Need your help: Making a full Evennia example game

[Griatch Art]

This for all you developers out there who want to make a game with Evennia but are not sure about what game to make or where to start off.

We need an example game

One of the main critiques Evennia get from newbies is the lack of an (optional) full game implementation to use as an example and base to build from. So, Evennia needs a full, BSD-licensed example game. I'm talking "diku-like", something you could in principle hook up and allow players into within minutes of installing Evennia. The Tutorial world we already have is a start but it is more of a solo quest, it's not designed to be a full multiplayer game. Whereas Evennia supports other forms of MU* too, the idea is that the systems from a more "code-heavy" MUD could easily be extracted and adopted to a more freeform-style game whereas the reverse is not generally true.

The exact structure of such a game would be up to the person or team taking this on, but it should be making use of Evennia's api and come distributed as a custom game folder (the folder you get with evennia --init). We will set this up as a separate repository under the Evennia github organisation - a spin-off from the main evennia project, and maintained separately.


We need you!

Thing is, while I am (and, I'm sure other Evennia core devs) certainly willing to give considerable help and input on such a project, it's not something I have time to take the lead on myself. So I'm looking for enthusiastic coders who would be willing to step up to both help and take the lead on this; both designing and (especially) coding such an example game. Even if you have your own game in mind for the future, you still need to build most of these systems, so starting with a generic system will still help you towards that final goal - plus you get to be immortalized in the code credits, of course.

Suggestion for game

Being an example game, it should be well-documented and following good code practices (this is something we can always fix and adjust as we go though). The systems should be designed as stand-alone/modular as possible to make them easy to rip out and re-purpose (you know people will do so anyway). These are the general features I would imagine are needed (they are open to discussion):

• Generic fantasy theme (lore is not the focus here, but it can still be made interesting)
• Character creation module
• Races (say, 2-3)
  
• Classes (say 2-3)
• Attributes and Skills (based on D&D? Limit number of skills to the minimal set)
  
• Rule module for making skill checks, rolls etc (D&D rules?)
  
• Combat system (twitch? Turn-based?)
  
• Mobs, both friendly and aggressive, with AI
  
• Trade with NPC / other players (money system)
  
• Quest system
• Eventual new GM/admin tools as needed
• Small game world (batch-built) to demonstrate all features (of good quality to show off)
• more/less?
  

I'm interested!

Great! We are as a first step looking for a driven lead dev for this project, a person who has the enthusiasm, coding experience and drive to see the project through and manage it. You will (hopefully) get plenty of collaborators willing to help out but It is my experience that a successful hobby project really needs at least one person taking responsibility to "lead the charge" and having the final say on features: Collaborative development can otherwise easily mean that everyone does their own thing or cannot agree on a common course. This would be a spin-off from the main Evennia project and maintained separately as mentioned above.

Reply to this thread if you are willing to participate at any level to the project, including chipping in with code from your already ongoing development. I don't know if there'd be any "competition" over the lead-dev position but if multiple really enthusiastic and willing devs step forward we'll handle that then.

So get in touch!
.
Griatch

[Curtis Robison]

As suggested I'm showing interest in helping out with the following caveats for potential leads:

I am both an Evennia, Python and coding newbie, however, if there is anything I can contribute as a beginner I'd be glad to help out and probably learn in the process. I'm often sitting in the IRC but whomever might start getting a group together can also email me, of course. 

[butterdroid]

Oh, I'm up for this!

My coding is barely passable, but I'll see what needs done and pitch in. I was planning on making my little projects freely available anyway, so they can be used if whoever's in charge likes them.

-butterdroid

On Monday, 15 June 2015 12:38:00 UTC+2, Griatch Art wrote:

This for all you developers out there who want to make a game with Evennia but are not sure about what game to make or where to start off.

We need an example game

One of the main critiques Evennia get from newbies is the lack of an (optional) full game implementation to use as an example and base to build from. So, Evennia needs a full, BSD-licensed example game. I'm talking "diku-like", something you could in principle hook up and allow players into within minutes of installing Evennia. The Tutorial world we already have is a start but it is more of a solo quest, it's not designed to be a full multiplayer game. Whereas Evennia supports other forms of MU* too, the idea is that the systems from a more "code-heavy" MUD could easily be extracted and adopted to a more freeform-style game whereas the reverse is not generally true.

The exact structure of such a game would be up to the person or team taking this on, but it should be making use of Evennia's api and come distributed as a custom game folder (the folder you get with evennia --init). We will set this up as a separate repository under the Evennia github organisation - a spin-off from the main evennia project, and maintained separately.


We need you!

Thing is, while I am (and, I'm sure other Evennia core devs) certainly willing to give considerable help and input on such a project, it's not something I have time to take the lead on myself. So I'm looking for enthusiastic coders who would be willing to step up to both help and take the lead on this; both designing and (especially) coding such an example game. Even if you have your own game in mind for the future, you still need to build most of these systems, so starting with a generic system will still help you towards that final goal - plus you get to be immortalized in the code credits, of course.

Suggestion for game

Being an example game, it should be well-documented and following good code practices (this is something we can always fix and adjust as we go though). The systems should be designed as stand-alone/modular as possible to make them easy to rip out and re-purpose (you know people will do so anyway). These are the general features I would imagine are needed (they are open to discussion):

• Generic Tolkien-esque fantasy theme (lore is not the focus here, but it can still be made interesting)

• Character creation module
• Races (say, 2-3)
  
• Classes (say 2-3)
• Attributes and Skills (based on D&D? Limit number of skills to the minimal set)
  
• Rule module for making skill checks, rolls etc (D&D rules?)
  
• Combat system (twitch? Turn-based?)
  
• Mobs, both friendly and aggressive, with AI
  
• Trade with NPC / other players (money system)
  
• Quest system
• Eventual new GM/admin tools as needed
• Small game world (batch-built) to demonstrate all features (of good quality to show off)
• more/less?
  

[Griatch Art]

An update: People in chat and over on Optional realities (thread here) was seemingly under the impression that "Tolkien-esque theme" somehow restricted the game to the Tolkien Middle Earth. I did not mean this, to me, Tolkien-esque is just synonymous with "generic fantasy". 

So to be clear, I don't care about the lore used (as an engine dev I care about the game systems to come of this, not of the in-game motivation for them). I was just trying to pick something generic and unobtrusive. Just read "Generic fantasy theme" and make of it what you want. These points are just suggestions anyway, not rules.
.
Griatch

On Monday, June 15, 2015 at 12:38:00 PM UTC+2, Griatch Art wrote:

This for all you developers out there who want to make a game with Evennia but are not sure about what game to make or where to start off.

We need an example game

One of the main critiques Evennia get from newbies is the lack of an (optional) full game implementation to use as an example and base to build from. So, Evennia needs a full, BSD-licensed example game. I'm talking "diku-like", something you could in principle hook up and allow players into within minutes of installing Evennia. The Tutorial world we already have is a start but it is more of a solo quest, it's not designed to be a full multiplayer game. Whereas Evennia supports other forms of MU* too, the idea is that the systems from a more "code-heavy" MUD could easily be extracted and adopted to a more freeform-style game whereas the reverse is not generally true.

The exact structure of such a game would be up to the person or team taking this on, but it should be making use of Evennia's api and come distributed as a custom game folder (the folder you get with evennia --init). We will set this up as a separate repository under the Evennia github organisation - a spin-off from the main evennia project, and maintained separately.


We need you!

Thing is, while I am (and, I'm sure other Evennia core devs) certainly willing to give considerable help and input on such a project, it's not something I have time to take the lead on myself. So I'm looking for enthusiastic coders who would be willing to step up to both help and take the lead on this; both designing and (especially) coding such an example game. Even if you have your own game in mind for the future, you still need to build most of these systems, so starting with a generic system will still help you towards that final goal - plus you get to be immortalized in the code credits, of course.

Suggestion for game

Being an example game, it should be well-documented and following good code practices (this is something we can always fix and adjust as we go though). The systems should be designed as stand-alone/modular as possible to make them easy to rip out and re-purpose (you know people will do so anyway). These are the general features I would imagine are needed (they are open to discussion):

• Generic Tolkien-esque fantasy theme (lore is not the focus here, but it can still be made interesting)

• Character creation module
• Races (say, 2-3)
  
• Classes (say 2-3)
• Attributes and Skills (based on D&D? Limit number of skills to the minimal set)
  
• Rule module for making skill checks, rolls etc (D&D rules?)
  
• Combat system (twitch? Turn-based?)
  
• Mobs, both friendly and aggressive, with AI
  
• Trade with NPC / other players (money system)
  
• Quest system
• Eventual new GM/admin tools as needed
• Small game world (batch-built) to demonstrate all features (of good quality to show off)
• more/less?
  

[Graham Cox]

I'm interested! TIme permitting that is.

I'm totally new to Evennia, I have some level of Python experience, but I'm experienced in programming in general in a fair few other languages - Java and JVM based languages being my day job, but a fair amount of scripting work around that as well.

I won't have time to be lead dev unfortunately, what with work and life and all that (getting married in a few months!), but I'm certainly more than willing to help out where I can. I do have tech-lead(-ish - I'm not officially tech lead, but I do a fair bit of the job anyway) experience from work too, so if I can help out in any way then just let me know.

On Monday, 15 June 2015 11:38:00 UTC+1, Griatch Art wrote:

This for all you developers out there who want to make a game with Evennia but are not sure about what game to make or where to start off.

We need an example game

One of the main critiques Evennia get from newbies is the lack of an (optional) full game implementation to use as an example and base to build from. So, Evennia needs a full, BSD-licensed example game. I'm talking "diku-like", something you could in principle hook up and allow players into within minutes of installing Evennia. The Tutorial world we already have is a start but it is more of a solo quest, it's not designed to be a full multiplayer game. Whereas Evennia supports other forms of MU* too, the idea is that the systems from a more "code-heavy" MUD could easily be extracted and adopted to a more freeform-style game whereas the reverse is not generally true.

The exact structure of such a game would be up to the person or team taking this on, but it should be making use of Evennia's api and come distributed as a custom game folder (the folder you get with evennia --init). We will set this up as a separate repository under the Evennia github organisation - a spin-off from the main evennia project, and maintained separately.


We need you!

Thing is, while I am (and, I'm sure other Evennia core devs) certainly willing to give considerable help and input on such a project, it's not something I have time to take the lead on myself. So I'm looking for enthusiastic coders who would be willing to step up to both help and take the lead on this; both designing and (especially) coding such an example game. Even if you have your own game in mind for the future, you still need to build most of these systems, so starting with a generic system will still help you towards that final goal - plus you get to be immortalized in the code credits, of course.

Suggestion for game

Being an example game, it should be well-documented and following good code practices (this is something we can always fix and adjust as we go though). The systems should be designed as stand-alone/modular as possible to make them easy to rip out and re-purpose (you know people will do so anyway). These are the general features I would imagine are needed (they are open to discussion):

• Generic Tolkien-esque fantasy theme (lore is not the focus here, but it can still be made interesting)

• Character creation module
• Races (say, 2-3)
  
• Classes (say 2-3)
• Attributes and Skills (based on D&D? Limit number of skills to the minimal set)
  
• Rule module for making skill checks, rolls etc (D&D rules?)
  
• Combat system (twitch? Turn-based?)
  
• Mobs, both friendly and aggressive, with AI
  
• Trade with NPC / other players (money system)
  
• Quest system
• Eventual new GM/admin tools as needed
• Small game world (batch-built) to demonstrate all features (of good quality to show off)
• more/less?
  

[Jonathan Chen]

I am pretty familiar with Python, but not familiar at all with Evenia. How much time committment are you looking at? 

~Jonathan C.

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[Griatch Art]

Hi and welcome to the mailing list, Jonathan!

As usual with an Open-source project, time is something people donate as per their ability and real-life possibilities. Once someone has agreed to take on the project as lead-dev and the game structure/plan established, there will no doubt be plenty for people to contribute on, depending on how much effort and time they are willing to spend.
.
Griatch

[Jonathan Chen]

Yeah, I don't quite have the time for right now to be a lead-dev.

If there is a need to host the example game then I wouldn't mind in contributing time and resources to host it. 

~Jonathan C.

--

[George]

What are people's thoughts on what game system to use? d20 SRD? Are there are other open-source RPGs that are good candidates?

I'm looking for a project and I'm down to help out. 

[Graham Cox]

D20 SRD is well known, easy to implement and easy to play so it's not a bad choice. It's also flexible enough to only implement the bits you need and keep going rather than needing everything up front.

[Stefan Ludlow]

Icarus here. Also happy to help out, particularly with design and management of the team when it comes together. 

A blend between OpenRPI and RPI Engine (Diku Derivatives) would likely be decent candidates for a combat system to base off of. I'm not entirely sure if d20 or any of the other open rpgs are particularly good candidates, and even when thinking about it I'm not sure that Diku  is truly the best option. But it'd be a place to start! 

[Griatch Art]

For the purposes of this one could in principle go with something very straghtforward; going with D&D rules are fine but you may spend more time selecting the proper subset than pushing out working codes. I mean, all a skill/combat system needs may be something like

roll below Base Attribute + skill value on dice X to succeed.

This emulates the intent of basically all resolution systems and also includes a separation between attributes and skills (which are not strictly necessary either, but very common).
The Attributes could be the D&D classic ones and there could be a dozen skills to map out the basic possibility space.

A map to tie Attributes to skills where needed. One needs a way to gain experience to increase those numbers. Next, a way for characters (and npcs) to challenge each other (compare rolls, basically) as well as having the winner affect the loser some way - boom you have a combat system - and a magic system as well (if you keep it all skill-based there is no need for magic to work any differently from combat or any other skill challenges).

Just some ideas. This doesn't have to be very complicated out of the gate. Starting out basic and expand on that is fine. 
.
Griatch

[Time]

Hi there,
I can help in game mechanics design and logics. I have little experience with python and far more experience with rulesets and balancing. I cant provide any help with loring or area building. I had some success into mob programming and this could easily be translated into python code. I cant be a lead dev as I have no experience. I can provide both european and american host for free and system administration for the machine. I have very little experience with version controll but I can learn fast.

This is a very good idea, good shot Griatch

[George]

On Tuesday, June 16, 2015 at 12:45:30 AM UTC-7, Griatch Art wrote:

For the purposes of this one could in principle go with something very straghtforward; going with D&D rules are fine but you may spend more time selecting the proper subset than pushing out working codes.

I think the pros to going with an existing (popular) system outweigh the cons:

* It makes Evennia an attractive base because it includes something people want (I suppose you could see this as a downside if you want to avoid associating Evennia with a particular style of game).

* working from an existing system will save time over designing even a simple homebrew system. There are a lot of factors to consider even in a simple system, and going with something existing saves all of that choosing and team discussion

* even in a simple system the actual game rules (roll to hit, etc.) are only a part of the whole. Classes, races, skills, spells, item design, etc. are a big part and take quite a bit of time to create in my experience. An existing system gives you all that out of the box. 

[Graham Cox]

Done right, we can data drive all of the things like Class, Race, Skills and so on. That way we can make the core code work with the arbitrary data, and just drop the data in as and when we need it. It then means that if somebody wants to, they can take Evennia and this set of core systems, change all of the data and they've got a relatively custom MUD with relatively little work.

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[butterdroid]

I've been doing some digging regarding this. Like Griatch mentioned, this will probably be a decision by whoever takes lead, but I think using Open Adventure might be a good bet.

• It has all the basics already set out, including races and spells and whatnot.
• It's under a CC license. Credit and share alike. Which seems perfect for this kind of project.
• The rolling system is slightly unorthodox. Which will be invisible to the player, but an interesting note in how easy it is to code for Evennia.
• The base system is relatively light - but it then has modules to increase complexity that can be added upon as desired/needed.
• I believe there are some adventures under the same license, which could be adapted to populate the world.
• It also include SciFi rules, so if we wanted we could do something with that and avoid the whole fantasy/scifi issue.

http://geekguild.com/openadventure/

-butterdroid

[Che Nador]

Hi everyone.

I discovered evennia some time ago and over the last few months I tinkered with it a little bit. I found the code nice and funny to use, and it's also well documented. Great work Griatch!
Even though I think I can write quite nice and clean python code I don't think I am ready to be a "lead developer"... I don't really know. However I think I am willing to contribute as much as possible cause I like this project.

I see buttledroid mentioned Open Adventure... well I've aldready implemented it in my evennia-attempt. It's an amazing, modern rpg, simple and easy implementable in a MUD. It tooks a couple of hours and now OA it's a python module of less than 500 lines, descriptions of all classes and races included. I combined it with the combat handler found in the wiki and now I also have a complete combat system with little to no effort. I just adapted the standard roll (from the original 2d6-7 to 4d6-14 for better gaussian shape and resolution) and that's it. If someone want to check I'll share.

[Griatch Art]

This sounds very cool, Che Nador (and welcome to the forum by the way)!

If the code is visible somewhere it sounds very useful to use for reference!
.
Griatch

[Che Nador]

These are the basic rules needed for generate a character accordingly to the manual (Blue manual of OA, May 2015!).

Made a pastebin: http://pastebin.com/7HjwxKZh

Make sure to copy the "raw text" since it seems that pastebin changed the indentation a little bit after code highlighting. It comprises a little function to rolls the stats of the character; to test it I usually do:

import open_adventure (or whatever you name your file)
rpg_attributes = open_adventure.roll_character("arcanist", "elf", "agility", second_archetype="leader")

As I previously said the other part of the combat system is based on the combat handler:

https://github.com/evennia/evennia/wiki/Turn-based-Combat-System

The OA rolling system is based on a dice roll of 2d6-7, which lead to values from -5 to 5 with 0 as most probable value. However it has a single roll (which is a good thing) but the hit roll determine exactly the damage, so weapons that do more damage also hits more often. So I changed my hit roll and dmg roll to:
hit_roll = str + base_dmg - dex - armor + 4d6 - 14
if hit_roll > 0:
    dmg_roll = hit_roll + weapon

Also note that base_dmg is something not present in OA I added it as a way to put an "offset". And I moved the weapon (fixed damage) "outside" the hit roll.

This leads to these result:
http://i.imgur.com/ScS9oz3.png
Tested 1000 times, a something-like-a-mage trying to hit another mage, both level with poor weapons and  armors. Blue lines hit_roll, red dots damages (when hit).
Edit: hits 10% of the time

[Adam Sechrest]

Hello, all.

I'd chip in as well, in any capacity that I could, though I couldn't be a lead on anything.  I'm basically tinkering-level in both Evennia and Python.  I am a decent writer though, and a quick study.

-Adam

[George]

On Tuesday, June 16, 2015 at 10:20:45 AM UTC-7, Che Nador wrote:

I see buttledroid mentioned Open Adventure... well I've aldready implemented it in my evennia-attempt. It's an amazing, modern rpg, simple and easy implementable in a MUD. It tooks a couple of hours and now OA it's a python module of less than 500 lines, descriptions of all classes and races included. I combined it with the combat handler found in the wiki and now I also have a complete combat system with little to no effort. I just adapted the standard roll (from the original 2d6-7 to 4d6-14 for better gaussian shape and resolution) and that's it. If someone want to check I'll share.

OA looks really good! I can definitely get behind going with that, especially if we can use/adapt your code.  

[Time]

Fudge used something similar but more adaptive as you roll "XdF" where X is number of dice and the faces are not numbers but just plus or minus. You roll 10dF and you expect -10 to +10. Really straightforward, extremely adaptive.

[Griatch Art]

A normal type of  distribution (which is what both OA and Fudge/Fate are aiming for) is a good one for this kind of thing. Of course on the computer one doesn't necessarily need to use "dice" for this - Python can generate an actual gaussian distribution around 0, very easily:

import random
random.gauss(0, 3)

where 0 is the center of the distribution (average) with +/- 3 being the standard deviation from 0. The interesting thing with this is that you have a (very low )chance to get abnormally low and high values (critical fails/successes) as well (10000 throws):

[Griatch Art]

@Che Nador

This is a good example of a stand-alone rule module I think. It can easily be plugged into a character generation system, which calls the respective functions as needed (as the Player makes choices like which class to be etc). The critical attributes and stats you get out of this can be stored on the Character once you have generated them, but a minimal amount of rule code is actually on the Character typeclass - it can just access this when needed. Nice and clean and useful.
.
Griatch

[Graham Cox]

If you want to look at interesting systems, to showcase what's possible, the Deadlands system is quite cool. It works with a shuffled deck of playing cards, which only get reshuffled when you get to the bottom or when certain events happen. This means that the more good (or bad) things happen, the less likely they are to keep happening. They also do some crazy things with jokers.

The dice system is a nice dice pool system too, where you roll xDy exploding dice. The number of dice you roll depends on your skill level in that skill, and the size of the dice depends on the statistic that the skill is associated with. The dice then explode, so you can get some interesting chains from that. (Exploding means that if you roll the highest value, you roll another dice and add them together. And you keep going. D4s are very nice for this)

This might be too complicated for the example system we're talking about, but on the other hand doing something more complicated like that might showcase what's possible with the system instead of just sticking to something simple.

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[Che Nador]

@Griatch

It was really easy, the character creation of OA seems born to be implemented in a MUD :D



@Time

Fudge uses 1d3 - 2 which is good when multiple dice are thrown:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=5d3-10

a little bit different from 2d6 - 7 used in Open Adventure:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2d6-7

or 4d6 -14 which I'am experimenting with

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=4d6-14

I think the Fudge dice can be useful to scale up the dice rolls when character level rise, because you can increase the number of dice to not lose resolution and multiply by a level_scaling_factor the final result... great idea!

I found a good lecture about this:
http://www.redblobgames.com/articles/probability/damage-rolls.html

[ad...@optionalrealities.com]

Hey,

My name is Jeshin and I am the owner of an evennia development effort called Project Redshift. I am also the founder of Optional Realities which is a text-based community dedicated to development discussions and giving future devs the tools they need to produce the games of tomorrow. It's sappy I know but the point of this point is to inform anyone who is not familiar with OR that the OR Staff is committed to consulting on this project. We have also promised a private and public subforum on our community page for the projects team if they want it. Don't forget the Evennia IRC will also be helping you out so that's a lot of talented people who can't take the lead themselves willing to support you.

This project is akin to creating the default DIKU / TinyMUD / PennMUSH systems. I think being on the credits for it will be a source of pride for any developer and whomever takes the lead will obviously get some invaluable hands on experience in development. I urge anyone with the experience or the motivation to be the lead to discuss it with Griatch. You don't have to be perfect, you just have to have the dedication to see the project through to the end.

[George]

Hello all, 

The reference to Open Adventure stoked my interest, and in an effort to get the ball rolling I've created a short document that describes a subset of the Open Adventure system (mostly using its complete rules, linked in the doc). I've also briefly sketched the setting. If people find this interesting we can develop it further. 

I've given it the original name of Ainneve, the Evennia demo game ;)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fu-zYvFytKHGxFHD6_bLQ4FrotAQ0izXuWE_gn8q2Oc/edit?usp=sharing

regards, George

[Jonathan Chen]

If someone starts a repo I can start working on some of the code. (I do not write content :P)

~Jonathan C.

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[Stefan Ludlow]

Very nice George. I might take a look at this and make some suggested modifications.

[butterdroid]

Looks like a solid start, George. I've only skimmed over the Basic rulebook, so I'll need to read over the Complete one before making more constructive comments. *nudges*

[Adam Sechrest]

Nice work, George. I'll read over it tonight. I'm new to Open Adventure.

--

Adam Sechrest

[whitenoise]

Good proposal. I'm down to contribute, and can be used as a technical lead. I've been around Evennia a long time and work professionally in this area.

[Corey Woodworth]

I'm interested. I can read python, build, maybe something else. =)

[whitenoise]

Oh hallo. Is this thing on? I'm interested.

[Che Nador]

@George and other folks
Hi, pay attention that you are reading the RED MANUAL, which is not updated and not complete! In that manual the character creation is not present! You simply distribute points between stats, which is not funny. The BLUE MANUAL is updated May 2015 and shows the character creation based on "archetypes".

I'll explain why this is good: if the goal is to recreate the standard DikuMud the standard 5 classes has to be implemented (mage, cleric, warrior, ranger, thief) in a way or another. Well, if I want to be a cleric I will choose the archetype "healer". But if I want to be a cleric with a mace, going around crushing skeletons and undeads I will choose the mixed archetype "healer" and "warrior", which allow me to still be a proficent caster, but gave a little bit more strenght. So I can create characters with different backgrounds/stats just mixing archetypes, and not using numbers (points assigned to "primary traits" are partially random though, 2d6 added by the player says the manual).
I think this is a nice way to mix the standard classes with an innovative character creation system.

Nice work though! ;)

Edit: also remember that the rpg system it is likely to be the last thing implemented in a MUD, you don't have to think about implementing the entire manual now, things will come when needed ;). The good thing is to have a complete rulebook, as a reference, ready to be consulted!

[whitenoise]

All,

It seems like there is hesitation with everyone to take leadership of the project. George has likely come the closest, so if he wants it he should take it.

If this is not the case, however, then I would put myself forward as the lead for the project. There is enough community interest that my own personal time constraints from work and life should not slow it down in a major capacity. However "lead" slices out though does not ultimately matter to me. If George takes lead I've told him I would serve as his technical voice of reason.

Given people's skillsets, we should be able to effectively split everyone into a Core team and an Area team. Core team would be working on the engine: attributes, character creation, combat... and the Area team would work on: room/mob typeclasses, room/mob descriptions, mapping (if wanted), etc. At some points the teams would have to work together, for example AI, and we will always need to make sure we're on the same page, of course.

As far as workflow, I would like to propose we have a Project Manager type of person, which I imagine to be George. Jeshin would also be good at this, but he has commitments elsewhere so I won't drag him into it. These people would be making sure everyone was communicating, requirements and ideas were posted, GitHub issues were current and labeled, and that people were keeping to priority actions. If someone new wants to "do something", they would come to one of these people to be given where to start. 

As far as the git repository, I think we should follow a PR and just work right off of the master, given the size of the project. I would want a few people to come up as code reviewers, to look at PRs and be able to merge them. Everyone else would be submitting PRs. This way we could keep an eye on incoming code to check it for quality, syntax, etc and make sure it is going to fit into the system.

The basic/blue rulebook can be found here: https://github.com/openadventure/Open-Adventure/blob/master/rulebook/biem/openadventure_basic.pdf

I will be starting on some code today.

[Graham Cox]

The only thing that stopped myself going forward for lead was time constraints - it's little enough as it is, and it's only going to get less in the next few months. Otherwise I'd have jumped at the chance :)

For the git repo - I think it makes sense to have a new repo under the Evennia organisation, but then everyone contributing can just fork that, do their work and put it up as a pull request, same as you would normally on Github. It then comes down to the lead - or whoever they nominate too - to authorize the pull requests when they are happy with them, which would likely be when they are reviewed enough.

I don't know the Evennia base well enough, but do we want to worry about things like automated tests for quality? If so, it's worth looking into setting TravisCI up as an automated CI system (It's free for public Github repos, and it's fantastic) just to ensure that the build doesn't break. It's all python I believe, so there's no reason not to do it, but it does add the extra burden of writing tests for your code as well that not everyone likes. 

I also assume that the project doesn't need anything special for project management beyond just forum/mailing list, or at most Github Issues. And I'm not sure that it needs anything special for documentation/design beyond either writing Markdown files committed to the repo, or at most using the Github Wiki for stuff. It would be nice to have some decent documentation for exactly what was done in this project, so that anyone who picks it up as a base down the line isn't just dropped in the deep end with a load of code but instead actually has some documentation on how it all works, why, and what to do with it.

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[George]

On Sunday, June 21, 2015 at 4:02:40 AM UTC-7, Che Nador wrote:

@George and other folks
Hi, pay attention that you are reading the RED MANUAL, which is not updated and not complete! In that manual the character creation is not present! You simply distribute points between stats, which is not funny. The BLUE MANUAL is updated May 2015 and shows the character creation based on "archetypes".

Hi Che Nador, 

Good points! Looking at it again I do like the Basic archetype system more. However I'm not a fan of the preset stats. Perhaps we could combine the Basic archetypes with a point distribution for stats (obviously each archetype would have a base set of stats). While it may not be as exciting as random rolls (indeed many early muds used random stat rolls) I think point distribution is more flexible and player friendly. Remember how players used to just reroll characters 100 times to get the stats they wanted? 

regards, George

[Griatch Art]

Whenever someone steps up to be lead-dev, I'll set aside a new repo under the Evennia organisation with an initialized game repository and give the lead push rights to it as needed. I'll also set up a separate post category here in this forum/mailing list for the demo game discussions.

A github repo has full access to wiki pages etc, so there's a lot of possibilities there. I've also seen other projects use the wiki to host "whitepages" on which everyone can contribute to polish concepts.

Evennia uses TravisCL for our unittesting and for your own sanity it's highly recommended to make unittests and link those up to Travis - game systems can easily drift out of sync as people add stuff otherwise.
.
Griatch

[Che Nador]

@whitenoise

If you are going to be the lead and want me in your team I will serve you with good code!

@George

That is exactly what I was thinking. Rerolling the character 100 times is not random... is completely deterministic. Of course a random part/distribution is always needed, but this archetypes selection add thickness, balance and let players roll the character they have in mind.

[Xirrin]

Is it too late to get in on this project? I'd love to help out where I can, wherever that might be. I've got some experience with MUDs as a player and Imm for a number of years. Would love to help come up with design concepts. I've always been interested in learning Python and have always thought Evennia was a pretty awesome project. My coding experience is EXTREMELY light - 10+ years ago did some HTML, CSS, ASP.NET, PHP, and Javascript. Been trying to teach myself some Python and am almost through LPTHW by Zed Shaw. Please let me know how I can participate if there is still an opportunity to do so!

[George]

On Monday, July 13, 2015 at 2:14:25 PM UTC-7, Xirrin wrote:

Is it too late to get in on this project? I'd love to help out where I can, wherever that might be. I've got some experience with MUDs as a player and Imm for a number of years. Would love to help come up with design concepts. I've always been interested in learning Python and have always thought Evennia was a pretty awesome project. My coding experience is EXTREMELY light - 10+ years ago did some HTML, CSS, ASP.NET, PHP, and Javascript. Been trying to teach myself some Python and am almost through LPTHW by Zed Shaw. Please let me know how I can participate if there is still an opportunity to do so!

hi Xirrin, 

It's not too late, it'd be great to have you join in. Check out our current issues list to see what people are working on right now:

https://github.com/evennia/ainneve/issues 

If you have questions you can ask here of course or you often can find folks on IRC, http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=evennia . We have several people familiar with Ainneve who hang out there (Time-, Nadorrano, Icarus among others), the project's technical lead, whitenoise, and myself the main point of contact. 

best, George