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I've been thinking of making a web-based MUD... something from scratch, that plays exactly like a MUD, but is entirely web-based. (My original plan was to rewrite DoorMUD and give it stand-alone telnet support, but why stop there... why not make it WEB-based instead of telnet?)



The idea is that, through creative use of PHP, Javascript, inline frames, and DHTML, you can get a real-time terminal-like interface on a web page, without needing to resort to something that requires a plug-in (like a stinky Java Applet).



I think this would be pretty cool, and could be more widely used than a traditional telnet/bbs MUD... I get the impression that telnet mudding is dying out, the influx of new players is tiny, partially because kids these days have no idea what telnet is :) But a MUD that is playable through any modern web browser would get around this problem.



Of course, the interface can be improved further, so in addition to the terminal display and command-line input form, you could have stuff like maps, on-line player lists, inventory lists, etc displayed at all times elsewhere on the page.



The game wouldn't be scriptable (unless some super-genious wrote an insanely complex web robot), but would be designed for playing by hand anyway... low exp tables and what-not.



As another plus, coding time would be significantly less than for a traditional telnet MUD, since a web-based MUD could take advantage of MySQL to handle all the data manipulations... the whole mud engine would probably be written in php.



But before I delve into this, I need to know how the interest level is...:)



* Would you play a web-based MUD like this? Or would you *prefer* to just play a telnet MUD instead?



* If the MUD was of a very high quality, would you PAY to play a MUD like this? (Something low, like $5/month for unlimited time and 2 or 3 accounts. There'd probably be free accounts too, but limited to like an hour or two of gameplay a day, and only 1 account. Probably also a 30-day free trial of full access)



* Webmasters, would you *run* a MUD like this? It would just require PHP and MySQL. I'm not sure how heavy the server load would be, probably very dependent on how many players are on-line at a time.



* Webmaters, would you *pay* to license a MUD like this, assuming that users would be willing to pay to play it (and hence you'd make back the costs)? It might be somewhat expensive (maybe a couple hundred bucks, but still far less than MajorMud), but you'd get full source code with that. Part of the reason for the cost would also be to ensure that there aren't a large number of servers running the game; that way each server would have a decent portion of the player base.



Examining php-ports of standard doorgames, I'm somewhat unsure of whether it's financially feasible... I highly doubt people would pay to play BlackNova Traders or Legend of the Green Dragon.



But if you look at a quality game like Lunatix Online (which is a graphical, web-based port of the old Lunatix door/mbbs game), there's a huuuge amount of paying players. And even Metro's crappy flash port of Farwest Trivia has some paying users... so I dunno... are graphics mandatory for people to pay for something? :)



Comments/ideas/questions? Please let me know. I'm thinking this would be a more exciting project than just writing another telnet mud, which was my original plan.

i would like to play a game like this...



i wouldn't play to pay it, but that's simply because i don't believe in paying for any games =\



there have been fun web based games in the past that I just loved... examples are turn based games like the ones at swirve.com and there used to be one called "high descent" or something...



anyway, I think it's a good idea, and i would definitely play it... i think that its taken way too long for someone to think about doing something like this



just yesterday i was thinking of ways to port mud to php or something similar so it would show up on a web browser...

I've been thinkin of the same thing... php/mysql... dhtml I'm not to familiar with... but it would probably be a HUGE server load... and making it act like its live might be hard to do... IE people in rooms like mud... people walking in and out of rooms.... I don't see how that would be possible... or party's of ppl killin bosses n such. But I do like the idea, and php/mysql are free, server software is free, so I feel that the game should be free as well.

i would like to play a game like this...



i wouldn't play to pay it, but that's simply because i don't believe in paying for any games =\



there have been fun web based games in the past that I just loved... examples are turn based games like the ones at swirve.com and there used to be one called "high descent" or something...



anyway, I think it's a good idea, and i would definitely play it... i think that its taken way too long for someone to think about doing something like this



just yesterday i was thinking of ways to port mud to php or something similar so it would show up on a web browser...





What games on swirve.com did you play?

I don't think you should make it pay. Maybe sell modules, but you have to give the engine away free. Not many people will pay to host that kind of game considering the amount of resources this game is probably going to need.



As far as paying to play. You should make it free to play but sell ads. Allow a subscription based service to remove ads. That's what many web-based games such as Neopets (i think) do.



You can't come out with a new game and expect people to pay unless you've done a lot of marketing and advertising. The word needs to get out on the game; you need to hook people on it before making them pay for it.



You mentioned time limit games. Time limit is hard given that typical http connections are connection-less. I.E. How are you going to keep track of how much time someone has used?



Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying charging is a bad thing, but there would have to be a big boom in popularity and a good revenue opportunity before I'd personally invest anything in it.



Your typical server that runs WG & MMUD will do fine for small games, but try to have say 30 people playing online at once and your server will be begging for more resources.



You might want to look into JAVA so clients can help with some of the processing.



just my thoughts..

oh, and also, if you are going to charge for the game and then give the source code away, you'd have to have good anti-piracy measures built in or Ray will bang you in the ass.. :-p

I've been thinkin of the same thing... php/mysql... dhtml I'm not to familiar with... but it would probably be a HUGE server load... and making it act like its live might be hard to do... IE people in rooms like mud... people walking in and out of rooms.... I don't see how that would be possible... or party's of ppl killin bosses n such. But I do like the idea, and php/mysql are free, server software is free, so I feel that the game should be free as well.



It's very possible to do it like a real-time terminal... again, takes some cleverness :) but very possible. In fact, it's possible to just write a telnet client in html+php, with the only restriction being it doesn't support hotkeys. (in other words, you have to hit "enter" to send any input, but otherwise its like a terminal).



You simply have one frame which is the terminal's display -- its some single php page, and it just keeps feeding new text to the browser (the page never finishes). You can use javascript to make the inline frame auto-scroll. To handle stuff like statline prompts (which you'd want to disappear and replace when a player gets/loses HPs), I'm prety sure dhtml concepts work (they allow you to dynamically add or remove things from a page).



For input, you have a simple one-line form, in a different frame. It sends its input to some other php script and then refreshes or clears itself, without affecting the display frame.



The hard part is synchronizing all the php scripts, although this is definitely doable with sockets, or file i/o, or interprocess communication.

As far as paying to play. You should make it free to play but sell ads. Allow a subscription based service to remove ads. That's what many web-based games such as Neopets (i think) do.



hmm... that's an idea I like :)





You can't come out with a new game and expect people to pay unless you've done a lot of marketing and advertising. The word needs to get out on the game; you need to hook people on it before making them pay for it.



Well, again, even if it *was* pay... it would still have a 30-day full access trial, and when that expires you could still play but with limitations in some fashion...



You mentioned time limit games. Time limit is hard given that typical http connections are connection-less. I.E. How are you going to keep track of how much time someone has used?



That part's easy ;) Players need to log in to access their characters... they also presumably log out at some point (or get inactivity timed-out, ie, if they haven't sent input in a long time)... its just like a bbs in this sense, Worldgroup boards used to do time-limited accounts all the time.



Your typical server that runs WG & MMUD will do fine for small games, but try to have say 30 people playing online at once and your server will be begging for more resources.



Hmm, yeah, that makes sense...:( How optimized is MySQL these days, anyway? I'm guessing its still nowhere near as fast as Oracle or MS SQL Server, but those aren't really workable options since they're corporate/expensive.



You might want to look into JAVA so clients can help with some of the processing.



Ugg, no, the whole idea is to *avoid* anything that requires a plug-in like Java.

I'm very fluent in Java GUI coding, but I avoid using Java for any graphical program... there's lots of reasons, why I can get into later :)



Also, check out http://www.lunatix-online.com/ to see the web-based version of Lunatix (used to be a popular door back in the day, and then ported to a WG module)... the new Lunatix its all html, no java required; its graphical, and its written in Perl. And somehow it handles a buttload of users at once :)



They use a single-server model though, they get money from players but don't license the game out to other servers.



oh, and also, if you are going to charge for the game and then give the source code away, you'd have to have good anti-piracy measures built in or Ray will bang you in the ass.. :-p



Well, it would *have* to be open source if its php, right? :(



I'd probably only license it to a select/small number of servers, and require contracts or something to help prevent piracy (shrug?)

oh, and also, if you are going to charge for the game and then give the source code away, you'd have to have good anti-piracy measures built in or Ray will bang you in the ass.. :-p





Ray does not do ass banging... unless it's with a siamese whore



it's like throwing a hotdog down a hallway ;D



What games on swirve.com did you play?



I spent a solid year of my life playing Earth 2025, I got in the top 10 ONCE, and haven't played since. That was in Mid 2001, I'll never forget it. I played Utopia for a couple months and didn't really like it as much



as far as the other game goes: www.highdescent.com it was a HUGE game until the dumbass creator decided to make it like $5/month. he's prolly makin bank off of it, but i was never interested since...



basically with highdescent, you choose who you want to attack in the arena, then it simulates the combat in turn-based time and refreshes the screen after every turn. you don't really get to do anything while the combat is in motion, but i think an excellent add-on would be if there was a frame on the bottom with a commandline and you could say or do things in that frame that doesn't refresh, while the top one still did





AND Finally, I think that ads are a great idea as well.... i don't mind helping someone by looking at ads while I play a game...

looks like highdescent is free again



guess he realized there's nothing good about a pay game of that little popularity :P