Comments on: Making MUDs more visually appealing

By: Dave/Skol/Ziv

Dave/Skol/Ziv — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:29:12 +0000

Ah, that’s sweet Matt!

By: matt

matt — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:27:26 +0000

The easiest way to get the information from server to client is to use telnet subnegotiation. This way it’s safely ignored by clients that don’t support it. You can send any information you like this way - stats, location coordinates that relate to a map file, gold/silver, XP, inventory, etc etc. Unfortunately there is no way to standardise this between mud servers so right now it’s a custom addition to the client which I can do on a commercial basis for individual games that are interested.

By: Dave/Skol/Ziv

Dave/Skol/Ziv — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:04:01 +0000

Hm, maybe a Diku-line client if the stats stayed the same *ponder*. How does it get the info, specific commands? I know in that line anyway, ’score’ is the command for players to access it, stat will show it, but I wasn’t sure how they’d ‘handshake’ to give the info.

It’s really intriguing though, could do the same with ch->gold/silver/etc (I’ve got 5 coin system in game). Many of those could simply be up there at all times, negating a need for ’score’ command.

I imagine the info on what room correlates to what spot on the map is the same kind of info. That could be amazing as well. Then if no map file existed, perhaps a greyed out.
Here’s one (part of a much larger) that I’d done.
http://www.ansalonmud.com/building/maps/palanthas_waterfront/PW_blue_crab_pier.jpg

By: matt

matt — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:33:44 +0000

@Dave
Graphical bars and maps are not that difficult to implement, however they are very server specific so it’s not really something that can be included easily with a general client.

By: Dave/Skol/Ziv

Dave/Skol/Ziv — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 01:51:55 +0000

Matt, the bars and graphical map… would rule.
I’ve seen one you did like that, but didn’t know how much work on the other side it’d take to mesh up and whether you had any plans on releasing a general client with that (or perhaps one that’s mod’able).

By: matt

matt — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:50:45 +0000

@Jeremy
It would be interesting to set up two alternative landing pages for new players with web clients and have one default to a fixed width font and one default to something like Verdana. I am guessing you’d see better numbers from the one with Verdana, but whether there would be enough of a difference to make you want to bite the bullet and drop the fixed width formatting is another matter.

@George
I agree Avenshar has an appealing look and I think it’s largely down to the font. Last time I looked there wasn’t really anything they were doing that couldn’t be implemented using telnet anyway. With subnegotiation you can pretty much send all the custom data you need while retaining compatibility with existing clients.

By: george

george — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:24:48 +0000

I’ve been playing a game in alpha recently that I think really nails it in visual appeal; it’s Archons of Avenshar at http://www.avenshar.com.

As I said it’s in alpha so still quite basic. However the interesting thing here is that the game is so easy on the eyes that it’s quite fun to play despite being as basic as it is.

Importantly for this discussion this mud does not implement telnet, and no doubt there is still a substantial portion of mud players that use the telnet protocol in a terminal application. However I’d be curious to find out what portion of players could just as easily use a different protocol and not really notice, and of course it goes without saying a player completely new to muds is not likely to care whether they’re using telnet at all.

I don’t want to suggest that telnet doesn’t have major advantages, particularly on mobile platforms right now. It’s a thorny issue.

By: Jeremy Saunders

Jeremy Saunders — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:35:03 +0000

I agree 100%.

I think everything listed can be done. My only problem is the fonts part. I agree that fixed width fonts are lame, but so many aspects in our games require it. From in game maps to lining things data into columns, the fixed font is required.

If only there was a way…