Skol
Sorcerer
Group: Members
Posts: 465
Joined: May 17, 2006
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#1 Posted Sep 16, 2008, 11:43 am
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Sandi said:I'm with you on that, Skol. We have Camelot, Freeport, Seas of the Lords, The Pirate Lords, and the Faerie Ring in our game. Given the notes he wrote in some of them on how they work, I'd say he meant for them to be distributed. We got several of them from ROMLama.
Ah good stuff, here's what I have of his:
armagddn.are - Armageddon
camelot.are - Camelot
freeport.are - Freeport
isles.are - Pirate Isles
shield.are - The Shielding
In the game we just use freeport/isles (I know we're DL but they're good areas, and non-specific genre, although I might make some mobs more DL types cosmetically someday). I had seen Isles split before though, Seas and islands seperate I think? Anyway, fun stuff, the guy had a good sense about him.
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Sandi
Wizard
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Joined: Jun 17, 2006
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#2 Posted Sep 17, 2008, 7:58 am
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I'd love to see something like ROMLama again. There is an area sharing site somewhere, but I've lost the bookmark. They didn't have that much ROM, though. While Circle and SMAUG seem to be continuing development, ROM is ten years old. The mail list is dead, there's never been a forum, and the wonderful community we once had has drifted away. Alas...
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......................... The Witch of Tir na nOg
www.tnnmud.com
tnnmud.com 6789
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Fizban
Wizard
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Posts: 606
Joined: Jan 8, 2007
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#3 Posted Sep 17, 2008, 11:07 am
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Sandi said:While Circle and SMAUG seem to be continuing development, ROM is ten years old. The mail list is dead, there's never been a forum, and the wonderful community we once had has drifted away. Alas...
For some reason, probably related to too much caffeine and sleep deprivation, after reading that I wondered why. Is there something SMAUG and Circle have that holds people's interest longer than ROM? I would personally guess, without any statistical backing and without intending to sound at all authoritative on the matter, that there are actually more ROM derived MUDs running than Circle or SMAUG (not combined) so I doubt this is the case. Perhaps ROM simply spread too thin? ie. There are ROT, Sunder, Sacred, DOT, VUM, Anatolia, EmberMUD, Icey, Oblivion, Wurm and many other ROM derived codebases whereas there are to my knowledge significantly fewer branches of Circle and SMAUG. SMAUG has SMAUG-FUSS, AFKMUD, SWR, DBS, and SWR-FUSS and that's all I know of. CircleMUD has tbaMUD, Buddha, Suntzu, Rasputin, DBT, DBX, Archipelago, etc.) The only difference I can see is with SMAUG and Circle you have a few in each branch that are inter-related. In SMAUG FUSS and AFKMUD are heavily related as far as I know. I don't mean their features are similar but that many of the same people develop and show interest in both. Then with Circle Buddha, Suntzu, Rasputin are all released under the same name of CWG (CircleMUD with Goodies) and are more or less the AFKMUD of Circle and tbaMUD is also closely related to them which is more like the FUSS of SMAUG (less customization, not intended to be a game out of the box, simply intended to give someone the tools they need to make it a game through heavy development of the admin-side of the game.)
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Hades_Kane
Wizard
Group: Moderators
Posts: 786
Joined: May 31, 2006
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#4 Posted Sep 17, 2008, 11:15 am
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Fizban said:I would personally guess, without any statistical backing and without intending to sound at all authoritative on the matter, that there are actually more ROM derived MUDs running than Circle or SMAUG (not combined) so I doubt this is the case. Perhaps ROM simply spread too thin?
That's probably it. Do you see many Diku specific communities that try to cover that?
I would argue in years past, ROM has been one of the most popular codebases, but it does seem that SMAUG in particular is starting to gain quite a bit of steam... maybe that has something to do with the more active community based around that.
Me personally, I wouldn't be interested in participating in ROM type of community even if there was an active one to speak of. Sure, I'll release snippets, but I think we've squashed any bugs that come with stock ROM, I rarely use snippets in favor of coding something myself, and we've modified so much we could probably be considered our own derivative at this point and so I don't know how much use we could be to others or how much use they could be to us.
Maybe something about ROM lends itself better to further customization than the others, and maybe that's why ROM seems spread thin over so many different derivatives?
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......................... -Diablos of End of Time, eotmud.com:4000, Final Fantasy themed -- Seeking Builders! For more info visit: http://www.eotmud.com/
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Fizban
Wizard
Group: Members
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#6 Posted Sep 17, 2008, 1:41 pm
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Quote:There are a few more derivatives than have been mentioned for Smaug :)
Nod, wasn't intending to make a complete list, just more what I could think of off the top of my head.
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Sandi
Wizard
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#7 Posted Sep 17, 2008, 1:49 pm
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Historically, I think there was a period when ROM was the most advanc.... uhm, had the most features. :)
And we had an active list, website, and ROMLama. While I mostly chose to work on ROM for the furniture, the helpful people on the mail list, the simplicity of the code, the large number of snippets, and the availability of extra areas were all very appealing. Oh, yeh. ROMs outnumbered any other branch, in fact, they nearly equaled all the branches combined (this was around 2000, IIRC). So it really looked like the player's choice, especially when the biggest MUD around was also a ROM.
I think what happened was that ROM really had too much bling for it's own good. As a player, I wanted furniture, but I knew I did not want a ROT (shudder). Most other variants that followed, followed down the same path. I bet many times more people are currently starting with ROM/QuickMUD than say, Anatolia or DoT. They all got too big, too messy, and many did NOT fix the all the bugs.
Meanwhile, in the background, small groups looking for other choices started polishing Circle and SMAUG with a better idea of the value of KISS. Others that were there can tell that story, but in the end, both are still being developed while "stock" ROM is now a bed-wetting teenager.
Another thing.... ROM really never was a true "codebase". It was a game in beta that reached the point where it needed to be scrapped and replaced, so the owners gave it away. 
Quote:We've modified so much we could probably be considered our own derivative at this point and so I don't know how much use we could be to others or how much use they could be to us.
Well, I recently met someone, and we've been swapping all sorts of code. So it takes a little work to make it fit? Of course, we're both over 60, started on 2nd generation mainframes, and don't have the time left you beginners do to learn the hard way or reinvent the wheel just for pleasure. *nudge nudge, wink wink*
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......................... The Witch of Tir na nOg
www.tnnmud.com
tnnmud.com 6789
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Hades_Kane
Wizard
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Posts: 786
Joined: May 31, 2006
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#8 Posted Sep 17, 2008, 4:00 pm
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I've always maintained that ROM required a lot of clean up. Seeing that it was a throw-away game basically, that explains it.
There are a ton of things in the codebase that seems rushed, half-finished, or just plain sloppy. We've had a lot of clean-up to do, but in the end I think it was worth it.
I think if I ever decided to release my codebase, I might would consider doing it in two versions:
1) The End of Time version, that is, all features that are theme specific included.
2) EoT Bare, that is, all features that are theme specific ripped out, leaving basically just an actual base that is stable, has all of the useless or poorly coded features recoded or completely removed, and basically intended to be something that someone can pick up on and make a great game more easily.
To be honest, I probably would never do either, but I think for the health of the ROM codebase, having something like that would be good.
Some of the things that honestly baffle me are things like how sloppy or simple the "boat" system is, or how something like material has absolutely NO use. If you are going to have anything to work as boats, why have it something so simple as having a boat item type in your inventory? If you are going to have material as an object or mob value, why not make it actually do something? Those are just two examples off the top of my head, and things that we have reworked and made so much better.
In the end, we started with ROM because that was what we were all the most familiar with. We knew the ins and outs of the game, and what we wanted to do to change it to the type of game we would be happy with. I've also found that with ROM, it hasn't been a terrible task tearing out and reworking some of the most fundamental aspects of the game. It may have been easier to start with a codebase without so much extra in it, because really, we've probably tore out well over half the codebase, but we all enjoyed how it played as a player and saw no reason to go with something else.
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......................... -Diablos of End of Time, eotmud.com:4000, Final Fantasy themed -- Seeking Builders! For more info visit: http://www.eotmud.com/
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Sandi
Wizard
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#10 Posted Sep 17, 2008, 5:01 pm
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DavidHaley said:Well, there is value in having a working game at all (most) points of time that you can tinker with incrementally instead of having a monolithic project in front of you (writing a codebase from scratch or "bare bones" like SocketMud). The former is more likely to actually make progress than the latter. IME and IMO, at least.
Absolutely. The problem is, the third generation ROMs haven't been released. If someone came asked nicely for my codebase, I'd probably give it to them. Long ago, someone gave it to me. But Rehobaom's Legacy won't be released, and I'll also be surprised if GodWars II is ever available for download. And I respect those people, so I'm inclined away from releasing anything, myself.
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......................... The Witch of Tir na nOg
www.tnnmud.com
tnnmud.com 6789
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Sandi
Wizard
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#11 Posted Sep 17, 2008, 5:22 pm
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Hades_Kane said:I've always maintained that ROM required a lot of clean up. Seeing that it was a throw-away game basically, that explains it.
Rivers of Mud was a popular game in it's day. So, it wasn't a "throw away", it's just they realised to go further they needed to do things differently. So they released what they had at that point. And, they supported it for along time.
Hades_Kane said:There are a ton of things in the codebase that seems rushed, half-finished, or just plain sloppy.
There's a lot in stock ROM that goes back to DIKU. There are things that weren't finished. There were things that weren't finished in Merc.
But what you say is so true. The game play was right on. It was fun. I put a lot of effort into trying to maintain that. (I probably missed by a mile, but hey, I did try)
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......................... The Witch of Tir na nOg
www.tnnmud.com
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Davion
Idle Hand
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#12 Posted Sep 17, 2008, 6:26 pm
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Sandi said:I'd love to see something like ROMLama again. There is an area sharing site somewhere, but I've lost the bookmark. They didn't have that much ROM, though. While Circle and SMAUG seem to be continuing development, ROM is ten years old.
I think the area exchange you're talking about is one linked to via our main page. But out of curiosity, what would it take to have a RomLama clone? I could easily stick up an 'area' category in most of the major codebases for you guys to dump area's in. I could probably add a few as well. I have a few areas from Blizzard that he probably wouldn't mind me uploading. Might be able to talk Noximist into adding a couple too! Assuming ROMLama was just a massive area db and didn't have any special functions.
Sandi said:The mail list is dead, there's never been a forum, and the wonderful community we once had has drifted away. Alas...
A lot has to do with people readiness to learn. ROM isn't exactly the easiest thing to just pick up and start coding. Stock ROM comes with pretty much nothing and is not easy to plug colour -and- OLC in at the same time for a newb. To some, it might not even be worth the effort considering what's already out there for the other codebases. I myself, am primarily a ROM developer, and whenever I pick up a codebase, you can bet it's ROM. That said, we have some new features for MudBytes on the horizon that could change most of this. I'll most likely need some help for the initial stages! If you're really -that- interested in helping rebuild a once forgotten community, I may just shoot you a PM :P.
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Kayle
Wizard
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#13 Posted Sep 17, 2008, 11:49 pm
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I think most of them already have an area folder. I know the Smaug branch does, Samson was trying to get me to upload some of my many archived Smaug areas at one point, and I still intend to, it's just a matter or filtering through all 500ish area's, figuring out which ones are the same and what version they're from. It's honestly something I'll be doing most heavily at SmaugMuds.org at first (because I can change/modify/expand the files section there to better organize them).
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......................... Owner/Coder Coder
Malevolent Whispers Star Wars: The Sith Wars
{Development Phase - Not accepting players} Open Alpha - Players Welcome - Full System Re-writes Imminent.
IMC2 Contact: Kayle@MW
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SmaugMuds.Org - The Smaug MUDs Community Center
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Skol
Sorcerer
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#14 Posted Sep 18, 2008, 12:11 am
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I wouldn't mind having one as a free thing, the 'give one to get one' thing never really worked I think. Although I'm more in the thought of just 'here take this and learn like we did'.
I think just the old style of 'A-M snippets' and 'Rom Areas Here' would be nice, kind of retro but... well so is RoM heh. Maybe even 'tested' and 'untested' areas, ie Drop into QuickMUD, works? Tested fine in 'QuickMUD'. That kind of thing. (Btw yeah, I think QuickMUD is a good start, has most of the bugs gone and the standard additives that people want to start, although I like the older note boards).
Anyway yeah, sounds fun.
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Sandi
Wizard
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#15 Posted Sep 18, 2008, 2:02 am
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Davion said:I think the area exchange you're talking about is one linked to via our main page.
Yep, that's it. Thanks.
Davion said:But out of curiosity, what would it take to have a RomLama clone?
RomLama, as Skol mentioned, was like the site above, a give one, get them all deal. I think it worked well, but my old game was one of the leading contributors.
Davion said:A lot has to do with people readiness to learn. ROM isn't exactly the easiest thing to just pick up and start coding. Stock ROM comes with pretty much nothing and is not easy to plug colour -and- OLC in at the same time for a newb. To some, it might not even be worth the effort considering what's already out there for the other codebases. I myself, am primarily a ROM developer, and whenever I pick up a codebase, you can bet it's ROM.
I'm still a big fan myself. After lurking since you opened, I've suddenly become quite comfortable here at MudBytes, so me talking about ROM is like talking about my family to close friends. No, ROM's not perfect, not even current, but I still have great respect for Russ, Brian and Gabrielle and thank each in my login.
Davion said:That said, we have some new features for MudBytes on the horizon that could change most of this. I'll most likely need some help for the initial stages! If you're really -that- interested in helping rebuild a once forgotten community, I may just shoot you a PM :P.
Please do.
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......................... The Witch of Tir na nOg
www.tnnmud.com
tnnmud.com 6789
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