Category: Site News

FutureProg Reference

Part of my ongoing efforts towards releasing the FutureMUD engine to the public as a v1.0 has been directed towards making certain things self-documenting. One such area has been the prog system – an absolutely core element of how the engine works, basically the scripting engine but used quite extensively to cut down on code complexity by outsourcing the customisation logic of various things.

At any rate, until now if you wanted to write progs you largely had to be me or at least just read the code to see what things do. Now, the code spits out an up to date HTML file with all that information, help on how to use the function, input help etc. I’m slowly rolling it out a little at a time across all the functions.

If that sort of thing interests you, you can check it out at Prog Functions Reference.

Release

LabMUD is now open for players. We’re doing a soft release this weekend (as of the time of this post), where we’ll be accepting people and letting them get into the lab early. We’ll do a formal launch even next weekend where the actual metaplot will begin.

Note that during the first week I expect you guys to find a lot of problems leading up to the official release and hopefully we can sort them out. If you want a smoother experience, wait for next weekend.

Otherwise, please come join us in the Lab!

Server Migration: Yes, the forums look like trash.

This is Wolfsong popping in under the guise of Japheth here just to let everyone know that we recently migrated from a Linux server to a Windows one. It’s dramatically increased the speed of LabMUD, taking the boot time from about 2 minutes 45 seconds to 25 seconds, but the move has broke some stuff – website, forums, etc. We’re in the process of getting everything back to where it should be, though, so don’t stress. The MUD itself should be largely unaffected, but if you notice something, please do let us know via the forums, if you can bring yourself to navigate the forum in its current state.

Now, then, let the rampant speculation about why we’ve moved to a server better capable of handling, say, a released Alpha version of the MUD begin.

Opening Day: May 9th

Per Japheth’s post here, we will be opening LabMUD’s player port on May 9th – which is next weekend, not this weekend. What that means is that next weekend the game will be fully open to play – not only character creation and the guest lounge, though those will still remain open. Character applications will be approved and PCs will be able to begin exploring the Lab.pd-mice-sample

 

 

Opening Chargen

As I believe I’ve mentioned elsewhere, we have been making fairly good progress on getting combat and its ancillary systems set up in the FutureMUD engine. (And by ‘we’ I mean almost exclusively Japheth. I mostly just sit back, waiting for my chance to break things later on.)  So with that in mind, I’m going to put myself out there and say that we are still on track for an April release. Moreover, I am personally confident enough in the engine, and the game, to open up LabMUD to character creation starting Sunday the 26th of April. That’s Australian time, folks, so for you Americans, you can look into getting into character generation late Saturday night, or whenever we wake up. The intention is that, while character generation is ongoing, we (again, mostly Japheth) can monitor the process and fix any game breaking bugs, crashes, etc. whenever they crop up. And I do expect them to crop up, despite our best efforts to make the process as smooth as possible – our testing until now has been with small groups of people, or individuals, or with just ourselves banging away.

This does not mean you’ll get to play the game on the 26th of April – only that you will be able to create a character. The MUD itself will still be wizlocked until a later date, when we’re fully confident the bare minimum requirements for a RPI MUD have been met.

It does mean we’re getting closer to our stepping off point, though, and that’s pretty exciting.

With that said, I want to reiterate that LabMUD is an Alpha – and is, in fact, the Alpha of an Alpha. Unlike other MUDs that have branded themselves with the ‘Alpha stage’ moniker in the recent past, we are not running on an established engine with most of the kinks worked out. We are not going to launch with an established economy, or a mini-fort system, or sailing. LabMUD was not built with the intention to be, and is not going to be, a [insert your ex-favourite MUD here] killer. It is a testing platform for the FutureMUD engine that just so happens to also be a RPI MUD. Things may be wildly unbalanced, or even broken. I would be seriously surprised, and more than a little worried, if they were not. Things may even be boring for the first few weeks, though I’ll endeavor to try and make sure this is not the case, until we can get some better progs in place to keep players entertained without constant admin supervision – or fix crippling balance issues. Please try to be patient with us, and put on your kindest rose-coloured glasses.

So yeah, make a note in your diaries.

Later on, maybe tomorrow, I’ll try to get a post up about how to report bugs and crashes during character generation.

LabMUD Server Upgraded

In preparation for going live this month, I have upgraded the server which LabMUD runs on. While the MUD itself actually wasn’t having any difficulty on the old server, the webserver was a bit sluggish. Hopefully the new server will be nice and quick.

We’re looking forward to seeing you all in the Lab very soon.