it was the client program for the mud...i think t was called avalon or something...they had someone program a application that connected to the server...instead of just using telnet

Actually, I play Age of Empires 2 all day. Although I don''t like to admit it, it is one hell of a game. Though MS only licensed it, Ensemble Studios made it, damn good programmers.

Although I disagree, many people read, especially those that use a command-line Linux, the kernel hacking guru''s though.



-----------------------------

A wise man once said "A person with half a clue is more dangerous than a person with or without one."

If you are programming window''s games and Windows is on about 90% of the desktops then DirectX is a *widely* used API. How many game developers out there do you see switching from Open GL to DirectX support? In the beginning, OpenGL was the king of 3D api''s, but DirectX has caught up and the feature list in DirectX 8 has all but sealed the faith of OpenGL on the Windows platform at least.

But if you''re writing a PC based game chances are you''re writing one based on the Windows OS. Goto your local software store, whether it be EB, Wal Mart, Software ETC, Egghead, whatever... Look at the section of PC games and see how many are made for Windows. Then goto the section of all the other games written for a computer and take the sum of all the other games written for a computer (not a console system, that doesn''t count till X-Box ) and compare the sum of the numbers to the amount of Window OS specific games.

Remember, Microsoft wrote Windows, they are going to everything they can to get developers to jump on the DirectX bandwagon, remember netscape? Anything!

-------------------------------------
00000001 - My 2 bits

I actually used to play MUDS, but I realized that games with graphics are just so much more fun. Instead of typing ''forward'', I can just push w and see my guy move forward. I have never been one to like slow turn based games.

-Andreas

quote: Original post by Icarus
I have never been one to like slow turn based games.

ROFL
I do not know of any other game that has more fast-paced action than some muds, MUME for example. Quake makes your hands sweat ? I tell you, you havent been sweating, man .... Actually saying "any other game" is not correct, because MUME is not a game, its a VR. Virtual Reality.
I was MUME-addict couple years ago, and believe me, it was much harder to quit MUMEing than smoking ... theres your slow turn based game.

-kertropp

C:\Projects\rg_clue\ph_opt.c(185) : error C3142: 'PushAll' :bad idea
C:\Projects\rg_clue\ph_opt.c(207) : error C324: 'TryCnt': missing point

quote: Original post by gameprogrammerwiz

instead of a mud i would learn directx and make a MMORPG (massivly multiplayer online role plaing game). this is what i am doing, my tile engine is already done.

thats just my two cents

Well, there is a big difference between typical MUDs (at least in the traditional sense) and a MMORPG, but IMO being graphical isn''t one of them. Where in the acronym do you see anything to do with graphics? The difference between a typical MUD and a MMORPG is going to be the world size and the number of concurrent connections it can handle. Typical MUD''s (i know there are some expceptions but they are few and far between) run on on one PC and store everything at runtime in memory, that is just not possible with a MMORPG, where you are talking about several thousand concurrent connections and a world size in the Gb range. So all of a sudden you have to deal with a synchronized multi server environment. Being graphical or not really has nothing to do with it, that is mostly the client. Granted the world will be designed a little different in a graphical version, as the smallest geographical area in a text-based version would probably be a room (but there is nothing saying this has to be the case), whereas a graphical version would probably have something a little smaller.

Hitman

I think people have to remember that MUDs are probably the most successful and longest running games around, let alone the most successful massively multiplayer games around. A lot of people think that games like UO or EQ were the start of the mmorpg - wrong. They are just a graphics engine overlaid on a mud engine (for the most part, anyway).
One of the best things about muds is that they require nearly no resources to play - they can be played anywhere that has a telnet connection. I played MUME for days and hours on end, until I realised how addicted I had become, and regretfully quit. Nothing beats the challenge of RL human opponents.
The other thing that MUDs have that UO and EQ lack is atmosphere. I loved being a character straight out of Lord of the Rings while playing MUME, got to kill Bill Ferny, waste some spirits in the barrow downs - the graphics may look pretty, but they can never compare with what the imagination can conjure.
So go on playing your UO and EQ - the "newbie" mmorpg''s - while those of us with a little imagination remember (or still play) the MUDs which have stood the test of time.

Could you explain the flagstone thing? I have no idea what you mean by them. Normally areas contain numerous rooms.

I can also see no point in what you call ''Abstracts''. If you don''t know what something is, or how to store it, your code can''t use it! Could you elaborate, as I''m sure you have some purpose for it.

As for the turn-based vs. real-time thing... well, nearly all muds run on 1/4 second ''turns'', and that is usually just fine for most purposes. If you went to an entirely event-based system, you can''t just wait for user input: what if one of your non-player characters needs to act? Basically you need to poll for input from PCs, process that, poll for events, process that, and repeat. The only thing that varies is whether you wait 0.25s before you repeat it and whether you use a ''real-time'' event system rather than just timing things in pulses, etc.

What de hell are those flames about MUD''s? I haven''t played many, but I know they are fun, just like pencil-and-papers RPG''s are. And so is UO. You''re trying to mix very different things. Ultima Online has good graphics etc but it puts very heavy restrictions on what your character can do. It''s also not extensive. Oh yeah, the server can do many weird things(check the sphereserver with the recently added support for COM/DCOM to see what I mean) but we can''t add much. Suppose a shard wants to create a new monster type. It cannot. Period. It can do like in Diablo, were we had many colored skeletons that are the same thing except for the magic resistances.
In a MUD, we can do what we want. A new monster? Go ahead. Create the game data for it, the statistics and we are done.

And there''s nothing that prohibits Shadow Mint to create graphics for it if he wants.


-----------------
Microsoft''s X-BOX

"This game has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. Press select+start+delete to restart."

The real difference between most MuD''s and other Online
games like UO or EQ are, as someone mentioned the atmoshphere. Graphics DO ruin the atmosphere in the games
in one way.. It makes it really easy to play ( And it does
limit it heavily.. If the developer wants to add new things,
like Kunark in EQ or the seconds age lands in UO, they have
to give out a new package and have the players pay for that
as well..) and easy to play also means that its much easier
for a 12 year old brat to learn how to play it.. And as soon
as the brats get their hands on the game and starts running around screaming ''GIME STUF PLZ GOT PKED LOST ALL MONEY PLZ THX!!!!!!!!!!'' around the bank of britian or freeport I pretty much lose interest in playing the game..

Why play a game invaded by this plague when I can open up
a telnet connection and enter a free world created by
dedicated coders ( Who made it for fun and not for
money ) and interact with a world filled with better AI,
nicer gameplay and much more mature players?
( This does of course not apply to all Mud''s, because of
the major release of free stock muds/areas out there the
MuD world have been swamped with MuD''s that totally stink)

I''m not saying that EQ or UO sucks, because they dont, I
myself played UO 5-10 hours per day the first year it was
out and EQ the same amount of time since it came out.. but
sooner or later I find myself returning to playing MuD''s,
because in one way they offer something special.. something
I can''t define. But I''m still looking forward to the release
of the next MMORPG, it''ll probably have me hooked for a year
or soo =)