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Old 08-26-2010, 09:31 PM   #1
Ghostcat
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Favorite FE or web-client?

I'm new to the world of FEs, and I was curious what everyone's favorite examples are.
The CMUD FE for UL is my current favorite ( It's just so slick and feature-full )
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Old 08-26-2010, 10:09 PM   #2
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

Obviously, I'm biased, but I really love the , especially the custom art feature. I love text, obviously, but a little bit of graphics really whets my appetite.

The other two clients I really love is the one and one. I didn't get very far in the game on MD, but that wasn't for lack of a beautiful and feature-rich client. AoA simply has one of the most beautiful clients I've ever seen. I love the mini-map as well.

(I hope I understood what FE was. If not, then I apologize.)
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Old 08-26-2010, 10:16 PM   #3
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

I meant Front-End
The client, or a file loaded by an existing client such as CMUD or Mushclient.
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Old 08-26-2010, 10:21 PM   #4
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

Ah, thanks for clearing that up for me! I love the classic clients (TinTin++ anyone?), but I'm really, really impressed by some of the gorgeous clients out there for some of the newer muds.
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Old 08-26-2010, 10:22 PM   #5
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

I do like CMUD (the upgrade from Zmud) and Mush Client, but for some reason I just can't get away from Gmud, perhaps it is the simplicity. I'm not a big fan of graphic heavy clients. While nifty, the pictures distract me from the creative imagery my mind creates for the game (similar to reading a book). I'm also not a heavy fan of ascii mapping. Probably because I'm not good enough at picking out the odd character sets that represent things like trees or water, etc.
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Old 08-26-2010, 10:38 PM   #6
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

Yeah, can't beat Gmud for simplicity.
Gotta love the fact that it can run on just about any pc from a usb drive too.
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Old 08-26-2010, 11:24 PM   #7
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

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Old 08-26-2010, 11:27 PM   #8
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

I really have to get over my TinTin++ intimidation. I've got it downloaded and have used it a few times, but for sheer coding happiness, I really need to make the switch.
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Old 08-27-2010, 03:57 AM   #9
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

I am a CMUD user through and through, and always will be due to its huge customisable features, but if I was to choose some dedicated clients that are impressive

2) Primordiax - A flash client Still in its early stages but showing vast promise, programmable hotkeys, grouping features such as health bars, clickable text, popout of links so you can browse the wiki, maps etc within the client, control movement with keypad, images of what you are looking at. ANd of course, no download and playable on any machine that can use flash

1) Gemstone VI (Stormfront client?)- This however (sorry primordiax, maybe next year) is evidence of what a huge influx of regular paying subscribers can achieve. This client has everything, body areas, awesome inventory management (shows all containers), hotkeys, drag and drop of text, and many other things I cant quite remember. It is possible to play this entire game with a mouse 90% of the time as all objects, directions, people etc can be right clicked on and manipulated. If you are in a room with an object in it, you can drag that object from the room description directly into a bag in your inventory. Requires an install.

However, it still wasnt enough to make me play Gemstone VI beyond the free trial unlike Primoridax!
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Old 08-27-2010, 04:30 AM   #10
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

It's also worth noting that although the interface uses a typical ASCII map, it generates it from a table stored at the client end. That means you could very easily change the symbols (perhaps using a custom mud font with symbols for trees, etc) and colours (xterm 256 color maybe) if you wished. The author of the interface did actually express an interest in using a custom font, and I told him he should ask you One of my other players has created as well.

I do use TinTin++ from time to time, but usually I use MUSHclient. You can create some pretty nice graphical front ends for MUSHclient using plugins - Nick Gammon posted a a couple of months ago, and of course I've been playing with , while one of my players has been working on .
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Old 08-27-2010, 08:41 AM   #11
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

He did email me about the subject.

One of the problems is that few people are enthusiastic about a mud font, making it difficult to get the feedback required to make a cross-server drawing set.

Second problem is that bitmap font editors are hard to find, and the one I got creates a font that works for rxvt, but it doesn't work for PuTTY (used by the windows port of TinTin++), and I have no idea why. Never been able to get bitmap fonts to work on Linux or Mac OS X consoles.

Third problem is that for cross-platform support a truetype font should be used, which is a lot harder to create than a bitmap font. Upside is that it would solve the second problem as there are good truetype font editors.

Fourth problem is that a traditional font only has 128 characters to spare, using 2 byte UTF-8 characters this goes up to about 1500-2000 characters, but not all clients support UTF-8.

What might work is to create a crappy truetype UTF-8 font, and hope someone will improve upon it.
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Old 08-27-2010, 09:54 AM   #12
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

WOW, no offense intended, but I think you should just subcontract to the player, his work is incredibly professional. Has he made it available for use?
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Old 08-27-2010, 10:37 AM   #13
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

No doubt, but really you don't even need a usb drive that's modern, GMUD will run on a 3.5" floppy disk. I used to do it from work. It will also run by directly downloading from the web and running in memory which is what you can do from as one of the play options.
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Old 08-27-2010, 10:46 AM   #14
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

I think even a "crappy" font would be an improvement over using ASCII characters. You could even ignore terrain entirely, leaving that up to the background colour, and just use the font for a few symbols - a stickman, a tree, a set of stairs, a brick wall, etc.

He gave a copy of his plugin to a few players, but I don't think he's made any public release. However the nice thing about MUSHclient plugins is that they're , so any player with a little programming skill can create or customise their own, rather than being restricted to some "official" interface provided by the mud.
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Old 08-27-2010, 02:01 PM   #15
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

Thank you! We have a really great flash programmer who continues to do amazing things for the client.

There are a few features already coded that we don't make full use of - like background artwork. So if you enter a forest, you get background art behind the main client window of a forest, for example. Just a little something to add some environmental feel. We haven't put our artists to work yet making the background art, so that feature isn't enabled yet.
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Old 08-27-2010, 06:25 PM   #16
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

Those are all great clients! The clear text and effects for the Archons of Avenshar really took me by surprise. Gorgeous client. Hopefully, they pick up some more players.
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Old 08-27-2010, 08:57 PM   #17
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

We'd LOVE to pick up more players at AoA! However, you may only play AoA with the Flash Client, and that has most likely turned off a lot of MUDders who prefer to use their own client.

Actually, it's (AoA) still one of my favorite clients, too -- from an aesthetics perspective. I'd love to see MUDs move more in a direction towards "richer" clients -- but I don't feel the community has gotten there yet. Lots of traction from a few folks, and lots of push-back from others... We'll see where it goes, I s'pose! ;-)
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Old 08-27-2010, 10:42 PM   #18
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Re: Favorite FE or web-client?

It was the AoA client that got me into playing more muds with proportional fonts -- I enjoy reading it so much more. It's got to the point where I use proportional fonts to play muds that should be played with fixed width fonts .
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