Muds based on Books, Movies, etc...
Trinity
guys worry about being sued? *grin*
Okay, it's a semi-serious question. What exactly IS the legal view of
building a mud based on a book or movie? Do the folks with the Star
Wars muds worry that Lucas is gonna stomp all over them?
Jon A. Lambert
>
>I've noticed a -lot- of muds based on WoT, Tolkien, whatever. Do you
>guys worry about being sued? *grin*
>
I've noticed a tremendous number of MUDs based on on both Valhalla and Smurfs.
I could never figure out the connection.
--
--
--* Jon A. Lambert - TychoMUD Email:jlsy...@nospam.ix.netcom.com *--
--* Mud Server Developer's Page <http://pw1.netcom.com/~jlsysinc> *--
--* I am the Dragon of Grindly Grund, but my lunches aren't very much fun, *--
--* For I like my damsels medium rare, And they always come out well done. *--
Trinity
<jlsy...@nospam.ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> I've noticed a tremendous number of MUDs based on on both Valhalla and Smurfs.
> I could never figure out the connection.
Nods. Which brings me to my next rant... uh, topic: Why don't people
take the time to make cohesive muds? Most muds seem to equate "more
zones" with "better mud". So they have 130 zones that nobody ever goes
to. But worse than that, they have Future zones, D&D zones, cartoon
zones... all existing simultaneously. Arrrg!
It's mainly the fault of the Builders. Many builders have no
imagination, so they pick their favorite TV show/movie, and build a
zone around it... or worse yet, they make "funny" eq, not realizing
that nobody else finds it humorous.
One of my Builders submitted a zone including, I swear to Allah, a "30
foot Q-Tip." Basically it was a crackfiend weapon. He was insulted
when I pulled it. I'm sure he thought it'd just be funny as hell to
have level 100 players walking around killing dragons with "a 30 foot
Q-Tip", but this kind of thing is just plain dumb, unless you're
purposely running a silly-themed mud.
What most imps need to understand is this: It's better to take a
couple of weeks and build solid, consistant zones than it is to spend
time coding yet another way to join a Clan. =) Zones will do more to
distinguish a mud than practically anything else, yet most Imps just
download a ton of stock zones, then rely on a bunch of 14 year old
Builders who barely know how to use OLC to maintain them.
Ah, well. I have nothing against a Smurf-based mud. It's Smurf-based
muds that also have MegaCity One and Weriths' Wayhouse that really chap
my hide. =)
Michael C. Finke
Trinity wrote in message <020619991745337806%dead_p...@hotmail.com>...
--SNIP--
>Nods. Which brings me to my next rant... uh, topic: Why don't people
>take the time to make cohesive muds? Most muds seem to equate "more
>zones" with "better mud". So they have 130 zones that nobody ever goes
>to. But worse than that, they have Future zones, D&D zones, cartoon
>zones... all existing simultaneously. Arrrg!
>
I couldn't agree with this more. IMO a mud should chose a theme and stick
with it. "Whatever in the eternal planes of hell the imp wants," is not a
really good theme.
--SNIP--
>
>What most imps need to understand is this: It's better to take a
>couple of weeks and build solid, consistant zones than it is to spend
>time coding yet another way to join a Clan. =) Zones will do more to
>distinguish a mud than practically anything else, yet most Imps just
>download a ton of stock zones, then rely on a bunch of 14 year old
>Builders who barely know how to use OLC to maintain them.
>
>Ah, well. I have nothing against a Smurf-based mud. It's Smurf-based
>muds that also have MegaCity One and Weriths' Wayhouse that really chap
>my hide. =)
However there is something to be said for consistency. Midgaard is a VERY
simple city to master, and thus a thorn in the side of many imps. However I
think it has a slight shine to it. Brings me back to learning VEGO 2.0, but
I digress. I will quickly leave any mud where it is not intuitive as to
where I am and what I need to when I start a new character. To that end it
is helpful to have some areas that are familiar, with some eq I might
recognize. I find little more frustrating at low levels then to get lost in
a 1000 room city, because the imp thought the main city should be huge.
My point, buried in there somewhere, is that while I dislike a 100% stock
mud there still is something to be said for carrying over some of the
original areas. Not that they're perfect, but with a little work and some
detailing some areas might even still be good ones.
Mike
Brendon Robinson
Smurfs.
> I could never figure out the connection.
Those areas come with the code base, some people just run a stock MUD so
they can play god.
(Note: the preceding word is not capitalized as that may offend some
religeous groups whereas god refers to any of a number of potential divine
beings, as opposed to a single one.)
Robert Brady
>Nods. Which brings me to my next rant... uh, topic: Why don't people
>take the time to make cohesive muds? Most muds seem to equate "more
>zones" with "better mud". So they have 130 zones that nobody ever goes
>to. But worse than that, they have Future zones, D&D zones, cartoon
>zones... all existing simultaneously. Arrrg!
Because that would require extensive effort, management, administration,
etc, and at the end of it would go unnoticed : people don't say "wow, this
mud does not have an obviously broken theme", they will take that type of
thing for granted.
Or at least that's my impression.
--
Robert
(Who tries his best for cohesion, due to belief that it is important).
Matthew R. Sheahan
> I've noticed a -lot- of muds based on WoT, Tolkien, whatever. Do you
> guys worry about being sued? *grin*
> Okay, it's a semi-serious question. What exactly IS the legal view of
> building a mud based on a book or movie? Do the folks with the Star
> Wars muds worry that Lucas is gonna stomp all over them?
don't be too loud, don't make any money, and above all don't try to do a
highly faithful adaptation, and you'll be okay.
the more you mangle your local version, the less intellectual property
worries there are. if you're doing something based on Tolkein, this
will mean a lot of people having to be taken out back and shot, because
something about Tolkein inspires incredibly anal-retentive purism in
some folks; best to get the ugly part over with early.
chiaroscuro
John Adelsberger
: the more you mangle your local version, the less intellectual property
: worries there are. if you're doing something based on Tolkein, this
: will mean a lot of people having to be taken out back and shot, because
: something about Tolkein inspires incredibly anal-retentive purism in
: some folks; best to get the ugly part over with early.
Yes, but the odds of being sued over a Tolkeinish mud are almost nil
unless you're making money or advertising on Yahoo or something... face
it, the people who'd sue you KNOW that if anything, you're going to be
doing free advertisements for THEM, rather than detracting from their
potential profits. It just isn't the same as Star Wars:)
Whatever you ever do, though, don't quote books, movies, or anything
else. I saw one guy go down, and he was told, and I'm not kidding,
"We don't care that you ripped off our storyline, our setting, half
our characters, and our logo. You're a free online text game, and
that's not something we care about. But you really shouldn't have
used this sentence from the third book in this one room description."
Turns out he did that without even realizing it. Go figure.
--
John J. Adelsberger III
j...@umr.edu
"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
- Ayn Rand
Greg Miller
>
> I've noticed a -lot- of muds based on WoT, Tolkien, whatever. Do you
> guys worry about being sued? *grin*
>
> Okay, it's a semi-serious question. What exactly IS the legal view of
> building a mud based on a book or movie? Do the folks with the Star
> Wars muds worry that Lucas is gonna stomp all over them?
I've thought about suing them for lack of creativity, but I'm told
that's not sufficient... I've also thought about suing them for lack of
taste, but, alas, I'm told the same.
--
http://www.classic-games.com/
President Clinton was acquitted; then again, so was O. J. Simpson.
*** NEWBIES: Limit signatures to four lines! No HTML mail or posts! ***
Greg Miller
>
> Trinity (dead_p...@hotmail.com) wrote:
> > I've noticed a -lot- of muds based on WoT, Tolkien, whatever. Do you
> > guys worry about being sued? *grin*
Personally, I'd rather see an EmlenMUD type thing with the Care Bears in
place of the whities, and My Little Pony in place of the darkies. At
least that'd be entertaining for a couple of days.
sthrn...@my-deja.com
Trinity <dead_p...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I've noticed a -lot- of muds based on WoT, Tolkien, whatever. Do you
> guys worry about being sued? *grin*
>
> building a mud based on a book or movie? Do the folks with the Star
> Wars muds worry that Lucas is gonna stomp all over them?
>
several years back (I think 4 or 5 now) was working on a mud based on
one of the Mercedes Lackey series. She or someone in her organization
heard about this and let them know that if it opened, they would be sued
for copyright infringement. They had to redo all of the zones,
languages, etc. Before I opened a book-themed mu*, I would get written
permission to do so.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Trinity
<niv...@widomaker.com> wrote:
> However there is something to be said for consistency. Midgaard is a VERY
> simple city to master, and thus a thorn in the side of many imps. However I
> think it has a slight shine to it. Brings me back to learning VEGO 2.0, but
> I digress. I will quickly leave any mud where it is not intuitive as to
> where I am and what I need to when I start a new character. To that end it
> is helpful to have some areas that are familiar, with some eq I might
> recognize. I find little more frustrating at low levels then to get lost in
> a 1000 room city, because the imp thought the main city should be huge.
>
> My point, buried in there somewhere, is that while I dislike a 100% stock
> mud there still is something to be said for carrying over some of the
> original areas. Not that they're perfect, but with a little work and some
> detailing some areas might even still be good ones.
>
> Mike
I agree totally. In fact, I've been helping develop an entirely new
MudServer codebase for the last year, and I recreated Midgaard exactly
for it, even though I could of created -anything-, since I was starting
completely from scratch. Midgaard is a nice starting point, tis true.
One of the problems with stock zones isn't that they're stock, it's
that they end up being worthless. Builders want their zone to have the
most crackfiend items, so what do they do? They sit back and think
"Well, Ghenna has the Viscera Ring which is +2 Damroll, so MY zone will
have a ring that's easier to get, and is +5 Damroll!"
Thus, nobody goes to Ghenna, because really, who wants to have their
ass handed to them by the Deep Dragon, when they can go to Baltar's
Monty Haul Zone and get better eq, much easier? =)
Malcolm Valentine
<snipped>
>One of the problems with stock zones isn't that they're stock, it's
>that they end up being worthless. Builders want their zone to have the
>most crackfiend items, so what do they do? They sit back and think
>"Well, Ghenna has the Viscera Ring which is +2 Damroll, so MY zone will
>have a ring that's easier to get, and is +5 Damroll!"
>
>Thus, nobody goes to Ghenna, because really, who wants to have their
>ass handed to them by the Deep Dragon, when they can go to Baltar's
>Monty Haul Zone and get better eq, much easier? =)
I think this is a very valid point. Nothing like going against a mob you
know is tough, to find your spoils of war are in fact worse then what you
pillaged off the smurfs...
--
|\ _,,,---,,_
Instruction comes from another, ZZZzzzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_
understanding from your self. |,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-'
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)
Brendon Robinson
> etc, and at the end of it would go unnoticed : people don't say "wow, this
> mud does not have an obviously broken theme", they will take that type of
> thing for granted.
>
> Or at least that's my impression.
Yeah, but if it's not cohesive, people say What the fluff? or This MUD sucks
assorted body parts.
rric...@lanminds.com
>It depends entirely on the book or movie, I think. I had a friend who,
>several years back (I think 4 or 5 now) was working on a mud based on
>one of the Mercedes Lackey series. She or someone in her organization
>heard about this and let them know that if it opened, they would be sued
>for copyright infringement. They had to redo all of the zones,
>languages, etc. Before I opened a book-themed mu*, I would get written
>permission to do so.
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Some authors/series will tell you on the website whether they will
allow it or not. Lackey says that she won't, TSR said that they don't
care. It's an easy first cut to do, easier than getting written
permission.
Rebecca
Remove "not" when replying by email
Kyle Elisabeth Overstreet
wrote:
>In article <3755e...@newnews.widomaker.com>, Michael C. Finke
>I agree totally. In fact, I've been helping develop an entirely new
>MudServer codebase for the last year, and I recreated Midgaard exactly
>for it, even though I could of created -anything-, since I was starting
>completely from scratch. Midgaard is a nice starting point, tis true.
I would like to see what you come up with. One of my reasons for
sticking with DikuMUDs for so many years is that it's nice to have a
familiar town whenever you enter the MUD. I don't mind if nothing else
remains as long as I know where my guild is.
>One of the problems with stock zones isn't that they're stock, it's
>that they end up being worthless. Builders want their zone to have the
>most crackfiend items, so what do they do? They sit back and think
>"Well, Ghenna has the Viscera Ring which is +2 Damroll, so MY zone will
>have a ring that's easier to get, and is +5 Damroll!"
YES! There are so many areas that are empty. (How many people explore
Land of the Fire Newts or nomad camp or the drow city in a stock mud
anymore. ESPECIALLY if they have added underdark or something else)
One problem I have with stock areas that hasn't been addressed yet is
the mishmash of object names. I find it quite silly that you can kill
the "MASTER of the UNIVERSE" easily at midlevel and his sword "THE
ULTIMATE SWORD OF DOOM" which isn't nearly as good as "a small paper
clip" that is carried by "office worker" in a high level zone. Why is
such a low level mob called "MASTER of the UNIVERSE"? Because long
ago, when XYZMUD only had 20 levels, the master was the most
difficult. Now that it has 200 levels, "MASTER" is a newbie zone --
and not a fun one at that. The new areas added in are very easy to
find, while old zones are tucked away and ignored.
..
KEO
AxL
>>"Well, Ghenna has the Viscera Ring which is +2 Damroll, so MY zone will
>>have a ring that's easier to get, and is +5 Damroll!"
>Because long ago, when XYZMUD only had 20 levels, the master was the most
>difficult. Now that it has 200 levels, "MASTER" is a newbie zone --
>and not a fun one at that. The new areas added in are very easy to
>find, while old zones are tucked away and ignored.
Heh, and I though we were the only mud to experience this.
We kept alot of the old stock areas in place and built around them, but
no one really goes to the old places anymore. I'm not sure what the
"solution" is to this, but it definitely pays to balance things as you
go along, and not try to backtrack and do it afterwards.
One major change we made (Legends of Kallisti,
legends.dridus.com 4000) was to spread out the guildmasters, sort of.
One can learn the basics at the good ol Midgaard guildmasters, but to
get the higher ones, or practice some of the basics upto 'suberb', you
have to explore. So perhaps that forgotten "Master of the Universe" now
is the only one that'll teach warriors parry. It'll get people to
explore the forgotten areas again, at least.
Make sure to keep an eye on them builders, too. :) The "my zone
has to be the best" syndrome is indeed a common problem on alot of muds.
--
-AxL a...@wpcr.plymouth.edu "In Christianity, neither morality nor religion
j_he...@oz.plymouth.edu Come into contact with reality at any point."
http://mindwarp.plymouth.edu/~axl - Nietzsche
Trinity
Overstreet <ke...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> One problem I have with stock areas that hasn't been addressed yet is
> the mishmash of object names. I find it quite silly that you can kill
> the "MASTER of the UNIVERSE" easily at midlevel and his sword "THE
> ULTIMATE SWORD OF DOOM" which isn't nearly as good as "a small paper
> clip" that is carried by "office worker" in a high level zone. Why is
> such a low level mob called "MASTER of the UNIVERSE"? Because long
> ago, when XYZMUD only had 20 levels, the master was the most
> difficult. Now that it has 200 levels, "MASTER" is a newbie zone --
> and not a fun one at that. The new areas added in are very easy to
> find, while old zones are tucked away and ignored.
You're absolutely correct. The problem also lies in the fact that many
IMPS aren't very good at what they do, so they simply assign some
newbie builder to create zones, instead of getting a GOOD builder to
update the old ones.
I won't even include a zone with weapons like "a piece of chalk" or "a
glasspack bong". And the last builder that gave me a zone with armour
like "A condom" (worn on head) is still in a body cast. =)
Another problem I've tried hard to address is "Crap EQ". I don't allow
-any- purely cosmetic eq on my mud. All it does is create lag. How
many times have you seen a pile of 500 "long swords" at the gates of
Midgaard, after players have killed the cityguards ten grillion times?
The average Donation room of the average mud looks like a trash heap:
dozens if not HUNDREDS of totally worthless items that nobody will ever
want. But still, Builders waste their time (and mud resources)
creating "crotchless panties" and "black sunglasses" by the score, all
in the mistaken belief that these things are amusing. =)
Kyle Elisabeth Overstreet
wrote:
>In article <37575998...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, Kyle Elisabeth
>Overstreet <ke...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>You're absolutely correct. The problem also lies in the fact that many
>IMPS aren't very good at what they do, so they simply assign some
>newbie builder to create zones, instead of getting a GOOD builder to
>update the old ones.
There really is something to be said for the original Diku Gamma
stock. I started playing when Arachnos was a new area, and MUDs
bragged about having Thalos and Drow City. Back in this day, EVERY
area was used. Not just because there weren't many areas, but because
every area had a "best item in the game". I shall equip a top of the
line character from gamma and tell you where each item came from.
_____________________________________________________
<used as a light> small stick -- from sewers, found on a wererat. I
dont think wererats carry these anymore. They weren't permanent light
sources, but they lasted longer than anything else in the game.
<used as a light and worn on fingers> silver ring from sewers on a
sewer rat in the torture room where the mudmonsters were. If you were
in an area that didn't need a lantern, you would hold the silver ring
as a light to get the all important -10 ac and +1 hit . On most stock
muds, the silver ring has been made MUCH less appealing.
<worn on fingers> silver rings or ruby rings from drow city. These
rings had +25 hit points. People would wear the rubies and take them
off when they got hit, replacing them with silver rings.
<worn around neck> purple cloak from master mind flayer in the sewers.
I believe it had -10 ac. Most people don't know where the mindflayer
is anymore. It's very difficult to get to, because it used to have two
of the best items in the game. Now it's just a useless mob in an area
too far away to bother with.
<worn around neck2> another purple cloak or a green cloak from
beholder in thalos. it had -5 ac +5 hp. Mages or clerics used this.
Sometimes, warriors would wear these and then strip them off and swap
them for purple cloaks. Ten extra hitpoints were essential.
<worn around neck3> Amulets from the myconoid shaman in fungus temple.
they added +1 con, so you had to have them when you leveled!
<worn on head : warriors and thieves> black knight's visor from Yevaud
in arachnos. +2 con.
<worn on head: mages> wizards hat from hermit in Arachnos. (this item
has been removed in most ROM games) + 2 int.
<worn on head: clerics> pontif's headdress on Arachnos in Arachnos.
+2 wisdom.
In case you didn't notice, arachnos used to be one of the most
popular areas in the game. The blue potions used to be the only
healing potions in the entire game so you HAD to go to Arachnos if you
wanted to kill big monsters. Arachnos was quite possibly one of the
most important areas in a MUD and that's why it was so far away from
town. Now that it's useless and still far away, no one goes there.
For some reason, the blue potions have been reduced to cure crits.
<worn on legs> silver leggings from Grand Knight paladin.
<worn on feet> muddy boots from Jones Cruncher in the sewers. They had
+10 movement! Jones has been stripped of his boots as of late.
<worn on torso> glowing suit of banded mail from the dracolich in the
tunnel going to the desert and drow city.
<worn on hands> gauntlets from boxing drowmaster in Drow City. Drow
city is an area that has greatly suffered in all of the revamps of
Dikuspawned muds. Few people go there. Its far away, the eq is crap
and the monsters hit too hard compared with everythjng else.
<worn on arms> armplates from grand knight paladin. most of the items
on this list can be swapped with an item from the grand knight. If you
couldn't get your hands on THE BEST, you would settle for a silver
item fromt the knight until you could get it. Several people wore
several items from the knight and never suffered from it, they just
envied those who had THE BEST other eq.
<worn around waist> IF your imp put in a waist slot, you wore the iron
belt locked in the cabinet in thalos. See there was a darn good
reason you killed those big golems and got the seals.
<worn on wrist> IF your imp added the wrist slot, you wore the copper
bracelets from the brass dragon in the desert. they were the only
bracelets in the game, and for a long time -- many years -- they were
the best. There are still stock ROMs and MERCs where the copper
bracelet is the best wrist item in the game, but few people know this
because they don't bother to find the brass dragon, and if they do
find it, it's too hard to kill.
<wielded: mage> devilrod from master mindflayer in sewers. Sure it had
-str, but it was the most powerful weapon an already weak character
could wield.
<wielded cleric> Halberd from Dracolich in hallway between great
eastern desert and Drow City.
<wielded thief> Thieves had to stay neutral to keep their spider
dagger's from Yochlol in Drow city from popping off. I think this
might have been one of the only piercing weapons in the game aside
from the small daggers in Thalos.
<wielded warrior> If you were strong enough, perhaps with the help
from a pale blue stone in Thalos, you could wear the bow from the
purple worm. It was a BIG deal to be strong enough to wear one of
these. Few characters were.
<held> Any of the good stones from Thalos. Those stones were unique
and very powerful in the game.
<used as a shield> Shield of the rose on grand knight OR large shield
on green dragon. You had to kill the green dragon! He had the only
giant strength potions in the game! Of course, you saved these for
when you wanted to wield the big BOW from the purple worm. +1 str
might do it for you.
______________________________________________________
Look at these items and the areas on your mud. Do these areas get
traffic any more? Most likely not. I think the only area I can
remember from stock that didn't have items everyone used was Moria.
And you had to go to moria to get the 1 out of 2 only sources of the
Sanct potions in the game. Also, moria was a cash place. group up in
moria and split all the cash and you would be very rich.
GROUPING:
There were few areas on the stock gamma, but they ALL were used. You
didn't see people go solo because many of these mobs just couldn't be
killed unless you were in big groups. Everyone had a job in a group.
The best groups at least one person from each class. The thief would
pick the lock (some areas had locked doors and no keys!) and backstab.
The fighter would rescue the thief and take hits. The mage would
fireball, and the cleric would hang back and heal the warrior, who
would sing for a heal. (this is why on ROMS the sing social says "hey
clerics, I could use a heal-- though now its mostly useless. I almost
never see a cleric and a warrior grouped because heal potions are
almost endless)
That was another key in the MUD, the items were limited. The blue heal
potions didn't repop every time. They only popped out when the MUD
booted up, OR all of the blue potions in the game were gone. Since
someone always had a blue potion stashed away for an emergency, there
was only one to four blue potions on each mob in arachnos per reboot.
No clerics, no heals. Simple as that.
Also, you had to settle for lower items in the game, since the BEST
items only appeared once per reboot. A warrior might have to settle
for a two handed sword or a morning star from the druid in the trees
for a long time because he never got onto the MUD after a reboot soon
enough to get the bow or the halberd. Items that were on wimpy
monsters, like the sewer rat in the torture room were very valuable,
since they were always snatched up quickly. This gave low-mid level
characters a chance to have a moment in glory if they were lucky
enough to be at the right place at the right time and get the ring!
Another thing that made the gamma a challenge was the baudrate. You
have to plan out a careful strategy because the game was much quicker
than you were and getting disarmed or de-sancted or fireballed just
ONCE could kill you because you wouldn't get the information on your
screen until it was far too late. (I think that's why people didn't
code mobs to have spells or skills for a long time, and when they did,
the mobs would rip people to shreds)
On an unrelated note, the DIKU team had plans when they created areas
in GAMMA that have been tossed to the wayside. The reason why the
sewers were so detailed was that (I believe) they were to be a roadway
to the underworld. There are several areas far and deep into the
sewers that look like they were encouraging people to add an area at
the end of the line.not many people know this, but there is a river
somewhere in the sewers and several rooms that are the starting point
for something promising, but no further. This is also true in
arachnos. I've seen VERY few areas attached where they should be in
the sewers, with the exception of "Underdark" which is placed where
the Abyss was.
____________________________________________________
I'm just posting this so that people can see what it was about the
original Diku that was so well put together, and what has been lost
since the "improvements". I don't think anyone these days would like
to go back to the old times. We certainly can't bring back the old
baudrate. I just hope that perhaps we could see there were some things
about the old ways that made grouping, planning, and salvaging
important. There were benefits to crafting complicated and detailed
areas.
My suggestions for a well crafted mud would be this:
1. No "monty haul" areas. Each area might have one or two "best"
items in the game but nobody could outfit themselves entirely from one
area. People would have to travel all over the MUD to find good
items.
2. The better an item is, the less likely it will repop on the mob in
the game. There would be plenty of decent items that repopped and you
could survive on them, but no eq that was so great that you HAD to
have it, and you just rested next to the mob and killed it over and
over again.
3. Areas would be trickier to get to. Some MUDs have mad outrageously
boring long roads to get from one place to the next, but I think
putting them far down in the sewers or in the lesser known parts of
the forest would suffice. I'd prefer using the old gamma roadways so
that people got a chance to see them. Perhaps a mud where the newbie
areas were closer and the higher level areas gradually got farther
away. This would solve two problems. Newbies wouldn't take one step
off the path and get destroyed by something 200 levels above them, and
older characters would have to go farther to get to the good stuff.
4. Consistency! If a level 30 character uses a level 10 sword and can
kill a level 40 mob with a sword that isn't nearly as good as the
sword he's using, what incentive does the character have to kill that
mob? If there were some sort of rules in level based eq -- like Items
level 1-10 will have no more than one stat boost at no more than +1 OR
No more than one hit or dam modifier at +1 and the rules are enforced,
people would have to frequently change eq as they got higher level and
you could breathe life into some of the forgotten areas because either
their eq would improve with the rules, or the lower level stuff would
be less powerful.
Consistency also should exsist in the naming of objects and MOBS. If
something is called a beggar, it should never be more powerful than
Mighty King FooFoo, lord of te Earth and Air. Items with powerful
names should be more powerful than items that have generic names.
5. Areas should be better constucted to suit the quirks of whatever
code you are using. The Shire is a classic example of a good area
gone bad because of the quirks of the game. It used to be a good area
for newbies who wanted to be evil, because there were several good
aligned mobs standing around just waitng to be offed. On Merc and ROM
games, the monsters were all given the ability to assist each other.
Now, if a level one player tries to kill a level one toddler, he will
be attacked by 8 other level one toddlers and die. By the time a
character gets powerful enough to survive being attacked by 8 level 1
toddlers, he will get no xp from them, so he won't kill them. The
rooms in the shire could have been expanded so the nursery was 3 or 4
rooms and the toddlers wandered around. Then a newbie could have
waited and ambushed a toddler that wandered in alone. Or SOMETHING.
I suggest imps log on as characters the level of an area that is
infrequently used and find out why nobody goes there. Most likely,
it's due to the fact that the area might have worked on another
platform, but it just can't cut it on the platform you are using.
If an area is not used, either snip it out or improve it. I would be
much more proud as a builder if everyone was packing off to the gnome
mining camp or land of the fire newts because I fixed it, rather than
everyone was wielding my "BEANIE BABY SLAYER" from the newbie zone
that is way better than anything else on the MUD. Though I know
several builders disagree on this one.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions? Comments? Conspiracy Theories?
KEO
(PS if anyone agrees with me, and plans to implement, or has actually
implemented ideas like that, send me your address! I'd LOVE to play
it! I'm good at supplying ideas and I don't like being an imm (but I
would like to learn offline building so I could contribute) so I'm a
good addition to any MUD!)
KEO
Trinity
the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]]
In article <37580f39...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, Kyle Elisabeth
Overstreet <ke...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
-snip-
Woah. Your post was the best commentary on Building and game balance
I've read. If you don't mind, I'd like to reprint it on my Builder's
web site. You stated exactly what I've felt about the newest crop of
Muds.
I remember carrying three sets of EQ: A set that upped my HP and Mana,
to be used when Sleeping, a set that upped my Damroll, to be used when
fighting, and a set that upped my Stats, to be used when Leveling.
Nobody would bother with this kind of preperation these days. Since
everyone has thousands of HP anyway, nobody cares about the few extra
HP a high Con would give you at Level. And odds are all your stats are
maxed ANYWAY, so why bother with a +2 con item? And who cares about a
lousy +25 hp ring, if you've normally got 15k hp? =)
Recently, we did a Pwipe and removed all the fancy adornments we'd
added to our game, and went back to a system where the average player
only gains about 15-20 hp per level. Our players screamed bloody
murder at first, but now most of them admit that it's actually more fun
this way.
> GROUPING:
> There were few areas on the stock gamma, but they ALL were used. You
> didn't see people go solo because many of these mobs just couldn't be
> killed unless you were in big groups. Everyone had a job in a group.
> The best groups at least one person from each class.
Nods. This is why I prefer a very strict Class system on my mud.
There are no Heal potions, and Fighters can't learn Heal spells. If
you want fast healing, you find a Healer and take him/her with you. =)
> That was another key in the MUD, the items were limited. The blue heal
> potions didn't repop every time. They only popped out when the MUD
> booted up, OR all of the blue potions in the game were gone. Since
> someone always had a blue potion stashed away for an emergency, there
> was only one to four blue potions on each mob in arachnos per reboot.
> No clerics, no heals. Simple as that.
Yes, and items were actually VALUABLE back then. Nowdays, most muds
pop eq every tick. Remember the free-for-all that used to take place
after Boots? Folks would race through the mud to get the good eq.
Now, nobody cares.
> I don't think anyone these days would like
> to go back to the old times.
I dunno. There are certainly aspects of the old days that I'd love to
see return.
> Consistency also should exsist in the naming of objects and MOBS. If
> something is called a beggar, it should never be more powerful than
> Mighty King FooFoo, lord of te Earth and Air. Items with powerful
> names should be more powerful than items that have generic names.
Exactly. And also, if you have two zones with "young girls" in them,
for the love of god make them the same level. Nothing sucks worse than
having Level 1 "young girls" in one zone, and level 80 "young girls" in
another.
> If an area is not used, either snip it out or improve it. I would be
> much more proud as a builder if everyone was packing off to the gnome
> mining camp or land of the fire newts because I fixed it, rather than
> everyone was wielding my "BEANIE BABY SLAYER" from the newbie zone
> that is way better than anything else on the MUD. Though I know
> several builders disagree on this one.
Those builders should be shot on sight. ;) Building is the art of
making a better mud, not the are of indulging the builder's ego.
> (PS if anyone agrees with me, and plans to implement, or has actually
> implemented ideas like that, send me your address!
eMail me at kmaxwell@<removespamblock>metacreations.com and I'll show
you what I've been working on. I think you might like it. Nay, I KNOW
you'll like it. *laugh*
John Adelsberger
In rec.games.mud.admin Brendon Robinson <Brendon....@westman.wave.ca> wrote:
: What's wrong with cosmetic items? It kind of sucks to see "a guard wearing
: an ornate eye patch" to not have an ornate eye patch. So it slows the MUD
: down a twinge. It's more realistic. Don't you think it would be realistic to
: need an object with a keyword "dirt" on the ground to use dirt kick?
I wish people would give up the stupid delusion that a few extra items
here and there, or a long shout, or whatever else - add to lag. The
days when such things really mattered to a text mud are ancient history.
This is not the late eighties. This isn't even the early nineties.
A $400 computer is sufficient to run 99% of text muds; for less than $3k,
you can get a machine that should be sufficient to run ANY text mud except
those with >500 players on at a time.
As for toy items, they rule. Then again, I'm a big fan of silly muds.
Brendon Robinson
> -any- purely cosmetic eq on my mud. All it does is create lag. How
> many times have you seen a pile of 500 "long swords" at the gates of
> Midgaard, after players have killed the cityguards ten grillion times?
>
> The average Donation room of the average mud looks like a trash heap:
> dozens if not HUNDREDS of totally worthless items that nobody will ever
> want. But still, Builders waste their time (and mud resources)
> creating "crotchless panties" and "black sunglasses" by the score, all
> in the mistaken belief that these things are amusing. =)
What's wrong with cosmetic items? It kind of sucks to see "a guard wearing
Trinity
> : What's wrong with cosmetic items? It kind of sucks to see "a guard wearing
> : an ornate eye patch" to not have an ornate eye patch.
Why does it suck? What would you do with the "ornate eyepatch" once
you had it, if it was purely ornamental? The fact is that there's tons
of ornamental EQ in muds right now, and people just junk it. Or worse,
donate it, where it sits in large heaps slowing your packets every time
someone wanders in to Donation.
> I wish people would give up the stupid delusion that a few extra items
> here and there, or a long shout, or whatever else - add to lag. The
> days when such things really mattered to a text mud are ancient history.
Whatever you say. Could you do something about that nasty "nothing can
exceed the speed of light" rumor that's been going around lately? =)
I don't mean to sound argumentative here, but I'd hate for someone to
read what you just wrote and mistakenly assume that you knew what you
were talking about.
> This is not the late eighties. This isn't even the early nineties.
> A $400 computer is sufficient to run 99% of text muds; for less than $3k,
> you can get a machine that should be sufficient to run ANY text mud except
> those with >500 players on at a time.
You could be serving off a Cray, and you'd get lag. You could be using
a cross of HAL, Skynet and The Matrix to serve your mud, and you'd
still get lag. There are any number of factors that contribute to lag,
and the server is actually one of the least important. Maybe you've
forgotten, but most muds in the 80's were served from VAX's, or other
mini to micro or even mainframe servers. Serving from PC's is a recent
occurance, which means folks nowdays are serving from machines that are
-less- powerful than those used in the 80's. But be that as it may,
lag is mainly a phenomena caused by activity on the lines connecting
your players to your server. The more info you're pushing over Ma
Bell, the more likely you are to get lag. This is why your players
connecting from Jersey are lagging while your players in Spain aren't
having any problem at all.
Logan Hanks
>Whatever you say. Could you do something about that nasty "nothing can
>exceed the speed of light" rumor that's been going around lately? =)
>I don't mean to sound argumentative here, but I'd hate for someone to
>read what you just wrote and mistakenly assume that you knew what you
>were talking about.
>
>> This is not the late eighties. This isn't even the early nineties.
>> A $400 computer is sufficient to run 99% of text muds; for less than $3k,
>> you can get a machine that should be sufficient to run ANY text mud except
>> those with >500 players on at a time.
>
>You could be serving off a Cray, and you'd get lag. You could be using
>a cross of HAL, Skynet and The Matrix to serve your mud, and you'd
>still get lag. There are any number of factors that contribute to lag,
>and the server is actually one of the least important. Maybe you've
>forgotten, but most muds in the 80's were served from VAX's, or other
>mini to micro or even mainframe servers. Serving from PC's is a recent
>occurance, which means folks nowdays are serving from machines that are
>-less- powerful than those used in the 80's. But be that as it may,
>lag is mainly a phenomena caused by activity on the lines connecting
>your players to your server. The more info you're pushing over Ma
>Bell, the more likely you are to get lag. This is why your players
>connecting from Jersey are lagging while your players in Spain aren't
>having any problem at all.
I believe he was addressing the notion that many non-computer-literate
people have, that excess items on a mud somehow contribute to the computation-
al intensity of the mud (which is true), which then somehow contributes to
the computers inability to send these small packets of text to players on the
mud (which just simply isn't true -- you have to have a lot of bandwidth just
to swamp a 486 dealing just with handling the data).
You seem to have misinterpreted his post as saying that a faster computer
will solve latency issues. I don't believe he said anything like that at all.
At any rate, you have to have either a very very slow computer or a very very
fast connection in order for the computer to be unable to keep up with all the
data being sent back and forth. Also, the amount of data is only going to
affect latency in certain special cases. The relatively small amount of text
being sent out from and to a mud is simply not one of those cases. Perhaps a
player will experience more lag if they are on a 2400 baud modem and they have
to receive an exceedingly long room description. That's their problem. The
amount of data being pumped from even the busiest of muds to the individual
player is simply unable to saturate even a 28.8K modem connection, unless that
mud is for some reason transmitting a constant stream of data. That's just
not very typical. I must agree with the poster whom you were addressing that
criticizing superfluous features on a mud based simply on the assertion that
said features will somehow contribute to lag is simply moronic, on par with
saying that this discussion is somehow contributing to lag on muds everywhere.
logan
Kyle Elisabeth Overstreet
and crash over things that to me, make no sense.
8 years ago, people liked muds to crash at least once a day, because
the items didn't repop on mobs unless the mud rebooted. People would
drop coins one at a time over and over in some secluded room and the
mud would screech to a halt and finally crash.
Recenlty (Two years ago) I was a newbie on some MUD and I had no
scrollback (I was playing on a school machine) so I kept looking in
the pit over and over to see what was in it. Some god told me to quit
because I was lagging the MUD. On this same mud, one of the high
level players was getting XP by getting better in his skills, so he'd
look at a shopkeeper over and over to practice "peek". or he would buy
and sell a glove over and over to practice "haggle". The IMP claimed
the mud was lagging because of him (And the MUD was lagging at the
time) and he later got deleted because he wouldn't stop it.
How does this lag the MUD? It seems that fighting some MOB for a long
time could cause the same thing, but it doesn't make sense to me.
KEO
Jon A. Lambert
Lag in a nutshell:
(someone flame me if I'm wrong or add anything I missed)
Lag is slang and generic for a number of different problems.
A) Network lag
1) The users modem or gateway is too slow.
This lag affects only you or others at your location.
2) The network route to the mud is too busy or too far away.
This only affects you and others taking a common network route
(for instance you are in Japan playing on mud located in the UK)
3) The mud servers connection to the internet is too slow.
This affects everyone using the mud server.
B) Client lag.
1) You are running a poorly written client which causes you to type
slowly and/or updates display slowly.
This lag affects only you.
2) You are playing via a shell account on a very busy server.
This lag affects only you or others at your location.
C) Server lag
All of these affect everyone using the mud server.
1) Other processes on the server are slowing down the mud.
(perhaps there are 10 other muds, a web server and ftp server running
on the same machine, or the imps got bored and are playing Doom
deathmatch on the same machine)
2) Similar to above. The mud has a restricted amount of CPU it is
allowed to consume.
3) Certain mud functions or commands interrupt the server and run
for a long time. Timed backups, certain admin commands, global
mud events, etc.
4) Just plain downright poorly written server code. Often accompanied
be frequent crashes. Much of C-3 falls in this category, IMO.
Now the two examples above are probably either type A-3 or any of type C.
John Adelsberger
In rec.games.mud.admin Trinity <dead_p...@hotmail.com> wrote:
I wrote:
: > I wish people would give up the stupid delusion that a few extra items
: > here and there, or a long shout, or whatever else - add to lag. The
: > days when such things really mattered to a text mud are ancient history.
: Whatever you say. Could you do something about that nasty "nothing can
: exceed the speed of light" rumor that's been going around lately? =)
What does the speed of light have to do with the fact that, in the time
I've been mudding, the fastest machines available at a given price have
well more than tripled in performance? Well written code driving a text
mud, even on an interpreter, can handle as many objects as you have
memory to store, and maybe more if many of them are infrequently
accessed.
: I don't mean to sound argumentative here, but I'd hate for someone to
: read what you just wrote and mistakenly assume that you knew what you
: were talking about.
So basically, you don't want to sound argumentative, but you will
anyway, because polite disagreement isn't the Usenet way. I'm well
versed in the art of ridiculing people, so that's ok by me:) You've
just claimed that a professional software developer whose two main
personal interests are networks and operating systems doesn't
understand the performance issues involved in text servers. I don't
make baseless claims of authority, but I will wish you good luck in
defending this rather unlikely claim... here we go:
: mini to micro or even mainframe servers. Serving from PC's is a recent
: occurance, which means folks nowdays are serving from machines that are
: -less- powerful than those used in the 80's.
Name ONE mud that ever ran on a machine more powerful than my Cyrix
PR200 with 32 megs of RAM in the 80s. You can't, because such machines
cost millions or tens of millions of dollars at that time, IF you could
get the government to approve your purchase by agreeing that you weren't
a foriegn power, and NOBODY at Los Alamos was running a mud on the Cray,
I'm fairly sure. Typical mainframes of the 80s had the processor power
of a midrange 486 - sure, they were I/O monsters, but since the fastest
network connections available at the time were usually 56k lines IF
you could get one at all, I doubt a typical 486 would have had any
trouble running a mud at the time as compared to a VAX, mainframe, or
unix micro. Performance had nothing to do with the use of VAX, unix
workstation, or mainframe hardware for muds. The fact is, those were
the machines that had internet connections at the time.
: But be that as it may,
: lag is mainly a phenomena caused by activity on the lines connecting
: your players to your server. The more info you're pushing over Ma
: Bell, the more likely you are to get lag.
The point is, no donation room is going to have so much shit in it
that doing a l in there is going to mean a damn thing. Sure, you get
a few hundred characters of text - that's a single ether packet, a
single IP packet(plus assorted TCP overhead, but that doesn't grow
with packet size, so it is no better or worse than if the donation
room were empty,) and a single packet on almost anything else except
ATM, which is VERY unlikely to be the source of lag for you due to
its excellent performance.
Put simply and succinctly, bandwidth usage grows with players, but not
necessarily with number of objects. Your analysis is simplistic, and
reflects the approach to 'optimizing' typically used by those who have
a great zeal and a much lesser knowledge. I'd have been nicer in how
I put that, but you weren't, so bite me:) (BTW, let me guess - you're
a Diku man, and you think the single static load method they use is
'great for efficiency' right?:)
Oh, and if you can colocate your mud at a decent ISP, lag to most places
will be nigh on nonexistent. I play on a mud that attracts a lot of
Swedes - the server is somewhere in the US, but even in Europe, with
infrequent exceptions, they report that the lag is so minimal as to be
irrelevant. Believe it or not, network connections are getting better,
just like everything else in high technology.
By the way, what sort of a lame ass mud has a 'donation room?' :)
Seifert
>foot Q-Tip." Basically it was a crackfiend weapon. He was insulted
>when I pulled it. I'm sure he thought it'd just be funny as hell to
>have level 100 players walking around killing dragons with "a 30 foot
>Q-Tip", but this kind of thing is just plain dumb, unless you're
>purposely running a silly-themed mud.
Slaying a dragon with a q-tip does sound funny, tho. Gotta admit...
>What most imps need to understand is this: It's better to take a
Imps? Imperials? Call Luke Skywalker, we've got Imperials running our MUDs!
>couple of weeks and build solid, consistant zones than it is to spend
>time coding yet another way to join a Clan. =) Zones will do more to
>distinguish a mud than practically anything else, yet most Imps just
>download a ton of stock zones, then rely on a bunch of 14 year old
>Builders who barely know how to use OLC to maintain them.
Hey! I'm 14 years old, and although I'm very slow and lazy (usually about 10
rooms a week), I have never, ever based a zone on a movie or TV show or
book. I do have an in-depth knowledge of CircleMUD OLC, as long as you don't
throw in some of those unexpected tid-bits, such as crossbows and bolts,
slings and slingstones, ect, typed items. So far, I believe I have done a
fairly good job of building, better than some of my superiors. Well, my
point is this: if you're going to stereotype, make sure you're not offending
someone on this NG.
Seifert
>glasspack bong". And the last builder that gave me a zone with armour
>like "A condom" (worn on head) is still in a body cast. =)
I knew a guy to put a condom as a piece of EQ. Not only was it annoying when
he left a couple hundred in the imm zone just for kicks, but the things had
color in there l-desc. Yeesh. He was a CImp, so he didn't get in trouble,
tho. Made me mad...
>Another problem I've tried hard to address is "Crap EQ". I don't allow
>-any- purely cosmetic eq on my mud. All it does is create lag. How
>many times have you seen a pile of 500 "long swords" at the gates of
>Midgaard, after players have killed the cityguards ten grillion times?
And how about redundant eq? Whenever I build a zone, and I need something
like a "fountain" for a town square or a "mug of beer" for the "Local
Tavern"'s shopkeeper to sell, I look in other zones. Most people don't do
this. If you type 'vnum obj sword', besides having an overload and kicking
your connection, you'll usually find about 20 items with exactly the same
stats and name. It's not bad when they have different names with the same
stats or vice versa, because there's a point to it, but when they're exactly
the same? Tell me that's not a waste of vnums!
>The average Donation room of the average mud looks like a trash heap:
>dozens if not HUNDREDS of totally worthless items that nobody will ever
>want. But still, Builders waste their time (and mud resources)
>creating "crotchless panties" and "black sunglasses" by the score, all
>in the mistaken belief that these things are amusing. =)
I -always- junk my stuff. Even if it's something that could be useful to a
newbie, I junk it. If a newbie wants it, they can either get it themselves,
or muck through the existing pile of crap in the donation rooms. There's
usually about 20 of the same thing in a donation room "because I thought the
newbies would like it". Bah. Junk it, wussy!
Sterling
>
>: But be that as it may,
>: lag is mainly a phenomena caused by activity on the lines connecting
>: your players to your server. The more info you're pushing over Ma
>: Bell, the more likely you are to get lag.
>
>The point is, no donation room is going to have so much shit in it
>that doing a l in there is going to mean a damn thing. Sure, you get
>a few hundred characters of text - that's a single ether packet, a
>single IP packet(plus assorted TCP overhead, but that doesn't grow
>with packet size, so it is no better or worse than if the donation
>room were empty,) and a single packet on almost anything else except
>ATM, which is VERY unlikely to be the source of lag for you due to
>its excellent performance.
And it is a simple matter to make sure it doesn't become a problem. In a
room that will receive a lot of items, such as a donation room, have it put
timers on objects dropped/donated so that after a certain time they fade
away. If it still becomes a problem to the point where it might have effect
on the performance of the mud, most mud code includes code to drop someone
if they are creating incoming or outgoing spam (at least mine does, and I
would hope most others follow suit on this logical solution. I know several
codebases I have looked at all have this feature).
>Put simply and succinctly, bandwidth usage grows with players, but not
>necessarily with number of objects. Your analysis is simplistic, and
>reflects the approach to 'optimizing' typically used by those who have
>a great zeal and a much lesser knowledge. I'd have been nicer in how
>I put that, but you weren't, so bite me:) (BTW, let me guess - you're
>a Diku man, and you think the single static load method they use is
>'great for efficiency' right?:)
I'm a diku man (though with a little lpmud experience from way back) and
think the static load method is great for ease :)
I will put forward that with current CPU speeds, amount of memory in most
machines, etc. that 'optimizing' is barely required (i.e., Microsoft).
>Oh, and if you can colocate your mud at a decent ISP, lag to most places
>will be nigh on nonexistent. I play on a mud that attracts a lot of
>Swedes - the server is somewhere in the US, but even in Europe, with
>infrequent exceptions, they report that the lag is so minimal as to be
>irrelevant. Believe it or not, network connections are getting better,
>just like everything else in high technology.
Most definitely, and I still want fiber into my house (one of these days...)
>By the way, what sort of a lame ass mud has a 'donation room?' :)
Hack n slash dikus :) You can find an excellent example of a donation
room (or actually several, for different types of items) with timers on
dropped/donated items in the sig :) Strangely enough though, my donation
rooms don't get used all that much (the junk and sacrifice commands made
donating less appealing, since sacrifice rewards).
Sterling @ Wyld Knight
--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Wyld Knight - wyld.qx.net 3333
http://wyld.qx.net/~rezo
re...@lords.com
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Glenn Reinhardt
news:7jd4bi$5...@sjx-ixn4.ix.netcom.com...
> C) Server lag
> All of these affect everyone using the mud server.
> 1) Other processes on the server are slowing down the mud.
> (perhaps there are 10 other muds, a web server and ftp server running
> on the same machine, or the imps got bored and are playing Doom
> deathmatch on the same machine)
> 2) Similar to above. The mud has a restricted amount of CPU it is
> allowed to consume.
> 3) Certain mud functions or commands interrupt the server and run
> for a long time. Timed backups, certain admin commands, global
> mud events, etc.
> 4) Just plain downright poorly written server code. Often accompanied
> be frequent crashes. Much of C-3 falls in this category, IMO.
Actually, in my experience most server performance problems were a function of
memory limitations rather than any CPU bottlenecks. This led to the problem
of large games (or poorly designed ones with memory leaks and swap methods
even worse than average) slowly grinding to a halt as the game began to
thrash. With monolithic, single threaded design, of course, the game driver
was getting essentially no CPU time while waiting for the required data to
become available.
Even on a 386 running linux, a small game is more than fast enough for most
purposes.
On modern games with reasonable servers, I'd guess that 99% of lag is caused
by bottlenecks or transient outages on the network.
--
__________________________________________________________________________
Glenn Reinhardt gle...@mediaone.NODEADBEATS.net
Ignorance is curable; stupidity, eternal.
Ilya
> : Do you guys worry about being sued? *grin*
>
> the "fan art/fiction" domain. which means that as long as you aren't
> trying to say its yours or make any money off of it, you are free
> from persecution.
>
> Ainya
Yes, but what about freedom from prosecution?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Cheers,
--
Ilya (at) gamecommandos (dot) com a mud list & review site
www.gamecommandos.com for online roleplaying games
John Adelsberger
In rec.games.mud.admin Sterling <re...@darkstar.qx.net> wrote:
: On 6 Jun 1999 15:44:37 -0600, John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
: >I put that, but you weren't, so bite me:) (BTW, let me guess - you're
: >a Diku man, and you think the single static load method they use is
: >'great for efficiency' right?:)
: I'm a diku man (though with a little lpmud experience from way back) and
: think the static load method is great for ease :)
Ease of coding, maybe. Overall convenience and flexibility? No way:)
: >By the way, what sort of a lame ass mud has a 'donation room?' :)
: Hack n slash dikus :)
It was a rhetorical question.
Ainya
: I've noticed a -lot- of muds based on WoT, Tolkien, whatever. Do you
: guys worry about being sued? *grin*
: Okay, it's a semi-serious question. What exactly IS the legal view of
: building a mud based on a book or movie? Do the folks with the Star
: Wars muds worry that Lucas is gonna stomp all over them?
Kyle Elisabeth Overstreet
wrote:
>I knew a guy to put a condom as a piece of EQ. Not only was it annoying when
>he left a couple hundred in the imm zone just for kicks, but the things had
>color in there l-desc. Yeesh. He was a CImp, so he didn't get in trouble,
>tho. Made me mad...
This is a personal peeve of mine. I know it's their MUD and they pay
for it and can do anything they want, but when they do stupid
annoying things that would get any other player or IMM sitebanned and
deleted and just giggle over it, I fume.
Once I was on a MUD that suposedly had a rule against harassing and
torturing coplayers, and an IMP had a little character named "Fuck"
that had a weapon called a "dildo" with a damage desc called "butt
rape" He had a hoot attacking players, raping them with his dildo,
and got a general teehee out of it. But it made policing any such
action impossible. What could I say when I nochanneled someone for
sending lewd tells to someone when my own "boss" was running around
raping people?
How can you discipline some IMM who decides to load roomfulls of
harmless chickens all over the MUD once, when your IMP is loading
thousands of aggressive demons all over Midgaard? Pfft I dunno. I
could write a whole book about this.
Sheesh. I just run away from those MUDs FAST and let them have their
fun. I'm out of the game!
>And how about redundant eq? Whenever I build a zone, and I need something
>like a "fountain" for a town square or a "mug of beer" for the "Local
>Tavern"'s shopkeeper to sell, I look in other zones. Most people don't do
>this. If you type 'vnum obj sword', besides having an overload and kicking
>your connection, you'll usually find about 20 items with exactly the same
>stats and name. It's not bad when they have different names with the same
>stats or vice versa, because there's a point to it, but when they're exactly
>the same? Tell me that's not a waste of vnums!
I think the original Diku did that. You'd see those long swords the
cityguards wore in every other zone! I am another person who is
against loads of useless objects in the MUD. One pirate might have an
eye patch you can use, but not every single pirate has to have the
same patch. I think I remember this, but I can't be sure. Didn't Merc
MUDs used to outfit their guards with one or two pieces of eq each?
You had to kill all of the guards to get a full suit of armor. I
think it's silly to have every single guard in a complete uniform. If
your killing them for xp, you've just cluttered up the MUD with tons
of crap. Also, why not make it a challenge to get to the good pieces?
Having the cool sword on a guard thats far away, but the mediocre
plate armor nearby? Sure it's more "realistic" to have all the guards
fully decked out, but where's the challenge in finding all the eq in
an area if one MOB has it all?
>I -always- junk my stuff. Even if it's something that could be useful to a
>newbie, I junk it. If a newbie wants it, they can either get it themselves,
>or muck through the existing pile of crap in the donation rooms. There's
>usually about 20 of the same thing in a donation room "because I thought the
>newbies would like it". Bah. Junk it, wussy!
I'm a donating geek, but that's just because I'm a merciless pit
raider. As a newbie, I never ask for help (except perhaps for vague
general directions to a place) but I methodically sift through the
pits, gleaning all I can and junking the stuff that has more than
2*player# items in the pit. (No mortal or IMM has ever minded my
cleaning the pits of multiple items, btw) For me, donating is good
karma.
KEO
>
Larnen
>
>
> Once I was on a MUD that suposedly had a rule against harassing and
> torturing coplayers, and an IMP had a little character named "Fuck"
> that had a weapon called a "dildo" with a damage desc called "butt
> rape" He had a hoot attacking players, raping them with his dildo,
> and got a general teehee out of it. But it made policing any such
> action impossible. What could I say when I nochanneled someone for
> sending lewd tells to someone when my own "boss" was running around
> raping people?
>
I'd have to say, that if this was someone who outranked me on the
mud, I'd be inclined to appeal to the person who ran the game
to bring some sembelence of sanity to it. If this didn't work
(or if said person WAS the person in charge), I'd leave.
That's not even vaguely funny, and any mud that allows that kind
of behaviour is ultimately going to go down the pan.
Larnen
Trinity
> >And how about redundant eq? Whenever I build a zone, and I need something
> >like a "fountain" for a town square or a "mug of beer" for the "Local
> >Tavern"'s shopkeeper to sell, I look in other zones. Most people don't do
> >this. If you type 'vnum obj sword', besides having an overload and kicking
> >your connection, you'll usually find about 20 items with exactly the same
> >stats and name. It's not bad when they have different names with the same
> >stats or vice versa, because there's a point to it, but when they're exactly
> >the same? Tell me that's not a waste of vnums!
The codebase I'm using works like this: You make a base object (Class,
if you will) named "Sword". Then you create instances of "Sword"
whenever you need one, and overwrite whatever stats you wish to change.
GOD I love this method! Not only is it much like oop programming, it
really, REALLY decreases code clutter.
And KEO wrote:
> I think the original Diku did that. You'd see those long swords the
> cityguards wore in every other zone! -snip- I
> think it's silly to have every single guard in a complete uniform. If
> your killing them for xp, you've just cluttered up the MUD with tons
> of crap. Also, why not make it a challenge to get to the good pieces?
> Having the cool sword on a guard thats far away, but the mediocre
> plate armor nearby? Sure it's more "realistic" to have all the guards
> fully decked out, but where's the challenge in finding all the eq in
> an area if one MOB has it all?
Nods. You and I think alike on this issue. But then, we both come
from the Old School of mudding, where the point of playing was to
explore and work for levels/eq. The current school of mudding tends to
emphasize ancillary points of the game, which I tend to think is a bad
idea.
Trinity
<jsei...@zoomnet.net> wrote:
> Slaying a dragon with a q-tip does sound funny, tho. Gotta admit...
Yeah, just hilarious. Now if only I were running sitcom instead of a
mud. =)
> Imps? Imperials? Call Luke Skywalker, we've got Imperials running our MUDs!
As long as you don't call Jar Jar Binks.
> Hey! I'm 14 years old, and although I'm very slow and lazy (usually about 10
> rooms a week), I have never, ever based a zone on a movie or TV show or
> book. -snip- Well, my
> point is this: if you're going to stereotype, make sure you're not offending
> someone on this NG.
There's no way to post on the Usenet without offending SOMEBODY. =)
The very fact that I exist would be cause for grief on someone's part.
But if it makes you feel any better, one of my best imm/builders was 12
when I met him. Remember Young Jedi: "Stereotypes are only bad when
applied to individuals."
Trinity
<lo...@vt.edu> wrote:
> I must agree with the poster whom you were addressing that
> criticizing superfluous features on a mud based simply on the assertion that
> said features will somehow contribute to lag is simply moronic, on par with
> saying that this discussion is somehow contributing to lag on muds everywhere.
Excuse me for saying this, but both you and he -seem- to be implying
that Lag cannot exist, because servers and modems are so fast these
days. Anyone with a T1 can tell you that connection/server speed is
nice, but it certainly doesn't make lag disappear.
The fact remains that each and every one of us knows that lag is a
problem for even the best muds with the fastest connections. I'm not
even sure why it's a point of discussion. It's like arguing whether
the Mafia exists or not. =P
Trinity
> So basically, you don't want to sound argumentative, but you will
> anyway, because polite disagreement isn't the Usenet way.
Hmm, well, may I point out that the term "stupid delusion" was first
used by you in a response to a message by me. =) But I'll breach
Standard Usenet Behaviour by being nothing but polite this time around.
> You've just claimed that a professional software developer whose two main
> personal interests are networks and operating systems doesn't
> understand the performance issues involved in text servers.
Here's my resume:
7 years designing video and 3d graphics programs for Strata inc.
3 years designing distributive renderers.
2 years designing graphics software for MetaCreations.
Consultant on Myst.
Lead developer/software designer for Mojave Gameworks.
And beyond that, I've operated my own muds for over five years.
There now. Are we communiating from a foundation of mutual respect
yet? I hope so. =) But if you're still feeling slighted in any way:
I apologize for my earlier jest at your expense.
> Name ONE mud that ever ran on a machine more powerful than my Cyrix
> PR200 with 32 megs of RAM in the 80s.
If memory serves me, a mud called Quasar ran briefly at the NTS, which
is a fairly scary thought. =) "My warrior just launched all our
ICBMs!" Of course, it was strictly an in-house thing, but it existed.
> Performance had nothing to do with the use of VAX, unix
> workstation, or mainframe hardware for muds. The fact is, those were
> the machines that had internet connections at the time.
Very true. But that doesn't in any way alter the fact that said
machines WERE being used. And most of them were connected directly to
hubs. So it's not like connection speed was an issue. =)
> (BTW, let me guess - you're
> a Diku man, and you think the single static load method they use is
> 'great for efficiency' right?:)
I'm a leg man myself.
> By the way, what sort of a lame ass mud has a 'donation room?' :)
I respectfully suggest that comments like that don't really contribute
much to the discussion. =P There's nothing inherently bad about
having a donation room, just as removing it doesn't suddenly make a mud
better.
mwi...@my-deja.com
Trinity <dead_p...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Excuse me for saying this, but both you and he -seem- to be implying
> that Lag cannot exist, because servers and modems are so fast these
> days. Anyone with a T1 can tell you that connection/server speed is
> nice, but it certainly doesn't make lag disappear.
>
> The fact remains that each and every one of us knows that lag is a
> problem for even the best muds with the fastest connections. I'm not
> even sure why it's a point of discussion. It's like arguing whether
> the Mafia exists or not. =P
I think you missed their point. It's not that lag can't exist because
servers and modems are pretty powerful. Lag obviously exists. The
point is that *my* server and *your* modem are both capable of handling
*far* more than a single mud demands of them, so the problem doesn't lie
on either end - therefore it must lie in between. And honestly, the
amount of bandwidth we're consuming per mud session is pitifully small
compared to what other typical users are doing, so the lag isn't even
our fault. It's probably being caused by a thousand Joe Perverts
downloading porn all day long. So the only thing we're accomplishing by
minimizing our network usage is speeding up Mr. Perv's download times.
--
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Logan Hanks
>Excuse me for saying this, but both you and he -seem- to be implying
>that Lag cannot exist, because servers and modems are so fast these
>days. Anyone with a T1 can tell you that connection/server speed is
>nice, but it certainly doesn't make lag disappear.
>
>The fact remains that each and every one of us knows that lag is a
>problem for even the best muds with the fastest connections. I'm not
>even sure why it's a point of discussion. It's like arguing whether
>the Mafia exists or not. =P
No, we are explicitly stating that there is no correlation at all
between lag and superfluous mud items (except in the extreme example
of a mud so poorly coded that it is unable to process and send data at
a reasonable rate, but that's obviously not a network problem). The
subthread began when someone asserted that ornamental items and such
were a direct contributor to lag and thus should be avoided.
logan
Rosye
Ainya wrote in message <7jf2td$jju$1...@Masala.CC.UH.EDU>...
>The short story is: As long as you are non-profit, it falls under the
>"fan art/fiction" domain. which means that as long as you aren't trying to
>say its yours or make any money off of it, you are free from persecution.
Don't you mean free from prosecution? ;) I know a lot of people (many of
whom frequent these newsgroups) who have a fun time bashing the so-called
unoriginal muds that theme off of books and movies... so free from
persecution? Probably not.
;) Forgive me for commenting, I couldnt help myself.
rosye
White Flame (aka David Holz)
news:7jf2td$jju$1...@Masala.CC.UH.EDU...
> The short story is: As long as you are non-profit, it falls under the
> "fan art/fiction" domain. which means that as long as you aren't trying to
> say its yours or make any money off of it, you are free from persecution.
Does that only apply to written word, stories, character names, descriptions,
etc? Or can I rip off XCom's graphics (what I've done so far, until we draw
original stuff), acknowledge Microprose, and keep the gameplay free without
getting sued?
--
White Flame (aka David Holz)
http://fly.to/theflame - Programming, WFDis, VicSim, and soon Sox!
(kill the "Parrot" to reply to my Geocities e-mail account)
Greg Miller
> I think this is a very valid point. Nothing like going against a mob you
> know is tough, to find your spoils of war are in fact worse then what you
> pillaged off the smurfs...
Indeed, and the only effective solution I've seen is to have a Balance
committee review and test each and every area that makes it into the
game.
--
http://www.classic-games.com/
President Clinton was acquitted; then again, so was O. J. Simpson.
*** NEWBIES: Limit signatures to four lines! No HTML mail or posts! ***
Greg Miller
> Nods. This is why I prefer a very strict Class system on my mud.
> There are no Heal potions, and Fighters can't learn Heal spells. If
> you want fast healing, you find a Healer and take him/her with you. =)
My knee-jerk reaction is pretty negative... I haven't seen your system,
but all the systems I've seen with good play depth in combat achieved it
in large part through management of heals.
> Yes, and items were actually VALUABLE back then. Nowdays, most muds
> pop eq every tick. Remember the free-for-all that used to take place
> after Boots? Folks would race through the mud to get the good eq.
> Now, nobody cares.
*yuck* limited items are pretty evil.
Trinity
> I think you missed their point. It's not that lag can't exist because
> servers and modems are pretty powerful. Lag obviously exists. The
> point is that *my* server and *your* modem are both capable of handling
> *far* more than a single mud demands of them, so the problem doesn't lie
> on either end - therefore it must lie in between. And honestly, the
> amount of bandwidth we're consuming per mud session is pitifully small
> compared to what other typical users are doing, so the lag isn't even
> our fault. It's probably being caused by a thousand Joe Perverts
> downloading porn all day long. So the only thing we're accomplishing by
> minimizing our network usage is speeding up Mr. Perv's download times.
Ah, well, if you're correct then I did indeed miss their point. Which
is embarrassing, because I posted pretty much the same thing earlier,
but I guess the wires were crossed or something. =)
Ah well. My apologies to both the original posters if such is the
case. Mea Culpa. Robert Culpa.
But on a side note, one of my coders put in a Disease code, which
infected all Livings in a certain range every x number of ticks.
Worked great, until every living in the mud was infected. Trust me,
THAT slowed down the server. =) So I guess my last thought on a
subject that we're all apparently in agreement on is this: You
certainly can slow your server down, no matter how beefy it is. Though
I'll admit that such situations are usually the result of some pretty
badly written code, such as my own "infect everything all the time"
situation. ;)
Aristotle@Threshold
>Excuse me for saying this, but both you and he -seem- to be implying
>that Lag cannot exist, because servers and modems are so fast these
>days. Anyone with a T1 can tell you that connection/server speed is
>nice, but it certainly doesn't make lag disappear.
>
>The fact remains that each and every one of us knows that lag is a
>problem for even the best muds with the fastest connections. I'm not
>even sure why it's a point of discussion. It's like arguing whether
>the Mafia exists or not. =P
But guess what, it has little or nothing to do with the items you have on a
mud (unless you have a frighteningly lame computer, or your coding is just
HORRID). Most lag you experience is netlag, and that is more a factor of 50
million people downloading gig after gig of porn, not us cool, well adjusted
folks playing muds =)
-Aristotle@Threshold
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Aristotle@Threshold
>B) Client lag.
> 1) You are running a poorly written client which causes you to type
> slowly and/or updates display slowly.
> This lag affects only you.
AKA: ZMUD
Sterling
>Trinity <dead_p...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>The fact remains that each and every one of us knows that lag is a
>>problem for even the best muds with the fastest connections. I'm not
>>even sure why it's a point of discussion. It's like arguing whether
>>the Mafia exists or not. =P
>
>But guess what, it has little or nothing to do with the items you have on a
>mud (unless you have a frighteningly lame computer, or your coding is just
>HORRID). Most lag you experience is netlag, and that is more a factor of 50
>million people downloading gig after gig of porn, not us cool, well adjusted
>folks playing muds =)
>
Hmmm. Wonder what that makes the people who mud to kill time while that
porn downloads. :)
Jon A. Lambert
>
>>But guess what, it has little or nothing to do with the items you have on a
>>mud (unless you have a frighteningly lame computer, or your coding is just
>>HORRID). Most lag you experience is netlag, and that is more a factor of 50
>>million people downloading gig after gig of porn, not us cool, well adjusted
>>folks playing muds =)
>>
>
>Hmmm. Wonder what that makes the people who mud to kill time while that
>porn downloads. :)
>
Lagged perverts. ;)
--
Trinity
<thre...@threshold-rpg.com> wrote:
> But guess what, it has little or nothing to do with the items you have on a
> mud (unless you have a frighteningly lame computer, or your coding is just
> HORRID). Most lag you experience is netlag, and that is more a factor of 50
> million people downloading gig after gig of porn, not us cool, well adjusted
> folks playing muds =)
The gigaporn: A measure of how quickly your computer can download the
entire contents of alt.pictures.bianaries.erotica. Usage: "Woah! I'm
getting 5 gigaporn per minute!"
mwi...@my-deja.com
Trinity <dead_p...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> But on a side note, one of my coders put in a Disease code, which
> infected all Livings in a certain range every x number of ticks.
> Worked great, until every living in the mud was infected. Trust me,
> THAT slowed down the server. =) So I guess my last thought on a
> subject that we're all apparently in agreement on is this: You
> certainly can slow your server down, no matter how beefy it is.
> Though I'll admit that such situations are usually the result of some
> pretty badly written code, such as my own "infect everything all the
> time" situation. ;)
Sure. I've done stupid things myself that have brought down the mud or
worse. My first incarnarion of our yearly flood of self replicating
"Easter Chickens" brought down the entire machine because I had screwed
up their reproductive rates - within half an hour the entire machine had
devoted every spare scrap of memory and processing power to computing
the reproduction of millions of chickens.
Rosye
mwi...@my-deja.com wrote in message <7jmfdm$sq0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>Sure. I've done stupid things myself that have brought down the mud or
>worse. My first incarnarion of our yearly flood of self replicating
>"Easter Chickens" brought down the entire machine because I had screwed
>up their reproductive rates - within half an hour the entire machine had
>devoted every spare scrap of memory and processing power to computing
>the reproduction of millions of chickens.
Why does this sound like a bad horror movie? "Attack of the Easter
Chickens.."
They're everywhere! Run for your lives!
Ainya
: Ainya wrote:
:>
:> : I've noticed a -lot- of muds based on WoT, Tolkien, whatever.
:> : Do you guys worry about being sued? *grin*
:>
:> the "fan art/fiction" domain. which means that as long as you aren't
:> trying to say its yours or make any money off of it, you are free
:> from persecution.
:> Ainya
: Yes, but what about freedom from prosecution?
: Sorry, couldn't resist.
: Cheers,
: --
: Ilya (at) gamecommandos (dot) com a mud list & review site
: www.gamecommandos.com for online roleplaying games
Unfortunately (or fortunately) it doesn't dictate freedom from
prostitution either. ;)
Ainya
Brendon Robinson
> > 1) You are running a poorly written client which causes you to type
> > slowly and/or updates display slowly.
> > This lag affects only you.
>
> AKA: ZMUD
Sounds like a troll, almost.
Brendon Robinson
Yeah. Har.... Har... Har..
> Imps? Imperials? Call Luke Skywalker, we've got Imperials running our
MUDs!
Why would you consider 'Imps' to be imperials when it's already imps? (A
type of demon)
Brendon Robinson
> exceed the speed of light" rumor that's been going around lately? =)
> I don't mean to sound argumentative here, but I'd hate for someone to
> read what you just wrote and mistakenly assume that you knew what you
> were talking about.
Where did that come from? That theor is based on the fact that greater
acceleration leads to greater mass and it increases exponentially and is
sort of like a hyperbola, as you approach the speed of light you weight mor
and more so when you reached the speed of light yo would have infinite masss
and thuis need infinite energy to power your movement, as even in space
there is microgravity. Please don't flame at me because I didn't theorize
this, I only read it in "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking, who's
a pretty respected guy in the field of physics, to say the least.
Brendon Robinson
Brendon Robinson
> room that will receive a lot of items, such as a donation room, have it
put
> timers on objects dropped/donated so that after a certain time they fade
> away. If it still becomes a problem to the point where it might have
effect
> on the performance of the mud, most mud code includes code to drop someone
> if they are creating incoming or outgoing spam (at least mine does, and I
> would hope most others follow suit on this logical solution. I know
several
> codebases I have looked at all have this feature).
You would drop people for RECIEVING spam from others?
John Adelsberger
In rec.games.mud.admin Brendon Robinson <Brendon....@westman.wave.ca> wrote:
Aristotle wrote:
: > >B) Client lag.
: > AKA: ZMUD
: Sounds like a troll, almost.
No matter how unpopular a fact may be, stating that fact does not
constitute trolling. There's no room for interpretation or opinion
here - the man is stating a verifiable truth:)
--
John J. Adelsberger III
j...@umr.edu
"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
- Ayn Rand
John Adelsberger
In rec.games.mud.admin Sterling <re...@darkstar.qx.net> wrote:
: Hmmm. Wonder what that makes the people who mud to kill time while that
: porn downloads. :)
The { fighters | warriors } guild. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
Sz.
>
> Where did that come from? That theor is based on the fact that greater
> acceleration leads to greater mass and it increases exponentially and is
> sort of like a hyperbola, as you approach the speed of light you weight mor
> and more so when you reached the speed of light yo would have infinite masss
> and thuis need infinite energy to power your movement, as even in space
> there is microgravity. Please don't flame at me because I didn't theorize
> this, I only read it in "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking, who's
> a pretty respected guy in the field of physics, to say the least.
>
Even in space there is microgravity? Gravity is everywhere, affects
everything, (strength based on the distance between ANY two masses).
"Space" is a colloquial term meaning those parts of the universe not
extremely close to our planet. Apples and oranges, my friend. When mass
increases relativistically due to speed, so does inertia (which, like
gravity, is independent of position). The higher the inertia, the more
energy needed to accellerate.
As to flaming, what's a newsgroup for?
Sz.
Sterling
Sure, to prevent the mud from being bogged down by (for instance, true life
situation) walking into a room where an immortal has accidentally loaded
32,767 of an item. (This actually is more processor spam, since the person
walking in would only see "(32,767) A purple potion" but each potion would
try to check if there was a program on it that needed to go off). And what
good is it to the player if their screen is going to scroll for the next 10
minutes? Wouldn't it be better to drop them and let them log back on and be
ready to go in 10 seconds? (ever had zmodem not stop right and not be able
to break out of it?)
Sterling @ Wyld Knight
(who just dropped a major hint about his age)
Seifert
>worse. My first incarnarion of our yearly flood of self replicating
>"Easter Chickens" brought down the entire machine because I had screwed
>up their reproductive rates - within half an hour the entire machine had
>devoted every spare scrap of memory and processing power to computing
>the reproduction of millions of chickens.
That sounds like a cool idea. I have another idea for that, if you haven't
allready done it. Start out with one "egg" obj. Have the egg so it loads a
"baby chick" mob and then purge itself. Then the "baby chick" morphs into an
"adult chicken" which loads maybe 5 or so "eggs" and then purges itself. All
of this would be on a timer so a player won't look once and see one egg and
then look a second later and see five eggs. If I were a player, that'd be
pretty cool.
mwi...@my-deja.com
That's pretty much how it works. Originally, there was an egg that
hatches a baby chicken, which grows into an adult chicken and lays
somewhere between 3 and 7 brightly colored eggs before it dies of old
age. Later I increased the number of eggs, but had most of them produce
other random effects (a shower of confetti, a few gold coins, a piece of
chocolate, a small explosion, etc), and added "Easter Bunny" monsters
who wandered around collecting eggs and handing them out to people.
It was impossible to tell what an egg would do before it hatched, and
giving an egg to somebody automatically hatched it. Sometimes chaos is
fun.
Adam Wozniak
>Sure, to prevent the mud from being bogged down by (for instance, true life
>situation) walking into a room where an immortal has accidentally loaded
>32,767 of an item. (This actually is more processor spam, since the person
>walking in would only see "(32,767) A purple potion" but each potion would
>try to check if there was a program on it that needed to go off). And what
>good is it to the player if their screen is going to scroll for the next 10
>minutes? Wouldn't it be better to drop them and let them log back on and be
>ready to go in 10 seconds? (ever had zmodem not stop right and not be able
>to break out of it?)
Only if you put them in a different room when they reconnect
--Adam
--
ad...@mudlist.eorbit.net
I report spam and unsolicited bulk/commercial email.
Aristotle@Threshold
>> >B) Client lag.
>> > 1) You are running a poorly written client which causes you to type
>> > slowly and/or updates display slowly.
>> > This lag affects only you.
>>
>
>Sounds like a troll, almost.
Hehehehehehe
Nod. The thing that saves it from being a troll is that it is true. That
client is so bogged down with cheater features and poor coding it is a miracle
the thing even runs. What cracks me up is that on the Zmud web site he
compares the client to other clients and claims Zmud processes things faster.
And then you read the method of testing (typing look 20 times or some lame
crap like that).
Aristotle@Threshold
>That's pretty much how it works. Originally, there was an egg that
>hatches a baby chicken, which grows into an adult chicken and lays
>somewhere between 3 and 7 brightly colored eggs before it dies of old
>age.
Which came first?
Sterling
>Sterling <re...@darkstar.qx.net> wrote:
>>Sure, to prevent the mud from being bogged down by (for instance, true life
>>situation) walking into a room where an immortal has accidentally loaded
>>32,767 of an item. (This actually is more processor spam, since the person
>>walking in would only see "(32,767) A purple potion" but each potion would
>>try to check if there was a program on it that needed to go off). And what
>>good is it to the player if their screen is going to scroll for the next 10
>>minutes? Wouldn't it be better to drop them and let them log back on and be
>>ready to go in 10 seconds? (ever had zmodem not stop right and not be able
>>to break out of it?)
>
>Only if you put them in a different room when they reconnect
>
No triggers are set off by someone reconnecting (as they would be by someone
entering the room). And, somewhat in anticipation of this problem, no
triggers are set off on _objects_ when someone leaves the room (exits and
rooms can have triggers for someone leaving the room).
Sterling @ Wyld Knight
Brendon Robinson
> constitute trolling. There's no room for interpretation or opinion
> here - the man is stating a verifiable truth:)
But what is truth?
NOTE: If you answer this, you obviously don't know the answer.
Brendon Robinson
> everything, (strength based on the distance between ANY two masses).
> "Space" is a colloquial term meaning those parts of the universe not
> extremely close to our planet. Apples and oranges, my friend. When mass
> increases relativistically due to speed, so does inertia (which, like
> gravity, is independent of position). The higher the inertia, the more
> energy needed to accellerate.
That's what I said. Can you read?
Jp Calderone
>
> > Whatever you say. Could you do something about that nasty "nothing can
> > exceed the speed of light" rumor that's been going around lately? =)
> > I don't mean to sound argumentative here, but I'd hate for someone to
> > read what you just wrote and mistakenly assume that you knew what you
> > were talking about.
>
> acceleration leads to greater mass and it increases exponentially and is
> sort of like a hyperbola, as you approach the speed of light you weight mor
> and more so when you reached the speed of light yo would have infinite masss
> and thuis need infinite energy to power your movement, as even in space
> there is microgravity. Please don't flame at me because I didn't theorize
> this, I only read it in "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking, who's
> a pretty respected guy in the field of physics, to say the least.
Actually, at the speed of light you don't need infinite energy to power
your movement, you need infinite energy to *accelerate*. Of course, the
point is moot considering with inifinite mass, the universe collapses in
on your instantaniously... :p
--
A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery
and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space.
-- Thomas Carlyle, looking at the stars
Ilya
Pontius Pilate asked this same question, standing in
front of the answer.
--
Ilya (at) gamecommandos (dot) com a mud list & review site
Sz.
> > Even in space there is microgravity? Gravity is everywhere, affects
a little bit snipped out here...
>
> That's what I said. Can you read?
>
Oh, goody, an insult. Yes I can read -- what's more important, perhaps,
is that I HAVE read. To make everything crystal clear, gravity has nothing
to do with speed, inertia, mass, the speed of light or relativity -- at
least not directly. Gravity is an attractive force between two objects,
based on their mass and separation from each other. The difficulty (or --
according to special relativity, the impossibility) of overcoming the
speed of light simply has nothing to do with gravity.
My other objection was to the phrase 'microgravity'. Properly
speaking, this word would refer to gravity on a microscopic scale --
Van der Waals forces between molecules, for example. Your implication
seemed to be that gravity operates differently in some nebulous area
called 'space'. It doesn't. In other words, if you were to trip over
your own feet while standing on some large object that happened to be
located somewhere in 'space', you'd STILL fall flat on your face. (He
shoots. He scores. The crowd goes wild: Aaaaaaaa!)
Cheers.
Sz.
Seifert
is that I HAVE read. To make everything crystal clear, >gravity has nothing
to do with speed, inertia, mass,
Er....huh?
> the speed of light or relativity -- at
>least not directly. Gravity is an attractive force between two objects,
>based on their mass
Oh! I see. You're making a fool out of yourself. I'll leave you be now...
Logan Hanks
>> Even in space there is microgravity? Gravity is everywhere, affects
>> "Space" is a colloquial term meaning those parts of the universe not
>> extremely close to our planet. Apples and oranges, my friend. When mass
>> increases relativistically due to speed, so does inertia (which, like
>> gravity, is independent of position). The higher the inertia, the more
>> energy needed to accellerate.
>
His reply was due to your implication that gravity is the reason why no
object can travel at the speed of light. In fact, the real reason is that
when an object's mass approaches infinity, the amount of force required to
accelerate that object approaches infinity. Thus, there is no amount of force
that one can apply to accelerate an object up to the speed of light. Of
course this is pretty much the exact same thing that the previous poster said,
just reiterating because it's certainly not what you said (though you did get
the part about mass approaching infinity right). Of course, you could have
objects that are for some reason already going faster than the speed of light.
Those are interesting.
Likewise, gravity is one of those forces that are applicable over any
distance, so you're being affected by the gravitational pull of all the mass
in the universe. The main reason astronauts are able to float around in their
little space shuttles is because they're orbiting around the planet. They are,
in essence, in free-fall, falling around the planet. I never quite saw the
reason why people even bother using the term "microgravity." It doesn't
really make sense.
Then again, I'm definitely no physicist. Someone's bound to flame me for
saying something stupid here. :P
logan
Joseph Cotton
>Oh, goody, an insult. Yes I can read -- what's more important, perhaps,
>is that I HAVE read. To make everything crystal clear, gravity has nothing
>least not directly. Gravity is an attractive force between two objects,
>according to special relativity, the impossibility) of overcoming the
Sorry, have to respond to an actual scientific post.
I wish to point out that gravity, as it is commonly used, is a theory. We do
not know exactly how it works, or even if it exists. to understand how the
THEORY is most commonly hypotheised however, it is best to view space as a
two deminsional sheet of cloth. Masses weigh down this cloth, making
"slopes". the more massive the object, the more it weighs down the cloth.
Other objects, as they try to travel accross the cloth of space are pulled
down the slopes. This is the effect we notice as gravity. This of course is
not a very good example, since space is actually three deminsional, and the
"slopes" formed pull down in all three demionsions, not just two.
>
>My other objection was to the phrase 'microgravity'. Properly
>speaking, this word would refer to gravity on a microscopic scale --
>Van der Waals forces between molecules, for example.
Interesting that you bring this up, since the main reason that the theory of
gravity is still considered a theory at best, si because if it existed we
should be able to notice it's effects at the subatomic level. However.. at
subatomic leves we can distinguish between weak forces, strong forces,
electromagnetic forces... but not gravotational forces. Also, all the above
mentinoned forces have particles that they are "associated" with (quarks,
electrons, etc). We have yet to find a partical that is associated with
gravity, leading many top scientists to believe that it is not really a
force at all. However, in all fairness.. I must say that the energies needed
to test such hypothesis are currently unreachable. We would need something
along the lines of a cold fusion reaction to be able to run any tests.
>Your implication seemed to be that gravity operates differently in some
nebulous area
>called 'space'. It doesn't. In other words, if you were to trip over
>your own feet while standing on some large object that happened to be
>located somewhere in 'space', you'd STILL fall flat on your face. (He
>shoots. He scores. The crowd goes wild: Aaaaaaaa!)
>Cheers.
>
>Sz.
You would fall only if the object that you were standing on was massive
enough to have a large enough gravitational field to pull you down. Which is
probable if you are actually "standing" on it in any conventional since. I
did not have a chance to read the original post.. but doesn't everyone know
that we are currently located in "space". All objects are "in space". But
the earlier assumption that gravity has nothing to do with mass was
incorrect. In the absence of mass the force of gravity (if it actually
exists) woudl so very little effect on anything that it could be said to not
exist.
Joseph
Sz.
> >Oh, goody, an insult. Yes I can read -- what's more important, >perhaps,
> is that I HAVE read. To make everything crystal clear, >gravity has nothing
> to do with speed, inertia, mass,
>
> Er....huh?
>
> > the speed of light or relativity -- at
> >least not directly. Gravity is an attractive force between two objects,
> >based on their mass
>
> Oh! I see. You're making a fool out of yourself. I'll leave you be now...
>
> >and separation from each other.
>
>
Please don't leave me be. I love a fight. Besides, calling someone a
fool without proving it is a bit...cowardly. (ooh. Them's fightin'
words!)
Sz.
Sz.
> Sorry, have to respond to an actual scientific post.
>
> I wish to point out that gravity, as it is commonly used, is a theory. We do
> not know exactly how it works, or even if it exists. to understand how the
Well, really, it does exist -- i.e. it is a measurable phenomenon. As to
why it works, yah, well, that^s right, we don^t have any idea. Whether it
is SEPARATE from the strong and weak nuclear forces and the
electromagnetic force is speculative -- those ole Grand Unified Theory
buffs would like to believe that all four are in fact aspects of the same
something or other, and that any differences that we notice are because of
our perceptions.
> did not have a chance to read the original post.. but doesn't everyone know
> that we are currently located in "space". All objects are "in space". But
Yah, well, that was the problem with the original post -- "space" as some
special area of the universe meaning "not in the vicinity of the Earth",
where presumably physical laws operate differently...
Anyway, Joseph, thanks for your post. It^s refreshing to have someone
address these issues in an intelligent manner, rather than spitting out
lame ad hominum attacks because they don^t know whether it^s Tuesday or
raining. (Yes, yes, I know, that was an ad hominum attack. Sorry.
Vindictiveness got the better of me.)
Sz.
PS Sorry, my apostrophe is missing.
Logan Hanks
Sz. wrote:
>On Wed, 16 Jun 1999, Seifert wrote:
>
>> >Oh, goody, an insult. Yes I can read -- what's more important, >perhaps,
>> is that I HAVE read. To make everything crystal clear, >gravity has nothing
>> to do with speed, inertia, mass,
>>
>> Er....huh?
>>
>> > the speed of light or relativity -- at
>> >least not directly. Gravity is an attractive force between two objects,
>> >based on their mass
I believe that's what he was criticizing you over. An honest mistake, I'm
sure. Though he would have been much clearer if he had indicated that. :P
logan
Sz.
> ^^^^
> >>
> >> Er....huh?
> >>
> >> > the speed of light or relativity -- at
> >> >least not directly. Gravity is an attractive force between two objects,
> >> >based on their mass
> ^^^^
>
> I believe that's what he was criticizing you over. An honest mistake, I'm
> sure. Though he would have been much clearer if he had indicated that. :P
>
> logan
Thanks, now I get it. Naturally gravity has something to do with mass.
Should have said that gravity does not ALTER mass, and thus has nothing to
do with special relativity (the problem of overcoming the speed of light).
Sz. (picking himself up and brushing off the gravel)
Seifert
Logan Hanks wrote in message ...
>In article
<Pine.A41.3.96.99061...@studserv.uni-leipzig.de>,
>Sz. wrote:
>>On Wed, 16 Jun 1999, Seifert wrote:
>>
>>> >Oh, goody, an insult. Yes I can read -- what's more important,
>perhaps,
nothing
>>> to do with speed, inertia, mass,
> ^^^^
>>>
>>> Er....huh?
>>>
>>> > the speed of light or relativity -- at
>>> >least not directly. Gravity is an attractive force between two objects,
>>> >based on their mass
> ^^^^
>
> I believe that's what he was criticizing you over. An honest mistake,
I'm
>sure. Though he would have been much clearer if he had indicated that. :P
>
>logan
Thank you. Yes, that is what I meant, and it probably was an honest mistake.
But this Sz. person sure seems to want to fight someone.
Note: I did not say me. I have other, pertinent tasks to attend to.
Seifert
with MUDs? Could you take it to regular e-mail and spare us from your odd,
but effective "Torture by Drivel" methods?
John Adelsberger
In rec.games.mud.admin Joseph Cotton <chao...@sprynet.com> wrote:
: I wish to point out that gravity, as it is commonly used, is a theory. We do
Actually, our explanation for gravity is a theory. Gravity is a fact.
Nobody disputes the effect. Some people still wonder about the cause.
: Interesting that you bring this up, since the main reason that the theory of
: gravity is still considered a theory at best, si because if it existed we
: should be able to notice it's effects at the subatomic level. However.. at
While you're at it, you should certainly complain about how Hubble's Law
is a theory because we don't have a measuring tape trillions of miles
long. What a stupid argument... certainly, we can't prove such things
by reference to a direct perception. Maybe, we can't prove them at all.
The main reason the current theory of gravity is a theory instead of an
accepted fact is that anyone sane regards all of modern physics as a big
set of theories, rather than facts - and the rest(mostly physicists who
use the term 'theory' to mean 'fact') are ignoring history and making
fools of themselves.
Marc Bowden
<jsei...@zoomnet.net> wrote:
Oooh, there's a thought for my list. Hey Mike, what do you think about
varying the local gravity using the castle.c file?
======================================================================
Marc Bowden - Soulsinger D R E A M S H A D O W
Human Resources Director --------------------------
The Legacy of the Three
dreamer.telmaron.com 3333 or 209.118.172.5 3333 ry...@merit.edu
"We did not choose to become the guardians, but there is no one else."
======================================================================
Mical
Robert Jordan asking his permission. He replied in the affirmitive and
gave me permission to do so as long as I didn't charge for it. Else,
yes, I'd have been worried about being stomped on!!
Mical, Builder of Boxes
Trinity wrote:
>
> I've noticed a -lot- of muds based on WoT, Tolkien, whatever. Do you
> guys worry about being sued? *grin*
>
> Okay, it's a semi-serious question. What exactly IS the legal view of
> building a mud based on a book or movie? Do the folks with the Star
> Wars muds worry that Lucas is gonna stomp all over them?
Brendon Robinson
no
> object can travel at the speed of light. In fact, the real reason is that
> when an object's mass approaches infinity, the amount of force required to
> accelerate that object approaches infinity. Thus, there is no amount of
force
> that one can apply to accelerate an object up to the speed of light. Of
> course this is pretty much the exact same thing that the previous poster
said,
> just reiterating because it's certainly not what you said (though you did
get
> the part about mass approaching infinity right). Of course, you could
have
> objects that are for some reason already going faster than the speed of
light.
Umm.. but that IS what I said. As the mass becomes infinite so tdoes the
energy you need to power yourself. Gravity is the opposition that you ned to
fight agaist. If there was no gravity in space, you would need no energy to
propel yourself at any speed because there would be no opposition.
Brendon Robinson
think superstring theory has it's merits, others may prefer hyperspace
theory, yet others may have other beliefs about gravity.
Brendon Robinson
> is a theory because we don't have a measuring tape trillions of miles
> long. What a stupid argument... certainly, we can't prove such things
> by reference to a direct perception. Maybe, we can't prove them at all.
> The main reason the current theory of gravity is a theory instead of an
> accepted fact is that anyone sane regards all of modern physics as a big
> set of theories, rather than facts - and the rest(mostly physicists who
> use the term 'theory' to mean 'fact') are ignoring history and making
> fools of themselves.
You can't PROVE anything. You can't PROVE you exist, you can merely provide
overwhelming evidence.
Logan Hanks
> Umm.. but that IS what I said. As the mass becomes infinite so tdoes the
>energy you need to power yourself. Gravity is the opposition that you ned to
>fight agaist. If there was no gravity in space, you would need no energy to
>propel yourself at any speed because there would be no opposition.
And that's what we're both denying. Gravity is _not_ the opposition.
_Inertia_ is. At any point in time and position in space, the net force of
gravity on an object is simply going to pull it in one direction. Hence, to
avoid fighting against gravity at all, one could propell the object in a
direction perpendicular to gravity (such as in an orbit).
logan
Flyee
<Brendon....@westman.wave.ca> wrote:
>
> Umm.. but that IS what I said. As the mass becomes infinite so tdoes the
> energy you need to power yourself. Gravity is the opposition that you ned to
> fight agaist. If there was no gravity in space, you would need no energy to
> propel yourself at any speed because there would be no opposition.
>
different things. One is force between 2 masses , and other is a law of
state: anything that has mass is trying to keep their state(moving, or
staying on place) unchanged. Therefore: More mass something have, more
energy it takes to change it's state. And if mass is getting infinite
so does energy neccesary to change state. Gravity has nothing to so
with it. Of course, if mass is close to infinite, then gravity kicks
in too, but even if there is no gravity, intertion still won't let
mass reach light speed.
Oh yea, when i say state, i ment it's speed, direction,
speed of rotation , rotation axis..., in short: anything that defines
moving.
Ivan
--
Bad english? huh, sorry about it.
Syn
(What happens when all the apple trees die?)
Also, when there was no light, everything moved faster than it.
(It is very possible that they are still fast than it?)
Oh, and there is the possibility that the so-called gravity 'atom' is the
very enigmatic portion that throws of the weight of the universe. (Scales
please? The verdict it.....)
Oh please...with college comes muds, but must muds come with college courses
attached?
Q - MysticDragons
telnet:://lpmud.com 3000
www.lpmud.com
John Adelsberger
In rec.games.mud.admin Brendon Robinson <Brendon....@westman.wave.ca> wrote:
: You can't PROVE anything. You can't PROVE you exist, you can merely provide
: overwhelming evidence.
My existence is axiomatic; the fact that _I_ can argue over whether I
can prove anything is impossible without my existence. If you intend
to argue metaphysical or epistemological claims, you should do some
reading. As of now, you haven't caught up to Descartes, who lived a
long, long time ago. 'I' necessarily implies 'I exist.'
Jon A. Lambert
>
>Distribution:
>
>In rec.games.mud.admin Brendon Robinson <Brendon....@westman.wave.ca> wrote:
>
>: You can't PROVE anything. You can't PROVE you exist, you can merely provide
>: overwhelming evidence.
>
>My existence is axiomatic; the fact that _I_ can argue over whether I
>can prove anything is impossible without my existence. If you intend
>to argue metaphysical or epistemological claims, you should do some
>reading. As of now, you haven't caught up to Descartes, who lived a
>long, long time ago. 'I' necessarily implies 'I exist.'
>
Does Descartes exist? ;)
--
--* Jon A. Lambert - TychoMUD Email:jlsy...@nospam.ix.netcom.com *--
--* Mud Server Developer's Page <http://pw1.netcom.com/~jlsysinc> *--
--* I am the Dragon of Grindly Grund, but my lunches aren't very much fun, *--
--* For I like my damsels medium rare, And they always come out well done. *--
Trinity
> You can't PROVE anything. You can't PROVE you exist, you can merely provide
> overwhelming evidence.
By general convention, "overwhelming evidence" is considered "proof".
Except in Newsgroups. =)
Sterling
>On 20 Jun 1999 22:41:59 -0600, John Adelsberger said:
>>
>>Distribution:
>>
>>
>>: You can't PROVE anything. You can't PROVE you exist, you can merely provide
>>: overwhelming evidence.
>>
>>can prove anything is impossible without my existence. If you intend
>>to argue metaphysical or epistemological claims, you should do some
>>reading. As of now, you haven't caught up to Descartes, who lived a
>>long, long time ago. 'I' necessarily implies 'I exist.'
>>
>
>Does Descartes exist? ;)
No, but he doesn't do much thinking these days either. :)
Sterling @ Wyld Knight
--
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http://wyld.qx.net/~rezo
re...@lords.com
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Seifert
>varying the local gravity using the castle.c file?
I'm flattered, but despite the last name, you've got the wrong Seifert. My
first name is Matt. I doubt I'm related to the Mike from the MUDs...
mwi...@my-deja.com
ry...@merit.edu (Marc Bowden) wrote:
> Oooh, there's a thought for my list. Hey Mike, what do you think
> about varying the local gravity using the castle.c file?
Hmm.. I don't know how many uses we'd put it too. But we could get
Jinx, the Easter Egg planet, out of it. Big, nasty heavy-worlder Easter
Chickens, five feet tall and three feet wide.
--
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mwi...@my-deja.com
"Seifert" <jsei...@zoomnet.net> wrote:
>> Oooh, there's a thought for my list. Hey Mike, what do you think
>> about varying the local gravity using the castle.c file?
>
> Seifert. My first name is Matt. I doubt I'm related to the Mike from
> the MUDs...
I think "Mike" is referring to me - It's my first name, I'm on his
design team, and he knows I follow even some of the most pointless
threads around here.