HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mouse@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (der Mouse)
Subject: Re: Question about Sockets...
Organization: McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 11:21:07 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.155618.29055@eng.ufl.edu>, jdb@crane.cis.ufl.edu (John Brothers) writes:
> In article <92320.145038IO10081@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> IO10081@MAINE.MAINE.EDU (The Xanadian) writes:
>> Okay, I know that there are at least two different types of sockets,
>> Ioctl and Fnctl (if memory serves).

Oog.  No...ioctl and fcntl are routines that do things with file
descriptors (including, or in some cases restricted to, sockets).  It
is not at all clear to me what you mean here.

> There are not two different types of sockets.  There are sockets, and
> file descriptors.  In most cases, however, sockets can be treated as
> file descriptors.  (sockets might be called a 'specialized subset' of
> file descriptors).

This sounds rather confused.  The first sentence is false as worded,
but true in its denial of the previous post.  The second sentence can
be interpreted in ways that make it true, but then it's tautological,
or at least trivial.  The third sentence is true but misleading.  The
parenthetical comment is true.

A file descriptor is simply a small integer value.  It is a handle a
user-level processes can use for I/O; almost all I/O is channeled
through file descriptors, including files (whence the name), devices
(like terminal lines), and sockets.  From a user process' point of
view, a socket is a file descriptor.  But "socket" can also refer to
the object in the kernel, the thing to which the file descriptor
refers (or at least can refer), whereas a file descriptor is strictly
and only the small integer handle.

					der Mouse

			    mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
From: griffon@iastate.edu (Tamber Kelsain)
Subject: Re: ATTN: skill based muds
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 23:23:34 GMT

In article <Bxs3K9.B4D@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> ksdavis@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Karleenus Schwartz Davis) writes:
>rossw@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Ross Williamson) writes:
>>  [. . .]  how do we now compare players.  With the 
>>current xp systems, it's easy the highest xp is tops.  But
>>with skills how do we handle it, are some skills better than others
>>are they all on the same footing.
>>
>>	Any comments?
>
>Why bother comparing the characters?  Having no real basis for
>comparison is bound to encourage role-playing.  On Cyberworld, I
	You bet it does.  I think it'd be extremely fun to convince a
very powerful character that I, a beginner, was twice as powerful as
he was. That'd be great!

>particularly enjoy being able to interact with a player knowing only
>his name and a few other ordinary things, but not his "level" or rank
Agreed.

>of any kind.  I also advocate removing superfluous information from
>"who" lists -- like only including their name and maybe raor guild,
>but never their level unless they're wizards or guild leaders or
>however you've got your mud set up.
>
>What good does it do to have one character be "better" than another?
>I personally knew a lot of very high-level players on my old mud who
>were the least interesting people in the game, whereas some of the
>lower-level players were much "better" role-players and added much
>more to the game as a whole.

Three cheers for good role-players!

>-sz


-- 
     Will Stoltenberg	  |"The Bible is not my book and Christianity is not my
 Ames, Iowa (515) 294-1701| religion. I could never give assent to the long 
    "Tamber Kelsain"	  | complicated statements of Christian dogma."
   griffon@iastate.edu	  |			- Abraham Lincoln
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
From: jamie@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Jamieson Norrish)
Subject: Re: Wizardhood on LPMuds.
Organization: /u/student/jamie/.organization
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 00:40:27 GMT

In article <By11yL.8HI@news.iastate.edu> griffon@iastate.edu (Tamber Kelsain) writes:

	   Well, with all the ideas that are being thrown around, I
   thought I'd add in a few of my own.
	   What do you think of a mud with a goal other than that of
   becoming a coder?

I think it's a must.

	   What about a Mud that you deign to become a God? Where "Gods"
	   are not coders, but extremely powerful players?

Well, it's better, but why not just have the characters be normal
characters? Just rich, good at whatever skills they've used all their
lives, with plenty of reputation. In effect, they would be the upper
echelons of society.

	   What about a Mud on which it is More Fun to continue to play,
	   than to code?

Well, I don't know about "more fun". Just don't give them the option. :)

	   Well, in order for these desires to become true, a Mud needs
   several things:
	   a) An advancement system that is practically infinite (For
              Mud, anyway)

Well, I don't think this is necessary. If you're using levels, and the
basic activity of everyone is to kill things, then I suppose it is a
must. If you have a skill-based system a la RuneQuest, then that isn't
even a consideration.

	   b) The ability to affect the world and how it is designed without
              becoming a coder.

Well, allowing limited room and item creation (even if it's just
telling a wizard what you want, and them coding it) is necessary, I
think. Also, in order for players to have an effect on the world,
resets have to be removed. Otherwise it's *only* building that has an
effect, rather than the fact that so-and-so killed the great wyrm
so-and-so, who was terrorising the kingdom, and it will never bother
anyone again.

	   c) The ability to make a place of your own, to call your own.

As I say above, limited item and room creation. The ability to own and
"run" shops etc. This would be the start of a "real" economy, if the
money spent actually went to players, who then recycled it.

	   What do you think of a Mud like this?

I think that if it's done the way I would do it, it would be
brilliant, but that's not saying much. :-)

	   What problems/catches/interesting pts do you see?

Make sure that even fairly new and "low-powered" characters can have
an effect; otherwise it'll just be the same race to reach a slightly
different goal - not wizardhood, but "god" status. That's something I
think that should be avoided at all costs.

Otherwise, good luck.

Jamie
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
From: morale@lib101.its.rpi.edu (Enrique Morales)
Subject: Where is LPSwat???
Summary: wondering what happned to LPSwat.
Keywords: **sigh**
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 17:48:39 GMT

Hey there. This is Rhyad from 'swat. Does anyone know whathappened to it?
Some info would be appreciated.

Enrique
aka Rhyad
From: anipa@cs.tut.fi (Niilo Neuvo)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
Subject: Re: Wizardhood on LPMuds.
Date: 23 Nov 92 03:14:59
Organization: Tampere U of Technology, Finland
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: kaarne.cs.tut.fi
In-reply-to: griffon@iastate.edu's message of Fri, 20 Nov 1992 18:27:55 GMT

griffon@iastate.edu (Tamber Kelsain) writes:
> 	What about a Mud on which it is More Fun to continue to play,
> 	than to code?

> 	Well, in order for these desires to become true, a Mud needs
> several things:
> 	a) An advancement system that is practically infinite (For Mud, anyway)
> 	b) The ability to affect the world and how it is designed without
> 		becoming a coder.
> 	c) The ability to make a place of your own, to call your own.

> 	Well, the People at Legends Mud have thought about these
> things, and have decided that these goals are truly within our coding
> ability.  So the Legends Coders have set off to create (as far as is
> known) a Unique Mud.  Legends is being designed to include a-c above,
> and will have many interesting features.

> 	What do you think of a Mud like this?
> 	What problems/catches/interesting pts do you see?

The moment mortals get to create something they will find a way to
abuse it. And making something simple as a castles for mortals
suddenly turns out to be a rather intresting job.

And everything you mentioned has already been done on the mud I run.

++Anipa
--
      NN   NN  NN   NN  NNNNNNNN
    NNNN    N  NN    N  NNNNNN
  NNNNNN  N    NN  N    NNNN
NNNNNNNN  NN   NN  NN   NN
From: tfv0@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (Theodore F. Vaida ][)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
Subject: Re: ATTN: skill based muds
Date: 16 Nov 92 01:00:48 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University


In article <1992Nov15.194821.4786@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz>, rossw@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (R
oss Williamson) writes:
>       At the mud I admin we are just about to upgrade to a new
>driver and with this we are also looking to go to a solely skills based
>system.
>       We have found that this has it's pros and cons.  One of the
>more interesting ones is how do we now compare players.  With the

How about adding up the total number of points in skills, perhaps with
multipliers for ceertain 'essential' or important skills.  I run a Lambda MOO
so I dont play about with skills (its a puzzle/'mind' game).  ?
-- 

---------=======================================================---------
                  ->POLAR CAPS<- or tfv0@lehigh.edu
Student Konsultant & the Macintosh conference moderator too! Making the
 world safe for computing!
"One must not confuse John Dunne's famous quote `No man is an Island' with
 New York Telephone's `We're all connected'" - Dad
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
From: tuff@ellis.uchicago.edu (Geoff Tuffli)
Subject: Re: Wizardhood on LPMuds.
Reply-To: tuff@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 12:15:14 GMT

In article <JAMIE.92Nov21195034@kauri.vuw.ac.nz> jamie@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Jamieson Norrish) writes:
>
>As for "kinds of systems": what exactly do you mean by this? I would
>love to see a MU* which was entirely skill-based with no increasing
>hp, deadly combat, and an internally consistent setting. That is, an
>environment which has been put together with a bit of care, rather
>than just having a dozen or so people cobble something together
>without paying attention to what everyone else is doing. MU*s that
>have "Space" areas, and "Fantasy" areas etc, all somehow joined
>together, are, IMHO, awful. I realise that it's tempting to make a
>game contain something for everyone. However, since there are large
>numbers of these games about, I think it's worth the effort to
>concentrate on a single theme/genre/whatever.
>
>Having constrained the "world", it is then equally important to let
>the players do anything they like, *in keeping with that setting*.
>There should be very few rules, beyond that of skill resolution (which
>includes combat and magic), that prevent the players from doing
>things. For example, player killing (which in this sort of environment
>would best be permanent, IMHO) should be allowed, characters should be
>able to run shops, build houses, become guildmasters, etc. etc.
>
>And finally, NO RESETS! :-)
>
>Jamie  

	TaeisMUSH, the precursor to Mua'kaar (also a MUSH) gave us a strong
conception of what we were looking for when we started hacking together
Mua'kaar itself. Within a couple of weeks, we will have combat, a full
ecology (birth/hunt/death cycles), an economy, a military resolution system,
weather and magic. There is a very strict theme; within this, players are
allowed to do as they wish. In fact, one of the problems that has arisen
already has been that some players have a difficult time accepting the theme
of the MUSH to be as binding as, say, the Pern theme on any PernMUSH.

	It being a MUSH also seems to eliminate certain controversies that
seem to crop up on non-Tiny environments, the two most evident being player-
killing (which in this situation is more common than "monster" killing,
and, interestingly enough, VERY rare, as a player who tries to kill lots of
other players is inevitably going to have the local lord (a player character)
sending out people to bring him or her in) and resetting, which isn't
necessary on a MUSH. Now, much of this works because we don't use experience
points, but rather a pure skill system -- in an environment where the aim
is to advance levels and gain treasure, rather than a major emphasis on
role-playing, this might not work.

	Geoff Tuffli
	The Green Griffin



Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
From: pati@jyu.fi (P. Timonen = Frobozz)
Subject: Re: Wizardhood on LPMuds.
Organization: University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 23:45:16 GMT

In article <By11yL.8HI@news.iastate.edu> griffon@iastate.edu (Tamber Kelsain) writes:
>	Well, with all the ideas that are being thrown around, I
>thought I'd add in a few of my own.
>	What do you think of a mud with a goal other than that of
>becoming a coder? ( I refrain from using the word "wizard", because on
>Legends, "wizards" could and probably will refer to those individuals
>that have magical powers ).

In StickMUD players become Lords/Ladies at the point they would have wizzed
in (most) other muds.
>
>	What about a Mud that you deign to become a God? Where "Gods"
>	are not coders, but extremely powerful players?

Our Lords and Ladies are very powerful players.
>
>	What about a Mud on which it is More Fun to continue to play,
>	than to code?

Seems like they really enjoy playing it. Here is a part of our top list:

StickMUD Lords Hall of Fame Monday, 23rd November 1992 at  1:00

    Name         Lvl    Exp      Age        Title

 1. Tws          31  76822249 31d17:02  The Smurfficus Chaoticus
 2. Wolfen       30  64038665 48d16:33  The Rogue Lord
 3. Wavefront    30  62969160 37d21:14  The SuperSonic
 4. Balfour      28  35470332 32d04:06  The ninja (2dan black belt)
 5. Chthonian    27  30742744 38d14:04  The Lumbricus Chaoticus
 6. Freya        26  27227907 37d06:21  The ninja (golden belt)
 7. Gorbo        26  21002946 36d13:36  The sensei
 8. Boogieman    26  20131304 17d05:03  The Laid Back Zombie
 9. Zeus         26  19502604 25d04:10  The ExpHungryOne
10. Samsuurin    26  18590347 17d13:21  The ninja (orange belt)

>
>	Well, in order for these desires to become true, a Mud needs
>several things:
>	a) An advancement system that is practically infinite (For Mud, anyway)

We have a system that can handle players over 30 times higher than any of
them currently are.
 
>	b) The ability to affect the world and how it is designed without
>		becoming a coder.

This is done by listening to their suggestions (old players know what they
want, we know what they are allowed to have).

>	c) The ability to make a place of your own, to call your own.
>
For a very high price Lords and Ladies can buy a castle of their own design.
That castle is made of certain building units (e.g. basic room, throne room,
inn, castle front), and is inhabited by monsters (normally guards).
 
>	Well, the People at Legends Mud have thought about these
>things, and have decided that these goals are truly within our coding
>ability.  So the Legends Coders have set off to create (as far as is
>known) a Unique Mud.  Legends is being designed to include a-c above,
>and will have many interesting features.
>
You might be interested to pay a visit to StickMUD (LPMUD 3.1.2):
	stickmud.jyu.fi 7680
    or	 kalikka.jyu.fi 7680
    or	    130.234.0.2 7680

//Frobozz of StickMUD (pati@jyu.fi)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
From: tuff@ellis.uchicago.edu (Geoff Tuffli)
Subject: Re: Wizardhood on LPMuds.
Reply-To: tuff@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 16:55:25 GMT

In article leet@acsu.buffalo.edu (Brian D. Leet) writes:
>
>I think that is exactly half the problem Moby ( :-) ).  To me a more likely
>concern stems indirectly from this but is more likely to occur.  That is the
>complete elimination of a species from the mud.  In order to have a large 
>enough population on the mud of each species that even when players were on
>rampage they wouldn't kill all of a species off would be nearly impossible.
>Especially for the larger or more unique species.  Unless you have some 
>artificial way of restocking the population the actions of a single character
>could easily lead to the extinction of a species.  Especially if you have
>species competing against each other (which I hope you would in a real
>ecology. 
>Artificial restocking are acceleration of birth rates would lead to another
>problem:  If as a player I am able to kill off all the goblins on the mud
>(for example) except for three or four in a single room I can then stand
>at the exit knowing they'll pop out babies at a phenominal rate which I can
>kill as the leave the room (assuming everything would have some form of 
>mobility).  This should be an easy and relativley risk free way of upping the
>xp.  I am not saying balancing the ecology can't be done, just that its not
>likely to be so easy as you suggest.
>
>>Mobydick@TMI

	Actually, my opinion is that without the dynamic spaces, this would
be a very real problem. (Dynamic spaces essentially make a huge grid (in the
case of Mua'kaar, about 600,000 rooms, I believe) that creates and dest's
rooms as people (or objects) move into or out of them. This being the case,
you can have populations of animals or beasties that exist in a huge area of
wilderness - with 600,000 rooms and with a limited number of players (certainly
less than 50 or so in the case of Mua'kaar) I'd give players as a whole a
standing ovation if they managed to find every rep of a species in an area
of that size...;-)  Again, without the dynamic spaces, this would be a major
concern in my mind. As it is, particularly with the rpg emphasis and not
combat emphasis (combat is very dangerous and deadly), I don't THINK it will
prove to be a problem...

	Geoff Tuffli
	The Green Griffin


Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
From: griffon@iastate.edu (Tamber Kelsain)
Subject: Wizardhood on LPMuds.
Summary: Coders might not be as necesary as some people think...
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 18:27:55 GMT

	Well, with all the ideas that are being thrown around, I
thought I'd add in a few of my own.
	What do you think of a mud with a goal other than that of
becoming a coder? ( I refrain from using the word "wizard", because on
Legends, "wizards" could and probably will refer to those individuals
that have magical powers ).

	What about a Mud that you deign to become a God? Where "Gods"
	are not coders, but extremely powerful players?

	What about a Mud on which it is More Fun to continue to play,
	than to code?

	Well, in order for these desires to become true, a Mud needs
several things:
	a) An advancement system that is practically infinite (For Mud, anyway)
	b) The ability to affect the world and how it is designed without
		becoming a coder.
	c) The ability to make a place of your own, to call your own.

	Well, the People at Legends Mud have thought about these
things, and have decided that these goals are truly within our coding
ability.  So the Legends Coders have set off to create (as far as is
known) a Unique Mud.  Legends is being designed to include a-c above,
and will have many interesting features.

	What do you think of a Mud like this?
	What problems/catches/interesting pts do you see?

		Looking forward to responses,
			-Tamber, Dream Legend.


-- 
     Will Stoltenberg	  |"The Bible is not my book and Christianity is not my
 Ames, Iowa (515) 294-1701| religion. I could never give assent to the long 
    "Tamber Kelsain"	  | complicated statements of Christian dogma."
   griffon@iastate.edu	  |			- Abraham Lincoln
From: leet@acsu.buffalo.edu (Brian D. Leet)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
Subject: Re: ATTN: skill based muds
Date: 16 Nov 92 03:23:36 GMT
Organization: UB

In article <1992Nov16.030136.3141@leland.Stanford.EDU> whale@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stephen Schmidt) writes:
>In article <1992Nov15.194821.4786@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> rossw@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Ross Williamson) writes:
>>	We have found that this has it's pros and cons.  One of the
>>more interesting ones is how do we now compare players.  With the 
>>current xp systems, it's easy the highest xp is tops.
>
>A related and much more practical question is: how do you know when the
>player makes wizard?

Well at Underdark (Cynic's not the other one, Openning RSN).  We don't feel
that the mass accumulation of experience points is what makes someone 
qualified to become a wizard.  We do use an experience point system but keep
track of experience points seperately for the player as a whole and each
individual guild they are a member of.  We feel that in order to be a good
wiz the player should fit in well with the existing wizard family and be 
enthusiastic.  With this view point it is fairly clear that ability to 
gather experience points and ability to wiz are two pretty much unrelated
issues that shouldn't be confused.

Just my $0.02

Brian@UD (and TMI-2 sometimes)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
From: whale@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stephen Schmidt)
Subject: Re: Wizardhood on LPMuds.
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 92 07:09:28 GMT

In article <1992Nov22.050757.6240@midway.uchicago.edu> tuff@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In an environment where combat exists in a
>vacuum, I'd agree, resetting would be necessary. However, coupled with
>the ecology, I think that this wouldn't be so much of a problem. Remember
>that once the ecology system is running, "reproduction" of the beasties
>should make up for any losses (though I must say that I don't envy
>E.W.Bright's (Nerine) job of trying to get the ecology into a working
>balance. ;-) )
>
Actually, it shouldn't be that hard. Make sure that the rate at which
monsters reproduce falls as the number of monsters rises, perhaps by
requiring them to eat limited food, or by introducing a direct dependency
of reproduction rate on numbers. Easy to do with the children() efun on 
LP's, don't know about others.
Make sure that the rate at which players kill monsters rises as the number
of monsters rises. Should happen naturally, although if it doesn't you may
need to throw some coding at it, or possibly have the monsters begin to
kill one another.
The dynamics of the situation then insures that you should tend around
some stable number of monsters, with kill rate equal to reproduction
rate. How much you flutter around depends mostly on how constant your
player activity is over time.
The main problem I see is that as more and more monsters reproduce the
system will slow down making it harder for players to kill them. You
should probably prevent this by coding an upper bound on the number of
monsters, and tweaking the parameters of reproduction until you don't hit
it very often. You'll also need to tweak reproduction rates as player
activity varies.
(plug time) Once the MudOS mudlib 0.9 is out there will more than likely
be a group at TMI working on implementing this for LP Mud - at least, it
was an old topic of discussion that I'm interested in starting again. Stop
by when the release is out (you'll find out) and we'll see how many people
get interested.

Mobydick@TMI
-- 
Steve Schmidt			<><		   whale@leland.stanford.edu
I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist
indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist
conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids!