Re: Circle 4.x wish list

From: Jeremy M. (jkm4802@hotmail.com)
Date: 11/19/02


Speaking as an Implementor and a "hack" (no not a coder a hack, which is
defined as a wannabe learning how to code), I've seen quite a few projects
in my time, being around and playing doctor with the very first diku to hit
the computer screen. Now, some of the things I am going to list others may
or may not agree with, but here goes.. Oh, and be warned, I'm a wordy
bastard but I'm trying to keep this to the point if at all possible. :P

Things that I do immediately:

1. Convert to Ascii.
Binary Player files are a pain and don't offer much in the ways of easy
pfile fixes in the cases of pfile corruptions. In my opinion, it should be a
standard practice in the next release.

2. Add Copyover/hotboot.
I can't tell you how nice it is to be able to add new code on the fly
without having to reboot the mud, kick players off, and generally annoy the
population when you need to add fixes or updates to your source. This in my
opinion should be a definate addition.

3. Add Easy colors.
Another nice addition which adds to the flavor of a beginning mud is the
ability to use color, although this is not a "important" addition, its all
the more pleasing to new admin when they don't have to waste their time
working on some of the smaller and more annoying additions. Kudos to those
who made the Easy Color snippet.

4. Add Oasis/Dg Scripting.
Possibly one of the largest issues is the addition of Oasis OLC, granted
Oasis is chaos in itself, but it works. For new admin, this poses the most
real problem because Oasis tends not to like to be added to a mud with even
a speck of change in the source. Why not just for kicks add it into the
Circlemud releases? New Admin would definately benefit from having it, and
it would save worlds of time and allow the admin team to work on their
personalized systems and features.

5. Remove castle.c from the code and modify spec_assign.c ..
Although it seems amusing having the castle.c stuff in a stock mud, 90
percent of all the muds I've been on, don't use it, and find it to be more
annoying than amusing. Why? Heck, I don't know.. Seems to me however that
with Dg Scripting available, hard coding mob personality and interaction is
redundent.

6. Remove all stock zones except zone 0 and zone 12.
The removal of the stock zones would sure speed things up quite nicely and
eliminate a few space issues. Sure, stock zones are great if your just
wanting to throw it on a machine, configure/compile, and boot, but in
essence, only two zones are needed, and god help us if we need to change the
zone file structure or room structure. I'd say, release the stock zones
seperate from the mud source, and just include zones 0 and 12.

7. Add Misc modifications.
Normally, I do much more than the list above explains, but in the gist of
things, I try to set it up so that we have a good working mud with all the
tools we need to successfully run the mud from online. The builders get
their building tools, the coders get their code tools, and the immortals get
their commands. Once this is all done then essentially we begin on our
features.

Awhile back I ran across a Smaug mud that had configuration available in
game, don't know if this is the case for all stock muds, but it sure seemed
like a great idea for Circle. Being able to set your mud up from online
including the amount of zones, the loadrooms, donations, etc, sure seems
like a great idea to me, and would make it a great deal more convenient than
having to dive into the code all the time to make a simple change. Summing
things up, what I do is give my team the tools that they need, and then
expand upon the mud with features or what have you. What would be nice is if
in the next Circle release, those tools were indeed provided and preferably
working correctly, so that the new CircleMUD administrators could start out
without having to backtrack nearly immediately to fix issues in OLC or what
not. Think of it like a house being built. Foundations first, give the tools
to the crew, and let them build the rest from the foundation.

Once again, I apologize for this email length, and to be clear on this post,
this isn't a demands list, it's a general layout of what "I" would like to
see, and gives those newer members an idea of what steps some of the more
experienced Implementors and team members often do as first priorities in
the great list of development.

Jeremy M. aka Riodan
jkm4802@hotmail.com

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