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I would like to start a mud. Godwars dystopia and I have no money or know how to code, can I have some help?

Well, if I were you I'd start with a little longer post... generally when you want help from someone, you want to give them an indication you've actually done some work yourself. Otherwise, it seems like you want them to do all the work for you. You've actually indicated this even moreso, however, given that you only talk about the things you *haven't* done, like learn how to code, raise money, or do research.

I've answered this question a number of times on these forums... and there are numerous other people who have answered it more than me. It would probably be in your benefit to search previous threads to find those answers before posting here... as, otherwise, you're unlikely to get many responses. (Unless, of course, I'm around, and procrastinating when I should be learning the order and names of works published by long since dead Spanish authors for my final, today... *Sigh*...)

However, I will briefly give you some hints. Many hosts offer accounts for free, and additionally, will manytimes set up a codebase for you to start with. IsUnlimited is one of these hosts which you can find at isunlimited.net. Others can be found in the Resources section. --- You need to know how to code. You can learn to do that either by taking a class (your highschool probably offers one, or if not, your local community college), buying a book (amazon would be a good place to look), or just screwing around with the code your host installs for you until you figure things out. Those are listed in increasing order of difficulty. If you go with the last option (which I wouldn't recommend), you can find basic UNIX commands on google (and basic tutorials and instructions as well). "cd" changes directory, and "ls" lists your files in your current directory. You should start by using a vi editor, which you can also find out about on google. It is issued by the command "vi <file>".

Best of Luck,
-Jess

If your interested in using Godwars code, take a look at www.godwars.net (pretty much anything you want on GW can be found here). A great place to download code can be found at www.mudmagic.com with some excellent forums for beginners to the mud community/hosting.

Wish you Luck
Syn

Man_Jess said:

You should start by using a vi editor, which you can also find out about on google. It is issued by the command "vi <file>".

No no no no...you should use pico/nano! =)

Anyway, if you know nothing about coding, I recommend a book. Tis how I learned all my coding, anyway, but I learn better from books.

I'm a bit prejudiced, but I recommend Python. Very powerful, and very easy to learn. Lots of good books for it as well.

-Kuros

Meh, I never liked pico. For me, it's either an IDE or vi... but then again, I'm weird.

As for the python thing, though, I'd probably suggest against it. That has nothing to do with the language, though, but there are only a few codebases around in it... and as far as I'm aware, they aren't as fully implemented as the ones in C are. That being said, since he's getting into MUD development, I'd figure he should probably start with C. (This would be a necessity, as well, if he *really* wanted to do Godwars)

*shrug* Then again, I'm just some rambling idiot. *smile*

Best of Luck,
-Jess

Easy Editor all the way! (ee <file>)

Nah, 'ed' is the best editor in the world. :-)

But seriously, if you want to start your own mud, you should first try learning about Python, Ruby, C/C++. If you have alot of time on your hands, try downloading one of the stock bases and try to manipulate the code here and there to get the hang of it.

If you want to get a bit more creative than just going with a 'stock' game base, you might want to take a look at LPMuds. Dead Souls (Version 2) is a good place to start as its rather easy to setup and get running. The documentation behind it is also easy to read and understand.

Dead Souls V2: http://dead-souls.net/

-- Michael

Mann_Jess said:

As for the python thing, though, I'd probably suggest against it. That has nothing to do with the language, though, but there are only a few codebases around in it... and as far as I'm aware, they aren't as fully implemented as the ones in C are. That being said, since he's getting into MUD development, I'd figure he should probably start with C. (This would be a necessity, as well, if he *really* wanted to do Godwars)

Well, true. But, I think a key requirement to work on something like a MUD is being able to think in terms of coding.

In my opinion, it would be a lot better to learn the basic concepts common to all languages, and programming techniques, in an easier language, and then move to a harder one to do MUDs with.

It's a lot easier to learn the actual concepts behind TCP servers or whatnot when you aren't having to look for that missing { or ;, at least in my opinion.

If, however, he is wanting to immediatly jump into MUD coding with Godwars, by all means, pick up a C book. I think this is a bad idea, myself, but your choice.

Additionally, people are a lot more likely to enjoy programming and keep at it if their first experience doesn't involve tearing your hair out over missing ;'s and such in C.

-Kuros

*shrug* I've never actually programmed in Python, so that would be my limitation. Personally, I don't find C to be all that hard, though. I mean, there are VB and Pascal, which would certainly be easier to learn, but then you have to look at practical applications. I don't know where Python ranks, however, it would be my personal impression that the project itself, which you work on, be more of a drive for a future programmer than the language you're working in. That being said, it would be my best guess that working on the MUD of his dreams would be more likely to drive him to learn a hard language, than a substitute project he wasn't as enthusiastic about would be to drive him to learn an easy one.

But in any case, that's all speculation. *smile* It's unfortunate that he wouldn't be able to try numerous languages to see which one best suited him... seeing as, as soon as he goes to the effort of learning one language, which doesn't fit his tastes, he's not going to have the initiative or urge to learn another one thereafter. I'm teaching a couple people java at the moment, and that issue comes up every once in a while, with me wondering if I should have started them on something different.

*shrug* Oh well.

Best of Luck,
-Jess

Well, not to sound like a Python fanboy (even though I am)...

It's easier than BASIC, but there are fairly efficient 3D Engines written in it. As well, Eve Online (both client and server) are written in Python (stackless, but it's still pure python).

Eve Online has the largest game world in the industry (over 25K people on one server).

I mean, you can write a multiplexing chat server in about 12 lines of code.

But enough proselytizing from me. =)

-Kuros

It's easier than BASIC, but there are fairly efficient 3D Engines written in it. As well, Eve Online (both client and server) are written in Python (stackless, but it's still pure python).

Errmm..easier than BASIC....? I mean is that even possible? I taught my cat how to code in BASIC in under an hour. Okay, so I'm kidding but seriously, anything easier than BASIC must be extremely easy, and as such it may not be that bad for a beginner to start with.

*meow* This is Drizzt's cat Yang. He's actually not joking I know BASIC, but am a fast learner for a cat. He said it was a joke so that if any other cats were reading this they wouldn't be jealous, but screw them.

Python is one of the easier languages for beginners. There are certainly pluses to python over C. It provides for both functional *and* imperative programming where C really only caters to imperative styles. It also is an easy language to set up a scripting language in so you can very easily provide scriptable, sandbox type environments. Not to mention memory management so you don't usually have to spend all your coding time tracking down memory leaks. Personally, I'd love to see a mud done in IronPython since the .NET memory management and runtime engine is one of the best around.

Cheers

I'm up for an IronPython MUD if you want to help. =)

I've written one in Python, but perhaps an IronPython one would attract more interest.

-Kuros

Hey Kuros,
I've already started an engine for a MUD that will be IronPython based. I have the network layer complete and have completed about 40% of the object model. I currently have rooms, areas, characters (pc and npc), and items. There are also objects in place for managing commands and skills. Every command in the mud is based on an IronPython script which is registered in a database. I am using MySql as the data provider with nHibernate acting as the persistence gateway. The engine is written entirely in C#. Let me know if you want to collaborate.

Hey Sandog,

Sounds pretty cool. Give me an email, or send me one (or some way to contact you) and we can talk more. Do you have a website up?

-Kuros

Hey Kuros,
You can send me email to solanis[DOT]realms[AT]gmail[DOT]com. Please replace [DOT] with '.' and [AT] with '@'.

I don't have a website for the MUD up yet. I have a website setup already but no content - I'm mostly a back-end/server developer and don't have much GUI experience so setting up cool looking websites is not my strength. I do have a website and plenty of diskspace to host if you have any ideas. I'll post some information about the engine and some class diagrams if I can blow the dust of cygwin and doxygen to generate the class files. If you want to visit what I have (again, nothing mentioned about the Mud engine yet) go to http://solanis.servehttp.com.

(Comment added by sandog on Wed Dec 20 11:17:05 2006)

I typed the url wrong so it won't resolve. I accidently placed another period after the .com so it's looking for the . domain! Anyway, heres the corrected address: http://solanis.servehttp.com

To get back on topic of the thread (sorry about the hijack). I have to disagree with an earlier post stating that Python is easier than BASIC. I think, in this case, the op might be a bit bias - not that it isn't a good thing - but BASIC has got to have the easiest syntax of any language around. It was designed specifically to allow almost human readable code to be produced - primarily in a structured learning environment. I call BASIC the "gateway" language because a lot of people "cut their teeth" on BASIC before moving on to other languages. I can state personally that I became enamored with programming in the 9th grade when I read a sidebar in my Trig book that explained how to do polynomial expansion - in BASIC - and I was able to pretty much follow the program flow. That would have been near impossible for Python. One other thing that is an extremely important difference is that, like BASIC, python is an interpreted language. It does not compile into an executable. It is bytecode, but still interpreted, so you will always be limited by the sandbox that is provided by the engine. C/C++ do not have this limitation (C# is an interpreted language as well, it produces IL code which is then run through .Net runtime to produce machine instructions).

I'm just playing devils advocate here, so please don't take this as a flame. I do happen to like Python, a lot, and I think it's a very powerful language and can be used to produce some heavyweight applications. (I did NOT know that Eve was written in Python - that is an accomplishment considering how many records that game has broken already). Before C# came along I probably would have been a Python fanboi, but now that my love is here I can't think of any other language with the eloquence and smooth flow of writing a C# program.

So I shouldn't teach Python to my cat?

Coffeemud ( http://www.zimmers.net/home/mud/ )
is also a good option for someone with zero coding
skill who wants to start a mud right this minute.
Probably better than Dead Souls, even, because the
amount of prefab stuff is vast. Seriously. Vast.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

This is a purely academic question. One side effect of hating your job is lack of motivation even when it comes to hobbies. I sometimes, however, fantasize about having a hobby other than watching CSI reruns, and some posters' comments about Python prompted me to do a quick search of Amazon.

I found /Python for Dummies/, /Game Programming for Python, Lua and Ruby/, and /Mud Game Programming./

I'm curious, does anyone have a recommendation?

MUD Game Programming is quite nice. It walks you through sockets, telnet, etc etc, all the way through a hybrid C++/Python MUD.

A basic knowledge of C++ is very helpful when reading it, though. So is familiarity with C++'s STL.

Game Programming for Python is also nice. It walks you through building several simple games, and covers most aspects of game development with Python, such as graphics, sound, networking, the A* algorithm, etc etc.

(I've read them both)

For a Python tutorial-type book, I learned from Core Python Programming by Wesley J Chun. Programming Python from O'reilly is good as well.

-Kuros

(Comment added by Kuros on Wed Dec 20 21:36:20 2006)

Oh, but for writing an actual MUD, I recommend:

Core Python Programming and MUD Game Programming. That should show you all you need to know.

-Kuros