Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:49, 30 July 2005

Someone complemented the article this morning. To a subset of the online virtual community, this is a significant portion of this software's history, and is not considered a "plug" or "vanity page"

Hi there,

Welcome to Misplaced Pages! Misplaced Pages would love if you join, but you're welcome to edit anonymously if you wish.

Nice online creation article, but just look in the page history to see some changes I made to it, to bring it up to Misplaced Pages's style standards.

Anyway, thanks for joining, I hope you'll stay! If you need any help, just ask me on my talk page, or ask at the Village pump.

- user:zanimum

Cleaned up stuff

I cleaned up a bit of stuff to try to stick closer to the Misplaced Pages:Article_size guidelines, since this page was showing a warning about it. Much of the remaining stuff is also figured out, but I don't have time to fully reread this all to check.

• Discussions of minor changes, like removing ads. --Atari2600tim
• "Information about the origins of the first publically released OLC" section, because What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_free_host_or_webspace_provider --Atari2600tim
• Discussion of the inspiration on OLC seems to have been agreed upon, and has reference to the older editing systems in existance before OLC. --Atari2600tim
• SMAUG vs. TheIsles/NiMUD code comparison: this should be elsewhere, if you feel it's noteworthy somehow to the article, then save it somewhere and link to it. Check the history if you need it. As it stands today, this article doesn't mention SMAUG at all, making the discussion of SMAUG on the talk page seem even less significant. I think the right thing to do would be to make headings and just list online creation systems and have sections about each. With a name like "online creation", it might even be appropriate to merge this article with another one. --Atari2600tim

Why would the name have anything to do with it? It is OLC/Online Creation, not Online Building. There is a distinction there and to be accurate we must make distinctions. Also, all of these fall under the category of 'editor' - which is exactly what it is; an editor. It just happened to be a live editor, not an offline one.

Well, "building" went the way of the delete key when Hidden Worlds went down. This claim about MozartMUD is unfounded. Thoric has yet to produce proof that there even was a MozartMUD building system back then. Frankly, I was on most popular muds and couldn't find online building anywhere other than Hidden Worlds. When viewing a copy of SillyMUD from 1993, I saw no online building code in it. So versions of The Isles (NiMUD) which Thoric still keeps on his ever-changing bullshit archive are, well, not enough to prove that SMAUG or Silly had anything to do with what later became MozartMUD's online building. It is my guess that OLC was still the first publically available online MUD editor for Diku-derived muds. MUSHes, a seperate project entirely, are developed almost completely online with a live scripting language, and are better designed, but don't come with a lot of predeveloped systems or areas ("levels"). Thoric has admitted to this. I do not claim ownership over his work in any way, I just want him to stop claiming he's the 'god of muds' and admit that he's just a programmer! If he wants to manipulate history of this software to his benefit, so be it -- but this article speaks the truth about the origins of Hidden Worlds DIKU, Online "building" and the publically available multi-modal OLC. Chris' parents are behind me in this fight- though they have no intention of suing Thoric, they certainly wouldn't want the only popular software work their son ever did to be claimed by someone else.

• I'm the Dread Pirate Roberts! - Misplaced Pages:Wikipedia_is_not_a_blog --Atari2600tim
• Current news on OLC which would be more appropriate on the OLC web site, What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_free_host_or_webspace_provider --Atari2600tim
• More on copyrights section: was primarily personal arguments and not about copyrights. None of the information that came up in it was anything new and not mentioned in the Copyright article. --Atari2600tim
• Personal attacks. --Atari2600tim
  • ...and again later --Atari2600tim 11:38, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Stuff that should be cleaned up

• Dates are extremely contradictory and should be fixed up. --Atari2600tim
• "Main differences between SMAUG's online building and NiMUD OLC" is a bit long and shouldn't be directly copied and pasted to the article, but it should probably have a one or two line summary in the article.

Basic Structure of OLC

Hey man it's good to see you hang out on the 'new mud' (wikipedia d=):

Likewise ;)

NiMUD/TheIsles, written 1992-1993/1994: Commands: redit oedit medit aedit

Enters a 'special mode' which responds to user input; this is the editor mode, and is an extension of the communications routines.

STR(b,c); <- added to NiMUD source code to fix a distinction problem related to referencing strings in both the "index" of the entry and the "incidence" of the entry (the copy created for the world), this may be the easiest way to trace DIRECT CODE INSERTION into new code, because it is an indicator of NiMUD's original code design change to the standard Merc/Diku string routines; this is often 'hacked out' in copies that were ported to other softwares. For those who just 'studied NiMUD and then modified and/or created new code to match its features', this macro may be omitted.

(A nice macro that certainly may have made the SMAUG code cleaner. I really don't see the point of anyone hacking it out to purposely make their code more cumbersome. --Thoric 14:52, 12 July 2005 (UTC))

It is an indicator of what Merc-derived sources use TheIsles-based OLC. -Locke

SMAUG (as distributed) does not contain this STR(b,c) macro. --Thoric 17:44, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Another note is that NiMUD's feature set is this:

Security for Building Special 'mode' Bit Keywords- Keywords at the command line to toggle bits "Dig" or "dig-like" command, borrowed from MUSH New database file format made similar to Merc's playerfile format Prompt manipulation

I believe that Thoric, based on a statement he made to me over email similar to "I wanted to start with NiMUD", read through and understood OLC before writing a similar OLC, to say it was developed independently is not correct because he obviously read and understood the core features and functionality of the original Isles OLC, possibly his inspiration.

(The statement was, "I wish I had started with NiMUD". Not only was NiMUD unreleased at the time (June 1994), my only inspiration came from using Mozart MUD's online building. --Thoric 14:52, 12 July 2005 (UTC))

You also made a statement to me that you started mudding in 1995. -Locke

No, I told you I opened ftp.game.org in 1995. Realms of Despair opened in 1994, I mudded on Mozart in 1993, and mudded on VieMUD in 1992. --Thoric 17:44, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Zebesta's OLC, for instance, is not a direct correlation in its features or functionality to NiMUD/TheIsles OLC, as it uses these commands:

oset zset mset rset

Has security, has limited (no user control) prompt manipulation.

Has a special mode only for entering strings.

SMAUG does contain functionality similar to "worldgen.c" from NiMUD's earlier releases.

(It was I who pointed that out to you. --Thoric 14:52, 12 July 2005 (UTC))

Is it credited? -Locke

No, that will have to be fixed. -Thoric

Thanks, please do so. Surreal had left the project at that point, worldgen.c was an afterthought I added to inspire future mudders. I noticed that several mud engines now use code similar to this for generating areas; they also borrowed the terrain and ascii mapping features for some of the more 'ascii graphical' muds -- I think that's great, when properly cited; it was an idea borrowed from Rogue and Rogue-like games, which generate a lot of their content using random number generators with predetermined seeds. - Locke

SMAUG, written 1995/1996: (Realms of Despair was started in June of 1994, and released as SMAUG in 1996 --Thoric 14:52, 12 July 2005 (UTC))

Commands: redit oedit medit aedit

Enters a 'special mode' which responds to user input; this is the editor mode, and is an extension of the communications routines.

(Incorrect. SMAUG has the commands: redit oset mset aset rset (and others). They do not enter a 'special mode' unless you type for example "oset <object> on", a functionality added later when builders requested it. SMAUG originally didn't even support a special editing mode... it was added later. --Thoric 14:52, 12 July 2005 (UTC))

If it was added later, then it was borrowed from the dominant and accepted form of OLC, TheIslesOLC, which uses that mode, and is a feature that is indicative of the modal design choice in TheIslesOLC. -Locke

It is likely that the builder(s) who requested it were used to it from building on OLC-based MUDs, so yes, that specific functionality indirectly came from OLC. --Thoric 20:28, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Security for Building Bit Keywords- handled differently, but still present "Dig" or "dig-like" command, borrowed from MUSH New database file format similar to Merc's playerfile format Prompt manipulation/indicators

(SMAUG does not have a "dig" or a "dig-like" command. Are you certain that you are looking at the original SMAUG distribution, and not one that has OLC ported into it? --Thoric 14:52, 12 July 2005 (UTC))

By the way, ideas are not permissable as a copyright; you cannot own an idea, merely the expression of it. Thoric "owns" his building system, but to state that it was developed independently is completely false, as it is similar to and was influenced by TheIsles OLC, the original publically available OLC.

Of course it is going to be similar since both systems are used to edit Merc 2.x data structures online, but if you take a close look at the code, you can see obvious and striking differences. --Thoric 14:52, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Also, it might be of note that NiMUD OLC versions 5 and later use these commands translations (with legacy macros): redit->sedit oedit->pedit medit->aedit aedit->zedit (aedit removed)

Thoric also added additional editor(s): a skill, spell, race and document edit.

(SMAUG has sset, setrace, hset and hedit. Again, if you look at the code you'll see it's completely different stuff, especially sset which supports SMAUG's "SMAUG spells", which allows you to create new spells online without having to know how to write C code. --Thoric 14:52, 12 July 2005 (UTC))

Main differences between SMAUG's online building and NiMUD OLC

Most of SMAUG's online building and editing commands are extensions of commands that came with Merc already... rset, oset, mset, etc. Editing works using a prototype flag system whereby you take an object or mobile, toggle its prototype flag, and while the prototype flag is set, changes made to that instance object or mobile will be reflected onto the "index" or prototype object or mobile. Newly created objects or mobiles (created with the commands ocreate and mcreate respectively) start out with the prototype flag on. Rooms don't really need a prototype since there is no "index" or prototype room, but the flag is still used, and can be used to disable certain functionality during development if required (for example, players are not allowed to use prototype objects). This prototype model of design was used on Mozart MUD (which used SillyMUD code, not Merc).

NiMUD OLC on the other hand uses redit, oedit and medit exclusively to put you into an editing mode, where you type "create <vnum>" to create a new obj/mob or room, and these commands work exclusively on the "index" objects and mobiles, leaving the Merc oset/mset commands to operate exclusively on non-index (instances of) objects and mobiles.

To clarify things for those unfamiliar, Merc uses a system whereby instances of objects and mobiles are cloned off of a master "index" object or mobile (of a particular vnum -- virtual number identifier).

Merc came with oset and mset commands to allow editing specific instances of objects or mobiles (the copies), but to change the master copy of an object or mobile, you would have to edit the area file by hand with a text editor, and restart the mud. SMAUG extended the oset/mset commands to support editing the master index objects/mobiles when a prototype flag was set on the object/mobile. NiMUD OLC instead added new editing commands to work on the master index objects/mobiles directly. I believe this in itself is evidence that they are not based on each other. If anything it seems like SMAUG's online building is closer to the Zebesta OLC you mention --Thoric 14:52, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Tim on Jul 16

First section removed due to relevance.

Second thing, I don't know enough about this to rewrite it very accurately, but the part talking about SMAUG's online building sounds like it has changed and isn't clear in what way it has. The original message says that SMAUG's system was completely separate from the one called OLC, and inspired by some other online building systems, and the new one says that it was influenced by OLC with no references to the other systems. After reading the entire article, one comes away with the idea that all online creation systems (at least all diku ones) were based on this one system and that there have never existed any other systems. For the SMAUG one, I don't know where it had inspiration from because I'm not terribly interested in diku muds. Someone should probably e-mail whoever's responsible for SMAUG and ask them directly, and then put their response on this article, or else go from the SMAUG readme (which I haven't looked for due to not being interested enough).

Doesn't anyone read anymore? I've already stated serveral times in this talk page that SMAUG's online building was created in 1994 after using MozartMUD's online building in 1993. I am responsible. I wrote the code. --Thoric 16:02, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

No I don't think Thoric is responsible for that version of online building; and I still attribute Kalgen of Zebesta as the original developer of the first online building, at Hidden Worlds DIKU. SillyMUD was available in 1993, not MozartMUD, and I cannot find any relevant code that shows that it was publically available. The point of releasing software into public consumption is to share it with the group, and since it was not shared with the group, it was not publically available even if it existed. I do not claim to have ownership of the idea - NO ONE DOES - but I do claim that "online creation" was a product developed by myself and Chris Woodward, and released to public consumption in or around 1994. -Locke

I didn't claim responsibility for the Mozart code, only responsibility of the SMAUG code. --Thoric 04:33, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

All I have info about is that OLC was inspired by Hidden Worlds' system... and that comes straight from the surviving author, so that's pretty clear. I quoted that on the talk page earlier, and here is another more recent quote saying basically the same thing. This quote comes from NiM5.beta_2.prerelease.tar.gz:

We stole the ideas from Hidden Worlds MUD, 
who had the initial working concept of an OLC; a very
advanced feature at the time for a Diku/Merc 1.0; and
perhaps the only Merc 1.0 boasting an online zone
building system.
Surreality wrote the major framework.  It was designed
by both Surreality and Locke by stealing ideas from
Kalgen, who ran a mud called Zebesta with his friend
Zlixlt.  Kalgen (Alex Dzur of University of Washington,
Seattle, Washington) had designed an interesting
derivation of Merc after his time as an immortal on 
Hidden Worlds, where he was among the more prestigious 
immortals.  Kalgen's Mud Zebesta has disappeared; sad
but true it is lost to history.  One of the greatest
muds ever seen, which had many of the features and
careful considerations of a game worthy of being called
"great" --
The "Mozart" OLC software was not written at the time,
and has come later, perhaps developed simulteanously,
but most likely a "reinvented wheel" to avoid the NiMUD
OLC license, which of course has been ignored by a
great many MUD developers.  Thoric of Realms of Despair
lends this to the fact that much of the godwars variants,
pirate and deluxe for example, were "leaked" and being
that this is true, often MUD developers, often in their
secretive nature, have failed to follow Jason Dinkel's
license which stated that those using the EnvyOLC/ILAB
OLC ports must CONTACT LOCKE@MUGS.NET (now swerves@hotpop.com

The current page has no reference to Hidden Worlds, I assume this was a mistake in editing, because the current context makes it sound like NiMUD had it, and Locke never became an immortal to build, and thus implies that Locke was never an immortal on NiMUD or something. Please re-read before clicking submit, everyone, and use the preview button too :)

Licensing... I was confused from reading the article, and I didn't know why it mattered that ILAB/OLC had permission to edit it or not. I have a better understanding after reading some files, but I think others shouldn't have to go to as much trouble. The current message sounds like it was written from an anti-OLC point of view and might scare people from using it based on fears of an overly restrictive license. In reality, NiMUD's license sounds like they require you to follow the diku and merc licenses, plus get permission of Locke if you're going to re-distribute any of his code in a derivative. That's not very limiting in relation to other diku derivatives I've seen. Getting permission before re-distributing is the only weird thing. It's not the most open of licenses, but isn't terrible scary like the article suggested. I'm just going to add a quick thing saying that OLC is under the same license as NiMUD, and then maybe later I'll update NiMUD so that it talks about the license. I think the "no permission was granted" line sounds very anti-OLC, so I'm going to keep it but reword it slightly and just say that other users haven't followed the license when distributing their code. Misplaced Pages also shouldn't be used for keeping a running tally of who has been granted permission or not, for obvious reasons.

Ick, that's alot of stuff I wrote and researched for such a small amount of changes. Hopefully you can see exactly why I changed the parts I did though.

Locke's Clarifications to Dating

1,2,3 removed for relevance

4) The word 'beforehand' does not exist in the human language; it was a side-effect of my efforts as a youth to create 'a new language' - thus the convention of 'Darkwood' and its appearance in Wildgames' FATE. It's before hand or before-hand (arguably). This appears in earlier NiMUDs but was corrected.

5) The original message posted about his death is still visible at

6) I do not believe Thoric did not use NiMUD's OLC as a model for his own. I also think the influence of his builders on features is part of the way that the influence was transmitted. I think he should use OLC, and hereby grant him permission to do so, with his SMAUG releases. No author of a server has ever been given that permission before. The stipulations of that permission is that we are properly credited and cited and that he includes a link to The Isles webpage and email address in his documentation.

This has to do with other software (ROMolc, Ivan's OLC) using my software without permission granted from me directly; AND they fail to cite us at all- this is the problem, they don't cite us and now people are believing that Alander (or whoever wrote ROMolc) and Ivan came up with the stuff. It's bogus and very unfair to us. Obviously sabotage for the appeasement of their respective egos. I only gave permission to 1 person to port it (Jason Dinkel) -- while I have heard "theft is the sincerest form of flattery" I also would have liked to have been notified. I do not mind so much that the software is hosted and retract any claims to Thoric's SMAUG, though he has admitted that it influenced his design, so why don't you just put "Thanks Surreal and Locke for a great multi-modal model" in your credits? I like you man, but jeez, give us some credit here and there and we'd (or I guess I) would be very happy. Also please remove all NiM5 packages as I instructed you in email, why have you not done that? I assume you've just overlooked those emails or something.

7) I think Thoric is embellishing and that is why I am here to try to state things as clearly as possible: we started playing in 1992, Chris and I started writing muds together in 1993; by 1994 we were working hard and I was getting ready to release it. I met Chris when I was 13, we had experience in BBSes. Discovering muds was amazing for us. We spent a lot of time on DuneMUSH, which influenced our design, but that was happening after the release of at least one of the earlier versions. I remember someone, and I truly believe it was the owner of ftp.game.org, Derek Snider, refused to host The Isles because the area files, which had been converted to a new file format, weren't "allowed" there, and I saw it as a direct act of sabotage.

Points 6 & 7 -- I already stated that MozartMUD had it's own online building code in 1993. If you were "working hard" in 1994, then how could your OLC have predated Mozart's online building? It sounds to me like I was developing SMAUG's online building at the same time that you were getting your OLC ready for release. --Thoric 15:56, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

No I don't believe that, I think that's where you are embellishing. You did admit that it influenced it, why can't you just cite us as inspiration for additions to the system or something? Is it that hard for you to give some credit to us? You already have a popular server and a popular mud..that has benefited from our work.

It was being developed around the same time, who knows? But as I stated earlier, 'building' is different and could be a seperate article. Also, please provide some proof of this to strengthen this argument. -Locke

Proof for which? I guess we'd need statements from Mozart builders that were around in 1993 (and earlier) for that. The same probably goes for Realms of Despair. If you like I could send you a copy of build.c from August 1995 from when we first started using RCS, before switching to CVS (which you can compare to the one in the SMAUG 1.01 distribution). This would give you an idea of how advanced the code was at that time, and from looking over it, I've noticed it is pre-"mset on"/"oset on", meaning that you can't lock into an editing mode onto an object or a mobile. It wasn't added until we were preparing for the SMAUG release, and was likely added at the request of a beta tester:

revision 1.133
date: 1996/10/09 22:19:07;  author: derek;  state: Exp;  lines: +230 -27
Added lock-in modes for redit, oset and mset

So cite OLC here I suppose..and please remove all copies of NiM5* and add in the latest version, that would be very helpful. -Locke

Also I would like to point out that statements aren't enough: I would need to see files dated back to then, corroborating the original developers of Mozart's story, and perhaps then -- but of course all of this can be manipulated if you can convince Mozart's original developers to lie. SillyMUD does not seem to contain this code in its 1993 version. I am fairly certain that there is no proof that SillyMUD had any public code containing "building" before OLC. In examinating of early SillyMUD source code, I note that it does not contain any building code, only player editing code..

Removed due to relevance.

Oh, and thanks Tim for being helpful in moderating this entry. You have been very helpful in keeping it fair, and I look forward to your additional comments -Locke.

A majority of this is pretty uninteresting, thus not a ton of comments. I'm interested in Misplaced Pages being accurate and all that though, especially because I would like to be able to reliably use it for researching stuff. Most of the problems I caught were pretty obvious to anybody actually reading the articles. I haven't even used OLC or SMAUG's online editor myself. No offense intended, but I think most of the argument stuff is pretty silly to argue about, and the bragging points that were put all over the place on here and on online building are not about anything revolutionary (wow, a multi-modal editor, almost 20 years after vi or emacs, what a great new idea! ooh, and it changes things in real-time, just other MUDs since the 1980s). --Atari2600tim

It certainly was for MUDDING, Diku specifically, as the OLC code has been ported to 30 different softwares and is in use today as a standard feature. It's origins are clarified. -- Locke

Removed due to relevance ("Hacking of Cthulhu")

Current build is available at .

Cheers, Locke locke@mugs.net

Copyright stuff removed.

Merc

Many files do not follow the license, namely, Merc and derived. How does Merc do this? Also, many of the Merc areas contain copyrighted lyrics to popular rock songs, snippets from popular written media, etc..

Online Creation is not Online Building

I truly believe online building is not the same as online creation, was developed seperately, even though Online Creation's modal features were later included in implementions of SMAUG. -Locke

Alrighty then. We only really need one "online building/creation" article with a generic term to cover all angles (OLC, OLB, MUSHs, etc), of which OLC would be a subsection. --Thoric 22:35, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

online building

Comments removed.