List of active MU for a client database.
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Hi, I'm helping develop BeipMU and we would like to include a world database in the client. Would you guys mind posting links to MU that are active? I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks in advance.
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I'm going to be perfectly honest here...
I really, really dislike when a world DB is included in a client. It clutters it up and often within a very short period of time: half or more of the games are inert.
I love BeipMU. There have been many years when I've been mobile and moving from machine-to-machine and BeipMU has been handy af because it's such a light-weight (since it doesn't need installation, fits on a small drive w/room to spare, etc) client.
But setting up a new client and having a long list of worlds to deal with? Is a headache. Because I don't play all of those. I don't know what they are. I'm not going to pick one at random to play anew and even if mine is there, I don't want to search through the list every time I go to connect.
So unless it's listed separately from the 'Main World List,' I'd suggest just leaving it out.
Now, if it's provided as an 'Import Directory' and you guys plan to regularly update the list? Then awesome. But if it's in the main list, it's going to annoy more people than it will help, IMO.
That said, http://musoapbox.net/topic/2342/a-mildly-complete-list-of-current-games is where we've begun collating a list of games that we personally know of.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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@auspice We had the same thoughts that you do, so it's going to be a totally separate list. Plus, we plan to update it each release so it's not stale. We wanted it to be easy for new users to find active worlds without having to hunt through lots of dead links on existing lists. If the idea doesn't work out, we'll just remove it! Thanks for the link ::
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@ping said in List of active MU for a client database.:
@auspice We had the same thoughts that you do, so it's going to be a totally separate list. Plus, we plan to update it each release so it's not stale. We wanted it to be easy for new users to find active worlds without having to hunt through lots of dead links on existing lists. If the idea doesn't work out, we'll just remove it!
Cool, cool.
I just know clients have had those pre-populated world lists that exist in your primary world list and I've come to hate them. I spend my first steps just sitting there deleting entry after entry because I want my world list just to be my games.
But if there's an import list that's wholly separate? And it is updated/current? That could really help people out, for sure.
I will note the above list is MUSH/MUX heavy. MSB is not a heavy group of MOO or MUD players, though some of us do play a few of them. You may have to check MudConnect for those, though I know their listings are... not what they used to be.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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If anyone would be interested in giving other suggestions for the BeipMU client, please feel free to join us on the discord channel.
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Live Spell Check. You know, the kinda spell check that underlines your misspelled words as you type them out.
Sincerely, Someone who can spell but has fingers that betray him constantly.
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@wretched That has been implemented a long time ago. Though if you are on Windows 7, you'd have to install the Hunspell libraries for it to work. I can give you a link for it if you are indeed on Windows 7 and need it.
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Your best bet for a nearly complete list of currently active and populated games is to just check out Mud-Stats:
Sort the games by number of players, make sure online status is set to UP, set a world-type if you only want a certain type of database, and the first several pages of results should be accurate. Not fully complete by any stretch, but it's easier to use Mud-Stats to build your list and then ask people for games that aren't on Mud-Stats.
Here's a suggestion for how to handle keeping the list up to date: instead of a file downloaded and included with the client, have the list of games hosted on your own website and accessed through the BeipMU client. Add a "send report" button either next to each world or at the top of the list, allowing users to send feedback if a world in the list is dead, or if they want to add their world to the list because it isn't in it already. If necessary install a security check so people don't spam the report function and make your lives unpleasant.
That way, even if someone doesn't update BeipMU for a long stretch of time, the list of worlds will always be up to date. Since BeipMU isn't a program you'd use without an internet connection, the list being online doesn't disrupt anything, and being something you can store as plain-text, it won't eat people's data either.
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We thought of doing that, but then we'd need to figure out a file format that would work for all past versions as well as future versions and we didn't think we would know what we wanted in the first version of that. For now, tying the world list to the version you have ensures that all of the world settings are optimized for what you're using. This list is also just meant to get new users started, so it's not going to be all inclusive. We also hope people will report issues through our github or even send us updates directly.
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@ping Coder advice, if you don't know what to do about a file type and what should and shouldn't be in a file, make the file plain-text, only include the information you'll need in it, and handle formatting and prettying in the GUI or program itself.
If you end up incorporating more fields in a later version of the file, just host a second copy of it and leave the old one for people still using the old client. Plain-text files are small, won't clog your bandwidth or storage space up, and reading from them is painless in most languages.
I understand if you'd still rather have a file people have to update, just thought the suggestion was worth a shot. The advice to use Mud-Stats stays though.
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Interesting idea for older versions, I didn't think of that. We'd ideally want everyone to be using the latest version since updates are free, and if the file changes the old versions won't know their list is now frozen in time (though we could put in some type of message). We'll see how it goes, if the list is being updated all the time and the format is stabilized I can see doing it that way
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I mean, another alternative would be a database which stores all the information, and has an endpoint that retrieves the database in each format. So you have, say, /worlds/v1 that returns revision 1 of your world format, and if you have to change the format to add extra stuff you just add /worlds/v2 that returns the data in revision 2 of your world format . And if they're backed by the same database, the data stays up to date in both. You could even have a way to report outdated or dead games, or submit new ones.
At which point, you've basically rewritten a minimalist Mudstats type service, admittedly, but mudstats with an API you could poll in your client.
a.k.a. Packetdancer (or "Pax" for short)
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@sparks Thanks for the suggestion. We'll stick with our text file for now, though. The database idea sounds more complicated than the whole project is currently.
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I can't look for it right now but there is a thread on this forum with a compiled list of active games.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@coin Yeah, @Auspice was helpful enough to provide it above.
