Patrick,
While I tend to agree with your assessment of circle flourishing because
of its open-endedness, I have to say that I think that adding features to
stock circle (such as races, for example) is a bad idea. The reason I
choose to work with Circle in my mud projects (aside from familiarity) is
because of that open-endedness, which I think would be inhibited by adding
featured code. For example, the reason I don't work with code bases like
Smaug, RoM, etc. is because they are far too customized (or featured, if
you will) for me. I don't want to do what the originators of those code
bases want to do, I want to do something *different*, which is why I
choose to work in an open-ended environment like circle. Even a feature
as sublime as PC or NPC races can turn into a problem, for instance if I
want to set my mud in the future (sci-fi) or I wanted to use a different
type of game as my base (Rifts over AD&D or whatever), I'd have to alter
or remove the race code. This might not seem like a big deal (it really
isn't) but the idea is that I'd like to be able to remove a minimal amount
of code from the base to get to a point where I could start adding to it
(if I were doing a sci-fi mud, for instance). If I wanted a ZipMud (sorry
George) chock full of features, I'd dl Smaug and be on my way.
However, you do have a point. Adding races to stock is just as much
tedium as removing it, I suppose. So thats why I'd suggest something of a
modular distribution. In essence, its the same thing as patches, except
they are already patched in. So on the web site you'd see something like
this:
Download stock CircleMud 3.0
Download CircleMud 3.0 + (races, clans, mounts)
Download CircleMud 3.0 ++ (ascii pfiles, item affects)
Etcetra. Just stock Circle with race modules, clan modules, etc.
Sort of, but not quite like, how LPMud has thier "libraries".
I think the module idea is probably the best idea (although the web page
example above probably isn't the best implementation) because it allows
Circle to retain its open-ended identity while allowing "instant" featured
customization for those that want it.
-R
Dark Pawns
pawns.guru.org 4000
WHOD: pawns.guru.org 4001
http://pawns.guru.org/pawns
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