I am currently working on learning both C++ and the Java programming languages, however I am looking for the professional (or just informed) opinions of people used to these languages.

Which is one is more suited to the type of game that I one day would like to attempt to run, which would be easier to
maintain, create, and build on? Would a MUD built in either
language be more stable in one or the other, more forgiving
for mistakes? I hear Java is a slower language, but is it
detrimental to a game?

I don't plan on running a game with 500 players on all at
one time. I wish I could. That would complete my gaming
experience and inflate my ego. But it is HIGHLY unlikely.

Now you can reply to give me your personal opinions now,
or read on to see a description of the type of game I wish
to one day see running (whether by my own hands or the
hands of someone else), and maybe tell me which language
is more adapted to these kind of ideals.

--------------------
The extra stuff..

1. Accounts - Players are allowed one account only, which
is basically an OOC thing with an OOC name to use with OOC
email, chats, and communication. Maybe with some other
features, like access to an OOC area through the account,
but, whatever. Will allow players to keep track of information
on the characters they own.

2. Characters - One character allowed to a player at a time, although maybe I would consider allowing alts. Highly customizeable and unique. No levels, no experience points, not hit poits or stamina points or mana points or numbers of any kind, with detail-specific "stats" (more than the usual strength, con, and int, for example). Body-based damage, and stuff.

3. Skills - Skill trees. Lots of them, with an enormous focus off of combat, so people don't go running around killing things just because they can. Yet, with a very complex combat system for those wars and needy times. Bla bla bla.

Yeah, okay, I'm running out of computer time so I'll cut this short. Just you basic 'realism-based' RP-enforced game, with high originality and detail (*gawk*), plus quite a few features I have yet to see correctly done on any other game (like actually working diseases, a use for things like... plates, and knives, and tapestries, and household items instead of just swords and armor, um, well-done lycanthropy and a hard-to-use, hard-to-abuse, get-you-burnt-at-the-stake, beautifully-customizeable magic "system")...

Your choice of language here should be based more on your familiarity with it than anything else, as there is no technical aspect of creating a MUD that is going to favor any of the major object-oriented languages. Not even speed will be a real consideration.

If you are not an experienced programmer, Java would probably be the better deal as you would have a more encompassing standard library, as well as garbage collection. I'd recommend C# over Java, though =).

Just want to point out that there's a codebase available for the type of mud you seem to be wanting to design. It is classless, level-less, and created for SoI, an RPI mud. I don't know that much about the codebase itself but the game that uses it has accounts with one-character per account at a time. It might not be a completely perfect fit for your game but modififying it to make it one might be easier than starting from scratch.

The codebase is created by Traithe and develped from the code he created for SoI (which is originally based on the codebase developed for HL, another classless RPI). He posted a link to it in response to one of your earlier posts requesting a codebase. (You might have allready seen it but you never replied anything so I just want to remind you that it is available)

It's nice to see somebody trying to create a good RP mud. I wish you lots of luck.

I have indeed seen the codebase for SoI, although I have never actually tried it or looked at the code behind it. I would be very eager to try it, but I am afraid that I AM inexperienced, and just learning, and am wary of the codebase's claims to be unstable.

Also, I don't have access to putty right now (until I get off my lazy butt and put it on a CD or a jumpdrive), so that typically means no access to the free shell I'd like to use to play with things.

I'd also need heavy documentation, because "me stupid and me caveman."