[for those on Mud-Dev, sorry for the double post. I'd like this lists
gurus input on a good workaround as well]
Evening list,
I'm writing up a new area for a site I've been developing steadily the
past two years. I am an avid Mud fan and have found the perfect hobby in
developing a website with online text games in mind.
The new area is for builders to develop areas, mob, and npc's. Standard
generators such as figlet, name generators, random dungeon,town, quest,
etc.. will be made available as well to assist the builders in fully
developing their project areas.
It all looks good on paper [ 20+ hand written pages scattered across my
bookshelf], but a problem I am having is determining how to best cater to
the many different area formats. This is more of a 'how would you'
question. When it comes to text game areas, a majority of the servers
utilise their own bit system or other unique identifiers to store specific
details for their area. They use data storage devices such as flat text
files, backend databases and xml (I consider this a flat-text storage
device as well).
My thoughts on the workaround for this is to go ahead and create
templates for the most popular servers that have public released source.
By viewieng how 'stock' sources store their data, I can write a cgi to
store the areas unique identifiers in my own sql scheme. This task, while
abit daunting is not too serious of a concern. Yet whom runs a mudserver
long from stock source code? There will be any number of changes to the
area format that the cgi must overcome in order to store the data in my
database scheme.
The areas [or specific rooms, mobs, objects, spells,..] which are stored
in the database can then be downloaded by other community members for
their own specific game server format. [ You can build an area for an XX
based mudserver, someone else can choose to download it as a YY based area
format ].
To be sucessful, there needs to be flexibility in the cgi for all
derivitive game servers. Would the best method of handling be the request
of a 'standard upload template' in order to determine that games layout.
Example:
::structure-area_flags::
flag_open 1
flag_closed 2
::structure-mob_flags::
flag_agressive 1
Thoughts on how to accomplish a non-server specific cgi between the
database and game server format is much appreciated.
Calvin
