Talk:Multi-user dungeon

Reclassify BBS MUDs as codebases/server software?

A question recently came up at Template talk:MUDs as to whether the BBS-based MUDs that ran in multiple, unrelated instances should be classed as "MUD games/instances", as they are currently, or as "MUD server software/codebases". This would affect Scepter of Goth, Fazuul, Swords of Chaos, and MajorMUD. If we decided to treat them as codebases, then they would be moved from Category:MUD games to Category:MUD servers, removed from Chronology of MUDs (until and unless that list's inclusion criteria were modified to include codebases, which is not necessarily a bad idea), and moved around in {{MUDs}}. (And their titles would no longer be italicized.)

This seems sensible on the face of it, to me. Treating these software packages the same way as we treat individual persistent worlds has never quite made sense to me. So, let's see if some discussion can be drummed up around the idea.

I propose that we reclassify Scepter of Goth, Fazuul, Swords of Chaos, and MajorMUD as "MUD server software" rather than "MUD games".

• Support as nominator. —chaos5023 (talk) 21:23, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support as argued, though there's an argument to be made that these codebases are MUD Libs, with Major BBS functioning as a MUD Driver. That may be the best way to go about it. --Scandum (talk) 00:11, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

  Wow, I'm really on the fence about that. If I understand how MajorBBS works, it's handling telecom, which is a MUD driver sort of thing, but on the other hand it doesn't provide a lot of support functionality, and the MUD software definitely isn't running with MajorBBS as an underlying virtual machine, it's running directly on hardware. Scepter of Goth is a fly in the ointment, too; it didn't run under MajorBBS in the first place (Swords of Chaos is its MajorBBS port), and it's described as accepting connections directly itself, which puts it squarely in the "server software" box. All in all, I think "server software" is still the direction to go. —chaos5023 (talk) 01:08, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

If Major BBS doesn't function as a virtual machine then server software seems the logical choice. --Scandum (talk) 03:16, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Pretty sure it doesn't. The language at Category:Major BBS games strongly indicates that modules are native-code libraries that were originally statically linked, with dynamic linking coming along later in the game. Seems very unlikely that linking would ever have been an issue if modules were VM code of any kind. —chaos5023 (talk) 14:06, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

• Comment: I believe the correct category would be "MUD servers" (there is no "MUD server software" category), but I'm not sure if a BBS game would be considered the same as a "typical" MUD, but by definition any multi-player text adventure type game could be considered to be a "MUD" of sorts. The problem here is that if we open the doors to multi-player BBS games like MajorMUD for instance, then do we have to include other multi-player MajorBBS adventure games like Kyrandia, Quest for Magic, etc? Currently what we define as "MUDs" are limited to stand alone text adventure based network game servers. --Thoric (talk) 23:19, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

• A "MUD codebases" category would do the trick. --Scandum (talk) 23:46, 20 May 2011 (UTC)