Misplaced Pages

Online creation

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Nandesuka (talk | contribs) at 22:26, 2 October 2006 (I don't see what the stuff you're reverting to adds. Can you discuss in more detail how you would like to improve the article? Thanks.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 22:26, 2 October 2006 by Nandesuka (talk | contribs) (I don't see what the stuff you're reverting to adds. Can you discuss in more detail how you would like to improve the article? Thanks.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Online Creation (OLC, sometimes also referred to as Online Coding), or Online Building is a feature of MUDs that allows users to edit world data while simultaneously playing the game. Referred to by the acronym "OLC" or "OC", this was a significant improvement for Dikumud variants, because they typically require a restart in order to implement any changes to the map or objects database. TinyMUD, LPMUD and MUSH, MUCK and MUX software are all similar in that they provide extensibility and customization live without rebooting the game server, but typically use other words to refer to their editors (though, some do call theirs OLC). Many refer to the power to create online as "wizard", "builder", "customization" and "immortal" features, or "online building".

History

The first publicly available mud that featured in-game creation of the game world was Monster and was released in November 1988 by Richard Skrenta.

"Monster allows players to do something that very few, if any, other games allow: the players themselves create the fantasy world as part of the game. Players can create objects, make locations, and set up puzzles for other players to solve. Game mechanisms allow players to:

  • Create and describe new objects and locations
  • Specify how game objects function
  • Provide text descriptions for events that may happen

Further modifications could made via the menu-based Customize command.

For rooms, the name, primary and secondary descriptions could be changed. A mystery message could be added to a room that would be displayed when a magic object was brought into a room by a player. Trapdoors could be created to bounce players to a named exit (triggered by a random chance) or for bouncing dropped objects to another room.

For exits, one could set multiple aliases (i.e. n|north|road) as well as extended descriptions. Player traversal of exits could be blocked or allowed if a magic object was defined on the exit. Success and failure messages for attempted traversal could be defined as well as the messages other players saw when a player entered or came out of an exit. Exits could be marked concealed and/or flagged as doors to require the player to attempt to open a door or search the room for concealed exits.

For objects, one could edit the description, the article to be used with it (i.e. 'a', 'an', 'some'), and an extended description shown upon closer examination. A magic object or magic room could be defined that would allow or prevent an object from being picked up or used unless inside a specific place. Like exits, success and failure messages could be defined for 'getting' or 'using' an object. An object's type could be set which allowed pre-programmed behavior.

Monster heavily influenced Jim Aspnes's design of TinyMUD. Written and released in December 1989, TinyMUD itself inspired an entire family of MUDs based entirely on the premise of allowing users to build online. Among those subsequent MUDs are TinyMUCK and TinyMUSH.

TinyMUCK added the following features to the "online building" interface: the ability to write and modify multi-user Forth programs online, the ability to attach these programs to things — such as objects, rooms and players — and the ability to delete objects online. TinyMUSH's online creation language is more Lisp-like in nature.

A plethora of other MUD-like systems that allow creation of online content have followed on from these early comers, including LPMud, LambdaMOO, CoolMUD, and DikuMUD. Full discussion of these systems may be found at their respective pages.

External links