iPhone MUD Client
 

You may have heard the news about the iPhone SDK today. I'm thinking about making my learning-the-tools project a MUD client.

How much interest is there in a MUD client for the iPhone? Would you use it? This would be a free program that you download through the iPhone App Store that launches in June, which does not involve unlocking your iPhone.

To me the biggest use of this would be for MUD administrators, since for playing it'd be hard to type fast enough to really do much. Since there will inevitably be a generic telnet client, I'd be interested in adding some features that full MUD clients offer in order to differentiate this application.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I personally think it would be great. My staff and I would enjoy it, no doubt.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I would love a client for my iPhone. I have thought about porting TinyFugue. It should be a fairly straightforward port, it's already open source, it is already well-suited to a small screen, and it's designed for unix. My problem is that I haven't done anything like that in so long, I've forgotten how; and I am too busy right now to re-learn.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Might want to poll and see how many mudders (at least on TMS) use iPhones.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Though there are no phones released yet that make use of it.. but you might also want to consider the Android platform. The SDK for it can be found here:


edit: Phones using Android will be out, just still a little ways away. However, they have released the SDK for it quite early.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I think it would be a huge boon for MUDs if someone created a good iPhone client.

It might even be better though if someone were able to make a clean, fast client for the Windows Mobile platform. The Windows Mobile phones seem to more commonly have a "full" keyboard.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Yes, but then let's look at something for the Blackberry.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

As far as I know, the blackberry is fading fast. They got a big head and started charging businesses GIGANTIC user fees for email server licenses and such, and as a result a lot of business users have dropped it. That has given Windows Mobile and iPhone a huge benefit in trying to break into those markets.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I take it you don't work in It, Blackberry is pretty much the only supported enterprise smart phone platform out there form what I've seem there is the smattering of windows mobile devices and the ocational iPhone, but Blackberry is the one that is supported by companies, and it the most widely used

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I wish my PSP had touch-screen, or even an attachable minikeyboard, would make using the PSP MUD Client alot easier.

Can't wait for 4.0 to come out so I can get custom firmware so I can try the client :D

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Well, you gotta get with the times. :) What you are saying was true a year ago, and may still be true in SMALL companies, but in the big companies, that is changing... and changing fast. And most likely, if the big companies change, that will trickle down to the small companies as well.

Last year we were vacationing in Disney World with our best friend who happens to work for one of the Big 4 Accounting Firms. He was annoyed because the company was in the process of switching away from Blackberry to Microsoft. He informed me that this was a widespread and growing trend. And he'd know, since he visits a huge portion of Fortune 500 companies to do audits (he specializes in computer security audits).

I asked him about it recently, and he told me that the trend has definitely continued. He barely sees any blackberries now in the Fortune 500 companies.

Blackberry got the big head, jacked up prices through the roof, and they may destroy their company as a result.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

In Q4 2007 (the most recent quarter for which data is available), the different smartphone platforms broke down like this by OS (according to the Canalys Worldwide smart mobile device market, Q4 2007 report).

1. Symbian OS - 65%
2. Windows mobile - 12%
3. Blackberry - 11%
4. iPhone - 7%
5. Linux - 5%

Now, that's worldwide, of course. Symbian doesn't have much penetration into North America, and Linux's boost comes largely in China.

--matt

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Thanks for the info. The fact that Windows has now passed Blackberry doesn't surprise me, given the information I already posted.

Wow @ Symbian though. I guess the fact that they aren't heavily involved in North America explains why I don't know much about them, but that it still a staggeringly huge market share.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Okay, I found a client for myself and logged on to NW on my Blackberry today. Very interesting way of mudding, not to mention handling Administration. Just to have fun, I ran an invasion to see how hard it would be to handle from an iphone. Not too bad, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you are like me and want to log on in a movie theater or at a bbq without lugging a laptop.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Newworlds, what client are you using for your blackberry?

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Midpssh. It is similar to Windows Telnet and believe me it is difficult to use because of the inability to control screen scroll. You really have to set up many server side aliases to help you speed things up because typing is slow. But it is very effective for the staff to check out things when out of range of a computer.

Here is the link to download:

Warning: some versions of this thing didn't work right and I had to mess with it a bit to get it to work properly.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I use the same thing to MUD from a Blackberry Curve (TMobile). I ssh into my shell account and use tintin++ from there, so aliases etc are all available.

Interestingly, there's been times when I'm out in the middle of nowhere I can't use the browser on the curve, but midpssh somehow always works. You can also tether the curve to a laptop effectively using it as a cellular (slow) modem. Being able to get a full screen on the laptop from pretty much anywhere is very nice. As a bonus, calls made over wifi vs the cell network never count towards your minutes, so all calls made while home are free.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I lurve my Curve. Tethering is awesome.

--matt

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Bump. Er a bit anyway.
I'd love to see a mobile mud client though, I've started to have more players logging in with a cellular IP and found them most to be using some kind of SSH/Telnet. Honestly, with the way phones are going, and how muds are text.. I could see this being something that revitalizes MUDding in general. Look at texting and it's impact.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I agree, generally, that the iPhone can help text games reach new users - just look at how Frotz made a bit of news by offering the old Infocom text adventures on the iPhone!

It's possible with current iPhone apps to Telnet directly via iPhone to a MUD. That part's easy. The interaction, though, isn't much to write home about - and trying to run a roleplaying scene using that tiny virtual keyboard would be infuriating.

Texting is popular, sure, but no one expects decent prose from texting. :D

However, if all we're looking for is the ability to go NSEW or repeatable commands over and over - iPhone may be a great way to go.

Regardless, any venue that gives MUDs more exposure is a good thing.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Yeah, I think without a client it'd be ok for checking in on your game, hanging out maybe etc, but actual play might be a hassle. Though, with a nice client so you could touch directions, have a kill ____ box, drag/drop names into it, look button, get button (with drag/drop boxes)...

I guess we'll see where it goes, but I'm already looking at a BRIEF_COMBAT toggle for people, something that takes out all of the nifty other messages and boils it down to You <hittype> <them> (damage). etc. Heck, quite a few would like that for large battles anyway, 20 attacking, kind of insane wall-o- text to watch otherwise.

I did find a couple MUD clients out there, one for iphone, one for Portable PC (er windows hand helds?), but both looked kind of 'blah' the iphone one didn't have color etc.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Does the iphone support Flash? If it does, FMUD might be a good alternative.

Windows Client
 

I'm not sure of the availability, but if there is a windows phone that is setup up like windows, a windows client would be easy to build, even specific phones. I might build it myself.

The trouble is the typing speed. Aliases would be the big helper there unless you get a fancy plug in short keyboard (which is possible). Still the text size is an issue. With my blackberry client it is very small in order to see more.

Give it some time, we might get some slightly larger screens and better attached pocket keyboards. But then aren't we turning our phones into laptops?

Speaking of laptops, perhaps they will come out with a half-n-half. Sort of a laptop with wifi that has phone capability that is the size of a small dvd/tv player.

Food for thought.

Re: Windows Client
 

Yeah, exactly, Laptop Mini's, sounds perfect.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I would love an iPhone mud client.. I currently use telnet once in awhile just to check in on my mud, but you can't seriously or even half seriously play :)

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Amen, brotha.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Well look what I found today:


Has anybody purchased it and tried it out? It looks pretty smooth, only one review so far.. Im thinking about it.. Im just not sure how "feasible" mudding on an iphone would be, regardless of how good the tool is... but man.. it's tempting :)

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

The opposite has happened it looks like. Blackberry has doubled its market share since last year.

Blackberry had a 17.4% marketshare last quarter while Windows mobile only had about 12%.

--matt

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Has anyone noticed any further developments here? Blackberry, Iphone, et al?

I remember Threshold mentioned some company that had millions of clients related to a text only product, but I can't find the thread or remember the product/company.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I did find that iPhone'd don't support flash yet, so the FMUD option wouldn't work even if there was an FMUDmobile or such. Still waiting on more info on the clients too.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I suppose it all depends on the way the game is programmed as to how viable it would be on an iphone... if it was like the stormwind client that Gemstone uses it woukld work perfectly fine with just a few tweaks. the amount i had to type in the 2 weeks I played that were.. well none except for a few conversations.. but I cannot for the life of me seeing how a purely text input game would work.. unless it had speech recognition..

Of course speech recognition would be worth its weight in gold just to see the looks of peoples faces on the train as you were playing your RPI mud

"kill goblin"
"say 'have at thee you scaley green, snotnosed bastard'"
"dance on goblin corpse"
"think 'that will teach you to try and charge me 50 gold pieces for goblin piston lubricant'"

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I am interested in getting into iPhone app development, and was thinking of creating a MUD client for the iPhone and iPod Touch, by porting an open source client such as TinTin++ or TinyFugue, and then adding some sort of GUI or interface to make MUDding much more feasible. Would there still be any interest in this sort of app? Since I don't have a Mac, I'd probably have to purchase one for development, and to cover the costs I would probably have to charge something. Does anybody think there will still be an audience or interest in using this app?

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Sounds great Garret, not sure you need a Mac to test them though? I know of people that use iPhones and sync with their Win machines (via iTunes I think?). Personally, I know I'd use my iPhone to mud here and there, so yeah that'd be cool. As far as a Gui, find the dimensions and I can shop up a concept to bounce around.

I know that you can send info to the client via telnet subnegotiation, so you could have standardized 'add this to allow for health/mana' meters, Perhaps just make the main window larger if it doesn't receive that info.

I'm actually looking at making a 'cell mode' for my own game with brief combat (with regards to amount of text sent).

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

You almost need a "court reporter" mode for cell phone/blackberry MUD interaction. Incoming text is never a problem, typing out commands and talking is.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

You definately need a mac to code for iPhone, anything else would be plain stupid if not impossible. And you need to be approved into the iPhone Developer program which can take anything from 1 week to several months to get into. (took us about 2 months)

Also, there is already an iPhone mud client (which IMO sucks) called iMud.

We're also looking into putting together a client sometime soon and we have a couple apps in App Store already :) Too bad someone stole the "iMud" name though and made a ****ty client with it! (No offense if you read this :P)

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I did a search for iphone mud client and iMUD never showed up, so I didn't know it's already been done. I'll have to try that one out and see how usable it is. Does anybody know if iMUD was written from scratch or was ported from another existing client?

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I made a blackberry mud client recently that is available on handango. I would give it for free to anyone here that is interested in giving me feedback on making it better.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

It looks like there are a few telnet projects for phones

Iphone:


and mot generally is the one i have on my blackberry:

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Both TinTin++ and TinyFugue are GPL which would rule out charging a fee, unless you use TinTin++ version 1.84 or lower which is public domain, or talk me into licensing you a non GPL copy.

Tintin's input, split screen, and color handling requires VT100 emulation, probably the same for TF, and I'm not sure if that's available for the iPhone. You might be better off enhancing an open source telnet app for the iPhone with mud client features.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Guys, check this out:

Bedlam (graphic MUD):


Bedlam LT (free lite version):


MUDMaster (telnet client with ANSI colors, macros, soon triggers):



--Plamzi
Bedlam Dev

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I have an iPhone 4 and I have tried using Pocket Mud and the TMS Game Client, Both are free but neither one would work with my MUD. I finally went ahead and bought MobileMud for .99 and it so far is working great.

The only issue I have, is that the screen does not scroll automatically as I navigate through the MUD. Is this typical of these types of clients? Also, does anyone know if it is worth the extra 2 bucks and use MudMaster instead? I'm hesitant to try it to find out it does not work. It's only 3 bucks so I guess I am just being cheap. lol

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Hi, I'm the dev of MUDMaster for iPhone. I tested the latest version of the app with Isles of Aedin and everything works fine (scrolling, etc) except for the directional buttons. It's a server-specific issue that will be corrected with next update, due to come out in two weeks at most. Until then, the directional buttons can be hidden and you can use macro buttons and manual s, n, e, w, etc. to move around.

Hope this helps.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Awesome, thanks. I'll have to check it out.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Ok, so I went ahead and purchased your app but I am confused on how to take advanatage of a few of the features. I am not very technologically savy, therefore I have trouble with things that are simple for most people. I have read the help files but I cant make sense out of how to get status bars to show up.

I'd like to display my health, Ftg, and Mana.
HP153/FTG60/MP36

How do I do this? I tried doing things like [rr/153health=redbar...etc but it says unknown command.

Also, how do I make the keyboard transparent? I'll try to get into how to make macro's and triggers later. I'd like to get a disguise and a hiding script but I dont know how.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

You are being cheap :p. Did you get your other answers you asked? I'm curious which app you found works the best. I have some interest in Iphone/Bberry apps.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I'm using MudMaster but I have not learned how to use the triggers or display my health and Ftg. Also, I am still waiting for the update that will allow me to use the directional arrows, rather than manually typing in which direction I wish to move.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

I tried Pocket Mud and thought that worked alright, but mudding from a cell phone is difficult at best.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Here's , which explains how to use triggers and lots more. Displaying status bars is also accomplished by triggers, which will ideally key off of your status prompt. The help file is also accessible by tapping (?) at the main menu.

The MUDMaster update which fixes directional buttons for your MUD is ready to submit to Apple. But in the case of your home MUD (Isles of Aedin), you'll also need to contact the dev and ask them to support spelled out direction commands, i. e. not just "s" but "south", not just "ne" but also "northeast". Their tutorial says those are accepted commands but they're not being recognized when typed. I tried to find an email for the dev to ask him that but could not.

Depending on how much time I have, I may add a way to override what exactly those directional buttons are sending, but that would be a lot more difficult to set up than asking the MUD dev to support movement commands that should be pretty much universal.

Hope this helps,
P.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Here are answers to your specific questions. More details and examples can be found in the MUDMaster help file.

To display status bars, you'll need to grab not only the current value but also the maximum value (the app needs to know both to be able to fill out the bar). So, using your server's custom prompt capabilities, you'll need to configure a prompt that shows both. For example:

HP144/153 FTG40/60 MP36/36

With the above prompt set up, you do:

trig on mytrigs (starts a new trigger set called 'mytrigs')
trig HPrr/RR=redbar
trig FTGbb/BB=bluebar
trig MPgg/GG=greenbar
trig attach (autoenables the trigger set mytrigs when you connect to the current MUD)

Basically, you put 'rr' where the current value number is, and RR where the max value is, etc.

When you define these triggers, you should see all the bars, and your prompt should disappear.


Keyboard transparency is turned on in settings -- tap the cogwheel icon in the main app menu.

Re: iPhone MUD Client
 

Thanks for the info