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[Niklas Elmqvist]

Hello, all,

Don't know if any of you (except perhaps Greg Munt) remember me, but I was
part of the mailing list six months or so back, but had to drop out
because of RL concerns (I started university). I have now relocated to a
new city, taken up studying in computer science and established myself
enough so that I have some free time to kill, which is why I resubscribed
to MUD-Dev. ;) 

My pet project used to be a from-scratch MUD server called PirateMUD,
written in C with what I at the time thought as "neato things", i.e. an
internal byte-code language, moving rooms (vehicles), semi-intelligent
mobs and strong quest emphasis. Since then, however, I have realized that
Pirate was not going anywhere (it just sat on our server for several
months with lots of stuff unimplemented -- combat, for one thing) and
scrapped the whole project. I believe that I encountered sort of the
same problem as Greg did with Frontiers, i.e. I implemented first without
thinking about the design. 

Presenting MoleMUD, my new project which is to be written in C++ (although
no actual code has been written besides quick prototypes of specific
techniques, mind you), is being designed using proven OOD methods such as
Booch and Jacobson, and will feature a Duncton Wood-inspired world (based
on the Duncton Chronicles by English author William Horwood) with the
players taking the role as moles (yes!).

However, the actual world (and the name) is irrelevant -- at least I plan
to implement it that way. I mentioned about how I wanted the actual server
to be completely modularized (ideally, the core server would not even
*know* it is running a MUD) to a friend of mine (who is equally interested
in OO analysis/design/programming as I am), and he instantly reflected on
the similarity of my system to conventional OS architecture. Spurred by
this, I started experimenting with dynamic loading and eventually came up
with (what I perceive to be) a neat architecture where the server only
consists of a few select core components, and all the game functionality
is dynamically loaded (and unloaded, allowing for a non-reboot philosophy)
as plug-ins during run-time. Nothing sensational, it's all been done
before, but I could outline my little scheme here if there is interest.

Now, having read the synopses (sp?) of several of the server projects
belonging to members of this list, I have seen many similarities with my
own thoughts, which is reassuring. However, I won't deny that many of the
concepts described here are completely alien to me (disk-based servers,
for one thing, using "real" DB managers to take care of the world,
for another), and that MoleMUD (or MoleOS or whatever the actual core 
server will be called) will profit greatly from the input I get from this
list.

Well, that's all for now, I guess. I would be happy to respond to any
questions regarding MoleMUD or anything else.

/Nick

-- Niklas Elmqvist (d97elm at dtek.chalmers.se) -----------------------
 "Stuck? You're an alien," said Johnny. "Aliens don't get stuck in 
  air ducts. It's practically a well-known fact."
	- Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind