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Old 02-11-2003, 04:26 AM   #1
Alexander Tau
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Hail!

Hello everyone, been a while.

Just wondering if anyone here was involved with work with
this seemingly wonderful new version of LP. I have a possible
project in the works based on it myself but no real internal
experience.

A.T
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Old 02-11-2003, 10:26 AM   #2
Loriel
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It isn't very "new", as it's been around for about ten years.

It's a LPC driver, written "from scratch" and a bit different in outlook from the rest of the drivers - closer to MOO or Cold.

Doesn't appear to be very widely used.
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Old 02-12-2003, 01:27 AM   #3
mikosevaar
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The administration over at my mud currently work on converting our really old driver to LDmud. However... DGD was our first choise. It appears to be a real nice driver, but it is all from scratch like Loriel said. If one have the time and the skills to cope with starting over from scratch... Then go for it. Otherwise, I say that LDmud is just as good.
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Old 02-16-2003, 03:20 AM   #4
Alexander Tau
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Hail!

Yes, 'new' is relative, it is new to me anyway. I knew about LD a while ago but the lack of discussion about DGD in the places I visit is kinda surprising.

I find that most teams want to remake almost everything but time presses them to accept more of the original code than they like. With DGD you would have to do the work to make the basics and there could be no easy answers. In the free MU* world that could be a big plus.

I like LD too, but the Persistance in DGD is the main thing I have always had a problem with in standard LP. Having that would be such an improvement that it has caught my attention in a big way.

And it is not totally from scratch, a couple of mudlibs exist that cover some of the messier items, like chat lines and security. Combat, characters, spells, that sort of detail yes, but lots of examples exist for those things. Skill-wise I do not see it as a problem, but the time would be increased. But I think most Team take waaayyy too long to get stuff done so with just a little more focus it is very doable.

But I guess it has not reached enough people yet because outside of Skotos and a few games here and there I do not see a lot of work being done with DGD.

A.T
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Old 02-16-2003, 08:54 AM   #5
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You seem to be contradicting yourself somewhat.

Most LP muds are designed with the lack of persistence in mind - and isn't it a rather wider feature of muds than just being LP (I don't recall seeing much persistence in Dikurivatives) ?

For example, when you kill Joe the bartender, he doesn't usually stay dead, but he reappears next reset, or next reboot, for somebody else to kill (or to resume serving drinks at the bar).  Having him stay permanently dead would introduce interesting changes to the style of the mud, but it wouldn't be to the taste of everybody. It's certainly more "realistic", but doesn't appear to suit the "multi user" aspect of muds if only one person gets the chance to kill him.

It's not particularly difficult to add limited persistence to any LP mud, though if you want "full" persistence it does appear that DGD would be the best way to go.

It probably comes back to good design - work out what you want to do, and then choose the right tools for the job.  DGD would be the right tool in some cases, but not all.
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Old 02-16-2003, 11:55 AM   #6
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Old 02-17-2003, 01:56 PM   #7
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Perhaps I didn't make it clear - as I see it, Joe is non-persistent (or at least his death is non-persistent), and that's the way that many MUDs would prefer him to be.

You can update objects while running with MudOS too.
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Old 02-20-2003, 10:25 AM   #8
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I was not contradicting myself in the least. The current MudLibs for DGD are not the full spectrum things that you are used to. At this point they concentrate on basic functions that still leave the 'game' part open for development.

From the Phantasmal Web Site:

Melville and Phantasmal both provide player logins, objects, rooms, soulDs and basic descriptions. They both provide basic chat facilities, including a ChannelD.

Melville also provides in-MUD mail and bulletin boards where you can post and read messages. Its most compelling feature for most users, though, is the fact that its code is quite simple. Melville doesn't do much extra for you, but its functionality is reasonably obvious and simple, and its structure reflects that. Developers have been using it as a very good tutorial for a very long time -- it's one of the very oldest DGD MUDLibs.

Phantasmal is designed for more expansion. It has a robust and well-populated help system, significantly more extensive OLC (online creation) facilities, several well-defined file formats for loading objects, extensive localization, and the ability to recompile the MUD on the fly. It has mobiles, and daemons managing its various objects. It's also based on the Kernel MUDLib, giving it a very stable and secure base to work from. The latest versions generally contain many more features than Melville, despite a few specific Melville features that they don't have yet.

End of Docs...

So the game, combat, characters, skills, and all of those things are still up to the designer.


Persistance

For most people Persistance is about things like Inventory but it is of course more than that. Yes you can easily make any create respawn if you wish, but you can also create creatures that can live past reboot.

In the past I have created complex AI-driven NPCs that need to eat, sleep, and do other work. They were intended to live and grow until killed but the need for a daily reboot really limited their functionality. I would have liked to have them remember certain facts and events over time but to do that I had to save the information somewhere else and then re-transfer it back each time the game rebooted. Since just remembering is a messy task adding this on top of it made it extremely difficult.

I love the power of LP, everything is available for modification on the fly, but the idea that everything is temporary was not part that I liked. DGD retains the power and adds a database like persistance. This is a key feature of some of the newer and more powerful codebases and seems to be very popular with many current designers.

And also, DGD is being currently developed and has active support. I used MudOS a number of times but the last time I look at the main website I saw a rather disturbing attitude. It went something like:

"Well here is a new version but please do not bother me with questions about the next one because I do not think there will be one"

Or something to that effect. Certainly his right to decide what he want to work on, but it is not exactly an encouraging way to talk to people who depend on your code to run their games.

If I should happen to decide to make a new free Mud, I already have the assurance of the developer of Phantasmal of a close working relationship. Not only will there be new versions of the MudLib, but they will include things that we really need to make our work better. Compared to the past where I used things that totally lacked any sort of support whatsoever this is just a fantastic thing.

A.T
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Old 02-20-2003, 04:52 PM   #9
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Old 02-21-2003, 03:50 AM   #10
Loriel
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Are you confusing the mudlib and the driver here ?

I agree that the current state of development for MudOS is to be regretted (though it's also true that the latest MudOS release was 15 Sep 2002, whilst the latest DGD release appears to be from 26 August 2002, so there isn't much difference).

However, there are several MudOS-based mudlibs around which are still being actively developed, and where help is readily available, and will probably continue to be for the foreseeable future.
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Old 02-21-2003, 03:22 PM   #11
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I am really not trying to give the developer of MudOS a hard time. All things have cycles, he had his Heyday and who can possibly count the number of hours of enjoyment provided.

I do tend to talk about Driver and Mudlib somewhat interchangably because after all they are very much essential and always linked. DGD & Phantasmal have to be together to function.

When I originally labeled this thread about a new codebase I really meant it as 'next generation'.

A.T
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Old 02-22-2003, 02:15 PM   #12
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Actually, DGD makes small releases constantly. One was made in the last couple of days. Dworkin (Felix Croes) actually makes his living primarily off the sale of DGD commercial licenses, so he works on it constantly.

There are fewer small DGD releases lately with new features (like arbitrary-precision arithmetic and unlimited numbers of network ports, both recent changes) because Felix is busily working on multiprocessor DGD, and that's taking up a lot of his time.
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