Internet Info 1993

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Internet Info 1993 / Internet Info CD-ROM (Walnut Creek) (1993).iso / answers / rec / games / mud-faq / diku < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1993-12-21 | 29.5 KB | 682 lines

Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.diku,rec.answers,news.answers Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!gatech!swrinde!sgiblab!wetware!kaiwan.com!thc From: thc@kaiwan.com (Reni) Subject: rec.games.mud.diku FAQ Message-ID: <CICnHn.4nq@kaiwan.com> Followup-To: poster Reply-To: mondays@bsu-cs.bsu.edu Organization: KAIWAN Internet Access (310-527-4279,714-539-0829,452-9166,818-579-6701) X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 19:58:35 GMT Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Lines: 667 Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu rec.games.mud.diku:6950 rec.answers:3428 news.answers:16045 Archive-name: games/mud-faq/diku ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ DikuMud FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Changes: o Changes in the echo on/off steps, as argued in rec.games.mud.diku. Credits go to a few people on this. :) o Removed gopher information, the gopher is dead. NOTE: I am going to be re-writting this FAQ, mainly to fit the upcoming format that isgoing to be suggested for use by all faqs. I am looking for your information. Have any ftp sites I do not know about? Any bug fixes, patched, code, stories, anything you would like to share? Please please let me know. You can contact me via mondays@bsu-cs.bsu.edu or mondays@asgard.cs.bsu.edu Authored/Compiled by Frederick Myers <reni> <mondays@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> This document will be posted bi-weekly to rec.games.mud.diku. Approximated size of this document: 28k The following is the FAQ for rec.games.mud.diku and a general game FAQ for DikuMud games. This FAQ is divided up into three different sections: INTRO (general information and background) , IMP_BUILDING (questions concerning starting a mud, building areas, etc), and FTP (well known ftp sites for various Diku mud utilities, patches, and sources). More information on muds can be received from rec.games.mud.announce (a general 3 part mud FAQ is posted there), online within whichever mud you decided to play, and from the various ftp sites located at the end of this document. All information is correct to the best of my knowledge. I take no no responsibility for any inaccuracies contained in this document. This document may be distributed freely. Any use of any of the contents here-in must be credited and the author should be notified if possible. Patches Note: If you decide to use one of the patches in this FAQ, please take the time to put the authors (Dean Gaudet Arctic Mud for the socket patch and Michael Brundage for the noecho patch) in your lib/credits file. These two individuals have donated their work for the better of others, so please give credit where credit is due. Dean Gaudet also states that credit should also go to Jeffery Stine on the init_socket patch. ############################################################################## The following people have lended a hand with contributions/comments for this docuement... -Sebastan Hammer- Donated notes on DikuII and on DikuMud history. -Adam Coggins- Spelling and grammar checking. -Dean Gaudet- Provided a list of common stock Diku bugs and init_socket patch. -Furey at Merc Industries- Provided some technical info for starting a mud. -Michael Brundage for the noecho patch and some other bugs. -Nick Borko- VMS TINTIN CPU fix. -Others....Dan Brumleve, Naved Surve, Mort, Sven Nielsen and Bombman. -Apologies if I have spaced anyone... ############################################################################## ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Questions asked and answered in this FAQ: -->Intro -"What is a Diku Mud?" -"Where did this dikuMud come from?" -"Where and how do I connect to a DikuMud?" -"Where can I find out where these muds are located?" -"Ok, I'm connected, what do I do now?" -"What is a client program, or TINTIN?" -"Is there anything I can do about enourmous CPU usage of VMS Tintin?" -"Ok, I have a character, now what do I do?" -"What are hit points, mana, & movement?" -"What are some other things I should know?" -"What is a crash?" -"What is some of the slang or jargon I hear on these muds?" -"What about this newsgroup, rec.games.mud.diku?" -"What is DikuII, and when can I expect to see it?" -"Where can I find so-and-so?" -->Imp_Building -"I really like DikuMuds, I want to start my own!" -"What is the difference between Circle, Merc and Silly?" -"Well, I do not want to run my own mud, but I would like to create an area." -"Ok, I think I can start my own, but I hear there are bugs with the stock code, what are these?" -"Are there any RFC's of interest?" ##INTRO## "What is a Diku Mud?" A DikuMud is s specific species of one of the fastest growing forms of computer games called Mud. For more information on muds in general, please consult the general mud FAQ posted on rec.games.mud.announce. DikuMuds are highly influenced on the AD&D format for adventuring. Though DikuMuds are not an exact duplicate of AD&D, both share many common qualities, enough so a person who is familar with AD&D will feel quite at home with the DikuMud world. But by no means is AD&D experience required for a person to prove to be successful. While some muds are based on pure social interaction and some based on pure fighting, DikuMuds are evolving into an intelligent compromise between the two. "Where did this DikuMud come from?" DikuMud was originally developed by Katja Nyboe, Tom Madsen, Hans Henrik Staerfeldt, Michael Seifert, and Sebastian Hammer. A small bit of background of DikuMud, according to Sebastian Hammer: "The game originated at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen (in Danish: Datalogisk Institut ved K|benhavns Universitet; or, amongst friends: DIKU) The foundations of the code were laid out in March of 1990. Our background (Mud-wise) was primarily Abermud (LpMud was just emerging at the time), and our object was to make a better AberMud. We wanted to make it fast, compact and CPU-efficient. We wanted to allow more than the 18 (or so) players-at-a-time that AberMuds permitted in thos days, and we wanted a bigger world, so that players could truly get lost in there (back then, 500 room AberMuds seemed the norm). Also, we wanted to make it more interesting for players to cooperate, rather than just run madly around in search of beasts to kill. I guess we reached some of our goals, but far from all of them. Currently, we are working on DikuMud II, which is still under debugging. We have ceased to support the original code in any way, since so many "improved" versions have started to circulate" "Where and how do I connect to a DikuMud?" DikuMuds are located on different computers throughout the world. These computers can be at universities, companies, or even be personal workstations. To connect to these games, you need two things- 1)Access to telnet. 2)The mud's host name or IP number and the protocal port that the paticular mud is running on. Telnet is, to put it very simply, like a telephone. From the computer, you "dial in" where you want to connect to and your in (assuming the game is up). Since most people are going to play on a VAX/VMS or Unix based platform, I will use those for examples on how to connect. Asgard.cs.bsu.edu 6969 will be the mud we will use as an example to connect to. (147.226.112.94 is the IP number of that same machine). From a unix based machine- (The % is your prompt) %telnet asgard.cs.bsu.edu 6969 or %telnet 147.226.112.94 6969 or %telnet <CR> <- That means hit the return key telnet>open asgard.cs.bsu.edu 6969 From a VMS based machine- (The $ is your prompt) $telnet asgard.cs.bsu.edu/port=6969 or $telnet/port=6969 asgard.cs.bsu.edu or $telnet <CR> telnet>asgard.cs.bsu.edu 6969 or $telnet/port=6969 147.226.112.94 ***NOTE*** Some versions of VMS choke when you use the IP numbers, so it is suggested that you use the name instead of numbers. "Where can I find out where these muds are located" Word of mouth is a good way. So are the news groups. Different muds are always being mentioned in rec.games.mud.diku plus a listing is posted every two weeks in rec.games.mud.announce. Look for the "Totally Unofficial List of Internet Muds". Also, check out rec.games.mud.diku for Tarc's recent Diku Mud List. For more information, contact j_herlih@oz.plymouth.edu. "Ok, I'm connected, what do I do now?" Many DikuMud's have a lot of differences on how a person goes about making a character. But there are some common similarities between all of them. -Name- This will be your character's name for the game. It is suggested that you do not make up a name that is complicated to spell (something like Gustralieb you be a pain for other players to type) or something that could possibly be the name of a monster in the game (something like Dragon or Guard has a great posibility of being a monster (or mob) in the game). If your name is one of the above, you can find yourself being killed at times when a sensible name could have saved your life. -Password- This is what will prevent other people from playing your character. Pick a password word that is hard to guess and one that you currently do not use on another mud or system. Bad passwords include your real name, character name, and anything less than 3 characters. It is recomended that you choose something that includes some non-standrard Alpha characters such as # or @ or * (you get the idea). So, a password like #Chapo1* would be a good, hard to guess password. If you are interested in what can happen by choosing a bad password, read the comp.security faq. There is an interesting story by Alec Moffit dealing with this. -Sex- No, not if you get any, but what gender you want to be. Most commonly this will be Male or Female, but a few muds have the option of being Other or Neuter. -Class- There are usually four basic classes that DikuMuds usually have. 1)Cleric - a healer 2)Warrior - a fighter 3)Magic User - a spell caster 4)Thief - a rogue Some muds also have many other split style classes such as Rangers, Paladins, Bards, etc. Usually on the log-on screen, there will be some sort of online help that will help you in the decision of your class. There are a few other things some muds include such as hometown and races. For these items, there should be sufficient online help to guide you through on the paticular DikuMud you are playing. "What is a client program, or TINTIN?" A client program is basically a program that you use to connect to a mud that has many enchanced features to help (in some opinion 'cheat') in the game. The most commonly used client for DikuMuds is TINTIN. TINTIN was specifically designed for play on DikuMuds and is only available for Unix platforms. Such features could be things like macros, aliases, and triggers. Sites where you can get tintin is listed later in this document. There is also modified version of TINTIN, such as TINTIN++ that are also available. Recently, there is a copy of TINTIN that has been posted to VMS. Look at the ftp listing at the end of this document. Further info on clients programs and their fucntions is contained in the bi-weekely rec.games.mud.announce FAQs. "What can I do about the enourmous CPU usage of VMS TINTIN?" Quick and easy fix: -Edit the file main.c -Find the following line: time.tv_usec=0; -Change the 0 to 500000 -Recompile and you are all set. "Ok, I have a character, now what do I do?" First thing you would want to do is get to know the mud and it's commands. Some things you can do is type... 1)HELP- This will give a general listing of the commands available. 2)INFO- Will give you a brief introduction to the paticular mud you are playing. 3)COMMANDS- This command is not on all muds, but what it does is gives you a listing of all the commands available to your character. 4)HELP <keyword>- This will give you a more precise definition. An example of what you could type is HELP SAY. This will give you an explaination and proper syntax for the command say. 5)NEWS- Will provide the latest news of the mud. Ask around. Most people are generally nice by nature and will offer some (sometimes a lot, sometime very very little) help if you ask nicely and are not annoying about it. Read everything you see. Things like the MOTD (Message Of The Day, which you see right before you enter the game) will provide very important information sometimes. "What are hit points, mana, & movement?" Hit Points -- A numeric representation of the amount of hits/damage that your character can take. Everytime you are hit, you loose some amount of hit points. You are considered officially dead when you reach -11 hit points, though at 0 you can not do anything except for hope there is someone around who will heal you. Mana -- This is the amount of spells you can cast. Everytime you cast a spell, a certain amount of mana is subtracted from your working total of mana. Mana is like the working energy that you can use to cast spells. Movement -- This is the amount that you can walk/run etc etc. A decent comparison could be the amount of energy your player has. Some skills also subtract from you movement points. "What are some other things that I should know?" Don't be annoying. Such things are constanly whinning to other players and wizards will be the quickest way of being rejected by the players of the mud. Avoid player killing unless it has been _explicitly_ allowed on the mud you are playing. Usually if player killing is not allowed on a mud, and someone violates this, it is dealt with very sternly. Avoid unecessary shouts. Such things as shouting "LAAAAAAGGGG", "GOODBYE SO-AND-SO", "LEVEL!!!", etc generally do nothing but annoy other players and can be taken care of by using tell or say. Don't litter. Leaving junk around does nothing more than drain the machines resources. See if the mud you are playing has the junk command or a dump where you can dispose of uneeded items. Remeber, that it is only a game and the main purpose is for you, as a player, to have fun, explore, and talk to people. And do not let mud playing take priority over you school/job work, which happens all to often. "What is a crash?" A crash occurs when a)The system that the mud is located fails or b)The actual mud itself fails. When a mud crashes, you will be thrown out of the game and you will not be able to connect back to the game until it is rebooted. Because of crashes, the importance of saving you character is very important. All you need to to do is type 'save' and your character is saved, thats it. No excuses. In event the game does crash, and you loose items/experience, then usually (not always, and it is _not_ required) immortals/gods will reimburse your items. But remember, the keywords for you to get reimbursed is politeness and courtsey. Chances are, if you lost something, then other players did to. Avoid telling your local god 100 times that you lost something. Usually, if you told them once, they know and will get to you as soon as they can. And remember, nowhere does it say they have to reimburse you. In the event of a crash, do not go straight to rec.games.mud.diku and post a message saying "Blah mud crashed 4 seconds ago, what happened?". That posting will usually be met with negative reponses. POST TO THE NET ONLY AS A LAST RESORT. If the game is going to be down for an extended amount of time or if there are serious problems, usually there will be a message at the port the game ran on, or there will be a posting on rec.games.mud.diku concerning the down time. "What is some of the slang or jargon I hear on these muds?" -brb --- Means be right back. -rl --- Means real life. Something like "I'm bored rl" is commonly heard. -brb rl --- Put the two together and you get "Be right back, real life". You know, like going to the bathroom. -pk, pk'ing --- Player Killer and Player Killing. -newbie --- Someone who is new to the game. Associated with the word clueless. -mob --- A mobile, a monster in the game. -immort --- A player who has achiver immortality on the mud and is considered a god. -imp(s) --- The person(s) who run the mud. They have final say over everything. -afk --- Away from keyboard. -afw --- Away from window. -inv --- Your inventory, what you have on you and is not currently equiped. -equip --- The items that you are currently using. Like the armor you are wearing. "What about this newsgroup, rec.games.mud.diku?" This newsgroup was designed to help filter a lot of traffic that flowed through the newsgroup rec.games.mud. The newsgroup is designed for discussions about anything pretaining to DikuMud games. Anyone or anything is open, though messages that obviously have no purpose, like "Big Fat Hairy Mud Rules/Sucks!!!!" are generally frowned upon and are a waste of people's time and of network resources. "What is DikuII, and when can I expect to see it?" A note on DikuII from Sebastian Hammer: "DikuMud II is our attempt to deal with some of the shortcomings of the original game. The number of widely different Diku-versions out there indicated to us that there was a need for a stronger base system for people to work on. Some of the main improvements are: * A much more powerful Special Procedure system, allowing an arbitrary number of special routines to be associated with a mobile, and to be called at different times. One procedure interprets a simple mobile-control language, so that a lot of actions can be controlled straight out of the data files - no recompilation needed. This system also forms the base of an automated Law Enforcement system, which keeps the cities clean and safe with a smile. * A totally revised scoring system. * A better function-call structure. The game_loop from comm.c has been replaced by an event-driving sort of thing - adding a ton of flexibility and greatly reducing CPU-usage. * Cleaner internal data structures - most of the world-related structures from structs.h have been turned into a single structure with various appendages. This allows a bunch of fun things like carrying eachother (horses), entering boxes, etc. * A new format for the data files (no online building - it's still our belief that the best worlds are written in a word processor), using symbolic names, the C-preprocessor. Data is sanity-checked and converted into a binary format which also forms the base of the: * Flexible object-saving and crash-protecting system. * Various other changes, such as much cleaner shop-code, a mail-system, better bulletin boards, etc., etc. The release date is still unresolved, but all of the above is implemented and functioning quite well. Debugging and cleaning remains." Latest word from the Diku II camp, as reported in the rec.games.mud.diku (in early August) is that news on a release date should be coming up soon. "Where can I find so-and-so?" If you are looking for a paticular client/patch/source,check the bottom list and look at those ftp sites. I try to maintain a general list of what is at these sites, but I can not always keep up-to-date of these site's contents, so you might have to actually log in those sites and look around, chances are what you are looking for is at one of those sites. If by chance you do not find what you are looking for at one of those sites, then use the archie server. Archie is a archive database searcher that will aid in hunting down a paticular program or whatever it is you seek. Don't post to the newsgroup asking how to use archie, ask someone at your site if they can help. If you can not get help locally, then post the question to newsgroup such as news.newusers.questions or look in news.answers. ##IMP_BUILDING## "I really like DikuMuds, I want to start my own!" Well, before you go off and do that, there are some things you need to know or have. 1)A good, working knowledge of C. Though with the amount of enhanced muds that are available, this is still a good thing to know becuase you are never going to find 100% bug free code. 2)A machine. Some general requirements include: a)32-bit processor b)5+ megs available (greater than 10 is desirable) c)2-8 megs of available memory d)Network bandwith running(to Internet) at about 50 kilobits/second DikuMuds are not very CPU intensive, so very little CPU time is needed for all practical purposes. 3)Explicit System Administrator Approval. Muds do not go unnoticed on any machine where there are any other users. Get this before you do anything or you could find hours and hours of hard work down the drain. 4)A large amount of time to devote to actaul work on the mud and time to spend online in the game doing administrative duties. This has caused the eventual death of many muds. 5)A creative mind. Be creative about your work, no one really cares for a dull, boring mud. "What is the differnece between Circle, Merc, and Silly?" There is a lot of differences between the codes, some that are easily recognizable by players, some that are not. Circle seems to be the closest to the original Gamma Diku with a lot of the bugs patched plus a lot of new features built in. Silly mud is a very large and heavily modified release and if I remember what the author of this code (or maybe if was someone else) said is "it is big and it is ugly". Silly is filled with features but is has not been patched up to run on all systems, so beware it might take some hacking to get this to work on your machine. Merc is yet another highly developed and very different release. It has been made to work with a variety of machines including MacIntosh and is very compact. It is recommended that you give each release your attention to find out which code is best for you, because none is specfically better than the other in general terms, it is up to you find out what you prefer. "Well, I do not want to run my own mud, but I would like to create an area." Some tips in writting an area. 1)Get documentation- Basic DikuMud documention is helpful, but ask a wizard at the mud you would like to build for documentation that was made specifically for that mud. This is helpful because the actual format for area creation and many of the different bitvectors vary greatly from mud to mud. 2)Muditors are very helpful. The most common is Muditor V.5. Some muds have online creation which will enable a person to create and area online. Consult your local mud admin for more information about online creation. 3)Planning. Plan out your area. Make a detailed map and think of a good general story or theme for your area before you start construction. 4)Don't just make an area for the sake of it. If you make an area jsut for the sake of it, this usually shows and people do not want a boring, non-planned area. All you will do is waste your time and the admin's time. "Ok, I think I can start my own, but I hear there are bugs with the stock code, what are these?" Unfortunatly, all code will have bugs, here are some of the more well known bugs that should be looked at when starting your own bugs. (NOTE: These are all fixes that require knowledge of C..told you you needed to know C ;) ) --Problem with realloc() in db.c with the world, and to a lesser extent mob_index and obj_index. --Problem in do_pour. This bug allows players to preform 'pour cup cup' and have an infinite water supply. --Problem on do_taste. A player can taste the bread, but when he tastes the bread, it will apply the breads fill value without actually eatting the bread, thus having an infinite bread supply. --Problem in nanny(). In nanny(), if a player answers 'no' to the 'is that really your name?', but the name pointer is never set to NULL. So, when you drop link, the same pointer will be free [using free()] again inside free_char(). --Problem in generic_find(). Uses str_cmp() instead of isname() in FIND_OBJ_EQUIP. --Probelm in affect_from_char(). The variable hjp is given the value hjp->next after hjp has been free()'d. --Problem in shop.c. A has the scroll 'a tattered scroll' he wishes to sell. Upon selling the item, a check is made for the keyword scroll in the shopkeeper's inventory. Since scrolls of identify and scrolls of recall are produced by the shop and have the keywords 'scroll', the games assumes that the first scroll is one of these items and destroys the item and never places back for resale. --Problem in the init_socket. The ports do not seem to clear freely, so you end up with a lot of port binds. Here is a patch provided by Dean Gaudet (lazarus@hobbes.linfield.edu). int init_socket(int port) { int s, sbuf, opt; struct sockaddr_in sa; struct linger ld; memset(&sa, 0, sizeof(struct sockaddr_in)); sa.sin_family = AF_INET; sa.sin_port = htons(port); if ((s = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0)) < 0) { exit(0); } opt = 1; if (setsockopt(s,SOL_SOCKET,SO_REUSEADDR, (char *)&opt, sizeof(opt)) < 0) { exit(1); } ld.l_onoff = 0; /* let's make sure this isn't on */ ld.l_linger = 1000; /* who cares what this is */ if (setsockopt(s, SOL_SOCKET, SO_LINGER, (char *)&ld, sizeof(ld)) < 0) { exit(1); } ...... if (bind(s, (struct sockaddr *)&sa, sizeof(sa)) < 0) { if( close(s) ) { syslogf("init_socket: error closing socket: %s", strerror(errno)); exit(1); } exit(0); } if( listen(s, 5) < 0 ) { exit(1); } return(s); } --Check for unused variables by compiling with the -Wunused flag. This will help in streamlining your code. --Many typos, especially look in constants.c, act.obj1.c and act.other.c --Echo on/off: in interpreter.c #include <arpa/telnet.h> -at the top with the rest of your includes create the following strings: char echo_off[]={IAC,WILL,TELOPT_ECHO,'\0'}; char echo_off[]={IAC,WONT,TELOPT_ECHO,'\n','\r','\0'}; make the following macros: #define ECHO_ON(d) SEND_TO_Q(echo_on,(d)) #define ECHO_OFF(d) SEND_TO_Q(echo_off,(d)) Then place in appropriate places where you want to turn echo'ing on or off. "Are the any RFC's of interest?" The following RFC's can be of interest to Diku Imps. -RFC 1413: Telnet Identification Protocol -RFC 854: Telnet Protocol -RFC 857: Telnet Echo Option RFC's are located on many sites including nic.ddn.mil and wuarchive.wustl.edu. ##FTP## Below is a list of commonly used sites for DikuMud related items. All sites/contents are subject to change. ------------------------------------------------------------ General ftp sites that contain a large amount of files and information. These sites general change in content a lot. These sites are also your best bet in finding whatever you are looking for: o ftp.tcp.com- pub/mud/new (includes original gama source) o ftp.math.okstate.edu- pub/muds o flipper.pvv.unit.no- pub/mud o asgard.cs.bsu.edu- pub/diku The following sites a more specific in distribution and are usually used as "offical release sites" for various things. o ftp.cs.jhu.edu- pub/CircleMUD -offical site of the CircleMUD distribution o ftp.cis.ufl.edu- pub/gammes/mud -offical site of the SillyMUD distribution o hobbes.linfield.edu- pub/arctic -site for gamma DikuMUD code ported to the Dynix/ptx 2.x platform o ftp.lysator.liu.se- pub/lpmud/clients -site for PMF, an alternative client to TinTin o ftp.cs.odu.edu- pub/caw -official release site of Curious Area Workshop o hercules.miami.edu- pub/tintin_for_VMS -official release site for TinTin ported to the VMS systems. o caisr2.caisr.cwru.edu- pub/mud -official archive of the mudlist that is posted on rec.games.mud.announce --- One final note---Playing a mud of any sort is NOT a right. The people who run the game and the people who owns/runs the system that you are playing from are not required to let you play. If you abuse your privledge of playing, there are good chances that it will be taken away --- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |||-------|||-------|||-------|||-------|||-------|||-------||| frederick myers ||| I don't mind about the state mondays@bsu-cs.bsu.edu ||| of mind. You know it's good reni@asgard.cs.bsu.edu ||| for nothing and I left you 00fwmyers@virgo.bsuvc.bsu.edu ||| behind. |||-------|||-------|||-------|||-------|||-------|||-------||| -- |mondays@bsu-cs.bsu.edu|thc@kaiwan.com|reni or thc or galaxie on the muds| |I'm no dog, I'm a dolphin. I just don't live in the sea.|