[MUD-Dev] Software combinations

[Scatter]

"Ian C. Smith" <icsmi2 at student.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>I was just wondering what it takes to write a mudlib, and whether it
>is worth writing one from a really basic one (e.g. foundation).

It can easily take a couple of years, depending on how much time you 
spend on it of course, to write a good mudlib from scratch. You'll need
a good appreciation of object oriented design and a solid design
before you start. Experience in C or C++ will help you greatly as LPC
is very similar in most respects and you quickly learn the ways the
object model differs from C++.

>I'm completely new to all of this, so any information/links would be 
>very much appreciated.

If you are completely new, as in you have never worked on an LPC mudlib
before, then I would recommend that you don't attempt to write one
from scratch. Although there are benefits in doing so, you do need
experience to know what the things-to-avoid-doing are. You would
probably be best off finding a mudlib that works the way you want your
mud to work, as near as possible, and then customising/rewriting as
necessary. There are a fair number of libs out there these days so
you should be able to locate one that offers most of what you need.

>Oops, forgot point 2 - I was wondering which server/driver is the
>most suitable and (perhaps) easiest to use for someone like me (a
>fair amount of programming xp, but no experience with MUD
>development).

To a large extent this depends upon which mudlib you want to use -
it can be awkward to convert between the different flavours of LPC
used by the different drivers, and you need to know the quirks of
each to be able to fix problems. So you need to either choose a
mudlib and then use the driver it was written for, or decide upon
a driver and then choose a mudlib that has been written for it.

As far as drivers go there are four main ones - Amylaar, LDMud,
DGD and MudOS. MudOS is my own preference (though largely for
sentimental reasons) but its development is largely stagnant these
days. Amylaar is probably the oldest, most traditional flavour.
LDMud I know very little about other than it is being actively
developed. DGD is a fairly recent newcomer, the only one not based
on the original LPMud driver. It has some advanced features and
is probably your only option for commercial use but as it is new
and the least compatible with older LPMud flavours there aren't
many mudlibs to choose from for it.

--
Scatter ///\oo/\\\



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