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[Project] Slinging MUD, PA style (PA MUD project)
GnomeTank
What the what?Portland, OregonRegistered User regular
What the what?Portland, OregonRegistered User regular
So in the DragonRealms thread in G&T, we got to discussing MUD's and our history with them, and I brought up the idea "Wouldn't it be fun to create a MUD"? Well hell yah it would. So here we are. I've received permission from the powers that be to make this thread, so no worries about the self promotion rule or anything.
So what is a MUD? A MUD is a multi-user dungeon, a text based multi-user game, generally with RPG elements. Think of them as the text based predecessors to MMO's. Since they are text based, they can really be anything you want them to be. Sci-fi, fantasy, furry (don't get any twisted ideas you pervs)...anything. They are generally played with clients specifically tailored to playing MUD's, the most popular being the ZMud/CMud series from ZuggSoft. You interact with the MUD via text commands, which on more complex MUD's can be reasonably complex. Clients help with this, offering scripting and macros.
So what will OUR MUD be? Well, we don't know yet! I am going to break this post up in to sections, and as we discuss and decide things, we'll flesh them out.
Setting
Game Mechanics
Technology
OP will be updated as more information trickles together.
So what is a MUD? A MUD is a multi-user dungeon, a text based multi-user game, generally with RPG elements. Think of them as the text based predecessors to MMO's. Since they are text based, they can really be anything you want them to be. Sci-fi, fantasy, furry (don't get any twisted ideas you pervs)...anything. They are generally played with clients specifically tailored to playing MUD's, the most popular being the ZMud/CMud series from ZuggSoft. You interact with the MUD via text commands, which on more complex MUD's can be reasonably complex. Clients help with this, offering scripting and macros.
So what will OUR MUD be? Well, we don't know yet! I am going to break this post up in to sections, and as we discuss and decide things, we'll flesh them out.
Setting
Game Mechanics
Technology
This is one of the first sections we can actually put information in.
The tentative plan is to use a completely custom MUD server, as it gives us maximum flexibility to build the game we want to build. Since I have done this stuff in the past, and have some half-finished projects laying around, we're going to go with a C# MUD engine I built called Aeon. It runs on Linux under Mono and uses MySQL as it's back end store. I will be cleaning the code up and putting up a Mercurial repository in the near future.
Other options available to us, if we decide to dig deeper here:
LP MUD systems (probably DGD or LDMud)
Diku based systems (Circle, Arctic, etc)
Custom server written in another language (C++? Ruby?)
The tentative plan is to use a completely custom MUD server, as it gives us maximum flexibility to build the game we want to build. Since I have done this stuff in the past, and have some half-finished projects laying around, we're going to go with a C# MUD engine I built called Aeon. It runs on Linux under Mono and uses MySQL as it's back end store. I will be cleaning the code up and putting up a Mercurial repository in the near future.
Other options available to us, if we decide to dig deeper here:
LP MUD systems (probably DGD or LDMud)
Diku based systems (Circle, Arctic, etc)
Custom server written in another language (C++? Ruby?)
OP will be updated as more information trickles together.
Steam: Brainling, XBL / PSN: GnomeTank, NintendoID: Brainling, FF14: Zillius Rosh SFV: BrainlingOh c'mon FyreWulff, no one's gonna pay to visit Uranus.
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I've always wanted to do a high-fantasy sci-fi cross mix style setting. Laser pistols, plasteel armor, laser swords...but feudal governments, elves, trolls, etc. Sort of Shadowrunny, but less cyberpunk and more high-fantasy. There would be no magic, but instead "mages" would be people with psychic capabilities.
I need to flesh this out more, but this is sort of the start of my ideas for the setting.
e: As a side note, I've already stuck some info in the Technology section.
I don't plan for this to be a "joke" game, I want it to be a serious and interesting MUD...but I want it to be a work of the community too, so it may take some time to completely nail everything down thematically.
I've, in the far far past, worked on a few Circle servers, mostly just making areas and stuff. High fantasy and sci-fi sounds fun, do you imagine grimdark like WH40K or more friendly?
More friendly. I don't think the grimdark thing is really appropriate for an RPG, but I could be proven wrong.
e: To clarify, it's not that I want to make Hello Kitty World, there will be some dark elements. I just don't think the super dark, xenophobic, over bearing grimdark of 40k translates well in to a MUD. We could have areas like that, but not the whole world.
Which do you prefer, pure skill based systems, or class based, with talent-style specialization/customization? I know skill based offers infinite freedom, but it's also much harder to balance, and makes it much harder for a player to pick a role.
In my head, I am leaning more towards a role based system which heavy customization ("I want to be a tank, but I want to do it with guns instead of swords"), which is based on a loose class system.
Then here goes! This was my attempt at creating some fantasy civilization that are at least somewhat imaginative. Bear in mind that these are generic concept names.
Hunters (inspired by some D&D monster)
The Hunters look somewhat like lion centaurs, a fur-covered humanoid torso on a four legged lion body. Hunter females are sleek, cunning and incredibly dangerous. They are fast runners and capable warriors, favouring spears and javelins as weapons but often hunting unarmed for the sport of it. The males are somewhat larger and stronger but less agile. The Hunters are proud and noble and love to compete in tests of strength and cunning.
Society
Each clan is blood by a matron and her blood sisters and the other females serve as hunters and warriors. The choicest males are kept as the matrons consorts while the others are mostly used for manual labor. Hunter tribes are far less warlike than one might imagine, but they do hunt sentient creatures for food when it suits them. Hunters gladly trade with other species but if a village within their territory can offer neither meaningful trade nor tribute it might well be butchered when the clan finds itself short of other prey. Hunter cities are usually made from wood and straw but sometimes out of stone and the houses are usually covered in beautiful carvings of geomatical patterns and animals both on the outside and the inside.
Myconoids
Sorceresses (inspired by discworld wizards)
Sorceresses look similar to fat purple-skinned human women. They are selfish, vain, greedy and incredibly powerful spellcasters. It is said that if you put three sorceresses in a room, within an hour there will be ten factions, five alliances and three thousand assassination plots. Sorceresses are frequently refered to as slavers since they magically dominate their enemies into mindless puppets. When they are low on bodies, sorceresses create golems out of rock or metal and these servants do all of the physical work in sorceress cities. Indeed, it is considered a great shame to walk in sorceress society, as any true sorceress will have more than enough servants to spare to carry her. How sorceresses breed is a very well kept mystery as they only seem to have one gender.
Society:
A sorceress city-state is technically ruled by a triarchy of powerful sorceresses that are elected every four years, but in their authority is almost entirely symbolic. Sorceresses are capable of working towards a common cause, but such cooperation is usually accompanied by constant scheming and attempted backstabbing. For all their plotting, sorceresses rarely kill one another and prefer to injure their rivals reputation, influence and wealth. They live in magnificent cities with an opulence and splendor that only magic and slavery can create.
Lizardmen (heavily inspired by the warhammer universe)
The Lizardmen are an insular and deeply divided people with a unique society that is in continual conflict, largely due their strange age-based caste system. Lizardmen go through three distinct life stages, when they are born from the collective spawning pools they look more like bipedal salamanders than lizards, with soft slimy scales and big eyes. "Newt" lizardmen are idealistic, inquisitive and imaginative, and their dextrous fingers and agile minds make them ideal craftsmen and fishermen. In time they reach a kind of puberty where their scales thicken and their muscles grow. Adult lizardmen make great workers and warriors and are required to serve in the lizardman military by law. In the elder stage the lizardmen grow even larger and lose a lot of their dexterity, but none of their quickness of mind.
Society:
In lizardman society the three castes fill distinct purposes. The newts drive the economy, the adults fight the wars and the elders debate and scheme endlessly in the senate. Lizardmen are fierce believers in democracy, but only the elders are allowed to vote. Because all three castes need to be balanced for their society to function it is of utmost importance to the elders to limit the number of lizardmen that survive the adult stage. Because of this the city states are constantly skirmishing with each other, and sometimes two cities will even conspire together in order to wipe out units of particularly troublesome adults through a mock war. This game is not entirely lost to the newts and the adults, and there is frequently conflict between the younger idealistic newts and the wise but corrupt elders.
Wights
Phew, took a while and that is nowhere near all I have. Tell me if you think any of it sounds interesting!
Edit: All of them, that is.
This makes me all itchy.
What kind of engine do you plan on using? There's a lot to be decided about this!
It would be fun to do a sci-fi one, because they can be practically magic without being magic, and still allow for people to do non-magic-y things without feeling weak.
I am a fan of a cross class/skill system, wherein you are limited by class but there are certain things available to everyone. (Think IRE games.)
Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
* Set in a distant galaxy somewhere in our universe, but not the Milky Way.
* Three factions in conflict, players choose a faction at the start (based on race?)
* Each faction has a home world
* Worlds are connected via instant-travel portals. Home worlds are not directly connected, but instead dump in to a high level contested area
* Home worlds are PvP free, and contain most of the PvE content
* Contested area is PvP focused, but will have higher level PvE content
* Contested area contains areas that can be invaded and taken over by player guilds
* These areas provide resources that can be exploited in some way (still thinking about this part)
* PvE will be mostly quest based, as you'd expect form most MMO's. Quest chains will be inter-connected with a larger world story
* System will allow dynamic quests to be run by builders and admins
* Each home world will contain several areas and a faction based story
* Will attempt to avoid the holy-trinity, unlikely there will be dedicated healers and tanks, instead focusing on interesting utility and damage
Anyway, that's just a free form thought dump of where my mind is headed so far. Feel free to discuss any of that. I am still completely open minded about all this, just trying to guide the discussion a little.
What do you mean by "engine"? If you mean what server software, so far I am leaning towards something completely custom. Diku and LP mud technologies just haven't really kept up with the times. You'd end up stripping out so much of the existing tech and replacing it with custom tech to get a modern game, that I feel doing it 100% custom provides the advantage of a code base you completely control.
race teams (elves vs dwarves)
class teams (classA vs classB)
technology teams (cyborgs vs pure)
You could do 3 way conflicts, or conflicts that don't split the userbase. Lots of options.
This is important because it really defines the game. I am personally a fan of 3 way splits, it's a tried and true method. WoW has horde vs alliance vs doooooom, rift has guardians vs defiants vs dooooom, etc etc.
EDIT: Boo, you answered it while I was asking. Magic mind-reading. And yeah, I saw the technologies blurb after I asked the question, so nevermind. I got so excited I stopped reading.
Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
Color me intrigued to help out a bit with writing and the like.
Unfortunately, most people just use it to make shitty anime games.
It'll also allow you to use isometric graphics, while keeping the MUD themes, if you want to go that route. And it's well optimized for large-scale play between hundreds of players, so long as you don't code something cock-eyed.
At the risk of getting smacked for seeming like i'm self promoting (I'm not. Which is why I made sure there's no personal details on the project listed.), here's an example of how starved the service is for decent RPG/MMO/MUD type games:
I started making a game about two years ago on it. At this moment in time we're currently competing/irregularly holding the second most populated game position on the service for publicly listed games, with over 100 people visible online during our peak activity times. The only game that's usually more populated then us is Space Station 13 (IE: The SA goon game that's pretty much Sealab 2021 in space, and has the backing of a bunch of different websites.).
What's mind boggling to me, is that our project is only about 30/40 percent of the way to version 1.0, meaning we don't even have a complete game yet. If we took our private testing servers live, we'd be able to directly compete with SS13.
Suffice to say, the service has a huge demographic gap for decent multiplayer games that fit into the MUD/RPG featureset. And if you have an interesting basic game up and running, and stay in contact with the community, you could obtain an extremely large pool of players to help test the game. Getting a GUI version of the game set up would be relatively easy too, between all of the tutorials, artists, and coders in the community. There's even a few musicians that develop music for free every now and then.
The only downside I can think of is that there's a fair number of asshole developers who don't want anyone being more popular then their ripped games (Code theft was an issue for awhile, before the Byond developers started enforcing stealing other folks work.) up. So you might get some smack talk from them every now and then.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
That is an interesting service though, had never heard of it.
No real commitment. Like I said, I can do most of the coding myself, and anything people contribute is just gravy. If you knock out a few features, great. If you just follow the project and throw fruit at us, that's great too.
Once we get to the point where we have individual features to actually implement, I'll probably put together a system where people can "check out" a feature to work on, so people aren't doing double work.
To back up what he's saying, I think these aspects did alot to contribute to our success. As while we have alot of MUD elements (RP conducive atmosphere. Complex interactions that modern MMO's don't have, etc, etc.). Without it, it would be a horrible mess to try and organize the inventory system, stats system, crafting system, skill system, and more, without a way to reflect the changes in the world, and both I and the playerbase probably would have gone stark raving mad trying to sort things out.
That's not to say that text based MUD's can't do the same. But there's a certain level of user friendliness that has to be taken into consideration there (IE: Don't label your commands something obtuse/make sure there's plenty of variation in aliases to the commands to ensure they work.), that is a bit more advanced to design, then using a primitive GUI of some sort, which is, if properly designed, universally user friendly.
There's also the "graphics" issue, which is sort of what I was trying to point out with the isometric/top down SNES era graphics statement. Games that look more modern but aren't, often have an edge in terms of success, compared to games that don't look more modern, but are. See: Every other mainstream game for the past half decade.
e: To expound on this, I am not fundamentally against the idea, but I am pointing out that there are ways to provide these things without changing the soul of the game. Take a game like Medevia. It has a graphical map, and several client plugins for viewing stats, your vitals, your spellbook, etc. The heart and soul of the server is still pure ASCII text, but they've built an infrastructure of advanced features that can be used if you desire. You can still connect and play using telnet if you want, though it's obviously not the ideal experience.
There are also standardized protocols like MXP for projecting sound and basic images to a client that supports them.
It will be some time this weekend, I just can't tell you when.
I hope to have enough infrastructure in place to let a complete of interested parties lose on writing simple areas this week.
Todo list of things that need done before we can seriously hash out game systems:
* Data import function
* More complete area model
* Mechanism to glue coded behavior to data entity's
Long term things I hope to get started Soon (tm)
* Multi-threaded area system that load balances
* Basic telnet implementation (cursor control)
* Basic MXP implementation (rich interaction capability)
As far as class based vs skills based, I personally prefer class based systems. Referring back to AoD, you basically just collected experience, and with that you bought character levels, class levels, and skill levels. I really hate being confronted with just a wall of skills when you start out. I like essentially choosing a character paradigm and growing into it. AoD had a pretty good reincarnation system where you would lose a percentage of your total earned experience to start your character over to rechoose your race and class and try another build without having to start entirely from scratch while still having a cost to keep people from frivolously using it.
I tried ArcticMUD at one point, but apparently the joke was on me or something. You started out in a capital city that seemed to be something like 50x50 rooms in size, so I got lost just trying to leave the city. Once outside I got destroyed by the L1 critters repeatedly and gave up. In hindsight it may have just been their twisted joke, as the L1 critter was a rabbit that would deal "EVISCERATING" damage on every hit. So maybe it was a Monty Python joke and I was supposed to be fighting something else, who knows
For those of you wanting to write areas though, you can start mapping them out before I am ready for them. Keeping the theme of the game in mind (high sci-fantasy is what I am calling it), think of a cool area you'd like to write, and draw a map! Basic directions of movement will be east, west, north, south, northwest, northeast, southwest, southeast, up, down, but you can be more creative than that. Maps can be as 3D as you'd like them to be. Each "room" (we are actually calling them locations) is a localized point in space where things happen, that will "contain" things. People, items, whatever. Players interact with the things in their current location.
So start drawing maps and thinking up area descriptions, and when I have the XML file format ready to actually bring in areas, you can start moving it in to that format.
Let me disclaim this with the fact that I hate overly complex stat systems. I think they are stupid and add little of value to games, besides more numbers to worry about. I like them to be concise and to the point, and for everyone to know what effects what.
To that end, we have the following:
Core stats:
Strength - Effects melee combat and carry weight
Accuracy - Effects ranged combat, could be thought of us how steady your hand is
Toughness - Effects how much damage you take (works with armor) and your stamina pool
Willpower - Effects psychic abilities, resistance to psychic abilities and your discipline pool
Armor - Pretty much what it sounds like
Health - Guess what this is?
Stamina - This is how non-psychic abilities are used
Discipline - This is how psychic abilities are used
There will be four damage types in the game. Just as much as I hate complicated stat systems, I hate resistance systems with 50 things to stock up:
Physical - Maces, swords, physical projectiles. Effected by Toughness and Armor.
Mental - Psychic abilities, psi-blades, etc. Effected by Willpower.
Energy - Laser guns, laser swords. Effected by Toughness and Armor.
Void - This may or may not stay. I wanted a fourth damage type, but couldn't think of one that fit my simplistic model. If this stays it will likely be a mostly NPC damage type, as the plan was to have it unaffected by any core stat (beyond actual Void Resistance), and that would make it the damage type of choice in PvP, which I really don't want.
I haven't started working on the actual math behind combat, but just like the stat system, I plan to keep it as simple as possible. I really hate games that try and hide their formulas from the player with obtuse math. Just make it simple, and if players figure it out, GREAT. I don't mind people min/maxing, provided the system is simple enough for everyone to participate without needing a math degree.
For example, concerning ONLY combat, strength increases melee damage, and accuracy increases ranged damage AND chance to hit (for everything, I assume). This leaves strength at a disadvantage right out of the gate.
There are a couple of solutions you can take - You can rework the stats a bit, and still keep a minimal number of stats. For example we can rename some of the stats and work them into each other:
Toughness: Increases physical based damage dealt and reduces physical damage received.
Skill: Increases energy based damage dealt and reduces energy based damage received.
Willpower: Increases mental based damage dealt and reduces mental based damage received.
You could even collapse other attributes onto them, or make a rock-paper-scissor-y type thing. Such as:
Toughness: Increases physical based damage dealt, reduces energy damage received, and increases max health.
Skill: Increases energy based damage dealt, reduces mental based damage received, and increases max stamina.
Willpower: Increases mental based damage dealt, reduces physical based damage received, and increases max discipline.
I bolded parts that were changed from above. This type of system discourages a pure dump in one stat, because it can be easily countered by another and other stats are needed to be more potent in combat (pure toughness means that they have too little stamina to do much, pure stamina means they might get one-shot, etc).
This has the drawback (benefit?) of forcing you to either collapse all important stats, to make certain stats only 'gear-specific' (hit comes to mind), or to make some types of secondary stats (similar to WoW) that aren't drawn from primary skills.
I like that you're adding a new damage type (void) as an idea to place a degree of separation between pvp and pve, that should be expanded on a bit, but I'm not sure how yet.
Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
For stats, how is regen going to work? I assume that Discipline starts at 100% and diminishes as Willpower-type abilities are used. Assuming there is going to be some default passive regen value for Discipline, I think it would make sense to add a stat that modifies this (i.e. the traditional 'Spirit'). That introduces some more interesting stat decisions (stacking Willpower for power + initial Discipline pool versus balancing Willpower and 'Spirit' for sustainability). Similar story for Stamina.
The other route could be to forego regen stats and make all replenishment active (player buffs/abilities/potion usage). It'd make the gearing system more straightforward but I think you lose some of the nuance.
I honestly haven't decided on regen yet. If I had my druthers, in-combat regen would be active (potions, a long CD power, a gear on-use), and out of combat regen would be relatively quick, perhaps with your standard eat/drink mechanic.
Agreed. It's also a reasonable money sink to have people buying IC and OoC replenishment items. Plus it allows us to add interesting replenishment class mechanics, while keeping the stat system simple.
My thought is to have three base classes, each with a "spec" they can choose at a certain level, leading to six total classes. The base classes are as follows:
Soldier - Melee and ranged DPS specs, heavy armor
Archon - Psychic powers, ranged and melee spec, light armor (augmented with powers)
Engineer - Utility and mechanical things, turret and battle droid specs (again, ranged, melee), medium armor (augmented with shield generators)
The specs:
Soldier -> Commando: Ranged spec
Soldier -> Knight: Melee spec
Archon -> Neuromancer: Ranged spec
Archon -> Templar: Melee spec
Engineer -> Siege Technician: Turrets (ranged)
Engineer -> Droid Keeper: Battle droids (melee)
Each spec will have some shared (and vital) powers with the other spec (for instance, all Archons will get Psychic Shield), and then powers that are specialized for their spec (for instance, a Neuromancer might get Cause Pain, while the Templar might get Psychic Slash).
There will be no dedicated tanks or healers, I find that entire situation to be an antiquated model. Instead, all characters will have the capability to augment their defense for short periods of time, allowing any character to "tank". In fact, if this goes off the way I hope, tanking will become something that cycles in a fight. How we make the agro mechanics work for this, I'm not sure, but I'll think about it. Healing items will be plentiful, and most specs will have some kind of "attack and heal" mechanic for group healing (engineers will have some kind of healing bot they can toss down, Archons will have some sort of healing pulse, soldiers will have some kind of first aid...things that you weave in to your normal actions to heal the group).
I think removing the tank/healer mechanic as a single role and putting that on everyone's shoulders takes a lot of burden off of one or two people to carry an entire party of adventurers. As a long, long time MMO tank, this is something I would welcome. The other thing it does is allow a game that will have a low'ish population (lets just be honest) to have a lot of group content without requiring one or two specialized classes. You should be able to take a group of all Archons, or half Archons and half Soldiers, or whatever, and complete group content.
Also note, because this is a MUD, "ranged and melee" have a bit less meaning. There will be a formation system in the grouping, which will let ranged characters "stand back", but really it's more thematic. In the end, the Command and Knight will seem similar in execution, but one will have ranged themed attacks and the other melee.
Fatigue. Or whatever you want to call it. Some number that increases every time you're hit by a dude, but passively decreases otherwise. The higher your fatigue, the less effective your defenses are. This would force a group to play pass the parcel, since even the manliest of mans will eventually be so fatigued that a stiff breeze would knock him over. But as long as the group shares the 'aggro', by the time it comes back round to you, you should be ready to take some hits again. This would obviously mean that everyone would need some sort of taunt or aggro drop. The thing I like about something like this is that tanky stats like stamina are still valuable, but it actively discourages any individual from going full tank.
Random aggro that switches throughout a fight. There could be taunts on relatively long timers for "oh-shit" moments, but otherwise everyone will just need to be ready to tank, whenever. It could be kind of cool in that everyone would need to be capable and prepared to switch what they were doing in order to tank some damage at any moment. Personally I don't think this would work that well because A) a group could get completely fucked by the RNG repeatedly targetting the squishiest person, and
Regardless, I am in favour of a more binary sort of aggro (either you have it or you don't) over the traditional "everyone has an aggro rating and the person with the highest rating is the one getting hit". I feel like the only time the traditional system actually impacts strategy is when it actively discourages people from dealing damage because otherwise they're gonna get spanked. And that's not fun.