Re: 4 Dimensions is moving on
 

I make personal backups of my code every day, but back in October 2004 I managed to lose a 1500+ line code module when the Gryphonmud hosting service vanished overnight. I was warned by a Gryphonmud admin that I had 24 hours to grab whatever I needed (as they'd paid until the end of the month), but Inetsolve (which Gryphonmud was using) just pulled the plug on the machine about an hour later.

The problem was I'd forgotten to use the '-d' (directory) option when I'd grabbed the most recent version of the code from CVS, so it hadn't backed up the new directory for the module I'd recently added. It cost me four days to rewrite it all, so it's not a mistake I'd make again.

Re: 4 Dimensions is moving on
 

Nonsense. There should be as little difference as is financially possible between how a hobbyist treats players and how a commercial enterprise treats players (note that whether the players are paying or not is a bit irrelevant. Facebook is free to the user but I guarantee you that Mark Zuckerberg - its CEO - cares a lot about the experience he delivers to his users).

Why should there be so little difference? Because in the end your players have to pay to play one way or another. They have limited time and they have chosen to spend their free time on your MUD rather than the bazillion other options they have for spending their free time. An admin who doesn't respect that is a bad admin.

--matt

Re: 4 Dimensions is moving on
 

I removed this post because after reading it later it seemed very trite and much too agressive against the_logos, with little impact.

If I wasn't supposed to do that let me know. I have a copy and can repost it.

Re: 4 Dimensions is moving on
 

In between the little scuffle emerging there, I wanted to add that server owners should keep in mind that some of their mudding audience is people still running ancient pentium-2 pc's with 200 mb disk space that can't even run diablo 2 smoothly - on dial-up. From Europe!

Re: 4 Dimensions is moving on
 

Sorry about the delayed reply. I've been out of the country.

I'm sorry to hear about this happening to any mud! It's a terrible, terrible thing to lose creative material since it's impossible to replace or duplicate. I've been devasted when I lost just a few lines of writing from a freak crash or a power outage. I can't imagine losing major parts of a MUD.

Good luck in recovery!

Re: 4 Dimensions is moving on
 

Actually, and I don't mean to spawn a whole 'nother thread here, but this scenario may become more and more similar as technology advances. That may make no sense, but as PDAs, city-wide free wireless networks and cheaper cellphones/plans become more advanced and common, more and more people are going to be gaming from such devices. I think, in the near future, many mudders will no longer be playing from the big gamer's PC with a high speed dedicated connection, but on-the-go from these smaller and less powerful pieces of machinery.

Re: 4 Dimensions is moving on
 

It may well be true, but I never did see what relevance it had to this thread. ;)

Re: 4 Dimensions is moving on
 

Relevant or not, we have at least five players on NW that play the MUD from their cell phones or blackberries. Amazes the hell out of me. Can't wait to get the NW Staff blackberries so they can manage from anywhere. Go Technology!

Incidentally, when I asked them about how hard it is, the common complaint is that typing is a biatch, so we are working on enhancements for cell phone players to make it faster and easier for them similar to our blind player enhancements. Who says TEXT MUDs don't advance with the times.:D