Well, I hope you are right about MUSH softcoding as I am taking the plunge this week from long-time player to actual admin/softcoder for my first MUSH project.

One of the things that I've already learned in browsing the online lectures and tutorials for softcoding and looking at the various sites is that people in the MU* community seem to be unstintingly generous with their code and while I'm sure I'm being overly optimistic, just the sheer amount of work I won't have to do reinventing the wheel makes me hopeful for eventual success.

My first choices right now are RhostMUSH and PennMUSH, I am leaning towards the latter because there seems to be a lot more pre-existing softcode that is specifically designed for and tested in that code base, though I freely admit my ignorance when it comes to knowing their virtues beyond that.

If you (or anyone) has any advice, I'd love to hear it as I have a severe case of 'newb' right now. :tongue:
26 Oct, 2008, Kelvin wrote in the 5th comment:
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Sure, we're still out there, most of the Tiny community is focused around their respective codebase's websites rather than here. Penn has a great community site, as does MUX (mailing lists), and I think TinyMUSH does as well. Rhost is a bit more close-circled, most of them hang out on their test game.
27 Oct, 2008, Sandi wrote in the 6th comment:
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Argent said:
My first choices right now are RhostMUSH and PennMUSH, I am leaning towards the latter because there seems to be a lot more pre-existing softcode that is specifically designed for and tested in that code base, though I freely admit my ignorance when it comes to knowing their virtues beyond that.

If you (or anyone) has any advice, I'd love to hear it as I have a severe case of 'newb' right now. :tongue:

It's hard to express how close all the various MUSH codebases are to each other. If you read the docs, you'll find when noting differences they apologize. You'll also find Penn has config switches to emulate Tiny behavior, and vice versa. I really can't think of any outstanding virtues that would make one codebase more appealing than another, it's more a question of avoiding negatives.

PennMUSH has the largest memory footprint by about 50%. Rhost is the most secure, but has the most complicated systems and the smallest following. TinyMUSH's further development has been somewhat questionable since the MUSH/MUX merger, with longish lapses and continued concerns about security. That leaves TinyMUX, which always seemed to me to be in danger of becoming overfeatured (C++? SQL? Windows?!?), but so far Brazil has done an impressive job of keeping things in check.

My newest project was started last week on MUX 2.7, and so far, I'm quite pleased. It even managed to load my 10 year old MUX 1.5 flatfile (remember, 1.5 became TinyMUSH 3). As far as mushcode "portability" goes, time is more important than the native codebase. The older the code, the more trouble you'll have getting it to work in any of the current versions. But, only because you're a "newb". In a short while, you'll get it sorted and know exactly what needs to be changed to adapt anything to the codebase of your choice.
27 Oct, 2008, Argent wrote in the 7th comment:
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Sandi said:
My newest project was started last week on MUX 2.7, and so far, I'm quite pleased. It even managed to load my 10 year old MUX 1.5 flatfile (remember, 1.5 became TinyMUSH 3). As far as mushcode "portability" goes, time is more important than the native codebase. The older the code, the more trouble you'll have getting it to work in any of the current versions. But, only because you're a "newb". In a short while, you'll get it sorted and know exactly what needs to be changed to adapt anything to the codebase of your choice.


You know, you're the first person I've talked to who hasn't couched the project in negative terms. Thanks for the insight. I was beginning to wonder if I'd bitten off more than I could chew.
18 Jun, 2012, Izmar wrote in the 8th comment:
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I'm quite interested in how the Tiny projects have updated since I last stopped seriously working with MU*s, around 2005/6/7ish.

What's the state of the Tiny world today?
19 Jun, 2012, Idealiad wrote in the 9th comment:
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Penn and MUX are still developed. TinyMUSH got some fresh blood when Lydia opened a new game a few years back. Not sure about Rhost but it still has at least some committed users of the codebase.

On a related note there's a fair bit of development with MOO (look for their Google Group), and somewhat less with MUCK. Tyche here also has been releasing updated distributions of some bases like Cold, Cool, etcetera.

WORA is the main forum for things Tiny these days.
21 Jun, 2012, Izmar wrote in the 10th comment:
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Hey thanks for the update!

And ohhhh yes, I remember WORA now… ^^
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