Re: Developing from scratch
The problem has not been that these code bases never existed, but that the community for whatever reason has ossified around Diku derivatives to the exclusion of the others.
Perhaps the problem is that these other code bases don't support Diku/Merc/Smaug/whatever area files and building a world from next to nothing has always been very daunting. (Of course, that gets us on to a 'Building a world from scratch' thread...) Was there ever any progress on a universal file format for muds?
But it might also be that having a mud written in C is daunting to many people and so they just enter a cycle of relying on snippets and borrowed expertise to make tiny incremental changes to their game. By comparison, thousands of people who don't normally consider themselves programmers make server or client mods for WoW, Civilization 4, Baldur's Gate, Crysis, Oblivion, any of the Unreal-based games, etc., since they have an easier language to work with.
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